How to Make an Affiliate Site Profitable?

Ever since the dotcom burst in early 2000’s, there has been a paradigm shift in the nature of work in the world economy. We all prefer making money on the internet.

And this broke the internet!

Affiliate Marketing is one of the spin-offs of the huge internet marketing branch. To understand what this hullabaloo is all about, let us dig deep.

Affiliate marketing is essentially the marketing of third-party products on your website and being compensated financially for each purchase, sale, click, or revenue generated by visitors who have reached the vendor through your advertisement.

Since there is low risk involved in this business, affiliate marketing has found a buddy in the Indian economy. Affiliate marketing India has found takers and has two major categories: ‘Affiliate Networks’ and ‘Affiliate Marketers’ (more on it later).

Here’s How You Can Make an Affiliate Site Profitable

Now that we have a basic idea of what this concept is. Let us decipher how we can make an affiliate site profitable?  The basics of any business are very similar. Always try to build a strong brand, online presence, get a professional website along with a tagline and a good logo. Create social media presence and get going.

Now that we have all the requisite tools, let us find out ways by which we can make an affiliate site profitable:

1. Good Content:

Try to put content on your website that can convert into leads. In simple words, provide the users content that they are looking for.

Provide genuine, meaningful and quality content. In case of reviews, mention both the upside and the flipside of the product or the service. This will gain the trust of your readers and will make them want to visit your site more often.

2. Good SEO in content

Good SEO and quality content go hand in hand. Some fluff pieces will not let you rank high. Search engines with their changing algorithms will penalize you.

Ideally, try to create a strong backlink profile through trusted links. This way the site is less prone to the changes happening all around in digital marketing. Embed the right keywords and ensure uniqueness of your content. Good SEO can help create a long-term success for your affiliate site.

3. Stand out to make an impact

With numerous sites selling the same product and catering to customers’ needs these days, your website should stand out from the rest in order to create an impact. This difference will help you catch visitors’ attention, in turn, making your affiliate site profitable.

4. Create an evergreen niche

Try to invest in products which have a longer cycle of longevity. Niche cycles come and go, but as the product becomes obsolete so does the niche. With evergreen product niches, the income will be steady. Some examples of such niches are health, fitness, food, and clothes.

5. Diversified sources of Income

With more sources of income, there is more influx of money into the website. Setting that up may be tough. There are growth opportunities in multiple affiliate programs, which a lot of affiliate marketers in India follow. There can be advertisements on your website which can amp up the footfall of any website. It is always better to look into more paths to earn revenue than being stuck.

With all of the above pointers, we understand how an affiliate site can be made to earn revenue. Now let us understand how affiliate marketing works, predominantly in the Indian scenario.

Is affiliate marketing faring well in India?

Yes, affiliate marketing India is faring well. There are many huge reward marketing and sales strategies as well. A few of the Affiliate Marketers in India are Zoutons,  CouponzGuru, CouponRaja, CouponDunia, Mydala, etc.

There is a fixed commission assigned by the merchant based on the ‘link’ or ‘banner’ of the products they offer online. The online affiliates understand the terms being offered and work on publishing the link or banner on their website and blog etc.

Examples of Affiliate Marketing in India:

Some websites like Zoutons, CouponzGuru, and Cashkaro provide coupons to customers along with a cashback offer that can be used while making a purchase on any merchant site. Once the user purchases something on the merchant site, after clicking the relevant coupon and avails the offer on the affiliate websites.

While a few websites like mydala and Groupon offer discounts and coupons at offline entities like restaurants, grocery stores, gyms, movie halls, in addition to online merchants.

While we have looked at some of the ‘Affiliate Marketers’, let us find a few more famous and high in the pyramid affiliate marketing giants in India. A lot of online giants have come out with their affiliate marketing zone in India. Website giants like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, Yepme, Shaadi.com, and BharatMatrimony.com are few of the top leading affiliate marketing giants in India. Due to their enormous online presence, they are very sought after businesses.

Here is a case study that will help you understand the concept of affiliate marketing better.

Case Study: Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net

Being one of the most prominent affiliate marketers around, Darren Rowse is famous due to his openness. Back in 2013, it was the 10th year he had been associated with affiliate marketing with Amazon, and he made half a million dollars.

Making $42,000 a year is not all that great. His earnings spiked up in 2008 and then he made about $80000 per year which was a good respectable jump. This happened by running a few websites and out of which one was successful in affiliate marketing. The reason Problogger chooses Amazon as their affiliate marketing partner despite small commissions is commendable. Let’s find out:

Amazon is a go-to brand and is a more trusted brand than other affiliate sellers.

One referral link works for everything that a buyer might purchase, in case, he ends up buying a T.V when he originally planned to buy a book. The affiliate merchant gets the commission for the TV.

Amazon affiliate is very easy to use as they provide a ton of tools, easy embedding in different ways and even referral short links.

Amazon’s diverse selling point is another plus.

Due to these points, affiliate marketing made Darren very famous and he is now the center of so many successful case studies.

With these examples and the case study, you are armed with a benchmark understanding of affiliate marketing and how to make an affiliate site profitable. So gear up and excel your way into a prosperous life with affiliate marketing.