Internet Marketing is a lot more than just getting on the First page... it's about people.

Let me give you a simple analogy.

I can shoot 90% from the line. No joke. I always have been able to shoot free throws. It's easy to me.

Shaq has trouble shooting 50% from the line... always has had that problem. He makes $20 million a year playing basketball.

So why can't I make $20 million a year playing basketball?

Answer: Because Basketball is more than just shooting freethrows and Internet Marketing is not about "Mechanics"... it's about people.

So take your expertise in ranking and put it on the back burner for now. Look at the visitors to your site. Where do they come from, why are they there, what do they look at, how long are they there? And why are they not buying your offer?

It's time to start figuring out what people in your niche really want... then give it to them.

Internet IQ makes a great point. I would also look at split testing your affiliate offers. Looks like the conversions stink so I would start testing other products or price points.

I did the same thing in the "child custody" niche until I found an offer and price point that worked. It looks like a boat load of traffic so they either are all tire kickers or they don't have any money.

Maybe through up a squeeze page for a week on the main url to see if you can see who wants in bad enough to give you their email. Just a thought.

Best Regards,
Gregg

Online marketing is not only about your ranking in SERPs. You need to offer what people want.

Maybe you need to do some research first. You need to observe your own site and find out:
Where visitors come from, what do they look at, how long they stay? And where they leave?

You also need to study your competitors sites to see what they are doing.

If this were me the first thing I would do is try to get ranked above the fold fore the sites that aren't yet and make sure I revamped my content until it started converting better :-)

Are those search volume numbers based on the exact match setting in the google keyword tool?

That is odd.

With that high of a ranking, and with that many searches, I would tend to agree with Rob. Something is keeping searchers from clicking on your listing.

People are in it for themselves. They don't click on your listing to make you money. They click on your listing to benefit themselves.

Your listing should have a title and description that convinces them that clicking on your listing is going to help them.

Also, I'm not familiar with your particular marketing campaign, but search results are not everything.

It is possible to write one article, with good use of keywords, and submit it to an article submission site that google loves, and rank high in the search engines for a particular keyword.

However, you would only have 1 backlink to that site.

It may be that you don't have nearly enough referring sites, that have links pointing to your site on them.

The quantity of backlinks can effect your traffic, just as your quality of backlinks can effect it.

If this is the case, you may want to work on getting alot MORE backlinks pointing back to your site.

That is the only 2 things I could think of that could cause this.

I'm not sure about the musical instrument instruction niche, but there are 3 niches that have been, and always will be profitable until the end of time, if marketed correctly. Those are health, wealth, and personal development.

So it's not the niche, because people are spending billions in the health niche every year, always have, always will.

I'm sorry you are having this problem. I hope that helps you.

Good luck.

Matthew Zinda

Few things to bare in mind when selecting keywords:

1. Most Valuable Targeted keywords are keyword that solve a problem.

2. Following by buying keywords + Brand.

3. Highly competitive keywords and health niche leads usually very skeptic, and they might have tried many products or services before arriving your site, that's why conversion will be very low. One of the best solution is - Build a list!

When building a list, you must have good content that actually helping them to solve part of their problems. You don't need to have the answers to every problems, but you must contribute value and build trust and relationship with your list, that's where the money comes from!

BTW, the search count should be exact search, ignore the broad and phrase search count.

Kok Choon

Have you made sure you're logged out of any Google service that may be causing the big G to be personalising your results and showing your site as higher than it really is to most visitors?

Two possibilities

A) Your listing is not optimized for conversion. I know its a pain but its not enough for you to be optimized for ranking it also needs to say "click me"

B) Your keyword research is off. are those numbers exact or even phrase matches? You can have a high search amount but it not be what real life people are actually searching for or not what BUYING people are searching for (Very confusing but true)

Case in point. People wander why I don't bother going for the the first page for the term "backlinks" like other sellers do. Simple. The word backlink shows up big in broad terms

90,000

But only 12,000 in the exact searches. 90,000 people are not putting in "backlinks" alone in the search form they are using that word WITH OTHER WORDS and even other related words. Thats what makes up the 90,000. 78,000 of those searches won't find me ranked number one even if I optimized for backlinks because Google keyword tool shows other words with that term and I need to be optimized for those terms to get number one.

Furthermore how many of those are just searches to understand what the word backlink means as opposed to people looking to acquire backlinks? So ranking for the term backlink alone isn't getting me anywhere near the amount of searches as people would think and even less buyers.

If you are using broad terms take a look for what it means here

https://adwords.google.com/support/a...wer=6100#broad

Notice all the searches that don't match (word for word). You might think things are great if you rank on the first page for tennis shoes but the guy that targets "buy tennis shoes" could be conceivable getting more real searches than you and definitely more buyers.

even the guy going after tennis sneakers ( you have to see the link example to understand) could be getting more of the broad term searches.

I'd take a closer look at titles and descriptions.

Keep them SEO'd, but work them to attract clicks from visitors as soon as they see them in Google.

"Keyword One - Solve Your (fill blanc) right now with keyword two and save money today"

Just a idea!

Let us now how it goes.

I have a couple pretty successful sites in the health remedy niche also. What does your Google analytics say? What traffic are you getting each day and what keywords drive the traffic?

This is REALLY odd, i GUESS that your sites are simply not converting/not attractive. Could tell you more if i see the sites and see your traffic stats.

>>
What do you think is the best type of site structure for an affiliate site? (All three sites above are set up as blogs with a static review/soft pre-sell page as the static home page)
>>

My best sites are actually "only" having custom banners all across the site promoting a product. I dont use a static sales page. This works surprisingly well.

Of course, the banner promises a solution a for the condition, its PROMINENT, i custom designed them since most available affiliate banners from vendors in that niche are simply horrible.

Maybe you are trying too hard to "sell" and your site comes off as untrustworthy/biased? Using a banner you can actually provide real value and dont need a hyped sales letter.

It will be natural if you are targeting at head terms.



The competing results are useless.


You just need to increase your relevant high quality backlinks.

1. Why aren't they getting more traffic for such high rankings?

Do the math. For 6,000 searches a month you're looking at around 100 unique hits a day for the #1 spot. Even less for 2 - 10 which is where all of your sites are. You may get more long-tail traffic but that is between you and your stat counter.

1. Is it worth putting any more effort into these sites, or should I just walk away knowing that I can achieve high rankings and maybe focus on other niches?

Are these selling keywords? Are you visitors coming looking to buy something or is it generic niche traffic interested in a topic who find their way to your site.

If you're selling and they're buying and everybody is on them same page then you might have something.

The secret sauce is in your keywords.. "computers" = big traffic but very generic - but - "refurbished computers" = people looking to buy.

How much traffic do you get daily?