Building niche websites & affiliate marketing

steviegood

Hello,

Having been unemployed for a weeks now, I’m looking at something to build my skills and maybe earn a little bit of money at the same time. I’m considering creating a niche website, and generate a little bit of side money via affiliate marketing. I’ve spent some time reading some of the related threads already on here, and I feel encouraged to give it a try, but I’m a bit reluctant to go through with this, because of a few fears:

1). The website may get banned from google for some unknown reason – I have heard some people have had their site banned because of unsuspicious click activity. The owners insisted they did not do anything unusual or immoral, yet their website still got banned. This must be very frustrating and soul destroying given the amount of time someone has put into that site (however, I wondered if this does happen could you simply create a new website with the same content on? … though I guess this must be quite time consuming).

2). Copycat competition – I guess because a website which doesn’t actually sell a physical product or service, is considered an information service, and its difficult to patent or copyright or have some protection over your data. Therefore, I’d be worried if another person could simply copy and paste content from my website onto their website.

3). Restrictions – Ideally I’d like to post youtube videos on the website and possible even a video of myself (or at least have links to them). Is this possible? Would it also be possible to send out newsletters to any subscribers who wish to register?

4). The affiliate marketing market will become too saturated, and subsequently, advertisers will be less reluctant to advertise.

5). Having taught English in Japan for a few years, I was wondering if I could offer skype lessons via my website, so I would actually be selling a service. Is it possible to advertise this on vehicles such as wordpress?

If anyone has time to advise on these issues, I’d be really grateful!

Steve

whitelabel

5 seems a possible option, there are all sorts of online companies offering skype lessons, maybe pickyback up to these and let them worry about the marketing for a small fee or loss in earnings

all the others are nothing new and as you say saturated

InsideInsurance

There are two potential google issues:

1) Google search engine rankings - you can be effectively blacklisted if you use black hat SEO (or for a number of other reasons none of which are click fraud)

2) Google Adwords - this you can be banned for for click fraud for this but then you are talking about using affiliate marketing rather than adwords so not going to be a problem

Evidently you can also be accused of fraud with affiliate marketing but as most schemes pay out commission on sales it is less likely you are going to be spending £100 on goods to get your £5 commission.

You can certainly do all that you mention but it sounds like it may be more than one thing and how well these will gel together and how those wanting to advertise on your site will view it is another matter

steviegood

InsideInsurance wrote: »

There are two potential google issues:

1) Google search engine rankings - you can be effectively blacklisted if you use black hat SEO (or for a number of other reasons none of which are click fraud)

2) Google Adwords - this you can be banned for for click fraud for this but then you are talking about using affiliate marketing rather than adwords so not going to be a problem

Evidently you can also be accused of fraud with affiliate marketing but as most schemes pay out commission on sales it is less likely you are going to be spending £100 on goods to get your £5 commission.

You can certainly do all that you mention but it sounds like it may be more than one thing and how well these will gel together and how those wanting to advertise on your site will view it is another matter

Thanks for the advice, I'm sorry but I'm a bit of newbie on SEO. Can I ask what do you mean by 'black hat SEO'?

mrsyardbroom

I think you're confusing Google Adsense with affiliate marketing. If you have Google ads on the site and you click on them yourself then you will eventually be banned from the programme. With affiliate marketing you need to sign up to firms like Webgains and choose which companies you'd like to be affiliated to. This has nothing to do with Google. It's between you and Webgains and the company whose products you're advertising.

Jonnytwotimes

First of all no matter what anybody tells you or no matter what you read affiliate marketing is not an easy ticket to riches. Its taking me years to learn the ropes and as somebody else mentioned on another thread even getting a site to a $1 a day is no easy task.

1. Yes its possible if you do bad stuff Google does not like. Lots of affiliate marketers think they are clever messing around with stuff G does not want you to do and they end up crying when their site gets banned. In all the years I have been doing it I never had a site banned.

2. Yes people will copy you and even your marketing plan but that's life, never been a big issue for me, but these type of people are lazy and will never get far in the end. Also lots of websites that are the same can make you more money see no 4.

3. Yes

4. Its already saturated, but again don't be lazy and think outside the box. Eg Im building sites on in demand products that have not even been released yet and then I sell a number of licenses to the website.

5. Yes its possible.

Good luck

InsideInsurance

steviegood wrote: »

Can I ask what do you mean by 'black hat SEO'?

To go back to basis then.....
SEO is what is done to make your site appear higher in the natural search engine results.

Given the importance of doing this people have spent lots of time (and money) trying to work out how the ranking systems. Naturally when you discover how it works you can then do things to try and manipulate the results.

Search engines see some of these things as perfectly reasonable (known as white hat) but other techniques they frown upon and if you are caught doing them your site will be penalised (known as black hat)

A classic black hat technique is to have a bunch of text on your homepage that is nothing but your keywords and as this would be bad for your human visitors you either hide the text using CSS or add code so that the text only shows to the google spidering bot and not to human visitors.

Arfa__

I'd say, just go for it. Its not easy and you won't make a quick buck, but if you're good, you probably make a little grocery cash within a few months.

Key thing, if your idea/niche. Don't worry too much about monetising it at first, just get a decent site up, with decent content others want to read, attract some visitors and get some back links to the site, to get you up the Google rankings. Then, start looking at affiliate links, adverts etc.

Google Adwords are simple to ad to your site, but won't generate much cash until you get 1000's of unique visitors a day.
Affiliate wise, there's loads of options; Amazon Associates, Ebay Partner Network, or some of the big networks carrying lots of merchants; Affiliate Window, Affiliate Future, etc. Each merchant will pay different commission, have different rules on how you promote their stuff and have different cookie lifespans (longer is better). Some merchants will want to see your site first before approving you, hence concentrate on a getting a decent site first.

mrsyardbroom

Lots of affiliate marketers think they are clever messing around with stuff G does not want you to do and they end up crying when their site gets banned. In all the years I have been doing it I never had a site banned.

When you say a site gets banned do you mean Google won't even bring it up in their listings?

I've been affiliate marketing for years but never really applied myself to it much as I've been working and didn't have the time. Now that I'm retired and putting more effort into the affiliate side of things the earnings are going up a bit. It isn't a fortune but few pounds a day and just working when feel like it is great for a pensioner.

Like everything else, the more you put into it the more you get out of it. My website is also my hobby and I probably spend as much time mucking about on the forum as I do updating the site. If I wanted to make a lot more money I would put a lot more hours into it but that would mean I was no longer retired.

InsideInsurance

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

When you say a site gets banned do you mean Google won't even bring it up in their listings?

It depends who you believe.

The problem with the likes of Google is the fact that their mechanisms for ranking etc are all very closely guarded secrets. People try and workout how the engine works by observing results but ultimately there are always going to be outside influences that are not within your control which could also be influencing the results.

Certainly some people believe in "the sandbox" and will state your site can be kicked off the listings and into the sandbox (ie you dont get listed any more) for a variable period if you use black hat techniques. Others dispute the existence of the sandbox and just say that you go from page 1 to page 30,000 instead. Probably has the same effect as being totally removed.

shmeeko69

You seem quite anxious about it all and Google are constantly changing their algorithms in order to try and catch people out.

It is a great business to be involved in, but you have to put the work in at the start and DON'T have any pages which are similar or even duplicate or big G will penalize your site in their search engines.

Regarding the term "Sandboxing", this is usually a trial period for any new site and it's commonly known that, after approximately six months of your site being indexed you will start ranking for your specific keywords if your site is worthy and it's only then, that you'll start to see the benefits of natural traffic.

The best thing to do is give it a try and have a plan of action in place which requires you to do X amount of hours each day/week/month and decide if you want to be a webmaster or an affiliate.

All the best

Mark