People love a good bargain. Masses fall in line overnight for huge sales, stores are overwhelmed during Black Friday, and dainty women will fight for a coveted and highly discounted item. Even online, consumers look for coupons, discounts, and all sorts of sales before making any purchase. This makes coupon sites lucrative and a good business for starting online marketers to consider.
What You Need
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Hosting site
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WordPress.org site
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WordPress themes specific to coupon sites
Setup Steps
Customize your theme.
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Make sure you have the correct PremiumPress License Key information set up in WordPress. Note that you can use your license key on any website as many times as you may like.
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On the admin area, click Design Setup.
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Click Customize Colors to change the colors of different elements on your page. From here, you can also add images, select a logo, change fonts, and add text. Click Save & Publish once done.
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To select and install a theme, click on Browse Child Themes (under Design Setup) > Click a child theme and install it.
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To customize any page, click on the PremiumPress Page Builder button found below the title on the Edit Page.
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For advanced search, click Theme Setup > Search Setup.
Advertise a banner.
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Click on Theme Setup > Advertising Banner > Add Banner. Enter the Title, Display Category, and Banner Code.
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Pick the area you want the ad to be displayed on > Click Save Changes.
Set up sell space (to allow users to advertise on your website).
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Click Enable Sell Space, enable the areas that you want to be available for ad purchase and configure the the price and the number or ads.
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To set up your advertising page, copy the shortcode from the Sell Space tab and paste it into your page.
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To choose an advertising template, go to the right side of Page Attributes.
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To direct your banner to your users’ advertising page, click Theme Setup > Page & Button Links > pick your advertising page on the Advertising Page dropdown.
Create and setup emails (to allow sending of emails and payment reminders to customers).
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Click Theme Setup > Email Setup > System Emails.
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To check, update and send emails, click Theme Setup > Email Setup > Mailing List.
Customize user account setup.
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Click Theme Setup > User Setup.
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Find the right hosting provider. The recommended ones are cheap, have WordPress, and are in top 10 lists. Choose the one that you feel suits your needs the most and make sure that they register your domain for you.
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Find merchants for the niche you intend to focus on.
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Pick a niche. Pick something that sets you apart from big sites that sell just about anything. This will give customers a reason to prefer your site over popular ones.
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Install a coupon theme. One popular theme is Clipper from PremiumPress.
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To customize registration and listing fields, click Theme Setup > Listing Setup.
Marketing Setup
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Activate ads around your niche/category.
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Target people under “online shoppers” category, for one and promote your coupons.
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Use the power of words to attract an audience. Create articles, videos and podcasts to attract your target market.
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Advertise with content discovery platforms to get your content recommended in big, known websites. Content discovery platforms are recommendation platforms or tools focused on helping people find relevant content to the best of their interests.
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Gather a list of online shoppers’ emails and consider it an investment. Send your list emails with your offers and promotions.
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Make your site appear in search engines for those who search for “coupons.” Make a list of your competitors, you can use SEMRush tool to know the keywords they are ranking for, know their traffic and target their keywords that make it possible.
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Have a custom app developed and keep it as engaging as possible.
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Take advantage of social media channels to promote and build communities.
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Contact bloggers in your niche and negotiate to have them blog a review of your website.
Timeframe
Time to do: 5 weeks
Time to see results: 3 months
Additional Tips
Give importance to your coupon’s visual appeal. Have it designed to contain your logo and business name.
Partner with a distributor who can deliver your coupons to its customer base.
Explore new businesses – target those who have not experienced online coupons yet.
Get clear agreements with specifics about terms, duration, fees and everything else about your partnership with clients.
Project a sense of urgency on the use of the coupons to trigger customers to purchase them sooner or later.
Use the process of word of mouth to introduce your coupons to those who have not yet explored it online and invite them to your website. You can also join online forums to spread the word about it to the online market.
Potential Results
Starting income can be $300 – $1000 in a month.
