Am I on the right track?

Hi, I?m looking for some advice or feedback on my attempts and future plans just to check I?m on the right track and not wasting 16 hour days going around in ever decreasing circles until I finish up my own backside.



So far I am using clickbank while waiting on affiliate sites to ring me

I have identified 3 products I can identify with (allows me to write articles more easily).
I have set up a non offensive, non keyword specific domain that is used for redirects so my squeeze pages point to www not-offensive com / affiliate-link1 /aff-link2 etc

This allows me to easily change the affiliate link if the promoter changes it and in the future maybe use them as landing pages instead of straight redirects

I have built squidoo pages, and although my sales spiel may not be the greatest they are out there and getting traffic. I reasoned that I could always tailor or tweak the pages later to get better conversions or targeted traffic
I have used social book marking, forum posts, and blog spam em comments to get decent backlinks for the squidoo pages. So far (4 days later) Google shows no links, yahoo approx 150 per page and Bing shows no pages.
So next steps are....

• Write some articles, make sure they are spinable and submit like mad.
• Make more WEB 2.0 pages on other sites
• Some (not complete) linking between web 2.0 pages
• Maybe a few autoblogs using caffeinated content (I have this) to add bulk and aid linking
• Submit the new web 2.0 pages and autoblogs to bookmarking and backlin like mad

If so how many autoblogs, how many pages per autoblog?

But this is where I want to take a reality check before investing further time and effort.

You?ll notice little mention of keyword checking, niche or targeted in the above.

So the questions are.For my affiliate links when researching keywords what criteria should I use?Thoughts, comments or slaps on the back of the head welcome


Decay

You seem to be on the right track bud. Keep it up.

There's a lot of ways to go at this, and your method should definitely work.

You are correct about Squidoo. If you are going to promote it using article marketing, it gets pretty good conversions because it makes you seem like a true "expert" at your niche if you can write your Squidoo lens correctly. Plus, their tracking makes it easy on you (although statcounter makes it easy to track websites if you do decide to create one later).

Just keep testing and seeing which one works the best. I'd recommend trying your method, seeing the results, and testing new ones until you find what works for you!

You sound like someone who IS on the right track, taking action and trying different methods. If you were using adwords (don't think you are) then a landing page certainly should be part of the equation, but as you said you can do that later.

Keep records of what you are doing and track your results, you'll have failures as well as successes, we all do. The trick or lesson is to learn from your mistakes, then apply what works more and more. Over time you will find the sweet spot, then use that as a catalyst to try even more. And don't forget to split test, it surprising sometimes how a small change in text or graphics can have a big impact on sales.

Thanks guys, I'm studying up on the keyword research, think I've got the gist of it.

I'm struggling with a chicken and egg problem.

Which comes first the niche or the affiliate?

Do you pick a niche and look for affiliate products that match or do you look for affiliate products and work that niche?

Other questions to follow include "If you're cooking stuffing in a forest, can a bear hear you?"


Decay

There are countless products out there.
Find your niche first and get the traffic.

Getting niche targetted traffic is the difficult part, so focus on that first. Product part is easy and even if you can't find a product you can always make money from CPA or adsense or some other stuff

Plan your shit before you work hard at it, I use big blocks of blank white paper to plan my stuff. Draw some lines and arrows and add text to your plans.
Make it seem in order so your mind can grasp the information easily.

Go get 'Em tiger! LOL