4 Months In - Here's what I did and the results

SUMMARY
I started IM in earnest back in mid-December. I decided to focus on a single site during my spare time as I do have a day job. Following is an overview of what I did and the results:

I had a domain that was 3 years old with no content. The domain has the word "review" in it. The domain is a .com. I decided to create a review site and link out to affiliates.

ACTIONS
I set-up Wordpress as my CMS.

I purchased the InReview theme from Elegantthemes and deployed to the site.

I created an account on Twitter and Facebook. Each post that goes live automatically gets posted to Twitter. Twitter in turns auto posts to Facebook.

I set-up a form to create a list hosted on aweber. I put the form in the right column of the website. Yesterday, I installed the lightbox form on all the single post pages. (Wow!)

I signed up for
- Amazon affiliates
- CJ
- ShareASale

I researched products via Amazon to find those selling in the range of $100-$300 and downloaded product photos.

I hired a Warrior to write 20 reviews for 20 different products. Each review was to be 1000 words and have a KW density of 2-3%. The keyword is the product name.

I started writing blog posts to go on the blog section of the site. I targeted 300 words with keywords targeting the niche category.

I hired a writer via oDesk to write 100 BMR articles. About 25 of the articles were released before they shut down. I requested that all my articles be removed from their network.

I hired someone via oDesk to create a couple of Squidoo lens' and Hubpages targeting the niche category.

I did some blog commenting. I learned a lot here as many of my comments were removed. Even though I wrote relevant posts, I also added my link to my comment. I also registered the username that was my domain. I'm modifying this strategy.

I hired someone via oDesk to do social bookmarking. The bookmarks were for each of my product review pages.

RESULTS
SEO: I'm on page 1, position 4 for the primary keyword of the site "Best blah blah Reviews".

SEO: I'm disappointed with my individual review pages. None are on page one. The 18 of the 22 reviews are on page 2 or page 3 of Google for the product name.

Traffic: Traffic is improving. I'm not sure if these results are great or not, but I feel as if they could be better. See the attached file from Google Analytics.

Earnings: $116 so far in April, all from Amazon. More than double March. See the screenshot. I'm beginning to experiment with placement of links. Two weeks ago I de-emphasized links from CJ and ShareASale as they did not have any sales.

Email List: I had 6 subscribers until April 23. Yesterday, after I installed the lightbox, I now have 9 subscribers.


NEXT STEPS

Content: I will continue to add content on a weekly basis, both reviews and blog posts.

Email List: I'll send out my first newsletter next week around the first of May. I won't sell anything, just provide some pointers and links to online resources for my niche.

SEO: I'm lacking in a strategy here. I will continue with the blog commenting and forum posting. However, I need to explore article marketing and social media marketing.

Any suggestions for article and social marketing?

Earnings: I am considering dropping CJ and ShareASale links and focusing on Amazon. Any ideas for how to increase earnings? Maybe selling related products? I'm not sure.


I want to thank the Warrior Forum. This community has been a big help. Granted, $100 a month is just a pittance compared to most of you, but it is my start. Next is $100 a week.