How to use Google Sites for Affiliate Marketing (And Make Money)

Google Sites is a free site builder from Google that people can use to start a website for free.

The best part is adding a custom domain name, editing the permalink, and designing the page with a drag-and-drop page builder available for all users.

All is good. But what about making money on Google Sites?

Can you make money with Google Sites, considering it is not a blogging platform?

The short answer is, “Yes, you can.”

The long answer is it depends on how you approach and the strategy.

In today’s article, I will share how to use Google Sites for affiliate marketing and make money.

Is Google Sites Good for Affiliate Marketing?

Google Sites is not the only site builder out there. Brizy Cloud, Wix, Weebly, Webflow, and Clickfunnels are some site builders with many additional features and functionalities compared to Google Sites.

For example, Google Sites does not offer an email opt-in widget, which is essential in affiliate marketing campaigns.

But, as I discussed in a previous article on custom Google Sites widgets, you can utilize third-party devices to add those functionalities.

However, Google Sites offers almost zero features to optimize your site for search engines. So, suppose you look forward to using Google Sites for Affiliate marketing with SEO (i.e.: organic traffic). In that case, chances are you are better off with a quality blogging platform such as WordPress (that costs money) or a service such as Google’s Blogger (that does not cost money).

Now, don’t get the wrong idea. You can still use Google Sites to earn money by promoting affiliate offers. But it involves extra steps and a budget for traffic generation (if you want quick results).

How to use Google Sites for Affiliate Marketing

The strategy is very similar to the one I talked about “How to Use Solo Ads for Affiliate Marketing.” But, with Google Sites, you can make money in different ways.

• Promoting pre-launch affiliate offers
• Promoting evergreen affiliate products

It involves a four-step process:

1. Planning
2. Setting up
3. Execution
4. Scale

Planning

The very first step is planning which kind of products you will be promoting. There are two types of affiliate marketing.

1. Pre-launch affiliate products
2. Evergreen affiliate products

Pre-launch affiliate offers

These offers are the ones that are ready to launch to the public. For example, when SaaS (Software-as-a-service) tools such as UpViral, Clickfunnels, and Demio went public, there were affiliate promotions that included leaderboard contests, prizes for most sales during a specific period, etc.

In the previous article on How to Make Money with MunchEye, I explained how to use MunchEye to find and promote pre-launch affiliate products. MunchEye is an Internet Marketing products calendar primarily known as a ‘pre-launch products directory’ in Internet Marketing, Make Money Online, and Network Marketing niches.

Pros	Cons
New products. New opportunities.	No proven data based on traffic sources etc.,
Low to absolutely no competition	Many pre-launch products die off after some time due to sellers not maintaining them
Get a first-comer advantage in SEO (Search Engine Optimization)	Limited number of offers in specific niches, and finding the right offer can be hard
Leaderboard competitions (win exclusive bonuses and prizes)
Utilize FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) to boost conversions.

Pre-launch affiliate offers use dimesale and timesale pricing strategies to increase conversions. You can integrate those in your marketing campaigns, such as email campaigns, to achieve greater results.

Evergreen affiliate products

As the name suggests, these offers are not limited to a specific time and are abundantly available on many affiliate marketplaces.

Since you can use Google Sites to promote any affiliate product, here are some affiliate networks you can try.

1. ShareASale Affiliate network
2. PartnerStack
3. Commissions Junction
4. Amazon Associates
5. AliExpress affiliate program
6. Impact
7. ClickBank
8. Jvzoo
9. WarriorPlus
10. Clickfunnels

Some affiliate offers include many sub-offers:

• OTO – One-time offers
• Upsell – Complementary offers
• Downsell – A low-priced upsell for those who didn’t buy the upsell

Vendors utilize profit maximizers such as subscription products and high-ticket items such as coaching programs and one-on-one consultation services at the back end of the funnel.

Depending on the product and funnel, the commission rates can vary. For example, some affiliate products offer 100% commission for the tripwire offer or the frond-end offer of a funnel.

You can find pre-launch campaigns with 100% front-end commission on MunchEye. The following screenshot shows a few of those listed programs.

Also, many SaaS services, product vendors, and course creators use third-party affiliate management services such as Rewardful, FirstPromoter, Tolt, ThriveCart, SamCart, and AffiliateWP and in-house affiliate programs.

Here’s a comparison table of the top pros and cons of evergreen affiliate offers in affiliate marketing.

Pros	Cons
Higher quantity of affiliate offers in many verticles	Some offers might be hard to promote, especially if they are popular with specific traffic sources
Choose between physical and digital products or both!	No leaderboard competitions
Sort offers based on EPC, popularity, and conversion rate

In addition to affiliate marketing, you can also use Google Sites for CPA marketing. The only difference is you have to join a CPA affiliates network such as Maxbounty and choose the right offer for your traffic source.

Which offer type should you select?

Now you know the key differences between pre-launch and evergreen affiliate offers, you should select an offer before planning the affiliate funnel.

Here are a few tips to help you:

• Google Sites is a page builder, not a blogging platform – It means Google Sites is perfect for building a squeeze page (i.e.: a page with a lead generation form), bridge page (i.e.: an intermediate page that introduces the offer you are promoting on the next stage to visitors) and simple product promo single page.
• SEO features on Google Sites platform are absolutely poor – That takes SEO out of the traffic generation. So, if you rely on search engine traffic to promote affiliate products, you should not consider Google Sites.
• Google Sites is great for affiliate marketing if you already have traffic – Without targeted traffic, you won’t make money. If you know how to traffic generation (bonus: have a budget for paid traffic) on demand, you can use any affiliate offer type.

What is your affiliate promotion strategy?

Do you want to build an email list or promote affiliate offers using Google Sites?

Building an email list of targeted people is already recommended, as you can promote related offers later on. However, it will include an extra step and will need more traffic to test the squeeze page.

Here’s one squeeze page built for collecting addresses.

Find more examples on the squeeze page HTML templates download page.

Here are the pros and cons of building an email list when promoting affiliate offers:

Affiliate marketing by building an email list	Affiliate marketing without building an email list
You will build a list of targeted people that you can use to promote related offers via autoresponder and broadcast messages	You will cut off the squeeze page optimization out of your workflow
You own the audience, a traffic source of your own. It lets you build a business quickly without relentlessly driving new traffic	More people will see your bridge page or sales page
Re-target people who did not buy first through ads to increase conversions
You can sell banner ads placements on email newsletters, sell email clicks, and earn additional income

Offers for traffic source versus traffic sources for offer

One of the BIGGEST reasons why many new affiliates fail at the beginning is that they stick with a single offer and try out different traffic sources.

The truth is conversion rate can decay over time, even on a popular product. So, without sticking to a single offer, it’s better off stick to a single traffic source and try out different offers.

For instance, a popular affiliate offer that performed well with popunder traffic or native ads traffic might not convert well with PPC ads.

Here are general details on which kind of offers work with traffic sources typically:

• eCommerce: Social traffic, Influencer media traffic (e.g.: shoutouts)
• Network marketing offers: Email traffic
• SaaS products: Contextual ad traffic, Search traffic (organic and PPC ads)

Once you have identified several offers to promote using Google Sites, the next step is calculating estimated expenditures and ROI (Return on Investment).

Calculating costs and rewards

In affiliate marketing, data is a very important factor. When using Google Sites for affiliate marketing and sponsored product promotions, you will have to drive traffic basically in two ways:

• Free traffic sources – Social media, YouTube, referral traffic, etc.
• Paid traffic sources – Contextual ads, social media ads, influencer recommendation ads, banner ads, solo ad traffic, etc.,

Free traffic generation methods such as creating YouTube videos and social media posts essentially cost your time. And it has become clear as day that driving organic traffic through social networks and ranking top on YouTube for “money keywords” that drive buyers, not freebie-seekers, is rather difficult than many years before.

Paid traffic generation methods, on the other hand, give you quick results. But, depending on the platform and paid traffic type (e.g.: social ads, PPC ads, email ads, and banner ads), the costs might vary. For instance, CPC (Cost-per-click) on Google Ads for several niches like health is as high as $5+, and sometimes it can go two digits and even three digits. That’s for just one click!

CPC is not a concern if your affiliate funnel is set up in a way that EPC (Earnings per Click) exceeds CPC ((EPC – CPC > 0)). It makes your campaigns profitable. It is why big affiliates with high ROI campaigns and media buyers with large budgets increase CPC to discourage/reduce competition.

One low-cost paid traffic source you can tap into is solo advertising. Solo ad traffic originates from email messages. In solo advertising, solo ads sellers send your solo ad email or tracking link to their list of subscribers, and you pay them for real clicks.

For demonstration purposes, let’s assume the following numbers:

• CPC: $0.50
• Squeeze page conversion rate: 30%
• Bridge page click-through-rate: 30%
• Sales page conversion rate: 10%
• Average commission value of the product funnel: $100

If you buy 1,000 clicks from a solo ads provider, it will cost you $500.

According to the above metrics, you will achieve these:

• Leads collected: 300
• Clicks to your affiliate link or sales page views: 90
• Conversions: 9
• Commissions earned: $900
• Profit: $400
• ROI: +80%

The best part is you will have 300 people on your email list, and you can promote more affiliate offers later to the email list.

And if promoted affiliate offers include recurring pay products, you will earn passive income on every payment circle as long as the customer subscribes.

Setting up

Now you have a clear picture of which products to promote, the next step is setting up your funnel.

It involves four phases:

1. Squeeze page creation
2. Autoresponder setup
3. Bridge page creation
4. Tracking and optimization

How to create a squeeze page on Google Sites for affiliate marketing

The primary objective of a squeeze is collecting as many email addresses as possible. In other words, increase email opt-in conversion rate. The higher the number, the better your ultimate results will be.

The best part is you can use Google Sites to create high-converting squeeze pages.

The bad part is Google Sites does not include a lead capture email widget.

So, you will have to use an inline lead generation widget. Here are some solutions:

• Elfsight Subscription Form widget
• Convertful
• ConvertBox
• OptiMonk

Use the “Embed” widget to add an opt-in email form.

Copy and paste the HTML code for the opt-in form widget on the “Embed code” box.

Google Sites lets you use a custom domain. Using a custom domain instead of “sites.google.com/view/sitename” can be helpful in your efforts to make money with affiliate marketing on Google Sites.

You can map your existing domain name (as a sub-domain with CNAME or root domain) or search for an available domain name and register on Cloudflare or Porkbun.

Here are a few tips to improve your squeeze page for more conversions.

• Don’t use multiple fields in the opt-in form – The more fields a visitor has to fill, the lower the opt-in rate will be. The rule of thumb is to collect only the email address. Alternatively, you can collect names as well to personalize your email messages.
• Display opt-in form widget above the fold – According to an eye-tracking data study conducted by NNgroup, 57% of visitors won’t scroll down a page. That is a lot of people, especially if you use paid ads to drive traffic.
• Use attention-grabbing headlines – Headline is one of the top elements users see (and read) on your Google Sites lead generation page. Make use of numbers and power words to make it stand out and compelling. You can also use styles such as ‘underline’ and ‘bold’ and highlight colors to emphasize words.
• Use conversion boosters – Integrate urgency using a free countdown timer such as Elfsight, get the user’s attention to the email input field with curved arrows, showcase your authority with a logo slider widget, and display approval of your service with a custom testimonials widget and other social proof tools.
• Concern about page loading speed – The quicker your Google Sites squeeze page loads, the higher the conversion rate will be because of the good user experience. Compress images with a service such as ShortPixel image compressor and avoid using excessive third-party HTML widgets that add up HTTPS requests.

How to make a bridge page on Google Sites for affiliate marketing

The bridge page is the page subscribers see after opting into your email list. The page’s purpose is to educate about a product or service you sell in the next phase.

Yes, you can direct subscribers right away to the sales page. However, using a bridge page can increase conversions.

For creating a bridge page, you can use Google Sites and get details such as content, graphics, and videos from the sales page. Also, many affiliate products include a JV (Joint Venture) resource page from where you can collect those components.

Here are a few tips for creating a bridge page on Google Sites for affiliate marketing:

• Use different content writing frameworks – The success of a bridge page depends on how well it’s written and how persuasive the copy is. There are many copywriting frameworks, such as Pain-Agitate-Solution (PAS) and Attention-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA).
• Highlight benefits – People are looking for solutions. Therefore, highlight benefits over features.
• Use conversion boosters – Are there testimonials on the product or service you promote? Create a reviews slider widget using a service such as Elfsight and embed them on your page. Also, use before/after picture sliders, FAQ widgets, comparison tables, and countdown timers to increase clicks to your affiliate link.

Setting up affiliate link

Google Sites does not provide a link management solution. Therefore, you will have to use a link tracking software such as ClickMagick (which supports solo ads, integrates with popular ads and affiliate networks, and supports a link rotation feature).

• Rotate sales pages – Many product vendors use different sales pages: VSL (Video Sales Letter), Text sales letter. Also, some are optimized for cold traffic and others for warmed-up traffic. Use the link rotation feature on your link tracker and distribute traffic to different pages.
• Track conversions – Services like ClickMagick let you track conversions so that you can optimize your campaigns. Also, affiliate networks such as JVZoo allow affiliates to track sales through PostBack and pixel conversion tracking methods.

Include the affiliate link in multiple places on your bridge page. You can also add a hyperlink to images on Google Sites and use the “button” element.

A/B test your squeeze and bridge pages

Duplicate current squeeze and bridge pages and make slightly different variants. For example, you can retain the current squeeze page as variant A, change the headline of the copied one, name it variant B, and start testing pages for a higher opt-in rate.

The same goes for the bridge page as well. Take an objective: Clicks or Sales. Then, change the copy with distinct variants.

The key is identifying a combination that increases ROI on your affiliate marketing campaigns.

The backend of the funnel

Using Google Sites to create squeeze and bridge pages is one part of the process.

Remember we used the opt-in email widget on the squeeze page? It’s time to set up the email autoresponder so that you will make passive income in days to come.

There are many email marketing services. However, not many of them support affiliate marketing. Here are a few that do:

• AWeber – One of the best email marketing services for affiliates with drag-and-drop page builder, automation, and direct integrations with many services.
• GetResponse – Very similar to AWeber with features such as A/B split testing.
• ConvertKit – Created by a blogger for bloggers.
• Moosend – A cheap email marketing solution.

Create an email autoresponder email sequence that is sent to subscribers on each period (e.g.: daily, every weekday, every 2 days. weekly, once a week). You can use these email swipe files for affiliate marketing promotions to inspiration to use on your existing marketing campaigns.

One crucial factor for higher email opens is the subject line. Use an AI email subject link generator such as Anyword or the list of the best email subject lines to inspire.

In your email editor, you can use personalization (e.g.: name of the subscriber), GIFs, and email countdown timers to increase clicks and conversions.

The above screenshot shows a countdown timer made on Mailtimer embedded in AWeber’s email editor. To learn more, read the Mailtimer review.

Execution

Now, since you have set up a simple affiliate funnel using Google Sites, let’s move to the next phase, running traffic and optimizing the funnel to increase ROI.

Track your funnel

Without a proper tracking system in place, you are essentially wasting your money and efforts.

By tracking your funnel, you can get critical numbers that matter, such as conversion rates and EPC (Earnings per Click), and calculate the ROI of each offer and traffic source.

In our previous article on best link tracking services for affiliate marketers, we listed several and their features and prices. One of the cost-effective and feature-rich ones for beginners is ClickMagick.

• Track conversions – Since ClickMagick is a solo-ads-friendly tracker, you can track the traffic quality of each seller (e.g., traffic tier of media buy campaign), conversions on every traffic source with macros and attributions, and find out profitable sources.
• Link rotating tool – One of the best link rotators for distributing traffic to different URLs based on multiple points. For example, you can send traffic to multiple Google Sites lead generation pages and track conversions.
• Custom domain for tracking URLs – Use your own branded domain name in short links. Plus, you can customize the slug of an affiliate track URL to make it memorable.
• Share reports with others – Want to share your reports with co-workers and business associates? ClickMagick makes it possible.

To learn about ClickMagick’s costs and compare plans, read the ClickMagick pricing guide.

Once the tracker is set up, test your funnel by going through all the steps yourself because you cannot undo some things once the campaign is gone live.

Where to buy traffic for Google Sites Affiliate Marketing campaigns?

There are many ways to drive traffic to an affiliate offer or a lead generation form. Here are some:

1. Organic traffic – Also known as SEO traffic. Although traffic is “free,” generally speaking, it involves a tremendous amount of time (particularly in some niches), and ranking on the top three results for highly competitive, buyer-intent keywords is difficult. But you can make it work with the Launch Jacking affiliate marketing strategy.
2. YouTube traffic – Another way to drive traffic to your Google Sites affiliate marketing funnel is through producing targeted videos and publishing them on YouTube. The best part is you can hire someone from a freelance website and provide instructions to make videos if you lack resources, time.
3. Social media traffic (Organic) – If you manage social accounts, you can use those pages, groups, and communities to drive traffic. You can use a social media post scheduler such as ContentStudio to publish content on each account at the optimal time based on analytics. To learn more, read the ContentStudio review.
4. Influencer marketing – Some influencers on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat run sponsored posts for a one-time fee. The cost will vary based on the followers and influencers and social platform.
5. PPC advertising – Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising networks such as Google Ads and Microsoft Ads are also a great way to buy targeted website traffic. However, CPC (Cost-per-click) for some keywords can go up to double digits.
6. Social media advertising – Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and Pinterest are excellent social networks to run ads to drive targeted visitors to your Google Sites pages.
7. Banner ads – Banner ads networks such as BuySellAds.com let marketers buy ad placement of a website for a period, usually for a month (based on a fixed rate), and display banner advertisements based on the CPM rate.
8. Contextual advertising – Ads platforms such as Media.net make it possible to run keyword-targeted advertisements within the content on websites.
9. Push notification advertising – Advertising platforms such as PropellerAds and ZeroPark include millions of daily push ads traffic you can target based on the operating system and country. But, keyword targeting is unavailable due to the nature of ads.
10. Popup, pop-under, and domain traffic – These traffic types are abundantly available to buy, usually at a cheap rate, from many platforms, such as ZeroPark. However, the conversion rate could be low.

Solo ads for affiliate marketing and list building

Solo ads traffic is basically email traffic. Email list owners send a targeted email to their list with the purpose of promoting your message and link. To learn more, read this Solo Ads 101 guide.

Pros of using solo advertising for affiliate marketing

• You pay for received traffic only. And the best solo ads traffic providers send ‘bonus’ clicks.
• You can qualify traffic from the email subject line, warm up from the email message, and educate what to do after clicking the call-to-action (CTA) link (or button) on the next page, which will increase conversions on your Google Sites affiliate marketing funnel.
• Drive traffic from tier 1 countries. Tier 1 countries are English-speaking rich countries based on GDP per capita. To learn more, read the guide to tiers of traffic in solo advertising.
• CPC is very low in certain niches. You can buy solo ad clicks at $0.40 from many sellers. That is a lot cheaper compared to PPC ads, for instance.
• Competition is low. Since the email message promotes your offer only, you are not competing with anyone.
• You can schedule when to start receiving traffic. For example, if you want to promote pre-launch affiliate offers on Google Sites, utilize the ‘traffic schedule’ feature to receive traffic when you want.

Where to buy solo ad clicks for affiliate marketing?

In our guide to where to buy solo ads, you will find places to purchase email traffic. Here are some of them briefly:

• Solo ads marketplace – Sites like Udimi and Cleeko let you buy traffic from multiple vendors with a money-back guarantee on undelivered traffic.
• Solo ads agencies – These agencies work with private vendors and deliver traffic to you. However, prices are usually costlier.
• Solo ads providers – These vendors have their website (or Facebook account) and sell individually. The concern is “trustworthiness,” as many fraud solo ad sellers exist.

So, the best way for a beginner to buy solo ads is through a marketplace. The best one out there is Udimi. To learn more about it, read Udimi review.

The article on How to Udimi Solo Ads explained how to use the platform correctly. Essentially. There are two ways to buy traffic from it.

1. Buy solo ads from sellers after searching
2. Use solo ads deals

Search for the type of traffic you want. Ex: MLM, MMO, Business Opportunities. Also, you can use search filters to narrow down your search.

Each seller will have their own pricing. Udimi’s solo ads prices start at $0.40 and can go up to $2.00 per click.

Select the traffic amount you want, choose the date, and provide your tracking link or paste the solo ads email copy.

(Note: You can get an Udimi discount to save money.)

Check this solo ads rolodex for a list of current top performers in terms of ratings, CPC, and marked sales percentage.

The other way is finding a good solo ad deal.

Scale

The next phase is optimizing your campaigns and scaling to increase profits. Due to the nature of each traffic source, your average conversion rate might vary. In fact, you will most likely see conversion rates decay over time for an individual traffic source.

For solo ads, you can identify the quality of the traffic of each solo ad campaign and the conversion rates of each seller on your tracker.

If traffic of a specific seller or traffic source converts well with your Google Sites affiliates marketing funnel (with a positive ROI), you can increase the volume and profits.

Since you have built a list of targeted people along the way, you can now promote more targeted offers via. Even you can become a professional solo ads seller and make money selling email clicks. Also, you can try funnel clicks and mixed clicks, as they tend to be cheaper.

Tap into more networks or providers if a particular traffic source converts well. For example, if Udimi solo ads traffic works well, try Cleeko, an Udimi alternative, and other professional solo ads sellers.

Similarly, if PPC ads traffic works positively with your funnel, try contextual and native ads.

Tips to make more money by using Google Sites for affiliate marketing

Here are a few tips to earn more money using Google Sites for affiliate marketing campaigns.

• A/B test everything – Test your lead generation pages, bridge pages, traffic sources, email messages, and offers. Without experimenting, you will not find a better version.
• Provide bonuses for buying from you – Give a reason to readers to buy from you. For example, you can deliver a digital product (e.g.: a complimentary PDF report got from PLR websites) with giveaway rights to customers who bought by clicking your affiliate link. You can request to forward the receipt to your email to confirm their purchases.
• Use conversion boosters – Google Sites is a site-building platform that allows embedding third-party widgets. Use a popup widget designer (to catch exit traffic with targeted alert boxes and popup email forms), countdown timers (to add urgency), and other website HTML widgets to boost conversions.
• Add value – Don’t pitch too many sales emails. Add value by sending out informational newsletters, giving away valuable items such as PDFs and links to useful websites, etc.,
• Hold online giveaways – Online competitions not only boost your business’s online presence and get new traffic and leads but also make your business stand out among your existing audience. Our previous article on best giveaway tools for marketers lists 20+ services. Some of them are UpViral, SweepWidget, and Vyper. UpViral is the best giveaway platform for building a targeted email list and integrating it with existing funnels, while SweepWidget is an excellent platform for running social media contests. Read the UpViral review and Upviral pricing to learn more.

Final words

Google Sites is a free site builder by Google. In our review on Google Sites vs. Blogger, we compared two site builders provided by Google. The key differences are Google Sites includes an easy-to-use drag-and-drop site builder while Blogger is a blogging platform with the ability to edit the HTML.

Also, in our guide on Making Money on Blogger, we shared several ways to make money using the blogging platform. However, since Google Sites is not a blogging platform, you cannot use SEO to drive traffic to a Google Site, especially in competitive niches. This makes some money-making methods out of available options.

In this article on how to make money on Google Sites using affiliate marketing, you learned how and tips to consider to increase revenue. There are many Google Sites contenders if you want more features such as funnels, integrations, and analytics that make making money through affiliate marketing easier.

Also, check out how to use MunchEye to make money as an affiliate marketer, as some strategies can be implemented on Google Sites.