One of my lovely blog readers, Joe, has dropped me a wee line asking what the best strategy was in terms of his future affiliate site and content. Here are his questions!

Hi Kirsty,

Joe

Hello Joe!

Very good questions.

1. A year ago I’d have told you to go with the niche sites and not to get bogged down in the creation of a mega site. However, the affiliate world is shifting once more, and many affiliates are starting to swing back towards larger sites once more. These do tend to be in niche areas these days though as opposed to catch all shopping directory type arrangements.

Personally, I’m taking both the approaches you mention. I still create niche sites, because I can usually put one together very quickly and they are still making money. However, with content increasingly important I’m starting to create larger sites once more in order to give myself a good opportunity to create some really convincing content in larger niches.

In your case I would start off with one or two niche sites whilst you learn your affiliate craft. This will allow you to put all the vast swathes of information you’ve no doubt been reading into practise without it taking too long. If it takes you 6 months to develop a site within a niche only to find it’s not working out too well, I suspect you’d get disheartened and quit. I certainly wouldn’t blame you! If you really work at getting a couple of small sites to the top it will demonstrate that you personally can succeed. Then you can start the hard yards of a bigger site secure in the knowledge you are applying your own winning formula.

2. Contextual linking is definately the key to success in affiliate marketing. The more you are able to “presell” your users on a product before they leave the site, the better. You can verify this by taking a look at any network that provides performance data on creatives. Text links and product based items always seriously outperform banners and buttons.

Many affiliates (including me) use product feeds to feature 1000’s of products directly on their site. Increasingly there are many tools and scripts out there to assist you with this. Many affiliate networks do this. Affiliate Window’s Shop Window system is a good example of this. Paid on Results also has some really, really easy to use tools that will let you directly feature merchants products. However, feeds don’t create unique content… it’s up to you to do that as well and really add value to the site beyond the feed content.

For your first project I would recommend a site that focuses on a small group of products or even a single item. I have one site that is based around one product that makes me around £150 a month. The conversion rate is really high as it’s a product very few retailers actually sell. The site took me around a day to put together and another couple of hours to sort some incoming links. it’s made me £1000+ since I set it up. Not bad for a day and a bits work!

What I’m trying to say is that you don’t need to create a complex site with 1000’s of products right away to make money. Think small, and you might be surprised at the disproportionate rewards.

The best thing you can do right now, is start a site immediately. You are clearly thinking the right way about things, so just jump on in and create the site that will start your online career!

Good luck

If anyone else has a good question they’d like a detailed answer on from me, please use the contact form on the blog. I’m happy to publicly answer questions that will benefit other affiliates!

Nice additional article here on site size by David Fiske.