So, we're getting ready to wrap up the first month of our project. As it stands our lock picking site has done well for one month. Because of our own failure to research as thoroughly as we should have, we're limited in what we can sell. But for one month we're pretty happy with our search rankings and we've made a couple of sales. (Mind you that it's not enough to retire on - or even to bother splitting between the group.)
But it's off to the next project. I won't be divulging all of our strategy here (and neither will all of those sites that you pay big money for either.) For our next project we'll be selling thermal imaging equipment. You might wonder what these are. They are heat detectors that will show you whether someone is hot or cold. They are big for detecting energy leaks in your home. Also, if you're into that sort of thing, they are supposedly used to detect ghosts because they might give off cold or something. I can't say that I'm a believer in that kind of stuff.
For the next month we'll be focusing on thermal imaging and doing some routine maintenance work on the lock picking site. And then there's no telling what we'll do next month. Our plan for the moment though is to work on one site a month with some of the work outsourced so that we can move faster.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
New projects
As I mentioned earlier, we're moving away from our lock picking sets project and onto some new projects. We haven't officially launched our new project yet so I got bored. Ok, I didn't get bored. In truth I'm doing three jobs and I probably have more work than I should be attempting. That aside, I started work on some new projects anyway.
The idea behind starting a few new projects on my own is that I would get a head start on some ideas that I like and when the group was ready for a new project it would be a quick launch.
With that in mind, I'll be working on a couple of sites to get them started preliminarily. My first site is Sous Vide Equipement. You might wonder what sous vide is. That is actually the attraction behind the site. It is a specialty that doesn't have a lot of searches but also doesn't have a lot of competition. So we'll see how that works out.
By the way, in case you're wondering, you can always head over to the sous vide site to find out what it is. But in short, it's a way of cooking meat to make it extra tender. You might hear more about it in the future as it catches on and becomes a bigger thing.
The idea behind starting a few new projects on my own is that I would get a head start on some ideas that I like and when the group was ready for a new project it would be a quick launch.
With that in mind, I'll be working on a couple of sites to get them started preliminarily. My first site is Sous Vide Equipement. You might wonder what sous vide is. That is actually the attraction behind the site. It is a specialty that doesn't have a lot of searches but also doesn't have a lot of competition. So we'll see how that works out.
By the way, in case you're wondering, you can always head over to the sous vide site to find out what it is. But in short, it's a way of cooking meat to make it extra tender. You might hear more about it in the future as it catches on and becomes a bigger thing.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Backing Up
htt One thing that I've learned in life is that failures can be just as good as successes. Sure they are a pain at the time and they are always temporary setbacks but in the long run they can actually be good. Failures force you to go back and reevaluate things. You get to determine what went right and what went wrong. And then you can start again with a clean slate and fix the problems from the first time.
I write this because we have encountered an unexpected problem in our project to market lock pick sets. The problem is a legal issue. While lock picks can be used for very legitimate reasons like locksmithing, they can also be used to nefarious purposes.
In many instances a salesman can't be held accountable for what a person does with what they buy. If I buy a hacksaw at Walmart and use it to saw a padlock off of my neighbor's shed, Walmart isn't responsible that I used an item that I purchased illegally.
However, lock pick sets are apparently a different issue. The issue comes down to a law that forbids the shipping of such items through the mail. So essentially, if we can't ship an item through the mail, we can't really sell it.
What we don't understand is why Amazon can sell some sets at all. We will continue to affiliate market the items that Amazon has but their selection is limited, most likely because of the law. What I'm noticing is that Amazon doesn't sell these items at all, only third party sellers are selling through Amazon, possibly breaking the law.
So, this means back to the drawing board. We'll continue to keep the lock pick set site but there isn't much that we can add to it because of the laws concerning shipping. The good thing is that we can take what we learned from this first experiment and apply it to our next project. Hopefully we can do even better getting the next project started
I write this because we have encountered an unexpected problem in our project to market lock pick sets. The problem is a legal issue. While lock picks can be used for very legitimate reasons like locksmithing, they can also be used to nefarious purposes.
In many instances a salesman can't be held accountable for what a person does with what they buy. If I buy a hacksaw at Walmart and use it to saw a padlock off of my neighbor's shed, Walmart isn't responsible that I used an item that I purchased illegally.
However, lock pick sets are apparently a different issue. The issue comes down to a law that forbids the shipping of such items through the mail. So essentially, if we can't ship an item through the mail, we can't really sell it.
What we don't understand is why Amazon can sell some sets at all. We will continue to affiliate market the items that Amazon has but their selection is limited, most likely because of the law. What I'm noticing is that Amazon doesn't sell these items at all, only third party sellers are selling through Amazon, possibly breaking the law.
So, this means back to the drawing board. We'll continue to keep the lock pick set site but there isn't much that we can add to it because of the laws concerning shipping. The good thing is that we can take what we learned from this first experiment and apply it to our next project. Hopefully we can do even better getting the next project started
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The first sale
I have to say that I am pretty impressed with the results that we have had on an online marketing project. We have already made our first sale through the website. I have never had such luck with any previous attempts to market. And luck is probably the right word because I realize now that I really was leaving things up to luck rather than properly marketing.
I've actually been working on websites for a long time now, long before it was readily accessible for just about everyone to build a website. I don't know when it started but when I started doing websites, there wasn't talk of search engine optimization. You made your site, promoted it by submitting it to search engines, and tried to find some other sites to link to you. The rest really came down to luck because no one talked about how search engine rankings worked. You couldn't gear your site around a few key words to come up in the search engines because no one thought about that.
Now, I'm realizing that you absolutely have to promote your site and gear it around a couple key search words. If you can't get on the first page of Google results for a couple of relevant search words, your site isn't going to get any traffic.
That's what has me excited about our current project. I feel as if I'm finally getting a handle on how to properly promote my websites. So I'll be using these techniques to promote some of my existing websites. In the meantime we have added some more pages to our project site including How to pick a lock. This is an informational guide on lockpicking that explains the basics.
I've actually been working on websites for a long time now, long before it was readily accessible for just about everyone to build a website. I don't know when it started but when I started doing websites, there wasn't talk of search engine optimization. You made your site, promoted it by submitting it to search engines, and tried to find some other sites to link to you. The rest really came down to luck because no one talked about how search engine rankings worked. You couldn't gear your site around a few key words to come up in the search engines because no one thought about that.
Now, I'm realizing that you absolutely have to promote your site and gear it around a couple key search words. If you can't get on the first page of Google results for a couple of relevant search words, your site isn't going to get any traffic.
That's what has me excited about our current project. I feel as if I'm finally getting a handle on how to properly promote my websites. So I'll be using these techniques to promote some of my existing websites. In the meantime we have added some more pages to our project site including How to pick a lock. This is an informational guide on lockpicking that explains the basics.
Monday, March 7, 2011
One post down
One of the most important things that one can do with affiliate marketing is to promote their website. These days basically anyone can create a website with just a little bit of know how. But having a website really isn't enough. Sure, you can tell your friends and family members to visit your website but if you want more than a dozen visitors you have to do more.
Google is still, by far, the largest search engine. You absolutely have to get your website listed by Google to draw traffic. Fortunately this is pretty much automatic. Any site or business that claims that they'll get you listed in Google for a fee is an outright scam, same thing for anyone who claims that they can speed up the process. Google is constantly indexing new pages of the internet as it finds them. I have actually had websites that weren't finished - and in some cases didn't have more than an index page - get listed in Google and return searches.
So, getting listed isn't the issue. What you want is to be the top result for your term. Or to at least be on the first page for your subject. That's what I'm working on now along with a few others. There are many factors which make up Google's ranking and the algorithm that is used is a very closely guarded secret. However one thing that is definitely known is that you need links to your website, the more the better. But you also need quality links. There are lots of places that you can post links and thousands of services that will do it for you for a fee. My experience - and I've tested this to prove it - is that services that put links to your page are completely worthless. They don't have your ranking at all. In fact, some sites are considered spam and can actually get your site black listed from Google.
This is where articles come in. This is one way to create quality links to your site. There are numerous sites that you can post articles on. Each one has different rules but what they are looking for is quality content. Tell a story, offer an opinion, or explain how to do something. Within the context of your article you can work in a link to your site. If it is obvious that the only purpose in your article is to create a link the good sites will not approve your article, so you have to submit quality, not garbage.
So yesterday I created my first article to promote the site. The other guys that I'm working with wrote articles as well so we should have at least 5 quality links to the site by the end of the day and soon we'll start climbing up the search engine rankings. If you're interested in my first article, I went with humor. You can find it at http://therealowner.com/humor/what-happens-when-the-dog-eats-your-keys/
Google is still, by far, the largest search engine. You absolutely have to get your website listed by Google to draw traffic. Fortunately this is pretty much automatic. Any site or business that claims that they'll get you listed in Google for a fee is an outright scam, same thing for anyone who claims that they can speed up the process. Google is constantly indexing new pages of the internet as it finds them. I have actually had websites that weren't finished - and in some cases didn't have more than an index page - get listed in Google and return searches.
So, getting listed isn't the issue. What you want is to be the top result for your term. Or to at least be on the first page for your subject. That's what I'm working on now along with a few others. There are many factors which make up Google's ranking and the algorithm that is used is a very closely guarded secret. However one thing that is definitely known is that you need links to your website, the more the better. But you also need quality links. There are lots of places that you can post links and thousands of services that will do it for you for a fee. My experience - and I've tested this to prove it - is that services that put links to your page are completely worthless. They don't have your ranking at all. In fact, some sites are considered spam and can actually get your site black listed from Google.
This is where articles come in. This is one way to create quality links to your site. There are numerous sites that you can post articles on. Each one has different rules but what they are looking for is quality content. Tell a story, offer an opinion, or explain how to do something. Within the context of your article you can work in a link to your site. If it is obvious that the only purpose in your article is to create a link the good sites will not approve your article, so you have to submit quality, not garbage.
So yesterday I created my first article to promote the site. The other guys that I'm working with wrote articles as well so we should have at least 5 quality links to the site by the end of the day and soon we'll start climbing up the search engine rankings. If you're interested in my first article, I went with humor. You can find it at http://therealowner.com/humor/what-happens-when-the-dog-eats-your-keys/
Sunday, March 6, 2011
One Man's Journey
This blog is a chronicle of my journey in online marketing. I've actually been drawing a considerable amount of money (not enough to live off of but a nice bonus) from websites that I have operated for years but I have had little success in my attempts to sell products. I've sold products before but only with the help of paid advertising and I have always spent more on advertising than I've made from sales.
This time I am working with some friends on a new project. The first positive is that it holds us all accountable. It is easy to do nothing and just forget about doing the necessary work to get a project up a running but with other people counting on you it eliminates that aspect.
There's a lot of elements involved in creating a good marketing campaign. There a several ways to make money from a website and selling is just one way. You can market products specifically or you can advertise generally like the ad for the Amazon Kindle to the left. (Incidentally, I got one for Christmas and they are very nice!)
Over the weeks and months as I undergo this marketing campaign I'll be posting my thoughts and frustrations on the process. This time around I'm working with someone who did a lot of research before I even got involved. In fact I didn't even get involved until a few days before the project launch because someone else dropped out. But now I'm excited about the possibilities with this new marketing project.
Just in case you're interested, the first product that we'll be marketing are lock pick sets. (Only for legal purposes of course.) You can check out our first site at Buy lock pick sets.
This time I am working with some friends on a new project. The first positive is that it holds us all accountable. It is easy to do nothing and just forget about doing the necessary work to get a project up a running but with other people counting on you it eliminates that aspect.
There's a lot of elements involved in creating a good marketing campaign. There a several ways to make money from a website and selling is just one way. You can market products specifically or you can advertise generally like the ad for the Amazon Kindle to the left. (Incidentally, I got one for Christmas and they are very nice!)
Over the weeks and months as I undergo this marketing campaign I'll be posting my thoughts and frustrations on the process. This time around I'm working with someone who did a lot of research before I even got involved. In fact I didn't even get involved until a few days before the project launch because someone else dropped out. But now I'm excited about the possibilities with this new marketing project.
Just in case you're interested, the first product that we'll be marketing are lock pick sets. (Only for legal purposes of course.) You can check out our first site at Buy lock pick sets.
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