Why do so few affiliates make a decent living ?

Let's face it the majority of affiliate sites are not that appealing (to put it lightly) ranging from single page sites splattered with affiliate banners to large portal sites with dynamically created links that are fed from a network and used identically on 10s or 100s of sites .

The sites are unappealing and offer little or no use whatsoever to the visitor , they are built to save time and effort , and get listed high on the search engines . The webmaster hopes that they will rank above some of the brilliant sites on the net by often using clever search engine optimisation techniques which we will be discussing on our goodsites site .

Don't get me wrong i am not blaming the affiliate - far from it , the opportunity is there to exploit , and IT WORKED , atleast in the past , and i have even done it myself on occasions in desperation when finding some of my better sites are being overtaken by other " net apes " (something i am not proud of) . But the search engines are becoming more clever in auto detecting sites without good content , and will probably eventually penalise all such sites .

So makes a good site ?

A good site offers it's visitors something unique (or as good as it gets) on the internet , this does not necessarily mean you need a large sites - it could be a couple of pages - or a site with a huge number of bells and whistles . The CONCEPT is all too important , before you get your web editor out , you need to find something of value .

One of the quickest ways (but riskiest) is to offer some form of incentive(s) . There has been a huge influx of sites all jumping on the freeby bandwagon - search for "cashback" and just see how many 100s of sites are offering this now . I found the cashback arena highly lucrative , and was lucky to start when there were less than a handful sites (i have now sold it as the work proved too much for me!) . Just think you could have 100s of people visiting your site but if you have nothing worth signing up for and just a load of affiliate banners , the best that can happen is perhaps 1 in 100 to 1 in 200 (industry standard for high quality affiliate sites ) will click a banner and actually buy . but if you are offering something for free , and make it relevant to your visitors (a cashback site offers a whole shoping mall of offers - that's relevant) then the rate of sales (and repeat sales) can be higher , and you will get people signing up to your service too .

Notice the figures above 1 in 200 unique visitors actually buying for high quality sites . For low quality sites this can reach 0 ! For pay per sale in which case you'd be better offer using Bucks4Banners who pay you a fixed amount monthly regardless of no of hits . You would need many websites though going down this route to make a living .

The truth is out there - and all affiliates know it - they are unlikely to see huge rewards unless they beat the big boys and produce something bigger and better . The vast majority are happy to give it a go and make a few pence a week - and the networks are of course only too happy to accept the penny makers - as multiple pennies equal millions of pounds in overide commission .

What i find a bit disingenuous is the affiliate managers sending out blanket emails promising fortunes , any affiliate making a few pence a week will not realistically ever make that much , so if you are such a webmaster - take comfort in knowing you are in the majority - do not be down hearted when you view you affiliate balance total - after all it costs next to nothing to buy a domain , and you should hopefully atleast cover the hosting costs . But if you find it is not making what you expect - take a break ! If you can possibly steal yourself away from the PC and take a few days off , and think about what you are offering , try and come up with a different slant to what everyone else is doing ... and who knows you could be a supper affilaite in the making!