This is supposed to be the first in a series of articles on switching from making a living as an avid MFA builder to affiliate income. I have been considering different things I should write about this for some time and today I lost my patience and said feck it, I should post.
For those of you who has been living under a rock or still in 2003 for the last few months, there has been a thread in SEOIdiot’s AffEarners forum detailing the reasons why one would want to make the move - as well as many more threads both there and in syndk8 and blog posts elsewhere leading you to consider the move for one reason or the other. The world is not the same any more and whether we like it or not, we need to adjust - or go broke.
OK, here are a few things that should make your move easier if you’ve been a successful black hat so far.
1. Black hat is still applicable - with slight changes to the core principles. Yes, it’s still the volumes that matter - but the traffic should be way more targeted, throwing any shit against the wall in hopes some of it will still won’t cut it here.
2. Once you join an affiliate program you might be slightly taken back by the number of the registered members - but don’t despair, from my experience with several programs I’ve been playing with so far, about 80% of all registered members never become active or start and then quit - so the REAL compatition is not as huge as one might think (to see a quick proof of this without even registering anywhere, look at the Viagra SERPs - with all the compatition going on there, how many people do you think own them at average? 100? 10,000? Noooo - 3-4, that’s it! Go and check the patterns yourself if you don’t believe me)
3. Affiliates are a world of their own - I have no intention insulting anybody, I know a few affiliates who are very knowledgeable and have deep understanding of the search engines, indexing, getting a site to rank, etc. - but SOOOOOOOOOO many of them haven’t got a slightest idea as to what they are doing or talking about - and yet they are posting in their blogs, and some of the stuff they’re posting will make a DP newbie look pale - and yet they are considered authorities of the affiliate business, get quoted and monkeyed, get a following, and what’s more than that, MAKE MONEY as affiliates - yes yes not from selling some snake oil spiced up by their outrageous theories but actually from affiliate commissions! OK these might not be exactly as large as they claim but still! Now, think of this: if an ignorant self-proclaimed affiliate “guru” can make money - why can’t YOU, an educated, experienced, professional black hat SEO? I see no reason why! You’ve been able to get those 4 figure checks from Google with their measle cut they’ve been paying you for a click - what stops you from making money off those gracious commissions that can get up to hundreds of dollars per sale?
Now, I said it. Hope it makes you feel better. It’s a tough world but hey, it’s doable - so stop complaining about your banned AdSense account and get to business.