Nowadays, it seems everyone wants to become an affiliate marketer or are affiliate marketers. This is understandable seeing that the annual affiliate marketing spending is projected to hit the $6.8 billion mark by 2020.
Affiliate marketing is one of the top strategies that digital entrepreneurs use to improve their online revenue. If you are trying to get into the world of affiliate marketing what best way to get started if not to learn from those succeeding at it already.
Content marketing is the backbone of affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketers strongly rely on content marketing to earn niche traffic and convert prospects to a sale.
Some of the top content types that most affiliate marketers use are product reviews, pillar content pieces, case studies, videos, resource pages, product comparisons, and long tutorials.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a technique where you collaborate with influencers and bloggers to promote your products or services. Commission is paid to affiliates only when they generate a sale.
Affiliate marketing is good for startups because no initial payment is required to generate sales. You pay only after you have earned profits. Moreover, affiliate marketing is also essential for ecommerce businesses especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when businesses require several affiliates to assist their sales.
Besides, you can use different types of affiliate marketing plugins to easily double your chances of conversions.
Now, let’s discuss the top affiliate websites that you can draw inspiration from. The following websites demonstrate a lot of effort, well thought out strategy, and hard work for affiliate marketers. They show how affiliate marketing should be done and their numbers speak for them.
These websites aren’t just concerned with earning high commissions from their affiliates, but provide value to their audience.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
1) Wirecutter
Wirecutter is one of the most authoritative affiliate sites on the internet.
The founder, Brian Lam quitted his job as an editorial director at Gizmodo in 2011 and founded Wirecutter; a consumer product reviews site.
It became so successful that it was acquired by NewYork Times in 2016.
Wirecutter is known for its thorough, in-depth, and detailed product tests and reviews, they leave no stone unturned, and they are also transparent about their testing process.
Key Stats
Domain Rating: 82
Monthly Traffic/Visits: 3.6 million
Backlinks: 18,300
Site age: 9 years
Social Media: 200k+ followers
Monetization Strategy
They earn affiliate commissions mainly from Amazon and Bestbuy. They insert the links to the affiliate sites on their product recommendations articles mostly tagged as “best of” which dominates their site content.
Key Takeaways:
- Create exclusive content: Wirecutter has built trust with its audience due to their thorough and detailed reviews, their reviews are top-notch and they test products intensively before sharing.
- Prioritize your site content: Wirecutter dominate their site with “best of” things type of articles, they are known to share the best product recommendations, so what do you want your site to be known for?
2) Epic Gardening
This is a trusted resource for anything gardening related. They publish guides, gardening products reviews, and comparisons.
Epic Gardening didn’t just focus on creating content for aspiring gardeners, they used affiliate marketing to promote their business.
Key Stats
Domain Rating: 55
Monthly Traffic/Visits: 957k
Backlinks: 599k
Site age: 7 years
Social Media: 170k+ followers
Monetization Strategy
Epic Gardening is part of the Amazon associates program, they insert affiliate links in their product reviews.
Furthermore, they have their own shop where they sell gardening products.
Key Takeaways
- Any niche can be monetized because gardening is not your regular affiliate marketing niche. Therefore don’t limit yourself to the most popular niches in affiliate marketing. Be creative and monetize that idea you think is stupid.
3) Home Grounds
This is a resourceful site for home baristas.
Home Grounds provide recipes, gears, and beans reviews to empower people to brew and enjoy quality coffee from the comfort of their homes.
Key Stats
Domain Rating: 67
Monthly Traffic/Visits: 287k
Backlinks: 12, 208
Site age: 3 years
Social Media: 25k+ followers
Monetization Strategy
Homegrounds is a member of the Amazon associates programs, they earn a commission from the affiliate links on their beans and gears buying guides and reviews. They also sell advertising spaces.
Key Takeaways
- Create high-quality content: From the resources on the Homegrounds site, you can tell right off the bat that they publish high-quality content.
- Target Keywords: They don’t just create high-quality content they create relevant content, i.e what people are searching for.
4) Who Is Hosting This?
This is an authoritative web hosting affiliate site that helps website owners get insights into selecting the best web hosting service providers for them.
“Who is hosting this” basically reviews web hosting companies. They have lots of expert guides and extensive resources to help their audience.
Key Stats
Domain Rating: 82
Monthly Traffic/Visits: 276k
Backlinks: 18.3k
Site age: 13 years
Social Media: 5k+ followers
Monetization Strategy
Their major source of income is the commission earned through the affiliate links included in their reviews section, comparison tool or discounts & coupons sections. They also sell advertising spaces for companies.
Key Takeaways
- Coupons Strategy: They have a section on their sites solely dedicated to coupons and discounts. This is smart because people love to save on their purchases, therefore this is a major motivator for them to make purchases using Who Is Hosting This special links.
- Special Service Extension: “Who is hosting this” have set themselves apart from other review sites by having their own tool. This tool helps you discover who is hosting a certain website.
This further establishes their authority and attracts their target audiences to their site.
5) This is why I’m Broke
From the site name alone you can tell that it’s going to be a site filled with unique, funny, and weird content that appeals to a wide range of people.
They help people with unconventional gifting ideas for all kinds of people by reviewing a diverse range of gifts and novelty items in an entertaining manner.
Key Stats
Domain Rating: 71
Monthly Traffic/Visits: 728k
Backlinks: 4,800
Site age: 9 years
Social Media: 300k+
Monetization Strategy
Amazon and Etsy are the top affiliate sites for Why I am broke. They sell on Etsy too and make money from Amazon associates program.
A rather strange phenomenon is that they don’t monetize all their pages
Key Takeaways
- Authenticity: Why I am broke are authentic in so many ways, from the unique structure and angle of their content to their sparse affiliate links.
- Wishlist Membership perk: Having a wishlist means you intend to come back and get the items on that list. This feature enables Why I’m broke to stay on the radar of their audiences.
Conclusion
All the websites mentioned have one thing in common, they deliver a great load of value to their audiences.
So don’t get into affiliate marketing thinking about how you can earn tons of money from people, instead focus on how best you can benefit your audience.
Because doing this builds trust, and when your audience trusts you then the sky is your limit.
Finally, their website design is simple, clean, and easy to navigate. Therefore, don’t get carried away with making your website look sophisticated, just keep it simple.
