The Affiliate Journey

The new year is almost upon us. It’s an exciting and also stressful time for those of us who run our own businesses. I love the idea of putting pen to paper to start planning for the new year ahead  of me, but I also know that some of those plans/goals will fall to the way side as I try to improve, grow and re-focus my business.

This year more then ever I find myself asking some serious questions about the focus & structure of my business.

My wife, who LOVEs (hint of sarcasim here) to listen to me talk about affiliate marketing pointed out to me a few weeks ago that my business doesn’t really have a “mission” or “thing” that it does.

I respond with, “yes it does, I market & sell other peoples products”.

Then it hit me, I do market and sell other peoples products but I’m kind of out there trying to hoc what ever seems to be in a good market to make some good money.

There’s nothing wrong with this mentality, how ever as I look to expand my business and reach new heights for revenues and income I no longer feel that being in a bunch of great competitive markets that are full of hungry consumers crying to scratch an itch they have is the way for me to go.

So what am I thinking about doing?

I’m thinking about laser focusing my business to more or less one broad market.

Let me give you an example using my ever famous Golf Market I always refer to on this blog for examples.

Let’s say one of my sites currently does really well selling Golf instruction videos. I enjoy the market because I golf. I use the products so can recommend them confidently because I know their good, and I am adding some really good content to the web by producing my own golf videos and articles to attract buzz, traffic and backlinks to my site(s).

Now let’s also say that I have 5 or 6 other sites that span a bunch of other markets. let’s say:

-Language learning

-Anti aging products

-Backup software

-Anti virus software

-Stretch market creams

Ok so you can see a couple of those are somewhat related…But I’ll admit I can’t use the anti aging products, nor the stretch mark products…. I have used the software and can buy and use the Language learning software but most of these are pretty spread apart… They’re not all closely focused.

This does a couple of things…

1.) It causes me to have to wear several hats and link build & follow several different markets.

2.) There are no economies of scale where by when I find a solid link partner for my language learning site I can also get links for my other sites. The markets just don’t fit.

Now contrast that scenario with this one:

What if instead of having the above 6 sites with my golf instruction video website I setup a few new sites, let’s say:

-Golf club Clone website

-Golf accessory website

-Golf trips website

-A golf Blog about my journey to becoming a better golfer

These sites are all closely related and can swap traffic amongst themselves. It allows me to stay somewhat focused in the golf market and work on my “network” shall we call it.

I fell that this is a business model better then just being an affiliate marketer, I’m a marketer in the “golf sector” and only that. This way I can evaluate new opportunities against this rather then bouncing amongst offers that may make more or convert better.

This is the actual conversation I’m having with myself today… I’m not in the golf market but it is a good example of what I’m trying to work through.

The CONS I’m feeling about this are that I’ll be abadoning the sites I have and just starting something new for the sake of it… Which is something I’ve done in the past. Of course the PROS are that it makes sense, I’m passionate about the over all market and I can provide some really good quality content for the market as well.

This is my deliemma which I’ll work through today and tomorrow but I wanted to present it to you to hopefully get your creative juices flowing and start thinking about planning for 2010.

I hope all had a happy holiday and I wish everyone reading a Happy New Year! See you in 2010

Cheers,

Ian