5 Ideas For Affiliate Marketing Websites

I didn’t plan on getting any further into the topic of the last post, affiliate marketing, just yet. I intended get right into more advanced topics like making your own digital products and designing sales websites and such since that’s what I’ve been doing lately.

But, strangely it seems that pointing my mind towards affiliate sales the other day has ensured that for whatever reason, over the last couple of days… I keep thinking of great ideas for quality affiliate sites that I wish I had shared in that previous post.

So, I made a list and here are some ideas for affiliate sites to help prevent your new affiliate website from looking like the majority of the affiliate sites out there…
You know… those annoying ones that clog up your search results with useless clutter. I don’t think you want to be just another one of those, if you can help it.

Don’t get too excited though. These ideas are just ideas, and only maybe a good starting place or stepping stone, for you… not anything “turn key” or ready to go as they are.
But, they’re still great ideas for anyone who is wondering what to make for their first money-making website.

1. Create an online tool: I see more and more of these sorts of affiliate sites all the time and I love it. It’s nice to find a quick and easy online tool to solve any repetitive or obscure task; like converting an image into a .ico icon file, or helping me choose a color scheme, or quickly getting some basic keywords. I love this idea so much; I plan on making a few online tools just as soon as I have time, even though I probably don’t need to. But, it sounds like fun.
2. Start a free subscription site: Just recently, all I was hearing about was the huge success of this or that free online subscription site which was monetized using affiliate commissions. Seems like a great way to start out as an affiliate. Although, right after that they all seemed to have realized that they could set their own “commissions” by just selling the ad space outright, (I think) but that’s another story and you need to prove significant traffic to make that transition. Also, I’ve always been in pure awe of some of the obvious affiliate websites (I won’t mention names) that are advertised on television for money related things. These sites are brilliant in the way they subtly offer you something of significant perceived value for free (when you sign up), allowing them to masquerade as some sort of public service, all the while simply funneling you (and all your information) on to their merchants who then begin to shamelessly market directly too you. (Hey, you signed up for it.)
3. Blog, blog, blog your little heart out: I mentioned this almost exclusively in my last post, so I really want to qualify this a bit and offer a bit of fair warning. Personally, I don’t like see a weblog created solely for the sake of affiliate marketing. These kinds of sites are often started by beginners and they usually end up looking like a “billboard” type page with nothing but ads as far as the eye can see and even the articles, if you bother to read them, are just promotions for this and that themselves. I’ve never seen those kinds of blogs do very well, even though I hear tales. So, please be careful not to be one of those lazy affiliates. Pages created purely for Adsense or “arbitrage” leave a bad taste in my mouth too and worse, they clog up honest searches and the Internet in general, with pure garbage. (But, apparently those do make quite a bit of revenue for their owners, unfortunately.) The best way to go if you’re looking into blogging for income is to find and read some really good affiliate blogs. They’re somewhat rare and I don’t think it would be wise to mention any names here. But, some affiliate blogs are simply amazing… incredibly helpful or genuinely useful or just fun to read or purely inspiring… these are great websites. At least aim high, please.
4. Start your own e-store: This is a simple revelation that many would-be affiliate marketers don’t seem to get right away but is still a good starting point for many. With a web store you’re not restricted to selling only digital products, or even selling your merchant’s products merely as an affiliate. You can become a reseller quite easily these days by simply installing something like Zen Cart, http://www.zen-cart.com, and choosing which products to sell and which drop shippers you’ll use. This isn’t like affiliate sales at all and is more like opening a “brick and mortar” store, but without having to pay some expensive payment processor, without having to keep any merchandise in a warehouse or even in your home office, without having to be constrained by your commission level, being able to mark up the products you’re selling however you want. One downside to this path, if you choose to take it, is that since you’re no longer “just an affiliate”, you will be expected to field support emails, handle customers directly and deal with shipping issues, just like any store owner.
5. Start a review site: This last one is a sort of hybrid between a blog and an online store, if you ask me. With this sort of site you’ll want to try having either a great presentation of comparisons or detailed product specs and honest reviews, or both. It’s sort of a web-store in the way it navigates, usually, and more like a blog in that you find brief articles (reviews) on each product. If you start one of these, you can have the power of selling multiple products from multiple merchants, and still not have to put up with any of the headaches of actually being a merchant.

I hope this helps shed some light on at least a handful of the many options available to any would-be affiliate (or reseller), or even the experienced Internet marketer, when formulating ideas for new websites.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 11:13 am and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.