Anatomy of a Niche Affiliate Site

Posted by Shawn Collins on September 18th, 2008 | 14 Comments

Thanks for visiting the Affiliate Tip blog. Subscribe to my RSS feed or enter your e-mail on the top left to get updates by e-mail.

This week on the Affiliate Thing show, I was solo, since Lisa Picarille is off at CJU. Rather than a typical show focused on the issues and news in affiliate marketing, this show was an overview on how I set up a niche site: Obama2.com.

Don’t worry – no politics here – it’s just the example where I talk about the nuts and bolts in starting the site, how I develop content, my promotion tools and techniques, and the way I go about choosing affiliate programs.

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Posted in Affiliate News, Affiliate Resources, Affiliate Thing

On September 18 @ 4:02 pm TomC said

Hi Shawn, that was an excellent post, very practical and useful – thanks!
I do have a question. How are you designing the logos (like Obama 2.0 title) and working with photos and images. I'm a newbie recently getting started and just purchased Adobe Elements 4.0 for that (photoshop looked like I'd need to go back to school). Any suggestions or idea?

Thanks
Tom
reply to this comment
On September 18 @ 5:36 pm Shawn Collins said

Hi Tom -

I don't really have any graphic experience at all – the “logo” in the header of obama2.com is a font that was in Adobe Photoshop and saved with a transparent background.
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On September 18 @ 8:26 pm jorge said

what software do you use to edit and make your videos for YouTube?
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On September 18 @ 8:38 pm Shawn Collins said

<a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/aws/cart/add.html?ASIN.1=B000RLQNR6&Quantity.1=1&SubscriptionId=11CEN9W06DP4ECR49902&AssociateTag=velocitynyc”>Sony Vegas Movie Studio – it's less than $100 on Amazon.
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On September 20 @ 3:03 pm sherif said

good topic
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On September 22 @ 8:41 pm SeanDavis said

“No politics here.” You just happen to have a blog post about a niche site that just happens to be about Barack Obama less than two months before the presidential election. Well done. Not obvious at all. Oh and by the way, if you talk to any unbiased expert (notice UNBIASED) on the financial crises you'll understand that the Democrats in Congress in 2005 had nothing to do with the financial collapse. The financial collapse has to do with deregulation started during the Regan administration. True, the Democrats have done nothing to help but to blame Barack Obama and the Democrats (from 2005?–laughable) is simply complete ignorance of the facts and a basic misunderstanding of the financial system of the United States. It's ok to have your own political views but please don't make baseless, factless accusations on thinly veiled political soapboxing blog posts.
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On September 23 @ 5:37 am Shawn Collins said

I was talking about not having politics in my discussion of setting up a niche site.

I'd be happy to debate you about politics on my political blog, but I prefer to keep things separate here and there.
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On September 23 @ 11:39 am jamesdorans said

I use Macromedia Fireworks, I know it is now with Adobe.
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On September 29 @ 12:09 pm TriciaMeyer said

Terrific article!! So I started a niche site last week and did just about everything you list above. We've started off strong and are getting about 100 hits a day from the search engines. I think I should try AWeber for RSS by email for the first time. But a question–do you get their email addresses? So if you wanted to get people to sign up for the AWeber for RSS by giving a prize or something, would you be able to have their email addresses to draw one?
reply to this comment
On September 29 @ 12:20 pm Shawn Collins said

Hi Tricia -

Thanks – yes, you get access to the email addresses.

The RSS/email thing on AWeber is just an extension of their regular email opt-in services.

You also get lots of analytics with their service – I'd highly recommend it.
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On October 1 @ 6:01 pm TriciaMeyer said

Thanks, Shawn! I just signed up for it yesterday and got it up and running. I love the template system that they have. I'm hoping to see the list build up during this first month so I can figure out if it will be worth the money. So far, so good.
reply to this comment
On October 1 @ 6:10 pm Shawn Collins said

Hi Tricia -

They have some neat features with follow-ups, too, if you have a use for that sort of thing.
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