AngelaIn this post I am going to take you through everything you need to build your own money making online affiliate niche blog. This is a potentially very lucrative side hustle but only if you are willing to put the work in.
The idea is fairly simple when it comes to affiliate niche blogs, create useful content for your target audience. If you answer the right questions to search queries and present them correctly to Google, you will start to get traffic.
Once you have traffic this can be monetized in the form of ads and affiliate marketing schemes.
Word of warning though, this is not a get rich quick scheme, you have to do lots of work upfront and might not see results until months after.
However it is a low cost side hustle to start, with hosting costing just $3.95 per month with my recommended provider Bluehost.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.
What Is An Affiliate Niche Blog?
A Niche blog is a website that specializes in creating useful content for a specific subject. There are circa 3.5 billion searches everyday on Google and its your aim to get a tiny slice of that traffic.
The way you do that is by trying to answer peoples search queries with high quality and useful blog posts (like this post😀).
Once you have regular daily traffic coming to your site you can start to monetize it. Realistically you need to get hundreds of visitors per day before starting to see any decent income.
Forget the notion of making an online diary, this is not what I am talking about here.
We are talking about a website that helps people solve problems and answer questions. This could be personally branded site called "Dave's DIY Site" or niche specific like "The Pug Dog Blog".
How Do Blogs Make Money?
There are two main ways to earn money from a blog, these are displaying adverts and linking to affiliate marketing schemes.
Display adverts are fairly self explanatory and involve displaying banners on your site from an ad network like Google Adsense.
Affiliate marketing involves directing traffic to other companies products or services. If they make a sale you get a commission, popular affiliate marketing networks include ShareASale, Amazon Affiliates and Commission Junction.
Other Ways To Make Money Blogging
In this guide I have just focused on making money from ads and affiliate marketing. However there are other methods you could try at a later stage. I have listed them below.
Once you have regular traffic, these will likely make you more money than ads if done correctly.
- Creating online courses and workshops
- Build an email list
- Write a related book/eBook
- Speaking at industry conferences
- Offering to coach or help your audience
- Selling related services
- Add an eCommerce store selling print on demand merchandise.
- Find corporate blog sponsors
Example of a Niche?
An example affiliate niche blog might be a site dedicated to Jet Ski lovers. You could answer common questions like "How fast do Jet Skis Go" and "Jet Ski Injuries and how to avoid them".
You don't need to already be an expert because you can become one while researching. That being said you will find it much easier writing about something you already know about or have a passion for.
Why not check out a domain you have thought of to see if its available?
How To Build A Niche Affiliate Blog
Time needed: 2 hours
Now we are going to get started covering all the steps you need to take to build your blog.
The method I am going to cover is for a self hosted WordPress.org blog. Including how to set up the hosting correctly using the same service this site uses Bluehost.
There are other methods but this is the way I recommend you do it for long terms success.
These are the same steps and methods I used to build the Side Hustle site.
- Pick a Niche Subject
Before actually setting up your site you need to pick a niche around which your blog will be based. This needs to be a specific niche subject but not too narrow.
Blog niche Examples
- Gardening For Small Gardens
- Nintendo Switch Gamers
- Over 50's Female Fitness
Bad Blog Examples
- Baseball (Too large)
- Best 20" Flat Screen TVs (too narrow)
If you want to see what type of traffic your niche idea is getting, there are some free tools available.
My favorite free keyword tool is Uber Suggest by Neil Patel.
You can also use Google’s Keyword Planner to find the volume of searches of given phrases.
- Set Up Hosting & Domain
Once you have your niche and have researched keywords, you are now ready to set up your site.
The hosting service I use myself and recommend for best cost and service for new bloggers is Bluehost.
Features & Benefits
- FREE Domain Name for 1st Year
- FREE SSL Certificate Included
- 1-Click WordPress Install
- 24/7 Support
- 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
Bluehost has been recommended by WordPress.org since 2005.
By using Bluehost, you receive all the power of WordPress along with innovative plugins, themes, and seamless 3rd party integrations.
CLICK HERE TO SET UP YOUR WORDPRESS BLOG
You can either select a new domain within Bluehost or import your own existing domain.
- After Purchasing WordPress Shared Hosting, how do I get started?
Once you've completed your account set up, you can follow the prompts to pick a theme.
Your new account is automatically connected to the latest version of WordPress. Just login to your customer dashboard and find your new site waiting for you to start editing.
If you need help or would like guidance on creating, designing, or promoting your new website or blog, their team of WordPress experts are available 24/7 to help you every step of the way.
I am not going to cover how to use WordPress, it is a huge subject all in itself.
If you are a beginner I would recommend you head over to: https://www.wpbeginner.com/ - Recommended WordPress Plugins
One of the best things about WordPress is the massive number of free and paid plugins.
They are vital to you setting up a successful WordPress blog
I am not an expert but the plugins below I found very useful for my blogs.
Yoast SEO By Team Yoast
The first true all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more.
Login LockDown By Michael VanDeMar
Adds some extra security to WordPress by restricting the rate at which failed logins can be re-attempted from a given IP range.
LuckyWP Table of Contents By LuckyWP
Creates a table of contents for your posts/pages. Works automatically or manually (via shortcode, Gutenberg block or widget).
Make Tables Responsive By Nikolay Nikolov
Automatically makes the HTML tables in your posts, pages, and widgets to be responsive (mobile-friendly).
Really Simple SSL By Rogier Lankhorst, Mark Wolters
Lightweight plugin without any setup to make your site SSL proof
Smush By WPMU DEV
Reduce image file sizes, improve performance and boost your SEO using the free WPMU DEV WordPress Smush API.
UpdraftPlus - Backup/Restore By UpdraftPlus.Com
Backup and restore: take backups locally, or backup to Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, (S)FTP, WebDAV & email, on automatic schedules.
ThirstyAffiliates By Caseproof
ThirstyAffiliates is a revolution in affiliate link management. Collect, collate and store your affiliate links for use in your posts and pages.
There are lots more that may be useful but these are the ones I have seen most benefit from. - Add Authority Pages
It is recommended you have certain pages on your blog before you start adding content.
Not only does it create a better experience for visitors but Google is increasingly putting more weight on site Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust (E-A-T).
About - Google guidelines state is that it should be clear who is responsible for the information on your site.
Author Profile - This is built into WordPress, make sure you create one for yourself, fill in Biographical Info and add a photo.
Contact Us - Ideally have multiple ways for visitors to contact you.
Disclosure - If you plan to have affiliate links on your site, you need a disclosure page.
Privacy Policy - Must have, GDPR etc etc.
All these will give signals to your users and Google that your site is more trustworthy.
This in turn can help your site rank better on search engines. - Site Structure
It is very difficult to change the structure of your site later on. So you need to think about it right at the beginning.
My recommendation would be to think of 2-4 main categories for your niche and set them up under Posts > Categories.
These main categories will sit on your sites menu and every new post will sit under one of them.
When you get more posts later on you can add sub-categories under each one.
For example the categories on this site are:
- Print On Demand - Sub Categories - How To Guides, Reviews
- Books
- E-Com
- Extra Income
Tags are less important but can be useful to link related content on your niche blog. - Write Your First Blog Post
You are now ready to write your first post, hurrah!! This is where the hard work begins.
Use the Yoast SEO plugin to guide the structure of your posts. It will tell you if you don't have enough Headers or if keywords are missing etc.
If you want to target a certain keyword, then search for it and see what comes up. You should then try to create a piece of content that is better than what is already on page one of Google. Ideally your posts should be over 1500 words (min 1000 words).
Finally create, create, create and ignore the lack of traffic initally.
Realistically Google will not start to rank your content for 6 months.
To be successful in blogging you need a massive amount of PATIENCE.
Good luck, see below for more useful resources.
How To Build A 6-Figure Affiliate Website
Are you are looking for a course to walk you through all the steps of creating your own affilaite blog?
Then why not check out Freedom Seekers course, How To Build A 6-Figure Affiliate Website.
Useful Blogging Resources
Here is a list of useful resources that I use to help build my blogs.
Bluehost Shared WordPress Hosting - The same hosting service I use for my sites, the customer service is great in my experience.
Moz - Beginners Guide to SEO - Legendary guide to learn about SEO a must read for beginners.
Uber Suggest By Neil Patel - Neil is a legend when it comes to internet marketing and SEO. His free keyword tool is my favorite
Just Start Sub Reddit - This is a goldmine of information on niche blogging, study it and be amazed
Google Search Console - Vital tool make sure you submit your sitemap to Google. The Yoast SEO Plugin will generate a sitemap for you.
If you have any questions, please add them to the comments below.
