What Would Be My Next Step?

Hi, sounds like the situation I was in a while back!

The last post has a good point, try to concentrate on one thing for now, if you spread your efforts out, then each method can suffer. Ther is no guarantee that any method will work for you, but concentrate on one for a set period, review results, move to the next if you feel it is necessary.

BTW, my results are not fantastic still, but have improved by being a bit more organised!!

HTH,

TonyB

Why do you say articles are not working? Do you have your numbers of the conversions (article -> to your page -> to merchant page -> to sales)? They can tell what can be improved.

I understand that you do not want to invest prior to making something, and that`s a good thing to do - so I would say you should find a way to make it with article marketing: first, make sure you have plenty of good, interesting content on your own pages: you do not even need to do a lot to start getting visitors from Google. If you forget about keyword research, and write say 5 good, informative posts on the topics SIMILAR to your main topic, focused on the keywords you would personally type into Google to find information on that topic, you will see that these pages might rank well without doing any thing additionally to pinging them (if even that!).

You can use Google Wonder Wheel to find those similar topics. Just make sure you "spread" your content wider than just focusing on your product and your main keyword.

Then, after you have those new pages indexed on your site, you can submit the same content to 2-3 major article directories. If the content is good, you will get it syndicated on targeted websites and blogs (their owners will take your content and publish it on their sites with your link in bio) - this will drive targeted traffic to your site, too!

That can be done without any investment, and if done correctly, will keep on bringing traffic.

Sounds to me like you've already got your mind on making a list instead of continuing with what your doing. Owning a list is a very profitable thing to do if you get it right. So here are a few tips, that i've picked up while building my list.

1) Buying solo ads is only expensive if you have a poorly converting one time offer. Sign up to some lists, have a look around and get an idea of what might convert well. If you can reach break even point you can build a list for free and any sale after that is pure profit. If you can get this right you can build your list rapidly for free or very little cost.

2) Don't be afraid to sell to your list. When I first started with lists I made a massive mistake of being too nice to my list. My intention was to build a really good relationship by giving them a lot of quality free content, but it back-fired and I ended up with a massive list of freebie seekers! Keep your emails varied, with high quality free gifts, information and pitch emails. Questionaires are also popular and can add variety.

3) Track, split test and optimise. Knowing your conversion rates and constantly trying to improve them is key to getting list building right.

last one, before I ramble on any more...

The money is not in the list,

The money is in the relationship with the list

Had to fit that one in somewhere.

Cheers!