New site build & launch - a step by step blog.

[dgoodchild]

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A couple of weeks ago, I decided to build another basic affiliate site - partly inspired by Smingle's excellent thread.

I also felt it may be useful to see the day by day process involved. Now, I don't pretend to be the most experienced publisher in the world, but I understand the basics. Although I've built a few sites over the past 8 years, I've only built Affiliate sites in the last 10 months.
I have a proper day job too which is related admittedly, but this means I can only spend time on this in the evenings. This blog is not intended as a guide on the best way to do it (and some may argue it's not even a good way to do it) - it's just how I've approached this one site. Whether it makes money remains to be seen. If it doesn't, then it will be great example of what not to do.

My SEO skills are poor I know, so while I'd love it to climb the rankings at some stage, PPC is my starting point. I'm open to suggestions on improvement (which I will attempt to implement, time permitting). My previous experience is also on low volume but much higher value products, so I'm a bit in the dark about how this will go, particularly is I'm not relying solely on free traffic.

I know it's a slightly off-beat subject, but I thought it might be worth a try. It's possibly worth mentioning that the site went online last night, and made it's first sale this morning !

The Ice Bucket experiment <-----blog here

The site is www.icebuckets.org.uk

There's a bit of background info at the beginning and obviously if you want to read it in chronological order, you'll need to start at the bottom.

I do plan to continue this as much as possible, with info on profit (and hopefully no loss). I'll put new posts here too if that's ok.

[sandy3]

This looks very interesting, nice to see so many affiliates getting involved following Smingle's great thread.

Good luck with your blog!
Sandy

[Seamaster]

Just read the blog. Nice idea.

Its interesting to read about people starting off with PPC. I am tempted to give it a bash for one of my sites but I'm not confident the users will convert and I will have wasted my cash.

I've just started up a PPC campagin after reading this.

How do I change my bid once I've started it and see what position that new bid will give me?

[mikey_gee]

Ditto to Seamaster. This is an alternative to smingles niche / SEO advice thread. Ill be interested to see how a niche site performs in the PPC arena and whether you make a profit. Good luck ill be following the blog.

[max99]

Just read the blog. Nice idea.

Its interesting to read about people starting off with PPC. I am tempted to give it a bash for one of my sites but I'm not confident the users will convert and I will have wasted my cash.

I've just started up a PPC campagin after reading this.

How do I change my bid once I've started it and see what position that new bid will give me?

Start small ££ what you can afford to loose, you can go to the campaign and click edit bids to change the bid. Estimatedposition is there somewhere cant think of top of my head though,

If need any help with it drop me a pm or msn

[Seamaster]

click edit bids to change the bid. Estimatedposition is there somewhere cant think of top of my head though,

Yeah it lets me edit the bids but doesnt give an estimation.

Can't seem to get back to the estimator.

[dgoodchild]

Yeah it lets me edit the bids but doesnt give an estimation.

Can't seem to get back to the estimator.

Once a campaign has started, on the Keywords tab you can see the average position for any keywords which have been displayed.
Or are you thinking of the Traffic Estimator ? That's in the 'Tools' menu at the top of the page.

[Seamaster]

What kind of CTR should one expect? My ad is at position 5 or 6 and has had 5 clicks from 1,135 impressions which gives it a CTR of 0.44%

Is that a reasonable rate? I expected it would be higher...

Do the impressions mean 1,135 people have searched on those keywords since I started running the campaign?

Once a campaign has started, on the Keywords tab you can see the average position for any keywords which have been displayed.
Or are you thinking of the Traffic Estimator ? That's in the 'Tools' menu at the top of the page.

Don't think I want the Traffic Estimator, just want to know what price a position costs.

Like when you create the campaign you can see that 10p will get you position 4-6 etc.

[dgoodchild]

What kind of CTR should one expect? My ad is at position 5 or 6 and has had 5 clicks from 1,135 impressions which gives it a CTR of 0.44%

Is that a reasonable rate? I expected it would be higher...

Do the impressions mean 1,135 people have searched on those keywords since I started running the campaign?



Don't think I want the Traffic Estimator, just want to know what price a position costs.

Like when you create the campaign you can see that 10p will get you position 4-6 etc.

Ah, you're probably after the Keyword Tool. I don't always find it very accurate when it comes to predicting cpc but it's a useful tool.

[Seamaster]

Ah, you're probably after the Keyword Tool. I don't always find it very accurate when it comes to predicting cpc but it's a useful tool.

No, the keyword tool tells you how many people search for a keyword each month.

I want to know what price a position costs.

Like when you create the campaign you can see that 10p will get you position 4-6 etc.

Or am I missing something?

[dgoodchild]

If you select which columns to display, it will also show estimated position and cost too.

There maybe something else out there which does this more accurately though. It's not something I know of though - sorry

[1amrob]

@Seamaster, it is probably a good idea to remove your ads from the "content network". This will lower impressions, improve CTR and in the long term help improve quality score so you can then gain good positions from lower bids.

Go into campaign settings and turn off the "content network" option.

@dgoodchild, nice thread, inspired me to find a superd niche ;-).

[Seamaster]

@Seamaster, it is probably a good idea to remove your ads from the "content network". This will lower impressions, improve CTR and in the long term help improve quality score so you can then gain good positions from lower bids.

Yeah I did that already as instructed in this thread/on the blog.

Cheers.

[Seamaster]

If you select which columns to display, it will also show estimated position and cost too.

Ah you legend, nice one, had that hidden.

[1amrob]

Yeah I did that already as instructed in this thread/on the blog.

Maybe try some long-tail, phrase and exact match keywords for more targeted traffic? You can use negative keywords to filter down unwanted searches too.