Affiliate marketing is as simple as matching up someone's need with a solution.

Yet it seems very few people understand this very basic way of looking at it.

What many of us publishers do is build a website that focuses on a subject, but still at a general level. For example, motorcycles. They write about motorcycles in general, and then pepper their pages with a variety of affiliate program links ranging from motorcycle helmets, to motorcycle magazines, to motorcycle insurance, and the list goes on.

But to their dismay, the click through rate is very low, and the conversions are about non-existent. So they give up on affiliate marketing and opt for Google AdSense.

And not to knock Google AdSense, I use it quite a bit myself.

People who are interested in buying something will seek out those websites that offer that something specifically. That's the opposite of traditional sales and marketing, where salesmen identify a demographic and then seek out customers. Whereas on the Internet, the customers seek out the salesmen.

Think about a motorcycle rider who wants to buy a new helmet. That person will not go to a general motorcycle website and traverse the many levels of pages trying to find reviews of helmets. Rather, they will do a Google search for "motorcycle helmets" and click on the site that appears to offer what they want.

That's where you need to be. If you want to be successful with that motorcycle helmet affiliate program, you have to design a site that becomes an authority on motorcycle helmets, that clearly defines this on the Google search results, and manages to rank high on Google.

The subject of motorcycles in general is still too broad for affiliate marketing. I know this because I've been there. I published Biker News Online for several years and learned that.

The people who visit general motorcycle sites are only interested in general motorcycle info, and don't have any specific need to fulfill. The same is true with any general subject, such as pets, golf, food, gardening, etc. Google AdSense and display-based advertising (CPM) is best for monetizing general interest traffic.

Figure out what people want to buy online, and build a site that caters just to that need.

That's the secret to successful affiliate marketing. It's that simple. The rest is all technical, such as designing a professional looking site, creating content, keeping the site updated, doing some SEO, advertising, etc.

What if you've already invested time and money into building a general subject website? Then keep building it, but build other specific sites that push specific affiliate programs, and use your general site to pump page rank into it.

Last year I wrote about this same subject, but through a different angle, "Proactive Marketing versus Passive Marketing".

I hope that helps, let me know what you think.  ✓