Can you do affiliate marketing with WordPress? If yes, how? (2021)

Find out if can you do affiliate marketing with WordPress Below!

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For most websites, the greatest source of income is from affiliate links, products, and services. It is because affiliate marketing is the easiest and convenient way to earn money. You get a percentage of the sale money as commission when your visitors click on the affiliate links on your website. WordPress is the most popular website builder, But do they allow affiliate marketing?

To answer your question, yes, they do. But people who do not know this kind of marketing, it can get challenging and confusing at some parts. Affiliate marketing is the most important element behind the growth and scale of a website. Here is a brief detail on how to do affiliate marketing on WordPress.

Which is the best choice: WordPress.com or WordPress.org

For starters, you need to learn the difference between WordPress.com or WordPress.org. It is a crucial detail as many beginners don’t even know WordPress has two versions of their website.

WordPress.com is ideal for people who want to promote their site to friends and family only. This version doesn’t charge any money to build a website. They have specific rules on affiliate marketing, paid sponsorship, and advertising. These rules can become a hindrance to people who want to earn money through it. Hence, it is not recommended for affiliate marketing, as it is mainly for non-profit purposes. They will close down your site if you use too much affiliate content and links.

If you know how to create a website, then you have surely come across the term hosting at some point. It is because hosting is a vital factor for every website. In WordPress.com, the hosting is free, but WordPress services run it. This drawback will affect your visitor traffic.

But if you are looking to make your website as a career, you need WordPress.org. It is to use for commercial purposes. It gives you a lot of flexibility for putting affiliate links, advertisements, etc. But you need to invest money to be able to use it. It is because WordPress services will no longer run your hosting as it is self-hosted. There are many hosting providers available in the market, but BlueHost is the most used one.

The setting up process using is easy and simple as you will get a one-click WordPress installer to download it. Using self-host has many advantages, including providing a domain name. This version also has minimum restrictions with basic terms and conditions. These restrictions are to prevent you from doing anything illegal. Once you start earning money through commissions, your expense on creating a website will become adjusted.

How to do affiliate marketing on WordPress?

If you’re lost and don’t know where to begin with for starting your journey on affiliate marketing, then follow this step-by-step process. It will help you to start affiliate marketing from scratch.

Step 1: Figure out your website’s niche

For your visitors to select the affiliate links and make the purchase, they need to be aware of the niche of your website. It will also be beneficial to increase the growth of your website.

Beginners should select a niche that most established websites don’t have. Otherwise, it will become hard to nearly impossible to compete with them. You won’t be able to rank high enough in the search engines(Google, binge). As a result, you won’t have enough visitors to select your affiliate links. Hence to avoid it go to Google, search the topic, and look at the results page.

It will tell you if any popular website is already running on your topic. Choose a topic that is unique and will also spike the interest of your readers. Don’t think that people won’t read your content as the niche is unpopular. If you have quality content, people are bound to visit your website. For example, a website about succulent earns more than $200,000 per year.

 The chosen niche should also interest you as it results in more effective content. A different topic will drive more people into your website as they don’t have anywhere else to visit. However, it is impossible to have zero competition; this technique will only help to minimize competition. Make sure the link, product, or services you are promoting, you genuinely love and would recommend. It helps to gain the trust of your readers if they see results from your recommended product.

Find the most common problem your readers are facing, then look for something that solves the problem in the best way possible. And finally, try to become an affiliate of that product or service. You can find the problems by interacting with the readers in the comment section or asking them questions on your post.

Step 2: Sign up for affiliate programs

Companies won’t offer to promote their products, not at the beginning of your journey anyway. That’s why you need to sign up for multiple affiliate programs. Carefully look through the programs and choose which one you want to promote. You don’t want to recommend low-quality products. Read the terms and conditions of the program, and for a beginner, promote products you have personally used.

Read the reviews by other websites on the same product to get better knowledge. If you are facing a problem with which products or services to choose, think which one you would like to use and will find useful. Also, if you land upon any product and service that interests you, check out if they have an affiliate program. You can also email them to know if they want an affiliate partnership with you.

 There are also affiliate networks that include lots of affiliate offers and products. Some of the reputed and most used affiliate networks are Amazon Associates, Clickbank, and Shareasale. From them, you can choose your choice of products that go well with your website’s niche and will interest your customers. Know your value and don’t settle on a deal that will provide low conversion rates. Do proper research on this topic. Some programs offer up to 50% commission per sale.

Step 3: Buy a domain/hosting/SSL

A domain, hosting, and an SSL certificate all together increase the growth and visitor rate of your website. It can get confusing to buy all these features separately. You need to learn how to connect a domain with your hosting and the installation process of SSL. Moreover, they are also expensive to buy individually. Hence, opt for BlueHost.

 They offer a hosting, domain, SSL certificate, and a one-click WordPress Installation at $3.95 per month. Most popular WordPress users recommend it. Though other hosts are also offering similar packages, BlueHost is more cost-effective, and their services are one of the best. WordPress.org itself recommends BlueHost. They also recommend Siteground. It provides features depending on the plan you choose. Though they also offer domain and SSL certificate with it, their rates are more than BlueHost. Also, BlueHost offers a free domain for a year that Siteground doesn’t.

Your priority in choosing a host should be its ease of access, effortless setup process, and simple WordPress installation. Make sure your host provider gives the best website performance. Your website should be quick to load. Negligence in this area will increase your bounce rate. Unlimited bandwidth and memory usage are also two key factors to superior website performance.

 A domain is essential as it distinguishes your website from other similar sites. WordPress.com gives a free domain, but it ends in .wordpress.com.  An SSL certificate promises your readers security. And they are also responsible for SEO ranking in the search engine results page as well. SSL2BUY lets you buy it individually.

Step 4: Install WordPress

Now you need to install a content management system(CMS) and set up your website with hosting. The popular CMS on the Internet is WordPress. And if you have BlueHost, you can install WordPress with the one-click installation process. You need to go to their Cpanel account to login and select install WordPress from the Website section. And then, click on Install, and WordPress will get installed.

DreamHost also provides a one-click installation process. You can also go for Fantastico, Installatron, and softaculous for automated installation. Find how to use these hosts for one-click installation from the WordPress support page. They also provide a detailed process on how to install WordPress from several other areas. But they can get overwhelming to use for some people. Hence, it’s best to stick to BlueHost, especially for beginners.

After installing WordPress, follow the setup process to connect your website to the hosting. Setting up a database, providing a website name, and WordPress password include in the setting up process. Now you have access to log in your website via WordPress. Start adding content and set up other essential elements.

Step 5: Install themes and plugins

Installing attractive themes will make people visit your site more and thus increasing engagement. WordPress has many theme clubs that let you install free as well as premium themes. But for beginners, you don’t have to invest money on themes. But once you have enough people visiting per month, check out the WordPress theme club and decide which one suits your website type. These clubs have themes for all kinds of sites like fitness, magazine, business, etc.

It doesn’t only improve the design of your website but also boosts functionality and speed. Some of the popular theme clubs are Themeforest and MyThemeShop. After choosing a theme, the next step is to customize it by adding required pages like about me and put up a website logo. Though a custom logo is not a must at the early stages of your career. Also, visit the general settings to update information like admin email address, site title, etc.

These clubs also offer plugins. They aim at extending the functionality of websites. Go for an SEO-plugin to rank higher in the result pages. If you are looking for increasing visitors, then installing a plugin is a must. They dissolve any issue that becomes a barrier to achieving this goal. Your choice of a plugin should depend on the type of website you have. For example, if your website gives reviews, look for a plugin that works best for this type of website. It should offer a comparison table to let you compare the features of similar products. Most popular paid plugins are Yoast SEO and All in ONE SEO. RankMath is the best option if you want a free plugin.

Step 6: Write SEO-optimized content

To generate organic traffic through searches, you have to write SEO-optimized articles. It will help your article to rank higher in SERPs( search engine results page). The first step for SEO content is to figure out which topic your target audiences search for more. Your ultimate motive is to do affiliate marketing. So articles on reviews, comparison between products, or buyers guide are more effective.

 Because visitors are usually looking to buy a product when they read these articles. Then start keyword researching. Your article should have keywords that your visitors mostly use in their searches. You can do it by brainstorming on the important keyword phrases you think the visitors will use.

 But if you couldn’t think of any, go to Google and check what terms appear when you search that particular topic. After gathering your keywords, you have to use them in your article strategically. They shouldn’t seem forced; instead, they should blend seamlessly with the other words. It might look challenging at first, but over time you will get the hang of it.

 You aim to make the readers stay at your website as long as possible. For that, you need content organization. With help in SEO ranking, it also helps readers to find other related content easily. Some free or paid tools also help in writing SEO content. Consider using 1-3 keywords in a single article.

But, understand you won’t rank higher as soon as you write SEO content. Especially if you have a new website, Google takes time to trust you. Use headings and sub-headings wherever you can to reduce the bounce rate. Placing attractive images also help in increasing engagement.

Step 7: Include affiliate links in the content

Know the exact place to include affiliate links in your content to have more sales. Add it either in clickable text form or in buttons. You have to copy-paste the link or code you received from the affiliate programs in the post. In Amazon Associates, you will have new links to every product or page you want your readers to visit. Don’t try too hard to sell the products or force your readers to buy them. This action will affect your website.

In a review article, you can add the affiliate link with the image of the product to make the readers more interested. Experiment with different places to include the links and figure out which area works the best. But your post shouldn’t contain too many affiliate links, it will drive away your readers and will lower your SEO rank. Put one affiliate link to every 100 to 300 words.

Step 8: Cloak affiliate links

Cloaking affiliate links have multiple benefits, including making long affiliate links into shorter ones. They are often lengthy and look unattractive in your post. It helps to understand the URLs by your readers as you can write engaging text to cover the complicated looking URL. It also hides the fact that it is an affiliate link. Because many users, once they see it is an affiliate link, they’ll dismiss it and directly go to the website to buy the product.

There are many WordPress plugin available to help in cloaking affiliate links. A few of the popular ones are Pretty Link Lite, Easy Affiliate Links, and Geni.us. With them, you can easily cloak the links as well as manage the affiliate links. Pretty Link Lite is free and automatically adds the no-follow tag in the affiliate links. By adding a no-follow attribute, your affiliate links will not be visible when search engine bots crawl your site.

 They have spiders to search for any affiliate links in your article and rank them accordingly. But if you want to manually nofollow the link, paste the affiliate link in the writing space and type rel=”nofollow” between the double quote and angled bracket. And you are done.

But read the policy of the affiliate program you’re using as few programs don’t allow it. For example, Amazon associates.

Step 9: Index the site/articles

Indexing websites is another way to gain organic traffic. This step follows after publishing the website and posting content. If you want your websites to appear on the search engine results page, then indexing is essential. In other words, indexing your website means to let Google crawl over your web pages and websites, and when they find new content, it gets added to the searchable index of Google.

But Google doesn’t have automated indexing. You need to update it every time you post new content. To index your URL to Google, sign up in Google Search Console. From the dashboard, select Fetch as Google under the crawl category. Now paste the URL you want to index in the search bar and click fetch. Then select ‘submit to index’ after Google finds your web page.

 They also let you check the frequency rate Google is crawling your website. To do so, after signing up, click on the crawl option on the left side and then select crawl stats. They will show the results in graphs. To check whether Google has already indexed your website, go to google.com. From the search bar, type “site:yourdomain.com” If Google has crawled your site, you will see your website in the results page.

Step 10: Content promotion

If you are having trouble gaining visitors to your website, learn social media marketing. If not, you still need it to drive more audiences to your website. When you are affiliate marketing, you need as many people as possible to visit your site. If you have a new website, create accounts on all social media platforms for your business, and use strategic ways to gain followers.

 Upload the website logo as your profile picture and a cover photo related to your website. Promote your content each time you publish a post. Give your followers a brief detail about your new post in the caption section to make them excited. To increase followers, try to be active on all the platforms and create fun activities like a giveaway or Q/A session. Use meaningful hashtags on all your social media posts.

 Most social media platforms have features to help promote your website. While Facebook has boosted posts, Pinterest uses promoted pins. And twitter and Linkedln have click ads. As you have to pay for them, use them at your full advantage. Ask your friends and family to promote your content on their social media platforms, as well as it will increase engagement. Or contact any social media influencer to promote your website. They will have more followers than you, especially if your website is new.

Step 11: Be patient

Even if you write high-quality SEO-optimized content, your website won’t rank higher under a week. It takes time and persistence from your part. The competition is high, as there are hundreds of sites getting created per day. You might not have enough visitors in the beginning, but don’t lose hope. Work hard and improve from your mistakes.

You will notice results after a few weeks of posting if your content is engaging and original. Give your affiliate marketing business some time to get seen by people.

Step 12: Reinvest commissions and start new websites

Reinvest the money you got through commissions into your website business. It is a smart technique to grow the business. Or you can also use it to build other websites if you want. Use it to buy hosting or any premium products for the new website. Create the site on a different niche and incorporate affiliate links that suit your website category. Recreate the same process from the beginning of this website as well. Now you know about all the ins-and-outs of this field. Hence you can achieve success more quickly.

Summary

If you followed all the steps, you would have a gist idea on how to do affiliate marketing on WordPress. But you still need to learn more details and tips to grow and scale your business. Research and read as much as possible on this topic. Follow a proven process and a strategy rather than waiting and trying your luck to achieve success. It will save you from all the frustration and self-doubt when you will try to do it alone. Also, you will save money by not splurging into unnecessary items for the website. Have dedication, patience, and polish your promoting skills and start building an affiliate marketing website.

More effective tips

Have a fixed schedule timing and upload it at that time regularly. Don’t forget to inform your visitors about it. It will bring more loyal readers.

Don’t expect higher income at the beginning of the affiliate marketing website.  Figure out which affiliate programs offer high commission and have the best policy rules.

Don’t wait for the right time. It is a trial and error process hence start as soon as possible. It will help to learn about the process quickly and earn money faster.

Make sure you have a solid plan before you start. Set monthly goals for your websites and write articles in advance, so you don’t lag behind your schedule timing

Keep a notebook and jot down all the fantastic topics popping up in your head.

Research is key. Know your competitors and target audiences while setting up a niche for your website. High competition, and starting without any idea of your niche will hamper your success.

The introduction section of every post should catch the interest of the readers. Otherwise, it will increase the bounce rate.

Avoid installing too many plugins as it will lower down the loading speed of your website.

Go for buying hosting for longer years. Companies provide more discounts if you buy their plan for multiple years. It will save you some money.