The Basics of How to Make Money with Affiliate Niche Sites

The concept of affiliate marketing is quite simple — refer a user from your web site / blog to another site and if they make a purchase or take action, you will earn a commission from it. The concept of a niche site is also quite simple… focus your time and effort on creating a very niche specific site loaded with high quality content and rank organically for relevant long tail keywords.

Again, the concepts are simple… however they don’t always seem to pan out as successfully as we like. So why is this?

In most cases, it’s not the business model that isn’t a success, it’s the process of how you get there. Way too many online marketers and bloggers are focused on the concept of “creating content” for their niche sites and not focusing on the content promotion and link building, which is the real meat of any successful niche site.

To make money with a niche site, you need to have traffic. Usually this traffic comes from free organic search rankings. The formula still works today just like it did a decade ago, however there is a TON more competition and Google isn’t just allowing any sites to rank like they used to.

The Many Different Approaches to Creating Niche Sites

As mentioned, the formula is still the same… but how you get there is always changing. There are plenty of online courses out there for how to best create simple niche sites and make a profit from them, however they all have their own theories and formulas on what works best.

Simple Sites Big Profits is one such course, which gives users step-by-step instructions how the concept of creating niche sites can bring in a recurring source of income on a daily basis. How much can your site earn? Well, that all comes down to the niche focus, traffic to your site and how much time and effort you put into it — all valid points that the course material tries to help you achieve.

Marcus Campbell is the man behind Simple Sites Big Profits and he’s been able to make a decent amount of money in the past by searching out niche markets, building tiny sites around the concept and getting them to rank in the search results. This all goes back to the concept of building very simple sites, but also putting in the work to realize what niche markets to go after and which to stay away from. It’s not just about creating a niche site, it’s about building content out that you can rank, while also hitting your target audience while they are in “buying mode”.

This all worked fine and dandy until Google came around and slapped his little niche business off the map, taking his earnings per day from $1,000+ down to around $100-$200. This wasn’t the end for Marcus however… instead it was just a realization that the model works, but how he got there had to change. Through his Simple Sites Big Profits course, Marcus walks you through the process of how to search out hidden niche markets, while also going through the process of looking at their competition, profitability and the best way to build a small targeted site around each niche focus.

Some of the material within the course is dated and goes back a few years, but again… the model is still the same, it’s just a matter of how you get there. The course material is broken down into 9 different steps, while also offering mini-guides, resources and tutorials along the way.

The Steps to Create a Successful Niche Site

Inside Simple Sites Big Profits, you will gain access to the members area and be able to walk your way through the course material as you like. While Marcus uses many different examples of niche markets to go after, the process behind each of them follows this actionable 9-step formula.

1. Finding a Niche
   It’s not just about choosing any niche, it’s about going after one that has low competition, is easy to rank and also has a method of monetization.
2. Finding Offers to Promote
   Affiliate marketing, Amazon and Google Adsense are two of the best methods when trying to monetize a niche site.
3. Traffic Sources
   While organic search traffic is always the best method for a niche site, paid advertising opportunities also exist.
4. Creating Your Site
   Through the use of WordPress and easy to use site builders, it’s never been easier to create simple niche sites with high quality content.
5. Get Traffic to Your Site
   Writing content for your niche site will only get you so far, you need to actively build backlinks, use social media and reach new audiences on a daily basis.
6. Building Out Quality Content
   When building content for your site, focus on the long tail keywords you want to rank for, while also providing quality and giving the user an end call to action.
7. Setting Up Google Analytics and Campaign Tracking
   Knowing who is visiting your site and where they are coming from is crucial. Google Analytics is one of the best ways to monitor these data points.
8. Increasing Backlinks to Your Site
   To effectively rank higher in the search results, you will need to actively increase backlinks to your site. Without backlinks, you will need to rely on paid advertising.
9. Replicating the Process
   Once you’ve been able to find success with one niche site, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to replicate it again.

Other topics covered within the course includes a directory of recommended affiliate networks, how to reduce your advertising costs through Google Adwords, creating attractive ads for your campaign and also how to setup a mailing list for longterm revenue and repeat visitors to your sites.

Using these same methods, Marcus continually provides examples and screenshots of his own sites and their success. You can see one of them below.

When you look at the screenshot above, you might be thinking… how can you possibly make $320 off just 20 clicks and 4 conversions? Well, I’ll tell you.

With 4 conversions in place, it means the site is earning $80 per lead. Seeing high commission payouts like this is usually common in the financial / forex space (as shown from the OfferVault chart below), so let’s assume that is the type of offer that was being run.

The high conversion would come down to the content that is found on the site and the keywords it’s organically ranking for. “Organically” is important to note because when someone is actually searching for something within Google, they are genuinely interested and ready to take action, buy or sign up.

For example… if you ranked for a keyword like “how to make money with forex trading” or “top forex trading services“, and had a site that provided a great case study or tutorial that broke down of how the service/process worked, anyone who read through your whole site and ultimately your affiliate offer link at the end of the post — well, they would have a much higher conversion rate that someone else just randomly hitting your site.

Another example of this is if you were to create a “credit repair” niche site… but focusing only on people searching for “how to repair 320 credit score“. It’s SUPER niche and the competition is very low… but people are searching for it every day. Create a niche site around that topic and promote a credit repair service and you could start making a few leads per month on auto-pilot after spending some time on the site.

This model will work with any niche, it’s just a matter of going deep enough, yet still having enough volume to make it worthwhile.

Niche Sites are Always Going to Make Money

At the end of the day, niche sites are always going to make money… just like Google is going to continually moderate and penalize sites that lack in quality content. The goal is to find yourself somewhere in the middle where you can build out multiple sites that rank well, while keeping Google happy and providing value to your audience in the process. The concept stays the same… the process of how you get there just continues to change.

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