Not feeling affiliate marketing anymore or building niche sites

by 31 replies
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Sometimes it can be hard to stand out from the crowd, so many of us follow the same method of making money, make amazon niche sites or adsense niche sites. I wonder how many marketers on this forum actually have sites they love, that are in niches that they love, where it is about the love or interest of the niche and not the money.


After seeing what G had planned for Google Shopping I'm not sure I want to be a amazon affiliate, I damn sure aint paying Google to have a nice little thumbnail ad or any other ads for that matter. For the first time I'm actually thinking of making a site on something that I love. Movies and t.v. shows interest me the most, I could make a site all about the walking dead, or dexter and it would be a lot of fun, not work.

Thinking of just ordering some article without even trying to rank for anything, just actually having content that best suites the site. I just don't see much of a future making a bunch of niche sites.

I'm thinking long term, web 2.0s, social bookmarks, article directories etc are barely working now let along a year from now, I don't want to struggle and make money sometimes. I believe if I build a site I love others will love it to, and backlink for me. Although I will do some linking it will most likely be from rent/bought high pr links.

In the next couple yrs I think things will change drastically for most IMer's, those of you who are amazon affiliates that rank your sites to the top of Google will most likely see a decline in traffic thanx to Google shopping, and even if you don't, wouldn't you like to have a site you can be proud of, something that you can stand back and say wow I made this.

I have a case study going on with 4 amazon sites to see if Magic Submitter is enough to rank them, after I'm done with those I'm not making any more little niche sites, I believe there is enough of those to go around already.


If you take a look at Paugl,Bnetwork,Mike Anthony, and Yukon you never hear them talking about making niche sites. The best of us are doing other things and making more money to boot. I'm telling you guys now, strive to be more than the common marketer, one thing I notice is if you stay on this forum long enough you develop a forum mentality. A forum mentality is when you start to listen to other members without testing yourself, or doing what everybody else is doing.

I see the same questions and the same answers and I wonder does this person know what they are talking about or are they just retelling something the once read. Sorry for the long thread, I just had to get that off my chest.
#search engine optimization #affiliate #anymore #building #feeling #marketing #niche #sites
  • I do think niche sites still have a place, and can be pretty lucrative as a short to mid term strategy.

    But having a 'labor of love' type of site to focus on can be great. You'll be more motivated to work on it daily and won't see it as 'work' so much.

    As always, provide value. No matter what your industry is, if you are doing everything that you possibly can to provide the best value in the niche, you'll eventually find success.
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  • I run a role playing game site with a few interested based on the primary focus... hardly a MNS with over 1000 pages of content available.. *laughs* In my view if I don't enjoy working on the site it will reflect at some point. I recently started working on a second site but it has a long way to go given only 75 articles so far.

    I have found you are correct in your thought with these kinds of sites that once you start getting a steady base of traffic the backlinks will be created for you and with some much better results. Yesterday I had three backlinks pop up on forums I noticed, now I know most SEO stay away from this kind of thing based on what I read but because a user did the backlink they actually generated over 200 unique visitors so far. Sometimes I will create some content and do no SEO on it.. neither off or on site, come back to it a few weeks or months later to notice 25-50 backlinks hitting that page.

    Now that I have created steady constant traffic it is time to start leveraging it for other, I want to try BuySellAd.. there are some locations that don't do well for adsense but I think would do well for something else. I have seen some AM stuff that deals with offering a chance to win an ipad.. could yield some nice results with gamers given the amount of tablet traffic I get. I just need to find a CPA base that interests gamers and I would expect to do well with it.

    Who knows what else can come of it?
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    • Try GameFly: Affiliate Program I'm big on video games and been meaning to try Gamefly out but just haven't gotten around to it, I think they pay 25 dollars for every sign up. Gamefly is basically Netflix for games.
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  • Banned
    Building niche sites is so freaking boring, and kw research is even worse. It's that I like organizing things and such, as in having a team doing the boring jobs, or otherwise I would never start building niche sites. Lol and I haven't even started yet and I already see up against it.
  • Go for it. I had a Biggest Loser website that I would update every week after the show, and it made me over $100/week in Adsense, so there's money to be made from TV show sites.

    I have always been a big believer in doing something you are interested in. I like the diet/fitness niche, and from my sites, I think you can tell. If you look at my non-diet sites, they definitely don't have the love that my diet sites do.

    I work as a Software Developer, and though it probably doesn't change as fast as SEO does, you need to stay relevant as a developer, or you will be struggling to find/keep a job. So I'm used to it ... I like reading about new technologies, new ways of doing SEO. It's not for everyone, but it's something I enjoy.
  • Nest, you make lots of good points. I have a few authority sites I've built slowly over time. Others rush to build 10 a day, I don't even have 10 sites yet. I don't wast time on backlink of the day methods as Google or whoever will make that work meaningless over time. (and that time appears to be shortening, not getting longer)

    Big sites are certainly easy with something you have an interest in, it really keeps you going. Build stuff that people want and once a few find it, they tell others and so on, those are the best "back links". Then you are not beholden to the engines for traffic and you don't care about Pandas and other wild animals.
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  • I like my niche sites - most are in topics I'm passionate about and have plenty of new OC to add to them.

    It's becoming harder to make money in my niche though. A lot of people are giving stuff away for free, and there's a lot of spammy content out there. While people are still spending money, they'll only go with the brand leaders.

    What I'd like to do next is use my brain and my programming skills to come up with a service. Being a one man operation I can undercut on price and also change direction very quickly.

    As far as niche sites go, there are plenty of underexploited niches out there. An unintended consequence of my AdSense troubles have been that I've found a fabulous new niche. Also I was a TKA member for a while, and I kid you not but around 75% of the members were just in 3 different niches (one of which was garden furniture).
  • Yes I agree, this new move by Google Shopping is very disheartening for Amazon affiliates and the like. Just when I think it's smooth traveling down the IM highway, big G throws another spike strip in the road.

    I believe it's going to become increasingly harder for the "average joe" to make it online. I'm convinced that building a list of buyers who trust your recommendations will become critical f you want any chance of surviving and prospering in the IM arena.
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    • I've heard Yukon and Wolf talk about return visitors, I think having a large site that has a good social vibe, that makes it's visitors want to return is very important now more than ever.
  • Hey guys, is there an article about what Google Shopping will do? I've searched, but can't find any info. Thanks. J
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  • Don't have time to post a proper reply here right now, but... Amazon review sites getting tons of repeat visitors (enough to sustain a full time income) = myth. Same goes for 99% of all Adsense info sites.
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    • Banned
      I guess by info. sites you mean article sites bloated with crap that nobody will ever read (let alone the webmaster)?

      I can say this from experience, getting repeat traffic is easier than getting new traffic.

      It's not rocket science, all a webmaster has to do is find a problem or a need, which again isn't difficult considering there's thousands of forums in every single niche with people practically begging for help. Most forums even give the data away for free (post view count).

      I posted an example of how I get laser targeted traffic for free (the mountain bike example), apparently that entire forum thread was deleted during my vacation, I can't find it so I guess it's deleted.

      Anyway, my point is, it's not difficult to keep traffic coming back to the site.
  • I don't know about anybody else but when I say return visitors I'm not really talking about having a regular amazon site. Take IMDb for example, I was doing some research and found out that they get more than 3 million visitors directly to their site, and this doesn't even include all the keywords they rank for.

    Once you have that many returning visitors , you can monetize your site with whatever method you want. They could use amazon,adsense,netflix and dozens of other ad networks.

    Take the warrior forum, there are plenty active members/return traffic. The warrior forum makes money , without using amazon/adsense.

    I just want to create a site that not only attracts visitors but makes them want to comeback at least couple times a week. Once you have the traffic you can monetize any way you want.
  • Thanks very much. Nest28 is right - this is really going to affect the Amazon affiliate model which is a shame!
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    • As much as I have been putting it off and putting it on the back burner, and spending money elsewhere in trying to make money online the critical aspect of everyone who is successful online is BUILDING A LIST, plain and simple. We really need to bite the bullet and get over whatever it is that is keeping so many of us (myself included) from focusing our efforts on this and making that a launching pad to everything else. You build a list you build a business. And most of the household names have been banking on that since day one.

      We need stop listening so much to what these gurus say and pay more attention to what they are DOING, that is the key to cracking the code. The start to that is observing how every chance they get, they are putting people on a LIST. They do 6 and 7 figure launches alone or with other marketers through their LIST. They promote other peoples products to their LIST. They get consistent traffic to their blog each month because they are notifying their LIST to come check it out.... Im done. Going to open an autoresponder account and dust off the old converting squeeze page right now.:rolleyes:
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  • I've only got one site that I'm genuinely interested in, everything else is for testing purposes and just for lols. Which is why whenever someone asks me what the most profitable niche is, I always say it's the one they're interested in.
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    • Now more than ever I believe in having just one site, IM is the only thing I am able to write about so I've decided to make a personal blog, I have no idea why I wasted my time making so many threads here, instead of on a site that I own.

      Getting direct traffic and branding yourself/product is extremely important now days, people think making a authority site is the way to go, but what is the reasoning behind it, people are going that route simply because the EMD, small niche site era is almost over.

      Your website should be a extension of yourself, why make a 5,000 page site, whoever said you had to make a site that large in order to make money.

      But whatever nobody listens, 3 months from now people will return to making EMD, with a twist, just like after the unnatural links notice people, everyone said they weren't going to use software for link building anymore, now 7 months later everyone is using magic submitter.
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  • completely understand where your coming from, it's easy to get sucked into what everyone else is doing and the vast majority are not making money.

    niche sites do work but in reality they aren't going to make you rich in the long run. Black hat methods work but you really need to scale it up, a few sites won't cut it. Black hat sites should be treated as disposable.

    A lot of people earn via various different means yet still interact on these forums. Set your own path IM is huge.
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  • I feel your pain, friend. I have made small niche sites in the past, but they are receiving less and less love as of late...at least it seems that way to me.

    One of my sites that has held on well is, fortunately for me, my WF name.

    Its basically a big mixed bag blog where I and about 600 other guest bloggers write about pretty much anything.

    Any time I get the urge to write something I think is cool, I will post it here.

    Its a great way not to burn your self out...which can easily happen with niche sites.

    The perfect example: You mentioned AMC's "The Walking Dead"...I love that show, and in anticipation of the third season (woot! woot!) I did a post that shows the trailer for the third season and then pitches the first two seasons DVDs.

    I love doing posts like this, especially with a beer check it out:

    The Walking Dead Season 3 - Trailer: Warning - Graphic Images « TheBitBot.Com News, Views, and Reviews
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    • Exactly, see what everyone else is doing in your niche and do the opposite, be creative, most times the major players in any niche fail to talk about certain subjects, that can not only be your way in, but your brand identity.

      That's what it's all about, doing what you love. Some how people fail to realize your suppose to be making sites on what you love,passion,interests that way it's not work. Also when you love a site you will have your own quality guidelines, most people will not build crappy sites if they care about them.


      Walking Dead sundays start soon, can't wait, plus I have Dexter to watch also, aawwww yea.

      It's weird I came here just to answer some pm's and see my old threads, people respond better to my ideas when I'm not even around lol.

      Edit: It might be better to make the links to Amazon in content, instead of those thumbnails with price.
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  • Anything having to do with Google just sucks usually. I'm not saying they suck, I just don't like them owning everything. To me SEO is eh, still definately possible to earn if you know all the tricks, but ppc and email marketing have to be better.
  • Nice post OP. I feel the same way as you do. After the penguin and panda update my websites completely lost their rankings and I had no other sources of traffic. Now I am starting to focus on building something that can last for a long time, and I am focusing more on other sources of traffic.
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  • Hi OP,

    To me the best sites are those that are catered to the "visitors",
    meaning you put your view in the visitor's prospective,

    - why should I visit your site again?
    - Is you site interesting that I don't have to "google" your site again to visit you
    - brand name - as to get away from the clutches of google

    just my 2 cents.
  • The thing is google owns 70% of the webs traffic rest is from 3rd party's if that makes sense.
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    Not feeling affiliate marketing anymore or building niche sites

    Sometimes it can be hard to stand out from the crowd, so many of us follow the same method of making money, make amazon niche sites or adsense niche sites. I wonder how many marketers on this forum actually have sites they love, that are in niches that they love, where it is about the love or interest of the niche and not the money.