Hi webmasters, been for years a reader and then a forum member here, have many things to say thanks for, sadly many forum members are not around anymore. Anyway those years I've been seeing lots of threads about affiliates and alliances and I have no clue on that. I've read, and I know many made big bucks from there, some still make decent money. And I still-have-no-clue on how that works. Nope I'm not asking for a tutorial, I've read.
The thing is I have some brick and mortar websites still having decent traffic, getting lots of emails per week or per day, etc. Those websites were created as hobby sites, per example photography. Over time the sites got a lot of attention on people wanting to travel to such places (just as if you talk about computers but then people wants to buy from you). I have zero interest on changing my business, and zero interest on jumping on something I do not have the experience, etc. Not that I'm lazy, I just have other areas of work and other that I would like to explore, not those ones.
Tried talking to the industry, got some meetings, agreements, etc. But at the end there are no sales. They insist they are working on that, they also say they sent the info, but from time to time I ask the visitors and they got nothing. All the time the affiliates are telling me I should do this and that for better results, etc. The end result is: they are trying to make me work and work, while I get nothing from them just requests and requests. I understand the business but I also understand: that... sucks.
I've got some decent offers now and requests from other businesses, but as a webmaster and all the years I have developing websites and webservices, that many sales are lost just leaving my websites and getting on theirs. The service prodivers FAIL to understand the cut on user experience, the cut on trust, the interruption on what the user is seeing.
Had (have?) a business relationship with a friend and there's been a few but good sales with him, but sad fact is he is far too lazy and focused on other things that are not even good for him, he became a problem.
I've thought about this, a lot. Any suggestions? advice? stories to share?, I'm clueless. And all my thinking is pointing on a direction I would like to ignore and not take: moving and exploring providing such services and products myself. It's a big jump.
Thanks in advance.
