My path towards profitability!

[type0]

Hey guys.

I've been familiar with IM/SEO stuff in passing for a while now. I made some money back when doing Adsense arbitrage was the shit. I'm unemployed now and would prefer not to have to go back to employment. I've been reading a bit lately and basically got overloaded and was doing nothing.This thread is to organize my thoughts/efforts and get some feedback. I'm comfortable with the tech stuff & can program, but marketing isn't (yet) my thing.


So my first attempt is trying to sell some Clickbank product. I registered a domain that's kind of catchy and related to the niche (not an exact keyword), wrote 5 articles (for 5 keywords I had chosen), and scheduled them to post 2 days apart.

Each article is 300+ words and basically just drives the user to click on a link which goes to the Clickbank product.

I'm using Wordpress and did all the on page SEO. Also set up analytics/Webmaster tools.

The total amount of monthly viewers for my 5 targeted keywords is 2630 (exact match). I'm not really sure if they're competitive or not, I just picked them because of their low count and they imply the person is ready to take action.

Thoughts:
- I need to get links. Buy them or figure a way to spam?
- I need traffic. other than SEO?
- It's awful to write on shit you know nothing about.
- My homepage looks bad, it's nothing but (1) recent post.
- I need to think to of a better idea.

 

[erect]

The total amount of monthly viewers for my 5 targeted keywords is 2630 (exact match). I'm not really sure if they're competitive or not, I just picked them because of their low count and they imply the person is ready to take action.

If it's a direct buying phrase on a decent commissioned product, it might be worth it. The problem is math is working against you.

Say you own the niche and get sitelinks (1st result + a few more links) ... you might snag 30% of the traffic. Great, great, great sites convert at about 25%. That math adds to about 200 clickers.

Problems
1. 2630 isn't accurate, +/-50%
2. you won't get sitelinks anytime soon, position 8 might get you 30 visitors a month.
3. Average click thru rate for your average adsense site is likely less than 1.5%

I'd shoot for higher traffic'd phrase

 

[type0]

If it's a direct buying phrase on a decent commissioned product, it might be worth it. The problem is math is working against you.

Say you own the niche and get sitelinks (1st result + a few more links) ... you might snag 30% of the traffic. Great, great, great sites convert at about 25%. That math adds to about 200 clickers.

Problems
1. 2630 isn't accurate, +/-50%
2. you won't get sitelinks anytime soon, position 8 might get you 30 visitors a month.
3. Average click thru rate for your average adsense site is likely less than 1.5%

I'd shoot for higher traffic'd phrase

Well it's more of a 'inexpensive' keyword rather than buy. The math is bad, I'm assuming that I will also get random longtail traffic. But honestly, even 1 sale a month would be fine. The only expense is the server and the domain.

Tomorrow I'm going to create another site with a similar theme and choose some more trafficked keywords. Then a promotion strategy.

 

[CCarter]

I like that you are going after keywords for people ready to take action. That should increase the ctr and conversion. But like erect stated, I doubt you will get a sitelink level. What I would do is concentrate on learning as much as possible on this website with lots of trial and errors, otherwise you are going to be spread too thin, and don't know what's going to make you profitable.

 

[BlogHue]

Well it's more of a 'inexpensive' keyword rather than buy. The math is bad, I'm assuming that I will also get random longtail traffic. But honestly, even 1 sale a month would be fine. The only expense is the server and the domain.

Tomorrow I'm going to create another site with a similar theme and choose some more trafficked keywords. Then a promotion strategy.

It's vital for you to calculate the time that you spend on these sites as well, considering the fact that this can potentially be your only source of income. 1 article of 300 words with an affiliate link pushed at the bottom every every 2 days is IMO very less. Also what methodology have you used to generate these keywords? Are these long-tails for the main keyword? And less than 3k EM searches for all 5 keywords won't get you very far in terms of traffic.

Another important thing is the CB Product you're promoting. What is the EPC? How's the competition? If it is a new product, chances are more seasoned affiliates may pick it up anytime soon and you can simply bid goodbye to your chances of rankings.

You will need more content. Atleast 1 article per day. Also, I reckon you're done with the other hoopla. Sitemaps? Disclaimer/PP etc.

To answer your queries -

- I need to get links. Buy them or figure a way to spam?

If you're on a tight budget. Consider writing up articles and have them submitted to article directories. Submit your site to Web directories. Submit your feeds to RSS directories. Get a Socialadr account and Social bookmark your sites.

- I need traffic. other than SEO?
The only small level traffic source other than SEO will be PPC. So if you've got cash to blow, you can try some. But I am not recommending it, atleast for now!

- It's awful to write on shit you know nothing about.
Agreed.

- My homepage looks bad, it's nothing but (1) recent post.
More Content Needed.

- I need to think to of a better idea.
Don't drop ideas so easily. If you're looking at succeeding - begin by building one site. Marketing it. Making it profitable. Making it successful. Once you're satisfied, replicate this with one more site. Then slowly and gradually scale.

 

[Bompa]

Hey guys.
The total amount of monthly viewers for my 5 targeted keywords is 2630 (exact match). I'm not really sure if they're competitive or not, I just picked them because of their low count and they imply the person is ready to take action.

Ok, but realize that the numbers on Google's Adwords Keyword tool are
not the number of searches, they are the number of impressions you
could expect with an Adword ad. Not the same at all.

Thoughts:
- I need to get links. Buy them or figure a way to spam?

Yes, both.

- I need traffic. other than SEO?

Keep asking yourself "where else or how else can I get low cost interested visitors?"

- I need to think to of a better idea.

We all need to keep thinking of better ideas.


imo,
Bompa

 

[LinkBuilder1987]

- I need to get links. Buy them or figure a way to spam?
- I need traffic. other than SEO?

- Search for "dofollow blogs" and get links.
- Make popular profiles in social networking sites like plus.google.com , Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, and advertise your site by making good posts that people will share/retweet/like/reblog. In your site add like button, tweet button and +1 button (maybe AddThis - Share Button, Social Bookmark, Sharing Plugins and Analytics is the best solution).

 

[type0]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Slight update on my plans:

I've designed to abandon the plan for now of creating a legitimate blog or website, I don't really want to create a blog for something that I have no passion about..

I'm going to focus on

1) Directly promoting Clickbank products using 3rd party sites(blogspot, wordpress,etc.) to rank
2) Creating simple iOS apps that I can apply marketing techniques on
I've got a couple of Wordpress sites already up with my chosen keywords/products. Working on building the linking strategy today.

The iOS stuff is harder as I have no previous experience with it.. I'm just spending my time learning the basics for now.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks I will have some numbers.

 

[KAI0720]

Just keep at it. Its all about trial and error mostly. I would say just start in an area you're comfortable with, make some profit, get motivated, and move on to the next area. Rinse and repeat.