How I worked out my SEO and enrolled Google Analytics and Amazon Affiliate Program

My website:
My website is a DIY website that exists since a couple of years and addresses DIY tips for home, garden and car. The car mechanics, garden and plumbing tips are particularly attracting users from all over the world and mainly France, UK, USA, Australia, Canada, South Africa, etc. It does appear on top of searches for some keywords. Here is my return of experience

SEO, how to increase traffic for appearing on top of searches:

Before applying to any affiliate marketing program or to Google Adsense, I did work on my SEO to start appearing on top of searches.
The technique I used is simple and consists of making sure to put enough text in my website where all of the main keywords are used as per these simple intuitive rules:

Using different synonyms of the same keyword all over my text:
Example: I alternate the use of coating, paint, finishing if I'm talking about the paint. I do not simply repeat paint everywhere.

​Repeating the keywords:
Web language should be efficient rather than elegant, thus it is necessary to repeat a keyword (and its synonyms) to increase the chances of appearing in searches rather than skipping the repetitions like we do in a normal text.
Example: I'm talking about a fish fillet which is clearly mentioned in the title of my article. When developing the text, I don't say "cut it" or "cook it" rather "cut the fish fillet", "cook the fish fillet" and repeat each time the use of "fish fillet". 

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Using both US and UK spellings...
...by adding the UK spelling between brackets after the US spelled word.
Example: My articles about the maintenance of that mechanical device which mixes air and fuel in old or small gasoline engine use both forms of "Carburetor" (US) and "Carburettor" (UK).

Giving a preference to an acronym or abbreviation...
...of a word as used by internet users instead of the full length word.
Example: Using GDP instead of Gross Domestic Product since web surfers will use GDP in their searches rather than typing the developed form. Or using "Cat" o describe the catalytic converter found in cars.

Translating the most visited pages...
...to a second language and depending on the countries from where I have visits.
Example: French people will use French language first when "googleing" so I don't hesitate to translate the pages that might be of particular interest to French nationals.

Making sure I add H1 Tags to my pages:
I learned that the title element available in Weebly is not an H1 tag and that the latter is a major contributor to SEO results.
​I found an H1 tag App available in the Weebly store but was not convinced and preferred to edit my own H1 tag code directly in my HTML. See my specific page on howto add an H1 tag in Weebly .

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GDPR:

No one talks about the impact of the European personal data protection program known as "GDPR" and introduced in Europe since May 25, 2018.
Having a website with visitors from France and UK being No 1 and 2 respectively in terms of number of users and number of visited pages, I can share with you the following statistics:
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• Visitors from France were cut by half on Google Analytics the same day GDPR became effective
• Visitors from the UK were cut by 70 to 80% the same day GDPR became effective
• After a year, visits from France started to show again without recovering completely and are still 30-35% below their usual level on Google Analytics
• Visits from the UK never recovered on Google Analytics which still underestimates them by far after more than a year of GDPR effectiveness
• Google AdSense is less sensitive to GDPR and proves that my France and UK visitors are still there.

GDPR Impact as of ​May 25th, 2018	France	UK
Immediate decrease in Google Analytics stats	-50%	-75%
Remaining decrease in Analytics stats after one year	-33%	-65%

Google AdSense

I do have a good experience with Google Adsense.
My income is continuously increasing and little by little in a manner that I already broke even with my hosting costs and started to do some extra revenue.
What I can tell about Google Adsense is the following:
-Very simple to use in my case since it is already integrated to the Weebly editor, i.e. I simply drag a Google Adsense element to a specific location of my page and decide on its dimensiions, type, colors, etc.
-Seems to help with my SEO and increases the chances of my pages appearing in top results
-Was not impacted by the GDPR implementation as much as Google Analytics and continued to generate income from countries in Europe. 
-Google Adsense statistics for page visits are more accurate than the ones of Google Analytics and are closer to the statistics I obtain from my Weebly editor
-Google Adsense was not impacted by my Amazon affiliate marketing participation which I combine to Google Adsense.
-Very efficient automation tool based on AI that scans my website pages then decides how and where to add Ads or promote my own contents with the "Matched Content" feature. 
-Optimization advice available from time to time and which proved to be efficient, see below
-Notifications I received from Google Adsense advised me to shift to Auto Ads claiming I could increase my income by 16% but I was able to achieve a 50% increase from the first month of implementation.
-Very helpful insights report providing some specific statistics about returning users, pages that spiked, etc.
-It took me months for Google Adsense to start generating a noticeable income and a couple of years to break even with my website and domain hosting and maintenance costs.

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Amazon Associates program

Like for Google Adsense, I did not hesitate joining the Amazon associates program despite having read many comparisons between Amazon and others.
My lessons learnt from this affiliate marketing program are as follows:
-Amazon associates program does not compete with Google Adsense as both are being successful on my website
-I do generate most of my Amazon sales from specific product marketing rather than general banners and promotions
-It took me 3 weeks only to achieve my first Amazon sale
-It took me one year to reach my first payment threshold and obtain the first Amazon cheque
-It is not true as some claim that if you sell a laptop for 1500$, you get a 10% commission at 150$ .... 
-At least, I did not benefit from such over-optimistic assumption and calculation rather cumulative income made of several sales and small commissions that add-up with time 
-I was surprised by the products users end up buying and that sometime do not relate at all to my contents
-I had to participate in three programs simultaneously, Amazon US, Amazon France and Amazon UK to hit more sales since users from the UK won't buy in US dollars for example and the one from France would prefer the euro.
-Being outside the countries where Amazon pays by wire transfer, I am paid by cheques issued by Deutshe bank and which are difficult to cash outside EU for the lack of branches.
-Depositing the Amazon cheque in my bank account leads to loosing half of its value as bank commissions.
-The solution I adopted is to increase the payment threshold i.e. that Amazon sends me cheques of higher value so the bank commission constitutes a lesser percentage
-I keep adapting my promoted Amazon products to the gender and nationality of my visitors in order to increase my chances of clicks and sales
-I do promote direct products that do relate straight forward to the contents of my page
-I do use the picture provided within the Amazon Ad to illustrate my text whenever I do not have my own picture for a particular item or topic.

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That was my return of experience with Google AdSense and Amazon.
Thanks for reading and good luck with your project!