Hi All..

Amnesia180 · #1 (**permalink**) 02-05-2008, 04:52 PM

Hi All,

Firstly, I stumbled across this site whilst investigating Google Adwords. Now I have a website called www.thewebevolved.com and also www.dan-taylor.co.uk

I want to use the web evolved one for something, but I don't know what yet.

I basically want to generate some sort of second income and just want some pointers into good research and affiliate websites etc.

All ideas would be welcome!

Thanks
Amnesia

lisa · #2 (**permalink**) 02-05-2008, 07:49 PM

Hi Amnesia and welcome,

Maybe you can tell us, what interests you. Generally people build affiliate websites on topics they know a lot about or are passionate about. Then they build useful information targeted to a specific audience. Finally you find affiliate programs that relate to your topic and make money that way.

So first I think you should decide what specifically you want to write about and build your site on and then we can provide more specific advice for you.

Amnesia180 · #3 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 02:26 AM

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for the reply. You see, the problem comes when I am trying to decide on a theme.
1) It has to be general enough to attract people, but niche enough to make people want to stay.
2) I have to find somethign that has good affiliates, and that can be linked to things like AdSense and affiliate programs (as that is where the money is to be made).

Now, I'm heavily into music and photography. BOTH of which are heavily dominated by a few major sites around the internet, it seems that there isn't room for another one.

So, I then though about creating a hosting site as to where I review things like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo etc with links and clicks (From affiliates/adsense) on themes, pictures, applications to these sites. However, most of the things mentioned are created by home users and will not be "marketing" them... again, no money there.

I think I might need to sit down and think of something that I can turn my website into, that will create traffic, and be general enough to give out information that makes people WANT to click, but is also niche enough so that there aren't 1,000,001 other competitors!

lisa · #4 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 11:30 AM

While I agree there's a lot of competition but I still think there is room for everyone if you take your time and carve out your own niche. My 2create site is in a brutally competitive niche of web hosting and website building yet I manage to reel in over 7,000 visits per day. Part of that is my site has been around 6 years so Google does favor older sites. Another piece is that my site offers a more personal approach to building and offers advice that other hosting and tutorial sites do not.

So if music and photography is really your passion, take a look at the other 1 million sites (as you say

) Is there anything that they don't touch upon that you could benefit from?

Let's say you want to do a Photography site but feel there are too many sites on your idea. What about dissecting that a bit. How many of these sites talk about managing the photos in PhotoShop and publishing them on the Web? There are a lot of photographers who would love to put their work on the Web but many of them don't know how. So you could focus on that one segment of photography.

That's just an example. I don't even know if that's something you'd be interested in doing but that's an example of dissecting the niche and picking out a piece. That's OK if there are a million and 1 sites out there on photography. You're going to find that for almost every niche. You just need to focus on making your site the BEST in your niche. Suddenly your competition doesn't seem as thick.

And don't worry about finding good affiliates. If your site gets a lot of traffic, that's almost an automatic solid income from AdSense and I'm sure there are gazillions of affiliate programs on photography and music. People often wonder about the money aspect but I'm telling you, the traffic is the most challenging part. If you can generate traffic, the money making is actually the easiest part because there will always be programs and affiliate products you can use to monetize your site.

With large networks like www.cj.com , www.linkshare.com , www.shareasale.com , etc. there are thousands of affiliate programs in all kinds of niches.

Amnesia180 · #5 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 12:14 PM

Hi Lisa,

Thanks very much for your lengthy reply.

You know what, you are exactly right. All I need to do is take my topic out of the shell and investigate the smaller parts...

Okay, so say for instance I did take your idea. I know that is likely to bring in traffic, but how do I make money?

AdSense and Affiliate programs are all very well, ONLY if there is a product to offer at the end of it. Becuase I won't be offering a service, I will only be offering knowledge (which is like a service, but knowledge is priceless, therefore can't charge a figure for it) how do I know there are places out there that would pay? Does that make any sense?

Also, my current address www.dan-taylor.co.uk does not sound "photography" will this affect what is displayed in search engines?

lisa · #6 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 12:31 PM

You don't need a product to sell to make money. My fitness site only offers information and I make money from AdSense and referring people to books and videos on fitness.

With AdSense you are helping Google advertise by displaying other advertiser's ads. So any time those ads get clicked you earn money. So no product involved.

So let's say you go with my idea. You could join Adobe's affiliate program through www.cj.com and refer people to buy PhotoShop. Anytime someone clicks on your link to PhotoShop and buys from Adobe, they credit you a commission through cj.com and CJ pays you.

I've never had any products to sell and have always created information only sites and made my money through affiliate programs like I described above and AdSense.

Amnesia180 · #7 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 12:53 PM

Hi Lisa,

Thanks again for the speedy reply.

So, in theory. I could have a fully functional website up and running in the next couple of days? If all I am doing is writing down my knowledge of how to create an online gallery... I let affiliate programs and AdSense do the rest?

Now, I think this is the technical part I will need explaining.

Let's say I decide to "recomend" that "FlickR" offer a good service. I wouldn't just create a hyperlink would I? I would go to see if there is an affiliate service for FlickR and then using the correct codes... add it that way, right?

lisa · #8 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 01:16 PM

In theory you could, yes but since you're learning it may take some time designing and setting up your site. Do you have any web software?

You still have to create enough pages for your site to get accepted by AdSense. They don't accept you unless you have a few pages and a well organized site.

After your content is up then you need to work on traffic... the most challenging and time consuming part. If I may be honest it could take months before you start seeing enough traffic to make any decent money. So I don't want you to think all you have to do is put up a site and the money starts coming in tomorrow. You need to learn about search engine optimization to get your site ranked high in the free search engines, etc.

In fact I wouldn't even suggest joining affiliate programs until you have the traffic because you won't make money without visitors anyway.

As far as the hyperlinks, yes. You will need to research the companies you want to affiliate with and find out if they have an affiliate program. If so, you would join (most require you have a site first) and they provide you with the code to create the hyperlinks.

Amnesia180 · #9 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 01:27 PM

Hi,

I have already got a website, and I am already accepted to use AdSense.

I just need to start adding my "targeted" content.

Amnesia180 · #10 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 02:33 PM

Sorry, something I forgot to ask. Say I do create a couple of pages of my site into my site. How do I make them appear on pages such as google? Is it a content thing?

lisa · #11 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 02:51 PM

Oh sorry that's right you did mention you have your site.

Go to www.selfpromotion.com It has a great explanation for do-it-yourself search engine optimization. Yes it's partially content but links from other sites related to your theme is much more important.

Amnesia180 · #12 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 03:18 PM

Thanks Lisa! I will check these all out and certainly make sure I let you know how it goes further down the line!

Oh, and one last thing. Say I have an affiliate on my site, as a text link.

The text link says "something like this" but I want to change the actual wording to "something like that" - will this void any payments etc?

augenauf · #13 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 03:21 PM

You can submit your site to google, but you probably won't really show up until google thinks you're worth anything, which could be a while. ^-^';

Amnesia180 · #14 (**permalink**) 02-07-2008, 01:31 PM

Hi Lisa,

I have started moving forward with my website and I have a question.

Would you recomend using a CMS (Content Management System) such as Joomla for creating these sort of websites?

lisa · #15 (**permalink**) 02-07-2008, 02:52 PM

You could but you don't have to. You can use any kind of software (Dreamweaver, HomeSite, CoffeeCup, etc.) I'm not familiar with Joomla so I couldn't be of much help in that dept.

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