Before you even start to build a website - there is no point in picking something you like and putting lots of time and effort, if there is no demand for that type of information or product. Affiliate marketing is a business where you can make money online, and target areas of demand to catch clicks and sales.
Getting it right in the 1st instance will encourage you to build more sites later - whereas if you build one and it flops, you may feel that it is too hard to make money online. Thinking about it seriously - just how many shopping sites are there? do you think you could complete with the big boys?
Search term research - your site needs to be built around what people actually search for.
This is based around my experience of looking at how people search on the net, and what style of search terms / keywords they use. If your site is about children'stoys and you want to build a site on this, you would use a tool like overture to look at the top level search term for this topic. The top level terms for this would be kids and children - then you would look to see the top searched terms below that, that fitted your criteria, click that - then select the terms including and below that term to use basically as your "site map", or site plan. This then means that your site is built based around what people actually search for.
Google it - You will need the google toolbar installed for this part.
Once you have the top level search terms, type them into google (and use the country google that you are working on) and take the top results that are "above the fold" (the bit of google that you can see without scrolling your page down) and then click on each site / result and checkwhat the page ranking is on that site (anything above 4 is pretty good), then check the backlinks into it (google toolbar has this feature in the little blue i) and finally look at the page content to see if the page you have landed on has got good quality content. If you think you can beat it ... then go for it!
Calculating potential revenue from a site
Take the amount of UV (Unique Visitors)
say 1000 people
Look at a possible conversion rate for the industry 1% - 2% may be about right in most industries, but a merchant that makes sales already may be able to help you check this to be more accurate.
So say 2% buy that is 20 people.
Then find out what the average basket (what people spend at one time) is.
Say the average basket / spend was £50. Then 20 people at £50 = £1000
There you have it!
So based on your research so far what can you say about your website? Ask yourself:
What features can make me money on my new site?
What features can I put on the site to make it sticky?
What other features of interest could I add to the site that will give me quality content?
What categories (in the 1st level) of companies do I want to affiliate with?
What categories (overall) do I want to affiliate with as I grow?
What existing affiliate networks have programmes I can join in those categories?
Who is going to design / build the site?
How am I going to market my site and get into the search engines?
Features to make money on my new site?
Some helpful hints to get you planning:
Link building strategy
To get your site high up in results if may pay to buy an existing domain and take it over. This means it is out of the google sandbox, and could already have existing inbound or back links into it. You could also take the option of a dropped domain, which may be in the sandbox, but could still have back links to it.
Back links give your site credibility. The more relevant sites that link to you, the higher your ranking can improve on google.
To get back links you can:
Search the web and find search engines /directories / forums / information sites / shops in your industry.
You need to bear in mind that webmasters get emails all the time, and most of the sites asking to link to them are not related or relevant so the email just gets deleted.
<example email> - but you should make it more personal
Dear webmaster,
I found your site on google searching for XXX, and am writing to ask
if you would be interested in linking to me from your
page
<their page url >
to my page <your page url >
I am happy to add a link back to you to a page of your choice in my directory.
Regards
What is a squeezel - Quoting the urban dictionary a Squeezel affectionately means a person who attempts to squeeze every last dollar from ones pocket. It is also a vietnamese term for a porcupine and my personal explaination for a squirrel crossed with a weasel when I can't identify which one it is I saw run across the road in front of the car!