Scott Breaks Nearly All the Rules - and Succeeds

You've read the advice by now and figured out that it's excellent: If you want to succeed on the Internet, find a topic in which you are passionately interested and build a website around that theme.

Dana Blankenhorn tells how to do this here: http://gt.clickz.com/cgi-bin/gt/vn/ebr/ebr.html?article=1232

He could also have added that it makes good sense to do these things: add lots of useful, original content, provide a message board, write a newsletter, think of ways to make your site more interactive, build credibility and trust, organize reciprocal links, do things to get your site talked about, and make sure you aim for repeat visitors . . .

Affiliate programs consultant Declan Dunn (I hope you've carefully studied his article on the seven keys to success for affiliates - http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/sevenkeys/ ) tells affiliates:

"Give your visitors a reason to return to you. Many use affiliate programs to simply send traffic to someone else's site. The key is to get them to leave their name and e-mail so you can follow up with them and remind them to buy from you.

"Email: opt-in lists are crucial. This means that your main goal should be to give a free report, or free bonus, to every visitor in exchange for contact information. Be sure to e-mail this list and develop your name, and your site," Declan says.

If you want to succeed on the Net, and especially if you want to succeed with affiliate programs, all this advice is first class.

It works.

So it was fascinating meeting Scott Dieken at the E-Commerce conference in Hawaii.

Scott's websites include http://www.financialmachine.com and http://www.insurancemachine.com. He breaks almost all those rules, and yet he still manages to have great success with affiliate programs.

He doesn't want to give figures, but when I first interviewed him - http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/search/newsletter076.shtml - he was achieving a very healthy net profit and has refined the process since then.

If you examine Scott's sites you'll see that he doesn't appear to be aiming for repeat traffic, he doesn't have a message board, he doesn't have a newsletter, and doesn't even have any sort of opt- in e-mail list.

In short, you might be tempted to say that he's doing it all wrong - except that he's earning a nice full-time living.

His affiliate programs-based sites have a tight focus, a professional image, and his carefully targeted traffic comes from the search terms he buys at http://www.GoTo.com.

"I'm still hopeful that I will be contacted by affiliates who would like to share value per visitor (VPV) data with me," Scott says. "It costs me about $500 or more to test an affiliate program and I find that a majority do not make me any money. So it would really be helpful to get some value per visitor numbers."

Scott is also interested in exchanging information with affiliates who are earning more than $500 a month with any programs. His e-mail address is highsurf@hawaii.rr.com.

About the Author

Allan Gardyne turned his back on journalism to make a full-time success of his AssociatePrograms directory site. Now a widely-acknowledged affiliate program expert, Allan runs his 8 person web business from a pole house in sub-tropical Australia.

allan@AssociatePrograms.com
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com