Penny ante sales and growth

ways to create growth in sales for affiliate site

[lynnharvey]

I've been in affiliate marketing for several years without much success. The income hasn't even reached hobby level for me. I'm making about $500 - $1000 per year for the last three or four years, have several sites that take too much time to keep up-to-date for the amount of income they generate, and don't see much growth in income or sales on any of those sites.

I'd like to get out of the penny ante stuff and take that next step. My ultimate goal is to turn my affilate business into a part-time, or ideally, full-time job.

One, because I enjoy the web work and hate my "real world" job. Two, because I'm out of a job at the moment, by my own doing, because I really hated that "real world" job!

So, I'm looking for serious tips from those who've been successful at taking a small affiliate business and making it pay.

I appreciate any and all advice!

[deepestblue]

In all sincerity, try buying the Google Cash e-book. It may give you some revelations you didn't previously know.

(I'm in no way affiliated w/ this prog., it's just a really effective tool).

[Essex_boy]

Try putting Adsese on th esite

[lynnharvey]

I gave Adsense a try about a year ago, but the income stayed the same and adsense made almost nil.

I feel like I'm on the verge of discovering something that I should have figured out a long time ago, but I haven't quite reached that pinnacle of perception just yet.

My niches may be too small--not enough interest from consumers.

And here's something I've been wondering too. What brings more success? Sites based around a niche with a limited target market, sites based around medium to high demand / high value products but more competition (serious competition), or sites based around high demand / low value?

[Essex_boy]

How did you present your ads? By repostioning mineI went from about 1.5% click through to just under 8%

[sbskater10]

Maybe it's time for a new site? Start watching sites that are gaining enormous amounts of traffic in less than 6 months. Notice something in common? Generally they all have to do with trends.

For instance, take all the new myspace sites popping up that will create your profile template for you, or some other service that has to do with MySpace. Many of them have traffic that grows exponentially each month. This is because it is a trend and if you offer a catchy service, users love you and word of mouth advertising become very effective.

Yes, building sites over a long period of time can be turn huge profits but if you pay attention you can make the same amounts in one tenth of the time... Keep building those sites, but maybe try some alternatives while they take time to grow.

[Beagle]

Is it possible for you to expand the niches that you think might be too small? What else would people in that very small niche be particularly interested in, that might also have potential to bring more customers?

Also, do you have different products geared to any involvement level in the niche - from newcomers to experts? I'd love to sell more of the scholarly books I offer on my site, but have to admit I make a lot more income from DVDs for "beginners" and general-interest-level books on the same topic or related topics.

[deepestblue]

>>>I feel like I'm on the verge of discovering something that I should have figured out a long time ago, but I haven't quite reached that pinnacle of perception just yet. >>>

I really cannot stress my point any stronger: Get the Google Cash e-book!

[FourDegreez]

I was in a similar situation as you, until I decided to get serious a little over a year ago. Now I make in a month almost what I used to make in a year. What did I do? First and foremost, duplicate what works! My attempts to do that were sometimes hit and miss, but on the whole it has worked out. I try a lot of affiliates, and heavily promote the ones that work. I buy a new domain every few months (when I have an idea) and put something up on it, then later I circle back to older domains and add to them. I've tended to go more for higher traffic/lower value stuff, for better or worse. One thing I've found is, never sell your sites short. I was convinced one of my sites would never make more than $300/month. But simply changing around some of the ads on existing pages put me over $600/month. Adding some new content (particularly Christmas-oriented) got me well above the $1,000/month mark.

I'm still working at the day job, but I'd like to quit and do this full time. I need to be making just a little bit more before I get the nerve to take that plunge. But what a difference a year has made. Don't give up hope!

[topper99]

Start watching sites that are gaining enormous amounts of traffic in less than 6 months.

How do you do that?

[dcwps]

Here is one way

[alexa.com...]

[lynnharvey]

Nice link. Thanks.