General Strategy

mattsaw · 15-07-08

Hey guys,

I used to dabble in affiliate marketing many moons (about 5 years) ago, I started off with a hand coded static HTML site promoting DVDs, adding around 30-40 news pages each week for each DVD. It did okay, though it was never enough to retire on

Since then I've developed my SEO skills and am now heading up an SEO department at an interent services company.

I would like to get back into affiliate marketing, though could do with some advice from those more with it than I

I'm 'thinking' of targeting an industry a little more 'niche' than mobiles, pills, porn etc - perhaps fashion?

What kind of sites do you guys develop - bespoke, hacked scripts, off the shelf? Wordpress is an obvious one, but I think it may be too constricting. I'm maybe looking at hacking an ecommerce script to do the job - any opinions on this?

How many affiliates do you guys generally sign up with and where do you find the good ones?

mattsaw · 15-07-08

Sorry..... forgot to add. Does anyone know of any scripts/software that are worth looking at for affiliates?

mattsaw · 17-07-08

Is there are reason that nobody has replied to this????

SpongeBob · 17-07-08

Welcome to the forum!

Sometimes posts get overlooked and go unanswered. There are usually quite a few people that happily answer posts like yours, so I don't think there was anything wrong with it.

However, this forum regularly (daily?!) gets new people posting asking general questions like yours, e.g. what kind of niche's work, what software do you use, etc. Perfectly good questions, but ones that have been repeatedly answered. So when another post pops up asking similar questions then there can be less motivation to repeat answers.

My suggestion would be to have a good look through the archives of the forum - there's lots of info there, though it will require you to look for it rather than it be handed to you. Use the search facility to look for specific things - like 'Wordpress', or 'affiliate scripts', etc - the posts there will then lead on to other ideas too.

Then when you have more specific questions you'll probably find there is more interest in replying - e.g. whether a specific niche is worth going for, or you've tried Wordpress and have a question about it, etc.

Good luck, anyway - affiliate marketing is well worth it if you've got the skills to make a go of it, and it sounds like you probably do - you just need to jump in!

Cheapdvds · 17-07-08

I wouldnt call fashion in general a niche something more specific like sunglasses to me is niche (actually thats not a ad idea for a site

as for scripts the main ones that are used are , wordpress, joomla, affilistore, pricetapestry, and there was one that pagerank10 done as well i think.

wordpress - simple and easy , but everyone uses it
joomla - not as simple to use but u can get great results with it
Affilistore - easy , simple and if u are good at web design then even better
pricetapestry - comparison script , templates available so can have a complete site ready in 5 mins , downside u need to spend some money

khuram · 17-07-08

I think out of my experience, its not important that what script you use, the important is how customize you can get.
I think a good skin is about 60% important and 40% to the script.
Offcourse, you can enhance both with time.

DannyW · 17-07-08

Hi Matt, sorry can't answer your question very well as I use wordpress for everything and it's pretty damn flexible now. Affiliates signed up with? a few hundred or so, affiliate window seem to have most of the main names, so that's a start.

Oh and welcome to the forum.

You're not the same Matt of "clicks" are you? If so where have you been hiding

Leeky · 27-07-08

Hi Mat

You may be interested in this Affiliate Scripts

It will run just about any product feed as you can configure it in an admin area.

We use it to run all the sub domains on Compare Prices UK, this will give you an idea on what it can do.

e.g.
Getting Personal Prices UK Home
John Lewis Prices UK Home

Lee