Help

Flavel · #1 (**permalink**) 10-23-2007, 10:21 AM

Hiya again,

My friend and I are starting a website that will specialize in Buy One Get One free.

Can anyone suggest a good affiliate program for this type of site?

I really appreciate your help...

lisa · #2 (**permalink**) 10-23-2007, 10:34 AM

So do you mean like a coupon site where you have different offers for products that offer buy one get one free?

Flavel · #3 (**permalink**) 10-23-2007, 11:09 AM

Not exactly. We are looking for merchants that offer buy one get one free. I think our best bet is to approach Affiliate Programs where we can find the merchants offering buy one get one free specials. Just not sure which affiliate programs to contact.

webdev · #4 (**permalink**) 10-23-2007, 11:54 AM

Favel, what exactly are you looking to sell? How do you plan to draw traffic to your site?

lisa · #5 (**permalink**) 10-23-2007, 02:08 PM

I'm afraid you need to be a little more specific with your target. Just offering a site with a bunch of buy one get one free offers from different kinds of products is a rough way to start because it will be hard to get targeted traffic. Be careful of creating what I call a "Flea market site" that has so many offers and tries to target everyone and ends up targeting no one.

Remember, one of the best ways to draw in targeted traffic for free is the search engines. And they are looking for sites that have a specific theme. Think about how people search the web. Most people don't type in "buy one get one free" in Google, they type in specific phrases like "lawn chairs" or "dining room furniture" so you want to pick a specific idea/topic to focus on.

It's much better to create a site all about furniture and then find furniture related affiliate programs (for example) that offer buy-one-get-one-free than to just try and advertise everything. Google and the other engines won't know what your site is about and will not send you any targeted traffic.

Instead of focusing on what you want to sell, you should focus on who you want to target and the kinds of keywords you want to be found for. Once you do that, it gives you a better roadmap of how to create your site.

One of the biggest traps people fall into is trying to decide what they want to sell before they decide who they want to target and how they expect people to find them. If you start with your audience in mind, things will begin falling into place because you begin to think like they think and create content based on their needs.

For example, when I built 2createawebsite, I had no idea the kinds of programs I would promote at first. I knew I wanted to target people who wanted to build websites but didn't want to necessarily become programmers. So as I began writing my content and getting found for various phrases, it gave me ideas for what to sell and affiliate programs to join because I knew my audience were beginners and I could assume many of the questions, problems and concerns they have. But more importantly the content came first.... the affiliate programs came much later.

80% of people who go to search engines look for free information, not to buy anything. So it's your job to find a niche, provide that good information on that topic and THEN pre-sell them on related affiliate programs very subtly.

Remember, build a site for the people and their needs, not for the products and ironically selling and making money will become much easier.

Flavel · #6 (**permalink**) 10-23-2007, 04:20 PM

Thanks for the advice. This isnt my site. A friend of mine wanted me to ask a few questions.

He wants to buld a site of only buy one get one free merchandice. I tried to explain to him that it might be a little broad. I spoke with many affiliate programs today and they say they have merchants that offer such promotioins.

My idea, for him, is for him to build his site..then use the merchants from the affiliate programs to kick off his business so to speak. With a nice looking site filled with items from merchants, he could then appraoch the merchants himself and weed out the affiliate program ads. I like his idea but feel if he goes the "find merchants" way that it is going to be an uphill battle. There are a lot of headaches that come with retail sites such as, shipping, billing, returns etc.etc. He has an awesome name for the site and it would definately fit the retail catagory, but I feel there is an easier way to start off the business.

First, build your website and know what products you want to offer first. Second, (the route I would take) join the affiliate programs and contact merchants that way. In the beginning, you wont make much but your site would gain attention. Third, figure out what customer base you want to focus in the future.

What do you think?

lisa · #7 (**permalink**) 10-24-2007, 12:06 PM

I agree, shopping and retail sites are very challenging to create. Not just because of the shipping and handling but getting enough traffic to succeed.

When people surf the web, they surf by specific products and the stores that generally come up first are the ones that are established like "Target", Overstock, etc. So for that reason, its harder for no-name sites to get traffic.

And I think your 3rd step should actually be first. You need to identify the type of audience you want to target FIRST and then build content, add products, etc last. Affiliate programs and monetization should always be the last step because you won't make any money if you don't have the audience to sell to. And if retail is what they ultimately decide to do, they are going to have to do a LOT of paid advertising. Natural search results don't generally play favorites to start-up retail sites.

webdev · #8 (**permalink**) 10-25-2007, 05:11 PM

Flavel, as lisa said, you first step is to figure out what niche or sub-niche you're going to target, what products you're going to offer, which merchant or affiliate network you're going to target and so on.

To be honest with you, building stores, eCommerce and logistic websites is a thing of the past. I'm talking 1998-2000 dot com boom. Unless you have a physical store and want to expand your business and bring it onto the virtual market or you have millions of dollars to start-up a new virtual store business.

For an average guy, there two proven ways to make money online, affiliate marketing or freelancing.

The first way is the most rewarding, secure and a better choice as a business.

Now, affiliate marketing could be done in many many different ways. Have you heard of online deal/coupon sites? These sites offer deals, discounts, rebates, coupons and freebies to their visitors to save money. One such example of site is bensbargains.net. This site specializes in finding discounts, deals and coupons on electronic products. Similarly, there are deal sites for clothing, shoes, etc.

So with what you and your friend have in mind, i think this is something you can look into and explore. Again, you need first pick a niche you want to get into and then go for there.

Hope I didn't confuse you

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