Archive for March, 2009
Outsourcing
Posted by: | CommentsAn aspect of internet marketing I really dislike is link building! It’s quite ironic since it is a very important aspect of SEO work. I also quite dislike writing content as I’m not a huge fan of writing. I’ve discovered that my interest is actually researching ideas/markets, coming up with a plan and then developing and designing websites to create something.
As a result my link building type activites have been minimal and content writing just are dire. I have decided to outsource my content writing and will post more when I have something completed. I am also researching some potential outsourcers for my link building work.
I think I may have found some really good people to use but I will test them out and post about my experiences with them. The results will obviously take more time but hopefully they will be quite measurable.
After all, most successful people do say to concentrate on what you are good at and enjoy and outsource the mundane and repetitive tasks. I like creating things but link building is not one of my enjoyable tasks, so I’m following the advice and outsourcing.
Developing Sites
Posted by: | CommentsI’m currently working on my 3rd affiliate ecommerce site and it is one of the larger of the 3 projects so far. There are a tonne of products to enter but it will certainly be worth it when it is all done and dusted!
At the moment I’m working on sections of it each day and should have it done by mid-April. That’s one of my goals anyway. In the meantime, when I’m a little bored of working on the site, I will do a bit of marketing for my other two sites and try to get some organic traffic to them.
I’m going to be focusing on organic seo traffic where possible. I’m a little short on spare funds at the moment so will need to keep off the PPC stuff for the time being. I may just experiment a little every now any then but my main focus will be on the organic search rankings for my ecommerce affiliate sites.
My wife and I currently live in London and we want to move out of the City around the end of 2009. It does mean that we need to get our finances in order so we can get the property that we want when we come to move. So at the moment I have some clear financial goals and cannot spare too much on testing and experimenting with PPC.
I’m still working full-time in my day job and spending most of my free time on the computer which can get a bit much but I’m determined to make a living as a full-time affiliate. So, with a lifestyle goal and financial goal, its time to keep pushing ahead.
Never Give Up!
Posted by: | CommentsWhat is life all about? It is a question that I have often pondered and I have my own answer! For me life is about experiences and having the courage to living the life that you want. This can often be a tough to actually do and follow through on.
In theory it is fine to say go out and follow your dreams but people have responsibilities, like mortgages, jobs etc. This I totally understand and it comes down to personal choice. People will always say that they cannot do something because they have a mortgage to pay or that they have a good paying job. In reality, there is nothing really stopping them from selling the house or getting a different job. Any excuses that they bring up are just choices. They choose to live in the house or to stick with a particular job. It is an illustration of free choice. There is no rule book that says you MUST do something. It is all about choice, and how much you want to conform versus following your dreams.
For those of you who are working towards a particular goal or objective, here is a great inspirational video that I came across a while ago and had forgotten about. Recently I came across the video again someone so I thought I would share it, enjoy.
Commissions!!!!
Posted by: | CommentsSome great news, I had some of my first affiliate sales!!!
I had an affiliate site up in the radio-controlled toys niche and I had a few links sent to it. I had left it since then and been working on my current project in the ‘beauty’ niche. The radio-controlled niche site has been up for about 3-4 weeks and has generated 3 sales! That’s a commission of £14.60. Not massive but a great start fo me.
This was through no PPC and no particular marketing apart from a few links. I’m really excited by this and look forwards to getting things moving more. I’ve not done more to the site as I was thinking of converting it to a wordpress blog site. The design would look a lot better and perhaps convert better when I start marketing. On the otherhand, if some sales are being made already, perhaps it’s best to leave things as they are?
Not too sure, some advice would be good. I think it would be great to have a mentor of some sort to provide some guidance.
My ‘beauty’ niche site has been made and done and is live. I’ve only a little content to add to it then I can start some seo link building and some PPC stuff. I am now moving onto my next affiliate ecommerce site using an old domain I have.
My aim is to have about 4-5 niche affiliate ecommerce websites by the end of June and then get those generating money!
Wordpress H1 Tag
Posted by: | CommentsJust a quick post about an SEO problem I have been having. With Wordpress I was having problems getting the proper <H1> tags which is very important in onpage SEO.
In searching online, I found a great article that details step-by-step how to use correct <H1> tags in your wordpress blogs. This simple step should really help to rank my website pages.
Here is the link to the article: Wordpress H1 Tag Hack
Wordpress SEO
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the problems I’m having with my wordpress affiliate site is the SEO work for it. When I view the source code, the code actually looks quite messy and I’m not really too sure how to clean things up. I only know very basic PHP/wordpress configuration stuff.
In fact, it was when I was messing about with the code and trying to sort out the <H1> tags that I messed my site up and had to have it restored! There are plenty of plugins to help optimise a wordpress blog and I came across a very useful guide that I followed and was very useful.
I’m still working on my wordpress optimisation and think it will be an ongoing thing but hopefully I will get tings improved.
Market Samurai
Posted by: | CommentsMarket Samurai is a software that I first came across when I was going through the Niche Blueprint course. I have been looking for a piece of software that wasn’t outrageously expensive that could help me in my SEO efforts with my websites. I bought the full version during a promotion for $97 and must say it is fantastic!
It really saves a lot of time and you can quickly research loads of niches. It analyzes the search results nad competition and also the top ten ranking websites so you can see what you are up against.
I’ve been using it a lot lately for researching my next affiliate ecommerce website. I have found some very useful information that will form the basis of my next project. I have found some good keywords and also sussed out the top competitors in Google who I think I can take on and win!
On the update side of things. I have completed my first Wordpress affiliate ecommerce website in the ‘beauty’ niche and I have to say the site is probably one of the best looking ones that I’ve ever made (probably because it is a template and I’m crap at designing!). Anyway, the site has been up.
Wordpres is great as there are loads of add-ons that are free but I would say that you do need some sort of basic HMTL/PHP knowledge to make the most of customising it. It has taken me hours of work but in all, if I had worked on it full-time, then it would probably have taken 1-2 weeks. Not bad overall!
I hit a big problem this morning as I was trying to optimise the site for titles, meta tags etc, I did something and the whole site screwed up! I couldn’t get access to the admin area and as you could imagine I panicked and thought I had lost days of hard work! Luckily I had just made a fresh backup before I did whatever I did and I’m getting my hosting company (Hostgator) to restore my site! Phew!
This is a HUGE LESSON! Make regular BACKUPS!!!!
Shay
Posted by: | CommentsThis is a beautiful story and one that I came across about a year ago, it's crossed my path again so I thought I would post it here for you to read. "At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: "When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?" The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. "I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled, comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child." Then he told the following story: Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they'll let me play?" I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps. I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning..." Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball... However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!" Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball. The smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay" Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third! Shay, run to third!" As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, "Shay, run home! Run home!" Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team. "That day", said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world". Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!
Main marketing focus
Posted by: | CommentsIn writing the blog entries so far, it is very interesting to review my Internet efforts so far, none of which have been very serious until about 6 months ago when I took on my niche ecommerce site. My Internet activites do make for a laughable effort and it is so obvious that I have been all round the shops and back! There is no focus at all!
Anyway, lessons are to be learned.
I’ve been working on a PPC campaign using Google search and the results were mixed. Well, the truth be told that I am making a loss even though there have been some sales. I think I’m in a growing niche and there are a few Clickbank products flaoting around servicing the same niche. I’m pursuing the PPC stuff partly due to my membership of PPC Classroom. I’m modifying the campaign that is making some sales but a loss overall by switching over to the Google Content network.
The keyword search effort was not working out too well with me even though I had been tweaking the campaign. So far, with the content network, I have made a couple of sales but overall at a loss still. My next step is to tweak the campaign settings to see if I can optimise things further and get more conversions.
This aside, I have also been working (long hours in my spare time!) on my next commerce affiliate store. This is another niche market and things are going a lot better than I expected. I am using a WordPress blog (www.wordpress.org) for the platform and I bought a premium template from Theme Spinner. This et me up ready with a professional looking website. I did have a little technical problem installing the theme but it was totally my fault for not readin the instructions properly.
With the blog and professional wordpress theme, I am now well into designing my new affiliate ecommerce site. I’m quite enjoying it because at first it was a very repetitive task but now I have a good workflow and system in place that things are moving forwards nicely. I expect that I will have the site done and ready to go live by the end of next week!
So, just a quick update.
Where I am – Part 4
Posted by: | CommentsSo far I’ve been jumping around with my Internet activities. Just to finish the picture of, I came across a great blog by a super affiliate (http://www.affiliatestuff.co.uk) and it gave me a good model to follow. I combined my interest in ecommerce and affiliate marketing. I setup an ecommerce type store that redirected visitors direct to the merchants website to buy the product. Yes, the commission margins are very small compared to dropshipping but it is automated and requires no input from me to put a transaction through.
This system of working is much more in line with my interests.
During all of this I had also enrolled on the PPC Classroom 2.0 course. This course is operated by some superaffiliates making lots of money online. They teach their strategies and techniques but unfortunately enrolment has closed for this round.
I love reading about various business models and trying lots of things out but I’ve noticed with so much going on, I’m spreading myself quite thin and this is certainly not helping. I need to focus my energies if I am to make a go of things and succeed. I have made a commitment that the PPC is a route that I will certainly try out but I will also be doing niche ecommerce affiliate websites as well. This way I get to focus on 2 areas and thereby focusing my energies more but also maintaining my interests.
Another thing that I have realized about affiliate marketing type work is that I love setting things up and designing websites etc, but I hate seo type activities especially link building. This is an aspect of marketing that I will be looking to outsource. That way I can concentrate on the stuff that I love!
Well, that covers my background in Internet marketing in a short few posts. In future posts I will post updates about my activities and progress reports on how I’m doing.