So you want to be an affiliate and start making money off your site(s)? Well, the first thing you have to do is figure out the topic of your site.
There are two ways to go with this choice. You can either try to capitalize on something that's popular right now, or focus on a subject that you're interested in.
I would suggest the latter, as my experience has been that I lose interest in sites I create on trends.
After all of the initial work in getting the domain, hosting, site design, content creation, etc., I have just let sites die time and time again, because they were not interesting to me.
Your experience may be different, but I wanted to put it out there.
Anyhow, as far as picking a topic for your site, try making a list of your interests and passions. It can be a country, a sports team, a breed of dog – whatever it is that you really care about.
Do that right now, and then we'll move on to the next step… Narrow Down Your Potential Topics.
Thanks for doing this site and I look forward to reading your future posts. Do you have any type of schedule for when you when you will post?
You’re welcome – no set schedule, but I will post as often as I can. If you opt-in to the email list at the top right, you’ll get a notification when there is a new post.
Also, new post links will hit Twitter if you follow http://twitter.com/xtramoneyanswer
Yes, this is one of the important things to be taken care of. I find it real hard to concentrate on things which are of least interest to me. So naturally even the quality of output is low and ultimately a waste of time.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I look forward to getting into your head.
Man, this is old stuff. Years old. Your twitter is outdated also. If someone suggests choosing a “topic” (who calls it that?) for my site based on my passions, I start running the other way. This is the worse thing you could do.
Larry – I’m not clear what you mean by this stuff being old and my twitter being outdated?
Topic is simply the word I chose to use here. If you are more comfortable thinking of it as a niche, feel free. Anyhow, I’d love to hear why you think a site focused on what interests you is “the worse thing you could do”.
I’ve done it both ways many times over, and I’ve found that working on something that interests me works better.
Shawn, apparently somebody thinks you know what your talking about, as I was directed to this site while looking into a new affiliate program I stumbled across, and I was looking for help on how to go about getting started as an affiliate.. So,,I am going to read absolutely everything you have written here.. Thanks in advance for the insight
Thanks for coming by, Robert – let me know if you have any questions.
I link to this site from your book that I bought it from Amazon. Your book is actually basic and useful for affiliaters.
Again, thanks a lot.
Glad you liked it – I wrote it for people to get started, so it is as basic as I could make it.
Hi Shawn:
You have an absolute overwhelming supply of excellent information here. I love it. I keep coming back and reading more and learning new tips , I will keep coming back also. I found a new way of coming up with a unique domain name that people will remember and that is easy to type, and spell so they can keep coming back to my sites.
the first is namemesh.com
the second is leandomainsearch.com
type in a seed word and bam they both spit out hundreds of available domain names. It’s a cool tool 🙂
Thanks for the tip!
On the subject of choosing a subject of interest to one to write about, some times we think that what we are passionate about may not interest anybody. But the truth is that if it interests you, then it will certainly interest other people. Another concern is to think that the topic is too small to attract enough visitors to make your site profitable. But I think the smaller the topic, the more focused your topic is. Or am I wrong?
If it’s a really small niche, you’ll have less opportunity for affiliate referrals, but if you build a strong, but small following, they can be very loyal and responsive to your links.