Forum Moderators: skibum
1. Optimizing pages for keywords related to specific products to draw people who are looking to buy those products.
2. Optimizing pages for keywords related to topics to draw people who are looking for content about those topics, then try to tempt them with related products.
There is a subtle, but definite difference. I would imagine the SERP competition for strategy 1 would be high, but the payoff for success would also be high. The competition for strategy 2 would be lower, but you aren't necessarily attracting people with their wallets open.
I ask this because I've exclusively pursued strategy 2 and my success has been rather limited. So I wonder what the successful people are doing. Are most of you following the first strategy? When you say that you put up a site and are generating $20 - $100 per day, what kind of site are you talking about? Content site, or faux storefront? Or something else?
IMO the two strategies are similar, but you are trying to sell related products instaead of the exact product they are looking for.
wellzy
Optimizing pages for KWs and optimizing network ad placement for high CTR. (Or using CPM).
Some topics don't have money in them, but have traffic in them :)
If you're primarily promoting products, you're more dependent on other people (manufacturers, market trends, etc.) With a content site, you have more control, in my opinion. It's also more satisying to feel you've created something new, instead of just selling someone else's products.
"It's also more satisying to feel you've created something new, instead of just selling someone else's products."
I agree to an extent. I am in the process of writing some good, unique content on a subject I'm passionate about. For my pure affiliate sites, I feel no need to reinvent the wheel. Their only purpose is to make money.
For the moment I keep passion/business completely seperate. It helps that I really enjoy the 'business' side :)
Good Idea to put Adsense at the bottom of the page!WOW!
Not trying to throw cold water but I disagree, at least from my angle :)
The bottom of the page is where visitors have just finished reading your copy (pre-selling) and are ready to click through to the merchant.
Why distract them?
...put Adsense at the bottom of the page!
As the owner of a very profitable editorial site, I create articles and other pages that supply useful information to readers.
Where appropriate, I may include affiliate links that relate to an article's content, such as hotels in Shelbyville or rail passes in Elbonia. But for the most part, I just focus on "evergreen" editorial content without regard for how much money any given story or resource is likely to generate.
Some pages obviously contribute more to the bottom line than others do, but so what? If you're a content publisher, as opposed to a merchant who's got a semitrailer's worth of widgets to unload, total revenues and effective CPM are the only numbers that really matter.
I've started putting adsense on my product pages that have had poor conversions. I figure that if they won't buy my product maybe I can at least pick up a little money on a click. I haven't noticed any decline in sales, but have seen a few google clicks coming in.
Place adsense ads on the content pages, but never on the product pages. Why chance giving away a $100 sale for a $.25 clickthrough?
I haven't noticed much difference conversion wise when I put adsense at the bottom of pages. So, until I do see a significant drop in conversions, Adsense is staying right where it is.
I haven't noticed much difference conversion wise when I put adsense at the bottom of pages. So, until I do see a significant drop in conversions, Adsense is staying right where it is.
Well, if your clickthrough and conversion rates are low, then it might be hard to see any difference.
My product pages are productive, with good clickthrough and conversion rates. The money I make from Adsense on my content pages is dwarfed by how much I make from my product pages. I generate frequent orders over $100 and have had several orders well over $500, from which I earn more than 25% commission. No way am I going to take a chance of losing even a single order to a competitor. On content pages, I have no problem with Adsense ads, but on my product pages, no way.
I agree. I even run AdAense ads at the bottom of the pages.
If you run multiple sites be careful, you may be handing them your network on a silver platter.
I haven't noticed much difference conversion wise when I put adsense at the bottom of pages. So, until I do see a significant drop in conversions, Adsense is staying right where it is.
Actually, thinking this over, conversion rate tells you nothing about possible lost sales, since that's based on sales per clickthroughs. Where Adsense ads might hurt you is in lost clickthroughs (visitors clicking on an ad rather than through to your merchant partner) and, as I've stressed, it might take only one lost clickthrough to cost you a big sale. If you've got competitors showing up in the Adsense ads, then the chance of losing a sale increases quite a bit.
Things stayed pretty consistent.
Why chance giving away a $100 sale for a $.25 clickthrough?
It depends on the expected value (probability of a $100 sale).
Let's see... $0.25/$100.00 = .0025 conversion rate threshold. If your merchant conversion is worse than that, then 25 cent adsense ad is competitive. (A similar exercise is to compare afflink CPM vs. adsense CPM.)
Seems more likely though, that a page focusing on $100 commission items would show $1.50 adsense ads.
Of course, the arguable assumption here is that your visitors regard aff links and adsense links similarly.
Very true.
I'm not getting rich by any means, but I'm making just enough money to cover the expenses of hosting my site + a little bit of pocket change ($20 - $100 per month).
It depends on the expected value (probability of a $100 sale).Let's see... $0.25/$100.00 = .0025 conversion rate threshold. If your merchant conversion is worse than that, then 25 cent adsense ad is competitive. (A similar exercise is to compare afflink CPM vs. adsense CPM.)
Seems more likely though, that a page focusing on $100 commission items would show $1.50 adsense ads.
Of course, the arguable assumption here is that your visitors regard aff links and adsense links similarly.
I agree that the likelihood is low of my losing a large sale because of a customer clicking through an Adsense ad, but the potential damage is large, since I frequently get orders for much more than $100. The odds of a fire in your house is also pretty low, but that doesn't mean you don't insure against it. For me, that means giving visitors to my product pages just one place to go -- to my affiliate partner's site.
Please help me understand this. I have multiple sites. Completely unrelated with very few links between them. I use google channels to limit competitors ads. Am I at risk here?
"If you run multiple sites be careful, you may be handing them your network on a silver platter."
I interpret that to mean you've defeated yourself in trying to hide your ownership of multiple sites from Google for the purpose of maintaining high PR via cross-linking between them. Am I way off base?
"If you run multiple sites be careful, you may be handing them your network on a silver platter."
A) Lets say your trying to dominate the blue widgets category, so you have four blue widgets websites. You have different/hidden whois information and on different IP's. You go through all of the trouble to get a unique set of backlinks for each. If you put adsense on all of them and if you ever come under inspection human or algorthymic ....
B) You set up 1 site to rank for blue widgets. You set up a network of feeder sites to pump up your main site. You have different/hidden whois information and on different IP's. You go through all of the trouble to get a unique set of backlinks for each. If you put adsense on all of them and if you ever come under inspection human or algorthymic ....
The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead; the good general cultivates his resources.
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War
What in laymans terms is a feeder site, and what does it usually comprise of?
Thanks,
C.K.
