Affiliate Musketeer

I’m a little later than usual with this one for May but I know there’s a few people out there dying to see how it went because I’ve had a couple of emails asking me! Well, here’s to hoping this is enough of a snapshot of how good May was for me. Without further ado, it was my best month yet in Affiliate Marketing.

For those following my Bar Stools website, there’s little to report as it flounders about in limbo. I am still very optimistic about this site and am determined to get it earning regularly. As it stands now though, it’s pretty much a dead duck. Remember I started this site in February so it’s been online for 4 and a half months so far and many wiser men (and women) than I have told me that things start to pick up around the 6 month mark. Until I reach that point, I won’t get too worried and just put the site’s poor performance down to it’s age.

On the plus side, my PPC-powered site is really starting to come into it’s own and like I suspected it would, sales are picking up with the run into Summer. I am still looking at a September peak for this site but to be honest, May surpassed my expectations and I’m quite happy with that! So here’s how it looks for May:

Income:

• Affiliate Window: £0
• Amazon Associates: £0.28
• Commission Junction: £665.56
• eBay Partner Network: £70.21
• Google AdSense: £4.01
• USFreeAds: £15.00
• Total Income: £755.06

Expenditure:

• Google AdWords: £238.80
• Web Hosing: £100.00
• Angela’s Backlink Packet: £3.50
• Total Expenditure: £342.30

Gross Profit: £412.76

I’m not making even half enough to give up the old day job yet but this is still my best month yet and retains the consistent growth shown in previous months. I do belive I’m starting to peak out with my PPC site so now really need to drive some extra revenue from my bar stools site or come up with some way to squeaze more profit out of the PPC campaign. Some ideas I have are to start trying to build a mailing list from my PPC site whilst also looking for other, related merchants, in slightly different verticals to try and maximise the revenue potential from every visitor.

The bar stools site I will just sit on whilst continuing to build more links and write new fresh content and just hope (as I have been doing for the last few months), that google will finally give up the hold it has on the site and set it free!

Aside from these ideas, it is becoming very clear to me now that it’s time to start work on my next site. I mentioned it in last month’s round-up but due to my wedding and honeymoon, I was unable to get things moving last month. Now that I’m back to normality (if you take out the World Cup), it really is time to start working on a new site. I’m going to go for the travel sector – hotels. Actually, hotels in one city only as I believe that may be a niche small enough to manage yet will still have good revenue prospects.

I realise it will be more competitive than anything I have done before but I am confident that my PPC knowledge will serve me well in this new industry and if I can spin my new site in a way that gives it a unique twist, I think there’s strong potential here.

All in all, it was a great month and what’s even better is that for 3 weeks of it I did no work and wasn’t even in the country! If this isn’t enough to show you the light then I don’t think you’re in the right game…

If anyone has any ideas about a travel site, things I should/shouldn’t do etc. I’d love to hear them – especially if you’re going to save me money or time

As always with this affiliate stuff though, the motto is to not overthink things and just dive in. If at first it doesn’t succeed, try and try again…

.