Well, I'm not gonna lie...I've been too busy to work on my affiliate sales lately. It's been on the back burner and learning that Google AdWords banned me for not providing enough unique content didn't help. I was pretty discouraged about that and hadn't checked out my progress in awhile.
To my surprise I made my first sale! I'm not sure how or if the sale was driven from Google AdWords before I was banned, but it has given me motivation to start paying attention again. Ideally I would like to get back on Adwords, but that's going to take a lot of work and refactoring of the website.
I've read that it takes many affiliates a year to make their first sale, so I don't want to get too excited. My traffic flow is obviously limited without targeted advertising so I'll have to get creative. Back at it!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Share A Sale
I thought you might like to know where I'm getting all of my merchants from. I'm using www.shareasale.com as my primary source of affiliate partners.
They offer a huge selection of merchants to choose from separated into categories such as:
- Art/Music/Photography
- Business
- Automotive
- Clothing
- Gifts
- Home and Gardening
- Travel
- and many others
Currently, there are almost 3500 different merchants to choose from and that number is growing daily. They track your sales using referral links that you post. Once you get someone to click your link there's a tracking cookie embedded into their browser that will allow you to get a sale usually 30-60 days after they clicked it.
The great thing about that is you don't have to worry about making the sale during their first visit. This is perfect for a niche that is marketing more expensive products. Most people won't impulse buy on big purchases, so the cookies give them time to think about it and if they come back and buy, you still get credit.
Their payments are prompt and it's easy to track your progress. They have live statistics on your clicks and sales conversion rates for each retailer you're affiliated with. Their minimum payout is $50 and they send payments on the 20th day of each month if you've met that goal.
I'm pleased with their service and the huge selection of merchants. Instead of selling random products like at ClickBank, I can instead market a retailer and the quality products they have to offer. I tend to sign up for a merchant or two a week and many of the programs are approved instantly.
I don't like waiting several days for a response from retailers and Share a Sale often eliminates this need. I'm still waiting on my ever elusive first sale, but I feel good about the content I'm putting out.
Also remember if you're a retailer and you're having a difficult time getting your products to sell and traffic to your website, check out the merchant program they offer. You set the commission amount and let others market your products and services for you. This will save you money for low costs and hopefully take your business to the next level. Good luck.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Write Write Write
I've been writing a lot lately. I've not only been writing reviews for the affiliates that I'm associated with, but I've also been writing articles to promote my niche, home decor.
I truly believe writing is the key to success in affiliate marketing. It's critical to build relationships with the people you are selling to. You have to let them know that you're a regular person that's trying to help them out by giving them something they need.
Writing will also help you get your link out to more sites. The more sites you are linked to, the higher your potential traffic will be.
I got my article about buying home decor online and saving money published at Ezine Articles. I'm going to try and write another article this weekend if I have time.
Writing articles is a great way to get links back to your site and promote your area of expertise. I've gone ahead and submitted the article I've already written to a few other services, but so far I haven't heard back anything yet.
I'm still churning away at Facebook marketing, but so far I still have no sales as a result of it. I'm going to carefully monitor it this weekend and then I'll decide if it's worth it or not. My feeling is that people might be clicking the links by mistake and that's costing me.
I think money with Google advertising would be better spent, but I'll let you know what I find. Enjoy the weekend!
I truly believe writing is the key to success in affiliate marketing. It's critical to build relationships with the people you are selling to. You have to let them know that you're a regular person that's trying to help them out by giving them something they need.
Writing will also help you get your link out to more sites. The more sites you are linked to, the higher your potential traffic will be.
I got my article about buying home decor online and saving money published at Ezine Articles. I'm going to try and write another article this weekend if I have time.
Writing articles is a great way to get links back to your site and promote your area of expertise. I've gone ahead and submitted the article I've already written to a few other services, but so far I haven't heard back anything yet.
I'm still churning away at Facebook marketing, but so far I still have no sales as a result of it. I'm going to carefully monitor it this weekend and then I'll decide if it's worth it or not. My feeling is that people might be clicking the links by mistake and that's costing me.
I think money with Google advertising would be better spent, but I'll let you know what I find. Enjoy the weekend!
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Pay Per Click
I knew it was only a matter of time until I looked into the marketing strategy of "pay per click". In a nutshell, it's where you pay advertisers like Google, Facebook, etc to display your ads to targeted users and you pay them per click.
This is a fantastic way to drive targeted traffic to your website. The only problem is it can be quite expensive. So far I've only tried to advertise via Facebook and I've only started with a small budget of $5 per day to see if it helps drive potential customers to my site.
The great thing about Facebook is they have so much personal data on millions of people. You can modify your target audience based on things like demographics (age, sex, location), likes, dislikes, education, and more.
Once you select your target audience and build your ad, Facebook will then recommend a bid price to get your ad featured. If your market is more narrow, the price will generally be higher. For me, it was between $0.89-$1.31 per click.
Facebook also gives you the option to pay per impressions. This means that you pay them a fixed amount and they will show your ad to 1000 users on Facebook in your target audience. The price is generally lower for this service, but may not be as effective.
Last night they targeted about 14,000 users before I got 5 clicks on my advertisement. It's pretty amazing how fast $5 has come and gone. The average price per click for me was $0.99. I know it's a tiny budget, but I figure if sales are generated from this targeted marketing, then it should pay off.
The average price per 1000 impressions for me was around $0.50. So I would have easily maxed out my $5 daily budget before getting 5 clicks. I will have to investigate this further, but for now I'll be doing Pay Per Click.
I'm also looking into Google AdSense advertising. With Google I would imagine it would be better because the targeting is even better. For example, someone Googles "Levi's silvertab jeans". There's a good chance that they're a serious buyer. So your ad can be displayed on that page and if clicked, you may get a sale.
(After I posted this, I looked on my blog and saw an advertisement for Google Adwords for a free $75, so I signed up to see if I qualify, woo hoo free money!)
Food for thought. I'm staying at it. I heard from Ezine Articles about my submission and I need to make a few modifications i.e. self-promote less =). I hope it doesn't take another week for review, but we'll see.
This is a fantastic way to drive targeted traffic to your website. The only problem is it can be quite expensive. So far I've only tried to advertise via Facebook and I've only started with a small budget of $5 per day to see if it helps drive potential customers to my site.
The great thing about Facebook is they have so much personal data on millions of people. You can modify your target audience based on things like demographics (age, sex, location), likes, dislikes, education, and more.
Once you select your target audience and build your ad, Facebook will then recommend a bid price to get your ad featured. If your market is more narrow, the price will generally be higher. For me, it was between $0.89-$1.31 per click.
Facebook also gives you the option to pay per impressions. This means that you pay them a fixed amount and they will show your ad to 1000 users on Facebook in your target audience. The price is generally lower for this service, but may not be as effective.
Last night they targeted about 14,000 users before I got 5 clicks on my advertisement. It's pretty amazing how fast $5 has come and gone. The average price per click for me was $0.99. I know it's a tiny budget, but I figure if sales are generated from this targeted marketing, then it should pay off.
The average price per 1000 impressions for me was around $0.50. So I would have easily maxed out my $5 daily budget before getting 5 clicks. I will have to investigate this further, but for now I'll be doing Pay Per Click.
I'm also looking into Google AdSense advertising. With Google I would imagine it would be better because the targeting is even better. For example, someone Googles "Levi's silvertab jeans". There's a good chance that they're a serious buyer. So your ad can be displayed on that page and if clicked, you may get a sale.
(After I posted this, I looked on my blog and saw an advertisement for Google Adwords for a free $75, so I signed up to see if I qualify, woo hoo free money!)
Food for thought. I'm staying at it. I heard from Ezine Articles about my submission and I need to make a few modifications i.e. self-promote less =). I hope it doesn't take another week for review, but we'll see.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Slowly, but eventually?
I got listed on Google and I thought that would be my biggest hurdle, but the real challenge is getting my site top ranked in the search pages. Yes, I make the first page if you Google home decor online buying advisor, but that's not an ideal search.
The competition for other words like home decor online or home decor reviews are in the millions. This will certainly be tough to get any real traffic from Google, but I will continue trying.
Right now I'm focusing on adding quality content and working to spread my link around the web as much as possible. I don't want to pay for traffic, so for now I'm relying on free methods. One site I've found was www.pingomatic.com and this site lets search engines/ blogs that your site has been updated. It seems great, but I don't know that it has helped me at all yet.
I also joined the Google Webmaster network and am using their suggestions to improve my site. Who knows better than the top search engine right? I'm still not listed in Yahoo or Bing to my knowledge and my traffic is still weak, so I'll keep trying various techniques to start making sales.
Cheers!
The competition for other words like home decor online or home decor reviews are in the millions. This will certainly be tough to get any real traffic from Google, but I will continue trying.
Right now I'm focusing on adding quality content and working to spread my link around the web as much as possible. I don't want to pay for traffic, so for now I'm relying on free methods. One site I've found was www.pingomatic.com and this site lets search engines/ blogs that your site has been updated. It seems great, but I don't know that it has helped me at all yet.
I also joined the Google Webmaster network and am using their suggestions to improve my site. Who knows better than the top search engine right? I'm still not listed in Yahoo or Bing to my knowledge and my traffic is still weak, so I'll keep trying various techniques to start making sales.
Cheers!
Monday, May 30, 2011
To Google and Beyond...!
Lately, I've been working diligently to get quality content onto my site affiliate marketing site. Last night I decided to submit it to Google with the hope that it would list it in their directory someday.
I woke up this morning and tried a Google search and to my surprise the site was listed! Given, it's not a top ranked site and the search words have to be quite specific, but it's better than nothing.
I thought it would be much more difficult to get listed. I checked Yahoo! and Bing later on and so far I'm not listed on either. I've read from other sources that if you're listed on Google, then you will show up on other search engines soon after, but I decided to submit my URL to both just in case.
It takes time to generate quality content and adapt the site to today's standards, but it's definitely worth it. I haven't received substantial traffic yet, but things are definitely looking up.
I woke up this morning and tried a Google search and to my surprise the site was listed! Given, it's not a top ranked site and the search words have to be quite specific, but it's better than nothing.
I thought it would be much more difficult to get listed. I checked Yahoo! and Bing later on and so far I'm not listed on either. I've read from other sources that if you're listed on Google, then you will show up on other search engines soon after, but I decided to submit my URL to both just in case.
It takes time to generate quality content and adapt the site to today's standards, but it's definitely worth it. I haven't received substantial traffic yet, but things are definitely looking up.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Affiliate Marketing Revisited
So again I'm trying affiliate marketing with a new approach. This time I've created a website and I'm promoting products through thoughtful reviews.
I can already tell the hardest part about this will be getting listed within search engines. It's quite a process today to try and get your site on google, yahoo, bing, etc. So that will be my next goal.
In the meantime, I plan to add more content to promote the home decorating niche. I chose this niche because it is something that I enjoy and it has the potential to be lucrative.
There are also many topics on this niche. For example, I can focus it on furniture, lighting, faucets, hardware, etc. These are resources people want to know more about and having a comprehensive site with reviews to ensure they are safe will accomplish this task.
I can already tell the hardest part about this will be getting listed within search engines. It's quite a process today to try and get your site on google, yahoo, bing, etc. So that will be my next goal.
In the meantime, I plan to add more content to promote the home decorating niche. I chose this niche because it is something that I enjoy and it has the potential to be lucrative.
There are also many topics on this niche. For example, I can focus it on furniture, lighting, faucets, hardware, etc. These are resources people want to know more about and having a comprehensive site with reviews to ensure they are safe will accomplish this task.
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