Feedback On My Affiliate Marketing Project

31 Jan 14 10:53 am

Hey Tim,

What sort of feedback are you looking for in particular? If it's feedback on your site, I'd say you're off to a good start... design looks good, your story is good, and your writing style is engaging. I'd say you'll have no trouble blogging!

I do see one big problem that you might face though. It's this paragraph where you say:

I am doing what I always do when I plan something. Research, Research, Research. This drives my wife crazy. For example, every time I am looking to purchase anything I go into research mode. I spend hours online looking at reviews and reports over and over again. I write lists, I search blogs and I create spreadsheets. It can take me weeks to finally make my mind up and make a final detailed and considered decision.

You have to be really careful that you don't get sucked into what we affectionately call "analysis paralysis". If you talk to many people here on the forum they'll talk about how they spend so much time chasing each "bright shiny object" that they never actually get anything out the gate.

Too much research, not enough action.

Likewise, if you were to start doing our AffiloBlueprint course, there are a lot of decisions you need to make: Which niche to go into, which products to promote, which keywords to target. There comes a point where being too analytical is a hindrance, and sometimes you're better to just do a little cursory check to make sure you're not doing something completely idiotic, and then start flinging stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

Whatever you decide to do, whether it's affiliate marketing, or selling stuff on eBay, or selling your services, or whatever... make sure you pick something, give it a really good whack, and don't get distracted.

A really interesting article / blog post for your site could be about deciding which form of "make money online" venture you're going to pursue. What's available and what the pros and cons are of each. If you could use those powers of research in a journalistic fashion to get the "truth" behind different ways of making money online (without it being a hypefest, or a thinly veiled promotion for someone's product) ... that could be really interesting, and could attract some readers.

31 Jan 14 7:54 pm

I feel your pain of being lost in the wilderness of the A.M. You look at the clock at its 2:00Am and you head is spinning and you fill like you have forgotten even how to form a thought that makes any since. Vowing to throw it all in the river and never look back. I also looked at everything, read everything, until my game was split into a million pieces. All the kings men couldn't put it together. Now I am starting back with affiliblueprint and I will not look to the right or left until it is done. Being inexperienced also, I do not needoutside distractions. Like Attela said, stick to one thing until you master it. Look forward to reading more about you and your progress. Thank you for expressing yourself, helps me to know I'm not alone, struggling and floundering in the AM.

02 Feb 14 8:00 pm

AffiloBlueprint is always my first recommendation for anyone wanting to get started. Not just as an affiliate, but making money online in general. It's not the sexiest selling proposition in the world, but what AffiloBlueprint gives you (as well as a "step by step system") is a general education in the world of online marketing.

Things like learning how to research a niche, how to build and structure a website, how to do search engine optimization, how to find traffic from other kinds of places, how to build content. Why building a newsletter list is good. How to outsource when you can't do something yourself. These are skills that are universally useful in internet marketing, regardless of where you end up taking them.

But yeah, it is also a step by step system. It's a practical education, rather than just a bunch of theory that you have no hope of putting together yourself.

Thus ends the little sales pitch :)

For your own site... I would love to see some credibility. By that I mean, I'd love to see a site where a guy was actually investigating everything, actually looking at everything objectively, actually seriously weighing the pros and cons of things. Rather than just pimping affiliate products.

If it were my site, I'd forget about making money from it to begin with, and work on building a readership. There are plenty of folk here in the forum who would be interested in following your journey, but keep in mind we're a pretty cynical audience: We know what an affiliate link is, and like you say... just loading it up with sales pitches is going to hurt your credibility.

Once you've got that readership (and ideally a newsletter list) you can start promoting products that you genuinely find useful. (And you can discuss ones you don't find useful... people still buy from bad reviews, surprisingly.)