Website Building Week 23?

by Keith on March 8, 2010

I put a question mark because I’m not entirely sure what week this is. It’s round about the 6 month mark though. Just one commission this month from Learn & Master Guitar (they’re not on Clickbank)

Well, I’m no where near my reaching my goal. But that’s ok, I’m still going which is the most important thing.  This week I’ve been mainly adding content to my new health niche site and adding physical product reviews to my guitar site. yes, real guitars!

Of course there is a huge long tail in guitar models so I’m hoping to get good ranking quickly. The commissions are great even though they are only around 4% from Comission Junction – as long as the price is high enough (ie over $800 for a guitar) then it’s still worth it. I’m hoping there is less competition for products not on Clickbank. It seems Clickbank products are just so popular with affiliates that it’s hard to get a foot in the door.

I’ve also started PPC adveritsing on my giant review site in a very conservative way.  Product names only. No clicks yet which means no sales but also no cost ;) I’ll start expanding it this week carefully.

No point posting my clickbank account this week because there are no sales to see. Gotta keep chugging along.

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This is to compliment Clayton’s post here

It was May 2007 I think when all this nonsense started. I got myself a beautiful new MacBook. It was sweeeet. At the time it was delivered I was at home at my parent’s house in St.Andrews looking after the cat as they swaned off round the world as part of their extensive round-the-world retirement plan.

To be fair, the cat was my responsibility since I’d saved it from cat prison and certain death 10 years earlier.

So I had plenty of time on my hands to play on my new Mac in between forking out chunks of Whiskas cat-o-meat. That’s when I came across Brian’s site Start Breaking Free

I can’t remember why I was looking for this type of site but I do remember I was extremely disenchanted, bored and uninspired with my ColdFusion web development job. (yawn)

I bought Brian’s book and started having the anti-career-path-wait-for-retirement thoughts that have spurred me on since.

I didn’t start a business after reading the book and it wasn’t until October 2007 that I somehow stumbled across Ed Dale’s Dominiche course “The Art Of Buying & Selling Websites”. I succumbed to his persuasive video sales pitch things and bought the course. Hell! I can do websites! I could do that stuff.

Of course I didn’t. I would come home after work and religiously watch the lesson, take notes and then not do anything. Awesome! I would call it ‘working’. Ha.

Having consumed all of Ed’s information I felt I needed to buy more courses and fell into the “spend and watch” mindset, failing to actually take any action. It’s a bit embarrassing but I bet I’m not the only one. I started buying up internet marketing courses like they were going out of fashion. What a fool!

My Internet Marketing Shopping List circa 2008

(note: I can’t recommend any of these courses)

Then eventually I settled down a bit after joining PLRPro (don’t buy it yet, they’re soon to relaunch with loads of new stuff) . The difference with PLRPro was that they were trying to get people to simply replace their income rather than make a gazillion dollars. Build 12 sites in 12 months and make $4000 a month. Sounds good to me.

Oh, and they’re straight talking Australians. Seems to appeal to my British sensibilities.

It was round about now that I got The Four Hour Workweek and kept it as a bible beside my bed. The thing about the 4 Hour Workweek is that it really is a kind of metaphor rather than a blueprint. The principles are sound but implementing them is not as easy as it sounds. Tim Ferris is a remarkable guy. Take his principles and ideas but please don’t try to emulate him. It will just lead to disappointment.

So I built about 12 sites, stuck adsense on most of them and started making a bit of money. Not much mind you. About a dollar a day.

Then I stopped building links to them and most of them just died. I am just a lazy git when it comes down to it. I’m still a member of PLRPro.

Then I heard Daniel from PLRPro recommend Mark Ling’s way of building sites. So I joined Affiloblueprint about a year ago and started building sites like www.burnbellyfat.co.uk. I made a few sales and thought cool! This stuff might just actually work.

But by the time summer rolled round last year, I was still nowhere near quitting my job. So I tracked down Sean Morrissy in the Affiloblueprint forums and joined his mentoring scheme.

It’s now coming to the end of my apprenticeship and I’ve learnt a lot. Mainly that you really do need to do a LOT of work for this stuff to work. My lazy ass is getting kicked.  You also need to invest some cash in my opinion. You need a hell of a lot of articles and you need a hell of a lot of backlinks.

Sean has taught me to build quality sites that Google and your visitors are going to like. My Green Guitar Guy site is what I’ve been concentrating on and I’m just now on the verge of starting to creep into the top 10 on Google for some of my keywords.

Then last month my boss asked me to start working part time, 3 days a week. There’s not enough work to keep you fulltime. Fair enough I thought. I really want more time to grow my business anyway. So I’m a bit skinter but more time rich. I have 4 full days a week to work on this stuff.

I’ve started outsourcing my linkbuilding to Offshore Ally (note to self, remember to pay the bill)

So that’s how I got here. When it’s not going well (and once I’ve felt sorry for myself over a few beers) I think of James Corbett’s quote:

“Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired that you have to shuffle to the center of the ring, fight one more round.

When you’re arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round.

When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired that you wish you’re opponent would crack you on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round – remember that the mans who always fights one more round is never whipped.”

James J. Corbett, American boxing champion (1866-1933)

Just remember to alter any failing tactics along the way.

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Website Building Week 17

February 10, 2010

So no more sales in the past week (except one from an old site). I am encouraged by the traffic increases for my site though. It’s been about 60 or 70 visits per day for the past couple of days. My outsourced link builder is doing a great job.

However, this doesn’t seem to be converting [...]

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Things I’ve Learned About Internet Marketing (my first 800 days)

January 25, 2010

I estimate that I started this journey to freedom through internet marketing around 800 days ago. I reckon I’ve spent thousands of dollars on learning products, articles, websites and outsourcing. I still work a full time job. [Update: I'm working 3 days a week now]
Uncommon? I doubt it.
But not strictly necessary either.
I’m not defeated. If [...]

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Website Building: Week 15

January 20, 2010

It’s still a bit hit & miss with the PPC so I’ve reduced my max spend to $10 a day. I got myself Perry Marshall’s Definitive Adwords guide so once I’m through that I’ll have another go.
I do feel I’ve learnt a few things though. Particularly to keep landing pages and adgroups very ‘tight’ and [...]

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Website Building: Week 14

January 14, 2010

This week I’ve reduced my PPC campaign to include just one adgroup for one product. I realise I went in full steam ahead with a dozen adgroups and it was just too much.
So word of advice: Choose one product review to advertise and use only product related names to start with. I can expand it [...]

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Website Building: Week 13

January 5, 2010

I’m about half way through my challenge. With just less than 3 months to go before i need to hit my target income I have been getting a bit negative and hopeless on occasion.
However, the good thing is I recognise this feeling from previous attempts at building an affiliate business and it stems from not [...]

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PPC progress: Week 3

December 20, 2009

So annoyingly enough I tweaked my ad campaign with misplaced optimism having made 3 sales in my first week. I widened the number of keywords to included non-product based keywords and upped my bids.
No sales.
Argh! Why not?
So I hemorrhaged cash for 7 days before pausing my campaigns.
This morning I activated a 3 of my ad [...]

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PPC progress

December 4, 2009

I was surprised and delighted to get a sale within the first 24 hours of my PPC campaign running. From only 5 click throughs I sold a copy of Guitar Superstars.
I’m guessing this is not going to be typical but I had a little celebratory dance anyway
I am assuming it came from [...]

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Week 10 – Starting PPC

December 1, 2009

Well I’m in week 10 (or thereabouts) of this project and at the moment there’s not much happening.
When I say that, what I really mean is that I don’t have much traffic to my guitar site. However, I shouldn’t really expect much since I’ve only been doing SEO on it for a month or so.
So [...]

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