A little thought, a controversial thought, and a shot accross the bows here.
A few weeks ago, I created a new affiliate site. Contrary to what Jem said a few posts ago, affiliate income is making me a substansial amount. Not enough to quit my job and live in Nice, but enough to make it worthwhile. This site will target a niche that I’ve researched, understand and - more importantly - like.
Now, I do web design all day, and I really couldn’t be bothered designing a whole new website, so I went onto a popular webmaster forum and asked for some help. Nothing much, just a design (with logo) for a small budget.
In the end I got a response which was fairly good, and I commissioned a guy to do it. He was cheap, like barrel scraping cheap.
In the end, whilst I was actually happy with what he did, I wasn’t totally settled.
You see, he designed it in a web 2.0 stylee, and it just didn’t seem right.
The site in question was a BANS site. BANS - or Build a Niche Store - is a funky little script that can put an store on any domain using ebay listings. It’s made me a bit of money so far, and I’m planning on expanding it into one or two more “stores”.
They are affiliate sites, but what I find works with them is making them look like real shops, with added information. I spent a good weekend adding information to it. I’ve never really seen a shop that looks web 2.0.
On top of that, I did think when I opened it, I thought “damn, another web 2.0 design!”.
I do think we’re approaching the end of web 2.0 design with the reflections, pastels and gradients being the dominant force of web design. I’m not saying they’ll never be used again, but I’ve begun seeing blogs move away from then, and onto more neutral, plain colours with not overly dominant header graphics.
What do you think?
Popularity: 2% [?]
del.icio.us
Digg
Stumbleupon
Rhys Wynne, the author of this blog, is a 20 something web designer from Colwyn Bay.
I think you’re constraining the idea of Web 2.0 design too tightly. I think Web 2.0 design is more about following a set of principles, making use of white space, being easy to use, and attractive to the eye.
Web 2.0 is also more about the technologies involved with it, the user-generated content.
So no, we aren’t at the end of Web 2.0. Just some people are a little tired of the classic ‘web 2.0′ design.
…and site5 affiliates have made me about $1300 altogether over about a year, but like you say - not enough to quit your day job. My experience with affiliate linking is that income is unpredictable and unreliable, and on a bad month exactly as I say: piss poor.
My experience is strictly limited to product/service affiliation so you may have hit upon something I’ve not touched. The problem with the way I’ve done it is that - particularly with my site5 affiliate links - once you’ve paid for that service, or once you’ve bought that product, the chances are high you’re not going to buy a new one. At least with ‘real’ advertising (hate it as I do) you’re more likely to provide adverts that are going to be of interest on more than one occasion. Or, like your 50×50 advert things, people are going to pay repeatedly to be featured in one of those spots.
Of course, it goes without saying that any affiliate linking on my site is a strictly “as I can be bothered” and a “products/services I personally recommend” basis. This limits my options and quite likely, reduces the income (but then I do it for fun, not for money). On a site where you don’t feel “responsible” for the recommendation of a purchase, chances are you can get away with better/deeper/more affiliate linking.
Perhaps my previous comment was a little over-generalising, but I still believe that affiliate linking - in comparison to other forms of advertising - has a lower payout “threshold”.
I never really believed in the whole 2.0 thing anyway. I thought it was more a buzz word than anything really substantial.
Hi Rhys,
First time poster, long time lurker. Anyway I have found that my BANS sites are getting deindexed or loosing there google rank; well the ones without much content on.
However although it doesn’t use RSS/XML to update the sites I think that the old pagerank10 affiliate store script works the best.
- Paul
I like big graphic headers. Shows a personality.
Yes I agree with Rhys - Web 2.0 is more than just a particular look of the page, but I do agree with you in the way the the web 2.0 style is being phased out… It seems cleaner lines are coming in, with less bold colour, and more classic styling.
I was think of making a Bans site myself - have you got a link to yours?