On the Lowell.com Blog, I discuss how I am using affiliate websites to generate passive incremental revenue for Lowell.com. I am using affiliates for hotels, tickets, and jobs, although there were other verticals I chose not to use for various reasons. With the three affiliate companies, I am able to create customizable pages within my site, and then the traffic is forwarded to the affiliate sites to close the sale. I can basically set the sites up and almost forget about them (except for minor updates).
By using affiliates, I am able to create brand stickiness at Lowell.com, as visitors will presumably find what they are looking for, and they will return to find it again. The transition to the affiliate site for the purchase is fairly seamless, and since the site has the look and feel of Lowell.com, it will make visitors more confident tha they aren’t being taken to a shady website.
One of the most important things to remember is to choose trustworthy partners. By working with well known and respected brands, I am confident they will give visitors a good experience, helping to promote the Lowell.com brand. The affiliates need to have great customer services, be reliable and give exactly what they promise their customers.
On the Lowell.com blog, I discuss which affiliate companies I chose and why. Hope this helps you in your development projects.

Finding advertisers will probably be the most difficult task for me once Lowell.com is softly launched sometime next week. It is difficult to convince someone to spend money advertising with an unproven business, especially considering the current economic situation. As bad as it is around the country, Lowell, Massachusetts has a fairly high unemployment rate and business is suffering in the city. However, because of rejuvenation efforts taken on by the city, there are some positive signs, and I want to do what I can to improve the economy and drive tourism (as much as a website can).
Because I changed my revenue generation strategy for Lowell.com from the directory model to a guide model, there is going to be a greater emphasis on acquiring individual business clients to advertise. On the Lowell.com blog, I discuss my strategy for acquiring advertisers. I am planning to get in touch with businesses in several less invasive ways. Based on my experience working in my father’s retail store, I am going to avoid the most common (and easiest) way to communicate with a business.
If you have time today, check out the Lowell.com blog for more information about my strategy to acquire customers.

I ran into a technical problem with the Lowell.com website hat has caused a minor setback and will hopefully cause just a short delay. Throughout the development and review process, I have always viewed the site on my Macbook using Firefox, Safari, and the most updated Internet Explorer browser. The few people that have also reviewed the site have used similar browsers and computers as well. Unfortunately, after asking a friend to review the site, we determined it not only looked distorted using Internet Explorer 6, but it was unusable. Additionally, the site looked distorted at 800 pixels.
My developer is working on a fix for this as we speak, but it is causing a delay at the moment. While this is something that I will catch well in advance the next time, it wasn’t something I spent much time considering. We all make assumption when doing things, but you know what they say about people who assume things!
You can read more about this minor setback as well as the progress of the Lowell.com website on the Lowell.com blog. I am still hoping to launch it in a couple of weeks. Please keep in mind that the site is being built offline, so the current Lowell.com website looks nothing like how the new website will look.