In the 4 days since I last wrote things have slowed down a little. After a week of working on at full speed it was only natural that I would take some time off and slow down a bit.
The good thing is that slowly but surely daily traffic is increasing. It still seems to come in fairly randomly, but more and more different search engine bots are starting to visit me. I can now be found (directly) on both Google and Yahoo, and it should only be a matter of time before I show up on MSN too. This is good because it increases opportunities for my site to get noticed – even though it will still rank well down on the search results, it does make me feel that things are progressing.
My time over the last few days has mainly been focused on tidying things up, so that what I have set up already is the best that it can be. It has also included a lot more time researching – a lot of that has validated what I have done so far.
When you do research you will come across a lot of discussion around what is best – organic traffic (i.e. people naturally finding your site) vs the use of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising – e.g. the ads that show up when you search something on Google. Pay Per Click obviously has the potential to become quite expensive if done incorrectly, while organic growth can take some time.
My goal is to make the best of both. I’m doing a small PPC campagin – about £3 a day, just to dip my feet in the water and get some experience. For that I’m making use of the Goggle Adwords system, and today I joined the MSN system as well. The only catch about the MSN is is they don’t let you do a pre pay system – meaning you have to keep your eye on things so that you don’t start getting needlessly billed. I must say, I was surpised at that. As always, Google has gone that one step further in making things customer friendly.
And I’m also trying to embark on organic growth. My concept is based on one site with numerous products – so for, brand/domain recognition is important. I believe part of this is coming from my PPC advertising because ultimately other search engines do start to pick up on those ads. Also, I am continuing to promote my site through the free advertising blogs. Finally I have taken my first steps into what is commonly referred to as “bum marketing” – which is basically writing articles for eZines that get ultimately get publised online. You don’t get paid for these works as such, but you do get to put a link to your website down the bottom. Ultimately, I’m told, this can drive more traffic to your site, especially if you ensure that your article is keyword rich.
And that’s about it so far … I do have some highly recommended reading though. I came across a forum post that links to a lot of useful articles. Although it is PPC focussed, a lot of the tips and tricks are handy for whichever path you decide to go down – whether it be PPC or organic. Read the article here :
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=866446
I feel exhausted! But still excited … as I read around I see that people are making money out of doing this kind of thing, and that makes me more determined and inspired to succeed.
It has been quite a big learning curve so far, and I’ve become quite good at having lists of what to do. Below is a semi-chronological list of some of the more important things that I’ve done so far.
In future updates I will give more information on how to do some of tasks described below (or at least, tell you where to look for the information) :
- Researched
- Decided on my preferred method of managing my website – for me, I chose Wordpress.org .
- Found a webhost that could support my chosen website system, and was reasonably priced. Purchased webspace and domain.
- Installed WordPress on the server.
- Joined Clickbank.
- Setup first product review post.
- Sent my site away to join Adsense – this was a silly idea! Sending away my one-page affiliate program “site” meant they came back with the unsurprising answer of “no” due to “we believe that your site does not add value or provide unique content”. Outcome – I will focus on building more content before I resubmit the site.
- Promoted website on blogs designed to build the profile of your site. You have to remember that no-one knows about your site yet – you need to make sure that people on the web can find your site!! If you search for blogs such as “free advertising blog” you will find many of these. Search engines (apparently) crawl these sites and so it is a way of getting your domain out and about. Outcome – since doing that both the Google and Yahoo bots have crawled my site.
- Joined the Adwords program … on a very small budget. My goal here is simply to test the waters, at the moment my spending is limited to £1 a day. Unfortunately the product I’ve chosen to sell is one that is heavily promoted via other sites, and even though I have focused the campaign on a very specific area my success rate has only been to manage 2 clickthroughs on almost 2000 ad displays – so I’m not even hitting the £1 a day limit!! I can only hope that the display of my website address in the ad may be helping drive my traffic further.
- Done things that with hindsight, I should have done earlier in the process, mainly around site design and optimisation. These have included:
- optimising my site accessibility … previously two seperate sections on the one domain, I now have a main page that displays posts from both subsections
- updated my pages to include keywords (via the Search Engine Optimiser plugin for Wordpress)
- modified my site design to give a better impression (editing tempates in WordPress is easier than you’d think)
- setup cloaking on my affiliate links
- created site maps (this helps the search engines find their way around your site)
- enabled visitors to recommend / share the site on sites such as Facebook, del.icio.us, digg, etc.
As stated, I do now feel I should have done those things right at the beginning … obviously I was in a hurry to get my site online, so I know why I did what I did, but with future site launches I will attempt to get those things straightened out before I start publicising it.
Why? We all first impressions last … if I’d had my site ready before I submitted it to adsense, I feel that I could have had a better chance of getting accepted. And lets face it, you want the site to look good and be search engine ready before the search engines and people’s eyes start to see it!
We live and learn though … I am now happy with the site and it’s ready for the world to see. It’s time to continue exploring ways to drive traffic to the site – and don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted on what I find.
It’s been flat out … so far it’s just over 2 days since I took the plunge and finally got the domain and website setup. It feels like every second is spend thinking of new ideas and concepts – it is exciting, there’s no doubt!!
Of course, I haven’t made any money yet … but I have had that thrill of seeing the Google Robots have a look at my site. We will talk more about search engines later though.
For now, I just wanted a quick brief article with links to some useful websites that I’ve found so far in my quest to get setup. As mentioned previously, I’ve chose to start off by doing down the Affiliate Marketing Path … so my suggestions are related to that.
A good starting point to learn about some of the various programs and methods available can be found at the Digital Point Forums – here you find discussed programs such as ClickBank, Commission Junction, Adsense, Adwords, and much much more.
To get started on the web one needs a domain name and a reliable web host. Ideally you want someone who gives you everything you need – for me that host is HostPapa. For me having with some base in the UK was crucial – HostPapa were the one for me. On their best plan you can even get your domain name free. Best of all, they have a wide range of options that will suit your chosen method for getting your pages and content onto the web.
My chosen method of publishing content online is via means of WordPress.org – a powerful open source software suite that although designed primarily with blogging in mind has so many flavours and options that it is easy to setup a professional looking website. I would suggest that you need to be at least a little comfortable with technology to use this software, but, the best thing is that so many other users are enthusiasts of this product that there is a world of information and advice on all the tips and tricks.
For the less technical there is also a online based easy to use version – WordPress.com .
Needless to say, much of the last two days has been spent getting my sites up and running … I will write more as soon as I can … in the mean time, why not read this interesting UK based mainstream media article about ways to make money online.
To make money online, good research is crucial. Any online venture should be looked upon as a business rather than a hobby – and the distinction is crucial. In a hobby you might be prepared to spend any spare money, whereas in a business you will look upon any purchase with a much more critical and realistic eye.
The second you start researching this topic you will find numerous e-books and software being advertised, claiming to show you the special secret to make you rich. You don’t need it. The reality is that much of these e-books are being “on-sold” by people who are using those e-books as the method to make themselves rich. Often times the content will either be out of date (methods that worked 2 years ago may be no longer useful) and/or simply a cut and paste job of random information from around the internet. Would you pay $50 in a bookshop for a book that was a total mystery to you?
Or maybe you are tempted by the guaranteed method to “beat on the online casinos” offered on some websites. This may or may not work – I haven’t properly tried myself. But do bear in mind these procedures require a disciplined approach that can often go against normal human nature i.e. on spin 100 of the wheel you may bet on the wrong colour, and lose all your hard earned money.
Save your money – the information is out there and best of all, there is enough free information on the web. Spend some time on google, and find out what works. Undoubtedly some methods require a little more technical know how than others, but there is something for everyone.
For me, phase 1 will focus on the affiliate marketing stream. Simply put, you help established sites sell more of their products, and you get rewarded for each sale that is made. I have chosen this concept myself because I know that I am reasonably comfortable with the internet … and chances are that if you are reading this, you are too.
At this point in time, I have spent most of the evenings of the last week researching … and I believe it has paid off big time, to the point that I am now ready to go and get this business started.
In the next installment, I will describe the setting up of the business … in the mean time, some useful areas to research on google are :
- affiliate marketing
- clickbank
- adwords and adsense
- making money with blog sites
… and any and all combinations of the above.
Take the time … more time spent now will have bigger rewards in the future.
With the advent of the worldwide credit crunch, for those of us who work in the financial services industries there is no doubt that jobs that seemed so secure even just a year ago are now much more at risk. As companies continue to restructure on large scales one becomes inevitably concerned – “what if it happens to me”?
To be fair, often if one company doesn’t want you there’ll be a job somewhere else – it may take a couple of weeks or months to find it, but most skilled and hard working people don’t stay unemployed for long.
If you’re like me though, the thought of moving to another company and starting off all over again isn’t always that appealing. Even more so if you don’t really enjoy working for your current boss – the thought of possibly getting a boss that’s even worse is not a happy one!
With all this in mind, I’m setting out to break free of the 9 to 5 grind. In researching ways to make money online, I’ve already come across a lot of “systems” and “guaranteed” ways to make money – most of which want to charge you a lot of money to buy an ebook which may or may not be a lot of use to you. It’s unfortunate, but in this day and age I know there will be people buying those books – people who would be better off spending their time and money on actually getting things up and running.
The great thing about the internet is that for every paid piece of advice, somewhere out there there is free advice. Yes you have to dig a bit deeper, and sometimes it is random luck that leads you to the good websites – but the information and the support is out there. Not everyone is a scam artist – people do like helping other people.
Over the coming weeks and months I will share my trials and tribulations as I try to go from earning $0 online to ideally being able to say goodbye to my boss – or to at least, significantly “improve” my lifestyle. I know that money is not everything – and anything who is reading this and thinking that should evaluate. Money will not buy you happiness – but it will give you more choices.
My goals :
- make money in a way that is ethical
- not to take advantage of the disadvantaged
- to share my own learnings and exprience at no cost so that others may follow in my footsteps
Stay tuned … my next update will show you how I’ve got started and some good places to find helpful information.