David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

I've found myself knee deep in that task every affiliate loves (erm, perhaps not love then) to do - spring cleaning. It makes sense to go through sites you may not have visited for a while and check out the merchants, quality of content and banners displayed on the site to make sure everything is as it should be.
 
There are a few things to check here.

1) Merchant Selection

Merchants come and go, and move side to side too. Make sure you're links are active and that you have the right merchants on the site. Occasionally, it makes sense to try and reduce the amount of junk email you get through by ceasing membership with those merchants who you are a) not advertising or b) aren't converting for you at all. Most networks let you disassociate yourself and this option is handy if the emails you receive no longer apply to you or your business model.

In the same vein, make sure you are pushing the merchants that you want to push. Perhaps you prefer pushing those with lots of regular incentives or those that offer the best percentage rates. Whatever your choice, make sure the merchants you push are still offering what they were when you add them. A lot can change in weeks let alone months.

2) Content

When you look back at a site after a while you can start to notice gaps you could plug with fresh content. Perhaps a new product has been released or a new range of products now exist. It may be worthwhile when checking your stats to look for long tail trends that are newsworthy and form a quick article from that.

3) Opportunities

As before, you may discover opportunities. Perhaps you've got another site and can interlink content or perhaps you have come across a few sites you would like to do a link or article exchange with. Perhaps a new market has been identified that leads you onto a new idea, a new website and a new revenue stream.

Ultimately it's your choice whether or not to spring clean and to what extent but I find this is more necessity than luxury for most of my sites. It can sometimes be a pain but it can also help maximise your income and identify new potential streams of cash.