Do you need a website for affiliate marketing? While the answer is technically no, you don’t, a website is a good idea for a number of reasons. Without a website, you can join any affiliate program, get your affiliate link, and paste it around the internet on your social media platforms. Post it on your bio, post in in your feed of any number of social media platforms. Once you’ve grown tired of doing that, you might decide you need to do something else, because it might not be working.
A long affiliate link isn’t that attractive, and although you can shorten it using any of the link shortening services, it’s still a meaningless link unless you build some context around it (such as a website). A website gives you some kind of authority and it’s a meaningful way in which to create some context around your affiliate links, and help you audience make a decision about something.
Websites offer a cheap method of marketing too. Without a website you’re going to need to do a lot more work or pay for your marketing, which can get expensive.
Do You Need A Website For Affiliate Marketing?
Even if you decide to use paid advertising as an affiliate, some platforms will insist you have an “authority site” of your own.
An authority site shows that you’re not just sending paid ads to another company, as affiliates tend to do. It shows you have some kind of meaningful role (authority) in your own right. Google has an advertising policy about “bridging” which means sending traffic directly to an affiliate offer. This can make it difficult to get your start as an affiliate without a website of your own.
Many affiliates will use landing pages rather than a website and you can even join programs which give you the tools and software to set everything up using a simple step by step – join a program here.
Do You Need A Website For Affiliate Marketing?
This website is used to bridge the gap between a customer and a product and I use blogging as a means of marketing. Without a website, you can still do this using a free blogging platform such as Hubpages.com or Blogger.com. There’s several other ways you can market affiliate products on the internet. So if you don’t want a website there’s always a way. Checkout these 22 ways to promote affiliate products online.
Still, a website will give you a cheap method of marketing online, where it’s becoming all the more crowded and difficult to stand out. why give yourself a disadvantage when you should be using all the tools at your disposal to create your success? After all affiliate marketing isn’t easy and around 95% of affiliates fail.
Without A Website Strategies & Tactics?
Without a website there’s several strategies you can employ as an affiliate marketer. You can use free blogging platforms as mentioned such as blogger.com or Hubpages.com. I first started out using blogging platforms which were completely free. However there’s some downsides to these platforms. They don’t give you the same authority as you would get from your own website and you’re bound to their rules. This can mean you’re not allowed to post affiliate links on some platforms. Your visibility is more limited than it would from your own blog as search engines don’t index free blog platforms as well as they would your own site.
Video Blogging
Another strategy you can use is with a video platform such as YouTube or TikTok. One of our community members went viral using TikTok doing a funny video and sold thousands of products from it through their affiliate link. Or use a social media platform to build trust and post your links. There’s various ways you can do this; checkout my post on unpaid social media marketing.
One strategy is to use Twitter to post tweets regularly on your subject. Connect with people who are interested in your topic and use your profile to post your affiliate link. If you’re going without a website and only have your affiliate link, it’s a good idea to forward it to a website domain, just for the added context and authority it gives you. A long messy link looks less enticing than a clear website link which gives your product more context and authority. See also how to promote affiliate links without a website.
Summary
While you technically can do affiliate marketing without a website, if you’re serious it’s definitely a good idea to get a website. Websites can of course be used in different ways too and not all websites perform the same function. This site, for example is used for blogging whereas another site I own I use with paid marketing. A blog website is a good cheap way to generate free traffic, but it takes some time and commitment in order to build it up.
Another way to use a website for affiliate marketing is through building an authority site used in conjunction with a paid marketing platform such as Google Ads, YouTube or Facebook. Send targeted traffic directly to a website to sell your product or collect email subscribers.
Depending on your products and services, a direct link website (to the affiliate product) may be more appropriate. Building an email list is very useful because it allows you to build relationships over time. Selling directly from a link is hard. But building relationships helps build trust. Research shows that most online purchases have been the result of several touch points. See also how many touch points before a sale.
