David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

An interesting thread appeared on A4U yesterday which seemed to echo my own thoughts recently – the affiliate marketing playing field is changing.

Sure we know the industry is on the move with plenty of acquisitions and mergers, new corporate start-ups, and many seasoned affiliates dropping out due to ever squeezed margins, increased competition and the mighty search engine algorithm changes.

The infamous Panda and Penguin updates have stripped out a lot of low quality affiliate sites from the index altogether and have also had a knock-on effect for larger affiliate sites too. More recently I’ve noticed a lot of drivel in the search results I’m presented with as the latest algorithms seems to favour these thin bare non-affiliate sites over affiliate-marketing funded sites with more substantial content (perhaps it depends on what I’m searching for though!).

Ultimately it seems that the search engines are demanding more useful, more informative and more authoritative content. So is that a bad thing?
 
I’d say not, though it does make the industry much tougher to crack for smaller affiliates. The bigger affiliates who can afford to employ teams of experts can constantly pump out press releases which frequently get picked up by the major news networks, effectively rubber-stamping the content as authoritative. For smaller affiliates, the best written press release can be easily overlooked and flop. Without authority, SERP rankings are often poorer and much more restrictive.

Having been in the game for a while I’ve seen all manner of changes but lately I’ve been fortunate enough to speak to several in a new breed of successful and inspirational affiliates, who seem impervious to the recent changes. The reason they have been (and continue to be) successful is because they have transformed a hobby or a passion into a money making machine.

By creating loads of fresh and unique articles on a particular niche of passion, it is potentially likely to form a strong community around the site, a cult following of sorts. So long as the content is monetised secondly (and carefully) then it’s likely that the site would continue to grow and thrive. These sites aren’t impenetrable but they are built on more solid foundations than a purpose-built affiliate marketing site.

By contrast, many purpose-built affiliate sites are designed with money in mind first and foremost. How do we make the money and then how do we get people onto the site? We focus on traffic, click-through rates, optimisation and the bottom line arguably more so than the content. Sure, content is important and a key consideration but so is the bottom line. The difference here is that when your passion and hobby becomes your income stream, you’ve got a good foundation of strong solid content first and foremost.

In essence, it appears as if we’re almost back to where the tale of affiliate marketing began – a means to monetise content rather than an outright business model, obviously with some inevitable exclusions and exceptions. As such, it’s becoming more important to focus on niche areas we are passionate about. If we need to spend so much time immersed in a site to make it successful, we need to enjoy the topic! Widgets are only so much fun…

It appears that going forward websites funded through affiliate marketing will have to adapt to regain strength in the SERPs. Owners will need to consider the following points in addition to other questions:

• What is the purpose of the website?
• How does it differ to any other website already out there?
• What is unique about this website, and why would people want to use it?
• How can this site be authoritative?
• How can we add value to the user experience?

The concerning aspect though is the bottom line. Creating an authoritative website first and a money making site second means that for a period of time the site might not make any money whatsoever and in terms of cash flow that’s a difficult decision to take.

Ultimately the trick is to somehow find a balance between the two. Grow and develop a site around passions but making sure you’re able to pay the bills at the same time.
Ultimately affiliate marketing appears to be on the move again. Whilst these changes are tough to accept for those whose income largely depends on affiliate marketing, it’s important to recognise that sometimes change is inevitable and fighting it will make you worse off.

Combine search engine changes, legislative changes, and industry professionalisation of the affiliate marketing industry and you’ve got a new era and a new set off challenges to face.