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Andrew Williams

Do you have a website already?  Maybe you want to build one?  Did you know that you can monetize a website with affiliate programs?  Affiliate marketing is something anyone can do.

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Do you have a website already?  Maybe you want to build one?  Did you know that you can monetize a website with affiliate programs?  Affiliate marketing is something anyone can do.

I've been building affiliate websites for more than a decade, and earning a decent income from those sites.  The great thing about affiliate websites is that if you build them correctly, they'll mature over time and reward you month after month, year after year in passive income.  However, if you build them incorrectly, you will simply be wasting your time.  In the last few years, Google have tightened the noose around webmasters out to make a quick buck by gaming the system.  This course was created to show you how I build successful affiliate websites now, in 2022 and beyond.  I'll take you from the very beginning and show you, over-my-shoulder, how I:

  • Decide on a niche for my website.

  • Find affiliate products in that niche to promote on my websites.

  • Choose a catchy, brandable domain name.

  • Buy the domain through a registrar, and set it up to work with a web host.

  • Install Wordpress.

  • Setup a gmail address and create a "Gravatar".

  • Setup Wordpress.

  • Install a Wordpress theme.

  • Install a few essential plugins.

  • Create an author bio for your web pages.

  • Setup Google Analytics and Search Console so you have the data you need to make your site successful.

  • Add a simple homepage to get you started.

  • Create Mindmaps to plan and outline all of the main topics you want to cover on your website.

  • Add important pages like Contact, Terms and Privacy.

  • Create a sitemap and submit it to Google so they always know when you have new content on your site that needs indexing.

  • Set up Yoast SEO plugin so your site is search engine ready.

  • Setup Facebook and Twitter accounts, and get all new posts automatically syndicated to these platforms.

  • Decide on categories for posts.

  • Write content that the search engines will reward you for.

  • Automate internal site linking, and why it is important.

  • Create an affiliate product page and why this works better than affiliate products on all pages of your website.

  • Create an affiliate product promotion that is always visible to a website visitor.

  • Add social sharing buttons to the site.

  • Add related posts to the end of each post, automatically.

  • How to use Feedly and RSS feeds to get content ideas.

  • How to setup a blog for shorter posts, and how to create these blog posts using Feedly and Youtube.

This course covers everything you need to know to help you create a high quality affiliate website that you'll be proud of.  With Google cracking down on poor quality affiliate sites, a lot of webmasters have given up creating this type of site.  However, affiliate sites remain one of the best forms of setup and forget "passive income".

With this course, you will have the exact system I personally use to keep Google happy as I continue to build this type of site. 

Enroll now

What's inside

Learning objectives

  • Build high quality affiliate sites with confidence
  • Understand how affiliate marketing works
  • Use a variety of methods to show web site visitors affiliate products
  • Earn a passive income by referring visitors to merchant websites.

Syllabus

This section introduces the course and the instructor.

This lecture introduces myself, and the course material.

Important information about the site being built in this course.

Read more

This lecture looks at two popular ways to monetize a website.

You need to read this before you start your own affiliate site.  It contains very important information about niche selection.

I haven't decided on a website niche yet, but I do know the broad category of site I want to build - Alternative health. This tutorial will show me finding an affiliate program that I can work with.

I've found the affiliate program that I want to work with, so now I need to choose a product(s) to promote on my site.

In this lecture, I'll research a few domain names and come up with one for my new site. Think catchy and brandable over keyword rich domains.

Depending on who you are targeting, you may need to look at alternatives to a .com extension.

In this tutorial we'll cover a lot of ground. We'll order the domain, link it to the web host and install Wordpress on the domain.

In this tutorial, we'll setup an email address to be used specifically for this site, and link it to a Gravatar image.

This lecture takes a quick run through the Wordpress settings, changing only those that we need to.

Themes are really down to personal preference and making sure the theme suites the topic of your site. For me, I know which theme I am using on this site, so let's install it.

In this tutorial, I'll install a few plugins that go on all of my sites. We won't configure any of them yet, but having them installed now will better help me organise the flow of this course.

An author bio box, together with a photo of the author help instil confidence and trust in your visitors. In this tutorial, I'll set that up.

Google provides two great free tools for tracking visitors. However, these tools are professional level and complex to learn, so I won't be showing how to set these up.  If you want to have a go though, I've provided a couple of links in the resources to take you to Google help pages that will guide you through the process. 

Clicky is a great free analytics tool that is perfect for beginners because it is much more intuitive than Google Analytics. 

This lecture explains the purpose of this section of the course.

This lecture gives an overview of the Gutenberg editor.

A quick look at the Gutenberg interface.

This lecture looks at blocks, and how you can access all of their features.

Let's build a post using Gutenberg blocks.

This lecture looks at inserting images into your pages, and getting text to correctly wrap around those images.

This lecture looks at the highly versatile Cover block.

This lecture looks at using columns for horizontal control of elements.

This lecture looks at creating and using reusable blocks

Third-party developers are creating blocks for Gutenberg.  This lecture shows how you can find them.

I encourage you to read the frequently asked questions on a web page. They'll answer some of your questions about Gutenberg.

When I start a new website, I like to create a short homepage that will just identify what the site will become. This page will let any visitors know the site is coming soon, but also tell Google what to expect as they see more and more activity on the site during it's development.

This lecture looks at the types of content we are going to have on our site.

We are finally ready to start planning out the content on the site. We only need to plan the "authority" content at this stage. The product reviews and blog content will become obvious after the authority content has been written. This lecture shows how I go about planning and mind-mapping my content ideas, to produce a workable site structure.

Using the Contact Form 7 plugin, we can create a simple contact us page.

In this lecture, we'll use a plugin to quickly add the required legal pages to the site.

We don't need to have the legal pages indexed in Google, so we can insert some code to tell Google to ignore these pages.

In this lecture, we'll turn on the sitemap and have a quick look at it.

We'll also add a search widget to the site so visitors can find stuff.

We should tell Google where our sitemap is, so that when new content is updated, they will immediately know there is new stuff to index.

Let's have a quick run-through of the settings in the SEO plugin.

When new content is added to the website, we want it to be automatically posted to a Facebook page. In this tutorial, we'll setup a basic Facebook page for the site.

If This Then That, or IFTTT to it's friends, allows us to autopost to the Facebook and Twitter accounts whenever new content is added to the website. Let's setup an account on IFTTT.

We can setup the website to automatically post all new content to Facbeook. This helps get each new page a backlink from Facebook, which in turn will help new pages get indexed. Besides new pages on the site, it is also a good idea to post other content to Facebook, and we can use RSS feeds for that. This will help keep our Facebook pages looking "real" and not just self-promoting pages.

We can setup the website to automatically post all new content as tweets to Twitter. This helps get each new page a backlink from Twitter, which in turn will help new pages get indexed. Besides new pages on the site, it is also a good idea to post other content to the Twitter account, and we can use RSS feeds for that. This will help keep our Twitter account "real" and not just look like a self-promotion tool.

Now that some content has been posted on the site, let's go back to Facebook and Twitter to see what has happened since our last visit.

Wordpress posts are filed away into categories. You can have one or many categories, depending on what type of content you create for your site. This lecture explains, and I'll also decide on the categories for my website.

Follow my 4-step process for writing high quality, comprehensive content for your website.

In this tutorial, I'll go through the steps to adding new articles to the website. We'll mention the use of excerpts and featured images to add more depth to your site.

Let's add a menu at the top of the web page to allow visitors to find our content.

In this tutorial, I want to show you the plugin I use to automatically link important keyword terms to specific pages on the website.

I create affiliate product sites that generally focus all affiliate links on a single page. In this video, I'll explain more, and show you how to create the page.

As an affiliate, we need to be transparent with our visitors. If they click and buy a product from our site, we need to inform them that we are in fact making a small commission from the sale. So what is the best way to do this?

In this tutorial, I want to show you one way that I advertise affiliate products on my website.

You want to make it easy for your visitors to share your content with their own social channels, so let's add some social sharing buttons.

Adding a related posts or further reading section to your web pages can keep visitors on your site for longer, help pages get spidered and give a ranking boost to all pages on the site.

Let's set up the actual homepage I want to use.

As you build a site, you'll come up against a few "puzzles" that you'll need to solve. Homepage navigation was one I had, so I've recorded a video to show you how I have dealt with this using a couple of plugins.

Why are RSS feeds valuable to us as affiliate marketers?

THis tutorial will get you started with Feedly. It'll show you how to set Feedly up, and how to import your RSS feeds so that you can keep your pulse on your niche.

In this tutorial, we'll go through some of the feed items, pick a topic, and write a short blog post.

In this tutorial, I'll show you how you can take a Youtube video and post it on your site as a blog post, adding value as you do so.

In this lecture, I'll show you how I schedule multiple posts so that they are automatically published on a given date and time. I typically schedule posts for 6 months to a year in advance and this lecture shows you how, and explains why I do this.

Tags are often misunderstood and misused by Wordpress webmasters and they can get a site penalized in Google if you don't know what you are doing. This lecture will show you how I use tags, safely and effectively.

This lecture highlights the next steps I need to take with this website.

Read this for instructions on watching older videos that are no longer part of this course.

This bonus lecture contains details of the resources mentioned in the course.

Traffic lights

Read about what's good
what should give you pause
and possible dealbreakers
Provides a system to build affiliate websites that are designed to meet Google's quality standards, which is essential for long-term success
Covers the setup of social media accounts and their integration with the website, which can help with content distribution and backlink creation
Explores the use of RSS feeds and Feedly for content curation, which can provide ideas and inspiration for blog posts
Uses Wordpress and Gutenberg, which are industry standard tools for building and managing websites and content
Requires learners to set up accounts on third-party platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and IFTTT, which may involve additional steps and considerations
Recommends Clicky as an alternative to Google Analytics, which may not be as widely adopted or offer the same level of data and insights

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Reviews summary

Building high-quality affiliate websites step-by-step

According to students, this course provides a detailed, step-by-step guide for building high-quality affiliate websites from scratch. Learners appreciate the over-the-shoulder walkthroughs covering everything from niche selection and technical setup (WordPress installation) to content creation and basic SEO. It's widely seen as a solid foundation for beginners aiming for long-term success by focusing on sustainable, high-quality content rather than quick tricks. However, some find the initial technical setup pace fast, and there are mentions that some plugin recommendations might be outdated since its 2022 publication date. While providing a great starting point, it may lack depth on more advanced topics like scaling or advanced promotion strategies.
Basic SEO, less on advanced scaling/promotion.
"The SEO section was a bit basic, and I felt like I needed more info on keyword research beyond just finding affiliate products."
"More advanced topics like scaling, link building strategies beyond automated social posting, or specific monetization tactics could be added."
"Wish there was more on actually finding good affiliate programs and promoting products effectively."
Emphasizes sustainable, high-quality content.
"It really focused on building a sustainable site rather than quick tricks."
"The focus on high-quality content is appreciated, aligning with current SEO trends."
"Exactly what I needed to understand the modern approach to affiliate sites."
Offers a solid foundation for new learners.
"Solid information for beginners. Covers domain setup, hosting, WP basics, and content strategy well."
"Provides a solid roadmap from scratch. Good for beginners."
"Exactly what I needed to understand the modern approach to affiliate sites. No black hat tricks, just solid fundamentals."
Provides detailed, over-the-shoulder guidance.
"This course was incredibly detailed and walked me through everything step-by-step. The over-the-shoulder approach... was exactly what I needed."
"The walkthroughs are easy to follow. Highly recommended for beginners aiming for long-term success."
"A comprehensive guide for anyone starting out in affiliate marketing. It covers a lot of ground from the very first steps..."
"I felt confident building my first affiliate site now. The content writing tips were particularly useful."
Initial setup can feel fast for some.
"The technical setup parts (domain, hosting, WP install) felt a little fast-paced, and I had to rewatch several times."
"Found some parts confusing, especially the DNS settings."
"Could be better structured."
Some software/plugins seem outdated.
"Some plugin recommendations might be outdated now (it says 2022)."
"Some software shown seems a bit old, but the core concepts are still valid."
"Overall, decent, but double-check plugin compatibility."

Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in Learn how to Build High Quality Affiliate Websites with these activities:
Review Basic SEO Principles
Reviewing SEO principles will help you understand how to optimize your affiliate website for search engines, which is crucial for driving traffic and earning passive income.
Browse courses on SEO Fundamentals
Show steps
  • Read articles or watch videos explaining keyword research, on-page optimization, and link building.
  • Take notes on key concepts and strategies.
  • Complete a short quiz to test your understanding.
Review 'Affiliate Marketing for Dummies'
Reading 'Affiliate Marketing for Dummies' will provide a solid foundation in affiliate marketing concepts and strategies, complementing the course's practical focus on building high-quality affiliate websites.
Show steps
  • Read the book, focusing on chapters related to niche selection, website building, and content creation.
  • Take notes on key concepts and strategies.
  • Identify actionable steps you can implement for your own affiliate website.
Niche and Keyword Research
Starting a niche and keyword research project will allow you to apply the course's teachings to identify a profitable niche and relevant keywords for your affiliate website.
Show steps
  • Brainstorm potential niches based on your interests and expertise.
  • Use keyword research tools to identify high-traffic, low-competition keywords within your chosen niche.
  • Analyze competitor websites to identify their strengths and weaknesses.
  • Document your findings in a spreadsheet or mind map.
Four other activities
Expand to see all activities and additional details
Show all seven activities
Write a Product Review
Writing a product review will give you practical experience in creating engaging and informative content that promotes affiliate products effectively.
Show steps
  • Choose an affiliate product related to your niche.
  • Research the product thoroughly, including its features, benefits, and drawbacks.
  • Write an honest and unbiased review, highlighting both the pros and cons of the product.
  • Optimize the review for relevant keywords.
  • Include a clear call to action with your affiliate link.
Build a Sitemap
Building a sitemap will help you organize your website's content and improve its search engine visibility, contributing to higher rankings and more traffic.
Show steps
  • Plan the structure of your website, including all pages and categories.
  • Use a sitemap generator tool or plugin to create an XML sitemap.
  • Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console.
Review 'The Art of SEO'
Reading 'The Art of SEO' will provide a deeper understanding of SEO principles and techniques, enabling you to optimize your affiliate website for maximum visibility and traffic.
View The Art of SEO on Amazon
Show steps
  • Read the book, focusing on chapters related to on-page optimization, link building, and technical SEO.
  • Take notes on key concepts and strategies.
  • Identify actionable steps you can implement to improve your website's SEO.
Follow Advanced SEO Tutorials
Following advanced SEO tutorials will help you stay up-to-date with the latest SEO trends and techniques, ensuring that your affiliate website remains competitive in the long run.
Show steps
  • Search for reputable SEO blogs and websites that offer advanced tutorials.
  • Choose tutorials that cover topics such as technical SEO, content marketing, and link building.
  • Follow the tutorials step-by-step, implementing the techniques on your own website.
  • Track your results and make adjustments as needed.

Career center

Learners who complete Learn how to Build High Quality Affiliate Websites will develop knowledge and skills that may be useful to these careers:
Affiliate Marketer
An affiliate marketer builds and manages websites to promote products or services, earning commissions on sales generated through their unique affiliate links. This course is designed to teach the user how to build an affiliate website from the ground up, including choosing a niche, finding products, setting up the website, and creating content. This course provides the exact method used to create authority affiliate websites. It shows how to select a domain name, install Wordpress, use essential plugins, create an author bio, and configure the site for search engines. The course also covers content creation, internal site linking, and affiliate product promotions. This course is ideal for an aspiring affiliate marketer.
Website Owner
The website owner is responsible for the overall strategy, content, and maintenance of a website. This course can help with the technical aspects of this role, as it provides instruction on domain registration, web hosting setup, Wordpress installation and configuration, theme selection, plugin installations, and basic website page creation. The course also shows how to use Google Analytics, set up a sitemap, and take advantage of search engine optimization. The course introduces all of the tools and principles required for a successful affiliate website that can earn passive income. This course teaches the website owner how to properly set up a website.
Blogger
A blogger creates and publishes written content for a website or blog. This course may help a blogger, as it includes lessons on setting up a website with Wordpress, writing high-quality content, and creating a blog section for shorter posts. This course also covers topics such as creating an author bio, categorizing posts, and using Feedly and RSS feeds for content ideas. The user will learn how to create quality content that attracts visitors and keeps them engaged and coming back to the site. The course also demonstrates how to schedule multiple posts and use tags for content organization. These are all essential tools for an aspiring blogger.
Content Creator
A content creator is responsible for developing engaging material for various platforms, often including websites. This course may be useful to a content creator, as it covers many aspects of content creation that can be applied to websites. The course teaches how to write content that search engines will reward, how to plan content using mind maps, how to create important pages like contact and privacy, how to automate internal site linking, and how to create an affiliate product page. The course also introduces methods for generating ideas for content using RSS feeds and Youtube videos. The course shows how to take content from a variety of sources and publish it to a website.
Digital Marketer
A digital marketer develops and implements marketing strategies to promote products or services online. This course may be useful for a digital marketer, as it teaches the user how to create a website, including how to choose a niche, find affiliate products, choose a domain name, and set up web hosting. The course also covers topics like setting up Google Analytics and Search Console, creating a sitemap, and setting up the Yoast SEO plugin. These are all essential for understanding a website and how to promote it. The course discusses how to set up and use social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter to bring in more visitors. This course will teach a digital marketer how to build a foundation for online marketing.
Online Entrepreneur
An online entrepreneur creates and manages an online business. This course helps build the foundation for a possible online business, as it guides the user through setting up a website from scratch, setting up a domain name, installing Wordpress, installing essential plugins, creating an author bio, and setting up Google Analytics and Search Console. The course also shows how to set up a blog, create content, and use social media to drive traffic to the site. The course shows you the exact system that the instructor uses to build affiliate websites. This course is for an aspiring online entrepreneur who wants to create a passive income through an affiliate website.
Search Engine Optimization Specialist
A search engine optimization specialist improves a website's visibility in search engine results. This course may be useful for an SEO specialist, as it covers topics like setting up a sitemap, using the Yoast SEO plugin, and creating content that search engines will reward. The course also provides instructions on how to set up Google Analytics and Search Console, which are important for tracking website performance and identifying areas for improvement. The course teaches how to automate internal site linking, improve social media performance via indexing, and optimize content with the use of categories, excerpts, and featured images. The course provides a good foundation for success in this field.
Web Content Manager
A web content manager is responsible for planning, creating, and publishing content on a website. This course may be useful for a web content manager as it teaches how to plan site content, create an author bio for web pages, create important pages like the contact page and the privacy page, and set up a content management system using WordPress. The course also shows how to use a variety of methods to showcase affiliate products to website visitors. It explains how to structure and automate internal linking to improve search engine visibility and to help visitors stay on a site longer. This course can help the web content manager build and optimize web pages.
Social Media Manager
A social media manager handles an organization's presence on social media platforms. This course may be useful for a social media manager, as it covers how to set up and link social media accounts, like Facebook and Twitter, to a website. The course also shows how to push new posts automatically to those accounts. Furthermore, the course shows how to post other content to social media channels using RSS feeds. This helps keep the social media accounts looking authentic and not just like promotional tools. This course provides a foundation for managing social media accounts while growing a website.
Webmaster
A webmaster is responsible for the maintenance and operation of a website. This course may be useful for a webmaster because it guides the user in installing Wordpress, installing themes and essential plugins, setting up an author bio, and setting up Google Analytics and Search Console. The course also teaches how to set up a sitemap, configure the Yoast SEO plugin, and use social media to share content. Additionally, the course covers how to create an affiliate website that can earn passive income. The course teaches how to properly setup a website and also shows how to create a complete system that works to generate passive income through affiliate marketing.
E-commerce Specialist
An e-commerce specialist manages the online sales and operations of a business. This course may be relevant for an e-commerce specialist, as it teaches how to create an affiliate website to promote third-party products. The course covers how to choose a niche, find products to promote, and set up a website to generate passive income. The course explains how to create effective affiliate product pages and how to promote affiliate products on a website. This course can help an e-commerce specialist expand their skill set by adding affiliate marketing skills.
Marketing Assistant
A marketing assistant provides support to the marketing department, often in areas related to digital content. This course may help a marketing assistant learn about the technical details of setting up a website, which can be a component of some marketing campaigns. This course shows how to install and configure WordPress, install plugins, create an author bio, add important pages like contact pages and privacy pages, set up Google Analytics and Search Console, and use social media to promote content. In particular, the course will help a marketing assistant better understand how a business creates a digital presence on the web.
Freelancer
A freelancer provides services to clients on a contractual basis. This course may be useful for a freelancer wanting to add new services to their portfolio. The course teaches how to build and manage a website with the goal of generating affiliate marketing income. Additionally, the course covers how to create authority content, automate internal linking, and setup social media channels to expand the promotion of content. A freelancer may use this information to create a website for themselves or to create one for a client. This course can help a freelancer add affiliate marketing skills to their service offerings.
Technical Writer
A technical writer creates documentation for technical products or services. While this course does not directly focus on documentation skills, the course does cover how to create and publish content online using WordPress and Gutenberg. This course also teaches how to set up a blog section on a website using Feedly and RSS feeds, and how to take ideas from YouTube videos to generate blog posts. A technical writer may want to use this information to build their own blog to showcase their skills. This course may help a technical writer understand how to publish content online.
Sales Representative
A sales representative sells a company's products or services to clients. The course may be relevant to a sales representative, as it teaches how to promote products and services on an affiliate website. The course shows the sales representative how to select a niche, find products to promote, set up a website, and create content that attracts visitors to the site. It also covers how to create an affiliate product page to maximize commissions. In this way, an affiliate website can serve as a revenue stream for the sales representative using skills learned in the role. This course may help an enterprising sales representative develop new sales skills.

Reading list

We've selected two books that we think will supplement your learning. Use these to develop background knowledge, enrich your coursework, and gain a deeper understanding of the topics covered in Learn how to Build High Quality Affiliate Websites.
Comprehensive guide to SEO, covering everything from keyword research to link building and technical SEO. It's a valuable resource for anyone who wants to improve their website's search engine rankings. This book is more valuable as additional reading than it is as a current reference. It is commonly used as a textbook at academic institutions and by industry professionals. This book adds more depth and breadth to the existing course.
Provides a comprehensive overview of affiliate marketing, covering everything from choosing a niche to building a website and promoting products. It's a great resource for beginners who want to learn the basics of affiliate marketing. While not strictly required, it offers a broader perspective than the course alone. It can be used as a reference guide throughout the course.

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