PHPGator

Hey guys, most of you don't know me. So let me go ahead and explain who I am. I've been in Internet Marketing since purchasing a site in March 2007 that was profiting. I thought I knew enough, but that kind of threw me into learning how to market a website and how to improve upon one already making money. Since then, I've primarily been dabbling in ecommerce where I have done quite well. Now though, I would like to try my luck at affiliate marketing where I have done a little bit, but not much. I've received a couple of checks from Commission Junction, but nothing to brag about. I decided I would try to provide a helpful thread, but also learn something along the way too. So here is my journey so far:

Step 1: Find a Niche

Rare, but not too rare
I personally don't think finding a niche is the hard part. My personal guidelines for selling things online are that I don't want to try and sell anything you could easily find at walmart. I've always told other people, that there is a reason why toilet paper doesn't sell well online for the most part. Most people can go down to walmart and buy it and unless they are buying in bulk for whatever reason, you probably can never beat walmarts prices. Therefore, I look for products that people are searching for and that I can compete in. If you have no ideas off the top of your head, go to Amazon and start looking around, more than likely you'll find something relatively rare if you drill down far enough in the broad categories. At the same time, you have to make sure that the product is actually searched for online.

Me: I stumbled across this product in the real world after having a situation that needed resolving. This product couldn't be purchased at Walmart, so I did some digging and several items in the niche were sold at Amazon.

Keyword: 1300 Exact Match Searches per month

Step 2: Domain Availability

Pretty clear and simple, I want to go with an Exact Match Domain. Using others suggestions, only allowing .com, .net, or .org.

Me: The EMD.org was available.

Step 3: Research Competition

I think one of the biggest issues for most people is that they simply do not do enough research to begin with. Some people get in way over their head in extremely competitive niches because they never did the initial research. I don't think you have to spend hours and upon hours here. I know I want to be in the top 10 for my primary keyword and will need to be there in order to make the money I'm hoping for. Can I do it is the question?

Me: I went through the top 10 results and simply looked at backlinks and PR. The competition looked reasonable. To be quite honest, I'm not sure how it is going to go down, but all the links are amazon, walgreens, walmart search (which actually pulls nothing up), etc. Below is a brief rundown:

Rank 1: 200 Backlinks, PR5
Rank 2: 380 Backlinks (subpage of #1), PR4
Rank 3: 43 Backlinks (subpage), NA
Rank 4: 0 Backlinks (subpage), NA
Rank 5: 13 Backlinks (subpage), PR4
Rank 6: 0 Backlinks (subpage), PR2
Rank 7: 0 Backlinks (subpage), PR2
Rank 8: 4 Backlinks (subpage), PR4 (unrelated to the niche)
Rank 9: 4 Backlinks (subpage), PR4 (unrelated to the niche)

The top 2 results is really the only direct competitor, but they are targeting a different keyword than what I am. Theirs is actually a misspelled version of the one I'm going to try and target, which happens to be their brand name.

Example: Targeting blue widgets, they are targeting blue widgts, although blue widgts is a brand name for a blue widget.

Step 4: Keyword Research

At this point you should know whether it is a viable option to go any further or not. But if you feel like it is so competitive and there are enough people searching for the product, perhaps a longer tail keyword is a better option to target so that you can rank more quickly. I went with the traditional "3 Keywords" method. I have a primary keyword, and 2 longertail keywords that contain my primary.

Example:
Primary: Blue Widgets
Secondary: Best Blue Widgets
Secondary: Blue Widgets Reviews

Me:
I ended up settling on this:
Primary Keyword: 1300 EM/month
Secondary Keyword #1: 720 EM/month
Secondary Keyword #2: 140 EM/month

Step 5: Content

Following some other advice around here, I didn't purchase anything until I developed my content. I prefer to do my own content because I know I"m doing it right for one, I care about the reader and want to make sure it is exactly what I'm going for. This is a time consuming effort, but I think it is worth it.

Me: I wrote 5 articles, only one was below 500 words, most were all up around 700 words. I came up with the titles based on the keyword research and my primary and secondary keywords. I'm also looking for something that is informative, but also encourages people to buy. This took me roughly 2 hours. It is not uncommon to purchase this from a writer. This is an especially good idea if you are not a native english speaker.

Step 6: Setup Your Website

Simple enough, this is the stage where you buy the domain name, set it up with your web hosting, and get the website actually up and running. Here is a checklist I created that really derives from other suggestions here.

- Install Wordpress Theme
- Add RSS Feed
- Add Authority Link (Wikipedia for example)
- Add Google Analytics (my preference)
- Install Plugins (All in one SEO (other other SEO plugin), I also use 301 Redirect to modify my affiliate links)
- Modify General to fix Permalinks on Wordpress

Me: I essentially followed all of the above, this is another consuming effort getting all your content up the way you want. You also have to mess with your affiliate links. I tried to make sure they were all cloaked and affiliate links were scattered through the content naturally encouraging clicks.

Example, I did a "Best Blue Widgets" post, and with each I provided a picture and a link to "Click here to Purchase" the blue widget. I did similar things in a couple of the other posts.

I also tried to ensure affiliate links were easily visible on each page. I actually ended up using Elements of SEO for my theme because I liked the simplicity feel of it and wanted to give it a shot. I don't think there's that much special about it, but I threw it up there. I ended up heavily modifying the sidebars to show some of the links for products I was marketing. This was also a time consuming effort.

I would say all in all, look at spending a good 4-5 hours here.

Step 7: Link Building

My plan is to get high PR links first. Build some authority, try to not go too overboard with the automated services. For me, I don't expect this website to make over about $75.00 per month. This is my target, and this only adds to my overall income and gives me something to spend on other projects. That means I need to keep the cost way down on link building.

Me: This is where I stop this post and start working from here. I wanted to include all of the above for others who may find this thread helpful.

mikeshinobi

This study is relevant to my interests

sub'd

doryphoros

bioss

thanks bro

Hav3n

/subbed

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PHPGator

So far, so good.

Simply adding my RSS feed to Webmaster Tools at Google and Bing, decent on-page SEO, and quality content. I have not submitted a single link about my website anywhere at this point, I am already sitting at page 2 for all three of my keywords.

Primary: #15 (SEScout says #23)
Keyword2: #15
Keyword3: #17

I am currently looking for a good service to shoot some PR backlinks at this website to push it on up and give it some stability. Working out details with a couple of people providing services in the Links and SEO section that have decent blog networks that aren't abused (hopefully).

DanWesson

I'm listening.

__________________

Elvis

Your affiliate site strategy sounds a lot like mine. I would like to offer two compliments and one suggestion...

1. "My personal guidelines for selling things online are that I don't want to try and sell anything you could easily find at walmart." Yes! Always follow this rule. What sucks is when you get an email from a company you're working with that says, "great news, we have now landed our product lines on the shelves of Wal-mart!" Exciting for them, not so good for you.

2. "I prefer to do my own content" This is big because not only do you need quality content, the content must be designed much like sales copy, but without being sales copy. It's not like buying articles for an MFA site.

My suggestion is to make your site setup process into as much of a checklist/system as possible. I bet you can cut that 4-5 hours in half. At the very least, that's probably the best place for you to shave off some time.

Good thread, sub'd.

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Internet Marketing Sucks!

PHPGator

Elvis, thanks for your suggestions. I agree with what you had to say.

I think the reason why my website took so long is because this is a different site from what I've done in the past actually. I used a different theme that I had to modify. However, in the future, I could potentially use the same theme, change the content, and reproduce a similar site without having to do a lot of the steps I had to do this go around.

I know there are others who prefer not to use the same theme across multiple websites, but I did some split testing on some ecommerce sites I had and found one that worked. I now use the same design structure across multiple ecommerce sites and haven't had a problem at all. Then again, i'm not doing anything shady on them where Google would slap me for it either. This one, outside of link purchases, i'm not doing anything shady either. I do think the website is useful to the reader and brings value to the table. I think thats the difference between my site and a lot of other sites that are getting hit.

Thanks for subbing!

PHPGator

The only purchase I have made to date is Jana's Backlinking Service. Her thread: Jana's Super Punch 150 High PR Private Blog Network - Proven SERP Movements!

Let me give you a brief rundown of what's been going on with the site though. The first couple of days the site was up, the site ranked on the second page already. It told me that Google knew what the content was about and wanted to rank the site accordingly. However, with no backlinks pointing to it, the site fell off the map. I probably should have thrown a few quick backlinks at it initially, but I wanted to stick to the game plan, high PR backlinks first. So from Friday to Sunday my website wasn't really ranking well for any terms that I could tell.

Jana's package was completed by Saturday evening. It took a couple of days for Google to show any effect. As of yesterday, my website shot back up better than where it was before.

I am now sitting at #7, #15, #9 respectively for primary, kw2, kw3.

Traffic is improving. I think the quality content is paying off. Traffic is sticking around, the average time on the site is over 2 minutes which tells me that they are actually reading the content. Bounce rate is fairly high, 74%. My assumption is that with only 5 articles (very few pages to go to to read) and encouraging them to exit the site via an affiliate link that this is not such a bad thing.

I have received my first conversion. The product purchased at Amazon was not one of the products I was marketing. However, I am in a health type niche and the item purchased was within that same niche too, so I consider it a success.

------------------------------

Where I am going from here

First, building more backlinks:

My traffic is still quite low. Yesterday (the first full day with improved rankings) I only received 15 Unique Visitors. My focus is SEO, so I need to continue to build backlinks to my website. My biggest concern is that while Jana's package pushed me over the end to beating out all the lowly competitors (very few backlinks, low PR, non-authoritative site in the niche) I am being outranked by Amazon themselves, walmart, and the brand company that actually develops the products I'm marketing). I want to go with variety, so I think it is time to build some other links, go for a little bit of quantity and see what happens. I will probably be hitting up services for Social Bookmarking links or perhaps a diversified link wheel giving a variety of links pointing back to my money site.

Secondly, improve my website

I think there are still a few things I can do to my website. I need to add some more new and fresh content. If I rank for other longtail keywords naturally as my website gains authority in the niche, then this only means more traffic for me, which is what I need at this point.

PHPGator

I haven't really done much, I need to get busy on this website a little bit more than I am. Yesterday I wrote 3 review type articles. I'm going to modify the front page a little bit by adding a "reviews" section on the sidebar. The reviews were done by simply going to amazon, looking at the products, reading the reviews. I didn't want it to be too sales sounding so I included both pros and cons (obviously more pros than cons) for those items that have the best reviews anyway. I will get those posted today.

SEO is still sitting in the same place. Working with Jana to add more backlinks because I feel confident in her service. I will go back and invest some more money into another package or two sometime this week.

I received another conversion, I've spent $40, but if sales continue to stay as they are (I hope they keep improving), I'll make somewhere around $200 per year on the website.

Again, I won't be getting rich on this website alone, but at least I'm making money to sink into other websites to continue to build my income.

PHPGator

I decided I would leak out the reviews over the next couple of days. Everything is in working order.

Received another conversion today, the website is converting VERY WELL. I didn't expect it to be as good as it is. If I can get the amount of traffic I'm hoping for, I should easily reach my target numbers with this website. The issue currently is SEO.

I'm still being outranked by the big dogs (amazon, walmart, and a big brand in the niche). Also, walgreens somehow got a bump. I fell one spot and Walgreens now outranks Wal-mart, pushing me down to #8 for my main keyword.

I pinged several of my backlinks today.

Hav3n

Have you done any sort of social bookmarking package yet?

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PHPGator

Not yet, I was thinking that should be my next step. I've heard of the "Social Bookmarking Bomb", do you have any others you might be able to recommend?

I am still sitting behind amazon, walgreens, walmart, but getting conversions. The website is converting great, but my rankings aren't where I want them to be.

Hav3n

General consensus + my opinions here:

Go with any of them that have at least 1000+ bookmarks. I'd try for 2000+

Since your site is so new I'd go with Highly spun descriptions (70 to 90%) and lots of different anchor text (like at least 5 try for 20+ some say 100+ FWIW)

Also I'd probably try to schedule it to hit at the same time as you get some more blog posts going.

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AllBizNiz

Hey man! Good stuff. I got sick of looking at the wrong bounce rates too for one of my sites. I told Google that any visitor who stayed on the page for <10 secs was a bounce for me. Since my goal it to make them exit on the same page since it's an affiliate site on the analytics reporting I was getting like almost 90% bounces. If you're like me and get anal with the reporting take a look here

Real Bounce Rate in Google Analytics | PadiCode

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PHPGator

Hey! Thanks for showing up in my thread. I appreciate the tip. I did add it to my website. Like you, over 10 seconds means they are reading and that means success.

Right now average time on the site is 2:58. With longer articles, that is about right and tells me they are reading quite a bit on average. My conversion rate is through the roof (way higher than I would have hoped for actually). I'm sitting at close to 17%. My assumption is that this will go down overtime and maybe a fluke for now. Still, I'm pleased. I received yet another conversion today.

Today I got a couple of fiverr's... just throwing some easy simple links. I want to try to keep it to a variety. Article Submission and Directory Submission is what I got. I already have several high PR backlinks and wanted to get the volume of backlinks up. Not sure it will help a lot, but more high PR backlinks are on their way too. Next: Social Bookmarking Blast.

jeffrey

This. Hit as many long tails as possible.

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Got a health/fitness site? Want a strong pr3 blog post? Pm me and let's work something out.

mikeshinobi

What are the serpIQ scores for your keywords?

I mean like, if that's not too private 'n' stuff...

__________________

PHPGator

No biggie, my primary is 46.

Mackie

This thread is very informative and helpful.. anyway just one question, hope you can answer me.. how to boost the PR?? thanks in advance

PHPGator

I don't personally worry about the PR, it's just a reflection of the quality of your backlinks. So, naturally, link building will increase your PR. As long as you're mixing high quality backlinks in and not just sticking with low quality ones, you'll probably see your PR increase pretty easily.

PHPGator

Over the weekend I had a few orders for link building completed, my website currently has dipped a few spots to the bottom of the first page. I have pinged the list of URL's where my backlinks are active. I'm hoping that this is just a short little dip before my site moves back up and hopefully higher than I was before.

PHPGator

Well, I've been link building but I'm currently going backwards. I think the issue is that all of my backlinks are being indexed. I'm now being pushed backwards a little bit before I take a giant leap up towards the top (I hope). The site has a sub-page that is ranking on page 3, but I couldn't find my font page URL (which was ranking the highest) anywhere in the top 10 pages at Google. SEScout isn't noting there has been a change yet, but I'm seeing it on my end.

PHPGator

Just a little update, I got some additional high PR backlinks from Jana, did some cheaper services but then I have just been letting the website sit a little bit and doing a few manual blog comments where I can. The website is now moving on up. It is sitting at #5, passing where Amazon is currently, sitting just behind Walmart still (not sure why outside of the fact that walmart.com is an authority site online).

We'll see what happens, hoping to move on up after this lengthy dip I've had for a week. But traffic is increasing since yesterday and should even have better results today I hope with my highest placement yet.

Tom Ato

wow good stuff bra

Hav3n

Congrats on beating Amazon. How many links to the page does Walmart have?

Good news as your site ages it will be easier and easier to pass these subpages.

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PHPGator

Yeah, that's why Walmart is irritating me. I don't see a single backlink.

The URL is like this: keyword - Walmart.com

When I got to that page, Walmart doesn't even directly sell the product, although they do have a sitetostore option in the bottom with links pertaining to the types of products I am selling. I used both ahrefs and backlinkwatch and don't see a backlink at all pointing to that exact URL.

The website is still fluctuating, I see it back down to #7 this morning.

Jana

Hey PHPGator! Glad to see you mention me here.. I've got your back on this battle against Walmart!

Within the next few days (probably after this weekend) i'll give you another complimentary boost for being kind enough to review and promote my service here

I just expanded my network to 400+ so yea.. I'll drop you a PM whenever i'm caught up

or.. Pop me a PM sometime next week if you don't hear from me

Jana

PHPGator

Thanks Jana! You're awesome and so is your service! Your backlinks are the only authority backlinks I have pointing to this website.

I was coming here to mention some good news. It is quite interesting how Google works, it seems that for a couple of days after submitting a new blog post on my website, the website shoots up higher than it was previously. Early this morning I checked and my website was sitting at #7. I added a bit more fresh content (1 post, about 600 words) and now I have beat Walmart. I am #4 on the list, Walgreens is the next one to take down! :P

If I can get to that point, then I'll be happy. I know the first two results is made up of an authority brand in the niche (the root domain and a sub-page) and will be extremely difficult and probably cost more than I'm willing to spend to beat. #3 would be a success in my book and roughly what I was shooting for when I got started. I just want it to consistently stay there!

Respectively, I am #4, #5, #5 for my 3 keywords I am targeting.

hmmburger

Hey mate,

This is a great little thread.

I'm in a similar position to you. I've been in to IM for several years but before I was using some cloaking software with datafeeds and automated link building, real throw shit at the wall and see what sticks kinda stuff.

Now I'm working on a more legitimate site and this is the first time I've really done things properly. Site is all great unique content that has taken some serious hours. Constant new blog posts about the subject each 700+ words. All really time consuming I must say. But it's fun logging in to Google Analytics and also checking my rank etc. Ordered a couple link packages myself recently and hopefully I can break in to the top page of Google soon. It's a very seasonal niche though (once a year event) so it's not the easiest to break down but fingers crossed.

Hope the hard work keeps paying off for you.

PHPGator

Thanks for your post in this thread and glad you found it helpful. I haven't really pushed anymore backlinks to this website. I'm averaging a conversion each day which ends up being that the site will generate about $40.00 per month. This is enough to keep around, but it's time to move onto a new project. I may throw some backlinks at it from time to time, but I feel like without investing some real money, it could be hard for this website to rank well. I'm hoping the high quality content on the site will eventually lead to other backlinks as the website continues to make an impression in the small niche.

quitjob

nice post, keep on going!

jackdan

Great thread man.
/subbed

PHPGator

Thank you for the encouragement. Just this morning Jana provided a new network with about 75 more sites. I went ahead and got that all worked up and so this through an additional 75 backlinks at my website. I am still fluctuating between #3 - #5 but most frequently find myself sitting at #4 or #5. I am hoping this will push me back up to #3 and hold me there consistently.

This is really the first full month the website has been up and it looks like its income is going to be right around $50.00 per month. I wanted $70, but $50 is in the green and worth holding onto.

jasper91ava

Hi, I'm Mike, i am newbie here, gald to be the part of this forum comunity,
i thinks i get a lot of knowledge here and also share my experience with you,
hopefully we will have a good time.

richim1

Subscribed!

PHPGator

Another Update (probably will be my last):

I think I've topped this websites potential without investing a lot more money. Jana's additional links at the end of February has pushed my website up to #3 and is holding strong now. This increased my traffic by about 35%. My traffic is converting great and currently with 10 days left in March, 6 orders not being counted for yet because they have yet to be shipped, I have made $76.12 in commissions. I am very happy with this number and it surpasses my original expectations for the site.

I've found that while Amazon's commission rates are low, it converts far better than most sites because they are a trusted company. I'm converting at 10% right now, which is amazing.

seowizard417

Glad to hear your first major jump into affiliate marketing is a successful one. Cant tell you how many flops I have had when I started out. Best of luck to you!

interwebmarketr

Awesome thread. Good to see you're seeing some good success with those keyword volumes.

__________________
$20/mo from Adsense = Twenty Dollar Baller
I'm officially making more money on Fiverr than I am through IM. Might as well start doing paid surveys for pennies and complete the circle.
CURRENT GOAL: $4/day profit by 2013

LinkedMedia

Hi PHP Gator,

Thanks for sharing this thread. I'm a content geek (and half assed SEO); I'd also suggest a couple of things that might help you and others:

1) Make sure you have outbound links in your blog posts and out to authority sites is even better. Our rule of thumb is to have 1-2 per posts. It's au contrair from what many think; yes, you are directing the visitor off page, but you are also educating them and this sends a good positive signal to G.

**I can't certify this (maybe other can); but if you have outbound links you can some times be more aggressive with inbound link development.

2) Also cross link your pages as you write them; if you syndicate your content via RSS Feeds, Tubmlr, Posterous, etc. this will drive backlinks as well.

3) PM me if you want a list of about 20 WordPress plugins (or others) and I will email these to you........

Cheers..............

PHPGator

I do agree with this. I have heard others do that as well (dchuk, I believe suggested it in one of his threads). My niche is pretty small. Those that do have authority in the niche are also my competitors for traffic so I feel like I can't really send them there. I could perhaps expand and go to like a more general health website but I don't know if that would actually be helpful to my visitors or not.

Thanks for the information, I don't mind bouncing ideas and items off of others. I'll shoot you a PM and see what ya got!

greghenderson80

Thanks for sharing. Great post, very informative