If You HAD to Start Over - What would you do Different???

[masm50]

I think I would have bought a domain and joined some advertising programs/networks earlier.

I had a site on my ISPs free hosting for 3 or 4 years, with my site as a subdomain.
It was short and I was only young (about 13 when I started). This was the only reason I was rejected from various ad networks as my traffic was pretty good (and I have spoken with the people who rejected my site since).

I could have made a packet in the dot com boom, but missed out by being too late and omains are cheap, as is professional hosting.

You live and learn...

Tim

 

[craigallyn]

This is a great topic, and I knew right away what my answer would be.

We sell women's skirts via our website. Early on, we went down the wrong road by hiring a publicist and having a $10K fashion show to create "buzz" and generate media interest, with the goal of branching out beyond skirts. This was a mistake because this somewhat traditional method (going after magazine and new articles) did not match what we were at the root -- a website. Don't get me wrong: press is always a great thing. But we spent a lot of money chasing it, and it gave us mediocre results. This strategy may have been great for a chain of brick-and-mortar stores or a clothing label seeking placement in department stores, but it did not leverage the Internet in any way. It did not give us what we wanted: traffic. In hindsight, I see that a purely Internet-based marketing strategy would have been best for a purely Internet-based business. It sounds so obvious now, but at the time we were not sure of who we were as a company, and we were caught up by the persuasive urgings of our publicist, who was pushing traditional strategies because that is all she knew. She knew nothing of affiliate programs, PPC advertising, and other Internet marketing opportunities - nor was she supposed to. We were supposed to know about that!

Lesson learned: Know who you are from the beginning and make plans that leverage this identity. Don't embark on a plan that "sort of" fits you.

The second lesson learned has to do with narrow product lines. At first we thought we would start with skirts and expand into other apparel, and even beauty products. Only after beginning our SEO and PPC activities did I realize that a narrow focus can be great! Theoretically, every female English-speaking on-line shopper in the world could be our customer. With a potential customer base this large, there is no need to expand product lines for the sake of getting an even larger base. It is far easier to maintain effective SEO and PPC campaigns when you are focused on a certain product as opposed to a few offerings of many products. As a result, our site is truly about a limited set of keywords and our content is deep on these topics. This is ideal for SEO. [Caveat: we are unusual in that we make each product after it is ordered. So we do not face the dilemma of pre-ordering from a distributor and hoping things sell. Product variety definitely dilutes risk in that case.]

Lesson learned: When the world is your marketplace, you don't necessarily have to offer a smorgasbord of products as though you were a traditional retailer.

 

[purplebear]

Awwhhh now since I'm on the fourth page I can't go back to read all the previous emails. I got your email Linda so came here to post but think or will attempt lol at least to make it quick cos I'm way behind on things. Ooops the page stopped loading and now I can read them all
I've already commented on this before the contest started but love reading all these comments.
But.....if you don't know....how can you do all these things. Obviously for me the first thing I would have done at this point is have a genie or somebody grant me some wishes so I could make friends with all of you affiliate smarties I knew absolutely nothing about anything computer related and knew nobody when I first got online so obviously I didn't have a clue where to go to learn anything. lol My ideal wish would have been I guess to have enough money to hire somebody to be a mentor but then without knowing anything I wouldn't know if I was just being ripped off or not. Didn't have the money anyway. I'm still quite confused as to who some of the so called "bad guys" are in the affiliate world or affiliate managing area are since everybody seems to have different opinions from listening to things at forums. I'm very clear in my mind at least who my little group of "good guys" are based just on how I've been treated by them. Without this little group I don't know who I'd have turned to for any questions.
First thing the I'd have asked the nice little genie guy would be to tell me who all these people are online that know what they're doing so I could try to learn from them. Soooooo much time went by before I knew any of these people. I've said before so might as well say again. My first lucky break came when I somehow stumbled onto a very nice aff. mgr. who took the time to answer my questions and that helped enormously along the way with his suggestions where to try to learn more.

So....
Billy Kay - I don't expect you to give away any secrets or anything but in regards to "Do my homework and research and compare similar merchants so as to avoid the "dogs"

I know this is a stupid question, but ummmm how do you go about doing that? I know from being at forums seems like the ideal thing is to stay away from any of the major networks...lol but don't know how that's possible unless you're only focusing on one type of product. I think I've made several bad decisions with being involved with some sites but not sure if that's from my not knowing any better or it's a problem with the sites themselves. I don't have a clue as to where to go to research or what it is I'm supposed to be looking for to compare them.

As usual, I've made this waaaay too long. Linda...it's your fault you sent me the email and I can never turn down nice emails sent to me Although...I know was probably just regular ole generic email sent to everybody. been through that explanation before. lol All anybody has to do is ask...and oh well just the way I am...so don't be making fun of me...don't want to hurt anybody's feelings just in case by them thinking I ignored them.

 

[MattMcWilliams]

Linda,

This is a GREAT topic. I decided to post BEFORE I read others but look forward to reading everyone else's.

These are two things that I DID change my second time around based on bad experiences in the past. I actually wrote these down a week before I started as affiliate director at HometownQuotes and made it a goal to accomplish both within 30 days. Here they are...

1. I made sure that I did not try to do it all alone and would hire an assistant from day one. I am best at helping affiliates get better and helping with design, marketing, and the like, but I struggle with things like budgets and billing. Now that I leave that to my assistant and others in the company who are best suited for those things, I am doing what I do best and our affiliates are happier and more productive because of it!

2. I became more knowledgeable about the technical side of our system, such as XML, cobranding (our forte), and the inner workings of our system. Because of this, I am now able to ask our tech team "why don't we do this?" and know that it is possible and how to make it happen. Some of our best ideas are as a result of this!

 

[asorensen]

Passion and Patience

I haven't been doing this long, but have already learned a lot. I would definitely stick with your gut instinct on promoting. When I began promoting, I promoted everything in a gung-ho way and just jumped right in. But I didn't "feel" what I was promoting. I was a mom of 3 children, and I was targeting men in bodybuilding. What was I thinking. That did nothing for me, and my accounts were $0. Gee, I wonder why. Now, I'm taking my time, making sure all of my promotions are what I'm passionate about, and, of course, know something about. Also, the big key is PATIENCE. No matter what the ad says, you will not make $1000 in your first week. You're lucky to make $1 your first week, but that will show yourself your dedication and you will stick to it just to prove that you could do it. So, PASSION and PATIENCE have got to be your agenda.

 

[Linda Buquet]

WOW! Glad I finally sent out the forum email. NOW this thread is getting the kind of interaction and responses I had hoped for!

Everyone makes such good points and has great storied to tell.

Hey asorensen, that was your 1st post. A good one too!
Welcome to 5 Star and I love this like you wrote:
"So, PASSION and PATIENCE have got to be your agenda."

 

[Pyewacket75]

Oh, the possibilities!

I think I'd start my OWN affiliate website instead of signing up with another company to get it. That way I'd have control over how and when I want to add/delete things instead of getting someone else to do them for me and having to wait longer than I have to. With my own site I can have things done quickly and on MY terms.

 

[Billy Kay]

Billy Kay - I don't expect you to give away any secrets or anything but in regards to "Do my homework and research and compare similar merchants so as to avoid the "dogs"

some quick and easy things to do:

1. Send an email to the AM before applying... with a question - any question. Such as "How often do you update your coupons?"

See how long it takes to get a response - or even IF you get a response.

2. If the AM's email address is MERCHANTNAME-at-linkshare or valueclick (etc), rather then john-at-MERCHANTNAME, then you can assume the merchant cares so little about it's affiliates that they hire network wanks to deal with all the issues, so don't expect much from that merchant

3. Of course, if the AM's email ends in 5staraff, partnerc, amswo, etc... these merchants are paying someone to run their programs because they care about the success of their program

4. Do a test sale - or search the boards for someone who did a test sale - to see if sales even track

5. Go to the merchant site and follow the order process all the way thru - until the final "the next click will bill your credit card" link - to see what suprises the merchant throw out. For example, if you enter the wrong coupon code at a merchant, the screen says "Please call us and place this order by phone". You wouldn't see this if all you do is check links to see they work.

there's more, but those are basics I do before joining a program

 

[Ferret Lord]

I would do 2 things differently.

First, Research, research and then some more research into webdesign and advertising.

Second, don't pay someone else to do my marketing for me. Learn how they do it and do it myself. I would have to get help with graphics and layout, but the rest is up to me. I lost thousands over the years on empty promises from marketing companies. Then, realized that I could do everything they were doing and do it better in some cases.

 

[Billy Kay]

Don't forget to mix it up!

If you have a website devoted to car parts, and it's been making a killing for years, also make one for totally unrelated stuff like Easter Bonnets You never know if your breadwinner product will dry up.

If you get good google rankings with your car parts site, optimize other sites for other search engines. If google suddenly drops you for car parts, you're still #1 for easter bonnets at Yahoo.

And you won't be stung as hard.

 

[djaco99]

If I Knew Then What I Know Now....

I've only been at this affiliate marketing business for 1 year now, so still consider myself a "newbie". During the past year, I have learned soooo much and have made some big mistakes that actually killed the first website that I worked so hard to develop (and it was beginning to bring in some nice money too). So, If I knew then what I know now... here's what I would have done differently:

Get High Quality Hosting
In an effort to do things as cheaply as possible, I got dirt cheap hosting ($36 a year). My site was down about 20% of the time, and it usually took tech support 2-3 days to respond to my issues. The hosting company went out of business suddenly a couple of months ago and took my site with it. I could not move my site to another host because they had my domain name locked up (see next item). I now use Hostgator, (as recommended by someone on this forum) which allows for unlimited add-on domains, has never gone down, and has outstanding support.

Purchase a Domain Name
I got a free domain name for my first site, as part of the deal with the crummy cheap hosting provider. When they went out of business, my domain name could not be unlocked since it was registered to them, not me. As a result, I lost my site completely. I now purchase my domain names to ensure they are registered to, and controlled by me!

Use a Blog as a Partner to Your Website
My first site took 3 months to get picked up by Google (and also to generate a sale). I started a blog to help promote the site and within a few weeks traffic picked up considerably. For my next site I started the blog first, and posted regularly for 2 weeks while I was working on my site. I uploaded my website, linked to it with the blog, and found it in Google, Yahoo, and MSN within a couple of weeks! I pretty much had "instant traffic" to the new site.

Write Lots of Articles
I have learned that there is a direct and immediate correlation between the number of articles (and frequency of submitting) that you write and the amount of traffic you get on your sites. I have also learned that the more articles you write, the better you get at writing and people start seeing you as an authority on your topic. This results in a lot of great backlinks when others start including their articles on their sites. It also generates even more traffic, because people email your article to others (who hopefully pass it on to even more people).

Develop a Mailing List
This is perhaps the most important lesson I have learned, and I wish I had realized the benefit of a mailing list sooner. I just started using a mailing list/monthly newsletter 45 days ago, and am already seeing sales that are generated from the links in my newsletter. I think this is terrific since my subscriber base is still very small (I average only 3-8 new subscribers each week so far). I use AWeber autoresponder, (recommended by someone on this site I think) which is easy, quick, and has terrific tech support.

Utilize Deep Links Whenever Possible
In the beginning, I always used the link to my index page within articles, forum posts, paid ads, etc... I started using links to inner pages (with appropriate keywords) recently and saw my traffic jump. My logs show visitors entering all over the place now, onto pages that are more targeted toward the exact thing they are looking for.

I've learned lots more lessons, and am learning more every day. I wish I would have found this forum earlier on, because the advice I've been given has really helped me out. Reading what seasoned professionals have to say is not only motivating, but really helps me make better decisions and plan my goals. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to reflect on this topic - aside from learning from other's experiences, it also makes you realize just how far you've come

 

[MattMcWilliams]

djaco99, ALL great points!

The oldsaying you gotta spend money to make money. But in the case of hosting, you gotta spend very little more to make a LOT more.

 

[JustinHarrison]

The top 20 odd things I would do differently, if I had to start over again.

1. Buy into fewer “How To courses” – rather than relying on impulse and being lured in by overstated sales copies I would spend less time reading and more time doing.

2. Never outsource the development of my site.

3. Start a double opt in list from the get go.

4. Name squeeze on every product page.

5. OWN my list by running my own server, third parties can cost you your business.

6. Backup my lists and sites religiously.

7. NEVER send unsolicited email – no matter how alluring.

8. Buy a domain with my main keyword or key phrase in the name.

9. Start an affiliate program only once my products are producing good sales conversions.

10. Spend 80% of my time on marketing rather than on other trivial tasks.

11. Install return on investment tracking on all PPC advertising

12. TRACK EVERYTHING – from button clicks to email open rates.

13. Network more.

14. Treat my online business like a real offline business.

15. Answer every email in person – no canned responses.

16. Realise that automation is no substitute for one on one relationship building.

17. Target market from the start – shotgun marketing DOES NOT WORK.

18. Plan and strategize more before taking action on an idea.

19. I would not buy into every fad to hit the Internet Marketing scene, but rather adopt a policy of caution, waiting and testing before chasing the latest and newest invention.

20. Realise that Internet marketing is not about seeking income opportunities, but building real sustainable businesses.

21. Realise that internet marketing is not rocket science; just like in the real world ….logic will always prevail.

22. SIMPLE IS BETTER… I would remove all the complications from my systems.

23. Conduct more user testing and spend more time making my websites and products “stupid proof”.

24. Communicate in simpler terms dropping fewer acronyms and less technical terms.

25. Never consider myself an expert, time has proven that when you think you know… you don’t.

26. Less hype…more fact

27. When in doubt , follow logic.

…. And about 101 other things, but that’s the conundrum posed by hindsight.

There is an old saying in business... “If you make a mistake once it’s a mistake, make it twice and you are an idiot, three time and you have no excuse for not learning the lesson".

Justin Harrison

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<img src="http://www.5staraffiliateprograms.com/images/halloffame.jpg" align="left" hspace="10" />

Your words of wisdom will be added to the 5 Star Hall of Fame.

"1. Buy into fewer “How To courses” – rather than relying on impulse and being lured in by overstated sales copies I would spend less time reading and more time doing.

2. Never outsource the development of my site.

3. Start a double opt in list from the get go."

.
.
.

 

[scoop33]

Plan

Hi everyone,
Knowing what I know today I would first learn, and learn only useful information. I woul also learn from other peoples mistakes so I do not make them myself ?.If your intention is to earn money faaaast! you may miss a great opportunity to learn things and most importantly learn them right. Find someone that knows what is talking about, for the particular area you are interested, and ask for help. There are some GOOD knowledgeable people out there (not too many people want you to know what they know) find out who these people are and ask for help, even if you have to spend some money to do so. .When you are ready get your feet wet.

If you fail to plan you plan to fail
Regards
Scoop33

 

[purplebear]

some quick and easy things to do:

I took out all of it but left the little part in so you'd know I'm responding to what you said.

I don't know exactly the percentages but a good amount of sites I never receive any correspondence from aff. mgrs. Some may start out but when they realize I'm not a "biggie" coincidence or not? Don't hear much from them. Are you saying that if an aff. mgr. doesn't corrrespond with me regularly I shouldn't remain in those programs?? Umm as you can tell from my posts and would definitely be able to ask any of the guys from AMWSO lol my email correspondence with aff. mgrs. is ummm not "brief" to put it mildly...so not sure the possibility some aff. mgrs. just may not correspond with me cos they want to be spared my long emails. lol

I like all of your criteria you listed My site is I guess what's considered an online mall. In an ideal world after what I've learned to this point it would probably just consist with SAS merchants and merchants associated with the AMWSO guys but then I doubt if there'd be enough for it to be a mall. lol I could probably qualify as the AMWSO mascot lol and am constantly letting them know how much I appreciate all of their help and probably given all of them very big heads by now. lol I wish all aff. mgrs. were like them. I have to investigate the 5staraff, partnercentric more. I know Chris is connected with pc and had I have been with several of their sites....I never heard of 5staraff though til I saw it listed at AMWSO. I know there are the 2 Linda's so will definitely have to sort this out. lol
*Yooo hoooo Linda B. - I take it from what BillyK has said other than this forum you have a bunch of merchants too?? Hmmm I really do have a brain just seem to forget it at times. lol I didn't know you were a network or whatever it is that's the term to describe you.

Back to Billy K So...are you saying that the things you listed should be things for me to find out and if they're negative I shouldn't associate myself with them or I should but just hope for the best. I'm afraid most of the sites probably would have a negative rating for meeting the criteria you suggested.
As I said..my site's like an online mall so definitely is mixed up. Majority of sales are probably from the clothing sites but then they're all over the place. My sales come from the sites I would have thought would be the last ones I'd ever have sales from. Don't have a clue why they are the ones, either. lol


I'm really loving reading all of your thoughts Thanks to all of you who take the time to answer my questions

 

[Raspie]

Invest more, but not a lot.

When I first started in the internet for E-bizz I was, like a lot of people I guess, drawn by the idea that internet could make anything possible and for free... So I started with free web-hosting, free advertising, free traffic, free , free, free... Did it get me anything? Yes ! Of course ! A lot of work and some results... The moment I had made a little money I considered to reinvest a little and at that moment it grew so fast that I looked back and realised this : If I had invested this to start-up I would have been a lot further by now...

So I can agree with a previous post about not only focussing on free traffic, but it goes a lot further than that... Free software, free hosting, you can find almost anything for free on the internet. But the internet is not different from the real-life business world : you need to invest to really become succesfull.

That is my modest opinion: I would invest faster. Not a lot however. But a minimum. In my case that was 200$...

 

[StephenR]

Don't forget to mix it up!

If you have a website devoted to car parts, and it's been making a killing for years, also make one for totally unrelated stuff like Easter Bonnets You never know if your breadwinner product will dry up.

If you get good google rankings with your car parts site, optimize other sites for other search engines. If google suddenly drops you for car parts, you're still #1 for easter bonnets at Yahoo.

And you won't be stung as hard.

Spot On. Multiple revenue streams is crucial. I'm enjoying reading through all of these responses. Keep posting.

 

[cumbrowski]

It has been a while since I did my last post here. Sorry Linda, but I was, correction, are still slammed with work that it is not funny anymore.

I keep my post short (promises).

The question is not really what I would do different if I could go back in time and start over. It is more of a question of: What would I NOT do again, if I could go back in time.

I don't know if anybody here was turning everything into traffic and commission "gold" that he or she "touched". I can only speak for myself and say, nope. Most stuff did not turn into anything no matter how hard I tried, other stuff turned to ugly rust, some to silver and only a fraction into gold.

Now if I would create a pie chart, sum up the time spent on to each of the 4 results: turned to rust, to nothing, silver and gold and look at it, the Gold slice will be a very small piece compared to the other 3.

Since the speculation is what I would do different if I could go back in time with my knowledge today, I would NOT do any of the stuff that turned to rust, nothing or silver unless it is a requirement to turn something to gold and just concentrate on the gold "nuggets", no learning curve and no waste of time on pointless stuff that results in nothing but an experience (which is gold today )

For the newbies, every failure is another experience that nobody can take away from you. Nobody who is successful today had never a failure before. People are where they are today because of their failures and mistakes. The is no easy street to success! Period! Anybody who tries to sell you something , claiming that it is easy and a sure thing for success is full of crap and somebody you should avoid.

This is my contribution to this topic.

 

[otto24]

Nothing

I can't say I'd do anything different, since I am still in the begining stages. Since 1997 I found the internet extremely useful in that I could view nasa pictures, go to a company's web site and find information about repairing a product they sell or just finding a 1 800 number that would be helpful (for free). Back then you could browse for hours and never be asked for a credit card number. I thought content was most important and I realized I could chase the key word wild goose for days but I would've had to make a special web page for each search engine submittion. Also I thought that if I had enough traffic I would have advertisers pay me for the "honor" of advertising on my site but now thanks to browser and page redirection malware I don't want anything to do with that. I guess my biggest problem is a lack of greed. I saw the dot com debacle come and go and I've been studying the trends for a decade now and I feel no remorse for not having done more at this point. I will get off the ground and it will be on my terms. I am in the process of applying for a government grant to help pay for the publishing of archival photos because I don't feel it is right to charge people for educational historical heritage information. I am not a leftist non-profit weirdo I just am one of those people who has no business sense or in other words I do the work, create things etc. I would like to have money, unfortunately I am a good worker and can produce results but I live in the U.S.A. which means I make other people rich...All I want is to be exploited well

 

[cumbrowski]

Hey Carsten,
Glad to see you posting and sorry to hear you are slammed. Hope it's GOOD busy!

Mixed. As always But let me put it this way. The majority of things were my own choice.

One more comment.

If I could go back in time, I would create a Search Engine Friendly Site in the first place (especially back then) and not waste almost a year figuring that out. Back then were resources about that not as plenty and readily available as they are today.

I would also have finished and perfected the personalization part which included storing of personal bookmarks online to be able to access them wherever you are with the ability to share selected bookmarks with friends. That was back in early 2001!!!!

Created (not just thought about) a toolbar for it right after I saw the Google Toolbar beta for the first time.
- Google Bookmarks accessible via Toolbar: launched 2006
- Our Toolbar with the same features: missed opportunity 2002

I would have extended the Rating feature and allowed comment.

Back then did we not have much traffic so I shifted my focus away from that. I could now scream that I was not following my instinct.

Tip for others: Learn to trust your instincts. If it does feel right, chances are that it is right.

How about that?