Just wanted to make a quick post about one of my sites which is gaining some search engine love.

My index statistics have been improving steadily over the past couple of weeks and today I have finally reached a milestone. Google now indexes over ten thousand pages from the site in question and traffic is increasing also.

Even with that many pages in the index, this site is unlikely to ever become a big earner. Still, it is a useful resource to visitors and I am pleased that Google thinks so too.

Next stop fifteen? Hmmm…

For a while now, my focus has been on the eBay affiliate program and I have been trying to build a steady income from it. Despite having growing traffic to my most established site, my earnings are not following the trend. In fact, my earnings have dropped significantly.

It seems that over the past week or so, the eBay Partner Network has changed its reporting setup. Clicks and earnings are treated as separate data streams and both seem to be significantly delayed. Coincidentally, my earnings have almost hit rock bottom since the change.

Confused

My first ever eBay affiliate site is still my busiest and biggest earner. This is reasonable since it has been around for a while and it is a familiar face to the popular search engines. Traffic to this site has been building steadily as a result of the many thousands of pages that are indexed. Yet my earnings are getting worse.

So Long, eBay!

I am going to continue maintaining my existing eBay sites but I am not going to create any new ones. It has become painfully apparent that building a decent income, at my current earning level, would take more sites than I am willing to create. I am not afraid of hard work, but I am afraid of breaking my back just to earn pennies.

My Options

Since creating my first ever website, I have always been a content publisher. Whether I made money from AdSense or an affiliate network, I have always created websites that drive traffic to advertisers.

I never set out to be a content publisher, but it was the easiest route into making money online and still is the quickest way to make a little extra cash. That said, I want to build a serious online income, not just loose change.

As mentioned in my last post, I have a couple of ideas that could lead me in a new direction. After some consideration, I hope that I will find a viable way out of content publishing.

After starting this blog with the honest intention of posting regularly, I admit that I have let it slide a little. This is something I aim to put right.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working on my eBay affiliate sites and I am falling behind in that area too. My sites are taking too long to get indexed and gain traffic, though I have been helping where I can.

Link Building

Submitting my sites to a handful of directories certainly seems to be helping with getting them “on the radar”, so to speak. I am using directory submissions as an initial boost to help build some momentum and get the search engines interested.

Google Sitemaps

A while back I found that submitting a sitemap to Google improved my indexing to a shocking degree. The difference was like night and day. It had been a while since I had submitted one and this very useful tool had slipped my mind.

I recently decided to try sitemaps for my eBay sites and it has been hugely beneficial. This is now going to become standard procedure for all my sites. With something free and simple that helps me gain more visitors from my primary traffic source, the Google search engine, it seems silly not to take advantage.

Too Little Too Late

With everything that has been going on over the past fortnight, it is clear that I will not be reaching my target for June.

The eBay Partner Network is concerning me slightly though. Statistics for the past week seem to have been off and there have been some substantial delays in reported earnings. Needless to say I will be watching things very closely.

I am also considering a couple of new ideas that I have, which could help me change direction into something much more profitable. For the time being though, it is business as usual.

My affiliate test sites have been up for a few weeks now and the traffic is starting to build. The main search engines are crawling the sites and all but one are indexed. However, despite the growing traffic levels, only some traffic is converting.

Since the eBay affiliate program is comprised of several separate programs for individual countries, a key consideration was the geographic location of my visitors. I wanted to cater for four separate countries and naturally, needed to show the right listings to the right people.

One thing I have noticed is that only traffic for the United Kingdom has been converting for me. I am seeing plenty of US traffic and generating a lot of clicks, but no conversions. I have yet to find a solid reason why.

Sticking With What Works

Until I know for sure why my international traffic is not converting, all newer sites have been aimed solely at the British market. The headache of ensuring that visitors are directed to the correct eBay site seems unneccessary, especially if only one country is converting.

To help with indexing, I tried submitting one site to a few directories. It seems to have helped, but there is still a way to go before these sites attract sufficient levels of organic traffic.

As planned, I have finally closed my underperforming websites and my daily earnings have tapered down to almost nothing. In statistical terms I have lost nearly seventy percent of my portfolio, but I am confident that I can move forward from here.

Despite not being as commercially successful as I had hoped they could be, these are websites that I had owned for a while. It is a strange feeling to turn your back on something that you have created and maintained for as long as I had. That is not to say that I am not feeling positive about the change.

Thriving Under Pressure

I find that I work best when I am in a situation where I must do something. Owning a failing network of sites was a great drain on my motivation. Having those sites to fall back on, meant that I have not been pushing myself to do more and achieve more. Essentially, I have become a bit lazy.

With my new streamlined portfolio and having written off almost all of my monthly income, I am again in the position where I need to start working towards something new. This really is a “sink or swim” turning point.

Tidy House, Tidy Mind

Oddly enough, my thought process has become much clearer since disposing of the dead weight. Maybe it is having fewer sites to worry about or the added pressure of needing a new income stream, but I feel refreshed. Perhaps it is even the excitement of having a blank canvas to work with. I am not sure.

I imagined that I would feel more panicked when it came to the crunch, but I actually feel more relaxed about being able to reach my June target.