Louey37

I'm new to this shit. Really new.

I was half of a partnership that provided relationships and dating advice to guys looking for a deeper and more real experience with women. My partner and I had been doing this for a few years. He was looking after the business and marketing side of the business. I looked after the coaching side.

This was until I found out at the start of this year that he'd been spending company money on bars, speeding fines, car repairs, and groceries. A lot of money.

So, he's gone and I'm on my own. I'm now learning how to do all this shit from scratch.

I'm going to keep a journal of all the shit that I'm doing so I can look back and laugh at all the stupid shit I've done when I finally start to get a handle on this shit.

Hopefully, someone who's in a similar position might read this in 6 months time and it helps them to not make a stupid mistake. And it also gives them a bit of a laugh.

I'll start with all the stupid shit I've done soon.

Enjoy!


L.

Louey37

Ok, first thing to note.

Over the last 3 days, my conversion rate has plummeted. It wasn't great to start off with. The site was converting only 3.2% of new visitors to download a FREE ebook. I personally think that's shit. But hey, like I said, I'm just new to this. I'm in the process of trying a few new things to see if they'll help out.

BUT, for some reason, over the last 4 days, the conversion rate has dropped from 3.2% to 0.3%! Traffic is steadily climbing. 10 days ago, we had 91 unique visitors, today (and there's still 2 hours to go), we had 172. This is great but I can't figure out why the fuck the coversion rate has dropped so badly.

We're still recieving traffic from the same keywords, it's just that they don't want our shit right now.

Anyone have any thoughts?


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Louey37

Stupid thing No.1

I spent about $700 on domain names this month with properly evaluating them. Good choice. Don't do that again. Just because something seems like a good idea on the surface, always do research. Always.

Ask people who know more than you. That's a good place to start.


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Louey37

Just re read my into post. I say 'shit' a lot.

Get used to it. That's about the extent of my vocabulary.


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AustinP

You talking to yourself brah?
I know that the web can be a dark and scary isolated place but this my friend is plain ol lunacy.

__________________
Cover The Face. Fuck Her Base!

Louey37

The great things about talking to yourself is that at least, you know someone is listening.

They may be an arsehole but at least they're an attentive arsehole :-)


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emp

Ahh, that's how it always goes with these journal threads. Keep going man, we are listening.

::emp::

__________________
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That's because all programmers are also ninjas.(but not all ninjas are programmers) - LogicFlux

Blind Ape Seo

vortex

__________________
umm, my review plugin will handle like 300k item datafeed
and scrape yelp/yahoo/your mom's uterus.

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Louey37

Stupid thing no. 2

If you notice that something radically different has occured (like your goal conversion rate dropping off the face of the earth) then have a look at what you did that could have effected it.

For example, if you change the thank you page that people are directed to after they complete a goal, have a look at how that effects the that has on how google tracks your goals.

I just found out that the conversion rate didn't drop, I just made it so that google couldn't track the conversions because I changed the thank you page.

Hmm...

Adventures in online marketing.

Louey37

Stupid thing no. 3

Get the basics right first.

I've just changed the on page optimisation of the website and teh amount of organic traffic we're receiving has double. DOUBLED.

Get the basics right. It's not that hard.

Oh, and if you're going to hire someone to do your SEO, make sure they know their shit. The last guy you hired was shit.

Choller

So what DID you change on your site.

__________________
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Louey37

I changed the onsite optimisation. None of the 400 posts I had listed had been catagorised or had any tags applied to them.

I also changed the site title (I think it's called the Meta Title. Not sure) so that it reflected the kinds of words that we were pursuing rather than some generic series of 'near enough' words.

The next step is to get people past that first 9 seconds on the page.

Most people who land on the site via keyword searches don't spend more than 9 seconds. I'm new to this shit. Anything you can recommend to get them through the first paragraph? As I'm writing this, the first thing that comes into my head is 'make that first sentence catchier' and 'make the title really grab someone's attention'...

But is there anything else?

sixthcutuan

Well more attractive websites + some pictures usually make people stay longer - but I find it reduces the CTR. Also for on-site SEO dont forget (Some of these arn't important):

- H1 Header
- H2 Header
- H3 Header
- Bold / Strong Tag
- Image ALT
- Meta Title
- Meta Description
- Meta Tags
- Keyword Density
- Content Length
- Keyword in Page URL

Hope that helps.

Louey37

Thanks for all of that mate. It's definitely something I need to learn more about. What I've done so far has had a great impact on my rankings so I'll have a play with some other stuff and see what kind of impact I can have.

Louey37

Have to increase open rates on emails... Hmm... I think it's time to take a copy writing course...

Does anyone have any idea what standard (or common) open rates on email broadcasts are? Mine used to be 18% but they've dropped right off. Until last week, they were around 14% but now they're down around 10%.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that people are just coming back to the site to see all the stuff that's going on rather than reading the emails to get updates. Traffic is through the roof at the moment.


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Louey37

Conversion rate, conversion rate, conversion rate. I just worked out that if I can get my conversion rates up to 10%, I'll be making $2,000 a week.

It's time to stop mucking around with pumping traffic and get into conversions.

Day job, you can go fuck yourself.

Louey37

Ordered Bofu2u's Link Arrow. At $225, it's the most I've ever forked out for one keyword. (Link Arrow - Contextual Link Pyramid Smothered in Secret Sauce)

Here are the original keyword ratings:

Primary anchor:
Current rank 212 (27,000 exact match monthly searches, 11 mil competing pages)

Secondary anchors:
KW#1 -> 3 (1,900 searches, 5 mil pages)
KW#2 -> 10 (1,600 searches, 2 mil pages)
KW#3 -> 14 (2,900 searches, 200k pages)
KW#4 -> 245 (1,600 searches, 200k pages)
KW#5 -> 265 (1,600 Searches, 2.3 mil pages)

After only 50% of links have been posted (it's on a 7 day drip) there's been significant changes (Primary keyword has gone from 212 to 36) so I can't wait to see what happens once it's all up and running.

Louey37

Just posted this in the BST thread in case anyone's interested.

---------

I have serious doubts as to whether this is the right website to post this on, given it's widely regarded and the premier Gay Webmasters Forum on the internet...

...but I thought I'd give it a shot.

My name's Leigh and I run a dating a relationship company for guys who like women.

We focus on helping you become naturally attractive to women in a way that doesn't involve any bullshit lines, routines, or deceptive tactics.

I have 2 ebooks (1 free, one not), a 5 week coaching program, and a 13 week coaching program (both online based) all focussed on helping you become the kind of Man who effortlessly and easily attracts the WOMEN he wants (sorry dudes, can't hep you get the meat spins...).

I'm in need to assistance in just about every area of online marketing and am willing to trade my services in return for help with:

Link building
Website design
Logo and Product Cover Design
Content writing
Copy Writing
Email Marketing
Affiliate Setup
Even hosting advice!

If any hetro-sexual guy ACCIDENTALLY stumbles onto this thread, wants to make meeting women effortless and has any of those skills to offer in return, please flick me a PM and I'll send you the URL to check out.

I'm happy to also send through a copy of my paid ebook so you can decide whether or not I can help you get where you want to be.

Jake1125

That's a great name for a gay webmaster forum, welcome.

That sounds like bullshit already. Naturally as opposed to unnaturally?

You have a lot to learn in the IM field. I wish you well. If you post a specific question, someone may answer. Your general questions may get some random answers of questionable value.

What have been your short-term results after the keyword arrow?

Louey37

Yeah, it's about being more real and dropping the bullshit. There's a lot of guys out there who teach you to pretend to be someone else so you can trick women into liking you. I'm not into this.

The results have been pretty amazing from the link arrow. It took me from 212 for a 27,000 exact match keyword to 8. Since then, I've thrown a bunch of article marketing links at it and it's up at 5.

I now get more traffic for that keyword than any other. When you combine it with the long tail variations, it's makes about a third of the daily traffic.

The primary doesn't convert as well as the long tails but with over 10 times the volume, I can't complain.

Definitely have a LOT to learn in IM. I'm only just starting out and already learning heaps. The shit I've learnt so far has tripled my organic traffic in 3 months after it remained pretty constant for 3 years.

Pretty excited to see what I can do in the next three months. If I can keep up the same pace, I'll be retired in a year.


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Louey37

Lesson - Internal links matter.

There's a keyword I've been trying to get a particular page to rank for and haven't been able to get it to move. The other day, I was looking through the SERP's for that keyword and a completely different page on my site was ranking for it and my desired page wasn't in the first 10 pages.

There are no external links to this page so it didn't make sense.

Couldn't work out why till I checked back through my internal linking structure.

Turns out I set it up so that the page I didn't want ranked was being linked for that keyword on my site. Internal links were the ONLY links to that page and it was ranking on the first page.

Lesson learnt.

I've changed the links over to the page I really want ranked and with all it's external links, it should rank really quickly.


L.

Louey37

Lesson - High search volume and lots of competing pages doesn't mean that it's going to be hard to rank on page 1.

There a term that get's 90k exact searches a month and has 12mil competing pages. I thought it would be tough to rank for but it turns out it's not.

The highest page rank on the front page of google is 2 and there are some pages without any links on it.

Remember, check the front page competition before thinking that it's going to be too hard.

Louey37

There seems to be a pretty consistent correlation between an increase in direct traffic (through email links and shit) and an increase in organic traffic.

I get it that correlation doesn't equal causation but it's pretty common. Something to look into...

Louey37

The difference in daily traffic from position 3 and position 2 for a 27,000 exact match search term appears to be about 80 people per day. This means that position 2 gets roughly 18% traffic and position 3 gets around 10%.

Interesting...

This is probably skewed because I'm the only 'How to...' above the fold.

Louey37

Yesterday, I hit a HUGE milestone.

When I took over the SEO of my site on the first of June, we had 120 visits through organic traffic and another 80 or so through other source.

Yesterday, we had 686 through organic searches and 350 through other sources.

It was the first time ever that the site has cracked 1000 visits in a day. Traffic has increased 5 times in 4 months.

And to make things better, we also hit a record for opt-ins with 34. This is up from an average of 6 in June.

Not bad for a beginner...

Flyboy

Good stuff. Looks like your SEO efforts are paying off.

Now on to the fun stuff: optimize those conversion rates. Set up GWO and test away, my friend.

__________________

Louey37

Yeah, optimisation is where it's at.

I've got a 4 stage funnel and I've been analyzing conversion rates and seeing what's possible. And it tuns out that HUGE things are possible with if I can make small changes.

At the moment, the conversion rate from visitor to a free ebook is appallingly low at 2.5%. The conversion rate from opt-in to purchasing the paid ebook is also appallingly low at 3%. The conversion rates from here are great though. The conversion rate from the $25 ebook to the $495 coaching program is around 25% and the conversion rate from the $495 workshop to the $1500 workshop is 35%.

I really need to up the first two conversion rates and HUGE things become possible.

If I can get them up around 5% and keep the conversion rates in the latter stages of the funnel even close to where they are now, I'll be pulling in around $30k/month.

The only question is how... I've just got me hands on a plugin called popup domination which puts a light box on your site to get people to sign into. I've got a copy writer putting together some more powerful sales pages for me. And I'm working to create a more powerful email sequence.

Other than that, do you have any suggestions?

j0hnsmith

Great thread, keep it up. As an earlier poster said, do in-page multi-variate testing using google website optimiser (eg see which title/caption/image/heading/whatever converts better).

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Louey37

Lesson - There's always more traffic

When I first started in IM, I would always hold back on trying something because I was worried that this was the only shot I was going to get at this traffic and if it didn't work, the business would fail.

It's taken me a long time to get comfortable with the idea that there's always going to be new traffic. There's always new people discovering new concepts and asking the G about them.

Remember this - there's always going to be new traffic. There's always going to be new people looking for solutions to their dating and relationships issues and there's always going to be new people wanting your help.

If it doesn't work the first time, that's ok. There's always going to be a second chance.


L.

Louey37

Lesson - If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Over the last month, I've lost about $300 to scammers on the BST thread. The thread's looked dodgy, they felt dodgy, but I ignored my gut instinct and went ahead with them anyway.

Lesson, trust your gut.

Louey37

Today, I got my first EVER number 1 ranking.

It's for a long tail with only a small amount of traffic, but it still feels like a huge achievement. I've got about 6 other keywords sitting at number 2 that I could push up if I tried.

I'm going to see the difference in traffic that this makes and work out if it's worth while.


L.

Louey37

Another huge milestone.

Yesterday, I had 3 sales. This might not seem like much but I only need 5/day to quit my job and do this full time. I'd been averaging around 0.5 since January.

I think it's just an anomaly but its still nice to hit records.

kakaboo

[QUOTE=Louey37;1464695]Lesson - If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Over the last month, I've lost about $300 to scammers on the BST thread. The thread's looked dodgy, they felt dodgy, but I ignored my gut instinct and went ahead with them anyway.

Lesson, trust your gut. [QUOTE]

Just don't purchase any service that is more than a lot of money like 50$ or $100.. so that even if you get scammed it would be just 20-30$.

wow good job man especially if the 3 sales came from the traffic from that long tail you ranked alone.. how much is each sale bringin you?

vampiro

I love reading and following the posts in this thread... Seems like a fairytale... I hope this will have a happy ending.

nightwatchman1

Hey Leigh, found your thread! Thanks for recommending me to this forum

Anyone reading this thread, I can tell you, this journal will have a happy ending (not that kind), not because Leigh has stumbled on some fancy SEO techniques (although that may help), but because he has always been about delivering a quality service to guys who are genuinely confused and in need of solid advice. I have bought some of his products and never questioned the money I spent.

I've known Leigh for 4 years and he's been running his business since then and his content is derived from his own personal experience and research. It truly is about his own transformation and how other guys can apply it to their lives.

Anyway, nuff ass kissin', I'll be watching this thread and already seeing exciting results, really hope you get up to that $2000/week point dude. That's some good earnings if you can get it.

Cheers,

Darren.

Louey37

Each sale brings in $25 so I made $75 on that day.

But, the average conversion rate from the $25 ebook to the $495 workshop is currently 25% so theoretically, I just need one more book sale to bring in the big bucks.

I've worked out that the value of each opt-in is about $14 and that's with appallingly low conversion rate to the paid ebook of 3%.

If I can get that up to around 10%, then crazy things are going to happen.

Louey37

I'm sure it's going to. I'm dedicated to making this work and I know that what I have to offer is of tremendous value, so in my mind, it has to work.

Glad to hear you're enjoying it.

It's great to see that I'm not the only one reading this thread.


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Louey37

Welcome aboard mate. I'm sure you'll get a lot out of this place. If you need recommendations or advice, just let me know and I'll flick you the threads of some guys who're doing some great work.

$2000/week would be great but I've just realised that it's not necessay to go full time. I've just decided that I'm going to move to Bali with my girlfriend in April next year for three months and we can live like kings on the smell of an oily rag.

Should mean I can continue to build things without having to have a huge amount of cash flow coming in.


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nightwatchman1

That's not a bad idea, would you be living out of a hotel in Bali? It would be like a working holiday hey

Keep us updated on your progress.

Louey37

I wont be living out of a hotel. My girlfriend and I are going to rent a place for a few months, just to see how we go living together in a country where we don't know anyone.

If it works, great. Then we're going to travel the world, living off the earnings from this little project.

If not, fine, we'll come back to Sydney and pick up where we left off.

Also, I've decided that I can stop chasing traffic for now and just focus on conversions. I'm averaging around 750 visitors a day which is PLENTY of traffic if I can get my conversions up.

I'm still going to put a bit of money into a few higher traffic keywords and slowly work my way up page one but there's no hurry.

It's all about conversions now.

I'm rewriting my new book so it's got more of a hook and then I'll be starting on the email sequence.

I'll keep you posted on how I go.

Current conversion rates for the previous 30 days:
Visitor to Opt-in for free book: 2.8% (20,180 visitors and 541 opt-ins)
Visitor to customer (paid book): 0.1% (20,180 visitors and 20 book sales)

nightwatchman1

Mate, 750 uniques per day is wonderful. I definately agree you should focus on increasing conversions for a while. 999/1000 people are not buying your ebook, so time to convince them they need it!

And of all the crap that's out there, your ebook is far superior anyway.

I guess the challenge is, how to increase conversions without resorting to a typical hyped up marketing squeeze page (although maybe that's worth a try).

Also, have you considered recruiting affiliates to expand your reach?

XRMseo

If you already had a successful business, tap into your client base. Why should sales suddenly disappear or plummet because your partner disappeared/was let go?

If you already have a client base, and a successful model, just find a new partner dude.

Louey37

Yeah, it is a challenge. I've go one of the guys on the forum helping out with sales pages that aren't too salesy and they look god. I haven't got them up yet but I will be putting them up soon.

I'm also creating a new email sequence that should help people see that we have the answers they're looking for without ramming it down their throat.

It'll take some time and a lot of testing but I think it'll be worth it in the long wrong.


L.

PS. Had two back-to-back three sale days over the last two days. Things are looking good.

Louey37

I've made a decision today.

There's a lot of traffic that comes to my site that doesn't convert. Yes, a lot of it could be because the content isn't engaging enough but I think the main reason is that the philosophy of the site is VERY different to what most people are looking for and so therefore, they don't convert.

I've decided that instead of just sending all G00gle traffic to my money site, I'm going to create satellite sites that are much more mainstream and use them as affiliate sites, BUT have a strong advertising presence of my money site on these sites. That way, I can take advantage of the mainstream traffic who's not interested in hearing what I have to say as well as find the guys who are interested.

I've already purchased two domains for the two highest traffic keywords and I'm setting them up now. I'll see how they go.

It'll mean less traffic to the site but hopefully, we'll get much more targeted traffic coming in.

Traffic is up to an average of over 1000 visitors a day. Things are looking really good. I can rank less competitive keywords on the front page with internal links alone. The site must be looking really good to the G00gle.

Sales are siting at roughly 0.5 sales per day which is still far lower than it should be but I haven't done any work on conversion rates so I'm not surprised.

Louey37

Lesson - buying two highly priced link packages for the one site is a bit of a waste of time.

1 link arrow has amazing results. The second link arrow sucks balls.

1 Spam Gone Wild has amazing results. The second one sucks balls.

Don't buy 2 of the same high priced link packages for he one site. Not getting value for money.

Louey37

Strange shit is happening. 6 weeks ago, I broke the 1000 visits mark for the first time. Yesterday, I fell just short of the 1500 visit mark (1463).

Time to get stuck into the optimisation for real.

I've contacted most of the decent optimisation company's but they only work with companies with over $500,000 profit per year. I don't think I'm in that ball park so I'm going it alone.

I've worked out that there's two different stages I need to work on with optimisaiton.

On-page and off-page.

The on-page stuff will be getting people to convert to the mailing list though changing site structure and CTA's and increasing the conversion of the sales pages.

The off page stuff will be changing the email structure and content to help guys see that we have the answers we need.

I'm using an on-page conversion rate analysis methodology I got from Conversion Rate Optimization | Conversion Rate Experts. It looks really thorough and I already have most of the data needed to make it work.

Once that's set up, I'm going to use the structures in Mass Control and Product Launch Formula, as well as stuff taken from niche swipe files, to create a new email sequence.

If you're going to get where you want to go, you need to know where you're starting.

Current Conversion Rates (this financial year):
Visitor to free ebook: 2.67%
Free ebook to paid ebook: 2.48%
Paid ebook to short workshop: 37.78% (Yes, 37%)
Short workshop to long workshop: 24.71%

And you can't get somewhere without knowing where you're going.

Target Conversion Rates:
Visitor to free ebook: 5%
Free ebook to paid ebook: 10%
Paid ebook to short workshop: 20%
Short workshop to long workshop: 20%

On current visitor rates, if I'd hit these conversion statistics last month, I would have made nearly $22k.

I think that's a very achievable figure.

I've just created a 7 chapter version (roughly 1/3 of the book) of the paid ebook to give away. It's to give people a sample. At the moment, (it's only been running since the start of the month) it's more than doubled the conversion rate to 5.26% but it's too early to tell if that's going to continue.

That's my update for now. I'll keep you posted.

Louey37

PR update is in. Just went from 3->4 and from 2->3. Given the amount of high PR backlinks I've built over the last 3 months, I'm a little disappointed but what can you do?

nightwatchman1

Well done mate. My understanding is that PR is like a logarithmic scale, so it becomes increasingly more difficult to get to the next one up.

My site went from 1->2 so I'm happy with that!

almograz

Loving this Leigh. Keep it up.

patrolorp

hey man, almog just got me on to your post, good read.

ignore PR, one of my more legit sites just went from PR 4 to 2, and one i've been spamming hard with shit links went from 2 to 4. I couldnt care less about either. PR doesnt mean shit unless your selling links.