To blog or not to blog - An Amateurs Frustrations

It depends what you mean by "converts".

I've done a lot of split-testing of this. I always get more opt-ins from squeeze pages, and make less money from the resulting lists. Different people opt in to squeeze pages. At least, enough are different people for it to affect the bottom line significantly. I don't use squeeze pages any more. As a result of that decision, I build smaller lists and make more money.

Not this.

You (probably?) wouldn't want your business's domain-name to be tied to the fortunes of one individual product? One of the many advantages of affiliate marketing is that it's a way of building an asset-based business from which you can earn residual income without being dependent on the continuing success, availability and sales of any one specific, individual product at all.

All my sites relate to niches, not to products. That gives me far more flexibility. My sites will still be there and still earning money for me when that product's had its lifespan and been replaced with 3 other things, or when the vendor's made the sales page unacceptable to me, or when the FTC has unexpectedly closed him down, or any one of all the other things that can happen.

That can be one potential advantage, but only very temporarily.

It's not one of the 10/11 factors I take into account, myself.

Does this post on product-selection help? http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post2161932

You seem very concerned about ranking? Have you already decided to build a business that's dependent on search engines for its primary traffic? It's not the most secure and reliable start ... as many Warriors discovered (some to their very great cost) throughout 2011, a business that depends on Google for its traffic is only ever one algorithm-change away from a potential accident, even a potential disaster. It's putting yourself in a position in which "extraneous circumstances" can suddenly cut off your income. To some extent, arguably, we all do that one way or another, with some aspects of our online businesses, but to do it for your primary traffic is really pretty "adventurous" ...

Can't help you much here - it's not something I'd want to do, myself. (But the suggestion you made certainly seems to be one of the many things you'd need to try, yes).

I think you're alluding to the fact that squeeze pages tend not to rank well because they don't have any content to speak of? This is true. But more relevant, perhaps, is the fact that you get different people opting in if they see a content-rich site before/while opting in, rather than just after.

I think the only realistic answer here is probably "with very great difficulty".

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post5210243

I wish you good luck, and a good start, and hope the two posts linked to above might be of some assistance.

Thanks Alexa for taking the time to bother even reading my post, never mind for the factual, lengthy and thoughtful answer - I really, really appreciate it. You should mentor!

All of what you said has made total sense and has helped to clarify the fuzz that was clouding my brain, which I am totally grateful for. Of course, as soon as someone else says it you think, why didn't I see that, but perhaps I am over-analyzing and making it all harder than it actually is.....may be I just need to chill out???!!!!!

You say you don't bother with a squeeze page - so I take it you just rely on a blog?

I noted what you say about google. Do you therefore also rely on all the usual methods such as article marketing, guest posts etc. to get traffic? (-although I know that traffic is a WHOLE new topic in itself - ha)

Thanks too Mike - I know I am a lucky girl - ha! And that Alexa has been very kind.

Off to do A LOT of reading!

Hi

You're within a fierce niche here, if you're just getting started I would suggest you go off the beaten track a bit, find a niche where you're not competing with lots & lots of experienced marketers. You're talking about going for a lesser competitive area of a competitive niche, but lots of others will be doing this too - so rather than trying to find a less competitive "low hanging fruit" area of a competitive niche, why not explore niches which every man & his dog are not competing within?

Both options are viable, but the chances of ranking page one for a term within a competitive niche like weight loss, without a heck of a lot of offpage SEO, not all that likely. You're probably going to have to work fairly hard over a period of time, building a blog, writing lots of content, working on offpage SEO etc.

Or - pick a less competitive niche.


Again it depends on how competitive the niche is, if it's not too competitive then you may get away with a review approach, on an exact match domain, if it's a competitive niche & a well promoted product though - good luck with that one.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of creating blogs focusing only on one product, I prefer to create WP blogs, write a few pages of unique content initially, including a review, and then add more content over time including more reviews.

Not necessarily, but often only one way to find out - try it. This is why I prefer sites that are generally about the target niche, it allows me to try various products, including new products & established products. I never review a product without using it though - and newer products can be easier to get a free review copy, which is a good thing.

Also, don't forget Clickbank isn't the only affiliate marketing network, consider also Amazon affiliate, eBay partners, Commission junction - Adsense, CPA etc., if you have more options when it comes to profiting from your websites, you can wander of the beaten track a bit more and find great niches that others have left.

A LOT! Don't bother... A term like weight loss, you're competing against people (or companies) who've been investing BIG, in terms of time & money, for years - even Wikipedia have only managed a mid page ranking! I'm not saying don't go for eventual page one ranking for competitive terms, but I'd advise that you don't focus on terms like this, unless you have seriously deep pockets and are sure that you'll get a return if you do eventually rank well.
For a term like this you don't just need original content, you need lots of it, and lots of backlinks, and lots of domain age & site activity, it's just not realistic to expect to be able to tank well for such a search term that others have been trying to for years, without expecting to sink years of time, effort & investment.

If you have a blog, then yeah link from it to your squeeze page. You'll need at least some backlinks, so if you have a blog in this niche, then of course link to the squeeze page, not only to get some linkjuice to the page, but also to get some traffic to the page from your blog.

You can't ;-) simple. You're not going to get a good ranking for term like weight loss, with a squeeze page.

Not daft at all! Some good questions here which will help others.

One big mistake newbies make is to try to rank for big general keywords like weight loss.

If you are searching on the new for weight loss are you looking to buy a product or are you looking for information?

Now lets say there is a product called, "Shed The Fat" and someone is looking up Shed The Fat Reviews. That person is more likely to buy.

So start thinking in terms of "buyer keywords" not just highly searched keywords.

As for your website title. What happens if "Shed The Fat" goes belly up?
What happens if they sue you for using their name in your website?

It's great to see another thread here with great questions and answers!

Besides the technical questions of squeeze page vs blog, and the weight loss niche vs the tibetan orchids niche, it's also important to realize what you're stepping into. The blog or squeeze page and the affiliate link are mostly just the tip of the iceberg.
If you go for the blog, there are things you can do to make it easier for the blog to rank, by doing on page SEO (there are wordpress plugins that will show a score for on page SEO success), making sure it's a coherent site with useful content, using images, etc.
But then you get the next step: YOU have to get traffic to your blog/site. Unless you have found a great niche with good searches and no competition (which I happened to stumble upon with a webshop for certain designer stuff that wasn't sold before in my country), you'll have to work on getting traffic. That means creating backlinks, using social media, etc.
There are too many orphan blogs, created nicely, but not brought to full growth after their creation...

Alexa,

I just thanked you twice in two separate forum posts, in about 5 minutes. Thanks so much for your help.

So basically, let's get this straight: (To the OP - I don't mean to hijack your thread, But I think my question will help you too =)

As an affiliate promoting clickbank products, it would be silly for me to create a sales page, which then just directs to a sales page that the product creator built. Check.

As an affiliate promoting clickbank products, it would be smarter to create a niche site, and then on there, work in the affiliate link. I assume one could do this through a review post, or an ad that we create, or maybe even a success story of how the product helped us. I'd be interested in hearing some more ideas of how to non-spammily integrate affiliate links into the niche site.

I understand the importance of building trust with clickbank products. I assume that you could have a free bribe on the niche site to get people on the list, and then build up a series of autoresponders, and just all around useful relationship-building type stuff. Build trust, build sales.

Now my next question is: How does one drive traffic to the niche site. Starting out, I'd feel most comfortable using Google PPC. I am currently learning the ins and outs of Google PPC. I've also been told that you can't drive traffic to a website that has an affiliate link on it. Then how do you go about it?

learned a lot here.

but for me, i blog not because I want to make money with blogging. i blog, because i have something to say, i want to share and i just want to speak out :-D

earning money from my blog becomes just a freebie

but hey, if we could make money with our blog why not?

i believe that in order to succeed you should have the passion to do it because it is the passion that drives you to keep on doing it.

so this means, you stay longer because you love what you are doing... the longer you want to blog the longer you can make money with your blog...

so i guess when you ask yourself "TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG?"
you also have to check if blogging on that niche is your passion

i've met a lot of bloggers who have been blogging for 5 years, and because they stayed longer and they have been blogging for years PR and advertisers contact them.

Now, I'm blogging for 1 year and PRs and advertisers are contacting me. how much more if you're a 5 year old blogger..

hope this helps

My answer to all questions is "get a blog".

I love your writing style and I think you'd have a blast and do well as a blogger.