One question we get from new marketers is:
“how should I design my first affiliate website?”
Which is really open and broad, because there are tons of different types of affiliate websites you can build. The first thing you need to do is develop your overall marketing plan. Your strategy. You already know you want to become an affiliate marketer and that you want to make money with affiliate programs, now you need to determine how you’re going to do that.
This is where many new clients say to me, “But that’s your job. You’re supposed to be the affiliate consultant.” Which is true to some degree, but I can only advise you if I know what path you want to take. Telling me you want to make money online is not enough. Everybody wants to make money online, it’s one of the biggest search terms on the internet. But not everybody is going to.
What you need, my friends, is a plan.
The first thing you need is a niche. What is a niche? It’s a specific market or area that you want to focus on in order to make money. What are some examples of niches? There are tons, but here are a few:
Communications (e.g. Save Money on your Phone Bill)
Animals
Pharmaceuticals (e.g. Viagra)
Womens Shoes (e.g. Knock Offs)
A Specific Illness (e.g. Gastritis)
A Specific Type of Software (e.g. Virus Removal Programs)
A Specific Target Group (e.g. Punk Rocker Clothing)
A Specific Hobby or Interest (e.g. Coin Collectors)
Just to name a few. These are common, and you should find a niche of your own to work in. In the long run you are going to probably focus on several niches, but at first, let’s pick one you are interested in and one you can focus on. I tell people to draw on personal experience and what you love. I had a client not too long ago tell me that his passion was a specific type of candle and how it was made. We built him a site that promoted a product in this niche and he’s now making a nice living. The point is that you need to find something to work with that you are going to like. Because it needs to hold your interest if you are going to promote it well.
You may want to get really specific, or work in what we call a sub niche. A really distinct part of a popular niche that few or none are promoting. This is where marketers make the real money, by finding a need for something that no one else is doing. Believe me, these sub niches are out there and they do exist. If you do some homework and keep digging within a niche, you might just strike gold and find the perfect one to promote.
Now once you have picked your niche you’ll need to define how you want to work within the niche. You are going to want to see if there are programs or products you can promote to make money within that niche. If you are going to use Adsense as a primary method of income generation, you are going to want to find out if there are Adsense advertisers paying for those keywords and phrases. The way to do that is to do a quick Google search for some terms in that niche. If the Google results have paid listings at the top of the page and in the sidebar, there’s a market for you and money to be made from Adsense. You also want to click a few links of other sites on the page and see if they are using Adsense to make money. Look for Adsense ads on their pages. Also look at the Adsense ads themselves and see how they tie into the topic. The more targeted the ads, the better your chance of making money in that niche is.
Now look at the search results page again. How many competitors do you have for that niche? Are there 245 million results? Probably not an easy niche to break into if there are. Nope, you want to look for niches that are not overly saturated. Niches that you have a shot of breaking into fairly easily. If there are less than 200,000 results you might have a chance, if done correctly. The lower that number, the better.
Now we need to design your actual site plan. How are you going to present products to your readers? Are you going to give them a social network like Facebook to use? How about a web tool you know that this type of user would like to use? Is it going to be an affiliate blog? Or is it just going to be a simple affiliate site with banners and links on it? Is it going to be something totally different?
You are going to need to decide the actual marketing method you intend to use. Putting banners on pages is not enough, you need to create a user friendly environment that is going to get them to click your banners and links and buy the products and services you promote. Think about this before you jump in and put together a plan.
You have no idea how many people ring my phone and tell me they want to build an affiliate website, but have not thought it through any further than that. They don’t have a niche, they don’t have a plan. They want to design an affiliate website, but they don’t know what type of affiliate website they want to design. They only know they have seen it on TV or read about it online and that they want in. They have heard there is money to be made online and they want a piece of it.
Don’t be lazy boys and girls, be smart. Build a plan and have an idea of what you want to do and where you want to go. I’ll help you from there, as will my staff. We can guide you in your affiliate website development and we can help you learn to make money online.
I explain it to my clients this way sometimes. We’re going to hike up this mountain together, and we each have a backpack on. I’m an experienced climber, so I can carry a little more. We’ll put the majority of the gear in my pack. But you are still going to have to carry a few things too. Together, we’ll get up that mountain.