EzSEO Newsletter # 186
December 2, 2007 by Andy
This week:
1. A fr.ee Mind Mapping Tool.
2. Where do I go from here?
3. Price Increases around the corner.
4. November Niche Blueprint Released
5. An unusual email.
6. Other Stuff.
Hi again.
Its been a hectic week here, and I haven’t been working much. Hopefully things will settle down a little now, and I can get back to my usual routine. That’s a great thing about making your living online – when things get too much, you can take a break. Back at my old job as a science teacher, I would have had to “suck it up”, and get on with it.
With 2008 just around the corner, there is lots to think about. I always take a day off in December to sit at my computer and create an action plan for the year ahead (this year I’ll be planning in my favourite Mind Mapping software which has become an indispensable tool for my business).
Looking back over my action plan for 2007, I have completed the vast majority of the tasks I set myself, but it does take commitment. Without a boss looking over your shoulder, you burden the responsibility of self-motivation, which is why so many people fail to make an impact online. They just give up. Don’t let it happen to you!
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
1. A fr.ee Mind Mapping Tool.
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
“Fr-ee Mind” is a mind mapping tool, that is fr.ee. In the last year I have been using Mind Maps more and more. I find them invaluable for brainstorming a range of projects including new software, web sites, reports and even article content. I began using Fr-ee Mind but moved onto a commercial alternative.
You can read more about it here:
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
2. Where do I go from here?
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
I had a question on my support desk this week, and I think it represents a situation that many people find themselves in, and end up thinking “where do I go from here”. I have edited the email to protect the privacy of the author, and his site(s).
“Dear Andy,
I have spent ten years getting nowhere, and at last something seems to be working at least a bit. I have tried everything from automatic writing tools to using other people?s articles, to running 50 sites, you name it I have tried it, and have never consistently made over $100 per month.
By the way I was at the peak spending literally ?500 every month on advice, software, again you name it, I’ve probably belonged to it.
Then I remembered something you once said, which was to make a website on something you really enjoy.
I had started www.*******1 in August last year, and it was late December when I made a decision to focus on that, and nothing else. I stopped subscriptions, I stopped getting emails from all the gurus, and I abandoned all but a handful of my web sites, none of which I have touched since, so they are expiring slowly but surely.
I joined ISnare as a platinum member, and began trying to write an article a day, and submit it to Isnare.
I have seen the following happen.
Last year averages per day
Imps 8, Clicks 0, Revenue $.18
This month daily average 269 imps, 14 clicks Revenue $3.59
In fact my revenue more than doubled in October and is up 20% on top of that this month.
When I last looked at SEOElite my links to the home page are running at 640, and I’m using Interspire software and templates and their stats tell me I have well over 2000 pages bookmarked.
My PR has just gone to 3 on the home page, and the handed down PR shown on SEO Elite makes 4 seem likely quite soon.
I feel things are going well, and better, since I now send out an article summary as a blog, part of the Interspire software, every time I add a new page.
I use AWeber and now have about 20 subscribers who get details of every new article once every two weeks, and I use Translation Gold even if it technically doesn’t work anymore to translate my pages.
Cpanel AWstats says I have 2300 keywords used.
OK sorry about the length of this the questions follow.
1.. I have 230 pages, do I continue, and if so how long before the law of diminishing returns starts
2.. I started www.*********2 and although it has only 25 pages it now has a PR of 3 which has taken four months, and I do exactly with it, what I did with www.*******1, so presumably I continue to add, article submit, blog, get subscribers as above, but for how long. There is a one way link from www.********1, can I take it down now?
3.. I’m starting www.*******3 and plan to take it to twenty pages, until I get a PR hopefully 3, then I will continue the process, adding another site at that point.
Am I doing the right thing, what else should I do.
Am I right to be getting a bit excited, or is this just another disappointment waiting to happen?
I hope you will feel able to reply.
Thank you again for your weekly encouragement
Sincerely
Ian”
OK, that’s a long email, but I wanted to include it all as it shows you what other people are doing to try to achieve success.
I’d like to first congratulate Ian for perseverance, and finally realising that there are no short-cuts to success. He has abandoned the “get-rich-quick” mentality, and knuckled down to some hard work on a topic he knows and loves, and it is beginning to pay off.
Now. Is this site a success?
Well, it is making money (over $100 a month), but at this rate, he would need to create 20-30 sites like this to replace an income. That’s a lot of sites, especially when they are taking so long to build.
My advice here would be to stop building more sites, and stop adding more content to existing sites. Let’s look at improving income from what is already on the site.
It appears from the email that most (if not all) inbound links are coming from article sites. While article sites used to be a great source of inbound links, they aren’t as effective at boosting Google Page Rank as they use to be. SEO Elite says he has 640 inbound links to his home-page (what about other pages???), yet his site is only a PR3. That’s not a very good return for 600+ links and all the work it took to get them.
A PR 3 can be achieved by 3 or 4 quality links, and this is something everyone needs to take on board. Stop thinking that article marketing is the be-all and end-all of inbound link strategies, and go to work finding other sources of links, but QUALITY ONES.
The fact that Ian told me he had 640 inbound links to his homepage makes me wonder. Is he getting links to internal pages of his site? This again is something that you must be doing.
Think of it this way. You spend all that time creating useful, quality content, and posting it on your site, only to let it rot under 100s of other pages in Google.
If the content is good, work on getting it to rank better. Get quality links to all of your pages.
Another thought on all of this article marketing is this. If the PR boost is so insignificant for each article submitted, is the biggest benefit of article marketing actually visitors referred from the article sites themselves? If you are spending time creating quality content and posting it on other sites, you MUST get a return out of that.
If you are not getting much PR from that site (and in general, you wont), you should be maximizing the potential of that article to bring you traffic via referrals. To this effect, you need people to read your resource box, and feel compelled to click through to your site. Do the resource boxes on all of the articles you have submitted to other sites do that?
Then ask yourself how many visitors those articles (on the article sites) are getting. Can you check the stats on the article site (sites like ezinearticles allows you to see how many times your article has been viewed)?
If an article on an article site is not getting good traffic, maybe you need to promote that article. It sounds strange, but it is worth thinking about. If you can send more visitors to an article of yours on another site, there is a good chance you’ll get more visitors as referrals. How can you do this? Well, a simple way is to use social bookmarking sites ;o)
OK, back to my initial advice:
“My advice here would be to stop building more sites, and stop adding more content to existing sites. Let’s look at improving income from what is already on the site.”
Here is what I would suggest.
1. Make sure that all content on the site is top quality, and “fix” any that isn’t.
2. Go through your site stats, and find the pages that are getting insignificant traffic.
3. Prioritise those pages in order of importance (in your own opinion).
4. Start getting links to all of these pages using a range of related link text.
5. Keep getting links to these “internal” pages, until they start to rank well and build their own traffic.
On a 200 page site, this will take time, but it will be worth it. There is no point putting up another 200+ page site if it is only going to make you $3 a day, when getting more traffic to an existing site make you more.
Once the makeover is complete, you can start building new sites in a different way – making sure every page had inbound links and is generating traffic before you start a new page.
Over the last few years, the mentality has been “more is better”, but today, that simply isn’t true. Quality is better, and if you spend time creating quality content, you need to spend time getting people to view it.
Incidentally, if you want a course on creating quality content, you should take a look at my own Creating Fat Content Course:
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
3. Price Increases around the corner.
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
I have had emails from a couple of good “resources” letting me know about forthcoming price increases.
Pr1ce Increase #1
*****************
Firstly, there was an email from my good friend Jim Morris over at Nichebot.
Nichebot is a great keyword research tool that gives you access to multiple keyword data sources like WordTracker, Keyword Discovery, Google and Overture all in one easy to use interface. Jim has always kept Nichebot at the cutting edge of keyword research tools, and gives you a lot of features not found in other keyword research tools.
He has told me a about a couple of things he has lined up for Nichebot (and the soon to be released Nichebot X), and they sound very exciting. E.g. Jim has set aside up to 2 hours a week to answer your questions in a live call-in where “avid” subscribers can ask him questions on how best to use Nichebot and keyword research in general – now that’s cool.
Now, there is good news and bad news.
The bad news is that Nichebot prices are going to increase. Although the prices have not been finalized yet, they could increase by 60-100%.
The good news is that people who open accounts at Nichebot can lock in their membership price, so that the price increase will not affect them.
Prices go up on December 10, 2007, so if you are interested, do this now before you forget! The link below allows you to try Nichebot for just $1.
Nichebot Keyword Research Tool
Pr1ce Increase #2
*****************
The second “Resource” (in fact there are two) that is increasing its prices are Ryan Deiss’s Nicheology and Content Goldmine. These price increases are taking effect on the 1st January, where both Nicheology and Content Goldmine are going to a $97 joining rate with still the monthly rate of $29.95 per month.
Now, for anyone who has tried to join either of these sites recently will now, membership is capped, and they are no longer taking in new subscribers. Well, if you are interested, I have a way in. Ryan had kindly given my subscribers a back door to get in at the current price without the initial joining fee. Here are the links if you are interested:
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
4. November Niche Blueprint Released
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
The November Niche Blueprint was released recently. Its based around a small, tightly focused niche which makes it ideal for beginners, or anyone wanting to create smaller niche sites. You can read more about the Blueprint here:
Just click the link in the top right to November 2007.
Also, just a reminder. If you want to what a Niche Blueprint is like before buying one, you can download a fr.ee one on that site. Look at the top left for details.
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
5. An unusual email.
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
I got an email form a subscriber this week that I found very unusual. Normally I get emails thanking me for not promoting every new tool or eBook that comes out. However, this email asked:
“I respect your opinion as you have proven to be a reliable source of information over the last 9 months of my subscription but if I had one complaint, its that you don’t review new stuff that comes out. When I get an email from another “guru” promoting something I always check your site first (and wait for your newsletter) to decide whether or not to buy it. You almost never have a review. Please can you review more stuff in your newsletter)”.
Thanks for the email, and as always, I appreciate the feedback. Now for my reasoning.
I do get a lot of the new stuff that comes out, but I only ever mention the products that I feel are worth the money, and I genuinely find useful myself. The problem here is that there is so much rubbish being released, that I very rarely find anything worth mentioning. Sure, I could write reviews of everything, including the bad stuff, but bad reviews of products have a negative effect on my business, as the authors DO take it personally. I end up getting emails from the author complaining about my review, and in one case even had lies posted about me on forums. It was after that particular “attack” that I decided to not review poor products.
If I have reviewed something and given it a good rating, you can be sure it is a quality product. If I haven’t reviewed it, it means I either didn’t like the product, or I haven’t seen it.
My intention for the future is the same. I’ll review stuff privately, and alert you to anything special. I wont be promoting every new product that comes out. I hope you understand.
For those wanting reviews of every new product coming out, there is a stack of newsletters you can sign up for, but be prepared for several emails a week in some cases. Can I recommend any of these newsletters? Nope!
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
6. Other Stuff.
– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was planning a mentoring program. To see if there was a market for this, I setup a poll in my newsletter, and the results of that poll were encouraging. I have therefore started work on this, and hope to have more news about it in the new year.
Also, I will hopefully be finishing the first beta version of KRA Pro this week (its 90% finished). I have had a lot of people contact me over the availability of the beta, as I was hoping to have it ready by now. However, as I mentioned, this last week has been hectic, and I haven’t gotten much done.
While KRA Pro will not be a fr.ee upgrade for standard KRA users (it is a separate product), owners of KRA will get an upgrade route if they want the extra functionality. I hope to have news of this beta very soon, and will email all KRA owners with details as soon as the beta is ready.
Well, that’s it for this issue. If you want to read the recent issues of this newsletter, you can read them online at my blog:
http://ezseonews.com/blog/index.php
For older newsletters, you will need to visit the old archives at:
http://ezseonews.com/archives
Have a great week!
#######################################################
Visit the subscriber Bonus page for free reports and other subscriber-only:
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please recommend it to your friends. Also if you have any tips of your own, questions or comments, please use my support forum at ezseonews.com/support.
Any tips or questions & answers I print in this newsletter will also be put up on the web version of the newsletter with a link to your site
if you want it. That’s extra free traffic for your site as well as an incoming link to your site.
The contents of this newsletter is copyright 2007 Andrew Williams. If you want to republish any of the articles, you must get permission from the author.
This newsletter disclaims all responsibility for the advertising copy or the product advertised. You cannot rely on the fact that the newsletter has examined the product or recommends or endorses the product, unless it clearly says that it has, when you make your decision whether or not to purchase the product or interact with the advertiser. You are advised to do your own investigation before buying. Additionally, this newsletter may accept articles that we do not write or investigate the accuracy of and for which we may receive direct or indirect benefit or compensation. We specifically disclaim any responsibility for the content of such copy.
#######################################################
Related Articles
- None Found
