9 Great Affiliate Marketing Website Examples (and what you can learn from them)

Affiliate marketing websites come in all shapes and sizes. Some of the best-known websites make the bulk of their revenue through affiliate marketing.

In this post, I chose nine highly successful affiliate marketing website examples(based on traffic) and did a deep dive into what they’re doing right and what you and I can learn from them.

Some of these blogs sold for insane figures.

Each blog was chosen based on some unique thing they are doing and to vary the niches as much as possible.

In each example, you’ll learn:

• What is the site about
• What they promote
• What they write about
• What sets them apart
• What you can learn from them

1. NerdWallet

NerdWallet is the quintessential affiliate marketing website. From humble beginnings in the early 2000s as a simple credit card comparison website with a blog, they’ve grown to 379.6 million dollars in revenue in 2021 and over 20.4 million organic visits per month, according to Ahrefs in 2022.

At its core, NerdWallet is a credit card comparison site.

Credit cards and other financial products have some of the most lucrative affiliate programs in the world, paying tens to hundreds of dollars per sale or lead.

Even today, comparing credit cards is the primary call to action, when you visit Nerdwallets.

What NerdWallet Promotes

As soon as you visit NerdWallet, the first thing that pops out is that they’re a comparison site for credit cards.

There are two primary calls to action: comparing credit cards (going in for the conversion) or exploring guides and tips (warming up leads before going in for the conversion).

You can also access the same kinds of buying guides and info content for all the main categories they service: travel cards, small business, personal loans, banking, mortgages, insurance, investing, and student loans.

As you can imagine, all of these are SUPER lucrative affiliate programs.

Taking apart a product roundup page

This is the above-the-fold area of their best credit cards page.

Just look at all the things they’re doing right!

First off, they’ve got a link to their advertiser disclosure at the very top. Super important for compliance.

Below that, notice how the page’s heading is updated for the month of September 2022(when this screenshot was taken).

Normally, affiliate site owners will keep the title tag updated and the H1 has the year, but notice how these guys go the extra mile and update the H1 as well.

Granted, there are WordPress plugins you can use to do this, but it’s a good touch.

Next up is a really short and sweet introduction.

Notice how they get right to the point, and by stating “NerdWallet’s best credit cards”, they’re immediately taking ownership of the recommendations.

Finally, by stating “our partners”, they’re giving even more authenticity to the whole post: they’re not just collating information, but they’re actively working with the credit card companies to provide the most objective comparison possible.

Below that there is another disclosure.

NerdWallet is super honest in its disclosure as far as affiliate sites go!

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This may influence which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here’s how we make money.

They’re very upfront about stating that they receive compensation from their partners, and that does influence the products they choose and the appearance of the product.

However, they qualify that by saying their evaluations are objective.

Below that there is a call to action to answer a short quiz to find the right card. This is the quickest way to nab the commission.

The quiz helps reduce the time the user needs to find a card, and the click-throughs and sign-ups will most likely be much greater at the end of the quiz.

Now let’s take a look at one of their product recommendations:

In this single product recommendation from their “Best Credit Cards” page, you’ll see a pretty standard product overview.

There’s a “best for XYZ” above the product name, an image, a call to action below the image, and a rating.

On the right, you’ll see the basic information you’d need to know: the annual fee, the rewards rate, the intro offer, and the recommended credit score you need to qualify for this card.

In the collapsible “Product Details” section, there are bullet points about the card’s main details, and the “Our Take” section has a few pros and cons.

This is really interesting, as affiliate sites sometimes separate the pros and cons section from “their take”.

However, this makes complete sense, since the pros and cons are indeed “your take”.

Below the products, they have a massive buying guide that talks about everything you ever wanted to know about credit cards, right from how they work to how to apply and the different kinds of cards available.

What kind of content they publish

Nerd Wallet’s primary types of content are visible from their navigation menu:

The three primary types of content they publish are roundup reviews for everything about finance, how to guides, and financial calculators.

As you can imagine, all of these keywords have massive search volume, as seen from Ahrefs:

Their top pages are all super lucrative commercial pages, with the exception of the third page: “federal tax brackets”.

Aside from the pages, you can find from the navigation menu, they’ve got a LOT of other content. Ahrefs shows 17,000 pages that rank!

Finance is such a huge vertical that there is no shortage of topics to write about.

For example, Nerd Wallet also ranks for “how much is Amazon Prime”.

NerdWallet’s unique approaches

Of all of the things NerdWallet is doing right, their calculators are something out of this world.

Take a look at their 401k calculator:

It’s incredibly functional and shows a beautiful graph for your 401(k)’s growth.

NerdWallet has multiple calculators such as these: credit card balance transfers, interest rates, savings accounts, and so on.

Calculators are really valuable tools to get links from other sites and they also provide a ton of value to readers.

Additionally, NerdWallet is very frank about its relationships with its partners. They very clearly state right at the top of the page that partnerships do influence the order and selection of products.

While you are legally bound to disclose this information, many affiliate sites do it in a more subtle way.

Not NerdWallet!

What they’ve evolved into

When Nerdwallet started out, they were a simple credit card comparison website. The earliest Archive.org screenshot shows that the front page was a comparison engine and that led people to sign up for cards.

Now, they’ve grown into one of the premier hubs for all kinds of financial information, whether it’s cards, bank accounts, retirement accounts, investments, or home purchases.

One factor that greatly led to their success was the superb branding.

“NerdWallet” is a very generic but still specific name.

While “wallet” makes sense for credit cards, the over-arching financial connotation let them easily brand into a portal about everything related to finance.

Additionally, they’ve partnered up with credit scoring companies to let you sign up with NerdWallet and track your personal finances and credit journey through it.

Once you’ve signed up with them, you’ve effectively delivered them a permanent lead for all sorts of financial products.

Letting each user personalize their experience with NerdWallet and pairing it with an app that provides such great value really cements their position at the top of the market.

What can you learn from NerdWallet

• Be very frank about your affiliate disclosures
• Have an in-your-face call to action that directly takes users to your biggest cash cow page
• Make that page as easy to use as possible
• Keep the descriptions in your product recommendations unobtrusive, and highlight the main points instead
• Conquer the market: build an app and get people to create an account with your site where you provide them with extra value

2. All About Cats

All About Cats gets nearly 1,000,000 organic visits per month and is an authority affiliate marketing website in the cats niche.

Like many of the other successful sites we’ve seen so far, All About Cats has very open-ended branding, so they can write about anything related to cats and still be relevant to their overall brand.

The front page directs you to four major cat-egories.

Clicking on one such as Food brings up a hub-style page with links to product roundups as well as individual reviews of certain cat foods and where they are available.

Clearly, a lot of effort has gone into this one hub page. There are hundreds of brands listed here and they’ve gone through the extra step of listing where each type of food is available in the world.

Pets are part of people’s families, and according to American Pet Products, over 45 million US households have a cat.

Taking apart a product review page

All About Cats does an excellent job with its product review pages.

Take a look at this major commercial page about the best cat foods.

According to Ahrefs, this page receives 19.1k organic visits per month.

There’s so much EAT here that it’s no surprise this is a page about food!

(Sorry, I can’t help EAT puns).

First off, the author’s name has a verified by name next to it and both are linked to their profile pages.

Below the title, they explain their review methodology and they’re open about the fact that they try to do hands-on testing as much as possible.

The introduction is succinct and to the point, and that’s followed by showcasing the amount of research that they’ve actually done.

All About Cats does a really interesting job with their comparison table.

First off, the ratings has a social proof element right below it, showing how many people picked this product today.

I’m not entirely sure if they’re actually running a script to update that text based on clicks, but it’s an interesting take nonetheless.

There’s an image, a quick overview, and a check price button.

The top product also has a coupon code on the button itself, which is a really nice way to boost conversion rates.

After the comparison table, they go into more depth regarding their review process.

They’ve even listed a panel of 7 veterinary advisors whom they consulted regarding what makes an ideal food for cats.

I did click on some of the links and interestingly none of their LinkedIn profiles noted that they were associated with All About Cats.

However, one thing they all had in common was that they were all copywriters in their industry.

Every individual product review in the roundup is very in-depth.

There’s a brand overview, an overview of the food itself, a top recipe, a list of ingredients, as well as charts that show nutritional information.

It’s pretty clear that these guys went above and beyond in their research for this topic and most likely deserve the traffic that they’re getting!

The product reviews are followed by a buying guide in which they bring in quotes from their veterinary sources.

Essentially, what they’ve done is turn their buyer’s guide into an expert roundup!

What kind of content they write

Considering that the name is All About Cats, this website does really cover nearly everything about cats.

There are about 1,850 pages currently indexed in Google.

In fact, so many people use All About Cats for competition research that Ahrefs actually picks up the search “site:allaboutcats.com” to have 20 searches per month!

They talk about:

• Cat food
• Cat litter
• Litter boxes
• Cat health
• Cat behavior
• Cat breeds

Their cat breeds section is quite extensive and lets you filter by certain breed characteristics like playfulness, hair, and size.

The keyword research and planning behind All About Cats is just amazing as each section is incredibly well-organized and designed.

For example, under cat health, there is a section about “can cats eat…” followed by all the common questions regarding which foods cats can eat.

Unique approaches

All About Cats is one of the best examples of topical authority that I was able to find.

The site is incredibly well-organized and while there’s nothing really out of the box, they just tick all the boxes regarding creating a trustworthy resource really, really well.

What you can learn from All About Cats

• Build out content silos one after another and structure them in a very easy-to-navigate way
• Turn your buyers’ guides into expert roundups and get advice from real industry professionals on how to choose a product
• Be upfront if you don’t always get to test your product
• Be really serious about building up your EAT

3. HomeGrounds

I used to have a website in the coffee niche and HomeGrounds was both my biggest competitor and my biggest influence.

Coffee is a huge niche and there are a ton of products you can promote from coffee makers to grinders to coffee beans and cups.

Plus, the appeal of coffee is nearly universal, so there’s no shortage of people looking to buy coffee and coffee gear.

Considering the amount of traffic they get and the average revenue from affiliate and display ads, it’s safe to say these guys are making mid-5 figures per month, if not more.

Even back in the day, HomeGrounds was a pretty impressive site. As you can see from the navigation bar, they covered a LOT of different topics all in the coffee niche.

Here’s what the site looks like today:

The home page has a really clear value proposition: we’ll help you brew better coffee.

There are two calls to action: one to get people to sign up to their mailing list, and the other to get people to visit their YouTube channel.

What HomeGrounds promotes

HomeGrounds covers nearly every aspect of coffee brewing and as a result, promotes everything under the sun about coffee:

• Espresso machines
• Coffee grinders
• Coffee makers
• Brewing accessories
• Coffee beans

Within each category, there are multiple sub-categories, so there are a lot of great commercial posts.

While coffee beans themselves are not very expensive, the bulk of the revenue probably comes from promoting espresso machines and coffee makers, since high-end ones can go for well over $500.

Taking apart a product roundup page

This page on the HomeGrounds website about the best espresso makers for 2022 is a pretty standard affiliate marketing procedure but executed very nicely.

There’s a brief but informative introduction at the very top, followed by a box with some links to their top recommendations.

Below that, there is a comparison table with their top picks, some bullet points about each, and a call to action to buy.

These comparison tables work really well and I’ve seen that they work in nearly all verticals.

Each individual product in their roundup is highlighted with a box that has an image and some important points, followed by a call to action to buy.

This is a recurring theme we’re seeing in successful affiliate websites!

The individual product reviews are OK at best.

Below the reviews, there’s a buyer’s guide.

One thing HomeGrounds has executed very nicely (which other affiliate marketing websites sometimes don’t do) is have an infographic in their buyer’s guide which is a summary of all the points discussed.

Infographics are essentially unique images, and these are becoming more and more of a signal of trust and uniqueness.

Finally, there’s an author box at the very bottom with a photo and a description. There are no links to any social profiles or websites, though.

What kind of content they publish

HomeGrounds covers mostly all of the bases in coffee, as seen in their navigation menu:

Brewing, beans, gear, recipes, and tools(calculators and charts).

This is a very well-rounded approach and ideal for an affiliate marketing website that is in the authority stage.

There are multiple brewing methods, lots of kinds of gear(coffee makers, grinders, espresso machines, cups, and so on), and tons of different recipes.

This effect of blanketing the niche does wonders for HomeGrounds’ topical authority. A quick Google search shows that they have over 2000 pages indexed in Google.

These guys have been around for a long time and they’ve not wasted any time: producing 2000 pieces of content is a lot of work, and they still regularly publish new content and update existing content.

Unique approaches

What’s really interesting about HomeGrounds is that many of their pages have infographics that summarize the content.

It’s not uncommon for sites to have one or two infographics, but these guys have taken it to the next level.

What’s more, the infographics are all really well designed and easy to read, enticing users to Pin/share them.

They’ve also got a really neat way to capture emails: when you try to exit the page, you’re greeted with a popup that invites you to take a quiz.

Quizzes are nearly irresistible, so they’re probably capturing a good amount of emails here!

They’ve also got some really neat coffee-related tools:

• Grind chart
• Flavor wheel
• Coffee compass
• Coffee to water calculator
• Cold brew ratio calculator

What you can learn from HomeGrounds

• Choose a niche and write about everything under the sun. Cover every aspect and really show that you’re the very best source of information for this topic.
• Use creative and out of the box ways to capture email addresses even if you’re primarily an affiliate site
• Think creatively about what kind of tools you can provide your audience

4. MyGolfSpy

MyGolfSpy is one of the biggest affiliate marketing websites in the golf space.

They’ve been around for a long time, as Archive.org’s earliest snapshot is from 2008:

Golf is a huge industry with avid golfers spending tens of thousands of dollars on gear and apparel.

What MyGolfSpy Promotes

MyGolfSpy promotes everything that a golfer would need:

This is just the first row, and there was a big advertisement below it 🙂

There were a few more pages of reviews!

MyGolfSpy is being very cheeky here, optimizing for “most wanted” as their prefix instead of “best”.

There are two things going on here: they’re confident that Google understands that the intent for best and most wanted is the same, so they should show up for either query.

They’re also banking on their authority in the niche(they’re DR68) to rank for pretty much anything they write.

There’s so much gear that you can review in the golf niche:

• Each type of club
• Each type of ball
• Gloves
• Shoes
• Bags

Each of these main categories has multiple sub-categories, so there’s a huge amount of commercial potential.

Golf is also one of those sports where people may prefer to buy from a specialist retailer rather than a big box retailer. As a result, they’ve got a lot more potential affiliate programs to work with.

However, with huge commercial potential, there’s also a huge amount of work, which they’ve clearly put in, as you’ll see in the next section.

Taking apart a product review page

MyGolfSpy has really outdone itself on its page about the most wanted hybrid golf club. Their level of attention to detail and testing rivals that of NerdWallet.

In fact, I’d say they do a more objective job of comparing than NerdWallet does.

Let’s dive in:

Above the fold, there’s a clean background image with a headline and a strong message as to why these guys should be trusted.

While they don’t introduce the topic above the fold, they do stress the fact that they spend so much time on research and testing. This immediately instills a lot of trust in the reader and encourages them to continue.

Right below the fold, there is a comparison table of the top 5 clubs.

Each club is available to purchase from a different retailer!

So not only does the reader have a choice of club, they also have a choice of preferred retailer!

Below that, they have standard pros and cons, and finally a 100-point scoring system.

I was a little doubtful about the scoring system, but they go on to explain it further below:

Interestingly enough, MyGolfSpy puts its review criteria up here before getting into the actual product reviews.

I’m guessing this is to justify the product score they assigned above, and to me, it feels like a solid move.

Below that, they’ve ranked each of the 5 clubs based on multiple criteria: overall, distance, forgiveness, and accuracy.

This way, a reader can choose a club that fits exactly what they’re looking for!

Then they display the clubs and their scores and provide affiliate links again, but this time, the list is longer. Above, they had only listed the top 5.

Finally, they have a very extensive FAQ section.

Essentially, they’ve done away with the long, sometimes regurgitated individual product reviews and distilled them down into data.

You may not be able to do this with every single niche, but you can certainly try to rank the products based on multiple criteria to help people make better buying decisions.

What kind of content they write

MyGolfSpy covers a WIDE range of content from best-of product roundups, individual product tests, deals, and of course, news.

By looking at Ahrefs, we can see what queries they’re ranking highly for:

Most of their top-ranking pages are commercial pages, meaning they’re probably raking it in.

One high-traffic page ranks highly for “golf ball compression chart”.

There’s a pattern emerging here.

Notice how most of the top affiliate websites are utilizing tools and charts to get traffic. Most importantly, tools and charts are genuinely helpful.

However, what’s really interesting is the search volume for the brand itself: according to Ahrefs, the keyword “MyGolfSpy” is searched 12,000 times per month.

That’s INSANE brand recognition.

That’s the kind of nirvana that most affiliate websites can only dream of achieving: when you’re so well-known that you’re getting 30,000+ visits of essentially direct traffic.

So much direct traffic is probably what allows them to publish so many non-SEO-focused posts.

Unique approaches

Since the early stages of MyGolfSpy, they seem to have done an excellent job of branding.

This is evidenced by the fact that they had a forum all the way back in 2009-2010.

Forums are POWERFUL tools if you can keep them moderated.

That’s because forums generate a lot of valuable discussions which your site can inadvertently rank for, they’re a source of never-ending content ideas, and they’re a place for people to repeatedly visit your site, see your ads, and click on your affiliate links.

They also have a store where they sell branded merchandise. I’m guessing the store is not that important to them because it’s buried away in a tiny link in the top secondary navigation menu.

Finally, there are deals pages accessible from the home page.

Because these guys get so much direct traffic, they can create these deals pages which can result in quick affiliate wins.

What you can learn from MyGolfSpy

• Rethink your product reviews and try to do a few where your products are ranked differently according to multiple criteria
• Set up a robust data methodology to do your reviews. You don’t have to do this for every roundup, but it would certainly help on your highest-value ones
• Build a strong community through a forum. Just be aware that you’ll need to hire a moderator to keep the forum spam-free
• Leverage this community into affiliate commissions and ad revenue by curating deals and news

5. Adam Enfroy

AdamEnfroy.com is a really unique case study in this roundup of affiliate marketing website examples.

For starters, it’s probably the youngest site on the whole list, having started in only 2019.

It’s also the highest earning site that’s not owned by a large media company. Adam frequently posts videos on YouTube and he mentions that his blog earns nearly $300,000 per month.

The home page CTA focuses on getting emails to start a blogging business and utilizes social proof, stating that 77,000 bloggers are part of his email list.

However, the main affiliate revenue comes from his reviews of business software, which you can see in the top navigation.

What AdamEnfroy.com Promotes

All of the software tools he promotes have sizeable affiliate programs, and through effective promotion and link-building, Adam has positioned himself very strongly on the first page of Google for many lucrative keywords.

Web hosting, podcast hosting, e-commerce tools, video editing, and webinar software are all incredibly lucrative industries to get into.

Not to mention they’re incredibly competitive, too!

Taking apart a product review page

AdamEnfroy.com utilizes a pretty simple but effective approach.

Above the fold, you can see that the page’s heading has the month in it as well as highlights the fact that there are free hosting solutions.

After a short-but-effective introduction, Adam dives right into a comparison between the top 5 podcast hosting solutions.

Each one has a justification for why it’s in the list, as well as a short blurb about the company and a non-pushy call to action.

The sidebar space is very well utilized: there’s an affiliate disclaimer, a table of contents, and a recap of the top picks from the post.

Including the top picks in the sidebar is a great decision, because that increases the likelihood of someone clicking on one of your affiliate links!

The product review begins with a quick overview and a score. Notice how important points are highlighted, and there’s a personalized summary called “Adam’s Take.”

This adds a level of personalization and a human touch, since you’re associating a person with the recommendation rather than some faceless website.

The reviews also have screenshots and images of the products being used(as recommended by Google).

Towards the end of the post, there’s an infographic about how to start a podcast as well as recommendations for podcast microphones, tips for starting a podcast(in the body of the article), and FAQs.

All-in-all, it’s a very comprehensive guide to everything someone looking for podcast hosting would want to know.

It makes sense to upsell microphones here, because if you’re looking for a good podcast host, it’s likely that you don’t have all the equipment yet!

What kind of content they write

In his videos, Adam notes that there are two primary types of content to write about: transactional content and informational content.

This is a very simplified but effective method of writing content. If your goal is to drive affiliate conversions, you want to maximize your affiliate-style pages, but you also don’t want to come off as too pushy.

So a healthy mix of affiliate pages and how-to pages are a good mix.

There are also some non-keyword-oriented posts thrown in as well. These are usually quality posts that provide lots of value to readers but are not necessarily designed to be found through organic search.

Unique approaches

AdamEnfroy.com is an outlier among the other sites listed here because it’s scaled up so quickly.

To build an affiliate marketing website in one of the most competitive niches up to this level, and that too in just 2 years requires a lot of process-building and scaling.

Adam’s background in SAAS and big tech helped him apply the same techniques to a personal/affiliate blog, and it’s amazing how he has seen these kinds of results.

In my 10 years of affiliate marketing, I’ve noticed that effective scaling is the difference between good affiliate sites and wildly successful affiliate sites.

AdamEnfroy.com’s massive link building and content production combination helped it get to where it is today.

What you can learn from AdamEnfroy.com

• Build a personal blog that is not necessarily locked into a single niche or industry
• Focus on building high-DR links at pace to rack up authority and rankings
• See what works across a variety of keywords and double down

6. Sleep Foundation

No roundup of affiliate websites would be complete without a website from the infamous sleep niche!

The sleep niche is so notorious that Gaël and Mark from Authority Hackers once referred to the entire niche as the “sleep mafia”.

Sleep products are HUGE, as you can imagine, and it’s one of the most lucrative niches to get into.

It’s also something that EVERYONE needs!

Today, they’re a part of a bigger media company:

Sleepfoundation.org was originally the website for a non-profit organization.

Here’s what was on their About page in late 2020:

In December 2019, OneCare Media acquired SleepFoundation.org and licensed the site content from National Sleep Foundation, an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Our goal is to broaden the reach of SleepFoundation.org. The site features a medical board, expanded sleep science coverage, data-driven content, consumer reports, and intensive reviews of different sleep and wellness products. The site will continue to publish authoritative, timely research about topics related to sleep and health.

Here’s what it says today(2022):

A OneCare Media brand. SleepFoundation.org was acquired from the National Sleep Foundation in 2019 and is no longer affiliated with the non-profit organization.

OneCare Media essentially bought an entire medical-niche website from a non-profit and pivoted into a HUGE affiliate marketing website.

What SleepFoundation Promotes

SleepFoundation promotes all kinds of sleep products, as the name suggests!

The main call to action on the home page loads a quiz that personalizes content recommendations for you.

There are a LOT of products in the sleep niche:

• Mattresses
• Pillows
• Insomnia treatments
• Sleeping pills
• Sleep apnea machines
• and more

SleepFoundation seems to have covered everything under the sun in sleep. There are nearly 2,000 indexed pages on Google.

Taking apart a product review page

Since we’re dealing with a YMYL niche here, SleepFoundation cuts no corners in establishing EAT(expertise-authority-trust).

In the author box, there are three things that make you want to trust the recommendation they’re giving you:

First off, they’re highlighting that Logan Foley is a “certified sleep coach”. This is a clickable link, where you will be taken to their author profile. This should highlight even more EAT.

Below that, they talk about their review methodology: every product is tested to give data-driven recommendations.

Finally, they note a slight change in their list – this shows that they’re coming back to this page and updating it every so often.

Surprisingly enough, the introduction is pretty run-of-the-mill. This format is standard across most niche sites, and it’s surprising that they’re not using an approach like NerdWallet, considering that these guys are a huge company.

Right after the introduction, SleepFoundation shows a roundup of the mattresses they’ve chosen in the post and why they’ve chosen this particular mattress.

This is a really important touch – highlighting why a particular mattress made the cut gives a lot more authenticity to the review.

This is what a product review starts as. There’s a nice area where they highlight all the important features and specifications of the mattress, and they also note who this mattress is the best for.

Following this area is more content regarding the mattress, just like you’d see on an affiliate marketing site.

Sleep Foundation further establishes its trust and expertise with a big “Why you can trust us” section.

While many sites choose to do this with a simple author box, these guys have really gone overboard.

…not only physically lying on each mattress but also changing positions and getting in and out of bed.

That’s dedication that’s hard to find!

Towards the end of the post, they direct the reader to other specific mattress-related pages.

What Sleep Foundation has done is turn its “best mattress” page into a hub page that directs authority and relevance through to pages that target other smaller volume keywords.

It also shows that they’ve really covered everything there possibly is to cover with buying mattresses.

Finally, at the very bottom, they’re really putting their money where their mouth is by offering contact information and an email address for anyone to call them or message them if they have any questions.

I rarely see any affiliate sites(or even larger sites for that matter) doing this, and it’s really interesting to see how much effort they’re making to come across as a true “business” rather than an affiliate marketing company.

What kind of content they write

If you pull up Sleep Foundation’s top pages on Ahrefs, you’ll see that there is a healthy mix of affiliate and informational articles.

In fact, of the top 8 pages they’re getting organic traffic to, only two are commercial. The rest are informational but have strong potential for commercial recommendations.

For example, a page about “how to stop snoring” can recommend products that help prevent snoring instead of just techniques and home remedies.

Unique approaches

Sleep Foundation got its start by building upon the authority and trust of a non-profit organization.

Many marketers build sites on broken domains, but these guys took an established brand in the sleep space, licensed their content, leveraged their trust, and turned it into a massive money-making affiliate business.

Additionally, the attention to establishing EAT is something that few sites do.

This is because EAT is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL in the YMYL niche.

What you can learn from Sleep Foundation

• Don’t take any shortcuts when establishing EAT: create strong author profiles, show why your author is the best person to write about this subject, and show why your site is objectively the best site to trust.
• Instead of building a site from the ground up, try leveraging established but not monetized websites.
• Offer lots of ways to contact you to make personalized recommendations
• Explain your testing/review methodology in detail

7. Pew Pew Tactical

For the next example, I thought I’d show a site where it may be difficult to run display ads, but the niche still has a very dedicated and passionate community around it.

Pew Pew Tactical focuses on guns, but thanks to their open-ended branding, they are able to focus on anything in the tactical and survival niche.

The earliest screenshot I could find was from 2016 on Archive.org:

Back in the day, Pew Pew Tactical seemed to focus primarily on guns and gunsmithing, but they’ve since grown a lot into all things tactical.

What Pew Pew Tactical Promotes

As you can see from the menu, Pew Pew covers a wide chunk of the gun niche.

Since you can’t buy guns from Amazon, these guys have tie-ups with multiple gun and tactical stores as you’ll see in the next section.

They’ve also split their commercial content into two categories: reviews, where they talk about individual products, and best-of-style roundup reviews.

Taking apart a product review page

Pew Pew Tactical does a really great job with the introduction to their roundup review.

First, there’s a subheading that succinctly summarizes the contents of the post.

Below the author’s name and page date, there’s another really short and gripping introduction that does a good job of hooking the reader and encouraging them to continue reading.

Right after the introduction, there is a product comparison table.

Each gun is available at a particular retailer, and these guys have tie-ups with them through their affiliate programs.

There’s also a neat tagline below each product name that summarizes the product details in one sentence.

Throughout the review, there are plenty of real images and videos from Pew Pew Tactical themselves, demonstrating their expertise and the fact that they’ve actually tried the products themselves.

What kind of content they write

Aside from the usual commercial content, Pew Pew actually has a LOT of informational content.

There’s an entire section called “Guns 101” where they have a complete course to firearms for anyone who is new to them.

As you can see from the table of contents, there are a LOT of topics covered here.

Each chapter actually contains a lot of articles within it, so they’re doing a great job of building topical authority.

Some of the smaller-volume posts are not as detailed as the Best AR-15 post you saw above, but that’s to be expected.

What’s impressive is that they’re covering the topical map so well.

They’ve also got a really strong presence on YouTube which has undoubtedly helped their website grow.

Even from the earliest snapshot from Archive.org, they prominently displayed the fact that they had a YouTube channel (even though there were just 6 videos back then!)

In some niches, building up a YouTube channel hand-in-hand with a website helps both assets grow very well.

Unique approaches

Pew Pew Tactical’s Buyer’s Guide section is quite interesting. It’s like a product category page on an eCommerce store:

The way Pew Pew Tactical have implemented this seems very clever as it looks like they’ve used Woocommerce and integrated it this way.

Each product has a link to directly take you to buy it. There’s also a little blurb below the product with a link to the full review.

Many sites have a “Start Here” section where they list their recommended products from each category, but this is taking it to the next level.

Pew Pew Tactical has a $67 course on handgun safety and usage, too.

They probably promote the course through their email list and social channels.

What you can learn from Pew Pew Tactical

• Build topical authority with a content hub that serves as a 101-style guide to all things related to your niche
• Utilize a quick buyer’s guide with multiple recommendations to help people who are browsing for quick recommendations and don’t want to read a lot of content
• Create an info course to upsell to your email list

8. All3Dp

All3Dp is one of the biggest sites in the 3D printing niche. 3D printing is HUGE and Ahrefs estimates that All3Dp gets around 2.2 million organic visits per month.

The name itself is very open for branding since they’re “All3Dp”, meaning anything and everything to do with 3D printers!

What All3Dp Promotes

As you may have guessed, All3Dp primarily promotes 3D printers and accessories.

3D printers have lots of parts and potential upgrades, so there’s no shortage of products to talk about.

However, that also means there are so many more pieces of content you’d have to write!

As of this writing, All3Dp has around 12,000 pages indexed in Google!

Taking apart a product review page

All3Dp follows a pretty standard product review format.

There’s a nice big image to grab attention, and on the right, there’s a disclaimer at the top, a nice heading, and an author name with a 3D printed figurine as a headshot!

The body of the review starts with a nice and succinct introduction.

All3Dp uses a magazine-style layout on their big money pages(though I’m not a huge fan of this format). A table of contents scrolls with you on the left, and right after the intro, you’re greeted with a product table.

Each 3D printer is categorized as to why it’s on the list, has a one-sentence summary, a price range, and where you can buy it from.

Individual 3D printer reviews further down the page are quite standard:

At the very bottom of the roundup, there was a really interesting section that I have not seen too often on any affiliate marketing websites.

All3Dp actually maintains a changelog of the roundup review.

Maintaining a log is an incredibly potent trust factor both for search engines and for users, as it shows that you’re actively updating your content and you’re also proud of your previous content.

What some sites tend to do is just erase all of their previous content and write a completely new post. While that may be necessary in some cases, the approach All3Dp uses is really unique.

What kind of content they write

All3Dp’s content strategy can be split into the following:

• Things you can 3D print
• 3D printing basics and troubleshooting
• Buyer’s guides and roundup reviews
• Individual product reviews
• Deal curation

In the 3D printing niche, there are so many thousands of topics to write about that it kind of becomes a race to churn out as much content as humanly possible.

There are always new printers coming out, new accessories being developed, and new models being designed. Granted, all industries experience some form of advancement, but it’s far faster in some industries than in others.

3D printing is one of those very fast-paced industries.

I would know, since I’m a 3D printing fan myself!

In fact, I had started an affiliate website of my own about 3D printing which I was unable to maintain for this very reason!

Unique approaches

All3Dp has a service called CraftCloud where you can compare quotes for 3D printing services anywhere around the world.

All you need to do is upload your 3D model, and input your location, and you’ll get a variety of places and materials you can get your model printed in, as well as the approximate cost.

CraftCloud is not attached to the same domain as the main site. Instead, clicking the CraftCloud link in the navigation menu takes you to an external site that is branded to match with All3Dp.

What you can learn from All3Dp

• Go into a really big niche IF you’re able to keep up with the constant demand for new content
• Leverage your authority and traffic to become a service provider in your industry
• If your main products are not too commission-heavy, boost your revenue with display ads

9. Don’t Waste Your Money

Don’t Waste Your Money is an “everything” review site.

If you took Amazon and turned it into an affiliate marketing website, you’d probably end up with Don’t Waste Your Money.

Sort of.

They’re like a cross between an affiliate website and Consumer Reports.

Above the fold, you’ll see the most recent articles.

These guys seem like content machines, as there are 5 articles all published on the same day by the same author!

What Don’t Waste Your Money Promotes

Don’t Waste Your Money promotes literally everything under the sun.

After so many Google algorithm updates have destroyed similar sites, it’s amazing how these guys are still thriving.

As of this writing, there are 45,000+ pages indexed in Google.

As far as I can tell, there are no informational pages, so that means there are 45,600 commercial pages.

Taking apart a product review page

The product review pages of Don’t Waste Your Money are quite straightforward.

After a big heading, Don’t Waste Your Money highlights how they come up with these recommendations.

They don’t hide the fact that they don’t really test the products themselves: instead, they spin it as a team of experts who analyze, research, and test(?) the products.

They also have a little seal of approval for products they have found to be the very best.

The first section of the roundup review is a table.

There’s a section called “Our take” which is supposedly their opinion on what makes the product special, and the section below that is “Experts Included” where they list the websites they used to research and formulate their opinion.

Below the table, they further explain how they got to their conclusions.

While it may not seem much to consider just 14 products and read 10 expert reviews(who are most likely affiliate sites themselves), they state that they analyzed 191,157 user reviews.

There’s no way an individual or even a team sifted through nearly 200,000 reviews to write a page about a keyword that has a search volume of 0-10 according to Ahrefs, so there’s probably a script they’ve developed that scrapes the web and averages out the reviews.

Finally, here’s what each individual review in the roundup looks like:

It seems like we’ve been magically transported back to 2000 when this kind of content still worked, but here is Don’t Waste Your Money, getting nearly 1.1 million organic visits every month for this kind of content.

In the next section, I’ll try to dig into how this is possible.

What kind of content they write

In a study about the December 2021 Google Broad Core update, Matt Diggity found a correlation between the ratio of informational vs commercial posts on a site and the likelihood of it getting hit by a Google update.

These guys seem to have missed the memo because almost ALL of their content is commercial.

It’s like they searched for “best” in Ahrefs and exported every single keyword they found, then created a roundup page for it.

The content is also nothing to write home about, but they still manage to rank.

For these guys, it looks like a volume play where they’ll create enough pages to generate a decent amount of traffic and affiliate commissions.

Considering that they have 45,000 pages indexed in Google, if you average it out, 1,000,000 views divided by 45,000 pages is 22 visits per page per month.

Unique approaches

Don’t Waste Your Money links out to other affiliate sites from their product reviews along with a quote.

They do this to validate their choice of product, and it doesn’t hurt that the external link sends a good signal to Google as well.

What really puzzles me is how they’re managing to rank for so many different keywords. They seem to have positioned themselves as a Consumer Reports style site that deserves to rank.

They even rank for terms like “best water balloon” and “best plastic bottle pump dispenser”.

What you can learn from Don’t Waste Your Money

• Build a rating system that aggregates data points from multiple sources
• Play a volume game if you have the capacity
• Systematize your content – every single review page looks exactly the same
• Write for any keyword under the sun if it fits your niche

Conclusion

There are plenty of affiliate marketing websites out there.

Just head over to Investors Club or Empire Flippers and you can see so many new listings coming up every week, some of which are doing incredibly well.

The sites listed here all do a few really great things which set them apart from the competition.

A common factor amongst all of the sites was a strong focus on EAT and really selling the reader on why this particular site should be trusted.

Going forward, especially with so many Google updates coming out, EAT seems to be the name of the game.