Two years after and what I've learned

It's more than a year since I wrote the reflective piece "One year after and what I learned".

It's time for another update and see what has changed.

If you guys have any ideas after reading, feel free to share. Sometimes I don't see things that you guys can see.

Here are some statistics since Aug 2009
The numbers are items shipped, conversion rate of items ordered, earnings
Sep - 320 items - 9.58% - $547
Oct - 345 items - 8.26% - $621
Nov - 468 items - 7.82% - $819
Dec - 677 items - 8.81% - $1125
Jan - 649 items - 7.22% - $1017
Feb - 527 items - 7.87% - $887
Mar - 555 items - 6.78% - $819
Apr - 570 items - 7.38% - $952
May - 453 items - 7.97% - $711
Jun - 559 items - 9.49% - $992
Jul - 591 items - 6.58% - $911
Aug - 553 items - 7.34% - $911
Sep - 591 items - 10.9% - $938
Oct - 582 items - 7.47% - $982

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Growth
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Total earned from Nov 2009 - Oct 2010 is $11070 from 760K visits
Total earned from Nov 2008 - Oct 2009 is $4068 from 231K visits
That's 272% increase in earnings, 329% increase in visits

36% of the visits are direct - those are the loyal readers.
30% of the visits are from search engines - most keywords are variation of my website's name, the rest are miscellaneous aka the long tail
The rest are referral from all sorts of places, stumbleupon, feedburner, facebook, twitter, and other websites related to my niche (books)

These numbers are from my US account. I've other overseas Amazon accounts.

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What has changed?
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My niche is book reviews and I've been adding them everyday whenever possible. That's one year of reviews - though I'm not sure of the exact number. The cumulative effect of the reviews is what contributed to the traffic. Not just reviews but useful and helpful reviews. These reviews are all original and not those generated by scripts using Amazon API.

Occasionally, I also promote related items but I don't think and feel that those items do very well.

Note that so far, I've been buying books for reviews. Not a lot of publishers send me books. But few months ago, a local bookstore decided to sponsor my website by providing some review books. That's great because I get to save some money from buying books to review.

My website template is still a simple 2 column blog style comparable to any default Blogger templates. Adsense still doesn't earn well - not a surprise because mine's a product-oriented blog.

I've also joined another affiliate program which is Bookdepository. My niche is books and I think Bookdepository adds value to my readers - especially those who don't want to buy from Amazon (because of shipping cost).

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Internet Marketing
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With the increase in resources, I've managed to hold a few giveaway contests on my blog. Usually, it involves getting readers to link back (via Twitter) or share it on Google Reader. Response is great from the readers but it doesn't really add much to additional traffic. Anyway, the giveaways' main purpose is to thank the readers who have been buying stuff from my links.

Another contest I have is to invite readers to post their own reviews on the site. It's impossible for me to review everything so I try to get readers to contribute. In return, I giveaway a few prizes to the reviewers. It's a good way to increase the number of reviews and improve the variety.

I also sponsored some prizes on other related websites. Got an increase in traffic but but unfortunately, I can't tell for sure that they improved the earnings.

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Niche
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The niche doesn't really matter but choose one you're passionate about because you'll enjoy your work more.

Focus on the business side of your website. Think like an entrepreneur. For whatever product or service you're providing, you have to know that it's providing value to your readers. Useful content is the only reason why readers will come back to your site.

As for competition, focus on differentiating yourself. If you're no different from other websites, readers have no reason choosing to visit you or your competition. Branding often helps set you apart from your competition.

You should always reframe your questions into business questions. And focus your questions on the readers. Don't ask how to get traffic - inward focus. Instead, ask how you can solve your customer's problem, help them find what they want.

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Experiment
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By experiment, I mean doing things a little different from your usual routine.

For me, my usual routine is just reviewing books. So I experimented with sponsoring prizes on other websites, inviting user reviews, doing giveaways, holding contests. Some of the programs will no doubt improve traffic, but you won't know which one until you try.

And you learn a lot from experimentation. Here's what I learned from holding contests.
- My contest started simple, requiring only readers to post a comment to participate. I realized it didn't help the website in anyway.
- So the next contest, I require readers to sign in to participate. That way, you know who they are.
- Then I extended my contest to Twitter, where readers can retweet to get an extra vote. The extra retweets get new readers to the site. Then I extended it to Google reader as well, having readers to click the "share it" button to get an extra vote. This helps increase my RSS subscribers.
- My goal of the contest if you remember is to thank readers who buy stuff from me and are loyal readers. So in my next contest, I'm only going to open the contest only to loyal readers. Too many people sign up simply for the contest and never come back after that, and not even respond when they win prizes. So now, whenever new readers sign in, they are only eligible for future contests (when they come back), and not current contests

You should always know what you want to achieve before you hold your contest.

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Direct deposit vs cheque
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You should always go for direct deposit if you can. Cheque has processing fees charged by banks. I was charged Euro$50 to cash a cheque from Amazon Germany. Deutsche Bank saw it fit to charge that amount, and I wish that they would collapse and go bankrupt for the sake of everyone else on earth. I still have another cheque from Amazon Germany with an amount for Euro$60++ sitting on my shelf - not going to waste my effort cashing that. Cumulate your amount to something significant before having Amazon send out your cheque.

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Tip for newcomers
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Look through the archived discussions here. There are a lot of useful information already contributed by other affiliate marketers. Learn one of two and you're already on the path to improvement.

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One more thing
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Text links are still the best. Especially so when your content is appearing on RSS readers. Those RSS readers don't usually display iframes.

 

well, I got a few very good pointers from this. Thank you

 

Is it worth it ? So much traffic, so little earnings in comparison. Even adsense would pay much more in comparison, pretty surprised it didn't

 

Your conversions is great, but maybe it's typical for books niche.... what really bad is actually CTR, so many visits, so little actual clicks.

 

Not sure if you have an eBay partner account?
I have been refused a couple of times - eBay really want sites with lots of traffic not making money any other way.
Statistics I have seen from people using automated tools suggest each visitor is worth an average of 10 cents.
So your 760k visitors should be worth $76k
Even if you monetise the site other ways, I agree with DPParadise that you should be looking at optimising your site to get many more $ from the visitors you already have.

On another point, if you are using affiliate marketing - like Amazon, that really sucks.
They only want to pay you 5% for all your hard work.
In the real world you'd find it almost impossible to get any sales guy to work for ONLY $50k if they sell $1M of product on a commission only basis.

I've now 'seen the light' and moved to creating software products of value that I own with listbuilding to avoid relying on SEO and the whims of Google

 

Thanks for sharing...you give a lot of information about amazon.

 

His main problem as I have discovered in his old thread http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1480189
is that he have very low clicks comparing to website visits

 

Browse this forums and you will see that some person made $1700 of amazon in 2 monthes from couple of websites with like 300/day traffic, while with your traffic it's more like 10th of that i.e. $170. Pretty bad if you ask me, let amazon sell books by himself. Promote something else.

 

I've not read any who made that type of money in that amount of time who doesn't resort to questionable strategies.

 

Well, he have established websites with organic traffic for keywords which may suit amazon products , like 10 of websites with like 40 pages each or so.... how is it questionable ? pure whitehat seo.

as for questionable strategies....that seems your problem considering your reply. You should try them lol, you will see all big gangsta money! lol

 

Parka, I salute you. You're one of the example that hobbies can made you money. You're no ordinary book collector. Not only you get to keep the book, you also made money of them. Congrats

 

nice, i should learn as you

 

Thank for share.

 

Very good tips. Thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks for sharing the info It's really inspiring.

 

Well done and congrats first. there are some good points here. Thanks for sharing. Do you suggest launching an Amazon store for christmas this year considering we are just 20 days away.

 

I think u had a decent amount of traffic. If I am able to get somewhat near with it, me too thinks success is sure. But getting 760k visitors is a whole lot bigger task.

I have joined amazon since last month and still haven't yet made anything out of it.

 

but what's the site url? I'd like to see the site, there's got to be more to it than just "book reviews" because I have a few sites where I review dvd's and books and am NOT getting similar results

 

Pretty good conversion for book review site. If you integrate adsense and intext ad network then you will earn more. Congrats.

 

I agree if you build a store about something you know and like a lot then it will be very easy to make a store and make money off it. Find something you like and and see if amazon has the products you need and chances are they will lol.. Find a good script to use to build a amazon store and get good content. Good thing about the script I use its easy to build a lot of stores at once. So increases your chance of hitting a money maker. If you launch 10 sites within 2 weeks in 2 to 3 months you will see witch ones are worth to do more work promoting and making more sales.. My goal is to launch 10 to 15 sites every month cause you can do all the niche research in the world but you will never know if something is going to sell if you don't try it and give it your all... In a few months I see witch sites are doing very good and witch need more work or maybe some of them you just sell off. A lot of ways to make money on amazon.. If you need any helping building a amazon site just send me a pm.