Go deep or skim the surface?

by 482722
5 replies
I'm new, and I'm at a bit of a crossroad here.

When setting up a niche site to do affiliate marketing, do you put a ton of content up? Do you spend months building it up before promoting it and driving traffic to it? Or do you throw a few articles up with affiliate links, a little adsense and call it a day? I guess you'd call that a microsite... but are those still profitable? It seems the popular opinion is no.

Just looking around on the net, I hear a lot of "gurus" talking about setting up 10-20 small websites and dominating niches and pulling a nice profit that way. Sounds a bit scammy to me, but much more seductive than putting all my eggs in a couple baskets and risk wasting an awful lot of time if they don't work out.
#deep #skim #surface
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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    Originally Posted by 482722 View Post

    When setting up a niche site to do affiliate marketing, do you put a ton of content up?
    Not a ton, no ... not necessarily much more than 1 page, before I start promoting it ... but I do normally have 4 or 5 articles to start off a new site.

    Originally Posted by 482722 View Post

    Or do you throw a few articles up with affiliate links, a little adsense and call it a day?
    No AdSense, no ... not if I want people to click on affiliate links and/or opt in to my list. (Why would I give people additional ways to leave my site that pay so little?).

    Originally Posted by 482722 View Post

    I hear a lot of "gurus" talking about setting up 10-20 small websites and dominating niches and pulling a nice profit that way. Sounds a bit scammy to me, but much more seductive than putting all my eggs in a couple baskets and risk wasting an awful lot of time if they don't work out.
    What sounds "scammy" about it, exactly? It doesn't sound particularly "scammy" to me, I must say ... but then it doesn't sound particularly well-advised, either. I'd much rather have to do some SEO for one site than 10-20, and let one site grow steadily, and gradually become an authority site. I strongly suspect it involves a lot less work, too (but then I've never tried it the other way and wouldn't want to, so I can't really compare).
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    • Profile picture of the author 482722
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      Not a ton, no ... not necessarily much more than 1 page, before I start promoting it ... but I do normally have 4 or 5 articles to start off a new site.



      No AdSense, no ... not if I want people to click on affiliate links and/or opt in to my list. (Why would I give people additional ways to leave my site that pay so little?).



      What sounds "scammy" about it, exactly? It doesn't sound particularly "scammy" to me, I must say ... but then it doesn't sound particularly well-advised, either. I'd much rather have to do some SEO for one site than 10-20, and let one site grow steadily, and gradually become an authority site. I strongly suspect it involves a lot less work, too (but then I've never tried it the other way and wouldn't want to, so I can't really compare).
      Thanks, Alexa.

      So.. if I'm mainly affiliate marketing, should I just focus on selling a product or actually churning out well developed articles that don't necessarily have a call to action, i.e. buying something? I'd rather not beat around the bush with all that if it's not necessary. Especially if it's a niche I'd have to pull teeth to come up with content for.

      I also checked out the link in your sig to onlineincomesimplified dot com. Is that enough content or is that a special case?
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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        Originally Posted by 482722 View Post

        So.. if I'm mainly affiliate marketing, should I just focus on selling a product or actually churning out well developed articles that don't necessarily have a call to action, i.e. buying something?
        Well, it depends how you're using articles.

        You can use them for pre-selling, and if you do that you'll want shorter, more salesy articles with a "call to action" (but you won't ever get them syndicated), and it's still important, if you do that, to publish them on your own site first and get them indexed there before submitting them to any article directories for all the reasons explained here by so many experts.

        Or you can write for syndication, as explained here, which is a whole different use of articles.

        You can see some different ways of "using articles" discussed in your other thread, now.

        Two things are for sure, though:-

        (i) Somewhere along the line (in articles and/or on a website and/or by email) you do need to pre-sell - not "sell" - the product(s); and ...

        (ii) To make steady money from affiliate commissions you need to build a list.

        Originally Posted by 482722 View Post

        I also checked out the link in your sig to onlineincomesimplified dot com. Is that enough content or is that a special case?
        Noooooo, very much a special case! Not quite enough content, really. Not one of my niches at all - I'm not even building a list. Please excuse my not explaining further but I don't want anyone to think I'm "advertising", and it's hard to discuss your own sig-file without people wondering.
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  • Profile picture of the author dcristo
    The sooner you can get the site indexed the better!
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  • Profile picture of the author colie3188
    Microsites work... But obviously sites with a little more content work a lot better!

    and YES, depends on your backlinks too!
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