Building a Business Around Affiliate Programs
One of the hottest trends in making money involves using Affiliate programs on your website. When you see any “get-rich” quick type schemes and other sites that promise you $50k/month then it usually involves Affiliate programs. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take an interest in them though. A lot of popular, honest sites focus on affiliate programs and make a good deal of money.
For the people who don’t have experience with affiliate programs your first question may be are they lucrative? Yes they are, but making them so is not easy work. You have to work a niche for it to be truly rewarding. Doing a general interest site will surely get you no where.
Your success depends on your willingness to work hard, learn, adapt, and refocus as necessary with the constantly changing business. Again, it takes a lot of work.
What are the best areas to work in?
This is tough because when someone finds a niche that works for them you will be hard-pressed to get them to share that niche with you. Affiliate marketing is very competitive so when someone finds their goldmine they are likely to stick with it and keep it a secret because sooner or later people will begin to jump in the ring.
I am the new guy in the crowd, how do I get started?
Hmmm. Don’t. :-) Understand that success will not happen overnight. There are many different hats that you have to wear: site design, layout, navigation (information architecture), SEO, finding good affiliate programs, etc. You can’t dive right in, but must take each step at a time. It takes time, but if you put in the hard work and are a good learning the payoff should be worth it.
Don’t quit your day job because you are reading about all the success stories in different forums. I am not trying to discourage you, but give you the realization that it requires a lot of work. At the beginning it will probably be more work then you put in your day job.
What kind of site do I make?
You have two options here. A) Build a site for the sole purpose of making money. B) Build a site that you have an interest in. A site where the topic is something you are very passionate about and you can easily write articles for.
Site A can work, but all the top dogs go this route and they have been doing it for years. If you begin this way you might not find it enjoyable at all and will easily get discouraged.
I highly recommend Site B as working on something you love doesn’t even seem like work. Brainstorm different topics that interest you. Get a piece of paper and list as many as you can. Do this a couple of times during the week and once you are done research the sites that cover these topics.
Once you have decided on your topic you need to find affiliate programs that cater to the subject matter. Look at your competition and see who they are promoting (if anyone at all). Setup accounts with a couple of different programs. The more options the better as you never want to tie yourself down.
Once you have done this you have laid down the foundation for your site. Stick with it and over time you should see some success.
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POSTED IN: Affiliate Marketing
5 opinions for Building a Business Around Affiliate Programs
Bryan
Aug 19, 2004 at 2:19 pm
Good Posting Scrivs,
I consider myself a decent designer with some decent knowledge in SEO, navigation, information architecture, etc… but can tell you from experience making money with my sites is damn hard. I think one popular affiliate program that starts with Ad…. and ends with an “ense” has only brought me like 50 bucks since starting way back in December. Kinda sucks. Finding that nitch is a tough bitch to (did that ryhme:)).
There is also the possibility of doing an adult related site. Some people are against it, some people don’t care as long as their wallet gets fatter. It just depends on what is “right” for that particular individual. I have a few site ideas, just not sure how
a. I want to implement them
b. How I want to make money off of them.
Its tough.
Scrivs
Aug 19, 2004 at 2:35 pm
Well I know with one of your sites Bryan a major focus is on video games. For that you have to look at the audience. You either have teenagers who don’t have credit cards so can’t purchase the games online or people who do have credit cards who rather run down to EB or something and play the game immediately. So obviously it is going to take a lot more work to pull anything off in the video game market.
For the same obvious reason I could see how Adsense wouldn’t really pull in that much from that niche.
With adult sites I think you can make a healthy amount of money without seeming too sleazy. Some good examples are Fleshbot and Get Swank.
Then again it’s not like you have to tell anyone that you are running those sites, but if done properly I don’t see what the big problem would be .
*runs off to create his adult niche site*
Bart
Aug 19, 2004 at 10:39 pm
“Adult niche” … that has to be something kinky, care to tell us about it Scrivs :) ? (j/k)
Bryan
Aug 20, 2004 at 8:28 am
Well, I will admit, I have an idea and its not overly sleazy by any means, plus I don’t consider it pornographic as it doesn’t use images. But I think its a good market to probably get into and hopefully could make some good money. Thing is, I don’t want to get into the “porn banner / popup” thing in order to make money as that usually turns people off from sites.
btw - I am at work, so I am scared to click on either of those links you provided Scrivs :)
Scrivs
Aug 21, 2004 at 1:23 am
Well when you get the chance you should definitely checkout those links as they will give you some great ideas for your site I am sure. Essentially they are sex-blogs which isn’t an original idea, but they do it right.
Denton is missing out on some great ways to make money, while I think Get Swank has it almost right.
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