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What Would You Do?

by tboneman
14 replies
  • SEO
    • |
My wife and I have been out here working the Internet vinyards trying to make some money to augment our retirement incomes, for about 3 years. To put it mildly, we have been monumentally unsuccessful.

We have failed, miserably.We've built 25 or 30 websites (14 are still up), did niche keyword searches on Google and, using KW and other tools, did what we thought was decent SEO. We made sure there was at least some quality content on every site. (article writing is not one of our favorite things to do but my wife has well over 300 articles on eZine and Associated Content)).

No matter what we did (and we spent a fair amount of time here on the Warrior forums trying to learn), nothing seemed to work.

I think our biggest shortcoming was not following through with anything long enough to make it work. We'd put a site up and if traffic didn't start coming within 2 weeks, we figured it wasn't going to work and build another one. A couple of them did generate a little bit of traffic but the conversion rate was non existent. We did earn about $100 on Adsense last year.

It's not that we didn't know what to do, for the most part, it's that we didn't execute what we know very well at all. And, as the old saw goes, the definition of madness is to keep doing it the way you've always done it and expect to get different results.

Toward the end, just before Christmas 2010, we stopped doing anything. In effect, we quit. Finally disillusioned. Assessing what we did and the results, the reality was, it was a giant wheel spin. Total dollars earned over 3 years, about $350.

I apologize for this lengthy preamble, but now the question. One of our sites, I thought, was decently done. It looks professional, it's got a fair amount of content, and it's on a subject I feel strongly about in a huge market niche. One guru we trust who's made a lot of money out here told us the site would never do anything because it was in a niche that was too big and there was too much competition.

The site has been up about 14 months. I havn't done a thing to it since I put it up. We were hoping it would do something but after 3 months and only two affiliate sales and very low traffic, and a non existent page rank on Google, we forgot about it and moved on.

Yesterday, I was bored and decided to cruise our sites just to remind myself of what we did and see if any of them were an embarrassment. When I checked the site in question, I discovered it has #14 rank on Google for our main keywords. Huh? I checked it again. And again. Yep. The site has apparently come from off the bottom of the barrel to a pretty decent ranking, with no help from us. At all.

The Web Rank toolbar on my Firefox browser (which may or may not be accurate) has the following:
Google: 2/10; Alexa: 16,207,540 (gulp!); Compete and Quantcast ranks n/a; pages indexed in Google, 15; pages indexed in Bing, 11; pages indexed in Yahoo, 13; Google backlinks, 0; Bing backlinks, 6; Yahoo backlinks, 29; Alexa backlinks, 1.

These numbers are not really all that impressive. (not sure what 'Google 2/10' means) So how does the site rank #14? Could it be a reflection of the recent Google slap re content sites?

The question: what should we do about this? I don't think we should waste what appears to be an opportunity to enhance the Google ranking even more. We'd appreciate suggestions of the most expedient actions to take.

More articles? I believe the onsite articles I wrote plus the articles my wife wrote are the main reasons for the site's huge improvement in PR. So, yeah, I guess, like it or not, more articles have to be written. (guess we could outsource that)

More backlinks? I've been reading where this is vastly overrated and not really all that effective. Facebook? Twitter? Again, some successes but most who try it, apparently fail. Beef up the onsite copy to enhance conversions? (there is no sales/squeeze page per se. It's very low key, with emphasis on useful information). YouTube?

Maybe I'm answering my own question but all of this stuff could be farmed out. However, it would require a certain amount of management. What would you do? Where would you place your emphasis? Or am I misinterpreting what I'm seeing and it's not as good as I thought?

Appreciate your thoughts.

Wes
#ouj
  • Profile picture of the author mikeroosa
    You already know what to do so now you just need to do it. Write more content for the site and build more backlinks. Page 1 is within reach if you want it bad enough.
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  • Profile picture of the author Miriam Higginbotham
    That is great that your site is #14. I would definitely write some more quality articles and do some backlinks. I would submit your articles to several different sites. You could take advantage of social media for extra exposure. I would think that you could get ranked on the 1st page of Google if you did this.
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    • Profile picture of the author TBInternetMarketing
      Sent you a pm. Hope the e-book helps you out.
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    • Profile picture of the author tboneman
      "I would definitely write some more quality articles and do some backlinks."

      Speaking of backlinks, we had Angela's service for about 8 months but we didn't really see much activity as the result of it. But then, it's hard to know for sure without doing some intense research. Or maybe it's not intense, I just don't know how to do it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nickolie0990
    I think the problem here is mindset, it isn't about working more and producing more articles. It is about building assets, that pay you every month without working. Don't get me wrong niche marketing and using article marketing is great and does work, the problem is that your going to be working your ass off working the system.

    This is why building an email list is so vital, you build a list of targeted people, build a good relationship with them and then sell them stuff that produces assets for you.

    I am only guessing but out of all your sites, none of them are collect an name and email. Thank about it this way, you are NOT paid to work, you are paid to produce a result for somebody. By working your ass off producing all these articles, just to try to get higher rankings in the search engines isn't working.

    If you had an audience (email list), then you don't need to rank sites or even write articles, you only need to focus on helping the people on your email list. It is WAY easier then dealing with Google, after all who is paying you Google or your customers.

    So I would say, pick one niche and start building an email list in that niche.

    Mark
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    • Profile picture of the author tboneman
      Thanks. You are correct...list building is something we need to do. It's ironic because we have been paying Aweber $19 a month for the past year and this site is the only one that has a signup module on it. It's there but not really functional. It definitely needs fixed.
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  • Profile picture of the author bluewaterk
    I totally agree with Nickolie0990!!! This is where you will find success. Putting up a website or having a product doesn't mean you have a business. You only have a business when you have customers or, more specifically, relationships with customers. Only customers will make you money and those come from relationships that you have cultivated in your list.

    This really works! Not just on the internet but in every part of life. Good relationships are the essence of all success. Pursue them, build that list, and you will see success!
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    • Profile picture of the author tboneman
      I stumbled across this post this morning. It's by Mike Hill in a thread about Truth About Abs, Mike Geary's incredibly successful exercise book. He made $14 million on sales of this book in 2010, but it didn't start out anywhere near that good. In fact, the first 2 years (2004 - 2006) he didn't make a dime.

      I can relate to Mike's comments. I don't know if I can do what he suggests, but he is speaking to me very loudly.

      Excellent Marketing Advice by Mike Hill 3.30.11 Warrior forum

      This is a good example of sticking with something, tweaking it, testing the hell out of it and making it work. Most people would have given up a long time ago. Truth is he probably did a lot of research before he ever created the product so he was absolutely sure it's what people wanted and then concentrated on his marketing.

      Like I said before in another thread most people give up far too early and have great products that people want although they have no idea about their marketing. They give up thinking no one wants to buy their product when in fact it had nothing to do with the product but rather their marketing.

      It's a process people and it's different for everybody. Sure their are similarities and the steps are near identical however the marketing involves your USP which reflects the angle or hook you present your product.

      Create a solid product that people want and then concentrate on the marketing until it works. As you do this you will learn more about marketing and increase your own marketing skills. You'll also discover what your ideal customers respond to and what they hate. That's why it's important to keep good notes on your marketing as well as the results. Marketing is not something you do once, it's not about trying one thing for a week then scream when it's not working.

      That's why I like marketing, it's a challenge and once you figure it all out for your product then it's a real feeling of accomplishment.

      As you're learning the art of marketing don't forget to try the new things you have learned and do not be afraid to combine or change your marketing from the norm just to see what happens.

      Once you figure it out on a small scale it's quite rewarding once you 'scale up' your marketing and really start making a lot of money as well as helping a lot of customers with your information. You help others and they will let you know about it...
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  • Profile picture of the author Brankica
    If I got it right these numbers are for ONE of those sites?

    Google 2/10 is Page Rank 2 out of 10 and it is a nice PR, especially considering you didn't really slave over it.

    I would work on that site only. But build it from grounds, do a good design, write pages, build links and promote it. Include social media promotion and connecting with people from related niches.

    Congrats and good luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author tboneman
      "Google 2/10 is Page Rank 2 out of 10 and it is a nice PR, especially considering you didn't really slave over it."

      Yeah, that's what I thought, too. But that's not correct. When I do a Google search, it definitely comes up 14 or 4th on the second page. What am I missing here?
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    Okay, without seeing the site and knowing what you originally planned on achieving by having it up it's almost impossible to make an intelligent comment. So let's get to the point. What are you selling and what does the sales page look like? This whole nightmare might simply boil down to getting your sales copy to work.
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  • Profile picture of the author Linda_C
    Is it the one in your sig file? Because if it is, I can make some suggestions.
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    • Profile picture of the author tboneman
      Yes, it is the site in the signature.
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  • Profile picture of the author App Developers
    Please keep going!! It takes time! that is what I have had to learn is to be patient!! but in time your work does pay off!!! websites are a funny thing and some times it is hard to rank quickly if you aren't paying for a ton of backlinks! Keep on going and congratulations!!!
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    www.austinflightcheck.com
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