How I Got Rich

Forgotten About Sites

I was checking my Amazon stats this morning as I do each morning and noticed some sales from a site I had forgotten about.  I hadn’t setup and tracking for the site in StatCounter so never saw it in my list of sites and therefore had forgotten about it.  It looked like one person had bought quite a few things which was nice so I looked up the site to see what state it was in.

Most of the links are still to active products and the site is now number two in Google for a 22,000 exact match keyword according to the Google Key Word Tool which is nice to see.  Further examination of my sales stats shows it has been making the odd sale here and there over the past few weeks and months.

I’m now going to update any dead links on the site and add a bit more content and see if I can get it to number one.  The items on the site sell for well over £50 and are not sold in many shops so on paper it sounds like a pretty good niche.

Fingers crossed…

Looking for a Web Designer

I am soon going to have  go at financial leads and life insurance affiliate marketing in particular.  As I will be paying per click I need to be sure my website is of high quality and converts well.

My .org.uk Knocked Off Page 1 by .co.uk

My keyword domain site on a .org.uk domain had worked its way up to the top half of page one and had been there for a while.  It was getting a few hits a day and making a few sales a month.  Today I checked my stats as I do most days and noticed it was no longer on page but the .co.uk version of the domain was sitting at number two!

I’m pretty certain when I bought the domain that although the .co.uk was registered there was no site on it – otherwise I wouldn’t have tried to compete with it as its a bit cheeky to use the same domain as an existing site in a small niche.

From doing a site: in Google I can see it has about 150 pages against my 10 or so so I guess the better site has won.   For now…

To my untrained eye it does look like they are using some kind of feed to generate all the pages for the site.  This is something I would like to try myself but have no idea where to start.  Any ideas?

New Buttons at Easy Content Units

If you use Easy Content Units on your site you will be pleased to know they have added some new buttons to choose from.  The existing ones are still there but there is now a ‘shop now’ button and the existing buttons have all had a re-design giving them a more web 2.0 look.  You can see them in action on the ECU below:

I’m Back!

It’s been a while since my last post (about 25 days) and a few people had gotten in touch to check if I was still alive and doing affiliate marketing.  Well I am still going, I went away for a week but apart from that have been plugging away quietly.

How Are Things Going?
Sales are doing ok for this month and I should do better than last month but not up to the level I was a few months ago.  I got a bit disheartened at the start of the month but have been putting in a lot more work of late, updating older sites, making new sites etc.  My older sites are starting to rank well with a lot in the number one position in Google for their main keyword.  However this doesnt guarantee traffic or sales and some of my sites that are number one still get very little traffic and few if any sales even though they get 5-10k exact seraches according to GKWT.  This is why I have so far been making lots of sites.  Waiting for one of them to take off as until I have got a site up and running I don’t know if it will bring in any money or not.  Still not got an eye for spotting a good niche.

Big Site
All the advice I have had so far has been to make a bigger, more general site that I can focus on rather than having lots of little sites to distract me.  So far I’ve been wary of putting all my eggs in one basket (especially since my choices so far have been so hit and miss) but as my other approach isn’t really paying off I am going to give it a go.

I’ve picked my niche, almost got a name for the site and should be ready to go at the start of November.  I will be building it around WordPress for now but have some planning to do of how to structure it.

Getting a New Day Job
As some of my regular readers may know I gave up my day job a few months ago to come to Thailand.  My earnings were going up month on month before I came out so I thought they would continue to increase and soon be enough to live on out here without getting another full time job.  Alas they did not and since my earnings started to go down I’ve been looking (a bit half-heartedly) for a new job.  Part-time would be ideal but there is not much on offer out here and due to the strict immigration laws teaching is really the only option for a farang and there are not many part-time teaching jobs on offer.  Hopefully my earnings will rocket and I will avoid going back into working for the man.  I think £650 per month would do me nicely out here and allow me to focus on really putting my all into Internet marketing.

Anything exciting been happening in the world of affiliate marketing in the last month or so?

Are you all ready for Christmas (I’ve not done anything which I am sure I will regret)?

Giving up the Day Job

Friday was my last day of work and I am now unemployed so I guess that makes me a full-time affiliate marketer!

I’m only earning (from affiliate marketing) about a third of the monthly take home pay I was getting from my job so I can’t say my affiliate marketing earnings  have allowed me to give up the day job.

I’m off on my travels next week so I am hoping the £400 I am making from affiliate marketing a month (plus my final paycheck, returned deposit from flat, etc) will allow me to  give affiliate marketing a go full-time.

My goal is to be making £2,000 per month from affiliate marketing by the time I return to England as I believe this will be enough for me to go full-time in England.  Wish me luck!

PS It feels good staying up until 11.30 on a Sunday night and not have to worry about getting up for work the following day.

Posting to WordPress on a Blackberry?

Anyone with a Blackberry tried this: http://blackberry.wordpress.org/2009/07/28/beta-140-available-now/

Looks like an interesting tool. Would love to be able to update blogs on the go. I wonder if it is possible to post up links and things like that.

Amazon Change Commission Structure

Oh dear! Just got an email from Amazon Associates as I’m sure most of you will have done and they are changing the rates of commission they will be giving.

Amazon have tried to put a positive spin on the news but from what I can gather its all bad news!

The 2.5% bonus you got for deeplinking has gone and the amount you have to sell to move up from 5% to 5.5% and beyond has been increased greatly.  Most of the items I sell come from deeplinks so I was often getting 9% commission per item.  Now it looks like that will be a flat 5%.   One item I sell a lot of earns me £2.70 on 9% but it will now get me no more than £1.50.  That means I will be earning 45% less per item!

There also appears to be some bad new for affiliates promoting Amazon via PPC but I didn’t really understand that part.

You can follow the debate on these forums:
http://forums.prospero.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=am-assocuk&msg=2297.1&ctx=4096
http://www.affiliates4u.com/forums/affiliate-marketing-lounge/112591-amazon-associate-updates-7-00-cap-across-all-products-lines.html#post510116