In this BloggersIdeas interviews series I have experienced affiliate marketer Dom Wells owner of Human Proof Designs which sells affiliate niche websites and Dom will tell you how he started his journey in affiliate marketing.
Human Proof Designs is very trusted source for Affiliate Marketing Sites and Services. Lets start with the interview.
Please introduce yourself to our readers Dom Wells. Can you tell us something about your affiliate journey. How and when did you enter into affiliate marketing?
I first started learning about affiliate marketing in late 2012. I had read the four hour work week and wanted to earn more money online. At the time, I was living in Taiwan as an English teacher, and the money was ok, but there was no real career path or opportunity to earn more as I got older, so I looked for something online.
Eventually I managed to make some money with my third or fourth site (I started a lot in my first few weeks!) and turned that into something like $500-800 per month within a year, which was pretty exciting. It took me until 2014 before I could properly support myself full time though.
How do I get started with affiliate marketing if I am a complete newbie?
It's probably best to understand affiliate marketing as a concept before you start it. For example, knowing about how SEO works, how affiliate links work, and the process of getting yourself paid. After that, the best way to learn is by just DOING, and jumping in head first and learning as you go.
How to Increase the traffic on Amazon niche based website ? Suppose the niche is Kitchen Knifes under 50$, how to rank this keyword what is best strategy.
Kitchen Knives under $50 isn't a niche, it's a keyword. A niche in this example would be Kitchen Knives, or better yet, Kitchen Utensils, or even better, Kitchen Equipment. So if someone has a site which is just "Kitchen Knives under $50" then to get more traffic, they really need to add more content. Look for creating a site with 30 to 50 thousand words, so you have about 2 or 3 subniches (Knives, equipment, etc) and then you can think about link building.
Suppose I already have a website or blog with decent traffic. What are your best suggestions to monetize that websites?
It really depends on the niche. Some niches do great with Adsense, but most don't. Others do well with Amazon, but others might do better with Clickbank, or even developing your own products. I can't really give a one size fits all answer. If someone has a site and wants to know how they can monetise it, I have a few tips though:
1.) Look at what other sites in your niche are doing, maybe you can do that too.
2.) What things are your audience struggling with, or what are they looking to buy? Can you help them do that and earn a commission?
3.) Read "Ask" by Ryan Levesque if you are really stuck.
What are your favorite affiliate marketing programs you used in past ? Can you share it?
Do you mean affiliate networks? I've had success with Clickbank, Amazon of course, and Shareasale, as well as random private ones in the niche I might be in.
How did you got idea of HPD, I see you sell lot of websites and give people confidence to buy from you?
When I first started building websites, I used to browse Flippa to see if there was anything good to buy. I noticed many people selling complete BS junk websites, basically scams. I was surprised to see many people actually buying them, and I thought "Why don't I create sites for these people that are legitimate sites with real keyword research?" And so that's basically what I did.
What problems did you face when you started HPD?
Flippa! Haha. Even though I got my idea from Flippa, I realised that it was really hard to compete with the scam sellers who were promising to make people a millionaire in 1 night, while I was being honest and saying "This will be hard work". Eventually I started building up HPD more and stopped marketing on flippa.
You guys got featured on lot of website like Authority Hacker, Empire Flipper and lot how you got featured there?
Networking. I reached out to Justin Cooke from Empire Flippers because we both had "Flippa reviews" which ranked high in Google, and I wanted to take the opportunity to make contact with him. He liked HPD so they mentioned me on their podcast. We're actually pretty good friends now. His wife Aiza edits the HPD podcast.
As for Authority Hacker, I can't remember exactly how Gael and I first met, but I know we were both active in similar Facebook Groups, and we read each other's blogs, so he mentioned us once or twice on his Podcast as well, and featured us in a "How much they earn" article in 2015 or 16.
What was your first affiliate marketing success?How much money did you made ?
I was promoting a set of Kettlebell DVD's on one of my first niche sites, and it paid about $27 commission per set, so I was doing pretty well. That site made about $500 per month at its peak.
What are your suggestions for my blog BloggersIdeas? Please give your best inputs so I can improve my blog?
As a blog you are already doing good things and you get a lot of traffic, so people clearly love your stuff. The best way to improve it would be to really dig deep to find out what your audience need help with, and since you know your audience better than me, that's the best advice I can give. Again, read "Ask" if you've not done so already.
What blogs do you read in Affiliates? Tell me about an article you recently read that stuck out to you?
It's an older one, but I recently re-read this article from Authority Hacker and it's amazing how good it is and how relevant it is even after three years: https://www.authorityhacker.com/how-to-make-money-from-clickbank/
Do you believe that social media platforms can be used to promote affiliate offers? Can you explain it in brief ?
Sure they can, people do, but I don't have much experience with it. I'd prefer to use social to promote my site and content, use that content to build an email list, and promote affiliate offers there.
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