The easiest revenue model...

[timsoulo]

For the past few days I was reading nothing but this forum to find the best affiliate marketing revenue model for a noob to start with.
So here are the affiliate marketing revenue models (or how do you call em) that I am now aware of:

#1 ADSENSE + Website/Blog + SEO

You need to decide on the niche of your future website;
Do some keyword research;
Register an EMD (exact match domain);
Write some quality content for your website or either pay someone to do that for you;
Do linkbuilding: all those free directories, bookmarks, web 2.0 sites, article directories & stuff. Maybe pay for some xrumer blasts or purchase some cool links from ppl on forums;
Configure and optimize your website as you go: do some on-page seo, structure your website properly, work on your design a bit, find the best place for Adsense to get the highest CTR (click through rate).
Learn to write anything but the answer to their questions to make them click those Adsense links.

Pros:
- low cost: you may only pay for domain/hosting and do the rest on your own;
- you can grow your website with time by adding new quality content and building new links.

Cons:
- It takes time to rank well in Google;
- the less competitive keywords you choose - the less traffic you get;
- as far as I know Adsense revenues are veeeery small, so you'll have to grow your website to a couple thousands of daily visits to get $100/month. (corrent me if I'm wrong here)

Questions:
do niches matter in Adsense at all?
does the CPC (cost per click) vary in Adsense depending on what niche you choose?
what are the other caveats noobs should be aware of?

#2 AFFILIATE LINKS + Blog + SEO

Same steps as in #1
This time you'll have to focus on your content: learn how to write persuasive articles and connect with people emotionally.
Join affiliate networks, find some nice products that you would like to promote, tell your readers that they will die without those products & drop your affiliate links.
Learn e-mail marketing, grow your e-mail list and bombard them with your affiliate links.

Pros:
- low cost: you may only pay for domain/hosting and do the rest on your own;
- you can grow your website with time by adding new quality content and building new links;
- once you have a loyal readership - they will buy almost anything from you;
- you'll have your own e-mail list to market things to;
- looking into the future, you can create your own products and sell them to your readers and e-mail subscribers;
- once you have a trusted website with high SEO metrics you can sell links, banners, do list swaps, sponsored posts, etc.

Cons:
- It takes time to rank well in Google;
- the less competitive keywords you choose - the less traffic you get;
- it's a fucking nightmare job to build a successfull blog from the scratch - you'll have to learn tons of stuff and do tons of work till you get your first 1k of email subscribers;
- it may take you 1-3 years till you make decent money - depends on how lucky and/or experienced you are.

#3 AFFILIATE LINKS + Landing Page / Website + SEO

Steps from #1 again
But this time you need to focus on the product you are going to promote.
Talk to your AM (affiliate manager) for help about what offers are good for you, think if you know something about this niche and can come up with a decent copy - then do keyword research & stuff.
Once you have that website or landing page - it's all about rankings & split testing. Get all the #1 spots you can and split-test the hell out of your pages.
The difference from #2 is that you don't need to update your website/page with new content & stick with long tail keywords

Pros:
- low cost: you may only pay for domain/hosting and do the rest on your own;
- you don't have to build the whole website, one page can be about enough.

Cons:
- there's no guarantee that the offer will convert at all. It can be some dead offer from the start;
- you should be really good at copywriting or hire some pro to do all the copy for you;
- you need to learn how to split test effectively;
- it's not that easy to rank for the keywords that are making money;
- you can only target a few keywords per page;
- again it takes time to rank well.

#4 AFFILIATE LINKS + Landing Page / Website + PPC

Same steps from #1
This time your focus is the combination of the highest converting offer, cool set of keywords for your campaign and awesome landing page.
Talk to your AM about the offer, do a decent keyword research, learn about all those PPC platforms, split-test your landing page.

Pros:
- you can make tons of money almost instantly;
- you can launch new campaigns within days.

Cons:
- you have to spend lots of money on PPC before you determine whether your current combination of offer + keywords + landing page is actually profitable;
- you have to learn all those platforms offering PPC and see what works;
- you need to be good at maths and calculate everything you can;
- you have to be even better at analytics to measure everything you can and gain experience from each campaign (even if it failed).

I consider these 4 to be the major moneymaking tactics in affiliate marketing (I may be wrong).
Please tell me where I'm wrong and please vote which of the models works best for you.

 

[secretagentdad]

Your idea of seo seems a bit biased towards spammy links.

A pile of unique content + tweets + time is a heck of a lot cheaper then buying xrumer and other crap.

 

[grazie]

#1 ADSENSE + Website/Blog + SEO


- as far as I know Adsense revenues are veeeery small, so you'll have to grow your website to a couple thousands of daily visits to get $100/month. (corrent me if I'm wrong here)

that's absolutely wrong. Many people bitch and complain about Adsense paying pennies but it's because they choose poor niches to monetize with Adsense in the first place.

Here are some basics for building Adsense sites.

1. Pick a good niche. Research financial keywords. Look in a financial glossary, scrape as many keywords as possible and find out the CPC of those keywords. Also, check the exact match volume to ensure you'll get good traffic. Anything over 1,000 exact match searches is good. Pick battles wisely. Don't go to war with a huge authority...especially if you're just starting out. Register EMD if possible. The more relevant your niche is to a user's search, the higher your CTR will be.

2. Create unique content. Don't put spun shit or markov shit on your site. Put up 3-5 articles per week targetting your keywords.

3. Confuse the shit out of people. What I mean is...don't give people the answers to their questions or searches within your article or content. Write about the topic/keyword...but leave them with needing more information.

4. Optimize ad placement for optimal ctr. Something you'll need to play around with. Usually a medium rectangle 300 x 250 above the fold does well. All niches and sites are different though. Gotta test.

5. Build links like a boss.

 

[Scheme]

that's absolutely wrong. Many people bitch and complain about Adsense paying pennies but it's because they choose poor niches to monetize with Adsense in the first place.

Here are some basics for building Adsense sites.

1. Pick a good niche. Research financial keywords. Look in a financial glossary, scrape as many keywords as possible and find out the CPC of those keywords. Also, check the exact match volume to ensure you'll get good traffic. Anything over 1,000 exact match searches is good. Pick battles wisely. Don't go to war with a huge authority...especially if you're just starting out. Register EMD if possible. The more relevant your niche is to a user's search, the higher your CTR will be.

2. Create unique content. Don't put spun shit or markov shit on your site. Put up 3-5 articles per week targetting your keywords.

3. Confuse the shit out of people. What I mean is...don't give people the answers to their questions or searches within your article or content. Write about the topic/keyword...but leave them with needing more information.

4. Optimize ad placement for optimal ctr. Something you'll need to play around with. Usually a medium rectangle 300 x 250 above the fold does well. All niches and sites are different though. Gotta test.

5. Build links like a boss.

HEY WTF BRO! Let him keep thinking adsense doesn't pay. I mean my network of authority blogs, and 75+ niche based adsense sites don't being me but PENNIES A DAY. :338:

 

[timsoulo]

grazie, thanks a lot for pointing this out.. now it really makes sense to me! +rep

 

[m0rtal]

Honestly, I didn't read what you just wrote other than the titles.

Here's a tip: DO WHAT YOU ENJOY DOING.

Any one of those things can make you money but don't make the mistake of following something just because you may think it's easier/more lucrative/more people are doing it. Find something you like and stick to it then branch out if you get bored.

 

[timsoulo]

^ thanks for the feedback mate.. I was just trying to figure out if my way of thinking about each of the methods (with pros & cons) was correct... and at the same time I wanted to find out which of them is more popular generally

 

[iSynergy Media]

I would suggest the #1 way , becaue adsense pay you so much and also with a good traffic quality website , you just earn lot , nothing else to do like promoting.

 

[Compound]

tl;dr

Do what works for you. Hopefully this is also what you enjoy (like m0rtal said) and what you are good at.


At the end of the day, you're looking to generate traffic, and subsequently monetize that traffic.

Generate traffic:
1. SEO (a lot of different ways to do this)
2. Paid (again, you have a ton of options here)

Note: both work

Monetization:
1. Sell impressions
2. Sell clicks (adsense would be here)
3. Sell actions (affiliate)

Note: all of these work

 

[Pixel Pirate]

Adsense is the easiest in my opinion.

You see conversions just from ranking since it's automatically showing relevant ads.

It doesn't require as much creativity or experience when trying to promote affiliate links.

Affiliate links are also more profitable.