Do You Need A Website For Affiliate Marketing?

The thought of setting up a website often strikes fear into the heart of many beginner marketers. In fact, many prefer to do affiliate marketing without setting up a website. Their plan is to direct traffic directly to their affiliate link which will then lead to the product’s sales page.

Very often, this method fails because most visitors do not convert to buyers on the first visit. Once they leave, the affiliate loses the chance to contact them again because he/she didn’t set up a squeeze page to capture their email or a website that provided the visitor value.

In order to make money as an affiliate marketer, you do need a website. Is it crucial? It depends on what your marketing style is.

For the most part, yes… it is crucial.

Ideally, even a simple website with a squeeze page, confirmation page and a sales funnel are sufficient. You can add the bells and whistles later on.

You might be thinking of setting up a free blog on WordPress.com or Blogger.com. However, it would be better to purchase your own domain name and hosting. There are some small expenses involved but these are investments that will pay dividends many times over in the future.

So, why should you create your own website?

It does seem easier to direct traffic to your affiliate link. One reason is that this style of marketing is getting more and more difficult to do. You can’t use Google Adwords to direct traffic to an affiliate link. Many marketers have lost their Adwords account due to this.

Even YouTube videos insist that your link lead to your site and not be an affiliate link. So, even simple link direction is becoming difficult.

However, this shouldn’t be your reason for setting up a site.

You have immense power over your affiliate marketing when you have your own web property. You can create content and target long-tail keywords.

You can create squeeze pages to capture visitor emails. You can even purchase PLR products and sell them as your own products.

The possibilities are much more varied when you have your own site. The more possibilities you have, the more monetization opportunities will be available to you.

This is crucial to building a strong online income.

There are affiliate marketers with hundreds of websites that they have built over time or outsourced to people to build for them. An affiliate marketer who promotes products to people he or she has built a relationship with is much more likely to make sales.

The best affiliates have a very good rapport with their subscribers. They provide information, useful tips, content, videos, etc.

Guess where most of these content is hosted on? Yup… it’s on their blog or website. Without a website, you will be severely limited.

Of course, you could write long emails… but it would all seem more attractive and professional on your own website.

You could use attractive graphics, videos and of course, sprinkle your post with links to your affiliate products.

By now, you should be able to see the benefits of having a website. Set one up on your own domain. It’s ideal to own your own domain.

If you use a free one, you might lose all your hard work in the blink of an eye.

Many marketers who have built their business on other people’s web properties have seen all their efforts go up in smoke overnight when the site they were depending on suddenly deleted their content or the domain was not renewed.

It’s your business. You must control it. Create your own website with your own domain and your own hosting.

Of course, the autoresponder… will be your own too. This is the best way to build a business that you can be proud to call your own.