A Quick Recap
Before I go on to November and December (which is where the real kerching happens!), I thought it would be good to do a quick resume on the work undertaken (with timings) and growth in the first 5 months.
Work
Set up the site for the new format (8 hours)
Created detailed product reviews on each product (6 hours per product = 66 hours)
Created price comparison tables for each product (1 hour per product + 2 hours per week updating = 51 hours)
Published a total of 26 blog posts (2 hours per blog post = 52 hours)
Built around 30 initial links (directories etc) (16 hours)
Published 11 guest posts (with links) (3 hours per post = 33 hours)
Fiddling about with the design of the site (8 hours)
Attracted editorial links (through high quality content) (n/a)
Got the link on Wikipedia page for the product (1 minute!)
Total time spent: 234 hours and 1 minute.
I told you it wasn’t a copy and paste method!
If we split that into normal working weeks (i.e. 40 hours) we are talking 5.85 weeks worth of work, so let’s say I spent a total of 6 weeks working on the site over a 5 month period.
Traffic
So, I started off in June with a total of 763 unique visitors per month and by October I had 7,156 uniques, a growth of 837%… not bad!
Total unique visits over the 5 months: 10,257
Commissions
Of course, I wasn’t doing this for the good of my health, and while it’s nice to see traffic growing the thing I was really concerned about was growth in commission.
Well, the site had gone from earning £72.71 in June £824.29 in October, an increase of 1033%. Certainly, a reason to be cheerful!
Total commission over the 5 months: £1980.32
So if we divide our total commission of £1,980.32 by the hours spent (234) this works out at a rate of £8.46 per hour… so far!
So… to November!
Month 6 (November 2012)
As I said right back at the start of this article, a lot of the work involved is front-ended and by this point, with the site picking up editorial links and the traffic continues to grow I didn’t need to spend a huge amount of time working directly on the site.
Over the month I published 1 new blog post and 2 guest posts. I did have to do quite a lot of updating on pricing as the merchants I was promoting battled to undercut each other (good news for me!) over the Christmas period, but overall I would say I spent maybe 30 hours on the site over the month.
And the traffic…
Well, I stayed above 400 visitors…
And then on the 18th, I broke 500 visitors…
And on the 26th I smashed through the 600 visitor barrier (619 to be exact)!
And the commissions…
Well, they were rolling in nicely, at an average of about £40 per day.
Here are the stats for November.
Month 7 (December 2012)
Ok, now for the literal money shot!
They say that pictures tell 1,000 words, so instead of waffling on, here are the screenshots of the December earnings from each of the affiliate networks I was using to promote merchants on the site.
So, in a 6 month period, the site had grown from $0 revenue and very little traffic to $3,934 and just under 12,000 unique visitors.
If we total up the commission for the entire 7 months it comes to £5,703.38 ($9,103).
Not bad for a site which is technically built around 1 product!
Let’s Recap How I Got There
So, a final recap of what was done to grow this site and how you can do the same!
Find a good selling product at an attractive price point, which is not oversaturated. Use Amazon best sellers to find popular products.
The site is monetized through affiliate marketing with a detailed review and price comparison model on the ‘money’ pages.
The focus of the site is high-quality content with the most detailed reviews available, tutorials, how to guides etc.
Do not copy and paste!!!
Ok, to build a few ‘nuts and bolts’ links to get you off the ground, but don’t go crazy!
Build some better quality links through guest posting
Promote your best content through outreach/social media. Note that it will be easier to attract links to content which is not overly commercial. That’s where the tutorials/how-tos are great
Work hard!
While I would certainly consider myself to be an SEO expert, I did not employ any shady tricks to get my site up the rankings. I focused on offering true value and high-quality content – the kind that Google loves.
No need to go mad on links, just get some good quality ones to support your quality content and your site will rise up the rankings.
Remember I did this all post Panda/Penguin and in fact, I never really worry about Google updates as I know I play by the rules and whilst it can sometimes take a little longer, once you get your rankings you will keep them!
Here is one nice final screenshot showing the traffic growth over the period.
Over To You!
So, that’s the story of how I built a site up from $0 to $3,934 in just 6 months. But enough about me… now it’s your turn!
There’s nothing to stop you creating your own successful affiliate site as long as you are prepared to put the work in. There’s no magic, drag and drop formula, so if you get an email offering you one put it straight in the recycle bin where it belong.
If you have any questions or comments then please leave them below, I’d love to hear from you.
If you would like help or advice on succeeding with affiliate marketing then feel free to drop me an email and be sure to subscribe to the blog by email for loads more helpful tips on SEO and affiliate marketing.
So, work hard and I look forward to hearing your own success story!
Update 19/06/2014
My affiliate site in this study continues to rank well, with traffic and sales growth year on year. I used a solid, white hat strategy, based on creating high-quality content and real value, which means that I never have to worry about Google updates knocking me down. Panda 4.0 actually, brought me increased traffic as did last year’s Hummingbird update.
And finally, for white hat link building methods which you can use on your own affiliate site read my broken link building guide and also check out my new guide to creating Panda and Penguin proof affiliate sites.
