To start with though something like Amazon aStore would let you build individual online shops with the colours of each team and feature items related to them.

If you are then able to do book/DVD reviews once a week a simple, clean text link near the top of a piece and one at the bottom to Amazon would then track any sales.

The real money in this field is actual items, such as cameras, but it is very much a “set it up and forget” service, but simple text links to the shop on every page and the occasional one from a review will begin to see dividends.

Again as an example my focussed shops come up second to the actual Amazon page in search.

Creating an affiliate presence could almost be a full-time job:

http://www.copyblogger.com/catablogging/

All the best
Craig

But it’s interesting what you say about trains cos that’s an area that’s long intrigued me.

For if there is one thing that football fans do do religiously is travel; and we know when they travel and where they travel to.

It’s called a fixture list.

And, to my humble mind, it shouldn’t be beyond the wit of man or web to offer them a single-click, best-priced ticket ‘button’ to their chosen away day one Saturday in April.

But that’s all before you (don’t) meet the marketing dept of OneRailway… but I’m spoiling a later post.

Affiliate buttons and banners don’t work but shops spun off a related site do have potential.

With simple text links off the main site you are building up a search engine friendly presence so that ultimately some people will click through from your news pages, but many others will land on your shop via search.

You are then getting people who are looking for footie news, but you’ve also a good chance of getting those searching for products.

For example, I have an article on my site offering tips on booking train tickets which I wrote two years ago, that one page earns me about £75 a month.

People arrive on that page via search engines as it helps them answer a question.

In MFW’s case spin off shops for each team featuring books in Amazon, with reviews on the main site and simple links to titles can be automatically earning you a few beans.

There are some one person businesses earning big money from affiliate schemes, the problem they often have is they don’t have the news and writing skills.

Marry the two together and you might have some joy.