So I’ve been a little quiet on the blogging front recently. The main reason is that I’ve been busy preparing and launching a brand new site. Whenever I’m involved in a new project it seems to consume all of my brains runtime. I do think about other things i.e. things to talk to all you great people about on this blog, but they never seem to make it into print. There’s just too much going on in my brain for them to make it out into the real world in a format that makes any sense at all.
God, I’d Forgotten How Bad Unknown Territory Can Be!
This most recent site has been particularly bad for my blogging because its in a completely new niche for me. I’ve been absolutely wracked with anxieties about whether or not my ideas on landing page structures will work in the sector.
I’m feeling a lot of sympathy for all you guys out there who are trying to work out what niche to pursue and how to pursue it. Forget swine flu. it’s old hat. I’ve been showing symptoms of stress related “new niche-itis” for some time. It’s hideously infectious, hard to beat and might just kill off anyone’s attempt to build an affiliate business.
The worst of my recent symptoms have been: -
- Constantly doubting that what I was doing was any good at all.
- Regularly deciding that this site was definately going to fail.
- Regularly dismissing thoughts of failure and deciding the site was going to ROCK!!
- Spending too much time thinking about how much my site would rock and not enough time doing something about it.
- Agonising over how to structure landing pages, then not doing much about it.
- Conniptions directed at poor Duncan because he was singularly unable to read my mind about how the pages I was getting him to design should look. I knew exactly what I wanted but would those damned words get out of my mouth and make sense? Why couldn’t he work it out? The eejit!!
- Yawn…. I’m so tired. Where will I start today’s work? Hmmm, must just do yet another “to do list”. Colour coding wasn’t right on the last one. Procrastination, procrastination, procrastination.
- What’s that over there? Where will we go for our first wedding anniversary? Should we buy a new rug for the livingroom? Distraction, distraction, distraction.
But Now….
The worst is over. We finally managed to push through and get our site finished. Duncan has forgiven my frequent outbursts of bad temper (I bought him a Satnav today too – just for good measure!). I started my first stream of PPC to the site 2 days ago. Then, in a shock relapse the last of my niche-itis symptoms manifested themselves with a parting shot. Oh the horror!! The agony and rejection – when that long awaited first click bounced straight back off the page, never to return! Failure!!
“Well that’s it.” I thought .”The site’s shit. I’m shit, its all shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit!!!!!!”
*ahem*
Of course having now given it a reasonable amount of time I’ve realised things are, in fact, looking quite promising. it has a low bounce rate and I’ve even had 2 sales off a very, very, very small amount of traffic. So thats OK then 
So What I Really Want To Say Before I Forget What This Has Been Like….
Guys, I know how you feel! It’s painful, its very nearly fearful. But if you just keep going and apply common sense you’ll get to the end of your niche journey.
I’m not saying you’ll succeed every time, but if you fall victim to the symptoms of niche-itis you’ll most probably never progress and the disease will kill your affiliate dream. Forward is the direction you need to take to beat this terrible affliction. If you don’t get something up there you won’t ever learn those vital lessons you need to understand how affiliate marketing and your own mindset work together.
Meanwhile…
I’m off to detox. New niches are very bad for my liver and my recent affliction culminated in the consumption of too much wine last night as I celebrated the completion of the site. My head is an owie.
Can You See It?
Not just yet, I’m not happy enough with it, sorry guys!!
May 28th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Hi Kirsty,
I just love reading your posts, and seeing that everyone has the same problems… Look forward to the next one.
Chris Brocklesby.
http://www.chrisbrocklesby.com | http://www.twitter.com/chrisbrockklesby/
May 28th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Golly Gosh ;o)
But you know what, that’s pretty much how I feel most of the time lol.
Gives me heart to know that a Pro like you can occasionally suffer an affliction most commonly seen only amongst newbies like myself.
Can’t wait to see that site ;o).
May 28th, 2009 at 10:40 am
For those of us who don’t speak Scottish, what’s an owie?
May 28th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Oh come on Matt…. kick a door and then say that out loud! LOL “Owwwww-eeeeee!!!!!!!”
Chris & Paula – I’m no different from anyone else in this game, I still have doubts, fears, and anxieties. If you don’t get them at least sometimes you’re probably not doing it right! Well, from my POV anyhow!
May 28th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Kirsty,
Two years ago I started a blog in the fitness niche and have just recently been able to quit my job to do this full-time. What sucks is that at least 10-15 times I have been sidetracked by the newest guru launch and it has slowed my progress down a bit (adwords products, CPA, JV products, copy and paste niches, new systems, etc.)
To this day, I get sidetracked and waste time on things that take me away from building my “bread and butter” site. I guess the grass seems greener on the other side. I’m making $4,000+ per month, but I get bombarded with videos of guys doing that each day.
I am going to do my best to avoid the onslaught of launches the next few months. One product I did like was “Marketing on the Fringe” which laid a out a way to get serious traffic from “automatic traffic hubs”. It is the best product I’ve purchased in a loooong time (and I’m a junkie for this stuff).
Great looking site design by the way!
Rusty
May 28th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Great post Kirsty
Read it on my iPhone, how’d you make your blog so iPhone friendly?
Mark
May 28th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Hi Mark, I use a wordpress plugin someone asked me to install at one point!
May 28th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Just wondered what timescales you had from concept through to completion please?
May 29th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Hi Ben, We started working on the site at the start of this month. Concept? I bought that domain about 3 years ago and its taken me until now to get around to developing it!
Site has about 40 pages of unique content. I rewrote everything, even the product feed descriptions (there were only 70 as it is a narrow niche).
May 29th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Hi Kirsty,
Great post, as ever!
You mention in your last comment that you re-wrote everything, specifically the product descriptions from the feed. Is that something that you don’t normally do? I’m just wondering, as I’ve used a product feed and thought that I should (but as yet, haven’t!). Will I get penalised for duplicate content if I don’t?
Thanks,
Rich
May 29th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
I enjoy reading about other people’s affiliate journeys. I’m still very much in the panic and anxiety stage of my 3 month old affiliate marketing journey. However, as you said, the only way is forward and to keep at it.
May 30th, 2009 at 1:59 am
@Richard – No, its not necessary to re-write the descriptions. So long as you put unique content around your feeds you’ll be fine. I’ve just done this on my new site to try and make it as unique as possible. The products won’t change much so I thought I might as well give it a go!
@Edward – yep, dead on. You have to move forward to achieve something!
May 30th, 2009 at 6:39 am
WOW! Thanks Kirsty. Never imagine you feeling like that! That’s how I feel all the time and thought I was alone! This really makes me feel good
Now, what’s next on my to do list?
May 30th, 2009 at 7:31 am
LOL, I feel like that all the time Jill!
May 30th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
I tend to agree, the one single thing that keeps me going is the self satisfaction of making a site work, its like a constant bug, I wont give up until it works, I crave that self-satisfaction so much that I stubbornly make it work.
Unfortunatly it does tend to lead to a lot of headaches & boozing, I also tend to be absently thinking about a new site idea in my local whilst somebody is whittering on about the footie, which makes for a great conversation killer. Everywhere I look I am seeing niches and a possible site idea, sounds bad eh? I caught that bug now many years back
Not to mention my snooker has taken a step-back, but I’m just putting that down to bad form. I have so many ideas in my head but not enough time to execute them all. Part & parcel of internet marketing life I suppose?
However, I love what I do, love making my own decisions, finding new niches, love it when a site works, and most of all the celebrating afterwards
I’d love for people to feel that all of the time, its is a great feeling, so a word from the wise is never give up!
May 30th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
“Spending too much time thinking about how much my site would rock and not enough time doing something about it” I am so guilty of this! I love getting all excited, writing down my plan, buying a domain name, then doing nothing with it for months.
I have been much more productive over the last few months as my drive and desire to succeed is out of control. But the new problem is having too much on my plate. Focus, focus, focus is the mantra of the time! I know people say outsource but it’s hard to find good help at a reasonable price.
Great blog though, I added your feed to my reader! Thanks
May 31st, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Totally know what you mean about niche; I put a new blog up recently (see linked) and created a few posts and pages. Just wanted to se what would happen if I built a site on WordPress.com ….. 6 weeks later….
I am analytics junky. I am logging into wordpress 5 times a day, just to check the latest stats and see if anyone has visited the site. Complete disregard for whether the right people are visiting the website; I am simply absorbed by how many hits I am getting and on which pages.
I think the best thing for me is a great big post-it note reminding me that I am not building a site to get high hits, that I am building a site for a high out-click rate. Easy enough to say that on here, but I still can’t stop the analytics addiction.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:59 am
ah… that’s what its called. “new niche-itis”… I’ll probably catch it now I know what it is. Thanks for the post, it was refreshing to have an established blog with a post like this. It gets tiring having blogs expound on the greatness and goodness of marketing when we all know that there are hard times as well.
Very nice and entertaining (in its way).
June 1st, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Just back from the pub so my reasoning skills are a tad impaired but I really enjoyed reading that – I’m more a mainstream kinda guy but I can still relate to the angst over decisions – you just have to trust yourself and go with it. Say Hi to Duncan for me too, working with my missus is my worst nightmare so he deserves a pat on the back at least
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:22 am
The problem I have is thinking “this new niche will be great” and diving in, then thinking “wait no my old niche is great” and going back to that, and then “hold on why didn’t I ever explore this other new one before…?”.
I’ve put a cap on buying domains (again) not more until some unused ones expire
!
July 9th, 2009 at 5:26 am
CPA marketing and other forms of affiliate marketing can have a tough learning curve, but there is one method of promoting offers that is about as close as you can come