A Convoluted Journey Takes a Twist

Some days I get the feeling I just wasted eight months of existence. Every time I turn around, a cascade of new information tells me what I'm doing wrong, and a trickle arrives to inform me about how to do it right. Oh well, 50 million Frenchmen can't be wrong, right?

So Some Smart Person Said...

If you ever watched a Charlie Brown cartoon, you may remember how the adults sound. 'Ywa Ywa Ywa Ywa' Unintelligible and impossible to translate into kid text. That's what a lot of affiliate marketing advice has sounded like to my ears. It's been difficult to resist falling back to the Smile and Nod mode, trying to act like I have a clue what they're talking about.

I'm a trusting soul. Sometimes too trusting for my own good. So I have to be extra wary at times, to make sure that I don't let every con artist take my shirt. A girl only has so many shirts to go around, after all.

But yet another pattern has emerged. I am seeing an indelicate truth which may tick off a few people who are trying to prey on the weak via email solicitations.

If I ask for advice, I get very nice responses. If someone offers me advice, I feel like they want me to give them something (like my Visa card). Now, I am sure that there are thousands of very nice people who will freely offer advice to new affiliate marketers such as myself (and yes, I'm still feeling very new at this). But I am also very sure that, for each nice person out there, there are ten waiting in the wings with snake oil in hand.

So I asked for some advice. And this very nice person said 'well, why don't you just open up your site and see how it goes, before spending money on all those trick things?'

So that's what I'm doing. The blog is in place, the store is in place, and the forum is in place. Wish me luck.

Differentiation

I am deeply indebted to Brooks Schaaf for a long IM session in which he gave me a wealth of information I desperately needed.

AMs: don't ignore resources that show up inadvertently. I am learning, from painful experience, that the gurus of this field are sometimes the most silent.

Fall Into the Danger Zone

So.. the store works well, and the navigation gremlins have been put out to pasture, and the visitors seem to like it. And yet, something is still missing (besides the obvious thing - sales).

In a way I am reminded a bit of the grand opening of the tavern that my late husband and I bought back in 1985. We worked like mad to get everything ready for the opening, slaving on the place by the midnight oil lamps, stumbling home at 3am to arise at 8 and start again before the desert heat and sand squat on us and made work impossible. Finally we flung open the doors and stood back proudly, awaiting the mad dash. It never came.

Traffic trickled in, a bit wary and a bit put off that the place had changed ownership without their permission. Little was said about our hard work, the new bar stools, the carefully repaired bathrooms, the new fixtures and signage. The old guard would eventually accept us as one of their own, but that first day was not the day.

So now I see a similar trend with Fern's General Store. I hope someday I'll find myself accepted within the neighborhood.

Changes Abound

Many changes to layout and content, including individual stores for much of the main store directory, with more to follow. Traffic has started to pick up at the Fern's General Store site, with much of it being repeat visitors. I have turned off automatic traffic generators for awhile as I attempt to get the email sign-up doodad to do what it is advertised to do.

Resolution 2: Lose Wait

Imagine my surprise to hear my site is, to put it in one user's words, slower than a sleeping slug.

The scissors came out and much extraneous weight got lost overnight. The site loads much faster now,. but something is still draaaagging us down. I'm putting it on Pilates tomorrow and will figure this out.

Advice is flying at me from all directions, mostly through my emailbox. I've fallen into a pattern of read, tweak, stitch, watch traffic for changes, rinse, repeat. Given the resounding disappointment of the holiday shopping season, I sense I have a lot of rinsing to do.

Today it was a video on long tail keywords. Wait. Let me rephrase that. Today it was a video promoting a video on long tail keywords. I sat through the first one, eagerly awaiting information. Instead of truly useful ideas, it pointed me to yet another video to find and buy... or I could save precious resources and attend their seminar in person.

I'd rather have the 45 minutes of my life back.