Louey's Journal
- Thread starter Louey37
- Start date
Yeah, the back end conversions are great. Front end are terrible. 3.5% to optin. 2.8% to purchase.
Still working on those.
It means the average customer value is up around $188 which is what keeps me going. Oh, the glory of a sales funnel. If I was relying on front end conversions, I'd be screwed.
Still working on those.
It means the average customer value is up around $188 which is what keeps me going. Oh, the glory of a sales funnel. If I was relying on front end conversions, I'd be screwed.
Back in the game.
I've been staying out of the SEO game because of the clusterfuck that Penguin and Panda wreaked on my life but it's time to get back in.
Traffic has dropped from 2500/day down to 600/day and revenue has now fallen in line with that.
I've deleted all the pages that had shitty links pointing to them and have started working on brand new pages on my site to get them ranking.
There are only three kinds of links I'm going to accept:
1. Niche related links - blog posts, guest posts, sidebar, or footer. I don't care, as long as they have something to do with my niche.
2. Purpose built web 2.0's - Unique, niche related content built specifically for ranking my site.
3. White hat news links from press releases - Press release monkey and other suck services.
I'm using the web 2.0's and niche blogs for specific anchor text links and the press releases for generic links (click here, URL, domain name, etc...)
I've purchases three lots of different Web 2.0's and I'm about to get a bulk order of Press Releases from Press Release Monkey. I'm having trouble finding any niche specific links but if anyone has any (see my signature), please let me know.
I've got Tangy writing guest blog posts but that's my only avenue at the moment.
L.
I've been staying out of the SEO game because of the clusterfuck that Penguin and Panda wreaked on my life but it's time to get back in.
Traffic has dropped from 2500/day down to 600/day and revenue has now fallen in line with that.
I've deleted all the pages that had shitty links pointing to them and have started working on brand new pages on my site to get them ranking.
There are only three kinds of links I'm going to accept:
1. Niche related links - blog posts, guest posts, sidebar, or footer. I don't care, as long as they have something to do with my niche.
2. Purpose built web 2.0's - Unique, niche related content built specifically for ranking my site.
3. White hat news links from press releases - Press release monkey and other suck services.
I'm using the web 2.0's and niche blogs for specific anchor text links and the press releases for generic links (click here, URL, domain name, etc...)
I've purchases three lots of different Web 2.0's and I'm about to get a bulk order of Press Releases from Press Release Monkey. I'm having trouble finding any niche specific links but if anyone has any (see my signature), please let me know.
I've got Tangy writing guest blog posts but that's my only avenue at the moment.
L.
Turns out that whitehat links can help recover KW's lost to Penguin.
Over the last 2 weeks I've been building nothing but whitehat (as it gets) links with almost entirely URL, Brand, and generic anchors. Only press releases, web 2.0's, yahoo answers, top end article marketing, and guest blog posts.
When Penguin hit, 5 major KW's that were bringing in 75% of my traffic all dropped from #1 - #3 to not ranking inside the top 100. Since I've started this, two are back on page 2 and another 2 are ranking inside the top 20 on Yahoo and Bing. Traffic has double from 2 weeks ago and things are looking good.
If you got hit by Penguin, it's worth a shot.
Over the last 2 weeks I've been building nothing but whitehat (as it gets) links with almost entirely URL, Brand, and generic anchors. Only press releases, web 2.0's, yahoo answers, top end article marketing, and guest blog posts.
When Penguin hit, 5 major KW's that were bringing in 75% of my traffic all dropped from #1 - #3 to not ranking inside the top 100. Since I've started this, two are back on page 2 and another 2 are ranking inside the top 20 on Yahoo and Bing. Traffic has double from 2 weeks ago and things are looking good.
If you got hit by Penguin, it's worth a shot.
Three questions:
1. Do you just build and maintain some Web2s? I have Hubpage, Squidoo, Wordpress and Blogspot pages going right now, and I am going to keep updating them about once or twice a week along with building more Web2s. Is this sort of what you're doing?
2. What is top end article marketing?
3. How do you go about getting guest blog posts (besides your signature)?
Thanks man, I have really enjoyed reading this thread and I'm glad you keep a journal. You actually inspired me to do that as well.
1. Do you just build and maintain some Web2s? I have Hubpage, Squidoo, Wordpress and Blogspot pages going right now, and I am going to keep updating them about once or twice a week along with building more Web2s. Is this sort of what you're doing?
2. What is top end article marketing?
3. How do you go about getting guest blog posts (besides your signature)?
Thanks man, I have really enjoyed reading this thread and I'm glad you keep a journal. You actually inspired me to do that as well.
1. I outsource it all. I have enough cash coming in to be able to afford to get it done every month for me. There are two guys I use who I highly recommend. Andrey and EatingMemory. Both produce Web 2.0's that you'd be proud to have as your website. Really nice stuff. Andrey's a bit more expensive ($124 for 10 vs. $99 for 10) but they're worth it as a long term strategy. It'll mean you can pump ALN blasts and other shit links without compromising the safety of your site.
2. Just going for the good article marketing sites rather than the shit ones. Just focussing on wikihow, ehow, about.com, and that kind of stuff. Staying away from the junk ones. Though, in saying that, if you can post articles up in article base that are chock full of links and they'll get syndicated to other blogs with the links still in tact. it's quite weird.
3. Check out a guy on the boards called Tangy. He does them for about $69 a pop. It takes time and isn't the cheapest by a long shot but if you want to make an authority site with real links from quality, niche related websites, this is the only way to go.
Good to hear it's inspired you mate. Get stuck in. I still look back over this and laugh at all the dumb mistakes I made as a rookie.
2. Just going for the good article marketing sites rather than the shit ones. Just focussing on wikihow, ehow, about.com, and that kind of stuff. Staying away from the junk ones. Though, in saying that, if you can post articles up in article base that are chock full of links and they'll get syndicated to other blogs with the links still in tact. it's quite weird.
3. Check out a guy on the boards called Tangy. He does them for about $69 a pop. It takes time and isn't the cheapest by a long shot but if you want to make an authority site with real links from quality, niche related websites, this is the only way to go.
Good to hear it's inspired you mate. Get stuck in. I still look back over this and laugh at all the dumb mistakes I made as a rookie.
I've recently had a few guys volunteer to translate my work and I want to set it up for guys to access. The three options I see are:
1. Create subdomains for each language (http://lanugage.domain.com)
2. Create categories for each language (http://www.domain.com/language)
3. Just set up whole new site (www.languagedomain.com)
This is my money site and I want to make the site seem as authority as possible. Which one is the best one to go with?
The way I see it, if I set them up as sub domains, google treats it as a separate domain and counts traffic and links separately so that doesn't really pass juice through.
If I set them up as categories, there's going to be content from 4 different languages on the site and that might confuse the search engines.
If I set them up as separate sites, the content, traffic and links are all obviously isolated to that domain but I can link through from those site to my money site.
Does anyone have any experience with this or have ideas on what's going to best for SEO?
1. Create subdomains for each language (http://lanugage.domain.com)
2. Create categories for each language (http://www.domain.com/language)
3. Just set up whole new site (www.languagedomain.com)
This is my money site and I want to make the site seem as authority as possible. Which one is the best one to go with?
The way I see it, if I set them up as sub domains, google treats it as a separate domain and counts traffic and links separately so that doesn't really pass juice through.
If I set them up as categories, there's going to be content from 4 different languages on the site and that might confuse the search engines.
If I set them up as separate sites, the content, traffic and links are all obviously isolated to that domain but I can link through from those site to my money site.
Does anyone have any experience with this or have ideas on what's going to best for SEO?
LESSON LEARNED - When you make buyers feel like they've earned a special deal, they're more likely to take it
I've been toying with different ways to convert new, prequalified traffic that's coming through a new optin form (See post #180 above) and I've hit the nail on the head.
When I first started playing with this traffic, I was waiting for their response to the autoresponder email and then just sending them a note saying 'Well, I've got a spare spot if you want it'. I was getting about a 50% conversion on that.
Since then, I've been making them justify their place in the program and I've gotten 100% close rate this month (9/9).
The way I'm doing this is following these steps:
1. Asking them why they've signed up to the priority list
2. Waiting for a response and then asking what they've been doing to get the results they want
3. Pulling something out of thier two emails that I can use as a justification for giving them a 'special offer' of a place that someone has just put on hold. Something like 'Wow.. You seem really ready. I normally wouldn't do this but...' or 'Look, this isn't the normal way I do things but you seem so committed...'
4. If I can't find a justification, I keep asking questions till I find one.
So far, this month is 9/9 when I normally wouldn't sell more than 5 spots a month in the program by doing a full structured launch.
I've been trying to come up with reasons why it works and the best I've come up with is that they feel like they've earned it so it's not suspicious and that I'm also doing them a personal favour whereas if I just offer it, it seems empty.
I'm going to keep trying this for the next month and see how it goes.
I've been toying with different ways to convert new, prequalified traffic that's coming through a new optin form (See post #180 above) and I've hit the nail on the head.
When I first started playing with this traffic, I was waiting for their response to the autoresponder email and then just sending them a note saying 'Well, I've got a spare spot if you want it'. I was getting about a 50% conversion on that.
Since then, I've been making them justify their place in the program and I've gotten 100% close rate this month (9/9).
The way I'm doing this is following these steps:
1. Asking them why they've signed up to the priority list
2. Waiting for a response and then asking what they've been doing to get the results they want
3. Pulling something out of thier two emails that I can use as a justification for giving them a 'special offer' of a place that someone has just put on hold. Something like 'Wow.. You seem really ready. I normally wouldn't do this but...' or 'Look, this isn't the normal way I do things but you seem so committed...'
4. If I can't find a justification, I keep asking questions till I find one.
So far, this month is 9/9 when I normally wouldn't sell more than 5 spots a month in the program by doing a full structured launch.
I've been trying to come up with reasons why it works and the best I've come up with is that they feel like they've earned it so it's not suspicious and that I'm also doing them a personal favour whereas if I just offer it, it seems empty.
I'm going to keep trying this for the next month and see how it goes.
Nice thread. OP, 3 questions:
1) Did you start off with a brand new domain or did you buy an aged one?
2) How many pages of content do you currently have?
3) How often do you add new content?
1) Did you start off with a brand new domain or did you buy an aged one?
2) How many pages of content do you currently have?
3) How often do you add new content?
1. We started off with a brand new domain but it had been running for 4 years before we started doing any SEO work to it.
2. At the moment, it's GWT shows just under 1000 pages indexed but there's actually a lot more. The forum has over 7000 topics in it and the blog has 410 posts and 120 pages so there's a lot more there. Not sure why more of it isn't indexed but it's all there.
3. New content goes up on the blog twice a week and the forum gets around 3 or 4 new topics every day.
2. At the moment, it's GWT shows just under 1000 pages indexed but there's actually a lot more. The forum has over 7000 topics in it and the blog has 410 posts and 120 pages so there's a lot more there. Not sure why more of it isn't indexed but it's all there.
3. New content goes up on the blog twice a week and the forum gets around 3 or 4 new topics every day.
Thanks for kind words. Just a small correction: my package is 12 web 2.0s not 10 for $125. =)
Congrats on amazing success. I hope you can further build it up!
My apologies mate. That makes them even better value! Look forward to getting the next set up as well. The first lot made a lot of difference so I'm keen to see what this lot can do.
JULY UPDATE:
Been a good month. After 12 months in SEO, I finally hit $xx,xxx in a month for the first time. Good feeling to know things are moving forward.
I've set myself a $500/month SEO budget just on web 2.0's, press releases, and guest blog posts, and social signals and it's paying dividends. Traffic's up 30% this month and I hit 1500 visits yesterday for the first time since Panda and Penguin mauled me. A lot of that was direct but 800 of it was organic which is a good sign.
I've recovered in one of the 3 major KW's I was chasing but the other two still don't appear in the serps despite repeated url link building.
I'm giving it one more shot with eLiquids Dirty Sanchez to see if more unanchored links are going to revive it before just cutting my losses and moving on.
Been a good month. After 12 months in SEO, I finally hit $xx,xxx in a month for the first time. Good feeling to know things are moving forward.
I've set myself a $500/month SEO budget just on web 2.0's, press releases, and guest blog posts, and social signals and it's paying dividends. Traffic's up 30% this month and I hit 1500 visits yesterday for the first time since Panda and Penguin mauled me. A lot of that was direct but 800 of it was organic which is a good sign.
I've recovered in one of the 3 major KW's I was chasing but the other two still don't appear in the serps despite repeated url link building.
I'm giving it one more shot with eLiquids Dirty Sanchez to see if more unanchored links are going to revive it before just cutting my losses and moving on.
Nice journal read through all of it keep up the good work.
Have one question, so you started this site (with someone else?) several years ago when neither of you knew anything about SEO (I am guessing.) And then just built it up sort of naturally, and then you got into SEO and started doing linkbuilding etc. As far as I understand though this is the only 'money site' you have up and running? Have you considered setting up new sites to try to broaden your horizon, or are you more just looking to focus on this 1 site for however long and keep building the brand?
Have one question, so you started this site (with someone else?) several years ago when neither of you knew anything about SEO (I am guessing.) And then just built it up sort of naturally, and then you got into SEO and started doing linkbuilding etc. As far as I understand though this is the only 'money site' you have up and running? Have you considered setting up new sites to try to broaden your horizon, or are you more just looking to focus on this 1 site for however long and keep building the brand?