A n00b's first steps into Internet Marketing

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Not had a chance to do much more this week with the site as I picked up a new consulting client for my "proper" business. Have booked out a few days next week to focus on online stuff and get this moving.

I'm going to really focus on learning SEO basics with this site - I'm really interested by all the stuff I read on Eli's blog, but figure I should walk before I try to run. Will probably subscribe to SEOMoz next week as it seems to have a good rep for the fundamentals, unless someone has a better suggestion?
 


amateursurgeon said:
Doh - was wondering why I wasn't getting any visits.

It helps if you have the right project code on your page for statcounter.:error:
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uhmm maybe there's an error regarding your statcounter?
you could use web analyzer if you want...

you can collect data regarding the activities of people accessing your website so that it will enable you measures and then reports on the web site traffic and online behavior of visitors.


i am starting using it my blog "online marketing guide" few days ago though...


BTW i hope you can soon fix everything up..Good luck with your business.
 
xenthur said:
uhmm maybe there's an error regarding your statcounter?
you could use web analyzer if you want...

you can collect data regarding the activities of people accessing your website so that it will enable you measures and then reports on the web site traffic and online behavior of visitors.


i am starting using it my blog "online marketing guide" few days ago though...


BTW i hope you can soon fix everything up..Good luck with your business.
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all sorted now. it was me being a spastic.
 
Another week's flown by, time for an update...

I subscribed to SEOMoz- there's some good info on there. I have a feeling some of the SEO guides are a bit out of date (one recommends Overture tools), but the tools are worth a look, and they helped me move forward.

I've used their tools, along with Micro Niche Finder, and the Keyword Discovery free tools to build a keyword list. I've then grouped the keywords into 6 groups, which I'll use as my Wordpress post categories.

Once I've got that sorted, I'll get onto link building, and actually trying to get the thing ranked for my chosen keywords. I also need to look again at the site to get some decent offers up there.

My goal is to have the bulk of the work on this site (and a sister site aimed at babies) by this time next week. I don't want to spend too long stuck on one idea as I know at this stage of things I need to throw as much shit as possible at the wall.

On a side note, I've just signed up with Copeac - I'm going to have a chat with my AM to get some recommendations for other things to try once this is up and running.
 
Since the last post, I've done the following

1. A lot of keyword research, and realised this niche is probably on the small side to be particularly profitable.

2. Decided to focus on just 3 keyphrases for this site, and once I rank for those probably create another site for different phrases.

3. Got a signed up with a couple more aff networks, including ebay partner network

4. Set up PHPBay free edition - it's brilliant. I'll defnitely buy the Pro edition soon.

The main visible change is that I've TOTALLY revamped the site. This has taken me a long time to do, as I've taught myself wordpress theme editing in the process. I'm now confident that the next niche blog I need to roll out I can probably get done in a couple of hours. I'm much happier with the layout. The title tags etc are right too.

I'd appreciate any feedback and comments : Toddler Sleeping Bags

Once I've got this thing ranking and bringing in even a nominal amount of money, I'll probably set up a combination of Wordpress MU and OpenX to enable me to quickly get loads more set up.


The next step is to really focus on getting ranked for my keywords. I've done some on-page work for that, but I'll spend some time getting links and social bookmarks.
 
amateursurgeon said:
I'd appreciate any feedback and comments : Toddler Sleeping Bags
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I'll just say that the frame with "Post categories" and "Recent posts" on the right there would probably look much better if you had the bullet points properly aligned to the left. The way it is now (centered) looks cluttered.

Kudos for keeping the project and the thread alive. Keep going :)
 
amateursurgeon said:
2. Decided to focus on just 3 keyphrases for this site, and once I rank for those probably create another site for different phrases.
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So you are going to wait weeks/months before building another site? Here is a suggestion... since your taking the time to do keyword research (good move).

Spend a few more minutes doing competition research. Determine what you need to do to outrank them - and do it.

Then move on for a few weeks with your next sites - then come back and check on things and do a little more.

Otherwise you are just sorta spinning your wheels waiting to rank right? Each new site you build gives you more juice to beat that competition anyway.
 
Armakuni said:
I'll just say that the frame with "Post categories" and "Recent posts" on the right there would probably look much better if you had the bullet points properly aligned to the left. The way it is now (centered) looks cluttered.
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Agreed. I couldn't think of how to describe it, but cluttered works just fine.
 
Ok, I have done a little offsite work:
Set up a squidoo lens
Used Socialmarker to tag all the dofollow links
Submitted to reddit and got a dofollow link
Found a niche parent article site and posted an article there with a link

Google rank for my main kw is about 70 ish at the moment.

I'm going to leave the site alone for a week or so to see what happens.

In the meantime, I'm going to investigate a different project - PPC with a couple of the affiliate networks I'm signed up with.
 
Good redesign, nice work.

What this site needs now - and I am wondering why you have tackled a lot of stuff BUT this... is CONTENT.

Add content at a steady pace for a month.

The key ingredient here is: Steady.
I found that one article every two days keeps Google happy.

Where to get content?

Well, baby-related content should be easy to get, but here is another way to get it: Amazon.

Yes, amazon.

Go to amazon and bookmark all products and books related to your niche.

Write an article about each one of them.
Yes, please do include your affiliate link.

Ready??? GO!

On a related note:
There is a FREE baby - name database up for grabs at Top Content Data » Welcome
:.emp::
 
mattgatten said:
Any profits yet? Full disclosure is full disclosure! hahaha

Great work. Got my juices flowing. Ugh!
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Yep - I'm banking it big time. $0.28 so far from adsense clicks.:anon.sml:

Will get on to the posting. I've been putting it off because I'm most interested in the bits I can automate quickly. My plan is to get this working and then streamline the process so I can get loads of them up with a fixed investment of $ and time per site.

Am I right in thinking that the posts don't need to be very long - is around 100 words each enough?

AS
 
Ok - 3 posts written, one posted today and the next two autopost 2 days apart. I'll need to get quicker at this at that took me about an hour to do!

Did as emp suggested, and visited amazon - plenty of reviews their to rewrite

Have also set up blog on technorati
 
amateur: Consider hiring someone out for your post writing. Cost me $10 yesterday to get three of them done. I now have them set up to auto post every monday on my blog.

If you have not already done ensure you get that wordpress plugin package that is offered elsewhere on here. Has about 6-7 plugins that are awesome.
 
patrick24601 said:
amateur: Consider hiring someone out for your post writing. Cost me $10 yesterday to get three of them done. I now have them set up to auto post every monday on my blog.

If you have not already done ensure you get that wordpress plugin package that is offered elsewhere on here. Has about 6-7 plugins that are awesome.
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That's a good approach, and what I plan to do. I feel I need to do this one mainly by hand so I understand how it all works.

The way I'd like to have it set up is that I have the process streamlined such that I know every blog will take me 1.5 hours and cost $30 (for example) to launch. That way I know if I can be confident of an average return of say $30 a month, I can launch 5-10 per niche and get a return within a couple of months.

That plugin list is great - I have used a lot of them for my blog and a few more. When I get a chance I'll post a list.
 
Another week, another few posts. I'm getting into a decent rhythm now. Once I have my workflow sorted for adding amazon affiliate links, I reckon I should be able to nail out 3 posts in 30 minutes. I'm alternating "info posts" with book / product reviews. The "schedule posting" feature in wordpress is a lifesaver.

My earnings have doubled, to $0.58 woohoo!

But my rankings are all over the shop - gone from nowhere to page 2 on yahoo, and have dropped from page 6 out of the top 100 on google. Not fretting too much at the moment, I know it takes a while to settle down.

SEO wise, I'm now adding a few images and putting alt tags with keywords in. Not sure how much difference it will make, but worth a shot :)

I'll pump some more content in next week, then look at getting more links.

I've also taken up SEO Mike's challenge on the "No More Excuses" thread, for a different blog - I am already finding my second blog easier and quicker to set up than this one!
 
Ok, 2 weeks since the last update, and 2 months in. I got a little disheartened with toddlersleepingbag as it is getting slammed in the rankings despite my valiant content adding efforts. So I've had a little break from it to try some PPC.

I put together a little CPA Poll system, a topic, and wired it up to Tracking 202 for analytics. Launched yesterday, and was going great until I realised the page wasn't working in IE. Doh.

My first ad on GG was also getting a .2 CTR, so I got a QS slap from GG, and now I can't run it for my main keywords :( Tried deleted campaign, no joy.

So instead, I've run the campaign on MSN, and am getting a 3-4% CTR with new ads. I'm about breaking even on clicks so far (total earnings today $13.50, using an adcenter voucher, so a small profit). Used the analytics in T202 to trim the keywords list, should make more money tomorrow!
 
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