Before this summer began, my son was super excited about making an affiliate website. He couldn’t stop talking about it.

…until it required work.

I told him to write some content about his topic. He wasn’t sure where to begin.

To help him along, I wrote 5 simple questions and asked him to answer them in as much detail as he could. (These would be the first 5 blog posts.) I also wrote a question that could be used as his “about” page.

The first day — he spent an hour or two writing a couple paragraphs. (No, that’s not much, but for my 11 year old, it was a lot.)

Then, we got distracted as a family with 3 straight weeks of travel.

Now, I ask him to get back into the swing of things and write some more content.

“…but that takes WORK, Dad!”

You see, making money from affiliate marketing doesn’t just “happen”. It takes effort, dedication and focus.

And, the money doesn’t just come pouring in with the idea.

The idea means nothing, unless you execute.

In fact, the money doesn’t come pouring in after you simply “create” the site. Just having a skeleton site with some very basic content is a great starting point. But that’s what it is: a starting point.

Monetizing a website comes later.

First, you need to create quality content that is compelling, unique and engaging.

(That’s what we teach at The Content Buffet. Want a $20 coupon? Use coupon code “affplan20” within the next 5 days.)

Then, you need to build your audience.

While you’re creating this content, you need to be conscious of the SEO factors that will bring the audience to you — but you must always be focused on the audience, not the search engines.

If you build quality content, people will like it. (And, so will the search engines.)

So, that’s where we stand.

He is writing content (begrudgingly), and I won’t even put it on the site until he has a few articles and some elements that make the site valuable.