Affiliate Marketing: The Ultimate Guide

How Affiliate Marketing Works

After you sign up for an affiliate program, the merchant who created the program provides you with a unique affiliate link or tracking code. These links are placed on your website, blogs, social media platforms, or email marketing campaigns to direct users to the merchant’s site so that they can make a purchase. The links are used to monitor sales that come from your affiliate marketing efforts and provide you with a percentage of the sale.

When a consumer clicks on the unique link, a cookie, a web tracker, is stored on their browser for a period of time. If they decide to make a purchase during that time, even if they leave the site and come back later, the cookie lets the merchant know who sold the product and earns the affiliate a commission.

If done right, affiliate marketing can be super profitable for both the merchant and the affiliate.

Why You Should Get Into Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a popular marketing strategy for individuals because of the fact that payment is performance-based.

Here are the four main benefits of affiliate marketing.

It’s Easy to Get Into

Affiliate marketing doesn’t require your to create your own product, worry about inventory, or handle customer support. Your job is to market to your users and get them to take an action. All you need to do to get started is create an engaging website and appeal to your audience. Once you’ve done that, the merchant handles the rest.

It’s Low-Cost

Unlike other business ventures that require a lot of investment for website and project development, all you need to start earning money in affiliate marketing is a website or social media platform.

It’s Low-Risk

On top of being cost-effective, affiliate marketing is also low risk. Since there is no large upfront investment, if it doesn’t work out, you’ve only spent some time and a small amount of money.

It’s Easy to Scale

Part of the beauty of affiliate marketing is the fact that everything can be done from the web. There’s no need for a physical space or inventory. That means there’s no limit to how many products or services you can promote.

With the right strategies and techniques, you can quickly scale your affiliate marketing business and increase your earning potential. Plus, you have the freedom to work from anywhere in the world.

Qualifying Your Niche

Before you invest time and energy into a niche, you’ll need to look at its competitiveness, as well as the breadth of search interest and, of course, profitability.

These are the factors you’ll need to assess when qualifying your niche.

Step 1: Identify Search Trends

The first thing you should do when qualifying a niche is to identify whether or not there is consistent interest in the niche. You can identify this by looking at the search interest over the period of a year or more.

Search trends that experience frequent fluctuations suggest that a niche isn’t consistently popular. Therefore, you might not generate a stable and reliable income from it.

Here’s how to identify search trends.

Google Trends

Google Trends is a free tool that allows you to analyze the search trends for keywords.

Here’s an example.

In the search bar, enter your topic and hit “Explore”. We’re going to use “running shoes”.

Next, click on “Past day” and change it to “Past 12 months”. The most effective way to gauge search trends is by analyzing data over a year or even two.

This will give you a much better idea of how popular the niche is:

As you can see, the interest in “running shoes” fluctuates throughout the year. However, by analyzing the timeline at the bottom of the graph, you’ll notice a consistent level of interest in this topic throughout the year.

Another place to look for search trends is by looking into the fastest growing subreddits or even looking at what’s trending on TikTok.

Step 2: Identify and Assess Competitors

The next step in qualifying a niche is to identify and assess the competition. These are sites already ranking for the keywords and topics you aim to target. By understanding what types of sites they are, you can determine whether or not you will be able to compete in the niche.

Let’s take a look at the most important steps for identifying and assessing competitors in your niche. If you want a more comprehensive guide on SEO Competitor Analysis, then check out our guide which we’ve linked to.

First things first, you want to search for your keyword and have a look at the search engine results page (SERP).

Next you’ll want to check out the site’s that are ranking. Then you’ll want to have a look at the Authority Score (AS) of each site (to determine if they’re authority sites or not).

Before we go any further, let’s differentiate between authority sites and non-authority affiliate sites:

• Authority site: A site with an AS of 40+. Authority sites cover broad niches like “running” and contain content that deals with all aspects of the niche (not just affiliate content).
• Non-authority affiliate site: A site with an AS of less than 40. These are websites that don’t possess the same level of trust and credibility as authority sites. These sites often have fewer backlinks and may not be well-recognized within their niche.

With that being said, let’s jump into the competitor analysis.

Assess Your Competitors’ Authority Scores

To check a site’s AS, you can use Semrush’s Bulk Backlink Analysis tool. All you need to do is paste the URLs of the sites that are ranking for your primary keyword and click “Compare”.

Then, you’ll be able to see the AS for each URL.

Identify Affiliate Sites

The next thing you need to check is if the top-ranking site is an affiliate site. If so, then that’s good news because it indicates that Google is choosing to rank affiliate sites for the keyword.

How do you identify affiliate sites? First, click through to the page.

Then check for the following:

• A clear disclaimer stating the site earns commission from product links in the articles
• Product review posts, often identifiable through keyword modifiers like:
  • “Best”(Best 15 Airfryers of 2023)
  • “Top” (Top Texas Tours)
  • “vs” (Adidas vs Nike Running Shoes)
  • “Roundup” (Best Laptop for Video Editing Roundup)
  • “Reviews” (Pink Gaming Chairs Reviewed)
• Buttons with CTA’s like “Book Now” or “Buy on Amazon”

Here’s a real world example.

Runners World has a clear disclaimer indicating that it’s an affiliate site.

Analyze Your Competitors’ Backlinks

The next thing you need to check is the number of backlinks directed to each top-ranking page.

If a domain has a low number of backlinks (eg. fewer than 10), then there is a chance that you could overtake the site by outlinking them. But, you need to acquire quality backlinks from high authority sites that are relevant to your niche.

To check up on your competitors’ backlink profile, you can use Semrush’s Backlink Analytics Tool.

Copy and paste the top-ranking competitor’s page URL into the tool’s search bar. Then,

• go to “Referring Domains” tab
• select “Active”
• set the Authority Score to 30-100, so you only see referring domains with a high AS score
• and select “follow” to see links passing link juice as they carry the most weight

Looking at the results for the Runners World page that is ranking in the top spot, you can see that they have a total of 28 high-quality backlinks pointing to their page. This will take some beating but can be done through formulating an effective link building strategy.

Analyze Your Competitors Traffic and Traffic Value

It’s crucial to take a look at your competitors’ traffic and traffic value to determine if there’s commercial value and search interest for the topics they cover.

To do this, you can use Semrush’s Organic Research Tool. Simply copy and paste your competitor’s domain into the tool.

You’ll then get an overview of their site:

In this example, you can see that Runners World is getting over 1.4M in monthly traffic. This gives us a pretty good idea of the breadth of the search market.

Plus, you can see that their traffic is worth almost $1.1M. That means advertisers are willing to pay a lot of money for this traffic, which tells us the keywords they’re targeting have commercial value.

Analyzing these factors will give you an indication of whether or not there’s potential in this niche. But you’ll also have to look at affiliate programs and their commission structures to find out if they are programs that you’d benefit from.

Step 3: Assess Profitability

Several factors come into play when evaluating the profitability of a niche. First and foremost, it’s crucial to identify the revenue generated by sites within your niche.

One way to do this is to work out some basic forecasting. For example, let’s say an affiliate is paying a 10% commission and the average order value for their site is $50.

This means each sale is worth $5. If you can get your page to rank number one in the SERPs with a 33% click-through rate (CTR) for a keyword with a search volume of 1,000, then that equates to 333 clicks per month.

If your conversion rate for this page was 3%, then that’s ten $5 sales a month, which works out at $50 per month in revenue just from that page.

Another way of assessing profitability is to use Flippa, a platform dedicated to buying and selling domains.

After you land on the homepage, click on “Browse”.

Next, select “Websites” > “Content” > “Review”.

Scroll down to the “Industry” filter and select your niche. We went with “Electronics”.

Here, you can see that this site is generating $1,330 per month from affiliate sales.

While this provides a general insight into the profitability of your niche, it’s crucial to factor in the cost of content creation and site maintenance.

Next, you need to find and analyze affiliate programs and their commission structures.

Step 4: Find Affiliate Programs

Now that you’ve established that there are sites in your niche making money off of affiliate marketing, the last thing you need to do is look for relevant affiliate programs.

Once you’ve found them, you have to determine if those programs have commission structures that you’d be able to benefit from. But if you’re looking for something more niche, here are three ways to find affiliate programs.

1. Google

Perform a simple Google search.

For example, if you’re looking for affiliate programs in the running shoes niche, type in “running shoes affiliate programs” and hit search.

You’ll get a list of sites you can check out:

2. Look at your competitors’ sites

Another way to find affiliate marketing programs is by looking at your competitors’ sites.

Some sites have their disclosures placed in the footer menu — this is usually the case if they’ve only partnered with one merchant, like Amazon.

Here’s an example:

Other sites maintain a dedicated affiliate disclaimer page where they outline all the affiliate programs they have joined.

3. Analyze your competitor’s backlinks

Analyzing your competitors’ outbound links can help you identify which affiliate programs they’re signed up to. To do this, you can use Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool.

Simply copy and paste your competitor’s domain into the tool and hit “Analyze”. For this example, let’s use Runners World (runnerworld.com).

On the “Overview” page, click on “Outbond Domains”:

Set the “Category” filter to “Shopping” or “Internet & Telecom”. We went with “Shopping”.

You’ll now see the affiliate programs your competitor is signed up to.

In this image, you can see the competitor has signed up to a few affiliate programs, for example Amazon, Walmart, and Awin.

The next step is to research the affiliate programs you found. You’ll need to identify if they offer products or services that are related to your niche and that you would want to promote.

Additionally, you’ll need to look at their commission structures and rates to assess if the ROI is worthwhile.

After you’ve gone through all of the steps needed to qualify your niche, it’s time to find topics you can create content around.

Building an Engaging Website

Building an engaging website is crucial for attracting and retaining visitors and fostering trust. It entices your readers to explore further and interact with your content. This can enhance your chances of improving conversions.

First, let’s start off with creating engaging content

Create Engaging Content

Providing high-quality, engaging content will capture your audience’s attention and encourage them to spend more time on your site and ultimately convert. By creating valuable and relevant content that caters to their interests and needs, you can become the go-to source for the information they seek. This can establish your authority in your niche.

Creating great content can be easier than you think. Just keep these factors in mind:

Be Honest and Provide Value

When reviewing products or services, don’t be afraid to give your honest opinion. Just because you’re earning a commission from an affiliate link doesn’t mean you need to tell the user the product or service is great if it’s not.

Users are more likely to find you relatable if you’re honest with them about any issues with a product or service. This will help to enhance your credibility. Additionally, you need to write original content that provides value to your readers.

This is SUPER important in growing your user base and gaining trust with your audience. Here’s what Nabil Al-Baidhani (Affiliate Marketer, KRA Marketing) says about providing value:

Tell a Story

Telling a story instead of just trying to push a product can make the product seem more desirable and can help establish a deeper relationship with your audience.

Write from Experience

Great content comes from a place of experience. That means your reviews and articles should be centered around products or services that you’ve actually had experience with.

For example, GearJunkie does lots of reviews on pocket knives.

They test each knife to meet a bunch of criteria that most knife fans are looking for, and break down their choices in detail.

They also have a section at the end of their articles explaining why you should trust their reviews:

By doing this, they signal to both users and Google that they know what they’re talking about, and they’ve got experience and expertise.

Embrace Their Frustrations

Don’t sugarcoat it. Dig deep into what’s bugging them from the get-go. If you can vocalize the reader’s problem, they’ll trust you to give them a solution. Here’s an example from Wirecutter. Notice how they immediately recognize the problem (bulky wallets in a cashless society) and offer a solution (a slim wallet):

Use Eye-Catching Visuals

Incorporating compelling visuals like high-quality images and videos enhances the overall visual appeal of your web pages. This not only captures visitors’ attention but also creates a more engaging and visually pleasing user experience (UX).

Visual element displays are a great way to showcase a product and provide concise information about it. If used right, they can be eye-catching and make it easier for users to skim through your content.

Here’s an example from Lasso:

As you can see, this product is inserted into a table that not only makes it easier to spot, but provides the core information like the rating and pros and cons. The table format also features a link to the review and a link to try (or buy) the product.

On top of that, using product comparison tables helps users to compare products at a glance.

Send Strong Trust signals

Trust signals convey to users that your site is trustworthy. In the realm of affiliate marketing, establishing this trust is crucial. Users need to have confidence in the information you provide about the products or services you’re linking to in order to make a conversion.

In addition to establishing user trust, trust signals also convey to search engines that your site is credible.

Trust signals are sent from on-site and off-site features.

On-site trust signals include:

• Disclosure Statements: Clearly disclosing your affiliate relationships and any potential commissions (This is often required by law and ethical standards.)
• User Reviews and Testimonials: Including genuine user reviews and testimonials about the products or services you promote
• Affiliate Program Selection: Choosing reputable and well-known affiliate programs
• Privacy and Data Protection: Clearly outlining your website’s privacy policy and how user data is handled
• SSL Certificate and HTTPS: Implementing an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate (This is indicated by the presence of “https://” in the URL.)
• Clear Contact Information: Providing clear and easily accessible contact information, including a physical address, phone number, and email addresses

Off site trust signals include:

• Backlinks from Reputable Sources: Acquiring high-quality backlinks from reputable and authoritative websites in your niche
• Social Proof and Engagement: Positive engagement and social proof on social media platforms, such as likes, shares, and positive comments

Additional Tips for Building an Effective Site

Creating engaging content and establishing trust are vital, but there are plenty of other elements that go into building an effective site, such as:

Consistent Branding

It’s SUPER important to maintain a consistent brand identity across your website to establish a cohesive and recognizable online presence. This helps build trust and ensures a unified experience for your audience. Additionally, a consistent brand image conveys professionalism and credibility.

Interactive Elements

Include interactive elements, such as polls or comment sections, to encourage user engagement.

Embrace the User Experience

No one enjoys a sluggish or confusing website. Prioritize items that allow for easy use of your site like mobile friendliness, lightning-fast loading times, intuitive menus, and clear CTAs.

Top Affiliate Networks to Consider

With your target audience in mind, here are some affiliate networks to consider.

• eBay Partner Network
• AWIN
• Rakuten Advertising
• CJ Affiliate
• ShareASale

Content Creation: The Foundation of SEO and Traffic

Once you’ve identified your keywords, it’s time to start creating an optimized content marketing strategy that supports your SEO goals and engages your target audience. You need to focus on creating valuable content that’s highly relevant to user intent and entices them to convert.

As outlined in Google’s Helpful Content Update, the primary aim of your content should be to help the user resolve their issue, rather than solely trying to improve your rankings.

There are many different types of content that have proven to be successful for affiliate marketers, such as how-to guides, product reviews, and comparison posts.

Let’s take a look at some of the most effective types of content marketing that you should incorporate into your SEO strategy.

How-To Guides

How-to guides are a great way of establishing trust and transparency with your target audience. As the name suggests, they show users how to use a product or service.

This is crucial as you want users to feel confident they’ll be able to use the service or product you’re promoting. Plus, if a user understands how something works, then they tend to be more inclined to make a purchase.

These guides typically target queries with informational search intent like “how to use an air fryer”. You could also consider targeting search terms related to errors like “air fryer not working”, and then lay out the steps for solving the issue.

Another good strategy is to target queries where you can position your product or service as the solution. For example, let’s say you identify the keyword “how to roast potatoes” during your keyword research. You could create an article called “How To Make Perfect Roast Potatoes With An Air Fryer”, where you demonstrate how users can use the product you’re promoting to achieve their desired outcome.

This is an excellent way to match search intent and ensure your guides rank highly in the SERPs, leading to more user engagement and higher volumes of targeted traffic to your affiliate site.

Product Reviews

Users search for reviews to give them the information they need to make an informed buying decision. They’re a go-to source for potential customers, and they should form a key part of your SEO content strategy.

Your reviews should be transparent, honest, and well-rounded. Make sure you mention the downsides of products as well as the upsides. No product is perfect, and if you try to make the products you’re promoting seem perfect, your audience won’t trust you.

For example, let’s say you’re writing a review of a new Lenovo laptop. You have several sections covering its powerful graphics card, awesome resolution, and massive amount of RAM. To build trust with your audience, you should also include a section called something like “Where It Falls Short”. Here you can give users your honest opinion about any cons, like its short battery life.

This gives the review balance and means your audience will be fully informed before making a purchasing decision—which is exactly what they’re looking for. Users are then more likely to return to your site for reviews in the future, which can lead to a sustained increase in targeted traffic.

Comparison Guides

Comparison guides are similar to reviews but give users even more information by comparing similar products or services to each other. They’re great for driving targeted traffic to your site as you can use them to address long tail keywords like “Specialized bikes vs Giant bikes” or “is Specialized better than Giant”.

Users who search for queries like this are in the consideration stage of the buying process, and they have high purchase intent and specific product preferences. By creating engaging content, you can move them further along the sales funnel (and hopefully boost your affiliate income).

Your guides should include detailed comparisons of the products that show how their different features stack up against each other and give users your honest opinion about which product best suits their needs.

You can improve user experience by creating tables that list things like the price and specs of each product you’re comparing.

Building Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are simply hyperlinks from one site to another, and they’re one of the many trust signals used by search engine algorithms when they’re ranking pages. It’s important to bear in mind that not all backlinks are the same, and some are more high quality than others.

Building high-quality backlinks can help your affiliate site rank higher for your targeted keywords, leading to more traffic and increased affiliate sales. In order to rank well and increase organic traffic, the backlinks should be from relevant and authoritative sources and earned naturally.

Links like these help your site grow as an authority within your industry, and acquiring them will form a fundamental part of your SEO strategy.

Some of the best ways to build high-quality backlinks to an affiliate site include:

• Guest posting: This involves creating posts on other sites relevant to your niche,and placing links back to your site within the content.
• Linkable content ideas: Content like case studies, videos, tools, and infographics are great for attracting backlinks to your site and showcasing your platform as a reputable source.
• Broken link building: If you identify broken links on other sites within your niche, reach out to the site owners and suggest they replace it with a link to relevant content on your site.

These are just a handful of the ways you can build backlinks to your affiliate site and give both your traffic and authority a boost. If you’re looking for a more in-depth guide, check out our guide on link-building strategies.

Respect Intellectual Property Rights

Both merchants and affiliates have to make sure that they’re not infringing on anybody’s intellectual property if they’re showcasing a product or using promotional content.

Maintain Honesty & Transparency

It’s important that affiliates are honest with their customers. That means no false claims or any marketing efforts that could be misleading.

Exploring Multichannel Strategies

Implementing a multichannel strategy involves reaching your target audience across various platforms. This approach enables you to engage with customers at different stages of their journey. When executed correctly, it can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

A multichannel approach is important as it helps you to diversify the sources of your traffic. This is vital as overly relying on one platform for customer acquisition can leave you vulnerable. Instead, diversification ensures your marketing messages reach a broad audience.

For example, email marketing can be great for nurturing leads, while Facebook is useful for building brand awareness.

Let’s dive into what you need to know to kick off your multichannel marketing journey.

Consistency

When employing multichannel strategies, it’s essential to keep your brand tone and messaging consistent across all channels. You need to put together a brand style guide which will include:

• Your brand colors
• Tone of voice
• Logos
• Fonts

Choosing the Right Channels

When it comes to selecting channels, the options are abundant. Social media stands out as a top choice, given the multitude of platforms available.

A study by Authority Hacker found that the following platforms were the most popular:

• Facebook — used by 75.8% of affiliates
• Instagram — used by 61.5% of affiliates
• Pinterest — used by 42.2% of affiliates
• YouTube — used by 36.9% of affiliates
• TikTok — used by 29.6% of affiliates
• LinkedIn — used by 19% of affiliates

The study also revealed that, on average, affiliate marketers on social media utilize a minimum of three different platforms.

Email is an effective channel for affiliate marketing too. It allows you to segment your audience based on factors like behaviors and demographics, so you can send relevant and targeted affiliate offers to specific groups. By targeting users, you can boost your conversions and revenue.

Entering a Niche That’s Too Competitive

Choosing an overly competitive niche puts you at a disadvantage from the beginning. The intense competition makes it challenging to stand out and compete effectively.

Focusing on One Merchant

Using a single merchant establishes a solid relationship between the two of you, but it leaves you vulnerable if their policies change. Diversifying your affiliate partnerships by promoting products from various merchants reduces your vulnerability to unexpected changes.

Not Adapting to Change

Rules and regulations change, and they impact affiliate marketing. If you don’t keep up, you run the risk of getting caught out. Like every industry, the best way to stay ahead is to stay informed. Regularly review your affiliate program’s rules and regulations.

Failures

On the other hand, it’s crucial to analyze situations where affiliate marketing didn’t yield positive results so that you can learn from the mistakes.

Aleksandr Zhukov

Aleksandr Zhukov is a Russian man who was part of a gang of five people who ran display ads on their sites in exchange for revenue for every click.

But it turned out that Zhukov and his buddies set up fake sites and programmed data centers to generate billions of clicks on these ads.

As a result, he scammed merchants out of $7 million in revenue from 2014 to 2016. But we wouldn’t be talking about him if he’d gotten away with it. In 2016, a cybersecurity firm called WhiteOps (now Human), published a report analyzing the fraudulent activities.

What happened then?

Well, US law enforcement flew over to Berlin, arrested Zhukov, and flew him back to America, where he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

What’s the lesson here?

Well, it’s an example of what happens when you try to get around the law to make a quick buck as an affiliate.