Niche website ideas

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Niche website ideas

Associate Programs Newsletter #220

Lots of good stuff for you today...

CONTENTS:

1. Here's an idea for a niche web site
2. Nifty solution solves three ClickBank problems
3. LookSmart promises massive bonuses and "no risk"
4. "Prospects list" of specialized super affiliates
5. New tool for Amazon associates
6. Whoops! Marketer loses 18,300 subscriber list
7. Overture suggestions can be a bit misleading
8. Publish without spam complaints
9. Affiliate managers: Is your program still listed?
10. Ever thought of promoting binoculars?
11. Rupert tops $200,000 sales mark
12. Are you new to affiliate programs? Start here
13. Useful new resource: Michael Wong's web log
14. Thought for today: Affiliate marketing

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1. Here's an idea for a niche web site
=============================================

Are you looking for an idea for a new web site covering a niche topic many people are likely to overlook?

You could promote products that prevent bad breath - and earn lifetime commissions.

"I think we've got a pretty good business model," says Mark Fiala of California Breath Clinics.

"We do about $150,000 per month online which accounts for about 40% of the company revenue. And the real beauty of what we do is we sell consumable products that prey upon an emotional fear people have (bad breath)...

"The associate program is lifetime commissions, 20% on first purchase and 12% on purchases for life. The tracking is rock-solid (we use MyAffiliateProgram plus backend database tracking). I'm also starting to pay 10 cents per ebook download in addition to the revenue on sales - but I'm moving slowly on this to make sure I'm still making money and people don't abuse
it."

Mark says the average sale is $67.

"But this number is a little misleading. We sell Bonus-Paks to our existing customers for anywhere from $100 to $144 which helps to bump up the average.

"The average sale for a new customer is about $45 (don't know for sure, haven't figured that one out yet).

"The other stat that is key is how much money people spend with us per year. A good customer spends an average of $380 a year with us. An average customer spends around $210 a year.

With lifetime commissions, that could add up nicely.

Learn more about it here:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/sweet-breath

[UPDATE 2011: The affiliate program details have changed, but solving a problem by promoting a sweet breath is still a very good idea.]

======================================================
2. Nifty solution solves three ClickBank problems
======================================================

The normal ClickBank affiliate linking system has three disadvantages, says CGI whizz Will Bontrager, who has come up with a way of overcoming them.

* Disadvantage for ClickBank affiliates:

Others who are also ClickBank affiliates can easily substitute your nickname for theirs whenever they are ready to buy.

* Disadvantage for both ClickBank affiliates and ClickBank merchants:

If the merchant has more than one product, each with its own product page, the referral may be
required to click another link or two before finding the right product page.

* Problem for ClickBank merchants:

The usual method of linking does nothing to boost site ranking in search engines.

Will has designed one solution for all three problems - and is generously giving it away.

In this article he explains his solution:

http://willmaster.com/possibilities/archives/wmp20030325001.shtml

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3. LookSmart promises massive bonuses and "no risk"
==============================================

LookSmart Australia has launched an affiliate program, offering $20 for each SmartListing product you help LookSmart sell - https://www.looklistings.com.au/sl/lsa/affiliate.html - and
trying to lure you with a promise of bonuses of up to $20,000.

"The SmartListings Affiliate Program offers a no-risk partnership..." LookSmart says.

No risk? Don't believe it.

If you promote LookSmart you risk harming your reputation.

If you're thinking of joining this affiliate program, go to Google and do a search for "looksmart +scumware".

Not recommended.

==================================
4. "Prospects list" of specialized super affiliates
==================================

Neil Durrant has compiled a "prospects list" which should be useful for affiliate managers seeking super affiliates.

"It's a very simple idea," says Neil. "There are numerous affiliates who promote offers (mainly consumer focused) using merchants' coupon codes and 'discount offers'.

"These affiliates are usually very good performers and some of the more established coupon code sites benefit from substantial traffic.

"The 'prospects list' is designed to not only illustrate to the affiliate manager the importance of working with this segment of affiliates but provide the initial legwork in finding the appropriate sites to contact."

Neil is worried that some people might be tempted to use his list to send junk mail.

As a result, the prospects list doesn't include email addresses. Instead it has a direct URL to the "contact us" page or a link to a whois lookup for that domain.

You can learn more about the prospects list here:

[UPDATE: The prospect list has disappeared.]

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5. New tool for Amazon associates
================================

Android Technologies has a created a program called Tarantula that helps you find the URLs for Amazon's Browse Nodes.

Robert Oschler of Android Technologies says Browse Nodes are one of the most popular links Amazon associates like to put on their sites, but are very hard to find because Amazon provides no central repository of them.

Here's a link to the Tarantula download page:

http://www.androidtechnologies.com/html/tarantula_.html

There's no charge - you're not even asked for your e-mail address.

The company also makes a web page designer "that makes the creation of Amazon web sites drastically easier", Robert says.

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6. Whoops! Marketer loses 18,300 subscriber list
=============================================

Take pity on this guy...

Internet marketer Ian Herculson lost his whole list of 18,300 subscribers when his web host's server crashed last month.

All that work down the drain.

If that ever happened to me, I hope other marketers would lend a hand.

You can help Ian get back on his feet by subscribing to his ezine:

http://www.TheGuruMarketer.com

It won't cost you anything and he'll give you three bonuses.

When you get his newsletter, don't just read his words. Look at how Ian is using an autoresponder to promote affiliate products.

There's plenty to learn here.

===============================================
7. Overture suggestions can be a bit misleading
===============================================

In my article Keywords: Are you jumping to wrong conclusions? I mentioned that "boot program yahoo" was searched for 4,000 times at Overture.

As alert reader Mark Fiala points out, that's not strictly accurate. The Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool -
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ - lists key phrases alphabetically, not how they are typed in.

Mark has a bad breath prevention web site. "Overture says that 'bad breath cure' is searched for 1385 times. This is actually everybody who searched for 'bad breath cure' plus 'cure bad
breath' plus the other four permutations which I'm sure very few people type in," Mark says.

"In your case, 'boot programs yahoo' could be 'yahoo boot programs', 'yahoo progams boot', etc.

"Maybe you already knew this but it wasn't clear from your article, so I just thought I'd chip in my two cents."

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8. Publish without spam complaints
===============================================

Writer-marketer Paul Myers has put together a piece of software called NewsMon that allows you to publish in any format, and avoid even the possibility of spam complaints or blocked issues
when using it.

Dozens of newsletter publishers have already signed up to try this.

It won't cost you anything and you don't have to abandon your existing newsletter distribution method.

http://www.newsmon.com

===============================================
9. Affiliate managers: Is your program still listed?
===============================================

As I reported recently, hackers attacked my web host and AssociatePrograms.com ended up with a backup that was about a month old.

At a guess, 100 or so affiliate programs were lost from the directory.

Please take a few moments and check to see that your program is still listed.

Now would also be a good time to see if your listing needs updating.

Many thanks to those affiliate managers who have re-submitted their programs.

We've taken steps to try to stop this from ever happening again.

===============================================
10. Ever thought of promoting binoculars?
===============================================

Binoculars.com's sales are increasing by 40% a year as its site improves. It expects to generate $6 million in sales this year.

About 25% of its online sales are driven by affiliates. The site's conversion rate varies from 0.5% to 2%. The affiliate program pays 5% commission. The average order is $225.

Full story:

http://www.consumermarketingbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2306

There are lots of popular keywords involving binoculars.

It all adds up to a nice little niche for someone.

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11. Rupert tops $200,000 sales mark
===============================================

We're celebrating.

My assistant Rupert - who knew nothing about Internet marketing or affiliate programs when I hired him - has topped the $US200,000 sales mark in just over a year.

His first affiliate site has made over $49,000 in sales (net sales - after returns) and his second site $153,000.

Total: Over $202,000. We earn a commission on those sales.

That's not bad for a novice.

He did by using Site Build It! (SBI), a fabulous tool for creating search engine friendly web sites. You don't even have to know HTML to use it.

SBI analyzes your pages for you, it submits them to search engines, it sends out your ezine, it has a pay-per-click module...

In fact it does so many things it's a wonder someone hasn't asked for a coffee-making module.

I know, you want proof. Don't worry, it's coming.

I've dragged Rupert away from a new project he's working on and asked him to write his case study No.2. In it, he'll describe how his second affiliate site achieved sales of over $150,000 in
in its first year.

He chose a more competitive field this time, but once again, we were delighted to see how Site Build It! helped him get high rankings in Google.

His second case study will show screenshots of his keywords, Google rankings, where his traffic comes from, etc... all the stuff you want to know so that you can do this too.

Are you spinning your wheels, getting nowhere with affiliate programs? If so, go back and re-read Rupert's first affiliate case study.

This method works:

Web affiliate programs experiment 2

(I promised Rupert a bonus when he reached $1,000 a month in affiliate commissions from one of his sites. The bonus worked like a treat to motivate him. Perhaps affiliate managers ought to
try this tactic.)

===============================================
12. Are you new to affiliate programs? Start here
===============================================

The free "Affiliate Masters" course is simply superb. It tells you how to become an affiliate champion.

It's about 100 pages of excellent information, based on what successful affiliate marketers do.

Download the 10-day free course here:

Free Affiliate Masters Course

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13. Useful new resource: Michael Wong's web log
===============================================

Search engine optimizer Michael Wong has launched a newsy weblog, which covers a lot more than search engine stuff.