Posts Tagged Ask Kirsty
A Novel Way To “Ask Kirsty” – Your Questions From Google!
Posted by Kirsty McCubbin in Affiliate Marketing on September 25, 2009
A quick trawl through my inbound search terms has revealed that lots of people come here with questions. Not a surprise given the nature of the blog but I thought it might be nice if I answered a few questions here that started with a frustrated search for greater affiliate knowledge on Google and ended on my blog which may or may not have provided an answer!
Now given that I’m a normally lovely girl, I don’t like to be too blunt with all the nice people who e-mail me questions. However this format gives me the opportunity to do some of the plain talking I’m known for at times…
site:http://www.affiliatestuff.co.uk “i earn” – how many times do I have to say I’m not bloody well telling youse! Lets define it as “plenty” 
affiliate how to find a christmas niche – Hmmm… maybe try just about anything that’s a gift? Christmas is one of the only times of the year where you seriously should not struggle for a niche. If a merchant doesn’t perform then, it is very likely they never will (unless travel related!)
a4u expo 2009 win a ticket – Enter Kierons comp right here>> Entries close 28th September so get yer damned well skates on!
how to calculate potential affiliate earnings? *sigh* I know lots of people really want to know this but the answer genuinely is between £0 and £1,000,000,000,000 – it all depends on your ability and how much work you’ll end up putting in. End of story.
affiliate niche guns – I think you should remove caffeine from your diet. And possibly seek counselling.
affiliate marketing is it a rip off? Well, it does sound too good to be true sometimes 
But it is a real and bonafide way to make money. However if someone is saying “Make $$$$ via affiliate marketing by giving me $$” then yeah, that is a scam 99% of the time!
google affiliate slap seo? Google doesn’t slap affiliate sites just for being affiliate sites. Saying your site has been slapped for being an affiliate offering is merely an excuse for a lack of unique content, poor seo techniques, and use of blackhat tactics that would get any site slapped (unwitting or otherwise). Google doesn’t hate affiliates – it hates sites that don’t add value! It of irritates me that this seems to often be aired as an excuse for a site not working out. If your site doesn’t work out the only person you should be looking at as the reason is yourself.
why doesn’t google like affiliate marketers? It’s only the ones who don’t try hard enough Google doesn’t like. See above.
can i use free wordpress blog to do affiliate marketing? You sure can, that’s the beauty of Wordpress.
can you do ppc for affilate sites? Yes, but for the love of God make sure you know what you are doing first!
have you been paid by tradedoubler september 2009? Yes, I was. It was even on time this month. They didn’t feel like answering my important support query re: future payments now that I’m moving my company to Australia though so next month might be a different kettle of fish.
how long into google penalty do you ditch a domain name Not until you understand exactly what it was you got penalised for in the first place. Else it’ll happen again, see?
i hate online marketing - We don’t like you either, now bugger right off!
kirsty’s undies – Oi!! What have I said about these kind of queries you disgusting rotter?!?!
max bramwell single – I dunno, why don’t you look it up on Facebook you scary internet stalker, LOL.
why is my ppc not converting – either you are rubbish, or the merchant is rubbish. Or both.
website dropped 200 places in google – That’s looking pretty ominous matey… Maybe think back to any content stuffing or naughty link tactics from recent weeks.
how do i know if i’ve triggered a google filter? See above.
google penalty recovery time – about as long as it takes you to work out exactly what you did wrong, fix it to Google’s satisfaction, plus anything from a few days to a few weeks. Oh, and you have to do all that without anyone really being able to tell you what you did wrong in the first place. Good eh?
what can i buy kirsty? Awww…. a new set of gardening gloves would be awesome. Wouldn’t mind a Mercedes SLK either.
Well, I feel much better for that! I may even be able to attempt assisting Duncan at re-oiling our back deck in a little while. Work though? I’ll answer that with another question: -
will working less help me relieve my stress?
YES - now I’m off to tend my garden and get all thoughts of affiliate marketing out of my head for a few hours
This post is from: Kirsty's Affiliate Marketing Guide - Affiliate Stuff UK
A Novel Way To “Ask Kirsty” – Your Questions From Google!
Ask Kirsty – What Comes First PPC or SEO?
Posted by Kirsty McCubbin in Affiliate Marketing on September 18, 2009
An interesting question from Matt Re: how to organise the different promotional stages of a site!
Hi Kirsty,
I’ve been beavering away building a site and now I have been rummaging
around on the internet thinking about the best way to start promoting a new site.
From what I have read it seems there are 2 distinct approaches – PPC and
SERPS traffic.Since you seem to be one of the few that uses both I was
wondering how you decide which to focus on during the lifecycle of a site?
From my (newbie) perspective it would seem that PPC initially then shift
focus to the SEO/linkbuilding is the way to go…is this how you approach it?
Many thanks,
Matt
Well, the reason I moved into SEO was that I was sick of having to churn
and burn my PPC domains because my affiliate content was too thin and
kept getting slapped by Google. I sat down and worked out what I
thought the landing page algo would need to keep my pages up there long
term. I realised that it’d be hard work, but that as I was going to
write lots of unique content and provide good information resources
anyhow I might as well go for SEO and PPC traffic at the same time.
So in answer to your question, I always try for both right from the
start. The PPC gets things kicked off whilst I’m getting inbound links
and the search engines are doing their stuff. I also use SEO data to
feed new keywords into my PPC campaigns and PPC data to direct my
content strategy as that tends to reveal very quickly “where the money
is at”. Usually SEO traffic turns up quite quickly too, it doesn’t take
you more than 4 to 6 weeks to bring in 20% of your traffic in this way
which if you have targeted things properly makes a huge difference to
your profit margins.
This post is from: Kirsty's Affiliate Marketing Guide - Affiliate Stuff UK
Ask Kirsty – What Comes First PPC or SEO?
Ask Kirsty – Please Review My First Affiliate Site!
Posted by Kirsty McCubbin in Affiliate Marketing on September 7, 2009
I had an e-mail from the lovely Nicola recently following up a previous plea for help with a note to let me know how she was going and to ask me to take a look at her new site and give her some thoughts.
Hi Kirsty
Well since I first emailed you I have got my first AM site up and running. www.babychamtrainers.co.uk it has been up since 21st August
and I have made my first sale with a massive commision of 88pence, but still was very excited to see a sale and I’ve got to start
somewhere (won’t be giving up the day job just yet though).I’m spending around £1.50 – £2.50 a day on ppc which seems to keep me at the top of google most of the time.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Nicola
Hi Nicola,
That’s a really good niche site to hone your skills on for a first effort. I think too many people try to do a massive website about lots of products and that ultimately slows down the learning process.
And congratulations on that first sale – it’s a bit of a buzz eh?!
I think you need to make your home page look a bit more like a merchant product page, I think the “click to see products” text will increase the number of people who land on the site and then leave immediately.
Here’s an example of a product landing page I’ve recently completed: -
http://www.personalisedgiftsuk.com/personalised-football-books/celtic-football-club-book/
(site is not quite finished yet, but you get the idea!)
I use pages like that a lot of the time and they have an excellent click through rate. I’m not suggesting that you have to come up with something like that to make your site work – but a little bit of HTML popped into the Wordpress framework can go a very long way! If you can work at getting good “calls to action” on your page that will encourage people to click through to the merchant that will also help. A nice product picture, linked through to merchant with a bit of link text beside or underneath that says Browse More Babycham Trainers >> will also work.
Alternatively, Easy Content Units look great and can create a nice professional looking product area.
http://www.easycontentunits.com/
I’d also start doing some posts about some of the product lines you’re covering, describe what they are and why you think people would want to buy them. I tend to do this in my blog post titles and it works really well for getting in free traffic.
For example: – Multicoloured Canvas Trainers by Babycham Footwear
Or
Black Trainers with Pink Laces by Babycham – Hot 80s Style
Or
Babycham Basic Strap Trainers – Cool Velcro Fastenings!
What content like that does is draw in traffic both from people who already know they want to buy Babycham Trainers but also from people who know they want shoes with Velcro fastenings.
If you can, do some link research or ask around in forums and see if you can get some backlinks to help the site bring in some organic traffic.
I’d also get your side menu populated, as it’s currently looking a bit bare. The more navigation / information options you give your visitors the better chance you have of converting to a sale.
Finally, change your home page title from Babychamtrainers.com to Buy
Babycham Trainers UK : Designer Trainers – or similar. Your main
product title as all one word will weaken the SEO strength of the page.
One thing you have done that could cause you issues later is buying a domain with a trademark in it. I’ve known a few affiliates put a bit of work into such domains only to have them whipped off them by the brand. Some brands seem very worried about this whilst others don’t pay any attention.
I hope this helps you in your affiliate efforts!
This post is from: Kirsty's Affiliate Marketing Guide - Affiliate Stuff UK
Ask Kirsty – Please Review My First Affiliate Site!
Ask Kirsty – Why Isn’t My Affiliate Site Ranking?
Posted by Kirsty McCubbin in Affiliate Marketing on September 3, 2009
An interesting Ask Kirsty this week from Patrick who has spent a fair bit of time recently setting up an affiliate site in a niche that is of strong interest to him.
Well i finally got my first website finished last week after accidentally stumbling upon the area of affiliate marketing a few months back and being hooked on it ever since. My first site is something small and of personal interest to me: – www.manchester-united-shirts.com
The site is simply selling the manchester united football kit in its various forms. Once it was finished i went to the add url section of google and submitted the site. After a few days it then appeared on google when i searched site:manchester-united-shirts.com. I also submitted an article on digg as i had heard that would also help with getting it indexed. My problem however is this; it doesn’t seem to appear on google when i do a search for any of the keywords, such as manchester united shirts, manchester united kit, or michael owen manchester united shirt. Its not even on page 20 or less! I haven’t tried ppc yet as i was hoping on getting some organic traffic first. I know i need to try and get some back links to my site so my question to you is this; why is the site not appearing on google for any of its keywords, and how can i get some decent backlinks?
Patrick then sent another mail saying…
I tried my hand at PPC as this was the obvious way of getting the site noticed for my chosen keywords. I achieved great success with this method as i made my first sale and had a click through rate of about 14%, with an even higher conversion rate. However, what became apparent was that although my ads and site converted well, the cost of getting traffic there in the first place, ie, the keyword cost, meant that i was only actually breaking even in terms of profit.
Thanks a lot for your time and keep up the hilarious yet informative blog posts. Kind regards, patrick.
Hey Patrick,
First off, congratulations on putting such a great looking site together. I think it’s pretty good looking and would definately be attractive to Manchester United fans.
Why Isn’t Your Site Ranking?
Although your domain is keyword rich that is not going to be enough on its own to have your site ranking. Hyphenated domains don’t seem to have the same strength as those without hyphens. However, that needn’t stop you ranking for your desired search terms. Going forward I’d suggest you do a bit of work trying to get some backlinks (which I’m assuming you already realise as you’ve also asked about that!).
You will need to put a bit of time and effort into getting your site where it needs to be. With that in mind, I suggest that you try and add a little bit of Manchester United related content most days. Being seen as a good information resource on the club and in particular their shirts and strips will help you no end.
I think the reason that you are not seeing much in the way of rankings is that there’s so much buzz around the club. Do a search for “Michael Owen Manchester United Shirt” and the search results are absolutely stacked to the brim with authority sites. I think to get traffic you will need to sit down and have a real brainstorm about some less competitive search terms that might bring in some traffic.
Avoid the big names like Owen and Rooney, perhaps try to concentrate on building some content around phrases that don’t mention names and topics all the newspapers are likely to be reporting on. For example, if I were the owner of your site I’d write about: -
Manchester United retro shirts or Man U retro shirts
Manchester United 1977 shirt
Man U 1977 FA Cup Final shirt
If you take a gander at the search results for these terms you’ll see affiliate sites popping up here and there and not a lot in the way of your Daily Telegraph and Wikipedia type stuff. Targeting the long tail when a site is new can bring in some much needed traffic and revenue early on.
How Can You Get Some Backlinks?
I think in this case the best thing to do would be to try and locate fan sites and perhaps other affiliate sites. I’d start looking by making highly targeted product related searches like the ones above and looking at who was blogging about them and featuring them on their sites. Drop them a line and ask if you can have a bit of an exchange, you could also widen this activity out to other teams. Also, add a post to the A4U Link exchange thread and see if you can locate some people with sites relevant to yours.
Link building takes a lot of time and effort, but you’ll reap the rewards handsomely if you put some effort in.
Making PPC Work
I reckon that you need to be targeting the long tail. Clearly your site does a good job of pre-converting if a good proportion of your visitors that actually got through to the merchant made a sale. However, 14% of traffic getting through to merchant is a little too low. This means your search terms are either too general or your landing page is rubbish (and I don’t believe its the latter).
On my own sites, I manage to push through around 80% of the traffic that hits my PPC landing pages to merchant. Often more. I do this by sending highly targeted traffic to highly targeted pages. Of course this reply is largely guess work as I don’t know what keywords and products you are targeting.
I hope all this helps you out Patrick, and if anyone has anything to add that might help Patrick please do leave a comment as the more people we have talking about the Ask Kirsty’s the better resource this site will become.
This post is from: Kirsty's Affiliate Marketing Guide - Affiliate Stuff UK
Ask Kirsty – Why Isn’t My Affiliate Site Ranking?