March 2011 - My Online Business Journey

April Mixed Bag Challenge

WOW! I haven’t done a public challenge in over 8 months, and it’s definitely time for one. I want to accomplish a lot of things, so this challenge will be a mixture of working towards getting traffic and increasing revenues for 2 sites: this one, and a niche site whose best traffic months are the spring and summer months.

In February 2010 I challenged myself to increase traffic for this site by 75% and fell short by just a little bit. But, for the second part of last year I was majorly distracted, and was very inconsistent with adding content, stopped guest posting, and even got sloppy with one of the main attractions to my blog: the free niche research.

So, in April I am planning to increase traffic by 25%. Here is a screen-shot of the the traffic as of today, March 31, 2011:

So, in April I need to come up with 948 more unique visitors, for a total of 4740. Now, in order to achieve this, I’ll do the following:

– go back to weekly free niche research

– guest post at least twice, and find at least 2 people to guest post for me

-create 2 how-to articles (these seem to attract traffic). Do you have suggestions? I’m all ears: please post below in the comments and I’ll either write it myself, or find someone qualified to we rite it for me.

Now the other site in this challenge is a niche site I challenged myself on last year as well (it was actually my April challenge for last year).

Here is a screen shot of my stats from that post last year:

April starts for niche site

And here is a screen shot from the first 3 months this year:

Big difference, right? My plan is to double traffic to this site in April, as well as double income (which is pitiful right now, at $122.60 for this month). It’s an ambitious plan, but I think I can do it. Here is what I am planning to do for this site:

– add content every day for the month of April (luckily, I already have all the content needed, so I just need to take a few hours to add images, links, etc., and upload them to the site

– guest post at least once (last year I wasn’t able to find a place to guest post, but this year I’ll try harder)

– build some links. Not exactly sure which route I’ll take for this. I may submit a couple of articles to article directories, send a press release, tweet, bookmark, etc.

– I’ll create and distribute at least 2 videos. I’ve tried creating videos myself in the past, but I am not cut out for it, so this will be outsourced.

– I’ll create a FaceBook page for this site (probably I’ll outsource this as well)

– create a list for the site, so I don’t have to always rely on just the search engines to bring in traffic. I already have my give-away for it (had it for more than a year and never took the time to create a list: shame on me!)

– pick 2 products, create detailed reviews, and work on ranking those 2 pages: shooting for top 5, but will be content if I reach page 1 🙂

– monetize the site better: I am using AdSense and Amazon for now, but I need to tweak it for better performance.

What are YOUR plans for the month of April? Wouldn’t you love some more traffic? Please join me in this challenge to increase traffic: just comment below.

03/31/2011 by Adriana | Comments Off

Website Traffic

Link Building Strategies That Work

Getting links back to your site is the number one most important factor to getting ranked well in the search engines. What are some link-building strategies that really work?

Twitter and Facebook!

Though many of these links are no-follow links, the exposure will often get you in front of other people who will create permanent links to your site.

Have a Facebook group or fan page. Also make sure the like button and the retweet button are both on all the pages that you want people to link to.

Link Bait

Create content designed to spread virally on sites like Reddit and Digg. What tends to do well on these sites?

* Infographics tend to get a lot of attention. Put a bunch of little-known statistics into one infographic.

* Slightly sarcastic content.

* Funny content.

* Content relevant to a news topic that these groups support. They tend to be more liberal than conservative and also more technologically oriented.

Guest Articles

There are many sites in your industry that depend on outside articles for their success.

Do a Google search for terms like:

* Keyword + “Submit an Article”
* Keyword + “Guest writer”
* Keyword + “Guest article”

And so on. Try to find websites that regularly host other people and try to get an article on their sites.

Directories

Directories are one easy way to build a bunch of backlinks quickly. You can submit them by hand or hire out the process very affordably in internet marketing forums.

Submit Press Releases

Send press releases to news services like PRWeb, PR Newswire and PR Leap. Some offer free press release services, though typically you’ll have to pay a small amount of money.

These releases will almost definitely generate a handful of backlinks to your website. If your story is especially good, you may even get picked up by news media or a prominent blogger and get a high profile link.

Chamber of Commerce

One easy, high quality link is to get a link from your chamber of commerce.

All you need to do is show up at your local chamber and register as a business. They’ll then put a link to your website from their high authority, high PR site back to your site.

Forums & Blog Comments

Forums and blogs are two easy places to get links. The most important thing to keep in mind with these link sources it that every post you make should be a high quality post, not a junk post designed just to get a link back.

Write high quality responses in forums and blogs and include a link back to your website. You’ll build both your backlinks and your credibility in the field as you get more well know.

There are many link-building techniques out there. While some work more than others, they all work to some degree. The most important thing is that you get out there, take action and start building links today.

03/18/2011 by Adriana | 2 Comments

Google Adwords

Google PPC versus Bing PPC

step-by-step affiliate marketing with AdWords

Google AdWords wasn’t the first search engine to come out with the PPC model, but they certainly are the biggest and most well known today. Does that mean you should ignore other engines like Bing?

No! In fact, there are many marketers who are making a full-time living on search engines like Bing without spending any money on Google at all.

What are the differences between AdWords and Bing and why might you choose one over the other? Here are the differences.

Conversion Rates

Out of AdWords, Yahoo and Bing, Bing traffic tends to convert the best. That means that out of 1,000 visitors, you’ll tend to get more sales from Bing than AdWords or Yahoo traffic.

There are many theories about why that is. One common theory is that people using Google tend to be more computer savvy users and more discerning about where they spend their money.

Bing users on the other hand tend to be people who just left their browsers on their default search engines. They’re less discerning with their money and their internet habits.

Volume

This is where Google AdWords wins hands down. For any given keyword, you can expect to get 10% or less with Bing than what you’d get if you bid on the same keyword in AdWords.

Does that mean you can’t make significant money on Bing? No, it just means your strategy needs to be different.

Bidding Strategy

Generally, with AdWords you don’t want to go for high-profile, high-competition keywords with high volume. The bid prices are just too high.

With Bing however, it’s different. Bing’s PPC bids tend to be a little bit cheaper than AdWords. There also tends to be less competition.

That means that on AdWords a keyword like “Lose lower belly fat” may be far too competitive and expensive. On the other hand, on Bing there will be competition but you may have a good shot at making money with the keyword.

Basically, on Bing you’ll need to take advantage of the lower competition to bid on broader keywords. This will help you offset the lower search volume: You increase your total traffic by bidding on higher traffic keywords.

AdWords versus Bing

There are many similarities in strategies between AdWords and Bing. The principles of writing great ads and split testing carefully apply to both systems equally. Choosing the right keywords is as important in one as it is the other.

On the flip side, these two systems require very different strategies to master. AdWords often requires drilling down to very precise keywords in order to create profitable campaigns.

On Bing, your main challenge is often getting enough volume rather than getting your traffic to convert.

Each search engine is different and need different approaches. There’s a lot of money to be made in both.

03/14/2011 by Adriana | Comments Off

Website Traffic

7 Ways to Attract More Links

Content – The first and most important way to attract incoming links is through great content. When you publish content that is entertaining, valuable and informative people will naturally link to your website or blog. Content can be video, audio, print or any combination. The essential element is that it is worthy of being linked to. If you are having a hard time coming up with great content, try outsourcing to someone who loves writing. Check out Happy Outsourcing by Rachel Rofe: a great step by step plan that anyone can use right away.
Social networking – Once you have great content on your website you can use social networking to generate attention. Post links to your best content on your social networking site of choice. Interact. Generate awareness and attention for your website. People will notice your website and again they’ll naturally link to it.
Blog (and guest blog) – Blogging is another natural way of creating content. When you publish guest blog posts then you are reaching a new audience. The more attention you generate for your website, the more people will link to you. Additionally, you can create a blog to support your website. This blog can link to relevant content and web pages to help increase incoming links.
Online directories – There are a number of online website directories. Simply register with the directories. They can provide a few powerful incoming links.You can also list your business website with local search directories like Google Places. It’s free. It’s easy. And it’ll generate a few quality incoming links.
Social bookmarking – Social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg can provide incoming links. Join a few bookmarking sites. Create a profile. Interact with others much like you would on a social networking website. Bookmark web pages that you like. Also, when appropriate and relevant, bookmark a few top-notch pages on your own site. This process boosts awareness for your website. Other people will bookmark your pages. And the pages you bookmarked will receive attention and incoming links.
Content marketing – Publish articles on article directories and other people’s websites. This actually generates a substantial amount of incoming links. Also consider creating syndicated content. You might publish a newsletter. In each newsletter you’ll have an article or two. You can include a snippet that tells others they can publish the article if they don’t change it and if they keep your links and bio. When your content is top level, people will publish your articles on their site with the links intact.
Press releases – Finally, consider publishing press releases when you have news to share. Use services like PRWeb to distribute them. It’s another great way to generate incoming links.

Incoming links help you climb your way to the top of the search engine rankings. They boost traffic. Create a plan today to start increasing your links and grow your business.

For more non-stop, viral traffic ideas, click here.

03/11/2011 by Adriana | Comments Off

Off Topic

Giving Away 2 Aged Sites

In my quest for a more focused, less stressful life & business, I’ve been selling or giving away some of my sites, or just letting them go as the domains expire.

Today I have 2 sites that are well aged, have PR and are expiring soon, so I decided to give them away. They have been neglected for years, so they are ready for some action.

No need to delay it any further, so here they are, with a little bit of information about each:

http://www.yourvirginiahome.com/ – 9 year old, PR1 site. This used to be my husband’s business site when he first started in real estate. It was hacked a couple of years ago, and Google stopped serving ads, and I never tried to talk to them about it (it used to get really good payouts). I haven’t added anything to this site in a couple of years, and it’s not monetized. 1720 unique visitors for 2010. It has some very good links pointing to it, and with new content and some back links could turn a nice profit. There are good search numbers for “Virginia home” related key phrases.

Suggestions for improvement/monetization:

You can change the theme and instantly make it look better
You can start posting regularly and traffic will increase for sure
Acquire some links: I never did anything intentional to get links, so this option is wide open

There are lots of searches for variations of Virginia home, and if you decided to go that way, you could probably connect with some real estate offices and sell leads.

virginia home

http://www.youwantthisstuff.com – 8 year old, PR2 site, great name: 1167 visitors in 2010!

If you want one of these sites, please comment below and tell me which site you want and why I should give it to you: what are you planning to do with it. On Wednesday evening I’ll decide who gets the sites.

Now here is the small print: the sites come “as is” (I’ll take off my ebay info form youwantthisstuff.com, so that will only have the link pages and site template/logo) . I’ll send you the files and the database and you take care of it. If you need help moving he site to your host, it can be arranged for $25 if your host has Cpanel.

One comment per person: please don’t spam with comments. I’ll choose someone who has a plan for the site, not based on how many comments you left. Good Luck!

03/07/2011 by Adriana | 3 Comments

Month: March 2011