Going Head to Head with an A4U member with rival sites

[suedeapple]

Tweet

Is anyone getting any decent traffic yet? (not from this forum)

I am not but that is not surprising as I am half way down page 2 at the moment, going to have to be top 3 I think to get anything from this niche.

My traffic has been really poor, and im on page 1 (but right down the bottom).

I've got a number of backlinks, and a couple PR articles done, so hopefully that might budge me up a couple of places.

I think the site would work better with a PPC campaign. I could then have an ad nearer the top with a "voucher code" carrot to entice people to click through.

@al - When do you want to run the PPC campaign part of the comp? - I think somewhere at the later end of Dec/Early Jan would be good - New year sales e.t.c

[aero_mansoor]

Yesterday I got 8 people from search engines! It6 is EXTREMLY hard to tell the bounce rate, becuase of all the people that come through the forum. I might have to do something with filters, to see the bounce rate better.

No sale yet though... not surprized really ahve added no content on the rest of the pages... so are very very shallow but will do something hopefully soon... good news is that i am on number 6!!! :drool i hope it continues.. to climb....The sits is not complete, but i have way too much going on at home to do anything about this yet!

[nts123]

Yesterday I got 8 people from search engines! It6 is EXTREMLY hard to tell the bounce rate, becuase of all the people that come through the forum. I might have to do something with filters, to see the bounce rate better.
!

Try Piwik, it gives you bounce rate for each keyword, actions per visit, and avg. time on site.

[liveland]

I've been on page 1 hovering between positions 4-6 since launch, but only getting an average of 15 visitors per day from google, I was hoping for much more.

I'm not sure with Christmas looming if people are really looking to buy Oak Furniture at this time of year?

I'm working on back links and increasing content so hoping to move up on google within a few weeks. Just had one sale so far.

[suedeapple]

Couple of weeks into the "head to head", and my site is starting to climb up slowly in google.

Now position 4-6 for my main search term "oak dressing table", and also position 2/3 for my secondary terms "single pedestal oak dressing table" and "double pedestal oak dressing table"

Still no meaty sales at the moment - although I'm now getting a steady trickle of organic traffic on longer tailed keywords.

Als site is no where to be seen with his dining table site, however, as neither of us has made any sales theres still everything to fight for :-)

Game on!

[nts123]

i've had some strange goings on happening with google, and spent the first week on page 9! All of a sudden it's jumped to page 4, so things are starting to look up.

I've also rehashed the site, in the aim to be a bit more seo and user firendly. Have about 20 article submissions i'm waiting on as well, so here's hoping for some further improvements!

[LearnAffiliateMarketing]

Als site is no where to be seen with his dining table site

Ouch - I need more links - PM me if anyone wants link exchanges!

[Cheapdvds]

i think u have all done a grand job so far and there are some great results, amazing what can be achieved in a short period.

[aero_mansoor]

Sorted the links situation... still on number 6 i think.. but am hoping for imporvements in a short while i do get seo traffic. but never more then 10 a day. No sales, but not relaly bothered about that as have done NO page optmization etc... so site is pretty bare, at this moment in time..for the last two weeks looks something like this!

Mansoor

[gary_ap]

Hi Guys,

Great competition. In fact Affiliate Project Duo have decided to tackle 2 oak furniture niche sites from getting hooked on this thread and was wandering if its too late to join in. Obviously you guys will have had a head start

We've tried to chose sites that none of you guys have already targetted and they are:

oakdiningsets.org.uk - Gary_AP myself will be tackling this and hoping for some nice commissions!!
oakconsoletables.co.uk - Paul_AP will be taking on a nice domain name I found for him

The search volume for both of these is fairly low. Oak Dining Sets also has the .co.uk variation at number one spot with some really good backlinks, so this will be a challenge for me to get it ranking well (hopefully some nice link exchanges with you guys will help

For the Console tables site, the top ranking sites don't appear to be too difficult to beat so Paul could have a slight advantage, but his basket value is lower.

We will also be running a challenge between ourselves. The 1st person to make 50 quid in commission will get a free beer from the other participant. We will post more about this on here (if thats ok) and on our blog site - affiliate project.

Affiliate Project Duo have run a couple of these competitions in the past between just the 2 of us and at the moment we are level pegging with 1 title each, so this will be a fierce competition between us.

Competition like this is a great motivation and gives you that push to do well, plus you learn lots along the way from each other.

Goodluck everyone and hope you don't mind us joining in

Cheers
Gary & Paul from Affiliate Project

[suedeapple]

@Gary and Paul

Sounds good! - and didnt realise you were already doing something similar with the "Affiliate Project", so, nice one!

I'll glad that this thread gave you the incentive to start an oak niche site. .

Feel free to join in, and I'd love a backlink once your sites are up and running :-)

[gary_ap]

Great thanks suedeapple, we'll post here once our sites are up. Not sure they will be up to the standard of sites you guys have done.

We'll be in contact for backlink/s soon I'm sure.

Thanks again

@Gary and Paul

Sounds good! - and didnt realise you were already doing something similar with the "Affiliate Project", so, nice one!

I'll glad that this thread gave you the incentive to start an oak niche site. .

Feel free to join in, and I'd love a backlink once your sites are up and running :-)

[Smartphone]

Update: I'm on the first page for my "main term" now. Hardly any search traffic yet. I'm testing Twitter as a way of getting new pages indexed by Google, as well as networking with other furniture related websites.

Has anyone made any real sales yet? I think I went too niche and I might start again with Oak TV Stands. I'll see if I get some time to put up a website.

Two things that concern me about this niche:

- If it was me, I would probably do the research online but I wouldn't buy online unless it was an amazing deal. I would prefer to compare prices online and then go to the showroom and look at the item in person.

- Every oak furniture retailer has their phone number displayed in the header of their web page. People buying furniture are more likely to want to speak to someone than someone buying a DVD. So, I am assuming there will be alot of "leakage". I wish merchants would put up a phone number which tracks my visitors.

[darrenb]

I have just had a quick look and noticed that I made my first sale today for my site Oak Mirror | Large | Full Length | Wall Mirrors with commission of just over £7 so it's a start.

I must admit I have done very little with the site since launch as I am working on other sites at the moment but after Christmas I will aim to get it higher in the serps (currently 6th for its main term) and find a more suitable theme for the site.

I also agree about the phone numbers, can this not be removed when it is affiliate traffic like other retailers do?

[nts123]

Nicely done!
I just got my first legit visitor to my Oak Coffee Table | Oak Coffee Tables site! not the same as a sale, but i was getting worried! thought maybe my redesign had messed things up.