Chicken or the Egg?

First, let me ask -

How do you know that there is demand for what you want to promote? And who are you going to promote to? And where are you going to find these people?

IMO, every marketing campaign should start with understanding demand.

Until you know what it is, you don't know the "what, where, or who" that you should be addressing with your web site, your reviews, your content, and your marketing/advertising messages.

I hope this makes sense because it could mean success or failure with whatever else you do to earn money online.

Good luck to you,

Steve

Make sure that the market is starving for it first. Don't just pick a product at random. Once you've established that (use a combination of Google Trends, the Keyword Planner and Market Samurai for competition, as laid out in Bring The Fresh 2014), you can then go about getting a domain name and setting up your site (I highly recommend Wordpress for this, it is SO much easier than doing it by hand, something I did as a business from 2001-2006). As far as the content goes, take the time to see what questions/problems people are having in the niche in question, and write/shoot your content around that.

As far as being an affiliate goes, you have options like Clickbank (easiest as you just sign up for an account, get how you want to be paid set up, and go to picking products), Amazon, More Niche, Commission Junction). That's if you're doing sales of either digital or in the case of Amazon, physical goods, you have a lot of flexibility as to how you want to promote (pictures, reviews etc). Now, if you're talking about CPA or Cost Per Action, then yes that's a bit more involved as you first have to have a website, go through an application process, and then you can pick offers to promote, many of which have guidelines on how you can promote as well as what types of traffic they allow (e.g. paid, search, etc).

This will happen if you want it to, just don't rush things I highly recommend getting a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking and a Yeti Microphone if you're going to do the site content yourself. It's just so much easier. If you're outsourcing it, you have a lot of options. One that is always recommended is the Content Authority.

Hope that helps you!

I concur with what's been said.

I've built COUNTLESS Amazon review sites, affiliate sites, blogs, you name it. (Literally dozens, probably much more, I've literally lost track).

The sad fact? I ultimately lost interest in all but like 2-3 domains hehe. (A few of them were profitable/much potential and I STILL let them fade)...

My advice? Do LOTS of research. Also, make sure you're investing your time wisely in a project that you can see yourself staying committed to for some unforeseen amount of time.

As far as pictures? That's a great question. When I was promoting Amazon, I was already approved to their affiliate program, so I never thought about the questions you have hehe.

I can tell you this though; I had a separate blog I was using to get approved by Amazon.com. (They typically want to see your website URL from what I recall). So maybe something to consider is to build a separate homepage to show them that you indeed have some type of respectable web presence? - Then when they approve, you can legally use their images. (Many of Amazon's affiliate links CONTAIN the actual images of the product, so in my opinion this is implied consent to use them at will as long as you're promoting them).

Just my random two cent brainstorming.

PS: I'm not a lawyer, but they look cool on TV.

Hey man! If you're looking to get signed up for affiliate program, you should go check out jvzoo that's where I went through to get my stuff set up and there are a lot of people on there with great ideas that want nothing better then people to promote their product! You've got the right thoughts it's just a matter of putting them in to action, you should try it out and see if it works well! As for the picture problem, you could always have someone create you something new from scratch, but with your idea. I'd go check out fiverr for that bud! Hope things start getting busy for you ha You'll start figuring it out, just takes some time, and you NEED to keep organized too, that's where I almost wasn't able to take my IM business to the next level!

You will have a much better chance of success if you focus on one, very finely targeted "taste."

Hostgator has penny hosting at times so you could take advantage of that. 000webhosting is free, however I will be one of the first to admit they suck.

-RK

1. Study the market.
2. Chalk up a solid marketing plan.
3. Take action

Just because you know about your product doesn't mean it has a good market or maybe it has but you don't know how to target it. So, research, analyze and then take action.

You might or might not make bank the first time, but you would learn a lot from your mistakes.

Best of luck.

Get clear.

Confusion leads to the death of way to many Entrepreneurs.

If this niche is a passion of yours, then a multipage site may feed your spirit but not so much your bank account...at least, at first.

If you want to make an income fast, then you need to stick with one page and get that page profitable.

You get that one page profitable by adding some kind of value (read bonus) to the affiliate product you're marketing and promoting the bonus as if it's -- if not more than -- valuable than the affiliate product.

(It goes without saying, you're promoting an affiliate product that is already proven to convert, right?)

The value you offer doesn't have to be your own product or service; it can be a $5 gig from Fiverr that compliments the affiliate offer.

Generally speaking, a service offer bonus works best because the buyer will equate high value to the bonus, if you frame it right.

As for swiping the pics from the affiliate product, it's usually ok - just make sure you let the product owner know what you're doing and how you are going to use their images.

That being said, there's a huge learning curve going the path you're on. Yet, you seem confident you can...

"write the whole site offline including actual product pictures and content"

This is a valuable skill. I recommend you offer your skill-set as a service and get paid for that service.

If you don't have money for a ten dollar hosting account, you need to get your finances together because your learning curve is going to cost you a lot more than ten bucks.

There's nothing wrong with having a shoestring budget -- that's how I started -- but you have to have that shoestring.

Rainee