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How Do You Create A Coupon Site With WordPress ?

Coupon sites are awesome! Who doesn't like free or discounted stuff?

Coupon sites can help you can make money off of people who want to use coupons and save themselves money.

Today, I'll discuss how you can create a coupon site with the appropriate themes and plugins. We'll also have a look at how coupon sites operate and why they work.

Coupon Sites Are Profitable To All Parties – Buyer, Seller & The Middleman (The Coupon Site)

If you were wondering how coupon websites make money, you'll notice they are very similar to affiliate marketing in many ways; you receive a commission every time someone uses a coupon from your coupon website to make a purchase.

But coupons are not just profitable to you. Coupons bring business to a service provider or seller, you receive a commission and the reader/visitor finds a product designed to meet his or her requirements at a discount to market price. Everyone profits!

From the perspective of a business owner, it is important to understand that this new revenue generated might not have been realized had it not been for a coupon or affiliate website.

Coupon Sites Are Easy To Create, Successful Coupon Sites Rather Difficult

There are many examples of successful coupon sites like Smart Source, Mighty Deals, Retail Me Not and She Saved. You can split them broadly into two categories – niche coupon sites and general multi-niche oriented coupon websites.

You'll need to consider the following questions before you proceed:

  • Niche or non-niche coupon site?
  • Is there money in the particular niche?
  • Are there very strong competitive forces at play?
  • Future of niche industry

All of the above are important factors that need to be taken into consideration before you decide to create a coupon site. I'd recommend SEMrush to help you answer some of the questions. Jerry Low's article How to Make Money Blogging: Research Tips, Niche Ideas + 10 Actionable Traffic Strategies is also quite helpful.

Let's look at a few WordPress themes to give us some perspective about coupon sites…

Coupon Site Examples

We'll look at four screenshots of previews of WordPress coupon themes and discuss the features necessary to bring your coupon site to life.

Deals

[icon link] http://demo.theme-junkie.com/deals/

The above offers a simple site structure and straightforward coupons stating the discount for various services.

Couponer

[icon link] http://demo.powerthemes.club/themes/couponer/top-20/

The above represents the ideal option for a website with coupons in multiple industries/sectors without a specific inclination to any niche. A search and filter system with an easily accessible category display helps visitors find coupons suited to their requirements easily.

XL

[icon link] http://demo.powerthemes.club/themes/couponxl/

CouponXL is a nice theme with a pleasant interface. What I like most about this theme is the fact that they mention the price. People who look for coupons are obviously interested in price because for them cost is an issue. It's rather silly not to mention the discounted price against a crossed out original price in my opinion. It shows the prospective buyer there is money to be saved. 

Important Pages/Features In A WordPress Coupon Theme

  • Search feature with filters
  • Category display
  • Submit coupons feature for businesses looking to expand. I haven't mentioned this before, but it is essential to have a submission feature. A coupon submission system with fixed fees and percentage commission options.
  • A good contact form, for the same reasons listed before. It'll come in handy to work out exclusive deals between yourself and a business looking for coupon affiliates.
  • FAQ section – you cannot do without a page dedicated to FAQs.
  • Membership system for exclusive deals and offers
  • Social Logins for special deals. You can get your hands on some demographic data which will prove useful for business, if you can leverage it.
  • Offers with an expiry time counter to tempt people to quickly close purchases.
  • Payment gateways

Themes I'd Recommend

I'm not discussing these themes specifically, as the features necessary to create a coupon site in a WordPress theme have already been addressed. Having said that, the aforementioned four are probably among the best, if not “the” best WordPress coupon themes available.

You'll Need A Plugin To Handle Your Coupons

  • Coupon Code Plugin – Easy coupon management and reporting system with income protection enabled by affiliate link masking. Plugin also has 15 coupon styles and 6 coupon buttons to help in customizing and creating the perfect coupon for your website.
  • Coupon Creator –  Coupon Creator works on a short code system; create a coupon for which a shortcode can be assigned. Add the shortcode wherever you'd like the coupon to appear. Additional features including a visual editor, popups, WooCommerce coupons, counter limits for coupons and Google Analytics integration are made available to you in the premium version.
  • Magic WP Coupon Lite – Plugin promises and offers the necessary functionality to turn your normal WordPress website into a fully functioning coupons site.

Generating Revenue Isn't Easy

There are many myths surrounding coupon sites which tend to dissuade people from starting coupon sites as revenue generating ventures. Like anything else, creating websites generating traffic and revenue is hard. There isn't anything particularly difficult about creating a successful coupon site compared to a normal website.

 

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Article by Vishnu

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