This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase
It seems like every blogger promotes Bluehost. Every ‘’how to start a blog’’ post says that Bluehost is the best hosting for new bloggers.
Ever wondered why? It’s because the Bluehost affiliate program is one of the best affiliate programs out there.
Bluehost is also a reputable company that does truly have the best hosting. They have free domain name registration, a free SSL certificate and 24/7 support which is ready to help you with any problems you may have along your blogging journey.
As an affiliate marketer, you should promote products that can actually help your readers and those in which you believe.
If you only promote products based on just the commission, sooner or later you will destroy the trust you build with your readers as so many high-paying affiliate programs offer products that are of a low quality.
As a Bluehost affiliate, you will earn a high commission but at the same time you will recommend quality hosting to your readers.
These two factors combined make the Bluehost affiliate program one of my favorites.
Bluehost Affiliate Program
Bluehost has an in-house affiliate program that can be joined directly from the Bluehost affiliate landing page.
Not many affiliates know about it, but you can also become a Bluehost affiliate by joining the program on CJ Affiliates.
The commission of these two programs is the same but what differs is the referral period. The in-house program has a 90-day referral period while the one on CJ has 120 days.
Despite this, I would still recommend joining the in-house program. You will have much better support in case you have any questions or need to deal with any problems. Also, with the in-house program you have a chance to get your commission raised if you manage to generate a bigger number of sales each month.
What both programs have in common is the fact that you need to have a website in order to be accepted.
UPDATE 2022: Bluehost has announced that their affiliate program is moving to the Impact Radius platform. Migration will begin on or around the week of June 6, 2022. If you are already a Bluehost affiliate, you don´t have to take any action at the moment. Bluehost should send more information about the migration soon.
Unlike some affiliate programs - like Shopify that requires you to have website content around a certain topic - Bluehost does not have any requirements regarding your website audience.
Therefore, even with a brand-new website in any niche, you will get accepted to the program.
If you don’t have a website, you will have to create one.
If you are planning on focusing on the Bluehost affiliate program, I recommend starting a website with Bluehost hosting. As a Bluehost customer, you will be able to write better reviews of the hosting and put together better tutorials as you will have personal experience with the interface.
What Products Can You Promote as a Bluehost Affiliate?
Bluehost is best known for its hosting but they also provide domain services.
Hosting
Bluehost offers different types of hosting. The most popular and also the cheapest is Bluehost WordPress shared hosting and normal shared hosting. Bluehost also offers VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, cloud hosting and other types of hosting.
WordPress shared hosting is the most popular as it is perfect for people who are just starting a new website on WordPress. However, even if you go with normal shared hosting, you will still be able to install WordPress.
Bluehost has a fixed commission and does not differentiate between what hosting package your visitor has bought. If someone buys expensive dedicated hosting from your link, you will still receive the same commission as if someone bought the cheapest shared hosting.
The same applies for hosting upsells like domain privacy. If someone buys any hosting add-ons, your commission will stay the same.
It seems to me that most of the Bluehost affiliates think that the commission gets raised as everyone recommends buying the add-ons as well.
Even if the commission was raised, I would still not promote them. In my opinion, none of the Bluehost upsells are worth the money, but that’s just my opinion.
Domains
Bluehost is also a domain registrar so you can also promote domains. Bluehost provides you with a widget that allows your readers to check domain availability without leaving your website. If the domain is available, they click on a button and are redirected to Bluehost where they can register it.
However, please note that you will not receive a commission if someone registers just a domain. You only receive commission for hosting purchases.
So why am I even mentioning domains here?
Because Bluehost offers a free domain with all their shared hosting plans. Logically, most people who register domains also need hosting, so if someone wants to start a new website and they don’t have a domain registered yet, purchasing Bluehost hosting is a great deal.
Bluehost Affiliate Program Commission
Bluehost has high $65 commission that you receive for each customer who completes the order process for any of their hosting packages.
Your commission can be raised to up to $130 per hosting sign-up if you manage to generate a significant number of sales a day.
Bluehost does not have a specific sales tier established for raising your commission. Once you start generating a couple of sales a month, contact Bluehost and ask if your commission could be raised.
However, even if your commission doesn’t get raised, the default $65 commission is still huge.
You may be wondering how Bluehost can afford to pay such high commissions.
It’s a game of numbers. The cheapest shared hosting on Bluehost costs around $70 for 12 months.
The twelve-month plan is the shortest plan you can buy at Bluehost.
So Bluehost gives up their earnings for the first year that the customer pays for, but they will earn much more in the years to come. Hosting is a type of service for which website owners must pay continually.
Obviously not all website owners keep paying for hosting and some decide to cancel, but statistically, there are more people who will want to grow their website and blogs and pay for hosting continuously.
This is the reason why Bluehost and other hosting companies can afford to pay such big commissions.
In order to withdraw your earnings, you must earn at least $100, so you need to generate two sales. This, however, only applies to the first payment, for subsequent ones you can withdraw even a single $65 commission.
Bluehost only pays commission through PayPal, which is an option most affiliates, including me, prefer.
The payment process takes between 45-60 days and affiliates always get paid between the 16th and the last day of the month.
Can You Make $1000 a Month as a Bluehost Affiliate?
For most of my affiliate program reviews, I write a paragraph about the difficulty of earning $1000 a month, which is a benchmark many new affiliate marketers have.
For affiliate programs with low commission, such as the Walmart or Target affiliate programs, you usually need to have at least 5000 visitors a month reading your content with affiliate links in order to generate $1000 a month (provided you have the standard conversion rate), but with the Bluehost affiliate program it’s a little different.
To earn $1000 a month with $65 commission, you need to generate only around 15 sales.
Fifteen sales are not that many. If you had a 1% conversion rate, you would need to draw only 1500 people to your content to make $1000 a month.
However, you have to keep in mind that Bluehost is one of the most popular affiliate programs and so there are a lot of Bluehost affiliates you have to compete with.
The competition is even tougher than competitive Amazon Associates since with Bluehost you only earn commission for generating sales for a single product: Bluehost hosting.
Amazon has an enormous number of products so even though there are many Amazon affiliates, you can find products to promote that are less competitive.
Bluehost affiliates promote a single product so you can imagine how competitive the keywords around Bluehost hosting are.
The commission is high, so you need to generate fewer sales, but those sales won’t be easy.
The keywords that bring you the highest conversion rates, such as ‘’how to start a blog’’, are very competitive.
How to Make Money With the Bluehost Affiliate Program
You have just learned that making money as a Bluehost affiliate isn’t easy, but that doesn’t mean you should not join the program.
You will have to put more effort into promoting Bluehost than with other affiliate programs that are less competitive, but it’s well worth it.
Once you receive your first email from Bluehost informing you that you have earned your first $65, you will have an amazing feeling and be pumped to put even more effort into Bluehost promotion and earning more.
Below I list some examples of how you can approach promoting Bluehost.
Write Blog Posts About Starting a Blog
Didn’t you just say moments ago that ‘’how to start a blog’’ posts are super competitive?
Yes, they are but that does not mean that they cannot earn you any money.
Let me explain.
It’s very hard to rank for ‘’how to start a blog’’. There are countless blog posts targeting this keyword and your chances of getting to a higher-ranking position are very slim.
But just because your post doesn’t rank high it doesn’t mean you cannot get any traffic to it.
You can include the post into your menu navigation, so it is easily accessible from any of your blog posts.
Some of your readers will find the blog post relevant to their situation and click on it.
Obviously, how many people will click on it depends a lot on your blog audience. If most of your articles are in the ‘’how to make money‘’ or ‘’blogging ‘’ niche, then more people will click on it than if you had articles about astrology.
Include Bluehost on Your Resource Page
Resource pages are popular both with bloggers and website visitors.
People are often interested in knowing what tools the particular blogger uses and recommends.
A resource page helps people decide what tool to choose and discover new tools that they didn’t know existed.
Bloggers like resource pages because they are the perfect place for inserting your affiliate links. People click on resource pages because they look for tips and ideas.
Resource pages can earn you a lot of commission especially if you have an audience who follows you and trusts you.
Of course, it goes without saying that you should only promote products that are of high quality.
Bluehost offers quality hosting and so you can include it on your resource page without worrying that you are promoting a product just for the sake of receiving a big commission.
Publish a Bluehost Review
Many people know about Bluehost and hesitate about whether it is the right hosting for them. People who search for Bluehost reviews are ready to buy and so reviews tend to have very high conversion rates.
If you are a Bluehost customer yourself, you can give your readers a better insight into what Bluehost hosting is like. You can create various tutorials and show them how user-friendly the hosting is.
However, just like with the ‘’how to start a blog’’ keywords, don’t accept that you will rank for ‘’Bluehost review’’. It’s also very competitive.
But you can benefit from taking the time to write a Bluehost review.
For instance, on your resource page, when you mention Bluehost, you can have an affiliate link just as a link to your Bluehost review. Some of your readers who visit your resource page may not be familiar with Bluehost or will need more information about it before they buy.
If you have a Bluehost review, you will prevent some visitors from leaving your blog in search of a Bluehost review elsewhere.
You can also link to your Bluehost review through your posts when you find it appropriate.
Compare Bluehost With Other Hosting Providers
Bluehost is obviously not the only hosting provider; there are so many to choose from.
People, just as with any product or service, want to choose the best hosting for their situation.
Big hosting companies have strong marketing campaigns so pretty much everyone knows a few big hosting providers that can be an alternative to Bluehost.
You can provide your readers with a detailed comparison.
However, I must note again that these keywords are also super competitive.
I would suggest the same approach I recommended for publishing a Bluehost review above.
Bluehost Banners
I am not a big fan of banners and first I didn’t even want to mention them here, but they are vastly popular among Bluehost affiliates, so they deserve to be mentioned.
Bluehost provides you with banners of all standard sizes.
What most Bluehost affiliates do is place the banner into their sidebars so that they are visible on every page of your blog.
I don’t use Bluehost banners as I have never had much success with them. People are familiar with Bluehost and so they don’t often click on the banners.
You need to provide your readers with some value. You can have banners in your sidebars, but it is better to link to your reviews and from reviews link to Bluehost. I guarantee you that this way you will have both more clicks and more sales.
Juts placing banners in your sidebar can work as well, but you need to give your visitors an incentive in the form of a discount. However, as a new Bluehost affiliate, you don’t get a special price.
Bluehost and PPC Campaigns
The Bluehost affiliate program, just like almost every affiliate program, forbids bidding on branded keywords and trademarked keywords.
You can’t link directly to Bluehost and you can’t mention the Bluehost name in the ad copy.
But you can bid on any keywords related to starting a blog and link to your articles with your affiliate links.
However, CPC (cost-per-click) for the best keywords is high so it’s quite risky.
I would not recommend to any new Bluehost affiliate that they try PPC. PPC can take your affiliate business to the next level, but you need to be sure that your content is converting. Also, you need to know how to run a PPC campaign otherwise you can spend your ad money very quickly without any success.
Promoting Bluehost as a Website Developer
If a client needs a website, they also need a domain and hosting.
Website developers or digital agencies can very easily make some extra money with the Bluehost affiliate program.
Often your clients won’t have hosting and will ask you for a recommendation. You can recommend Bluehost to them and include your affiliate link.
Or you can even purchase the hosting yourself for the client. Bluehost allows purchasing hosting through your own affiliate links as long as each sale has new and unique contact and billing information.
Conclusion: Should You Become a Bluehost Affiliate?
The Bluehost affiliate program is very popular for good reason.
You get to promote a quality product for an amazing commission. Not that many affiliate programs have such high commission and if they do, then often the product is of poor quality.
If you want to be successful with affiliate marketing in the long run, you need to build an audience and gain their trust. That’s something you can only achieve by promoting products from which your readers can benefit.
Bluehost is great hosting with amazing support, so as a Bluehost affiliate you promote a quality product and earn high commission.
What’s also great about promoting Bluehost is that the product is relevant to pretty much any audience.
Whether you have a ‘make money online’ blog, fitness blog or any other blog, some of your visitors will always want to start their own websites.
Of course, some niches such as ‘make money online’ will have a more targeted audience, but even if you are in a different niche, the Bluehost affiliate program is still worth joining.
The program also has its cons, in particular, the high competition. If you join the program, you will be competing with so many other Bluehost affiliates.
It doesn’t mean you can’t be successful, just be prepared that it won’t be that easy.
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Hi, Blogging Lizard.
Hope you are doing well. What an amazing content you wrote. Really an outstanding. I need your help if you can help me to suggest the more way to increase sale with Bluehost affiliate program. Thanks!
Hi Amit,
I am well, thank you. Hope you too. How do you currently promote Bluehost?