Information site vs Blog

Why not use both? I would use both, both can complement each other very well. You could have hard fact articles on the information side and on the blog add a personal touch.

Whatever happens, it will be in Wordpress. It's just easier to manage. My coding skills are beginner at best, so I want an option that doesn't cost the earth. Meaning, for me at least, WP.

Of course, I meant autoresponder Typing slows down the brain, I find. I can never find the right word quickly enough when typing, so that's why I write everything by hand first.

Would you think that a static site with a blog attached would provide the best means for garnering trust? That, for me, is the basis of it all anyway: I want them to trust every snippet of info I give them.

I've identified a niche I like the look of. If you'd told me I would like it 5 years ago, I wouldn't have believed you, but I guess we all change

On the technical side of it, does it matter what affiliate programs you use? Now, CB is the biggest, right, but what others do you use? I was thinking Amazon too, as there is at least one product on there I would want to promote in one way or another.

The list building and technicalities of the autoresponder are the next thing to get perfect and I'll hopefully have a launch sometime in the next month. Dependent on other work, I guess.

Come up with a catchy branded domain name. The only ones that are grabbed up are the exact match keyword domains for hot niches and they no longer pull the weight in Google that they used to so there's not much point to agonizing over trying to get one.

That sounds fine, then. You can do both "static" and "bloggy" with that. I don't use it myself, but that's just a combination of personal preference and technophobic incompetence on my part.

Good approach/objective, of course.

I don't think the extent to which they trust you has anything much to do with whether it's static or bloggy: I think that's determined by the content you send them and to a much lesser extent by the content on the site itself.

Yes indeed ... to some extent. I have a couple of niches I didn't know were niches, 5 years ago.

I use ClickBank, Amazon and some "non-program ones" i.e. companies managing their own affiliate scheme or employing someone to manage it for them (but you have to select those very carefully and check their "potential leaks" etc. as well as their reputations).

I started with ClickBank only, for over 2 years, and didn't add anything else at all until well after I was earning a very good living (should perhaps have done so earlier, with hindsight).

Nearly 80% of my income is still from ClickBank.

I choose my niches according to what products are available to promote in them (among other considerations).

I use EMD's and don't listen to anyone whining that Google doesn't like them any more. (I accept that Google likes them less than they used to but I don't care). All that happened was that Google took away from thin, poor-quality site EMD's some (maybe most/all) of the artificial advantage they'd had in the past just from being EMD's, in other words it wasn't relevant to me except that it effectively removed some of my competitors from the SERP's, apparently just like everything else that Google ever does. I think it's true that having an EMD is less valuable now than it used to be.

I always register the .com and the .info, run my business on the .info and redirect to it the .com I'm not using. (Occasionally I'll buy the .org and .net too).

I've written reams about this in other threads. It's hugely misunderstood. Most niche affiliate marketers think that .com's are "better than .info's", while their customers think the exact opposite and will explain why, if you ask them.

Think again?

I wouldn't want to build a business on a domain-name of the which the .com extension already belongs to someone else, even if it's "parked".

I don't mind adding something after the "keyword" in a domain-name. Never before it, though (the people registering "mykeyword.com" and "yourkeyword.com" and "thebestkeyword.com" have all missed a trick. I don't mind "keywordworld.com" or "keywordreality.com" or whatever.

I don't mind shorter, brandable domain-names either. It depends.

I deal in domain-names a little as a sideline, so I'm used to researching them, and not bad at that, Tom. If you want to, I'm happy to discuss it by p.m. and maybe suggest something suitable (but not at all offended if you'd prefer not to).

I can see that point of view, but...

Self Help Daily - Inspirational and Self Help Blog (for example)

or

Weight Training Workout Plans, Fitness, Bodybuilding, & Exercise Tools

They're very much exact match, but they're absolutely relevant and not spammy at all.

As with everything on the internet, there is a good way and a bad way to do it. Get it wrong and people will run away. Get it right and you'll sell.

Cheers for the advice, people.

Look out for my posts on my affiliate experiences. No niche revealed, though