Wedding Dress Affiliate Programs: For Better or Worse?

The wedding dress is not a prerequisite to a wedding, but tradition and culture typically dictate the bride to wear a specific garment to the ceremony. In Western countries, that usually means a white wedding dress, while many Eastern nations require brides to wear traditional costumes. Brides and mothers of the bride tend to pull out all the stops when it comes to wedding dresses, as nothing is too good for the bride on her special day.

That explains why brides spend thousands of dollars on their dresses, and why there is such big drama over picking one. Think of the hit TV series 'Say Yes To The Dress'. 

Traditionally, brides go to a bridal store to pick a design and get fitted. These days, more and more brides go online to get their wedding dress, mostly for the convenience, but also for the great prices.
 

Niche Definition

Spend time on market research

Defining the niche does not only mean knowing what you are selling. It goes way beyond that. To become successful at the niche you’ve chosen, you need to spend extra time defining what your niche is and for the most part, this means knowing carefully who you market the niche to.
 

Define the market

This is the very first thing you need to know when it comes to promoting your niche. When starting off, it is highly advised that you narrow down everything, including your target market. The more targeted your market is, the better and easier for you to know who they are and how you can communicate with them.

A good example of a well-targeted wedding niche site is Boho Weddings, which is a blog and directory website for everything that is ‘Boho’ (Bohemian style weddings).

Stay focused

Always remember: smaller is bigger. Do not be distracted by the things that you see or read online. When it comes to researching your niche, you need to stay focused to your chosen topics only. You cannot go off track just because you see a good niche or topic that is completely different from your niche. To stay focused, start to brainstorm ideas that you think can be added to your niche website.

Set up your goals

This includes both the short-term and long-term goals. Setting up your goals also helps to define your target market and where you want to focus on. Your goals can cover everything that you need to do to establish a well-defined niche. Whimsical Wonderland Weddings is a perfect example of a website that has clearly defined goals. On their About Us page, you can read how the owner started with her blog website, which was rooted in her love for eccentric weddings. The blog gained a lot of recognition for these two reasons: 1. The niche was known and defined from the start, and 2. The goals were well-planned. 
 

Popularity

How big is the wedding industry?

Those who have gotten hitched know very well that weddings are expensive. Even if you limit the budget to the least you can afford, the cost of getting married is astronomical. 

Here is an interesting post from Trip Savvy on wedding facts and figures (I am quoting some sections of the post below), which gives us a whole picture of how much people spend on a wedding:

• Every year an average of 2.4 million weddings are performed in the U.S.
• $35,329 is the average amount spent on a traditional American wedding.
• The average number of wedding guests is 141.
• The average amount each guest spends to attend a wedding is $703.
• A total of $72 billion is spent on weddings annually in the U.S.
• Weddings represent a $50 billion annual industry.
• The average amount spent on a bridal gown is $1,564.

I have highlighted the last sentence, which is the average cost for bridal gowns and the information that is essential for us in weighing up how popular this sub-niche is.

Since we are mostly promoting the niche online, we can use Google Trends to look at how many people are searching for the term “wedding gowns”:

Google Trends shows consistent high (worldwide) interest for the past 12 months for the keyword “wedding gowns”. Since the data we get in Google Trends came from the Google search activities, which is also considered the top search engine referrer for web traffic, we can rely on this data alone when it comes to niche popularity.
 

Keyword Research

Target the right keywords to attract the right market

Keyword research is scary for most first-time affiliate marketers. Although, this task can seem technical, you do not have to overthink everything. You need to research your keywords in order to target the right market. In short, the more targeted the keywords are, the more you can attract the right visitors to your website.

You can refer to our keyword research module for the complete guide on how to do the keyword research. For extra tips on keyword research, you can visit this thread here.

Another common dilemma for new affiliate marketers is determining which tool to use for keyword research. While there are a lot of really good tools out there (and most of these tools are paid tools) you do not have to fuss over which tool is best to use. Most of these tools are pretty much the same. 

If you are just starting with your affiliate marketing business, I suggest you stick first to the free tools available for you. This is a practical move, especially for people who are on a tight budget.

Below are our suggested free, but very good tools for keyword research:/

1. Google

If you do not know which keywords to target, you can always go to Google and utilize the available tools in keyword research, particularly Google search, Google Trends, and Google Keyword Planner.

Since Google is considered the number one source for search engine traffic, it makes sense to refer to Google for keyword ideas.
 

Google Search

You can get a lot of keyword ideas in using Google search alone. Just type in your seed keyword in the Google search bar and you’ll notice that there are keywords automatically suggested to you on the drop down as shown in the screenshot below:

And once you have the results for your search inquiry, you can also refer to the related terms section, which is located at the bottom part of the Google search results,.

Google Trends

You can also head over to Google Trends tool to get more keyword ideas. Google Trends is not just a source for which niche is popular or not. You can use this tool to look for target keywords, too.

Under related topics and related queries sections, you can view all the keywords that you can target for the niche:

You can also check out the top keywords list and the rising keywords list for more options:

What is great about Google Trends is you can see which keywords are always in demand or searchable and which keywords are currently popular. Aside from that, you can also look at the regions where these keywords are widely searched. Looking at the top regions will help you in your marketing campaign (later on) for the niche./
 

Google Keyword Planner

The Google Keyword Planner is another great, free tool from Google. This tool is designed to help you target the right keywords for your marketing campaign. This is useful mostly for PPC campaigns but you can also utilize this tool for SEO. If you are new to Google Keyword Planner, I suggest you check out the tutorials here.

2. UberSuggest

This is another free keyword tool that I often use when looking for more keyword ideas. If you are the kind of person who loves to use less complicated tools for keyword research, then UberSuggest is the right tool for you.

It is so easy to use. Just head over to the UberSuggest website and directly type in the keyword that you like, as shown:

Once you have the list of keyword ideas, you can re-run the keywords for competition using Google Keyword Planner, Traffic Travis, or AffioTools, which are the tool that I will discuss next.

3. AffiloTools

This is a free keyword tool in Affilorama, which is very easy to use. If you are a beginner, this tool will suit you well. AffiloTools is not just for keyword research. It serves as your all-in-one SEO tool as it also provides you with onsite analysis of your website, it connects your Google Analytics account to track your traffic in one place, it connects you to your Twitter and Facebook accounts for easy posting and management, and it can also be used to check the backlinks of your competitors, among many others.

To access the keyword tool in Affilotools, you first need to activate your AffiloTools account. Once activated, you can utilize the SEO tools available for you.

For keyword research, you can easily follow through the instructions on how to do keyword research using AffiloTools.   

Affiliate Programs

Wedding Dress Affiliate Programs

1. House of Brides Couture

The site runs its own affiliate program. House of Brides is an online bridal store that began in Chicago in 1929. It has now expanded into a chain of stores in Chicago. HouseofBrides.com is the global website, offering brides-to-be and their entourage a wide selection of dresses and accessories.

How much can I make?
Payment is as high as 4% on every sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here.

2. Elegant Gowns

Elegant Gowns offers a wide selection of wedding dresses, both for the bride and the bridal party. The site carries designer labels but also offers affordable yet fashionable pieces. The site has one of the highest rates among the affiliate programs in this niche. The affiliate cookie does not expire so your site visitor can make a purchase after clicking your affiliate link 3 months ago, and you still get the sale.

How much can I make?
You can earn 10% per sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here as a ShareASale affiliate.

3. Tiffany Rose

Tiffany Rose is a UK-based online store catering to expectant mothers. Its line of maternity wear includes maternity wedding dresses.

How much can I make?
You need to contact the vendor for the payout details.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here under Affiliate Future.

4. Girl Meets Dress

Another UK-based online store that offers women a selection of wedding dresses along with other formalwear. Unlike the other online stores in this niche, Girl Meets Dress offers a rental service that allows you to select, fit and wear any of the dresses in its catalog. After the event, you simply pack the dress in the box it came in and send it back.

How much can I make?
You can earn 4%-10% commission per sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here to promote this product.

5. edressme

edressme offers a huge collection of dresses - from everyday dresses to wedding dresses. It provides over 5,000 dresses on the site, which includes designer dresses that makes it easier for affiliates to earn.

How much can I make?
You can earn a 6%-10% commission per sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up on the vendor’s website.

 

6. CocoMelody

CocoMelody is a bridal brand providing high quality wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses and accessories at affordable prices. The company is making wedding dreams come true for over 19 years.

How much can I make?
You can earn a 10% commission per sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up on ShareASale website.

 

Marketing

How to drive traffic to your website

The next big challenge after getting the site up is driving traffic to it. There are plenty of methods to do this, both paid and free. It's easy to get caught up trying to figure out which methods to try first, so think about your link building and inbound marketing strategies as you go into the niche. Having a strategy, even just a rough draft, will help you escape an paralysis by analysis episode when building links for your site.

Social Media Marketing

Pinterest is a great social media site to promote on. Share images of your favorite wedding dresses with your affiliate links. Or you can send them over to your site for more information.

You can do the same on Facebook and Twitter, but visual sites like Pinterest and Instagram, which are based solely on images, will likely be more effective.

Amazon Kindle Traffic

You can also write a small e-book on how to pick the perfect wedding dress, with an emphasis on picking a dress online, and share it on the world's biggest e-book store: the Kindle marketplace.

For a broader approach, the e-book can cover anything related to weddings. Just make sure it contains links back to relevant articles on your site so that users who download it will know where to go for more information.

Link Indexing

Don't let any backlinks you've made go unnoticed by search engines. Make sure to have these links indexed. You can do this by submitting your links to sites like Pingler.com. You can also use Twitter or Facebook to index your bigger and better links.

Final Thoughts

I do? Or no can do?

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Sign up	Sign up	Sign up	Sign up	Sign up	Sign up

Despite the tough competition, the wedding dress niche is a fun one and I would pursue it, given the chance. Before I get to building my site for this niche though, I would make sure I do some thorough niche and keyword research. I'd have a link building strategy laid out too.

The commissions aren't that high, but they are good enough, especially given how much some dresses can cost. If you have a wedding or wedding-related site, then you can monetize it with any of the above-mentioned wedding dress affiliate programs.

I hope you find this week's niche interesting and insightful. Would you consider going into this niche? Are there any niches you would like to see featured as Niche of the Week? Let me know in the comments section below!

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PS: Do you want to learn how to build a niche website step-by-step? Enrol in the AffiloBlueprint course kickstart your affiliate marketing journey now!