One of the most important parts of a good affiliate marketing website is original and valuable written content. I do not want to rehash the same old argument about the importance of content, I will stick with my stand that good content is:
- Good for your visitors
- Good for ranking in serps (search engine rank pages)
- Good as a keyword density tool
- Good for Internal linking and on-site SEO
- Good to distinguish your sites from:
a) The same links and content that the merchants you are affiliating for have on their sites.
b) Other similar affiliate websites, like BANS, where many other webmasters are using them.
It is very true that thin affiliate marketing websites do not do well in search engines. Here is a quote from Google Webmaster Help Center
"Our Webmaster Guidelines advise you to create websites with original content that adds value for users. This is particularly important for sites that participate in affiliate programs. Typically, affiliate websites feature product descriptions that appear on sites across that affiliate network. As a result, sites featuring mainly content from affiliate networks can suffer in Google's search rankings, because they do not have unique content that differentiates them from other sites on the web. Unique, relevant content provides value to users and distinguishes your site from other affiliates, making it more likely to rank well in Google search result pages."
Content along with a good link building strategy is the formula to get your sites to rank high in the SERPS.
But, content can be one of the most daunting tasks for affiliate marketers, especially if you have a store type site, it is hard to find ideas for written content, sometimes you really have to think outside the box. So here are some ideas for website content:
Website Content Ideas:
1. PLR - PLR stands for Private Label Rights. These are articles you buy or sometimes can get for free and use as you wish, including publish it verbatim as your own. Do not just copy and paste PLR stuff into your website, much better to tweak and rewrite them a little to make them more unique and original because you never know how many other people have bought the same article.
The Best Spinner is your best friend when it comes to PLR, as it is the greatest tool to create tons of unique versions of articles with east. Has a comprehensive and unprecedented Thesaurus, that replaces not just words, but entire phrases, and with a great synonym drop down menu. It is loaded with tons of features and extras and is a marketers dream come true for spinning content quickly and easily. This is a must see product, learn more at Best Spinner.
This sure is easier than writing from scratch 
.
Good PLR Sites:
1. All Private Label Content - Good one. Very Cheap and lots of subjects.
2. PLR Mini Mart - Very Cheap article packs on tons of topics.
3. thePLRarticles.com - Not too much of a selection but cheap.
4. Constant Content - Varies from cheap to REALLY expensive.
2. Guides and Tutorials - Every type of product can be fitted to some kind of guide or tutorial and more than one. Even if you are selling clothes you can have a page on size charts, types of clothing for different shapes, hottest fashion trends, buying guide, etc...
3. How-To - How-to's are great. Just use your imagination, a how-to can be created for just about anything.
4. Side Subjects - You can write about sub-subjects within your main one. For instance if you are selling CD's you can have pages about music artists, music industry. If selling furniture you can talk about home decorating, if selling cooking ware you can provide recipes etc.. the possibilities are endless.
5. Product Reviews - If you don't know the product do some research and compile something good.
6. Current Trends/Events related to the niche.
7. Trivia - Trivia is a popular subject and easy to create.
8. Interesting Facts and/or Myths - related to the niche/subject.
9. Histories - on the products or subject of your site.
10. What Returning Visitor's Have To Say - make it up if you have to.
11. About Pages - add a page detailing what your site is about.
12. Biographies - good one if relevant to your niche.
13. Advantages of Buying Online - This one is universal and applies to any niche and or product. Customize it to your subject, write about the savings of online shopping vs. retail, good opportunity for keywords.
14. Lists - People love lists and they are easy to create. IE: Best, Worst, Most Bought, Most Popular, Most Read, Least Liked, 10 ways to..., 5 Methods for..., 8 Types of, etc... the possibilities here are endless.
15. Feeds - A great way to add regularly updated content to your website. These services provide free news widgets and content feeds that will create the most current news on your sites related to your subject/niche.
Free feed services:
1. Feedzilla - Endless topics and subjects
2. RSS Feed Reader
3. Spring Widgets - Creates cool widgets for news feeds and allows you to create a news widget from any feed or blog URL you enter, even this one 
4. Sphere
16. Content Generating Software - Frank at OP Tempo has created Blog Content Wizard, a software that creates content automatically based on keywords you enter and not just for blogs. I have not tried it but it looks promising.
Ways to Find Ideas for Website Content
1. Research keywords to find content ideas. When you enter the main product/niche keyword of your sites, phrases like how-to whatever, best whatever... will come up for what people are searching for within that niche.
Also, remember to research the best keywords for those content pages as you want them to rank for popular keywords and this way you will be all over the SERPS and get lots more targeted traffic. Learn more at 6 Step Checklist for On-Site SEO.
2. Visit your competitors sites to get inspirations for content and especially the top gun sites (do not copy).
3. Look at what popular bloggers in your niche are talking about.
4. Visit article sites to get ideas from existing articles. Ezine Articles, Article Dashboard, Article Factory, Article City and Buzzle are some good ones. (Do not copy articles, this is a big nono)
What content tips and ideas can you guys offer? Where do you find inspirations for content? How do you fill pages on your affiliate sites?
Jr, your topics here are always very in helpful for everyone!
People do love lists! Your 100% right there! When I do 5 Reasons Why You Need (affiliate product), people love it.
When I need ideas for content I always research other similar niche websites and see what their content is about or if I do not have time a quick how to article works great too.
I have yet to find any article spinner that works like it claims. I have tried several and they all were trash. If you end up finding a good one, let me know!
Tara @ Work At Home Mom Blogs last blog post..Affiliate Program Options
Follow Me on Twitter @: suzannefranco
(3 comments)
JR ~ Great post! I too love lists and I’ve written several and just haven’t polished them for posting yet. Thanks for the reminder. LOL. You can also use forums and yahoo answers for inspiration too.
I would love to hear about an article spinner that actually works too … anyone tried this? Or another? *SmiLes* Suzanne
Money Making Ideas ~ Suzannes last blog post..RSS Feed ~ How to Subscribe
@ Suzanne and Tara
Thanks! I am actively looking for a good spinner, for those PLR’s it would be great to find one, as soon as I do, if ever, I will post it.
JR,
Great list. It can be tough to keep the content coming… Is there a critical mass that SE’s pay attention to as far as articles? Also, I’ve been told that if you grow too quickly it is not beneficial… What are you thoughts?
David J. Parnell
Hello David,
There are hazards to growing links to quickly, I assume that is what you are referring to, I have yet to see a “number” on this, I imagine if within two days a new site suddenly gets 5,000 links this would alert G that something is wrong. I do not worry too much about this, I just focus on a diverse link building strategy with articles, social, directories, blog comments, recips, forums links, etc. I usually write about 3 articles per site per week. Sometimes more depending on my creativity.
Regarding this issue, more important than numbers of links is the anchor text, always diversify it, use KW but make sure to ad other words so the linking looks more natural, as if they are generated buy the linking websites and not manufactured by you for the SE’s. Make Sense?
Great information, particularly the Lists for web content. I’m always attracted to the “top 10″ or “best whatever of 2008″ …that sort of stuff plus it’s easy to do to!
thanks again.
Christis last blog post..My Personal Web Host and Domain Registration Recommendation
Hello Christi,
I love lists too, they are so easy and people love them!!
Follow Me on Twitter @: DennisEdell
(224 comments)
Awesome list! (hey that does work)
I believe I was told recently that JetSpinner was good, but there is A LOT of pre-setup work to do with it.
Dennis Edells last blog post..Are You Like Jack?
Follow Me on Twitter @: yansusanto
(7 comments)
JR
What an awesome list of resources! Almost a one-stop place for content ideas.
@Tara & Suzanne: With regard to article spinner, the one that I found to be the most effective is Article Marketing Automation and I’ve been using it on most of my niche sites.
I’m excited to see what Blog Content Wizard had got to offer…thanks for sharing it.
Yan
Blog for Beginnerss last blog post..Me, Carl Ocab and Direct Response Templates
@ Yan
Thanks! And thanks for the tip on Article Marketing Automation, will check it out!
Some very good stuff here, lots of good ideas I must say. Lucky for me, I never run out of things to talk about, but I like that list idea; can’t believe I’ve only done one or two that I can think of, like this one. Thanks for the ideas.
Mitchs last blog post..The Importance Of Blogrolls
Thanks for the mention of Blog Content Wizard. I appreciate it.
Blog Content Wizard isn’t entirely suited, out of the box, for an affiliate site because the content it generates, while keyword rich, is somewhat disjointed, like something written by someone who doesn’t write English well or who has some sort of mental issue. What you can do with the generated posts though is edit them slightly to improve the readability and flow, about a 5 minute process, and populate a blog with them. I’ve found this to work rather well.
Another thing I’ll do on affiliate sites is take articles from article directories and use them, usually with a paragraph or two of introductory/closing commentary. This gives the site extra, meaningful, content. Since you aren’t concerned about these article pages ranking well you don’t have to worry about any duplicate filtering on them.
Frank C@Online Reviewss last blog post..Credit Karma Introduces Credit Simulator
Hello Frank, LOL…most of the AM’ers I know are mentally ill so that should be a great fit
. Seriously thanks for clarifying Blog Wizard and it’s certainly better than writing from scratch.
More great tips!!! Thanks a lot, will try to find your RSS Subscribe button now
Follow Me on Twitter @: m38967
(2 comments)
I just recently started experimenting with affiliate marketing on my most popular blog and so far so good.
I was hesitant at first because i thought it would look cheesy but fact is most of my readers on my popular blog are not that web savvy or net marketing savvy, so most dont know what aff marketing is or what an aff link is, etc.
Plus i only market items of quality and those that are totally relevant. I would never pitch something irrelevant to my readers.
The tips you present above are solid. I like several of your aff ideas. Good stuff.
Missy
G34 Media.com
Missy@Net Media Blogs last blog post..iPhone Recycling Blog – Latest G34 Media Property
Hi Missy,
That is a very crucial point you bring up because I think bloggers many times are worried about monetizing their blogs with affil products, but it is very true that while we as marketers are very aware of the monetezation most people on the net are not and they are used to seeing links, banners and products recommends as a natural part of sites and blogs and do not even think about them being for commissions, I never did when I was not in this business, I just went with it as if it was naturally supposed to be there, it is only now that I see through all the monetazation and affiliate marketing techniques on other sites because I know the biz, and often times I think back to stuff I’ve seen and I have aha moments.
And there is nothing wrong with bloggers making money, even if it was not your original or end goal when you started.
Thanks for the compliments I am glad my efforts have helped you.
Follow Me on Twitter @: DennisEdell
(224 comments)
This is the big difference between marketing to marketers and marketing to everyone else….also the reason why so many scratch there heads as to why adsense isn’t working.
Dennis Edells last blog post..Do You Use eBay to Grow Your OTHER Businesses?
Thanks for this useful post. I find myself not knowing what to write about sometimes. This will really help.
Ben
JR, you are right. You MUST have the content that is specific to your niche. You MUST have it well written, and it has got to be in a style that your readers want. It is useless being all techie if your niche is for Barbie dolls. Think like your reader, what would they want to read.
It all starts with quality content, the Google Webmaster Guidelines are my bible. I study then and create content according to those docs.
Good solid post, well done.
Affiliate Funnel System Bonuss last blog post..Just Who Are You Buying From?
I’ve toyed around with various ‘article spinner’ products, and every last one of them is sheer garbage. Perhaps it’s because I enjoy reading, and have a large library at home – but I simply cannot stand the garbage that spinners put out. When I read a spun article, I can usually spot it fairly quickly, and I won’t have time to get to the resource box, I click away. I suspect that I’m not the only one that does this.
Nothing is going to take the place of spending time working at article writing… even having it outsourced is going to involve polishing up the articles – after all, they reflect on you
@Ben Holmes
Yes I am still searching for a spinner that works, the ones that do require that you code it by hand, at that point I can easily rewrite them myself and it’s much faster, than adding those little codes.
Thanks for the list, there are a couple on it that i haven’t considered, like trivia and histories and bio’s. I gennerally stick to how-to’s and guides. Will be trying more out =)
-Justin
@Affiliate Funnel System
Yes, sometimes you gotta get creative, anything to fill pages with some good stuff.
Follow Me on Twitter @: simplylinks
(4 comments)
“10. What Returning Visitor’s Have To Say – make it up if you have to.”
– gosh
JR,
This is a really great list. There are some ideas I have never heard nor thought of and I can see how much fun they would be for me to create as well as for my blog visitors. This is one of the better posts that I have read at least in the last week. This is something that I can really take and run with, thanks!
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