I'm new, but I'm not green

[flynteradactl]

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Hello everyone!

First and foremost...greetings!

I just want to say that I'm incredibly grateful to forums like this as they are often a beginning point for newbies.

I've found that the term "newbie" can mean many things. They can either mean someone totally new to either web design, seo, databases, xml feeds, aff marketing, etc. Or, they can also refer to someone who's been designing websites but for other people and know a fair share of database technology, css design features, mySQL functions and the lot.

Ultimately, what I've discovered, or believed to have discovered, is that being a newbie to aff marketing is still in its fundamental core, someone new to trying to make a "buck" online.

To all of you vets, in the black or not, could you please give a newbie some advice.

In other words, when you set up your first site, did you spend 6 months + researching relevant keywords, niche specifications, under cover forum research to find a "topic" (ie niche) before you started your first campaign?

If your younger brother or sister suddenly took an interest in what you do to make money, what is the first thing...then second...then third...and so on, what would you do to advise them along the path to make a living in aff marketing?

No. I'm not asking which directories you've signed up for per se, but any info you'd give toward a total newbie would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I am anxious toward all replies. By helping others I believe will ulitimately help you. And dare I say, to "reveal" any secrets would also help me and any other newbie just starting out. We all want to earn a living...please take some time to divulge.

I appreciate any effort to this post and I'll always be grateful as a newbie myself. I promise to do the same in the days I start considering myself knowledgeable enough to answer newbie queries.

Thanks everyone...you are a gem in my book!

[John Jupp]

I'm sure the more experienced will come forward to advise.

I always remembered that search engines drop you if you have twenty or more keywords. So I use nineteen. Multiply that by the number of companies I advertise by mentioning their name in the url and multiply that by the first three lines of text and I have a maximum of 380,000 keywords. In reality the amount is more like 50,000 but all are non-bidded. Then do a little generating on each webpage and wait about seven months then...Eureka!!!!!

Apparently on Yahoo yesterday I was number two for of all things, Monarch Airlines to name just one. Many of the merchants and I am either front page or second page and because the engines visit each page once a fortnight I just keep bouncing right back up again.

Not bad for a text link and a bit of text on a naff site.

It seems to draw in the customers and the sales are steady so I'm in profit. Not a huge amount but enough to get me excited at the potential of it all.

[flynteradactl]

Hi John Jupp,

Thanks for the post. Once again being kind of new I was trying to understand a bit of what you were saying. When you mention 380,000 keywords (or 50,000 really) it kind of sounds like you have several sites relative to the number of merchants your affiliated with and that you are mainly a PPC search engine advertiser with a small site or landing page? I guess I'm still a bit new to first of all conceive of 380,000 keywords. Does this essentially mean how many times your 19 keywords are repeated?

I'm thinking of creating (at first anyway) a 1 or 2 page site just to show affiliate managers as I have no site at all as I type this. Then get accepted into programmes. Then add more content and/or merchants as I go until I have a sound site with helpful and relevant content to give the visitor a reason for being at my site. Meanwhile I'll be setting up most likely an Adwords campaign til my site gets indexed by Google.

Does this sound like a good starting point everyone? I feel if I at least have a "small" site to begin with to get on board with affiliate programmes then I can continue to add content according to the merchants who accept me and ultimately in a short time have a full site optimised for se's etc.

Thanks again for the replies and any other suggestions for a newbie to think about as I finally sit down to create my FIRST site would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers everyone!

[John Jupp]

Hi

I was referring just to the one site and not including the others I operate. I have nineteen keywords per page which correspond with categories of product or service; add the 400 merchants I advertise and that is 400 unique company names multiplied by the nineteen keywords. Add a three line description of the company and what they offer and that is the 380,000 keywords that a search engine will read and log. Allow for duplication of words (and, is, or etc) and a conservative estimate would be 50,000 words all logged by a search engine. Then when a customer types in a search string, the search engine picks up any of that combination and if it corresponds displays the result.

[flynteradactl]

Thanks again John for clearing that up for me!

That's pretty amazing that you have over 400 merchants. Today (tonight as it is now) I'm going to purchase probably 3 domains (my first ones!) and then set out to getting those sites up. From advice I've recieved in the forums people suggest since this is my first time at either having my own personal sites or having affiliate sites I thought I would put up at least a one or two page site for now. This being because at least I'll have something to show affiliate managers and/or merchants so they know I'm serious enough to have a site to begin with.

What do you think? Does this make sense for at least a starting point?

Also, if you dont' mind me asking. And of course, you certainly don't have to give me direct details, but your site(s) that represent so many merchants, is it like a an online store? Or, are any of your affiliate sites using database scripting like PHP? The reason I ask is even though I'll be starting out with a one or two page site the idea I have ultimately for my sites I believe would require some sort of database. That way, I can envision having at least dozens or more merchants to fulfill what I'd like my sites to do.

I do have knowledge of creating basic sites in Dreamweaver. Basic meaning html only and in the end if I'm going to achieve the type of site I imagine, I'll probably have to teach myself php and mysql since I'm starting on a very tight budget. Ie, the hosting is very affordable and I'll seo my sites to the best of my ability, but I'll probably only have around £100/month for ppc advertising.

Would you mind giving an idea of how you started your first site and how it grew (php, asp?) to hold 400 merchants or are all of your sites purely html?

Any info you feel like sharing is more than I could ask for so thanks in advance!

Thank you as well for the responses!

Cheers