David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

It's natural not to know where to start when developing websites. At least for "real world" businesses like Tesco or Argos they know what their website will have on it - company information, product information and an ordering system. Even Domino's Pizza do online ordering now.

But as an enterprising affiliate, what do you set websites up about?

Here's a few tips.
 
Product Review Websites

This can be about one type of product or a genre of products. For example, it could by about the Apple iPhone or it could be about mobile phones in general.

The problem with this can be brand and trademark issues as well as lifespan. If the product will be a 2007 bestseller, is it worth setting up a site relying just on SEO tactics? Similarly it can be costly using PPC for competitive terms such as "iPhone". Google are currently estimating a £1.23 CPC for this term. Great if you can make more than this via affiliate sales. Not so great if you can't.

Price Comparison / Directory / Cashback / Freebie Websites

A lot of people discourage affiliates from setting up these types of website and for some sectors/affiliates, this is wise. For example, setting up a car insurance directory site is unlikely to make you rich. It may not even cover costs.

There is room for new sites, especially those with a twist. Money Supermarket is probably the best known car insurance comparison website but that didn't stop people like Go Compare or Tesco Compare setting up similar sites, only with more functionality including a star rating system. A quick look at Alexa shows there's not been much impact (yet).



Quidco is a baby compared to Greasy Plam, but is essentially an extension on it offering 100% commissions for a £5 annual fee. A look at it's Alexa chart shows some rather interesting stats:



The key here is individuality. You can take an idea, add a twist and run with it. Just don't copy a site literally as that's not progression.

Service Based Websites

Is there a web service that would benefit you? Take my affiliate marketing blogroll for example. I set that up for myself. I didn't intend for it to be public as I didn't think it would benefit anyone else. But it's now got a large following which is nice.

Does it make money? Not a sausage! It's not a service that can be monetised easily but it is feasible to monetise it.

Most of the services I build are conceived around the phrase "wouldn't it be handy if...". Wouldn't it be handy if you could search for used cars local to you? Wouldn't it be good if you could find books related to particular titles?

Sometimes the best ideas to roll out are the one's that would benefit you. How about an email based calendar system so that once a day it would email you with tasks you've scheduled for that day? What about a colour based eBay search engine (e.g. find all red shoes in size 11 under £50)? If you can create it or can outsource it, it could work!

A tip here would be consider the quirkiness. If you have a quirky idea, run with it. If you promote it correctly, it may well just sprout and flourish.

The Easiest Way To Find Ideas For Websites

Okay, so you're not that techy minded. You want to spend more time developing a site rather than coding it. So what is the easiest way to find an idea for a website?

Quite simply, take something you are researching and put all your findings on a website.

The easiest way to look at this is if you were in a newsagents looking at the magazines, which one would you choose? Let's assume you are a fan of cookery and would pick up something like Good Food magazine. What that tells me is that you have an interest for cooking. To be willing to buy a cookery magazine, you will need to either be looking for something specific or you're just a fan of cooking.

So develop this. Build a website about cookery. What could you add? Reviews of cookery equipment, reviews of cookers and microwaves, recipes you use, cookery book reviews, celebrity chef gossip, etc.

Monetising this would be fairly easy. Whenever reviews are concerned, you can use price comparison sites to display prices for that product. Book reviews could have a link to Amazon. There are also many speciality kitchenware products that run affiliate programs. Also, don't forget home shopping delivery affiliate programs such as Tesco. "Why go to Tesco when you could have your shopping delivered AND you could spend more time baking some yummy treats?"

If you are techy minded, how about a random recipe selector or even a recipe generator - you tell the website 5 ingredients you have and your website will tell you what you can make with them.

How about a meal planner? You select 7 recipes from the site and it will produce a PDF download with recipe instructions. On top of that, it will produce a shopping list and take you over to the Tesco home delivery site.

These techy solutions are not that complex and would take a few days to build and test. But look at what your result is - a website that is very different to others AND a website that is monetised.

You can extend your cookery site further. Add reviews every day, get others to add reviews, if you can work out the fat content and approximate nutritional values of your recipes, why not set up a dieting website with ideal meal plans to help lose weight? Review the big names in dieting like eDiets and Gillian McKeith's website.

These are only ideas but it shows you what you can do if you put your mind to it.