Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative online business ventures today. And for good reason: it has an uncapped earning potential, so you can potentially make as much money as you want. It also gives you the ability to be your own boss and to run your own business the way you want to. This has turned it into an attractive business venture, with thousands of people getting into it every day.
However, one of the most common questions that many people who intend to get into affiliate marketing ask is “do you need a website to do affiliate marketing?” It is difficult to answer this question in one line. Perhaps the truest answer is “yes and no”, but that answer only leaves you more confused.
There is really no simple answer to this question, which is why I have prepared this article. Here you will find the exhaustive answer to whether or not a website is essential to affiliate marketing. Let’s begin.
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AFFILIATE MARKETING
Before we get to the intricate link between affiliate marketing and websites, I first need to make sure that we are all on the same page. Here is some basic info about affiliate marketing to help everyone get caught up.
Affiliate marketing is a business model that allows you to promote other people’s products and make money off that. In this business, there are three major players: the affiliate, the product owner, and the customer. Basically, as an affiliate, your job is to assist the customer in purchasing the best possible product to help them solve a problem. When the customer makes a purchase, the product owner pays you, the affiliate, a small commission from the sale.
This means that as an affiliate, you do not own any products or services of your own. You simply promote the products of someone else and get paid when those products are bought.
Here is an example. Let’s say I have a business where I sell $5 cakes. You approach me and say you can convince your friend to buy my cakes. I agree to pay you a commission of $1 for every cake sold. When you get your friend into my store, and they buy, say, 10 $5 cakes from me, I will pay you $10 and make $40 from the sale. This way, everyone wins: your friend gets to eat my delicious cakes, I get to sell to a client I otherwise would probably never have met, and you go home with $10. I am the product owner, you are my affiliate, and your friend is the customer. It’s that simple!
But how does this work online? Well, it’s just as simple, except this time, affiliate links come into play. Affiliate links are unique links generated by the product owner or a specific platform such as Amazon that allow a particular product and its sales to be tracked. Affiliate links ensure that you get paid for every lead you generate.
Therefore, online, your job as the affiliate is to get people to click on your affiliate link and make a purchase using that link. When they do this, you get paid at no extra cost to the customer.
So what benefits does affiliate marketing have for you as the affiliate marketer? Well, here is a list of a few things you can expect:
– You get to be your own boss. As the affiliate, you promote the products you like and think will be most helpful to your customers/readers, pick your own hours, and work as hard as you would like.
– It has an uncapped earning potential. You can literally make as much money as you want, because the more you sell, the more money you stand to make. The sky is the limit!
– It offers an unmatched level of freedom. Being your own boss and making your own money comes with many advantages, including the ability to enjoy the kind of life you have always wanted. Nothing beats that level of freedom!
– It has a very low barrier to entry. The beauty with affiliate marketing is that anyone can do it, no matter their age, previous experience or education background.
– It is a very low risk business venture. As an affiliate, since you do not own any products yourself, you do not have to stock up on products out-of-pocket. Neither do you have to deal with customer service or take care of refunds or returns.
– It is absolutely cheap to set up and get started.
Now that we are all caught up, let’s look at the role of websites in affiliate marketing.
AFFILIATE MARKETING AND WEBSITES
There is an intricate relationship between affiliate marketing and websites. All the successful affiliate marketers have dedicated websites for their affiliate marketing businesses.
Why is this, though? What role do websites play in affiliate marketing? Well, a website is the best way to reach a wide, targeted audience and promote your products directly to them. It gives you a way to build your readership, collect them in one common place, and market directly to them, in perpetuity. As long as your website is up, people who are looking for that particular product can potentially find you and buy from your link, making you money.
One of the most important keys to affiliate marketing is to help your audience and build their trust instead of constantly selling to them. A website is the best way to do this. When you provide helpful content, people become more willing to buy from you because they believe you offer real value. This is one of the main reasons why the best affiliate marketers are doing as well as they are. They have built an audience of people who trust their recommendations.
Websites offer many other avenues that you will need in order to scale your business. Other marketing strategies are very limited beyond that first access/contact to your customer base. With a website, you can use targeted advertisement, and you can create email lists (a major tool if you want to succeed in affiliate marketing). These tools are much more limited without the use of a website. If you are trying to create a business for the long run, having a website is absolutely essential!
Websites also come with detailed analytics which will help you figure out the products that are doing well, who is buying from you, and what you can do to improve your sales. I cannot stress enough how important this data is for the overall health of your business.
Most other channels do not offer this same advantage. Sometimes, all you can do is post your affiliate link somewhere and hope someone clicks it.
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WHY ISN’T EVERYONE USING WEBSITES THEN?
There are several reasons why some people opt not to have websites. Some cite the costs involved in getting a website, others think it will just be too much work. Others are simply just uninformed and have no idea just how essential a website is for any business.
However, perhaps one of the main reasons why most people are turned off from getting into affiliate marketing is because they imagine the process of setting up a website for the business is more than a little daunting. They believe that to have a website up and running, you either need to have an extensive knowledge of coding and web design skills, or hire an expensive developer to do it for you. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
In truth, creating and having a website up and running is actually the easy part of affiliate marketing. It is a straightforward process that anyone can go through, and some platforms like WordPress even have free website options that you can try your hand with. The hard part that actually takes time and work is making that site profitable.
Today, building a site does not require any coding skills or special computer know-how. Anyone can do it, and in a matter of a few hours, you can have a beautiful site ready to go. In Fact here is a video showing you how a full on website can be created in under a minute. By the way, this is the same way I created this very website that you are reading right now…
SO, DO YOU NEED A WEBSITE TO DO AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Well, technically, no you do not. As I mentioned earlier, when you become an affiliate, you get a unique affiliate link. Your job is to get this link in front of as many people as possible and convince them to click it and make a purchase from it. You can do this in any number of ways, besides using a website. Here are a few examples:
– You can post the link in other people’s sites and hope that the people who visit those sites click on it.
– You can post your affiliate link in comment sections of forum sites like Reddit or niche websites where you can expect to find potential customers.
– You can share your link on social media and ask the people in your circles to make purchases using your link.
– You can also place your link in the description section of your YouTube videos. If the video has related content, and if it gets to a wide audience, you can make a few sales in this way.
– Be creative and think of other ways to get your link in front of an audience. Podcasts, reviews, classified newspaper ads, eBooks, fliers, email lists, the list is endless. As long as it can get your link in front of a pair of eyes, consider it as a valid method.
FINAL THOUGHTS
So technically, to answer the question, no, you do not need a website to do affiliate marketing. But I want to be very honest here. I write these articles to help my readers and I truly believe that if you want to be successful and consistently make money through affiliate marketing, you absolutely, definitely and without any doubt (is this emphatic enough?) NEED A WEBSITE…..
Truth be told, most of these other ways may take a lot of work and time investment to convert to sales. Websites, also take lots of work and time. You need to create lots of helpful and useful content but I believe that you will convert at a much higher rate, along with having much more detailed analytics to help you focus your efforts on what works.
Affiliate marketing is without a doubt my top recommended method to make money online. It is the method that I use almost exclusively. I find that to be successful you need a helping hand. Otherwise the road can be extremely difficult. I want to help you learn the most effective and proven way to make money online through affiliate marketing…and yes, it involves having a website 🙂
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I hope the article and my recommended resources help you in achieving your dreams of financial freesom. Please let me know if you have questions or comments by leaving them in the section below. I would love to hear from you and I will get back to you as soon as I can!
To your success,
Mike Aha