David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

I thought I would post a project progress report as I haven't done one of those for a while. Plus, it gives those who haven't got a clue about my project some background info.
 
Back in November 2006, I set up this site and a handful of others (namely Compare Sat Nav) to see whether it is feasible to make a living from affiliate marketing.

I have since decided that it is feasible but it takes an awful lot of work. Therefore, the next question is how much work and what is involved?

So, ever since, I have been building niche websites and dabbling with PPC to create a replicateable formula that new affiliates can follow. Perhaps I could turn it into a guru ebook.....

In a nutsehll, this is the David Fiske project.

So how is it going?

Well, I thought it was best to dig out the last project progress report and compare today's performance against that. But that wasn't much on enlightenment so I have also dug out the one before that.

One problem I reported was "I have too many ideas and now need to start focussing." Sound advice! My whiteboard is full of ideas and all have a legitimate basis. I may end up building these. I may not. If I do, I now know that it will have some sales (eventually), though not much. Not without a lot of marketing effort.

There are two strategies here. The first is to build a couple of sites and focus on them. The second is to build hundreds, if not thousands of sites, and generate lots of trickles. The first could have 100 orders per site per year, generating £1,000 on a commission of £5 a sale over 2 sites. The second could see 1 order per site, generating £1,000 on a commission of £5 a sale over 200 sites.

From what I gather, you would be daft to run just one website unless it has some grounding. A happy medium would be 2 to 10 sites. Any more and the effort put into each one dwindles.

I also said that PPC seemed the way forward. I am still trying to get the hang of it. I have reduced my spending down to $1 to $2 a day but have yet to see any return. Lots more tweaking I think!

Compare Sat Nav was highlighted as my potential money earner so long as time and effort is put into it. I have redesigned the site and moved it all onto one server so for the short term, I can see me losing out on some search engine traffic as it re-adjusts. Hopefully though, long term traffic should pay off.

Back in February 2007, the conversion rate was 0.3%. Today it is 0.4%. A slight increase but not tremendous. I am still aiming for 1% but I am missing something. Something major. Traffic!

I need to generate substantial amounts of traffic to get anywhere and that's where I am lacking at the moment. I am going to start looking into that more over the forthcoming months. At the moment, to reach a liveable income from Compare Sat Nav, I would need 1,000,000 unique visitors per year. I am currently on target for 20,000-30,000 visitors. Eek!

So, over the next few weeks, I will be working on PPC and traffic generation. Eventually, when I get the hang of PPC and traffic generation, I should be laughing.

Still a long way to go...

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