Last year, according to Huffington Post, over $1.5 billion was spent during Cyber Monday.
Now, that’s not nearly as much as you’d find during Black Friday.
This continues to grow as more and more people become aware of the deals that happen the Monday after.
One of the biggest benefits of creating an affiliate niche website around Cyber Monday, as compared to the others, is that you can continue to operate this website during the off-months because it can transition to regular sales if you angle it correctly.
Creating great lists/round-ups, building an email list, and gaining social followers will allow you to continually promote and create buzz when it comes time for the shopping holiday.
But, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves…
…let’s dig into what you need to do to create one of these niche sites around Cyber Monday.
Step 1: The Cyber Monday Niche Site Setup
Time to get started with setting up the website.
Everything from here forward will depend on if you build a blog — since it’s the platform for 99% of the work.
Domain
For the domain, you’re going to have some trouble finding one that has the main keywords available but I say to get creative and try out some play-on-words.
This could include:
- CyberSale-a-Thon.com
- BestWebDealsShop.com
- OnlineSalesUnited.com
- TransactionStation.com
Play with the domain but try to keep it sounding like there are sales and great deals going on.
If you’re stumped than take a look at synonyms for ‘Sale’ and go with one of those.
Themes
As I mentioned in the Black Friday niche website guide – I would suggest going with either a shop-front or magazine-style look to the website.
- A shop-front will give it a professional look and allows you to list out individual products with ease which can later turn into an affiliate ecommerce store during the off months.
- A magazine-style look will let people quickly scan the deals, find guides, and dig deeper into the site through various plugins and smart navigation.
If you need something quick then go with the magazine-style, otherwise, aim for the long-term through the shop-front.
Here are some resources:
I wanted to add in the contest tools because you can leverage the hell out of them to build up interaction on your site and when you heat map and track the results you can better design and set up the structure.
Structure
For the structure, I would suggest to keep it so people can easily see the best, new deals right on the front page. Try to keep it so it acts like a live feed of what’s happening during Cyber Monday.
As for the general structure – consider:
- Home
- Deals
- Ads
- Stores
- Guides
- Reviews
- Contact
The deals section will act for quick deal updates, ads to show an overview, stores to educate where they can shop, guides to help them save money, and reviews to help with conversions.
One thing to think about, too: consider adding a “sponsor” section of your site for retailers which could net you additional income by featuring certain deals and stores on the front page and in your marketing.
Step 2: General and Niche Affiliate Offers Worth Promoting
Now, what are you going to promote during Cyber Monday?
- The short: Everything.
- The long: Everything.
Since you’re in no way limited to store shelves you have the advantage to promote just about anything and everything during the holiday sales event. Even if an item isn’t at a deep discount it’s likely to be bought because there are tons of coupons going into play.
According to LarrysWorld, these were the most sought-after items:
- Electronics
- Computers
- Clothing
- Sporting goods
- Video games
Of these items, it usually comes to what you could expect: TV’s, laptops, cameras, video game consoles, tablets, phones, and more.
What I would suggest is to take a look at what’s being posted on CyberMonday.com.
The site will list out the main stores that are running promotions, list their ads, and will have plenty of content and marketing materials you could swipe and turn into your own niche focus.
Keep in mind that people will probably look at the major retailers, first, like Walmart, Target, Staples, Best Buy, and Amazon.
If you want to go niche then what I’d say is to use a big online store, like NewEgg, to see how they structure their website. It’ll start general -> niche -> sub-niche -> more. There you can find great ideas for content around these very specific products which should let you cut through a lot of the noise.
Go for the long-tail and you’ll have everything you need.
Step 3: Content Ideas and Promotions for Cyber Monday Sales
What makes Cyber Monday different than Black Friday is that you gain a few bonuses such as:
- A lot of free shipping
- Tons and tons of coupons
- Smart, cross-promotional sales
Physical sales that you find during Black Friday are always swamped with too many people who then prevent a lot of them from finding other products throughout the store. People come in, get their main item, hop in line, and move on.
Online, however, gains an advantage because people are shopping from the comfort of their home; they have time to look deeper into the site without being pushed and trampled.
Keep this in mind when you’re creating promotional content and marketing campaigns.
- Promoting a post about the best deals for TV? Create a spin-off for TV stands and mounts.
- A piece about the best headphones? Offer your suggestions for great music.
- Recommending a round-up of coffee machines? List out the highest rated coffee.
Your best course of action, in my opinion, is to start with a general topic and draw out a tree which shows the relationships of other products. Then begin creating lists and round-ups for each of these, go back and edit existing ones with internal links, and build links to each which will create a sales “ecosystem”.
And, of course, run the content and promotions through social channels, paid advertising, guest blogging, and others. You could also consider a bit of offline promotion through fliers and mailings.
Getting Good in the Cyber Monday Niche
There is nothing quite like the sales that happen on Cyber Monday.
Items will go out of sale in mere moments after they are listed due to so many individuals overwhelming the website. If you can position your affiliate site as an authority within your targeted niche than you’re likely to see a sharp bump in holiday sales.
Remember to angle your design, content, and marketing efforts in a way that you can re-use this site next year – go for the evergreen – but be sure to ride the trends, this year.
