What’s all this about thin affiliates?

In a "leaked" document reportedly coming from Google, the big G gave guidelines to human spam-busters on how to classify affiliate sites as thin or not.

A "thin affiliate" is basically one that creates pages with the sole intention of ranking well and directing traffic to an affiliated merchant site, without adding anything unique to the World Wide Web.

It seems that the algorithms at Google HQ are no longer the only ranking factors involved in where your pages end up in the search results. Now, human beings are scouring the Internet looking for sites to penalise.

Some have called it a hoax, others have seen it as the end of affiliate marketing, but if you actually read this report, you will hopefully see what I see:

(a) Affiliate sites are here to stay

(b) If you do things right, you will end up with less competition from other affiliate marketers (since so many will ignore this report and continue to churn out thin sites created with little or no focus on the visitor).

This report was apparently given out to people chosen to work for "Google’s spam department" as "Raters" - maybe they should be called ratters ;o).

That’s right, Google apparently has hired people around the world to do web searches, look at the results in Google, and identify those sites that Google should penalize for Spam.

With Google doing such weird stuff lately, and some affiliate sites disappearing without trace, things are starting to make sense.

This "leaked" report details what the raters should look out for, what to label as spam, and what not to label as spam. I am sure that you agree, whether this document is real or not, it is certainly something we should all look at carefully.

Below, I have highlighted the main points of the report. I hope to show you exactly what you need to do to stay on the right side of these "Raters" and of course Google itself.

Before we begin, I just want to say that I don’t think any of this is new. I think that what Google is trying to achieve here is what they have always tried to achieve - relevant quality results without spam. I think that Google’s filters only go so far, and Google realise this. There is nothing as reliable as a human for determining quality, so hiring people to search out spam was the next logical step forward.

OK, let’s look the main points.

(a) the first thing Google instructs its raters to do is read and learn the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

You can read the full guidelines here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Let’s have a quick look and see what Google have to say about what makes a site good.

Summary of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines:

Under the section Design and Content Guidelines, there are some useful tips on how you link the pages of your site together.

GOOGLE: "Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link."

This should make sense. If a page has no links to it, the search engines cannot find it. In addition, links pointing to pages help that page rank well (because of the influence of link text).

GOOGLE: "Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages."

A sitemap is there to help users, but the search engines use them to find new pages. When you add a new page to your site, add a link on the sitemap, and the search engines will find it. If you want the spiders coming back to your sitemap frequently, consider adding an RSS feed to your sitemap. Last week I mentioned some software that makes adding a feed to your site very simple, so there is no excuse for not using the technology available to you.

GOOGLE: "Create a useful, information-rich site and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content."

Here we have a reference to content. Quality content is the way forward. Page generators that create 1000s of pages with no unique content are struggling to survive.

GOOGLE: "Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it."

An invitation to use primary and secondary keywords.

GOOGLE: "Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images."

An indication here how highly Google ranks keywords, especially in text links. For a well-optimized site, I do not recommend using fancy image navigation buttons built with JavaScript. Good old-fashioned text links will help your site get indexed better, and rank higher.

GOOGLE: "Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate. "

Reading between the lines - don’t stuff keywords. Write these tags naturally and with ALT tags, make sure they reflect the image (since these tags are used by blind visitors). The title tag is very important, so do use your primary keyword in the title. However, be careful with ALT tags. Keyword stuffing is likely to result in a penalty.

GOOGLE: "Check for broken links and correct HTML."

Do you have any broken links in your site? These can cause problems. Additionally, you should verify your HTML using a service like HTML Validator. They actually have a free version.

http://www.htmlvalidator.com/

Invalid HTML could be affecting your rankings.

In the Technical Guidelines, there are a few good tips as well:

GOOGLE: "Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as Javascript, cookies, session ID’s, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site. "

Speaks for itself really. A lot of new webmasters like to load their pages with fancy animations, scripts and eye-candy. Avoid them unless absolutely necessary.

Here is an interesting point:

GOOGLE: "Once your site is online, submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html"

Many marketers including myself never submit sites at this URL. My advice here is to add a link from a page already in Google, and let Google find the site for itself. I don’t think I have submitted a page at this URL for over 2 years, and my new sites get found within days, using this linking technique.

GOOGLE: "Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!"

Since directories are highly valued by Google, try to get your site listed in them. These directories will provide a quick route to getting indexed, as well as provide valuable PR and link reputation for your site. The way Google probably sees directories listings is that if the site is there, it is quality (since places like DMoz are edited by humans).

If you don’t read all of the Google guidelines, you should at least print out the Quality Guidelines - Basic principles section.

GOOGLE: "Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users, or present different content to search engines than you display to users."

Here is a clear warning to webmasters. Don’t use tricks, and don’t over-optimize your pages.

As I always say "if it makes you nervous, don’t do it".

Google themselves say something very similar here:

GOOGLE: "Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?"

Another bomb-shell for many:

GOOGLE: "Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighbourhoods" on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."

This is a clear indication that Google does not like reciprocal links. In addition, there is a warning there that linking to a penalised site can cause your own site to get penalised. A site that is carefully controlling their linking, will be able to spot bad sites, and avoid penalties. A site that links to all and sundry wont, and are therefore likely to get into trouble.

GOOGLE: "Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our terms of service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google."

This guideline warns against software that automatically checks rankings or other automated tasks. If you are using a rank checker, make sure that software uses the Google API key (which Google introduced to help developers create Google-friendly software) which can then check Google safely. This API Key limits the number of automated queries the software can do, and keeps you within safe "Google limits".

The Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations sections should act as your checklist of things not to do. Here is the list:

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

Don’t employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.

Don’t send automated queries to Google.

Don’t load pages with irrelevant words.

Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

Keeping within Google’s guidelines is so important if you want your site listed. I highly recommend you print out the entire set of guidelines and read them again and again until you are familiar with them.

OK, back to the Google raters.

Google have told their raters to pay particular attention to:

(b) "The distinction between pages designed for human viewers and those set up for search engine robots"

and

(c) "The specific enumerated manipulative techniques for which sites may be ‘punished’ by Google"

You can see a lot of pages in Google’s index that have been setup purely for search engine robots, or pages that are designed to do nothing more than increase your rankings of other pages.

These are typically pages that hold no interest to human visitors, and are merely there to either manipulate your own rankings, or make revenue from Adsense (or affiliate programs).

Techniques here might include "hidden text", keyword stuffing, pages containing search engine results (like TE pages), pages that only contain RSS feeds and little else, cloaked pages and doorway pages.

If your page is not interesting for a visitor, and is only setup to get Adsense clicks, or boost rankings of other pages, then these are the pages Google considers spam.

Do this test:

Remove all income generating code from a page (Adsense, affiliate links etc).

Then ask yourself this:

"Is this page still of value to a human visitor?"

If you truthfully answer yes, then you are OK. If you answer no, then that page would be considered spam by a rater. Later in this course, we look at a more comprehensive checklist to see whether your pages are thin or not.

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To read more about how you can avoid being labelled as a "thin" affiliate, download your free copy of "Creating ‘Fat’ Affiliate Sites".
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The affiliate has a choice. They can either work with multiple merchants, or they can work with an affiliate network. So why should a marketer want to work with an Affiliate Network?

The affiliate has a choice. They can either work with multiple merchants, or they can work with an affiliate network. So why should a marketer want to work with an Affiliate Network?

I remember a friend told me a story awhile back. He had built a small website and had signed up to become an affiliate at a stack of different affiliate programs related to the topic of that site. A few weeks after he had set up the site including links and banners from multiple affiliate programs, he turned his attention to other business interests and lost interest in the site. A few months later, he noticed that a few checks had started arriving from the affiliate programs he had joined up with. Not large checks, but amounts for a few dollars here and there. That was his first problem – as he was living outside of the USA, lots of small amounts result in lots of bank charges. (Which makes me ask - Why can’t all countries allow affiliates to bank checks at NO CHARGE?) Nevertheless, the checks continued to come in, and although some of them were posted on his wall as they were so small he couldn’t bank them, he wasn’t complaining as he was making money he hadn’t expected. It turned out that his site had ranked high up on specific keywords in a major search engine, and he was receiving a fair amount of targeted traffic for free. A few months after that he decided to log into all the affiliate accounts he had registered with, and noticed that some of them had not paid him as the amounts were too small, some of them hadn’t paid although they should have, and some even showed that they had sent him amounts that he didn’t recall receiving checks or EFT or paypal or any other payments for!

So how does working with an affiliate network prevent this from happening, and is this the only reason to work with an affiliate network?

A good affiliate network has a number of different offers which the affiliates can promote, and nearly all the affiliate networks consolidate the amounts the affiliates earn from the various campaigns. This means that the affiliates receive a CONSOLIDATED payment rather than many smaller ones. It also makes reconciling the payments easier, as you simply log into one affiliate network, and can see a summary of each of the campaigns you have promoted, how much you have earned from them, a summary of how much you have earned overall, and how much the affiliate network has paid you to date.

Also, once you work with one campaign in an affiliate network, the other campaigns work in a similar if not identical way – the tracking is the same method, the place you pull the creatives from is the same, the way you check your stats is the same – and nearly always, all of this can be achieved by logging into one backend site rather than many different sites.

So now you are working with one log-in, where you can really get to understand the system.

However, even with the best of affiliate networks, things go wrong – but with an affiliate network, you would be allocated an affiliate manager, who will help you sort out any issues you encounter. Not 50 different affiliate managers – one for each campaign you are running, as would be the case if each merchant was a standalone merchant with their own affiliate program – but one affiliate manager for all the campaigns. And by building up a relationship with your affiliate manager, when you do need answers, you have one person to turn to.

Of course, once you become a professional super whaling affiliate (the type that lies on the beach while the money pours in – HAS ANYONE REALLY ACHIEVED THIS? Watch this space for a future story about the affiliate beach goers!), you’ll need specific campaigns to promote, and that is why, even the best of affiliates belong to multiple affiliate programs and affiliate networks. But this presents even more problems.

So my advice when starting out is to choose one or 2 affiliate networks, become familiar with their system, build up a relationship with the affiliate manager, test out the different campaigns they have, and let them help you achieve the success and results you want to achieve.

Eric Edelstein is CEO of TrafficSynergy.com, an affiliate network that has consolidated payments, affiliate managers ready to help affiliates with any questions they might have, multiple offers, and a team that loves to lie on the beach (but only on weekends…with PDA’s). To find out more, visit http://www.TrafficSynergy.com.

Affiliate marketing is when a person sets ups a website with the purpose of driving traffic to another website in which they make a purchase or in some cases signup for something. The affiliate marketer is then rewarded with a commission which could either be a commission or a flat rate. When people think about getting into affiliate marketing they always tend to think porn, poker, and free ringtones. Those three areas have a lot of people making a lot of money but the competition in those areas are huge which is one reason not to get involved.

If you evaluate all three markets you will see their flaws. In regards to porn, there are many, many places on the internet to get it free, so in a lot of cases it may be difficult to get someone to click through a link and sign up. I also believe that signing up for a porn website is an impulse thing which is hard to depend on as an affiliate marketer. I regards to poker for an affiliate to get a bonus a player has to download the poker software, sign up, and make a deposit. In most cases I would think a person interested in playing poker would go directly to a poker site but that is not always the case. Poker can also be considered an impulse situation. In regards to ringtone, people are enticed by those banners that say free but in reality the ringtone is not free. Entering your phone number subscribes you to a ringtone subscription and once people realize that they do not sign up.

One of the biggest ways people try to take advantage of these campaigns is by using pay per click (PPC) to experiment in the end they only lose cash. Instead of focusing on those markets it would be easier to pursue niche markets preferably products. The reason products are better is because people can come to your site click through a link and get what they are looking for. In the other cases you depend on impulse buys which is not steady.

In sum focus on niche markets when doing affiliate marketing. It offers less competition, lower cost per click (CPC) rates, and it is a lot easier to increase search engine rank.

Andre Bias is the owner of the websites http://www.enlargementdeals.com, http://www.goodbyeacne.net, and http://www.inkjetdealz.com.

One of the little known secrets behind the success of many online affiliates is the fact that they spend a lot of time acquiring new skills and special knowledge all the time.

Think about it for a moment, there is no known SEO college or University and yet we have quite a number of leading SEO experts. In fact the truth is that to be a successful online affiliate you either need to be an SEO expert or a marketing expert specializing in at least one successful online marketing technique. So where did most people pick up their valuable SEO skills? They simply invested the time and money in learning them. Time in reading and absorbing all the free information they could find online on the subject and then also by investing in important ebooks and online courses.

Most folks forget that the basic offline principles of life and business still apply online. That is to be a lawyer or doctor, one needs to invest heavily in time and money to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills needed to practice the profession. The same is even truer about online affiliates. There are some key skills, notably those to do with traffic generation and marketing, that an online affiliate has to pick up pretty quick to stand a chance of ever being successful.

Learn more about the best home business opportunity from a blogger who rakes in thousands of dollars… and growing from their home business. Also get the bloggers’ amazing free report How I used only free articles marketing to get thousands of hits daily at my site.

If you think affiliate marketing is easy money, think again. You have to work just as hard at affiliate marketing as you would for any other website. Some get involved in affiliate marketing thinking they can just set up a one page website with a link and they will start raking in cash. Some people think that they will convert at a one to one ratio for every click when that is not the case. Many don’t take the time to research markets, select their keywords, apply good content, optimize their web pages, and set advertising budgets. Those are the people that fail.

If you get involved in affiliate marketing then you should try to avoid throwing up a crappy site because it will not work. Take your time and research your market. See how many search results there are for your main keywords. See how many searches per month your keywords get by looking at the overture search tool. After that task is completed take a few months to optimize your website for search engine. The reason that should be done is because just relying on pay per click (PPC) can be very expensive. You would be better off waiting until you are getting some search engine traffic.

The main things in affiliate marketing are to not rush into it. Do your research and do not just rely on PPC advertising. Doing so will only waste your time and money and leave you frustrated in the end.

Andre Bias is the owner of the websites http://www.enlargementdeals.com, http://www.goodbyeacne.net, and http://www.inkjetdealz.com.

The best online affiliates are those who manage to figure out a way to generate significant traffic to their sites.

There is no doubt that some of the best online affiliates today are bloggers. Bloggers have proved to be really creative and resourceful when it comes to generating serious regular traffic to their sites and also to their affiliate sites.

It is really amazing how most bloggers have joined the ranks of the best online affiliates by using only articles marketing or promotional articles as their sole traffic generation tool. Ranging from link baiting articles to simple keyword rich articles posted at their blogs and also at leading article directories, bloggers have used content to generate huge traffic to their sites. Link-baiting articles, as the name suggests are articles that are created with the purpose of attracting as many inbound one way links as possible from other leading bloggers and sites.

It is just amazing what a good link-baiting article can achieve. One such article can actually generate thousands of high traffic links in a few short hours. Quite something when most webmasters have to sweat plenty of blood and tears to get just 100 lousy links. This not only dramatically improves the position of the site in search engine rankings but it also creates huge regular traffic coming through those links for the best online affiliate.

Learn more about the best home business opportunity from a blogger who rakes in thousands of dollars… and growing from their home business. Also get the bloggers’ amazing free report How I used only free articles marketing to get thousands of hits daily at my site.

Internet Marketing is a trend that is quickly gaining popularity. If you haven’t heard about it, let me quickly fill you in. In any business arrangement, there will be buyers and sellers coming together to exchange products and services for money. Sellers typically would set up shop and have their products on display for sellers to buy (The author is aware that not all sellers have a brick-and-mortar business, but we will consider this to be the ‘typical’ business setup for the purpose of explaining internet marketing). The shop was the place or venue where business was done – buyers usually knew where to go to find what they wanted. But in this day and age of the Internet, the way business is being done has changed.

The Internet has provided a way for buyers and sellers to connect online. A person in Australia wanting to buy a product selling in the United States, can now do so without the buyer and seller ever having to meet face to face. The Internet has become the virtual venue where business takes place. With more and more people getting connected online, the potential customer base is mind-boggling!

Despite the potential for having a huge customer base, a seller still has the challenging task of making their products known throughout the Internet; and, also dealing with the competition. This has allowed innovative trends to emerge in the field known as Internet Marketing.

A system has been developed that allows sellers to leverage the help of what are called ‘affiliates’, who are business-oriented people that help market the seller’s product. The affiliate is in turn compensated each time a sale is made as a result of the referral.

It’s a real business opportunity that can potentially allow a person to make a very wealthy income. The author himself sees the potential riches one can make because of this phenomenon, and knows the importance of jumping in before the wave of this trend passes. From his experience he’s learned that, in order to be successful, it does take lots of work and persistence. But, the payoff can be well worth it.

To learn more about how to start on the pathway to wealth, check out this webpage: http://www.pathwaytowealth.info

© 2006 Gentaro L. Oka

Gentaro L. Oka is a freelance writer and an independent affiliate marketer.

There are various lead generating programs all over the internet. Some of them are free of charge while others will cost a one-time or monthly fee. These programs can be found as Co-Registration sites, FAA sites, Guaranteed Sign Up Programs, Joint Ventures and others may be offered on Affiliate Program sites.

Recently Joint Ventures have been all the rage. It is true that if you participate in a joint venture as a contributor that you may increase your subscriber list exponentially. Some promoters have increased their subscriber lists by 700+ subscribers on a single joint venture. If you come across one, which should be very easy to do — and if resources allow, become a contributor.

Co-Registration sites will provide you with leads usually for a monthly fee. You can load these leads into your auto-responder series. Usually they are are not double opt-in leads. They can be rather effective and are costly if you are on a tight budget. Many of the heavy-hitters use Co-Registration leads successfully!

FAA sites are not as effective as they once were. You are allowed to place your advertisement on your site and it will be mailed out to your leads that are supplied by those who have posted to the FAA. The leads will either be mailed out by yourself on your personal mailer or from the FAA sites server; as this enables you to avoid spam complaints by by-passing your ISP. You usually have an option as to which way you prefer to have your leads delivered daily. Most often you can join Free or Pro.

Guaranteed Sign Up Programs offer leads to you for a fee — usually a one-time fee for a certain amount of leads. However, I have read online that these leads do not come from the most reliable source. I have read that some of these people are paid to sign-up and that because of this they are not usually active candidates in promoting your programs. Actually, I don’t know how true this is. I have never used this type of lead. However, it may be worth your while to research this type of lead further before investing your hard earned cash!

You can also generate your own leads by creating lead capture pages, newsletters, reports and articles — most of which create opt-in mailing lists that you can promote all of your back-end products to.

If you are promoting an affiliate program(s) it is imperative that you obtain leads in order to successfully promote them. If you can find an affiliate program that offers lots of lead generating tools you’ll be a step ahead! When looking for an affiliate program to promote try to find a program that offers some of the following tools.

Auto-responder, leads, weekly commission payout, start page rotator, training center, html tutorial, website templates, email accounts, search engine submit, residual income, doorway page generators, e-book library, redirect urls, etc. These are tools that will add to your bottom line and help you become a more successful online entrepreneur.

‘Empowerism’ is an affiliate program that offers all of the above tools and more. I have found this program to be very helpful as it provides a lead generating program and many tools that are available to you with a small membership fee while offering many perks!

Try some of the lead generating programs offered here. Many affiliates are making online incomes by utilizing one or more of these marketing methods. Try experimenting with a few of these types of lead generating programs and you will see that your affiliate paychecks will start to roll in on a more consistent basis.

Sharyce Arciaga is the Author of this article and can provide Additional information on How You Can Earn Money With The Best Lead Generating Affiliate Program Online! Click Here to Discover "Empowerism" You can visit her website — Work At Home Ideas & Opportunities at http://www.sharyceonline.com or Subscribe to her Money Making Tips Newsletter by sending a blank e-mail to Sharyceonline@getresponse.com

What is a healthy cash flow?

I have read numerous articles about cash flow over the last few months and to be honest they bore me to tears. They are generally written by ‘’experts’’ or ‘’accountants’’ who think in numbers and that is exactly how they write. Don’t get me wrong, we need accountants and they are a vital part of my life but what is a healthy cash flow from Mr Joe Average’s point of view?

To me it is really having enough money in your bank account or in your secret stash that you are not forever worrying about what you can and can’t do with your life. That to me seems to be a pretty good definition of cash flow. Having sufficient income to be able to go to the movies, go to the international sporting contests you would like to see, wherever they might be. To be able to do the things you would really like to do!!!

Being able to buy a really nice car and insure it fully comprehensively, parking it in your double garage next to your spouses really nice car, where you are living in relative comfort without the fear of them being damaged, in any form.

A healthy cash flow allows you to travel when you want to, to where you want to, taking with you those you care for and love, if that is your desire.

What if you are single? What does a healthy cash flow mean to a single person these days? When I was single I managed to travel to approximately 15 countries and if I had been able to have sufficient income then I would have seen a lot more than I did and I would have a lot more photos to remember my journeying too.

Today’s average backpacker is a pretty intelligent person and they can see a bargain, are pretty sharp in spotting good deals and are discerning of the cheats. The one thing they don’t generally have is a healthy cash flow. They have income in their accounts but they have to work where they end up living for a while, so they can make ends meet, without touching their ‘’travel money.’’

If I had found one of the numerous ways to make a steady income, to have a regular dependable cash flow, without working 60 hours a week for it, then my travels would have been absolutely brilliant and extended. How many of you reading this article can relate to this predicament? How many of you have been in the situation of having to go back to work, to work behind a bar, to wait on tables, while everyone else is having a great time? How many of you have had to take agency jobs that you really didn’t want to but you really needed the cash flow, so your savings could be spent on your holiday?

There are many ways today to have a good regular cash flow and this generally comes in the form of residual income, income that keeps coming into your bank account over and over again, for work that you generally have done once. There are many mlm, network marketing and internet marketing companies around but who do you go to? Which companies are reputable? How many hours a week, per day do you have to work to make residual income, so that you can enjoy the lifestyle you aspire to, so that you have sufficient travel income?

Can I give you some really good advice, advice I give you freely to do with as you choose.

A healthy cash flow is one that is continuous.
A healthy cash flow will come slowly and last for a long time if it is residual.
A healthy cash flow is one that will take away a lot of your every day concerns.
A healthy cash flow will allow you to do things you only ever dreamed of.
A healthy cash flow is one that gives you multiple choices in life.
A healthy cash flow will require you to plan and save and invest wisely.
A healthy cash flow ensures you become rich in soul as you experience more of life.
A healthy cash flow will allow you to see life from a different perspective.
A healthy cash flow is empowering.
A healthy cash flow will bring its own challenges if used unwisely.
A healthy cash flow is going to bring you rewards if used wisely.
A healthy cash flow will allow you to explore life more fully.

I challenge you to explore life from a different angle, think laterally, think from outside the box, think for yourself and ask yourself the one big question…

What could I do with a healthy cash flow?

Colin is a part time Affiliate Marketer and if you would like his Free Report on ‘’Earning A Healthy Cash Flow'’ send a blank email to cthomson.hcf@info.trafficwave.net and receive your report today.

Cast your mind back several years, when the term ‘multiple-streams of income’ became an established part of the online marketing vocabulary and web-entrepreneurs began launching networks of mini-sites to sell affiliate products.

Fast-forward to today and the concept of developing a number of income sources is still very relevant. Good website businesses constantly innovate, looking for new ways to make money. However setting up networks of mini-sites can be an expensive and time consuming process, so why not consider buying a single generic domain name and set up a virtual network of mini-sites using sub-folders?

Setting Up Your Virtual Network

Developing your virtual network is very easy. Once you have bought a generic domain name, you simply create a series of sub-folders for each of your affiliate programs. If one of your mini-sites is going to be used to sell insurance products, name the folder ‘insurance’. Then create your insurance web page and save it in the insurance folder as ‘index.htm’ or ‘index.html’. When you launch your insurance mini-sites, the address will be www.genericdomain/insurance.

Choosing Your Generic Name

Choosing your generic domain name can be difficult. Ideally you will want a short and simple name that does not align the website to any specific market or product. Unfortunately most of the short, single word domain names are already taken, so you might want to make up a name or use a mixture of words and numbers, such as ‘genericname888.com’.

Advantages of Sub-Folders

There are many advantages to using sub-folders:

Lower Cost

Using a single domain name will significantly reduce hosting and domain registration costs, especially if you are building a network of 20 or more mini-sites to sell your products. If you decide to use the same page design across your virtual network, it will also be possible to reduce development costs.

Marketing Advantages

Launching a new website on a shoestring is a tough business nowadays. Pay-per-click advertising can be prohibitive to small businesses and the Google Sandbox will prevent new websites from obtaining search engine rankings that will deliver sufficient amounts of traffic.

However, launching a new mini-site on your virtual network will be much easier as the page will be part of an established website and you will be able to avoid the sandbox. Building links to each of your virtual mini-sites will not only help that particular page receive more traffic, but also help improve the overall visibility of your whole site.

Lack of Suitable Domain Names

Domain names are a scarce resource and it will become increasingly difficult to keep finding suitably memorable and descriptive domains for each mini-site. With sub-folders, it is possible to choose any name you like for your mini-sites, although it helps if the generic domain name you choose is relatively short.

Drawbacks of Sub-Folders

Of course, there are some disadvantages to using sub-folders. Offering a diverse range of products from one website may confuse your target audience and you are less likely to innovate with different designs for each of your mini-sites. If a certain affiliate product really takes off, you may want to launch a new website to specifically sell more of that product; however the use of sub-folders still remains the most cost effective way to develop multiple-streams of income.

Want to become a super affiliate? Check out the Affiliate Marketing hub for the links, resources, articles and guides that will set you on the path to affiliate success — BizHubz.com - The number one for business advice