Building websites that make money can be frustrating. Over the past two months, I’ve built 10 websites that I know will sell a considerable amount of items through Amazon in the future, producing big commissions for me, possibly enough to replace a full-time income. However, I’m not yet seeing that money.
Why not? Two main reasons. First of all, although I link to all my sites from my blog, in the long run most of my sites’ hits will come from Google search traffic. Problem is, it takes Google a while to trust a new site and reward it in the search rankings. Google wants to see new sites stay around for a number of months, so it’s sure they aren’t fly-by-night scam sites. It also takes several months for other bloggers/webmasters to see new sites and link to them – the more incoming links Google sees to a site, the better that site gets ranked.
Tube Top Boutique has been up a year and a half now, and has had time to build Google trust. As a result, it now has a PageRank of 4 (same as the Commercial Appeal’s home page), and gets 400-500 hits a day, not bad considering December is hardly tube top season. As recently as last month it was running as high as 800 a day. My newer sites, however – especially those less than 3 months old – have not had time to build that Google trust, and are lucky if they get 20-30 hits a day with a PageRank of 0.
The second reason that it takes a long time to see money from these sites is Amazon’s payment schedule. Commissions earned during a particular month are not paid out until the end of the second month afterward. That means that if you go to Mid-South Alcoholic Supply today and buy a cocktail shaker or electric drink mixer, I will earn a certain amount of commission from its sale (probably 7.5% this month), but I won’t get that money until the end of February. So I can see myself earning money when I check my reports on a daily basis, but I don’t have access to that money. Meanwhile, I doubt my apartment building’s manager will be too happy if I tell her I plan on paying my December rent on February 25.
I’m not complaining about these things… I’m just saying, they are facts of life if you do business on the Web. I’m hoping that writing about my experiences will be useful to people just getting into website affiliate marketing. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and hope for a big payday within a month or two. Sorry, but it probably won’t happen. There are exceptions, like that “I can has cheezburger” site where you caption pictures of cats that went to a million hits within a month’s time, but those are one-in-a-million sites.
You know what I think will be a big business in the future? Payday loan companies for Amazon Associates. People who have pending commissions a month or two out will be able to go to these places and get advances on their commissions at a massive interest rate, much as paper paycheck loan companies do nowadays. There’s a business idea for anyone willing to take it on. You don’t have to give me any royalties for the idea, but if you want to stick something in the Buy-Paul-a-Beer.net account, that’d be cool.
When my 10 new stores attain the same level of Google trust that Tube Top Boutique has, they’ll start getting lots of hits and generating big commissions. In the meantime, though, I just have to wait it out. And look for office jobs. Sigh. I guess it’s time to contact the recruiters and let them know I’m ready to start hunting. Probably tomorrow I’ll do that.
Trivia tonight at the Saucer at Bardog at 7. Immediately after trivia I’ll pay my tab and head to Bardog for Pint Night. If anyone wants to join me there, please feel free, I’ll be there about 9:15.