To Affiliate or Stay With Adsense

.. for a info type website about gemstones

[old_expat]

I started this website about 8 years ago. It has quite a lot of info about colored stones and diamonds .. all original content, including 'how it works' graphics. One section deals with basic gemology.

It's actually not a very 'slick' site, and tends to project my personality, opinions, etc. It's not a big traffic site and I neglected it for a couple of years.

About a year ago I redesigned and SEOed (all white hat), and added Adsense. I have it up to 200+ uniques/day. I don't do any advertising and have quite a number and variety of incoming links.

The thing about the visitors, they *do* click on the adsense ads. Weekends I see a 10 - 15% ctr and the money is pretty good. Weekdays drops off to 7-8%

So do I forego about $200/mo from adsense in favor of affiliate diamond and jewelry programs? (I will only consider indie programs)

Opinions appreciated.

[leadegroot]

Why not have both?

[The Innovator]

I really like that response.
Go ahead and try both and then if the second develops you can drop ad.

The innovator

[tml89]

Why not run both options for a few weeks each, then see what one brings the most $

[laertes]

In my experience, and from comments of other affiliates, diamonds and jewelry in general are a hard sell online. You need very targeted traffic- i.e. people browsing looking for information on how to buy a diamond ring or reviews of the best places to buy jewelry online. These being large ticket items, conversion percentages are lower than others. There is a longer time lag between information gathering and shopping cart checkout, so make sure your merchant provides a nice long cookie.

It's worth giving it a try, but succesful affiliate jewelry sites involve lots of planning and work. You probably won't just put up a couple banners and that's it.

The one area thats the exception is low priced knock-off jewelry. Earrings and necklaces that can be impulse buys.

[old_expat]

Hello laertes,

I think you are exactly right about the major purchases. I have done quite a lot of reading and most "authoritative" sources say that the research leading up to buying a diamond can be months.

I *think* I remember reading that the average buyer of an engagement diamond takes about 8 months to make up their mind.

I actually have quite a bit of original content on buying diamonds, but that doesn't mean it's *effective* content.

One of the problems .. my site has quite a lot of content for precious and semi-precious colored gems, but so far I haven't been able find a good indy merchant with a decent product line.

Then there is the traffic .. IMO, marginal at 200+ uniques a day.

On the other hand, my users click a *lot* of "gemstone" ads on my Adsense ads.

I don't have any idea what level of traffic I need in order to get good affiliate sales.