Affiliate Tips For Making Money With WordPress and the Genesis Theme Framework

At many of my recent online business ventures I would get affiliate program applications daily from all sort of people. Some are seasoned veterans in the world of affiliate marketing, but most are people who just set up their first site and simply want to link to products we offered with an affiliate link in their footer or put up an affiliate banner in their sidebar with the hopes of generating some extra monthly income. This post will focus mostly on the latter and provide a general guide to becoming a more successful affiliate marketer while using tools like WordPress and the StudioPress Genesis Theme Framework.

Setting Up A Professional Web Presence

One of the most important factors in creating a successful online presence is setting up a professional looking website that not only looks great, but functions great as well. Obviously I’m biased, but no matter what platform you use (I suggest WordPress) or what theme you decide to go with (I suggest StudioPress themes) you should make sure it’s something that’s powerful enough to create the site you want, yet simple enough for you to manage. WordPress is just that. It’s powerful enough as a CMS (content management system) yet easy enough to use that if you’re familiar with Microsoft Word you can probably make your way around WordPress with ease.

When setting up a WordPress site for affiliate marketing purposes or even simply for your personal blog there are a few important factors to keep in mind…

Find a solid web host.
Some web hosting companies work better with WordPress than others. I’ve compiled a list of my favorite WordPress web hosting companies. These companies specialize in WordPress hosting and have features like one click installs and solid support.

Stay Up To Date
Keep your sites WordPress install and theme up to date to get the most out of it and of course for security. (WordPress and the Genesis Theme Framework which I use to run this and other sites I own both now come with auto update features.)

Site Layout
Layout your sites content so visitors can easily find things. Sometimes less is more. Genesis comes with 6 default layout options built right in along with dozens of stylish child themes.

Web Analytics
Use web analytics software like Google Analytics to track your sites visitors and gain important information into how well your keywords, marketing and advertising are performing on Google and other search engines.

Content Is King
I’m sure a lot of you have heard this before, but it’s just so true. Writing fresh, daily content that your visitors will appreciate and link to along with writing content that is keyword rich will keep not only visitors coming back, but will also attract search engines like Google to continually crawl your site.

A good rule of thumb is to write a catchy title to your posts that will grab the attention of readers. You should also keep your posts informative, but fairly short and to the point if possible. Sometimes that’s hard like in a post like this where you’re giving advice, but try to stay on point. You probably only have the readers attention for a short time so make the most out of it. Using a nice graphic doesn’t hurt either. It’s a great eye catcher.

Find A Niche. Dominate the hell out of it. Then dominate another one.
One thing I learned a long time ago is to “never put all your eggs into one basket.” It’s much easier to dominate multiple smaller niches than it is to try and be one huge site that caters to everything. If you’re goal is to generate $10k/month in revenue… it’s much easier at the beginning to have 10 sites generating $1k/month than it is to have 1 site making all $10k. If one of the sites eventually takes off and is outperforming the others then it completely makes sense to focus more on developing that site.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

While your most important aspect of content creation should be aimed at generating visitors that will continually return towards your site… you should also focus on a few basics that will help search engines like Google to continually return and crawl your site. StudioPress and the Genesis Theme Framework have powerful SEO options built right in so no need for a 3rd party plugin. To find out more visit the post titled Genesis 1.3 Rocks for SEO. Also, using a helpful plugin like Scribe SEO in combination with the built in SEO tools allows you to optimize each page/post before publishing.

Follow these basic SEO steps and you’ll be well on your way to generating quality traffic through search engines…

• Create rich title tags and informative descriptions on pages/posts.
• SEO friendly urls. Otherwise known in WordPress as “pretty permalinks”.
• Mask affiliate links and use no follow tags.
• Link to other pages within your site using keyword rich words.
• Gain high quality incoming links from trusted sites by writing great content.
• Use an XML and user sitemap. (XML WordPress sitemaps)

Advertising, Marketing and Communication

Many people think they can just throw up links on Google Adwords or banners on any site and they’ll start making tons of money. This just simply isn’t true and more importantly not cost effective. The best way to generate traffic that converts to sales is through inexpensive means like great content, solid SEO work and using free tools like social media.

Whatever your affiliate site is based on… Stay up to date on recent news in that industry by following people and companies through RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook etc… Also make sure to interact with those people. Don’t spam! If what you’re saying is honest and informative, people will see that and visit your site. Engage your social media followers and others talking about the similar topics. This is such a powerful tool that many leave unused and will most definitely lead to new readers and followers.

Once you start generating traffic using the tips above make sure to engage your readers and followers. If someone posts a comment on your site make sure to respond. This makes the reader feel appreciated and creates a relationship between yourself and them and most importantly will probably get them to come back to your site and/or tell others about it.

If you do decide to pay for advertising make sure you really research the sites traffic, top keywords it ranks for and obviously if the price warrants a purchase. Also make sure to stay focused like I mentioned earlier. No reason to advertise StudioPress themes on a golf site unless they have a theme that compliments the readers of that site.

Last, but certainly not least… Create a call to action. After all in the end your main goal is convert a visitor to an affiliate commission. Easiest way to do this is to identify a problem and present a product that solves that problem. I already did a one above for you. Did you catch it? Although subtle I presented that some hosting companies might not play nice with WordPress and then suggested a list of our favorite web hosting companies through a link. Now in this case I’ve actually used them previously and really do suggest these companies, but what I did is get you to think about your current hosting company and to take a look at who I suggest and work with. A call to action can be as simple and subtle as this or could be a contact form, email newsletter sign up. All you’re trying to do is suggest a direction to your users and make it easy for them to follow that direction.

I hope some of these tips help you in your affiliate marketing efforts. I’m sure it’s not a complete list so I would love to hear other suggestions in the comments below.

So now that you have a few basics and you’re ready to turn your WordPress site into some extra monthly income… browse the StudioPress Themes to help create a professional site and join the StudioPress Affiliate Program now.