Sunday, October 05, 2008

I hate it when they're right.

I had an email from Mark Widawer. I have been a customer and recipient of his emails for several years and he usually doesn't talk rubbish.

Anyway, this email and his blog post are about saying that smart people fail in their online marketing because they are too smart for their own good and what you have t be is stupid like the gurus. Just do the things that are requird to get one project up and running before starting a second project.

Not I hat this because I keep trying to not just set up a new project but don't quite follow the steps laid out in the 'blueprint' I paid good money for. When I don't get the results that I want I abandon that one and begin another.

Have a look at these projects I have on the boil ( actually, slow simmer is probably more like it).

Personal Wealth been online since 2000.
Personal Wealth Education Online not even completed.
The Travellers Portal done for my holiday but nothing done since.
Spam Killa wrote the software for my benefit and offered it cheap to you.
Clickbank Payday have been driving traffic via adwords, not good.
Good Oil honestly I don't remember why or how I picked this one up.
Puppy Training this is and adsense site but with an affiliate link as well.
DUI Lawyer another adsense site with affiliate links.
Wealth Management Tips one of the newer ones, and almost auto posting wordpress blog.
Relationship Rescue Master my latest project.

and there are others. Scary when you look at it all. I haven't included this blog or the one I haven't posted anything to since about 2006. I haven't included the ones I have actually shut down and there are a few of those as well.

So why embarrass myself like this? I suppose it is mainly because I know that I'm not the only one to collect domains and sites without making enough money from my efforts to even pay for it all.

Don't give up, but do get a lot more stupid in your efforts. Just focus on the things that work. There, I said it, now I have to do it as well.

What works? First up set up your site with split testing. It doesn't have to cost any more than the cost to set up a domain and a host which can be done for less than $200 per year but I would recommend that a newbie spend a bit more and get a lot more help seriously look at Ken Evoy's Site Sell I know that the cost of joining the Site Sell system appears high but the tools, forum, email help etc are what has kept me renewing for 5 years. I built my first site based on the information in the first edition of Make Your Site Sell. It isn't Ken's fault that I haven't yet done the required work.

My problem is that the proper way to build sites and traffic is slow, unfortunately for me I have had ample time online to do it that way and I didn't so I've been spinning my wheels for the last (cough) years and still not gained any significant traction. Yesterday that stopped and I began doing what I should have been doing all along.

The process is simple. Choose a niche with active buyers in volume, choose a domain name that has in it the keyword or key phrase you want to target, build each page targetting just one keyword/key phrase, build the intra site links properly, put around 400 words of unique content on each page, use split testing on page/title/paragraph/images etc. to determine what the best response rate is for that page (this depends on what you want the visitor to do, it might just be to read the next page as well) and then drive traffic to your site.

Notice there is nothing about becoming an html php or javascript expert. There is nothing about becoming a professional copywriter. It is actually stupidly simple and that's the secret that we have all been looking for. Just do the basics, keep doing the basics until you have the site as profitable as you can make it and then move on to the next project.

In the next post I will put some more details about how to choose your niche, the one after setting up your pages, then split testing and then driving traffic.

Good Luck

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