Wondering how to rank an affiliate website? Whether you can rank an affiliate site or not will depend on a couple of main things:
- The search competition for the keyword or phrase you’re targeting
- How much time and effort you’re prepared to put in
Before going after a keyword domain name and building your site around it, it’s worth doing your research first. Will your site even have a chance of ranking at the top of Google? If not, it’s really not worth putting in months of effort just to see it fail. Of course Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo are also search engines too! Don’t they get a say? Most of the search traffic comes from Google, but yes you will get some traffic from other search engines too. And often with a lot less effort than with Google!
It’s worth mentioning that a keyword targeted domain name isn’t the be-all, end-all of building a niche site that ranks. But it can help to give you site a slight advantage.
How To Rank An Affiliate Website – Research
Before building an affiliate website it’s worth doing some research. (See keyword research for niche sites). You’ll want your topic to have enough monthly searches to make it worth your while. Ideally, choose a topic which is close to your heart. That way, you’ll be able to build a lot of content around your niche.
Choose something which you at least have an interest in. There’s nothing worse than building a site around a topic you have zero affection for. Remember you’ll be spending a lot of time creating content to rank your affiliate site. So you better make it enjoyable. See also highest paying affiliate niches for viable topics which are more likely to money.
I made the mistake of building a site around a topic I had no interest in. I was determined to rank a site and earn affiliate commissions from it. So I chose the topic of garlic harvesting after a fellow affiliate told me he had some success from a potato themed site! I got creative with my keyword research and came up with Whentoharvestgarlic.com.
I did rank my site after spending several months on it, but it was hard to monetise and I had to research every article I wrote, which wasn’t fun. After a few months I was burned out and didn’t want to work on it any more. It quickly fell off the search rankings and disappeared!
How To Rank An Affiliate Website – Competition
Choosing a topic is the hardest thing when it comes to ranking an affiliate website. With a competitive topic, such as affiliate marketing, you’ll have your work cut out. It’s tough in a competitive niche.
Expect a long road if you choose a topic which is competitive. On the other hand, less competitive niches (such as mushroom harvesting) are harder to monetise and aren’t evergreen. An evergreen niche will have traffic all year round. Whereas a topic like garlic harvesting is seasonal. So half the year you won’t even get any traffic!
Once you have chosen a topic to build a site around, use Google’s keyword planner to choose a keyword which is suitable. You can pick a domain name with your keyword in it. I have had some success with this strategy although it’s not entirely necessary. Google uses multiple data points to decide where to rank a site; a keyword in the domain name is just one of them. As to how much weight they put on it is anyone’s guess. I’m guessing very little but it can make a difference.
Ideally you want a keyword which gets traffic (use Google’s keyword planner) and has fewer competing websites/pages than most.
Purchase Your Domain Name & Hosting
Once you’ve picked out a suitable keyword, buy your domain name (with keyword in it) and build your site. I use WordPress to build my niche sites. Get an SEO plugin (I use Yoast SEO) and start creating content.
To find keyword ideas for your content go to your original “seed” keyword which you used to build your site. Type your keyword into the planner and you should see a bunch of other related keywords. Write content for each of these keywords in turn. Ideally, pick out those keywords which offer the least competition first. To find which these are, look at them on a normal Google search and under a phrase match for the same keywords (see image above and below).
The number you see below your search bar should give you some idea of the relative competition for these keywords. You’ll also be able to scroll down and see the kinds of websites and content which rank for these terms. As you do more of this, you’ll get a better feel for what works and what doesn’t. But it’s not an exact science and sometimes it’s just a little trial and error.
Ideally concentrate on writing great content. Try an outdo other content which is ranking highly. Google likes good content. If you spam your site full of affiliate links, don’t expect Google to look kindly on you. Ideally, leave your affiliate links off until you start generating some traction. Focus on providing value rather than selling your affiliate products.
Back linking To Your Content
Google uses a large number of data points to determine whether or not to rank a site. By choosing your keyword carefully before you start out, you’re giving yourself the best possible chance based on lower levels of competition. But this isn’t a fool proof strategy and you’ll still need to create some good content and build your site out.
If you concentrate on building good content, you’re also giving your site a better chance. Don’t rush content because it’s the next most important thing after your chosen topic/keywords. Use an SEO plugin to help you write content which is SEO friendly.
Build backlinks to your content from other satellite websites, article submission sites and through posting links on social media. You can also use Postplanner to automate submissions on social media. Nextscripts is another cool plugin which automatically shares your content throughout your social media sites when you post a new piece of content on your site.
It’s also worth using a social media share plugin, so people can easily share your content when they find it.
Keep Building
Depending on your chosen keyword, the relative competition and how hard and long you work at this strategy for, you can get some traffic developing within a few months. Don’t expect miracles though and expect to keep working for the longer term if you want to generate a healthy stream of traffic.
Work on link building and on content marketing every day for several months. Over time you should see some traffic. Turn traffic into leads with a good benefit driven lead magnet and then turn your leads into customers with a good email marketing strategy.
Think long term and keep going. That’s how to rank an affiliate website!