Some affiliate marketers find big success in developing one large site that promotes multiple product categories. While there are some definite advantages to this strategy, there are some drawbacks as well. For instance, it takes a long time to build out each category to have a successful launch. If you’re new to affiliate marketing or are trying to get things off the ground in your spare time, you may want (or need) to go live with a site that requires less up front development and resources. I’ll deep dive into the pros and cons of a large multi-vertical website in an upcoming post.

For many affiliates a sometimes easier and more manageable approach is to create a number of microsites that focus on specific product categories or niche products. Here are some pros to consider:

1. If you have a lot of knowledge, insight or interest in a particular type of product you can start there. Focus on something you know as you are getting started and your initial efforts are more likely to be successful.
2. Diversification has many benefits. As you build out more and more microsites and strive to improve your natural search engine listings you may take a hit on one or more sites when Google decides to change the algorithm. Having many websites will help maintain balance and your revenue during these shifts.
3. You can develop complex linking strategies between your sites, resulting in better natural search results.
4. More easily manage and maintain very focused paid search campaigns. With small lists of very specific keywords you can better optimize and will likely see much higher conversion rates from your campaigns.
5. Keep your content fresh and unique and you will likely attract and maintain a very loyal audience who will keep coming back and will make repeat purchases through your site.

Remember, you can always grow a website and add products, categories, verticals, etc. Think about starting a bit smaller with something you can manage and maintain and then scale when the time is right, whether that means developing new sites or adding to a current site or deploying new marketing methods.