Forum Moderators: skibum
Well, this is in fact only my second posting but better than just lurkin' around eh?
Ok, focus. Ahem. Once again I know there are so many excellent posts/threads in this forum that I feel like it's better than watchin' a good film. Eyes are a bit dry from the readin' but ya know.
Basically, because of some advice from a couple of you folks I've decided to seriously pursue my very first site as being an affiliate site. It sounds to me like it's simply time to get down to it and not waffle anymore thinking "do I know enough yet to get started?". I'm ready.
The few questions I have before I'm kicked outta the nest are:
1) I don't necessarily have an idea, let alone a site, YET, but is it smarter to sign up with all the affiliate programs first to find merchants...or to focus on the niche then seek out any and all sites (programs or single sites)that offer affiliate schemes?
2) Since I'm totally new, when people say they have a "small" site (50-100 pages) that to me sounds big. Is there a way to create such a big site easily? IE CSS and templates in Dreamweaver? Should I even focus on having 100 pages to start out with?
3) Say I come up with an idea, do my research and it seems like a good niche, how the heck could I possibly write 50 to 100 pages of content? I'm not trying to knock myself here cause I'm educated, etc., but do any of you folks find either other sites or magazines, etc. to find your content? Any advice would be great.
4) Is it recommended to set up an Adwords campaign or have Adsense on my site with related links (of course) and how does that work..in a nutshell? Someone clicks an Adsense link and I get a few pennies?
5) Is it possible to find say 20 to 50 merchants via affiliate programs to cover most topics for my niche idea? Or is it not so much about the number of affiliate merchants as it depends on the product/service I'll be promoting?
Basically, any and all advice for a total newbie who's never had his own site before would be so appreciated. I love this forum and I truly get inspired but sometimes I read so much and have taken reems of notes that it starts to become a bit convoluted and I feel I'm not exactly sure where to start.
Thanks for reading this long drawn out message :). Someday folks I will be highly successful and a huge part of it will be because of you all who take the time to write in the threads.
Cheers big time!
Scott
PS - if anyone wants to sticky me and give any particular advice I welcome all! Thanks
thks for your attention.
If this is your first site, start out with something you like to do. I would say, do that, even if it seems like an over developed niche. The reason being is that your first site will be a starter site. Something you can break your teeth on. You are going to screw things up and you are going to need to learn how to disciplin yourself. Better do it on something you like.
Repeat after me...
I will probably not make much money off my first site
Say it again. One more time. One more time, just to make sure you heard yourself.
Understand this and you will be a much more satisfied person. Think of your first site as your college class of affiliate marketing. You pay a college to teach you. You don't expect a college class will pay you while you are sitting there. The payment comes out of what you learn and apply later.
Ok, now next step.
Go to your local libary and check out every book you can about your subject or at least what you feel you might be able to closely skim through in a week's time. Magazines and other sources are fine too. BTW, when I say skim, that does not mean copy. Plagerism is wrong, bad and dishonest. You are filling your head with ideas that you will write about in your own words.
When you get home, get a pad of paper, a pen and start skimming. Write down ideas as you come across them. Have a question about something, write it down. If you have a question, chances are someone else will too and there is one more page. Details can become entire pages if you know how.
Once you have your list, dedicate one page per item/question you wrote down. This should be good for at least 25 pages probably more.
Start writing. Average 250 - 500 words per page. If you find that an idea is taking up more than 500 words, it is too broad. Break it down (voila! more pages).
Write one to two pages per day. I would actually reccomend that you do not do more than that in the beginning. Writing is like exercise, too much, too fast if you are not use to it and you will give up because it is too hard. Work your way up to more, say one more page this week than you did last week. But whatever you do, do at least one page a day.
Keep a notepad at hand at all times, including and especially next to the bed. You will think of thing constantly as you are working on this, particularly when you wake up and going to sleep. You impluse will be to start writing about those random page ideas immeadiatly. Don't. Add them to your list and let your brain develop them quietly without your help. You will write a much better page if your brain has mulled it over a bit.
Once you have 20-30 pages, you can put up a site. I know that goes againist the holy advice of 26 steps but it is a pain to go back and add ads to 100+ pages. Better to have a tiny site that a merchant (and adsense) can see, that looks complete then to have to waste time going back and adding code in.
Focus your ads on adsense and 1-5 merchants who are related to your subject. Make your ad placement obnoxious. Middle of the content text. Bright yellow bordered adsense. Use your imagination. Don't be shy. Your visitor will have banner blindness and in order to make money, you need to break through that blindness.
That's where you start. It is also wise to read up here on basic SEO so you can write spider food and have a page that supports that spider food.
Go to your local libary and check out every book you can about your subject or at least what you feel you might be able to closely skim through in a week's time.
Unless your topic is new or evolving you can also pick up some used books pretty cheap. Amazon's decent for this, as is your local used book store.
If you're working with a subject that is new, magazines are usually a better bet than books. Again try the periodicals sections of your library. They usually let you borrow the older issues.
Getting up 100 pages of content isn't too hard. I used to think so, but if you set out to write a certain number of articles per day, then you can do it quite quickly.
I am too starting my first SEO site, and I want it to roll out with 30 pages, but it will be more like 40. Anyways, I just write 5 pages a day. I can have a sites content ready in a week. Find a happy medium for you and decide on how many you want to write.
Remember, you aren't out to win awards or anything for your content. You can write surface level stuff. Right now my articles aren't that great, but I know as I write more they will be more engaging, and thus better.
If you have done enough research, your site may just be great, and make you some money.
All the Best,
C.K.
Why?
Because if you can keep working that long on the site, you'll have focused in on what you like about building and writing websites that has nothing to do with making money.
If your primary motivation for writing a website is to make money then, if you don't make money, or, if at some point in the future your profitable site suddenly dries up... you'll be disillusioned, frustrated and you might even pack up the site and wonder why you ever wasted your time.
If your primary motivation for writing the website is something to do with how much you enjoy your topic or your cutting edge CSS design techniques or evolving a written voice... then it won't matter if at some point the revenue crashes or if it takes three times as long as you expected to start generating revenue.
I really appreciate the advice you all give and will take it to heart. Fortunately, I can calm myself down enough from the necessary adrenaline rush to get something going for the first time in order to focus on how to do things..."right".
I think going to the library, checking out books, periodicals, magazines, etc. is a fantastic idea and I would never plagiarize. For me, it's about taking the thought of a well written, content driven site [someday] and focusing on how to START creating it [today].
I guess one of my "fears" was that if I chose something I liked, in order to keep the interest over the next few months, that after all that research I might not find any, or many, affiliates to complement my content. So, maybe in the process of writing and deciding on the niche I also continue doing my research, finding affiliates, and reading this forum.
I agree that focusing on the potential revenue is like going on a first date and thinkin' about the honeymoon already, let alone kids and mother-in-laws (whatever that means). So, one step at a time for me.
These forums are great, but it's you all who make it great. I know there are other newbies who could use this advice too.
I'll keep adding posts and reading more and can't wait to start a thread sayin', "Hey every1 guess what? I'm up and running and Google just found me!".
It's good to be modest and prudent in the beginning especially and once I'm ready to graduate we should all meet at the local pub for a pint!
Thanks again and good luck to everyone in here!
Scott
once I'm ready to graduate we should all meet at the local pub for a pint!
I'm already there >;->
Very best of luck!
1) I don't necessarily have an idea, let alone a site, YET, but is it smarter to sign up with all the affiliate programs first to find merchants...or to focus on the niche then seek out any and all sites (programs or single sites)that offer affiliate schemes?
Others might disagree, but I strongly encourage people to start with the site idea. You can find merchants for virtually any idea. Coming up with the idea for the site is the hard part.
2) Since I'm totally new, when people say they have a "small" site (50-100 pages) that to me sounds big. Is there a way to create such a big site easily? IE CSS and templates in Dreamweaver? Should I even focus on having 100 pages to start out with?
Dont aim for a size. Aim for a site. The size will be a factor of the site. It may be one page. It may be a million pages. If it's larger than 50-100 pages, odds are many of the pages will be dynamically generated or content provided by others.
3) Say I come up with an idea, do my research and it seems like a good niche, how the heck could I possibly write 50 to 100 pages of content? I'm not trying to knock myself here cause I'm educated, etc., but do any of you folks find either other sites or magazines, etc. to find your content? Any advice would be great.
You're focusing on the size and content. That's the wrong focus. Focus on the site, and providing value to your visitors. Solve a problem. Make things easier.
For instance, your site may be a site dedicated baby diapers. Compare the pros and cons of cloth versus disposable diapers. Include affiliate links to buy cloth diapers and cloth diaper cleaning services. Compare the pros and cons of the various brands of diapers. Have a price comparison of the various brands. Direct people to the cheapest place to buy diapers (through affiliate links, of course). Include the ability for people to vote and/or leave comments about their favorite diapers. Maybe even incude a forum. Include AdSense ads. Include banner ads or other links to things that parents of young children would be interested in.
4) Is it recommended to set up an Adwords campaign or have Adsense on my site with related links (of course) and how does that work..in a nutshell? Someone clicks an Adsense link and I get a few pennies?
I would recommend not doing AdWords until you know what you're doing. Get the site up and running. Get organic traffic. Optimize to feature the best converting stuff more prominently. Figure out how much you're earning per unique visitor to your site. Then determine if you can afford to use AdWords or other forms of advertising.
AdSense is fine. Yes, you'll earn money for each click.
5) Is it possible to find say 20 to 50 merchants via affiliate programs to cover most topics for my niche idea? Or is it not so much about the number of affiliate merchants as it depends on the product/service I'll be promoting?
Not all areas will have that many, but you should be able to find affiliate programs in just about any niche. It's usually more about quality than quantity.
MovingOnUp, I agree that my focus needs to be on creating valuable content first as the rest I believe will fall into place (in terms of size, etc.) It really does make sense to take this approach, especially when I'm so new to this. And hannamyluv, I also agree that as my first starter site if the only thing I "earn" is experience then that would be great as it'll help prime me for the discipline and focus in the future.
I guess I'm so used to multi-tasking these days that while I'm thinking of one thing I'm writing notes for another. I've got a decent understanding of creating spiderable pages, the value of link exchanges, organic structure I guess you could say, only, it's been info I've read and studied and not yet applied.
I don't know how you all started your first site but I sometimes I feel I just gotta pay for a hosting service, get my domain name, etc. just to feel like I'm making that next move. Otherwise it feels like I "stall" til I feel like I've got it all in me head (not wanting to become "theoretical" webmaster). I'm sure at times I sound like I just wanna start running before I can even crawl.
How bout a little off topic? Anyone care to share some tid bits of how it was when you first started? Did you become an affiliate first? Did you have stax of notes before you typed your first web page? I agree that it's not about 100 pages, but good, valuable content.
It just seems like in today's fast pace, multi-tasking environment one should (IMHO) kick up the knees and gain momentum BUT be thoughtful enough to know when it's necessary to slow down and check the list or next step. Am I still sounding impatient everyone? :) Funny thing is, I've been working as a web designer for only 3 months and I applied for the job specifically to learn how to design my own site and...I get paid for it. hehe
No but seriously, I will take everyone's advice to heart and it's great food for thought! If any of you ever feel like sittin' down with a glass of vino tinto and spilling how you started out, that would be very welcome.
Thanks guys and gals!
Carpe diem!
PS - how do you get those grey boxes that pull quotes from anothers post? Kinda cool that. Cheers!
To continue the off topic theme I'll let you know how I got into the game.
A fair few years ago when I was heavily into computer gaming (mainly Unreal Tournament) and was one of the better players with a pretty famous clan, I spent a lot of time idling on IRC.
We had (and have) several hundred people in our main clan channel as well as other channels I idled in.
It was amazing that with so many people from so many countries, cultures, ages, upbringing etc the amount of funny things people came out with.
I imagine virtually everyone has heard of bash.org and I used to submit the ones I found funny to it. Things took so long to get authorised and so many were turned down that I created my own site which mainly consisted of my own records of things that had been said.
I was part of a large gaming community who also started using the site instead of bash, so I went from approximately 75 quotes of my own to several hundred pretty quickly. Word then spreads and people using my IRC network started using the site for quotes rather than bash.
Although I was heavily into gaming, I started getting heavily into web design. I went from a *very* un-compliant website and turned it into XHTML 1.0 compliant, then turned the CSS into version 2 compliant. By now I was receiving a couple of hundred unique visitors a day and didn't think anything of it!
Then I took on a challenge, I was approximately page 10+ of the major search engines and PR 1 for search terms similar to the theme of the site.
Wonder if I can get it higher? How do I do it?
I read a lot (and I mean a hell of a lot) of material, trying to learn how to do better, how to build links, how to SEO the site etc. So I did.
I spent time learning how to mod_rewrite the site so it becomes static looking. I learnt how to display URLs in the best manner possible (very simple stuff I know, but to a newbie it was big!)
I ended up with a fairly well (imo) SEO'd site with plenty of unique content. I then created a statistics logging script and that's where the surprise came from. People were now being referred from search engines for all sorts of incredibly strange terms that I wouldn't even think of. Due to the fact that similar to real life people talk about all sorts of things on IRC - pretty much anything you can think of.
I did a search for the main keywords I'm aimed at and I'm one of the top sites with a PR of 5.
I was one very happy bunny but still didn't even consider making any money from the site until someone suggested using adsense and suggested I looked up affiliate marketing.
So I did and although I'm not hugely successful and I'm not hugely knowledgable about the whole thing, I'm learning more and more things every day and the extra money I earn from doing Adsense and affiliate stuff etc is very nice for holidays etc.
Good luck with your venture, although I now have diversified into all sorts of areas and other sites, if I ever get fed up with things I can go back to my hobby site and spend some time on that until I get my enthusiasm back for the rest of them.
my 2p :)
I imagine virtually everyone has heard of bash.org and I used to submit the ones I found funny to it.
wow, small word. I'm one of the mods there. :)
anyway, back on topic:
I would've been a bit intimidated to just start in with a site out of nowhere. I picked up html, very minor graphics skills, and some basic knowledge just by being online.. well, a lot.
I participated in a community website that eventually went up for grabs- I ended up getting the site. I was never great with graphics, so it was a lot, lot easier for me to have an existing template I could use and expand upon.
that site was essentially non-profit, but I managed to increase the traffic exponentially over time. while I was searching for how to optimize it, I sort of fell into the SEO crowd online, and that's not far off from AM.
I still consider myself pretty new to all this, but I'm making okay money and come up with ideas often enough. it's just actually carrying them out that I need to work on... :)
PS - how do you get those grey boxes that pull quotes from anothers post? Kinda cool that. Cheers!
Copy the text you want using ctrl + c
type the word quote in square brackets, paste your text using ctrl + v, type /quote in square brackets.
It took me ages to figure that out!
When it comes to affiliate programs, I believe you should use an affiliate clearing house, like Commission Junction (there are others, too). They send you a check once you make $25 in commissions. Most affliate programs do the same, but if you apply to programs individually, you have to earn $25 on just one affiliate in order to get a check. If you have five affiliate programs, and have earned $20 on each, you've got $100 in earnings, but still don't qualify for a check, because none of them reached the $25 mark.
With Commission Junction, you can have a hundred affiliate programs, each earns you $1, and you get a check for $100.
Small sites often give away free advertising, because they join affiliate programs, and never reach the minimum for a check. If you earn $20 at 5% commission, then the company has made $400 from your site, and doesn't have to give you a check!
I don't think you can apply to CJ until after you have a website, and many advertisers review your site before accepting you... many don't
I've never heard of Bash.org. I went to the site. Not sure why it's a hit, but it goes to show, there are a million reasons to start a website.
Bloke in a box, thanks for takin' that time to give me an idea of how you started out. I know people can be sensitive, and rightly so, when it comes to certain aspects of how they do things so I would never ask questions like "what do you sell?" or "which affiliate manager are you a member of?". I think that's what everyone needs to discover by good old hard work. Hence why I love these posts, they provide a variety of experiences and tips from newbie to er...oldbie?
I also agree with what you all say that if you go with too many affiliates and don't make enough (the minimum) each month then you might spread yourself too thin. At least when you're new like moi.
[paste]It took me ages to figure that out![/paste]Thanks Steve as well for this little trick, it was boggin' me mind tryin' to figure that one out too!
[paste]I don't think you can apply to CJ until after you have a website, and many advertisers review your site before accepting you... many don't[/paste]
This is my query for the day folks. See, as I'm deciding on(and even joining) some affiliate schemes, I don't have a site yet. I know, I know, I really should have one first. I have paid for my hosting yet still need to pay for my domain name. I have enough design skills to start at least a nice looking html site. Maybe someday in the future a database driven site for affiliate marketing(?).
Anyway, my question is, say for example I want to start an affiliate site about home & garden products. The thing is, I want to have photos, product info, write my own articles etc. Does one get the photos and product info from the merchant instead of some simple banner or text link? I prefer to have a site that "pre-sells" with nice images and info instead of just being a "all about gardens" site and "hope" someone clicks a link to that particular merchant. Does this make any sense?
Is there any way to get a merchant to basically give you images/info to help your site sell, or pre-sell? I'm familiar with one merchant that has a white-label program and they provide all the content for you but host on their server so you have little control over seo other than meta tags.
Anyway, I think I've used up a bit of space here so I'll see what you vets have to say.
Thanks again for sharin' and I can't wait to be like you one day giving tips to the newbie!
Cheers!
Ah well, I'll keep tryin'! ;)
til next...
Carpe_diem
It helps to have a site. Even if you're going to be building a new site, the affiliate manager likes to see your work. Just put a single page up with some content to start, if you don't have anything else.
Is there any way to get a merchant to basically give you images/info to help your site sell, or pre-sell? I'm familiar with one merchant that has a white-label program and they provide all the content for you but host on their server so you have little control over seo other than meta tags.
If you're a CJ affiliate, you have access to many programs that offer code that places the images on your site, from the company's server. They're called product links. Amazon.com does the same thing.
Read all the info from a company's affiliate page. Often, they'll let you use images if you are an affiliate. Some let you hotlink, while others let you use their images on your site.
I added several of these to my site today. All linked to the company's images.
jefuchs, thanks to you as well for info regarding product links from merchants. I've always felt that it helps provide a more "seamless" transition from a pre-sell affiliate site to the merchants site if there's at least something common, ie images, product description, etc. I'm trying to think of building my site as if I were landing on it the first time (visitor's p.o.v.) and how would I feel about the content, design, aesthetic qualities.
It's quote, not [paste].
Thanks again to Steve and MovingOnUP for this. lol Oh man, you don't know how silly I feel after that one. But ya know, newbie is as newbie does! It's all good fun!
Cheers again everyone and I'll keep you all updated cause I just know I can do it! Man, is this gettin' fun or do I just love workin' 14 hours a day? :)
Til next
Carpe_diem!
PS - I know this is hard work but it's almost like solving a puzzle isn't it? And, I bet the first time you all made a nickle it musta been quite a buzz! Success to all who strive I say!
And, I bet the first time you all made a nickel it musta been quite a buzz!
Isn't that the truth! Although the first five figure check was quite exciting, I think the first check (which was under $50) was even more of a motivator. That's when I realized it could work.
Once again, it's the simple things people say that put a smile on me face. I think that's great that you still fondly remember that first check. And wow, a five figure check? Highly admirable.
I just think it's important to realize the beauty of all this. I'm not trying to sound cheeky but we all have to start somewhere eh?
Actually, while I'm at it. Something you mentioned MovingOnUp about getting at least one page up for a new site.
Just put a single page up with some content to start, if you don't have anything else.
This may be a silly question but were I to get one page up, do you or anyone here think it's ok to have a sort of "generic" page (on a particular topic of course) showing the layout, navigation, general feel, etc. to show potential merchants that I am serious enough to have a site but waiting to make a partnership thus to collect product info, etc.? Does this make sense?
I have a few ideas I'm planning and I'm in the process of developing my keyword list. It goes back to that "multi-tasking" where as while I'm developing my ideas/site I want to also be signing up with merchants as I believe the info I get from them will influence my design/layout.
Please let me know what any of you think is the best approach to starting out to have at least "something" to show potential merchants/affiliate managers.
Thanks again for continually giving me insight everyone!
(Time for some visine - it's been a long day of reading!) :)
And wow, a five figure check? Highly admirable.
Quite regularly. Although I work with hundreds of merchants, the old 20/80 rule applies. Less than 20% of the merchants I work wih account for over 80% of my income. At times, the top merchant (which has changed several times over the years) has accounted for 20, 30, or even 40% of my income. It's never good to have so many eggs in one basket. I'm much more diversified now, so changes at any one merchant doesn't impact me as much as it used to.
This may be a silly question but were I to get one page up, do you or anyone here think it's ok to have a sort of "generic" page (on a particular topic of course) showing the layout, navigation, general feel, etc. to show potential merchants that I am serious enough to have a site but waiting to make a partnership thus to collect product info, etc.? Does this make sense?
That's exactly what I'm suggesting. Just put placeholders (Your Ad/Product Here) where you would have ads and products. Don't have broken links or "construction" pages. Just have non-clickable links (underlined blue text) instead.
I have a few ideas I'm planning and I'm in the process of developing my keyword list.
I would encourage you to work much more on the ideas and much less on a keyword list. When people say that they're working on keyword lists, I envision sites that are just search engine spam. Build a concept for a site that people will find incredibly useful.
Really though, it makes sense to have a basic page/site up with placeholders to give potential merchants an idea of my site.
Also, having really informative and valuable content to me serves several purposes.
1) It will answer questions visitors have when they come to my site
2) It will not only provide information but I'll try to "over deliver" meaning that I may just be answering needs beyond what they may have originally come to my site for in the first place.
3) I want to give them options and a more confident direction as to what they may need to answer their queries.
4) I want my site to become trusted as a source they can rely on for the information they need.
Does this sound like a good approach everyone? Is there something quite basic I may be forgetting? I'm sure it will continue to evolve over time.
But, this is at the least of what I'm going to accomplish. I'm glad MovingOnUp that you keep reiterating the point of a high value, content driven site. It keeps me grounded during these planning stages. I guess the whole idea of appropriate keyword collecting is just one of the many things I'm thinking about at once.
Since I do plan on optimising my site as much as possible to get organic traffic as well as using ppc, I just want to make sure that my site can compete on the SE's, especially if I don't have a whole lot of start up capital and monies set aside for a ppc campaign.
Anyway, once again excellent advice for me to duly think about whilst putting everything together. I will definitely provide a high value content site as I believe it develops the trust necessary to succeed.
Thanks again for EVERYONE'S thoughts!
Carpe_diem
My biggest error was not checking on teh life of the Cookie, i signed with this firm who only gave me a 1 day cookie - didnt earn switched to a 120 day cookie and then money came rolling in.
I may have asked you this before - your revenue, is it ppc based? and if so what's the ROI?
your revenue, is it ppc based? and if so what's the ROI?
About a third is from PPC traffic to my sites (none directly to merchants). I get about a 250% ROI. Every $1 I spend in PPC brings me an average of $2.50 in commissions.
are there any not-too-secret secrets that you can share with us regarding PPC strategies?:) much appreciated in advance!...what's the secret of your success?
While the PPC traffic is nice, the free traffic is even better.
