How To Create Mega Profitable Affiliate Websites That Cover Your Living Expenses (Affiliate Marketing Bible)

Last updated: February 12th, 2019

Today, I’m publishing an important guide on a topic that almost anyone in the world can benefit from. How to create mega profitable affiliate websites. Legitimately. Helping other people, while also helping yourself in the process.

I know what you’re thinking…

Affiliate marketing has had a shady reputation in the past.

But guess what?

Times are changing.

Now, major publishers like Buzzfeed, the New York Times and Business Insider all use affiliate marketing on their web properties.

Affiliate marketing makes up approximately 15% of the revenue across the digital media industry. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), digital advertising revenue equated to roughly $100 billion last year.

Let’s just say that affiliate marketing generates tens of billions of dollars on the internet. This number will continue to grow rapidly.

Is it safe to say that you can get a chunk of this multi-billion dollar pie for yourself?

I would say YES. Absolutely.

Anyone in the world is free to start an affiliate website today.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the basics of how anyone can start a money-making affiliate website in the shortest amount of time possible.

Important: Why you should take my advice on affiliate marketing

Before you read any further, I just want to make something clear.

My name is Stefan Taylor.

I build profitable affiliate websites, travel the world and do affiliate marketing differently.

I actually practice what I preach.

By reading this guide, you aren’t going to get the cookie-cutter information that 99% of other affiliate marketers will give you.

I’ve spent years testing out the information in this guide, and making sure that it actually works.

I’ve personally used the information in this guide to:

• Make an extra $4,000~ per month
• Generate half a million pageviews per month
• Help solve the pains of thousands of people

So I just wanted to let you know that you’re in good hands here.

Cool?

Let’s get started…

What is affiliate marketing? (My simple definition of affiliate marketing)

Affiliate marketing simply means that you sell other people’s products or services on a commission basis.

If you recommend a product to someone, and that person buys the product that you recommend, you get paid.

Some people refer to this as performance-based marketing.

But I prefer to call this helping people, or giving people what they want.

For example, have you ever told someone about a particularly good restaurant, dentist, gym or laptop?

If so, the business made money off of your recommendation (assuming the person you spoke with actually made purchasing decision based off of your recommendation).

To be perfectly honest, in this hypothetical situation, the business made money off of your recommendation…

But you didn’t earn any money yourself.

Not the fairest of deals, right?

Here’s a much better deal for you to think about:

What if you got paid every time someone purchased a product or service that you recommended?

That’s affiliate marketing in a nutshell.

But here’s a key detail:

I focus on building websites that leverage affiliate marketing, because a website works for you 24/7 like a robot. While you’re eating, sleeping, spending time with your family and traveling etc.

Affiliate marketing on the internet is a golden opportunity for anyone who’s new to online business.

Side note: Not every product or service is eligible for affiliate marketing. But most products and services are eligible for affiliate marketing. If you’re unsure whether a product or service offers an affiliate program, just send the company an email and ask. You’ll be surprised by just how many products and services are eligible for affiliate marketing.

The tremendous benefits of affiliate marketing (why you should start an affiliate website today)

Building websites that leverage affiliate marketing is an awesome opportunity for people who are new to making money online.

This is because affiliate websites can:

• Generate enough money to cover ALL of your living expenses (and potentially a lot more)
• Be sold for a 30x multiple of net profit (you can potentially walk away with a six-figure sum of money if you decide to sell your profitable affiliate website in the future)
• Incentivize you to learn copywriting, build an audience, drive web traffic through SEO, help people, and sell people the products they want to buy (i.e. you’ll learn online marketing)

Best of all, building an affiliate website is extremely straightforward.

Anyone who can write in the English language can build a profitable affiliate website.

Building an affiliate website is especially attractive because the barrier to entry is so low.

Your basic start-up costs are:

> Domain name registration

> Web hosting

> Premium WordPress theme

Those are literally the only 3 items that you’ll need to get started with affiliate marketing.

So your start-up costs are somewhere around $90 or maybe a little bit more.

This makes affiliate marketing one of the most affordable business models in the world. (If not the most affordable business model in the world).

In summary:

• Your business start-up costs are around $90 or a bit more
• Your profit potential is upwards of $3,000 to $5,000+ per month (this takes time to achieve)
• You can potentially exit your business with a six-figure sum of money if you decide to sell your affiliate website at some point in the future

Now, can you see why affiliate marketing is such an attractive business model to millions of people around the world?

Generating $3,000 to $5,000 per month or more is a nice chunk of cash to just about anyone. That’s a very healthy revenue stream.

Plus, you can operate an affiliate marketing business from your laptop while living anywhere in the world.

This is exactly how I live my life.

I should also mention that you can set-up an affiliate website in just a day or two.

Filling an affiliate website with high-quality content can take anywhere from a single weekend to multiple months. This depends on whether you’re writing the content yourself, or delegating your website’s content creation to a writer.

Overall, the benefits of building an affiliate website are absolutely insane.

Building an affiliate website has allowed me to:

> Travel the world

> Live out of AirBnBs for 6 months

> Cover ALL of my living expenses while traveling the world (food, accommodation, having fun etc.)

> Build lifelong relationships with other online entrepreneurs

> Develop high-level online marketing skills that will pay my bills forever (the best benefit of all)

I hope you’re ready to learn the secrets of building a profitable affiliate website of your own…

The “secret essence” of building a successful affiliate website

By now, you should have a good understanding of the benefits of building an affiliate website.

If you’re interested in building an affiliate website for yourself, this is where I’ll get into the fundamentals of actually building a successful affiliate website.

Here’s the secret to the whole affiliate marketing business model that almost no one is talking about.

A good affiliate website is one that targets a pain or problem, and genuinely helps people solve that pain or problem.

To put it simply, a good affiliate website shouldn’t feel like an affiliate website at all.

A good affiliate website should feel like an INFORMATIVE and ENTERTAINING experience.

As an affiliate marketer, your goal is to:

1. Help people
2. Solve people’s pains
3. Entertain people

By focusing on helping your audience, solving their pains, and entertaining your audience – you create a unique experience that is genuinely valuable to people.

When your goal is genuinely to help people, your audience will feel that your true intention is to serve them. And they will trust you for this reason.

The making money online process boils down to solving people’s pains, genuinely helping them and keeping them entertained over an extended period of time.

This concept is foreign to most people. Most people still assume that affiliate marketing is a shady practice.

In reality, the top money-making affiliate websites on the internet focus on helping people.

An affiliate website is just a platform for helping people with product recommendations sprinkled in.

At the end of the day, you’re communicating a series of messages to people through “blog posts” and recommending products or services that are available to purchase.

Affiliate marketing happens naturally when your focus is on helping.

You’ve likely made tens of thousands of product recommendations over the course of your lifetime.

You’ve recommend products or services every single day in the ordinary conversations that you have with people.

Isn’t it time that you started getting paid handsomely for your valuable product recommendations?

7 examples of great affiliate websites

I’m a big believer in the power of leveraging what’s already working online.

Did you know that every money-making affiliate website on the internet is a free resource that you can learn from?

You should take website concepts and blend them with your own ideas. That’s where the real magic is made. This is called modelling what’s already working. Every successful online marketer does this.

So let’s look at 7 profitable affiliate websites that you can learn from.

I encourage you to spend some time browsing these affiliate websites.

Pay close attention to:

• How they create content
• How they integrate their affiliate links into their content
• How they focus on genuinely helping their readers above all else

Let’s get started…

Affiliate Website Example #1. Wellness Mama

• URL: https://wellnessmama.com
• Niche: Natural Health / Wellness
• Competitive advantage: Community-building and personal branding

Wellness Mama is one of the absolute best affiliate websites on the internet.

I love Wellness Mama because her content genuinely helps people live a healthier lifestyle.

She uses affiliate marketing, sells her own products and has built a world-class brand for herself.

If you’re interested in building a badass affiliate website, I recommend studying Wellness Mama. Just observe what she actually does on her website.

For example, Wellness Mama writes a lot of high-quality content, uses high-quality images on her website and focuses on building a community of passionate readers.

Wellness Mama is an affiliate website with a large, engaged community of readers who want to live a healthier lifestyle.

One of Wellness Mama’s traffic strategies is to rank in Google for profitable buyer intent keywords. Wellness Mama has a large authoritative website, and her website receives lots of high-quality buyer intent traffic from Google.

Affiliate Website Example #2. Good Looking Loser

• URL: https://www.goodlookingloser.com
• Niche: Sex / Relationships
• Competitive advantage: Truly original storytelling and polarizing personal branding

Good Looking Loser is another one of my favorite affiliate websites.

Believe it or not, when I built my profitable affiliate website, I used a combination of Wellness Mama and Good Looking Loser for inspiration. That might sound crazy, because of how different the two websites are. But that’s legitimately what worked for me. (Combining two totally different ideas is called synthesis, which I explain a little bit later in this guide.)

Good Looking Loser is a special affiliate website because the information on his website is truly original and bold.

When you write truthfully about sex on the internet, you’re going to develop a large audience, and make plenty of sales along the way. That’s one of the reasons why the sex and relationships niche is so attractive to online marketers.

> Everyone loves sex

> Everyone shares the biological urge to have sex

Study Good Looking Loser. Observe his writing style, original stories and bold personal branding.

Chris from Good Looking Loser is an extremely likable character. He builds an emotional bond with each of his readers by telling story after story on his website.

If you can create your own version of Good Looking Loser, you will do incredibly well for yourself.

Side note: While Good Looking Loser was Chris’s flagship website for many years, Chris is less active about publishing new content on Good Looking Loser. This is actually a good sign, because it shows that evergreen content continues to generate passive income for multiple years.

Something else worth noting is that Chris has pivoted to launching various supplement companies and other business ventures.

Chris from Good Looking Loser is an incredible case study of someone who started with affiliate marketing, developed amazing marketing skills, and successfully pivoted into various other profitable business ventures.

Affiliate Website Example #3. Nomad List

• URL: https://nomadlist.com
• Niche: Digital Nomad / Travel
• Competitive advantage: Custom-built website, massive community and leader of the “digital nomad” movement

Nomad List is another great example of a valuable informational resource that is monetized via advertising and affiliate marketing.

Nomad List has an epic advantage, because it was one of the first websites to use the “digital nomad” branding.

Just in case you aren’t aware, digital nomads are people who work online, travel the world, and typically live in exotic cities (like Bangkok, Medellin, Krakow etc).

Pieter Levels, the founder of Nomad List, is a digital nomad himself. He lives and breathes the lifestyle that he promotes via Nomad List. He is one of the original leaders of the digital nomad movement.

To put it simply, Nomad List ranks the top travel destinations for digital nomads.

There’s also a “Gear” section on Nomad List that lists affiliate products that have been reviewed and recommended by digital nomads in the Nomad List community.

What’s interesting is that Nomad List is an Open Startup so they share their financial data publicly. Between advertising and affiliate income, Nomad List is a very profitable website.

Overall, Nomad List is an excellent example of the creativity that goes into top affiliate websites.

If you have coding skills, you should absolutely customize your affiliate website, make it interactive, and make your website feel like a memorable experience.

This is exactly what Levels has done with Nomad List.

Affiliate Website Example #4. Labdoor

• URL: https://labdoor.com
• Niche: Nutritional Supplements / Health
• Competitive advantage: Independent lab testing, custom-built website and trustworthy brand

Labdoor is one of the best affiliate websites that I’ve seen, because they offer a truly valuable service that people have needed for a very long time.

Labdoor tests nutritional supplements in a laboratory, and then presents their findings in a very clear and concise format.

Basically, Labdoor shows you the best health supplements on the market according to independent lab test results.

This is a great value proposition, mostly because it’s difficult to replicate. For example, competitors might have a hard time competing against Labdoor directly, unless they can find a laboratory that they can use to test health supplements themselves.

Labdoor has built a nice “moat” around their brand. They basically dominate their niche.

If you like a particular health supplement on Labdoor, you can conveniently click on a link that takes you to Amazon or iHerb, and purchase the supplement for yourself. This provides Labdoor with an affiliate commission every time someone makes a purchase through Labdoor’s affiliate links.

While Labdoor is a somewhat difficult affiliate website to compete against directly, Labdoor’s value proposition can still be applied to various other niches.

For example, you could independently test and compare:

> Water purification systems (test for water purity)

> Preworkout powders (test for quality + effectiveness)

> Power banks (test for smartphone charging time / duration of charge)

…And then build your affiliate website in a way that’s similar to Labdoor.

Labdoor’s business model is extremely valuable to consumers, and I encourage you to make this business model work for your niche.

Affiliate Website Example #5. WPBeginner

• URL: https://www.wpbeginner.com
• Niche: WordPress Tutorials / Education
• Competitive advantage: Trust, authority and expertise

WPBeginner is an amazing affiliate website success story.

This affiliate website is being operated by a savvy man from Pakistan named Syed Balkhi.

Today, WPBeginner is generating massive amounts of traffic, and is obviously generating healthy profits as well.

Look. This is a solo guy from Pakistan who is running a massive website operation pretty much by himself. And he’s serving an enormous Western audience.

This is an incredible thing.

Best of all, WPBeginner’s business model is simple.

They publish WordPress tutorials that help people solve issues with WordPress. They enable website owners to build better WordPress websites in general.

WPBeginner also promotes digital affiliate product offers like VPNs, software, plugins and various other tools that website owners find useful.

If you aren’t from the United States, and you want to have a wildly successful affiliate website of your own, learn from WPBeginner.

Here’s an important side note:

The affiliate marketing industry is by far the industry with the most international success stories.

Your ethnicity, age or cultural background NEVER matters in this industry.

All that matters is the results that you can produce. That’s it!

Beautiful, right?

Affiliate Website Example #6. Cernovich

• URL: https://www.cernovich.com
• Niche: Mindset / Health
• Competitive advantage: Bold and polarizing public figure

Mike Cernovich is one of my favorite bloggers of all time.

…Because Cernovich knows the value of raising hell in order to create a massive marketing buzz around his products.

You can study Cernovich’s actions and get a free multi-million dollar masterclass in marketing. Just watch what he does.

Cernovich used to run a website called Danger and Play. Now he runs Cernovich.com, which focuses on mindset and health.

Cernovich uses affiliate marketing as one revenue stream for his web properties.

For example, in one of Cernovich’s articles about attracting visitors to your website, he explains the following:

I am my own brand. People who come to my sites go there for one reason – to read what I write.

I also earn money when I endorse a product. If I sell an eBook or affiliate market a product, the money goes into my pocket.

There’s nothing magical about what I do.

That’s a great summary of why Cernovich is a successful affiliate marketer.

He endorses products that he loves. People trust his recommendations, and purchase the products that he recommends.

I assume that Cernovich earns a nice income stream from his affiliate product recommendations, because the size of his audience is massive.

If you take the “blogging” approach to affiliate marketing, you can learn a lot from how Cernovich promotes his favorite products.

Affiliate Website Example #7. OutdoorGearLab

• URL: https://www.outdoorgearlab.com
• Niche:  Outdoors / Sports
• Competitive advantage: In-depth product reviews and long tail SEO

OutdoorGearLab is the classic example of a successful affiliate website.

I like to use OutdoorGearLab as an example because it’s the easiest type of affiliate website to replicate. And it’s the type of affiliate website that internet marketers most often do replicate.

This happens for a few reasons.

> Reason #1. “Product review” affiliate websites can be operated anonymously

> Reason #2. Product review websites are usually the easiest type of affiliate website to scale and sell

> Reason #3. You can pump out a lot of product reviews relatively quickly, and start making money online relatively quickly

As you can probably imagine, OutdoorGearLab relies on a combination of product reviews and long tail SEO to operate a highly-profitable affiliate website.

Product review articles typically rank well in Google, as do articles that have been crafted with long tail SEO in mind.

Product review articles and long tail SEO are a very powerful combination that you should leverage for your own affiliate website.

One of my favorite aspects of OutdoorGearLab is the section labeled “How We Tested.” In this section, OutdoorGearLab makes it clear that they actually test the products that they review.

This gives readers confidence in purchasing OutdoorGearLab’s product recommendations.

Choose the online niche that you want to serve (health, wealth or sex)

By now, you should have a pretty good understanding of the various styles of affiliate websites.

It’s time for you to join in on the fun too.

You’ll need to choose the online niche that you want to build your website around.

The online niche that you choose for your website is going to be important. At least at first.

In the early days of running your first affiliate website or two, I strongly suggest that you pick a niche that you’re personally interested in.

Choosing an online niche that you’re interested in will motivate you to create valuable content for your readers. And you’ll probably reach profitability a lot faster when you’re genuinely interested in your niche.

My goal is to help you make money online as soon as possible. Making money online will open up your “floodgates” to the world of online business, and set you up for even bigger opportunities in the future.

So here are the 3 big online niches to choose from:

• Health
• Wealth
• Sex

Of course, there are MANY niches other than just these three.

But overall, any website that you launch will probably fall into one of these three categories.

For example, let’s say you choose the sex niche (everyone’s favorite topic).

A good affiliate website in the sex niche should solve a specific pain point that men or women are facing in regards to sex or relationships.

Good Looking Loser is a great example of this.

Good Looking Loser publishes honest information that helps men have a healthy and active sex life. His information is high-quality and actually works in real life. That’s the definition of an excellent affiliate website.

Wellness Mama serves the health niche. She helps women understand the ins and outs of living a healthier lifestyle. When you visit Wellness Mama, you know that she has put serious effort into providing you with the highest-quality health information available.

What niche are you personally interested in?

> If you’re interested in financial freedom, start a website about your various online hustles that have helped you make money online

> If you’re interested in sex, start a website about your sexual escapades (this is basically what Tucker Max did)

> If you like animals, start a product review website where you review pet toys

There are a million different online niches that you can choose from.

But in the early days of your venture, I recommend choosing a niche that you’re genuinely interested in.

Trust me when I say that choosing an enjoyable niche will help you stay extremely motivated in the early days of your affiliate marketing journey.

Model what’s already working, but make sure to integrate your unique personality into your affiliate website

I’ve already covered this topic briefly.

But this is so important that I have to reemphasize how crucial this point is.

You should copy what’s already working in the affiliate marketing space and add your own unique spin to whatever is already working.

This is called synthesis.

According to Cambridge Dictionary, synthesis is:

“The act of combining different ideas or things to make a whole that is new and different from the items considered separately.”

This is how I’ve built all of my affiliate websites.

Model what’s already working.

Then, make the concept your own by integrating your unique personality into the concept.

Your readers want to experience you and your perspective.

People want to feel that you’re 100% confident in your message.

So it’s essential that you integrate your unique personality into your affiliate website.

Model other websites.

But, make sure that your affiliate website is a unique and valuable experience that your readers will love.

What’s the difference between affiliate marketing and blogging?

Here’s a common question that I’d like to address.

What’s the difference between affiliate marketing and blogging?

Here’s the truth:

Bloggers typically don’t think about monetization when they start their website. Bloggers usually just start writing on the internet about a topic that they’re deeply passionate about.

Affiliate marketers, on the other hand, have a plan for monetization beginning on day #1. This is smart. This is called operating a real business.

As an affiliate marketer, you know that your goal is to generate a healthy profit from your website.

Affiliate marketers have an actionable plan for profit, while bloggers might not always have a plan for monetization set in place.

At the end of the day, this is also an issue of semantics.

Affiliate marketers can also be considered bloggers and vise versa, because WordPress is technically blogging software.

Keep in mind that some of the largest websites in the world run on WordPress, such as:

• TechCrunch
• The New Yorker
• Mercedes-Benz

Are these simply “blogs” or world-class web properties?

Like I said. It’s semantics.

I actually call myself an online entrepreneur or internet marketer because I like to stay flexible and open to various businesses on the internet.

Here are the basic technical aspects of setting up your first affiliate website (let’s get started right away)

In the very near future, I’ll publish a full length article that covers step-by-step how to buy a domain name, purchase quality web hosting, install WordPress, set up a premium WordPress theme, get a custom logo for your brand, and sync everything together.

For now, I’ll walk you through the very basic technical aspects of setting up your first affiliate website (because this article is already MASSIVE).

But overall, setting up your first affiliate website is a very easy process.

The instructions listed in this article will absolutely get you started today, if you’re ready to launch your affiliate website and start making money online as soon as possible.

Here’s a brief overview of what you should do if you’d like to get started with setting up your affiliate website right now.

Step #1. Think of a domain name for your website

Most people will tell you that your domain name doesn’t matter. But that’s garbage advice.

You should take some time to think of a clever name for your website.

Your website’s name doesn’t have to be impeccable.

It just has to be easy to spell and easy to remember. That’s all that matters.

Your brand name needs to be easy to spell, and easy to remember. That’s it.

Oh, and it needs to be available to register as a .com domain (e.g. https://www.YourMemorableDomain.com).

Don’t register a .co domain or you’ll miss out on lots of web traffic. People will mistakenly type .com into the address bar when they’re trying to visit your website.

Some people like to register .io domains. But I haven’t seen many .io domains rank very well in Google. I personally avoid .io domains for the time being.

It’s best to just stick with .com domains for now.

Step #2. Buy your domain name

Always buy your domain names from either Namecheap or Google Domains.

I personally use both Namecheap and Google Domains.

I’ve never had an issue with either Namecheap or Google Domains.

Both domain name registrars give you free WHOIS privacy protection every time you purchase a domain. This hides your personal information when people look up your domain name registration information (people will do this).

Most people agree that Namecheap and Google Domains are great domain name registrars.

Side note: It’s important to always buy your domain names and web hosting from separate companies. This ultimately comes down to control. If one company restricts access to your account for some reason (suspicious login activity or whatever), you don’t want to lose access to both your domain name and web hosting. 

Step #3. Acquire fast WordPress web hosting

Here’s the deal.

Because you’re reading this guide, I assume you need a fast, cheap and easy solution for taking your website live as soon as possible.

So I’m going to make this as easy as possible for you.

SiteGround is the simplest and most effective web hosting solution for people who are new to building profitable WordPress-based websites.

SiteGround manages your WordPress-based website for you, and takes care of any problems that come up, 24/7.

This is also called “managed WordPress hosting” or “full-service WordPress hosting.”

You need a reputable and speedy WordPress hosting solution, because having a fast-loading website enables you to convert more affiliate sales on your website (i.e. you’ll make more money with your website).

For example, it’s been proven that most people refuse to wait more than 2 seconds for websites to load. People are very quick to abandon your website if it takes more than a few seconds to render. Amazon estimates they could lose $1.6 billion in sales per year if their website took an additional 1 second to load. If you still aren’t convinced, Google considers your website’s speed to be a ranking factor.

The reason why I recommend SiteGround is because SiteGround is an incredibly fast and simple managed WordPress solution that I recommend to my closest friends and family members (yes, really).

Most importantly, SiteGround automatically updates your server, fixes security holes, backs up your data, gives you a free SSL certification, and optimizes your entire website for the fastest speeds possible.

You also get 24/7 live phone and chat support, which is a must for me.

Keep in mind that you get a special pricing discount when you sign up with SiteGround using my unique affiliate link today.

If you’re launching your first affiliate website, I recommend starting with the WordPress StartUp plan.

SiteGround’s WordPress StartUp plan is the best managed WordPress hosting deal that I’ve seen.

Step #4. Install WordPress

When you purchase SiteGround’s WordPress StartUp hosting, you’ll be given a free 1-click installation of WordPress.

You’ll be able to set up WordPress instantly.

The entire process of installing WordPress is extremely simple with SiteGround.

Step #5. Install a premium WordPress theme like StudioPress

Congratulations.

By this point, you should have a live website up and running on the internet.

In other words, you should be able to type your domain name into your web browser’s address bar, and see that your website is fully functioning.

Now you’re almost done with setting things up.

You just need to make your website look good.

It’s important to make sure that your affiliate website looks good. This is because you’ll be reaching out to media people and journalists in the future.

You need professional media people to take your website seriously. Because if media people like your website, they will link to your website from major news outlets. This will get you lots of free web traffic, backlinks and media publicity.

If you’re creating a standard content-based affiliate website, I always recommend using StudioPress themes.

StudioPress themes are what I’ve always used for all of my WordPress-based affiliate websites.

These themes look and feel incredibly professional.

So find a StudioPress theme that you like, buy it, download it, and then install your new premium theme on your website.

StudioPress gives you very easy instructions that should help with installing your theme on your website.

It’s a very easy process that will take you just a few minutes at most.

Start publishing content with a focus on serving your audience to the best of your ability (build MASSIVE positive momentum)

By now, you should have a live, functioning website that looks pretty good.

Keep in mind that you can always add a nice logo, plugins, and other goodies to your website at a later date. This will take you just a few hours to set up at most.

For now, you’ll want to start building positive momentum immediately.

Basically, you’ll need to start taking massive action, and publishing lots of helpful content in order to attract readers to your website.

Remember, you want to help your audience, solve their pains and entertain your audience.

So I recommend publishing your first 5 to 10 blog posts as soon as possible, because you’ll need to get comfortable with creating content using WordPress.

Here’s the thing to keep in mind:

If you’re new to creating content with WordPress, your first 5 to 10 blog posts probably aren’t going to be very good anyway.

So just publish blog posts about whatever is on your mind. Your first 5 to 10 blog posts are for experimentation purposes only.

These first few blog posts are like a “free pass” for you to write about anything that you want. As long as your articles are related to your niche, you’re going to be OK.

Experiment and have fun.

Feel free to look up YouTube tutorials if you need help with any of WordPress’ features.

After you’ve gotten the hang of creating content with WordPress, you’ll want to start taking things a bit more seriously.

This is where you’ll want to do market research, so that you can give your audience the type of content they’re searching for.

Learn how to do basic market research so that you can create incredible content for your readers

Market research is absolutely key to running a successful affiliate website, or any other type of online business for that matter.

I will write a separate article on how to do proper market research for your niche, because this is such an important topic.

But for now, here are the basics of doing proper market research for your niche:

If you use the Google Chrome or Firefox web browser, I recommend installing the Keywords Everywhere browser extension.

This is a free browser extension that shows you approximate search volumes of keywords and key phrases that people type into Google.

This is a magical little tool.

Here’s what you need to do to make this tool work:

1. Install the Keywords Everywhere browser extension
2. Type something into Google
3. You’ll see approximately how many people are searching for that particular keyword or key phrase every single month

I’m sure you can imagine where I’m going with this…

You should create content for your website based on the keywords and key phrases that people are typing into Google.

This is SEO in a nutshell.

You just need to figure out what people are typing into Google, and then create quality content that people will discover naturally through Google.

Here’s a quick example.

Let’s say you’re in the nutritional supplement niche. So you type “vitamin C for energy” into Google and see that it gets approximately 390 searches per month. That’s not bad. You can create a blog post called “How To Use Vitamin C To Maximize Your Energy Levels” and if your blog post is good enough, people will find your blog post when they type “vitamin C for energy” into Google.

Pretty simple, right?

You don’t need to worry too much about the fine details of SEO for now.

Don’t try to “game the system” when it comes to Google.

The fundamentals of SEO come down to creating content that people love and can easily find through Google.

When people type words into Google, you want them to come across your affiliate website.

That’s your goal for now.

You can read any mainstream SEO blog like Moz or Ahrefs if you need to learn the basics of SEO.

Other than doing keyword research, you can also perform market research by:

> Browsing Facebook groups related to your niche

> Engaging in forums related to your niche

> Interacting directly with the people involved in your niche in real life (go out and talk to people!)

For example, if your niche is nutritional supplements, you should be researching:

• Who uses supplements
• Why people use supplements
• Which types of supplements people are buying
• Where people purchase their supplements from (Amazon?)
• Which keywords or key phrases people type into Google when they buy supplements

You have to understand the ins and outs of your niche in order to create amazing content for your niche.

Get to know your target audience as well as you know yourself.

This will make your affiliate website stand out as a reputable source of information on the internet.

How do you know which affiliate products to review and recommend to your readers?

First of all, I recommend that you publish some free content on your website before you start recommending affiliate products.

You have to give before you can take.

In other words, you have to prove that you’re a trustworthy person before you start recommending affiliate products.

But, assuming that you’ve published some high-quality free content on your website, it’s perfectly fine to start recommending affiliate products.

The entire point of starting an affiliate website is to help people and earn a healthy profit in the process. It’s a win-win arrangement.

You should only recommend affiliate products on your website that you would personally use yourself, or recommend to a friend or family member.

As an affiliate, your credibility is all that you have. So you have to maintain your readers’ trust at all times.

Your word is gold.

Only link to high-quality affiliate products on your website.

Product reviews are a little bit different. Because when you review products on your website, not every product that you review is going to be perfect. And that’s actually OK.

Publishing honest product reviews builds trust with your readers. It’s perfectly OK to admit that a certain product is good in some areas, and flawed in other areas.

Many people will still purchase an affiliate product that you recommend, even if the product isn’t perfect.

The key is to be 100% honest about your product reviews, and try your best to remain as unbiased as possible.

This is what makes your affiliate website trustworthy and reputable.

When your website is honest and useful, people will trust you. And these people will keep coming back to your website in the future.

Sign up for popular affiliate programs like Amazon Associates, CJ and a few others (and get paid)

While there are TONS of affiliate programs out there, here are 4 of the most popular affiliate programs that you can sign up for:

Amazon Associates (most recommended for new affiliates)

CJ

ShareASale

Clickbank

I use Amazon Associates to drive most of my affiliate sales, because it’s the affiliate program that’s most optimized for conversions (affiliate sales).

You just send someone to an Amazon product page. Then, you basically let Amazon take care of the rest. Amazon will “close the sale” for you more often than not, because Amazon has invested millions of dollars towards optimizing their sales funnels.

In case you aren’t aware, Amazon is one of the highest-converting websites in the world. This means that the Amazon Associates program makes it extremely easy for you to start making money online.

I recommend that you start with Amazon Associates for your first affiliate program.

You can always sign up for as many affiliate programs as you want in the future. There are no limits here.

Note: Some affiliate programs require approval before you’re accepted into their program. This is a very standard process that’s necessary to weed out spammers. This is why I encourage you to set up a nice-looking, high-quality affiliate website. When your website looks professional, and you can prove that you’re a high-quality affiliate, you’ll typically have no problem getting accepted into most affiliate programs.

Always focus on your mission of genuinely helping your audience (this is how you will guarantee the profitability and success of your affiliate website)

While I know it’s tempting to start filling your website with affiliate links as soon as possible, the affiliate websites that are designed to make a quick profit almost always fail.

Readers can sense when your intention is to make a quick dollar vs. when your intention is to genuinely help people.

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER ABOUT AFFILIATE MARKETING.

Affiliate marketing is just a monetization method.

You still have to build a valuable website which should revolve around helping your audience to the best of your ability.

You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. – Zig Ziglar

That quote is so relevant to affiliate marketing it’s incredible.

If you just want to make $5,000/month in the shortest amount of time possible, you still need to focus on helping people.

Genuinely helping your audience is the shortcut to online riches.

This is how you will build a long-lasting website that brings in thousands of dollars every single month for multiple years.

By thinking long-term.

Not short-term.

Important: Affiliate marketing is just the “gateway drug” to online business, and sets you up for much bigger and even more profitable ventures further down the road

One thing to keep in mind is that affiliate marketing is just the “gateway drug” to online business.

In other words, affiliate marketing is the most common entryway that opens up your floodgates to the magical world of making money online.

After doing affiliate marketing for multiple years, I’m confident that I will be able to make money online for the rest of my life.

Why is this?

Because affiliate marketing teaches you online marketing skills at a very high level.

By learning affiliate marketing, you will also learn how to:

> Drive web traffic through SEO

> Drive traffic through social media (social media marketing)

> Write awesome emails (email marketing)

> Generate passive income online

> Leverage persuasive copywriting to increase your sales

> Create your own lead magnets, ebooks and other digital products

In other words, affiliate marketing is one of the absolute most valuable skills that you could ever learn.

Every new online entrepreneur will benefit from learning affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing provides you with high-level online marketing skills that will help you make money online for a lifetime.

If I could go back in time, I would do affiliate marketing all over again. I wouldn’t change a single thing. Affiliate marketing is that valuable of a skill.

Affiliate marketing is the greatest “online sales training” in the world.

Conclusion

Overall, I truly believe that this guide to affiliate marketing has covered everything that you need to get started with building a profitable affiliate website today.

If you follow the tips listed in this guide, and you stay persistent about helping your audience, you will own a cash-flowing digital asset that provides you with income for years to come.

Most importantly, once you have a profitable affiliate website up and running, you will feel so much more comfortable in your day-to-day life.

You will most likely sleep better, have less stress, and feel more confident.

This happens because the feeling of making money online is one of the most enjoyable pleasures in life.

Especially when you generate passive income on the internet, which is what a good affiliate website will provide you with.

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Online Heaven is dedicated to helping you build profitable affiliate websites.

I’ll do whatever it takes to help you build an incredible affiliate website that sets you financially free, and helps you sleep easy at night.

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I send value-packed daily emails that help you build cash-flowing affiliate websites as described in this article.

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I look forward to helping you build a mega profitable affiliate website.

-Stefan Taylor

CEO, Online Heaven