David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

The 3R's of recycling and they apply to your web affiliate business.

How?
 
This can be achieved primarily with domain names. I've got a reseller web hosting account so it won't apply to web hosting for me. It can also apply to website development.

Reduce

Original definition: To minimise your usage of something.

Do you need that extra domain name? Do you need to buy the name just incase someone else was going to? Will it just sit gathering dust or can it be used within a reasonable timeframe? Tying cash up in domain names means you have less cash to splash on PPC or some other activity (assuming you have an abundance of cash).

In terms of web design, you should be looking to reduce the time spent updating sites. Is the "affiliate dream" you have all about working very hard for 12 hour days? Didn't think so!

Reuse

Original definition: To use something again and again.

Sometimes it is easy to overlook domain names. I found one in my portfolio yesterday that lends itself very accurately to a new product about to be released. Why go out an buy a new domain name when this one already has some PageRank attached to it from it's previous use?

In terms of web design, you should be looking to reduce the time spent building sites. If you always use Wordpress and you always have the same template only with different colours, just copy and paste. Why create a new template each time as you already have a template for a template!

Recycle

Original definition: To reuse or to use as a composite material for another item

You've had a great idea and it's not panned out as well as you hoped. Rather than leave the site to gather virtual dust, why not incorporate it into another site? Take Scholr for example. Instead of linking individual sites to Amazon, I have routed some book links through Scholr . The result is that it now becomes integral to several sites. Granted, the very nature of Scholr means that it adds an extra step to the buying process but the purpose of the site is to encourage upselling.

As for recycling website designs, you can recycle redundant scripts to create a new and improved site. If you have a "free ipod" website script (there's one lurking on my hard drive somewhere from back in the day!) could it be recycled into something bigger and better now? Can it form the foundation of a social networking site, for example?