Building Lists Of Merchants, Content Ideas And Affiliate Programs

This is the most grueling step of all, but when you are done, you will have the outline of your entire website completed. Now it will be as if the website builds itself!

This work is tedious and boring, and you may question why you have to go to such extreme detail.

I get through it by telling myself that this work may very well decide whether my affiliate website succeeds or fails. After this job is done, most of the thinking about my website will be done too.

Almost all the information I need to conduct my business and build my website will be in one spreadsheet and I won't have to worry about getting side-tracked or confused. What to write about will be listed as well as where to get more information and ideas, promote, or find an affiliate program.

As always, attitude is everything! Chin up, one foot in front of the other, off I go!

I'll put all my info into a spreadsheet with five columns labeled Keywords, Demand, Supply, Contents, Affiliate Programs, Content ideas

I already have the information for the first three columns, plus I've prioritized the keywords according to their supply/demand ratio, so I can enter that info after listing the words with the highest ratio first.

Next I go back to Google and re-search each keyword. I look at the descriptions of the top 10 or 20 sites listed for each keyword. If the content of a website is irrelevant to my interests I'll just ignore it and move on.

I'll make a few notes in my Contents column about the general contents of these websites, just gleaning what I can from the Google page. I work quickly, writing down my first impressions. I'll come back and click on links later.

Now I take a step back. I read over all my notes, thinking about what I discovered about myself in my earlier personal vision work. I spend some time thinking about how I want to spend my time in my new business. What do I want to do every day?

I want to design knitting patterns, but I don't want to do it in the traditional way, writing row by row instructions how to knit something exactly how I knit it. There are plenty of patterns out there for people who want that. I want to show you how I am creative with my knitting, where my ideas come from - as much as that is possible! - and lead you towards creativity of your own.

I love books; someday I want to have a knitting/book store off-line, where the main areas are centered around a fireplace, nooks for reading books, a play area for children, and a garden with a gazebo. Meanwhile, I want to create the same sort of atmosphere online.

I love to write, and when I write I ramble. My website will ramble. When I think of all the interests and needs my knitters have, the ideas are well-suited to a rambling bit of a site.

What stands out from all my research are lots of searches for websites with free knitting patterns and links to knitting books on Amazon and other book sites. I was surprised; I was expecting more searches related to knitted garments for sale. There's a huge difference in Good Keyword results when I looked for "knit", "knitted" and "knitting".

Now I'm going back to Google one more time, and clicking on links and looking at web pages. I'm looking for whether websites are mainly content sites or merchant sites. If they are merchant sites, I'm looking for affiliate programs and writing down the join urls in my Partners column, along with what they sell.

If the site I'm looking at is a content site, I jot down ideas for what I can write about or products I can sell.

As I find sites that stand out, I explore them more deeply. If it's a merchant or content site that I like, but without an affiliate program, I follow external links to see who they are linking to. I keep digging, exploring, and spreading out my search. When I find an affiliate program, I write it down on the same line as the appropriate keyword.

I just keep going until I've gotten through all my high-profit keywords. What I have is a lot of content ideas, a number of good leads to merchants who may be approached later to purchase advertising from me, and a few choice affiliate programs.

But how do you know when you've found a "choice" affiliate program? Read on...

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