Serious question for the Pros...dare you answer!

[renegade]

1) If planning on a big site, try to get the .com and .co.uk domains. Buying them later when your site is established may cost you big money.

That's a good one - BTDTGTTS!
I also wish I'd pushed harder earlier and built up a huge email database before opting in became mandatory.
On the plus side I'm glad I didn't expand my business. Keeping it small means less rewards but a lot less to worry about.

[Ambski]

That's a good one - BTDTGTTS!
I also wish I'd pushed harder earlier and built up a huge email database before opting in became mandatory.
On the plus side I'm glad I didn't expand my business. Keeping it small means less rewards but a lot less to worry about.

There does seem to be a constant theme of 'small but many' as the way to go.
I also like the idea of putting small profits into a larger operation which will require a larger marketing budget.

I would be interested to know if there is any 'must-do' advice when it comes to member capture.

[Edwin]

If you can afford it, and you're confident you've picked a good niche to go after, then shell out for a really top-notch domain name to build on.

Makes it much easier to seem like THE authority in the field if you have an obviously great name and the competition are "making do" with a name that sounds like it was registered because it was available for reg-fee. It's like building on prime retail property in the centre of town. It will also make it easier to assert your credibility when approaching other sites for links, sending out press releases, etc. and of course if you use Adwords it will give you a fantastic display URL that should help boost your CTR a little, and hence drop your per-click costs. Oh, and it's great if you plan to do any kind of offline advertising since your site will be so easy to remember!

In other words, if your site is about "green widgets" then explore how much it might cost you to secure greenwidgets.com or greenwidgets.co.uk. Even if it's a couple of grand, it could be money well spent if it's going to turn into a major money-spinner and a long term project...

Of course, if you're just building mini-sites then that kind of investment is going to be totally over the top... I'm really talking about if you're planning your "flagship" site, the jewel in your budding web-empire.

[John]

As I mentioned in my blog post, my biggest regret is not getting our users to register sooner, and it would appear I'm not alone in that respect. It really can make a huge difference to your site.

It's also an interesting point Joe makes about being glad he didn't expand. Small is indeed beatiful, and having expanded up to around 12 members of staff a few years ago, I've now scaled back to just me and 2 others. A small team that are 100% committed to the success of the company makes for a much more harmonious (and profitable!) company.

I won't be expanding again in a hurry, as I'm much happier with things as they stand right now, and that ties in nicely with what Jason has said - If you're happy with where you're at, does it really matter if you made a few mistakes along the way?

[Ambski]

As I mentioned in my blog post, my biggest regret is not getting our users to register sooner, and it would appear I'm not alone in that respect. It really can make a huge difference to your site.

It's also an interesting point Joe makes about being glad he didn't expand. Small is indeed beatiful, and having expanded up to around 12 members of staff a few years ago, I've now scaled back to just me and 2 others. A small team that are 100% committed to the success of the company makes for a much more harmonious (and profitable!) company.

I won't be expanding again in a hurry, as I'm much happier with things as they stand right now, and that ties in nicely with what Jason has said - If you're happy with where you're at, does it really matter if you made a few mistakes along the way?

Good point about not expanding. I have always fancied the 'holy grail' of the auto-pilot, zero employee business, which would allow me to live a lazy-boy lifestyle myself!

[Steved]

I'm not a pro yet but I've made the General Shopping Directory site mistake and also created another site that is just too general, wasted about 4 months of potential sales on those two but learned a huge amount about all things affiliate in the process.

Just in case any new affiliates have not yet read all the advice: DO NOT CREATE A GENERAL SHOPPING DIRECTORY it is a waste of time unless you're already well established or have serious cash/experience.

I found the following two sites to be of real value, both have been posted about before:
The Nichefather- Creating niche sites
the nichefather download section

The SugarRae Blog Post - creating branded sites
How to Survive the Affiliate Evolution - Sugarrae

I think there is probably some valuable middle ground somewhere between creating a small, very niche site and a large, branded one when starting out.

[Ambski]

I'm not a pro yet but I've made the General Shopping Directory site mistake and also created another site that is just too general, wasted about 4 months of potential sales on those two but learned a huge amount about all things affiliate in the process.

Just in case any new affiliates have not yet read all the advice: DO NOT CREATE A GENERAL SHOPPING DIRECTORY it is a waste of time unless you're already well established or have serious cash/experience.

I found the following two sites to be of real value, both have been posted about before:
The Nichefather- Creating niche sites
the nichefather download section

The SugarRae Blog Post - creating branded sites
How to Survive the Affiliate Evolution - Sugarrae

I think there is probably some valuable middle ground somewhere between creating a small, very niche site and a large, branded one when starting out.

The Nichefather series was excellent. Really nailed a lot of AM points down for me.

Just read the 'SugarRae' post, very good although her "expand as big as possible" idea does conflict with Johns thoughts and mine for that matter. May check out the 'E-Myths Revisited' that was mentioned. Anyone here read it?

[stu foster]

Just a quick note - I am planning on launching part 2 of The Nichefather series fairly soon. It will have some up-to-date methods on there plus i will go into a lot more detail on some of the technical aspects for those that wish to delve that bit deeper.

I'll put a post up here when the videos are ready.

Stu

[Ambski]

Just a quick note - I am planning on launching part 2 of The Nichefather series fairly soon. It will have some up-to-date methods on there plus i will go into a lot more detail on some of the technical aspects for those that wish to delve that bit deeper.

I'll put a post up here when the videos are ready.

Stu

LOTS of people, newbies especially, will be glad to read that Stu. Keep me posted!