Niche of the Week: Wine Affiliate Programs

Wines have always fascinated me, mostly because when I was growing up, it used to be a drink reserved to special occasions like weddings. It was a drink reserved only for the "elite," until recently, when a local winery opened and began distributing wines for the average consumer.

We are far from becoming the next largest wine consumers. However, it's a different story in the US, which now dominates the wine industry in both consumption and sales. According to Dr. Liz Thach's website, the US is the leading wine consumer in the world. The US wine market has experienced a continued growth for 19 years in a row. Statistics I've come across point that this industry will continue to grow as more and more American adults discover a love for this elegant, aromatic drink.

Intoxicating Keywords

Any keywords with the word "wine" can be a target keyword: where to buy wine, recommended wines, which wines goes with what, wine online store, etc. These keywords have good global monthly search results and most are in the low to medium competition.

Any wine keyword that has the word "buy" tends to have a high competition so try and find other keywords through sites like Ubersuggest.org. You can also target "wine reviews" and "wine comparisons."

Wine Affiliate Programs

ClickBank has wine-making affiliate programs, but none of them look to be good enough. Most have zero to about 5 gravity. It could be these products are not making enough or do not have enough affiliates to promote. Or maybe they are all new.

Since there aren't any solid wine affiliate programs in ClickBank, I used Google to look for some instead. Below are some of the affiliate offers I found:

Wine.com

Wine.com is a California-based online wine store. It carries various types of wine from several different regions, including well-known brands like Dom Pérignon and Moët. The site also has members-only daily wine sales and offers a wine gift shop.

The affiliate program is through LinkShare. The affiliate page does not state how much commission affiliates receive, but looking at similar online wine stores, it's probably between 4 percent and 10 percent commission for each sale.

MajesticWine.com

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MajesticWine.com is similar to Wine.com. Even the products offered are similar, and you'll find a wine gift selection too. The main difference is that MajesticWine.com is based in the UK and mainly serves UK consumers.

Affiliates receive 4 percent commission through Affiliate Window.

CellarsWineClub.com

Wine clubs provide its members with a couple of wine bottles each month or quarter. They usually follow a theme and give members a set of reds, whites or combination of the two. Wine clubs are a great way to discover wines, particularly local ones, since they are usually available through vineyards or local specialty wine shops.

Cellars Wine Club is one such wine club. It does not require membership, and you can chose to send the wine to yourself or to someone else as a gift. The site also has a 100 percent "no bad bottle" guarantee, meaning they will replace any damaged or bad bottle of wine.

The site offers affiliates 15 percent commission for each order through ShareASale.

Organic Wine Company

I recently did a Niche of the Week post that featured organic clothing and I came across organic food and wine during the course of my research. The Organic Wine Company is one of the merchants I came across the offer organic wine.

Organic wines are wines made from organically grown grapes. This means no pesticides are used on the soil and water used to grow the grape vines.

Organic Wine Company has a wide selection of organic wines as well as wine clubs. The site manages its own affiliate program and give affiliates 5 percent commission for each sale, or 10 percent of the sale applied to your next purchase.

Corkcicle

Corkcicle does not sell wines, but it does offer a unique wine accessory. Corkcicles help you maintain your wine's temperature. They keep reds at just the right temperature for drinking and chill whites for up to an hour.

The affiliate program is through Commission Junction. Affiliates receive 15 percent commission for each sale.

Get People Interested in Wines

After getting your site up, the next step is making it known to people that you have a fabulous site filled with awesome content. The best way to do this is to build links to the site and promote it through various social media networks and sites within your niche. Below are a few methods you can include in your link building strategy:

Social Media Marketing

Is there any link-building strategy out there that does not include Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest? These are some of the most popular social media sites, and your link-building strategy will not be complete without an account for your site on at least one of them.

Make sure your site has a page on one of these sites, and that you're continuously engaging your target market. Don't just post content from your site — share related content you find on other websites within your niche.

Blog and Forum Commenting 

Blogs and forums within your niche are a great way to not just build backlinks, but to build a name for you and your site too. Always make it a point to look for forums and blogs where you could share your knowledge and expertise about your subject.

Look to forums such as WineHQ.org and WineLoversPage.com to participate in and share your love for wine. Make sure to read the forum rules and to follow them at all times. Keep in mind that blog and forum commenting isn't all about backlinks: It's about building your site's online reputation, too.

Link Baiting

There's plenty to say about wines, and you will find that there are plenty of sites on the topic. Most likely, you will be in competition with these sites, but not with all. You can pick out the best sites from this niche and use them as references on your own site.

Link baiting is all about writing excellent content, then referencing the sites you used as sources within the article. You can then let the site owners know you've referred to them on your article, and hopefully, they will link back to your article from within their site.

Infographics are a great way to link bait. You can create an awesome infographic on the history of wine for example, reference sites you want to link to, and then share the infographic with them. You can also share the infographic through your site's social media accounts to attract more traffic to your site.

Wine Affiliate Programs and the Affiliate Marketer: Balanced or Acetic?

The wine niche is interesting and any affiliate marketer would learn much from this niche, all the while earning from it too. Unfortunately, this is not for just any marketer, but for someone who possesses at least the basic knowledge about wines. This is one of those "passion" niches similar to the photography niche, for example.

If you have a website about wines, or are considering building a site on wines, then go ahead and start making money from your passion!

I hope you enjoyed this week's Niche of the Week! Please make sure to share them using the Share buttons below. Feel free to leave a comment too if you have a question, or simply want to share your thoughts. I'd be happy to hear them!