My 2009 Success Story

26 replies
Greetings Fellow Warriors,

As we are steadily progressing deeper into 2010, I thought it was time for me to reflect on my IM successes in 2009 and share them with you. First a little bit about myself.

I have several part time jobs that currently provide my income and health insurance. They are:
  • Training developer at local university.
  • Online graduate course instructor at other local university.
  • Chinese 101/102 instructor at local university.
  • Chinese import quality control business.
  • Collection of Adsense websites.
  • Collection of sites promoting affiliate products.

The particular IM success story I would like to share concerns one of my affiliate sites.

In early 2009, I set up a "Get Your Ex Back" website. The keyword research I did for the site was a little different than how most people do it. I didn't pay any attention to exact competition. Rather, I chose keyword phrases solely based on what I saw on page one of Google for that search. Quite simply, I checked the PR of each site on page one and added them all up. Keywords of total PR 30 and below went into my basket. All other keywords were discarded. This works folks. Currently, I am ranking #1 in Google for two very high search terms in this niche with incredibly high exact competition, one has 37,000,000+ and the other 42,000,000+. Most IMers might have run away from these keywords, but they met my PR criteria so I went after them. The credit for this PR method goes to Josh Spaulding. Thanks, Josh!

The next step was backlink building. Here's what I used:
  • article marketing
  • profile links
  • blog networks

That's it!

I did pretty steady backlinking for about 3 months. I got to page one for those two high search terms in May, and then hit the #1 spot in Google a couple months later. I shifted between #1 and #2 for a couple months for the terms, but now they are stuck at #1 and don't move.

My income for this particular site is $600+ a month. A HUGE success!!

My goal in 2010 is to build 12 more sites promoting Clickbank products, like this one, and promote them the same way.

Why did this site succeed? I continued building backlinks even though the site was virtually non-existent in Google for 3 months. Steady and consistent backlink building did it. Of course, the keyword research was important. Pick the wrong keywords and you won't see the first page of Google.

All my online efforts for 2009 brought in about $51,000.

I need to double this if I want to quit the job that brings in the health insurance. So, I will definitely need these 12 new sites I'll build.

Here are some of the specific services I used for backlink building:

Article Marketing Automation
UAW
Automatic Article Submitter
Free Traffic System

I wish everyone success in 2010!

Don't lose faith!
Keep building backlinks!

Jonathan
#2009 #story #success
  • Profile picture of the author kkrueger
    Thanks Jonathan for such a candid reflection of your IM success, and your step by step process. I have bought WSO's recently that wither in comparison to this post.

    Quick question for clarification, how do you determine PR 30? And how do you know what keywords are part of the PR 30? That part was confusing to me.

    Thank you so much!

    Karen
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    • Profile picture of the author Daniel Brock
      Very nice!

      Can you tell us what type of articles you are writing?

      Are they in that category of low quality $5 300 word articles or do you tend to write higher quality articles?
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      • Profile picture of the author jhiggins
        kkrueger:

        Thank you for your kind words. Looks like I've lost a WSO opportunity :-)

        Daniel Brock:

        I commute a lot each week to two Universities in my state. I spend about 10 hours on the road each week. I bought the Dragon speech-to-text software and do all of my writing while I'm driving.

        Here's what I do. I belong to UAW. They require you to write three version of an article. When you submit it, a fresh article is spun from your three versions and submitted to an article directory.

        So, while I'm driving, I dictate "four" versions (at paragraph level) of the article. I submit one to EZA, one to Buzzle, and two to whatever article directory.

        Three versions are submitted to UAW. UAW spins about 400 unique versions and drip feeds them to 400+ directories.

        I then take the all "four" spin ready articles and submit them to Article Marketing Automation. The fourth article will make the AAA versions a bit more unique.

        That's how I do.

        Looks like I've given away another potential WSO idea. Oh well!

        I'll tell you what. Anyone reading this who decides to sign up for UAW or AAA, PM me for my affiliate link :-)

        Jonathan
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    • Profile picture of the author shibbeymon
      Originally Posted by kkrueger View Post

      Thanks Jonathan for such a candid reflection of your IM success, and your step by step process. I have bought WSO's recently that wither in comparison to this post.

      Quick question for clarification, how do you determine PR 30? And how do you know what keywords are part of the PR 30? That part was confusing to me.

      Thank you so much!

      Karen

      He means add up all the sites page rank on googles first page for that particular keyword to determine if you can outrank them. If the total of the ten sites PR is 30 or less that means there is room for you to overtake them.

      And Jonathan, congratulations on your IM success....my goal this year is to be making $3,000 a month by the end of the year.
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      • Profile picture of the author discrat
        Excellent job Jonathan !!
        Curious to how you are monetizing this Site ?? I am guessing it may be MMU Clickbank Product ??
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Brock
    Good idea! If only you could make a car plugin that not only creates the articles but uploads and spins them to all your article directories all from the comfort of your car.

    Now that's a WSO!
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    • Profile picture of the author jhiggins
      Well, I'd never offer a WSO that required the customer to purchase other 3rd party services. If they are going to pay me, I'm not going to make them pay someone else.

      Jonathan
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  • Profile picture of the author Teresa Coppes
    Jonathan,

    I love the fact that you are extremely happy with making $600 a month. Any amount of money in the positive is a success - it doesn't have to be 5 figures a month. Kudos to you for not stopping and reaching the top spot and much success to continue with your new phase for 2010.

    All the best!
    Teresa
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  • Profile picture of the author Aaarrrggghhh
    Thanks for sharing this Jonathan and big congrats to you!

    I am still plugging away on backlinks on some of mine that I know will pay nice if I can just get them ranked. With your tips I will take a double look and see if maybe I am just up against too many with high PR.

    This may be a dumb question but I am curious enough to know...what is UAW?
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Kohler
    Unique Article Wizard. It is very similar to all of the other spinners he mentions.

    I think that your success is, at least in part, based upon the fact that you use all of these spinner/submitter programs. That is a really good idea especially in conjunction with your PR 30 rule. Instead of relying on just one of them, you use them all. Great post and thank you!
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  • Profile picture of the author davisbrands
    Great post and thanks for the reference on the UAW i hadnt heard of it or used it prior. I had paid for contentboss and didnt like that particular program. Feel free to PM me your aff link and i will sign up with it!
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  • Profile picture of the author dndoseller
    Wow, this is very inspiring, thank you. It just shows that being top in Google for a highly searched converting term is really a solid objective. It takes faith to keep building all those backlinks without seeing immediate results.
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  • Profile picture of the author brchap
    Congratulations on your success. I have no doubt that you will achieve your goal of 100k this year.

    With many people the BIGGEST problem with earning money online (especially passive income) is proving to yourself that it's possible. In other words, it's usually all in your head. Now that you have proven to yourself that a single site can earn $600+ per month, it will be relatively easy (for lack of a better word) to create about 20 more of those sites.

    I know you have probably already thought of this... but, you should use that $600+ per month for outsourcing. Sink it back into the business as quickly as you make it. There are tons of writers out there who will write articles for peanuts. USE THEM. Reinvesting that dough will help you ramp things up faster than ever.

    Good luck, friend.
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  • Profile picture of the author es5
    Always love reading a success story
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  • Profile picture of the author kkrueger
    Jonathan, I wanted to add, that you have inspired me also. My goal is to stick to one thing, and make it work. You're plan sounds awesome, and it's great to know it works!

    Thanks again!

    Karen
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  • Profile picture of the author dontono7
    Thanks, Jonathan! Always great to hear of a success story like yours. It gives me hope, which really helps. I know I'm getting closer to a decent steady pay in IM, so I never want to quit. It's a long journey, at least for me, but well worth it when I hear these great stories! Keep sharing, I hope to be doing the same very soon...
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  • What do you mean by profile links?

    Social Media?
    Forum Profile links
    Blog posts or
    Community Sites such as
    Login - Guinness World Records -

    Because the last, have nofollow tags but due to their high PR usually rank pretty well on their own.
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  • Profile picture of the author gautam42
    inspiring life story, thank you for posting Jonathan.
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    • Profile picture of the author mbrig
      Thank you Jonathan, I've been in this forum a couple of days and there's several things that impress me;

      1. The clarity of the post's

      2. The intensity that people display

      3. The willingness to share thought's, systems etc

      Absolutely delighted for you Jonathan, please keep posting we can all use a good dose of inspiration. Please keep pushing to smash that $100,000 barrier!

      Very best wishes

      mbrig
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  • Profile picture of the author Zoe_21
    Hello all especially jhiggins

    Great inspirational post!

    You can make those 12 sites goal by end 2010

    How do I know?

    Cos you successfully made one such profitable site! Just rinse and repeat x 12

    You go jhiggins and I'm looking forward to reading your 2010 success story, and more, in Dec 2010

    Zoe
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve Dailly
      great post by jhiggins. Especially liked the different way for getting keywords. Has made me rethink the way I choose my keywords.
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      • Profile picture of the author ksburgess
        Thank you for sharing Jonathan - and congrats on your success.
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  • Profile picture of the author mello
    Congrats jhiggins and thanks for sharing your story. Very reaffirming for many of us!

    You're right to be happy with 600 p/m .. from only one site.

    Same story that's often repeated ... it doesn't matter which road you choose, just pick one and work it until it works. Thanks for the reminder.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dviau17
    Gratz to you Jon, 2010 will be my year of success since I started learning back in september of 09
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  • Profile picture of the author joedwi1
    thanks for sharing your information
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