You didn't have to worry about monthly web hosting fees and yearly domain name registration fees. All you had to do was to publish quality content. Wait -- you didn't even have to worry about quality either. In Squidoo, for instance, "thin pages," or pages with more affiliate products than informative content would still rank high on Google.
The result? If you publish enough (50+ pages), you can enjoy at least $500 every month. During the holidays, you can earn more than $5,000.
But those days are gone.
Learning from Squidoo
Squidoo used to be THE site to be. Three years ago, some of our friends at the Warrior Forum advised us NOT to put all your effort in the site. Their reason is valid. You don't control the site, so if it decides to change its TOS all of a sudden, this can impact your earnings.
When their prediction happened, "I told you so's" and "I knew it's" were common.
For those new to affiliate marketing, this is what happened.
Last year (March 2013), Squidoo started an all-out war against lenses (or Squidoo pages) with thin contents. Later, it became clear that the site was hit hard by Google, and they needed to gain the "trust" and "Google authority" they lost.
What did Squidoo do to gain Google's trust back?
Squidoo limited outgoing Amazon links and unpublished TONS of product lenses. The community naturally panicked, especially those whose earnings depended on Amazon links. But there was nothing they could do but to either go away and publish their lenses elsewhere, or improve the quality of their lenses so they could stay.
Whatever happened in Squidoo, and whatever the lensmasters decided to do to cope with the changes, the takeaway is this: It's always wise to publish your content at a place where you can have total control.
How to Create a Self-Hosted Site
If you want total control, create a self-hosted site. Here are the general steps.
1. Think of a domain name and register it, which can cost less than $3 for the first year.
2. Buy web hosting service. At Godaddy, a 3-month hosting service can cost you less than $6 with a coupon.
3. Install Wordpress and fill your site with quality content.
Get my free step-by-step and comprehensive guide on creating a self-hosted site here.