Less is more with landing pages

Well the festive season is done and dusted for another year, the food has been eaten, booze has been drunk and I can start to think about shifting some of this weight. Happy New Year by the way (16 days late).

Last year saw me starting to play with adwords; I was scared at first, I thought I was going to blow thousands with no return. Basically I was going into the unknown with a credit card and I didn't know if I would make it out the other side. But I have come out the other side and what's more I have come out the other side in profit with 300% ROI, Nice!

So what have I learned?

Well so far I have learned that Kirsty is a saint. Her advice and a willingness to take a leap into the unknown are all you need to get started. If Karma exists then she should be given a skip load of it. Seriously forget the eBook just read her site.

Copy is important and small changes can make a big difference; test multiple ads and use the google analysis tool.

Tracking; track everything.

Finally I have learned that less is more with landing pages the more distractions the more likely they are to go off somewhere else. It's all about funnelling the visitors to the merchant.

How about you, what works for you?

Labels: PPC

Leaving the porn industry

Lately I have been taking a look at my AM efforts from a business point of view and the overall view is that things are going well; not quit the 9-5, live on a beach and go to work in a speedo well but they are on track.

However going through stats, sign ups and payouts I have noticed that the money I am making from porn is way down on what it was 6 months and so I am thinking its time to hang up the naughty naked hat and focus on my nice respectable sites that I can tell my mother about. In a nutshell it's far too much work. I am going to keep the sites live but not keep them fresh; I just haven't got the time to keep people cumming (sorry) back for more!

I will be keeping a couple of the more 'specialist' sites just so I can still live up to my name of Naked Affiliate and not feel like a fraud.

Labels: Adult, Business

Impossible is nothing

Sorry if posting has been a bit quiet recently, I have been busy trying to build links and tidying up my SEO. All fun!

I was starting to get a little pissed off with the way things were going, November wasn’t as great as I had planned and I seemed to have a million and one things to do. It really was a case of one step forward and two steps back. Basically I was thinking that this money making online might be harder than it looks. And following a conversation with a friend about starting to feel the strain a friend sent me a link to this video, the email was titled ‘Impossible is nothing’. If Rick & Dick Hoyt can complete Ironman triathlons and marathons then I am sure I can make affiliate marketing work for me.

Labels: Small-Talk

A question for my readers + News

First the news; I have been featured on John Chow... sort of! See the screen shot below for details. Maybe next time I can aim to get a link or something on there!



And Now A question



Help! I have 1 last site to redesign and baiscally it's a bit weak; it has maybe done £10 in sales in 6 months (mainly because I haven't done anything with it) but it made the cut and is the last of my sites to be developed but I can't decide if it should be a blog with a store tagged on or a store with a blog tagged on.

Which do you think is the best way to do it?

Labels: Small-Talk

Odd Posts

Over the next couple of months please don't get worried if I start posting some random titled articles on here, also don't freak if some of the posts seem controversial; the bottom line is I want more readers.

I have been blown away with the number coming here already and with most visitors not bouncing off after a few seconds it means people are actually reading what I have to say. Thank you guys and girls!

Anyway back to business, like I said - I want more visitors not because I want to make more money from this blog but because I have a secret ambition to make it into the Top 100 Money Making Blogs. Since I have very little time to spend getting links I figure it might be more efficient to write content that brings the links in. I'm talking about link baiting. I am also going to set up another blog (on blogger of course) and see how much traffic I can generate just from writing catchy content.

How about you, do you think link bait is an easy way to drive more visitors to your site?

Labels: Link-Bait, Link-Building

How not to ask for a link

At some point your going to need to build links and to get the best results you are going to need to email another webmaster to see if they would like to swap links. The following is a guide on how not to do it (the following is from a real email).

Dear sir/lady,

After looking at your website I noticed that we are in the same sector and I think it could help both our sites if we swapped links. My site is XYZ.com and I would like very much for you to visit my site and swap links with me.

Regards

Dr. No
XYZ.com

Now this wasn't exactly warm and friendly in fact I get the feeling that it had been sent in a mass email to all webmasters in my sector.

A better way to do it might have gone like this (using this site as an example):

Hi there,

I just wanted to take time out to write an email complimenting you on your recent article about how not to ask for a link. I know that in the past I have also been on the receiving end of some mass link request emails.

Recently I launched my own blog about SEO for the affiliate industry and I would appreciate it if you could offer me some feedback on the site. The site is XYZ.com; I look forward to any advice you may have.

Warm Regards,

Dr. No

Obviously I am more likely to head over there now and see what the site is like. Then after leaving a comment or emailing back with a comment about the site 'Dr. No' is in a position to suggest a link trade.

You wouldn't walk up to a beautiful woman at a bar and ask her to strip and climb into bed with you straight away; Try 'chatting up' the webmaster first with origional lines and you are more likely to get that link trade. Who knows you might turn out to be a linking PUA.

Labels: Link-Building, New-Affiliates-Guide

Uniquely Over Rated?

I have been thinking about this for a while and I am now going to stand up to say it loud and proud - I think UniqueBlogDesigns are of poor quality!

Now before the flames start appearing in the comments section slagging this site off please remember that I didn't drop a bunch of cash on this site; I didn't even bother with a domain name! However I do run a couple of other blogs which are wordpress based and quite popular in their niche and if I paid Nate and his merry men for a UNIQUE design then that's exactly what I would expect, not a design with the same layout as everything they have done only with different colours. If I wanted to be the same I would just download a free theme.

Halfway through writting this I noticed Small Potato over at wpdesigner.com posted a simmilar post last month;

I think it’s sad how UBD and its paid themes have gotten to where they are, in a short period of time, all thanks to exposure and not quality in services and products because they don’t strive to make WordPress more attractive. Furthermore, Unique Blog Designs custom and pre-made products are not unique.

Compare Nate Whitehill’s (owner of UBD) and John Chow’s (redesign by Nate) blog designs and you’ll get the picture.
- Read the Full Article

This isn't a personal attack on Nate; it's that I don't think that the sun out of his arse in the world of blog design. Like so much in the world if it's hyped enough people will buy it, even if it is shite.

Let the flames begin.

Labels: Other, Rants