No success with affiliate marketing....

[tbp]

Thought i`d chip in, as I run a similar sort of site and also was very quiet for the first couple of months.

One of the biggest problems I can see, which others have pointed out, is lack of a call to action. Instead of just having the picture, use a table to put the picture on the left, and then on the right you want the merchants, the price, and a big "buy now!" button. You need to make it as easy as possible for the browser to buy, don't make them hunt round for a button. You also want to make it big and bright, so they click on it on impulse and then commit to following the transaction through. I think a lot of my sales are based on people seeing stuff and liking it, rather than specifically searching out the product they bought.

Try branching out a bit into "adult costumes", french maid outfits stuff like that, nothing really slutty, but there are some nice stylish sexy ones available, and they do quite well. Racy stuff like that that maybe people wouldn't normally buy can have them clicking out of interest, and if they don't buy it then its likely they`ll find something on the merchants site they will buy.

Try a peel away ad, which is like a page curl that goes in the top right corner, and use it to display a merchants discount code or special offer. It makes people feel they have "found" something special, and it can increase sales a lot. I've used it on my own sites and it works best on my lingerie related site.

Just a couple of ideas based on my own experiences. My site was launched in october and was very quiet in the following months. It picked up at the end of january for valentines day and has been doing pretty well since.

[KirstyM]

I'm running a lingerie site based on a blog, and doing really well from it... so you are on the right lines.

I'd like to echo what everyone else has suggested. Calls to action will help lots. However, I think you should do a bit more with your SEO on all your various pages. If you download the SEO Title Tag plugin you will be able to individually optimise all of your page titles.

i.e. I suggest that The Lingerie Blog >> Blog Archive >> Dreamlegs Hosiery

Should be something like

Dreamlegs Hosiery by La Senza : Designer Hosiery UK : Dreamlegs

I think that will help your CTRs and rankings in the search results. Another thing I think might help would be if you created posts talking about lingerie that serves a purpose. Like, people quite often search for things like "swimsuit to cover up tummy" or "bust minimising bra" etc. I've found these articles can work quite well to bring in extra, niche traffic.

I hope that helps, and good luck. You are totally on the right lines.

[KieronD]

What a great post. Its fantastic to see the community here all chipping in with some really useful ideas.

One idea would be to make a list of " Lingerie Stores" in the right hand navigation for people to buy their lingerie. So place some affiliate links for Figleaves, La Senza etc. It will give your users one click access to the shops that sell the stuff that you're blogging about, so will be of real value to them.

Maybe split the "brands" category down into individual sub-brands too, so users can search by their favourite lingerie brands instead of a catch-all brands category.

Good luck!

[smartidiot]

I have the same problem with my website Affiliate Plugin. I am running this website for last 1 year and recently I added a couple of articles as well and did some re-work. I haven't made a single sale from the affiliate links/banners or even from Adsense clicks in last one year.

Anyone would suggest what's wrong here? I optimized my website for "affiliate marketing resource" keyword and my site usually appears on first search result in Google for this keyword. Even site PR is 2 but no sale, no adsense clicks :-(

[aaclapham]

call to action - I know its needed, however can you go too far?

I have always thought most blogs are supposed to be, by their nature informative so I have always used 'click here for more details' and ''click here to see more by X brand'.

So what I'm basically saying is here is a nice item, if you like it click here and you will see how you can buy it.

Putting a 'buy it here' button is changing the ethos of the blog as you are basically pinning your affiliate colours to the mast, and saying I want you to buy this!

If 'buy it now' gets more sales than 'click here for more details' then I would be stupid not to change?

What do people think?

[KanyeWest]

Im not sure if some of this has come from increased traffic from the forum, but I had the best day ever in terms of click throughs. Almost 80, beating my previous record of 25. A 4x increase and I'm sure sales will start to flow soon!

Ive also implemented some of the SEO suggestions. Cheer Kirsty in particular!

Thanks again for the comments - really appreciated and I hope to return the favour when something which Im knowledgeable about comes up.

[KirstyM]

No worries... if you are not sure where the old traffic is coming from I've another suggestion for you.

Sign up to Google Analytics. It is really easy to implement and will show you where your traffic is coming from. It will also allow you to see what people were actually searching for when they arrived on your page, leaving you better placed to make sure the content shows them exactly what they want.

Good luck