How to Set up Fully Functioning, Living and Breathing Affiliate eCommerce Website with Patrick Coombe @pmkoom #VCBuzz

There’s never such a thing as too much experimenting or too much money, so we continue bringing you ideas of new Internet ventures you may want to check out.

Today we are talking about setting up a new eCommerce project to give you an idea of how you can create a new digital source of scalable income.

About Patrick

Patrick Coombe @pmkoom is an internet marketer by profession, and has been self-employed as an SEO since 2009.

Past accomplishments include US Navy veteran of the USS Boxer also studied Computer Science at McCann School of Business in Pottsville, PA.

Currently Patrick is founder of an SEO company called Elite Strategies @elitestweets

Questions we discussed

Q1 How did you become a digital marketer? Please share your career story!

I started programming and building PC’s when I was 8 years old thanks to my Father. From there it was all I ever wanted! I learned HTML in the 90’s then “caught the bug” … MySpace themes was my first hustle only making a few bucks but full blown addiction.

In the 2000’s I started building websites as a hobby, lots of other interweb stuff. In 2009 I started @elitestweets and launched affiliate marketing campaigns.

Q2 When someone wants to set up a new eCommerce site, where should they start? What are the first steps?

Choose a niche! Choose something you are knowledgeable about. Find something you truly love and are passionate about. If you love to say crochet, or ride unicycles, or go hiking, find a niche you can personally relate to… I know people that don’t do this and just hire writers, but its much easier if you do

I can’t tell you how many people I see making websites for e.g. “blenders and smoothies” when they have zero knowledge of the industry.

From there, knowledge of HTML. Learn to make a website top to bottom with only HTML. If you already have exp. I recommend #WordPress / @WooCommerce make it so easy from there.

For new users: buy a new domain and hosting and setup a “test site” on your own. IMO the easiest way to LEARN is to DO

Q3 How to effectively optimize, monetize and market a new eCommerce site?

Optimize – ensure all on-page SEO is on POINT (our on-page SEO guide) make sure your site loads FAST and is mobile friendly (very key)
Monetize – this will vary, if its #eCommerce than obviously product sales but you can add in ad impressions or affiliate links as well, build traffic and a following, and monetization will ALWAYS work itself out!
Market – the fun part about eCommerce is once you start getting sales you can use your customers to promote the products you sold to them. want 10% off? can you tag yourself in a photo with the product you are using? (just one example)

Q4 When it’s built, how much time commitment are we talking about here? What should and can be scaled? What should be delegated? What should we keep an eye on daily or weekly?

Like any business, the more you put into it the more you get out of it. I know people that do 1 hour daily, and those with a full team doing it full time. SEO and social are super important. Making sure you are connecting with your audience and customers.

As for time commitment, one hour per day minimum I would say, the more the better! On a daily basis you need to respond to people on social, do outreach, add new products, respond to emails, deal with people

Q5 What are some digital marketing (design, testing, affiliate, SEO, etc.) tools you use on a regular basis?

Apart from many ecommerce website builder tools, here is what I use:

Notepad++ (everything from coding to regex),
Screamingfrog for on-page SEO,
Photoshop CS6,
#WordPress and @WooCommerce obviously,
I love Ahrefs the good folks at Moz, Semrush as well for all things affiliate
Google Keyword Planner,
Google Keep (drafting content ideas)
ShareX (making cool screenshots and screen share videos),
Excel,
piwik for analytics (it’s more of a “support small open source projects than Google’ for me but Google Analytics is a solid option too!),
spyfu for competitor insight