Why doesn't this work?

[tboneman]

This is a repost from the Website section. Steve suggested I bring it over here to get more exposure.


My wife and I have been trying to make this Internet Marketing thing work for two years. We've been online a lot longer than that but we've only been trying the marketing for about two years. And its been a frustrating experience, to say the least.

Here's what we've done thus far:

Put up 25 websites, and never got any traffic to any of them. Biggest mistake made--- not writing articles to promote them. Our SEO tactics weren't much, either. In short, we did it all wrong. So we took them down and started over.

We now have 4 sites up. This time we tried very hard to do the proper niche and keyword research (using mostly Micro Niche Finder). We collected lots of search data, but the problem is, if one misinterprets what the data says, the results are worthless. We tried diligently to follow James Jones' (program developer) instructions, and read every thing posted on his blog. I still like the program a lot. But it hasn't produced the kind of results we were hoping for. The results he gets from using the program are not the results we get. Once again, probably our fault, not his.

One thing we discovered is, there are at least two and maybe a lot more, schools of thought on how much competition is too much. The MNF program says 50,000 Google pages or less for a given keyword in a niche is OK. But last week I read a guy who said anything less than half a million pages is acceptable. Competition is good, he says. It means lots of search traffic, lots of money in the niche. Get in front of it, etc, etc

When we built these 4 sites, we went looking for daily 400-600 keyword searches. Our plan was to sneak in under the radar, grab a first page listing in Google, then build more sites doing the same thing. Collectively we should be able to generate organic traffic in the same niche enough to make a few bucks a day. Keep adding more small sites, without going head to head with the big players in the niche.

Seemed like a good plan but it hasn't produced much traffic, and no sales.

The other thing we did this time was write articles. My wife handles that part. She has written over a hundred articles, 90 percent of them targeted toward our website keywords. She has achieved "Expert" status on Ezine Articles. The articles have generated over 2100 reads and 110 click throughs to our websites. There's also about 30 articles in eZine's limbo, waiting for approval or disapproval. Been that way for many weeks.. She also has a ton of articles on Associated Content, again, with a relatively high number of reads. The click thru's are relatively few (about a hundred), which tells us most of the reads are folks doing nothing more than article surfing.)

Using Angela Edwards' backlink program, plus FTS, we have about 350 backlinks to 2 of our sites.

We switched from XSite Pro and HTML, to WordPress. (2.8.4) All of our sites are built on the WordPress platform. There seems to be a universal sentiment online that WordPress is the best thing that ever happened to the Internet. Maybe so, but for us, it's been one big pain in the ass. I've wasted many hours trying to learn, then fix something that doesn't work on WordPress. The WP Help forum is so huge if you post a question one day, and go back the next for the answer, you may never, ever find your question and whatever responses you got.

I have to admit, I dug out our copy of XSitePro 1 again. I don't know...we just might start using it. WP just hasn't been the solution for us. I've bought and got some free 'how to's' for WP. I DL'd some of their Help files. The sites are up and functioning. It just seems every time I try to add a widget or plug in, some sort of a problem develops. Another waste of time trying to figure it out..

Enough. I'd appreciate you going to one of our sites and taking a look. http//personalsecuritydevices.walkinsarewelcome.com If something jumps out at you that needs immediate fixing, please come back with your comment on this thread. Once again, we're apparently not doing something riight. But I just don't know what it is.. Many thanks. Sorry for the length of this post.

Wes

[krishnaGopal]

Hi there,

I think that keyword research is SO important that it's going to be have be overlooked many times! I use word tracker/keyword tool in conjunction actually. You will not aalways get 'acurate' results but it will give you a fairly good idea to where to drop yourself in the market.

I personally tend to go for the 'lower hanging fruit', meaning the longer tail buying keywords; these don't get many searches a month, but if you optimise your site for lots of these keywords, then you will attain a decent amount of traffic!

And writing unique articles will always help no matter which niche you are going after !

p.s. Ive tried going on the link but it seems to be broken...

[Matt Jutras]

A few immediate problems that jump out at me:

While it seems that you have a fair quantity of articles published, what about quality? Your click through rate is very low. In other words, the reader isn't being persuaded to click the link in your resource box.

Second, you're trying to be a "jack of all trades". You talk about being frustrated with sites being down...having to waste time fixing them etc. You nailed it yourself, you're wasting too much time on the TECHNICAL aspect of the business. You may want to consider outsourcing some of the work.

Finally, and don't take personal offense to this (you did ask for help), but the website is an absolute mess. The layout is too confusing and ugly. Further, there is no sales letter to speak of on the site...just some ineffective bullet points that don't even make it clear as to what the product is.

If I came across it while searching for...whatever it is you're trying to sell....I would click off right away without giving it a second thought.

To help with your site, I highly suggest two things...a book on site design called "Don't make me think" and to help with your site content "web copy that sells". Both available on Amazon...and should get you up to speed.

Good luck!

[Asher]

Hi Wes,

I just checked out your site and at first glance, I'm already
confused. I don't exactly know what you're trying to achieve
on it. Are you giving content? Are you building a list?

There's no sales because when people come to your site,
they have to THINK about what they need to do next. Keep
it simple. People already have to do work in their lives... when
they're on your site - don't make them do more work!

Keep ONE goal per web page. If you're trying to make sales,
building a list is one of the most important things to do. If
you want to give content, give content. If you want to squeeze,
then squeeze.

Hope that helps!

Asher

[tboneman]

Thanks for the tips. Appreciate. As you can see, online marketing is still somewhat of a mystery to us. But we're not giving up.

[tboneman]

Matt,
Appreciate the comeback.

While it seems that you have a fair quantity of articles published, what about quality? Your click through rate is very low. In other words, the reader isn't being persuaded to click the link in your resource box.

The 'quality' is OK, I think, but the call to actions in the bio section needs some attention. We're working on that now.


Second, you're trying to be a "jack of all trades".


Yeah, I see that now. Altho there are lots of sites out there that do this very thing. They obviously do it a lot better.

the website is an absolute mess. The layout is too confusing and ugly. Further, there is no sales letter to speak of on the site...just some ineffective bullet points that don't even make it clear as to what the product is.


I can't disagree with you. It's too crowded, the Theme (white on black) just doesn't work. I'm going to take the site down and rebuild it featuring one product, and link to the other three, which I'll create individivual sites for.


To help with your site, I highly suggest two things...a book on site design called "Don't make me think" and to help with your site content "web copy that sells". Both available on Amazon...and should get you up to speed.


Appreciate the suggestion but that's not going to happen. I'm not a newbie at this stuff, visual impressions to the contrary not withstanding. I have tons of written 'how to' material, and maybe that's part of the problem...information overload. One thing I think I'll try is to get a salespage template written by a pro, change it to reflect my specifics, and test it to see how it well it works.

Thanks for your input, Matt. We're going to keep on keeping on til we get it right.

Wes

[tboneman]

Asher,

I see what you're saying, and I can't disagree. Guess I got mislead by the many sites out there that do this very thing and make it work. My site is ugly, no two ways about it.

You and Matt are saying pretty much the same thing: focus on one product and sell the hell out of it, in clear, easy to digest language. And a major site redesign is very much in order.

Many thanks, folks. You've helped to clear my head and point me in the right direction.

Wes

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by tboneman

The other thing we did this time was write articles. My wife handles that part. She has written over a hundred articles, 90 percent of them targeted toward our website keywords. She has achieved "Expert" status on Ezine Articles. The articles have generated over 2100 reads and 110 click throughs to our websites.

So, you have 100+ articles written, and you only have 2100 reads total? You're averaging under 21 reads per article?

That seems low to me. How long have those articles been up?

[Jill Carpenter]

I agree, way too cramped! Holy moly, I couldn't stay there.

I just clicked on the article about sexual preditors to take a look.

I clicked on the stumble button, and looks like your article has not been bookmarked. That is one thing that can pull some traffic to the articles themselves.

The KW density on that particular article looks a little "too high" at first glance. Mentioned 9 times in a 539 word article - it is only 2.3% but you hit it 3 times in the first paragraph. It just stuck out at me as "forced."

Also, consider adding KW anchor text into the resource box. Just checked your backlinks and you are losing out on some opportunity to establish what words should be associate with your site.

[Chris Stigson]

Man! At least you are taking action and changing strategy accordingly, but hang on a moment... You don't need to "take down the site" every time, let it sit there, yo still have articles going to it... If it's bad, let it be there, then when the otrher site is developed, over-write it. No need to start over.

That's a common mistake... Do the same "initial steps" about 50 times, when you could have evolved what you got.

Evolve your article writing with a better strategy. Find a little bit more sites to post content to and be specific of what the aim of each page on the site is.

- Chris

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by tboneman

The articles have generated over 2100 reads and 110 click throughs to our websites.

You have a very bad click-through rate, around 5%.

If you wish to send me by p.m. the links to four or five of your articles, Wes, I'll happily look at them and see whether I can make any potentially helpful suggestions about why your CTR is so low. (No offense taken at all if you don't fancy doing this, and no guarantee that I'll know anyway, but the offer is there).

[InternetMarketingIQ]

Okay so you learned how to put up sites and make links.

In 2 years how much real customer research have you ever done? Do you have any idea who your customer is and what they want. That is what marketing is all about. Everything else is just...

well dig a hole and fill it up. Dig new hole. You don't matter, it's always about the customer.

[Steve MacLellan]

I'd say your site would be better suited to be a direct response website. A simple design with a nice header image -- no links for user to click on right away. Then use a headline like:

What happens when your mother falls and can't reach the phone to call for help?

Something a long that line -- hits 'em right where they live. Almost everyone loves their mother, and many baby boomers (read large market) are worried about their aging parents living alone.

Then follow it up with something like: Wouldn't you want to help?

LOL... never ask a question that could be answered with a 'no'.

Followed by a 2-3 minute video

An optin box

A couple of descriptive paragraphs, a few bullets, another optin form. Some testimonials, another paragraph, a P.S and another optin form

You've already got the content for autoresponders. Plug your ads for your various products... maybe even start a forum where folks can talk about other ways to protect their aging loved ones.

Regards,
Steve MacLellan