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From Personal Experience...Be PATIENT

by Steven Wagenheim
23 replies
If you get nothing else out of this thread, get this much.

If you have patience, you will see results.

True story and I'll make it real quick.

In 2006, I got a hold of a domain related to natural health products. At first
I was gung ho about it but quickly lost interest. I wrote 122 articles (last
one in 2008) and that was the last thing I ever did for this domain and site.

Now mind you, this is one of the most competitive niches on the planet...health

And I was doing close to nothing with it.

My income model?

Some Adsense and a few affiliate products on a products page.

At the beginning, I'd get a few EZA views per day and it was cool.

Fast forward to this year. Mind you, I've not touched this domain in 2 years.

I am getting more views from my 122 articles per day than I get from my
over 2,000 Internet Marketing articles per day by DOUBLE.

My traffic has increased by 20% this year.

My Adsense income has doubled monthly.

I am now getting affiliate product sales every week like clockwork.

I haven't touched this damn domain in 2 years folks!

My point is, if you build something, even if it's in the most competitive
niche imaginative and do very little with it, the mere fact that you've been
around for a while (4 years now for this site) will bring you steady visitors.

Imagine what you could do if you actually WORKED on your business.

Had I put the time and effort into this site that I should have, who knows
what I could have turned it into, but as I said, I just lost interest.

I still have articles getting over 1,000 views each month that I wrote
4 years ago.

All of this is easily verifiable.

No, I'm not making a fortune from the site. In fact, what I make in a month
from it is about what I make in 2 days from the IM niche.

But this has become TOTALLY PASSIVE INCOME for me.

I don't even remember the last time I looked at my home page, as ugly
as it is.

Yes, the site is an eyesore and it STILL gets traffic and makes Adsense
and affiliate income.

I honestly believe that you'd literally have to try to screw up NOT to make
any money online. If this site and what I've done with it isn't living proof
of that then nothing is.

Okay, so do something. If it isn't a total nightmare and you put even just
a little effort into it, yeah, it might take 4 freaking years, but you might
actually start to see some money coming in.

Do that with 10 sites and you've got a full time monthly income if you
can make just $600 a month from each site.

No, it's NOT that hard.

And I've proven it.

So get off your butt and stop making excuses for not making money
because you don't have a killer product or killer authority site.

You don't need one.

And I proved it...in the health niche no less.
#experiencebe #patient #personal
  • Profile picture of the author davidjames42973
    I've had the same thing happen to me a few times from sites I built over 3 years ago. Some sites weren't making me a dime back then and then years later, one site makes me about $2-$3 daily, the other brings me about $50 a month selling an affiliate product and the other makes me about $30 monthly in Adsense.

    The best part of it all is I haven't touched these sites in years!
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  • Profile picture of the author Zeus66
    Awesome reminder, Steve! I tell my Adsense "students" to think of their new sites as wine. They get better with age. As long as you do a few things right at the beginning, age can only help a site's performance, even if you just ignore them after awhile, as you did. The key is to keep putting new sites out there, work on what you can, but never stop. In time, you end up with a nice set of properties.

    And you nailed it about patience. What I wouldn't give to have been born with a lot more of that commodity!

    Thanks, Steve!

    John
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  • Profile picture of the author Big Al
    That's a cool post ... a bit tortoise and the hare.

    Good things come to those who wait ... eh?

    And when it comes to decent aged domains - even better.
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  • Profile picture of the author humbledmarket
    Banned
    Wow Amazing story, I never new there was actually such thing as passive income online.

    I always figured you must continue your SEO work and content to keep up with all the competition.

    This is definitely very encouraging and a joy to read if only my sites did this well.
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    • Profile picture of the author Cosmo Demopoulos
      Very encouraging.
      I'm doing OK online, but have a baldness/hairloss site that is doing next to nothing.
      I was thinking about bagging it, although I have 30-40 pages of very good and original content. I get the odd AdSense click.

      It started with a bit of a bang, then sandboxed (whether that exists or not)

      I've tired of it. I don't work on it. I have greener pastures.

      Guess I'll just let it age a few years and see
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      Wine - bubbles and more
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  • Profile picture of the author Gary King
    Ah, the well-aged domain... as @Zeus66 said, like a fine wine.

    I'm presuming that your seo rankings improved during this time to Steven, or had you monitored that since it fell by the wayside?

    Congrats on yet another success.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      Originally Posted by Gary King View Post

      Ah, the well-aged domain... as @Zeus66 said, like a fine wine.

      I'm presuming that your seo rankings improved during this time to Steven, or had you monitored that since it fell by the wayside?

      Congrats on yet another success.
      I have no idea. Honestly, I don't even know how people find it. If you
      look up the keywords of my site, all related to like natural health treatments,
      cures, etc, there's like 3.5 million sites at least.

      That's why I said, the competition doesn't matter. Put enough content
      on it (good content will help a lot I guess) and over time, it makes a
      difference.

      And yes, I did write all the articles myself and didn't use PLR. I don't know
      how much luck you'll have if you just scrape content from other sites
      or use PLR material.

      Oh, and I double checked my income. It isn't quite 2 days of my IM income.

      I miscalculated by a bit. But the last 2 days I made 2 sales. I think that's
      the first time I made sales in consecutive days.

      Here's a screen print from my CB account:



      I blanked out the customer info but left the product info so you can
      even see the products I'm selling. I don't even care about trying to keep
      them a secret. It doesn't matter. If I can make sales with 3.5 million sites
      of competition, then a few people from here aren't going to make a hill's
      beans worth of difference.

      PS - I am terrible at math, as many have seen through my years here.

      My wife (a math teacher) would be ashamed of me.
      Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author Rod Cortez
    Amen to that Steven. I've got an old site in the relationship niche that I haven't touched in 4 years. It's got 40 EZA articles, about 22 GoArticles, 4 articles on Buzzle.com, 14 articles on AssociatedContent.com, and another 15 on IdeaMarketers.com.

    Last year the website was averaging 3 sales a month (a $27 ebook), starting around March of this year it's been averaging 5 sales a month. Like you stated, it's not a lot of money but these articles are still working and doing their thing. Imagine how much this site could make if I extended my autoresponder messages beyond 2 weeks and if I had a complete back-end strategy and if I continued to crank away articles? Holy cow.

    Patience isn't just a virtue, sometimes it's a necessity.


    Rod "Coffee-Makes-Me-Impatient!" Cortez
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    - Jim Rohn
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  • Profile picture of the author JasonB
    Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

    If you get nothing else out of this thread, get this much.

    If you have patience, you will see results.
    As usual Steve, Great info, and I mean GREAT INFO... Stuff like this makes the majority of us keep plugging away trying to make that $$$...

    Now, what do you say to a guy that is 80 years old, has been in the IM business for 3 years, and has made only a few bucks online..

    Patience? Not too sure about that..

    How about - Your F-ed, time to give up.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      Here's a small segment from my Aweber account.



      The circled list is from this site. That's how many subscribers I have.

      I give away a free report that has absolutely no monetization in it.

      Talk about totally screwing up a niche.

      This was my 2nd foray into a non IM niche. The first was back in 2003
      and actually made some decent money at it...without a site. I just
      promoted affiliate stuff.

      Even the stuff I've totally screwed up has made me money by just doing
      some simple things.

      1. Write articles.
      2. Put up a crappy blog with some content, Adsense and a product.
      3. Do some social bookmarking.

      I honestly don't know how some of the stuff I've done gets seen with
      so many sites out there and so little I do with it, but it does.

      I need somebody a lot smarter than me to figure out why what I do, even
      when it's close to nothing, brings visitors and income. If I had to guess, I'd
      say the key was article syndication, but if that was it by itself, every
      article marketer would be making money and from what I've read here,
      there are many not making a cent.

      So I don't know what the answer is. That's as honest as I can put it.
      Maybe it's the quality of the articles.

      Which, if true, might answer the age old question, quantity versus quality.

      How many article marketers who just slap crap together and submit it all
      over the place really get anything out of it as opposed to those who
      actually take the time to write good articles?

      But I don't want to get into that debate here. It's not the place.

      But I have to wonder how I can do so little and still get results, even if
      it does take a long time.
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      • Profile picture of the author JasonB
        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post


        How many article marketers who just slap crap together and submit it all
        over the place really get anything out of it as opposed to those who
        actually take the time to write good articles?
        So, where do you submit your articles to?

        Do you use several directories, websites, blogs, forums and so-on? Or do you use the most popular directories? Or just one popular directory?

        I'd like to think that I write very good articles - usually around 500 words a piece. I definitely know I don't slap crap together.

        Thanks!
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        You Won't Believe What This Guy Did To Make A Coffee Table Out Of $6,525,657.88!

        Google First Page Top 10 Rankings - Where Sites Learn To Fly!
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        • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
          Originally Posted by GuruCreation View Post

          So, where do you submit your articles to?

          Do you use several directories, websites, blogs, forums and so-on? Or do you use the most popular directories? Or just one popular directory?

          I'd like to think that I write very good articles - usually around 500 words a piece. I definitely know I don't slap crap together.

          Thanks!
          For this particular niche, the only place I've submitted my articles to is EZA.

          Like I said, I did as little work with this niche as possible,

          Think about it. In 2 years (2006 to 2008) I wrote 122 articles. That's
          61 articles a year which is a little over 1 article a week. That's how
          little time I put into this. I certainly wasn't going to spend time
          submitting to multiple directories.

          Again, my point, 1 article a week...it adds up over time. You don't have
          to crank them out like gangbusters and work yourself into the dust.

          1 article a week for a couple of years and you'll eventually see your site
          gain some decent traffic.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      Originally Posted by GuruCreation View Post

      As usual Steve, Great info, and I mean GREAT INFO... Stuff like this makes the majority of us keep plugging away trying to make that $$$...

      Now, what do you say to a guy that is 80 years old, has been in the IM business for 3 years, and has made only a few bucks online..

      Patience? Not too sure about that..

      How about - Your F-ed, time to give up.
      I don't think it's ever too late or that it's time to give up.

      But then I'm not 80 years old so maybe I'm the wrong one to answer
      your question.
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  • Profile picture of the author juansaldivar
    Nice advice Steve, in the end persistance pays up in spades and this is great lesson on passive income too. Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author zachary0611
    What really makes this impressive is that I have checked out some of your sites and none of them seem to have a good modern design lol (no offense)
    Do you use a lot of buying keywords in your articles?
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    • Profile picture of the author sanssecret
      Some clever folks might call this 'set and forget' Steven.

      I'm with you on the 'patience'. I don't have any of it, but luckily I do have a very short attention span and an even worse memory. :p

      I've noticed recently that my Adsense income is creeping up and one site in particular (about a year old) is going up on a weekly basis. I think I wrote one article for it, maybe another couple of links on related blogs, and then haven't touched it for the last few months!
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  • Profile picture of the author entrepreneurjay
    Great post a lesson that if you build it they will come lol field of dreams.

    All kidding aside if beginner marketers would just stop being lazy and get off their --- so to speak they could have success like you have.

    Residual income folks! If you have ever read the book Rich dad poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki he explains in great detail that the rich leverage their time to work for them like Steven. The poor do not know how to do this, or are just scared of change. That is what seperates the Rich from the poor time, working smart, and leverage.

    Listen to Steven he knows what he is talking about! Now get off your butt and make that money.

    You cannot be in the game if your not playing!

    Think residual income to get rich!
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  • Profile picture of the author blogrev
    Well done I know what you mean by patients its hard I been waiting 8 yrs.

    Take Care
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  • Profile picture of the author communityn
    wow Steave. Inspiring story. I'm assuming you picked the right domains to start with. I usually pick up domains however, if it's not working as expected over an year, do not bother renewing. What's your take on experimentation?
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