How affiliates generate passive income with websites

Affiliate marketing is much more than just sharing a link. Sharing links manually can easily be profitable because of the low cost, but it’s very time-consuming. Every time you share your link, it will take up some of your time. Therefore, you need to be working smart, so you instead can automate your income. This makes it passive income.

The easiest way to automate your income is with a website. This gives you a platform to keep expanding to include different ways to earn your affiliate commissions. It also allows you to spend your time once on content and then continue to use it with all your visitors.

The website doesn’t need to be advanced or has a lot of features. All there’s needed is a basic web design, a few features, and some content. And the best part, you won’t need much to get started and can continue to develop it while you run your business.

For example, if you use articles, you don’t need to write 30 articles before starting. Instead, launch when you have 10 articles and continue to write more after your launch.

So, how can you use a website to make money?

Top 5 Affiliate Website Strategies

1. List Building
2. Content Creation
3. Product Review
4. Product Comparison
5. Online Store

Each strategy has its own pros and cons, but they are all great to generate passive income as an affiliate. The strategies are listed in order of how advanced the website needs to be.

List Building

All you need to get started here is an opt-in page to collect subscribers. It’s a good idea to have a thank-you page in the same design to redirect subscribers. When someone subscribes to your list, you can send them emails with relevant content and affiliate offers.

Doing this will create an asset that you own – The List. This list contains all your leads that are interested in your topic, and you can send them unlimited emails.

You should have something to give away to your subscribers, such as a report or e-book. This bribe will help you attract more subscribers and build your list faster.

Content Creation

This strategy can vary a lot depending on the content that is created. But, this typically requires a complete website to display the content. This can, for example, be a website with articles or a blog, where visitors can access content about a specific niche.

The affiliate offers are then integrated into the content. This can be done in different ways but typically works best with hyperlinks or buttons in the content. Banner ad integration is also a great way to attract people to click.

Good content is great for search engines and can bring you steady traffic. The content is also perfect for sharing on social media, forums, etc. It can be very powerful when sharing the content with people who want to solve the affiliate offer problems.

Product Review

The product review strategy can easily be part of the content creation strategy above but is also powerful as a stand-alone solution. The reviews can be made both by the website owner or by the visitors. It can also be a combination of a long review, and visitors can comment below and give their review.

Another example could be TripAdvisor​, where it’s only visitors who leave reviews. Here they earn affiliate commissions from booking services such as flights and hotels.

A simple strategy is to find a niche, test some affiliate offers, and write a long in-depth review of the results, quality, experience, and so forth. This also works great in video format and can be shared on YouTube.

Product Comparison

Comparing products and services is a great way to attract visitors that are very close to buying a product. People typically look for this information right before they purchase, so it’s a high-quality visitor that is easier to convert.

The comparison can be made using a table, but many plug-and-play features will help make this much easier. This gives visitors a valuable overview of prices, features, pros/cons, and more.

All this can be used as a feature for the content creation strategy. But it can also be taken to hotel booking websites like Agoda and Hotels.com.

Online Store

In this strategy, you will need an online store with affiliate features. It’s like a traditional online store but with affiliate products. When customers click the buy button, they get redirected to the real website, for example, Walmart or Amazon, ready to buy the product.

The best part about this kind of online store is that there’s no inventory, customer service, or management of returned products. Just affiliate commissions on sales.

However, this strategy typically works best for physical products. But, it can also work well with digital products and services.

Final Words

As you go further down the list, you are required more work on the website, but you can also benefit much more. My recommendation is to start at the top and go from there. When you’ve mastered one, you can take on the next. You can even end up using all the 5 strategies on the same website.

It’s truly amazing how little you need to get a long-term sustainable business with affiliate marketing. Only an opt-in page?!

All strategies can be used in any niche but will work best in some niches. And, remember to always do your research before you jump out in a new niche.