Affiliate Examples - 6 Coffee Niche Sites
The first in a series of niche roundups, giving you inspiration for future sites.
After a few issues of the newsletter giving you some general tips, we’re now proud to release the latest issue, with some niche specific examples. These are all sites that have been uncovered on our travels around the internet.
Warning: There are some long screenshots ahead!
The coffee niche has been around forever, with hundreds of different products and subscription services, and heaps of information available for informational content.
One of the highest profile sales of a site in this niche took place in March 2018, with Matt Giovanisci (of MoneyLab.co fame) selling his Roasty Coffee site for $55,000 (a 36x multiple of the $1,500 per month income).
That sale seemed to spawn a new generation of coffee sites, some of which are below (along with some old-timers!)
This is one of the higher profile sites, as mentioned above. Below are two screenshots - before and after acquisition (although it’s been through a few iterations since it was acquired, this is the latest, with a full redesign.
The next screenshot is the before-acquisition shot. It looks concise, and has the “best” posts on the homepage. It might not look as detailed as the latest rendition, but it’s clean, functional, and directs the reader to where they want to go. Remember, this site was making $1,500 per month at this point, so design isn’t everything. Matt developed this theme himself, spinning it off into a standalone product - Carbonate.
This is how it looks now. It’s got a design that sets it apart from the typical affiliate sites in the niche, looking more like a magazine than a cookie-cutter style affiliate site. It provides information for the readers, rather than just aiming to get them off the site quickly, although I’ve no doubt that it does that well too.
Following the pattern of most of the sites here, featuring guides, reviews, and how-to’s on the homepage, Cuppabean has more of a magazine feel than a typical blog.
It heavily features top-10 style posts, which, whilst ranking well now, may not be deemed to be the best for user experiences in the future. Purely my opinion though!
This one looks like a ‘typical’ affiliate site, with a large header, off grey background, and white ‘post’ boxes, without looking like a magazine. That’s not necessarily a bad thing if the main aim is to get users off the site and onto Amazon, but in the mix of the sites here, it doesn’t stand out anywhere near as much as some of the more established sites.
A bit of a mash-up here, between a typical affiliate site, and a magazine style site aka Roasty Coffee. The large hero graphic draws the reader in, but it has plenty of buyers guides. It seems to follow a similar pattern to most other sites in this niche.
Featuring a large header (surprisingly common in this niche it seems), giving the user chance to search for specific information or reviews, followed by a large ‘buyers guide’ section. The layout is intuitive and is designed for ease of navigation by the reader.
This is also the only UK centric site in the list, so even restricting by country shows that the niche is very viable.
Another one of the bigger brands in the coffee niche, with a really good looking site. The inclusion of a ‘featured in’ section adds credibility to the site, providing authority (although E-A-T is not necessarily an issue in this niche).
The site doesn’t feel like a cheap affiliate site, with the numerous buyers guides and informational content provided, which is evident in the high rankings of the site.
Cup and Leaf (ok, so not strictly coffee which is why it’s a bonus, but hot drinks is close).
This site has now pivoted to become a real bricks and mortar coffee site - perhaps it’s more lucrative? The site was originally designed in Webflow (unusual to see for an affiliate site, but certainly a choice that can make for an amazing looking site!)
We’ve not included a screenshot, as the Wayback Archive is missing a bit of css, so it looks messy. It’s now had a rebrand into Sencha Tea, but the old site can be useful for inspiration for content, at least.
A short history of how the site ended up reaching over 100k visitors a month in just 8 months can be seen in the article on Growth Machine, written by Nat Eliason.
As you can see, the coffee niche is certainly one that is growing. There are plenty of products out there, from coffee machines, grinders, mugs, subscription services, cafetieres, and espresso machines - to list a few. There’s also a whole wealth of information content, and plenty of opportunities for infographics (types of coffee, how to make certain drinks, types of machines). In short, it’s a potentially very lucrative niche!
That’s it for this week! I hope this one has given you some inspiration, whether niche or design ideas. What are your thoughts on this niche? Do you want to see a detailed dive on future niches, or is this enough for inspiration? Thanks for reading, if you got this far 😀