I cheered inwardly during our “Super Affiliate PPC Marketing Strategies” session at Affiliate Summit, when Amit Mehta stated that he would eventually focus primarily on creating content or ‘authority sites’, adding that is what all search affiliates should consider doing.

The other day I cheered aloud after reading Jeremy Palmer’s latest newsletter in which he states, “Over the past few years my focus has shifted from building dozens of mini-sites to developing a handful of authority sites.“

So, why was I cheering?

I cheered because although Amit and Jeremy (both students of the Super Affiliate Handbook) are best known for earning millions as search affiliates, they’ve both publicly recognized the value in the affiliate marketing model I’ve used and taught for years – the content model.

Jeremy explains the difference perfectly when he says “I still have several mini-sites in my portfolio. I think they’re good for testing new niches and generating short term profits.“

Fundamental point there – short-term.

As a search affiliate you build landing page after landing page and continually have to throw PPC traffic at them because they never attain significant search engine rankings. Because of competition, each landing page (product promotion) is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Not only does the work never end, but creating landing page campaigns for products you really don’t care about is pretty boring work.

On the other hand, as an affiliate publisher you invest most of your time and energy upfront building out content on a topic you know and love. Pay per click advertising (PPC) can be used to market the site initially, but you can lower your PPC spend over time as the site grows in search engine favor (traffic) and likewise, earnings. By offering a number of related products on a single site, the site doesn’t die because one product is no longer offered or the market is saturated with competitors. Best of all, once your content site has attracted a significant following and your mailing list is a good size, you might only have to post to your blog once or twice a week – or, in other words, your workload decreases.

Fundamental points there – similar earnings with less work and sustainable over time.

To learn more about the benefits of being a content publisher or the authority site model of affiliate marketing, read Choose Your Affiliate Business Model Wisely.