Forum Moderators: skibum
Where do I start?
My personal website (a weblog) gets about 100 unique hits a day. The site is somewhat tech centric (I'm an oracle developer), and I was thinking I could somehow leverage the existing traffic into something greater, but how?
I also love to read, and have my entire library (200 or so books) with my comments in a database with their ISBNs. These could easily be turned into individual amazon product links, each with its own page. This is something else I have contemplated, and played with a little bit, but I haven't really figured out the magic to making Amazon's affiliate program work for me.
And then also my hobby is woodworking, which also seems to be a very popular niche in Amazon's affiliates.
Im open to any suggestions.
One other question does anyone have a step by step guide to optimizing web pages for search engines?
I also develop sites devoted to my hobbies and interests. I find this to be a good strategy because not only do you have some authority to speak on these topics, but it will seem less like 'work' during the long haul to profitability. Also creates a chance to turn hobby expenses into business expenses, make sure to discuss this with your accountant.
I have never found amazon to be especially profitable. I first tried them in 96 and as I made just pennies and didn't try other possibilties, I failed to profit from the vast seas of cash available to affiliates pre 2000. About the time the Internet bubble was bursting, I tried some other advertisers and it's been uphill ever since. So don't let the lack of success with one advertiser stop you and be sure to test multiple revenue sources.
If you develop 'sticky sites,' CPM banner networks can outperform PPC or affiliate sales for some sites.
Optimizing for SEs is a fast changing game. Having read Brett's tips is a great first step. Otherwise stay tuned to WebmasterWorld to keep up with developements as they arise.
There's no real place to 'start.' Develop a site or two, get some back links, experiment with revenue sources and you are off to the races.
Best of luck to you in your endeavors.
P.S. Welcome to WebMaster World!
In your case I would go type B.
--Maybe create a site with some tips, tricks and code samples for developing in Oracle. You can also display RSS news feeds about Oracle. Use Adsense all over it and link to Oracle Books at Amazon.
--I'm not too crazy about the book idea. It's a saturated niche and there's way too many people that know how to use Amazon Web Services to list books, reviews etc..
--Maybe you could buld a woodworking site with projects that require special tools that most people don't have...like a biscuit joiner. Or do reviews for woodworking tools. Maybe there are affiliate programs that woodworkers can buy quality woods.
Maybe you could poke around Commission Junction and look for products that interest you.
Then create patterns for those projects, photograph the stages of construction, etc.
If you use AdSense, Oracle stuff will almost certainly pay more per click than woodworking. Do both to keep your life interesting.
Also this is a good thread...
[webmasterworld.com...]
Especially read msg#4 by ogletree
"In my city alot of people want to know how to sell item in EBAY,"
Why not do some in home consulting with residents of your city, show them how to set up online auction accounts, take along a digital camera to take pictures of the items for sale, etc.
If the people you help make money, then there could be money in it for you as well.
I run campaigns for every merchant who has an affiliate program.
I see who makes money, and who doesn't.
I trim my merchant roster...Through this iterative process, I will build an allstar team...
First month = $80 profit
Second month = $2,000 profit
Third month = shooting for $4,000
I am about to make some roster changes and get 'lean' again...
I run campaigns for every merchant who has an affiliate program.
Also there are certain merchant with a large range of products, take the collectibles area. How do you handle that?
The site is far from optimized but it is turning a profit. One thing though is that my advertising is gonna hit 5 figures/month eventually. But when I get my all star team of merchants, that figure will drop...
The beauty of these sites is that to get a new merchant running only takes about 10-15 minutes.
I believe in diversifying and not relying on a few merchants...I love looking at my commissions and seeing many different purchases with differnt merchants...
All I gotta say is I love affiliate marketing...This is so addictive and the rewards are so positive...Finding the next hot product before others and exploiting a huge profit margin...
What, for that matter is even a good affiliate site? I assume that the best affiliate sites I see I am not even aware they are affiliate sites.
Is Slickdeals, or Bens Bargains affiliate site? Or sites with advertising? Is there even really a difference?
When you sign up CJ, do they provide you with examples, or samples?
One reason I ask, "What are the good sites?" is that one of Brett's suggestions is to email people asking for backlinks?
Well who do you email? Do you just get to know people/sites over time?
Etc... Etc... I have all the programming skills I could need for this, but in terms of the business and its concepts I just feel more confused than ever.
PS: I realize that one of the best/worst things about Webmasterworld is that you cannot post links, so I don't expect you too. I'm just thinking out loud.
As you mentioned three specific topics about which you are interested in, oracle, books, woodworking, I would stick to those. Don't try to spread yourself so thin by creating a "mall site," on your first venture (a mall site sells everything under the sun, you'll spend all your time timing trying to score on Search Engines for every product in the world).
Any site which is paid by another company to run ads, would be considered an "affiliate site." It just means a site sponsored by one or more advertisers. These sites are "affiliated" with these sponsors. They do know that they are affiliates, because they have signed a contract to do business (usually online and not a real piece of paper.)
I think that you'll enjoy yourself more, create better sites which readers enjoy and be more successfull in the long run if you develop informative sites on the subjects you enjoy and understand.
Look up some sites that cover the topics you are interested in and see who sponsors them. Then go to the web sites of those sponsors and read about their affiliate programs.
As for back links, first you'll have to develop a site worth linking to. Then you can submit that site for inclusion in directories, sites covering related topics, etc. You don't need a ton of unrelated back links. You need as many back links from quality pages as you can get. Just a few back links from quality pages can be enough to get your site spidered and improve your ranking on the search engines. The more the better, but don't put the cart before the horse. Developing a site people want to visit and link to is your first step.
Also, many quality advertisers will want you to have some minimum amount of traffic before they accept you into their affiliate program. So get busy and build a good site on a subject you understand and enjoy. The rest will come in time.
i have no experience in this type of thing and turned a profit of over 2k my second full month...
i found what works and what doesn't.
i expect to double my profit for the month of april *shrug*
I guess it comes down to different styles. I assume that you are buying traffic then funneling that traffic to advertisers, netting a healthy profit as the middle man.
Which is fine, if that's your thing. I do the web site thing because I can spend time learning and teaching about things I love. And I make a profit, too, don't get me wrong. (I guess we both do, as we have so much time to waste typing in forums while other people go off to those "job" thingees.)
It just seemed to me that since patrickrock had expressed an interest in building content sites on subjects he knew and enjoyed and also mentioned Brett's tips, which emphasize a slow, steady growth of informative pages, that I would try to point him furthur along that particular path.
Cheers!
but don't get me wrong, what you are talking about is what I plan to do, soon...
i have three or four areas of intrest that i want to spend quality time with...and eventually get free traffic and not rely on adwords to drive people there...i just wanted to see money right away...
One thing I did yesterday is that since I had my entire library of CDs and Books already in a databse is to convert all of them into Amazon Associate Links. I know Amazon doesn't pay well, but it's a place to start with a well understood programming API that I can use.
I set up each book/cd with its own page through a query string like: example.com?book=nameofbook. On the front page is all the links to the books. And then on each book's page I have it linking out to Amazon.
Will google spider these all as seperate pages since each page has its own Page title, and essentially looks like seperate pages even though it is generated dynamically off a single root page with query strings, or should I do mod re-write?
My weblog posts use a similiar query string system and google has always indexed all of them as seperate pages...
What do you guys think?
Hmm. I'll have to fix that.
