The Amazon Thread

Yea you will.
Anything that is actually purchased off the Amazon site from traffic you sent will earn you a commission.

thanks for the reply

#2) eye candy ... by nature I am a designer and want the site to look spectacular. I have read that the looks of the site are not as important as the functionality. Is this true? I don't want to spend the time and the $$ on eye candy if it is not needed. On the other hand I really hate sites that are thrown together hodge-podge and higgly-piggly.

Should I spend a week or so tweaking the site to make it look slick or just toss one up there and hope it is "sticky" enough?

** for those that don't know.. "sticky" is a term used by developers to determine how much time a user spends on the site. If a user spends much time on the site exploring, then it is very "sticky" and that is in direct correlation to the "bounce rate" where people hit the site and leave immediately because it was not what they were searching for. **

My opinion: Get the site up so that it looks decent and not as 'perfect' as you want, get GOOD content up, get traffic...THEN worry about making the site 'super-sticky' after you are getting at least 20 visitors a day.

Yes get something up there and make a start with the link building, Google submissions and content writing. Your not likely to start getting visitors for 2-4 weeks anyway depending on how competitive your niche is. That is more than enough time to make your site look great.

Chances are you won't get that much traffic straight away because it can take time to rank higher in Google.

Firstly, if you haven't done any keyword research do it now. You may need to re-think your niche if you haven't already done proper research. Trust me when I say you need to spend adequate time on research ... or else all your working after this point could be for nothing. Don't get bogged down researching either. Just do enough then pick your niche and take ACTION.

Get a general pleasant design for now and focus on producing fantastic content. Offer real value to readers of your website. You'll want to do some research around the forum about the layouts of product reviews (which I feel are one of the best options for promoting Amazon products). There's definitely some fantastic WSO's out there which will show you some excellent review layouts that are well worth the investment when starting Amazon websites.

Once you get some content up, start building some backlinks. Get into a routine with backlinks ... aim to make a certain amount every day or week. Be careful not to aim too high. Just a nice steady stream of quality and diverse backlinks. Again, I'd advise getting one of the many great WSO's on this. Well worth it and will serve you for all your time in IM. Oh, don't forget onpage SEO as well.

While in a backlinking routine, you the want to also be in a content creation routine. Try to add new content every week or two ... Google loves frequently updated QUALITY content.

Once you get these two habits down, then start to work on the finer points of your websites design. This includes tweaking the design of your website as well as the layout and content of the reviews. Don't forget to keep adding more content and backlinking though.

Once you're getting some traffic it's all about optimising your website to convert at the best rate it can. Let me say my main goal in making a website is always to offer true value to the reader (Google are cracking down on sites which are a waste of time and space). But I aim to also have the best possible design that I can to maximise conversions. With traffic you can change small things within the site or review design that you think may work better for your particular niche and observe the results. Through small steps of trial and error you'll make your website ever more efficient and thus valuable to both you and your readers.

Good luck!

if you dont want to wait for seo traffic to accumulate to find out if your site is converting by some targeted ppc or other paid traffic just to test it out, its not hard to find google ppc coupons around for $50 worth of traffic

Thanks for all the replies

The niche was well researched. Although this is my first $$ site it is not my first site

I was once taught that a website is never complete. And I agree with that. It is in constant development. I believe I have the WSO's I need to preform the task and the site is live now. I just really don't like how it looks and that may turn people off.

For wolfmmiii: I have used adwords in the past and have purchased coupons to drive traffic to a site (the one in my sig) but I didn't find that the conversion was great. The funds ran out before there were 5 additional new members. I don't think I will be using adwords right away, but will keep that thought in the back of my head for a while.

So with the site up, the SEO done, and some content... while I am waiting for the freelancer to skin it, just start pushing the back links?

That leads me to the next question:
Backlinking: Too many too fast? On the site in my sig I posted MANY MANY backlinks to a specific page that I wanted ranked. I actually dropped in rank for that topic. I believe Google slapped me stupid. Went from page #1 to page #53 or so. So for backlinking would 5 a day be worthy? What are the typical recommendations?

Take it nice and steady and do backlinks from various sources. It's hard to put an exact number on it. But say you do 5 a day, you really need to maintain that amount because it needs to appear natural and can't really have too many sudden big increases or decreases. 5 a day seems OK though.

As Google recognises your backlinks you should begin to climb in Google. However, most of the time you'll then get knocked way back (as you mentioned above). You may as well expect this from the start so that when it happens you're not taken completely by surprise. What should you do? Keep backlinking and most of the time your website will come back to a higher position than it was before. It may happen a few times, but just keeping making backlinks at a steady pace and adding valuable content. Eventually you should stick on the first page if you make it there.