MoreNiche Affiliate Tutorials:

Being an affiliate is like being a businessman.

We know this may look like a loose connection, but here is the thing. The purpose behind your website is to create leads and earn commissions. In other words, your website is a business. A business that you need to care for and help grow in efficiency.

For this reason in the following guide you will find a range of strategies that will enable you to help make your affiliate website grow, and turn your affiliate business from one that earns a couple of hundred dollars, to one that earns you thousands.

And like all businesses, affiliate marketing does have its own strength and weaknesses. Weaknesses that can make a real difference to your commission levels.

But don’t worry. By utilising the following strategies, you will be able to overcome these flaws and ensure that your affiliate business keeps growing with MoreNiche.

Now before you start implementing these strategies here, there and everywhere, it is important that you have decent understanding of how websites, hosting and other areas of online marketing work. Without a clear understanding in these areas, it will make it harder for you to use the following strategies.

But don’t worry. We have got that area covered too. Simply read one of our many advice guides in our Webmaster area and offer your website the best in affiliate results.

Strategy: "Blogs"

You have probably heard us mention blogging before, but it is an incredibly simple yet effective way of improving your website. Don’t believe us? We’ll prove it:

• It is free to create
• There are a variety of blogging styles to choose from – look around and you'll find a diversity of blogging services which can bring a different feature to the table
• It is flexible
• It is Search Engine friendly – and this is an important one to bear in mind. Blogs are essentially a content management system (CMS) which can be utilised to achieve higher rankings in search engines with none of the technicalities that comes with SEO.

'Okay' you’re saying, ‘blogs are great, but what content can I use?’ The answer to this one is simple too. You can literally do any of the following:

• Blogs could easily be described as being a type of diary. Here in one place you can comment on your progress with a product or a service for example, and at the same time talk about how you feel. Now whilst blogs may hold many similarities to a diary, there are some distinct differences between them. For one, blogs are written with the intention that someone will respond to your posts. It is a two-way diary that can grow with comments and responses.
• You can recycle our MoreNiche content articles and use them to create niche blogs. For example you can choose to focus within your blog on particular aspects related to the weight loss niche such as weight loss products, diets and exercise routines.
• You can turn your blog into a website. By including easy navigation and set up categories, your site can have the personal edge of a blog but all the extras that come with a website.

Which blog strategy works best?

The one we recommend you use is simple, but is highly effective. All you need to do is create a network of blogs, consisting of between 5 to 20 in total that focus on closely related topics and use low competition keywords.

Now what we mean by 'low competition' keywords are keywords that are either not highly searched for on Google or keywords that are 3-4 words long. Now it is important here that you are careful to not use keywords that are too highly searched for. Why? Because your site may be interpreted as spam by Google and as a result be taken off the web.

So by keeping instead to low search terms, you can keep your blog of Google’s radar whilst at the same time, experience great leads.

Tools for keyword research:

• KeywordElite is an incredibly useful desktop tool that can offer you a host of keyword research features. This tool essentially collects keywords on your behalf from various sources, and it is one we recommend. Used by top SEO and PPC marketers across the web, it can offer you credible results.
• WordTracker probably one of the most popular online keyword research services online. Using this tool you can acquire advanced keyword searches and suggestions for your website.

Now whilst we recommend that you use low keyword search terms, it is important that you keep your content enriched in keywords. Similarly you need to make sure that your blog links to other blogs and sites which carry these same keywords. By doing so you will be able to increase the number of visits to your blog, and watch as your clickthroughs grow.

Check out our MoreNiche linking guide for more details on how to do this.

Okay, now you know how to find the right keywords for your blog, the next step is to make sure that your blog is regularly updated, but not too much. On average it should be updated with 1-2 posts every 2 days. And this counts for all of your blogs. You need to keep them updated, so that your topics stay fresh in your visitors mind.

Once this is achieved, each of your blogs will need to get about 10 posts a week.

Now we know this may sound small, but this is only the start-off point. In about a month’s time you should be achieving 100 visits a day, and earning $500-$1,000 per month. And this too is only an average of what you can achieve.

Depending on the type of product niche you wish to talk about, you may find some of your blogs doing better than others, producing a higher number of visitors and posts.

Just remember to avoid using duplicate content if you do choose to incorporate content from our MoreNiche articles. This will affect your ability to create links.

If you are still not sure, read our MoreNiche guide on how to avoid duplicate content.

Strategy: "Mega-Site"

A Mega-site could easily be described as an approach that explores not only lower sub keywords such as the ones you will find in smaller content sites, but also high competition keywords, based on a variety of topics.

For example if you chose to focus on weight loss, your Mega-site would cover all topics that can possibly relate to this subject, for example quitting smoking, losing weight for your wedding or detoxing. But you can also explore more traditional avenues within your sites, and topics which are as simple as a comparison of different weight loss supplements on the market.

Whatever you choose, regular or unusual, using your Mega-site you will be able to delve into an assortment of categories and their leading sub categories.

Now we know the above strategy may sound complicated but it is easier than you think. All you need to do is try to use the following within your site:

• Keywords ensure that your website contains a selection of main keywords, their keyword categories and a larger group from its sub-subcategories;
• Subjects keep your topics and their categories related;
• Long tail Keywords alongside the keywords we mentioned above also try to include a long list of long tail keywords. These are essentially little keywords that are commonly found under the main topics;
• Topics keep the development of your main topics quick, so you can use them to fill your main categories;
• Extensive use of long tail articles using the long tail keywords we mentioned above, here you will need to create articles that use these words. This will allow you to optimize them fast and help you to build a couple of good links. Also by using this strategy, in just a few months time you will have 10’s of pages that are receiving first targeted traffic;
• Future as more long tail terms are being targeted, so will you see your traffic and links increase. But that is not all that will happen. You will also begin to achieve subcategory rankings and later, rankings in all the main categories.

Picture shows site structure with different category levels and pages.

Confused? No worries. Below is a table which clearly outlines what all these different categories mean:

• Category:
  weight loss
• Sub-Category:
  herbal weight loss pills
  best weight loss pills
  best weight loss pill
  cheap weight loss diet pill
  effective weight loss pill
  diet free weight loss pill
  
• Long Tail:
  best weight loss pills review
  top best weight loss pills
  best recommended weight loss pill
  best weight loss diet pills
  best weight loss diet pill

You've probably noticed in both tables that there are 3-4 levels, but this is not always strictly the case. You see long tail keywords for example can sometimes be split into even smaller categories – some ranging as high as 10 subcategories.

Let us explain more clearly using the following example of 'diet pills'.

Using this one word alone can give you dozens of keywords which you could use to make other long tails or subcategory levels.

So as you can clearly see, all this strategy primarily entails is the recovery of low searched, low optimized keywords and the incorporation of them into a diversity of topics (unusual and traditional).

Once done, they will be optimized into driving thousands of visitors to your website, beginning with your long tail pages down to your main product pages.

Recommended Keyword Research Tools

• KeywordElite is an incredibly useful desktop tool that can offer you a host of keyword research features. Using this tool it essentially collects keywords on your behalf from various sources. And it is one we recommend. Used by the top SEO and PPC marketers around, it can offer you credible results.
• WordTracker probably one of the most popular online keyword research services online. Using this tool you can acquire advanced keyword searches and suggestions for your website.

Strategy: "Diversification"

The word ‘diversification’ says it all. All this strategy does is work to attract visitors to one of your many websites, using different topics and angles. In other words, it opens the product to all your visitors’ needs and desires, covering every possible angle that your product niche can offer.

Several products within one niche

Imagine a pyramid whose core structure is a big generic website. Now as this pyramid progresses upwards you will find smaller mini-sites that focus on smaller products. And so on and so forth. With us so far?

To put this image to you more clearly, below is an outline which details each section of this pyramid:

• Main site this covers everything: all the products available and all its methods. Now to do this you have got 2 choices. On the one hand, you could use a mini-site that overviews each of the topics or alternatively you could use a mega site, with mini-sites to accompany it.
• Category sites these are basically several sites that accompany each product category. For example one could be a site that offers tips on dieting; another could discuss the complications of surgery, whilst another one could discuss exercise routines. But overall each of these site link back to weight loss.
• Last level this is an easy one. Here you do an in-depth review site for each of the products;

How to diversify within one product?

Let’s say for this question we examine the weight loss market. In this one niche alone you can create a diversity of differently themed websites:

• General weight loss
• Weight loss for men
• Weight loss for women
• Weight loss for older people
• Importance of keeping in good shape
• Exercise and weight loss
• Dieting tips towards successful weight loss
• Obesity in children relating to problems at school and in society

Plus many, many more. But as you can see each of these sites targets a different aspect of weight loss market, which in their own right will experience great search results.

Other topics this niche could include are: regions/location, eating habits, countries, nations, races etc.

Visual diversification

This sways away from the topics themselves and explores visual diversification within the website, such as web design, navigation, colours and the websites layout.

For example if you chose to change the navigation of the website, you would experiment with its left and right hand navigation; would introduce two side menu navigations, as well incorporate a heavy graphical approach.

Approach diversification

For more of a clear impression on how to diversity your visitors experience with your website, you could do a/an:

• Independent user's website
• Independent doctor's website
• Independent research group
• Testimonial collection site
• FAQ site
• Discussion forum / community website
• Store / catalogue website

Strategy: "Dominate the market"

This strategy is slightly different to the ones we mentioned before. In this scenario you create small niche sites that target very tight keyword groups (5-10 keywords) from long tail.

You could say that this works on the opposite end of the scale to mega-site links. Here each website only targets small keyword on its homepage so that 95% of all their linking activities are oriented towards the homepage.

To create this type of website, you will need 5-10 pages to start off with before introducing more content and keywords over time.

And all it takes to get these mini-sites ranking in the top 10 is roughly 20-50 links. We know, incredible, but by incorporating these into your strategy you can essentially funnel traffic back to your review sites, feeder sites and even your main affiliate website, all in one go. So what do you need to do to put this strategy into action? Simply do the following:

First Phase:

• In-depth keyword research on your chosen product niche
• Taking these keywords and turning them into realistic keyword groups

Second Phase:

• Pick 10 sites and start preparing content for them
• Register their domain names (to increase your safety, make sure you vary their registration information as well as their registrars)
• Find 3 or 4 hosting companies to host these sites
• Launch your sites and check everything is working
• Start link building (see MoreNiche guide on link building)
• Repeat the entire process for your next batch of sites

If you have got the resources to do so, you could eventually build a large network of mini-sites that over time will become a huge part of the market.

The one big disadvantage of using this strategy is cost. From acquiring domain names to paying for hosting, this can all build up. For this reason we recommend that you always do your research first, and make sure that there is a market for your mini-site. If there is then proceed to create your mini-site using the above guide.

On the plus side, mini-sites are a great way to attract search engines. They may not get higher rankings due to their low keyword search terms, but you can overcome this through the use of outsourcing. From content to web design to even link campaigns, you can turn this around.

Now if you do choose to represent a weight loss product, you might find it difficult to come up with 100 new, unique sites whose topics differ to all the rest currently available. But here is the thing. As such a large product niche, you will find that there are already millions of similar sites just like yours.

So if you examine it from this perspective, adding another 100 will make no real difference to its search engine indexes. All you need to be wary of is that this may affect your bottom line.

Strategy: "Conspiracy"

We know this strategy sounds suspicious in its title, but that is simply not the case. All it actually means is that visitors are given several choices which as a result end up with them buying through your affiliate codes.

How would it look in practical life?

Still unsure of what we mean? The best way to describe it would be through an example. Consider for a moment this scenario. Your site as it stands is ranking No.1 for a keyword that generates 5 sales a week/month. But what if you could create a few more websites that rank in positions 2 and 3 as well?

Well you can. Think about it. You already know the strategies to get to No.1, so getting your accompanying sites to rank just as high should be possible. And by doing so, you will have a stronger footing on search engines which will be great for creating more leads.

All you need to remember is to keep your sites diverse enough that the content doesn't look duplicated. That a way when a visitor comes to visit these sites, they will be left with the impression that this is a different website written by a different person.

Another point to take note of is to host these sites with different hosts. You need to avoid any connection due to their similarity, as this could result in all your websites being taken off the web.

And lastly it is important that you remember that one site can rank for several keywords at the same time. For this reason it is important to maximise their exposure on search engines to keep all your sites ranking high and filling those top 3 spots.