Trying to find the 'Magic Button' - when there was one right in front of me
I think I've messed up big time folks.
Of course EVERY SINGLE new IMer *thinks* there is some 'magic button' that requires very little work, with great rewards.
As that might be true for some NOW, in the beginning it's impossible.
I started IM in August of 2010 with a website for free guides for a game I played. No SEO had be done to it, no backlinks built, yet.... I was still ranking decently.
After August, I applied some SEO techniques, but then moved on to the 'magical' promises that guru's tend to lead us to these days.
Now, March 2011, I have realized finally that I messed up. I was getting a constant 100 unique visitors to my site each day... reading and enjoying my content. I did release my own guide for the site and charged $7. So far I've made about $250 from that, but it's definitely not as much as I could probably make.
So my question to you is:
1. Should I let that site die? By now all the faithful visitors have left me due to lack of inactivity on the site for about 3 months now. I literally have done NOTHING on that site for 3 months.
2. Also, the SEO is still lacking what it COULD be. Could my rankings be punished for life after all that time exposed to bad SEO?
This isn't too much of a 'help me thread' (although, I'd like some advice on those 2 questions), it's more of a 'don't let go of what you have' thread. 100 unique visitors is probably not a passive income by any means, but that number was growing each day. I had comment after comment on my blog about people so pleased with my free content, they were saying stuff like: "I'm going to tell ALL my friends about it right now!".
I think THAT right there is the long term business everyone should strive for - not the small micro niche autoblogs that WILL DIE ONE DAY. Unfortunately, those are the types of projects I've been lead to do. Quality must be given to the visitor, and all else will come in after that.
Thanks for reading.
P.S. - During my short SEO time on the site, I did try monetizing it, however I've learned that the video game niche is EXTREMELY hard to monetize. Ads don't yield too great of results, offering products not related to that specific game don't do too well, and promoting in general just didn't work at all. I tried adsense and clickbank with no results. I am thinking the only way I will ever make money from this site is to offer a monthly subscription to an 'underground' section, or something like that.
Any ideas on monetization would be extremely helpful.
Of course EVERY SINGLE new IMer *thinks* there is some 'magic button' that requires very little work, with great rewards.
As that might be true for some NOW, in the beginning it's impossible.
I started IM in August of 2010 with a website for free guides for a game I played. No SEO had be done to it, no backlinks built, yet.... I was still ranking decently.
After August, I applied some SEO techniques, but then moved on to the 'magical' promises that guru's tend to lead us to these days.
Now, March 2011, I have realized finally that I messed up. I was getting a constant 100 unique visitors to my site each day... reading and enjoying my content. I did release my own guide for the site and charged $7. So far I've made about $250 from that, but it's definitely not as much as I could probably make.
So my question to you is:
1. Should I let that site die? By now all the faithful visitors have left me due to lack of inactivity on the site for about 3 months now. I literally have done NOTHING on that site for 3 months.
2. Also, the SEO is still lacking what it COULD be. Could my rankings be punished for life after all that time exposed to bad SEO?
This isn't too much of a 'help me thread' (although, I'd like some advice on those 2 questions), it's more of a 'don't let go of what you have' thread. 100 unique visitors is probably not a passive income by any means, but that number was growing each day. I had comment after comment on my blog about people so pleased with my free content, they were saying stuff like: "I'm going to tell ALL my friends about it right now!".
I think THAT right there is the long term business everyone should strive for - not the small micro niche autoblogs that WILL DIE ONE DAY. Unfortunately, those are the types of projects I've been lead to do. Quality must be given to the visitor, and all else will come in after that.
Thanks for reading.
P.S. - During my short SEO time on the site, I did try monetizing it, however I've learned that the video game niche is EXTREMELY hard to monetize. Ads don't yield too great of results, offering products not related to that specific game don't do too well, and promoting in general just didn't work at all. I tried adsense and clickbank with no results. I am thinking the only way I will ever make money from this site is to offer a monthly subscription to an 'underground' section, or something like that.
Any ideas on monetization would be extremely helpful.