7 November 2008Affiliate Marketing on the Internet (Sucks)

The title above sounds all official and shit, huh? I went through some nichebot keyword phrases and pulled one out to see if I could rank for it. I decided to add the inevitable at the end in keeping with my cynicism and to try some link baiting as well. It’s not like anyone is coming here to spend money. It’s not like I need to worry about my PR or rankings or any of that crap. So I can fool around and see what happens just for the hell of it. Entertainment for all 11 readers. It’s the best show around.

I went to Obama’s website over the weekend. No, I’m not a supporter. But what struck me was the landing page. Gimme money. Right up front. They aren’t sneaky about it. They aren’t making apologies for it. They just want your money. “Hello, thanks for coming. Go ahead and send your cash”. Seems to have worked for them big time. The campaign raised millions of dollars and pretty much buried McCain in the money they spent.

Politics aside, what lesson can we learn about that? I think maybe trying to figure out where to place ads and Adsense on your webpage is a waste of time. There are two kinds of websites. One that is your pet project that you care about and want to make pretty and socialize. The other is to make money. I challenge you to do both effectively with these little dinky niche sites we build with PLR.

Anyway, I’ve built websites where I try to find cute places to put an ad. Or figure out if my Adsense needs to go left or right and/or bottom. Should I put an ad above the fold here or below the fold there? Know what? If you want to make Obama-rama money maybe you should just put a big-ass advertisement right there in the middle of the page. Maybe if you have a niche, say on carrot sticks, just put an advertisement for a big basket of carrot sticks right there in the middle of the Index page. Make it take up 80% of the page. BUY HERE! People will either click the advertisement or leave. That is pretty much the only choice I want them to have anyway. Put the ad in javascript so Google can’t read it. Splash an article or two on the page and go nuts getting backlinks.

I dunno. I’m tired of building websites. Page after page of articles on niche crap no one reads anyway. My best website is one that is 5 years old or so, with content that hasn’t changed in two years. About 12 pages worth. I have a StoreStacker site hanging off the thing, before that I had WPDFI script site, and have been getting multiple sales a month, except for winter, on the thing with little effort. Even as pathetic I am with Adsense I seem to generate quite a few clicks. The best of any site actually and it’s an old XSP site. I have a big ugly Adsense block above the fold and right in the middle of each article page. Since it worked on that one I thought I’d try it on other sites. But, you know, I can’t get them off the ground and revert back to building thoughtful PLR niche sites which aren’t all that special either.

See I’m stupid. I continue to build niche sites with PLR and try to make the subtle Adsense click or affiliate sale. What I should be doing is building product sites and use a little PLR to make Google happy. See the difference? StoreStacker gives you that option easily. BANS does too if you swing that way.

I don’t care about providing information. I care about making money. I haven’t been doing a good job of that lately. I have a blog that gets tons of traffic. More every day. Over 500 visitors a day. I have tried every monetization method that I can think of with the exception of paid advertising, and haven’t made a dime. I actually have two blogs like this. I tried putting Adsense on them a couple of times over the last month. I didn’t get one click and it sent my CTR and subsequent Adsense payout across my other sites into the crapper. I have made zero money on these two blogs. CJ, Chitika, Ebay, Shareasale; nothing works. Frustrating to say the least but not surprising given the “social” content. Oh, wait, I have Kontera on them and they made about $15 total last month.

I wonder if people are going to be in a buying or clicking mood over the next few months. The campaigns have been a drain on Americans. The financial crisis. The recession. Could be a tough time for folks trying to earn a buck online. Christmas is coming up but will people be in a festive mood?

I hope my Ebay/blog sites start pulling in a few more sales. I’d like my WPDFI script sites do the same. I yanked Adsense on all but a few sites as I can’t make that shit work and when I try harder it screws up the sites that do work well. But ultimately I want to try to build a few sites that promote a product front and center. If it works I’ll write a $127, $97, $47, $27, $17, $1.37 ebook called Building Obama-ramas

I’ve been getting a few emails for the latest ebooks. One from The Lazy Marketer for a way to game the lame search engine at Microsoft. I guess being number one in any search engine is worthwhile but when I went to check out the early bird site, my company’s web filter blocked the site as porn.

Then of course Blogging to the Bank is now a version 3. I bought the first version a couple of years ago. The tactics lasted about 2 months that was described in the ebook. I’ll pass on this one but if you decide not to you should do two things: 1) Find you favorite guberu and buy through them to get more useless bonus shit to download and 2) When you visit the site, simply click out of the site and a pop up will appear giving you a chance to buy the crap for a $10 discount. Learn that lesson too. Never give up on a potential sale. Rock on.

Source: Lost Ball in High Weeds