Build Trust Before You Build Income
If you’ve completed Step 6. Congratulations and well done. From a position of not being an expert on Website Design to having your own site designed and constructed by yourself is an enormous achievement. Don’t forget to share your success with friends and family as I’m sure they will be amazed to.
What have you got now?
Your website now has structure. Your pages are well organised. Your navigation is clear i.e. when people visit your site they can find what they are looking for easily.
Now it’s time to give people a reason to visit.
Step 7 is how to write helpful content for an affiliate website. Websites don’t become successful because they exist. They become successful because they help people and this is what content does.
Personally, I think this is the most exciting Step in the Affiliate Website Roadmap….click here to download your free copy of the full roadmap
Every article/post/blog you write is another opportunity to answer a question your reader or visitor has. Your content can solve a problem or make someone’s life just a little bit easier.
And when you consistently help people Google notices which is very important for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Your readers remember and will share your content and come back to your site for more and what really begins to happen is trust begins to grow
Why Does Helpful Content Matter?
Many beginners believe affiliate marketing is about adding lots of affiliate links within your posts. Yes, we all want to eventually build an income stream from our content but there is much more to affiliate marketing than a bunch of links
The most successful affiliate websites are built on trust. People rarely buy from someone they don’t trust. Think of the last thing you bought online. Chances are it was through an affiliate. More than likely you knew the seller from a previous purchase, read their reviews or were recommended by a close friend. You trusted the seller.
The more your content builds trust the more likely readers are going to see how you are solving their problem and will eventually buy from you. Maybe not on your first article but the more you write and the more people consume your content the more trust you build.
Helpful content creates that trust. When someone searches Google for an answer and finds your article, they’re not looking to be sold something. They’re looking for help. They’re looking to see if your content can solve a problem for them.
If your niche is “how to grow vegetables out of season” and you provide a checklist on how to do this, then a visitor to your site who is looking for information on this niche is very quickly going to see that you can provide information for them. You have solved a problem for them. The trust begins to grow.
Your job is to provide information that can solve a problem a visitor has. The affiliate income comes later
Write for People First. Just Like A Conversation
I’ve found one of the biggest mistakes beginners make is writing for search engines. I know this because this is what I did in the beginning.
Instead, you need write for one person.
Imagine you’re sitting across the table having a coffee with another man over 60 who’s just asked you “how do I choose a niche?”
Write your blog/post exactly as you would answer him. Make your language Simple, Friendly and Honest just like a conversation
This is the type of content people like to read I know I do. It takes some practice but eventually it will come
Your Articles Should Answer Real Questions
Each one of your articles should answer at least one question
Here’s some of the questions Change at Sixty have answered about my Affiliate Website Roadmap For Men Over 60 (some are still to be answered)
- How do I build my first affiliate website?
- What is WordPress?
- How do affiliate links work?
- Is affiliate marketing still worth it?
- Can I start an online business after retirement?
If someone finishes reading one of my articles and says to themselves,
“That answered my question.”
Then I’ve done my job. I have provided content that someone has read, it has answered their question and hopefully it may encourage them to come back to my site and get further questions answered. See how I’m building trust. The reader is starting to trust me and a return visit/visits bares that out.
Use AI to Help—Not to Replace Your Voice
One of the wonderful things about today’s technology is that AI tools can help you organise your ideas, improve your grammar, structure your content and in some cases overcome writer’s block
I use ChatGPT Plus as a writing assistant. It is not a replacement for my own experience. I’m a firm believer that AI tools are an extension of the internet. Prior to the internet if you wanted to find out anything you had to get it from a library book, magazine or newspaper.
Then the internet came along and you could find things faster and in some case information that you had never been able to find previously. You could also watch videos on all sorts of subjects and learn from other people. Fantastic isn’t it.
Now we have AI which allows you to find information even faster. AI tools can write you a whole article and you can publish it as if it is your own work. To me though that is outright cheating. It’s stealing someone else’s work and passing it off as your own.
I could, if I was a cheat, get AI to create hundreds of blog posts on my niche and pass it off as my own work. It would save me lot of time, and I would be able to post many times a week. But I don’t
On average it takes me about a week to create one blog post and the associated videos for me to promote the post on my socials. Yes, I use ChatGPT Plus as a starting tool but what you read here and across all my posts on Change at Sixty are all my own work.
I believe this strategy creates trust which is what we want.
My recommendation is you do the same, use Chat or one of the many other AI Tools as a helper but make sure what you publish is your own work
If you’re new to AI, a subscription to ChatGPT Plus can be a worthwhile investment for brainstorming article ideas, improving drafts and creating outlines. Use it to support your writing but always let your own personality shine through
And if you’re old school like me you can also benefit from revisiting timeless advice on clear communication. Here’s one of my favourite books on writing. The Elements of Style by Strunk & White
Keep Your Articles Easy to Read
In these days of instant information and short bytes it is tempting to fall into the trap of writing brief posts one after the other in the hope that readers will consume your content.
While there’s nothing wrong with short form articles your readers are looking for solutions to their problems rather than snapshots of a particular subject. Readers are busy people we all are, but you can still provide great information in your content using clear heading and short paragraphs, bullet points, summaries and checklist can also convey your message.
Your posts don’t need to be War and Peace but don’t make them too brief either. Always write your articles with a view to helping your readers and the easier your articles are to read, the longer visitors stay on your website
Pictures Are Everything
Images will help explain your ideas and will make your articles/posts more engaging for readers. Some of us are visual learners while others rely on the written word.
E.g. if you are creating screenshots to be included in your articles a simple tool like Snagit makes it easy to capture and annotate your screen with arrows and notes. It’s really useful when you’re trying to get your message across to new readers.
When your readers can both read and see what you’re explaining, learning becomes much easier for them and they will come back for more
Recommend Products Naturally
Your Affiliate Marketing will work better for you when you place your affiliate links logically in your content and your readers click on them naturally to gain more information. Don’t splash your content with a lot of links and requests for your readers to click on something in every line or paragraph otherwise it just looks like you are trying to sell them something rather than provide a solution to a problem.
For example, if you’re explaining how to choose a hosting company, it’s perfectly natural to recommend the one you personally use.
If you’re discussing website security, you might recommend a trusted security plugin.
If you’re talking about writing content, you could recommend a good writing tool.
The key is simple. Recommend products because they are useful and flow easily and logically in your content not because they pay you a commission. Your reputation is worth far more than a single sale
My Favourite Writing Formula
Sometimes it’s hard to get started on writing useful content. It’s often called writer’s block. Whenever I sit down to write a new article or blog post I ask myself these four simple questions.
- What problem or problems do my readers have?
- What simple solution can I offer?
- What personal experience can I share?
- What should they do next?
If you answer those four questions every time, your articles will naturally become more valuable, and your readers will come back for more
My readers have told me they have gone through life changes and want to learn how to make an income online. There is their problem. They may have lost their job, or they just want to use their life experiences to learn something new but don’t know where to start.
The solution I can offer is my Affiliate Website Roadmap for Men Over 60
I have gone through life changes. I had to start again. I have personal experience of having to learn something new.
Next my readers should download my free Affiliate Website Roadmap for Men Over 60 and begin their journey to creating their own website
If you can answer these 4 questions each time you begin an article you will be writing great content in no time.
Consistency Beats Perfection
One excellent article or blog post each week is far better than trying to write and publish every day and then burning yourself out.
Google rewards consistency and your readers will appreciate consistent quality content and more importantly you will enjoy creating much more. Even if it takes you a week to write the next post for your website do not stress out. I find I can start writing an article and then more often than not I have to stop and come back to it a few days later when my mind is clearer.
You have a life to lead as well so if writing is not working for you go and do something else and come back to it later.
Remember you don’t need 300 articles by tomorrow you just need one helpful article this week
The Emotional Shift in Step 7
Step 7 is where something special begins to happen. You’re no longer just building a website you are now actually helping people.
Every article you post becomes another opportunity to help someone solve a problem
As a man over 60, I find this incredibly rewarding and you will to. Your experiences become someone else’s shortcut. Your mistakes become someone else’s lessons. That’s what will give your website real value
Step 7 Checklist
Before moving to Step 8, make sure you have
✔ Written your first helpful article or blog post
✔ Focused on solving one problem your readers have
✔ Make sure you have used simple headings
✔ Remember write for your readers not for Google
✔ Add in one genuinely helpful affiliate recommendation
✔ Make sure you include a clear call to action
✔ Published your article on your site
And remember it doesn’t stop there. You want to promote your post. Make some short videos for your Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube accounts so you can tell the world your article is available. Check out my socials to see how I promote my posts.
If you’re new to video creating, I use the Blue Yeti USB Microphone as I find it makes my videos much easier to listen to and for making my videos I use the Logitech C920 HD Webcam.
My Final Thoughts
Many people think websites grow because of clever marketing.
I don’t agree with this.
I think websites grow because people consistently help other people. Every article you post is another chance for you to build trust with your readers. Every problem you solve for your readers strengthens your reputation. Every visitor is someone looking for guidance which you can provide. Make sure you don’t forget this. You’re not just writing articles. You’re building relationships and over time those relationships become readers.
Your readers will then become subscribers who in turn will become customers and most importantly they become people whose lives you’ve genuinely helped and that is something you can be very proud of.
One article at a time. One step at a time. One meaningful step forward. See you in Step 8
Affiliate Disclosure
At Change at Sixty, transparency is important to us. In compliance with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines and Amazon Associates Program requirements, we want you to know that some of the links on this website are affiliate links.
This means that if you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. These commissions help us maintain this site and continue creating valuable content for our readers
