Affiliate Marketing Using Wix | Simple 24-Step Action Guide

Should you build a free website?

Can you make money with affiliate Marketing Using Wix?

This article aims to answer these questions and much more.

The short answer is, it depends.

While building a free Wix website can have its benefits such as being free and easy to set up.

You give up a lot of control with your domain name when compared to paying for a self-hosted website.

However, you might be asking, what in the heck is affiliate marketing?

Well, in short, affiliate marketing is a form of marketing where you promote and sell other people’s physical or digital products.

You’ll get a custom affiliate link that is tracked to your affiliate account.

Once a customer purchases a product through your custom link, you get credit for the sale and receive a commission.

It’s all quite simple but takes a fair amount of work to master.

If you are interested, I wrote a full article on affiliate marketing which you can visit by clicking here.

How To Make Money From An Affiliate Marketing Website

Before building an affiliate marketing website or any website you plan to monetize for that matter.

You’ll need to choose a niche or topic you would like to write about.

You see, unless you are paying for ads to bring visitors to your website, you will need to attract readers to your site.

This is achieved by using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and possibly social media marketing.

This is done by writing articles or even YouTube videos about your website’s topic, also known as a niche.

This process is generally slow and tedious as search engines, like Google, need time to rank your content.

This is done by comparing your article against other articles around the same topic to decide which one visitors like best.

If visitors like your article better they will generally stay longer on your website.

They can click through to other articles you’ve created, and leave with their question answered.

If a visitor leaves your website and doesn’t continue to search for their question, Google figures that your website has answered their question.

This tells Google that you’ve answered their question and they no longer needed to search for the same term.

Google loves when you create great content that answers people’s questions and provides huge amounts of value.

So, how do you make money? Well, you find a product that relates to your niche.

For instance, if you have a website about dog training, you can promote pet products by joining Petco’s affiliate program.

Then you can suggest products like dog food, and pet collars in your blog article.

When a visitor clicks your affiliate link and purchases a product, you will get credit for that sale.

You’ll then receive a percentage of the sale, also known as a commission.

This will take work, a lot of work. And you probably won’t see any traffic to your website for at least 6 months.

You might not get any traffic at all.

But if you do proper research, choose a great niche, and write amazingly helpful articles, there is a good chance people will take notice.

And, in turn, show Google why you need to rank higher for a particular keyword.

Affiliate Marketing Using Wix – The Pros

There are several reasons to start an affiliate marketing website using Wix.

This is especially true if you are low on cash. So, here are the top reasons to start a free Wix website…

These benefits can easily get you started with affiliate marketing online.

And after all, the most important step is just getting started.

Furthermore, if you keep going and don’t give up, you’ll stand a greater chance of success.

Just keep in mind, there are trad-offs if you’re thinking about creating a free Wix website.

Affiliate Marketing Using Wix – The Cons

There are, however, several reasons not to use the free Wix plan.

These issues, while not serious, might be a deal-breaker if you want the best chance to rank in the search engines.

Here are the top 3 cons…

Potential SEO Disadvantages

No Control Over Ad Placement

You Really Don’t Own Anything

Some Further Explanation

Let’s say you signup for the free Wix plan.

You will be given a free domain name which is the public address for your website.

Unfortunately, since you’ll be on the free plan, Wix owns your domain name.

For example, let’s say you choose a domain name to reflect your business name.

And let’s say your business name is Bluefish Marketing.

Had you purchased your domain name and paid for web hosting, you could have chosen bluefishmarketing.com.

But when you go with a free Wix plan, you’ll have to place your business name at the end of the Wix-owned domain name.

This means your free domain name will be yourusername.wixsite.com/bluefish-marketing.

This adds unnecessary length to a domain name.

This results in potential visitors having a hard time remembering your domain name.

And that is assuming they would even feel like typing your long web address into the search bar.

Which Businesses Will Benefit From Wix

A No Revenue Business

Which Businesses Will Not Benefit From Wix

Large Businesses With Huge Revenue

Businesses that Don’t Have A Physical Location

If Revenue Comes Mostly From Online Traffic

Why Would You Use A Free Wix Plan?

I don’t want to sound like I’m hating on Wix.

I feel like Wix has allowed so many people to start a blog or business website that otherwise would not have.

This is because creating a self-hosted website requires an initial investment.

Though this investment can be minimal to get started, if you are desperately short on funds Wix at least allows you to create something…Anything.

So while I will be recommending a smart alternative to Wix, I truly feel that if you can just get started, you’ll be ahead of 95% of people out there.

For this reason, I will briefly explain how to signup and get started with Wix.

Now, this won’t be an in-depth tutorial on how to build a Wix site from scratch.

It will be, however, an explanation of the first few steps to take in your quest to start an online affiliate marketing website.

Wix is incredibly easy to use and offers up loads of online help articles and videos.

Not to mention, the visual builder will take you step-by-step right inside your website on how to customize and edit your settings.

So, let’s get into it.

If You’re Still Interested, Here 12 Steps To Get Started With Wix

The first step is to go to https://www.wix.com/. There you will find the Wix Website homepage.

Click the “Get Started” button.

You’ll then be taken to the Login Page. To the right of the “New To Wix? “ text, click the “Sign Up” link.

Fill in your email and create a password, then click the “Sign-Up” button to continue.

On the next page, you’ll be prompted to answer a few questions.

This is optional and can be skipped however, it’s recommended you answer these questions for Wix to better customize your website.

Click the blue “Let’s Do It” button to start the question process.

Otherwise, if you are not interested Click the “Skip” button instead.

Next, you’ll be asked to answer who are you creating the website for?

Just choose the option that best describes your situation. There is no wrong answer here.

You can also choose to skip this step as well by clicking the “Skip” button.

Then, choose what type of website you’ll be creating.

You can always change this option later on.

The answer you give will help Wix build the layout of your website.

For this step, simply answer what experience with building websites you have.

If you have never built a website before, choose the “This is my first time,” option.

Next, click the “Start Now” button under the “Let Wix ADI Create a Website for You” text.

This action will automate the process of creating your Wix website.

Type in what type of business you have or want to create. Then click the “Next” button.

You may also skip this step if you are unsure and can always choose again later.

On this page, you will choose your website options.

Think of these as added apps or plugins that will enhance the functionality of your Wix website.

For instance, choosing the “chat” feature for your website will add the ability for visitors to communicate with you via a chatbot.

This is helpful for product questions or offering your customers tech support.

Simply click one or more options, then press the “Next” button.

If you do not want to add any features yet, you can click the “Maybe Later “option in the bottom right-hand corner of the page.

Enter the name of your business or website in the text field, then press the “Next” button.

Like the previous steps, you can always skip this step and complete it later.

This is where you can import images or text from another website.

If you have never built a website before, then you can simply click the “Next” button.

Review your information and edit anything that is incorrect or that you want to change.

Then hit the blue “Next” button to continue.

In this step, you will want to pick the main theme which decides how your website will look to your visitors.

The theme will change the colors, font type, font color, and stock images of your website.

Click the “Continue” button when you have finished.

Next, you will be given the option of 3 homepage designs.

These designs will change how your website is laid out and dictate the structure of your website.

This includes; header size, footer display, call to action section, and image placement.

Skipping this section, for now, is also an option and can always be changed at a later time.

Once you have chosen your homepage design, you will then be taken to your website dashboard area.

This is where you will visually edit your website. You can easily change your images, fonts, and overall layout.

At the very top of your website dashboard area, you will find the top editor menu bar.

This is where you can add new pages, manage applications, and eventually publish your website to go live.

The homepage of your website consists of navigation menus.

Your business logo in the top left corner

And your website header image.

In the address bar in the top left-hand corner of your dashboard, you will find your public domain name or web address.

To edit elements directly on your website, click on the element you want to edit.

Then, click the “edit” button in the top left corner of your dashboard.

This will open up the sidebar menu editor options.

Which will give you options to change the title name, subtitle tag line, paragraph, and to add or change images.

Changes are automatically saved as you edit your website. Which comes in handy.

When you have finished editing your website, click the “Publish” button in the right-hand corner of the top editor menu bar.

Finally, choose the “Use a Free Wix.com Domain” option by typing your website name into the text bar following the .com.

Make sure to place a hyphen in between words.

For example, if your business name is Bluefish Marketing, then you would type in bluefish-marketing.

Next, click the “Publish & Continue” button to make your website go live to the world.

Congratulations, you have just set up your website and it’s live on the internet for the world to enjoy.

Click the “Done” button to confirm.

From now on, when you log in to your Wix account you will be greeted with the “My Sites” page.

This is where all of the websites you have created with the Wix platform are located.

Simply choose the website you want to work on by clicking on its image.

Hold On, You’re Not Done Yet

This blog article was designed to get you started by signing up for Wix and setting up a basic website.

But you’re not done yet.

I only barely scratched the surface.

There is so much more for you to learn. And what better way to learn Wix, than to learn from Wix.

The Wix Blog offers an incredible amount of tutorials and how-to articles to take your design skills to the next level.

Not to mention there is an incredible amount of YouTube tutorials out there as well.

If you have a question, there is probably a video tutorial to answer it.

With that said, if you need helpful tutorials to learn how to further your Wix editing knowledge, then visit the official Wix Blog by clicking here.

A Better Alternative?

If you have some money to invest in your business, you can accelerate your earnings potential, especially with affiliate marketing.

By now, you should have an idea of what affiliate marketing is, if not click here to read my full article on the subject.

So, what if you could build a website that you owned.

You would own all of the content that you created on it.

You would be the one to decide if you want to run ads on your site.

Furthermore, you would be able to promote any product you wanted to.

This is possible because you paid for the domain name and web hosting.

You own your website and no one can dictate what you do with it.

Now imagine you combined the freedom of a self-hosted website and affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to start making money from home online.

Signing up for most affiliate programs is free.

And you can find a product to promote for just about any hobby, topic, or interest you may have.

This can all be achieved for less than $100 per year.

You heard that right, per year NOT per month.

This, I truly believe, is the better choice if you are serious about starting an online affiliate marketing website.

But where do you start?

How do you start a blog? Well, it just so happens I created a step-by-step guide on how to do just that.

And you can read that guide by clicking right here.

Final Thoughts

If you are just getting started, and are struggling to make ends meet, then building a free website with Wix is a smart choice.

Just be sure to keep all of the articles you write backed up on your computer.

Furthermore, as soon as you start making some money, reinvest into your business by purchasing a real domain name and website hosting.

You’ll be glad you did.

With that said, I appreciate you stopping by and I hope you can take action and start an affiliate marketing business online today.

Thanks again and have a great day.