Monthly Round-up for August 2010
Don’t think I have done one of these for a while but as I am now back from my holidays I thought I better do a quick one for August.
I was away for the first three weeks of August (as well as July) so didn’t do that much work on my sites but the main thing I have been doing is the outsourcing of the acquisition of forum profile back links (you can read how I did this on this blog). I ordered them in batches of 120 and did it for four of my sites but its been over a week now and the links are not showing up in any backlink checks I’ve done so cannot say if they have made a difference or not. I doubt these links are very high quality but they’ve got to be better than nothing.
I’m still outsourcing written content which is really helping my sites as I’m too busy/lazy to write my own content these days and this way allows me to get good, fresh content for my sites. Have a look on ODesk and see if you can find a good writer if you are interested in doing this.
I still haven’t gotten around to trying out the financial leads through the Affiliate Marketing School as I am still scared of losing lots of money on PPC but I will bite the bullet one day – maybe once some money starts coming through from AWin.
My ‘big site’ is still not ranking at all which sucks. I’ve done about 50 200 word product pages for the desired keyword and its still not on the first 60 pages of Google and judging by some of the other pages in the top 600 the competition isn’t that stiff. This is my first site which does not have the keyword in the domain and I’m now realising just how much a keyword domain helps.
I’ve also started three new keyword niche sites this month after a long time of not starting any new sites. None of them are particularly good niches as they get pretty low hits but they might bring in a few quid each month which is nothing to complain about but not really the road I want to keep going down long term (lots of little sites).
What I am thinking about at the moment is moving from getting a large slice of a small pie to getting a small slice of a big pie. At the moment my sites do quite well in the SERPS (apart from my big site) but the niches are pretty low traffic so even if I get to number 1 in Google and take a large slice of the niche pie I still don’t get much money. But now I am thinking to maybe go after a more competitive niche but aim to get in the bottom half of page 1 and just have a smaller slice of the much bigger niche pie. To do this I will still need a keyword domain but as they are all gone in the competitive niches I might start appending them with buy_____.co.uk or _______store.co.uk as I’ve seen other people doing this. I don’t really like the idea of muscling into niches in which other affiliates are already operating but people are doing this to me now so maybe its time I started doing it too. What do you think readers?
This month my profits were up about 10% on last month which I am pleased about and I will be aiming to do the same next month.
In September I will be mostly working on my Christmas site – it’s only 3 months away!



No prob muscling in on other affiliates – long as you do it legitimately, but keyword domains only really work if they’re an exact match.
Is your big site ranking for any long tail keywords?
Thanks for the info on ODesk Seamaster – I’ll have a look into finding a writer – I’m also not so great at the content writing thing. Has the content you’ve got so far good quality?
Also I have no issue on muscling in on niches in which current affs although I wonder if you make it harder for yourself – I guess it depends on the niche…
It’s ranking for the individual product pages but nothing more general than that.
The august round up sounds good but still missing the figures that you usually put up. Also, with your “big website” are you referring to the box set one or the television one?
Trying other niches is never too bad until you are following the rules.
Also how much are you paying for the content and how is the quality as well as delivery time. Christmas is the way to go, to make some extra bucks and I guess I also need to get started with it.
Anyways, its always good to read your blog. Keep blogging.
Thanks for reading Jason. I’ve decided to stop posting figures as I’ve had too many people sniffing around my sites and trying to muscle in on my niches so I thought I’d leave it out in case it is attracting the wrong kind of attention.
The big site is neither of those two – its the camping one. Those two have been left for dead.
I’m just about to start my Christmas site. Might make it more generic and not too Christmassy so I can use it all year round.
@admin if you fancy a link exchange I have a site about different types of tents, drop me an email.
Can I ask where your outsourcing content from as I aa in need of content writers as well. I toooo vote for going into niches where other affiliate operate.
Just because one affiliate is in that niche does not give him or her god given right to own the niche. Its business, and as long as done ethically and not spoofing other sites etc. I see no problem with it.
good luck on your big site