Hi Everyone,looking forward to talking with ya.

[hock1]

Hi everyone,
my name is Jeff and i live in Tn,
i have been online for several years and i am a computer
tech,so i am not new to computers,i have tried marketing
on the internet and am learning alot and i hope
to learn and hopefully finally make a profit,
few years ago when i first started out trying to make it online
i fell for every get rich quick scheme,now hopefully i know
better,i look forward to learning from you and hopefully
make a few friends..

[Nell Taliercio]

Hi Jeff - I'm new here too and looking forward to meeting everyone

[daddyg]

Hi Nell / Jeff and everyone else

I've been following Roz's site and SAH for a couple of years now and have my first affiliate site just starting to bring in a few bucks each month. Hopefully with some major improvements to the site (see sig) planned for the next month or so it will really start to take off in 2006.

That's the plan anyway

Look forward to learning with everybody here

Best wishes

Graham
http://www.GolfBettingGuide.com

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hey DaddyG

Fabulous site! You've really done your homework on your Golf Betting Guide and it shows.

Congratulations!

I noticed one little thing that you may want to correct... when I cursor over 'Golf Betting Articles' from within any directory outside its own, although the fly-outs point to the right places, the main link does not.

Just thought you'd like to know.

So, will you tell everyone what software you used to build your site?

Cheers,
Ros

[daddyg]

Hi Ros (sorry spelt it Roz before!)

Thanks a bunch for the comments, they've really made my day.



> I noticed one little thing that you may want to correct... when I cursor
> over 'Golf Betting Articles' from within any directory outside its own,
> although the fly-outs point to the right places, the main link does not.

If I understand you correctly, that's actually the correct behaviour Ros, the main golf betting articles link doesn't point anywhere although once I create a few more articles I'll probably create a page linking to them all.

Re the site design, I actually took the long route which was to hand code the site myself using Bradsofts TopStyle CSS editor, although the actual 3 column layout was taken from a CSS tutorial site IIRC.

It was my first site using CSS/Xhtml and it's been a great learning experience for me. Because it's CSS the code is lighter, downloads quicker and is pretty easy to maintain.

The downside is that the site's taken me much longer to get up and running so I'd probably consider using something like XSitePro for my next site simply because it saves so much time.

I've tried to take on board what you say about adding value. In the next two weeks I'll finish implementing a couple of new golf stats features (Google Suggest style auto-completion of golfers names entered in the text boxes) and Rankings by top 10 finishes over a user definable time period (either last 5, 10, 15, 20 tournaments or 2005), and this should help me get repeat visits.

Anyway, I've just like to say of all the internet marketing ezines I subscribe to you, yours is definitely one of my favourites Ros, because you never feel like you're just being pitched to.

One question, do you think a site like mine could use PPC like overture or adwords, or would it just be too expensive in a competitive field like gambling? I'll get on average about $20-$25 per sign up with a sportsbook and I also get paid when people bet via the odds-comparison microsite.

I'm considering it but worried it might be an expensive mistake.

I'd much appreciate any thoughts or ideas you have.

Thanks again.

Graham
http://www.GolfBettingGuide.com
Golf Betting Tips, Stats and Odds Comparison[/code]

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hey Graham,

Aaaah, there's no index file in that directory. I get ya.

Instead of having the flyout, even with only 2 articles, I'd create an index file with links and short descriptions of each article.

That'll also encourage you to add more articles faster when you see how sparse that page is.

As to PPC, well, you know how much I love PPC advertising.

However, you won't be able to link directly to your current site from Google Adwords because of your affiliate links to gambling sites.

Do a search for "golf betting" on Google and visit one or two of the advertisers listed in the 'Sponsored Listings' on the right side of the page to see what I mean.

BTW, please don't click on the links -copy and paste them into your browser instead.

What you'll see are reports being sold on the topic. Obviously, the authors link to sports betting sites from within their reports. I also see that the advertiser who discusses betting scams links to his affiliate site from that site, but doesn't have any affiliate links on the first site.

You might want to consider a PPC campaign from that angle.

Too, if you put together a report (either for sale, or downloadable through your autoresponder), you could also sell it on eBay.

As for not spending too much, it slays me when I hear people talk about being put in the poorhouse with PPC campaigns run amok.

That just won't happen when you put Google and Overture's campaign management capabilities to use. Set your budget, test it out, then tweak-tweak-tweak for better performance.

Hope that helps!

Cheers,
Ros

[daddyg]

Thanks Ros,

Funnily enough I was considering either a mini-course to build my list or creating an ebook to sell. I'll make that my project for the first quarter of next year and give PPC a try.

I'll create an index page for the betting articles too, thanks for the tip.

Best Wishes,

Graham
http://www.GolfBettingGuide.com