Mini (Niche) Affiliate Site using a Forum - Part 3
Posted on December 14, 2007 by
Adie 
Affiliate Marketing, Minisites 
6 Comments
Yesterday I spent the day scouring around for more services to promote the forum. I ended up paying for this service VisitorHost just as a test to find out what sort of traffic I get, funnily enough I have just noticed a PR3 for oapinsure.com/index.php - Google you little devils!
I joined one forum and posted a question about getting Insurance being over 50+ this may help find websites I need for later promotion and monetization.
My Actual post -
Hello all,
Looking for Insurers who deal with clients over 50+ ?
Thank you.
I will need to do this in at least ten forums to start getting answers and then I can start slowly building a following I hope. I have done some little tweaks to the site (a little as promotion is key) I had a good look around the Phorum.org community and ended up using some nice plugins that suit what I needed.
I used one called Banner Management which made it a sinch to add banner, text ads to any pages on the forum. The other was a Style management to change the colours when I want too. SEO wise again I used a plugin (mod_rewrite) this enables Search Friendly URLs I also changed the title and head tags. We all know how important TITLE tags are to search engines and nice looking URLs will help Google Spiders and my users hence why I do this from the start.
Note: I’m having problems with the mod_rewrite at the moment but will get it fixed today.
I have prematurely added a text advert and banner ads to make the forum look at bit more interesting and make it look like forum that has backing. (even if the users are not there yet) you must always remember when building any site to get into the mind of your users. What do they need and what would they look for etc..etc..think like them and you will be on the right track to some success.
I’m Affiliated with ShareaSale but will also use others to get better commissions once I have found the right company that suits my users.
I think I will also join BBB which will further the authenticity of this forum. I like to make my visitors feel they are safe to use the forum and this adds to the ethos and security. A very good way to let you users know you’re dedicated to Safe internet use.
The next service to pay for will be the Directory Submissions which I will sort out tomorrow or later today. I need to join another forum today and start a few posts which will eventually enable my signature to show when I post, this will encourage a visit to mine. This is all slow but very important to building a community like this. Although the building stage is a bit tedious even for me, once you earn your first bit of cash it will all be worth it.
Update: I have just noticed I cannot use the BBB Program because I’m based on the UK -
The company must be based or have a physical presence in the United States or Canada.
I will have to find a suitable replacement service.
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This is some good info on the visitors. This service may help me juice my site enough to get the ball rolling properly. It will be interesting to see how the sign up/post count for your forum changes over the next few days. Does the service tell you over what time period you can expect the visitors?
You’re dead on about making use of your sig at competing forums, I’ve done quite well with referrals from my signature on the offical Facebook forums to my fbappdevelopers.com forum.
A quick thanks for the the three resources you listed in Part 2. Also appreciate this resource (VisitorHost) for traffic generation.
I went ahead and gave them a try. Figured $25 for 25k visitors was worth a shot. And it wasn’t a huge investment if it didn’t work.
So far, they’ve come through — a lot of visitors really quick. I must say though, since I selected (targeting) “Worldwide” and (audience) “all categories”, conversion has been almost nil. In fact, almost all traffic is from Europe with the largest portion from Russia. Not knocking the service, but to get better results, I’d recommend selecting more specific categories and geography
But here’s the inside scoop.
When looking at my referral logs, the incoming traffic stems from Adverex - not VisitorHost.
Not only does Adverex have an affiliate program but they also offer FAR MORE categories to choose from so you can really hone in on what audience you want drawn to your site — and thus get a better conversion. The prices are exactly the same too.
So my reco would be to go with Adverex since they seem to be the primarily source for this service and offer more targeting options.
LOL… I’ve just given VisitorHost a try (10 secs ago) and now I read this. I did however target the visitors within a category but still a worldwide audience.
I’ll keep you posted with the results.
*** IMPORTANT UPDATE ***
Do not use this service (VisitorHost or Adverex) if you are also using Adsense Ads on your sites. I just received a notice from Google warning me of pending account deactivation due to invalid clicks or impressions from “third-party programs
have been paid or provided with other incentives to visit your site.”
I choose to try this service as a way to hopefully increase subscribers on an existing site and conversion has been almost nil (see my above comment about targeting).
If you’re just starting a site and looking to get some traffic flowing, this service can still be a good option. But I highly discourage anyone from using this if you’re using Adsense ads on your site.
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