David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

It is nice to take a step back and see what we have achieved in life!

So here is report number four.

Compare Sat Nav is coming along in leaps and bounds. CompareSatNav.com has recently been registered by myself to add to the portfolio of domain names that this site uses ( www.comparesatnav.co.uk, www.comparesatnav.com and www.satnavreviews.co.uk ).
 
Referral rates have declined to 0.5% which is far from the 1% I have been aiming for.

On the other hand, visitors have increased so hopefully referral rates will increase soon.

I have a portfolio of 22 retailers and currently have no intentions of adding or removing any merchants.

As it stands today, my annual equivalent salary is just over £300 so in the first month of operation, Compare Sat Nav is not as profitable as I would like.

However, the names are registered for a minimum of two years so I have 23 months left to prove that this can work!

So what is left to do?

I have to complete the specifications comparison table. This is not so much a difficult task - more so a boring one! I estimate this will take around a week to complete so it is a case of slotting it around the hundred and one different other tasks I want to do!

I have yet to implement a newsletter. This should take around a day to create all the emails and set up a subscription form. Again, not so much a difficult task just a boring one.

The home page has been cleaned up with a couple of bright banners added. However, I am not completely satisfied with the home page yet as it does not have much of an appeal. Perhaps this is why the referral rate is so low - people aren't getting past the home page.

I am currently half way through reading Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day and am about to start implementing the tactics explained in the book. Whilst I cannot reproduce the book here, I can adapt what is being said and suggest new / better / cheaper (free) tools than the ones the authors use.

As for site mechanics, I am thinking of creating thumbnail images of all 408 products to aid with site speed. I am also thinking of re-writing the copy used on the site. At the moment, I am 'borrowing' retailers descriptions of sat nav systems. They are more than likely not written with SEO in mind.

If I chose to do these thumbnailing would take around a day and copywriting would take around two weeks (to get it perfect).