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Has a NEWBIE gone out of his depth?

by bontiguell
8 replies
Evening Warrior Forum!

1 Week into the IM affiliate marketing "learning curve" I am having a bit of a dilemma. I have bought my hosting, my domain and have decided on the products i want to promote. I am creating an Amazon Review site and it is a ONE niche - Multi product site.

Now I did research a variety of products within the niche using their brand name and their model number. Each of which has a keyword search volume of around 1000-3000. That to me looked good enough to create single page review sites that targeted that keyword.

I also searched the term in google and found that there were around 250,000 - 500,000 sites that contained that keyword. I used Traffic Travis (free) to estimate the difficulty of each keyword to get in the top 10 of google. Each of them bar one was "Relatively easy". So i began to feel confident I had chosen the correct niche and product.

However, after watching the first 2 modules of Ed Dales "The Challenge" Im having second thoughts. In the course it is mentioned to go down to a micro niche which im unsure mine is or not, although does a nicro niche apply to amazon products as such? In addition, it is advised to target keywords that gain around 80 searches (Per day) and that have a SEO competition of around 30,000.

What im mainly asking is whether a more experienced marketer could tell me whether the niche im searching into (with the search results above) is out of my depth for being a newbie. Or is that search volume and SEO compeition achieveable?

I forgot to mention much of the PR and backlinks are realtively low around 0-5 PR and 0-150 backlinks. Most of the sites are review sites and occasionally some amazon pages to that particular product.


Thanks a great deal !
#depth #newbie
  • Profile picture of the author bontiguell
    If it helps :

    I searched just one of my main keywords for one review page through market samurai

    I used :
    Page Rank
    Page Backlinks
    Yahoo Directory
    Title
    URL
    HEAD

    The results were all 0 for PR and 0 for Backlinks apart from top two which were about 180. Most were in yahoo directory and about half had the keyword in their title url and h1 tags

    Hope someone can give some advice on the matter.

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Hamish Jones
    Do you have a passion for the products that you are promoting? If you have a passion, I would continue to perservere. You can look at different keywords to target as well though.

    It's great that you have already started with something. There are plenty of people out there who move from product to product, who never actually put anything out there to sell. Learn as you go, and change as you need.
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  • Profile picture of the author bontiguell
    I wouldnt say I have a passion for the type of products im promoting but it is in an "area" that I am interested but not these products specifically.

    I just don't want to put 3 months of work in (which im willing to do) for it to be a waste of time!
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    • Profile picture of the author KateHunter
      If you are determined I think you are better off going for the keywords you chose with keyword search volume of around 1000-3000. Higher competition just means you have to do more work to get them ranking. There is a service on this forum that will guarantee getting your website to the top for your chosen keyword. Use a service like that or keep at it until you get those sites to rank. keyword tools can be very inaccurate so I would be wary about doing a lot of work to rank a keyword with low search volume in case there is less than what they say. With low searches a month keywords I wouldn't build a whole site, better off building pages on your website and targeting the low volume searches on the page. For the main site keyword chose a worthwhile keyword, then chose less competitive related keywords for the pages on your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author RickDayle
    Without knowing the niche, it can be difficult to provide definitive answers.

    However, let's assume your niche is Golf, and you are making pages for Golf Balls.
    It could be argued that Golf isn't a niche at all, but a much larger catgegory, and Golf Balls is the actual niche.
    I'd be making one or two pages on Golf Balls (in general) that talk about the overall technology and what the right golf ball can do to help your game, with perhaps some sort of selector table to have the customer choose the golf ball brand they want. Sub pages would be on various brands. (Titelist golf balls, Callaway golf balls, Maxfli golf balls, Slazenger golf balls, and so on.) On each brand page, providing the benefits of that brand and why they are better for a particular type of golfer.

    You will have a much lower competition for someone searching for Titelist golf ball review, or just Titelist Golf Balls, than the greater niche (all golf balls). Perhaps also a page for "cheap golf balls" that has options for the cost-conscious golfer (Overstock, lost/found balls, bulk buys, etc.)

    Now, the basic premise above can be done in nearly any niche with reasonable results. The same can be said of a niche product (like lawn mowers) then individual review pages for specific brand and model lawn mowers. Again, an introductory page or two with a selection chart of some sort that can help the customer decide which model may fit their needs can help drive some traffic to your specific pages, while the specific pages can provide the additional information to clinch the sale for a particular model and brand.

    Part of what I'm asying is to remember to provide some feeder pages for the folks that haven't decided on a brand or model yet. (also, on specific pages, if a lawn mower is a 20" size, you may want a link to a better or larger size (24") as alternates, with reasoning why it would be worthwhile. I've seen the technique work to get people to higher profit or higher priced machines. For an example, look for something on Amazon, and note at the bottom the "other people looking at this product have also looked at (or bought) these...")
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Banks
      You should make sure when you are doing your keyword research that you are getting exact results and not broad.

      Also if this is your first site just stick with it and consider it a learning experience! Keep building links to your site and "practicing" on the website and see what happens.

      You may find it hard to get amazon sales, as I have a review website with over 1500 visits a day, about 200 click throughs to amazon a day but only about 1-5 sales per day. Mine is for big ticket items though so they are harder to sell.

      I also have a review site for cheaper items and I find it is easier to make sales for those. Just keep working and learning, your #1 goal should be to learn, not get rich quickly!

      Just because you are new does not mean you can't take on a bigger website, you may just have to work harder and longer to finally rank for your desired keywords
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  • Profile picture of the author bontiguell
    Thanks to both of you this is really helpful information!

    I think your golf example is pretty much confirming that I am not in a general niche and the fact that im using product brand names and model numbers makes the keyword more specific and easier to rank for. Ill just stick with it and see what happens
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  • Profile picture of the author Ephrils
    My advice is to try this anyway.

    If you really believe in this site, that product, and that it is indeed, do-able, then it is do-able. Make sure you get good links with the correct anchor text too. As usual, it will take time, but good links that take that time will hold steady and strong over Google's changes. Those are kind of quality links you want.

    Depending on your knowledge in this niche it's entirely possible to get a lot of promotion to your site by being linkable. Put up something no one else. The easiest in my experience is the traditional interview. It can even be done over email. Contact the manufacturer, the creator if they're findable, someone who may have a good idea of what you're promoting and put it up as exclusive content.

    The only thing really holding you back from ranking is you. You've got to believe you can do it, then find a way.
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