How Much Do You Need To Build A Website or Blog for Affiliate Marketing (2021)

Find out How much money does it cost to create an Affiliate Marketing Website Blog Below!

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Affiliate marketing is an excellent business today, and there are thousands of people scourging the internet looking how to start doing it themselves.

It’s also quite similar to dropshipping regarding how it can be quite cheap to start your own business. However, looking for a guide on how to start can be painful because everyone has a different approach or recommends different methods.

Therefore, let’s stick to the priority for now: how much it costs.

How much for everything?

Let’s get the technicalities out of the way: a website isn’t mandatory for people doing affiliate marketing. You can use YouTube, social media, or even just a single landing page with an opt-in to collect leads.

Today, we’ll focus on people who want to build blogs to turn into authority sites and then make money while they mind their own business after creating the content.

I’m not telling you that you must create a website, but if you already had it in mind, then you’ll be glad you came here.

Similarly, none of these expenses are your first step; you need to have your business planned already before starting to spend your money. Things like your domain require you to research what you’re going to promote.

Let’s go through the investment necessary to start off right.

1. Domain

A domain name is how you make your website known on the internet, and it needs to relate as close as possible to your topic. You must register your domain name with services like Namecheap or Godaddy, my favorite.

Godaddy is a name you probably already know if you’ve read about this topic online. The support is great, and they offer lots of extras like SSL certificates, web security, emails, and more.

The only issue is that registering a private domain isn’t free, but that won’t be a problem for everyone.

For those who find it an issue, the Beast Mode in Namecheap is a great tool for finding domains, and registering your domain will be cheaper.

Overall, we can average both services’ prices at around $10 for your domain name.

2. Hosting

To put it simply, hosting is what lets your website exist on the internet. A hosting provider ensures your website is live and accessible to your users, and it also ensures to keep technical issues at bay or having backups in case your website goes down.

There are many hosting services available, but finding a reputable one is crucial if you want to offer the best experience and keep things running smoothly.

If you go for a lousy host just because it’s cheap, you’re putting your website’s runtime in danger, and this usually translates into losing sales. Worst case scenario, your hosting provider keeps all your files, so you might not even be able to get your website back in case you want to change hosts or leave the business.

For a great and accessible hosting solution, I’d recommend Bluehost. It’s just $3.95 monthly, but you can get special discounts for the first year at $2.95. That’s $35.40 on your first year and just under $48 after that.

Do note you can get a domain name here for free, and it obviously looks like the way to go. Nevertheless, I recommend you keep your domain name outside of Bluehost with one of the solutions I mentioned earlier.

That’s because it’ll be easier to change your host if you ever decide to do it. I really doubt it’ll ever happen with Bluehost, but I’ve read enough stories to take all the precautions I can.

You’re not investing on just peace of mind, but there are features like whoisguard for which Bluehost charges additionally while Namecheap offers it for free.

3. Premium theme for WordPress

I don’t really hate or abhor free themes, and they’re good enough when you’re just starting out. The thing is that premium themes usually have better coding, and this means faster load times, more features, and customer support (most of the time).

Besides, they look better.

As for the cost, you can take $35 as the average. You can find themes for more or less, depending on your needs and budget.

I’ll recommend MyThemeShop if you’re looking for a theme. Theirs look amazing, and the customer support is outstanding. Still, don’t feel obligated; you might find one that suits you better on you own.

Just make sure to find good quality and customer support. For instance, you can ask MyThemeShop if you need help setting up or customizing your theme. That’s the kind of service you want; customer testimonials are a great way to measure this.

4. Thrive Architect and Leads

After your website is live and working, the next step is to start creating your blog posts. For me, the best way to have great-looking pages while not having to put too much time into it is to use Thrive Architect from ThriveThemes.

It’s among the best editors for WordPress right now.

Of course, you can start out on your own if you don’t have the budget to invest on it. However, make sure to keep it in mind once you start making money (or feeling frustrated using the WordPress editor) and need more functionality.

On the other hand, Thrive Leads lets you build your email list. It’s easy to use, and the templates and regular updates make it a very versatile tool. Besides, the reports are lifesavers as well.

Both tools go for $67 each for a single site. Another great option is to get all tools from ThriveThemes for $19 each month. That’s 10 tools totaled, and you have great options like the Quiz Builder and Ultimatum.

However, if you don’t have the budget and don’t mind sacrificing some conversions, you can go for the opt-ins included in GetResponse.

5. Email marketing tool

Speaking of which, GetResponse is my recommended solution to use email marketing for your affiliate business. As mentioned, it also offers opt-ins for you to use while you save up to get Thrive Leads (if you want).

You’ve probably seen MailChimp recommended on other sites, but I won’t do that. Yes, MailChimp is an outstanding service for most businesses today, but that’s not the case for affiliate marketing.

Like many similar services, MailChimp doesn’t allow affiliate links on your emails, so going for them will get you banned.

GetResponse does allow for affiliate marketing, and it comes with a feature named workflows. They’re amazing for the task since it makes email marketing ten times easier.

You can segment your mailing list using their behavior, making it a perfect tool to increase your conversions. Besides, it integrates seamlessly with Thrive Leads to get your email marketing pretty much done for you.

GetResponse will net you about $15 per month, and you can get a free trial for your first month without having to give them your credit card details.

What’s the total?

Let’s sum it up:

• Your domain will be about $10.
• Hosting, $35.40 for the first year, $47.40 for the following year.
• $35 for your premium theme.
• $67 for Thrive Architect and $67 for Thrive Leads.
• $15 monthly for GetResponse.

That makes it up to about:

• $379.40 for the first year.
• If you decide to use the opt-ins from GetResponse instead of Thrive Leads, $327.40.

However, your startup cost would be $214.40 since GetResponse doesn’t charge you for the first month.

Of course, the following year will be a bit more expensive for Bluehost, but you won’t have to spend on Thrive, hosting or your theme. That makes it a total of 227.4 if you bought Thrive Leads on your first year.

It’s quite cheap for a full website. While the first year might be more expensive, think about how much a retail store would cost you, or even an online one. With affiliate marketing, you just end up paying for your hosting and email tool.

You won’t have to deal with shipping, refunds, customer support, nothing. As long as you make more than $230 in a whole year, you’re making a profit.

Some extras

Besides your maintenance costs, you want a tool for research. That’s a must if you want to place your site on search engines and write content that people look for.

My go to right now is Ahrefs. It’s expensive, about $99 monthly. Luckily, you can research everything you need in just a month, and you won’t have to pay for another one in a good while (only if there’s a massive change in your niche or the internet as a whole).

In fact, if you can rush things and be done in a week, you can get a 7-day trial for $7.

You also have Keysearch. It’s a great companion for Ahrefs, but it’s also a less-powerful-yet-budget-friendly substitute for $17 monthly. It’s the basic version, but it’s pretty much what you need to start out.

You can also find discount coupons to make it even cheaper.

The vital investment

You can have an amazing website that works perfectly, but that’ll mean nothing if you can’t do anything with it.

Yes, I’m talking about training and knowledge. Without it, you’ll find yourself targeting the wrong kind of people, making your website costs pretty much a waste since you won’t be making money. You might even end up spending way more than you should.

Luckily, we have Savage Affiliates by Franklin Hatchett. He’s been two times a winner of the 2-Comma Club, making over $1,000,000 each time, and he’s a recognized affiliate marketer.

What’s more, this course is just $197 for the standard version and $297 for the premium one. That’s a single payment as well, not a monthly fee.

If you just want to build an authority site, a Google’s favorite, then you want to get the Authority Site System, which will teach you exactly how to do it.

Conclusion

All the tools I’ve mentioned are used by many successful bloggers, including myself, so I can give you my word about their quality.

If you follow my advice here, you’ll be set off on the right track. Couple that with the training I recommended, and you’re pretty much following the same steps as me, so that means you just need to find a good niche for yourself and you’re good to go.