It’s no secret whatsoever that WordPress is a website builder and editor that business owners and webmasters can engage with. Millions of users worldwide have chosen WordPress to double-up as their all-in-one website builder and content management system (CMS).
There’s a lot to like about WordPress, no doubt. There are thousands of open-source plugins, themes, and widgets to customize your website to your heart’s content. However, the WordPress platform is by no means perfect either. It won’t always meet the needs of webmasters. Particularly if you are starting affiliate marketing from scratch, you might want to focus on setting up a website for affiliate marketing using more modest tools and coding.
Nevertheless, there are certain elements an Amazon affiliate website builder will require to enable you to track and measure visitors, clicks, and sales, and pinpoint the most popular products to push harder. Primarily, the platform will need simple and efficient content management, exceptional security to guard against ever-changing cyber-threats, enable full search engine optimization (SEO) of all landing pages, and provide access to landing page performance and monitoring of website traffic that can be drilled down to specific pages or posts.
If you are wondering how to build a profitable affiliate website from scratch without heading down the same route as millions of others with WordPress, here are three potential alternatives
1. Drupal
Drupal ranks as one of the most popular WordPress alternatives. It is an open-source CMS that is extremely customizable and extensible.
What websites suit Drupal?
In truth, Drupal is considered by some webmasters to be even harder to master than WordPress, but the rewards are considerable once you do. It is a platform that makes it possible to launch everything from personal blogs and portfolio sites through to affiliate sites, message board forums, and even your own social network.
The customizability and complexity of Drupal are some of the main reasons why enterprise websites are so readily built using this CMS. Like WordPress, Drupal operates using themes and modules to enhance the user experience. It’s also designed to process significant volumes of data, ideal for sites anticipating high volumes of traffic.
Drupal pricing options
As with WordPress, the Drupal CMS is totally free due to its open-source nature. Drupal can either be deployed in the cloud, via web application, or delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS).
Pros of Drupal
- Hugely scalable platform capable of handling periodic or seasonal web traffic spikes.
- Responsive, mobile-first websites.
- Capable of integrating other digital applications using APIs.
- Open-source Drupal community weeds out and patches potential platform vulnerabilities.
- Reach out to a multilingual audience (particularly handy for affiliate sites selling products with a global target demographic).
Cons of Drupal
- Exceptionally steep learning curve to get to grips with the CMS.
- Open-source nature means that some modules won’t operate as intended
- Upgrading/patching to new Drupal versions can impact on old modules.
Discover the best Drupal web hosting options for your new website. We’ve published heaps of Drupal web hosting reviews to put you firmly in the picture!
2. Magento
Magento is another hugely popular open-source CMS that can work in the same way as WordPress. The core software is available free of charge, but hosting and extensions are purchased at a premium.
What websites suit Magento?
Magento offers the same open-source flexibility as Drupal but with one interesting addition – it’s geared more heavily towards eCommerce sites. Whether you are planning on selling your own goods or services, or promoting those of others, Magento could be a clever CMS to use for your new online store.
The flexibility of Magento’s extensions is impressive. Whichever website functionality you need to improve the efficiency of your online operations, Magento will often have a solution. Whether it’s email marketing, CRM, stock inventories, or custom ads, there will be a developer within the Magento community that’s built already something that suits you.
Magento pricing options
As with Drupal, Magento does not cost you a cent – at least in the outset. There are more than 5,000 extension add-ons and apps that you can pay to integrate into your website. Some of which are free and some of which are paid-for products.
Pros of Magento
- Benefit from access to a huge community of Magento users and developers.
- Mobile-friendly to create the best cross-platform user experience.
- Designed to support websites selling up to 500,000 products.
- Accepts third-party integrations.
Cons of Magento
- Extensions can cost a pretty penny.
- Skilled Magento developers are few and far between.
- Requires a dedicated hosting server due to its bulky platform.
Find the best Magento hosting packages for your new site!
3. Wix
Wix stumbled into the website builder spotlight thanks to its budget-conscious and beginner-friendly platform. Today, it’s the basis for over 160 million websites active online.
What websites suit Wix?
At face value, Wix websites are certainly easy on the eye. Their intuitive website layouts are optimized for mobile screens too. With Wix, all the nuts and bolts of a functioning website are ready and raring to go from day one. Using the Wix editor and the Wix App Market, the onus is on you to give the basic framework of your Wix website a ‘lick of paint’ to suit your brand.
The concept behind Wix was to make website building more accessible for even small and independent retailers. Local businesses like restaurants, sellers, and service providers such as photographers, writers, and tradesmen can put together a professional-looking site in a matter of minutes.
Wix pricing options
It’s possible to build a new website using Wix for free. However, you will have to put up with Wix adverts displayed across your website as a trade-off. You have to pay additional funds for a domain name, increased hosting space (up to 10GB), and access to premium Wix apps.
Pros of Wix
- Instant access to pre-prepared website layouts.
- Almost limitless editing and flexible elements.
- Automated website backup offered.
- Website building ably assisted by Wix’s artificial design intelligence (ADI).
Cons of Wix
- Ad-free plans cost you monthly.
- Not easy to alter Wix templates
- Page speed load times are sluggish, particularly on smartphones.
Of course, without rock-solid website hosting, you’ll get nowhere with your new affiliate website. That’s why we also offer advice and support on choosing the best hosting for e-commerce affiliate sites built on WordPress, Drupal, Magento, and many more platforms.
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