Advice Articles

  • Beginners
    Just getting started? Loads of powerful advice here for beginners.
  • Intermediate
    Got a handle on the basics? Find more advanced topics covered here.
  • Advanced
    Warning! Advanced topics covered here.
  • Affiliate resources
    Affiliate marketing resources for affiliates and affiliate program managers tools, websites, books and articles.
  • Product reviews
    Candid reviews of the latest products to take you to the next level.


 

Affiliate Marketing Forum

FAQFAQ  SearchSearch  MemberlistMemberlist  UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister ProfileProfile  Log in to check your private messagesPrivate Messages Log inLog in  
Im just not making any money, please help
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Affiliate Marketing Forum Index -> Getting started - for new affiliates
Post new topic   Reply to topic
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
gdmb



Joined: 03 Feb 2008
Posts: 10

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:27 pm    Post subject: Im just not making any money, please help Reply with quote

hi everyone,
I didn't come into affiliate marketing expecting the world but I did expect to make a small amount of cash.

I've set up 2 websites so far (in my signature) and neither are making money. Ive had 2 conversions from 290 visitors from elitewowguides but ive still lost money due to adwords costing so much.
Ive had no sales from homebusinessforbeginners.

Im having real issues getting traffic to my site and have tried forum promotion, ppc , press release and I
even made a video.

Please help me or give me a boost im starting to think its all just a pipedream
_________________
www.homebusinessforbeginners.com
Your free essential guide to starting an online business.
www.elitewowguides.com - WoW leveling guide reviews
Back to top View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website MSN Messenger
ziggy



Joined: 30 Oct 2003
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You kind of picked a competitive niche with the wow guide site, but you can make it work and compete still. You should give content sharing sites a try and maybe some blogs.

Write 2 articles and use those articles to promote your wow site. Put those articles on squidoo.com and hubpages.com and than link to your wow site, that should bring in some free traffic and also if you can spend $9 a month also post an ad up at usfreeads.com

Also some of the coloring you used on the site with the background and text color is a little hard on the eyes, keep it more simple. It's little things like that, that can mess with conversion rates.
_________________
Easy Fun Way to Double Your Money
Back to top View user's profile Send private message
AllanGardyne
Site Admin


Joined: 02 Jul 2003
Posts: 5839
Location: by the beach, Australia

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 11:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's what I suggest...

Take a deep breath and put your business advice site on hold for at least six months. You don't have to dump it. Just temporarily forget about it. You're making the classic mistake there of giving advice on how to make money online when you don't yet know how to make money online. First, make a success of your other site, and then return to your business site and tell people how you did it. You could even write a report describing your success and have affiliates promoting it for you. I can see it now... "From Newbie to Veteran in Six Months". Smile

For the next six months, concentrate on your WoW site, because this is a topic you DO know a lot about, it's a niche in which you can position yourself as an expert, and it's a niche that has people who are desperate for the information you can provide. That's a very powerful combination. I reckon you've chosen well there.

Put your PPC marketing on hold for least six months. PPC marketing can be very profitable - we sell SpeedPPC software to help people do it fast and efficiently - but you need to be very good at it to get it right. You need perfectly crafted landing pages to make it effective. At your stage in marketing, I don't think it's right for you. You're too likely to lose more money, get discouraged and give up completely.

Instead, concentrate on free traffic from search engines. With them, you can make mistakes and still earn good money. Also, you can create revenue streams that keep on working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, like a tireless slave, without any advertising expenses.

When you've learned more about marketing online, that would a good time to experiment with PPC marketing and see if you can use it to increase your earnings.

Sorry if I'm telling you stuff you already know, but it looks as though you're making no attempt whatsoever to be found in search engines. Your site isn't designed to be found

At the moment, your WoW site is just one page, I think. That's all I saw, anyway. It's extremely difficult to get a one page website to rank well, especially for competitive phrases. You need more fodder for the search engines. Give them something to bite on. Some large sites are found via 10,000 or 20,000 or even more different phrases each month. And, to be brutal, you're not really targeting even ONE phrase yet. Start thinking big.

Do some keyword research, find out phrases that people are typing into search engines, and set yourself a target of creating at least 20 or 30 pages, preferably 200 pages.

Perhaps you can set yourself a goal of writing one page a day for the next 30 days. Then do the same for the next 30 days. Make it a habit. They say it takes at least 21 days to form a habit, so stick with it.

Build a website that is designed to be found in search engines. Make it a useful resource for people in your niche. Stamp your own personality on it, and be memorable.

Do some research on how to get free traffic from search engines. For example, in your niche, judging by your page title, two phrases you may think you are targeting are "world of warcraft" and "wow leveling guide".

I want to show you that you're not really targeting these phrases at all.

Try this: Get your website up on your screen. Do a View/Source. You're now seeing what the search engines see when they visit your page. The first phrase, "World of Warcraft", appears only ONCE on the page, in tiny print at the bottom. The second phrase, "wow leveling guide", also appears ONCE. You've also used good phrases but hidden them in a graphic at the top where they don't count because search engines can't read graphics. At the very least, put your most important phrase in a heading at the top of the page, as well as including it in the Title, and a few times throughout the page. Get links to the page from other sites and from other pages on your site, using that key phrase in the links. Read my "77 Ways to Get Traffic" free report for ideas on how to do that. You should have received a copy when you subscribed to my newsletter.

Here's a quick, very rough, free way to do a bit of keyword research, so you'll know which keywords to target as you build new pages...

Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
and type in "world of warcraft". Make sure the synonyms box is ticked. See what keywords show up. Consider writing pages targeting some, or all, of those phrases. You'll get LOTS of article ideas just by doing this simple step.

Now scroll down to "Additional keywords to be considered". This shows you phrases such as online games, world of warcraft3, online gaming, power leveling, mmorpg, powerleveling, gold, eve online, ffxi gil, everquest, rpg, credits, guild wars, gaming, leveling guide, horde guide, power level, leveling, nmo, lotro, xbox 360, ps3, eq2, worldofwarcraft, counter strike, etc.

I have no idea what some of those words mean. You probably do, because this is your niche. The important thing is that Google thinks these words and phrases belong in your niche. That's very VALUABLE information. If you use some of these words on your pages, you're helping the search engines understand what topic you're writing about. These words belong naturally on your pages, so use them, or some of them. (For more info, search for latent semantic indexing, but the main point is: Use related phrases on your pages.)

You're writing about online games. That's so perfectly obvious to you, that you don't even need to mention it. Mistake! You should slip that phrase, and gaming, and similar related phrases into your pages because you're writing for search engines, not just humans. These days, search engines are incredibly sophisticated. They analyze the whole page to figure out the topic. You can make use of that fact, by including closely related phrases.

Doing this will also help you target AdSense ads. You can use the same free tool for researching info on that.

Keyword research is the basic building block of every effective website - or should be. If you want to delve deeper into keyword research, read some of Jay Stockwell's stuff at KeywordWorkshop.com.
_________________
Allan Gardyne
... earning a good living from affiliate programs since 1998.
Learn how.
Subscribe now

FREE Affiliate Program Tutorial
Back to top View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
kiran7



Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 19

PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 7:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

check this thread.
http://www.associateprograms.com/discus/ftopic25304.html
_________________
Internet's No.1 Affiliate Program

IAHBE - The Home Business Association That Changed My Life!
Back to top View user's profile Send private message
Dr.Eswararamanan



Joined: 18 Jul 2007
Posts: 53

PostPosted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice Post Allan. It is very easy get trapped in the "make money niche" for new affiliates.
_________________
FREE $5000 A Month Income System!
Back to top View user's profile Send private message
gdmb



Joined: 03 Feb 2008
Posts: 10

PostPosted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 4:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks so much allan, a really useful post.
Under your recommendation im completely rebuilding the site into one people will actually use.
Will let you know my progress in the upcoming months Very Happy
_________________
www.homebusinessforbeginners.com
Your free essential guide to starting an online business.
www.elitewowguides.com - WoW leveling guide reviews
Back to top View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website MSN Messenger
AllanGardyne
Site Admin


Joined: 02 Jul 2003
Posts: 5839
Location: by the beach, Australia

PostPosted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 8:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gdmb wrote:
Under your recommendation im completely rebuilding the site into one people will actually use.
Will let you know my progress in the upcoming months Very Happy

Great! I'll look forward to reading about your progress.

Here's an idea... Keep a copy of your site the way it is today. Who knows? Maybe you'll write an article or sell a report on your progress one day and it would be useful to be able to look back and see how far you've come.
_________________
Allan Gardyne
... earning a good living from affiliate programs since 1998.
Learn how.
Subscribe now

FREE Affiliate Program Tutorial
Back to top View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
pcrich



Joined: 12 Dec 2007
Posts: 4
Location: Boulder, Colorado

PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks Allan. That was one of the most comprehensive, helpful posts I've ever read on any site.
Back to top View user's profile Send private message
greatprofitonthenet.com



Joined: 11 Nov 2007
Posts: 11

PostPosted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gdmb,

Why you dont advertise your site on Social Bookmarking sites, for example on Digg.com. You can easily get traffic to your Wow site.
Just write good story, submit and people will visit your site.
_________________
Make Money from Home
List of Money Making Scams. Dont Buy These Scams
Back to top View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
mitchespinosa



Joined: 03 Mar 2008
Posts: 10

PostPosted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

really an informative info for us newbies, allan... thanks!

actually, im also having the same problem.. i got my own webite 4months ago, but it won't permit me to have a good dinner, say at TGIF! Laughing

i don't know, is it the traffic? am i not getting enough traffic to my website?

please check my site:
mitchespinosa.com/blog
mitchespinosa.com

please help me guys.. your suggestions and recommendation are highly appreciated...
Back to top View user's profile Send private message
MrCat



Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 138
Location: www.MixCat.com

PostPosted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 6:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Either you are not reaching your target market, or they don't find what they are looking for in your site Sad
_________________
PR4 Link Directory
Cheap PPC / Free XML Feed for Publishers
Webmaster Resource Directory
Website Uptime Monitoring
Back to top View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Larry Chamberlain



Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Posts: 1126
Location: London, England

PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've only just found this thread.

Like others, I'm knocked out by the extent Allan has gone above and beyond with his post.

His 'overdelivering' shows just why he is one of the 'nets master affiliates.
_________________
Why Do Most Affiliates Make Less Than $500 Per Month?
All The Tools = Business Success.
Back to top View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
jschuman



Joined: 14 May 2006
Posts: 432
Location: Imperial, Nebraska

PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 5:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That is a great post Allan. It is one of the many reasons I still reference this forum as the place to go for affiliate marketing tips.
_________________
Jeff Schuman
Article Writer order website and blog articles. Thousands written, testimonials, sharp pricing
Make Money Online Free training, paid surveys, home business.
Back to top View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
COxford



Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 32
Location: Gastonia, NC

PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks Allan,

Every day that we come to this forum we see why you have been so successful.

A love for people and what you do !!
_________________
COxford
GetawayCrafts!
Back to top View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
AllanGardyne
Site Admin


Joined: 02 Jul 2003
Posts: 5839
Location: by the beach, Australia

PostPosted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. It's nice to get some positive feedback.

mitchespinosa wrote:
please help me guys.. your suggestions and recommendation are highly appreciated...

Try asking for a site review in the Site Review section. If you do that, someone may offer a few ideas.
_________________
Allan Gardyne
... earning a good living from affiliate programs since 1998.
Learn how.
Subscribe now

FREE Affiliate Program Tutorial
Back to top View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Affiliate Marketing Forum Index -> Getting started - for new affiliates All times are GMT
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum





Your host: Allan Gardyne.
Earning a good living from affiliate programs since 1998.