Niche Done Right Thread
Submitted by Jeremy Palmer on Fri, 05/23/2008 - 15:35.
Hi Everyone,
I wanted to start a thread to highlight some of the best niche affiliate sites out there. Here's an example of a site that really understands niche affiliate marketing:
The site has a good design, good content, and a narrow focus.
What niche sites do you recommend?
Best,
Jeremy
Hey Jeremy,
Great spot. They definitely have it down.
The only qualm I have is the videos on the page that bog down the page load and mess up symmetry.
Just my initial impression. I'm sure they're converting like crazy, though.
Once again, great course and thank you for it!
Jeff
http://senjomarketing.com/about-me/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gronesy
Jeremy-
Thanks for a great example to " study". Also, please note that site is also a good example
using a WordPress blog.
I really like this because I am big on wordpress.
The review page could be more to the point though.
http://twitter.com/Dezchamps
I think this is a great example of how narrow the focus of a site should be. Instead of all notebooks that could conceivably compete with the ThinkPad, this person decided to specialize on one brand. If anyone's interested, the theme is Revolution Tech.
Here's a MacBook Air site - http://www.buymacbookair.net/
the macbookair.net site hasn't been updated in 16 months and only has 6 pages to it so i guess it's what Jeremy would call a microsite. i wonder if it's being used as a landing page destination for campaigns, because it probably isn't going to rank too highly in organic searches.
the thinkpad site is a lot better, but the guy who runs it is a thinkpad expert (he says he refurbishes thinkpads) so he's something more than a mere thinkpad affiliate. but i agree it's a nice niche site. and it's current, with content added within the last 2 months.
Stephen Carter
creator of Review Foundry
Agreed, the MacBook Air site isn't very good but the URL is.
The thinkpadtoday.com site is very nice and a great use of WordPress. However, I think both that site and the buymacbookair.com domains are violating registered trademarks. It's always a good idea to run a check here before registering any domains using trademarked terms:
http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm
Rich
Hi Rich, the whole site was conceived to be a sales funnel to shop.lenovo.com. If it was not producing affiliate sales, it might be different.
Providing a site is benefiting the merchant and they have a flexible approach to their affiliates you will be OK. Believe me Lenovo are very happy with the turnover they get from us!
Cheers,
Ian
Facebook – http://profile.to/ianorford/
how much of the content of the affiliate sites one is under can one use.
I mean. Take for example this http://www.thinkpadtoday.com/ that you said Jeremy. Its a great site.
But how does one know what to put there without violating copyright materials. Im a little confused. No wonder being my second day.
Hi Gibke, just to give you an idea re the material on the site, all the articles and reviews are written by ourselves. we use Google alerts to keep us abreast of what is going on and of course we watch the corporate Lenovo Blogs. Lenovo themselves keep us updated all the latest offers before they are released so that we can update the site.
All of the banners and images come from the Lenovo resource at Commission Junction. Again, if the site is built as a sales funnel to the merchants e commerce store, and you are producing sales, you will be fine.
Providing the information is accurate and not in any way contentious, why would they not allow you to use their content? If you are going to promote a product, you have to have words and pictures!
Hope that helps? Sometimes it is a cleft stick. A merchant will want to see a site before they grant you an affiliatship, so what do you do? I have also always worked on the theory that it is better to ask for forgiveness, then to ask for permission!
Cheers,
Ian
Facebook – http://profile.to/ianorford/
Different merchants have different rules regarding the use by affiliates of copyrighted and trademarked material. Many merchants have an area on their site from where you can obtain images, datafeeds etc. and also obtain information on the use of their trademarks in your PPC ads.
Rich - all that could really happen is they ask for the domain. then just give it to them, but whatever.
the macbook air landing page is good but does not go to a macbook air page but the main page, if you don't have deep linking ability to send to the right page your conversions will suffer!
Some merchants have no problem with you using their trademarks in your domain names. Others will auto-generate a cease and desist the day you register it. It varies widely by merchant.
I'm assuming thinkpadtoday.com has permission to use "thinkpad" in their domain. I don't think Lenovo would turn a blind eye to it for that long.
Hi All, thank you Jeremy and to all of you for your kind comments re our blog at http://www.thinkpadtoday.com. believe me it has been a labour of love but also very rewarding!
The site was conceived as a 'flagship site' to help promote our Affiliateship with Lenovo, and the ThinkPad Brand via Commission Junction. The main aim is to supplement our PPC traffic. Lenovo are fully aware of the site and URL and it does comply with the terms and conditions of our Affiliate Agreement.
We are not allowed to use certain terms in our urls that may imply that we are an official site, but url's such as thinkpadoffers, thinkpadtoday, etc are allowed. They are very flexible in this respect. Particularly as every link points back to shop.lenovo.com!
It is however always essential to check with the merchant.
We are happy to say that going into the fourth month, traffic is increasing exponentially and sales are happening!
I have to say that we have had some amazing help from Brian Gardner the designer of the Revolution Themes and we couldn't have done this without the fantastic support forum.
If you want a really superbly customizable theme go have a look at www.revolutiontheme.com/ (not an affiliate link!). Ours is the 'Tech' theme, and is almost out of the box apart from a couple of css tweaks and header and footer customization
Well done and congratulations on a great job with the BlackInkProject Jeremy!
Good luck,
Ian Orford
Facebook – http://profile.to/ianorford/