Affiliate Odyssey

Four weeks have shot by since the start of the Black Ink Project and I still can’t believe what unbelievable value Jeremy is providing.

Having a “one week on, one week off” system is great for catching up and I am now fully up to date (well almost - I was too tired to catch last night’s PPC session with Amit Mehta).

Here’s a quick review of what I’ve taken away from the project so far:

WEEK ONE

Session 1 - Finding Your Niche

• Find a niche which you have knowledge, experience and/or passion for.
• Focus on one niche fully before looking for others.
• Do one thing and do it really well.

Session 2 - Getting Your Business In Order

This session was targeted at US-based marketers rather than us here in the UK however, there were some relevant issues.

• Make sure you speak to an accountant and get a clear idea of the best vehicle for your business.
• I already have a Limited Company status and am VAT registered and luckily, have a great accountant.

Session 3 - Developing a Rock Solid Business Plan

• Fail to plan, plan to fail!
• Use SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to understand your planned business.
• Competitor analysis is crucial, demand analysis even more so.
• Find a unique angle for your business and add some value - microsites are dead.
• Try to understand your customer and their behaviours

Session 4 - Getting to Know Your Audience

• Understand how to split your niche market into customer personas.
• Look at how your merchants are advertising and presenting their websites - they have much bigger budgets and teams than you.
• Sign up to community forums and get involved - find out your customers’ pain points.
• Go through the buying process - actually buy something from your merchant!
• Go wide then deep on keyword research bearing in mind the keyword buying cycle: Browse, Compare, Buy.

Session 5 - Setting Up Shop

• A budget of $1000-$2000 is ideal for starting out.
• Stop buying info products.
• Only spend what you can afford to lose
• A time budget of 20-40 hours a week is ideal.
• Stop multitasking, write a list of things to do, then do them.
• Unsubscribe from most of your rss feeds, newsletters and DO NOT SURF!
• Turn off all distractions when working - yes this includes twitter and email!
• Learn to say No.

WEEK TWO

This week focussed on the technical aspects of setting up a website which is what I do for a living.

It was great to see that the way I do things when building sites for clients is almost identical to the way that Jeremy builds his own websites and so there wasn’t too much in the week’s sessions that I didn’t know already.

The key session for me, was on landing page design.

This was illustrated, not just with the page designed for the project’s ultra portable laptops, but also with reviews of project participants’ own sites and landing pages.

I can’t stress enough just how valuable the information in this session was - if you only sign up to view one webinar session, this is it.

The landing page session was so detailed that there is no way I can do it justice with a list of take home points - you really need to see the whole thing.

Just for completeness’ sake, here is a list of the sessions from Week 2:

Session 6 - Architect a Bulletproof Site

Session 7 - Designing a Visually Appealing Site

Session 8 - Concept to Construction

Session 9 - Making Your Site Dynamic and Fresh

Session 10 - Landing Page Design

SUMMARY

Halfway through the project, I have already noticed a difference in conversion as a result of changes to landing page design and I can’t wait to get stuck in to the PPC and Social Marketing sessions this week.