I'm stuck -feeling like I may have put a bunch of work into a site that ain't gonna pay/rank/takeoff
You are a tireless community that endeavors to help each other out, regardless of experience. I just read a poorly written post from a 20 year old that wants to make money online, and nobody batted an eyelid, instead offering fantastic advice and direction.
So thankyou, and thanks for all the fish (great reads).
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Get Into My Life 2 months old
Target Audience
Okay, so I have started a review site in the same genre of uncrate.com, blessthisstuff.com gearculture.com
These sites are geared towards a male demographic, and I'm sure they do rather well.
My 9-5 is as an art director working in an ad agency, and I get to see some pretty cool stuff everyday. However, the items I post might not fall into the realm of men only.
Question One.
- Do I have to segment my TA and choose Male / Female.
Affiliate
So far I have signed up for etsy (zanox) Dwellstore, Urbanoutfitters, asos (CJ) shopsense and amazon affiliates.
However I have only really used the amazon affiliates and the etsy deeplinks.
- I've sent 240 clicks to amazon in the past 2 months and made nada.
- I've sent 350 clicks to etsy and made .30c
- I've sent 12 clicks to shopsense and made .70c
Question Two.
- I get pathway to purchase, and buying cycles, however should I have seen anything for my clicks? I'm starting to wonder if those bigger sites actually make money through their affiliate links from actually recommending stuff, or do you think that they only make money from the sheer volume of traffic they are sending collecting commission from secondary purchases their lead makes?
Traffic - Linkbuilding, Social, & the Serps
I'm seeing about 20 - 30 visitors a day (spiking and dropping here and there).
Linkbuilding
2-3 per post (nofollow)
Valuable comments - I'm only really seeing traffic from disqus enabled blogs when I post a picture of a product that I review that relates to the blog post I'm commenting on.
so I'm going to keep with just that one.
Outreach - I tried outreach to a blog I actually read that was up for sale on flippa, In my head I was happy to pay something for the link, but my praise and condolences seemed to be enough. +1 PR4 link (not up yet)
Purchase of one sponsorship.
Really nice PR9 for $10 I actually like the work that they are doing so parting with my cash wasn't hard, and the ensuing link to come is really a bonus. (not up yet)
Our Friends - I'm noticing on most of the larger blogs, on the footer they have a partners/friends link. I'm trying to build up some value to my blog before approaching them.
Organic -Web - Non existant Google sends me 1-3 peeps a week
- Images - Not bad 20 people a week.
Rankings - 4 items on page one.
bonded field case 7 (-1)
keepcup brew cork 12oz 8 (+4)
birch tree forest shower curtain 9 (+2)
keepcup 12oz cork 10 (+7)
The traffic I am getting from google seems to be on images and not webpages. I attribute this to rewriting the titles of all my images with LIS keywords and Exact match keywords.
Question 3
- Am I doing this wrong? I've read a fair bit about private blog networks, Tiered networks, GSAing the bejeezus out of your third tier. yada yada. I'm a little lost on this. Also bonus q. Once my dofollow links come into play are they really going to make much of a difference?
Social - Unfollowers / Instagress / tumblr / pinterest / Facebook / Viral Content Buzz
Got some sweet 7c likes from facebook ads. (India) now all my facebook followers are indian. So I'm not really focused on this one yet.. maybe I should be?
Tumblr - Using IFTTT I'm autoposting pics from instagram and linking back to my website, trying to build up a following worth something.
Pinterest, I'm enjoying this one, so I'm not going to use ninjapinner or something like that unless someone can make a compelling case on why I should.
Twitter 1 Post from me, 1 retweet from someone else. Seeing 20% of my traffic from twitter
Instagram - when someone comes over from insta, they are seen as direct by GA. 20% of traffic from them.
Question 4.
With the majority of my traffic coming from social, Is this really something that I can scale up into numbers worth talking about?
I feel like I'm doing okay for two months with the majority of my links nofollow (97.3%)
but I could be absolutely wrong
Question 5
Am I going down the wrong path. Can I really build this into an authority site that makes money or is this one a pipe dream albeit and enjoyable one?
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If you got this far thank you for sticking with me! Looking back at what I wrote it seems like a bit of a mess! I really need a little direction. So here are all the questions in a row. All criticism welcome!
1. - Target Audience.
Do I have to segment my TA and choose Male / Female. (or am I not focused enough)
2. - Affiliates.
I get pathway to purchase, and buying cycles, however should I have seen anything for my clicks? I'm starting to wonder if those bigger sites actually make money through their affiliate links from actually recommending stuff, or do you think that they only make money from the sheer volume of traffic they are sending collecting commission from secondary purchases their lead makes?
3. - Linkbuilding.
Am I doing this wrong? I've read a fair bit about private blog networks, Tiered networks, GSAing the bejeezus out of your third tier. yada yada. I'm a little lost on this. Also bonus q. Once my dofollow links come into play are they really going to make much of a difference?
4. - Social and the serps.
With the majority of my traffic coming from social, Is this really something that I can scale up into numbers worth talking about? Will I ever see traffic from Google!
5. - The whole enchilada.
Am I going down the wrong path. Can I really build this into an authority site that makes money or is this one a pipe dream albeit and enjoyable one?
I plan to rule the world.... Starting Monday.
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