Should I use an Affiliate Selling program at my website?

Question

I'm almost done with my website to publish it.

I realize I may not have enough visitors at the very beginning nor clicks on links which are things I will be working on over time.

I have adsense in place and was looking for more options and suggestions. And since it is a gaming website, I was thinking I could use some sort of Affiliate Programs like Amazon that will display Products related to my site content like CD Games, Strategy guides, etc.

I would like to know from those who used it and are far more experienced then I am:

1. What programs are worth using and are available to pay you with paypal/gcheckout ?

2. What should I be careful with when using those?

3. Any other advices or ideas of what could I be using/trying?

Answer 1

I'm probably only slightly more experienced then you are but here's the info I have:

1. From what I've seen most Affiliate networks allow payment via PayPal, but unless you have a specific reason you can only receive payment this way I'd put the programs they offer at a higher priority then payment options (If they don't have offers that meet your needs you're not going to earn any money any way).

2. I'd make sure to research available programs early on. You don't want to build a whole section or even site dedicated to one game that has no related affiliate offers. To start I'd also recommend promoting programs from well known brands (it's a lot easier to get someone to buy from Amazon.com then it is from gaming-site-no-one-has-ever-heard-of.com)

3. I've not tested this myself but in reading a lot of people recommend mixing affiliate with CPA ads as it's a lot easier to get someone to fill out a form for a free whatever then it is to get someone to buy something.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Answer 2

At the beginning you probably won't have enough visitors to make money at all, all ad networks and affiliate systems will only get you a ridiculously low amount of money if at all (I have a site that makes approximately $10/year from affiliate programs).

I've seen recommendations to start the site with no ads and affiliate links and concentrate on building traffic (and people are more likely to recommend your site to their friends if the site looks non-commercial and is not full of ads and affiliate links), later - when you have the traffic level to support ads and affiliate links you add them.

Whatever you are using, test it first on some low value page and see it doesn't hurt your user experience before rolling it out site-wide, and test the result after roll out, if it doesn't work switch to a different network.