7 Comments on Will ShopZilla work for me?

Mitch on Sun, 20th Dec 2009 1:23 am


It looks like it’s a brand new program; either that or they’re doing an update, since I checked it out and it says something about “beta”. Too bad you won’t be writing much anymore, because I’d like to know how this works for you.
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John Dilbeck on Mon, 21st Dec 2009 6:09 am


Good morning, Mitch.

It’s a new program, but not brand new.

I’ve been reading about it on Sitesell’s members-only forum and some of the webmasters are having good results from it.

As with all other things, some are earning several hundred dollars per month while others are earning practically nothing. It has a lot to do with the theme of the site and how well the products they offer fit their niche.

It also has to do with how the various webmasters implement it. One, who is earning the most I’ve seen, uses mostly in-context text links and not the buttons, banners, etc. That would make sense, because he is writing about products related to his niche and then links to search results so that his readers can compare prices. That’s a pretty easy thing to get them to do.

One major difference between it and Amazon.com is that it is a pay per click program, not a pay per sell, although it looks like sometimes it takes two clicks before we earn anything. So, it will be more like using Adsense, even though it is not contextual. That means that it will be a little more work, because I’ll have to match the keywords with the topic of a page to get the best results, but I generally prefer that to just writing and letting Google decide which ads to show on a page.

That’s okay on pages that have evergreen content and that’s going to be what I’m planning on doing more of, instead of writing about the latest thing that bounces across my path.

(Don’t take the above as absolute truth. I’ve only had time to skim the details of their program and try a few sample searches to see if it would be appropriate for what I want to do. It looks promising in some cases and worthless in others, so it will take some time to really see if it lives up to what I hope it will.)

It’s also going to give me a way to add more monetization to MurphyGold. I won’t use Adsense on that site, because the majority of the ads would be for real estate brokers, and I have an exclusive agreement with a local Realtor. So, I’ll be able to write about things appropriate to our local area and some of those pages, a minority, may be appropriate for using ShopZilla links. I’ll have to test it to know for sure.

I’m going to test it, to start with, on AYearFromNow.com, even though it is not a great match for what they offer, and if I like what I see, I’ll extend it to other sites as I have time.

I never said I won’t be writing much any more, I said I’m leaving blogging and returning to my roots of building static websites.

I always like to share what I’ve learned and express my opinions, so I’ll be writing about it somewhere.

What I said was that I was moving away from blogging because it isn’t earning enough to be worthwhile. I’ll be concentrating on my other sites to build their incomes.

But, I’ll continue sharing what I learn and my opinions. I’m just not sure where that will be.

Act on your dream!

JD

June on Mon, 21st Dec 2009 7:16 pm


I have had good results using Shopzilla on my blog, it works pretty well.
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John Dilbeck on Wed, 23rd Dec 2009 7:41 am


Good morning, June.

Welcome to our discussion.

I’ve been doing a little digging on ShopZilla for a couple of days and I’m starting to test both dynamic links and static text links on one of my sites to see how it does.

It’s harder to find items to promote than using Amazon.com, but I’m starting to learn the ropes.

Act on your dream!

JD

Christopher Calvi on Mon, 28th Dec 2009 1:24 pm


Hey John,

Thanks for writing about getting started with the Shopzilla Publisher Program. I’m part of the Publisher team, so if you have questions at any point, please feel free to drop me a line.

As you mention above, the sites that monetize best with our program are the ones who include Shopzilla content that is closely related to the content on the page in question. This is the most crucial tip for success that I can give.

Anyway, let us know how it works out.

Happy New Year!

-Chris

John Dilbeck on Tue, 29th Dec 2009 11:35 am


Good morning, Chris.

Welcome to our discussions!

I’ve spent a few hours looking through the ShopZilla program and have read a lot of the blog and I’m liking what I see so far.

I’ll have more time to test it next month, but I put up some test links a few days ago to see what happens.

I appreciate the offer for help if I have any questions, and I’ll probably take you up on that!

Hope you have a great 2010.

Act on your dream!

JD

Terry Richards on Tue, 5th Jan 2010 4:34 am


Chris,

You’re in for a treat. I just started pulling product from the new Shopzilla program tonight.

I am very impressed at the flexibility of the widget builder… to take it a step further if you know a little code I’m confident you can achieve a seamless integration with your existing sites.

You mentioned you had some links laying around… let’s talk, I do SEO for a living. My AIM is imTerryim
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