As an affiliate manager, I've seen every type of affiliate site signing up with us, from portals to niche sites and free home pages.
But the truth is that only a small percentage of affiliates is able to make sales.
Let's get something out of the way first: free home pages and "magic template" sites never make any money.
Sorry to disappoint some of you, but I've been working on our affiliate program for several years and still haven't seen any of these sites making a sale.
While, obviously, big authority sites have better chances to make sales because they get more traffic and are targeted, there is one type of site that seems sticky enough to make sales on a regular basis, whatever the industry and the amount of competition.
Informational sites seem to be the affiliates that are the most constant, maintaining or increasing sales throughout the years, while usually being sheltered from Google's notorious rank drops.
Because they are built on great and useful content, these sites not only attract visitors because they are search-engine friendly but, in addition, they create a sense of trust that translates easily into affiliate sales.
In addition, the more your site will have relevant pages, the more Google will have content to index, which will result in better organic rankings and PR.
What's even better is that informational sites prove to perform well in any type of industry and whatever their size is.
To give you an idea 4 out of our 6 best affiliate sites are medium size content sites outperforming much bigger affiliate sites.