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When Would You Pull The Plug

by kah22
6 replies
I'd appreciate a little advice.

Some months back I started a new blog My Irish Blog It was my intention to aim the blog at Irish people living in America. It's quite a big market - possibly to big.

Anyway for the first month or so I wrote most of the articles myself, carried a few youtube songs and waited, and waited and waited - and very few came.

About a week back I decided to change the format - and cut back on the work I was putting into it for very little return - and basically use Google News Alerts to give an overview of what is happening back in Ireland. I'm also adding a GAA (Irish Sports) section - again gathered from Google News Alerts. In addition I take a major story each day and turn it into a headline article, so that it is not all just cut and paste.

What I'd like to know is this "How Long Would You Give A New Blog or Website Before You'd Pull The Plug?"

I do believe there is a market out there for memories, nostalgia, for people wanting to know what is going on back home on 'The Old Sod,' it's just that I don't seem to have the formula

Anyway feel free to share your opinion and if you want to have a quick look at the blog you'll find it HERE. If you like any of the articles feel free to leave a comment.

Many thanks for any advice offered.

Kevin
#plug #pull
  • Profile picture of the author kelvin yeo
    Kevin:

    Trying to understand your site better. Aside from adding new posts, what do you do in the way of driving traffic?
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  • Profile picture of the author kah22
    Kelvin thanks for the reply.

    At the moment I've a number of articles out there in ezine land with an Irish flavour. I' have, of course, linked to a number of other sites/blogs that I have and I'm register with Technorati. I've also posted in a few forums with a link to my blog. That is really it, I suppose!!

    When you say you are trying to understand my site better what do you mean? I'm trying to build a blog that hosts news/current affairs/sport/and magazine type articles: a blog that Irish people living abroad will read.

    Currently I'm relying on Adsense clicks, I have a few affiliate links up there but without the numbers they are not really going to do much. More hope than expectation, if you know what I mean.

    Would you offer any suggestions. As a matter of interest what do you think of the general idea?

    Kevin
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    • Profile picture of the author kelvin yeo
      Hey Kevin:

      Oh I just meant that w/o an understanding of your traffic strategy, its harder to figure out what advice to offer you.

      In terms of the general idea, you know how people say that a person's gut feeling is usually right? Well, notice you said that you thought the market may be too big. I have the same feeling too.

      That aside, the other questions swimming in my head as I read what you've written are:

      o For the keywords you are targeting, what does the daily search look like compared to your Google search competition within quotes? Is there a decent daily search volume w/o too much competition?

      o Are there SOME competitive sites that are doing well targeting this market?

      o Noticed the domain name is worldwide-infomedia-services.com. Could this be working against you? Or would you maybe want to try a more keyword-oriented domain name?

      o Are you able to place more relevant targeted affiliate product ads that would appeal more to the target audience? Right now, you've got a blogging product, a left-handed product, unlocking an iPhone and some kind of financial product. The Amazon ad is also not showing anything Irish.

      o As for the links to your other sites/blogs, how relevant are these links ie are they within the same niche/subject?

      o Correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like you have just a few articles and forum posts out there? Maybe a more aggressive effort is needed before thinking of writing the site off?

      Kevin, hope I'm not coming across to you too negatively. Just trying to slice up the situation and see what needs doing. Hope this helps in some small way.

      Kelvin
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    • Profile picture of the author Tirmizi
      well its not about pulling the plug its about finding the grove, you have worked with google news alerts for a while .. which didn't give you the desired results .. plain and simple .... welll what was required was you to innovaate and find other sources to bring in the targetted market. perhaps you havn't knocked on the right doors ...


      Chagne your methods , experiement , test and then again test and you when people will start to show up , $$$$ flowing in then you'll never want to unplug i am sure




      Tirmizi
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      • Profile picture of the author kah22
        Some great advice Kelvin - a lot of it I have to say I haven't done. Strange in a way because on my normal sites I do do keyword targeting, it's maybe that blogs appear casual. But point taken.

        Tirmizi, many thanks for the encouragement.

        I think what I'll do is over the next week, ten days, keep posting like I am at the present but do my keyword and other research and hopefully by the tail end of next week I'll have something more structured - at least from a marketing point of view.

        Now where did I put that notepad

        Kevin
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        • Profile picture of the author kelvin yeo
          Kevin:

          Yup, definitely a good idea to keyword-optimize it (esp. the blog posts) as far as is possible. Good luck mate!
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