I recently completed a new niche dating site for UK black singles.

This takes my dating portfolio up to 13 sites & I think that’s enough for now!

There may be some other niche site opportunities in the future, but for now I need to focus on promoting the existing ones!

I’ve been running an Adwords campaign for UK Black Dating & this has been pretty successful so far – good click through rates & a good number of sign-ups as a result! The CPC on this site isn’t too bad either, at just £1 per click, which is very low for a dating site! I’ve utilised negative terms to avoid non-relevant clicks and created different Ad Groups for men, women & general long tail phrases, with multiple ads in each group.

I might finally be getting the hang of this AdWords lark

I’ve decided to target any new dating sites to more niche markets & to this end, have just set up Uniformed Dating, using the Dating Factory platform, which allows for a wide range of targeted sites, such as uniformed, vegetarian, disabled, BBW, black etc.

This choice was taken after carrying out some research into the most popular & well searched terms on Google. It appears that uniform dating is a very popular phrase, with over 70K searches a month at present & relatively low competition. Obviously, there is an established uniformed dating site (which advertises on national television), but in comparison to the generic dating sites, this appears to be a comparatively unsaturated market at the moment!

Uniformed Dating is free to join and has lots of women and men in uniform including Police Officers, Firemen (and women), Soldiers, Military Singles, RAF Personnel, Nurses, Doctors, Pilots and even Civilian Air Crew – in fact, ANYONE who wears a UNIFORM!

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently on my internet dating sites, with a load of new sites & promotion efforts. I also hope cross promotion will entice some new members to join.

I’ve recently launched Mature Singles Dating (I already had a mature dating site – Find Me Mature Singles, but the search phrase “Mature Singles Dating” was more regularly appearing in Google searches), Dating Single Parents & expanded Find Me Dates into the USA, South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, Australia & Canada!

There is also a US Adult Dating site imaginatively titled USAdults Dating )    I built two sites dedicated to 30 somethings & 40 somethings, purchased the domain Find Me Cougar Women to cater for all those 40 something ladies that are looking for hot toyboys & am currently expanding the Find Me Dates site into regions – Find Me Dates Essex for example! There is also a UK Christian Dating site & the possibility of further niche sites in the future.

I’ve set up a Facebook page & a Twitter account for the Find Me Dates Group as I am now calling it & trying to find the time to write articles, build links & add content to the sites & social networks – PHEW! I would also like to give the Gay & Lesbian sites a makeover when I find the time!

The complete list of dating sites is now:

http://www.findmedates.co.uk

http://www.findmematuresingles.co.uk

http://www.findmeadultdates.co.uk

http://www.maturesinglesdating.co.uk

http://www.singleparentdating.co.uk

http://www.findmegaydates.co.uk

http://www.findmelesbiandates.co.uk

http://www.findmedates.co.uk/usa/index.html

http://www.findmedates.co.uk/southafrica/index.html

http://www.findmedates.co.uk/ireland/index.html

http://www.findmedates.co.uk/australia/index.html

http://www.findmechristiandates.co.uk

http://www.30s-dating.co.uk

http://www.40s-dating.co.uk

http://www.usadultsdating.com

http://www.findmecougarwomen.co.uk (Coming Soon!!)

Cashback Shopper has just received its 12,000th member!! )

I’m really pleased to have reached this milestone, but don’t want to rest on my laurels as there are still millions of people out there that shop online & yet have never heard of cashback!

The difficulty is getting that message out to people! Until now, I’ve been focussing on the terms cashback, cash back, money back etc. but after a discussion with an SEO company, think I might change tack slightly and work on bringing peoples attention to cashback, by targeting those that are searching for related terms, but NOT cashback itself.

Things like discount shopping, money saving offers & discount codes ALL relate to getting money off your online shopping, yet aren’t people specifically searching for cashback & therefore may not be aware of cashback shopping sites at all!

Unfortunately, these phrases are even more competitive online, so how effective it will be remains to be seen. I’m looking into the article submission side of online promotion & I’m also considering some offline promotion.

I’ve finally got round to setting up my gay dating website, for which I’ve had the domain name for months! Using the “Find Me” moniker/brand, I today launched Find Me Gay Dates. I also have Find Me Lesbian Dates to set up, but there don’t seem to be many new members joining the database, so I’m not going to rush it.

But in a mad flurry of dating action(!), I also set up Find Me Mature Singles, which is a dating site for older singles (aged 46+). I picked this age as there are a number of sites for over 40′s or over 50′s, but I think 46 is more representative of a true “middle age” )  Oh, what the hell, I just wanted to be different lol. The actual age range of members on this site is 46-80 & the mature singles market seems to be quite popular at the moment, se we’ll see if this site does better than Find Me Dates which starts from 18.

I’ve got the Alexa Sparky ranking add-on installed in Firefox & obviously, the displayed figure is the only one you notice on a day to day basis. However, since my Cashback Shopper ranking started plummeting day by day (following on from the Google Vince update), from 205,000 at its peak, to around 460,000 & falling now; although my rankings for Cashback Shopper seem to have recovered & stabilised a bit recently, the ranking is still falling, so I decided to look into the figures a little more.

My attention was drawn to the following:

Cashbackshopper.co.uk users come from these countries:

• 77.3% United Kingdom
• 1.5% France
• 21.5% OTHER

and:

Cashbackshopper.co.uk traffic rank in other countries:

• 602,105 France
• 25,967 United Kingdom

This was very interesting – as my overall ranking is falling, my UK traffic rank seems to be rising! The last time I looked, it was over 28,000 & now is 25,967. Bearing in mind the fact that Cashback Shopper is a site for UK residents only, I can only assume that despite the displayed figure falling, the fact that my UK traffic rank is rising can only be a GOOD thing! My site is the 25,967th most visited site in the UK?

Perhaps I’m interpreting this wrong, but would be interested to know if anyone else has a view on this, or perhaps knows for sure whether this is the case or not?!

Today at 18:36 was when Cashback Shopper received its 11,000th member. Although sales have fallen off somewhat (probably due to the usual January hangover & current economic situation), I’m still hopeful that the site will still keep growing & that Cashback Shopper USA will take off as well.

I recently received an interesting message from Kelkoo in relation to its payments to cashback websites.

“The Kelkoo programme is revising its commission structure for all Loyalty affiliates.

To align with Kelkoo business objectives, commissions for Loyalty websites on the Kelkoo UK affiliate programme will be set at 1p and not 1% as previously stated.

As of Monday 19th January the commission structure on the programme will reflect these changes.”

I have to say, I predicted this about 2 years ago when I was running my previous cashback site & advised members that this “daily click” payment wouldn’t continue once the merchants realised what was going on. My only surprise is that they’ve lasted this long!

The fact that Kelkoo are now saying they will only pay a nominal 1p to searches from incentive sites, would seem to indicate that this particular “daily click” has had its day! I can’t imagine sites paying out 1/2p to anyone & even the 100% sites will only be able to pay the 1p they receive!!!

Despite the “daily clickers” strange obsession with earning their 1p here & 2p there, I imagine it will be hard for even them to justify the time spent logging in, clicking & wiping cookies when they’re only going to earn 1p! Thank goodness!!!

It was the “daily click” administration that forced me to shut down my previous site & cost me £000′s. Even though Cashback Shopper doesn’t offer them, I won’t be sorry to see them go!

The plan for the Ei42 business opportunity is “so simple” that in truth many people you speak to will not believe it. “It’s a con”, “it’s a scam”, “too good to be true”, “it won’t work”, “it’s a pyramid scheme”. I’ve had the same response to my cashback site! Everyone is looking for a catch!

Despite all of the arguments every single day hundreds of people continue to join.

One statistic that is fascinating is the forecast made by the managing director at the very beginning. He said that everyone should work on the basis that on average all sales will generate 1% of distributable income (worst case) that is 1% to the buyer and 1% to the network (after Ei42 has taken its margin). Today, almost a year later and with sales (not commissions) into the millions the actual average percentage is 2.11% to the buyer and 2.11% to the network, more than DOUBLE what he told members to expect. In addition if we look at the total number of members today (bearing in mind that some have been members a few hours, some days, weeks, months and a few for almost 1 year), the average spend PER MEMBER is £98.15, with 13 days left before the end of the first year, we are on target for members to achieve more than double the first year forecast.

What was actually said was that the average household spends £940 per year on-line, so if every member of Ei42 spends £100 PER YEAR then you’d get at least 1% yourself plus the distribution from your network. It was also made very clear this is not nor will it ever be a get rich quick deal. (Legal things never are!)

So, what would I do if I were you?

Your first objective is simple. You need to build a team of 5 people who each have 5 people and then help/nudge/remind them to do the same. So Pick 5 people, some could be your existing people or they could all be new people, but make a plan “my job is to get 5 people” and every time you get a new member pass that simple message on; “If you are joining Ei42 your job is to get 5 people… pass it on:-)“. Once you have built a solid working 5 x 5 x 5 (you told 5 and your 5 told 5 each) then start a new 5. This way you can keep focused on helping your friends build their team of 5.

One other thing. Don’t expect the earth when you start! If you spent £250,000 buying a McDonald’s franchise it would take a considerable amount of time & effort before you got anywhere near making a profit and you certainly would not be considering giving up & closing it within a few weeks/months!

Stick with it, be patient, it will take time but it’s free and it will work. It’s a bit like losing weight we all want it now but if the target is 1 year away it becomes achievable.

And a Final Thought

Many people might say that they can’t really be bothered with Ei42 as you only earn pennies, so ask them if they have a Tesco Club Card! If they answer yes, ask them… “Why? it only pays 1p for every £1 you spend… surely it’s not worth bothering?”

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts. John D. Rockefeller

Well, I did say I would blog about the downs of affiliate marketing too, so here goes!

What happened to all the Christmas sales?!!! I don’t mean sales in shops, desperate to attract people to them before they all go bust (goodbye Woolies & MFI), but the online sales I was expecting through Cashback Shopper. Transactions had been steadily rising as the membership grew, so I put extra effort (& money) into PPC to try & attract as many new members as possible for the Christmas rush.

But new memberships have dropped to a trickle & the amounts spent have also fallen as we get closer & closer to Christmas! I can only imagine that people have decided that because of the discounts offered in stores, it’s better to go & buy direct than online!! Perhaps this is affecting everyone, or is it just on my site that transactions have been disappointing?!

At the moment, all I can do is get through Christmas & hope things pick up again in the new year. But now there are bigger (national) companies starting up their own cashback sites & I’ve spent everything I can on getting my site where it is & can’t afford to spend any more.

January is a peak time for travel, but I don’t have the budget to push my travel extras site any more & to be honest, I may even have to consider getting a day job again   (   Or, at the very least put the affiliate marketing on the back foot & try to get more small business web design work……