Your specific goal will be to choose 3 affiliate programs that fit with each of your 3 Site Concepts/5 high-profitability keywords (per concept) that you developed in step 2 and 3. You must rate these merchants as excellent, and you must feel good about representing them. Do not associate yourself with those merchants who could adversely affect your credibility.
You will also consider appropriate secondary monetization models to diversify your Web income and give your business stability.
It’s time for a quick check-up. So far you have…
• examined PREselling and its effect on Conversion Rates (step 1)
• identified a potential topic for your Theme-Based Content Site (step 2)
• brainstormed a list of profitable keywords (step 3)
Step 4 continues your excellent preparation efforts. The finish line is in sight where you will register your domain name, confidently knowing that you have not missed a step along the track.
The ideal Site Concept should give you enough flexibility to generate income through your primary source of income, plus two or three or more additional streams.
For example, let's say that you have an information site about “home decor.” Where do you find related e-books or digital products to represent as an affiliate, one of your monetization models?
1) Select the “Monetization” category in STEP 1.
2) Choose “Find Products/Affiliate Programs At ClickBank” in STEP 2.
3) Enter the term "home decor" in STEP 3.
Your search turns up four potential e-book candidates. Decide which one(s) you want to promote and you're off and running! ClickBank guides you through the set-up process.
See how easy it is to diversify, even without a product to sell?
Why is this important?
Two valid reasons come to mind quickly…
• Ideally, you don't want to leave any money on the table. Your visitor may not respond to your primary Most Wanted Response, but she may be attracted to one of your secondary offerings.
• The key is to never be dependent on any one income source -- “all your eggs in one basket” is a high-risk strategy. By diversifying, you increase your revenue, stabilize your business, and take charge of your own business destiny.
Step 4 is all about getting a feel for possible monetization models before you go on to create your domain name. For example, if you narrow your niche/Site Concept too much, or position your business wrongly, you might limit your opportunities unnecessarily… profitable opportunities, that is.
With monetizing in mind, let's look first at the affiliate model. I am assuming that this will be your primary model.
Grow a list of good merchants with affiliate programs that have product lines that fit. Then choose the best ones and group them according to high-profitability keywords. For example, you may want to investigate Amazon’s aStore…
http://astore.amazon.com/
Now it’s time to grow your list of POSSIBLE PARTNERS…
Grow A List Of Possible Affiliate Partners
Remember how we brainstormed the list of KEYWORDS and then chose the best? We're going to choose affiliate partners in the same way.
Solid research sets a solid foundation. That’s why the strategies below try to cover almost every angle for choosing POSSIBLE PARTNERS. However, being this thorough can be overwhelming, especially if you are already time-crunched. So pick and choose the strategies that you know you can realistically execute.
I highly recommend that you do at least four types of searches if at all possible. You want to increase your chances of finding quality affiliate programs that fit best with your business blueprint. But more importantly, you want to be confident about the merchants that you represent.
Grow Through Search Engines…
I guess a good place to start your search for merchants would be, of course, at the Search Engines! Do a search for one of your keywords, plus the word “affiliate.” Let’s use this example...
+fashion design +affiliate
(The “+” sign means that both words must appear on the Web page returned by the search.)
Grow Through Directories... Search and/or Drill Down
Directories are also a good place to research POTENTIAL PARTNERS. An interesting place to start. (Do not know such directories? Google is your best friend.)
Grow Through Specialized Affiliate Directories
Now let’s investigate your POSSIBLE PARTNERS and add some new merchants, too.
Use Google as above.
Visit a site that appeals to you. If it has an affiliate program that fits your Site Concept, first enter what kind of merchandise it sells and then enter the URL of the “join page” into POSSIBLE PARTNERS for that keyword (as explained above). Check the top ten sites -- twenty if you are feeling ambitious – and record those with potential.
Repeat the process for each keyword in your Master Keyword List (i.e., replace “fashion” above with another keyword like “fashion model”), starting with your specific high-profitability keywords and then following up with your general Concept Keywords (ex., “accessories” and other “concept-level” keywords that you develop, such as “design,” etc.).
You can also look for “cross-concept companies.” These are companies selling products that, because of their nature, fit with most or all Site Concepts. For example, whether your concept is about “Renaissance art” or “pricing” or “fashion,” you’ll find books about it. So always include a bookstore in your group of affiliate programs.
If you want to be really, really, really thorough, and you have more spare time than I do, you could check out these affiliate directories…
Associate Programs
http://www.associateprograms.com/
Refer-it
http://www.refer-it.com/
1webindex
http://www.1webindex.com/
Grow Through The ClickBank Network
ClickBank, through its fast-growing Marketplace, gives you access to over 10,000 digital products and a commission range that extends as high as 75%.
http://www.clickbank.com/
Its account setup is simple and free. And ClickBank’s tracking and payment procedures are reliable and accurate. The company manages the publisher (merchant) relationship so you always receive your payment.
Grow Through Other Affiliate Backend Providers/Networks/Aggregators
There are several companies that provide the tools, technology and services that online businesses need to register, track, report and pay affiliates. In other words, merchants don’t have to “do it themselves” because these companies provide all the backend functionality necessary to run an affiliate program.
The “backend providers” prefer to call themselves “affiliate networks.” Why?
Because they do more than just provide merchants with affiliate software. They also provide merchants with affiliates, and vice-versa. Since they have a pool of hundreds of thousands of affiliates, a merchant’s program gets instant exposure to potentially interested affiliates.
And affiliates get exposure to a wide variety of merchants. It’s a good idea to join each of these backend providers. You will likely come across many of the same merchants that you found in the affiliate directories. But you will also find new ones. So it is worth checking to see whether they feature any programs that fit with your concept. For example...
Commission Junction
http://www.cj.com/
Clickbooth
http://www.clickbooth.com/
LinkShare
http://www.linkshare.com/
If you find merchants with products that fit, enter what kind of merchandise they sell and also enter the URL of the “join page” to the POSSIBLE PARTNERS column in your Master Keyword List for each keyword that is relevant.
Grow through Alexa
Alexa, for example, displays traffic ranking, in-pointing links, and even visitor reviews! Once you establish which sites in your niche are the big players, use the Related Links tool from Alexa to expand your horizons!
Grow Through Search Engines & Directories... Favorite Tricks
How else can you find merchants through the Search Engines? Easy!...
1) Visit the advertisers!
2) Sniff affiliate sites. (They’ve already done the homework for you!)...
These “linked-to” merchants already have affiliate programs -- all you have to do is check them out and see if they fit with your Site Concept! Add the ones that do fit with your list of POSSIBLE PARTNERS.
Grow Through Back Links
Find other sites that link to a site with this query….
Many of these sites will be content sites that also link to other fashion-related merchants as affiliates (you can often tell by the linking URLs). More than likely, these linked-to merchants already have affiliate programs -- all you have to do is check them out and see if they fit! Add the acceptable ones to your list of POSSIBLE PARTNERS for each keyword.
(Google is your frined.)
Reduce Risk by Diversifying
One of the major attractions of becoming an affiliate is the small amount of risk involved. As an affiliate, you have little or no...
• product development expenses
• advertising costs
• inventory to maintain
• overhead expenses (salaries, physical location, etc.
In other words, affiliates do not have millions at stake.
But you do have one big risk...
If a merchant or backend provider goes out of business, it takes you with it. Let’s talk briefly about how to minimize this risk...
After you review the affiliate directories and backend providers, you should have a good selection of programs. How many programs should you choose? How do you know which ones are solid?
You don’t, really. Yes, you can weed out the dogs by doing the basic research outlined below. But most of us just don’t have the ability or time to thoroughly analyze a company, its financials, and its business model… and then predict success or failure.
So your best bet is to spread your business among as many programs as possible that fit with your Site Concept. But there are some important qualifiers to this policy...
1) If you represent 10 programs, don’t put them all on the same Keyword- Focused Content Page. Work in only the few that are tightly relevant to the content of each page.
2) Pick the best-of-breed from each category of merchant. For example, if you plan on representing a Net marketing company, SiteSell would be the obvious choice (ahem!).
If you plan unusually heavy support for a given category of product, you might want to represent the best two merchants. For example, suppose you foresee hundreds of book links on your site. It might be a good idea to choose the best 2 online bookstores -- if Bookstore A and Bookstore B fit with your concept and both seem to be stable companies, then use these two. No more, though...
3) Don’t choose too many programs. Tracking each program takes time, so 10 programs is probably a good balance. If any one of them dies, you don’t lose too much.
4) Your best results will come from focusing on a smaller group of quality programs (from within the 10). Their products must...
• be excellent
• be complementary with, even enhance, each other
• fit your concept and...
• be from a rock-solid company. Since you will give these companies more attention than the others, you must feel very comfortable with their business prospects.
Here’s the bottom line...
Don’t give too much emphasis to any single program, unless you have some special reason to feel unusually comfortable with it. Things happen. So protect yourself by choosing a variety of affiliate partners. Of course, you can also reduce your risk by weeding out the dogs through some basic research...
Prune by Eliminating High-Risk Programs
Find the good programs and eliminate the dogs by considering the following plus signs, minus signs, and red flags. Let’s start with the plus signs, signified by + (which means “good things to look for”). Here they are, in the approximate order of importance...
+ High quality product or service -- Remember, it’s your reputation that is on the line (and online!). Don’t recommend products that UNDERdeliver.
+ Merchant has a good site that sells effectively.
+ Ability for affiliate to link straight to individual products, rather than just to the home page. (If the visitor has to find the product that you recommend, your Conversion Rate plummets.)
+ Type of payment model... Pay-per-sale and pay-per-lead are good. This is true “performance marketing.” If your referred visitor delivers the desired response, you get paid. What about “pay-per-click?” See red flags below.
+ Affiliate Support...
• Accurate, reliable, real-time, online accounting, preferably with some kind of ability to “audit” by spot-checking:
• Detailed traffic and linking stats
• Notification by e-mail when a sale is made
• Useful marketing assistance -- provides traffic-building and sales-getting tools
• Quality newsletter that educates, trains, and provides accounting
• Professional marketing materials available
• Affiliates receive discount on products
+ Pays good commission -- Hard goods have lower margins than digital ones so their commissions will be lower. Still, you should make at least 10% (hard goods) or 20% (digital goods) on any product that you recommend. Don’t be scared off by low-priced products if they offer a good % commission -- the lower dollar value per sale is offset by the higher sales volume.
+ Must be free (no charge) to join, no need to buy the product.
+ Lifetime commission -- If the program pays a commission on future sales of other products to customers that you refer, this is a huge plus.
+ Two-tier commission -- If the program pays a commission on affiliates who join because of you, this is also great.
+ Lifetime cookie -- Do you receive a commission if the person you referred returns and buys within one month? Three months? The cookie that tracks this should not expire.
+ Restriction on number of affiliates -- You won’t find many of these. But if you do find one, grab it.
+ Monthly payment, with reasonable minimum.
Do all those plus signs have to be present? No. But the more, the merrier. Minus signs are definite detractors. Naturally, if you are unable to give a + to any of the criteria listed just above, consider its absence to be a minus. And watch out for these negative factors...
— Slow and/or poor support.
— Unethical conduct of any kind.
— Reports of late (or lack of) payments.
— Allowing spam, or seeming to send spam themselves.
— Defective affiliate-joining process. Hey, if they can’t get this right...
— Clauses in the agreement that you find unacceptable.
— “The dark side” of affiliate programs. Is the program really just a way to legally bribe folks to recommend overpriced, UNDERdelivering products in order to collect excessive commissions?
Red flags are warning signs...
- “Pay-per-click” method of payment. In this method, you get paid whenever a visitor clicks on your link. No purchase or lead-generation necessary.
Unfortunately, it’s wide open for abuse -- very sophisticated folks create incentives to get thousands of people to click on their links. But the visitors could care less about the products being promoted. The scam is virtually unstoppable. And merchants end up paying for nothing.
Sooner or later, merchants seem to throw in the towel against the onslaught. So be wary -- this kind of affiliate program tends to dissolve or mutate into a different model.
- Multi-tier commission. This is online Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), which is perfectly legal. Do your due diligence to make sure, of course, that a multi-tier program is not an illegal pyramid scheme. If the “game” is to earn income by signing up others, you are most likely dealing with a pyramid. Many people confuse honest, legal MLM with dishonest, scammy pyramid schemes.
With MLM (also known as Network Marketing), it becomes as important to build a strong downline as it does to sell product. Also, MLM companies are subject to numerous regulations (to prevent them from becoming pyramids, basically). Not all online companies are complying (or even know about this!).
Watch for a big shakeout with many of these companies going belly-up. If multitier interests you, I would recommend that you check out established offline MLMs that are now online. Investigate all others extremely carefully before you decide to invest a lot of time in these.
- Poor or little info about affiliate program available. What kind of priority could it have?
- Dead links on merchant site.
- No clear anti-spamming policy visible on site.
- Site that promotes “get-rich-quick” gimmicks.
- Financially unstable. You can lose a lot of momentum if a company goes under, especially if you are banking on lifetime customer/2-tier promises.
Check Out Other Monetization Models
Your “Most Wanted Response” may be to have your visitor buy from one of your merchants. But what if you visitor doesn't want that product today? Instead she notices another one of your offerings.
This is a WIN-WIN situation -- your visitor is happy and your Web site is steadily bringing you a stable income.
Some of the following monetization models will be as low-maintenance as affiliate programs are (i.e., no product to develop, store, ship, support, etc.). Others will take more of your time.
Which will work for you? Only you can decide the best fit.
Start now. Investigate and plan your site's monetization models. Take a week, if necessary -- money is involved!
1) Investigate and assure yourself that this Site Concept can indeed make substantial profits. Of course, not every monetization model has to start immediately. But the potential must be there!
2) Lay out your plan for the monetization mix. Which one will be your primary income stream? How and when will you lay out the others? Which others?
You don’t have to sell anything to customers if this does not interest you. Some of the most successful marketers create pure “information” sites. They are “infopreneurs.” They do not have a product or service to sell. They monetize traffic several ways.
Let’s do a quick overview of some possibilities…
• Google’s AdSense Program -- AdSense is tailor-made for Theme-Based Content Sites. Combine participation in the AdSense Program with membership in two or three quality affiliate programs and you have a solid monetization base in place.
• Referral/Finders’ Fees -- With this model, you send visitors to specific businesses (offline businesses, especially) and get paid for the lead or sale that results.
• Net Auction Selling -- Auction products (hard or digital goods or services) that relate to your theme. Put eBay to work for you.
• E-good Creation/Sellers -- Almost anything can be digitized and sold… ebooks, photos, software.
• Services -- Offer a service related to your niche. Build a client base, locally and/or globally.
• Network Marketing -- Use the networking power of the Web to generate warm, willing-and-wanting-to-talk-to-you prospects... people who will call you, not the other way around.
• Online store -- Sell hard goods that are related to your theme.
• Local Business -- Increase your local reputation and expand your client base.
Bottom line?
Too many small businesses start out thinking that they “want to be an affiliate,” or sell hard goods through an online store. Instead, think of it this way... if you don’t monetize a visitor one way, convert her into dollars another way! The more you diversify, the more stable and sustainable your business will be.
Move Ahead or Loop Back?
You want to select a Site Concept that can accommodate a variety of Monetization models. If you haven’t been able to find enough good affiliate programs or identify other potential income streams, you may want to reconsider your concept.
Return to step 3. Keep BREAKING OUT and adding more HIGH PROFITABILITY keywords. Come back to step 4 and find more good programs that fit.
If your concept is just so narrow and esoteric, you may want to stop the jet from taking off. In that case, return to step 2 and investigate the next concept on your “short list” of Site Concepts.
So... if you have brainstormed a good Site Concept, picked your HIGHESTPROFITABILITY topics, selected excellent merchant-partners that you are proud to represent, and if you have identified other potential monetization models, then you are ready to roar ahead.
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