Building a Niche Store and setting my goals.

I told you I was going to need to write out some goals to get this niche store / niche blog going. Here is a quick list of my goals and steps to take to get the site up and running. I’m not going to break them down or explain them much - but here they are.

1. Figure out what software options are available and decide which to use

   - WordPress? - BANS? - StoreStacker? - phpBay?

2. Start writing articles, or posts, to have content ready to publish.

   - have 10 posts ready to go by launch

3. Work on quick theme for the site

   - I want it to be unique but I don’t plan on spending too much time on it

   - I have experience in web design and creating WordPress themes so I can do this myself

4. Setup affiliate network accounts

   - I have an eBay affiliate account

   - Might just start with ebay don’t want to create too much competition on the site by using multiple affiliate programs

5. Setup niche store software

   - Whether its BANS, StoreStacker, or phpBay there will be some intial setup involved

6. Publish site

   - Might do this earlier with a few articles posted to get it indexed in the search engines quicker

7. Advertise the site - gotta have traffic

   - I don’t plan on spending too much money starting out.

   - Post in forums (free)

   - Post comments (free)

   - Directory submissions (free/cost)

   I could do it myself or pay someone to submit the site

   - Submitting articles to article sites (maybe - that’s more writing) (free)

   - CPC (cost per click) campaign - adwords, msn adcenter, yahoo ad network (cost)

   I have some free adwords and msn adcenter coupons

8. Hopefully repeat with another domain and niche site / niche store

Just a quick look into what I have in mind for the setup of my niche site or store - I keep going back and forth with that. I’m sure other things will creep up that I’ve forgotten. If anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment.

Popularity: 84% [?]

I am completely new to affiliate marketing - in that I have never done more than put an affiliates banner on a site. I’ve done a descent amount of reading on affiliate marketing and I have been researching the creation of niche stores.

Getting Motivated
So, I am finally getting motivated. It might be a little late to get in on the initial holiday shopping season, but after the new year people will be looking to buy again. Whether it be to help them with their new years resolution or to purchase a game or two to play on the new video game console they got for christmas. It’s time to stop reading and start doing.

Follow Along
I plan on documenting my process here at hargism.com - whether it is a success or a huge failure. Like I said, I’m new to the whole building a niche store thing. I’ll be doing some research and weighing my options on what software to use and how to gain traffic. There are a plentiful amount of resources out there that should be able to help me with my niche site.

Initial Planning
My idea is to take at least one domain I have that is just sitting there doing nothing and turn it into, not just a niche store, but more a niche site with the store built in. I’ll be going with more of a blogging setup for the site with integrated niche store elements like the eBay - seems to be the most popular option. I think setting it up like a blog will really help with the natural (free) search engine traffic, and will be more Google friendly (hopefully). This will allow me to create unique keyword friendly content to not only help drive traffic but also to hopefully provide the readers with something [of value] worth visiting the site for - and hopefully get them to come back another time.

I know the creation of content will be the hardest part for me. I can be a bit of a procrastinator when it comes to writting. But I am going to try my best to stay motivated. I know I’m going to have to create a list of daily goals in order to keep on task. It would be great to have a little be of extra income coming in each day/month.

Stay tuned for future post and feel free to give me any advice you have as I journey through building a niche blog store thing…

Popularity: 80% [?]

As I mentioned earlier I started my venture into pay per click marketing. So, here is an update on my PPC campaigns. There isn’t much to talk about - I’ve only had a few PPC campaigns up and running.

PPC Success or Failure
I told you I would talk about my results whether they were good or bad. Well, they weren’t good - as I expected. Out of the three campaigns I had up and running I converted one click for $1.58 - ouch. I’m still new to the game and learning - maybe my offers weren’t the best. I decided to start simple and just try to convert leads instead of actually getting people to buy something.

PPC Leads
Leads can be as simple as having someone fill out a form to submit their email address or they can be as involved as having people fill out 7 or 8 fields of a form. I thought driving traffic and converting an email lead would be easier than a sale. It didn’t quite workout this time - but I have to say I was pretty excited to see my first conversion - even though it was my only one.

My PPC Campaigns
Like I said I only ran 3 campaigns and only for a few days. So, maybe if I would have let them run longer I would have seen better results (but I doubt it). With the second campaign I ran I got 11,587 impressions and 334 clicks for a click through rate (CTR) of 2.88% - my average cost per click (CPC) was $0.17. This is the campaign that I received my conversion of $1.58 from. My third campaign I ran for a shorter amount of time than the first. I got 5,724 impressions and 136 clicks for 2.38% CTR with an average CPC of $0.15. Both of these campaigns were based off of events in the news and only ran for a couple of days. The first campaign I rand was a dud. I’ll talk about it in a second.

So, I was glad to see that my ads were getting clicked - but I need to work on getting better conversions (or getting conversions period). Most of the people clicked through to the page with the email submit - but only one actually went through with it. Maybe I need more enticing offers or maybe I should try sales. Really, I just need to put more time and effort into it if I want to make any money with affiliate and pay per click marketing.

My Findings

• Google AdWords - not a good idea for newer sites (or mine anyway).
  The site I was sending people to is fairly new - though it has plenty of content on it. This is where my 1st campaign comes in. I got a few impressions and then nothing, nothing, nothing. My quality score was too low and my ads weren’t running - and if they did they were probably on the 10th page or something like that.
• MSN AdCenter - I had a coupon for $50 for MSN AdCenter so I started using them for my 2nd and 3rd campaigns. It was simple to use and though MSN’s search probably isn’t nearly as popular as Google’s - I was able to get my ads seen by a descent amount of people.
• Tracking - I should have made a better effort to track what keywords and ads were doing better. Though I only let my ads run for a couple of days - it is very important to keep track of which keywords and which ads are getting clicks or getting conversions. Tracking is important.

So, there is an update on my venture in to PPC marketing. So far not so good, but I’m still learning and I haven’t given up on the idea that I can make money doing this. As a matter of fact I am working on a different way to promote affiliates (it’s nothing crazy new) and I’ll be talking about it as I build it and make it live.

Michael Hargis

Popularity: 59% [?]

I’ve decide to take a venture into pay per click marketing. Why? Well, to learn about it and to have a chance at another stream of online income so I can make money online. I don’t expect pay per click marketing to be easy - in fact I’m am absolutely positive that I will not make money on my first few attempts. From what I’ve read pay per click (ppc) can be tricky - it can be a game of trial and error and keeping track of what works and what doesn’t.

What is Pay Per Click Marketing
Here is what pay per click marketing means to me: You know when you see those ads in search results on Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engines? People are paying to put those ads there and most all are paying Per Click which is where pay per click comes from. The marketing idea is to get people to see your ppc ad when the search, or in an adsense ad on some other site, click on it to visit your site, and complete some kind of action that makes you money. These actions can range from buying a product, submitting information, or just gaining page views to help increase your popularity and get advertiser for your site.

So, you want to make sure that your ppc costs are less than your products profit margin - in other words you make more from your product than you spend on your ppc campaign. Say you are paying $0.25 every time someone clicks on your ad and your product, or action, nets you $2.00 profit for each sale or action completed. Well, the ideal outcome would be that you complete a sale or action before the 8th click (the 8th click breaks even: $0.25 * 8 = $2.00) - these are just example numbers that I randomly came up with. Hopefully, you won’t have to pay $0.25 per click - that just depends on how much competition there is for your keywords. And you never know - you might convert on 3 or 4 clicks in a row and then get nothing for the next 8 clicks.

Of course, I wouldn’t jump into anything completely blind. I am new to ppc and affiliate marketing in general, but I have been doing some research - picking up some techniques and tips along the way. Hopefully I will be able to put them to use and make money online using pay per click marketing.

I’ll keep you up to date with my progress - good or bad - and let you in on any tips or techniques I find useful. You can learn as I learn. Hopefully I will be making money online using pay per click marketing withing the next few weeks (depending on how much time I can devote to it).

Michael Hargis

Popularity: 61% [?]