Selling Through Design

by Paul on October 14th, 2004

It occurred in the Free Content as a Linking Strategy thread and was surprised that the topic had not come up sooner. When you first come into this field of Affiliate Marketing and go looking for help you are overwhelmed by the amount of sites that offer to sell you advice in an ebook or newsletter. Sounds good. However, when you look at the site you are presented with the same theme. A one-page site about a mile long with no regards to any design choice.

Can these sites really be trusted?

Wish I could answer that question, but I don’t make those kind of sites. I am sure there are some people who make plenty of money from sites like that, but I am not one of them. In fact I would be surprised if more than 10% of the affiliate population makes a decent living from sites like that. I think that future affiliates see these sites with claims of them making thousands and assume that this is the way to go. Maybe in the old days, but today people are a little more weary of crazy marketing-speak.

Real-Life Example

If you frequent the Amazon Associates discussion board, Sitepoint Forums, or Webmasterworld forums you might be familiar with a guy named Jesse Smith, aka Nintendo. In any case he took Mr. Rat’s Amazon script and added mod_rewrite capabilities to it to make the urls more search engine friendly. This worked wonders for him and soon he had a 3.5 million pages indexed in Google! Surely this would equate to some huge traffic and revenue, right?

Before I go any further let me thank Mr. Smith because it was his threads last year on Sitepoint that gave me the inspiration to try out some Amazon stores and other affiliate programs so this is in no way a knock on him. Without his candidness I probably wouldn’t have gotten the early jump I did. I just feel a need to help him out since he continues to go down the same path. (Note: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.) You can read some of his story here.

So he gets over 3.5 millions pages in Google and no matter how you look at it, traffic is going to come his way. Now when Google indexes an Amazon page it usually is the product page that gets clicked on by the visitor. Here is an example page of what a user will see when they click to visit one of Mr. Smith’s sites.

Now if I am looking for a video game I might be scared to go any further and would probably press the back button faster than anything. I can only imagine how many people would have the same reaction as me.

Again, let’s look at the numbers for Mr. Smith. Over 3.5 million pages indexed in Google spanning who knows how many sites (these numbers are from 2003). His 2003 3rd Quarter Revenue was $5,586.35. Not bad at all. Many people would drool over getting that number and it is the major reason why you see so many Amazon sites flooding the web. You can mostly thank Mr. Smith for providing the script. I use my own.

To further break it down Mr. Smith made $1862.11 per month for that quarter from Amazon. Again, an impressive number, but I can’t help to think he could do better if there were better a design involved with his sites. Let’s also take note though that he is selling video games and I can only guess the online market for video games isn’t as strong as it is for other products. A better metric would be to see the CTR of Mr. Smith’s pages then that might give us a better idea of how well his page design works.

Now that everyone has an Amazon store and Google has cracked down on them big time, Mr. Smith decided to move on to another field because in the 2nd Quarter of 2004 his Amazon revenue dropped to something like $800. From $5,586 to $800! Amazing. Whoops, let me correct that, I just found out he has created more Amazon sites like this one and this one. I am sure he makes something from those, but I don’t see too much coming from them unless he plans on creating a 1,000 of them. In any case let’s look at his other ventures.

With Allposters.com and Art.com offering affiliate programs and data feeds Mr. Smith decided to try some of those out. Sounds like an idea to me. Here is his humor art site and his movie art site. No regard to design at all. No attempt to draw the visitor in and get them to click. Pretty much just spamming the web. Whatever, if he makes money then who am I to criticize? My point is though that if he even attempted to put a greater emphasis on design he wouldn’t have to create all these sites to try and keep up with whatever his goals are.

Don’t believe me? I know, I know, there are plenty of big time money makers out there who make ugly sites, but find a way to convert them into dollars. Mr. Smith might even come across this thread or one of his friends or followers and scoff at the claims I make. That’s fine by me. Again, let’s look at the numbers.

Mr. Smith has at least 34 affiliate sites. All are crap. How much does he make? I don’t know. But remember how much his Amazon revenue dropped from last year to this year and to think he is just creating more of the same seems silly to me. Anyways his best quarter seems to be last year’s 3rd quarter with $5,586. Now he has art.com and allposters.com sites mixed with his Amazon sites so maybe he will pull out a bit more this time. Doubtful.

Now I am going to do something that I promised myself I would never do and that is disclose my real numbers to you. This is probably a big mistake, but I need to make multiple points here. However, don’t get all excited and think that anyone can do this because for one Google has stopped indexing many AWS sites so they lost their luster a long time ago and my performance bonuses kicked in big time since I wasn’t selling much before last quarter. Anyways let’s move on to my big mistake.

My 3rd Quarter Amazon Numbers

July: $1727.41
August: $4907.47
September: $9688.31
Total: $16323.19

Sorry Mr. Smith, you can build all the damn sites you want, but it’s not gonna work for you until you start doing it the right way.

Note: The numbers start to get crazy high in September due to the bonuses that Amazon no longer offers.

Realize there are a number of factors at play here besides the design of the site, but its hard not to think that many visitors find my sites a bit more trustworthy than those produced by Mr. Smith.

My point is that whether you are creating a store, a service, or an ebook, do your best to make the site as professional as possible which means making it look less like an affiliate site and more like a site the visitor might want to come back to. Now someone feel free to correct if I am wrong with numbers proving that these affiliate sites can make more than well designed ones. Amazon and eBay don’t count since they offer great user experiences amongst other things.

Mike P.
Oct 14, 2004 at 2:08 pm

Heh, well done Scrivs. I wholeheartedly agree with you, I can’t see most folks going for those long one pagers…

Fact is, some of the pill sites I’ve come across (nip it! just plain curious…) have some of the nicest (read: professional looking) designs I have ever seen. Trolling the same boards as you mention above, you know a lot of people even advise spending the money on having a design made for you (if you can’t do it), and many people, at least those with their eyes open, strive not just for good SEO but lead conversion…
Bryan
Oct 14, 2004 at 2:35 pm

Well, design hasn’t done shit for me. I took the same route as nintendo in terms of a cheap game website, except I added design and flare to mine, even linking it with my related cheats website and I honestly don’t think I even get a visitor to the site. Its crazy.

For those who are curious on my design, Get-cheap-games.com and my related cheat site, Gamecubecheats.info.

I mean, they aren’t “bad” designs. I have changing color schemes and the information is pretty straight forward to follow, yet I get no traffic.

Now, for some reason, back about 2 months ago, I got a handful of visitors, and in that time, I made like 4 sales (a whole $5 commission:)), but it made me wonder if I could just get the traffic, people might stay and buy. I just wish the design drew more people in.

Good post though, definitly what I am interested in.

-ot - does google ads work on adult related sites?
JC
Oct 14, 2004 at 3:31 pm

and there’s the answer for anyone who wondered what scrivs made in september… the highest guess was 5500… and he almost doubled that, just with amazon.
envy envy envy. heh.
Scrivs
Oct 14, 2004 at 3:31 pm

Yeah the AWS sites don’t work unless you get the traffic. However, it was obvious that Jesse was getting the traffic and converting some of it into sales. The question is how much more could he have converted if he had a nicer design. In any case you will get almost no traffic from the search engines with to your AWS sites anymore. Google laid the smackdown on them.
Jason Marble
Oct 14, 2004 at 3:35 pm

It is amazing that people actually make purchases via stores like Mr. Smith’s. But, fact is people do. Would these same people really care if the site looked any different? I would like to think so.

A better designed site will improve trust. That’s a fact, right? So… yea, a well designed affiliate site should make a little more money.

Scrivs, your stores look good, but they’re still very boring. I would certainly trust one of your stores more, soley based upon my opinions of the design. You’ve been adding content to the stores, which I think is a BIG pluss.

Bryan, your personal site looks great but why not your cheats site or your store? Your definitely headed in the right direction as far as creating a lucrative affiliate store (games will only take you so far, but still). I’m gonna just go out and say that your cheats site and store look pretty bad. I mean, they are definitely better than Mr. Smith’s, but come on. I’m sure you can do a lot better.

But as there are those people that just don’t care what a site looks like, perhaps we should first make sure we improve all the other skills required to create a lucrative affiliate store.

Being a designer, it surely is tuff to look at a store like one of Mr. Smith’s and not help but wonder what in the f*ck is he thinking.
Scrivs
Oct 14, 2004 at 3:41 pm

Scrivs, your stores look good, but they’re still very boring.

Couldn’t agree with you more Jason. Those stores are more targetted for people looking specifically for the product so they can get in and get out. If I had a team of people you would see what I really have planned for those sites more quickly. But it is a slow process. Poor ol me :-)
Jason Marble
Oct 14, 2004 at 3:54 pm

I definitely hear ya Scrivs. I have so much shit up my sleeves it’s killin’ me. Ideas of mine have been in development for litteraly years. But the amazing thing is STILL nobody has done it — some are just getting closer.

It is a slow process sometimes. I wish I had a team, but, we’ll see I guess.

Oh, I wouldn’t say “poor” or “ol” ;-)
Bryan
Oct 14, 2004 at 4:15 pm

Thanks for the constructive criticism Jason, seriously.

Well, the gamecube site was created well before my juicedthoughts (thanks for the compliment) and I agree it needs some work. Better then my original, gamecubecheats.net (btw, I don’t own that anymore, so don’t blame me but the original design is like one of my first live sites EVER).

IMO, I wouldn’t categorize them as BAD. I guess if you compare it to strictly my juicedthoughts, then yea, they are worse. They need a facelift, thats true. Man, time is not on my side though as I have other ventures I am pursuing to make money online.
Mike M
Oct 14, 2004 at 9:14 pm

Holy crap! I gotta take another look at your Amazon site. Congratulations Scrivs. Say, can I borrow some of your llamas?

BTW, how many book reviews have been submitted to your Amazon site?
James
Oct 14, 2004 at 11:53 pm

Nice article–little bit harsh towards Jesse, but what can I say: everything you’ve said is basically true. The pages are plain and could probably sell quite a bit more were they better designed.

Wonder what he’ll think when he reads this…

Oh, and Scrivs, forgive me if it was in the article, but what are your AWS site(s), if there are any? (some nice run-on comma faulting here)
Scrivs
Oct 15, 2004 at 12:02 pm

Mike: Not enough :-) I have a tiered schedule plan where each site is getting a certain amount of my promotion time. The Roe is still at the bottom, but it needs to get its ass into gear.

James: One store is here (*hint*click store ;-) And the others can be found on the 9rules site. Pretty much all my sites have AWS integrated with them. I working on making the plain AWS sites into content sites as well.
Joe
Oct 15, 2004 at 4:12 pm

Scrivs:
You say that “you will get almost no traffic from the search engines with your AWS sites anymore. Google laid the smackdown on them.”

Do you mean just pure AWS sites like Mr. Smith’s? Or also content sites where AWS stores are just a piece of the whole (like your site)? Is there a happy medium that doesn’t get you on Google’s bad side?
Zelnox
Oct 16, 2004 at 12:30 am

^5 Paul. Hehe.
James
Oct 16, 2004 at 7:24 am

You could always find a creative way to arrange your content to stay on G’s good side. And Scrivs: adding content = good idea.
MrRat
Oct 17, 2004 at 9:54 am

I am the author of the Amazon script Mr. Smith uses and I just wanted to point out some flaws in your article. My name is spelled MrRat (one word). Other then that I agree with what you’ve written :)

I’ve gone to great lengths to provide the flexability and ease of use to allow users to easily customize my script. And yet people still just throw it out there in it’s ugly original form.

Mr. Smith was able to make some good money early on by doing that but those times have past. There are thousands of sites using my script now and hundreds of them indexed in Google. You’re going to have to do something to stand out from the crowd and to engender trust from more experienced Internet shoppers.
Kyle
Oct 17, 2004 at 6:01 pm

While I agree with you to a point scrivs, the point is return on investment. Most of these ugly stores are built off .info domains. They got 25 free domains, most likely already had hosting of sorts, spent maybe 20 minutes setting up 20 stores, and they’ve got nothing to lose. I think it’s smart of them, even if they only make an extra $20 off of them, they’ve made money where they otherwise wouldn’t.

That’s why I think you see some of the big amazon guys with 100+ stores or so. Granted, each store makes jack on its own, but combined they make a decent amount.
Scrivs
Oct 17, 2004 at 6:14 pm

I was going to agree, but then I realized it takes me 10 minutes to setup my stores. And if you think I spend more than 30 minutes on the design then…

My ROI is waaaaaaay better I think. And I don’t have to keep track of 50 sites (at least not yet). Nobody will go to these sites since there are a 1,000 of them anyways so it is quite possible that you could lose money on them (hosting or whatever).
Scrivs
Oct 17, 2004 at 7:41 pm

And to further add insult to injury Mr. Smith announced that he made $693.64 last quarter. Now what do you think is better? Working on your design and content and making 5-6 digits or just pumping out sites and making $700?
James
Oct 18, 2004 at 1:13 am

The AWS store I’m working on already has at least 5 hours of work put into it, on research and design. However, I don’t plan to throw up 30 different Amazon sites until I can make some decent money on a single one. And this one will be nearly automated, having all but 2 or 3 pages automatically created and/or updated.

One thing I wonder about AWS sites, that maybe someone here can give insight to: where do you get traffic? AWS sites usually aren’t exactly what many webmasters would consider high-quality content that they should link to.
Jesse Smith
Oct 18, 2004 at 3:33 am

Any one who calls $16,323.19 not working is on crack!! They work, hince I don’t even bother worring about the layout. I’m now up to around 50 affiliate domains, with stores for overstock.com, buy.com, BettyMills, and a few other programs. Get them to the parent site ASAP and you get orders! They don’t say ‘Keep it simple stupid’ for nothing! Part of that Amazon earnings number is for Q4, about $7,500.
http://www.codeshq.com/webmasters/q4_2003_amazon_check.jpeg

BTW, thanks for the back-links!

BTW2, my indexed URLs got up to about half a million URLs. 3.5 million is how many I would have if every Amazon item got indexed. I’m at about 400,000 Amazon URLs being indexed right now.
nonstop
Oct 18, 2004 at 7:55 am

It’s not the design that is important but the links. Build a site, get it indexed, build another and another…then you can go back.
Blayne
Oct 20, 2004 at 11:19 pm

WOW $16k! u call 5 hours alot?? i must be doing something wrong…ive spent about 150 hours on my single site and i get around $30/qtr w/about 2k unique visitors/month. Ive spent tons of time workin on my design…successful sites like Mr. Smith’s make me sick…i just dont get why anyone would buy from a site like that, it has scam written all over it (no privacy policy, no design).

i think my design is decent, but my conversion is horrible…online shoppers will never make any sense to me.
James
Oct 22, 2004 at 3:41 am

Nintendo, Mr. Scrivens’ article isn’t saying that you’re not making good money. It’s just saying you could be making more–and I agree.
Jesse Smith aka Nintendo
Oct 26, 2004 at 1:48 am

I’ll find out if layout does effect it soon, as soon as I get my sites updated to AWS 4. I hope to actually have a much better template instead of just using MrRats default. Mr. Scrivens must have a really high PR to make in one quarter what I made all last year from about 15 stores, or a lot of good luck, and of course a much better layout!!!

BTW, the number in my first post should of been $16,215.73. His one quarter number’s about the same as my all year number!! Yes, I learned a lesson from this, when you find something out that makes a killing, shut up and don’t tell any one! It’s your trade secret! Over 100 webmasters have got my hack since I started charging for it= Way more competition in Google.
Patrick O'Keefe - pokeefe.com
Oct 27, 2004 at 12:23 pm

And Another… Amazon, etc. Affiliate Sites

Another one from Paul Scrivens.

No regard to design at all. No attempt to draw the visitor in and get them to click. Pretty much just spamming the web.

…

Sorry Mr. Smith, you can build…
James
Nov 20, 2004 at 6:16 pm

Not to mention, probably a lot more knowledge about internet marketing and the likes (no offense intended).

“BTW, the number in my first post should of been $16,215.73. His one quarter number’s about the same as my all year number!! Yes, I learned a lesson from this, when you find something out that makes a killing, shut up and don’t tell any one! It’s your trade secret! Over 100 webmasters have got my hack since I started charging for it= Way more competition in Google.”
Geez, interesting that while that’s true you still push for people to open AWS sites. Start charging more for your hack and you’ll probably get more money from that, and from having less competition.
Peter Davis
Dec 14, 2004 at 10:29 pm

Nice article, and nice discussion. I’ve always wondered where Jesse gets the PageRank from, to get his sites indexed. I mean, people wouldn’t naturally link to an Amazon affiliate site. Are you buying the PageRank?
Rick Blythe
Dec 30, 2004 at 9:51 pm

So much to learn.
Jesse Smith aka Nintendo
Jan 25, 2005 at 6:14 pm

I link to the stores on my own sites, older stores, some content sites, and signitures on Message Boards, like SitePoint, SEOChat, and others. The stores and content sites give it PR and Google access, and the signitures just give them Google access.

I have never tried to get people to link to them, and never do PPC with them.
Jon
Mar 9, 2005 at 12:23 am

Watz wit teh propar grammer tihs tmie Nitendo!! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

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