5 Must-Haves To Run A Profitable Affiliate Marketing Site

Should someone start affiliate marketing applying for high paying programs, right?

You’d promote these affiliate links on your blog, get huge commissions per sale, and earn quick income online.

It’s the right way to think about an affiliate marketing business
.

Trust me. I experienced that route. I tried it for a long time, but I failed. Just because IT DOES NOT WORK that way.

You can keep following this simple pattern…

1. You join an affiliate program in your niche.
2. You start the relationship with advertisers to get a special link that will track sales.
3. You start promoting the product on your blog.
4. You promote your blog posts

… and earn nothing… Oh! Perhaps, you can get occasional sales if you get the random customers that I got.

Or you can go through the following checks to run a profitable affiliate site that gets buyer-targeted traffic that makes you money in the long run.

I realized my mistakes so late in my online entrepreneurship quest. And trust me, nothing warms you to stop the mistakes. That’s why you need to make sure you have the following five crucial assets.

Indeed, one of my posts is about best-paying affiliate programs
. And I recommend you to use them when they fit your audience. However, picking high paying commission affiliate programs should not be your first concern.

If you have an affiliate site that is performing bad, it is the time to make the shift. If you’re just starting an affiliate business online, it’s the right time to start affiliate marketing the right way.

Fortunately, you can learn from my mistakes and wins. Here’s the way to go.

5 Must-Haves To Run A Profitable Affiliate Site

Sometimes, there is no shortcut to a profitable business. You have to follow a plan that works.

Let’s see what you must have to build a profitable website that earns you affiliate commissions.

1.- A target audience

A crucial step, to build any profitable online business, is to clearly define who your target audience is.

Who is you working for? Where they are? What do they want?

I made the mistake to skip that step. I made keyword research without thinking about who searched such key phrases.

And it cost me a lot.

I had to see months with earning and months with nothing. My sales were random. So, I could not count on it as an income source.

And Finally, I got to split my website into two separate ones. The result is a lot of tasks that could be avoided.

I forgot one thing.

Affiliate marketing is all about help and trust. If you don’t know who you serve, you can’t simply help them, nor earning their trust.

You don’t know what they’re struggling with and what they want.

The truth is: If you try to please everyone and not a target audience, you please nobody.

So, take the time to pick an audience you can stick to.

It helps also to focus your effort to drive specific and higher results.

To define an audience, think about a specific person you’d want to help.

By example: I’ll write for people like John who want to make money with an affiliate site but who don’t know where to start.

Make sure there is enough people like John so you can build a business with that niche. And double check that people like John invest to get rid of their trouble.

If you don’t take time to have a clear target, you will reach the wrong people and never build a lucrative affiliate site online. Perhaps, you’ll reach people who consume your content but never buy.

2.- A conversion-optimized website

This point is as crucial as defining audience well.

To make money with affiliate marketing, you need a website optimized for conversion.

User interface is important. But, No. It’s not all about visual.

You need that the landing page of your affiliate converts. But the most important is that YOU optimize your website so it calls to action.

Otherwise, you may help a lot of people to come to know about a product. But they’ll need to do further searches; and you’ll not be the one who will be credited for the sale.

Recall how affiliate marketing works
. Often, only the affiliate whom link is followed last gets the commission.

An affiliate marketing site optimized for conversion has a lot to do with:

• design that makes user feel comfortable, yes.
• but, most important, contents that teach and describe affiliate products you’re promoting.

I dig more into creating optimal experience for user and what kind of content drive most affiliate sales
on another post.

While I promise you a easy to follow guide through those posts, let’s give the focus to our main concern now: our must-haves to build profitable affiliate marketing sites. I’ll list resources at the end of the post.

Let’s jump to an ingredient that makes your website converts.

3.- A solution to your audience problem

Do you know why reviews, lists and tutorials convert better into affiliate sales?

Just because they solve someone’s problem.

The review and tutorials help the user to learn the fix to a certain problem. And people are willing to pay to get rid of troubles and overcome fears.

The lists and comparisons help the reader in taking a final decision.

To build a profitable affiliate marketing business, you need to identify your audience problem, first. Then, you have to come up with a solution.

If you’re targeting enthusiasts, you need to identify what motivate them, what make them proud. It’s what they will invest for.

By example, if your audience can’t pick legit affiliate networks to build a profitable affiliate marketing site, help them with a comparison or a descriptive list of your known affiliate networks. Just an example as only a few affiliate networks pay per referral so we can complete step four.

4.- Affiliate programs and tools to fix that problem

Obviously, you make money from the products you recommend in your posts as affiliate.

As an affiliate, you need affiliate programs you can use to fix your audience problems; so, you can make money.

The key is to look for high converting products. Specially the ones that you use and know well.

This is the right moment to dig into high paying affiliates products. They can be one-time payment or residual income affiliate programs
on which you can build a business.

PS: You could search for top paying programs you use first and search for how they can help a specific audience after. But when you have your audience problems in mind, you choice is well balanced between performance and revenue.

And your choice will help you better in becoming an expert in your field. You will earn your audience’s trust faster resulting in bigger sales.

As someone who fix problems, you influence your audience. If you pick too much products in the same category, they are just confusing and don’t take any action.

But if you only recommend your most loved products, they’ll love them and use them too.

By example, for affiliate marketing, you can refer ShareASale
. For email marketing, you can recommend only aweber
and so on… But not more than two products per category.

Now, you have an audience. You know how to convert your visits into sales. But you still need to know how to get people on your website. You need one last thing.

5.- A traffic strategy

How to fix the biggest problem most affiliate marketers face: not getting traffic that converts?

How to get more targeted people to your website?

In fact, you need a traffic strategy.

Traffic is the very one thing, if you don’t have it, you have problem. You can say goodbye to your dream about building a profitable affiliate website.

Once you make sure you have completed the four steps above, I will, on AskEustache, teach you how to get targeted traffic to your affiliate sites.

Hint One: The most valuable affiliate traffic come from search engines and forums.

Hint Two: If you chase traffic without the four steps above, you’re likely to waste time on things that does not matter.

Go Build Your Profitable Affiliate Marketing Site

Now, you know the five must-haves to run your profitable affiliate marketing site. what’s next?

Don’t procrastinate, act today to get them or you’ll never do it. Perhaps you’ve read a lot about affiliate marketing already, but, you never applied what you’ve learned.

The best advice I can give you: Go run your profitable affiliate website NOW.

I suggest you to do these 3 things next:

1. Share this post on your twitter, facebook or pinterest now.
2. Start a blog
   that loads fast if you did not already.
3. Read how you can write blog posts that make affiliate sales
   .
4. Heed AskEustache for effective traffic strategies by joining the mailing list.

I hope you enjoyed the article.

PS Again: I know. It’s intentional that I did not talk about email list as one must-have for a sustainable affiliate marketing business. It’s part of your traffic strategy.

Feel free to comment below!

Share on: