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Established site -- Should I Introduce Affiliate Products?

I run a site that's a hybrid of a design/development blog, and a subscription service where I sell premium video courses.

Right now, about 80% of my traffic comes from Google. I started at the beginning of 2017 and grew it to a site that receives around 10k-11k visitors daily.

I monetize it via the following methods:

  1. The $9 monthly course subscription service
  2. Adsense on the free articles/tutorials/courses that I write/record.
  3. Youtube (I have a 155k subscriber yt channel that has been around for years)
  4. Udemy (I upload my paid courses there as well).

The problem I'm facing is this:
Being that I'm a 1 man show (I handle all design/dev of the site, marketing, writing and recording tutorials/courses, etc..) -- I only have so much time to dedicate towards producing courses for premium members.

Being a course instructor, I recognize that I'm not the only quality source to learn design/dev. Udemy, Pluralsight, LinkedIn Learning (Lynda), Skillshare -- all of these networks offer affiliate programs that I can potentially make decent money from. I can't figure out how to integrate affiliate products within my current structure, especially as I have my own subscription service.

I also worry about negative side effects SEO-wise for introducing affiliate marketing products, though, I admit I haven't researched this much.

I also have a 50k email list that I could market to.

I'm just curious if anyone has some solid ideas to work through the problems I'm facing. ATM, I can't afford to hire course instructors who are quality enough, as the going rate seems to be $2k-$4k per course, which would eat through most of my profits.

Thanks.

  1. 1

    I'm working on a course where having affiliate links naturally make sense. The courses are based on woodworking tutorials where some tools are necessary to make the project.

    Are there design assets you can offer with an affiliate relationship? That would tie in well if you feature the images or other assets in the course.

    Also - $9/mo sounds cheap. Charge more or add another level. (That's without knowing precisely what the offer is, but still... charge more)

  2. 1

    What's your site name? and Udemy course name?