At what point do I call it a loss and move on?

40 replies
Registered my website below since 12/20/09.

Its currently sitting at 222 visits / 43 hops. About half of the visits coming from GOOGLE and YAHOO.

I'm on page 1 and 2 of search results - but I just can't get anything to convert. Should I keep adding content and hope for the best? Or is my niche stupid and I should give up?

GIVE HONEST FEEDBACK
This is my 1st project.
#call #loss #move #point
  • Profile picture of the author Rick Johansson
    You need more hops to determine if it's going to convert or not. 43 is not enough. I usually wait until I have 500.

    Rick
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  • Profile picture of the author Hanz
    Keep adding content I say. It took me a while before I made a sale. I know the feeling. Keep at it.
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  • Profile picture of the author OzDesign
    It's barely a month old, give it a bit more time.

    Wait for more hops like Rick says and fine tune it later.
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  • Profile picture of the author SullyUI
    Yes, to echo other posters here, you might want to give it more than a month before you call it quits.

    Are you sending traffic to any actual sales or landing pages?
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Originally Posted by Sully Chaudry View Post

      Yes, to echo other posters here, you might want to give it more than a month before you call it quits.

      Are you sending traffic to any actual sales or landing pages?
      I'm not entirely sure that I'm using the terminology correctly; but I believe my blog is the landing page. I've linked to my blog from many social networking sites; but the traffic that I am getting is ... minimal. Only half of it is from YAHOO/GOOGLE, and the other half is from my Facebook posts that I make.

      Does 200 hits since 12/20 seem low to you?
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  • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
    I don't really see anything there that sets you apart from every other, and usually better blog...try to get some unique content that you can write as an absolute authority....also get a blogroll going and network with other writers which will bring in traffic and keep plugging away at it.

    I have known people in Runescape blogs who have been doing it for 2+ years and they are just about making enough to cover fees, due to my specialised knowledge when I made my blog almost all advertised it for free without me even asking.

    Anyone can write a blog by simply copying what someone else has written, the only way to really get ahead is by writing stuff and coming up with techniques that no one else knows, allowing others to post on their forums with a link to your blog which will get you those valued readers.
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Thanks everyone for your response. I'm a bit impatient; as any typical American, I love instant gratification.

      Originally Posted by Rick Johansson View Post

      You need more hops to determine if it's going to convert or not. 43 is not enough. I usually wait until I have 500.

      Rick
      How many should convert @ 500 hops, in your opinion?

      Originally Posted by Sparhawke View Post

      I don't really see anything there that sets you apart from every other, and usually better blog...try to get some unique content that you can write as an absolute authority....also get a blogroll going and network with other writers which will bring in traffic and keep plugging away at it.

      I have known people in Runescape blogs who have been doing it for 2+ years and they are just about making enough to cover fees, due to my specialised knowledge when I made my blog almost all advertised it for free without me even asking.

      Anyone can write a blog by simply copying what someone else has written, the only way to really get ahead is by writing stuff and coming up with techniques that no one else knows, allowing others to post on their forums with a link to your blog which will get you those valued readers.
      Thank you for your feedback. Whats the best way to network with other writers? Are you referring to outsourcing?

      How profitable were your friend's runescape blogs? I was reading about large investments being made in Zynga - and it seems people are willing to pay actual money to get farm coins etc so my thought was... why not pay for a guide? But if Runescape isn't a profitable niche; then I may rethink my strategy.
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      • Profile picture of the author N4PGW
        Originally Posted by abednego View Post

        Thanks everyone for your response. I'm a bit impatient; as any typical American, I love instant gratification.



        How many should convert @ 500 hops, in your opinion?


        Checxk the stats with clickbank on that product. i believe they show the perct.
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        • Profile picture of the author abednego
          Originally Posted by N4PGW View Post

          Checxk the stats with clickbank on that product. i believe they show the perct.
          Which stat is that?
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          • Profile picture of the author N4PGW
            Originally Posted by abednego View Post

            Which stat is that?
            I don't know if they changed it, I don't think so, I think I was thinking of the percent referred, which is not correct. ]

            My mistake. Sorry.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
    The best way is to go to other blogs and simply comment on theirs and place your blogs link on the bottom, and add their blog to a blogroll on yours, when they come to check out your blog (if they ever do) they will see theirs linked from you and reciprocate.

    People who go to their blog regularly will naturally come and see what your blog is about when they read your comments...

    It could take a month or three to build up but with original content you will get regulars

    I don't know how community minded Farmville is but this is what I did in my game and ended up with the top writers all promoting my blog for nothing.

    Gaming blogs by and large don't generally make money, for the most part you are advertising to kids who don't have access to a credit card though it may not hurt to simply put a google adsense in and find out where it takes you, gaming blogs are more a labour of love than something to make money on I find...

    This lady (#1 runescape blog writer) had been talking about me even before I started it so that was naturally a great traffic resource.
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  • Profile picture of the author refbois
    Farmvillie is super fun, but you have to remember ads in the side are things that people playing games usually overlook. I mean do you ever notice the ad's as you play farmvillie on FB? I bet you can't even remember one name from the ad's on the side of the game as your playing, but if you are addicted as you say you are you have probably already made 10,000 impressions on the ads for FB.

    Good luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author SpankD
      Launch a new product every month.

      It's the flingpoo business theory. Fling enough poo against a wall something has to stick. If a product isn't rolling by day 29 you have your answer and theres less emotional attachment if you move on to the next project on schedule.
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  • Profile picture of the author Home Easy Earn
    My advice would be to just keep trying different strategies until you start to get results The other problems with things such as farmville and games is that you may get a large opt in list but I would say 99% of those people are only looking for free answers and tips and will not be that responsive to paid for products
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonmorgan
    everything on your site should be an upsell.... here is a good example, it's a dating site and slightly adult but you'll notice that everything on the site is an upsell to a product.

    you can do the same thing. write an article about how to milk cows faster, or whatever it is you do in that game... and include a link to the cheat-book your trying to promote.

    upsell your products... promote them, pitch them, give surfers a reason to want to buy them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
    I would agree with what Jason says, if you set a realistic price for an entire book for $7 that has real value and not the same regurgitated "cheats" that everyone else is writing you will probably get some conversions but you really need to set yourself apart as the absolute de-facto authority on your subject, I would rate that as being someone who is in the top 1% of wealth in the game (as I am in Rs), you don't have to be richer than everyone else, just enough for it to be believable and achievable by all...maybe proven by wearing the most valuable item in the game; a blue party hat. The writer, Vaskor is one of my friends, you will see that he has 77,000 views on that article alone and he writes many...of course much of what is written in the affiliate book is complete bovine scatology but that doesn't matter as you need to get an idea

    When people see you writing as an authority and following your tips helps them get better they will certainly pay for a well written, well published and illustrated book that gives 100% of your tips rather than the few scraps you threw them for free. (And you can offer them lifetime updates too which is a great selling point)
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    “Thinking is easy, Acting is difficult
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Originally Posted by refbois View Post

      Farmvillie is super fun, but you have to remember ads in the side are things that people playing games usually overlook. I mean do you ever notice the ad's as you play farmvillie on FB? I bet you can't even remember one name from the ad's on the side of the game as your playing, but if you are addicted as you say you are you have probably already made 10,000 impressions on the ads for FB.

      Good luck!
      I gave up on Facebook Ads a long time ago. No one clicked on them! Thank you for the goodluck, I'll need it.

      Originally Posted by SpankD View Post

      Launch a new product every month.

      It's the flingpoo business theory. Fling enough poo against a wall something has to stick. If a product isn't rolling by day 29 you have your answer and theres less emotional attachment if you move on to the next project on schedule.
      A new product? As in, a new niche? Or keep promoting different products within the same niche?

      Originally Posted by jasonmorgan View Post

      everything on your site should be an upsell.... here is a good example, it's a dating site and slightly adult but you'll notice that everything on the site is an upsell to a product.

      you can do the same thing. write an article about how to milk cows faster, or whatever it is you do in that game... and include a link to the cheat-book your trying to promote.

      upsell your products... promote them, pitch them, give surfers a reason to want to buy them.
      Originally Posted by Sparhawke View Post

      I would agree with what Jason says, if you set a realistic price for an entire book for $7 that has real value and not the same regurgitated "cheats" that everyone else is writing you will probably get some conversions but you really need to set yourself apart as the absolute de-facto authority on your subject, I would rate that as being someone who is in the top 1% of wealth in the game (as I am in Rs), you don't have to be richer than everyone else, just enough for it to be believable and achievable by all...maybe proven by wearing the most valuable item in the game; a blue party hat. The writer, Vaskor is one of my friends, you will see that he has 77,000 views on that article alone and he writes many...of course much of what is written in the affiliate book is complete bovine scatology but that doesn't matter as you need to get an idea

      When people see you writing as an authority and following your tips helps them get better they will certainly pay for a well written, well published and illustrated book that gives 100% of your tips rather than the few scraps you threw them for free. (And you can offer them lifetime updates too which is a great selling point)

      Ok, that website example seems a little out of my league. This is my first project - and I'm just wanting to do this as a challenge! I'm not thinking I'll "get rich quick", but... for some odd reason, the idea of promoting these things intrigues me.

      Are you the webmaster, or do you know the webmaster to the dating/adult website?

      In another thread I made, some people gave me the advice on just "make as many frequent posts as possible, even if its just talking about new items"... so it seems that advice differs a little bit from yours. Or do I try to incorporate everyday posts in a single product?

      I attempted to do that with my latest post, showing off a building I purchased in the game.

      Just growing impatient. I'll wait this out for 500 hops.

      How many should convert with 500 hops for it to be moderately successful?

      [EDIT]

      Also, is it normal for my rankings @ google to change?

      I've tried to do as much social bookmarking as I could for my webpage, but I just can't get it to rank well with google. How long should it take to be on page 1? Sometimes it is on page 2.... and sometimes it doesn't rank. It keeps flip flopping.

      But my YAHOO ranking seems consistent. Odd.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
    Gaming blogs as a rule never do well anyway and it takes literally months to build them up just to cover hosting fees, you would probably be far better with a forum for those where others can gather...blogs for the most part I find are one persons mission and kids never pay for products. Even I as one of the top merchants (and as a very well known fansite admin with thousands of people who knew who I was) in my game never got much, not that I was affiliating anything but a few views on google adverts a day would be nice lol

    Simply use it as a vehicle to practise your writing style and switch to something else that people actually pay for
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  • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
    I guess what I am saying is bury it
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    “Thinking is easy, Acting is difficult
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Originally Posted by Desmond Chen View Post

    does your niche have competition above 1,000,000? if it has , then you can stay since 1st or 2nd place in the search rankings for that figure is great!
    I'm not sure, the google keyword tool says "not enough data".

    "farmville help" returns 120,000 results.
    farmville help (without quotes) returns 6,800,000 results.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
    If you really want to start to get some users start commenting on this blog AND this one and always put the link to your blog at the bottom of your posts, make sure you have worthwhile information on yours to set it apart like "the life and times of a level one noobs journey to level 100" or something and make it humourous, intelligent and packed full of stories and tips along the way you found and you will end up with viewers.

    The biggest problem I see with your blog is that you are not networking, which is your biggest downfall...you are simply hoping people will find you, which they won't
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    “Thinking is easy, Acting is difficult
    And to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world ~ Goethe”
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  • Profile picture of the author Erica Leggette
    Originally Posted by abednego View Post

    Registered my website below since 12/20/09.

    Its currently sitting at 222 visits / 43 hops. About half of the visits coming from GOOGLE and YAHOO.

    I'm on page 1 and 2 of search results - but I just can't get anything to convert. Should I keep adding content and hope for the best? Or is my niche stupid and I should give up?

    GIVE HONEST FEEDBACK
    This is my 1st project.

    One word....
    NEVER.

    Just find a way to do it differently thus turning more profit for you. But right now I think it's too early to even know what needs to be worked on.

    Give it more time and see what the stats are looking like then change things as you see fit but I don't feel anything we desire to succeed with should ever be given up on.
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    Be easy.


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  • How many people who play Farmville are going to buy anything.

    You don't understand the intentions of the intended audience. Until you do you won't make money.

    Marketing is about figuring out what people want and giving it to them.

    Making sites and putting up links isn't marketing.
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    • Originally Posted by InternetMarketingIQ View Post

      How many people who play Farmville are going to buy anything.

      You don't understand the intentions of the intended audience. Until you do you won't make money.

      Marketing is about figuring out what people want and giving it to them.

      Making sites and putting up links isn't marketing.

      Finally, somebody gets around to asking the
      $64,000 question!

      Does anybody want to buy it to begin with?

      If nobody wants it, it's never gonna sell, so forget it and
      move on. In the immortal words of the great Marlon Sanders:
      "A dead duck isn't gonna quack no matter what you do." and I
      mean this in the most helpful kind of way, but I think this duck
      has rigor mortis already!

      If you're looking at 222 unique visits to the site, and 43
      hops (and I'm guessing that means clicks on the sales link),
      that's a pretty good indication it's not gonna be a big seller.

      At any rate, 222 visits to the sales page and not one sale
      isn't real encouraging.

      that's the beauty of internet marketing though. In the
      old days, you'd have to post a classified ad in a print
      medium and wait for weeks or months before you knew
      if it was going to do anything or not, plus you had to have
      fairly deep pockets as well.

      This way, you've only invested a few hours of your time
      and a few bucks for hosting, so it's not that hard to
      move on.

      Michael
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  • Profile picture of the author 60MinuteAffiliate
    I think a lot of it depends on what you're doing to get traffic

    is the traffic targeted

    if you're doing article marketing it depends on your articles and the author bio too

    it also depends on your presell page too or whatever you are doing on your site to promote the product

    there are a lot of variables involved

    colleen
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Its really interesting to hear different opinions; and how everyone does their own thing. If 200 visits / 43 hops seems discouraging, what is a good goal to keep in mind for just starting out?

    Also, I don't understand my google ranking. My page use to be on page 6 ... then it went on page 1... and now its not even ranked. What could cause that?

    And whats the best way to remove dates from blog posts?
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Still curious on how to remove dates.

    Just noticed that my webpage was bumped to page 2. Still on page 1 of Yahoo ... seems to almost be random.
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    RIP FarmVille Niche. I don't think I'll be updating it anymore.

    12/20/09 - 01/29/10:

    [+] 829 pageviews
    [+] 475 visits
    [+] 145 hops
    [+] 4 order form impressions

    [-] $7 domain investment
    [-] $0 profit (!)

    == fail!
    Unless others think i should invest time and energy for more content?


    * * *

    Off to try my next project. I think I'm going to write more articles (I have a goal of 20) ... and add to the above formula, with a niche with less competition.

    Wish me luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author rajivkumar900
    I think you should wait some more time...222 is not enough I have personally seen sometime 1000's of visitor doesnt convert but sometime only 1 visit done and that convert so number of visits are irrelavant until you are not getting any targeted traffic either if you are getting targeting traffic still you need to wait for better results.
    i wish best of luck for you.
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    Rajiv Kumar
    Skpe: rajivkumar900
    Email id : rajivkumar900@gmail.com

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  • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
    It matters not one bit how many blogs he makes, the whole point of blogging is to network with other bloggers as I told him weeks ago, as I see from his site he has not bothered to do this very important networking so doomed himself to failure almost before he started.

    He could make 100 blogs but if he cannot be assed making contact with others in his niche he will fail every single time unless he somehow hits on something utterly new such as failblog or lolcats.
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    “Thinking is easy, Acting is difficult
    And to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world ~ Goethe”
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    I love the criticism. Keep it coming.

    The bulk of my networking has been with Facebook. I figured that traffic would be better than traffic from other blogs. You think it should include both?
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    • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
      Originally Posted by abednego View Post

      I love the criticism. Keep it coming.

      The bulk of my networking has been with Facebook. I figured that traffic would be better than traffic from other blogs. You think it should include both?
      Yes, I thought I made myself clear...you should be including both, and you should link back to other blogs with a list of other blogs you read, why only use facebook?
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      “Thinking is easy, Acting is difficult
      And to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world ~ Goethe”
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  • Profile picture of the author Spitfire75
    I started a site in the same niche 2 months ago and I've made 20 sales (minus 3 refunds). My traffic mostly comes from the 30 articles I've published spread over the last 2 months. It takes about 250 hops for me to make a sale.

    But hey, if you want to give up on your site that's just less competition for me
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Originally Posted by Spitfire75 View Post

      I started a site in the same niche 2 months ago and I've made 20 sales (minus 3 refunds). My traffic mostly comes from the 30 articles I've published spread over the last 2 months. It takes about 250 hops for me to make a sale.

      But hey, if you want to give up on your site that's just less competition for me
      Thanks for the encouragement. Was this your first niche? How much competition is out there?
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      • Profile picture of the author Spitfire75
        Originally Posted by abednego View Post

        Thanks for the encouragement. Was this your first niche? How much competition is out there?
        This is my second niche. My first was earth4energy, but I just wasn't seeing enough sales. I wrote 30 articles for that niche as well but never got more than 40 visits a day.

        When I started on this new niche the clickbank gravity was around 200. Now it's 650. So there more competition than ever, but I'm still making sales (made one yesterday).
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  • Profile picture of the author James12C
    Think first - "How can I add value?" THEN look for the $$$.
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  • Profile picture of the author travisman
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Originally Posted by travisman View Post

      Your graphics are bad.. get better quality too.
      Which graphics are bad?

      The layout? Theme? Or screenshots?
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  • Profile picture of the author Last_Knight
    Some times, you might feel your pessimistic about your product.
    Keep adding more content and you will get to your target.
    I usually wait until I have over 150.
    Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Everything is very helpful, thanks.

    I'm going to continue the current course, but try something new...

    I'm interested in outsourcing some articles - but am afraid of overpaying. I also heard article content spinners were trash. How much would it cost to outsource 20 or so articles?
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