How I Got Rich

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!

Back from my Holidays

I’m almost back from my holidays.  Just spending a few days making use of a broadband connection and my laptop before returning to Thailand.  I did no work in July and still made the same amount of money I made in June which was really nice so had my two best months earnings-wise back to back.

Now that I’ve had a few days with my laptop and a decent Internet connection I’ve been checking my all my sites to see if they are still working and ranking ok.  One of my first fairly successful sites has just been overtaken in the SERPS and has been pushed to number two which was sad to see but I hadn’t updated it in over six months so can’t really complain.  I’ve since moved it over to WordPress and written more content for it in the hope of getting it back to number one but am not loosing too much sleep over it as its a seasonal domain and its season is about to end.

I registered two domains yesterday.  They are both clothing sites.  Clothing sites seem to be a bit hit and miss but I will stick something basic up for each of them and see what happens.

My big site is still floundering.  It gets some long tail traffic but nothing for the keywords I am targeting.

Which brings me on nicely to my main problem: backlinks!

I have no clue how to get them so am going to focus this month on finding out how to outsource them.  Once I have found out how to pay for them I will be apply them to all my sites.

My goal at the moment is to be earning £2000 per month by Christmas (so I can give up the day job) and then £3000 per month by June 2010.

Wish me luck!

March 2010 Round-up

March was a good month, my second best after December 2009.  I spent about £65 on AdWords and managed to bring in just over £600 profit.  Most of that came from SEO and not the £65 I spent on PPC traffic obviously.

I made one very large sale which probably accounted for the rise in profits and I doubt I will repeat such a large sale again so for April I expect I will be back down to previous monthly earnings.

My ‘big site’ I started has still to get any organic traffic which is a shame.  I started in the same way I do my other sites but it has not ranked for the keyword I am going for.  The only difference is that it does not have a keyword domain – I guess this makes more difference than I thought.

I am going to buy a WordPress theme for this site but am not sure which one to get.  It is a shame you can’t try them out and have a look under the bonnet before  buying them.  I think I will get a Studio Press one unless anyone else knows of any other people selling good ones?

Still trying to get my older sites to number on in Google so I can hopefully start getting a few quid in from the sites I’d neglecting in the past.  Managed to get one website to number one for a keyword that got 27,100 exact searches last month according to the Google Keyword Tool (although I expect it is much less than that in reality).  That site is now getting about 25 unique hits per day so hopefully it should make 1 or 2 sales a week.

Goals of earning £800 by September 2010 and £2000 a month by September 2011 looking a long way off still!

What I done did today

After work and between the gym and my Thai class I wrote a few more bits of content about an older site which is finally climbing the Google tree and is at number three.  These were two 250ish word product reviews that I have done as separate Wordpress posts.

I’ve also decided to split apart my big site I am working on into two smaller big sites as the two areas are not that closely related.  After deciding this I spend some time looking for a UK based host I could host the site with as I want to move away from having all my sites on one server based in a different country to the one I am targeting.

After I’ve picked the host I will look for a WordPress theme that meets my needs and get cracking on the site.  I want it ranking well for at least one product before Easter so I’ve not got long to get something up.  Hopefully I will have a quiet weekend and get some work done.

One of my newish sites made its first sale netting £10 commission which was nice.  A few more of those this month will make me happy.

Monthly Round-Up: February 2010

February was a poor month for me and I only made about 300 pounds and I had to spend about 80 quid on AdWords to get there.  This was my worst month for probably about six months and the first real big drop in profit.  But onwards and upwards as they say.

I have started proper work on a ‘big site’ but am only focusing on one type of product for now and will then start adding in more products once I am ranking ok for the first product type.

I’ve started paying for content and reinvesting some of my earnings from affiliate marketing now I am working full-time again.  I’ve been buying content in lots of 500 words and having the content focused around my niche keywords.  I had a site that had been at the bottom of page one in Google for ages and after adding the content it moved to number three in Google so hopefully I should see a return on that investment shortly.  Before that the site was languishing on page two and sometimes further out but after moving it to WordPress and separating each product review/description into a separate Wordpress post it moved to the bottom of page one in Google.  So moving to WordPress plus adding good written content can equal a decent jump in the serps for a site.

As for my big site I am having trouble finding a decent WordPress theme that is suited to an affiliate site.  I’m using a magazine theme at the moment and I do like it but it doesn’t quite meet my needs and I am having trouble deciding how to structure a site that is bigger than my usual one type of product site.

Can anyone recommend a good WordPress theme, free or otherwise, for a decent sized affiliate site?

How was February for you?

That Sunday Night Feeling

Now that I am back working full-time some of the things I’d left behind are returning.

The main one is that Sunday night feeling where you know you have work the next day which is even worse after having some time off.  Last week I was off from work and was on holiday and today (Monday) is a public holiday so I am getting that Sunday night feeling a day late but it is just as strong if not stronger.  I am really fired up to do some affiliate marketing work but have lots of planning and preparation to do for the day job so can’t even do that!

I’ve set myself another goal which is to be earning £900 a month by the end of June which is about four months time.  This should be enough for me to quit the day job and go full-time again.

I plan to do this via my existing sites and the addition of one big site which I am yet to start.

Can it be done? Watch this space.

Can’t Even be Bothered to Check Sales AKA post-Christmas Blues

After such a great month in December 2010 has got off to a demotivating-ly slow start.  I left most of my PPC campaigns running that did so well in December but they hardly get any impressions and very little clicks and even less sales so I have stopped them.  Other sales have been pretty slow too.

Its hard to get motivated when things take a turn for the worse even though it was expected after the Christmas rush.  I looked at my array of sites and can’t really pick a winner out of them to focus on.  Some make a fair few sales but they are of low cost items whilst others make little sales but they are of higher priced items getting more of a good amount of commission.  None of them really stand out and look like they could be scaled up to bring in more money.  Most are ranked well but still don’t get much action.

I’ve just bought a new domain for a popular and competitive niche that I am temped to solely focus on for a month or so and try and get a good, big site up but what if it never outranks the big boys and I just waste my time?

Should I just focus on what I have already and try and get all my little sites up to date and firing on all cylinders?

How do you stay motivated when things slow down?

Big Site #1: Comedy Box Sets

I’ve setup and started the first of my two big sites.  It is called Comedy Box Sets and can be found at this address: http://comedyboxsets.co.uk/

I watch a lot of comedy TV serieses and after seeing a profitable affiliate site about a TV series I thought why not try and combine a hobby (is watching TV a hobby?) with an affiliate marketing venture.

I am not too worried about the design at the moment and am going to be focussing on adding content for the time being.

The plan is that as I watch a comedy show I will write a little bit about the series of the episode on the blog and put some links to merchants that sell that DVD.  If there is any merchandise available for the show I will link to that also.  Then there is tickets for standup comedy shows and films that the actors are in.

I know alot of people are downloading TV shows now but I hope there are still some people out there buying DVDs.

I am going to try and promote the site using as many means as possible and have setup a twitter account for it and will probably do a facebook group.  Does anyone know how to get lots of twitter followers quickly? I think I will do a mailing list at some point too.

It is not going to be the most profitable of sites but I hope it will be fun to write and something that will hold my interst over the months and years.

My other big site will hopefully be more profitable as it will be selling a wider range of items at a wider range of prices but I am yet to start that one.

Big Site

So far I’ve just been making keyword domain niche sites for one type of product such as minifridge.co.uk which only features mini fridges and smaller micro niche sites which focus on just one product such as bmwM3.co.uk.  These types of sites have done me ok so far and have allowed me to try out affiliate marketing and learn the basics but from what I’ve been told so far the way to make the big (or bigger) money is to build a big site.

What is a big site?

From what I understand a big site, in this sense, refers to a bigger more generic site so instead of minifridge.co.uk you would have kitchenappliances.co.uk with the site having lots of pages with lots of different types of products giving you more opportunity to more sell items. The downside to this is that the niche will be more competitive and as the site is less focused it will be harder to get the site ranked well.  But the idea is once the site is ranking well you will be operating in lots of niches instead of just one.

I’ve always been put off the idea of a big site as frankly it sounds like a lot of work and quite a big risk.  If you put all that time into one site and nothing comes of it its going to be a big downer.  I prefer the smaller keyword domain niche sites as they are quick to setup and you can move onto the next one quickly.  Unfortunately I am yet to make the kind of money I would like from that approach so it is time to approach affiliate marketing from another angle.

So today after nearly a year in affiliate marketing I registered two domains for which I am going to build big sites around (you didn’t think I’d start just one big site did you? ). They are both around areas I have an interest in so hopefully that will keep me interested in the sites longer than I’ve been with my other sites.

I’m going to spend around three days per week on them and the other days updating my existing sites.

I’ll keep you all updated as to my progress which you can see by clicking on the tag ‘big site‘ to see all posts about the big sites.

I don’t expect a return on them for a long while and will be treating them as long-term projects.  I will be building them with WordPress and Easy Content Units to begin with but will reevaluate should the sites get too big and unwieldy.

Has anyone else gone down the big site route?  How did it pan out?  Got any tips or advice?