View Full Version : Methods of marketing
Hiya,
Does anyone want to give any hints as to how they promote their site? ;)
I used to run a cashback site, but had to close it as I couldn't compete with the advertising budgets of the "big boys". It was gutting as I put 2 years work into the site & it seemed that the only people making any money were the marketing companies & Google (Adwords campaigns just eat money!!!!).
I realise no-one wants to give their closely guarded secrets away, but does anyone know of a cost effective way(s) to promote affiliate sites that they don't mind sharing with the members of this forum?
Cheers :)
Confuscius
11-09-07, 01:47
As I do not spend money on 'marketing' then I would be interested to know how those who do are getting on.
Paul
My affiliate site gets about 300 hits a day and its taken me ages to get that much. I don't pay for any advertising its all natural seo. The site makes about £1000 per mth, considering the traffic I think thats not bad at all.
I really don't know any secrets, apart from get as many quality inbound links as you can, easy to say, dam hard to do.
I know someone who told me that cashback sites may die, as people and contacting the merchants to ask for the discount that the cashback site is offering, and they don't like it. Thus big merchants are pulling out of cashback type sites.
In my humble opinion the trouble with a standard affiliate sites is that they have no value - no unique selling point, so people will not naturally talk about them on the blogs etc. Its like if apple bring out a new device, people will love it and promote it and link back to apple.
If you have a cashback site you do have a unique selling point, so people might promote you're site.
Anyway I'll stop now.
Confuscius
14-08-08, 12:04
I am amazed that 300 'hits' per day can generate £1,000 per month.
My experience is that 300 'clicks' per day that set a cookie would generate about £1,000 per month but in my world it takes about 10 visitors ('hits') to get 1 click. Average earnings per click 10-12 pence whereas your average seems to be £1.00 per click.
I would love to know what you are converting that generates £1.00 per click?
Paul
I am amazed that 300 'hits' per day can generate £1,000 per month.
My experience is that 300 'clicks' per day that set a cookie would generate about £1,000 per month but in my world it takes about 10 visitors ('hits') to get 1 click. Average earnings per click 10-12 pence whereas your average seems to be £1.00 per click.
I would love to know what you are converting that generates £1.00 per click?
Paul
Yeah, me too... That's some serious figures going on.
IntroSites
14-08-08, 16:50
It is possible, i have a site that gets 700 uv's a day and earns k's a month, then again ive got sites that get 1000 uv's a day and earn a couple of hundred, depends on the niche
Wish I could discover the secret!!
I have about 10 different sites now, they get some visits but hardly any sales :o(
Have been trying this for a couple of years now & just can't seem to find that magic ingredient, despite trying all the tips & tricks <sigh>!!
Hoping I can get something going with my new V2 Shop Window site! Try & try again lol.
IntroSites
11-09-08, 18:05
Put your time and effort into just a couple of sites, try to make them unique.
Try not to go with the "complete" shop window, focus on a niche, much much easier to get results.
Add unique content, articles etc, if you cant write to save your life (like me) pay a decent writer to do it for you.
I made the mistake years ago of making loads of sites, now i concentrate on a couple and it pays off.
Bluesplayer
27-10-08, 21:12
I need to do some serious thinking about marketing sites. Played around with developing sites until now but I think the time has come to try and make a successful site - successful that is with regard to making a lot of money. I received this promo email which contained a video outlining this guy's profit and advertising costs. He spent over $700,000 dollars advertising his site with Google but made a cool million dollars profit after expenses. His sites were affiliation sites like ours. Sure makes you think. I consider the site I have now to the best I have ever made (still needs tons of work though), but maybe you have to speculate a fair amount to accumulate. Traffic = sales = profit. I am going to try both Yahoo and Google by paying for clicks. A good forum for tips is this one: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/
Confuscius
27-10-08, 21:40
'Google Traffic costs' - 'Affiliate Sales Incometo SW site' = 'Loss'
The conversion rates do not add up - I would love someone to prove otherwise with a real example.
If you received a promotional email from someone about their wealth then bin it. I bet you can buy the 'method' for a small amount! If you could make money like that would you sell the 'secret'? There are hundreds of guru 'membership' sites that will only cost you $29 to $79 per month.
If you want to earn some money and you have no morals then go empty the wallets of the people who fall for the get rich mentality.
My advice - pick one product, build one website and see if you can make a profit from it by buying traffic - if you can, pick another product, rinse wash and repeat.
As for the site that you mention, read how many of the 'offers' are scammy. I have bought WP theme links on DP but most of those for sale are from cloned themes and scam artists - I also bought a couple of websites but most sellers pull out when you start asking the right questions.
BE CAREFUL AND TREAT EVERYTHING YOU READ OR RECIEVE WITH A LARGE SHOVEL OF SALT!!!!
Paul
sourchocolate
19-11-08, 15:49
I have about 10 different sites now, they get some visits but hardly any sales :o(
I know nothing about your sites, your strategy and you but I'd rather focused on just a couple of them and make them quality ones (I'm not implying they are rubbish at the moment!).
From my experience - we do not have a time to develop our second site (and the third one is completely "dead") because we focus on the primary one. No surprise, the first one is growing nicely, the other ones have between 10 and 12 visitors a day ("unique" ;)). For the last 3 years.
Also, I would suggest stepping back, forget that you own that website and ask yourself the following question:
"If I that website was owned by someone else and you accidentally found it - HOW much time WOULD YOU spend browsing it and WOULD YOU add it to your favourites and VISIT it again after N days?"
Be honest(!) with you and you may discover that your website do not have USP which is something which makes people come back and talk about it. For example, let's say you own a website "www.shopwindow.com". It's great isn't it? You may have spent 2 years developing it. However, if you were looking for a new TomTom - would you come back to it? No, because other websites not only compare prices but also have reviews, tips, are better organised and have cuter graphics. And are faster.
Step back and think why your website is different. And people will find it.
That's me.
Confuscius
19-11-08, 16:52
However, if you were looking for a new TomTom - would you come back to it? No, because other websites not only compare prices but also have reviews, tips, are better organised and have cuter graphics. And are faster.
That is true of virtually every product in Shop Window! I would guess that 95%+ of Shop Window sites are no different to 95%+ of Shop Window sites! Ask yourself how many times Google wants that content and then realise that every time another 'no different' site goes up then your slice of the cake goes down!
...ask yourself the following question:
"If I that website was owned by someone else and you accidentally found it - HOW much time WOULD YOU spend browsing it...
That is essential. I've spent so long designing/building/fixing/upgrading my SW site over the past 2 years (ish) I've only just stopped to look at what I've created. I've been looking for Christmas gift ideas using my own site and have come up with a list features to add or update as long as my arm!
It's all too easy to become obsessed with the minutiae and forget to look at the big picture once in a while.
I know nothing about your sites, your strategy and you but I'd rather focused on just a couple of them and make them quality ones (I'm not implying they are rubbish at the moment!).
From my experience - we do not have a time to develop our second site (and the third one is completely "dead") because we focus on the primary one. No surprise, the first one is growing nicely, the other ones have between 10 and 12 visitors a day ("unique" ;)). For the last 3 years.
Also, I would suggest stepping back, forget that you own that website and ask yourself the following question:
"If I that website was owned by someone else and you accidentally found it - HOW much time WOULD YOU spend browsing it and WOULD YOU add it to your favourites and VISIT it again after N days?"
Be honest(!) with you and you may discover that your website do not have USP which is something which makes people come back and talk about it. For example, let's say you own a website "www.shopwindow.com". It's great isn't it? You may have spent 2 years developing it. However, if you were looking for a new TomTom - would you come back to it? No, because other websites not only compare prices but also have reviews, tips, are better organised and have cuter graphics. And are faster.
Step back and think why your website is different. And people will find it.
That's me.
This is about the most honest and useful thing I have read!
18aproductions
14-12-08, 19:13
Some good words of wisdom there. Interesting thread... Has anyone thought of adding value to their sites by incorporating customer comments and reviews? Or rather by feeding them in from another source? If so where? I don't think product reviews are available in the API at present are they?
no they aren't. For reviews, try thinking along the RSS route.......
This is where some cheap outsourcing could come in handy. But the key point is - you need to make pages unique by adding unique content. It would be crazy to review 50'000 products, but adding 3-5 sentences for 50 products a day is quite possible. It could make big difference in the long run.
Thanks for your reponses - it's good to see that this thread got a decent amount of interest :)
I've recently launched a pet supplies site, using the same layout as the generic shopping site & this has done better than the original, with minimal promotion.
But it seems that everywhere I look, there is talk that blogging is the way to get noticed! To this end I am now writing FIVE blogs!!!! There is no facility within Shop Window for adding reviews but maybe this is where an interactive blog could feature highly. This should create useful content for readers & prospective buyers, as long as you can get your affiliate links into the posts! :rolleyes:
I'm hoping that a decent level of blog posting on the Pets site, highlighting individual products, will get them picked up in the search engines & convert to sales. :confused:
Yep, idea is good, this will also allow you to reorder the products, therefore create a new mixture of the content, even you reuse some of descriptions etc.
To some degree, I think if you write a post say about pink cat coats then put in the post 3-5 products and give introduction and then detailed descriptions for each. This way you will create an useful LONG article that has good chances for ranking.
Lots of work but it can pay off. Make sure you build links to blog and to the posts as well.
sourchocolate
22-01-09, 17:15
Yep, idea is good, this will also allow you to reorder the products, therefore create a new mixture of the content, even you reuse some of descriptions etc.
To some degree, I think if you write a post say about pink cat coats then put in the post 3-5 products and give introduction and then detailed descriptions for each. This way you will create an useful LONG article that has good chances for ranking.
Lots of work but it can pay off. Make sure you build links to blog and to the posts as well.
Hmmm - let's say I want to create a static page which may be for instance a review or debate why pink coats are better than green ones. Between the lines, I could add some relevant content from SW and links to specific pages with relevant coats. Now, after a while these coats are not available anymore - neither yellow nor pink - because everybody now buys blue ribbons to their cats. My page, although informative and (historically) relevant, will have lots of broken links which will point nowhere... Does anybody have any suggestion how to deal with this problem? Obviously manual edit is not possible if you have 2+ pages...
Any suggestion? What I want to ensure is that these links will be still "profitable" and not dead.
S.