Back to the drawing board...

I do. I look at it slightly differently from how you've worded it, though, I admit: I want to make "affiliate lists" left and right (i.e. potential customer lists for the promotion of products as an affiliate), and the purpose of all my "affiliate sites" is simply to build my lists. It's my lists that build my business, really, not my sites.

Whyever not?

It is for me ... I've been doing this only a couple of years longer than you, but my income from each individual niche site/list gradually increases over time (and I have 9 of them, now).

I'm surprised, honestly ... I think of affiliate marketing niches as "long term". They build up a solid, asset-based business which leads to increasing income and the underlying asset-value increases too. That's a "real, long-term business", isn't it? :confused:

It's affiliate marketing, for me. That is my long-term business.

I'm also not looking at fast income or short sales, but I'm very much looking at affiliate this and that!

Sorry ... not the type of answer you wanted at all, I appreciate, but the wording of your question surprised me, here, a lot. Really.

There are several valid reasons why it can be to your advantage to engage in a business that you already know something about.

First, you have an advantage over others in the niche that don't have previous experience. You can "talk the language," give stories and examples from your previous experiences, and generally be seen as more of an authority in the niche than most newcomers.

Second, it's much easier to maintain your spirits, drive and patience in the early weeks/months of your business when you're probably not making a lot of money, in my opinion, if you have passion for the niche.

Third, you hopefully have developed some contacts or even a network of people and resources if you've been in the niche for awhile. This should come in handy in a number of ways including saving you the time that a total newbie would spend in establishing the same kind of resources.

Fourth, you are a better judge of what constitutes quality in the niche and you will have a better feel for what your audience wants and how you can give it to them - over a total newbie.

Lastly, you should be able to better understand and write about (provide niche content) the issues, news, and developments in the niche over someone that is new.

Yes, there are people that do well in a niche that know nothing about it going in. They become students and learn quickly as they go. It is not a prerequisite to have knowledge, passion, and experience in a niche where your business will reside, but I personally believe it has some nice advantages that I, for one, like to exploit.

Good luck to you,

Steve

@Alexa I think it's because now I've experienced both ends. Before I got hired at my job, I was doing affiliate marketing. And now at my job (I do SEO for this company), I figured why can't I own a company like this? Or why can't I do something in that aspect? Which is why I brought up these questions.

Perhaps affiliate is long term, but I guess I've been more interested in having a business other than affiliates.

It sounds like you find helping people more directly, as in the seo company, is more fulfilling than recommending other people's products to people you don't really know. I think a lot of people struggle with this and don't cherish the idea of creating heaps of websites using this model. You might get more value and enjoyment by creating your own product - virtual or physical. What that product is, is the hard part. Many people start in affiliate marketing as a way to learn what kind of products sell so they can create them themselves. So affiliate marketing is a stepping stone to delivering more value to people with your own products. But then other people seem to settle on aff marketing as their only business model but I suspect that there is a product lurking inside them just waiting to come out !

Better to choose a niche where you have daily inspiration.

There are many Thailand blogs out there. But if I started one I'd have a huge advantage - I live there.

The real money is with ecommerce. Its the difference between jumping from product to product and building a sustainable business.

You are right ronrule, evergreen niches like forex, trading, ecommerce are always continuous as long as you are breathing, and they are high profitable niches.

Dating site market is saturated and requires large amounts of cap ex to get started.

This is simple for me. I do what I like. I do what I'd do anyway even if I weren't getting paid. My thing is writing both fiction and nonfiction. There are many ways to monetize writing.

I've tried lots of things to make money online. Some were very profitable, some not. The problem I had with almost all of it was it didn't hold my interest. Getting up in the morning knowing I was going to be writing content about registry cleaners or acne cures or holistic diets or alternative energy breakthroughs made me cringe. I had to force myself to get busy.

Same thing when I was a freelancer. Getting paid writing stuff that would make the client a small fortune as s/he got paid multiple times for my work while I only got paid once. Ugh.

Now, most often, I can't wait to get to work because I find it exciting, gratifying and profitable. I know some people can just flip a switch and work at almost anything but I'm sure not one of them. It took me a while to figure this out as I believe it does with all but a few.

hmmm....but there is huge money in affiliate marketing. Get your "systems" in place (everything is about systems) and the sky is the limit.

Many big businesses are simply "middlemen." Do not think it isn't a real business modul

i'd rather make $1m+ per annum

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you keep saying this like it's the only method.

(more in other market i.m.h.o.)

Dead right..it' not affiliate marketing that isn't real business it's 98% o people doing it that do not treat it like a business.

Glencore....is essentially affiliate marketing but in bulk commodities. $200 BILLION revenues.

What interests me is building a business, not a job. A business is something that can be outsourced or sold, so I am only interested in IM methods which can be realistically outsourced, and scaled-up.

Affiliate marketing certainly fits that . . . I had one attempt at scaling up my small but successful Amazon "empire" a couple of years ago, but made some big mistakes (over-backlinking, assuming Google will give you more traffic if you do what makes it better for the visitor etc,) but I certainly learned a lot, and might go that route again some time.

A lot of IM methods can be outsourced and scaled. I want to focus on creating new working methods, not doing the daily admin of a system which already works, so IM is a great choice for me, a good fit with my interests.

Chris