A little affiliate marketing experiment for you all

Ok after the success of my HUGE niche affiliate marketing thread on A4u forum (link) I decided to do an experiment with a brand new domain and in the public eye, so I can chart my progress and see how well this works.

fingers crossed

At approx 6.30pm tonight I registered facing bankruptcy (which was a very nice available to register .co.uk domain name !) and I have spend just over 1 hour building the site.

I am not adding any backlinks, apart from the one above and I am also using this blog post to get the site indexed.

According to the Google keyword estimator “facing bankruptcy” gets 1000 exact match searches a month. Not bad at all for a “debt” type keyword with little competition and the domain name being available to register.

The idea behind this site, is that if someone is “facing bankruptcy” and typing this into a search engine, there is a good chance that they are looking for alternative methods to bankruptcy.

The site presents the visitor with reasons against bankruptcy (visually with red crosses) and why an IVA could suit them better (green ticks). If someone then thinks “An IVA may be a better choice for me” they will fill in the form, as they have seen the potential benefit of an IVA – my job is then done !

I am using 123debt solutions for this experiment, only due to the fact the form was already implemented onto this template from another of my sites I have built, and they pay on average £32 – £90 for an IVA lead so there could be some decent returns on this website if this experiment works.

I will be updating this blog post to keep you updated with progress on search engine positions, how long it took to get it indexed, and most importantly – if any money can be made from it.

Time spent so far – 1 hour 23 mins (including this blog post)
Money spent so far – £6.93 on domain name

This goes to show that if you do enough thinking and research, there are good names available to register and can make money if you think out of the box !

Wish me luck !

27 Responses to “A little affiliate marketing experiment for you all”

  1. My own little experiment for everyone to see - Affiliate Marketing  on June 26th, 2009

    [...] My own little experiment for everyone to see A little affiliate marketing experiment for you all | fwitter – not facebook or twitter just Frank P… I have decided to conduct my own affiliate marketing experiment in the public eye, warts and all, [...]

  2. Darren  on June 26th, 2009

    It will be interesting to see how this does. Are you looking to keep it as a one page site?
    I don’t see any other page links so assume the site only has one page, so correct me if i’m wrong.

  3. Lammo  on June 26th, 2009

    “According to the Google keyword estimator “facing backruptcy” gets 1000 exact match searches a month”

    Cool – how much does the correct spelling get? ;)

  4. Steve K  on June 26th, 2009

    I would say best of luck … but I don’t think you’ll need it ;-) Look forward to the updates.

    @lammo – lol … “not enough data”

  5. Joe  on June 27th, 2009

    Should be a good read.

    Is that form supplied by the merchant or do you have to make one yourself?

  6. suzanne g  on June 27th, 2009

    very interesting frank, keep us posted!

  7. Gary Y  on June 27th, 2009

    Nice Experiment Smingle. I’m fairly new to Affiliate Marketing, but have seen the results you can get using the keyword in the domain name and checking out the competition. I can see that your experiment site is already in 5th spot. I’ll be interested to know how well this does on earnings.

    Nice simple site by the way.

  8. frank  on June 27th, 2009

    **UPDATE 27th June 2009 @ 8.30am**

    The site has been indexed in less than 12 hours and is now sitting at number 5 on Google

    Answers to comments :

    @ Darren – Yep it will be a one page website and that is it

    @ Lammo – Ha ha well I did rush this ;) original post amended !

    @ Steve k – Thanks very much mate, this will be an interesting one for sure, and thought why not blog about it to see what happens !

    @ Joe – The form is supplied by the merchant and is just sitting in an iframe so it gets submitted directly to them

    @ Suzanne G – No worries keep watching :)

    @ Gary Y – Thanks for your kind words, it will be interesting to see how much money it makes and how well it does over the next few weeks / months etc

  9. Lian B  on June 27th, 2009

    Wow that was quick, indexed in 12 hours! I just stumbled accross your blog from the a4u forum and im glad i did, i will be keeping up to date with your little experiment, i hope it goes well for you.

  10. vialli  on June 27th, 2009

    Hi Frank, good luck with the experiment, will be interesting to follow your results.

    Two questions; in the post you mention just the 1 backlink, do you however add the site to Google Webmaster Tools? The second question is do you consider the link from your A4U post influential on the crawling of your blog and in turn the bankruptcy site from your thread here?

  11. frank  on June 27th, 2009

    @ Lian B – Many thanks :) I have had a site indexed in as little as 3 hours in the past

    @ Vialli – Thanks alot :) To answer your questions.

    1. No I have not added it to webmaster tools as I never do this with any of my sites for SEO reasons

    2. No I don’t consider the link on my a4u post influential on the crawling of my blog. My reason for this, is because word press is renowned for getting things indexed very quickly as it pings google everytime you make an update. The post I done yesterday on Michael Jackson appeared in the index approx 2 hours after I made the post, and it is not linked from anywere but here. Hope this helps :)

  12. Sean  on June 27th, 2009

    Hi frank,

    Why do you still spend your time on little niche sites?

    Surely you could earn a lot more with a big site.

    sean.

  13. frank  on June 27th, 2009

    Hi Sean

    I have a number of big sites already, and I still build niche sites for a number of reasons.

    1. The buzz factor of it.
    2. To challenge myself.
    3. To take advantage of the low hanging fruit.
    4. To feed my procrastination habit.
    5. To spread my risk

    Look at it this way. If this site generates an average of 2 leads a month and makes average £50 a lead then thats £2,400 in 2 years from just over an hours work, a £6.93 investment and no effort at all.

    The site is virtually guaranteed to make me more than it cost me to build.

    If the site generates me only 1 lead in 2 years then thats £50 for 1 hours work and £6.93 cost

    A no brainer in this situation I feel.

    Hope this answers your question

  14. Sean  on June 27th, 2009

    Hi Frank,

    No it doesn’t answer my question.

    Look at myvouchercodes, it earns millions, are you a millionaire? If not, why don’t you spend your time on one big site and aim for the millionaire level?

    Sean.

  15. frank  on June 27th, 2009

    Hi Sean

    No I am not a millionaire :) I have many projects on the go at once, some big and some small.

    Who said I am not aiming for the millionaire level ? to put all your egss in one basket BEFORE getting to millionaire level is very risky – different kettle of fish once you have achieved it.

    Myvouchercodes does make millions, but I know for a fact that is not all that Mark is involved in, after a long chat with him at the A4U awards 3 weeks ago ;)

    Cheers
    Frank

  16. Paula  on June 27th, 2009

    Hello,

    I am totally new to all of this, affilating and website building but people like yourself totally inspire me!!! Cant wait to see how the experiment goes!
    Could I just ask a question please? How do you get ur website to appear so highly on google? That has always seemed to be my problem but you seemed to have cracked it so easily! I know this probably seems like a remedial question to you but one I have always struggled with lol!!! If there is any reading material you could advise me to read that would be fantastic!

    Sorry to babble and I hope not many people laugh at me hahaha!

    Thanks
    Paula

  17. Henry  on June 28th, 2009

    Good to see you putting a project like this in the public domain. Not many affiliate bloggers do this so it’s a refreshing change.

  18. pete  on June 28th, 2009

    Hi Paula,

    “How do you get ur website to appear so highly on google?”

    The key is to find niches with low competition, and a high number of searches.

    (I’m sure Frank will correct me if I’m wrong :) )

  19. Mark Boyd  on June 28th, 2009

    Hi frank,

    so 12 hours is a pretty fast index! One thing I get impatient with is waiting to get indexed.

    Did you do anything other than add the link from this site to help speed up the process?

    Mark

  20. frank  on June 29th, 2009

    Hi Mark

    12 hours is quite fast yeh. Having said that, I completed another minisite by 7.30pm last night and posted it on Gumtree and it was indexed and ranked by 9.30pm last night !

    This second site has already received over 200 uv from the serps up until 7.30am this morning, and once the site has settled and made some money I may post the findings on here as a second / different experiment as this second site was created after reading something in yesterdays paper, and could be a faddy site. Time will tell I guess.

    Cheers
    Frank

  21. Paula  on June 29th, 2009

    Thanks for that Pete,

    I’m so full of enthusiasm, but sometimes you have to reign it back and think a little. I think I have come up with a good little niche market with increasing demand but not much competition, so will investigate further!
    Thanks Frank as well for the inspiration and to show us that you dont have to have an endless cash flow to get results! Do you just submit your sites to the google indexing site or do you use a third party?

    Thanks for all your comments!

  22. frank  on June 29th, 2009

    Hi Paula

    Thanks for your kind words. Nope I just posted the link on my blog and as my blogs gets indexed within 20 mins etc, the google spider just followed the link from that post and done it’s magic.

    It is 100% true, you don’t need an endless supply of money to start, but what is importnant is to reinvest some of the money and grow your business / websites that way instead

    Good luck
    Frank

  23. fizz  on July 13th, 2009

    Nice one Frank lots of good info on here.

  24. mikejds  on July 14th, 2009

    Looking forward to the updates Frank.

    I see you @ No.3 on Google
    for [facing bankruptcy]

    Nice start :)

  25. Rob  on July 17th, 2009

    Number 2 in google.co.uk when I searched just now. Good meta description too – I would have chosen that link ! . Good work and thanks for making it public.

  26. Chris  on July 20th, 2009

    Hey Frank d’you have any updates yet?

    I plan to do something similar with Cufflink.org.uk just for my own curiosity more than anything else. Would be interested on your take on org.uk domains?

    Also do you plan on re-introducing your daily posts? Maybe start making use of a twitter account – http://twitter.com/niche_domains

    Let me know if you want the login ;) I’m sure you get a large following in next to no time!

  27. Mark Boyd  on October 31st, 2009

    Hi Frank,

    Hows FacingBankruptcy getting on?

    MB


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