David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

I'm not new to affiliate marketing but I am new to creating a living from it. £50 a year from friends and family helps but it covers a week's shopping, and not a Christmas shop at that!

Having posted over 200 messages onto A4U Forum, I appear not to be alone in this. A lot of people find it easy to make a couple of quid but when it comes to making a consistent liveable amount, they struggle.

There are several effects of the Newbie Affiliate Syndrome (I've just created a syndrome. Yippee. I've got the same feeling I suppose scientists have when they discover a disease!). Here they are...
 
Information Overload

This is common at the beginning. Affiliates become overwhelmed the with substantial amount of information there is about PPC, niches, maximising returns, portals, etc. The vast majority of this information is contradictory too, thus making the affiliates even more confused!

The majority of affiliates appear to fail around 6 to 12 months after working on their sites for an hour or two here and there. No wonder that's the case if the affiliate is being bombarded with information.

Distractedness

Click me. No me. No me. Hey, what about me.

This is what the affiliate programs do. Affiliates sign up for loads of them in an effort to make at least something work. After all, how could you resist 50% commissions or £500 commission per sale?

Affiliates suffering from Newbie Affiliate Syndrome will sign up to multiple networks and most of the highest paying affiliate programs on each. Then they will drive zero sales to each.

Ex-ClickBank Addicts

I started the affiliate lark with Clickbank and for a large proportion, this is the entry point. For others, Amazon is the first program they sign up to.

Clickbank embodies the "distracted" symptom what with hundreds of thousands of ebooks you could promote. And from experience, some are good and some are not worthy of your cash.

That's not to say ebooks are not a good item to promote. Just check the quality first before you promote something that is of dire quality.

Too Many Ideas

I am the master of this one. Too many ideas yet not enough time. I would love to set up a handful of websites but I haven't got the time to code them or maintain them. It's a shame too because some could be the next YouTube!

The problem that most affiliates face is deciding which idea is worthy of pursuing. Is it the price comparison idea? How about an 'impartial' website that is jammed full of affiliate links? The forum that is packed with AdSense ads?

Combine "Too Many Ideas" with "Information Overload" and "Distractedness" and you get an affiliate that means well but just cannot get any ideas of the ground. If they do, they get bored or distracted and neglect their creation.

Get Rich Quick Mentality

This is the ultimate symptom of an affiliate with the Syndrome. They expect to become a millionaire next week by earning 2% on sales. After all, they only need to generate £50,000,000 for the merchant to get £1million in commissions. That's a doddle!

REMEDIES

So how does the newbie affiliate overcome this Syndrome?

1. Understand that it takes time to develop a good quality website
2. Pursue ideas that are unique. Price comparisons, forums, shopping sites, cash back sites and the like have been done before. YouTube, for example, was a unique idea and it took off. So did The Million Dollar Homepage.
3. Develop a portal of niche sites. Only a handful. 2 or 3 for example. How are you going to manage the 65 niches that you hope will all make money on your own?
4. Sign up for multiple networks but use one as your primary network. I prefer Tradedoubler, for instance.
5. Avoid the lure of big commissions unless it ties in with your website theme. There's nothing worse than car insurance adverts on a website all about fluffy kittens, for example.
6. Beware of who's advice you accept. Whilst the people who can help lurk over at A4U Forum, so do people who have not got a clue. Advice is only as good as the person dispensing it.
7. Learn by doing. Sometimes that is the only way. If it could be followed out of an ebook, the world would be full of millionaires. It's not.

I hope that helps some people. Sometimes it just needs clarifying!

Please post any thoughts as comments below or for a reply, contact me.