Do I Really Need WordPress for Affiliate Marketing?

There are so many different website builders out there, yet WordPress seems to be often recommended to business users, especially to affiliate marketers. But there are so many other website builders out there. What is it that makes WordPress different? 

If you are promoting a few affiliate products, surely any landing page will do, as long as it’s mobile-friendly and loads up quickly. With that said, if you are planning to run your online business for a long time, you may want to own one platform and stick to it all the way. So do you really need WordPress for affiliate marketing? Let’s check out some advantages and drawbacks.

Is WordPress The Most Popular Website Builder?

Technically, no, but essentially, yes.

No, because WordPress is not a website builder but a content management system (CMS). 

Yes, because all the WordPress themes are made for websites and the majority of the plugins are made to improve your website-building experience. So WordPress indeed is website builder software.

And according to the monitoring results by W3Techs, WordPress is used by 43.1% of all the websites among all the platforms that they know of. It is unquestionably the platform of choice for the majority of website owners.

WordPress is “CMS” - different from other website builders because it’s free to download, and it’s all yours. You can have your WordPress site hosted by any web hosting company of your choice. If you’re not happy with the company, switch to another hosting company, and the site you’ve been building will remain live unless you delete it.

While with other conventional website builders, the platforms are theirs. You build your site within their space, making it hard to migrate.

Let’s say WordPress is a blank canvas. You paint a picture on the canvas and place it on top of a fireplace, hang it on the bedroom wall…anywhere you want. While other site builders are like you painting a picture on your wall directly. When you move, you cannot take the picture with you. See what I mean?

How Can I Migrate My Existing Site To WordPress?

There are over 2 billion websites in the world, but only 200 million of them are currently active as of October 2022, according to TechJury.  

If you’re using a website with an old coding structure, you should really be migrating to the latest platform. And when you look at the long-term, WordPress should be a great choice (will explain to you in a little while.)

Recently, I helped someone move his old website to WordPress by using migration software, but it completely dislocated the layout. I ended up copying & pasting each page manually, and downloading & uploading each image manually. 

I’m not a techie, that was the best I could do at the time. A website migration - you could try a plugin if available, but it may be best to have it handled by a professional to save time, after all. 

Any Design Can Be Converted To WordPress

Not only if you wish to convert your old site to WordPress, but because WordPress is open source, professional developers can create your site even better than a conventional, pre-designed WordPress template. 

For example, PSD2HTML's PSD to WordPress conversion service can create any design you wish, with as many elements as necessary. Unlike ready-made WordPress templates, where users can be limited in design customization options, PSD2HTML can transform your design into a responsive WordPress website precisely what you have imagined.

Why WordPress For Affiliate Marketing?

There’s nothing wrong with using a website builder rather than WordPress though. In fact, popular website builders such as Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly allow a beginner to get started easily. Simple, drag-and-drop, and affiliate marketing friendly (means you can freely promote your affiliate products on your pages.)

Having said that, they are not as flexible as WordPress - once you start building your site, you may not be able to change the theme or add extra features retrospectively. And it’s very difficult to export the entire content and import it to another website builder. 

Affiliate marketing is no different from other business models when it comes to the time and effort that it takes. If one strategy doesn’t work out, you come up with another one. Your website might need a makeover and be split-tested - different types of lead generation forms, call-to-actions, layouts, etc. All this may not be possible with a conventional website builder. Whereas with WordPress, anything can be done by using plugins no matter how drastically the marketing and blogging trends change in the future.

So when you look at long-term affiliate marketing strategies, WordPress may be the best choice for you.

What Makes WordPress Different From Other Website Builders?

Coming back to the advantage of WordPress - so to rephrase what I mentioned above is that, WordPress is totally yours while other builder software is forever theirs.

Here are the other reasons;

WordPress is Open-Source

“Open source” means that the code is accessible to anyone. So anyone can modify the code to suit their needs or add new features as they see fit. That’s why thousands of themes and plugins - free and paid - are available for users to download, one click to install and start using them.

Being open source also makes WordPress more secure than proprietary software. Because anyone can audit the code, security vulnerabilities are quickly found and patched. This is in contrast to closed-source software where only the company that owns the software can see and fix security issues.

Ease of Use

WordPress’s features are nicely laid out and adding to your web platform is an easy one-click. If you have used any office document such as Google Docs, you’ll soon work out what’s where. So anyone can create a website without any prior experience. 

Highly Customizable

WordPress site can be tailored to look and function exactly how you want it to. You can find themes and plugins for just about anything, from e-commerce to social media integration, to call-to-action. Think of anything you want to add to your site, chances are there's a WordPress plugin or theme for it.

SEO Friendly

One of the main reasons WordPress is the best website builder is that it is SEO friendly. This means that your website will be well-optimized for search engines, so you can get more traffic and higher search engine rankings.

There are other elements that you can add to make sure your website is optimized for search engines, such as;

• Well-optimized theme: There are hundreds of (free) WordPress themes that are designed with SEO in mind. This means they are fast loading, have clean code, and are easy to navigate.
• SEO plugins: Installing an SEO plugin such as Yoast or All In One SEO is essential, because a plugin makes it so much easier to optimize, such as to create XML sitemaps, connect to Google Search Console, add canonical URLs to tell search engines that some pages have the same content, etc.
• Image optimization plugins: Plugins such as Kraken Image Optimizer can reduce the file size of your images very quickly for you.
• SEO-friendly permalinks: So long as your SEO keyword is in the title of your post, the permalinks will be SEO-friendly, which makes it easier for Google to index your pages and understand what they are about.

Mobile Friendly

Needless to mention, but just in case. WordPress allows you to edit your content on a mobile device, and unless you are using a 5+ years old theme, the web pages are mobile responsive.

The Large Community of Users

The largest number of users means the user community is also large where both users and developers can have discussions freely. The support platform enables users to help each other, report bugs to the administrators, and make suggestions.

No matter what your WordPress website needs, chances are there’s a plugin or theme for that. And if there isn’t, someone in the community can likely create one for you. This wealth of resources and support is one of the main reasons why WordPress is the best website builder.

Running an Online Store on WordPress

Online store format is another popular way to take among affiliates. They either display their digital affiliate products on the storefront, or they sell their own products while promoting other people’s products as affiliates.

Shopify is the most popular eCommerce “website builder” designed specifically for online stores. It’s user-friendly and comes with everything you need to set up and run your store, all in one place. You don’t need any coding knowledge or experience to use Shopify, making it a great option for those who are just getting started with eCommerce.

But because Shopify is a closed platform, you’re limited in terms of customization. You can only use the themes and plugins that are available on the Shopify platform, which might not be enough to create the exact store you want. And because Shopify is such a popular platform, it can be more expensive than some of the other options out there.

WooCommerce is a free open-source eCommerce plugin that works on WordPress, allowing you to sell anything online. While Shopify may be the most popular e-commerce builder, WooCommerce is the most popular e-commerce tool, dominating over 36% market share (as of July 2022 according to Statista). This means that the majority of online store owners choose to use WooCommerce.

So again, WordPress can be transformed into a fully functioning online store. While it may not be as user-friendly as Shopify, it’s much more flexible in terms of customization. 

So, which platform is better? If you want a user-friendly platform that comes with everything you need to set up and run your store, Shopify is a great option. If you’re looking for a more flexible platform that allows for greater customization, WordPress might be a better choice.

Ask a Professional For Help

While WordPress is so user-friendly, if you feel uncomfortable using any software in general, you may be overwhelmed by it all. Or you may find no time to design your site while focusing on learning your affiliate business skills. If that’s the case, there are plenty of WordPress development services out there. Whether just a simple, 3-page website or a full-fledged site, they can build one for you, revamp your existing site, or convert your old site to WordPress format.

It may be worth investing some money this way in the beginning because as I explained earlier, your WordPress site will remain forever as long as you keep it alive. You can start customizing it yourself when you get more time in the future.

Do I Really Need WordPress for Affiliate Marketing? Final Words

If you're determined to succeed as an affiliate marketer for many years to come, WordPress is the best website builder for you. If you’ve never used it before, did you know you can give it a try for totally free? Seeing is believing - access from the link below and create your own WordPress within a matter of a few minutes. If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to let us know. Good luck!