A Rebirth - I Feel Like A New Member Starting Again. Except I'm Wiser!

When I started my affiliate marketing journey in Wealthy Affiliate about three years ago I received a pleasant surprise. Kyle asked me to join the Super Affiliate Challenge.

I liked the Make Money Online niche, even though I knew it would be challenging, Hence I accepted his challenge.

My objective was to promote Wealthy Affiliate and one day join the ranks of the Super Affiliates in this community.

Sounded like a good idea. Right? Fast forward to today. I have vested so much time and effort into my website. Something didn't feel right. The results I was getting didn't match up to three years of focused effort.

Why are my results dismal?

A Revelation

I misinterpreted the saying never give up with the false premise to make this website work for me come hell or high water.

My brain told me all I needed was to write more content. I was way behind, But still, I had many posts that ranked on page 1 of the search engines and several at position 1.

The problem was clear. I was not getting enough traffic and click-throughs. I had to figure out a way to fix this problem.

Then I heard Kyle say something that hit me like a ton of bricks in his class below.

Being The Content Architecture Of Your Future

I asked Kyle for advice and this is what he told me below:

"Well, in this case, I would probably start something fresh knowing what you know now, versus trying to fix a website that Google doesn't love (and probably won't' for some time).

It is better to come at something fresh and will take much less work and you will have much more confidence in your brand (and skill set) not relying on old content that you don't even trust or like.

So that would be my recommendation here Edwin!"

Thank you, Kyle!

This is exactly what I am going to do. Does the title of this post make sense now?

WOW. Just think about this,

This was the first personal website that I built and hung onto for three years. Do you know anyone in affiliate marketing who has made a success of their very first website?

I think not. If you are someone who has, let's talk.

Decision Point

Staring at me is a decision point. I have two choices:

1. Stick with this website and update those non-performing posts. Which is a lot.
2. Shelve this website and start fresh.

The Old Plan

When I started my affiliate marketing journey I had no coherent plan on how to proceed. Sure, I took the OEC and the Super Affiliate Challenge.

I started creating my website in a haphazard manner. Worse, I maintained that ad hoc approach for years. Shocking, right?

The bottom line is any visitor to my website would not get the experience they were expecting. My posts were all over the place. Sure, I covered the topics recommended for MMO sites. And the quality got better.

However, it lacked cohesion and direction. How could it be when I had a random mix of posts some good and some bad that could confuse my visitors?

It was too late when it hit home I should not pepper every post with affiliate links. Since I aimed to promote Wealthy Affiliate, half of my posts did just that.

Another big mistake was I joined affiliate networks too early. Even if my reviews were good, with insufficient traffic how could I make any sale?

A Metamorphosis

I had a paradigm shift in thinking after I upgraded to Premium Plus. New classes were available to me from the Super Affiliates.

They taught that when you start this business, focus almost totally on How-To posts with no affiliate links. The sole aim should be to build traffic and not sell products.

This approach also builds trust and will provide a better opportunity to start an email list giving valuable freebies. However, when I was green, I had no idea how to do that.

Of course, I will have just one post giving a review of Wealthy Affiliate that I can use as an internal link, rather than use the banner on all my posts.

I have also learned that all the Super Affiliates who are giving classes have a balanced mix of post categories. For example:

1. How-To Posts
2. Review Posts
3. Comparison Posts.

With more emphasis on the first category.

Instead of diving right in and writing, I need to create a plan about how I am going to structure my content to help my visitors in a way that makes sense to them.

Kyle mentioned the importance of creating the outline of the posts that gave the visitor a good indication of the content before vesting their time reading, It is the headings that can help the visitor decide if they want to read the details.

My style was crazy I wrote my content and then added my headings. DOH! Big mistake. That was another reason why it took me longer to write my articles.

My New 7 Point Plan

Point 1

Create a framework that identifies the questions people are asking using Google and Quora, followed by topics that will answer these questions. Plan for enough topics for the month ahead.

Point 2

Conduct Keyword Research for ALL those posts in one sitting, Then create titles based on these keywords for these posts.

Point 3

Structure the outlines for these posts, where a common outline is created for each category of posts. These can always be modified during the writing process

Point 4

Research the competition to pick the best solutions to adapt to my articles.

Point 5

Gather and compile pictures, featured images, graphs, and references for one week of posts. This work can be done at the weekend. I feel doing it this way I can focus on writing three posts a week to begin with. Later I can add one or two more.

Point 6

With all that preparation complete, start writing content. This process should flow easily and efficiently enabling me to maintain a regular posting schedule.

Point 7

Promote these posts on Social Media.

Site Feedback

If there is one area in Wealthy Affiliate that can be improved it is Site Feedback. I have requested Site Feedback so many times with no response. I have noticed that others have had similar experiences.

Site Feedback is where members can be super critical of the content to truly help the member improve. Feedback can take the form of identifying what was done effectively while pointing out what areas could be improved.

Site Comment is not the place for this kind of response. It is just a process to create the impression that you are getting visitors to your website for SEO enhancement.

I interpret true site feedback as a review of the complete website, And that is a tall order that I feel is beyond the scope of what Wealthy Affiliate provides.

This means we have to give ourselves our own site feedback using the lessons learned in the training and the classes of the Super Affiliates.

Looking Forward

I love planning. Now that I am wiser, this is going to be fun and productive. It has taken me longer than most people to realize I needed to start fresh rather than flogging a weak horse. Notice I didn't say dead, because I may get a surprise in the future from my first website.

This will not be starting from scratch because I can draw from the posts on my existing website when I create new content. Avoiding the mistakes I made naturally.

In this way, I am certain I will achieve my goals sooner compared to sticking with a flawed website.

I had picked out a domain name a while back when I suspected I would be reaching this phase of my affiliate marketing journey.

Video Too? Why Not

Many years ago I created a YouTube channel that was about uploading concert videos. I stopped doing this before the pandemic.

I had wanted to change the direction of this channel to affiliate marketing. It may seem bizarre, but here's the thing.

I have 14K subscribers and over 8 million views. Now may be the time to take action and create videos for my business. This may be the perfect time to connect this channel to my new website.

Roope, I am going to start learning from your classes soon!

The YouTube channel has the name netzoomer. A year ago I bought a domain name called netzooner affiliate. It lies barren. Perhaps my subconscious mind was telling me something back then.

There you have it. I am going to work not only on a new website but also on my YouTube channel.

I thank you immensely for reading this post that I hope will be of help to others.

Cheers.

Edwin