Need to know what I'm doing wrong...

Hi Matt! Why do you think you must have made mistakes? IMHO, you should keep doing what you're doing because it's working and the next thing you should do is leveraging it to the next level to make it even bigger. Most people here are struggling to make their 1st commission. If you've got your ways to make that 2st commission, you must be able to earn the next ones and leverage it. You should be celebrating for getting that far in 3 months, then make this as your encouragement to do even better.

Your site looks great! But you may want to make your opt-in box to be more attractive or eye-catching. Maybe by enlarging the button and form. And maybe you want to use slides, instead of one single image with the link to an article. This way, you can expose more featured article and have your site become more attractive.

The snippet of each article only shows several words because the font is too big. I think a snippet like that won't be effective because people won't get something useful if they read, for example, "If you have been reading articles on here or...".

Maybe you want to scale down your latest articles showing on your sidebar, or maybe you want to use categories there to make it easier to see. Sometimes people don't click at all just because there are too many things there all at once.

Good luck!

That's one of the little things you're doing wrong, Matt. Though clearly you're off to a very good start.

People who sign up to anything through a website need to hear from you on that day, and again on either the next day or the day after, and then at regular intervals according to their expectations (which you get to set yourself, on your site and/or in the first automated email you send them when they sign up). Otherwise you can't build a continuity-based relationship with them, which is actually the purpose of list-building.

Your potential future income-source isn't just the site: it's the list. That's the valuable asset you're building up, through which income will arrive, and the thing you need to nurture and attend to, at the moment.

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post6123982

Your site's good, anyway. Well done, there. (Apart from maybe that floating "social media links bar" on the right, which is pretty annoying and will lose some people? Those can lose more than they gain, because they come across to visitors - understandably enough - as being there for your benefit rather than for theirs. This isn't my niche at all, but personally, I'd take that away very quickly!).

The bottom line ... nice site, but I wouldn't try to attract more traffic to it until you've sorted out what to do with the proportion of traffic that you can retain through your opt-in (and ideally increase that proportion, too: that's where the money is, in affiliate marketing).

My first impression of the website is positive.

I agree with above suggestions: place your follow buttons in the page (not floating) and display more text for each article snippet.

Also, could you improve the relevance of the text? For example: "If you have been reading articles on here or..." doesn't give me much insight into the article. And wrapping the images with links would be nice.

I just signed up to your newsletter. A minor suggestion: I think the confirm link should be the first link, not the last.

Nice looking site: I'd say you have been quite successful after only three months in... especially if your traffic is coming from organic sources. It may be time to experiment with an adwords program.

Nothing you're doing wrong. Track that traffic form which resources are well converting and put more efforts into them. You've just made $150 in 3 months with 50-150 daily uniques. 500 daily uniques..... 1000... 1500...5000.......... go ahead.

Best of Luck!

Sites looks nice in general. I don't like those floating social icons, they are very distracting.
Also, I had to look twice to see your opt-in box. If you make this stand out more, you probably get more subscribers.
And if you do get subscribers, set up your autoresponder so they will get information from you straight away. After a few weeks they won't even remember subscribing to your list and chances are they unsubscribe when they finally get an email from you...

Only a few niggles from a UI POV:

• Your search box text is not very visible, change it to a lighter grey?
• The red text on the current link doesn't stand out either
• The float in social buttons are annoying

Apart from that I think your site is very nicely laid out, nice big text as well which is easy to read.


The only thing I can see that might hurt your potential income is the CTA text for your newsletter doesn't really draw me in.

LOL you're doing better than most, Matt. So congrats. I also must congratulate you on having an actual niche site that isn't trying to peddle IM/Biz Opp products. You have no idea how tiring that is to see. Site looks good. Some white space, but hey, simplicity is good. Contact the other sites that are NOT linking back to you and have them link back or cease and desist. do you have an email series in place? It says deals, tips, and giveaways. You gotta be specific there. Other than that, keep moving forward. Do product reviews too and include aff links to the great reviews. Don't sell bad product.

Absolutely awesome start. Congrats.

I know it may not feel like it but you're ahead of 90% of people on their IM journey (possibly more)!

Here's some stuff you can do to better monetize the site -

- Start filling out your autoresponder. Write to your list Every. Single. Day. Send them content, send them freebies, SELL THEM STUFF and pay attention to what results you get. To start with it'll feel retarded. You'll send an email that goes to 30 people and the next guy won't get it for a week but this is good practice to get into and the sooner you start the better.

- Get more aggressive about getting people to optin to your list. Add a "Free preparedness guide" as an incentive to get people to optin, ideally with an ecover graphic.

- Add a call to action at the bottom of every post. This is your chance to tell them where to go and what to do. Sign up to your list? Go here and buy this product? Whatever it is, tell them to do it and try out lots of different things.

Some ideas for driving more traffic -

- Be more controversial. Your site seems quite bland at the moment. Post up some evocative stuff that'll get people talking. Say things you know people will disagree with. Say things you know your audience will love and cheer. Sorry I can't help with specific I have zero clue about your niche Maybe some kind of "The end of the world is coming" or Zombie apocalypse piss take post?

- Find related sites and get to know the owners. Look for ways to cross promote each other. Featured posts? Including referrals in each other's autoresponders? A recommendation at the bottom of some key posts?

- Become a well respected contributor on a related forum (If you've made it this far you've glanced at my sig and wondered what DigiResults is so you know this works!)

Good luck!

Andy

One thing I would do is put your opt-in form above the fold so it is visible without scrolling down. I would make it bigger, bolder, and give it some kind of box or outline, I didn't even see it until I looked at the page a second time. The floating social buttons should just be posted at the top right corner of the page or just leave them at the bottom where you have already.
Getting that many unique visitors a day is awesome, if you can get 50% of them to opt-in you're email marketing could make more sales. Creating a squeeze page will generate more opt-in's as well, but overall I think it's good but it's not my niche.

Hey,

Thanks for all of the replies! You guys are great!

From your responses, I've gathered the following information:

1. Not much is wrong with my site. You all seem to think very highly of it, except for the following issues:
- The floating social media icons
- The excerpt along each image on the main page. I've tried to fix this, and I've had to modify the truncated post length instead of creating a useful excerpt. Anyone know a plug-in that will use a separate excerpt rather than a specified amount of the actual post itself?
- I need to make the opt-in more noticeable and more appealing.
- Any place that I can get some ideas on how to start sending out my newsletters? I'm not sure how to start doing that. Should they just be re-hash's of my articles on the site or something different altogether?

I'm happy to hear how far along I actually am. I started this being very excited, making 1-2 posts per day. I've recently lost motivation, and am only doing 2-3 posts per week. so I needed the positive reinforcement to know how far along I really am.

Since making this post, my unique visits have gone up to about 200-300 a day and I just sold another 20 items through the site. I will work on what you guys suggested, but it's great to know how far I am, as I almost contemplated abandoning the niche for something different.



Thanks and take care,
Matt

I have a product you should promote to preppers. Solar ovens/cookers.

They are like ovens that cook stuff from the sun. Reckon they would sell like hot cakes! High price as well so good for amazon commisions!

You might want to scale it up as you have already started making some money. But one thing that I will do personally is that I will put an opt in form where they need to opt in form before they will be able to read the content.

Many other Warriors have also mention to you already to make the opt in form obvious so that you can start collecting the leads and follow up with them through email. That is great advice as you can always leverage on your list by promoting other relevant products to them in the near future.

I think you can't tell yet what is wrong with your marketing because it is so early to figure out and yet you are still starting out with a very little list. just continue your marketing and when your list is big enough and still you don't have enough sales that's the time you have to worry and improve your craft.

I'd take on board the suggestions here with floating socials etc but dont get overwhelmed with this thread.

You're making money. Dont get off the pot yet!

Just focus on more traffic, more opt-ins, then start your newsletter. Even if it's just a broadcast everytime you write a new blog post saying 'check out my new post'. easy as 1,2,3 and your income will grow!!!

Hi Matt!

It sounds like you are doing really well considering you've only been in internet marketing for 3 months. I suggest writing some emails and sending them to your list as soon as you can!

Matt,

You have a clean looking website. Congrats on your entry into the world of eCommerce and IM!

As an affiliate marketer you are ultimately trying to get people to flow thru your site to other websites so they will end up purchasing a product from someone else and you'll make your cut.

If that's how you are choosing to monetize your website, make sure you are making it easy for people to flow thru you.

If you decide that you would like to monetize your traffic on your website then you would have a different focus of converting people directly on your website.

Keep trying different things, but certainly keep up the great work of publishing quality / helpful content.

As was already written, start engaging that e-mail list of yours with stuff they will find relevant.

Great work!

Talk to your subscribers Matt and do what ever you can to grow that your customer base.

Thanks again guys for the awesome comments!

I now have about 40 subscribers, and plan on sending our my newsletters in just a couple of days. For now, it will, more or less, be a re-hash of my Website's latest posts "Check out this" for example (more professional verbiage, of course).

I look forward to being able to contribute and learn a lot from you guys here. I really do appreciate all of the fantastic advice you have been collectively providing for me!


Thanks,
- Matt