A Complete Beginners Wordpress Amazon Affiliate Journey

Dan Hansen said:
Is this relevant? Does having your categories and tags pages lead to any kind of disadvantage for the site? I would imagine that this has nothing to with your other posts not being indexed yet.
Are your other post starting to get indexed?
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Hi mate, yes now that I've adjusted my Yoast setting all of my posts are now indexed. Before I adjusted the settings only my categories and tags were indexed (none of my posts). Unsure if it was just a time thing or not. But all sorted now so no drama. Maybe other people could comment more?
 
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As someone very new to the whole IM world and already interested in Amazon, I'm really interested by your journey. I will follow it closely.

Keep up the good work and have fun!
 
A few decent Amazon journeys have appeared here recently, so I hope yours will be successful as well. Good luck mate!
 
Journey Update:

Not too much to write about this week. I have published 7 more articles (some informational and some reviews) between 600 - 1200 words each. Aiming at writing one per day.

I have also been sending some outreach emails to try and nail some guest posts. Yet to hear back. I changed my approach up and actually included an article in my first email as opposed to just an idea - so we will see if that 'converts a bit better'.

I have updated and optimised all my posts with AdSense now - at least 1 to 2 ad blocks per post (after introduction and conclusion) as well as a 'skyscraper' down my primary side-bar. Organic traffic is at about 25 - 50 UV a day currently so not making major money yet (about 25c a day) from ad impressions and clicks.

No more amazon sales this week. Hopefully, I will see some decent SERPs movement when the links I purchased slowly start to get indexed by google.

As for the plan for next week - again try and knock out 1 piece of content per day. I may look at writing my second pillar article too.
 
Adsense isn't that good of an idea with Amazon site cause your job is to get them to Amazon.com but with Adsense they leave your site for cents..
 
The amount of in-depth detail about your initial strategy and how it's been changing is incredibly helpful to another newbie like me.

I'll be following your journey all the way!

Best of luck on your journey and juggling full-time work + affiliate marketing!
 
karupoiss said:
Adsense isn't that good of an idea with Amazon site cause your job is to get them to Amazon.com but with Adsense they leave your site for cents..
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Good point. I think I may keep AdSense off my pages with affiliate links but keep them on my informational posts (Some of them have CPC over $10 and high competition - I'd be keen to see how they go). Learning as I go here.

Dankmemez said:
The amount of in-depth detail about your initial strategy and how it's been changing is incredibly helpful to another newbie like me.

I'll be following your journey all the way!

Best of luck on your journey and juggling full-time work + affiliate marketing!
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Thanks for the kind words!
 
Journey Update (10/07/2016)

Not too much to report this week. Still been playing around tweaking different things. I have been writing more articles between 600 - 1000 words. Not every day but consistently enough.

My manual outreach is going terribly. I think people see that my site is an affiliate site and instantly decide either not to respond to my emails or to insta-deny me. I have even written a really awesome 1000 word article which I attach in my emails and still no go.

That being said some of the PBN's I bought are starting to show up in WMT - hopefully I can see some movement over the next few weeks.

On a side note I did a bit of experimenting with Reddit. I've never really used it much before... but man were the results spectacular:

redditpost.png


I haven't had time to play around more with Reddit. But I definitely will now that I see what it can do. I also got a few sales out of it and a few $$ in AdSense revenue.

Will keep writing articles in the week coming. I'm giving up on outreach for a while out of frustration but may start again later. We will see.
 
Keep experimenting. You're going great!
 
Aesteroth said:
I don't plan to use PBN's. My competition uses them. I have sent about 10 outreach emails for guest posts for some high DA blogs in my niche. Hopefully I can get some decent links this way. I have also been building links through forum posts, blog comments small fry stuff as well.

I realise it is going to take a longer time to rank... but looking long term.
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what is the email format you use to ask them for guest post?
 
elhosary said:
what is the email format you use to ask them for guest post?
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I've experimented with a few different email formats.

The first was something like:

Hi XXX,

I have recently come across your blog and am really impressed with your tutorials! I have been attempting a few of them myself, with success (most of the time!). I especially like XXX, and while I find it incredibly hard to do, your video instructions are really helping.

By the way, do you think the majority of your XXX tutorials could be used by people who use XXX? I often get asked by some of our own blog readers (XXX.com) for advice regarding what sort of XXX they can use if they use XXX and would love to know what you think.

Thanks and keep up the good work,

XXX

Variations of the above got an abysmal response rate. I have also just gone for the blatant ask like so:

Hi there,

My name is XXX, and I have recently stumbled across your blog. I am a huge fan of some of your articles about XXX (especially XXX) and have been practically binge reading them over the last few days.

I have noticed that you guys sometimes allow people to write guest posts on your website. I have recently started a website about XXX (XXX.com). I write educational articles about XXX including what causes it and the available treatments. I think this is something that your readers would be interested in as it is a condition that affects millions of people all over the world!

I would love the opportunity to write an article for XXX. Attached is a word document of an article I wrote for you guys to consider.

Please email me any feedback or whether you are interested in the article (or even if you would like me to write about something else!).

I look forward to hearing from you!

Regards,

XXX

Again... no go. I get a polite 'Stop emailing me' email.

Would love some feedback from you guys on this. Am I being too pushy?
 
J.o.h.n said:
Doesn't look pushy at all to me, it's very well written too (like all your stuff). They're missing out.
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Cheers man. I'll send a few more emails off today and see how I go.
 
Dankmemez said:
Absolutely agree.
Have you tried keeping emails short and sweet?
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The emails above are generally the length of most of my outreach emails (personalized for each scenario of course). I will try mix it up a bit more... see what happens.
 
Aesteroth said:
Cheers man. I'll send a few more emails off today and see how I go.
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Maybe try following up on the non-responders.

Also, try getting on their radar first. Follow them on social media, comment on their posts, comment on their blog, whatever else you'd generally do to bring some traffic to the website. Then when you ask for a guest post, you're no longer "cold calling", you're a familiar.

Anyway, best of luck to you, I'm doing the same thing right now tho I'm doing it exclusively with PBNs (relatively little success) so I'm very interested how your site turns out when you're doing it all whitehat.
 
Hinkys said:
Maybe try following up on the non-responders.

Also, try getting on their radar first. Follow them on social media, comment on their posts, comment on their blog, whatever else you'd generally do to bring some traffic to the website. Then when you ask for a guest post, you're no longer "cold calling", you're a familiar.

Anyway, best of luck to you, I'm doing the same thing right now tho I'm doing it exclusively with PBNs (relatively little success) so I'm very interested how your site turns out when you're doing it all whitehat.
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Hi mate, that's good advice regarding 'putting in the ground work'. Will definitely experiment with it. Try build a relationship with a few of the authors etc.

In terms of 100% white hat - I've gone off that road. In an earlier post I said I bought some links from the market place, so I've joined the dark side.

Still going to practice outreach etc. And experiment with my own link building... but I understand the risk of using bought links and the inevitable google penalty.

I was thinking of buying an expired domain and making a very broad healthcare type authority site (very long term project) to slowly age and update occasionally alongside my current affiliate site. That way if I ever get a manual penalty I can rewrite the content I have and incorporate it on my other site. Still undecided.

Have also been researching PBN's etc. If I fail to get more success in my outreach I may attempt to play around with them. But at this stage I will just keep doing what I am doing.

As mentioned in the first post - I am a n00b and this project is going to evolve as my knowledge and experience increases! That's half the fun.

I am thankful for all the feedback you guys are giving me. I do take everything on board.
 
Hey OP. Good luck to you on this journey. Wishing you much luck and success.
 
Hi again,
I have been trying to get some guest posting opportunities myself in the last few week.
My first outreach trials were largely unsuccessful with about the same kind of response you got. I think that many of the sites that I want to guest post for don't accept affiliate sites by default. Im guessing that they get a LOT of request from sites just like mine. (and probably yours)
So, why dont we make our sites look more like a normal blog? I decided to try. Jazzed up my about page first with a few more photos of "me". :) Wrote a long story of "my" life. Basically i created a person that is much more likely to be real.
Next i added a few post on the site that are more general than the ones where i am trying to sell products. Still within the same general niche (more or less), but they are written in a much more loose tone. More personal i guess.
Now, i have gotten 3 guest posts accepted and i am talking with a few more blogs about doing one for them as well.

Might be a coincidence, but i suspect that i am on the right track with creating a more convincing story about the person.
 
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