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Ask HN: Review my first affiliate page attempt

4 points by JFitzDela ↗ HN
Hello again, HN. In my ever-expanding quest to make a living online, I decided to give an affiliate page a shot for some passive income (based on a product I actually do use and believe in).

The products are electronic cigarettes, and the page is an overview (with affiliate links, of course) to three of the top brands.

The address is: http://whichecigarettefor.me/ (http://whichecigarette.com also redirects to the first address)

I'm looking for thoughts on:

- SEO efficacy

- Presentation of the info (I know it's a bit text-heavy)

- Ideas on how to get the word out without being ridiculously spammy...

- Anything else you've got: suggestions, criticisms, etc.

Thanks in advance!

12 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 30.5 ms ] thread
nolite
no success advice.. just watch what you do to advertise. Those adwords asswipes banned me for life on the first offense
JFitzDela
Wow... Sorry to hear it. What was the specific issue? Surely not that it's an affiliate site in general?
nolite
No,specifically, the affiliate target site violated their landing page policies (Good luck trying to get more clear details than that from them). I managed to contact them and they agreed to remove my violation if I changed the page at the offending URL. I repeatedly insisted that I was just advertising as an affiliate, and didn't control the actual site, therefore couldn't "change" it to fit their policies.. I could only stop advertising it on Adwords and on their platform. Removing it from Adwords wasn't enough though for them.. I had to actually take down a site I didn't own in order for them to be satisfied. So its not explicitly stated, but only advertise for sites you control. (No, it wasn't porn or anything illegal either)

Google, F*#@ you. Seriously.

sagacity
Not too sure here, but I think they have a strong 'anti tobacco' policy - perhaps, that's the root cause of the troubles you faced.
sagacity
Site (page) looks good to me.

> SEO efficacy

I have just one questions: how are you going to get a 1-page site to rank for popular keywords.

> Ideas on how to get the word out without being ridiculously spammy

Perhaps, (meaningful) participation in forums (related to health, lifestyle, environment etc.) that allow sigs in posts?

JFitzDela
Thanks for your thoughts!

I had not thought of the issue of it being a 1 page site (I'm fairly new to the SEO world) -- I'll add a page for each product with more details, photos, videos, etc. as a start. I'll also start looking for forums that I could participate in.

Thanks again!

ddemchuk
the ecig niche, unless you're going completely longtail, is very blackhat. if you're just learning seo, its not a good niche to find results with unless you pick up on advanced tactics quickly.

also, a single page affiliate site will be very hard to rank for anything. add content and make it into a real site.

JFitzDela
Excellent suggestions. I'll definitely be adding more content, and I appreciate the advice regarding the niche itself.
codeslush
I once registered a domain for ecigs - didn't do anything with it and I let it expire. As of now, it's still available. It might do better for long-tail searches. howdoecigswork.com -- a question that almost anyone interested will wonder about.
JFitzDela
I'll look into buying it and redirecting with a bit more info about ecigs, themselves. Thanks!
iworkforthem
Make the headings easy to scan through, most readers dun not read in details, just the headlines. Also, in the pricing table, recommend them a plan. And give them incentives to take action now.