Newbie Journal - Watch Me Build My Empire From Scratch

SimonD

New member
May 31, 2010
340
6
0
AUS
Hey everyone,

Ive been aware of the basics of internet marketing and SEO for some time but was always too lazy to actually get down and do it. Well, I have finally got down and done it and have some big goals.

My initial plan is to go the SEO route with niche sites, mainly reviews with affiliate links. My first two sites are based on Amazon products, their commissions really seem to suck but its a start and I am using it as a learning experience to build on.

Site 1: Found a product on Amazon that seems popular (has lots of positive reviews). I researched and found 4 or 5 keywords related to the product each getting around 3k-6k searches a month and very little SEO competition in the top 10 in google. I have been using Market Samurai to dig into the keywords and scope out the level of competition.

Registered k1-k2.com Someone has bought k1k2.com but just has a spam blog with some ad links and no content. With only 15 PR0-1 backlinks they are bouncing around the top spots on the first page of google. Should be easy enough to compete with. I later found an ever better keyword phrase that I didnt think of the first time that gets 8k searches and still has low competition and got an exact match .net so i will have to get something up on that, but will wait and see if the money is worth it on the first site.

For content I have just put up a wordpress page, several articles I wrote myself related to the product and today my product review with affiliate links.

As far as link building goes I submitted it to 10 social bookmarking sites manually (man that is boring, will be outsourcing from now on) and commented on 15-20 blogs although only a third of those have been approved yet. I have written a few articles and posted them to 2 article directories and thats it. 2 days after launching the site it is on page 4 of google for my main keyword so its looking good so far. I also created 5-6 forum profiles from a large list of high PR forums that I found somewhere.

As far as blog commenting goes, the one thing I have noticed that has been most succesful with getting comments approved is telling them that their post was so good would they mind if I use it on my site/link to it on my site. People seem to be flattered that I would want to use their content and a few have even been to my site and left comments thanking me.

Ok this is getting quite long, Ill post details of my second site and further progress later if people are interested. Hopefully this can be a constructive journal to help out other newbs and I would really welcome any advice or criticism along the way.
 
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I'm in a similar position Simon. Review website, about the same search/month in Google. My website should be up and running in the next day or two and then I will be endeavoring on climbing the Google ladder. Keep updating, I'm interested to see how a fellow Aussie goes, I'll keep in touch with my progress/fuck ups go.

cheers,
Walden.
 
I'm new to the game to. Just make sure you automate ASAP. Writing, posting, answering, etc...will drive you nuts!

Sounds like you're on the right track though.

chuck-norris-thumbs-up.jpg
 
If I was you, do this with a time lag, around a week or two as otherwise people are just going to get into your niche if you are successful.
 
Nice going. Now don't rest just yet.
<deep breath>
How is it converting? How many visitors are buying? Are there return visitors? How many pages are indexed? Where are you on other search engines? How many backlinks do you have? Where can you get more? Are there other products that could tie in? Can you get people to register for your newsletter? Do you have more content lined up? How can you improve conversions? How can you get people to come back?

And....

What is the next site?

::emp::
 
Nice going. Now don't rest just yet.
<deep breath>
How is it converting? How many visitors are buying? Are there return visitors? How many pages are indexed? Where are you on other search engines? How many backlinks do you have? Where can you get more? Are there other products that could tie in? Can you get people to register for your newsletter? Do you have more content lined up? How can you improve conversions? How can you get people to come back?

And....

What is the next site?

::emp::

...<3
 
Nice going. Now don't rest just yet.
<deep breath>
How is it converting? How many visitors are buying? Are there return visitors? How many pages are indexed? Where are you on other search engines? How many backlinks do you have? Where can you get more? Are there other products that could tie in? Can you get people to register for your newsletter? Do you have more content lined up? How can you improve conversions? How can you get people to come back?

And....

What is the next site?

::emp::

Thats all really great stuff to be aware of, thanks. Too early to say for the questions about sales and conversions but I will be monitoring all of that and testing different things to improve conversion rates. I will be adding a little more content slowly, at least something new every week. There are definitely other products that tie in and I already have plan for what they are/how to promote them but will see how sales go with the initial product first. Whats good is that many of these products are already strongly recommended by Amazon themselves when people click through to the product page. I need to set something up to start collecting email addresses too, thanks for reminding me.


The next site went up yesterday. Its another amazon product niche, this time a small range of items that sell for $60-150 each so commissions are better. Ive selected 3 products from this category from the same company that are each getting 2-3k searches per product name a month. The quality of SEO competition is still quite low but I think I will have to build more links for this site and might not rank quite as quickly. Today was the start of link building - social bookmarking, some blog posts and forum profiles and I have outsourced 100 links each for both sites for someone to submit to directories.
 
Ok only problem I have is that my "money" article is the latest blog post which is my review with affiliate links. I want that to be the topmost post on the page when people visit the site, can I sticky it there or is there another simple solution... seems like a dumb question I know but I really am a newb. As it is my site is one blog page, thats the main page, with separate pages for about, privacy, sitemap and disclaimer. I guess make the main page a separate page for just the review which everyone lands on and link to the blog in the menu/sidebar?
 
Yes.

Also refer to the main page in your blog posts frequently.

::emp::
 
Update: got the first site sorted with a static homepage just containing the review. I now have a separate menu link for the blog which I have added to and queued up some content.

Speaking of content... man i got hardly anything done today except write more articles for each site. I submitted 4-5 articles for the second site to different article directories and added a new post. This is going to become so time-consuming as I get more sites up, will have to outsource it soon but am reluctant to spend much money yet until I actually have something coming in.

Ive found another promising niche and purchased 3 domains related to that, got an exact-match .net and two others all quite closely related. Was hoping to get one up today but spent too long fucking around writing and submitting articles. Im going to need to get another hosting account too so I dont have multiple sites in the same niche on the same IP (just using cheap $5/month shared hosting for now).
 
Gratz dude!

I'm liking your thread, seems like you got your shit together and have a grasp on what is needed. Are you heat mapping your site to see where people's attention is most focused? Sometimes changing the placement of your affiliate links / call to action can increase your CTR and conversions...

Keep up the good work... I'm yet to get something going on my side.
 
I havent done anything like that yet 22mil because it doesnt seem worth it until I have consistent enough traffic that the data actually means something.

Update:

My second site isnt looking quite as promising so far. I think I may have really messed up my analysis of the level of competition. I made two mistakes - picking keywords that have too many competing results in google, and not getting an exact match domain. There doesnt seem to be enough money in the niche to really make it worthwhile building the amount of links I now think I will need to rank so I am going to abandon it for now...

Lesson learned but its surely not worth throwing more time and resources after a poorly-planned idea.

On a positive note - I have found a couple of great, related niches and registered 3 exact-match domains for each one, with each main KW getting 4-8k exact match searches a month. Its going to keep me really busy for the next few days getting the sites up and some content written, but it should be worth the effort for these niches.
 
I havent done anything like that yet 22mil because it doesnt seem worth it until I have consistent enough traffic that the data actually means something.

Update:

My second site isnt looking quite as promising so far. I think I may have really messed up my analysis of the level of competition. I made two mistakes - picking keywords that have too many competing results in google, and not getting an exact match domain. There doesnt seem to be enough money in the niche to really make it worthwhile building the amount of links I now think I will need to rank so I am going to abandon it for now...

Lesson learned but its surely not worth throwing more time and resources after a poorly-planned idea.

On a positive note - I have found a couple of great, related niches and registered 3 exact-match domains for each one, with each main KW getting 4-8k exact match searches a month. Its going to keep me really busy for the next few days getting the sites up and some content written, but it should be worth the effort for these niches.

What kind of competition are you facing in these new KWs.