Another newbie enters the lounge

[JimboJetSet]

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Hello everyone!

I've been lurking here for a week now. This forum seems to be extremely useful to me and there is clearly great knowledge and experience here about affiliate marketing. Plus it's for UK affs which is a bonus. Superb site. I especially like the The Affiliate University section.

I am very new to AM and only started researching it last week. The reason I started was because I need to change from a permanent job as a Server Support Analyst (linux/windows sysadmin) to one that I can do from home, anywhere in the world.

I've had a look at various other jobs such as web design or programming (and filling in surveys) and there's no guarantee of income or even job especially as I would like to move to Thailand as soon as possible and over there foreigners (known to Thais as "farangs") dont have a chance in hell of getting a full-time job. The company I work for is an airline but they don't fly over there just within Europe. Plus I'm not already wealthy of course, UK taxes and a family are high maintenance!

There are other reason's too but I shall mention them later only if you're interested.

I have plenty of tech skills, a tech degree and 7 years experience in IT support. Even used to be a sysadmin for an ISP and I am eager to get started just as soon as I know what I'm doing with 100% confidence.

What I intend to do is start with pure affiliate marketing without PPC (just SEO). Low risk, long term gain but long term wait, right?

Steps I Need To Take:

1) Brain storm some website topics - done
2) Choose a topic for the first website
3) Research existing affiliate websites on this subject
4) If there are too many good ones go back to step 1) else
5) Design the website (with quality content not high quantity)
6) Create the website on one of my computers
7) Buy a domain and webspace and put it online
8) Sign up with affiliate networks
9) Optimize website keywords using a Thesaurus, Google, Overture & Wordtracker
10) Submit website to search engines
11) Examine and re-optimize keywords over a period of 3 months
12) Also examine webstats to improve the strong pages or customize the site towards the popular pages
13) Start on the next website after getting the first website reasonably perfect.

Have I missed out or have anything in the wrong order please?

Also, how can I create a complete website with deep linking before I sign-up with an affiliate network if I dont have a data feed?

And how do I identify an over-done topic? Over 1,000,000 hits in www.google.com?

Do you restrict your competition research to only UK websites e.g. by using www.google.co.uk and selecting "pages from the UK"?

I like mattylambs website a lot http://www.search-dvd.co.uk mentioned in thread http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread.php?p=207169. Great quality, something I would like to emulate.

I've also read this newbie guide thread http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=37620

and many other threads in this fantastic forum.

Many thanks

James

"Share the wealth"

[Fraser]

Welcome to the forums - sounds like you are already off to a great start and it's nice to see a newbie post where you've already done background reading

Also, how can I create a complete website with deep linking before I sign-up with an affiliate network if I dont have a data feed?

You could put up a quick website explaining what you are going to do first and then sign up to the networks with that.

Do you restrict your competition research to only UK websites e.g. by using www.google.co.uk and selecting "pages from the UK"?

In my opinion only the more internet savy people will search on "pages from the UK" so it's best to just target normal results.

As for what searches are too competitive - the number of results can be an indication but don't tell you everything. e.g you could be top for a search with 50 millions results but it won't earn you anything or you could try and be top for a search like "unsecured loans" which doesn't have the same number of results but will be very difficult to rank for as it's such a competitive field.

[Tom]

Goodluck in your venture, sounds like you are pretty much aware what you need to do, I guess you also need to allocate some time to actually promoting your site and all that stuff. You can have the best site in the world, but the key is making it popular and it seems to me that sometimes that's the hard part, actually getting traffic to your site. You can submit to directories, send off hundreds of emails to potential link partners or buy links from other quality sites... very time consuming though and an ongoing task I think.They call it off page optimisation

good luck though, sounds like you know what you're talking about!

[stevey]

Hi James,

Welcome to the forum. If I were you I would look at real niche areas and gaps you could possibly exploit in the markets, especially if you want to make this long term to support yourself in Thailand, etc. You have a great background there which should help you (hopefully!). All the best and hope it works out for you.

[renegade]

Welcome to the forum James, it's always nice to see another competitor especially one so well prepared - you were a boy scout I presume?

What I intend to do is start with pure affiliate marketing without PPC (just SEO). Low risk, long term gain but long term wait, right?

Yeah, SEO is great if you can manage it but it's slow burn and since the SEs are so unpredictable these days we like to mix in a bit of PPC too. Unfortunately Google and some merchants like messing with our heads to make PPC even more trickier to get right.

Steps I Need To Take:
...
5) Design the website (with quality content not high quantity)

If you can manage high quality AND high quantity that would be even better.

It's a steep learning curve and there's now a lot of experienced competition out there so it's not going to be easy but you've definitely got the basics right.

[JimboJetSet]

Thank you for your kind replies everyone. I have many other questions of course but I'll see if I can find the answers to them first to avoid asking you to repeat yourself.

Toodle-loo!

[stevenm]

Just wanted to say best of luck. The steps you are looking at taking wont see you go too far wrong.

Best wishes.

Steven

[Itchy]

Steps I Need To Take:

1) Brain storm some website topics - done
2) Choose a topic for the first website
3) Research existing affiliate websites on this subject
4) If there are too many good ones go back to step 1) else
5) Design the website (with quality content not high quantity)
6) Create the website on one of my computers
7) Buy a domain and webspace and put it online
8) Sign up with affiliate networks
9) Optimize website keywords using a Thesaurus, Google, Overture & Wordtracker
10) Submit website to search engines
11) Examine and re-optimize keywords over a period of 3 months
12) Also examine webstats to improve the strong pages or customize the site towards the popular pages
13) Start on the next website after getting the first website reasonably perfect.

Have I missed out or have anything in the wrong order please?

Also, how can I create a complete website with deep linking before I sign-up with an affiliate network if I dont have a data feed?

Lo there thought id rearange ya list
1) Brain storm some website topics - done
2) Choose a topic for the first website
7) Buy a domain and webspace and put it online
8) Sign up with affiliate networks
3) Research existing affiliate websites on this subject
4) If there are too many good ones go back to step 1) else
9) Optimize website keywords using a Thesaurus, Google, Overture & Wordtracker
10) Submit website to search engines
11) Examine and re-optimize keywords over a period of 3 months
12) Also examine webstats to improve the strong pages or customize the site towards the popular pages
13) Start on the next website after getting the first website reasonably perfect.


buy a domain 1st reason ....youve done ya home work then think thatll be a good name and its gone when it might of been avaliable now!..... dont worry about paid for web space you can get basic space for free to get you started.

on your #4 dont go back there might be some good ones but they can always be improved upon.

on your 9,10,11 Optimize good luck in that , submit to search engines erm jury out on this one some say submit others say dont submit, Examine and re-optimize its gonna take more than three months more like ongoing thing that dosent stop

dont wait to start on ya next site buy a name bang a front page on it and then go back to your 1st site then in 3 or 4 months time when youve think ya finnished the 1st site the other sites that have already been sitting on the net for 4 months should have with any luck been natually found by the search engines so when you start to add new pages these will get indexed pretty quickly.


Also, how can I create a complete website with deep linking before I sign-up with an affiliate network if I dont have a data feed? ...... erm you have to be a haxor and pretty stupid to want to do that so dont just join a network and get the feeds most merchants allow you to join without approval so then you can get your hands on the feeds.

good luck

[JimboJetSet]

dont worry about paid for web space you can get basic space for free to get you started.

If I dont buy webspace then I'll be forced to use either redirecting (to the free webspace url) or frames that reference the free webspace wont I?

The first method would look cheap and the second will prevent individual page bookmarking.

Whats the way around this?

[everydayholiday]

webspace can be very chheap ! and dont worry if you go to Thailand. all the rest will be cheap too. except maybe your home internet connection...

[JimboJetSet]

£5/month for webspace indeed!

I read that an Internet connection in Thailand, 1024/256kbit speed uncapped only costs £10/month (750 baht). Cheaper than the UK thats for sure.

[everydayholiday]

thats good. it's much more expensive in cambodia for broadband. although the house rent compansates for that. £100/month for a nice 2 bedroom flat...

[dunklk]

Best of luck Jimbo! Looks like you've already had your hands on a copy of the Affiliate Masters Course! I'm new here too, and at the same stage (brainstorming), so I'm sure we'll be chasing one anothers shadows at some point down the line.
Also, much respect for planning the move to Thailand; someone after my own heart! It's a heck of a goal to work towards.

See you round.

[km8]

If I dont buy webspace then I'll be forced to use either redirecting (to the free webspace url) or frames that reference the free webspace wont I?

The first method would look cheap and the second will prevent individual page bookmarking.

Whats the way around this?

Agreed JimboJetSet,

Forget the free webspace.

You sound like you're here to stay so shell out the £100 for 12 months of proper webhosting.

You won't regret it - except possibly your choice of webhost - but that's a different matter. £10/month will get you a reseller account to host multiple websites.

At that price, it's not worth compromising with a crap freebie, downtime, ads that you don't control and so on.

SEO rather than PPC is long term but it looks like G**gle is moving towards (or has already) narrowing the gap between them anyhow.

Good luck.

[drivetowin]

Good luck James

I have to say how refreshing it is to see a newbie posting who has actually done some homework.

If you can keep that attitude going, stay determined and ride the long game you will do well.