Dating Sites Affiliate Programs: Find Your Perfect Match!

The Beatles sang "You can't buy me love," and yes, you still can't buy love, but finding it is much easier these days—just hop online and go to DatingWebsites.org. :)

If we can shop, share our opinion and call that aunt from halfway across the globe all through the Internet, then it's really no biggie that you can go online and get yourself a date. The Internet has always been about supply and demand. Consumers wanted to be able to shop at their leisure, from within their homes. Hence, online stores. There was a demand for singles to meet other singles; dating sites were created to answer that need. Since we all need love, or a companion, or just someone to hang out with on Friday nights, we now have dating sites that cater to each and every person. Just take a look at the infographic below, courtesy of DatingWebsites.org:

And that concludes this week's Niche of the Week. :)

Kidding! The above infographic provides so much information on dating websites, I don't think I need to elaborate any more. You can see that there are various sub-niches you can go into: adult dating sites, Jewish dating sites, dating sites for trekkies and muggles, etc. The list goes on.

Since the stats and sub-niches have been covered, let's get down to the keyword research side of things.

Searching for the Perfect Keyword? Be Specific!

As shown in the above infographic, there are plenty of sub-niches in the dating site niche. Pick one and focus on that sub-niche during keyword research. Don't use "dating site." That's too broad and while it and its variations have high global monthly searches, the competition is steep for these keywords:

In my example below, I decided to go for the divorced-men-and-women sub-niche, so my keywords would be like "dating sites for divorced men," or "where divorced men can get a date." Below are the Traffic Travis results for variations of these keywords:

With the way the new Keyword Planner works, you already see the monthly searches for the variations of your main keyword. This is the same for Traffic Travis. If you notice, the above results show me the monthly searches for other variations of my keywords. This makes going to keyword scrapers like Ubersuggest and KeywordBuzz seem like a waste of time, but that's not so, because not all variations are included each time you run a search in the Keyword Planner. Just take a look at the variations I was able to look up for "dating site" using KeywordBuzz below:

These keywords are most likely to have high competition, so I won't be able to use them. However, they do give me ideas for various sub-niches within the dating site niche like dating sites for gamers or dating sites for married people.

Dating Sites Affiliate Programs: The Dearest of Them All

My first-stop was ClickBank, of course. But there were no dating sites affiliate programs to be found. There were plenty of dating guides though, but those are for another Niche of the Week post, so I moved on to looking for affiliate programs through Google.

I decided to use DatingWebsites.org as a resource and checked each of the top 10 dating sites they have listed: Match.com, Zoosk, OurTime, eHarmony, How About We, AdultFriendFinder, ChristianMingle, SeniorPeopleMeet, Date.com and Matchmaker. All dating sites on their Top 10 list have their own affiliate programs. Some belong to the same affiliate network; for example, Date.com and Matchmaker.com are part of the OnlineDatingCash network. They offer 80% commission, USD $100 CPA, and USD $10 per lead. Those are some of the best profits in the niche.

  AdultFriendFinder is a part of the larger network FriendFinder.com. There are several other dating sites under FriendFinder.com such as Amigos.com and PerfectMatch. They offer to pay you for each lead, or to give you a commission or a per-order payout. The per-lead payout is a bit small compared to other dating site affiliate programs, but the percentage and per-order payouts are about the same.     We mustn't forget Match.com of course. It's one of the industry's first sites. They offer 75% commissions through Commission Junction and LinkShare.     And there's still eHarmony, qPid, Dating Network; there's not enough room here to cover all the available dating sites affiliate programs. So far, those are considered to be the ones at the top of this niche. You can also find various CPA offers on OfferVault.     Trying to pick one or two affiliate programs in this niche can give one pause. There are just too many to choose from. Again, think of your sub-niche and whom you're targeting. You can then narrow down your options and decide which dating site affiliate program is best for your website. I came across this comparison of dating websites on Wikipedia which you can also refer to.

Make Your Website Stand Out

Now that we've gone through the affiliate programs, it's time to form a link-building strategy. How are you going to make your website on dating stand out?

First, decide how you would present it. Look at your keywords and plan out how you would write the articles on your site. Will they be personal anecdotes on dating, or will you be sharing dating advice a la Dr. Love?

Next, how will you promote the site?

Social Media Marketing

I bet you already knew I was going to bring this up, and there's good reason that it should be part of your link-building strategy for the dating sites niche. Dating sites thrive on social media simply because dating sites are like social media sites. Similar to social media sites, you connect and interact on dating sites. The only difference is you're taking it a step further by going out with the other person.

Again, you need to be active on social media and share helpful information or entertaining content to your target market. That's how you engage them.

Link Baiting

There is much you can write about on this niche, as much as there are sites that you can use as resources (like DatingWebsites.org). When you do cite a source in your article, make sure to send them a nice little email letting them know that you've mentioned them on your site. Hopefully they take the "bait" and share your content on their site as well.

This method is not restricted to articles on your site. If you create an infographic, then make sure to cite your sources and let them know when you do. Do the same with other content like videos and podcasts.

Blog and Forum Commenting

People like to connect and support each other. There are plenty of singles forums that you can join and participate in like PlentyofFish and LoveShack.org. Make sure to add to the discussion and provide helpful advice when you can.

Dating Affiliate Programs: Good to Settle Down With?

There is a high potential to earn from dating sites affiliate programs. There is no doubt about that. The challenge would be getting over the competition. There are as many affiliates as there are affiliate programs in this niche. The keywords, unless you make them targeted and specific, are high competition.

Niche research plays an important role in this particular niche. As there are various dating sites you can choose from as well as plenty of competition, it's necessary that you make your site as unique and as definite as possible. Only thorough niche research will be able to give you the information you need to accomplish this. In my example, I chose divorced men and women as my target market. The content on my site would then be about dealing with divorce and getting back on the dating scene again. The keywords on my list need to include or contain references to divorced men and women. The dating sites I would promote on my sites are those that focused on adults and divorced individuals.

Looking at the commissions one could earn from this niche, the effort would be well worth it. The only real question here is: Are you up for the challenge?

I hope you enjoyed this week's Niche of the Week. Please share it with your loved ones using any of the share buttons below. If you have inquiries or comments, or want to ask me out, please leave a comment. :)

For detailed instruction on proper keyword and niche research, please check out AffiloBlueprint 3.0!