how NOT to do affiliate marketing

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trigatch4

trigatch4

BuildAndEarn
Aug 23, 2006
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www.eurekadiary.com
Another one of my, "I fucked up, learn from my mistakes" thread...

So last Saturday I decided to set up my first little niche site with the pure purpose of getting leads/sales while driving traffic via Adwords. I've spent about $30 bucks and don't have a lead or sale yet, although the highest payout of my offers is $68 so one order and I'm in the black.

In any case, I sped through making the site just to get it up and it is truly a piece of shit. I know I wouldn't buy anything through this page. That's probably most of my problem. The content probably sucks, too. As I said, I sped through it.

Soooo... I'll probably run my tab up to about $100 before calling it quits, and I'll gladly make changes you all recommend. But if your recommendation is "quit and start over", which it very likely could be, I suppose this thread won't go very far!

Presenting the one, the only, the magnificient piece of shit: Self-Betterment.com! This could get ugly quickly...
 


Get rid of the background on that page and it will already be looking a shitload better. Looks like the 90's! :)
 
i suck at designing websites too, lately i have been using templates and then stealing the images off of the merchants site. Then if i find something that works decent, ill pay someone off getafreelancer.com to make one that looks nice. There are some pretty cheap designers on that site

yeah , that background's gotta go
 
Well, not that im an expert (far from it) is you lack lots of content... but how about your meta tags? You don't have any

Code: 
<html>
<head>
<title>Make Yourself Better and Improve Your Life</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>

Need something more then that...

Something like:

Code: 
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta name="keywords" content="web hosting, provider, php hosting, web hosting, free domain names, multiple hosting, multiple domain hosting, domain name, front page hosting, web site, web design, domain name registration, business web site, web site hosting, web space, picture hosting, small business, cheap web hosting, webmaster, web site builder, web space, affordable web hosting, marketing, cgi perl php hosting, blog, blogs, blogger, weblog, web log, weblogs, internet marketing, internet advertising, Richmond, Richmond Hosting, Shared Richmond, Web Hosting Richmond, richmond, host richmond, web space richmond" />
<meta name="description" content="FREE Domain Name. Affordable Web Hosting, 24x7 support. Get hosting for less!" />
<meta name="author" content="HostICan" /><meta name="robots" content="index,follow" />
<meta name="copyright" content="HostICan" />
<meta name="revisit-after" content="3 Days" />
<meta name="clientbase" content="Global" />
<meta name="Hosting" content="GENERAL" />
<meta name="distribution" content="global" />
<meta name="language" content="English" />
<meta name="doc-rights" content="Public Domain" />

I would say:

1) Do the Meta Tags
2) Do more work on content try to get something new up there...
3) Stop spending money and do viral marketing..
4) the list kinda goes on and on... but you know...

PS: I'm not a pro, it's just mods I would do...
 
Traffic is traffic... I would get some traffic if it was free... might improve click-thrus..?
 
Perhaps add a different background color for the link section to differenciate the content and links.
 
dicetomato said:
Perhaps add a different background color for the link section to differenciate the content and links.
Click to expand...

I have a file called links.php that I just changed to:
<body bgcolor="#CCCCCC">

When I view the file http://www.self-betterment.com/links.php it shows the grey background as being there but when I view the main page it does not! I tried this once and had the same problem... Any ideas?
 
lnxcode said:
Well, not that im an expert (far from it) is you lack lots of content... but how about your meta tags? You don't have any

Something like:

Code: 
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta name="keywords" content="web hosting, provider, php hosting, web hosting, free domain names, multiple hosting, multiple domain hosting, domain name, front page hosting, web site, web design, domain name registration, business web site, web site hosting, web space, picture hosting, small business, cheap web hosting, webmaster, web site builder, web space, affordable web hosting, marketing, cgi perl php hosting, blog, blogs, blogger, weblog, web log, weblogs, internet marketing, internet advertising, Richmond, Richmond Hosting, Shared Richmond, Web Hosting Richmond, richmond, host richmond, web space richmond" />
<meta name="description" content="FREE Domain Name. Affordable Web Hosting, 24x7 support. Get hosting for less!" />
<meta name="author" content="HostICan" /><meta name="robots" content="index,follow" />
<meta name="copyright" content="HostICan" />
<meta name="revisit-after" content="3 Days" />
<meta name="clientbase" content="Global" />
<meta name="Hosting" content="GENERAL" />
<meta name="distribution" content="global" />
<meta name="language" content="English" />
<meta name="doc-rights" content="Public Domain" />
I would say:
Click to expand...

Good god NO. Don't bother with any metas besides "description" "encoding" and "keywords" the rest are pointless.

Even those metas are pretty universally ignored, but I've noticed that Google does pay attention to them when crawling your site to find keywords when you're using the keyword tool in adwords. Even so, the only thing in the <head> that is critical is the title. That carries more weight than the others combined.

Just my 2 cents, trying to save you some typing.
 
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yeah, thanks for reinforcing that mike. i figured as much, but wasn't 100% positive. if the site ended up getting a conversion or two, I'd probably go ahead and add keywords to each page and that's about it. But, first things first!
 
I figured there was no need to cloak affiliate links as anyone clicking through to buy hoodia on my piece of shit page isn't smart enough to look where it's going and noticing it's an affiliate link anyway.... am i mistaken? will it increase conversions at all?

as far as learning the html and css... i need too. only so many hours in the day and a list the size of the dyke that little boy from the netherlands stuck his finger in!
 
You don't have the main page monetized in any way..most people don't click past the first page. Give them something to click on..maybe move that comparison chart, a banner, a big text link in their face, adsense/ypn, whatever, just something.

You have seperate campaigns set up for each page, right?

Add a picture to each of those pages too, even if it's a banner.

Doesn't matter if it's ugly, just need to set it up right.

:2twocents:
 
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