Back in January, Paul asked the following question:

“It seems to me the sites that make money are databases, dull lists of facts and figures that send you off to buy a ticket etc. with bland graphics a and can only be built by savvy developers or if you have money.

Can anyone name me a cool, vibrant, interesting, visual and also successful affiliate site?”

So.. do affiliate sites have to be dull and boring in order to make money?

Short answer no, long answer no.but. They say that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but we all do it, constantly, every second of the day, and most would argue that it’s a key part of being human. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make here is that we want to look at websites that are a treat for the eyes as well as the mind, and as is often the case people put more time into filling their affiliate site with key word rich content and links rather than putting a bit of elbow grease into the visual presentation. Either that or they just run their site like a huge, bland list that only a mother could love.

And it’s all about first impressions, not just of the content of your site, but the way it’s laid out on the page, the attractiveness of your menu bars and how easy it is to navigate around the site. You might imagine that it takes a lot of money to set up a good looking website, and for some people that might be true as there are a lot of big boys out there with shiny, swish sites. However, there are others who have proved that you don’t have to spend the earth or be a big player to have an attractive affiliate site, so I’ll take a look at sites from both sides of the coin.

Cable.co.uk
This is a smaller affiliate website that caters to people interested in cable internet or telephone services. It opts for the popular ‘tabbed’ look, in which the main pages of the site are listed along the top like tabs in a filing cabinet, and click on a tab will bring the page to the front. It makes what is an otherwise basically designed site feel interactive, and the chunky buttons and graded shading of colours on every page make you really want to click everything, which can only be a good thing when it comes to monetising traffic.

Top10-Broadband.co.uk
This is a site that cleverly markets itself to appeal to our instinctive love of lists but applies it to the lucrative world of broadband. Their page is cleanly designed at the top with three boxes dividing the three main functions of the site into easy to digest pieces, and distinctly rendered in pastel colours that make it easy on the eye. They also have the key aspect that suggests immediately to the customer that this site can be trusted, which is to include the logos of the large brands to which their site links.

Logos and images that we all recognise on a site we’ve never been on before create trust by association, and that the logos are also used to link to relevant web pages else where on the site is a sensible way of disguising what could be a bland menu system or drop down box. As you scroll down the page things do become a little more confusing, with shed loads of links to other pages within the site in the dreaded list format.

Cashback.co.uk
A larger player in the world of affiliate marketing with what is a very complex network of services and links. However they’ve managed to make their site easy to view and uncluttered, and have a couple of clever tricks that catch the eye and keep you clicking. First there’s the image of big brand logos all clustered together on a shopping bag, with ‘As Seen on TV’ stuck next to it. Then there’s the tabbed layout that makes the rest of the site easy to navigate around, as well as a little area in which the amount of money made by users of the site is forever ticking upwards to infinity, and any site displaying the millions of pounds it’s made for people is bound to attract attention.

Finally there are a few boxes displaying some of the many offers that the site has access to, each one designed with emphasis on the amount of money the customer could potentially earn and each one accompanied by an attractive and relevant image. As is always a sensible idea, the terms and conditions and less interesting stuff is restricted to the very bottom of the page in small links so the truly keen know where to find it.

Overall the best sites seem to share one thing in common. They keep their presentation simple on the surface, but have structured their sites so that the relevant information is easily available to the customer. Clean lines, curves, bright colours, animated links and just the right amount of text to avoid clutter and confusion is the key to a well designed, vibrant affiliate site that will keep first time viewers coming back for more and thus help in generating your ongoing revenues.

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