Another Newbie Seeking Free Advice!

[BabySleepAnswers]

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Howdy folks,

I've been reading posts on this forum for a year or so now and finally my wife and I have bitten the bullet and launched our first affiliate marketing website. The "added value" on our site is reviews of baby products and where to get them etc. My wife has also written a great eBook on how to get babies to sleep at night. Having had four we know what we're talking about!

Anyway if any of you wouldn't mind taking the time to have a look (www.babysleepanswers.co.uk) I'd appreciate any feedback. In particular if anybody out there can help me out with...

• How to drive traffic from day 1 - I've set up a small Google campaign to get the ball rolling but we can't afford to keep that going for too long
• How to get reciprocal links - that should help us with SE positioning right?
• Anything else you think we should know!!!

Any help is greatly appreciated. Cheers, Carl & Wendy

btw it's still a work in progress - we're still figuring out which networks and ads to use so please ignore any affiliate links that don't appear to work!

[Mogga]

Might be my browser but the banner graphics don't work as links.

I don't like the ads by google at the bottom of the page. They add absolutely nothing to the site and look "odd"

What about a sample page of the book to tempt people a bit more?


"Welcome to Baby Sleep Answers. This web site has one sole purpose:-"
Well it has several that I can see.

[hpops]

I actually think its a really nice site - lots of nice content - I think a forum would be great - I know with our kids we used loads of forums for advice. I agree that there is no pre-sell on the e-book, but the product review section is sound.
Get your links sorted and you should do well - reciprocals aren't really going to do the job - one way links are what you're looking for to really get some rankings

[pondlife]

Really nice site - everything seems to work for me apart from the Babies R us link doesn't seem to work.

I'm sure that you'll have tired parents everywhere nominating you for a Nobel peace prize

Good luck.

[BabySleepAnswers]

Re: the banners it was a bit of a chicken and egg thing. We seemed to have to have a web presence to sign up with the networks - so we just stuck some banners without links to get started. We'll be changing them in the next few days.

I think you're right about the Google ads. I had a feeling that adding AdSense might persuade Google to index more of the site. That doesn't appear to be the case so I'll remove them because it is unlikely to generate any real revenue.

I like the idea about the "sample page" - we'll do that.

As for the "sole purpose" - it's to make us money!!! But the theme of the site is about getting your infants to sleep -all reviews will be with that in mind. Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

Thanks!

[Bob Saver]

Got lots of potential. Well done. Have you thought about using Which? affiliate links (from TradeDoubler). There are a number of suitable Which? Reports which you could deep link to, they are offering users a free 30 day trial (easily long enough to get the info they need) and they pay £15 for each sign up.

[BabySleepAnswers]

HPOPS - interesting point about the Forums. I've seen some great affiliate sites with really active forums. But then the web is also littered with empty forums!

I'll discuss it with Wendy - at the end of the day she'll be the one moderating and growing the forum - it's not like she has a lot to do with four nippers!!!

Which leads me to the question - can anybody recommend some free forum software that runs in ASP (PHP is outside my comfort zone!!)

Thanks and keep responding this is helping!

[Brendon]

>> How to get reciprocal links - that should help us with SE positioning right?

Yes - one ways are better. Create your own content (a PDF with some useful bits and bobs in it, say), and get people pointing to that. Write articles and submit them. Participate in other on topic forums and blogs for a bit of link love. Check your competitors backlinks, and approach them too. Approach your competitors. If Google is too expensive, try Yahoo paid advertising. It's generally cheaper, and may well convert better for you, thus allowing you to actually treat it as a profit centre, not just a promotional cost

[BabySleepAnswers]

Bob Saver - cheers that's a great tip!

[10k]

I think it's a cracking site, you'll be able to get alot of free publicity for that - my sister in laws pregnant and I've already forwarded her the link. Email a few baby magazines, pregnancy magazines etc, I'm sure they'd be love to feature the site. The banners don't work (as has been mentioned) and and you could probably do with integrating the google ads a little better (as has already been mentioned) but these are easily fixable. I think you could build up a really good targetted mailing list and should focus on retaining visitors rather than firing them straight off to a 3rd party - follow up sites would be a good idee too (toddlers, infants etc) and you could send emails after one year, 2 years etc you could effectively track the babies life and email the parents at key stages - some real scope there for development.

[adrian]

Hi Carl,

Really like your site and idea. You should do well with it. Only a few things which I would change:

1) I find the homepage a bit crowded and don't know where to look when first entering the site.
2) Like your logo but think it should be more prominently dislpayed on the top instead of the babies r us banner.
3) I'ld be wary of giving your full address on the contact page.

Just my 2 pence, I'm far from an expert.

Might be a good idea to have a newsletter and as an incentive to sign up, subscribers would get a sample chapter...

These links might be useful

http://www.internetbusinessmastery.com
http://www.15kchallenge.com/blog


Best of luck with it.

Adrian

[BabySleepAnswers]

10k - that lot should keep me busy! Cheers.

Adrian - you're right the homepage is a bit busy and like others have said maybe I'm making it to easy for people to leave the site. If I can persuade them to stay a while then they might come back one day!

I wasn't sure about the home address on the contact page. On the one hand I think it shows people we're serious about the product (eBook) and have a belief in it. On the other hand there's plenty of nutters out there!

Thanks for the links I'll have a look.

[drivetowin]

Nice site - I wish my first site looked as good as that.

You might want to have a look at it in Firefox though as the top table is left aligned while the bottom table is centred so it looks a bit odd.

I would also make the text of your links at the bottom of the page a bit larger - I have only slightly less than perfect eyesight but without my glasses I found them impossible to read whereas I could read the rest of the site perfectly.

[BabySleepAnswers]

Thanks drivetowin - you're right there's no point alienating the FireFox users or the short-sighted at this point! I'll get it sorted.

[kittycat74]

Hi

I'm also really quite new to this but i have developed a 3 step process for getting my google rankings and driving traffic, and initially it seems vastly quicker than my first attempts, just wish i could come up with some fabby sites now that actually make me money. Am sure if you follow this with your site, you will be driving traffic and sales in no time. I'm still clueless as to science of ad positioning etc on the site, mine seem to make me NO money, but there you go, little steps...btw am preggers and will be SURE to bookmark your site cos i'm about to sprog and will undoubtedly need your advice -really nice site though, am impressed.

They are:

1. sign up to google Adwords AND Google Analytics (brilliant - i love the little world map with a downloadable file that shows EXACTLY where users live, it's so specific it gives the village/town/area name).

2. GO to this webpage and submit my site to EVERY SE (or at least the first 20) search engines. Just click through on the links...laborious, but easy peasy:

http://www.freewebsubmission.com/

3. Go on to just about every forum i can think of that has even a vague reference to my subject and find a post to which you can offer a nugget of GENUINE help/info/discussion point (should be NO problem for you), i then add - you may want to check out my site www.blahblahblah.com. I've never been accused of spamming cos i take the time to offer genuine comment.

I think, in a nutshell, that's pretty much the best way I have found to do it (you more experienced folk will no doubt come up with more sophisticated ideas). I googled you and you only come up twice as a direct hit to your site...you really need to get your URL onto those forums with some 'helpful postings' and in a few days you'll be showing up under these pages.

Good luck