Just exactly what is Dave's Cool Little Web Site?
This is simply one of the neatest ideas I have seen in web site marketing in quite a while. This is a web site designed to generate affiliate income from three of the largest affiliate programs on the web; Google Adsense, eBay and Clickbank.
Dave has just added several new features:
What is involved in setting up the site?
Once you get the site, you will need to do a few things before you begin setting it up. First you will need to visit Clickbank and get a clickbank affiliate ID. This takes about two minutes. Next visit Commission Junction. Once you join Commission Junction, click on the link to eBay.com and join the eBay affiliate program. Lastly go to GoDaddy.com and register a domain name($8.95 year). I will talk about picking domain names below.
Once you have done these three things (about 15 minutes total), login into the admin site you get when you buy Dave's site and follow the instructions to set up your web site. This will take about 30-45 minutes. The instructions are very easy to follow, and if you have trouble, Dave has set up some simple video tutorials that take 20 minutes or so to watch. If you really run into problems, just email Dave from the site and he will help you.
How do I get a domain name?
There are a lot of places to get domain names, but I have found GoDaddy.com the easiest site to use and the least expensive. GoDaddy charges $8.95 to register a domain name for one year and they offer a Privacy Service for an additional $1.95. This service will keep your personal information private so you don't get spammed and telemarketed with all sorts of junk offers.
You should pick a keyword-rich domain name to help search engines find you. For example, if you are featuring a fashion category such as women's jeans in your eBay listing on your web site, you could pick a domain name such as www.womens-jeans-online.com. This would help your site be found by search engines when someone searched those terms on the web.
Having a web site is great, but how do I drive traffic to it?
This is where the rubber meets the road. I can't tell you all of the ways here, but there is a training area in the admin section of the web site with dozens of articles and instruction manuals that will show you how to get traffic. Let me just cover a few things here to get you started, but believe me there are dozens more free and low-cost ways in the training area of the site.
How do I earn money from eBay's Affiliate Program?
Your Dave's cool little web site has links to ongoing eBay auctions right on the first page and a search box where readers can search for items on eBay. If someone registers on eBay through clicking on your site and buys something within the next 30 days, you will earn $12. If anyone clicks from your site to an eBay auction and buys something you earn between 40% and 70% of the final value fee paid by the seller. The eBay Affiliate fee structure is explained here.
How do I earn money from Clickbank?
Clickbank is a sales channel for thousand of titles of electronic information on hundreds of subjects. Clickbank's daily volume is over $2,000,000 in sales. There are several links on Dave's site to clickbank products and even a Clickbank store where people can search for products. Every time someone buys, you earn commissions anywhere from 30-75% of the purchase.
Also there is a link at the top of your web site where people can click if they want to buy a Dave's Little site of their own. If they do that, you are paid a commission of $48 through Clickbank.
How do I earn money from Google Adsense?
Have you ever noticed those little ads from Google that appear on web sites and on Google itself when you do a search? (You can see an example of Google Adsense ads on this page) When you set up your Adsense account, your affiliate code will appear in those ads when they appear on Dave's site.
Is this a one-time cost or are there hosting fees or other hidden fees?
No - setting up Dave's Cool Little Web Site is a one time charge of $97.. No ongoing hosting fees and no other charges except $8.95 a year to GoDaddy for your domain name.
Who is Dave?
Dave is David Purves, the brilliant web designer who came up with this idea. He works for my friend Tim Knox.
Can I really make money with this site?
Yes. Realistically, you are not going to get rich doing this, but it is a good source of extra income. If you just set up a site and submit it to search engines you will get some traffic, but probably not very much. If you take the time to set up some keyword advertising you can get a lot more, but PPC advertising can get expensive, so you want to start small and test a few inexpensive keywords. I think a realistic budget to start with is $10 a day. If you take the time to find the niche keywords others are not using, you can drive a lot of traffic to your site for $10 a day.
If you do this you want to check your earnings at Adsense, Clickbank and Commission Junction every day. If you are spending $10 and only earning $8, then you need to pick different keywords or rewrite your ad copy. But if you are spending $10 and earning more than that, then you have a winner.
I tested my site with four keywords, spending $15 a day and my earnings averaged $27 day over a 10-day period. That is an excellent return on investment, so I doubled my budget and am researching new keywords. I am still using Miva, but if this performance keeps up I will be moving to Google and Yahoo soon. (I have also made money reselling the site through the affiliate program, but I haven't included those numbers here)
Doing both of these things (submission and PPC) takes very little time and you could earn anywhere from $20 to $50 a day with minimum effort. If your keyword program is working its a simple matter to do a little more work, increase your daily budget and earn more.
Lastly follow all the other methods outlined in the training program in the admin area of your site. This will take more work and more time, but can dramatically increase your income.
If you don't already have one, I recommend you get your own Dave's Little Cool Web Site Now.
Skip McGrath