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Need A Bit Of Direction

by learss
14 replies
Hey Warriors, I have been looking up and down the forums for a few weeks now learning all I can on IM and became hooked. I decided to give it a go and see what I could do/learn. I got the domain in my target niche after doing a bit of keyword research. My plan is to create a site that has guides (3 currently) and a section on product reviews (around 8 at the moment) which would be an Amazon Affiliate setup. I have submitted those 3 articles to squidoo and ezine and backed linked them also.

I know the website isn't the best looking at the moment and there is a long way to go. At the moment I am focusing on adding a guide or product review every 2 days or so to add content.

What I would like to know is what should I be focusing on at the moment to get the most out of the site from your point of view. Should I keep adding content, improve my SEO, the look of the site etc?

Thanks guys, I look forward to getting some feed back.
#amazon affiliate website #begineer #bit #critique my site #direction #noob question
  • Profile picture of the author MrMonetize
    First thing is, don't give away your niches and domains, especially on a public forum like this. I would edit your post and remove those. I would focus on quality content, the type that helps your potential customers. Use social media like Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic and interest. SEO is a minefield for newbies and you can quickly get disheartened or make mistakes like using Fiverr gigs. Just keep reading this forum and absorb all you can. You are taking action which is more than can be said of most newbies on here. Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author tooAlive
    First of all, welcome. You're already off to a great start with a website and content. That's already much further than most people go.

    After taking a quick look at the site, I can see it could definitely use some improved SEO. Your post titles also need to be a bit more descriptive and interesting. I find them too vague. It also doesn't look like you're using an SEO plugin, so I'd recommend installing a free one to get you started in that direction. I personally like Wordpress SEO by Yoast.

    The site design could also be a tad better.

    Although as far as getting traffic goes, I wouldn't put all my eggs in the SEO basket.

    I think review videos on Youtube would be a perfect idea, as cat-related videos get tons of traffic. And Youtube videos rank really well on Google, so I wouldn't be surprised if your videos started to rank high in the SERPS much quicker than your actual site.

    The Amazon affiliate program should also work great for you, especially if you do reviews for cat toys and playthings. Pet owners love their pets, and I'm sure you'll see plenty of sales once you start driving some traffic.

    Perhaps join cat forums as well and advertise your site in your sig. If you regularly provide genuine, quality content, occasional visitors may turn into regulars and even share your content with others. It may start off slow, but if you're passionate and knowledgable on the subject, you can definitely make it work.

    Also, make sure you make it easy for your visitors to share your content. I didn't see any social icons on your site, so that's something I'd address right away. A plugin I'd recommend is Sexy Bookmarks (also free).
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  • Profile picture of the author m30jake
    Hi Lears

    Yes, your site does need a lot of work.

    Here are the three golden stages, you need to start at number 1 and only until you've completed this stage go on to the next.

    1. Conversions - persuasion techniques, site architecture, usability, emotive language etc. Remember people don't buy things, they buy benefits. For example people aren't buying "advice for your pet needs", they're buying better health for their cats
    2. Merchandise - having all your products on there and having something which has value for the consumer.
    3. Traffic - SEO, Paid ads etc. Only get traffic once you've worked on the above two things, else it's pointless.

    So in response to what direction you should be going in, I'd focus heavily on stage 1 "Conversion".

    If you have any questions let me know

    I recommend the following book, it takes you through the stages I mentioned above in detail: CALL TO ACTION: Secret Formulas to Improve Online...CALL TO ACTION: Secret Formulas to Improve Online...
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    • Profile picture of the author tooAlive
      Originally Posted by m30jake View Post

      Hi Lears

      Yes, your site does need a lot of work.

      Here are the three golden stages, you need to start at number 1 and only until you've completed this stage go on to the next.

      1. Conversions - persuasion techniques, site architecture, usability, emotive language etc. Remember people don't buy things, they buy benefits. For example people aren't buying "advice for your pet needs", they're buying better health for their cats
      2. Merchandise - having all your products on there and having something which has value for the consumer.
      3. Traffic - SEO, Paid ads etc. Only get traffic once you've worked on the above two things, else it's pointless.

      So in response to what direction you should be going in, I'd focus heavily on stage 1 "Conversion".

      If you have any questions let me know

      I recommend the following book, it takes you through the stages I mentioned above in detail: CALL TO ACTION: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results: Amazon.co.uk: Bryan Eisenberg: Books
      I would avoid paid traffic until you have a system in place that either attempts to retain the visitors (email opt-ins) or sells them a product/service. Ideally both.

      Otherwise you'd just be wasting money on traffic that has nothing to buy and you'll likely never see again. And Amazon ads are great, but I doubt you'd see a positive ROI with the average Amazon commission % and the cost of paid traffic.

      Again, Amazon ads are great, but if you want to get into paid advertising, I'd look for a more lucrative product to promote. Perhaps even your own product (e-book, video series) that you sell.
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      "Action is the real measure of intelligence." - Napoleon Hill
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  • Profile picture of the author thedanbrown
    Focus on traffic. Then conversions. Make sure you're building your list on your site.

    So many different ways to get traffic though both free and paid depending on what your niche and target customers are all about.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeThomas
      Originally Posted by thedanbrown View Post

      Focus on traffic. Then conversions. Make sure you're building your list on your site.
      I strongly disagree.

      I would focus on conversions FIRST.

      If you get good at conversions traffic is easy. You just buy it.

      The pros focus on conversions. Also conversion/copywirting/persuasion is
      an evergreen skill meaning if you put your time in now your going to have
      money making skill forever.

      Put your time in learning traffic...like SEO for instance and google can change
      their algorithm and BAM your skill and time was worthless.

      Google can't change the alogorithm of human nature. That's why the best conversion book is still scientific advertising which was written in the 1920's.

      I focused on traffic first and it was a HUGE mistake.

      Don't make the same.

      All the best,

      Mike
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      P.S If what I posted you found helpful you might want to check out my daily web marketing tips. Go to www.influencedigitally.com

      P.P.S If you'd like to discover how to create high converting money-getting video salesletters you should check out my most recent WSO Video Conversion Cash Machine

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      • Profile picture of the author PvPGuy
        Originally Posted by MikeThomas View Post

        I strongly disagree...

        ...I would focus on conversions FIRST...

        ...Put your time in learning traffic...
        Contradict much? :p

        Um, how do you "focus on conversions" first if you don't have traffic? Sorry, that made me chuckle. I get your point, but your message is confusing.

        There are tips and tricks you can learn beforehand that universally improve the quality of your pages, but its much better to slap up a "decent" site and improve from there. I'd rather have .0037% conversion rate on 1,000 targeted visitors than 4% of nothing.

        Traffic = success, even if your conversions suck. Just "buy more traffic", right?
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        • Profile picture of the author learss
          Thanks for all your help and advice guys, a lot to consider and I will, and already am, putting some of it into action.
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        • Profile picture of the author joaquin112
          Originally Posted by PvPGuy View Post

          Contradict much? :p

          Um, how do you "focus on conversions" first if you don't have traffic? Sorry, that made me chuckle. I get your point, but your message is confusing.

          There are tips and tricks you can learn beforehand that universally improve the quality of your pages, but its much better to slap up a "decent" site and improve from there. I'd rather have .0037% conversion rate on 1,000 targeted visitors than 4% of nothing.

          Traffic = success, even if your conversions suck. Just "buy more traffic", right?
          Why even bother to post when you have no idea what you're saying? What he meant is that you should have SOME traffic first. The traffic can be either paid or organic. Split testing is done on few visitors at first, until conversion rates reach an adequate level. Then you promote heavily via PPC or SEO.

          I'd rather have .0037% conversion rate on 1,000 targeted visitors than 4% of nothing
          That's one of the most mediocre things I've read in a while. Why settle for less when you can get A LOT more just by split testing?
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Originally Posted by PvPGuy View Post

          Traffic = success, even if your conversions suck. Just "buy more traffic", right?
          No - not "right" at all. In fact very, very wrong indeed, as approaches go.

          Traffic is the scalable part. It's easy to change that, once you have the conversions optimized. If you're not converting well, "buy more traffic" isn't an option because you'll be making a loss instead of a profit.

          Originally Posted by PvPGuy View Post

          I'd rather have .0037% conversion rate on 1,000 targeted visitors than 4% of nothing.
          Sheeeeesh, and people think I'm pedantic. Ok, 4% of nothing is nothing, but who's talking about having literally no traffic at all?

          You need just enough traffic to test conversions, split-test, and get things right first.

          Then, after that, you need "real traffic".

          Conversion-refinement comes before traffic-generation in the order in which you attend to things: internet (or any other kind of) marketing is really not the business for people who have this basic principle the wrong way round!
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          • Profile picture of the author PvPGuy
            Originally Posted by MikeThomas View Post

            Put your time in learning traffic...
            @Mike, I read this as a declaration, and I failed to correctly read the rest of your statement in which your meaning was clear. That is why I thought you contradicted yourself - my apologies!

            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            Originally Posted by PvPGuy

            Traffic = success even if your conversions suck. Just "buy more traffic" right?
            No - not "right" at all. In fact very, very wrong indeed, as approaches go.

            Traffic is the scalable part. It's easy to change that, once you have the conversions optimized. If you're not converting well, "buy more traffic" isn't an option because you'll be making a loss instead of a profit.
            I realize sarcasm is often lost in a forum. But if traffic is so easy to buy, then as long as you are (obviously at least profitable) converting, just scale up, right? I did not mean to suggest conversions were unimportant - but I'd rather take some action (as the OP has done), learn how to get traffic (most people do not buy their traffic), and then grow from there.

            And let's not lose sight of the fact that you can buy those "evergreen" skills Mike referred to just as well, if not easier, than buying traffic, especially for a beginner.

            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            Sheeeeesh, and people think I'm pedantic....
            I can accept pedantic. At least you didn't call me ostentatious, then I might have been offended

            Originally Posted by joaquin112 View Post

            What he meant is that you should have SOME traffic first. The traffic can be either paid or organic. Split testing is done on few visitors at first, until conversion rates reach an adequate level. Then you promote heavily via PPC or SEO.
            And would you say that 1,000 visitors is "SOME" traffic, or a lot? I concede that I misread Mike's comments and my reply was therefore misdirected at him, but the underlying point still stands. You need to know how to generate traffic in order to test conversions, just as you need to know the elements that convert in order to make best use of subsequent traffic.

            But is that being pedantic? Really? How many threads are there daily about "how do I get traffic to my site?" Would you say, based on the OP comments, that he already knows how/where/from whom to buy this traffic? If it's so easy and therefore pedantic to mention this preliminary traffic for testing, then why again, are there so many threads asking how to do something so easy?

            And don't forget the OP's question, which was, "What should I focus on?" Notice his list did not imply he had any traffic currently, unless that was his meaning by SEO and backlinking, which we must be careful to describe as a viable traffic technique lest we draw the ire of certain anti-SEO parties who shall remain nameless (looks both ways for Luigi)

            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            Conversion-refinement comes before traffic-generation in the order in which you attend to things
            Right, just after you generate enough traffic to be able to refine those conversions. Oops! that's the part that was supposed to go without saying, right?

            @learss:
            The first couple replies had the benefit of seeing your site, so take their comments to heart. It sounds to me that you are just getting started, but congratulations on taking action. Your question is actually much more complex than this thread will ever be able to accomodate. Hopefully you were able to glean some nuggets up there.

            Invest in some good amazon affiliate programs from reputable warriors; increase your knowledge base and learn from their experiences.

            Best of luck to ya.
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            • Profile picture of the author m30jake
              Increasing traffic and improving conversion are two ways to generate more revenue (and improving your offer/having more products is the third) but all smart people would work on improving their conversions first - you're gonna get a lot more ROMI!


              Originally Posted by PvPGuy View Post

              @Mike, I read this as a declaration, and I failed to correctly read the rest of your statement in which your meaning was clear. That is why I thought you contradicted yourself - my apologies!



              I realize sarcasm is often lost in a forum. But if traffic is so easy to buy, then as long as you are (obviously at least profitable) converting, just scale up, right? I did not mean to suggest conversions were unimportant - but I'd rather take some action (as the OP has done), learn how to get traffic (most people do not buy their traffic), and then grow from there.

              And let's not lose sight of the fact that you can buy those "evergreen" skills Mike referred to just as well, if not easier, than buying traffic, especially for a beginner.



              I can accept pedantic. At least you didn't call me ostentatious, then I might have been offended



              And would you say that 1,000 visitors is "SOME" traffic, or a lot? I concede that I misread Mike's comments and my reply was therefore misdirected at him, but the underlying point still stands. You need to know how to generate traffic in order to test conversions, just as you need to know the elements that convert in order to make best use of subsequent traffic.

              But is that being pedantic? Really? How many threads are there daily about "how do I get traffic to my site?" Would you say, based on the OP comments, that he already knows how/where/from whom to buy this traffic? If it's so easy and therefore pedantic to mention this preliminary traffic for testing, then why again, are there so many threads asking how to do something so easy?

              And don't forget the OP's question, which was, "What should I focus on?" Notice his list did not imply he had any traffic currently, unless that was his meaning by SEO and backlinking, which we must be careful to describe as a viable traffic technique lest we draw the ire of certain anti-SEO parties who shall remain nameless (looks both ways for Luigi)



              Right, just after you generate enough traffic to be able to refine those conversions. Oops! that's the part that was supposed to go without saying, right?

              @learss:
              The first couple replies had the benefit of seeing your site, so take their comments to heart. It sounds to me that you are just getting started, but congratulations on taking action. Your question is actually much more complex than this thread will ever be able to accomodate. Hopefully you were able to glean some nuggets up there.

              Invest in some good amazon affiliate programs from reputable warriors; increase your knowledge base and learn from their experiences.

              Best of luck to ya.
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  • Profile picture of the author DoubleOhDave
    Personally I would go for copy writing - learn it, do it, over and over. If you are staying within the one niche then you have got one thing right straight out of the bag, and that's not jumping from one thing to another or trying too many sites at once on your first go.

    I see you are in the cat niche so if i were you I would join the War Room - for the simple reason that you can get free keyword tools and image scrapers to create funny memes from some of the very generous warriors in there. Cat pics go down a treat on facebook... make them funny and you will prob enjoy a degree of viral traffic. Plus, use Pineterest.. and yes - social sharing buttons are important - WP Socializer is one i only discovered today and it HIGHLY impressed me.. go check it out (free on Wordpress.org)
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  • Profile picture of the author Jonathan Joseph
    Hi there,

    once your content is all-together then I would definitely start driving traffic. Get out articles every week, and a Press Release every month at least, contact people in your niche and ask to JV with them, then perhaps get into FB ads.

    My suggestion is to take things step-by-step, and write out your goals. Have 1 thing complete before moving on to the next. All the best!
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    Jon

    "Success comes when people act together; failure tends to happen alone." -- Deepak Chopra

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