What would you do with a budget of $3k/month?

[mbomb]

I'm an account manager for a lead generation company (in the bizopp niche) as my day job, but I've started to get into building niche affiliate/adsense style sites and working on creating ebooks in niche markets on the side. My boss has noticed how much time I devote to working on my own niche projects after work, in my spare-time ( i showed him a few of my projects), and he is interested in helping me to build a "niche marketing" business within our company. So basically, he would give me a monthly budget to build niche sites, products, whatever...which would increase as we expand.

My original plan for myself was to create multiple niche sites in a variety of industries. Nothing too complex. Just simple 10-30 pages sites that I would monetize with adsense and affiliates and work on building links and traffic over time. My budget was only about $500/month on my own, but now that I'm getting funding, how should I change my approach?

What would you do, along the niche-building lines, with $3k/month?

Mike

[admin]

Hi Mike,

I'll answer this for you...

Minus what it costs for my monthly hosting every single dime would go to hiring article writers to create non stop articles based around the health industry.

Every single month, every single available dime, would go to that and that only.

Your objective is to build an authority site like:

Natural Health Information Articles and Health Newsletter by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Then monetize it just like he does.

If you knew what Mercola and sites like his make each month you would not need further details :-)

[richpeck]

Originally Posted by admin

Hi Mike,

I'll answer this for you...

Minus what it costs for my monthly hosting every single dime would go to hiring article writers to create non stop articles based around the health industry.

Every single month, every single available dime, would go to that and that only.

Your objective is to build an authority site like:

Natural Health Information Articles and Health Newsletter by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Then monetize it just like he does.

If you knew what Mercola and sites like his make each month you would not need further details :-)

How much does it make? :-p

[admin]

On another note, whatever you do don't listen to people who say things are 'saturated' :-)

I recently had a script built that is simple as you can possibly get and had articles created around the self help industry and loaded them up. Within two weeks, with no promotion whatsoever, started making clickbank sales for weightloss programs.

It IS in fact just that easy and I have the records to prove it. My script is nothing special. All it really does is create urls just like wordpress does.

Just a simple test I was doing to see how easy it still is to start making money on the Internet.

[admin]

Originally Posted by richpeck

How much does it make? :-p

Multi-millions per month. I did know the number. A thread is around here somewhere.

[admin]

The Wellness Revolution - Joseph Mercola

By the way, your story doesn't have to be nearly as dramatic. Just monetize from the start.

[Kay King]

I like Mercola's blog - for his type of product/specialty, I think the layout is great.

It's interesting to go to wayback machine and look at how that site has evolved since 1999.

kay

[richpeck]

Wow that's great. The WarriorForum is worth more though!

Thanks for the great insight!

Rich

[mbomb]

Thanks Allen,

That sounds like an awesome idea. We have a team of designers and copywriters, but I would definitely outsource the articles? Why the health niche? How would we monetize? How do we decide which keywords to target (i.e. which tools do we use)? This sounds like a more focused effort than building hundreds of niche sites...I like it! Tell me more

Mike

[Chris_L]

Originally Posted by admin

Hi Mike,

I'll answer this for you...

Minus what it costs for my monthly hosting every single dime would go to hiring article writers to create non stop articles based around the health industry.

Every single month, every single available dime, would go to that and that only.

Your objective is to build an authority site like:

Natural Health Information Articles and Health Newsletter by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Then monetize it just like he does.

If you knew what Mercola and sites like his make each month you would not need further details :-)

Allen,

May I ask how much you pay per article and any good writers you recommend?

Thanks.

Chris

[mbomb]

Is anyone here adopting a similar approach?

Mike

[Nefabulous]

I have gone a similar approach... i have two people writing minimum a quality well researched article / week for our sites.

Content is king... will do wonders in search engines and your visitors will really appreciate the free/quality advice... just make sure its quality! or it could hurt more than help.

[Ricter]

Originally Posted by admin

Multi-millions per month. I did know the number. A thread is around here somewhere.

That one site makes millions per month??! That is incredible.

[mbomb]

@Nefabulous - How long have you been adding content in this manner?

@Anyone with experience - how long should it take to be profitable with the $3k/month budget going into writing articles each month? I'm trying to come up with a gameplan.

Mike

[Dick Doe]

Originally Posted by admin

Hi Mike,

I'll answer this for you...

Minus what it costs for my monthly hosting every single dime would go to hiring article writers to create non stop articles based around the health industry.

Every single month, every single available dime, would go to that and that only.

Your objective is to build an authority site like:

Natural Health Information Articles and Health Newsletter by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Then monetize it just like he does.

If you knew what Mercola and sites like his make each month you would not need further details :-)

Wow, after this brilliant post, nothing is left to be said

I agree with Allen's idea of reinvesting profits back into business, and in fact I have done that again and again. With 3k. I think I would use some of the money to hire article writers, some to buy a couple of laptops and two external hard disks, etc. If anything is left then I would spend that on food

[mbomb]

Apparently he started out offering a free health newsletter only back in 2000, then eventually started offering his own products and affiliate products. Great story. Just wish I had a more structured gameplan.

Mike

[napoleonfirst]

I would get WebCeo professional software and certification. Also Traffic Fusion and Traffic Secrets. Cool stuff.

[mbomb]

Tells you how to do what mercola.com is doing?

[mbomb]

I'm still interested in hearing more about this strategy. Anyone else care to chime in?

Mike

[XFactor]

1) Put up as many health categories as you can.

2) Find products and solutions to that health category.

3) Write VERY GOOD articles on those product/solutions, which links to affiliate products.

4) Be sure to start a newsletter and send out VERY GOOD tips, free. Do not ask them to buy anything (not yet anyways).

5) Add some adsense if you wish, but if I were doing affiliate sales then I would not.

A good example: Smoking

- Article title: The Top 3 Quit-Smoking Aids on the Market: An Honest Review

- Then have the article talking about the top 3 products and a review on each.

- At the end of the article have links to all 3 in "conduit" style.

EVERY article on your site should be like this. Focus only on health solutions and products. This goes for Acne, Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, Natural Remedies, etc.

- John

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by mbomb

Thanks Allen,

That sounds like an awesome idea. We have a team of designers and copywriters, but I would definitely outsource the articles? Why the health niche? How would we monetize? How do we decide which keywords to target (i.e. which tools do we use)? This sounds like a more focused effort than building hundreds of niche sites...I like it! Tell me more

Mike

Focused is a much better approach IMO.

The health niche is just an excellent example, any of these high demand niches would work just fine.

If you have a team of copywriters don't outsource the articles, outsource the keyword research (or do it yourself) and teach the copy team to optimize the articles around those keywords, grab the designers and tell them to create a professional look, put them to work.

Hire an SEO specialist to do an SEO campaign for you by creating a network of backlinks and content.

Start capturing e-mails with an opt-in and give them a killer niche related newsletter.

All this is within the budget.

Monetization:

1. Affiliate Programs (Or your own products)
2. Adsense
3. CPA (With high traffic some companies would die for to place an ad on your website and you can charge them quite a lot per month).