I've already had my site up for almost a week...
...and still not a single ad click.
That's mainly because I don't have any ads on the site. See what I did there... ;)
The best thing you can do for yourself as you start on your road to success in affiliate marketing is to refrain from placing ad units on your site, at least until you've acquired enough visitors and trust to facilitate the conversions.
I've been hard at work on a new project since I went premium less than one week ago. I've added 8 pages of high-quality content which amounts to nearly 9,000 words total. Once I reach about 20,000 words, then I will will slowly start introducing affiliate links.
For a site to be successful, it has to rank. For a site to make make money, your visitors need to trust you.
By not placing ads on your site, you are increasing your ability to rank. Google does not want to rank a site that's low on content, yet high in outbound links, and believe me...when Google's bot sees those ?ref= in your site links, or even worse, the javascript ad widgets, it knows what you're up to.
Affiliate links should be placed sparingly and in a targeted manner - usually at the beginning and end of a review or post. The end link is the most important because it acts as the user's next action. When a visitor gets to the bottom of a page, they are looking for where to click to next. Make that an easy process by providing a clear call to action, i.e., an affiliate text link.
As an affiliate, your job is to fill a void that exists somewhere between the browsing phase and the buying phase. Your job is not to 'steal' sales from Amazon, ebay, etc...but to provide information - either through well delivered articles and reviews, or through creating an aggregate presentation of products that no one else is doing.
Focus on building a site that you would bookmark and use, and you will succeed, but getting back to the discussion on ads...
The best head start you can give yourself is to not worry about inserting a single ad until you've gained a bit of traction. Once people are seeing your content, liking and sharing it, then you've got the green light to say, "hey...I thought you might be interested in this product-you-can't-live-without".
I broke ground on a site just 5 short days ago and my goal is to achieve 500 page views per day by the end of the month.
Follow me if you're interested in seeing how that goes. ;)
Thanks for reading, and I hope this was helpful to some of you!
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I've been thinking along the same lines, build the site, build the trust, get a dialog going and then keep building, content, traffic, social media. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then monetize.
Hey Phil, That's a good plan. I don't think you necessarily need to wait too long, but it's very important to establish a good foundation before you set up shop.
I never said wait. I think it will take time to build, but that's not sitting on my hands. I actually think my season starts in Jan.
When I was referring to waiting, it was in terms of waiting to introduce ads. I know what you meant, and you've got the right idea. Build it and add to it, then once it's taken shape and building some momentum, then throw some aff links and ads in there.
That's the way to do it.
January, huh... Let me guess... Health niche?
New Year's Resolution, Lose weight, Eat Healthy, Stop Smoking, Start Exercising.... Cha-Ching! 8^D
No ads on my site yet, was paying attention to blogs from other members so I wanted to be choosy and also gain confidence and traffic.
Great post. Kim :))
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You sound like an expert already! I'll definitely follow and see how your site progresses. I decided to take the plunge to premium and am working my way through the lessons and will have my site up soon so I am interested in how yours goes. Good luck!