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My first project. Outsourcing and PR questions.

by abednego
35 replies
Alright. Somewhat of a lurker here. Decided to pop my warrior cherry, register, and try things out.

Call me a skeptic- but I don't have a lot of "hopes" for making money online by affiliate marketing. I hope you will all prove me wrong and I'll get rich just like the millions of e-books claim to do overnight.

I think I found a niche for my first project without much competition ... but I had a few questions.

1) Outsourcing the tedious "Social Bookmarking" thats supposedly essential to get free traffic. I visited SOCIAL MARKER COM ... and its so tedious. I heard rumors that you can pay $5 to get everything entered... is this true? And if so, where?

Is it worth it? Or am I just slow at it?

2) I want to make just one small wordpress blog... and only have a few pages to it. I read conflicting reports; on whether or not its possible to get such a thing to show up easily on page 1 of google.

Does it have to be content heavy to achieve good search results?

3) How important is PR?

I'll let you know my progress. I registered my domain, wrote up a few quick pages, and submitted my landing page to google and few websites. Any help or advice you could give me?
#outsourcing #project #questions
  • Profile picture of the author Kevin_Hutto
    Honestly it all depends on your niche, what keywords you are trying to rank for and the number of competing pages. Without more info, unfortunately it will be hard to give any idea as to probability of success. One thing that you should do, is make sure that somebody is making money in your niche... Look at the adwords results and see how many advertisers there are and what they are selling -- that will give you an idea if your keywords are "money keywords" or not.
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  • Profile picture of the author James Le
    About the outsourcing social bookmarking...

    It's well worth it, if you was to do it for yourself itd take you a good few hours, outsourcing would make it cost effective and save you alot alot of time!!
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Thank you for such quick replies. I'm really open to any or all advice.

      I'm trying to market a product called "Farmville Domination". Farmville seems to be a popular app - and I don't see a lot of competition in google. (or am I just using the keyword tool wrong??)

      Whats the best way to outsource the social bookmarking? And what kinda results can I expect with that... as far as traffic goes?

      *EDIT*

      if anyone wants to see my ghetto n00b landing page, its:

      farmvillehelponline com/
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin_Hutto
    I missed part of your question. Just go to odesk or elance and pay someone to do it for you. Just post the job for what you are willing to pay and you will get many providers willing to do it for your price in most cases. I find Phillipinos are best.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin_Hutto
    Why dont you try and market it on facebook? It would seem like it would work well with facebook ads since that is the market...
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    I don't really feel comfy investing any money for my first affiliate project... at least, not til I can (and if) I make money. The $1 domain was enough!
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin_Hutto
    If you arent willing to spend money, then you HAVE to be willing to spend lots of time. Either way, you gotta pay for it.
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Is there anyway of investing time instead of money - to promote on Facebook?

    And what about WordPress themes? I hear conflicting information... some say to use themes that match your product; and others say to use the basic theme... to give the apperance that you're a "normal everyday" kinda guy.

    Is the above theme appropriate? Or do you think its a venture that won't make money?
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin_Hutto
    I think it looks fine, but i couldnt find any links to the affiliate site. I would make the big image clickable and i would add some links.

    You can certainly guerrilla market it at facebook. Just make lots of friends who play farmville and pimp it to them. It will take time though and you cant come on too strong. You have to really soft sell it.
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Originally Posted by Kevin_Hutto View Post

      I think it looks fine, but i couldnt find any links to the affiliate site. I would make the big image clickable and i would add some links.

      You can certainly guerrilla market it at facebook. Just make lots of friends who play farmville and pimp it to them. It will take time though and you cant come on too strong. You have to really soft sell it.
      First of all, I just wanted to say thanks - and I appreciate all your input.

      The main reason I didn't write up the final review - is that I just submitted the site to search engines & directories...

      I heard you should wait before making the final post; to give the page the "appearance" that its being worked on AFTER its been submitted. Do you think theres any truth to that... or no?

      Thats a good idea to make a Facebook account and just send out the links to friends that I add using the application ...
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin_Hutto
    You should obviously play the game yourself too... and then you can say the guide helped you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin_Hutto
    No problem, glad to help out. I dont think there is any truth to that. I also think you have to be careful and really build a presence before you start sending out your link. Think about it as a party. If you are the dude passing around your biz card or MLM system at the party, then you wont be invited to the next one. You gotta be cool about it. Get into conversations with people. Join the farmville groups, communicate, add value then promote.
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Ok. Made a FACEBOOK account to befriend Farmville players - and just ran a search for "Farmville Help" @ google ... and was surprised to see a link to my website from JUMPTAGS COM... (only after a few hours) right on page 2...

    I think thats an okay start...

    Will keep you all posted!
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Alright - looks like google crawled my webpage.

    For a search for "Farmville Help" in google, my JUMPTAGS link is on page 2, and the website itself is on page 7.

    Created a Facebook account, got ~50 "friends"/farmville neighbors - and have it linked to my Squidoo.

    Is it ever "too early" to post a review of the product I'm trying to sell? After less than a day, I only have 6 hops to the clickbank product
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Just wrote up my first review.

    What do you guys think? Any suggestions? I'm open for criticism; sense this is my first project....

    farmvillehelponline com
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  • Profile picture of the author khtm
    Hey there, I'll do my best to answer your Q's.

    Originally Posted by abednego View Post

    1) Outsourcing the tedious "Social Bookmarking" thats supposedly essential to get free traffic. I visited SOCIAL MARKER COM ... and its so tedious. I heard rumors that you can pay $5 to get everything entered... is this true? And if so, where?

    Is it worth it? Or am I just slow at it?
    Yes, social bookmarking is absolutely worth it

    There's a bunch of sites you can use for outsourcing. I like oDesk.com myself. You can post a fixed price job, wait for bids, only hire someone if you get a good candidate, and only pay when the job is complete. Win!

    Originally Posted by abednego View Post

    2) I want to make just one small wordpress blog... and only have a few pages to it. I read conflicting reports; on whether or not its possible to get such a thing to show up easily on page 1 of google.

    Does it have to be content heavy to achieve good search results?
    Ideally you want to have both unique content and backlinks, but depending on the competition you can rank on page 1 with only a single page and 0 backlinks. This is why keyword research is so critical.

    There's a reason automated sites with 1 million pages pages can rank so well, because all the pages are backlinking to one another. So it's true that good content + more pages + backlinks = Win.

    Originally Posted by abednego View Post

    3) How important is PR?
    It's important with respect to the pages that are backlinking TO your site. It's not that important that YOUR webpages have high PR, unless you're selling backlinks
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Thank you for the reply.

    What do you think of my landing page? Does my review sound lame?

    I'm still currently on page 7 of Google. How long does it take to get to page 1? Do you believe its feasible with the product I'm selling?
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  • Profile picture of the author Diver Doug
    I've got the same problem. My site is still ranking sub-200 on google (but #1 on yahoo) I've got heaps of b/l, keyword in the domain, etc but still it's pretty low. The #8 site (keyword.net) has no b/l, is just a paragraph and only mentions the keyword THREE times !! Go figure..on paper, my site should rank at least as high as that, but it's still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the list.

    I use socialmarker.com..it's tedious, but it gets the job done.
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Originally Posted by Diver Doug View Post

      I've got the same problem. My site is still ranking sub-200 on google (but #1 on yahoo) I've got heaps of b/l, keyword in the domain, etc but still it's pretty low. The #8 site (keyword.net) has no b/l, is just a paragraph and only mentions the keyword THREE times !! Go figure..on paper, my site should rank at least as high as that, but it's still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the list.

      I use socialmarker.com..it's tedious, but it gets the job done.
      If you find a fix, let me know!

      Originally Posted by khtm

      Hey there!

      I replied to your thread about "My first project"

      I'm offering a FREE WSO that does pretty much what SocialMarker can do, except the submission is automated (you only enter your bookmark details ONCE) and members bookmark each other's pages so you'll get a heck of a lot more backlinks.

      Up to 420 backlinks / month with the FREE account.

      [LINK REMOVED DUE POST COUNT]

      Didn't want to toot my own horn in your thread, but I believe SocialAdr may be just want you need
      Thanks a bunch for the suggestion. I have to reply here since I don't hav 50 posts.

      After successfully bookmarking, what kinda traffic should I expect? And is SocialAdr only free with Warrior Membership?
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      • Profile picture of the author khtm
        Originally Posted by abednego View Post

        After successfully bookmarking, what kinda traffic should I expect? And is SocialAdr only free with Warrior Membership?
        So many variables, that's a real tough question. If anyone could answer that question they'd have to work for Google

        It's free for ALL Warriors (you don't have to be a War Room member).

        Originally Posted by abednego View Post

        What do you think of my landing page? Does my review sound lame?
        I think it's good enough! I don't play Farmville myself, but if I did I'd probably expect a niche site to look similar to yours.

        Originally Posted by abednego View Post

        I'm still currently on page 7 of Google. How long does it take to get to page 1? Do you believe its feasible with the product I'm selling?
        How long has your site been up for? How long has your SEO campaign been running? There's so many factors and it doesn't help that Google changes their algorithms, so it's tough to say that "in x weeks you'll be on page 1". If you have a good SEO plan and stick with it, you should usually get positive Google results in about a month, at least that's my experience.

        I assume your primary keyword is "farmville help". Looks like there's 56k competition for the exact phrase. And using the Google External Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) it doesn't show data for that keyword. I personally use Micro Niche Finder but the External Keyword Tool is free and does the job.

        So how do you know how many people search for that keyword on Google each month?
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        • Profile picture of the author abednego
          Originally Posted by khtm View Post

          So many variables, that's a real tough question. If anyone could answer that question they'd have to work for Google

          It's free for ALL Warriors (you don't have to be a War Room member).
          Ok, looks like I just figured it out. Its actually a really helpful website, works smoother than SOCIAL MARKER COM (just wish it included more webpages!)


          Originally Posted by khtm View Post

          How long has your site been up for? How long has your SEO campaign been running? There's so many factors and it doesn't help that Google changes their algorithms, so it's tough to say that "in x weeks you'll be on page 1". If you have a good SEO plan and stick with it, you should usually get positive Google results in about a month, at least that's my experience.

          I assume your primary keyword is "farmville help". Looks like there's 56k competition for the exact phrase. And using the Google External Keyword Tool it doesn't show data for that keyword. I personally use Micro Niche Finder but the External Keyword Tool is free and does the job.

          So how do you know how many people search for that keyword on Google each month?
          My website has been up for about 24 hours. But I just uploaded the review maybe an hour or two ago. Feeling a little discouraged that I'm not showing many hits on my webpage. And only 7 hops? yikes.

          As far as monthly searches, I'm not entirely sure. I assumed "FARMVILLE HELP" and "HELP WITH FARMVILLE" was at least 5,000 seaches / mo. But then again, maybe its not if the Google Keyword tool is saying "Not enough data".

          Is that an initial sign that my 1st campaign will probably fail? And be honest!
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          • Profile picture of the author Karomesis
            Hi Abednego,

            I think you're in for an EPIC FAIL

            Just kiddin

            Have you done a long tail analysis of your keywords yet? Wordtracker pays for itself in about 5 minutes once you get the hang of it.

            I'm not an SEO expert but I have a few friends who practice the dark art of BlueFart & Spamming like it was going out of style. It's funny how much we can learn from one another, even if our methods are diametrically opposed. i.e some of the methods I've seen them used can be used in white hat ways once you start to get creative with it.
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            Coming soon....FULL SCALE AUTOMATION.
            "Set it...Forget it" site building and SEO software.

            any ? please hit me up anytime karomesis12@gmail.com

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          • Profile picture of the author khtm
            Dude, 24 hours! I personally think a good rule of thumb for getting positive SEO results is 1 month. It takes time for the search engines to index your site and more time for them to start noticing backlinks. There's tricks to speed things up but then you run the risk of not looking "natural".

            Originally Posted by abednego View Post

            My website has been up for about 24 hours. But I just uploaded the review maybe an hour or two ago. Feeling a little discouraged that I'm not showing many hits on my webpage. And only 7 hops? yikes.
            One recommendation I have is to never assume when it comes to keyword research Use the tools that are out there and look at the data before buying a domain or doing anything else.

            Although just because the Keyword Tool says "not enough data" doesn't mean there's 0 traffic, it's always slow at showing data for newer keywords. So you could very well be accurate with 5,000 / mo.

            If you're confident that there's a market for what you're offering, I'd say continue doing what you're doing, add a new blog post every day, build up the content, and keep backlinking. Make sure when you're adding content that the URL, H1 tags, and content itself contains the keywords that you're targeting. Use TAGS appropriately in WordPress.

            Originally Posted by abednego View Post

            As far as monthly searches, I'm not entirely sure. I assumed "FARMVILLE HELP" and "HELP WITH FARMVILLE" was at least 5,000 seaches / mo. But then again, maybe its not if the Google Keyword tool is saying "Not enough data".

            Is that an initial sign that my 1st campaign will probably fail? And be honest!
            Thanks for the kind words! Don't worry about the "more webpages" compared to SocialMarker, many of them that they use are "nofollow" (only 20 aren't) so don't help your ranking at all (at least with Google). Plus, only your one account will be bookmarking stuff, there's no "community" aspect = way less backlinks

            Originally Posted by abednego View Post

            Ok, looks like I just figured it out. Its actually a really helpful website, works smoother than SOCIAL MARKER COM (just wish it included more webpages!)
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Wordtracker == $59 / mo ? ouch
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    • Profile picture of the author khtm
      At this point in the game (especially if $$ is an issue) I don't think you need WordTracker. To do your research:
      • Use the External Keyword Tool to find keywords with good volume of traffic (either local or global, depending on your market)...set "Match Type" = Exact. I like > 2,000 monthly searches.
      • Once you find keywords with decent traffic, go to Google.com, type the keyword with quotes, ie "farmville help". The result # at the top is how much competition you have. I like < 20,000 competition, but if the searches are really high you can obviously adjust it.
      Another thing that's important to consider is "strength of competition", because you could very well be joining a niche where every site on page 1 of Google has 1 million backlinks and it's virtually impossible for you to compete.

      Oh one thing I forgot to mention earlier is you should be aware of the new FTC guidelines, and put a disclaimer on your site that you're getting a commission for recommending products to visitors. Google this if you're not sure what I mean

      Originally Posted by abednego View Post

      Wordtracker == $59 / mo ? ouch
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      • Profile picture of the author abednego
        Originally Posted by khtm View Post

        ...
        If you're confident that there's a market for what you're offering, I'd say continue doing what you're doing, add a new blog post every day, build up the content, and keep backlinking. Make sure when you're adding content that the URL, H1 tags, and content itself contains the keywords that you're targeting. Use TAGS appropriately in WordPress.
        ...
        I'm not really confident about anything; I'm pretty much just doing this as a side project, not really expecting any income. When I read about other people making money selling ebooks, my first instinct is to just reply with, "you are all lying, I don't believe any of you!"

        As far as the URL and H1 tags go; this is something I'm not doing properly. I tried changing the permalinks settings in WordPress to:

        /%postname%

        but it makes all my headings return an error when I click them. I've tried changing the .htaccess file myself... no good. I even changed the permissions on my blog's files to allow wordpress to edit the .htaccess... and that doesn't help either.

        H1 tags - how do I edit those?

        Originally Posted by khtm View Post

        At this point in the game (especially if $$ is an issue) I don't think you need WordTracker. To do your research:
        • Use the External Keyword Tool to find keywords with good volume of traffic (either local or global, depending on your market)...set "Match Type" = Exact. I like > 2,000 monthly searches.
        • Once you find keywords with decent traffic, go to Google.com, type the keyword with quotes, ie "farmville help". The result # at the top is how much competition you have. I like < 20,000 competition, but if the searches are really high you can obviously adjust it.
        Another thing that's important to consider is "strength of competition", because you could very well be joining a niche where every site on page 1 of Google has 1 million backlinks and it's virtually impossible for you to compete.
        When you told me it takes a month to rank, I immediately did some research for a 2nd project. I heard those "GET RICH QUICK" scams usually convert well, so I was going to experiment with "The Affiliate Code".

        (nobody on here better ninja my idea!)

        From what I can tell the "competition" to the keyword TO QUIT YOUR JOB seems pretty low, with monthly searches 5000 +.

        Unfortunately, the domains at godaddy aren't on sale anymore; and its hard to justify $10 for a domain... so I'm at a standstill with that until I make some money.

        Originally Posted by khtm View Post

        Oh one thing I forgot to mention earlier is you should be aware of the new FTC guidelines, and put a disclaimer on your site that you're getting a commission for recommending products to visitors. Google this if you're not sure what I mean
        Does this disclaimer have to be anywhere specific? Where would you suggest I put it on the Farmville page?
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Ok. 30+ hours. Still no traffic =S This is taking forever
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin_Hutto
    abednego,

    I dont know where or who has given you the expectations that you have, but the only way to drive real traffic as fast as you are thinking is PPC... You might can drive a trickle by spamming twitter or something, but either way its a mistake. 30 hours is nothing.

    The other thing that is a mistake is obsessing about ranking on google.

    Think about it, all of the players that would be interested in your site and product are in one place - facebook. If you are really interested in making sales, you should immerse yourself in facebook and participate in the community there. Once you have gained some level of trust, you can let people know about your offer.
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Originally Posted by Kevin_Hutto View Post

      Think about it, all of the players that would be interested in your site and product are in one place - facebook. If you are really interested in making sales, you should immerse yourself in facebook and participate in the community there. Once you have gained some level of trust, you can let people know about your offer.
      Have you ever done PPC advertising on Facebook to sell aff products?
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Just thought I'd give you all an update - I have about 100 visits total (within the past 10 days? Not too good... but I'm still hanging in there)

    And I'm currently on Page 2 of google.

    How long does it take to see if my niche will be profitable?
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin_Hutto
    Hey Abednego,

    I have used facebook ads.... With mixed results. Some things worked well and some bombed. I would think that you are in an ideal niche to try and test via facebook ads as it is as targeted an audience as you could ever hope for...

    As for your results, I wouldnt worry about it too much yet. 100 is not a lot... but you should be looking at your clickout rate to your offer. Do you know what it is?
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Originally Posted by Kevin_Hutto View Post

      Hey Abednego,

      I have used facebook ads.... With mixed results. Some things worked well and some bombed. I would think that you are in an ideal niche to try and test via facebook ads as it is as targeted an audience as you could ever hope for...

      As for your results, I wouldnt worry about it too much yet. 100 is not a lot... but you should be looking at your clickout rate to your offer. Do you know what it is?
      I don't even know what a clickout rate is! How do you check that? And what is it?
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Really confused. 200 visits / 35 hops since 12/20/09.

    Did as much social bookmarking as possible - my website USE TO BE page 2 of google, but now it was pushed back. I was easily ranked on yahoo, though; kinda odd....

    Still need to update a bit more! This better be worth it!
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    How many hops should it take to get a sale on clickbank? My website has ~45 total hops; but no sales. Is this an early indicator that my project won't create revenue?
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