How To Start Your Own Affiliate Niche Site
In this article we deal with the basics of creating your own niche site, which is then monetized via affiliate marketing. In doing so, we will go into more detail on the following questions:
- What does it take?
- What is the basic process behind it?
- How do I choose a niche?
- How do I write content?
In principle, it is quite enough to have content and several affiliate products. However, for the whole project on various little things are necessary. These are among others:
- Web hosting
- Domain
- Online marketing tools (Google Analytics, Search Console, etc.)
- Theme
- Various plugins
- Content
- Enough time
What is the basic process for affiliate niche sites?
The ultimate goal is to generate ongoing revenue in the form of affiliate commissions with our affiliate site. But to do that, we first need a website with appropriate content.
You can imagine the process like this:
User searches in the search engine for a keyword → he reaches your niche site → he reads your content → he clicks on one of your affiliate links → he buys the product → you get a commission for it (affiliate commission)
As we can see, the basic process is not particularly complicated. We just have to make sure that we bring enough traffic to our site — for example via SEO — and that the content also has relevance to the user’s search term. This means that if someone searches for water bottles in Google & Co. for example, they will also find content about water bottles on your website (if you are ranked high in the SERPs). Finally, you only need suitable affiliate products to be able to generate income with them.
How do I choose my niche?
There are several factors that can influence the decision of the appropriate niche:
- Write content yourself or rather outsource it?
- Competition
- Number of affiliate offers
- Possible commission level
Let’s start to take a closer look at the respective factors.
Factor #1 “Write content yourself or rather outsource it?”
If you want to write the content yourself, then it’s incredibly important to write about a topic that you’re comfortable with as well. Let’s say you decide to create a niche site on the topic of “water bottles”, but you have no interest at all in this area or this product. At this point you can already imagine how difficult it will be to fill a whole website with content. We are talking about at least 20,000 words, which is a good start for a small niche site.
If you decide to take the outsourcing approach, you won’t care whether you are interested in the niche or not. Because at the end of the day, it is the external service provider who writes your content for you.
Factor #2 “Competition”
In principle, existing competition in the respective niche is not immediately a knockout criterion. We could also look at competition as an opportunity. Because if there is already some, this is now a pure assumption, then the probability increases that revenue can be generated with it. After all, very few people create niche sites for fun.
Now, however, there is a difference between “competition” and “competition”. What is meant by this is that if you can only identify a few competitors, that is not yet a great shortcoming. However, if we find niche page after niche page about our desired topic, we should think twice about getting a foothold in that niche as well.
Factor #3 “Number of affiliate offers”
If we decide to buy water bottles, for example, we need to find suitable affiliate offers for them. However, if we find out that there are only a few affiliate offers for this product, this is not a very good sign. The reason for this is that there are fewer alternatives available. Let’s say we decide on an affiliate offer that is attractive enough from our point of view. Then we promote it for several months and the company that distributes the product decides to close the doors in terms of affiliate marketing. Thus, we have to look for new offers. However, this does not necessarily mean that the conditions at the new affiliate offer are as good as those of the previous one. Thus, one should always pay attention to whether there are also enough affiliate offers. This way you run less of a risk of clumping.
Factor #4 “Possible commission amount”
The commission amount is also a relevant factor. Because if we were to promote water bottles, for example, we can in all likelihood expect very low commissions. This means that we might get 2–3$ per water bottle that costs 20$ in sales — if at all.
Now we could make an example calculation at this point:
Projected traffic per month to our niche site: 10,000.
Expected bounce rate: 50%
Expected CTR on our affiliate links: 5%
Expected conversion rate: 5%
If you take a closer look at this scheme and do the math, you end up with around 13 people who also buy the water bottle. Extrapolated with the commission amount we are then at approx. 26$ (minimum) or 39$ (maximum). For some people this amount is less attractive — understandably.
So you should always make sure to promote products that promise a slightly higher commission.
Content writing
In the niche site scene, people like to differentiate between different types of niche sites. There are so-called micro and authority niche sites. It is not possible to say exactly when a niche site is micro or authority. However, the number of content on the niche page is the main factor that determines whether it is a micro or authority niche page.
Small niche sites, or also called micro niche sites, start at about 20,000 words.
Larger or authority niche pages can easily contain over 100,000 words.
This is just my interpretation. As I said before, there are different opinions about when a niche site is “micro” or “authority”.
In general, writing content for a niche site changes a lot compared to blogging. Because here it is almost essential to do extensive keyword research. After all, we need to be able to estimate in advance how much traffic we can expect to receive.
Once we have found the respective keywords, it is important to write the content SEO-optimized. Since niche sites in most cases “live” from organic or SEO traffic, it is important to wait in this regard and in the meantime to operate appropriate off-page SEO measures, such as backlinking.
Final thoughts
Niche sites still represent a huge potential in my opinion. After all, the bottom line is that you might think that they will be around as long as there are products and their associated affiliate offers. For every product or product niche, you could theoretically create your own niche page. Of course, this has a huge advantage: we have a corresponding scaling potential with niche pages. Perhaps one does not yet achieve the desired financial results with the first niche page. But the more niche sites we can call our own, the more the income is likely to increase.
The entire process has only been briefly described in this article. In fact, there would be a lot more aspects to consider. Along with this, niche sites in most cases turn out to be very labor-intensive. However, in my opinion, one should always compare the possible return. At the beginning, you almost always have to reckon with a correspondingly long “dry phase”. In this phase one should not count on income. But with time, especially when the SEO rankings improve, niche sites often perform profitably.
Disclaimer
This article/blog post and the information it contains is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered financial or legal advice or the like. Not all information is accurate/correct. Before making any major (financial/legal) decision, please consult a financial or legal professional.
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