Start w/ THIN Affiliate Site - Then Get FAT!

[Linda Buquet]

We've heard warnings in the past about "thin" affiliate sites, but as Jeremy Palmer,
the "Million Dollar Affiliate" reports, there is a time and place for everything!

Thin Affiliate or Fat Affiliate???

Start thin and grow fat! Jeremy shares some wisdom and suggests you test market by 1st building a quick & easy THIN affiliate site for PPC. Then build it out into a FAT & STICKY affiliate site, after you've proven to yourself the viability of the niche and are sure it's a topic you want to put additional energy into.

Head over to 'Quit Your Day Job' and read:
Thin Sites vs. Fat Sites



This goes hand-in-hand with a post I recently wrote about a very efficient method for testing new affiliate marketing campaigns and new niche ideas before investing too heavily with your time and/or money.

This post goes more into detail about how exactly to set up your campaign for testing profitability
How Profitable is your Niche? Marketing Test

Thoughts??? Ideas???

[Franck S]

Yup, I always build FAT affiliate sites. I have some thin affiliate sites, however they don't bring any significant income since I wasn't focused.

I prefer build one site, and focus and dig the niche until I become a trusted guy there. When you have a fat affiliate site, people will contact you to buy it...

always a good option if you don't have interest in the niche, or if you want to do something else. Plus thin affiliates will find it very hard to compete with you.

Why spending a lot of time building a site that bring a small income?

[Linda Buquet]

Yep FAT sites are best for the long run and building them solid and sticky so both visitors and spiders like it is KEY.

But both articles above have merit from the viewpoint of testing a niche to see if it's worth putting the energy into before you go to far. At least on new niches you just arent sure about.

[JAmieF]

Good post Linda,

Would building either a thin or fat site be seasonal? For example would it be best to have a thin site for summer as attention spans are smaller (due to summer activitites!) and have a fat site for winter?

[bfree74]

As an affiliate manager I definitely see the highest commissions going to the people that have built fat sites. Out of my top 10, maybe one is a thin site, 2 do paid search, and the rest are fatties

[ayushpant]

Thin or Fat. Interesting. I completely think that both have their own places. Fat affiliate websites I think should be some sort of your long term projects. For example, in 6 months I am going to have so many pages, so many users on my website.

Thin websites work well too. I read that Google is trying to weed out thin affiliate websites, but I own a thin website and currently it made some good profit with little advertising. So, I believe thin websites are will stay at least for sometime.

Of course, we should listen to someone like Linda or Jeremy Palmer as they have much more experience. I take their advice very seriously.

Unfortunately, I sold my thin website (my first one) to invest more into my second website which I think is better than a first one (its a medium sized one).

I really like this affiliate marketing thing. I have not been very active for the last 2-3 weeks as I just moved to a new city (Washington DC). But, starting to gain back momentum once again.


Btw- I love this forum.

[Linda Buquet]

"Btw- I love this forum."

Thanks Ayush. We aim to please!

[Sparky]

Guess I've never thought of thin vs. FAT...As a communicator/pr type who is very active in web communications, I've always seen that more credible information/content is always better than less. Understand the need to test to avoid waste and learn, however, there are other means to accomplish that I think. For my part if you're gonna be a bear, you gotta be a grizzly.

[ayushpant]

Your welcome Linda. I read somewhere in this forum that you believe in Karma. You are helping so many people by giving out such excellent information. I have learned a lot from this forum and looking forward to implement what I have learned.

My past few days were quite "bumpy", but I am glad that I am back. I look forward to participate more in the forum discussions, and contribute in any way I can.

I can say that affiliate marketing is not the easiest thing, but its not rocket science. It requires a little "common-sense" to succeed in it. At least, I made some money and sold my website at a very good price. So, I think it definitely works.

Btw- I was thinking that I am not sure if my website wasn't a "thin" website. It has like 5 pages and offer some value to customers, that's why the buyer must have bought it. I'd PM and would like to get reconfirmation from your end on whether it was a thin affiliate website or not. Not quite sure. LOL.

[Linda Buquet]

Was just searching for my article about "thin affiliate sites" with the official
definition from Google. But I can't find it here or on my blog.