Product-Based Affiliate Site

On today's list is to work through one of my affiliate sites page by page. This site is completely product-based, no articles or content - just the goods. "Content" comes from the product descriptions on each page, and those images & descriptions link directly to that product on the merchants site.

Anyway, my goal today is to go through each of the pages (around 200) and update them if necessary. Some need product updates, some dont (as I did about half of this last month). I'm also considering a new navigation for the site - perhaps a whole new template - and though I may not get that done today, I'll at least make the decisions and put together some notes on it.

I'm questioning whether I want to leave Google Adsense on this site or not. I did finally get all of my commission logs put into a spreadsheet over the weekend, which gave me an opportunity to really look over the data from the last 7 months - which is when I launched the site.

To date, Adsense has accounted for approximately 23% of the total revenue from this site. My primary affiliate program accounts for around 61% of the revenue - with the remaining amount derived from 3 other programs I promote on the site (2 of which are promoted just as heavily as the primary program on the site).

The primary program converts very well, and while I dont want to drop the other programs (because they offer a lot of value to my visitors)... I am seriously questioning Adsense. On average, the CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) is relatively low - but the CTR can get as high as 6-7% (with 2.6% being the average click through rate). Basically, I dont like losing that traffic for that low an amount of revenue... when my primary program converts so well. At the same time, it's hard to say if those clickers were buyers in the first place.

The only thing to do next is to test & track ;)

The smart thing to do would be to remove all of the Adsense blocks from these pages, and then add in an SSI (server side includes) spot on my new template. I can then add Adsense, remove Adsense, replace Adsense with a seasonal promotion, etc - just by editing the one file.

That's the plan. So I'm off to update the product pages, analyze my stats & look over current rankings... and work on an outline for the new template.

Outside of that, I intend to finish going through all of my CD's & books today. Backup CDs, Music CDs, Software CDs - Geez! One of these days CDs will be obsolete (probably sooner than later!) and I am going to be stuck with a gazillion of them LOL. Definitely time to weed through ;)