IM Beginner December Challenge

rizzy · 1st Dec 2010, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by wendymay1

My goals this month are:

1. Participate 2 days a week in the Warrior Forum.
2. Drive 100 visitors to my website( I aim for this goal every month). How do I do this?
a. Drive traffic to my fan page with my Facebook.
b. Post ads to free classified ad sites
c. Social Bookmarking
d. Online Giveaways
e. Type one quality article every 2 days & post it to ezinearticles
f. Newsletters

What are you doing SEO wise for your site? Just the social bookmarking? Do you have keywords your are focusing on?

icrystal · 1st Dec 2010, 12:51 PM

Like what was mentioned in the November challenge, my goal involves lots of VRE.

My big goal is to make $10,000 per month and quit my 9-5 by the end of June 2011. To accomplish that I've made a goal of creating 100 well thought out niche websites that make money via Adsense or Clickbank. I intend to have them done by the end of February. This way I can see if I'll need to build more to acheive my goal by June.

I will outsource every single thing I can (my day job and kids dont leave me enough free time to create these sites effectively). So here is the breakdown:

I will: research keywords and choose whether they are best for Adsense or clickbank (I'll choose the clickbank product myself)

I will: buy the exact match domains and setup accounts with my hosting

Someone else will: log in to the accounts and create nice wordpress blogs with the correct SEO plugins. This person will also add articles.

Someone else will: write articles for the blogs

Someone else will:create backlinks for each blog

I think these sites can be very good money makers IF the right keyword research is done - so this is where I will put the free time I do have to use.

Last month I found 45 of the 100 keyword phrases.
I've also outsourced the building, writing and backlinking of 21 of the sites

My goal for this month will be to discover the remaining 55 keyword phrases and outsource the creation of as many as my budget will allow.

Woo Hoo!!

scortillion · 1st Dec 2010, 02:48 PM

Finish the edits on my website
Complete the site’s blog
Complete the site’s forum
Add another 3 months worth of content

Plus read a few really good books

Matt Ward · 1st Dec 2010, 05:49 PM

Hmm... my first, main site went from #7 on Google, where it's been for the past 2 weeks, to... #400. Ouch ouch ouch. Traffic has completely died, 2 visitors today. I did throw a lot of backlinks at it in the past few days, though. I hope this is the "Google dance" and not something more sinister.

LynnLewis · 1st Dec 2010, 06:18 PM

Originally Posted by PhoebeSmellyCat

My goal is to actually see something through.

I keep buying WSOs and although I do work on a lot of them, I never seem to see any one thing through before the next shiny new thing comes along.

Either that or I'm in the WSO forum and I click on another Warrior's signature and read what they are offering, go off and send for the free ebook, start reading that and before you know it, I'm in Neverland...

Am I the only one?

You are definitely not the only one. But there's hope. I finally stopped and I'm concentrating on one thing until I see it through. Make up your mind to ignore anything else until you get something finished. I know how hard that is, but you'll feel great.

N4PGW · 1st Dec 2010, 09:12 PM

Originally Posted by wariswar

Setting up 30 websites this month.
Adding contents every week.
Will do SEO myself.
I'm happy, if those 30 sites can earn me $1-3 per day from January 2011.

^^That's my goal.

Assuming they are blogs being fed traffic through SEO, you might get some immediate results, but in most cases it take fur months for blogs to reach momentum and start making that kind of money.

Not to discourage you, but to prevent you from being discouraged if January turns out to be flat.

mathmo · 1st Dec 2010, 09:26 PM

Originally Posted by icrystal

Like what was mentioned in the November challenge, my goal involves lots of VRE.

My big goal is to make $10,000 per month and quit my 9-5 by the end of June 2011. To accomplish that I've made a goal of creating 100 well thought out niche websites that make money via Adsense or Clickbank. I intend to have them done by the end of February. This way I can see if I'll need to build more to acheive my goal by June.

I will outsource every single thing I can (my day job and kids dont leave me enough free time to create these sites effectively). So here is the breakdown:

I will: research keywords and choose whether they are best for Adsense or clickbank (I'll choose the clickbank product myself)

I will: buy the exact match domains and setup accounts with my hosting

Someone else will: log in to the accounts and create nice wordpress blogs with the correct SEO plugins. This person will also add articles.

Someone else will: write articles for the blogs

Someone else will:create backlinks for each blog

I think these sites can be very good money makers IF the right keyword research is done - so this is where I will put the free time I do have to use.

Last month I found 45 of the 100 keyword phrases.
I've also outsourced the building, writing and backlinking of 21 of the sites

My goal for this month will be to discover the remaining 55 keyword phrases and outsource the creation of as many as my budget will allow.

Woo Hoo!!

When I read "I will outsource everything I can" I worry if they are perhaps outsourcing too much for themselves right now?

I wrote a blog post about this today:
Terso IT » How to Outsource: 2 kinds, which are you?

Briefly:
You can break up outsourcing into two broad categories:

1) You outsource what you can NOT do. And this gets the job DONE, but at a premium cost to you.

2) You outsource what you CAN DO, but you are able to get it done a lot FASTER AND CHEAPER than you could yourself. As you can now massively scale up what you were doing before.

For instance you say will outsource to somebody to install all the right SEO plugins... but have you done this yourself a couple of times first? How can you tell them which plugins to install if you haven't done it yourself yet?

Likewise with article writing, do you know exactly what you want in a good article and its purpose? Keyword density, buying phrases, psychology, length, etc etc... without this you can't CLEARLY tell the writer what you want, and you'll waste a lot of money and time in the process.

Same is true with backlinks, do you know: where, how many, what kind, and what rate of addition they should be? If you don't, you can't tell them how to do it.

It is better to waste some of your time learning how to do it right, than wasting lots of money for somebody else to eventually learn how to do it right. Because they don't have the same incentive to learn, instead they will just "do the job" (even if you're telling them the wrong details of the job). The feedback loop is much faster and tighter when you are doing it, as you have a strong incentive to get it right. Is better to do something wrong slowly than fast... once you've hit the nail on the head yourself and reaching all your goals (daily revenue / visitor numbers / google rankings / conversion rates / etc) then you can look at doing it faster via outsourcing.

I'm not saying you have or haven't. But just a couple of things to think about

Will Perkins · 2nd Dec 2010, 02:53 AM

Originally Posted by mathmo

When I read "I will outsource everything I can" I worry if they are perhaps outsourcing too much for themselves right now?

I wrote a blog post about this today:
Terso IT » How to Outsource: 2 kinds, which are you?

Briefly:
You can break up outsourcing into two broad categories:

1) You outsource what you can NOT do. And this gets the job DONE, but at a premium cost to you.

2) You outsource what you CAN DO, but you are able to get it done a lot FASTER AND CHEAPER than you could yourself. As you can now massively scale up what you were doing before.

For instance you say will outsource to somebody to install all the right SEO plugins... but have you done this yourself a couple of times first? How can you tell them which plugins to install if you haven't done it yourself yet?

Likewise with article writing, do you know exactly what you want in a good article and its purpose? Keyword density, buying phrases, psychology, length, etc etc... without this you can't CLEARLY tell the writer what you want, and you'll waste a lot of money and time in the process.

Same is true with backlinks, do you know: where, how many, what kind, and what rate of addition they should be? If you don't, you can't tell them how to do it.

It is better to waste some of your time learning how to do it right, than wasting lots of money for somebody else to eventually learn how to do it right. Because they don't have the same incentive to learn, instead they will just "do the job" (even if you're telling them the wrong details of the job). The feedback loop is much faster and tighter when you are doing it, as you have a strong incentive to get it right. Is better to do something wrong slowly than fast... once you've hit the nail on the head yourself and reaching all your goals (daily revenue / visitor numbers / google rankings / conversion rates / etc) then you can look at doing it faster via outsourcing.

I'm not saying you have or haven't. But just a couple of things to think about

I really appreciate that post, it just gave me a whole new outlook on the outsourcing process.

haydenmiyamoto · 2nd Dec 2010, 09:48 AM

Great idea! My goals for this month:

Post to this forum and stop lurking
Meet 3 new Internet Marketers and setup and build an ongoing relationship with them
Get a new client for my web dev / SEO business
Register and setup 150 sites for my personal link network
Test out 3 link networks on 3 different sites
Sell a bunch of furniture and doors in my high end furniture biz
Setup the manual prototype for my next link network

Good luck everyone on your goals!

rizzy · 2nd Dec 2010, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by quarfelburg

Great idea! My goals for this month:

Post to this forum and stop lurking
Meet 3 new Internet Marketers and setup and build an ongoing relationship with them
Get a new client for my web dev / SEO business
Register and setup 150 sites for my personal link network
Test out 3 link networks on 3 different sites
Sell a bunch of furniture and doors in my high end furniture biz
Setup the manual prototype for my next link network

Good luck everyone on your goals!

Wow that is some lofty goals for one month. Good luck with it though.

icrystal · 2nd Dec 2010, 01:49 PM

Mathmo, you make some excellent points.

I have done the steps you mention above a lot of times - too many to be honest

I've failed a lot but I've had some success too - which came from failing because I learned from it and forged ahead. I have some sites that make money from Adsense, eBay or Amazon.

I'm no expert by any means (I still come to the WF very often to ask questions and learn more) but I do know enough now to feel confident asking someone else to follow the steps I believe I need to follow to build a money making site. I'm at the rinse and repeat stage. I think one site will make at least 2 dollars a day so if I have 100 sites built around the same principles, they should get me to where I want to be

And since I have a busy day job and busy family life, the only way I'll reach my goals in a timely manner is if I take a portion of each paycheque and use it to pay someone else to do what I know needs to be done.

Having said that, I want to add that part of the way I decided what to outsource and what to do myself, is that I believe niche selection and niche research is crucial to a site's success. Yes all bits are important, but an amazing site with all the right plugins and backlinking will still fail if the keywords targetted are poorly chosen. So, I'd rather do that myself.

mathmo · 2nd Dec 2010, 02:01 PM

Good, glad to hear you have got past the initial stages

Just checking.

Pleased other people got some benefit out of what I wrote however!

Zabrina · 2nd Dec 2010, 05:01 PM

I want to launch four products (most of which are already completed or partially completed) and start four Amazon product sites.

rizzy · 2nd Dec 2010, 06:27 PM

Originally Posted by mattward

Hmm... my first, main site went from #7 on Google, where it's been for the past 2 weeks, to... #400. Ouch ouch ouch. Traffic has completely died, 2 visitors today. I did throw a lot of backlinks at it in the past few days, though. I hope this is the "Google dance" and not something more sinister.

Any new movement on your site? Still dancing?

mathmo · 3rd Dec 2010, 12:00 AM

mattward, did you do the backlinks by hand or automated? If you did it by hand you have nothing to worry about I believe

Will Perkins · 3rd Dec 2010, 08:52 AM

Originally Posted by rizzy

Any new movement on your site? Still dancing?

Ya as rizzy said, keep us informed. We're all interested in hearing about how that turns out.

Originally Posted by mathmo

mattward, did you do the backlinks by hand or automated? If you did it by hand you have nothing to worry about I believe

Ya I agree here with mathmo, most of the time when you build links by hand, they'll "stick" so to speak, and you won't get penalized for using a automated link submitter.

Originally Posted by Zabrina

I want to launch four products (most of which are already completed or partially completed) and start four Amazon product sites.

Great goal! Four sites is definitely a accomplishable goal, just stay motivated and work hard.

Charli · 3rd Dec 2010, 09:53 AM

I am new here and new to affiliated marketing. I just signed up with hostgator on their 50% off special and have my first domain name for marketing.

My goal is to:

1. Set up and design my first affiliated marketing website - correctly.

Small steps. I'm a freelance writer so articles I have covered. I designed webpages for fun back in the html days, rusty with CSS, so means a lot of researching again. Then to build the page correctly for google search, SEO, blah blah blah.

I'm not about making any money, right now, this month is about figuring it all out and getting that first website up and running. I just figured out to how to download templates using filezilla. I also looked at the hostgator sitebuilder.

I'm hoping, fingers crossed, by end of month, the site itself will be up. Then I can think about the rest of the stuff, backlinks, directories and a whole bucket load of stuff I'm still learning.

Zabrina · 3rd Dec 2010, 10:38 AM

Originally Posted by XteeSy

Great goal! Four sites is definitely a accomplishable goal, just stay motivated and work hard.

Thanks!

I hope it's okay for me to hang out here... I'm not exactly a newbie here, but like anyone else, I need a swift kick in the butt sometimes that public accountability can provide.

I'm working my way through a course on Amazon affiliate sites, so I'm going to act like a newbie and try to bring that same freshness of perspective rather than preconceived notions and old knowledge to it.

Matt Ward · 3rd Dec 2010, 10:54 AM

Originally Posted by rizzy

Any new movement on your site? Still dancing?

Still dancing, yeah... At least I hope that's what it is. It's kind of nervewracking.

On a funny note, I had a 100% conversion rate on Wednesday because the one solitary person that found my site bought something. :p

rizzy · 3rd Dec 2010, 02:18 PM

Originally Posted by Zabrina

Thanks!

I hope it's okay for me to hang out here... I'm not exactly a newbie here, but like anyone else, I need a swift kick in the butt sometimes that public accountability can provide.

I'm working my way through a course on Amazon affiliate sites, so I'm going to act like a newbie and try to bring that same freshness of perspective rather than preconceived notions and old knowledge to it.

Of course it is okay for you to participate here. The more the better.

Good luck on your goals.

Originally Posted by mattward

Still dancing, yeah... At least I hope that's what it is. It's kind of nervewracking.

On a funny note, I had a 100% conversion rate on Wednesday because the one solitary person that found my site bought something. :p

Can't beat a 100% conversion rate, even if it was only 1 visitor.

If it still converts with little traffic, your site should come back strong when it gets done dancing.

PhoebeSmellyCat · 3rd Dec 2010, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by LynnLewis

You are definitely not the only one. But there's hope. I finally stopped and I'm concentrating on one thing until I see it through. Make up your mind to ignore anything else until you get something finished. I know how hard that is, but you'll feel great.

Thanks!

Buying so many WSOs have taught me one thing, though. And that is now I know what I want to focus on in the IM business and what I don't want.

Now I only gather information that will help my projects instead of wandering off in another direction.

Retta · 3rd Dec 2010, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by stuart.stephen

Hey Rizzy, thanks again for setting this up.
Good luck to all.

I just want to comment on 1 thing I read on the November Challenge post and something I am guilty of too, that is not following your projects through.

A lot of IMers struggle or don't see the results they expected be it within the first 2 weeks or 2 months and a lot of people give up and move on to the next shiney object but the successful IMers tweak and test until they get it right and then scale up.

If I doesn't work the first time, don't just abondon it and see it as a failure. Work out what is wrong and fix it, easier said than done but as an example if you're not getting the traffic then learn how to and apply it, if you've got the traffic but no sales, tweak and test etc etc

Good luck to you all.

That will be my goal for the month of December. I need to figure out why people are not staying on my site and why I am not generating sales. I do not have a clue what or how to tweak or test, so my goal for the month is to learn the how and what, mainly the what. If anyone wants to point me in the right direction of where I can find information to help me learn this, I am all ears.

I would even be happy if someone would give me an address of a successful site, so I can study it and maybe figure out why it is successful.

Thanks for challenging me!

Matt Ward · 3rd Dec 2010, 06:32 PM

I'm not sure if you use Google Analytics, but it's been a big help for me in testing things like bounce rate, etc. You can just try tweaking things and see what the result is in your bounce rate stats, etc. For example, something simple like the header image. I changed mine and my average bounce rate per day dropped 10%. I'm pretty clueless about this stuff too, but it seemed to work.

As for successful sites, you can really Google almost anything and find successful sites. It's not hard to tell which sites are run by people that are IMers and which are up there because of blind luck or because their sites are 10 years old.

Retta · 3rd Dec 2010, 06:56 PM

Originally Posted by mattward

I'm not sure if you use Google Analytics, but it's been a big help for me in testing things like bounce rate, etc. You can just try tweaking things and see what the result is in your bounce rate stats, etc. For example, something simple like the header image. I changed mine and my average bounce rate per day dropped 10%. I'm pretty clueless about this stuff too, but it seemed to work.

As for successful sites, you can really Google almost anything and find successful sites. It's not hard to tell which sites are run by people that are IMers and which are up there because of blind luck or because their sites are 10 years old.

Thats funny, I google everything, but I never thought of googling that! I'll try it. I also have a spot where a few people will critique my site and tell me what hits them as wrong, and one person suggested I change the background color, so I did that, and I will see how that affects things over the next few days. I don't have google analytics on this site, but I will do that tomorrow and see if I can figure out what it means, lol.

Thanks for the suggestions.

DJ Hughes · 4th Dec 2010, 01:45 PM

This is a great challenge and I am going to throw my hat in to the ring as well. I'm trying to keep it real, doable and practical given the time of year ...

My Decemeber goals are:
1. 17 articles (minimum) to Ezine Articles
2. Finish 3 of my affiliate sites (still struggling to learn how to do this quickly, even via wordpress. Which themes? Which plugins?)
3. Submit 3 proposals to offline prospects
4. Approach 11 local business people about websites/seo
5. Get 3 new clients
6. Get business cards printed
7. *Start/finish?* writing my book for small businesses (approx 153 pages-ish)
8. Get a cheque from Commission Junction this month so I can join the War Room Jan 1st (my reward).

This should be possible if I stay focused.

**I need to figure out how to put up a video on my site (html) and password protect it. I submitted the question in the web design section of WF, but no one has been able to help me with that there. Anyone here able to point me in the right direction?**

May we all end 2010 with hope, prosperity, being encouraged and encouraging others, so 2011 will be even better!

LynnLewis · 4th Dec 2010, 08:40 PM

So far this month, I'm making progress. Not at the rate that I should but procrastination won't suddenly decrease to 0% after all these years. But it is way, way down and I have set a personal challenge to write every day this month.

I start a new job on Monday which will seriously bite into my internet time, but I'll still work on my business every day. With my last unemployment check, I will finally be getting hosting and setting up my site. Woo Hoo!

rizzy · 4th Dec 2010, 09:33 PM

Originally Posted by LynnLewis

So far this month, I'm making progress. Not at the rate that I should but procrastination won't suddenly decrease to 0% after all these years. But it is way, way down and I have set a personal challenge to write every day this month.

I start a new job on Monday which will seriously bite into my internet time, but I'll still work on my business every day. With my last unemployment check, I will finally be getting hosting and setting up my site. Woo Hoo!

That's great Lynn. Great that you will finally get your hosting, your first site and that you have a new job.

Nothing to complain about there. Good luck at the new job.

twoblind · 5th Dec 2010, 12:22 AM

Our Goals for Deccember

1 Get our memberhsip site fully setup
2 get at least 10 new members

Thanks for doing this!

Matt Ward · 5th Dec 2010, 12:49 AM

Originally Posted by LynnLewis

So far this month, I'm making progress. Not at the rate that I should but procrastination won't suddenly decrease to 0% after all these years. But it is way, way down and I have set a personal challenge to write every day this month.

I start a new job on Monday which will seriously bite into my internet time, but I'll still work on my business every day. With my last unemployment check, I will finally be getting hosting and setting up my site. Woo Hoo!

If you get your own site going, you're already half way there. All you need to do is figure out how you'll monetize it, and start writing. I would suggest doing more research on a niche/monetization method (adsense/clickbank/amazon/etc) than I did, though. I honestly picked a very sub-optimal niche for my first site and made it a lot harder than it had to be. Live and learn, though.

I know what you mean about procrastinating, too. I set with super high hopes of writing tons of articles per day (yeah right) but I'm really bad at getting distracted by other shiny internet things. For example... right now I should be working on my new site, but here I am writing replies on the warrior forum.

Good luck with your site.

LynnLewis · 5th Dec 2010, 07:30 AM

Thanks Matt!

I'm getting better and better at avoiding internet distractions. My next challenge is not to read my emails until I've worked on my business. Ideally, I'd like to leave emails until just before bed. I don't know if that will ever happen.

Dennis Miedema · 5th Dec 2010, 11:23 AM

My goals for December:

1) Implement A/B split testing on my Wordpress blog

2) Showing my newly found blog writer the ropes so we can do 6 in-depth posts a month instead of 4

3) Rebuild our video marketing: more professionalism, more videos, more of everything!

4) Focusing on offline marketing, since I have the strange habit of turning every prospect I call or talk to into a customer that keeps buying (only focused on online marketing this year and earned $1.5k less because of it)

Robert Bridges · 5th Dec 2010, 05:30 PM

I think I would like to learn more about a perfect link wheel, and as others have mentioned Rizzy just keep implementing what I already know and have on Hard drive.

The next thing is very simple keeping it organised on the hard drive that is, keeping a clean front window may be part of this and a daily planner for 100% focus. I think the next thing will be letting go of things like Farmville which distract me and many others.

What else erm just keep listening to useful audio's and keep communicating with people on the same page who are willing to help, ask me questions and find value in the skills I have to offer to the world.

Matt Ward · 5th Dec 2010, 05:46 PM

Alright, I'm having some major focus problems. Starting tomorrow I'm going to try to work the full 8 hour day on IM business instead of working 30 minutes and screwing around for 2 hours. I've worked out a way to block this website/youtube/facebook/etc and am using a different Windows login so that I can't use IRC/AIM/etc, so hopefully that helps. I definitely need to get over this if I'm going to make this a serious source of income...

It's stupid considering I know exactly what I need to do to get this gaining momentum, but there are sooo many distractions. :|

mathmo · 6th Dec 2010, 04:16 AM

Good on you mattward for making those changes.

Also may I suggest you check out "The Pomodoro Technique" (google it for lots of info)

You don't have to specifically buy a timer either, there are firefox plugins for that (or apps for your smartphone etc)

Good luck!

LynnLewis · 6th Dec 2010, 05:46 AM

Originally Posted by mattward

Alright, I'm having some major focus problems. Starting tomorrow I'm going to try to work the full 8 hour day on IM business :|

8 hours is a long time. Work your way up to that by starting with shorter time periods. Make it easy on yourself so you feel successful, then build on that success. Take a couple of weeks to work your way up to 8 hours. Consider working in two sessions - morning and afternoon.

I start work today, so I can't work on this until I get back home. That means, no email, no facebook, no nothin' until I get some writing done.

We're going to do this, Matt!!!

Retta · 6th Dec 2010, 10:16 AM

In order to meet my goals this month, I am going to be needing some help. I put google analytics on my site as was suggested, and I am sick to see that my bounce rate is 100%! My problem is, that I don't know why! If anyone here is willing to take a look and give me any pointers, I would love some input. The site is uniquewineglasses4u.com

Will Perkins · 6th Dec 2010, 12:33 PM

Originally Posted by DJ Hughes

This is a great challenge and I am going to throw my hat in to the ring as well. I'm trying to keep it real, doable and practical given the time of year ...

My Decemeber goals are:
1. 17 articles (minimum) to Ezine Articles
2. Finish 3 of my affiliate sites (still struggling to learn how to do this quickly, even via wordpress. Which themes? Which plugins?)
3. Submit 3 proposals to offline prospects
4. Approach 11 local business people about websites/seo
5. Get 3 new clients
6. Get business cards printed
7. *Start/finish?* writing my book for small businesses (approx 153 pages-ish)
8. Get a cheque from Commission Junction this month so I can join the War Room Jan 1st (my reward).

This should be possible if I stay focused.

**I need to figure out how to put up a video on my site (html) and password protect it. I submitted the question in the web design section of WF, but no one has been able to help me with that there. Anyone here able to point me in the right direction?**

May we all end 2010 with hope, prosperity, being encouraged and encouraging others, so 2011 will be even better!

If you're using cPanel, go to the password protect directory, create a directory that you wish and choose a password for it. Once you've done that, merely go into FTP and upload the html file with the video.

As for password protecting JUST the video, it would probably require a lot more work without much more gain. Meaning you'll be able to password protect it with a script of some kind, but I seriously doubt your users/customers will care.

Will Perkins · 6th Dec 2010, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by wendymay1

My goals this month are:

1. Participate 2 days a week in the Warrior Forum.
2. Drive 100 visitors to my website( I aim for this goal every month). How do I do this?
a. Drive traffic to my fan page with my Facebook.
b. Post ads to free classified ad sites
c. Social Bookmarking
d. Online Giveaways
e. Type one quality article every 2 days & post it to ezinearticles
f. Newsletters

Have you begun doing different SEO methods? You can take a look at this post here on WF. It's an excellent overview of SEO:

http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...ml#post1938681

I personally enjoyed reading and got a lot of insight from this thread, Terry Kyle's Big 60 Day Backlink Experiment. It provides a LOT of great ideas and a step by step guide of what he does to get his results.

http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...xperiment.html

mathmo · 6th Dec 2010, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by Retta

In order to meet my goals this month, I am going to be needing some help. I put google analytics on my site as was suggested, and I am sick to see that my bounce rate is 100%! My problem is, that I don't know why! If anyone here is willing to take a look and give me any pointers, I would love some input. The site is uniquewineglasses4u.com

Let me google that for you ??

Could be a starting point... as that is extraordinarily high, such that I'd randomly take a guess the fault is something else... such as you didn't install it on your site right? Though I haven't more than glanced at your site

mathmo · 6th Dec 2010, 12:43 PM

oh! Also.. make it more obvious with your menus it is a drop down, as otherwise you have to hover over them for a bit. I think it is otherwise very easy for a casual visitor to completely miss the very large amount of content you have on your site and hence leave fairly quickly without exploring your site first.

Retta · 6th Dec 2010, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by mathmo

oh! Also.. make it more obvious with your menus it is a drop down, as otherwise you have to hover over them for a bit. I think it is otherwise very easy for a casual visitor to completely miss the very large amount of content you have on your site and hence leave fairly quickly without exploring your site first.

Thanks for the suggestion, so maybe have a categories list in the top widget?

Matt Ward · 6th Dec 2010, 03:35 PM

Originally Posted by mathmo

Good on you mattward for making those changes.

Also may I suggest you check out "The Pomodoro Technique" (google it for lots of info)

You don't have to specifically buy a timer either, there are firefox plugins for that (or apps for your smartphone etc)

Good luck!

I've never heard of that, I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the tip.

Originally Posted by LynnLewis

8 hours is a long time. Work your way up to that by starting with shorter time periods. Make it easy on yourself so you feel successful, then build on that success. Take a couple of weeks to work your way up to 8 hours. Consider working in two sessions - morning and afternoon.

Yeah, I think this might be a better way to do it. It is pretty hard to do a straight 8 hours of researching/writing/designing... I am getting a lot more done today than I have been, though. Self-discipline is something you really need to develop to be successful in this field; it's incredible how much time can be wasted goofing around and not accomplishing anything.

I really want to get this website complete and put it out there by the end of today. I'm taking a small break now, and then hopefully I'll get the rest of my research done and start putting it all together.

Originally Posted by Retta

In order to meet my goals this month, I am going to be needing some help. I put google analytics on my site as was suggested, and I am sick to see that my bounce rate is 100%! My problem is, that I don't know why! If anyone here is willing to take a look and give me any pointers, I would love some input. The site is uniquewineglasses4u.com

Just a few things... please take this as constructive criticism. I had a family member objectively critique my website layout and it was incredibly helpful to me.

First of all, make sure you filter out your own visits from Google Analytics. Just look it up, it's easy to do.

Secondly, my first thought is that the image in the header is very pixelated/blurry. I think it would look tons better with a nice quality image. Like I said, on my own website I made my header image look much nicer and it dropped my bounce rate something like 10-15% on average. You might also consider a different font for it.

Another thing... I might remove/change the "How to make wine drinking..." headline. It doesn't really look right to have two headlines right together with nothing between them.

Again, these are just my thoughts. I'm not at all an expert, just someone that's been using the internet forever, and those were the first things that jumped out at me. Other than that, I think it looks great.

Will Perkins · 6th Dec 2010, 05:20 PM

Originally Posted by Retta

In order to meet my goals this month, I am going to be needing some help. I put google analytics on my site as was suggested, and I am sick to see that my bounce rate is 100%! My problem is, that I don't know why! If anyone here is willing to take a look and give me any pointers, I would love some input. The site is uniquewineglasses4u.com

Well someone needs to tell you this, but it's just for your own good. Your website needs some major work.

First off, the header needs to go, pay someone to do something that looks good and matches the background. As for the content, I read through the first page and well, it needs some help. English may not be your first language, but you need to start using more pronouns and have things flow better. Almost sounded like the article had been spun very poorly or even as if a robot wrote it.

Also, on the right side if all I see are advertisements to buy something, I'm turned off. Had I not been reviewing the website, I would have just left. Calm down on the ads some, or at least make them more "hidden". If you don't overly know what I mean tell me and I'll show you some example and explain a bit more.

DJ Hughes · 6th Dec 2010, 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by XteeSy

If you're using cPanel, go to the password protect directory, create a directory that you wish and choose a password for it. Once you've done that, merely go into FTP and upload the html file with the video.

As for password protecting JUST the video, it would probably require a lot more work without much more gain. Meaning you'll be able to password protect it with a script of some kind, but I seriously doubt your users/customers will care.

XteeSy, this is the most help I've had for this. I appreciate it! I will do what you said in cPanel. (This is just to put up a temporary video for offline clients to see what I recommend for their website.)

Thanks!
DJ

LynnLewis · 6th Dec 2010, 06:22 PM

Matt, I hope you finished what you wanted for today!

I just got home and should have started work immediately. I will as soon as I finish this post. I won't be checking my emails until later though.

Retta, my first thought was that if I were coming to the site for wine glasses, I wouldn't want to read so much, at least not immediately.

Wouldn't it be an awesome service for a pro IMer to offer website critiques? Wonder how much they would charge.

Will Perkins · 6th Dec 2010, 06:27 PM

Originally Posted by DJ Hughes

XteeSy, this is the most help I've had for this. I appreciate it! I will do what you said in cPanel. (This is just to put up a temporary video for offline clients to see what I recommend for their website.)

Thanks!
DJ

No problem

(Just changed my username to my actual name, felt it was more professional)

Originally Posted by LynnLewis

Matt, I hope you finished what you wanted for today!

I just got home and should have started work immediately. I will as soon as I finish this post. I won't be checking my emails until later though.

Retta, my first thought was that if I were coming to the site for wine glasses, I wouldn't want to read so much, at least not immediately.

Wouldn't it be an awesome service for a pro IMer to offer website critiques? Wonder how much they would charge.

Lynn,

Check out the new Lend a Hand Challenge, professionals and semi-pros are there offering help to all warriors. Mostly it's free, but sometimes you exchange help with one another.

LynnLewis · 6th Dec 2010, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by Will Perkins

Check out the new Lend a Hand Challenge, professionals and semi-pros are there offering help to all warriors. Mostly it's free, but sometimes you exchange help with one another.

I had no idea! That's pretty awesome.

LynnLewis · 6th Dec 2010, 06:58 PM

Retta, I saw a couple of members offering website critiques on the Lend a Hand Challenge

That's a great thread and lots of members participating.

Will, I'd never looked a that thread before, thanks for the post.

Retta · 6th Dec 2010, 07:13 PM

Originally Posted by Will Perkins

Well someone needs to tell you this, but it's just for your own good. Your website needs some major work.

First off, the header needs to go, pay someone to do something that looks good and matches the background. As for the content, I read through the first page and well, it needs some help. English may not be your first language, but you need to start using more pronouns and have things flow better. Almost sounded like the article had been spun very poorly or even as if a robot wrote it.

Also, on the right side if all I see are advertisements to buy something, I'm turned off. Had I not been reviewing the website, I would have just left. Calm down on the ads some, or at least make them more "hidden". If you don't overly know what I mean tell me and I'll show you some example and explain a bit more.

Thank you for looking and responding. I am not interested in people being nice to me, I am interested in learning what I am doing wrong.

I reread the front page and you are right, it needs some help, I'll work on that tonight.

Please explain what you mean about the ads. The whole purpose of the site is to offer wine glasses for sale, yes? Would love to see some examples of what you mean.

Will Perkins · 6th Dec 2010, 07:19 PM

Originally Posted by Retta

Thank you for looking and responding. I am not interested in people being nice to me, I am interested in learning what I am doing wrong.

I reread the front page and you are right, it needs some help, I'll work on that tonight.

Please explain what you mean about the ads. The whole purpose of the site is to offer wine glasses for sale, yes? Would love to see some examples of what you mean.

Give me a day or two to grab you some examples, I'm incredibly busy launching a crap-load of new sites, maintaining my current ones, and studying for my finals next week. (I hate college, you'll heard me say this a lot)

But by ads I mean simply either put less of them, or spread them out. You may even want to disguise some of the "ads" in text links throughout your articles.

If a customer/visitor feels welcomed on the website, rather than overwhelmed by all the products, they'll be 99% more likely to act and give you a commission.

1st Dec 2010, 12:51 PM	#52
icrystal HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2006 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 123 Thanks: 33 Thanked 7 Times in 7 Posts Blog Entries: 9	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Like what was mentioned in the November challenge, my goal involves lots of VRE. My big goal is to make $10,000 per month and quit my 9-5 by the end of June 2011. To accomplish that I've made a goal of creating 100 well thought out niche websites that make money via Adsense or Clickbank. I intend to have them done by the end of February. This way I can see if I'll need to build more to acheive my goal by June. I will outsource every single thing I can (my day job and kids dont leave me enough free time to create these sites effectively). So here is the breakdown: I will: research keywords and choose whether they are best for Adsense or clickbank (I'll choose the clickbank product myself) I will: buy the exact match domains and setup accounts with my hosting Someone else will: log in to the accounts and create nice wordpress blogs with the correct SEO plugins. This person will also add articles. Someone else will: write articles for the blogs Someone else will:create backlinks for each blog I think these sites can be very good money makers IF the right keyword research is done - so this is where I will put the free time I do have to use. Last month I found 45 of the 100 keyword phrases. I've also outsourced the building, writing and backlinking of 21 of the sites My goal for this month will be to discover the remaining 55 keyword phrases and outsource the creation of as many as my budget will allow. Woo Hoo!!
	Last edited on 1st Dec 2010 at 12:51 PM. Reason: typo

1st Dec 2010, 02:48 PM	#53
scortillion Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: 2003 Location: Pa., USA Posts: 1,349 Thanks: 220 Thanked 218 Times in 101 Posts Blog Entries: 1	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Finish the edits on my website Complete the site’s blog Complete the site’s forum Add another 3 months worth of content Plus read a few really good books
	Read Our Articles

1st Dec 2010, 05:49 PM	#54
Matt Ward Addicted to IM War Room Member Join Date: 2010 Location: {Sunny\|Frigid} Canada Posts: 706 Thanks: 59 Thanked 151 Times in 88 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Hmm... my first, main site went from #7 on Google, where it's been for the past 2 weeks, to... #400. Ouch ouch ouch. Traffic has completely died, 2 visitors today. I did throw a lot of backlinks at it in the past few days, though. I hope this is the "Google dance" and not something more sinister.
	"Keep moving forward."

2nd Dec 2010, 09:48 AM	#59
haydenmiyamoto Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: 2010 Location: Toronto Posts: 16 Thanks: 4 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Great idea! My goals for this month: Post to this forum and stop lurking Meet 3 new Internet Marketers and setup and build an ongoing relationship with them Get a new client for my web dev / SEO business Register and setup 150 sites for my personal link network Test out 3 link networks on 3 different sites Sell a bunch of furniture and doors in my high end furniture biz Setup the manual prototype for my next link network Good luck everyone on your goals!

2nd Dec 2010, 01:49 PM	#61
icrystal HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2006 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 123 Thanks: 33 Thanked 7 Times in 7 Posts Blog Entries: 9	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Mathmo, you make some excellent points. I have done the steps you mention above a lot of times - too many to be honest I've failed a lot but I've had some success too - which came from failing because I learned from it and forged ahead. I have some sites that make money from Adsense, eBay or Amazon. I'm no expert by any means (I still come to the WF very often to ask questions and learn more) but I do know enough now to feel confident asking someone else to follow the steps I believe I need to follow to build a money making site. I'm at the rinse and repeat stage. I think one site will make at least 2 dollars a day so if I have 100 sites built around the same principles, they should get me to where I want to be And since I have a busy day job and busy family life, the only way I'll reach my goals in a timely manner is if I take a portion of each paycheque and use it to pay someone else to do what I know needs to be done. Having said that, I want to add that part of the way I decided what to outsource and what to do myself, is that I believe niche selection and niche research is crucial to a site's success. Yes all bits are important, but an amazing site with all the right plugins and backlinking will still fail if the keywords targetted are poorly chosen. So, I'd rather do that myself.
	Last edited on 2nd Dec 2010 at 01:51 PM. Reason: to make smaller

2nd Dec 2010, 02:01 PM	#62
mathmo Kiwi! Join Date: 2009 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 151 Thanks: 35 Thanked 29 Times in 21 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Good, glad to hear you have got past the initial stages Just checking. Pleased other people got some benefit out of what I wrote however!
	Terso IT: for Web Development and SEO Latest blog post, on the mindset of outsourcing: How to Outsource: 2 kinds, which are you?

2nd Dec 2010, 05:01 PM	#63
Zabrina Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2009 Posts: 778 Thanks: 233 Thanked 240 Times in 151 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: I want to launch four products (most of which are already completed or partially completed) and start four Amazon product sites.

3rd Dec 2010, 12:00 AM	#65
mathmo Kiwi! Join Date: 2009 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 151 Thanks: 35 Thanked 29 Times in 21 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: mattward, did you do the backlinks by hand or automated? If you did it by hand you have nothing to worry about I believe
	Terso IT: for Web Development and SEO Latest blog post, on the mindset of outsourcing: How to Outsource: 2 kinds, which are you?

3rd Dec 2010, 09:53 AM	#67
Charli Writer Warrior Join Date: 2010 Location: California Posts: 81 Thanks: 10 Thanked 18 Times in 17 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: I am new here and new to affiliated marketing. I just signed up with hostgator on their 50% off special and have my first domain name for marketing. My goal is to: 1. Set up and design my first affiliated marketing website - correctly. Small steps. I'm a freelance writer so articles I have covered. I designed webpages for fun back in the html days, rusty with CSS, so means a lot of researching again. Then to build the page correctly for google search, SEO, blah blah blah. I'm not about making any money, right now, this month is about figuring it all out and getting that first website up and running. I just figured out to how to download templates using filezilla. I also looked at the hostgator sitebuilder. I'm hoping, fingers crossed, by end of month, the site itself will be up. Then I can think about the rest of the stuff, backlinks, directories and a whole bucket load of stuff I'm still learning.

3rd Dec 2010, 06:32 PM	#73
Matt Ward Addicted to IM War Room Member Join Date: 2010 Location: {Sunny\|Frigid} Canada Posts: 706 Thanks: 59 Thanked 151 Times in 88 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: I'm not sure if you use Google Analytics, but it's been a big help for me in testing things like bounce rate, etc. You can just try tweaking things and see what the result is in your bounce rate stats, etc. For example, something simple like the header image. I changed mine and my average bounce rate per day dropped 10%. I'm pretty clueless about this stuff too, but it seemed to work. As for successful sites, you can really Google almost anything and find successful sites. It's not hard to tell which sites are run by people that are IMers and which are up there because of blind luck or because their sites are 10 years old.
	"Keep moving forward."

4th Dec 2010, 01:45 PM	#75
DJ Hughes Active Warrior Join Date: 2009 Posts: 75 Thanks: 2 Thanked 4 Times in 5 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: This is a great challenge and I am going to throw my hat in to the ring as well. I'm trying to keep it real, doable and practical given the time of year ... My Decemeber goals are: 1. 17 articles (minimum) to Ezine Articles 2. Finish 3 of my affiliate sites (still struggling to learn how to do this quickly, even via wordpress. Which themes? Which plugins?) 3. Submit 3 proposals to offline prospects 4. Approach 11 local business people about websites/seo 5. Get 3 new clients 6. Get business cards printed 7. Start/finish? writing my book for small businesses (approx 153 pages-ish) 8. Get a cheque from Commission Junction this month so I can join the War Room Jan 1st (my reward). This should be possible if I stay focused. I need to figure out how to put up a video on my site (html) and password protect it. I submitted the question in the web design section of WF, but no one has been able to help me with that there. Anyone here able to point me in the right direction? May we all end 2010 with hope, prosperity, being encouraged and encouraging others, so 2011 will be even better!

4th Dec 2010, 08:40 PM	#76
LynnLewis HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2010 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 123 Thanks: 131 Thanked 13 Times in 12 Posts Blog Entries: 1	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: So far this month, I'm making progress. Not at the rate that I should but procrastination won't suddenly decrease to 0% after all these years. But it is way, way down and I have set a personal challenge to write every day this month. I start a new job on Monday which will seriously bite into my internet time, but I'll still work on my business every day. With my last unemployment check, I will finally be getting hosting and setting up my site. Woo Hoo!
	misslynnlewis.com

5th Dec 2010, 12:22 AM	#78
twoblind Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2007 Location: Phoenix, USA. Posts: 67 Thanks: 43 Thanked 12 Times in 12 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Our Goals for Deccember 1 Get our memberhsip site fully setup 2 get at least 10 new members Thanks for doing this!
	Michael & Teresa Blaes The Two Blind Marketers WSO Keyword Research + Bonus!

5th Dec 2010, 07:30 AM	#80
LynnLewis HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2010 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 123 Thanks: 131 Thanked 13 Times in 12 Posts Blog Entries: 1	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Thanks Matt! I'm getting better and better at avoiding internet distractions. My next challenge is not to read my emails until I've worked on my business. Ideally, I'd like to leave emails until just before bed. I don't know if that will ever happen.
	misslynnlewis.com

5th Dec 2010, 11:23 AM	#81
Dennis Miedema Marketing Ninja Join Date: 2008 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 82 Thanks: 8 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: My goals for December: 1) Implement A/B split testing on my Wordpress blog 2) Showing my newly found blog writer the ropes so we can do 6 in-depth posts a month instead of 4 3) Rebuild our video marketing: more professionalism, more videos, more of everything! 4) Focusing on offline marketing, since I have the strange habit of turning every prospect I call or talk to into a customer that keeps buying (only focused on online marketing this year and earned $1.5k less because of it)

5th Dec 2010, 05:30 PM	#82
Robert Bridges Warrior not worrier Join Date: 2010 Location: London Posts: 15 Thanks: 16 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: I think I would like to learn more about a perfect link wheel, and as others have mentioned Rizzy just keep implementing what I already know and have on Hard drive. The next thing is very simple keeping it organised on the hard drive that is, keeping a clean front window may be part of this and a daily planner for 100% focus. I think the next thing will be letting go of things like Farmville which distract me and many others. What else erm just keep listening to useful audio's and keep communicating with people on the same page who are willing to help, ask me questions and find value in the skills I have to offer to the world.

5th Dec 2010, 05:46 PM	#83
Matt Ward Addicted to IM War Room Member Join Date: 2010 Location: {Sunny\|Frigid} Canada Posts: 706 Thanks: 59 Thanked 151 Times in 88 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Alright, I'm having some major focus problems. Starting tomorrow I'm going to try to work the full 8 hour day on IM business instead of working 30 minutes and screwing around for 2 hours. I've worked out a way to block this website/youtube/facebook/etc and am using a different Windows login so that I can't use IRC/AIM/etc, so hopefully that helps. I definitely need to get over this if I'm going to make this a serious source of income... It's stupid considering I know exactly what I need to do to get this gaining momentum, but there are sooo many distractions. :\|
	"Keep moving forward."

6th Dec 2010, 04:16 AM	#84
mathmo Kiwi! Join Date: 2009 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 151 Thanks: 35 Thanked 29 Times in 21 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Good on you mattward for making those changes. Also may I suggest you check out "The Pomodoro Technique" (google it for lots of info) You don't have to specifically buy a timer either, there are firefox plugins for that (or apps for your smartphone etc) Good luck!
	Terso IT: for Web Development and SEO Latest blog post, on the mindset of outsourcing: How to Outsource: 2 kinds, which are you?

6th Dec 2010, 10:16 AM	#86
Retta Active Warrior Join Date: 2010 Location: Oregon Posts: 54 Thanks: 4 Thanked 4 Times in 3 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: In order to meet my goals this month, I am going to be needing some help. I put google analytics on my site as was suggested, and I am sick to see that my bounce rate is 100%! My problem is, that I don't know why! If anyone here is willing to take a look and give me any pointers, I would love some input. The site is uniquewineglasses4u.com
	http://www.hawaii-vacation-guide.org

6th Dec 2010, 12:43 PM	#90
mathmo Kiwi! Join Date: 2009 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 151 Thanks: 35 Thanked 29 Times in 21 Posts	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: oh! Also.. make it more obvious with your menus it is a drop down, as otherwise you have to hover over them for a bit. I think it is otherwise very easy for a casual visitor to completely miss the very large amount of content you have on your site and hence leave fairly quickly without exploring your site first.
	Terso IT: for Web Development and SEO Latest blog post, on the mindset of outsourcing: How to Outsource: 2 kinds, which are you?

6th Dec 2010, 06:22 PM	#95
LynnLewis HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2010 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 123 Thanks: 131 Thanked 13 Times in 12 Posts Blog Entries: 1	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Matt, I hope you finished what you wanted for today! I just got home and should have started work immediately. I will as soon as I finish this post. I won't be checking my emails until later though. Retta, my first thought was that if I were coming to the site for wine glasses, I wouldn't want to read so much, at least not immediately. Wouldn't it be an awesome service for a pro IMer to offer website critiques? Wonder how much they would charge.
	misslynnlewis.com

6th Dec 2010, 06:58 PM	#98
LynnLewis HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: 2010 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 123 Thanks: 131 Thanked 13 Times in 12 Posts Blog Entries: 1	Re: IM Beginner December Challenge Share on: Retta, I saw a couple of members offering website critiques on the Lend a Hand Challenge That's a great thread and lots of members participating. Will, I'd never looked a that thread before, thanks for the post.
	misslynnlewis.com