VOTE - Then let's discuss it!
Some super affiliates, gurus and ebooks advocate building a ton of niche sites. Others say focus your efforts on 1 - 5 primary niches and sites. So which direction should you take? <strong>Build wide</strong> with a variety of sites or <strong>go deep</strong> focusing on one site? Well it depends a lot on you and each strategy has it's own set of pitfalls and benefits.
At the end of this post, I'll tell you what I would do - knowing everything I know - if I ever decide to sell 5 Star and focus on doing affiliate marketing myself instead of helping others do it. (Which of course I do fantasize about from time to time.)
The following 3 super affiliates; <strong>Paul AKA SUP3RNOVA from UberAffiliate, David Fiske & James Martell</strong>, outline the pros and cons of each strategy.
<blockquote>UberAffiliate writes: <strong><a href="http://uberaffiliate.com/philosophy/diversification-or-domination/">Diversification or Domination?</a></strong>
<strong>Domination</strong> (one of his list of pros)
"More time to work on single projects. If you diversify, you may do SEO twice a week, affiliate marketing twice a week, and blogging twice a week. By focusing on just affiliate marketing, you get 3x the productivity and then 3x the results. It takes less time to test & find what works, less time to scale it."
<strong>Diversification</strong> (one of his pros)
"More potential to strike gold. The more things you do, the higher chances you have of stumbling upon something really nice. Believe it or not, many highly successful entrepreneurs got their kickstart to success by getting lucky. You could be the next one to find that completely random diamond in the rough and then scale it like crazy."</blockquote>
David Fiske also just wrestled with the pro and the cons in his blog post" <strong><a href="http://davidfiske.com/item/2007/10/one-large-sites-or-many-niche-sites">
One Large Site Or Many Niche Sites</a></strong> - "Here's a dilemma that gets banded around the interweb on a fairly regular basis: which is better - one large but fairly broad website or many small niche websites?"
<strong>James Martell</strong> (Super Affiliate, Acclaimed Guru, Author) at the 5 Star forum said:
<strong>?If I HAD to Start Over - What would I do Different???
I would build one site. Just one. ONE!"</strong>
Read the rest of what James had to say and find out his rationale.
<strong><a href="http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com/newbie-affiliate-forum/2251-if-you-had-start-over-what-would-you-do-different.html">If You HAD to Start Over - What would you do Differently???</a></strong>.
So what do I think? (I voted combo) If I ever decide to break away and just do affiliate marketing full-time, which direction would I go in? I would focus most of my energy on one niche site that would support several related categories of products. Example: a financial site with a generic enough name that I could have separate category sections. I already own BeyondLowRates.com so that could work. Then I could promote various offers like mortgage, insurance, loans, credit cards but everything I do would be focused on the finance niche, yet I could diversify within that niche. The other benefit of this strategy is for PPC quality score. A landing page I built for an auto loan would be on a tightly themed site that also offered auto insurance, other types of loans and articles centered around financial info.
<strong>NOTE:</strong> I wouldn't actually pick the finance niche. It would be WAY too boring for me & too competitive - it only served as a good example to illustrate the point.
<strong>So what do you think? Go wide or go deep???
VOTE IN THE POLL then VOICE YOUR OPINION!</strong>
Some super affiliates, gurus and ebooks advocate building a ton of niche sites. Others say focus your efforts on 1 - 5 primary niches and sites. So which direction should you take? <strong>Build wide</strong> with a variety of sites or <strong>go deep</strong> focusing on one site? Well it depends a lot on you and each strategy has it's own set of pitfalls and benefits.
At the end of this post, I'll tell you what I would do - knowing everything I know - if I ever decide to sell 5 Star and focus on doing affiliate marketing myself instead of helping others do it. (Which of course I do fantasize about from time to time.)
The following 3 super affiliates; <strong>Paul AKA SUP3RNOVA from UberAffiliate, David Fiske & James Martell</strong>, outline the pros and cons of each strategy.
<blockquote>UberAffiliate writes: <strong><a href="http://uberaffiliate.com/philosophy/diversification-or-domination/">Diversification or Domination?</a></strong>
<strong>Domination</strong> (one of his list of pros)
"More time to work on single projects. If you diversify, you may do SEO twice a week, affiliate marketing twice a week, and blogging twice a week. By focusing on just affiliate marketing, you get 3x the productivity and then 3x the results. It takes less time to test & find what works, less time to scale it."
<strong>Diversification</strong> (one of his pros)
"More potential to strike gold. The more things you do, the higher chances you have of stumbling upon something really nice. Believe it or not, many highly successful entrepreneurs got their kickstart to success by getting lucky. You could be the next one to find that completely random diamond in the rough and then scale it like crazy."</blockquote>
David Fiske also just wrestled with the pro and the cons in his blog post" <strong><a href="http://davidfiske.com/item/2007/10/one-large-sites-or-many-niche-sites">
One Large Site Or Many Niche Sites</a></strong> - "Here's a dilemma that gets banded around the interweb on a fairly regular basis: which is better - one large but fairly broad website or many small niche websites?"
<strong>James Martell</strong> (Super Affiliate, Acclaimed Guru, Author) at the 5 Star forum said:
<strong>?If I HAD to Start Over - What would I do Different???
I would build one site. Just one. ONE!"</strong>
Read the rest of what James had to say and find out his rationale.
<strong><a href="http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com/newbie-affiliate-forum/2251-if-you-had-start-over-what-would-you-do-different.html">If You HAD to Start Over - What would you do Differently???</a></strong>.
So what do I think? (I voted combo) If I ever decide to break away and just do affiliate marketing full-time, which direction would I go in? I would focus most of my energy on one niche site that would support several related categories of products. Example: a financial site with a generic enough name that I could have separate category sections. I already own BeyondLowRates.com so that could work. Then I could promote various offers like mortgage, insurance, loans, credit cards but everything I do would be focused on the finance niche, yet I could diversify within that niche. The other benefit of this strategy is for PPC quality score. A landing page I built for an auto loan would be on a tightly themed site that also offered auto insurance, other types of loans and articles centered around financial info.
<strong>NOTE:</strong> I wouldn't actually pick the finance niche. It would be WAY too boring for me & too competitive - it only served as a good example to illustrate the point.
<strong>So what do you think? Go wide or go deep???
VOTE IN THE POLL then VOICE YOUR OPINION!</strong>