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Can I Work with This? Or is it Time to Start Over?

by TPaulBuzan
5 replies
Howdy Warriors,

I have a travelogue that focuses on Korea. It's been online since June 2011.

When I initially started the website I knew jack all about SEO, list building, social media, etc.

Although I'm still very much a newbie, my understanding of IM has increased quite a bit over the last 24 months ... it had nowhere to go but up!

Currently the site averages about 150 unique views a day. Nothing spectacular, but a foundation I feel I could build on.

I'm interested in creating an authority site for either 1) travel in Korea, or 2) travel in Asia for overseas tourists.

My question is this: Would it make sense to re-brand/re-build what I have now as an authority site with an eye towards monetization?

As for the monetization itself, I'm thinking I could host ads for hotels, sell products on Amazon, and build a list by offering a free eBook.

I'd really like to steer clear of Adsense.

The site is here if you'd like to have a look:

Korea Connection

Thanks!
#start #time #work
  • Profile picture of the author webapex
    If you re-branded, you probably would want to invest in a stronger domain name, perhaps spending a couple hundred $ at auction. Your current domain could name could better represent a "meet Asian woman" site.
    Signature

    “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field” Niels Bohr

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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      I think it's quite a nice-looking site with a lot of potential.

      I also think it's a very good niche with a lot of potential.

      I think "travel in Asia for overseas tourists" would probably a huge mistake for you: I wouldn't dream of trying it, myself. It's absolutely enormous - it's not a niche at all: it's a "market" and an absolutely huge one. I think your underlying idea behind "Korea Connection" is a very good one, and I'd want to work with it, myself, not abandon it.

      I completely agree with the comments above about the domain-name. It was my very first thought, even while the page was loading. I didn't think of the possible "dating connotation", but I immediately noticed that you're building a business on a domain-name of which the .com variant belongs to someone else. This isn't wise - even though it's parked and for sale at the moment, because if you don't own it, you can never control what ends up on it, in the long term, and you'll always be taking a chance, as well as damaging your resale potential, losing some future traffic to the owner of the .com, and so on. I do think a new domain-name is in order. (For myself, in your position, I atually wouldn't mind buying koreaconnection.com if it's affordable, but I suspect it might not be?) You need to do that in a way that you don't lose the current traffic you've acquired, because 4,500 uniques per month is not to be sneezed at (you can always ask for advice about doing that in the SEO forum here, if it helps).

      In short, I think you can work with it and probably don't need to start over. You can expand it, gradually monetize it, and above all else build a list with a far better (and more prominent, and more incentivized) opt-in than you have there at the moment. If you do that professionally, the money is going to be in the list, more than in the website, I think. I imagine few visitors subscribe to that one? :confused:
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      • Profile picture of the author TPaulBuzan
        Hi all,

        Thanks for the responses. Yes, the domain name is a problem. Again, when I started out I had no idea what I was doing. Just wanted to get something online, y'know?

        Any re-branding would start with that.

        Based upon my analytics and social stats it seems that most of the site's audience is 1) located in the states, and 2) interested in Korean culture.

        The travel articles see some traffic, but nothing compared with the articles that focus on culture.

        I'm wondering how best I could monetize that? I've considered exporting Korean pop culture items, but I won't be in the country that much longer so I doubt I'd be able to sustain it. (Who knows if the idea would even take off in the first place?)

        On the other hand, there's not exactly an excess of affiliate programs that would fit this niche ... at least that I'm aware of.

        If I was able to build a list then, I guess that challenge would be deciding what exactly to market to them? That's always the challenge though, right?
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        • Profile picture of the author Mary Popowa
          You can go so many ways about Korea! So many people love Korean food.
          In your existing website write about particular Province in general. Open new website about Korean food and recipes in general. In traveling website in Post 1 write about Province A, on your food website in Post 1 write about food from Province A and insert link "...click here and find out about famous "recipe name here" from Province A".

          Example:
          Traveling website -> Post about Province A ->Link to Food website with recipe from Province A.
          Food website -> Recipe from Province A -> Ingredient from recipe linking to Affiliate site (for example "chilli paper flakes" linking to item from Amazon)
          Regarding websites name it is best if you can find .com names and also register same names with .kr extension.
          Example:
          koreanconnection.com for traveling website
          koreanfoodconnection.com for food website

          You can go further and create "group" of 3 websites. I know that each Province in Korea have they own "Kimchi" recipe. You can open 3rd website where you will write only about Kimchi recipes from particular Provinces and linking to your Traveling website about this particular Provinces. Example:

          Traveling website -> Post 1 about Province A linking to
          Food website -> Post 1 about recipe from Province A linking to
          Kimchi Recipe website from this particular Province A linking to
          Traveling website -> Post 1 about Province A

          Example of web names:
          koreanconnection.com for traveling website
          koreanfoodconnection.com for food and recipes website
          koreankimchiconnection.com for kimchi website

          If you do proper tags, keywords, alt, meta, you will be on first page of Google in no time From here you can go so many ways - ads, forum, affiliate links...



          Originally Posted by TPaulBuzan View Post

          Hi all,

          Thanks for the responses. Yes, the domain name is a problem. Again, when I started out I had no idea what I was doing. Just wanted to get something online, y'know?

          Any re-branding would start with that.

          Based upon my analytics and social stats it seems that most of the site's audience is 1) located in the states, and 2) interested in Korean culture.

          The travel articles see some traffic, but nothing compared with the articles that focus on culture.

          I'm wondering how best I could monetize that? I've considered exporting Korean pop culture items, but I won't be in the country that much longer so I doubt I'd be able to sustain it. (Who knows if the idea would even take off in the first place?)

          On the other hand, there's not exactly an excess of affiliate programs that would fit this niche ... at least that I'm aware of.

          If I was able to build a list then, I guess that challenge would be deciding what exactly to market to them? That's always the challenge though, right?
          Signature

          You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great ~Zig Ziglar~

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  • Profile picture of the author KenJ
    I like the domain name and I like the simplicity of your website.
    The only comment I would have is that some of the content is a bit inward looking. You need to have in mind your visitors and what they want to know about when they land on your pages.

    I believe that there is a holiday/hotel chain affiliate program that might be worth looking for. Perhaps someone else can remember its name. With an aged domain like yours, you would stand a better chance of being accepted as an affiliate than a start up website.

    Good luck

    KenJ
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