Making money is the aim of the game, but how exactly do affiliate websites promote their affiliate links and earn commissions?
There are lots of different tactics to make money online as an affiliate marketer, but generating passive income through an affiliate website is one of the most effective techniques.
Lessons Contents
What Is an Affiliate Website
An affiliate website promotes other people’s products and services. Instead of sourcing, storing, and selling products, an affiliate website attracts an audience of people interested in a particular topic or hobby, and showcases and recommends products that the audience will be interested in. Affiliate products can be both physical and digital, with merchants generally paying a higher commission on digital products and services. When somebody clicks on an affiliate link and completes a purchase, the affiliate is rewarded with a commission on the sale.
How to Identify Affiliate Websites
Affiliate marketing is a growing industry, with around 16% of all e-commerce sales in the U.S. generated through affiliate marketing. Despite it being responsible for billions of dollars worth of purchases per year, affiliate marketing can be quite hard to spot if you don’t know what you are looking for. There’s a good chance you have purchased products after clicking an affiliate link without even realizing it. So how do you spot an affiliate website?
Let’s turn to Google and take a look at some examples to help you identify affiliate websites. Once you start to recognize how widespread affiliate marketing is, you will be able to get a better idea of how you can start your own affiliate marketing business.
Affiliates in Paid Search Listings
When you enter a search query into Google, the first results that you see are from advertisers. Affiliate marketers use these paid placements for advertising their affiliate content and driving traffic to their affiliate website. Google Ads works on a Pay Per Click (PPC) system. When somebody clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays a fee to Google. For an affiliate marketer to make money using PPC promotion, they need to generate more in commission than they spend on advertising.
Because this type of promotion requires financial investment, you’ll find that the majority of affiliate advertisers are targeting buyer intent keywords. These are the search terms people enter when they are looking to make a purchase. Let’s take a look at the paid search results for the buyer intent search term “best antivirus software.”
The top four results on the search engine results page (SERP) are paid ad placements. As you can see, they are clearly marked with “Ad.” The search term “best antivirus software” is an attractive search term for an affiliate advertiser. The searcher is interested in purchasing antivirus software and is looking for advice and recommendations on which software to buy.
Antivirus software is a digital product, so the commission is more substantial than what an affiliate would generally receive for a physical product, leaving more budget for the affiliate to spend on advertising fees. If the affiliate is promoting a physical product with a commission of less than 10%, it’s unlikely they will be able to make a profit utilizing PPC advertising.
If we look at the ad placements, we can see that three out of the four are reviews of antivirus software. Any mention of reviews, guides, or top 10 lists of products is a clear indication of an affiliate website. Let’s take a look at the first website in the paid placements.
The website offers reviews of antivirus software with a star rating and a link to the merchant’s website. If a website visitor clicks on the affiliate link, they are taken to the merchant’s site to complete the purchase of the software. The affiliate link is tracked using a cookie, a small piece of code that records where the visitor came from. Depending on the merchant, this tracking cookie can last for the length of a single session up to a whole year. If the visitor makes a purchase within the cookie duration, the affiliate is rewarded with a commission on the sale. In the top-right corner, you can also see an advertising disclosure. This informs the visitor that the webpage contains affiliate links. While the affiliate will receive commission for the sales they generate, the visitor doesn’t pay any more than they would if they purchased directly from the merchant.
Affiliates in Natural Search Results
For affiliates promoting physical products, utilizing paid search isn’t generally a profitable strategy. Instead, these affiliates drive traffic to their websites through ranking in the organic search results. These placements in the SERP are free but can take longer to settle in the rankings and require more extensive content than an affiliate website utilizing PPC advertising.
To rank in the top spots for the organic search results, an affiliate website needs to provide relevant and high-quality content that matches the intent of a search term. This area of internet marketing is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and is all about making your website as appealing as possible to search engines. Let’s take a look at the organic search results for a search term with buyer intent for a physical product; “best beginner fish tank.”
The top two results in the SERP both feature reviews for fish tanks, and both appear to be affiliate websites rather than merchant websites. If a result features reviews, guides, and comparisons, there’s a good chance that it is an affiliate website. Let’s take a look at the first website in the search results.
The website follows a similar formula to the antivirus software website in the paid placements. If we scroll further down the page, we can see that there is a comparison table of affiliate products.
The page features a guide to help people to find the right product for their needs, and a table that includes the features of each product for easy comparison. Beneath the table, there are affiliate links to Amazon. When a visitor has read the guide and decided on the fish tank that best fits their needs, they can click on the affiliate link and complete the purchase on Amazon. For each sale that the affiliate website generates, the website owner will receive a commission from Amazon.
Because this website is relying on organic traffic from search engines, it features a lot more content than the site in the paid listings. If you look in the right-hand panel, you can see a list of articles that are related to aquariums and fish care. Some of these articles are buying guides that feature lots of affiliate links, while others are more focused on generating traffic from search engines.
How Affiliate Websites Promote Products
Affiliate marketing is the easiest way for you to start making money online. You get rewarded for the sales you generate from your marketing efforts. But affiliate marketing is a broad term that covers lots of different marketing techniques.
There are several different ways you can promote your affiliate products. Some require investment on your part, while others are entirely free.
According to a 2017 survey, 48% of affiliate marketers state that organic search promotion is the best source of website traffic:
If you want to know which affiliate marketing techniques provide the best opportunity for you, keep reading because we're about to break down the most effective methods of affiliate promotion.
Let’s take a look at the top promotional techniques and some real-world examples so you can see them in action.
9 Different Methods of Affiliate Promotion
PPC
If you have knowledge of paid search or you are willing to learn, pay-per-click can be a great way to scale your affiliate business and promote your affiliate products.
In plain terms, PPC advertising is a way to leverage search engines and social media to drive targeted web traffic to your affiliate content. With the PPC advertising model, you don’t pay for the placement of your ads in search results or social media feeds; you only pay when a user clicks on your ad.
To succeed with PPC advertising, you need to purchase and optimize the right ads for the keywords that are relevant to your affiliate offer. When a user types your targeted keywords into the search bar, your ad is displayed in the ad placements of the search results page.
Here's an example of PPC for affiliate marketing in action:
The affiliate website Top5 Website Builders utilizes PPC advertising to promote their affiliate content. When a searcher types “best website builders” into Google, an ad targeting these relevant keywords is displayed in the paid search ad placements.
This paid ad directs the user to the following landing page featuring affiliate links for website builders:
Exceptional research is essential for PPC advertising. An experienced affiliate marketer can still lose money on a campaign if they don’t base their paid ads on solid keyword research. Once your ads are up and running, you’ll need to continually test and optimize your ad copy, landing pages, and bidding strategy to make sure your paid traffic converts.
Coupons
Coupons have been a key player in affiliate promotion for decades, but that doesn’t mean that you can't make a profitable affiliate business using them. You can help your audience get discounts on specific products and services and earn a decent commission.
Retail Me Not is an excellent example of a high-quality coupon website:
A successful coupon strategy relies on consistently delivering the best discounts to your audience. Even if you don’t earn a massive commission, you can build a loyal audience by always providing the best deals.
You need to think long-term and build an audience that keeps checking in and using your website when they purchase products.
Apart from the coupons, Retail Me Not does a great job of providing value to its website visitors through their blog content.
People love deals and discounts, so Coupon websites aren’t going to lose their popularity any time soon. They also don’t publish tons of content, so if you don’t enjoy writing long-form blog posts, this could be a great affiliate strategy for you.
The only downside of coupon websites worth mentioning is that you will generally rely on SEO to increase your website traffic, and it can get very competitive depending on your niche.
Reviews/Comparison
A product review-focused strategy is a great way to take your first steps into affiliate marketing. Think about all the different products you use on a daily basis in your personal and professional life. By sharing your opinions and recommendations with reviews and comparisons, you can help people make more informed purchasing decisions and earn yourself an affiliate income.
The Night Light is an excellent example of an affiliate review website:
Just like the detailed research you should conduct before you decide to join an affiliate program, you need to do thorough research on the companies you want to promote and the products that they offer.
The goal is to build a loyal audience by providing honest reviews about the products you promote. Keyword research is vital to gain traction in search results and drive traffic to your content and your affiliate links. The Night Light is focused on products that new parents would find interesting and appealing. They do a great job of providing detailed reviews about everything somebody would want to know about the products they promote. They also conduct comprehensive testing of products to offer the best recommendations to their audience:
You want people to click on your affiliate links and make a purchase, but it’s vital that you remain objective and transparent with your reviews. Focus on building a loyal audience with trustworthy content to create a sustainable and profitable affiliate review website.
Webinars
Live streaming is becoming an increasingly effective way to build an audience online. You can host a webinar on YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, or any other live streaming platform and promote your affiliate links to your audience.
Webinars are a great way to interact and engage your viewers while educating them about the products that you promote. The YouTuber Jen Luvs Reviews does a great job of educating her audience about makeup products:
Her webinars help people to make more informed purchasing decisions on their makeup purchases. You need to focus on providing high-quality, informative, and entertaining content to build an audience of repeat viewers.
You can interactively promote your affiliate products by talking about them in your video and encouraging your audience to post live questions and comments. You can include your affiliate links in the description below your video.
You don’t have to limit yourself to live streaming alone. You can use your webinars as an additional promotional tool in your promotion arsenal.
If you’re going to try your hand at live streaming, you should take the time to practice being a host in front of the camera and prepare an outline of what you want to cover in the webinar. Even the top YouTubers and live streamers of today started somewhere, so don’t worry if you don’t have thousands of viewers for your first video. Focus on building an audience and check your analytics to see what's working.
Once your live stream is finished, you can upload it to your site so that people who missed it can catch up, and your income from your affiliate links can snowball over time.
YouTube Channel
Video is a powerful tool for promotion. In fact, almost 50% of consumers look for videos related to a product before they visit a store, and by 2022, video content will account for more than 82% of all internet traffic.
For your affiliate marketing strategy, you can use video content to discuss topics and products in your niche and promote your affiliate links at the same time.
The YouTube channel Vacuum Wars does a great job of creating informative and educational video content about all things related to vacuum cleaners.
The easiest way to promote your affiliate links is to include them in your video description. Make sure that your audience knows where to find them by directing their attention with a shoutout during the video. A lot of YouTubers use a phrase like “click on the link in the description”.
Another way to promote your affiliate products is to use YouTube annotations. You can pre-set times in the video for your transparent annotation box to pop up on the screen. Each annotation box can be hyperlinked, offering you an excellent opportunity to promote your affiliate links.
Use both these tactics and focus on providing educational and entertaining content to build an audience and drive sales of your promoted affiliate products.
Amazon/Product Feed
Amazon affiliate websites earn commissions from the Amazon Associates program. Here’s how it works in four simple steps:
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
The Prepared is a great example of an Amazon affiliate website in action:
The Prepared is a survival and disaster preparation website that offers in-depth guides and product reviews for everything you need to prepare for emergency situations.
The key to a profitable Amazon affiliate website is to identify a niche that receives significant attention, isn’t swamped by a mass of competition, and is likely to be just as popular in 5 years as it is now.
The Prepared is focused on publishing evergreen content that is built on solid keyword research. Evergreen content is based on topics that will maintain interest and search volume in Google for a long time.
By basing content around targeted keywords like “best portable power bank,” The Prepared ensures their content will maintain relevance and consistently keep getting traffic from search engines.
Google Trends shows “best portable power bank” is a term that has increasing search volume:
By researching the interest and search volume of topics and keywords, you can make sure that the content you write will still be in demand years ahead.
However, it’s vital to keep your content fresh and updated if you are going to keep it evergreen. New products will always be released, so if you write content about the best available rechargeable power banks, you will need to keep it updated to maintain relevance and ranking in search engines.
Instagram/Influencers
With over 1 billion active monthly users, Instagram is an excellent platform to explore when it comes to social media promotion of your affiliate links. According to a survey published in AdWeek, 59% of micro-influencers believe Instagram is the best platform for engaging audiences:
Instagram affiliate promotion is all about building a loyal audience of followers. The more loyal your followers, the more likely they are to click on your affiliate links. You can create high-quality videos and images of yourself using your affiliate product and encourage users to click your link and purchase it from your affiliate partner.
Now, when it comes to affiliate links, there is a drawback with Instagram. You can’t put links directly into your posts and descriptions. You can only place a clickable link in your bio. So you need to direct people to your bio if you are going to drive traffic to your affiliate link. Here’s an example from Instagram user @luckytobeinfirst:
Another way to work around the issue is to include your affiliate link in Instagram Stories. If you can attract a following of more than 10k, you can add links to your Instagram Stories to drive traffic to your affiliate links.
While the Kardashians and other top influencers have millions of followers, there is no set amount you need to hit before you start promoting your affiliate links. You should aim to grow your following and increase the engagement of your posts if you are going to successfully utilize the platform and achieve a sustainable affiliate income.
The most crucial factor is to build an actively engaged audience that reacts to your posts. Even a smaller audience can bring a profitable affiliate income if they engage with your posts and click your affiliate links.
Aggregator
Aggregator websites save people time and money by scouring the internet for the price of products online. If you are looking to purchase a product, you could check the price on each merchant's website, or you could use an aggregator website to save yourself time.
For example, if you wanted to find a cheap trip from London to Tokyo, you could check British Airways directly, or you could use a travel aggregator to check the prices for hundreds of different airlines in one place.
Momondo is an excellent example of a successful aggregator website in the travel niche:
Momondo aggregates the flight pricing data of thousands of different flight vendors to enable their website visitors to compare ticket options.
A lot of their web traffic comes organically from Google, with their destination guides and blog content providing educational and informative advice about all things travel.
Momondo makes money through commission on flight tickets and hotel reservations, but you can find aggregator websites for financial products, physical products, and software and digital products.
The key to aggregator websites is to solve the problem of your audience better than your competitors. By providing the best price, even if they don’t have an affiliate partnership with the cheapest merchant, Momondo builds trust with their audience that causes them to come back every time they need to book a flight.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an effective and cost-efficient way to promote affiliate products. This kind of affiliate promotion focuses on building a list of subscribers around a particular topic or niche. As with all affiliate marketing techniques, it's vital to add value and only promote the products and services that can help your audience. Everyday Health is an excellent example of an affiliate website that utilises email marketing to promote their affiliate products.
Before you can send emails promoting affiliate products, you need to build a list of subscribers that agree to receive your emails. The first step in creating an email list is to drive traffic to your website and your sign-up page. You’ll need to showcase the value you offer and provide something in exchange for their email address. This can be a downloadable lead magnet, access to exclusive content, or a regular newsletter.
Everyday Health offers a range of free newsletters delivered straight to the inbox of their subscribers:
Once a visitor has signed up, send relevant content and offers to your subscribers to keep them engaged. Once a subscriber clicks on your affiliate link, you receive a commission on any sales within the cookie duration. A key advantage of email marketing is that you can easily track and optimise your emails. Experiment with different headlines, email copy, and CTAs to improve your conversion rate and generate more sales and commission.
What Method of Promotion is Best For You?
As you can see, there are lots of tactics you can use to promote your affiliate products and make money online with affiliate marketing. Every technique has its pros and cons, but they are all verified ways of earning commissions if utilized correctly.
PPC
You can generate immediate traffic to promote your affiliate products. But you need to know how to conduct keyword research, how to measure your results, and how to optimize your campaigns to achieve decent profitability.
Coupons
You don’t need to write vast amounts of content, but it can take time to build an audience in a competitive niche.
Reviews/Comparisons
You don’t need to invest any budget to get started, and you can write about what you know. You need to create quality content and drive organic traffic from search results to your promoted products.
Webinars
Live streaming is great for interactivity and engagement, but you need to be patient and consistently educate and entertain to build a loyal audience.
YouTube Channel
Similar to webinars, you can build a loyal audience of viewers and drive traffic to your affiliate links. You’ll need to deliver entertaining videos and find a way to stand out if you operate in a competitive niche.
Amazon/Product Feed
You can leverage the world's largest e-commerce store to earn commissions. Conduct solid keyword research and find a niche that is popular and likely to grow over the coming years for a sustainable affiliate income.
Instagram sees more engagement than other social media platforms and is a great way to start your affiliate marketing career. You need to be patient and build a loyal following before you start earning significant commissions.
Aggregator
Find a profitable niche and make sure that you always try to offer the best value products and services to your audience. Even if you don’t have an affiliate partnership with the cheapest vendor, focus on building trust and becoming the go-to source for people looking for the best value products in your niche.
Email Marketing
Create a direct communication channel with your audience and focus on delivering value to your list of subscribers. This marketing tactic can be a great way to drive extra revenue or as a stand-alone affiliate marketing promotional method.
Affiliate marketing is a growing and ever evolving industry. With changes to Google algorithms and changes to the way people research and purchase products, it’s a good idea to maintain a flexible approach. If you keep up with new trends and search engine updates, you can consistently build an audience and grow your affiliate income streams.
The above types of affiliate marketing promotion are by no means an exhaustive list. When starting your affiliate career, keep an open mind and experiment to see which types of promotion work for you and identify new opportunities when they arise.
You don’t have to limit yourself to one method of promotion. If you decide to set up a product review website, you can experiment with webinars and YouTube to further grow your audience and increase your affiliate income. Try different promotional tactics and measure your results to optimize performance and keep growing your affiliate business.
20 Best Examples of Successful Affiliate Marketing Websites
Now you know how to spot an affiliate website and the different methods that can be used to promote affiliate products, let's take a look at some real-world examples. In no particular order, here are 20 great examples of successful affiliate websites.
1. This Is Why I’m Broke
This is Why I’m Broke has built an enormous audience in the gift niche, providing reviews and price aggregation for a massive range of novelty products. They focus on all things pop culture and quickly identify and capitalize on new consumer trends. You’ll find everything from quirky mother’s day gifts for $20 up to unique high-end yachts costing millions of dollars.
They make most of their money through affiliate marketing, with the majority of their affiliate products sold through the Amazon Associates program and Etsy. Most of their traffic comes from organic search engine results, but they have also built up a strong social media following on Facebook.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 71
Backlinks: 162,330
Moz Rank: 5.9
Facebook Followers: 294,071
Twitter Followers: 9,724
2. Dating Advice
The massive growth of dating apps and websites over the last decade has made the dating niche a lucrative option for affiliate marketers. However, the niche is swamped with low-quality and spammy affiliate sites that try to capitalize on this growing market. Dating Advice has become a leader in the niche market by avoiding the sleazy side that other affiliates have targeted. Instead, Dating Advice has attracted a mainstream audience by providing fun and honest expert advice.
They make the majority of their money through affiliate links to Zoosk, eHarmony, and other dating websites. Their traffic comes almost entirely from organic search results.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 62
Backlinks: 13,903,141
Moz Rank: 5.5
Facebook Followers: 13,779
Twitter Followers: 16,400
3. Dog Food Advisor
There are around 90 million pet dogs in the U.S. alone, with an increase of over 20 million in the last 20 years. People love their furry friends, and Dog Food Advisor does a great job of providing people with the best answers on the internet for all things dog food. While it doesn’t have a flashy modern design, it offers great content and reviews to help people take care of their dogs.
Dog Food Advisor makes money from affiliate links in the reviews of thousands of products featured on the website. Most of their traffic comes from organic search results. They also generate affiliate income by providing recommendations in a regular newsletter that is delivered to hundreds of thousands of email subscribers.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 59
Backlinks: 468,547
Moz Rank: 5.7
Facebook Followers: 147,367
Twitter Followers: 7,981
4. The Points Guy
The Points Guy has become the go-to place for credit card points and money-saving travel tips. They help people to leverage offers from credit cards to travel the world for less. People love to get things for free or at a knockdown price, and The Points Guy has built a solid reputation for helping people to access cheap flights and travel.
They attract most of their traffic through evergreen content that drives visitors from the organic search results. Alongside the high-quality content on their website, The Points Guy has built a substantial following on social media. They make most of their money through affiliate offers for credit cards and travel companies.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 83
Backlinks: 3,196,235
Moz Rank: 6.1
Facebook Following: 1,920,352
Twitter Following: 361,000
5. NerdWallet
In a highly competitive niche, NerdWallet has become a standout by publishing content that is educational, informative, and really helpful. At its base level, NerdWallet is a review website for credit cards, loans, bank accounts, and other financial products and services.
The majority of their traffic comes from organic search results, but NerdWallet has grown into a significant player in the financial niche by utilizing social media and effective use of PPC advertising.
NerdWallet's income comes entirely from affiliate marketing, with affiliate links to financial products and service vendors.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 80
Backlinks: 3,093,980
Moz Rank: 6.6
Facebook Followers: 170,502
Twitter Followers: 63,200
6. Safewise
Safewise has done a great job of identifying and capitalizing on a growing niche. With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and an ever-increasing number of connected devices, advanced home security is gaining more and more attention. Globally, the home security industry is worth over $40 billion and is predicted to grow by 10.4% by 2023.
People want their homes to be as secure as possible, and Safewise helps people to improve their home security by providing useful content and reviews for home security products. The vast majority of their traffic comes from organic search results, with a small presence on social media.
Safewise makes money by recommending Amazon and CJ Affiliate products. Their partnerships with Vivent and Frontpoint are highly lucrative. Vivent pays affiliates a commission of $560 per sale generated.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 64
Backlinks: 2,444,241
Moz Rank: 5.7
Facebook Following: 14,255
Twitter Following: 1,552
7. Snapsort
The key to every successful affiliate business is to help people solve a problem or to achieve a goal. With so many different cameras out there catering to a range of photography abilities, choosing the right one is a problem that millions of people encounter every year. Snapsort helps you to narrow down your options with a few clicks.
They provide a useful tool to help people find the camera that best fits their requirements, and offer detailed photography equipment reviews and comparison articles. Every review contains an affiliate link to the product on Amazon, with Snapsort earning commission for every sale that they generate.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 57
Backlinks: 801,119
Moz Rank: 5.2
Facebook Following: 67,208
Twitter Following: 5,026
8. Shut Up & Sit Down
Shut Up & Sit Down is an excellent example of an affiliate site that has built a flourishing community around a specific niche. On the surface, this is an affiliate review website for board games. However, Sit Up & Sit Down has established itself as an online hub for board game enthusiasts around the world.
They combine onsite review content for over 400 board games with a large following on Twitch and YouTube. Each review contains an affiliate link to Amazon or the board game manufacturer's website. They also have a PayPal donation system to encourage their audience to support the site.
The majority of their traffic comes from organic search results, but the strong community around the website is reflected in the large amount of traffic they attract from YouTube and Reddit.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 55
Backlinks: 146,064
Moz Rank: 5
Facebook Followers: 17,675
Twitter Followers: 37,600
9. PC Part Picker
As the name suggests, PC Part Picker is a website that provides informative and helpful content to help people choose PC components and computer products. It’s a great example of an affiliate website that puts the audience first and focuses on delivering the best content in the niche.
Rather than publishing generic comparison articles on a type of product, PC Part Picker gets super specific with detailed buyers guides targeting long-tail keywords like “Building a Gaming PC for Under $750”. They earn money through affiliate links to Best Buy and other retailers. By prioritizing the needs of its audience, PC Part Picker has become a hugely successful affiliate business.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 74
Backlinks: 6,797,279
Moz Rank: 6
Facebook Followers: 34,760
Twitter Followers: 45,800
10. What Moms Love
What Moms Love offers free advice, guides, recommendations, and product reviews to help new mothers take care of their children and find fun activities to do with their kids. What Moms Love is a lesson in writing about what you know. The owner, Aly, has four children of her own, and decided to start What Moms Love to share her experiences, tips, and product recommendations for new mothers.
It is an excellent example of an affiliate website that leverages social media to promote affiliate products. What Moms Love has a and a Pinterest following of over 45,000. To reach an audience of new mothers, Pinterest is the perfect social media platform. Over 80% of U.S. mothers that regularly use the internet are on the platform.
Aly makes the majority of her money through affiliate links to Amazon products on her website and by sending recommendations to her list of over 200K email subscribers.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 45
Backlinks: 44,946
Moz Rank: 4.3
Facebook Followers: 5,709
Twitter Followers: N/A
11. Every Day Carry
Started back in 2010 as a Tumblr blog, Every Day Carry has built a strong online community of loyal followers. They put the audience first and only promote products that can improve the everyday lives of their visitors.
Every Day Carry does a great job of providing a range of quality content to generate sales and attract new visitors. There’s plenty of monetized affiliate reviews and buying guides, but they also publish detailed interviews and articles to drive organic search engine traffic.
Once they have attracted traffic to their website, they use pop-ups and opt-in boxes to convert as many visitors as possible into subscribers. They earn money almost entirely from promoting Amazon products in their reviews, buyers guides, and email marketing.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 55
Backlinks: 233,454
Moz Rank: 5
Facebook Followers: 75,221
Twitter Followers: 126,200
12. Homegrounds
The coffee industry has seen massive growth over the last two decades, but it’s not just Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts that have been cashing in on the boom in popularity. Recent studies show that there has been a shift in consumer behavior; 70% of Americans now prefer at-home coffee preparation.
Homegrounds has capitalized on the growth of “DIY baristas” by helping people to make better coffee and purchase the best coffee brewing equipment. They publish some of the best problem-solving coffee content around, with brewing tips, recipes, buyers guides, reviews, and comparison articles.
The majority of their traffic comes from ranking organically in search results, but they do a good job of converting website visitors into email subscribers. They make money by promoting products from the ShareASale affiliate network and Amazon Associates.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 51
Backlinks: 5,740
Moz Rank: 4.4
Facebook Followers: 10,234
Twitter Followers: 4,824
13. Equipboard
Equipboard operates in a popular affiliate marketing niche but has a unique selling point to distinguish it from its competitors. They publish reviews, buyers guides, and user-generated content around the products and music gear and equipment that famous musicians use.
They also target the usual “best” and “top 10” affiliate marketing keywords that generate significant search volume. Most of their traffic comes from organic search results, but they also drive traffic from their YouTube channel and do a good job of growing a list of email subscribers to increase their affiliate revenue. Most of their income is generated by promoting Amazon products in their reviews and buyers guides.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 56
Backlinks: 94,726
Moz Rank: 5
Facebook Followers: 13,157
Twitter Followers: 9,015
14. Top Ten Reviews
Top Ten Reviews attracts millions of visitors each month by publishing informative in-depth content on everything from laptops to credit cards. Started back in 2004, Top Ten Reviews has grown to become a colossal affiliate marketing site that employs over 350 staff members and publishes a tremendous amount of content.
As the name suggests, Top Ten Reviews is a review website. It’s essential to be honest with your audience about your affiliate promotion, and they make it clear that they earn a commission on referrals. However, they also put their readers first and only publish honest reviews and recommendations.
They generate the majority of their traffic from organic search results and their email subscriber list, making money through affiliate partnerships with Amazon, Lowes, and other large retailers.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 84
Backlinks: 4,459,154
Moz Rank: 6.3
Facebook Followers: 104,346
Twitter Followers: 11,900
15. The Minimalist Baker
Started by culinary couple John and Diana back in 2012, The Minimalist Baker has achieved massive success in the baking niche. Every month, over 6 million people visit the website to check out the latest recipes, appliance reviews, guides, and cooking courses.
The Minimalist Baker is an excellent lesson in diversifying your sources of traffic. While the majority of their visitors come from organic search results, they have a huge list of email subscribers, around 350,000 Facebook followers, and over 1.8 million Instagram followers.
They sell downloadable cooking courses, but the Amazon affiliate products featured in their online store generate a significant portion of Minimalist Baker’s income.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 76
Backlinks: 1,010,020
Moz Rank: 6.2
Facebook Followers: 349,030
Twitter Followers: 35,300
16. 100 Days of Real Food
If you want to promote Amazon products, you're not restricted to a product review website. Founded by Lisa Leake, 100 Days of Real Food covers all things healthy eating and food-related, and rather than reviewing Amazon products, Lisa promotes her favorite affiliate products on her Resources page.
Lisa’s healthy eating recipes attract visitors from organic search results, but she also has a huge Facebook following and a significant presence on Instagram. 100 Days of Real Food makes money from paid cooking courses but drives considerable income by promoting cooking equipment and accessories sold on Amazon.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 64
Backlinks: 1,055,104
Moz Rank: 5.9
Facebook Following: 1,547,144
Twitter Following: 24,100
17. Consumer Search
Consumer Search is a product review website that covers everything from smartphones to dog toys. They attract nearly 3.5 million visitors every month by publishing honest and detailed reviews on products across a range of different categories.
Getting your audience to trust your recommendations is essential for review websites, and Consumer Search does a great job of creating genuinely helpful and informative content. Alongside the hundreds of reviews, they publish buyers guides to help people choose the right products for their needs. Consumer Search makes money exclusively through affiliate links to Amazon products.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 66
Backlinks: 410,962
Moz Rank: 5.9
Facebook Followers: 22,906
Twitter Followers: 3,124
18. Just a Girl and Her Blog
Abby Lawson started blogging part-time back in 2013. Since then, Just a Girl and Her Blog has become a full-time job for both Abby and her husband. I would always recommend choosing a niche early in your affiliate career, but there are still exceptions that prove the rule. Rather than focusing on a specific niche, Just a Girl and Her Blog publishes content on a range of topics, from productivity and organization to decorating and home crafts.
If you want some inspiration about the earning potential of affiliate marketing, you can check out Abby’s income reports for Just a Girl and Her Blog. She decided to stop posting reports back in December 2016, but you can see how she grew her income from under $1,000 per month in 2013, up to $40,000 per month in 2016. Almost 75% of the revenue from her blog is generated by promoting affiliate offers.
Abby makes money through her online courses and ebooks, but the majority of her income is generated by promoting Amazon products and other affiliate partnerships.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 59
Backlinks: 219,487
Moz Rank: 5.6
Facebook Followers: 30,552
Twitter Followers: 8,195
19. Lucie's List
A great way to start your affiliate marketing career is to look at the challenges that you face in your daily life. If there is something that is a problem for you, there’s a good chance that thousands of other people are experiencing the same issue. Meg Collins, the founder of Lucie’s List, had a difficult pregnancy before her daughter Lucie was born. To help other expecting mothers avoid the mistakes that she made, Meg created Lucie’s List.
With articles and guides on potty training, baby food, and all things an expecting mother needs to know, Lucie’s List has become a popular website in the baby and parenting niche. The site attracts over 180,000 visitors per month, and Meg sends out a regular newsletter to a list of over 430,000 subscribers.
Lucie's List makes money through buyer’s guides and reviews with affiliate links to Amazon products. Meg has expanded her revenue streams by creating her own digital products, with several self-published parenting ebooks on Amazon.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 51
Backlinks: 28,366
Moz Rank: 5.1
Facebook Followers: 95,819
Twitter Followers: 6,462
20. Fatherly
At first glance, Fatherly looks like a magazine-style website for young parents. However, while they bring in a vast amount of visitors through magazine-style articles and high-quality content, they make money by directing that traffic to their monetized affiliate reviews and “best of” articles.
Fatherly highlights the importance of diversifying your content. You don’t need to monetize every piece of content that you publish. You can attract people to your website with SEO optimized quality content, and then direct those visitors to your monetized product reviews and affiliate content.
They make money primarily through their “Gear” section, with hundreds of product reviews, comparisons, and recommendations containing affiliate links to Amazon products.
Key Stats
Domain Authority: 75
Backlinks: 474,324
Moz Rank: 5.7
Facebook Followers: 3,050,934
Twitter Followers: 19,600
Conclusion
That concludes our list of successful affiliate website examples. Now you know what an affiliate website is, how to recognize affiliate marketing online, and how these websites promote their affiliate offers. Hopefully, the above examples have shown you what can be achieved in your affiliate marketing career.
Some of these websites have grown into huge operations that turn over millions of dollars and employ hundreds of members of staff. In contrast, some of the smaller affiliate websites have generated significant income as a part-time side hustle and grown into a full-time income for their owners.
Some people might achieve overnight success using paid promotion, but affiliate marketing is a career choice, not a get rich quick scheme. Hard work and dedication are essential. If you’re willing to put in the work, you’ll start to attract traffic to your website and earn your first commission as an affiliate marketer.
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