Need Help Deciding Which Road To Take

[finnegan]

Let me start off by saying that I have years of experience in affiliate marketing and really Internet Marketing in general. In short, I failed at IM the first time around because I had a very bad case of "Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS)" which caused me to bounce from one traffic source to another and from one vertical to another, never mastering anything, and thus never making enough money to pay the rent.

This time around, I'd like to do it the right way and succeed.

I've decided I want to market affiliate products in two different verticals. These verts are large and evergreen.

Ideally, I'd like to have these two verticals on one site which will have content about each vertical and then offer the affiliate product at the end of the article, or maybe just have a shopping section on the site that these articles will link to. The site will also have 2-3 other sections that are related to these verticals and that will need content too at some point.

So I guess my questions are as follows:

Should I begin with just 1 vertical on a site just for that vertical, master that, and then move on to vertical #2, master that and then somehow merge both vertical sites into a larger site later on?

or...

Or should I begin with slowly building the larger site (using an all-encompassing non-vertical domain name) from the start...and begin adding articles one by one to this mammoth site while promoting one vertical at a time and adding the 2nd one after getting the 1st vertical profitable and gaining a good readership to the site?

 

[Ryuzaki]

If you're using the term 'vertical' in the way that I think about it, then you're talking about a monster site. For example, this makes me think of something like Technology + Health. Two huge areas of life. Most sites who attempt something like that usually have a team of writers and journalists working on-site, you know. Huge newspapers and magazines.

I think you're splitting your focus too far. Even though it's a small number like "2" verticals, that encompasses a lot. And then you're talking about a shopping section, so now you're tossing in eCommerce. That's just way too much. Even if it's all on one site, you'll be bouncing around losing your mind trying to manage all of that at once.

I'd choose one vertical, the one that most closely matches the products you want to push. I'd make sure those products are going to be around for forever, since you're going to put a ton of effort into this, and I'd make sure there are replacement products I could push, even if that's Amazon, if the others suddenly drop off the scene.

Then I'd choose one large angle to attack this from. I wouldn't go for the content marketing authority site or magazine and try to mix eCommerce in. Choose one.

From there, I'd think about it as the mammoth site you mention, but instead of promoting one vertical at a time, I'd think about one sub-niche of the vertical at a time. I'd go very deep into one of these silo's, score all the good links and fans, then start expanding horizontally. And I'd make sure I had a unique angle to myself to stand out.

If you're just another WebMD, you're toast before you start. But if you're MadScientistPHD, now you're standing out some.

We talk about this at length in Day 2 and Day 5 of the Crash Course. I strongly suggest you read both of those and if needed ask more questions there.