If you have a mountain of product to move and you find yourself in need of a partner, why not consider an affiliate program?

Affiliate programs work like partnerships. Someone sells your product for you and in return, you give them a share in the sale. You move product, they make money — a match made in heaven.

So how does one go about starting an affiliate program?

Find The Right Match

The first thing you have to do is take a good look at your products and ask, what do you think can be sold by someone other than you. Do you know someone else who is just as passionate about your product? Is there another expert in your niche that will do your product justice? That may sound like a silly question, but one of the main principles behind an affiliate program should be ease of operation. If you have a product that takes extensive training to understand, it may not be the best choice for an affiliate to sell. Look for products that sell themselves.

Profit Share

The next step is deciding how much of the profit from the sale your affiliate is going to get. There is no set rule on how much you’re supposed to pay your affiliate. The best move here is to evaluate the profit margin on all of the products you offer and then carefully calculate how much you are willing to pay someone to lend you a hand.

Profit Vs. Fee

Another option for paying your affiliate is giving them a flat rate. While this may be easier for you in the short term, you may lose money in the long term. A profit based payment method will encourage your affiliate to move product, while a flat fee means that they would get paid no matter how much product they sold.

Must read: How To Make Money Online – 10 best ways for doing it!

Finding Your Affiliates

There are a few different ways to go about finding affiliates. I would suggest joining an affiliate network. Think of affiliate networks like a distant cousin to dating websites. These networks exist to link businesses with their pool of members who are looking for things to sell. (Remember, just because someone is your affiliate, doesn’t mean that they aren’t someone else’s as well. Some people make a career out of affiliate marketing.) Your other option is searching though message boards in your businesses niche and looking for people who you think may make good affiliates.

Must read: Online Passive Income – 5 Money Making Ideas for Bloggers

Marketing

Lastly, you and all of your affiliates have to get out there and spread the word. Just because you have products to sell, that doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone knows your products are out there. Search the internet for articles on email marketing and affiliate marketing, look into sites like Google Ads and track all the traffic on you and your affiliates websites with Google Analytics. You and your affiliate should be on the same page with everything regarding your product and your business before you go live with the program. Remember, an affiliate program can help your business grow to new heights, but only if you take your time and do it right.

The idea is great, but during short “investigation” what niche I should choose and which keywords should I pick out,  the basic question appeared: “what kind of site should I create; the authority site or niche site?”

The answer on that question is very important: I don’t have a lot of time to play around with another thin niche site. On the other hand – authority site needs even more effort…

First part of this year clearly show us that we have to really think about our business model – Google Penguin overturned SERPs, Amazon closed down some affiliate programs and turned off some accounts. What’s more – there was a lot of bans in the most lucrative program for niche sites – Google AdSense. And nobody knows why…

Blogosphere was boiling with anger and site owners were shuddering with fear. Do you remember that? Did you lost some traffic or maybe your AdSense account was also banned?

Okay, no more complaints and hassles – lets go to some news and facts.

Last week there was a debate on AdSense Flippers between Steve Scott and Mike Thomas about pros and cons of niche and authority sites. Both of them have their own arguments for and against, but I have the impression that nobody wins this debate…

In this post I want to share with you my point of view about niche and authority sites and my business model. At the end I will ask you about your opinion and your preferences – niche or authority sites?

Niche Sites

Pros:

• easy to set up
• low money investment
• low time investment
• if you have experience it’s almost automatic for you to earn money from it
• you can outsource the whole process
• faster ROI (Return on Investment) –first earnings appear after 1-2 months

Cons:

• in most cases only one source of traffic: Google (you can lost it in minutes)
• in most cases only one source of making money (you can lost it in minutes)
• probably lower ROI

Authority Site

Pros:

• easy to set up
• a lot of possibilities of earning money
• at least few sources of traffic
• your online effort (authority, brand) may be used in the real world
• probably higher ROI

Cons:

• long-term ROI (real money appear after 1-2 years)
• you can’t outsource a lot of tasks related with your authority site
• huge amount of time is needed to establish your authority, social proof and brand

You may be interested in reading: Online Passive Income – 5 Money Making Ideas for Bloggers

Okay, and how about my business model?

As you know (if you don’t know it, please read section about), I have some websites on Polish market – few dozen niche sites (mostly in financial market) and one vortal (also on financial market). It works very well for me at this moment, but unfortunately a lot of traffic comes from Google. And big brother G. may change some rules in the future and … (uncensored words appeared)

On English market NPI (NoPassiveIncome.com) is my first, hopefully not last website. And I plan to make some things different than I did on Polish market.

That means:

I want to create at least two authority sites (including NPI) and around them having about 5-10 related niche sites.

I want to diversify income sources as well as traffic sources also for niche sites.

Traffic for my niche site will come from:

• SEO (organic traffic)
• Mailing list (from my authority site and from separate lists)
• Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, other if appropriate)
• CPC Ads (Google AdWords, Facebook Ads)
• Authority site (posts)

The same will be with income– below you can see main sources of income for my future niche sites

Each niche site will earn money on:

• 2—5 related affiliates programs
• My own e-product (probably ebooks or training programs)
• Ads in CPC model (Google AdSense or something similar)
• Ads in CPM model (only for niche sites with more than 10k page views per month)

I know that this model is very time-consuming and may take about one or even two years to see a results. But it should work. I hope…

And what do you think about it? Please share your business models or all of your opinions about niche, authority sites or my business model in comments below.