3 top affiliate programs to make money from WordPress

The top three WordPress affiliate programs to make money online. Pic by Aeioux

Finding the best affiliate programs to make money online from your blog, or Web content, is easy if you work with WordPress and Web hosting/Web design.
WordPress is the most popular CMS (Content Management System) in the world, with a huge community of webmasters, bloggers and developers.
This makes it an attractive niche market for bloggers and affiliate marketers who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty when it comes to discussing Web design and Web hosting.
This article will highlight three of the best affiliate programs that you can incorporate into your website in order to drive revenue from your WordPress-centric content.

Top 3 WordPress affiliate marketing programs

I'll start off by listing the top three affiliate programs that relate directly to WordPress and its community.
Remember, that there is little point in marketing WordPress related products if your blog or website focuses on an unrelated topic.

For more information, read the following sections (below this top 3 list) on what types of website or blog are most likely to convert well and make money from WordPress related affiliate marketing.

1. WP Engine

WP Engine is a dedicated WordPress hosting service that offers exceptionally high performance servers and support.
What makes them an attractive proposition, from the perspective of an affiliate marketer, is that they:

have a clear value proposition
offer very high payouts on conversions (around $150 per signup)
are all about WordPress
are well known, with plenty of glowing testimonials from happy clients
offer a free trial
offer 2nd tier commissions - meaning you can refer other friends, colleagues, bloggers, and make commission on their sales

The first point, in particular, is very important. As an affiliate marketer it is far easier to promote a service like WP Engine because your readers don't have to "work" hard to understand the value of buying that service.
[WP engine affiliate marketing tip #1]: WP engine hosting plans start at $29 per month. Target businesses that use WordPress as their Web platform and have high levels of traffic, (or are looking to grow their Web traffic), and value "peace of mind" and great support.

2. StudioPress

StudioPress is one of the most recognized theme and Web template services for WordPress, offering a wide range of premium WordPress themes to the community.
Why is StudioPress a great proposition for WordPress affiliate marketers? As it says on their front page "... over 86 000 website owners trust StudioPress themes" .

Are you an entrepreneur, business owner, SEO or marketing expert, with a flair for writing? Write for SEO Entrepreneur and increase your social influence & Web traffic.
>> advertise here

This means that you are promoting a service that has plenty of trust and authority in the WordPress theming niche - mashable called them "the best of the best".
Also, since many, many people find themselves in need of a decent WordPress theme from time to time, the potential market is huge.
[StudioPress affiliate marketing tip #1]: StudioPress themes are not only elegant and attractive, they are also SEO optimized. With Google Panda an ever-present danger, more and more webmasters are demanding great SEO from their Web framework. Explain why SEO is important and promote best-practice SEO themes alongside.
[StudioPress affiliate marketing tip #2]: The Internet is going mobile. Responsive Web design is rapidly becoming a necessity and many webmasters are in the process of migrating to responsive Web design themes. Now is the perfect time to promote responsive StudioPress themes for super high conversion rates.

3. DreamHost

DreamHost offers one-click WordPress installations as part of their hosting packages, and supports over 600 000 WordPress websites.
DreamHost is one of only three Web hosting companies that are recommended by WordPress on wordpress.org. This gives it huge credibility and makes conversions a lot easier.
What's nice about promoting DreamHost is that, while it is a WordPress hosting service like WP Engine, it can easily be distinguished. While WP engine focuses on higher-end clients, DreamHost offers WordPress hosting starting at an incredible $2.95 per month.
[DreamHost affiliate marketing tip #1]: Focus on DreamHost's value for money offering. They do offer a range of hosting plans, but their lower end hosting plans represent great value for first time WordPress webmasters (who can always upgrade at a later stage to a more powerful VPS, dedicated or cloud hosting plan).

Who should market WordPress products

While many tens of millions of people make use of WordPress every day, it is still important to ensure that the topic and content of your blog, business, or website is related naturally to WordPress.
In particular, websites and blogs about the following topics are likely to drive high conversion levels:

Web design
Web development
Website builders
Web hosting
Web themes and templates
CMS (Content Management Systems
Blogging
Websites

Small business websites
Online business
Starting a website
Internet entrepreneurs
Internet startups
eCommerce
Responsive Web design
SEO

Suitable WordPress affiliate marketing content

In order to be a successful affiliate marketer in the WordPress niche, it is absolutely critical that the content you create is directly relevant and useful to your target audience.
In particular, good affiliate marketing content should be:

well written
informative and useful
not pushy (i.e. not sales oriented)
unique and original
highly focused

You can learn more about general affiliate marketing strategies by reading:

Not only that, but it helps to have some trust and authority in that niche so that people reading your content are inclined to trust your advice. This means that conversion rates are often proportional to metrics like how long you have been blogging on that topic, the number of connections and contacts you have in the industry, number of fans & followers, and so on.
So those are my top 3 affiliate programs for the WordPress market. Are there other WordPress products and services that you have made money from?
Share your WordPress-centric affiliate marketing advice and tips in the comments.

MAKE DOLA