Help Making my First Conversion

[Larwee]

Will, none of our members are allowed to post their sites in the discussion forums.

We do have a Site Review Forum. In that forum our members can take a look at your site and give a typical site review and possibly make suggestions for improvements or changes based upon what they see when they look at your site.

If you are sincerely interested in a typical site review, here is a link to our Site Review Forum http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5s...-review-forum/

[kingseesar]

That's what I thought (and why I didn't just post my site address...)

Currently I am digging through new affiliate listings to see if I can find other products or services to promote. The trick is finding something that a) I know something about already, b) that I like or that will hold my interest long enough to promote it knowledgably and sincerely, and c) has high enough quality to make me comfrtable selling it or has a well-constructed landing page such taht I am can make conversions.

Does anyne have suggestions on how to narrow my search so I can find a product that suits me without having to click on hundreds of links only to be disappointed over and over again or compete with other affiliates who have a much larger monetary base with which to work?

Big questions and I expect the answer to be "No. Just keep digging" but I needed to ask. Thanks for all the support!

Will

[Linda Buquet]

Will, you CAN have your site URL in your sig if you want or just listed in your profile, so if people want to see what you are doing to better be able to help steer you in the right direction. Just be advised lots of pro affiliates never list their sites for fear of copycats or someone stealing their niche. But if you are just getting going and are not worried about that, it may get you more targeted responses to your questions. (However you can't say "check out my site in my sig or profile because - spammers do that to just get traffic.) FOr this example you can simply say, Linda I added my site and anyone that wants to look will be able to help.

You said "Currently I am digging through new affiliate listings to see if I can find other products or services to promote." And asked if there's a better way.

OK let's back up a bit. I may have missed it but have you PICKED your niche??? Searching for products that suit your fancy is not the way to go and is kinda backwards and could be terribly confusing.

1st pick some potential niches.

Then do KW research to see if one may be good to target.

THEN you can search Google "My niche keyword" affiliate program.
OR go to some top affiliate directories and search based on the category your niche products would be in.

[kingseesar]

Hello again Linda!

I do start by picking a niche, but I am so new to the game that I am not fully familiar with what may be available to me. I basically am picking things that would be fun or something of which I may have some knowledge. Then my stumbling block comes when I do the research on keywords and find no sites that link to affiliates (no competitors) and/or affiliate list searches that yield no results (no programmes or products to support and promote.) I continually seem to pick niches that don't exist! Therefore I started searching the affiliate lists first to see what is available, then going to key word searches, et cetera.

Starting so blindly at affiliate marketing means that I have to do some extra research on affiliate marketing possibilities, I suppose.

Back to the drawing board...

Thanks!
Will

[Rob_TID]

Look at the epc and conversion rates.

That way you know it is converting and that at least someone is making money from it. If you can somehow find out if the program has been around for a while and if its been making consistent profits, that would be a bonus too.

[kingseesar]

Definitely a good tip, Rob! I have been checking the conversion rates, but I find (pehaps erroneously,) that they don't always match up to what I expect from them. For instance, on clickbank (the place where I have had the most experience so far,) the conversion rate may be high or low, but I have to take into account the gravity rating as well to give me an idea if there is tons of competition and conversions actually happening out there in cyberland.

Any other thoughts on how to interpret the conversion ratings/percentages?

Thanks Rob!

[Rob_TID]

Ditch clickBank.

Then email your affilaite manager from which ever other network you join and ask them.

[kingseesar]

Hi Rob!

I am working on ditching clickbank. I followed the links that you posted a few days ago and I have signed up for all of those services, but they require 24 hours to get approved, et cetera, so I am still working with my current projects in the meantime. That's all. Advice taken and in progress.

Thanks again!
Will

[Linda Buquet]

Will, here's another tip, that may help.

If you are picking things YOU are interested in, chances are others are too.
Could be the products people would look for are RELATED to the niche, but not quite the KW you searched for.

1st you need to research to find the answer to how popular AND competitive the niche is BEFORE you start looking for products to promote. You need to find out if indeed the niche or product you are considering is even in demand 1st by finding out how many search for it.

When you do your KW research you will likely find a product in the KW research. It even could be that the product you searched Google for: "cool widget affiliate program" does not come up because people are searching for "hot new gadget" instead so you were just looking for the wrong keywords when searching for products to sell.

Maybe you are already doing this, and it so, this may be too elementary -
if so it may help someone else.

I'll just use the broad example of fishing.
(DISCLAIMER - there are a ton of KW tools and many different ways to do KW research. This is just an easy way to uncover and research niches."

Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Enter fishing and be sure keyword variations and keyword search volume is selected.

We already know the word fishing by itself would be too competitive so we are looking for a sub-niche or a product people interested in fishing may be interested in that's not too competitive.

As you go down the top set of results you'll only see phrases with the word fishing included. Click July Search volume to sort by most popular. For me in US top 3 are: Alaska fishing, bass fishing, charter fishing.

Keep scrolling down till you see some things of interest, worth doing more research on. Copy and past into notepad or word.

NOW here is where it gets more fun. Scroll way down until you see:
Additional keywords to consider

These phrases dont include your root KW fishing. BUT could be related or of interest to people interested in "fishing."

how to fish, boats, lures, tacklebox, fly rod, etc.

So copy some of the words in that list that sound like they may be good.
(Using your root main KW for the example instead of fishing.

Ok now go to SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool.
Use this to find out HOW MANY searches are done for some of the KW you picked and drill down to find some niches or products that are searched alot but not too competitive.

NOT SAYING these are good niches - but for example.

I put "fishing lure" into SEOBook. 2 near the top that caught my eye:

1) "vintage fishing lure" - 2583 searches
2) "how to make fishing lure" - 2195 searches
(#2 just has a few less searches)

Now we go to Google to find out how competitive those 2 are. allintitle "key phrase in quotes" narrows it down to competing pages that have keywords in title and may be optimized for the phrase.

allintitle: "Vintage Fishing Lure" 1,080 competing pages

allintitle: "how to make fishing lure" only 8 competing pages. lures plural which is more like people would search that phrase still only 189 competing.

NEXT look at the top 10 pages in the search results for allintitle: "how to make fishing lure" and see how tough it would be to compete and get in the top 10.
(as you search the top 10 you may also find related products they are selling or you may even find that one has a cool fishing lure affiliate program.)

So if you're liking that one "how to make fishing lure" - decent search volume but very low competition. Then you search for books about "how to make fishing lures" or maybe kits for making your own fishing lures.

Then you can start a free hub page or squidoo lens if you want to test the market for free. OR if you really like this one and think you can make it work, buy a kw domain and start a blog about "how to make fishing lures".

Those are just some ideas but that process will help you research and find a potentially good niche - then armed with your KW knowledge go find products with affiliate programs.

WHEW!

[kingseesar]

Hello again Linda and thanks for all your wonderful suggestions!

I have been using a similar process to find keywords and competition figures and suggestions. What I haven't been so successful with is finding the products that match the keywords. Although I can find related products, they are usually ones with a much higher competition level than what I can handle with no money.

I say no money here because that is what I have curently. I have spent all my money during this jobless period of mine, on affiliate marketing things and to be honest I doubt that I have enough money in the bank to eat off of for the next month, so I am having to stick with free sites and Squidoo lens in hopes that some nibbles will come through.

The good news is that my sites are getting some traffic and good ratings in search engines. The bad news is still that none of the click outs are converting. many people are clicking out on the hop links, but no takers yet. I am retrying again from scratch, basically, with two new products this week to see if it is simply bad product choices or if there is something wrong with my writing, methods, or something else that is keeping me from joining the money making team. At this point, I don't want to get rich, I just want to see that I am not completely wasting my time and that conversion do happen somewhere along the line.

Don't worry, either, as long as I am able to get to a computer and creat a review site, blog, lens, article, or US Free Ad, I will keep chipping away at this, because if it works, then I will be able to finish school with some level of relaxation and food in my fridge!

Thanks again and I will post an update soon!
Will