Need Some Advice

[elizabeth]

Hello All,

It's nice to be here.

My dilema is I often get confused on what to promote as an affiliate.

Is it better to promote sites or promote products.

Promoting sites can be more like a directory, which is ok, I'm just not
sure which is better.

For example, Rosalinds sage-hearts.com is a kind of directory for
dating sites giving viewers choices, however, if you wanted to promote treadmills for example, do you build an informational site around treadmills and point to one merchant or do you offer several merchant sites? Treadmills can be competitively priced so perhaps you want to offter your viewers choices, however I've seen affiliate sites that promote only one merchant.

Perhaps it's all in the marketing...

Is there anyone that has done both and has an opinion or thoughts?

Thanks,
Elizabeth

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hi Elizabeth,

I think even if you're promoting one item like treadmills, it's wise to carry products from a couple of different merchants. You could do price comparisons.

Different merchants will carry different product types so that'll help you 'fill out' your inventory.

The danger in promoting one merchant comes when they go out of business, or temporarily offline, like Omaha Steaks did right after Christmas.

They basically had so many orders to fill and re-stocking to do that they temporarily pulled their program.

I'm not an affiliate of theirs, but let me tell you, I'd be cheesed at having to pull my links in the meantime. Chances are I'd never put them back up again.

So... my advice would be to diversify.

Hope that helps!

Cheers,
Ros

[elizabeth]

Hi Rosalind,

Thanks so much, that does help

[Rosalind Gardner]

Good to hear, Elizabeth. Always happy to be of help!

Cheers,
Ros