Affiliate Aims

Long time no updates, BOB has now launched and has been taking all spare time!

I have a simple aim for this weekend which is to get 10 posts up on BOB, already done 2 so only 8 to go

Just a quick note to say I am adding another daily aim for 18th March 2010 which is simply:
GET ORGANISED
I am a member of all the networks, 100s of merchants and I am starting to get lost, especially as theres lots of merchants that are on 2 or more networks so I am going to organise it all in a nice spreadsheet

To increase profitability I will be organising the merchants by commission rate so I am promoting the highest commissions

Haven’t updated for the past few days as I was busy with offline things and didn’t really get a chance to work on any sites/affiliate marketing or this site!

My aims for the 13th and 14th March were:

- Purchase the prizes for the BOB competition draw – not done because I have found them on ebay and need to wait for the auction to end but I have them chosen! They are good
- Have a total of 10 pages on BOB – Done
- Have at least 1 post in each category (there are 16 categories) – not done
- Have the merchant list completed with all merchants I have been accepted by – not done
- Decide on the weekly feature posts, one for each day of the week! – not done
- Install xml sitemap on BOB and submit to search engines – installed but not submitted as I want something in all categories before I do that

Not very productive on the affiliate marketing side but I own another site with another webmaster and I do all the technical stuff and a few weeks ago we decided to transfer to another server and to wordpress to get higher in search engine, they insisted they would be more proactive on the site once it was transferred, were they? No, I completely wasted my time and I am feeling rather bitter about it actually. Hours that could have been spent on my own sites that have more potential and I dont have to share completely waste it, I’ve completely officially had it with the site and the person in question. Lesson of the day – Dont join forces with other people, you will end up doing all the work yourself.

I have hired a writer for BOB, they are going to write a column based on the products featured on BOB and work on a 25% profit share, using click refs 25% of any revenue gained from affiliate links on their post will go to them. I think this has more advantages than hiring writers by post basis. For a decent article it would cost £5-10, would a single article ever produce £10? If one article therefore produces £100 in commissions and the other 9 earn £0, it would have only cost me £25 for 10 articles, if they all earn £100 each (doubtful but being hypothetical) then yes, it would cost me £250 rather than £100 for the 10 but if the writer is bringing me a huge boost in revenue then dont they deserve that £150 extra? /end ramble.

Daily Aims – 17th March 2010

- Do a page with the merchants listed on it
- Do a post for each category
- Put all the offers from the merchants I am working with that have emailed me this week on the site
- Submit the sitemap

It’s also time to consider ways to promote the site and decide which one I am working on next.

Affiliate marketing appeals to many because of the low start up costs, you dont need staff, storage and daily trips to the post office like a typical internet business and therefore there is little risk.

The costs are dependent on the individual you can use free hosting, no domain and free advertising methods or go all out buy a premium domain, dedicated servers and spend hundreds on ppc and media buying.

I am therefore going to record my spending and keep it under £500, once I have reached this I will not spend anymore until I have recouped it from affiliate revenue. My costs have been as follows:

15 domains x£7.03 – £105.45 (my first thought! wow i’ve spent over £100 on domains!)

Studiopress wordpress theme – £28.59

Woothemes Canvas theme -£48.56

1 year webhosting – £44.99

So in total:  £227.59 – almost half of my budget and I haven’t even got a site up yet, hmm.. hope things take a positive turn

Well yesterday was a spectacular failure!

Daily aims for 9th March 2010:

- Write at least 5 pages of content for BOB – not done, not even started!

I ended up spending about 2 hours I was supposed to be writing content in looking for domain names, why? I have enough already! I think its an addiction affiliate marketers have, well at least I didn’t buy any!

I think content writing is going to be my main problem when it comes to affiliate marketing, I thoroughly enjoy designing sites, playing around with the coding and css yet cant get motivated to write content, I dont want to outsource as I am perfectly capable of writing I just need to get started then I will be away.

Daily Aims for 10th March 2010

- Write 5 pieces of content for BOB
- Have at least 15 article titles for content for BOB

Hopefully today will be more productive.

Yesterdays aim was to:

- Sign up too all networks and merchants I would like to promote for BOB and POP – which is done as much as possible now just have to wait for the acceptances or rejections. Hopefully I haven’t missed any out.

Daily aims for 9th March 2010:

- Write at least 5 pages of content for BOB

Only 5 pages as I haven’t decided what apart from the product reviews will be going on the site so need to get thinking, I cant do any product reviews until I know what I will be able to promote from merchant acceptances.

I have one site which I run with another webmaster so will not be including this in my statistics, this blog is solely for my own personal trip in the affilate world.

I own 15 domains!

I have 0 live websites!

I make £o per week per site!

My domains cover 6 sectors! 5 of which are related, one is a domain I shouldn’t have bought but will have it developed anyway!

Now hopefully I will not buy anymore domains, if I do I’ll end up with an unachievable goal with new domains being constantly developed and the finishing posts moving all over the place.

Bit late in the day posting this but this is how I done with yesterdays aims:

- Create a logo for BOB - not done and will be waiting for profits to reinvest to get a professional logo designer to do one, I am creating a long term brand and for the minute text will look better than a basic on by me. Logos really aren’t my strong point.
- Change the colours on BOB and add a pattern – DONE and I am really pleased with the way it has turned out, I cant stop looking at it
- Change some of the coding on the BOB wordpress theme – DONE
- Install related posts plugin for BOB – DONE and also installed the all in one seo plugin and the pathless category plugin, does anyone have any others they would recommend?
- Do at least 2 product reviews for BOB – this I haven’t started on, I spent too much time on the design but so pleased with it I dont really mind being a bit behind.

My aims for Monday 8th March:
- Sign up too all networks and merchants I would like to promote for BOB and POP

So only one aim but it takes forever to signup to all the merchants and networks.

I am now off to see how many domains I actually own to develop especially as it is my long term goal to have them all developed.

My husband is a technophobe and doesn’t really understand what I am doing when faffing around with websites, blogs and codes and really doesn’t see the potential of internet money making!

I was having a discussion with him regarding an investment I would like to make in an upcoming company once I have achieved a substantial amount to do so through affiliate marketing, he didn’t like the risk of my plans and ended our “heated” discussion saying we would continue it once I actually had the money as it’s not worth it now. It turns out he doesn’t think I will make any decent amount with affiliate marketing and challenged me to prove him wrong.

I hate being wrong, I am always right and once again I will be right, I will prove him wrong and we will soon be having a discussion regarding my investments.

This conversation really gave me a big motivational boost, I wonder how much my productivity increases because of it.

There are several methods when it comes to making affiliate websites, they a generic, niche and micro niche.

I have attempted an “affi” style single product micro niche website however eventhough I had a great success in getting this site onto the first page of google with little effort I quickly got bored of the site and never finished it. Why? It was a mobile phone, an expensive one and a new release so there was very little to write about and having to spend hours writing continuously about the same product over and over I quickly tired and decided that this niche wasn’t for me, I have a short attention span and need a site with a few different products that I can alternate between when content writing and promoting. This is great, a lesson learned. It’s easier to learn a lesson from your own mistakes rather than from someone telling you at least then you will find out your own personal views on the situation.

Niche sites, consisting of a few products in one category such as widgets or going a bit further down the line and concentrating on pink widgets is where I will be focusing my efforts. The niches will only be subjects I am interested in and have a vast pool of knowledge on, making content writing a breeze, or at least I hope, being a control freak and perfectionist makes the simplest tasks difficult. I dont want to outsource content writing if I can at all help it. I would rather reinvest profits in marketing/seo/PPC.

I intend on concentrating my efforts in a few websites in no more than 3 related categories targeting a similar market, therefore making content writing and link building easier. I have one big site which will cover all of these related categories and several smaller ones targeting sectors in each category. Using this method my eggs are spread over a few baskets and most importantly when I get bored I can leave a site for a day and concentrate on another then come back to the other with a fresh perspective and enthusiasm.