Tim Bossie.com

I’m going to make a very bold statement about affiliate marketing. It’s probably one you’ve heard a few times already and have decided to disregard it.

If you’re not basing your affiliate marketing efforts on what you’re passionate about do something else.

Passion and affiliate marketing have to be joined together if you’re ever going to succeed at it. Most people make the decision to jump online and earn some extra money by using affiliate marketing as their business model. I think that’s an amazing thing. I love affiliate marketing and am now teaching my oldest daughter how to get started with her own website.

The most important thing I stressed to her was not the money. We seem to focus our efforts on putting Adsense codes, links to products, ad widgets, and other ways to make money from out sites. We miss the biggest money maker of them all.

Passion

Wade Tonkin at christianaffiliatemarketers.com touches on this subject as he talks about a question he had from an affiliate newbie . (Affiliate newbie= someone just beginning with affiliate marketing. Not meant to be derogatory.) Wade writes that he believes that the most important aspect to affiliate marketing is what we are most passionate in. Then he gives three reasons why…

" 1. If you are passionate about a topic, it will be easier to commit yourself to blogging multiple times a week or even daily.

2. You will know more about your topic and be more willing to learn more through reading, product experimentation and online research and this means more and better content.

3. If you review and recommend products that you have experience with in an area you are an “expert” in, your recommendations will carry weight and your reviews and other content will be compelling."

Passion can not be underestimated when either creating your first affiliate site or your hundredth. If you don’t like the subject don’t do waste your time, or money, by trying to make money from it.

Benefits of affiliate marketing with passion.

Why not just put together a quick page about anything? Why should you actually care, or even like, the topic? Why can’t you just hop on the ‘hottest’ keyword and earn my Adsense millions for the month?

Several reasons.

1. You will not be taken seriously. The problem with hopping on the "hot" bandwagon and throwing up sites just because something is big at the moment will not help build your own personal brand. In fact, most times affiliates don’t even want their name associated with a site because of this.

2. The time could be spent elsewhere. It takes a lot of time to do the research, website copywriting, finding relevant affiliate programs and then getting creatives and links to send people back to the merchant site. Then you add in the time spent testing PPC ads and tweaking everything to get a good optimization, you’ve spent a lot of time. That time could be used creating, and building, quality sites that will produce long term income.

3. Sometimes you lose money playing that game. It’s almost like playing the stock market. You could lose your shirt. What is hot today might not be next week. After you’ve spent a ton of time, and money, trying to get your "simple" website ready the fad is done and not worth the revenue.

Think long term

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money online. It’s a great way to get started, but it can also be a long term money producer if you’re putting your heart into it.

I have several sites that I maintain. It takes a lot of work to keep them updated, keep traffic coming to them, and making sure that new links are added and that I keep up with the newest "new" of the individual topics. At times it can be a little bit overwhelming. I do it because I love the topics the sites are on. I love fitness. I love woodworking. I love camping and hiking. I love movies. Golf…. not so much. So, I don’t have a golf website.

I did try to once. I set it up, put some articles on it, had some links to other websites, affiliate links, sold Clickbank products, and even tried writing a blog with it. I quit it after about a month. Not because I wasn’t earning anything. I just don’t like golf. I didn’t enjoy it. It felt too much like work!

The point I’m trying to make with this story is that you need to set your mind up for a long term commitment to building websites that you actually like. Don’t start a website on house mortgages just because the keyword is hot if you don’t know the first thing about it.

Why build with passion?

Wade pretty much summed it up in his post. I’d like to add a few thoughts on my own.

1. You’ll be much more committed to it. There will be days when you come home from a rough day at work, a long day away from home, or just plain having a bad day. Working on your affiliate site might just be last thing you want to do. If it’s a topic that you really like then it won’t be that much of a burden. It could be something you use to escape the things going on around you. Your commitment to making it work will be much greater than if you had no passion for the topic.

2. You’ll be much more talkative about it. When I’m in a conversation with someone about fitness I always give them a link to my website. I’m proud of the work I’ve done on it and feel that whenever I send people there they have a great experience there. I didn’t feel that way about my golf site. I didn’t write anything on it. Everything was from article directories. Why would I send friends there?

3. You’ll be able to think more about making it better. If you have a passion for the topic of your website you’ll be able to spend your time actually thinking about how you can make the site, or visitor’s experience, better. You’ll be able to brainstorm new articles, find new links to other sites, be able to interact with visitor emails, and possibly add your own original products to the mix.

4. You’ll be able to build better relationships with your visitors. One way to really build longevity into your website is to build a relationship with the people visiting it. With blogs that is made easier by using the comment feature. With a regular static website you have to do that through newsletters and email. But, if you like the topic you’ll always have something to talk about and be able to add great “stuff” to the conversation.

5. You’ll be able to make more money. That’s the bottom line right. We all want to make a little more money. When you have passion for your website that process is elevated to a new level.

Passion and affiliate marketing must be together. You can’t have affiliate marketing without passion or you will fail.

Take a few moments and think about what you like. Then do some quick research for any websites about it now. Then begin making plans on how you could begin a site, or blog, about it. Find some affiliate programs and start making money.

Of course it’s a little bit harder than that, but that’s pretty much the process.

Just have passion for it.