6 Months in - A lot learned - Still need help

One of your biggest problems is choosing a niche. Because of how the search engines work, you need to narrow down your niche. You should only have one niche per blog. People who want to lose weight aren't going to be worrying about how to get rid of herpes or diabetes. Well, having diabetes might be one reason someone might want to lose weight. In other words, that's a slant you could use if you were going to write an article. Does that make sense?

The reviews on your site are also not very in-depth. It just looks like stuff you copied from the sales page. That is not good enough. The whole point of a landing page (what the pages on your blog act as) is to answer any lingering questions that a person considering purchasing the product may have. It's called "pre-selling." In order to do this effectively, you either need to purchase the product and go through it or contact the product creator, and ask for review access (the term we use to mean free in the IM world).

Finally, you also need to make sure that you are targeting the right keywords. By right keywords, I mean keywords that indicate a person has encountered the product before and is considering making a purchase. Some of the more common ones include things like "product name + review" and "author name + product name." Oh, you shouldn't start paying for traffic until you know that the free traffic you get from the search engines converts into sales. Once your site starts bringing in money that way, you won't be having to take money directly out of your pocket. I hope this helps some.

Good luck,
Joey

Hey Nick-

After taking a look at your sites, I keep seeing one recurring theme.....everything feels so random. For example, if I go to your Magic site I first see playing cards for the Magic: The Gathering Game for $221. That has nothing to do with your niche/theme....but that's your lead product anyway.

Then I see what I think is a book by Penn and Teller.....but I really have no idea because there is no description. On the cover itself though, there's a note that says, "Note: This is not the actual book cover." Well that clears things right up. Here's the problem though- whatever this item is, you're asking $151 for it......and not a singe person on Earth with spend that kind of cash when we have no idea what the product actually is. Can you see that?

Here, I'll prove it to you- I want to sell you something. It's $151. Please send the money to my PayPal account and I'll send you the item. Oh, and it has something to do with magic....but it could be fantasy playing cards. Which really has nothing at all to do with magic. But it's only $151, which may or may not be one heck of a deal. When can I expect the payment to arrive?

Your latest site is even more bizarre....it's just a sales page with random stuff flashing as #1 or #2. No real navigation between health solutions, no information anywhere....it's just a jumbled mess of random products and numbers. Anyone could literally build that site in an hour and consumers aren't stupid....they will see it for what it is. A cheap sales page. You didn't even take enough time to get a banner photo of something medical related....you had to know that it wasn't going to work with such minimal effort.

Your problem is that instead of going all-in on one idea and trying to build a brand around it, you're spending a few days-weeks per site and then pushing straight to monetization....even though there is nowhere near enough info there for anyone to make an actual purchase. Since your sites have almost zero content they will never rank for anything, so you're stuck n this cycle of buying traffic that will never convert.

Then I'm reading that you're doing SEO pyramids and that kind of garbage....why not just build one genuine site with the intention of helping people? Genuine content lets you rank, information drives sales and people come back to those types of sites. You're failing because you're far too focused on shortcuts and not even thinking about the end-user....when that should be your one and only goal.

I know that was harsh but you needed to hear it...I hope it helps. And to answer your question- the Amazon site is a HORRIBLE idea. Why? We just talked about why...you give up far too soon. That's the problem here, not the sites or the ideas themselves. So pick one and follow through....and invest some real sweat equity on learning about your potential customers and how you can best educate them. Then get to work delivering that information and maybe you'll make some money.

Your really need to concentrate on one site. All of your energy and passions can then be focused on that site. Make sure you add an opt-in form to collect subscribers. When you stop jumping from one idea to another and put all your effort into the one thing you will start to see some results.

Make sure you add really good and informative content that people will want to read and you will get visitors. Do your keyword research and you will get a better idea of what people are searching for and see where you can help them with their problems.

One piece of advise - Don't chase the money. Give good information, build a relationship with your audience so that they learn to know, like and trust you and the money will come.

Watch out for bing ads. I used them once and found there was a lot of click fraud going on (mainly from competitors). Also, the ads run on the content system are often clicked by bots sent from the site to run up ad revenue.

Dude - try flipping it from chasing where you THINK the money is toward serving an audience demand that you are willing to dig deeply into (because of a passion, a purpose, an interest, background knowledge, etc...)

Fundamental to anyone who has achieved major-league, long-term success in business is being fueled by passion for understanding and then serving an audience/market - why?

- It's damn hard to build a successful business and keep it growing - not so hard if you are passionate about the business
- Your authenticity will come through to your market - that's more than half the battle in marketing
- You are willing to try, learn, adjust and grow which is the only way to build a big business
- You stop flipping around chasing different opportunities and changing your mind every few months - all your energy goes into growing your main business
- You gain knowledge (insider knowledge) the longer you grow your business, that becomes your secret weapon to beat your competition - you have better insight, understanding, empathy, knowledge and experience with your market that gives you the edge
- You build a brand which places you in a position to dominate your market - it's the only way
- Who the hell wants to grow businesses they aren't interested in anyway? That just sucks.

Why not sell those non-performing sites on Flippa?

As long as you are realistic regarding pricing, you can unload them.

Use the GREAT FEELING of selling a site to PUSH you to create better sites.

The best approach would be to just focus on finding sites that already work and dominate a niche and REVERSE ENGINEER them and see if you can FLIP them.

I think you're off to a great start. The sites look nice, however I feel that they are too broad and not focused enough.

For example The health site talks about diet, and herpes, and diabetes, its not focused.
I'd think youd do much better with a topic like "Weight Loss for Seniors with Arthritis"
or "Paleo Diet for Diabetics". Youll get targeted traffic that are more serious buyers.
Then you can get a focused domain name like PaleoForDiabetics.com or something like that. really focused. Right now you just have the domain name "Health" and you'll be buried on page 9999 in Google for that, too broad.
FYI I just checked and there IS a Paleo for Diabetics facebook group lol.

Also since there is NO CURE for herpes or diabetes, I know that your "Cure for___" is fake and that instantly loses trust and legitimacy with me, I'd use the terms "Top Treatments for Diabetes" etc

I feel like the magic site is a nice niche but was a little slapped together. Its about coin tricks but the first thing I see are games for magic the gathering and other games which confuses me and turns me off.
If the site is about "Coin Tricks" the first thing I should see is Coin tricks.

I'm no expert but just giving my opinion, I think the opening page should be this All The Coin Tricks You Need at Top Coin Tricks
with a link to "Shop" and on Shop page I would put the coin products listed first, then other magic tricks and games

I also think that if you make the opening page this All The Coin Tricks You Need at Top Coin Tricks then you should take out the ads on that page, it makes it look cheap and not quality.
Instead offer a link to join your email list to "Get 5 Amazing Coin Tricks FREE that will Wow your Friends" or something. Or a popup to join your list.
Id rather do a popup to join a mailing list than adsense ads.
0.02

Just going to point out something not entirely mentioned much in this thread... $8 of paid traffic to a single ad, or $30 to a site isn't enough to get real results with anyway. Generally, even running cheaper paid traffic (rev content etc) you still need 100-200 clicks to determine if something we will or not. Then you scale up from there.

I didn't go o your sites yet, because everyone else ripped them apart apparently, and I also know that paying for traffic is tough especially when you may be limited on funds. Just keep in mind you'll need more money to test properly.

Also in regards to Bing or any other major PPC provider having bots that ramp up clicks? That's rubbish. As a competitor, you should be clicking other companies ads so you can see if there are areas you can improve on. That's cheap spy tools there.

On Bing you must stay tightly targeted or you will quickly end up with a bunch of "surfer" clicks.