Ok, so I'm finally starting to get this affiliate thing down and started making a network of sites to funnel keyword based traffic to my sites. The only problem is that for every site I build, I am looking at spending a week just building the actual page, getting satellites up, and submitting articles is taking an enormous amount of time. Not to mention that I don't even guarantee results in doing this. I guess my question is, should it take this long, is it worth it, and how do you have time for multiple sites when a single one can take a month to get up and ready.
Well you could always use cloaking! But read this first http://www.free-seo-news.com/newsletter188.htm
If you have some money to invest, pay others to do these tasks for you. You can find many individuals offering their services for cheap here on DP.
Affiliate marketing takes a lot of work. There really is no easy way and don't believe those who say it's easy, they usually have something to sell you.
Making a huge network of mini-sites is nowhere near as easy as the gurus claim it is. And it's a hassle to manage, even just for the domain registrations and updates. So yes, your experience is typical. The only ways to cut down the time is to pay others to do it (good idea) or pay for some software that automatically builds sites (which, IMHO, is a waste of money.)
Dont do everything by yourself. Hire writers to write the article and some people to do the marketing for you. That will help you to save time and do more things at a time.
This is why I would rather take the approach of having only 3-4 BIG sites that I can really focus my time on, instead of a bunch of crappy little sites that are a pain in my ass to keep updating.
I think your experience is normal. However what you might want to consider is doing what you can handle. There is no reason to build all those sites if you cannot keep up with them. In the long run if you cannot keep up with half of them it more then likely will be a waste. I would focus on just a few main sites until you get them going good. Then start to branch out. Thats what I did, and its been working for me.
Minisites can be a huge hassle, but as far as the article submitting, you can try SubmitYourArticle.com--it has a small cost, but will save you hours of time. Like mentioned in earlier posts, outsourcing would really help you out if you had the money to outsource. If you don't have the money to do that, then it will take a lot of your own time. Too bad there isn't a magic button...
You have just discovered that making money on the internet requires WORK. It is time-consuming and tedious but when you have made enough money you can pay someone else to do it for you like all the successful marketers.
It's not always as easy as the big dogs claim it is. However, once you've nailed the process a few times it will start to get easier. There's a process of daily activity you'll need to adopt in your routine. It may get boring, but once you see the results of your efforts, it'll be worth it to do it again. As some have already said, if you've got some money to invest, and don't want to spend the time, outsource your work to someone else. It's usually between $300-$800 to build a good link network for one site, but it's worth it if you're not interested in spending all that time.
Well, mini sites can be troublesome but I suggest you to just keep doing it and consistently promote it. You will definitely get the result that you wanted.
Managing a zillion little sites is both ineffective and inefficient. Concentrate on one site, two if you must.
Here is my story I do a few things to pick what my niche will be and to determine whether or not it will be at least semi profitable. I first think of a few main topics or ideas that I would be willing to create a website about. For example the main topic of ‘marketing’ I then go on about.com and find the topic of marketing and look for all the smaller sub ‘niches’ such as ‘internet marketing, affiliate marketing, advertising and THEN look for the smaller topics of those until I find a very minor sub topic of the main topic. I then go on spyfu.com and see how much each of those keywords cost on adwords and sponsored search. A Google adsense advertiser typically gets half of that so if it’s at least $1 - $2 I choose that niche. I then go on the seobook.com keyword research tool and type in the main keyword to get an estimate of how many times that keyword is searched. I also check whether there is a lot of competition for that minor topic in yahoo or google and whether it’s possible to get front page rankings without TOO much effort. If everything proves correct, I buy a $16 .com domain from a domain registrar with one of my keywords in it. An example of this are the two recent websites I bought. www.discusshub.com and www.dailydialogues.com I am targetting the sub keywords ‘technology tips’ and ‘free webmaster forum’ and the main keywords ‘technology’ and ‘webmaster’. After everything proves successful, I then install wordpress on www.dicusshub.com and a forum on www.discusshub.com/forum and set them up to work like forum and a personal blog. I then promote the new websites with my own promotional means. Eventually I start seeing some traffic and due to the high CTR positioning of my Google ads. I will earn from my main page and remain forum free of ads. Hope this helped you guys get a better understanding of how to start creating websites.
It normally only take 1 day to complete the site. And its not a good idea to setup many site to earn money. 1 site is enough for earning money and it wise to focus only at 1 site at any given time
Thanks for the awesome feedback so far. You all have been very helpful. Just a few things to add based on your points: I don't mind doing the hard work right now...at least until my time is worth more than it is now I just wanted to make sure that this mini-site thing wasn't a hoax and that it was beneficial Now that I have confirmed its use and potential, I think you are right that I should spend time working on a few core sites rather than a bunch...scattered efforts don't seem to be beneficial Like you said, they say it is easy but if it was everyone would be doing it. As long as the hard work CAN pay off, I don't mind doing it. Awesome insight hammonpari, +rep.
Create some simple templates that won't take too much time to edit and then you can build your sites easily & quickly.