What kind of site works best for affiliate marketing?

Is there one style of site that’s head and shoulders above the rest?

Or should you even have a site? Is that the best way to carry out your affiliate marketing?

In my mind, I think you definitely need a website to get the most from your affiliate marketing.

Sure, other methods may be slightly quicker (there’s built-in traffic on forums for instance) but there’s an order of magnitude less control if you don’t own your own website.

If you piggy back on other people’s sites, you’re relying on them always being there and never changing their rules or terms of service.

I’ve seen large forums vanish – one I was a member of did that for a month or so because they had some legal issues and it never recovered. Which meant all the hard work that people had put into the site petered out and was lost.

So make sure you use your own site

One where you own the domain and pay for the hosting.

It just makes so much more sense in the long run even though it can seem like an expense in the short term.

What style of site works best?

As with most things to do with internet marketing, there’s no single simple answer to this question.

• One format that works well is a review style site.
• Another format that’s often good is a site that seems to be purely informational but that weaves in affiliate links, almost as an aside.
• Other people “curate” content – they find the best resources for their niche, put them on their website and add a bit of commentary around it so that the pages are unique.
• Lists can work – a top 100 resources for your niche with a few of those resources being affiliate links (probably near the top and bottom of the list to cater for how different people scroll through it).
• Expert interviews are another option. They can take a while to build up your authority but you can find “minor experts” in any niche – people who know what they’re talking about but don’t yet have the following to be perceived as an expert. You can find these via their blogs or often by searching books in Amazon.

Or you could mix styles on your site

There’s nothing to say that you have to keep every page on your site to the same format.

If you look at some of the top sites in your market you’ll probably find that they mix things up.

That works OK.

Search engines don’t give you sites in the search results – they give you pages.

Since most of your site visitors won’t explore the rest of your site (sorry to break that news to you) they won’t know that you’ve got different styles on different pages.

Follow the style(s) you like

When you’re next browsing the web, make a note of the styles of pages that hold your interest for the longest.

Actually analyse what it is that you like about them and why they’re holding your attention.

Is if the WikiHow style where there are usually simple steps to folow, each step often illustrated with photos?

Is it a Top X list of products that are reviewed? That can work well as you can gradually nudge people to your top choice but leave it open for them to choose one of the other options and still earn an affiliate commission.

Is it a single review per page? That can work very nicely for more complicated products as you have the space to write as much as you want (not that space is a restriction on the internet as web pages are stretch to fit anyway).

Chances are that if you like a style of page, so will other people.

Decide how overt you want to be

Some web pages are like bling – flashing images and pop ups and auto-starting videos abound.

Personally, I don’t like them and tend to either tune out the distractions (years of surfing the web have helped with that) or click the back button.

And the increasing use of ad blockers means that I think those are getting less effective,

But if your personal style fits with that, test it.

My personal favourite method is to do my best to treat website visitors as trusted friends – I’ll write content about a product or niche and will drop in the occasional affiliate link in appropriate places.

For me, that works well.

For instance, this page has no affiliate links on it, just a call to action at the end of the page to ask for a free video to help with your affiliate marketing.

Other pages on this site include links to affiliate products and my own products.

That kind of style can “sneak up” on people.

It doesn’t seem to be a pushy approach – because it isn’t – and some people prefer that.

Which means that the best kind of style of site for affiliate marketing is almost certainly one that fits with your style.

Whether that’s in-your-face or trusted friend or anywhere inbetween.

And because people arrive at your site onto an individual page, you can always adjust and test the style you use and let your visitor stats guide you in the right direction.

Because ultimately until you do something and put some pages out there, it’s all theory anyway.

Click the link to find out more about affiliate marketing.