It s challenging to create content that gets people to take action. However, tons of creators are publishing content every day or every week that helps/entertains people, and they are making a living off of it. In this guide, I am going to be teaching you how to create affiliate content that gets the job done. What My Content Was Like Four Years Ago To tell you how I create content that is effective, let me take you back four years to 2015 when I was in your position. My very first site (anthonybcks.com), was a website that I wanted to review a bunch of random products that I had in my house.
I knew that you could earn money by posting links within your content. However, I didn t know that those links had to be affiliate links (specially tracked links). The first piece of content that I ever wrote was a review on the book Social by Matthew Lieberman. I had been reading it at the time and was in love with it, so I wanted others to know about it as well. There was just one problem with that review. Actually, there were multiple problems. The first reason was that my content sucked. Not only did I not mention what I thought of the book, but I barely talked about the book at all. Secondly, I didn t know about SEO so I didn t target any search term that will get me a decent amount of traffic. Lastly, the review was written in a similar style to the Amazon page where you can buy the book. In layman's term, it was a complete flop. Moving on 6 months and I started to learn what affiliate marketing was, how to write reviews to satisfy intent and how to create Call to Actions (CTAs) to get people to take action.
That was when I had created my first niche site TechnicalGeek 101. I still didn t understand how to build an affiliate business, and I ended up picking a niche that was way too broad. Technology. For that reason, I ended up burning myself out within 3 months and got a record of 15 visitors a month (surprising I know). So, how did I end up improving? Internship as a Content Executive - How I Improved My Writing About two years ago, I joined a mobile app startup as a content executive.
If there is one way that you want to improve your writing, try and get yourself an internship. Even if you fail, it s still a valuable experience. Which is what I went through. I only spent four months at the company (for reasons I am not going to make public). However, I gained some fantastic insight that had I known those basic things when I ran tryhardgamers.com, it would still be up today, and it would be making me a full-time income.
That insight was making your content personal to your readers. Yes, making your content personal to readers is one of the most significant ways to build a sustainable business. Not only that, I learned another valuable thing that not many marketers tell you. If you re publishing written content (remember this is for written content only), you don t need to post multiple times a week. Seriously, I would rather spend a month on a single article and make it amazing, than spend a day and publish unfinished content. Not to confuse this with perfect content, I don t try and make my content perfect because that is impossible. If you re not publishing content because it s not perfect, then you will fail. Though, I didn t understand at the time that making content that feels personal will help it attract more people to it, how did I get tryhardgamers.com (one of my niche sites) to 4,000 5,000 visitors per month? Try Hard Gamers - What Was Different With This Attempt (Content Wise) The first thing that was different is that I chose a targeted niche. Instead of trying to make 50 articles a day on the latest tech news, I narrowed my niche down to FPS and Fantasy gaming tutorials and reviews. That made making affiliate content a lot easier. Why?
Because I only needed to make content as much as I wanted to make. In addition to that, having experience in gaming was a big help in making thorough tutorials. For example, in 2016, I published a YouTube video talking about how to get an item in an animebased RPG game. Unlike with an iphone (which I ve never owned), I was one of the only people in the community that knew how to get this particular item. That s why I got nearly 6K views on that video and drove over 500 monthly visitors to the article on my site talking about the same subject. The video is still up at the time of writing this so check to see if I still have it published. It s a terrible video, but it was informative and helpful for anyone looking to get that item. That s the sort of content you want to make to build a long-lasting affiliate business, informative, helpful, and entertaining content.
How to Create Affiliate Content (That Gets The Job Done) When it comes to publishing content on a niche site, I like to follow Gary Vee s content pyramid. Not only does this process allow me to publish multiple pieces of content as much as I want, but it will enable me to create more targeted content that people want to read. Gary s process is a little longer than this, however, since we are talking about creating affiliate content, I have shortened it down a little. Create Pillar Content Publish Short (But Informational) Content Listen to Feedback Create More Micro-Focused Content Create Pillar Content Pillar content is the top of the funnel content.
Image Taken From: https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/content-marketing-funnel The asset that people will most likely land on when they first come across your website. This is stuff like in-depth guides, tutorials, how-tos, and educational content. How to Write Pillar Content (Things to Know When Writing Long-Form Content) Pillar content is the content that most users will find when they first land on your website, this could be your about page, contact page, or more commonly your in-depth content. Since you re an affiliate marketer, I will be talking about in-depth content. When it comes to in-depth content, I like to use another name for it. Evergreen content. Evergreen content is assets that aren t based on a specific period of the year. For example, you can have pillar content that is only relevant during Christmas time, whereas
evergreen content would be appropriate to people all year, every year. An example of that would be Christmas deals Vs. Product reviews. Christmas deals are only relevant during Christmas. However, a product like a training course on affiliate marketing would be relevant all year around (even if they have spikes and drops). So what are some tips for writing long-form content? The first tip would be to break down your points. As simple of a tip that it is, breaking down your content does help write longer articles.
These are notes for one of my podcast episode Think about it like this. Writing 1 section with 3,000 words in a post is a lot more intimidating than writing 6 parts with 500 words each. In addition to that, breaking your article into points will allow your content to be more structured (which will satisfy people who skim your content - which is most people).
The second tip would be to either do some hardcore research on the topic/product that you want to cover or have genuine experience. Having experience in a topic will allow you to talk about more things surrounding that topic. For example, if I made a niche site talking about hair and beauty for females, I d have no idea what to talk about, and my content will be generic and short. Whereas a beauty expert would know everything about everything and would be able to give you insight that I couldn t give you.
That s the reason why you hear gurus telling people to follow their passion. If you don t have experience then don t worry, you can always do some research about that topic and give your opinion on what you ve learned. An example of this would be email marketing. At the time of writing this, I haven t done a lot of email marketing. Even though I don t have much experience with email marketing, after some in-depth research, I could probably give newbies some decent advice (and direction) about it. Of course, I couldn t give you advice on the level as somebody who has been doing email marketing for 10 years. However, I could give you some decent advice and also point you in their direction. Lastly, don t publish a single post that covers a small topic unless necessary. For example, if I had published an article about social media marketing, instead of creating a separate post on the best social platforms to start with, I can write a subsection within my article about social media marketing. Search engines like content that can answer most of their user's questions, so having guides that entirely covers a topic will help your SEO rankings. There are times when you shouldn t do this though. Say you had a guide on email marketing, it wouldn t be wise to have a case study you did about email marketing in your guide, because that could make a fantastic post by itself.
Another example will be if your website publishes tutorials. When people are looking for tutorials, they want quick, easy-to-follow steps. Not a guide that covers what they already know with a few tips in there. Which leads me to the next section... Publish Short (But Informational) Content As I just mentioned, sometimes it s better to dedicate an entire post to a subject rather than including it in a guide that covers the overall niche. The benefit of having multiple blog posts around the same (or a similar) topic is having a better
internal linking structure between blogs. An example of this would be all of my posts about SEO. Since there are so many things to talk about regarding SEO, I can link all of that content together. Once you have created a long-form piece of content, you can start going through topics that you may have mentioned but didn t go into full detail. You can even use parts of your guide for social content as well.
Image Taken From: https://bloggerjet.com/create-tweetable-quotes/ For example, if you made a statement, you can use that statement as a quote a post it on your social pages. Back to the informational content.
Let s use an example that an everyday affiliate maybe wants to use. Say you ve just published a guide on email marketing and you want to publish informational content that could lead to a sale. The best type of content to publish next would be a comparison article. After learning about email marketing, most people would then like to know which solution will help grow their email list the quickest. Leading them to a comparison post between MailChimp, ConvertKit, AWeber, and GetResponse would lead to the most affiliate sales. Another type of content you can publish would be a tutorial or a case study. For tutorials, just teaching your readers how to use an email list service right after learning about email marketing would be highly beneficial to them.
Especially if they've never seen what the backend of an email marketing software looks like - for example, MailChimp. Regarding the case studies angle, you could lead your readers to a case study where you show them how you increased your email list using your favorite email list service. That would show that your recommended service can help them grow their business - which is why they are researching about email marketing in the first place. After you ve published quite a bit of content, the next step is to Listen to What Your Readers Have to Say Once you ve published your content, your audience will start to voice their opinions on whether or not it helped them.
If you don t have any comments, that s most likely because your site is new, or you haven t convinced them enough to share their thoughts. When you do get comments, make sure to read them and take in everything they re saying. Having your target audience tell you precisely what they did or didn t like about your content will give you the most valuable insight you could ever want. One thing I would highly recommend that all of you do is to reply to every comment (or as many comments as you can). Knowing that the site owner is there and takes the time to read my comments make me feel happy and heard. I am sure it feels the same for you as well.
So, reply to your comments, it will only take a few minutes of your day to do so. What do you do once you ve listened to what your audience has to say? Create More Informative Content (While Taking Your Readers Advice) Your goal is always to publish better and better content. However, the quality of your content is judged by the people who read it, not you. Therefore the best way to improve the quality of your content is to take in what your readers have said about your existing content and continue improving it. For example, if you re publishing marketing guides and your audience would rather know marketing tips that can grow their business, start posting more tips. If your audience would rather hear about your experiences and how you overcame them, start posting more case studies and experience-based content. Things to Keep in Mind When Creating Content Here are some things you should always keep in mind when creating your content. Understand Why You Want to Publish That Article Publishing an article isn t as simple as hitting publish on your WordPress dashboard. I know it sounds crazy, but it s true. Hitting the publish button is only the beginning; after that, you ll need to promote that piece of content. That s why you need to fully understand the reason behind that piece of content before you create it. At the moment, I am recording the initial episodes of my podcast (The Affiliate Podcaster Show), and I have a bunch of ideas for each episode.
However, if I don t fully understand why I wanted to create that piece of content, then I won t record it. It s simple if you don t understand why you made it then how can you expect others to understand why they should read it over any other articles? Let Your Audience Know That You Understand Them If you use any social platform, you ll know that relatable content is something that many people enjoy. I am sure that you ve gone on Facebook and seen some relatable skit and thought Yeah, that s happened to me so many times. Well, you have to apply that to your content, and the best way to let your readers know that you understand them is to talk about their primary pain point in detail. For example, if my problem was email marketing, my primary pain point could be not knowing how to write copy that will grow my list. That s where you come in. By teaching me how to write better copy to grow my email list, you could promote a lead generation tool (like Thrive Leads, or ClickFunnels).
I think that I am speaking for everybody when I say that I would much rather purchase a product that was recommended by a friend, family, or mentor over some random person on the internet. Let s use another example with beginners to skateboarding. The primary pain point for skateboarding newbies is that they have no idea how to choose the proper parts for a skateboard. Some newbies would just buy a pre-built one.
By covering each part of a skateboard and recommending different components based on what type of skater they d like to be, people will trust your judgment a lot more and would be willing to buy the products that you recommend. Focus on Solving Your Readers Problems Going off track in your articles can be easy. I have probably gone off track a little in this PDF guide as well.
Though that can benefit the reader (for example if you re talking about something relevant to the current topic), it isn t the reason that they want to read your content. Most people don t even care about you. That s why Tim Ferris said that it s best to build a loyal fanbase of 1,000 people if you want your business to thrive for a long time. [Add link to support quote] The majority of people who read your content (if you re helping people instead of entertaining them) are there to see how you can fix their problem. So my actionable tip will be to get rid of most of your fluff. Instead of having an unnecessarily long intro, mention your reader's pain points and how you can help fix those issues - and then fix those issues. Back in 2016, I looked at some of my analytics and found that most people only spent 30 seconds on my pages. So I ended up going through my articles and looking at when they most likely left and they almost always left during a small story like this one. That s when I cut out the fat and saw an increase in dwell time of about 27%, though I don t have any screenshots, so I am hoping that you believe me when I say that haha. That s it! Now, you should have a better understanding of as to how you can create content that is effective at converting your audience.
Converting users with your content isn t difficult. However, most people struggle to:
1. Keep their users engaged. 2. Solve their main issues at hand. 3. Use clear call to actions. 4. Listen to the feedback given by readers Now that I have given you this information, it s time to take action on it. Sadly, no matter how much information I throw at you, it won t work unless you take action on it. So, here s what you need to do next. Firstly, email anthony@affiliatetriggers.com and let me know your thoughts about this free PDF. (Make sure to use this subject - [Affiliate Content PDF] My Feedback) Next, if you re reading this and you ve yet to start a blog or haven t set up your blog for SEO, then you can quickly follow these two guides to get yourself set up.