How I made $11,285.00 with just ONE eBook - Screenshot, SEO advice, and the one mistake I made.

[brandonbaker]

Without further ado:



Just a few points I want to make before I get into the nitty gritty details of how I did this and how you can mimic what I did, I want to make a few things clear:

This requires:

-NO special SEO software
-NO insider SEO secrets
-NO affiliates
-NO Clickbank
-NO gimmicky products or services

This DOES require:

-A desire to learn
-A desire to succeed

That's about it.

So if you have both of those requirements (and hopefully in very high amounts), read on...

The Start Of My Journey

I started my SEO journey back in late 2010 with a tiny idea that if I could just finish writing my eBook, maybe I can sell enough copies down the road to pay for life's little expenses--a random gift for my sister, that extra bag of chips, maybe even an iPod.

Little did I know it would end up paying my rent! By moving on...

I devoured every bit of SEO knowledge I could get my hands on, including this forum. I scoured this forum. Got invaluable SEO knowledge from the likes of Terry Kyle and Joseph Archibald (anyone remember that famous thread?). But even though I was receiving great knowledge, I was simultaneously receiving incorrect information from wannabe SEO experts.

Problem was, I didn't know how to tell them apart.

Then, came epiphany #1:

Fact-check the gurus.

Yes, all of them. Oh, feel free to read their material as food for thought. But never, ever take what they say as automatically true. Remember that gurus got to be gurus over months and years of reputation building--but over those months and years, SEO has changed so much that the products and services they're selling are usually OLD NEWS.

Some of the "gurus" give completely legit SEO advice. I'd venture to say that even most of them do. But regardless of what they say, you need to go out there and see for yourself.

Take a look at top-ranking websites. Look for the big money terms and see what they're doing to get ranked #1. Whatever it is, it must be working. And what you find may not be at the tip of every guru's tongue, but it's clearly working for the biggest guru of them all: GOOGLE!

Oh, and that reminds me of epiphany #2:

Some of the quietest, most unassuming members of this forum are also the ones cashing in the biggest checks.

I mean think about it: if you're really raking it in, would you be spending all your time posting on internet forums? In fact, it's when I got AWAY from the WarriorForum that I finally started making good money.

I started DOING instead of learning. And by doing, I was learning, too.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned was the value of the right tools. Now, I did mention that you don't need any special SEO software to be successful in this business, and that's true. I don't consider Open Site Explorer to be "special SEO software," so I'm going to vouch for it right here:

Open Site Explorer is the most valuable tool an SEO can have.

More than any other tool, OSE has helped me determine WHY sites are ranking where they are and also how to get my own sites to rank.

Pay extra close attention to the Page Authority and Domain Authority values listed there. Just those two stats alone will tell you most of what you need to know.

Go ahead, do the testing. Go and see which sites are ranking and which ones arent. More often than not, OSE will back you up.

Now, I know you might be curious about the eBook that has made me over $10k in just over a year. I won't go into the specific niche details here, but I can tell you a few pointers to live by:

1) Don't think you have to tackle the biggest niche out there to make money.

Take a stab at how many people search for my target keyword every month for the eBook I'm selling.

10,000?

5,000?

500?

390.

Most SEO gurus would tell you that's pathetic and a complete waste of time to go after.

Most SEO gurus don't think outside the box.

Just indulge me for a moment: if a keyword's search volume is that low, achieving a #1 ranking won't be too hard, right? And importantly, keeping that #1 ranking shouldn't be too hard either, right?

Right. I've been #1 for this keyword phrase for about a year now. The keyword also tends to be informational in nature ("how to..."), so writing an eBook about it was a natural step.

Oh yeah, here's the other little thing: I have zero competition.

That's right. I'm the only player in town and I'm right up at the top whenever anyone searches for my keyword. And as soon as they click on my listing (and oh, they will if I'm #1), my eBook is staring them right in the face.

The thing is, the conversion rate on my site is phenomenal. I invested the time to design the site professionally. I took my time while creating the content. I dotted ever I and crossed every T to make sure this site was absolutely top notch.

So more often than not, when someone checks out my site and previews my eBook, they buy.

And they have practically no choice but to buy. There's no one else offering an eBook for my niche, and I priced it at $39 to ensure that it's affordable.

So even though my keyword may not get 10,000 exact searches per month, the 400 that it does get is extremely targeted, they have no other options to choose from, and they're impressed by my site design. Let's just say that most people are pulling out their credit cards.

But as with everything else in life, I did make one big mistake that I regret. And that is:

I took my site too seriously.

Don't get me wrong, I'm proud as hell of my little site. I call it The Little eBook That Could. But I took it much too seriously.

I spent months designing the site. I should have hired someone else, or hell, even just bought a $47 template and slapped it on.

I spent months writing the eBook. I should have hired someone else to write it for me.

I spent months writing the content for the site. I should have hired a writer to spend the time to write the posts instead.

90% of my buyers are buyers because they found me through Google and had practically no choice but to buy (if they wanted to receive their information). And although Google is smart, it is an algorithm in the end.

It can't tell Stephen King from Don King. As long as the content is unique, that's good enough for them.

I could have created and ranked this site, from concept to first sale, in less than 2 months. Instead the whole process took me 6 months to complete.

It's paying major dividends today, but looking back, I could have done just about the same thing for much less time.

And oh, my last epiphany:

They got it wrong: time is NOT money. Time is much more valuable.

What's money? Just write another eBook, just post another WSO and you'll see your Paypal account fatten up a bit. Money can always be made. Time, well, can never be made back, so make sure you spend it on the things that matter most to you and outsource everything else.

If you know that paying someone $100 to develop a Wordpress plugin will save you 2 months of PHP frustration, DO IT.

If you know that spending that extra $49 on that Wordpress theme will fix all your web design problems, DO IT.

If you can pay someone on fiver $5 for a video transcription instead of transcribing it yourself, by God DO IT.

These products and services exist for a reason. The best kinds of internet marketers are those that chase after time, not money. Money is just a tool to buy you time. That's it.

Most marketers think, "If I just had more time, imagine all the money I could make." The smartest marketers realize it's the other way around altogether:

"If I just had more money, imagine all the time I could have."

Both sentences are true, but keeping your mindset on the second one will keep you grounded and ultimately, will help you make better decisions.

Now, I understand that I haven't exactly revealed every detail on how I made $12k on this eBook, but that's what this thread is for. I'm opening up this thread to any questions you may have--about internet marketing in general or on how to convert a .doc into a .pdf. Literally, anything you'd like.

Every once in a while I like to give back to the WF for helping me achieve what I've achieved. I know there are a lot of people out there who need help as I did when I first started out.

I hope this post helped improve your frame of mind and maybe even taught you a thing or two.

Best of luck!

Brandon

[Nikolas]

Very inspiring post. Using other people's work is good for another reason as well: Two minds are better than one (this is an old greek saying)

So now what's the next step for you? Will you look for a new low competition keyword and nail it, or you will go in deep waters?

[jeffyman]

This is a very logical post and very smart thinking!

[danlew]

Congratulations man! $11k+ sales in just one eBook with great imagination and twists is truly possible. This is a good example for those people who are struggling to make money with their eBooks.

I'm sure this is going to be a wake up call for them!

[StoneWilson]

No I know why so many people dive into C2C business, selling stuff really make more money than work based on affiliating networks.

[jr1228]

Fantastic post! This is the kind of stuff I'm looking to get into in 2012. I have one ebook under my belt and would love to write more.

Was the topic you wrote on a very technical topic or was it just something you had experience with?

[nik0]

Congrats! Since your conversion rate is phenomenal start adding Adwords and Facebook PPC campaigns to make even more money with this book!

And cause your the only one don't start with affiliates, they will probably steal your idea if its that profitable.

[outwest]

What kind of payment processor stat screenshot is that? I have seen that same
screenshot type on other youtube vids, is that Paypal screen?
I
sold about 225,000 bucks land on Paypal, (about 350 1/4 acre plots of land) I looked at my balance sure but never a screen like this

[rob1123]

I'm not sure I understand, were you ranking blog posts and then directing visitors to your sales page, or did you directly rank you sales page?

Rob

[Awesomo]

thanks for the informative post!
"390 searches"... most gurus tell you "there is no market" for the niche. Your post proved how wrong they are!

[yukon]

How I made $11,285.00 with just ONE eBook - Screenshot, SEO advice, and the one mistake I made.

You have a zero competition niche with low traffic, & use OSE (that's it)?

The part about outsourcing the ebook is low quality IMO. The whole point of an informational ebook is because you have knowledge on a subject, not some random low bidder on Odesk, or fiverr. The guy on Odesk (or whatever) is most likely clueless on the subject, otherwise he would be selling the same ebook, before you sold your ebook, creating competition.

My advice, don't skimp on the quality of the ebook just because you can. Not saying your ebook is low quality, but I can see that comment being taken as people reading this thread don't have to know anything at all about the subject of the ebook when they can just outsource the ebook for little money.

Things like outsourcing ebooks to clueless low bidders are the reason why the WSO forum is full of junk.

I really wish people would stop with taking shortcuts just to get something to market.

Take your time & do it right (yourself).

If you've ever been burnt by a junk ebook, you'll know what I'm talking about.

[MarathonMan]

What software do you use to handle your sales and delivery (aka, where did that screenshot come from)? I'd love to start selling digital products.

[Bambu]

I generally target much higher volume terms, but you have made me reconsider the lower volume terms for e-products. Thanks for the post!

[KimboJim]

Goes against every SEO guru around, but congratulations. Sometimes it doesn't matter if the search numbers are good, it matters if the keyword is quality or not.

[TerryL]

Now THAT's how you do IM! Research, action, implementation....and as you can see, it doesn't have to be a WSO or a Clickbank product. It can be something you sell yourself on your own website and you can do very well. Congratulations on your success! I hope you have many more of them. You obviously know how to do it.

[Excell234]

Very inspiring. Did you have knowledge of the niche before or you just read on it.
thanks

[JBagnas]

Great post, what was your thought process that lead you to your niche?

[brandonbaker]

Originally Posted by Nikolas

Very inspiring post. Using other people's work is good for another reason as well: Two minds are better than one (this is an old greek saying)

Thank you

Originally Posted by Nikolas

So now what's the next step for you? Will you look for a new low competition keyword and nail it, or you will go in deep waters?

Well, I think the most important lesson I've learned is as I said, time is the most important asset. So keeping that in mind, I'm looking into getting deeper into affiliate marketing. But not Clickbank--dear God no.

I'm in love with the idea of affiliate marketing in the sense that it allows you to put all your effort upfront and then reap the rewards forever after that. Much like selling an eBook, but without all that writing.

[brandonbaker]

Originally Posted by jr1228

Was the topic you wrote on a very technical topic or was it just something you had experience with?

A little bit of both. It was something I had some experience with but it is also somewhat technical. Honestly, there was very little keyword research behind it. In fact, if I had done any kind of keyword research I would have abandoned the project!

I just knew a great deal about a topic and I went with it, pretty much blindly! But what mattered was that I became THE authority for this topic online and regardless of how tiny the niche, if you are the authority in it there will be profit to be made.

[outwest]

Personally i rather sell other peoples products

or sell CPA offers, email submit, zip submit etc etc
that way i dont have to worry about dealing with customers,

[MonopolyMan]

Did you build a list or just go for the direct sale?

[jearenas87]

Thank you for the information. There were really great points. Specially when you mentioned that you specialize on something small but they have no choice to buy from you since there is no one else to buy from. Thank you once again.

[frank07]

Originally Posted by brandonbaker

And oh, my last epiphany:

They got it wrong: time is NOT money. Time is much more valuable.

What's money? Just write another eBook, just post another WSO and you'll see your Paypal account fatten up a bit. Money can always be made. Time, well, can never be made back, so make sure you spend it on the things that matter most to you and outsource everything else.

If you know that paying someone $100 to develop a Wordpress plugin will save you 2 months of PHP frustration, DO IT.

If you know that spending that extra $49 on that Wordpress theme will fix all your web design problems, DO IT.

If you can pay someone on fiver $5 for a video transcription instead of transcribing it yourself, by God DO IT.

These products and services exist for a reason. The best kinds of internet marketers are those that chase after time, not money. Money is just a tool to buy you time. That's it.

Most marketers think, "If I just had more time, imagine all the money I could make." The smartest marketers realize it's the other way around altogether:

"If I just had more money, imagine all the time I could have."

Brandon

Great sharing. Last time, I dont want to spend hundreds of $ for SEO and do it by myself. I lose about $4000 money on the table because I do not have enough time. Thanks for your last tip.

[Weby Digital]

Hi Brandon, what a great thread!
I'm sure this will help a lot of people
Automation and outsourcing is the REAL secret of the IM. You can't do it anywhere else, maybe.
Time is the most valuable thing we have, and we can't spend days of it by doing things that someone else can do in a less time for cheap.
This remember me the 4-Hour Work Week of Tim Ferris

Thank you for sharing your experience.

[Ferenc Makar]

Hey Brandon, really inspiring post! Did you biult a list?

[Trevor]

That's a really great share here. I jotted down a few notes when I was reading through the thread. I'd like to share them with you, here they are:

1. The niche thing - absolutely, you don't have to go after the largest of niches out there, if you niche down to a good level, it also means less competition to you and my view is it's all about the traffic/competition ratio.

2. Site designation - I see what you mean, because I was doing this a while back as well. I was promoting rebill CPA offers with my site, which was a place to review similar rebill products of its own kind in my niche and every time a CPA offer was paused or a new was added, I would spend a lot of time re-designing, re-writing and re-structuralizing my site. This turned out to be a waste of time.

3. That's why I love outsourcing. There is only so much time in a day, we should focus on the important things and not spend our lifetimes on the little ones. Now I realize many people don't have money at the beginning (that's how I started as well), but it's always possible to make some money somewhere for "free" - just by spending your time (yes, that's the initial sacrifice) and then investing the money made to your business.

All in all, this is a great post, Brandon, nice work!

[brandonbaker]

Originally Posted by outwest

What kind of payment processor stat screenshot is that? I have seen that same
screenshot type on other youtube vids, is that Paypal screen?
I
sold about 225,000 bucks land on Paypal, (about 350 1/4 acre plots of land) I looked at my balance sure but never a screen like this

Hey outwest,

That screenshot was my E-junkie sales page.

[giseo]

Nice tips. Thanks.

[jtnatoli]

Thanks for the inspiring post. Question: how long is your book and how in-depth does it go into the subject matter? Is the subject matter of a technical how-to nature?

[hossainsrj]

Thanks Brandon for sharing your experience. In SEO Things are really getting changed rapidly.

[Opportunex]

Great thread - couldn't agree more about the value of time.

My own business really took off when I stopped trying to do everything myself.

[yamaha racer]

Would you be willing to help me.create my site I would be willing to pay for your expertise I'm just new to seo and I have a niche which I like and it has 2000-6000 competion I would love your expertise maybe a report on what to do how to start. Please and thank you and well done

[octavyo]

Thank you for this inspiring post Brandon !

And good luck with your adventures !

[GeorgR.]

What i like about that model is the SIMPLICITY of it!

Search a highly targeted keyword for your niche, "How to...."... check competition...

If there is no serious competition, write/let write ebook, make attractive site, put price on it and SELL.

Awesome! Shows that it can be worth digging in those deep niches even if a keyword/phrase has very little search volume. I like that business model.

[brandonbaker]

Originally Posted by rob1123

I'm not sure I understand, were you ranking blog posts and then directing visitors to your sales page, or did you directly rank you sales page?

Rob

Both. I mostly tried to rank the homepage which had a big banner to my sales page, so they were closely tied. And because I had very little competition and did a TON of SEO, my sales page ranked #2 with very little effort.

For anyone looking to sell an eBook, I do NOT recommend trying to rank your sales page. Look, if someone is going to bust out $40 for an eBook, they need to know that you know what you're talking about, and they won't know this by reading a sales page. Write a blog, flex your muscles, show your expertise.

Don't immediately hit them with the sales page. Immediately hit them with value. If they like what they read (and they will), they'll be more than happy to voluntarily click on your sales page and happily make the purchase.

The end goal is the sale, but you need to first win your customer's heart before they take out their credit card.

[MarathonMan]

Originally Posted by brandonbaker

Both. I mostly tried to rank the homepage which had a big banner to my sales page, so they were closely tied. And because I had very little competition and did a TON of SEO, my sales page ranked #2 with very little effort.

For anyone looking to sell an eBook, I do NOT recommend trying to rank your sales page. Look, if someone is going to bust out $40 for an eBook, they need to know that you know what you're talking about, and they won't know this by reading a sales page. Write a blog, flex your muscles, show your expertise.

Don't immediately hit them with the sales page. Immediately hit them with value. If they like what they read (and they will), they'll be more than happy to voluntarily click on your sales page and happily make the purchase.

The end goal is the sale, but you need to first win your customer's heart before they take out their credit card.

Excellent advice - value could add some real staying power to many aspects of IM, and it's not something that's seen as much as it should be!

[yamaha racer]

Thanks mate I'm keeping a good look at this thread I love it mate. Could you pm me help to build a good seo site please thanks

[yamaha racer]

I have sent you an email I can't pm.you yet sorry thank you for your time

[minicircles]

I really like this post and specially the part about time. I have spent more than 50 hours just to find/fix/tweak a template for my niche site and at the end I'm most likely going to buy one that's SEO ready and that will work just fine for me. I could have made more money in the 50h than I can save with developing/tweaking/fix some other templates.

And again, great post!

[adionline]

A 390 term got you all those sales? I don't think so. Targeting a 390 term is not thinking outside the box. I can rank those types of terms over night and if it was that easy I would be a billionaire by now. I rank much higher volume "how to" terms in proven markets that don't generate the type of conversion rates you claim and that's with well designed pre-sales pages.

[SEOChemist]

I keep trying to do something like this, my problem is my attention span, never do finish a book, and have about 100 500-2000 word docs on Google waiting for me to get back to them. Need to visit a motivation seminar!

[minicircles]

Originally Posted by adionline

A 390 term got you all those sales? I don't think so. Targeting a 390 term is not thinking outside the box. I can rank those types of terms over night and if it was that easy I would be a billionaire by now. I rank much higher volume "how to" terms in proven markets that don't generate the type of conversion rates you claim and that's with well designed pre-sales pages.

what if his site is very, very well optimized? i mean, i haven't seen the site but how can you be so sure without seeing it?

just asking so i can learn something, too

[superlinksworld]

Hi,

Useful technique to earn big sum of money in short period of time. SEO is the power of internet and gate to earn money.

Regards,
Adora

[adionline]

Originally Posted by minicircles

what if his site is very, very well optimized? i mean, i haven't seen the site but how can you be so sure without seeing it?

just asking so i can learn something, too

It's simple math. A term receiving 400ish searches per month is about 13 visitors a day. Lets assume he gets 10 of those visitors in the top spot. He averaged 150ish sales per month (5 sales per day) from 10 visitors a day? 50% conversion rate while averaging $36 bucks a sale (I smell BS) .Either he's withholding other traffic sources or fabricating the story for reputation so he can later tell you how he did it "step-by-step" in a WSO.

[brandonbaker]

Originally Posted by adionline

It's simple math. A term receiving 400ish searches per month is about 13 visitors a day. Lets assume he gets 10 of those visitors in the top spot. He averaged 150ish sales per month (5 sales per day) from 10 visitors a day? 50% conversion rate while averaging $36 bucks a sale (I smell BS) .Either he's withholding other traffic sources or fabricating the story for reputation so he can later tell you how he did it "step-by-step" in a WSO.

Hah.

I almost forgot to mention one of the most important lessons I learned: march to the beat of your own drum because the rest of the world will try to silence you at exactly the moment you begin to find your tune.

Oh, and I made a mistake: the term actually receives 320 searches per month:



And just to prove it's only ONE eBook, I've singled it out in my eJunkie page:



What you're forgetting is the power of long-tail keywords (none of which even register in Google Keyword tool) and word-of-mouth.

The message in your sig is a good one.

[outwest]

What is Ejunkie is that like paypal

[outwest]

I had a hair loss product company back in 96 to 2000, sold about 500k worth of items, which I guess is not much (I made about 200k from that). My family thought I was a genius at the time though

[adionline]

Originally Posted by brandonbaker

Hah.

I almost forgot to mention one of the most important lessons I learned: march to the beat of your own drum because the rest of the world will try to silence you at exactly the moment you begin to find your tune.

Oh, and I made a mistake: the term actually receives 320 searches per month:



And just to prove it's only ONE eBook, I've singled it out in my eJunkie page:



What you're forgetting is the power of long-tail keywords (none of which even register in Google Keyword tool) and word-of-mouth.

The message in your sig is a good one.

Right... lol. Because all the noobs out here need is more overblown crap with vague screenshots (Where have I seen this before?). Even if you're managing the numbers you claim with the dribble of traffic you're getting then it's the exception and certainly not the norm. Spare the canned inspirational quotes too. You're not as smart as you think you are. Targeting low competition keywords is common sense and it doesn't take a genius to realize that but I am glad those Tony Robbins seminars are finally paying off. Don't worry about me either I am doing fine.

I feel sorry for anyone who thinks they can pick up a term with 400 searches per month and start making $5,000+. Get real.

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by brandonbaker

Hah.

I almost forgot to mention one of the most important lessons I learned: march to the beat of your own drum because the rest of the world will try to silence you at exactly the moment you begin to find your tune.

Oh, and I made a mistake: the term actually receives 320 searches per month:

That means you're getting about 160 visitors a month at best, or 5 visitors a day. That means your conversion rate is about 100%. March to whatever beat you want, I'm calling shenanigans on this. I'm sure there will be a wso any day now to prove me wrong though, lol.

[Apollo-Articles]

To be fair, if he is writing a blog he probably has a lot content meaning the chances are he's getting a lot of extra visitors from people searching other similar terms. I'm guessing these other terms probably make up at least twice the amount of his visits potentially reducing his conversion rate (albet still a high one but we don't know what other keywords he maybe writing and ranking blog posts on).

Just food for thought.

Sam

P.S.

Originally Posted by brandonbaker

Without further ado:

The best kinds of internet marketers are those that chase after time, not money. Money is just a tool to buy you time. That's it.

Most marketers think, "If I just had more time, imagine all the money I could make." The smartest marketers realize it's the other way around altogether:

"If I just had more money, imagine all the time I could have."

Probably one of the most inspiring quotes I've read in a while.