Thank you for all your insightful content - I’m just getting started on my journey and think I’ve found a good niche that works for me.
Background: Work in tech in a niche role that is new but growing across the industry. SEMRush shows very easy KD% for my role + I work in it day-to-day so have immediate experience. I want to create an informative style blog that explains the role, how I got the job, and strategies our teams use day to day (then monetize).
3 questions:
1. As I am informing as an authoritative figure, how important is it for me to dox myself to improve the credibility of my website? Can I get away with still being anonymous (preferred) or do you think that will hinder traffic/engagement greaty (in your experience)?
2. Having trouble pinning down the intent/profile of a visitor to my site and linking with an affiliate they would likely buy. I had a few good affiliates in mind (products our team uses) but realized that not everyone who is coming to the site will already be in this role (therefore affiliates are not relevant to most people). Is it better to just try to affiliate with general productivity tools or something less related to the actual content?
3. At what point in website growth should I try to reach out to affiliates?
1. It is always easier to use a doxxed identity to grow. Most people love credentials... But I'm an Opossum... It's not a hurdle that can't be overcome. Just makes it slightly more difficult. I personally wouldn't dox until I was to the point that I never had to go back into corporate America if I didn't want. You can also just build up the authority of a fake figure.
2. Too vague to answer. Too early to even worry about it. Worry about getting traffic first. They'll be a host of different ways to monetize once you get traffic. Ways that you haven't even thought of yet.
3. Not until you have steady traffic. At least 1,000 visitors a month. Until that point it's not worth your time and definitely not worth the merchant's time. Most of your affiliates are doing tens or hundreds of millions a year. Probably even billions. You think they're going to care about the $27 you bring to them?
Even at 1,000 visitoros per month, you shouldn't be talking to anyone at the company. Your start should be on affiliates that have automated affiliate programs.
Just started reading the stack. Based on what I’ve found, for my position, an affiliate website is the goal. I am stuck on niche, should my goal be an article every week? Do I need to plan to buy dozens of “lamps” in order to produce content and media? In my mind I have wirecutter.com as an example. Can you expand on “any niche you want that you can produce content for”?
1. Your goal should be as many good articles as possible. Until you learn how to write and rank and article. From there you should outsource your writing with pedal to the floor.
2. Nobody actually buys all of the products they review. To that point, you want to write to get traffic first, not a bunch of one off reviews of products. You're not going to be able to rank that way on a fresh domain.
3. Wirecutter works because they have enormous domain authority. You will have 0. I imagine you have a view of affiliate sites as nothing but product review sites. That's not the case. A large percentage of sites are monetized via affiliate and it's not straight reviews. Take a look at healthline for the best example.
4. "any niche you..." - Literally any niche. This goes back to #3. You can build a site around any niche and then add affiliate offers later. Affiliate review sites are just a segment of affiliate sites. Most all websites are businesses. If they're not selling you a product, they likely have affiliate offers on their site. If not, there's other ways to monetize content sites.
Thank you for the detailed response, I appreciate it. I am reading the rest of the affiliate posts. The healthline example helps explain it. I think I need to merged Affiliate 2 post's detail about SERPs to my ideas on a niche and start to understand SEMrush metrics.
In the context of your time being super limited, of the options above, recording yourself auditing a website or auditing campaigns seems to make a lot of sense and provide the most value per time committed.
Assuming you are a seller on Shopify, from my perspective there is a lot of overlap between a) Shopify store structure and b) campaign structures and strategy for paid social/ppc/direct response. This is likely doubly true for those starting out. Just my 2c.
Hi BTO!
Thank you for all your insightful content - I’m just getting started on my journey and think I’ve found a good niche that works for me.
Background: Work in tech in a niche role that is new but growing across the industry. SEMRush shows very easy KD% for my role + I work in it day-to-day so have immediate experience. I want to create an informative style blog that explains the role, how I got the job, and strategies our teams use day to day (then monetize).
3 questions:
1. As I am informing as an authoritative figure, how important is it for me to dox myself to improve the credibility of my website? Can I get away with still being anonymous (preferred) or do you think that will hinder traffic/engagement greaty (in your experience)?
2. Having trouble pinning down the intent/profile of a visitor to my site and linking with an affiliate they would likely buy. I had a few good affiliates in mind (products our team uses) but realized that not everyone who is coming to the site will already be in this role (therefore affiliates are not relevant to most people). Is it better to just try to affiliate with general productivity tools or something less related to the actual content?
3. At what point in website growth should I try to reach out to affiliates?
1. It is always easier to use a doxxed identity to grow. Most people love credentials... But I'm an Opossum... It's not a hurdle that can't be overcome. Just makes it slightly more difficult. I personally wouldn't dox until I was to the point that I never had to go back into corporate America if I didn't want. You can also just build up the authority of a fake figure.
2. Too vague to answer. Too early to even worry about it. Worry about getting traffic first. They'll be a host of different ways to monetize once you get traffic. Ways that you haven't even thought of yet.
3. Not until you have steady traffic. At least 1,000 visitors a month. Until that point it's not worth your time and definitely not worth the merchant's time. Most of your affiliates are doing tens or hundreds of millions a year. Probably even billions. You think they're going to care about the $27 you bring to them?
Even at 1,000 visitoros per month, you shouldn't be talking to anyone at the company. Your start should be on affiliates that have automated affiliate programs.
Awesome thanks for this great insight - will take a swing at it and iterate. Thanks again!
Hi,
Just started reading the stack. Based on what I’ve found, for my position, an affiliate website is the goal. I am stuck on niche, should my goal be an article every week? Do I need to plan to buy dozens of “lamps” in order to produce content and media? In my mind I have wirecutter.com as an example. Can you expand on “any niche you want that you can produce content for”?
Thank you!
1. Your goal should be as many good articles as possible. Until you learn how to write and rank and article. From there you should outsource your writing with pedal to the floor.
2. Nobody actually buys all of the products they review. To that point, you want to write to get traffic first, not a bunch of one off reviews of products. You're not going to be able to rank that way on a fresh domain.
3. Wirecutter works because they have enormous domain authority. You will have 0. I imagine you have a view of affiliate sites as nothing but product review sites. That's not the case. A large percentage of sites are monetized via affiliate and it's not straight reviews. Take a look at healthline for the best example.
4. "any niche you..." - Literally any niche. This goes back to #3. You can build a site around any niche and then add affiliate offers later. Affiliate review sites are just a segment of affiliate sites. Most all websites are businesses. If they're not selling you a product, they likely have affiliate offers on their site. If not, there's other ways to monetize content sites.
Thank you for the detailed response, I appreciate it. I am reading the rest of the affiliate posts. The healthline example helps explain it. I think I need to merged Affiliate 2 post's detail about SERPs to my ideas on a niche and start to understand SEMrush metrics.
In the context of your time being super limited, of the options above, recording yourself auditing a website or auditing campaigns seems to make a lot of sense and provide the most value per time committed.
Assuming you are a seller on Shopify, from my perspective there is a lot of overlap between a) Shopify store structure and b) campaign structures and strategy for paid social/ppc/direct response. This is likely doubly true for those starting out. Just my 2c.