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New to affiliate marketing, but how to go about traffic?

by IsayHey
16 replies
Hey,

I have recently started my first affiliate website but I need some information on how to get started and getting that defining first sale. I have been getting traffic, not entirely sure where from because I am unsure of where to find an updated piece of analytics traffic code because its no longer tracking my site after a theme upgrade.

I have been getting around 5-40 clicks per day on my affiliate link without any backlinking done, I have had around 6 legit comments overall. When it comes to the amount of clicks on affiliate link overall I think its around 300, none have converted yet though.

What do you reccommend for me? Do you think I should invest in SEO? Will it pay me back in time?

Thanks.
#affiliate #marketing #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    First of all, well done on getting a site up, and getting some traffic to it.

    You have some sort of incentivized opt-in, presumably, so that you can keep a proportion of traffic rather than losing it all after a one-off visit? It's not really possible to build an affiliate marketing business at all, without that.

    Originally Posted by IsayHey View Post

    I have been getting traffic, not entirely sure where from
    The very first thing you need to do is to change that, so that you are entirely sure where from.

    Affiliate marketing, especially at the start, involves a lot of trial and error, and the important thing is to be able gradually to focus more and more on "what's working" and less and less on "what isn't".

    You can't do that without knowing what's working.

    Originally Posted by IsayHey View Post

    Do you think I should invest in SEO?
    It depends on the extent to which you want your business to be dependent on search engine traffic. For my business, I'm pretty firmly opposed to this, because (as so many Warriors have found out to their very great cost, during 2011) a business which is dependent on search engines for its primary traffic is only ever one algorithm-change away from a potential disaster. I prefer to take a long-term, more solid and secure, less precarious perspective, for myself, so that future "accidents" outside my control can't take my business away.
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    • Profile picture of the author Joseph Robinson
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      First of all, well done on getting a site up, and getting some traffic to it.

      You have some sort of incentivized opt-in, presumably, so that you can keep a proportion of traffic rather than losing it all after a one-off visit? It's not really possible to build an affiliate marketing business at all, without that.



      The very first thing you need to do is to change that, so that you are entirely sure where from.

      Affiliate marketing, especially at the start, involves a lot of trial and error, and the important thing is to be able gradually to focus more and more on "what's working" and less and less on "what isn't".

      You can't do that without knowing what's working.



      It depends on the extent to which you want your business to be dependent on search engine traffic. For my business, I'm pretty firmly opposed to this, because (as so many Warriors have found out to their very great cost, during 2011) a business which is dependent on search engines for its primary traffic is only ever one algorithm-change away from a potential disaster. I prefer to take a long-term, more solid and secure, less precarious perspective, for myself, so that future "accidents" outside my control can't take my business away.
      Without giving too much away, where does the bulk of your traffic come from, and in the beginning (when there really isn't much of a foothold) how did you go about getting it?
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Joe128139 View Post

        Without giving too much away, where does the bulk of your traffic come from
        In my case, from article marketing: by getting articles in front of targeted traffic, not from people using search engines.

        As described here.

        (It's also true, though, that some very good SEO is a more-or-less inevitable consequence of successful article marketing, but that's a slow-moving side-benefit, rather than the primary objective or traffic-source; ironically, the SEO produced that way typically far outweighs and outclasses that of people who have, instead, specifically set out to "do SEO". For reasons explained in much more detail in the post linked to just above).

        Originally Posted by Joe128139 View Post

        and in the beginning (when there really isn't much of a foothold) how did you go about getting it?
        Slowly. Personally, I got off to an absolutely dreadful start (I even assumed that "article marketing" was somehow "part of SEO" :rolleyes: ). I made every mistake you can make, and wasted about 4 months before I earned anything at all worth talking about.

        My foothold was always pretty good, though, even in these shoes ...
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        • Profile picture of the author Joseph Robinson
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          In my case, from article marketing: by getting articles in front of targeted traffic, not from people using search engines.

          As described here.

          (It's also true, though, that some very good SEO is a more-or-less inevitable consequence of successful article marketing, but that's a slow-moving side-benefit, rather than the primary objective or traffic-source; ironically, the SEO produced that way typically far outweighs and outclasses that of people who have, instead, specifically set out to "do SEO". For reasons explained in much more detail in the post linked to just above).



          Slowly. Personally, I got off to an absolutely dreadful start (I even assumed that "article marketing" was somehow "part of SEO" :rolleyes: ). I made every mistake you can make, and wasted about 4 months before I earned anything at all worth talking about.

          My foothold was always pretty good, though, even in these shoes ...
          I knew that article marketing was a big part of what you did; but wanted to make sure that there wasn't some "secret" I wasn't keen to.

          I was more curious about when you started to see success. No one cares about Alexa's failures.
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Joe128139 View Post

            I was more curious about when you started to see success.
            In the second month after I'd worked out "how to do it" (having largely wasted between 3 and 4 months before that, with no idea what I was doing and relying on "information" from the Urban Myth School of internet marketing).

            Well, a little bit in the first month, perhaps, but in the second month I made $3,000, which - for me - was the first real indication that "I was going to be able to make a living from it and not have to get a job when I graduated", which was what it was all about, then, for me).
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            • Profile picture of the author Joseph Robinson
              Banned
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              In the second month after I'd worked out "how to do it" (having largely wasted between 3 and 4 months before that, with no idea what I was doing and relying on "information" from the Urban Myth School of internet marketing).

              Well, a little bit in the first month, perhaps, but in the second month I made $3,000, which - for me - was the first real indication that "I was going to be able to make a living from it and not have to get a job when I graduated", which was what it was all about, then, for me).
              So assuming that one is more talented than you, and avoids your mistakes, they could reasonably expect results in a few months. Guys, this is easy, we got this!

              I kid, I kid. So from that point of first success you were mostly article marketing (in the way that you describe it now)?
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  • Profile picture of the author WiFi
    Follow these simple steps and I guarantee you'll see increased traffic to your site.

    ON-PAGE SEO CHECKLIST:
    Keyword in domain?
    If not, keyword in URL?
    Keyword in meta-title?
    Keyword in meta-desription?
    Keyword in meta-keywords?
    Keyword in page/post title?
    Keyword have H1, H2, H3 heading in body?
    Keyword density > 2% in post?
    Image required. Image ALT text have keyword phrase?
    Use "no-follow" on external links?
    Keyword in body emphasized with bold, italics, underline?

    OFF-PAGE:
    Anchor-text backlinks from other sites which are popular. All external posts you make are for the purpose of creating anchor-text back-links to your page.

    KEYWORD RESEARCH:
    Exact match search in Google Keyword Tool External shows that there are at least several hundred searches/mo.
    Search in Google for "keyword" (with quotes) is 50K or less results.
    allintitle: keyword phrase search in Google has less than 10K results

    STEPS:
    1.) Write and post your post to your blog/site with on-page SEO in place

    2.) Write and submit press release to the following directories then move on to step 3 in 7 to 10 days:

    Free Press Release Distribution Service - Submit Your Press Releases Here For Free PR Exposure
    free press release distribution, find the latest news here
    http://www.freepressrelease.com/
    IdeaMarketers-The Free Content Directory
    http://www.yourfreepressrelease.net
    http://www.pressreleasecirculation.com

    3.) Write relevant articles or convert your press release into and article, spin it manually, or with Free Traffic System or Article Marketing Robot and Submit to Blogs/Blog networks, Blog Comments

    Free Traffic System - Increase Targeted Website Traffic with Free Unlimited One Way Links
    Your own private Web 2.0 blogs
    Wordprss.com
    Blogger.com
    MyArticleNetwork.com (paid)
    SEOLinkVine.com (paid)
    Article Marketing Robot (paid - highest recommend)


    I know it will help.
    Signature
    WiFi
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  • Profile picture of the author IsayHey
    Hey everyone, some absolutely brilliant posts so far!

    Alexa, thanks for coming again! And also, I don't want my blog to be solely dependent on Search Engines, I just want some traffic to come from there as a boost and to get more publicity.

    My website is a blog, I would make money by doing things such as reviews and other posts like that, so I do not have a mailing list as of yet, although I plan on having one in the near future.

    WiFi, thanks alot for that. I will keep all of that in mind and try out some of the things that you listed, looks great!

    Joe, Well, thats where im stuck. It could be coming from search engines or signatures on different sites, Im really puzzled.

    Does anyone know how to get the Google Analytics code after you had originally got it? I really need it! Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author JB Jiles
    Banned
    Originally Posted by IsayHey View Post


    What do you reccommend for me? Do you think I should invest in SEO? Will it pay me back in time?

    Thanks.
    I wouldn't pay for SEO until you know what is going to produce results or not. And that is going to take time and experience. But who knows, you may find success in hiring it out. But it's a great skill to learn for some.

    Depending on what you are promoting, you can try article marketing, but your articles better have something special about them. If you don't think you can write this kind of content yourself, it's going to cost some significant money to acquire the kind of articles that other people will want to publish for their readers.

    I'm not talking about the $5-10 per 100 words either. It needs to be researched, original, and the writing simply needs to stand apart in one way or the other, whether that quality is funny, dead-serious, controversial, whatever.

    SEO practices that don't have anything to do with article marketing are still very effective despite what what I see written here. And if you learn how to rank your sites by consistently building certain types of backlinks, that is a very good skill to have. Regardless of how the search engine algorithms change, there's always going to be room for this.
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  • Profile picture of the author NicoleBeckett
    Originally Posted by IsayHey View Post

    Do you think I should invest in SEO? Will it pay me back in time?
    The only thing I would invest in SEO-wise is some education. Learn exactly how it works from legitimate experts. Understand the on-site factors and how off-site factors affect you.

    Alexa's right - you don't want to focus solely on the search engines for all of your traffic, but you should definitely optimize your site and your off-site content (trust me, when written well, you can publish high-quality content that's also properly optimized. It's not all-or-nothing). After all, why turn your back on the search engines altogether?

    As far as getting some immediate traffic, I would look for some popular blogs/sites in your niche that accept guest posts. That way, you'll get to share your name, your expertise, and your link with targeted traffic. From a human perspective, you'll get the attention of a ton of eyeballs that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. From an SEO perspective, you'll build some quality links. And, if your guest posts are good, people will share and syndicate them on their own - getting you in front of more eyeballs and building you more quality lnks.

    At the same time, start an article marketing campaign that focuses on syndication. It'll take some time for you to build up momentum, so start as soon as you can.
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  • Profile picture of the author IsayHey
    Would SEO optimized blog posts work well?

    Most of my posts are very SEO optimized, this could be helping my ranking.
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    • Profile picture of the author simplybeastz
      Pay someone to help you rank , not getting backlinks is foolish and will hurt you in the long run.

      Just pay someone , probably cheaper before you buy software/invest time. At the end of the day , time = money.
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  • Profile picture of the author guld
    Except online and offline seo-strategies you should have some statistic tool to view your trends a good start is to use software like Google analytics and google webmaster tools.
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  • Profile picture of the author Miguelito203
    Originally Posted by IsayHey View Post

    Hey,

    I have recently started my first affiliate website but I need some information on how to get started and getting that defining first sale. I have been getting traffic, not entirely sure where from because I am unsure of where to find an updated piece of analytics traffic code because its no longer tracking my site after a theme upgrade.

    I have been getting around 5-40 clicks per day on my affiliate link without any backlinking done, I have had around 6 legit comments overall. When it comes to the amount of clicks on affiliate link overall I think its around 300, none have converted yet though.

    What do you reccommend for me? Do you think I should invest in SEO? Will it pay me back in time?

    Thanks.
    You could do some article writing and submit the articles to various directories, using social bookmarking sites, doing some blog commenting and making use of forums by putting your link in the sig file for starters. The list goes on and on...

    Good luck,
    Joey
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    • Profile picture of the author IsayHey
      Originally Posted by simplybeastz View Post

      Pay someone to help you rank , not getting backlinks is foolish and will hurt you in the long run.

      Just pay someone , probably cheaper before you buy software/invest time. At the end of the day , time = money.
      Okay thanks, I was thinking about just doing the paid service anyway because they are trustworthy and I have used them before.

      The only problem is they haven't contacted me back about the consultation.

      Nice to see you again as well, we ended on bad terms before. I hope you can see this as a fresh start I have advanced tremendously.

      Originally Posted by Miguelito203 View Post

      You could do some article writing and submit the articles to various directories, using social bookmarking sites, doing some blog commenting and making use of forums by putting your link in the sig file for starters. The list goes on and on...

      Good luck,
      Joey
      Well, Im thinking about article writing to a few places such as squidoo.

      Never tried social bookmarking, don't really know what it is.

      And blog commenting works, but it takes a lot of time. Although I do have an extremely useful free tool which works very well.

      Thanks.
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      Ever thought about having your own 'Fiverr' website? Luckily for you, I have a blog all about it.
      Want some Wordpress plugins? Find out what ones are best.
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      • Profile picture of the author simplybeastz
        Originally Posted by IsayHey View Post

        Okay thanks, I was thinking about just doing the paid service anyway because they are trustworthy and I have used them before.

        The only problem is they haven't contacted me back about the consultation.

        Nice to see you again as well, we ended on bad terms before. I hope you can see this as a fresh start I have advanced tremendously.



        Well, Im thinking about article writing to a few places such as squidoo.

        Never tried social bookmarking, don't really know what it is.

        And blog commenting works, but it takes a lot of time. Although I do have an extremely useful free tool which works very well.

        Thanks.
        No worries , it's fine.
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        https://github.com/thefarcry118/Banana-Phone
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