By 2020, the value of the affiliate marketing industry is projected to reach nearly $7 billion.
The question you’re probably asking is “How do I transform all that growth into spendable affiliate income?” Assuming you’ve already chosen a niche or program and are making some money, it comes down to two words.
WordPress plugins.
If you aren’t running WordPress for your affiliate sites, it’s time to convert. You’ll save a lot of time and money on website maintenance.
After all, WordPress keeps the source code updated. Developers deal with updating themes and plugins. Would you rather be building your business or talking on the phone with a web developer every time something goes wrong?
Plus, running WordPress sites means you’ll be able to take advantage of these 7 affiliate income-boosting plugins.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is probably the single most robust analytics apps you can get. If you’re a small or medium sized business, you can even get it for free.
Some of the basic features you get are:
- visitor numbers
- visitor locations
- unique visitors
- individual page performance
- bounce rate
What really sets Google analytics apart is all the other features you get access to when you sign up.
Ever wondered where in your sales funnel people abandon the process? Ever wanted specific performance data about A/B split tests? Ever wanted to do link tracking?
Google Analytics allows for all of that and we’ve barely scratched the surface.
Being able to analyze your funnel, on-site visitor behaviors, and access reliable test data can only help boost your affiliate income. You’ll be armed to make data-driven changes and see what those changes do.
The only real downside is that all of those features make mastering the app a long-term project.
AdSanity
Affiliate programs routinely provide you with pre-made banner ads, product images, and even videos. Once you have all that material, you need to manage it.
Let’s say you got six pre-made banner ads when you signed up for a program. You picked out the one you like best and placed it on your website.
Have you changed it even once to test performance?
This is where AdSanity comes into the picture. AdSanity is designed to help you manage all of that marketing collateral. One of its best features is letting you set a time period for displaying an ad before rotating to a new ad.
You get to see which ads perform best in the stats page. Then you make those the defaults and your income should rise.
WP Smush
Page load speeds have a direct impact on your conversation rates. As a rule, faster pages get better conversions.
Improperly formatted images are the enemy of speed. If you’ve got a site full of huge image files, they will murder your load time.
The WP Smush app is designed to resize and compress your image files. This reduces the load on the server as it delivers your page to visitors, which dramatically improves load time.
The faster load time keeps more people stay on the site. Statistically, that improves your chances of converting visitors to customers.
OptinMonster
If there is an inviolate rule of affiliate marketing, it is this: You must build your list.
Building a list creates an instant warm market for your future products in that niche. Since you’re likely to keep promoting products in that niche, it’s really an act of self-preservation. Getting people to sign up for your list means giving them a form to do it.
OptInMonster lets you build these opt-in forms with a drag-and-drop editor. A few of their featured forms include lightbox popups, sidebar and floating bar. It also lets you run targeted messaging on individual pages to target different customer groups.
On the management side, you get performance analytics about each form and conduct A/B split testing.
Amazon Product in a Post Plugin
With its nearly encyclopedic product offerings, Amazon can be a source of income from almost any niche.
The hard part is inserting all of the appropriate links into your pages. Amazon Product in a Post plugin is the answer to that problem.
At its root, it’s job to help you insert all of those product links into your new and existing content. If you’ve been in your niche a while and just became an affiliate, this plugin will save you hours of time.
It also lets you add your own descriptions or product reviews, which can be a godsend. Product descriptions on Amazon can leave a lot to be desired or simply don’t offer enough information. If you’ve got hands on experience with the product, you can often do a better job.
While these links won’t make you rich, they do have the potential to pad your affiliate income on a recurring basis.
Affiliate Income with WooCommerce
While most affiliate sales happen on the program’s site, there’s nothing to stop you from selling your own related product.
You bring the customer’s in with the affiliate product, get them on your list, and then market your own things. If you decide to go that route, though, you need a way to process the transactions.
WooCommerce is a full-on sales platform designed for e-commerce. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling digital or physical products, WooCommerce has options to cover it. It integrates with all of the major payment platforms and has a rich extensions environment.
YITH WooCommerce Affiliates
If you do go down the road of developing your own products, you might decide to run your own affiliate program. If that day comes, you’ll want the YITH WooCommerce Affiliates plugin.
It lets you do everything from creating new affiliates to credit commissions. It even calculates refunds and gives affiliates their own personal dashboard. It’s one stop shopping for affiliate management.
Having your own affiliates sell your product does mean more work, but it also means more income.
Parting Thoughts
WordPress plugins make cashing in on the anticipated $7 billion dollars a practical possibility.
You can make a little extra affiliate income by dropping affiliate product links into your content. On the other hand, you can go for the big score by developing your own affiliate program. Either way, there’s a host of plugins waiting to help.
If you’d like to learn more about increasing your income, check out our free SEO training videos.