After our post on writing better reviews, we got a lot of interest from readers asking us what it takes to create a great product review site.
Unfortunately for the internet, when people think of building affiliate websites, they usually think of doing something like this:
Affiliate websites like these are all over the web.
They have no ambition and are designed just to siphon off affiliate commissions by overselling without subtleties.
Little wonder that they drop off the radar within months.
The truth is that there are tons of affiliate sites on the internet with a focus on product reviews that are awesome and still great at making money.
In fact, they give away so much value that you don’t even see their affiliate links.
At Authority Hacker, we’ve always been about building long-term businesses with a focus on delivering value in order to build a real audience and ensure the site doesn’t get penalised down the line.
21 Real Life Examples Of Successful Affiliate Marketing Websites In 2021
So for this post, we’re going to look at 21 examples of affiliate websites that “get it” when it comes to marketing 3rd party products while delivering value and try to learn from them.
I hope that looking at these affiliate marketing examples will give you some inspiration with your own sites and will show you that affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be cheesy.
1 - Nerdwallet
Nerdwallet is one of my favorite affiliate websites, and I’m sure plenty of affiliate marketers would tell you the same.
It’s been around for a long while, it does enormously well in one of the most competitive markets, and the content is genuinely useful.
Nerdwallet is essentially a review affiliate site for financial products. The cover everything from credit cards to mortgages to investing to insurance.
Have stellar contents, and exceptional user interface, and a really good marketing team.
They’ve basically been the gold standard of affiliate sites for the last several years (in my view anyway).
- Niche: Consumer finance
- Goal: Help people pick the best credit cards, loans, insurance, etc.
- Key Challenge: Extremely competitive market.
Top Content
I love this piece of content because it’s not content as we think of it in any traditional sense.
Seasoned link builders will probably recognize the angle here: creating a hyper-useful tool that’s going to do very well in the context of a content marketing campaign.
What makes this one of their top pieces of content, however, is that it also targets a very good keyword.
This may be one of the single most difficult (but valuable) affiliate keywords in the world, and NerdWallet consistently snags one of the top spots in the SERPs. As of right now they rank #1 for it in Google.
Huge win for them.
Another extremely competitive keyword, and, it should be noted, this content is also in tool form.
How They Make Money
Nerdwallet is also a 100% affiliate site. They do not have ads, nor do they (as far as I can tell) sell any of their own products.
Top Promotions
What we can learn from Nerdwallet
- Make tools. So much of Nerdwallet’s best content comes into will form, and that’s because not only is a great for user experience, but tools also tend to attract lots of links, and SEO is a major part of this site’s strategy.
- Update key pages. Nerdwallet makes a practice of updating their key pages. For example, their big guides, like, “Best Credit Cards 2016” will be updated annually (to “Best Credit Cards 2019”), making them relevant in giving their marketing team an opportunity to market them again.
2 - money saving expert
MoneySavingExpert.com helps ordinary people make better financial decisions. Think of it as financial education for the masses that helps people get more bang for their buck.
The site was started by Martin Lewis, a financial journalist, in 2003. Today, it ranks as one of the biggest consumer affiliate websites in the UK with over 8 million visits every month.
In a field filled with self-serving information and dubious knowledge, MoneySavingExpert (MSE) has managed to set itself apart thanks to its content quality and devotion to helping consumers.
The site was sold to Moneysupermarket.com in 2012 for £87 million.
- Niche: Personal finance
- Founder: Martin Lewis (@MartinSLewis)
- Goal: To help ordinary people make better financial decisions
- Key Challenge: To provide ethical, accurate and updated financial information in a sector marked by self-serving interests.
Top Content
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