So far during my internet exploits I really haven’t known what I’ve been doing most of the time. I just go with my gut, produce sites I enjoy making and hope for the best. Things like link building and keyword research have always sucked the life out of me a bit too much for me to actually spend much time doing them.
Link Build Like a Mo-Fo
I have five completed websites that are doing absolutely nothing for me. They range from about 20 to 60 pages each, they are stacked with keywords, the on-site SEO is pretty good, the topics are potentially lucrative and once I get these babies into Google and ranking well for my terms I think I will see a big jump in my earnings. Unfortunately for me, I will need to build a lot of links to do this. The old days of sticking a link to my new site from my oldest site and seeing instant results are gone and I will need to put a lot more effort into this area. Darn.
Write an Absolute Crapload of Boring Stuff
I have managed to come up with a few keywords by accident that I think will turn into good Google Adsense earners but I need to actually write some articles or websites if I hope to capitalise on this. This part makes my brain hurt.
Stop Talking About It and Do It: Affiliates Marketing
I always say that I need to work at finding affiliates that fit with my sites. I have added a few programs here and there but sort of half-heartedly. Affiliate marketing is where the money is folks and I need to get this in gear. I will need to spend a lot of time not only on finding programs but also on finding ways to make the sales. I also have a travel insurance site that ranks really well and sees some very targeted traffic but it doesn’t do much in the way of affiliate sales. I think with a bit of tweaking I will be able to improve its performance.
Find a Way to Franchise My ‘Stuck In’ Sites
I wrote a post ages ago about starting a network of city guides aimed at backpackers and expat types who are planning to move to a new city for a few months or longer. So far I have four sites on the go (London, Sydney, Beijing, New York) in various levels of completion and with varying levels of traffic and income. I think the sites are useful, but only if there is someone writing for them who really knows their stuff. So far I have been paying writers to pull together content but this isn’t something I can afford to do for much longer. I prefer the idea of a profit-sharing model or even a monthly rental/franchise type fee. I will be working on comin gup with some sort of master plan to move forward with more guides. I have a couple who are interested in writing for my Rio site and will throw a few ideas at them to see what they think.
Position Myself as an Expert on Working Holidays
I know a lot about working holiday visas and have worked abroad in a few countries. I also run the site Working Holiday Info so I think I’m well equipped to take control of the niche and market myself as an expert on the subject. Part of this will involve a massive update of the site as visa rules are changing all the time. The other part will involve a lot of writing, guest posts, research, staying on top of things, making contact with others in this industry and generally pimping myself on social media sites. I’m not sure what will come out of it but the gap year/working holiday sector is huge so it can’t hurt. This will be a huge undertaking but the site needs to be updated anyways so I will start making blog posts as I update and see how things go.
I’m sort of veering away a bit from the ‘do what you love’ mentality I have had for years. I think I have had my eyes opened a lot by Lissie. Seeing how much she is earning now and how she has gone about it has really made me rethink my approach. I’m not going to stop writing about the things I love, but I will add a few profitable but painful-to-write sites into the mix and see how things go.
All of this is going to take a lot of time. I have put a lot of effort into building sites over the past month or so and now I need to do the behind-the-scenes type stuff. I plan on being home in Canada for close to two months (although this week I am off the grid and floating around on a houseboat) and I expect to make some pretty significant strides forward in that time. I’ve put off the hard work long enough and it’s time to get down to business.
I’m not sure that a monthly franchise on sites is going to work – its too easy to build up a site – “why should they pay you for it?”
What if instead of paying authors you offered an adsense share – for the articles you would split the adsense 50-50, or whatever %age works
The PHP is easy if (1 == rand(0,1)) { show theirs } else { show yours } (untested)
Just an idea
I’d love to hear more about the link building. I keep reading about how absolutely essential it is… but I’m unclear about how to do it. I’ve read that submitting to a lot of directories is bad from the Google point of view — so how else do you “link build like a Mo-Fo?”
Kirsty,
I always enjoy reading these posts. I think you are heading in the right direction. Writing boring articles does my head in too. Luckily I’m in a position to outsource this kind of thing. Link building is something I outsource as well. However, I know that when money is tight you just have to bear down and do it all yourself. Just shoot me an email if you ever want my point of view on any of the specifics.
I’ve been subscribed to your RSS feed for a while now and find your posts really interesting and inspiring. My partner and I are planning to leave the UK next year to travel indefinitely, and you’ve given us hope that it’s possible!
I am completely new to the whole internet marketing thing, but am currently doing the thirty day challenge free online training programme, and have learnt so much from it. Check out http://thirtydaychallenge.com/
It covers a lot about link building via submitting articles to lots of web 2.0 sites like squidoo and hubpages.
Lots of food for thought here. I am just now starting to actively reinvest in my site by way of hiring people to help me. The first project is my homepage/blog integration and theme update. It is so amazing to go to sleep knowing someone else is working on your behalf. Hopefully it will all come together and encourage me to continue outsourcing.
In many respects, I think I’ve hit a wall in terms of trying to teach myself how to monetize my site. There are people who know way more than me and I have to at least try their services if I’m to have time writing, networking and building relationships. Let alone traveling again!
“Write an Absolute Crapload of Boring Stuff” — My brain hurts just thinking about you having to do this! I don’t think I could do it. I’d rather make less money and grow slower than spend my days writing about stuff I consider boring.
Go for the lower hanging fruits regarding the “stuck in” sites, there are hundreds of sites cutting each other throats for London, New York etc. what about Portland, Quebec, Liverpool, Pattaya, Murmansk?
Since you are moving towards affiliate earning why not let your writers use their own adsense code and take all of that earning, that would be an incentive worth writing for.
How valuable are meta tags for your main site? I’ve noticed only half the prominent sites use them. I’ve recently added them to my test site and it moved me up quite a lot in terms of my keywords. Why is backlinking so important? When you use backlinks do you use the same hosting provider/ip for you domain or do you use the free sites for the hosting? I was thinking of hosting my own domain on some hosting site and then using free sites to link to it but there are a few problems… Bing does not like blogspot.com/google sites and gives them a terrible listing in index. I always thought content was king but then again I’m a novice. ^_^
I’m enjoying these updates Kirsty, they are giving me a few ideas, I’m just going to have to note them down though because tackling them all at the same time just doesn’t work. Eventually you just get to know what is worth your effort I guess and then you can focus on that.
link building isnt easy. Whats ur plan to get links?
I agree with Matt, what’s your plan?
I think a lot of the success in affiliate marketing boils down to having a good way to get quality links.
I also hate hunting for links and outsourced a couple of times… unfortunately so far, I am not convinced that the links I have been provided really changed something.
I believe that creating something unique on a website will eventually pay off at some point. If there is something different about a website (maybe just a page), you can be sure it will be mentioned/talked about and you will then grab a few links. But unique and interesting is not easy to develop… too bad.
To the commentators above asking about link building; the usual suspects hubpages, infobarrel, ezinearticles, blog commentating, forum sigs, guest posts (that might work particularly well in the travel niche)
Your busyness strategy seems very effective and impressive i will try to follow some points.
Thanks for all the comments!
@lea Ya I don’t really know… it’s sort of just an idea at the moment. I would say though that building a site isn’t an easy thing for many people so a franchise type idea might appeal to someone with a passion for their city but no knowledge (or the time to learn) of HTML and all that stuff.
@carl The rough plan is to submit content to article submission sites like Ezine Articles and Info Barrel, look for three-way link exchanges, and then to a much leser extent post to related blogs and forums. My main focus at th emoment though is the articles and I will work out the rest once I feel like I’ve written a good number.
@languagedude Thanks! I would love to be in a position to outsource this stuff because it sucks the life out of me but I’m not there yet.
@erin I had a look at the 30 Day Challenge a couple of years ago but didn’t end up doing it. I’ve heard good things about it though, especially for beginners.
@webjourneyman Two good ideas worth thinking about, thanks!
@^_^ Content is important but you also need to make it known and let Google know it’s important. The more links pointing to your content, the more reliable Google thinks your site/page is… in theory. I don’t use free hosts but the links I will need to build will be coming from other people anyways.
@AJ So far the plan is article writing and afterwards posting to blogs, forums and swapping links with related sites, as I mentioned above. Beyond that… no idea. Suggestions are welcome!
@lissie Oh ya, guest posts too. Forgot about that one.
I’ve hit a wall in terms of trying to teach myself how to monetize my site. some people else know way more than me and I have to at least try their services if I’m to have time writing, networking and building relationships. Let alone traveling again…..
“Link build like a Mo-Fo” – that really made me chuckle!
Al