I'm a bit of a newbie to Affiliate Marketing. After reading up on a huge number of topics over the last several months, my wife and I decided to test the AM waters. We have a rough division of labor. She does most of the SEO related stuff, particularly using social bookmarking tools and the like, and I do the writing, and promote the blog on related sites. We then teach each other what we've learned, reviewing our progress together.
To start with, we decided to create a blog, then to drive traffic to the blog. This was to teach us how to use blogging tools, SEO practices, and metrics tools. We figured it would be best to write a blog about something that's easy for me to create a lot of content for, to ensure a steady stream of updates. We decided to start monetizing the blog after getting up a little content and getting some traffic.
I didn't chose my topic to make money. The only criteria was to have something I could produce a volume of good quality content for so that we wouldn't run dry while using the blog as a sandbox for learning the tools we'll need to promote our next site. We did not want to pay for hosting for a blog which we figured would simply be drowned in a sea of sites on the same topic, which is an online game.
The site has been up for three weeks and two days. So far, we've done the following to promote the site:
Article marketing will be our next step for promotion.
As a result of the above effort, and it has really been a minimal effort in regard to forum promotion, we have seen three sales in the last week. The blog has only been active for just over three weeks. We've got several long tail keywords ranked first or second on Google. We're seeing a lot of our traffic coming from the forums, the Squidoo lenses, and from forums for individual gaming guilds, who've provided links to my guides for their members. I'm pretty pleased, overall.
I think that with more focus on what's working (providing quality information for free, including upping my forum presence on key gaming sites, and submitting quality articles to article indices), we can actually turn our sandbox blog into a working site that produces a small amount of affiliate income.
Which leads me to the question in the topic: Do I move the site or not? I really do not like the templates available for Blogger, and lack access to the skills to modify or create a template to my liking. A big part of the problem is that what I'm building is a directory of guides and information for the game. Wordpress would work better as a content management solution, and provide a lot more tools in the bargain.
The problem is, I don't want to give up those high ranking long tail searches. I'm confident that I could create a great deal of traffic if we moved to a Wordpress site on its own domain, but I don't know what will happen with my Google position in the process.
Looking at site stats, most of my traffic is coming in through forum links and email. Most of those are directly from sites I've posted to. A large portion are others' forums and email, indicating my info is being linked to. The next biggest source of hits, and it's pretty close, are from the Squidoo lenses.
My current thoughts are that if I move to my own domain, I would simply leave my Blogger site up, with the last post directing people to my new domain. This will let the already highly ranked pages remain in place and generate traffic. Since all forums I post on automatically update all of your prior posts with your new sig when you change it, and allow me to edit my posts, forum traffic would not be a concern. I could ramp up my forum promotion efforts after I move to a better organized site. Likewise, Squidoo links are easily changed, and the two lenses I have are currently doing pretty well on Google too.
I'm interested in hearing any input on the subject. I believe I'm on the verge of a pretty decent earner, even though I thought it may be a dog to start with, and I'm afraid of making a misstep at this point.
To start with, we decided to create a blog, then to drive traffic to the blog. This was to teach us how to use blogging tools, SEO practices, and metrics tools. We figured it would be best to write a blog about something that's easy for me to create a lot of content for, to ensure a steady stream of updates. We decided to start monetizing the blog after getting up a little content and getting some traffic.
I didn't chose my topic to make money. The only criteria was to have something I could produce a volume of good quality content for so that we wouldn't run dry while using the blog as a sandbox for learning the tools we'll need to promote our next site. We did not want to pay for hosting for a blog which we figured would simply be drowned in a sea of sites on the same topic, which is an online game.
The site has been up for three weeks and two days. So far, we've done the following to promote the site:
- Set up two Squidoo lenses, one for the site in general and one for promoting a specific product.
- Concentrated on producing quality free content in the form of guides for the game on a variety of topics.
- Made sure to incorporate strong long tail keywords in topic titles.
- Posted on two high traffic forums for the game, including posts directing people to a guide, as well as helping people with questions in general. The blog address is, of course, in the footer of the posts.
- Joined a couple of blog hubs.
Article marketing will be our next step for promotion.
As a result of the above effort, and it has really been a minimal effort in regard to forum promotion, we have seen three sales in the last week. The blog has only been active for just over three weeks. We've got several long tail keywords ranked first or second on Google. We're seeing a lot of our traffic coming from the forums, the Squidoo lenses, and from forums for individual gaming guilds, who've provided links to my guides for their members. I'm pretty pleased, overall.
I think that with more focus on what's working (providing quality information for free, including upping my forum presence on key gaming sites, and submitting quality articles to article indices), we can actually turn our sandbox blog into a working site that produces a small amount of affiliate income.
Which leads me to the question in the topic: Do I move the site or not? I really do not like the templates available for Blogger, and lack access to the skills to modify or create a template to my liking. A big part of the problem is that what I'm building is a directory of guides and information for the game. Wordpress would work better as a content management solution, and provide a lot more tools in the bargain.
The problem is, I don't want to give up those high ranking long tail searches. I'm confident that I could create a great deal of traffic if we moved to a Wordpress site on its own domain, but I don't know what will happen with my Google position in the process.
Looking at site stats, most of my traffic is coming in through forum links and email. Most of those are directly from sites I've posted to. A large portion are others' forums and email, indicating my info is being linked to. The next biggest source of hits, and it's pretty close, are from the Squidoo lenses.
My current thoughts are that if I move to my own domain, I would simply leave my Blogger site up, with the last post directing people to my new domain. This will let the already highly ranked pages remain in place and generate traffic. Since all forums I post on automatically update all of your prior posts with your new sig when you change it, and allow me to edit my posts, forum traffic would not be a concern. I could ramp up my forum promotion efforts after I move to a better organized site. Likewise, Squidoo links are easily changed, and the two lenses I have are currently doing pretty well on Google too.
I'm interested in hearing any input on the subject. I believe I'm on the verge of a pretty decent earner, even though I thought it may be a dog to start with, and I'm afraid of making a misstep at this point.
