There are plenty of people who have decided to go this route. Understanding that the affiliate program route to money is a numbers game, they have decided to maximize their efforts by listing tens, if not hundreds, of affiliate programs on their web sites.
A good idea, if you choose this route, would be to make the site about affiliate programs, in which case it would make sense to list so many. By diversifying you are placing your bets that, by having more options, something will appeal to any visitor to your site.
The Middle Ground
Other webmasters have decided to find the middle ground between Focusing Their Efforts and Diversifying. By including multiple affiliate program links and banners, they are increasing their odds of enticing a surfer (or even a loyal visitor) to click a link and make a purchase, but by limiting the offerings to only the most relevant to the site content, they are trying to hit the target market without overwhelming the reason people come to their site in the first place.
If you wanted to get advice on tricking out a car and went to an appropriate site, you would expect to see adds for books on the topic from Amazon, for example. If you saw the “How to write a book in 14 days” advertisement instead, odds are good you would not click on it. You might even loose a little respect for the people who run the site you are on, thinking they are only interested in making money from your visit instead of offering you something of value.
Another Look
Another form of affiliate marketing is personified by what is arguably the most popular and largest affiliate program of all, Google.com’s AdSense. With a program like AdSense, you submit information about your site to Google, who then, using their search engine technology, places text adds on your site that are most relevant to your site content. In this way you are freed from having to track down multiple leads of who might be interested in advertising on your site. Depending on the contract Google has with the advertiser, you may earn anywhere from fractions of a penny per click up to a couple of dollars. Depending on your site traffic, even a few pennies could result in a large paycheck, or at least cover your hosting costs.
While we are on the subject of programs such as AdSense, don’t discount the possibility of using it yourself from the other end; become an advertiser. By setting your budget to what you are willing to spend per month, you can have Google search out other relevant sites and advertise you with them, thus increasing your site traffic, and hopefully increasing the conversions you get from visits to sales (to cash!)