my little success story

well,

its time to give a recap...i still have WAYS to go. I give one of my sites as example, this is the site i put MOST of my effort in.

Also: Keep in mind that i started up this whole thing last December with a ZERO (!) budget. So...i was kind of limited at first. But things get better and better.

1) I read a few ebooks last november/december, we can debate now whether Richjerk knows his **** (in my opinion this is quite outdated ...but basicaly he was the one giving me the ideas since i didnt know ANYTHING about affiliate marketing. So, the RJ ebook was basically the kicker. I read more ebooks afterwards too

2) opened a few sites and also learned about SEO. Read on DP forum, read about SEO optimization and read about Amazon affiliate marketing. One site of mine i opened in December using amazon associate-o matic. This is a reconditioned tools store. I admit that i first heard about this idea here on DP, but the idea of a reconditioned tools store for amazon sounded just too good for me.

3) Got into and learned about adsense. Implemented AS on several sites of mine.

4) submitted site(s) to varios search engines...kept SEO optimizing and hand-editing. SEO testing either with "web ceo" or with good sites like www.sitening.com where you can online SEO test your sites.

NOTE: Traffic was still LOW and sales too. Again: Keep in mind i didnt have funds for adwords or anything qhich required me to put money in ti, like listing on yahoo etc.

5) March 2007, about 3 months into my site.

RPT reached PR3. Nice !!!

6) Early April

looking for "reconditioned power tools" on google my site comes up on the FIRST page..on position 10 ! HUGE surprise !!! Sales are still low and traffic on average 40-50 visitors/day...when its a GOOD day


7) Paid helpful people here on the forum (RAJ !) to enter my site(s) in more search-engines ! This is a hell of a task...i really think i just spend the money instead of doing this myself. RPT is not the only site i have....

8) Got into Adwords. VERY LOW budget...but i am in it 30/EU month for now....i will just observe what happens regarding traffic.
Regarding adwords:

I have to admit i am huge NOOB there....but right now i am focusing on ONE brand and, even more, specific product models. I chose keywords with as good as NO competitors. I am sending the people on a landing page for this particular brand.

I already had "LOTS" of sales just THIS last few days..and my site is not even in all the engines RAJ put me.....and adwords is only active since TODAY.

Outlook:

It looks good. I really HOPE i get even better PR soon..cant wait ...

In the meantime...i also had to go thru the hassles since i moved to Germany, i had to change all my information on google to get paid here. TOO BAD that i cannot get direct deposit here in Germany with AMAZON (for my us sites)..i can only open a german amazonID now for direct deposit in Germany, but then i have to sell for amazon.DE. The amazon.COM stuff is paid by check (because i dont have an us bank account anymore)..which is kinda stupid because of the fees for the check.

BUT: I also have .DE sites open now (other products) with an german amazonID, and theyre entered into the engines right now and i will actiavte adwords for them too soon.

Also, as a last note:

Its NOT THAT easy. Ok, it IS easy, relatively spoken... What i mean is: Sites NEED effort you spend on them, listing them in directories, promoting on forums, maintenance, testing. Etc..etc....Without a certain amount of work you probably wont see results. This starts with researching and finding your NICHE, setting up the store. Adding features to the pages (like RSS feeds, forums etc.) To make it more interesting. Web hosting, setting up emails etc.

Wish me luck...excited to see how adwords will do now and how the additional entries in more directories will effect my sales ...

As a sidenote:

AoM always send me an email if someone puts something in the shopping cart. TOO BAD this doesnt guarantee that the customer actually CHECKS OUT at amazon..so you never know if you actually MADE that sale or not..until a few days later.

Imagine i was very &%%!"sed a few weeks ago since somebody bought a $4500 (!) machine....but then ulitmately did not check out......would have been a nice commission for ONE sale

 

50 visitors a day n u get spot 10 wow I dont know what to think. Congratulations anyway keep up the good work.

 

yes..PR might be nice, and i hope it gets even better soon....but i still need more traffic and sales

 

Great story, GeorgR. Thanks for the inspiration!

 

Keep it up GeorgR, I like it. Looking forward to more from you.

 

Are you using Adwords in German or English?

Congrats!

 

Great story . Motivate me to keep working on my site

 

Congrats, I like this kind of story as it gives us more and more hope

Cheers !
Thibaut

 

This story is really motivating. Basically, we have to sweat for it to be successful. Invest appropriately and seek help from DP

 

Thanks for the inspiration. I might be thinking to be an Amazon affiliate.
: )

 

Yeah but for every person that makes something with amazon there will be 1,000's who lose with then too!

Chris

 

Thanks for the inspiration ..I think your going in the right direction but I would not worry about PR as much, I would love to be on page 1 in google for search results on my keywords but the Webmasterwanabee has to learn more from the DP forum gurus.

 

I had someone purchase 10 GPS devices $700 each at once. This was one of the best sales I had

 

That's rock!

I wish I had such traffic

 

it feels great when see someone making money from amazon.
today i have signed up amazom affiliate. lets see how it goes, even though my site dont get good traffic. like 25 - 35 unique per day. and my niche is books.
lets see

 

i still have no sales from amazon yet.

 

its doable, its doable !

 

i have SOOO many stores as an amazon affiliate now...eg. three or four stores using associate-o-matic and countless astores hooked up to a blogger.

I also found VERY good niches and targetting adwords to my pages.

Amazon is very good if you're looking for specific products which are in demand (for adwords)..you can write adwords ads for this product, put up a site in (literally) minutes.

I just wish i had a higher adwords budget, or the ads being cheaper

There is an endless flow of ideas/products what to sell, thats the nice thing with amazon, there is everything under the sun you can sell