Niche Site Case Study Week 10
October 23, 2007
It's been a little over 2 months since I first started my niche site case study. Every few weeks results in a surge of improvement over the last, and this time is certainly no exception. After getting back from a two week overseas vacation with my family, I was delighted to get back and see the improvements.
Here are the overall traffic stats:
On September 27th, the date of the previous case study update, the site had received a total of 949 unique visitors. Less than a month later, that total is now at 2183 visitors, an increase of 230% in about three and a half weeks. Not bad at all!
Very little of my traffic is coming from EzineArticles now. Here's my site referrer list:
And my total EzineArticles stats:
Google is now the site's dominant source of traffic (which was what I planned for). Here's the search engine stats:
AOL is sending me a little bit of traffic, too, since they use Google's search results. The site is now ranked #4 and #11 for its two primary keyword sets in Google, and has received traffic from 261 different keyphrases. To rank the site, you may recall, I distributed 10 unique articles to EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com, and put my site into 3WayLinks.net. 3WL is what's responsible for my #4 and #11 ranking, although my distributed articles have gotten me about 50 links from other web sites so far as well.
The revenue has more than tripled since my last posted update. The update from September 27th stated I'd earned $29.81 from AdSense. As of this morning, that total is up to $86.85. In addition, I earned my first AuctionAds revenue of $3.25, for a grand total of $90.10.
My daily revenue average is up to $2.30 per day over the last 28 days of the last update. I'm very close to my goal of $3 per day.
To repeat myself from the last post: my goal is $3 per day per site, because achieving that results in about $1,000 per year per site. Since it only took 5 hours of work to do everything required to get this site built and ranked, it would be easy enough to create 50 or 100 or more sites that achieve the same goal. Do the math: 50 sites a year at $1,000 per site per year is $50,000. One hundred sites is $100,000 a year, etc.
I've decided that this is the last case study update I am going to post. I think it's very clear that the method I've followed has worked very well, even in a two-keyword market as competitive as the one I've targeted. Honestly, I think had I been just a little less ambitious in my keyword selections that I would be in even better shape, with both of my keyword sets having top 3 ranking in Google. I'm not unhappy, though. As it stands the site will certainly reach my $3 per day goal very soon.
As a recap, here are the tools that I used to build the site:
- Niche Inspector - This desktop software tool helps you find profitable niches to create sites around.
- HypreVRE Gold - This desktop software tool is what I used to create the niche site for the case study. I used the Gold (paid) version, not the free version.
- Instant Article Wizard - This desktop software tool is what I use to create all of the content for the site super fast. You need unique content if you really want to rank well, and IAW is the tool I use to create it (even if I know nothing about the subject).
- 3WayLinks.net - This is the service that I've put the site into to get it ranked in the search engine by building up link popularity while I sleep.
Of the four tools, Instant Article Wizard and 3WayLinks.net are really the stars, in my opinion. IAW's ability to create unique, rankable content really fast, and 3WayLink.net's ability to get the site ranked by building link popularity with virtually no effort on your part are really the bottom line tools.
That said, I like using Niche Inspector because it makes finding subjects to create sites around much easier, and I like HypreVRE because it makes it a breeze to build the sites. I've heard from others who prefer some different tools for those things. However, I have yet to hear anyone suggest any content or link building tools that come anywhere close to the power and ease of IAW and 3WL.
I hope this has been an educational case study for you. If you don't take anything else away from this study, I hope you'll realize that with a little hard work and a bit of patience, you can create profitable niche web sites very quickly.
My method is the antithesis of the million dollar orange. The story goes like this: a man has a fruit stand on the corner of a busy street. On the stand he has only a single orange. A curious pedestrian approaches the man to ask him about his fruit stand, when he sees the price tag on the orange: $1,000,000.
"One million dollars!" exclaims the pedestrian in surprise. "Who's going to pay such a price for that!"
The owner of the fruit stand replies: "I don't know, but I only have to sell one!"
As you might imagine, the fruit stand owner is going to be there a very long time trying to sell that million dollar orange. I prefer the opposite method: create multiple streams of small, profitable web sites. Rinse and repeat a proven method (like the one demonstrated in this case study), and the profits will roll in fast (with no waiting around to sell the million dollar orange).
Here are the links to each of the previous posts, for your reference:
Please post your comments and questions below.
Comments
132 Responses to “Niche Site Case Study Week 10”
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. He is the creator of a suite of popular software tools, including: Jonathan L Leger 
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Nice case study Jonathon. I think you've easily proved your case here. I want to apply this to several programs I'm in that are quite popular. The competition would be a lot stiffer, so I probably need to find some more longtail keywords to get traffic like this.
Good Job!
Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for providing such a brilliant case study!
I'm so excited about trying this out myself and as soon as I manage to get a new (not banned) adsense account, I will!
Would it be reasonable to suggest that you could also include an opt-in box to build a subscriber list and email them back-end products?
I reckon your profits would grow a lot more by incorporating that method too.
It would be great if you would just give us an update when you hit the $3 per day mark!
Cheers Jon,
Peter
Peter:
It would certainly be a powerful way of earning more back-end products to have an opt-in box. You could easily use the same method JUST to build an opt-in list and email them offers, etc. I was just interested in showing the traffic and earnings potential of the method. There are a dozen other ways to use the same traffic to earn different kinds of profits.
1) How much did you optimize the site after you initially put it up? In other words, how often did you test or change the adsense positioning?
2) Did you REALLY do nothing more than the twenty articles (10 a piece to GoArticles and EzineArticles) and 3WL for promotion? If you're being completely honest and you're not forgetting any little thing, that really is pretty nifty. I wouldn't be surprised if you surpassed $5 a day before too long a this rate and with 3WL continuing to build links?
3) If we did EXACTLY what you did here, do you think we'd reach at least comparable numbers? I appreciate that you can't guarantee or control the quality of our writing, the care we put into keyword research or the profitability of our chosen niche, but given reasonable effort in all these areas, do you really think reaching the general ballpark of your numbers is reasonable for most people using exactly the steps and tools you used in this case study?
4) Now that the case study is "over" and our curiosity's effect on your numbers don't matter, can we please see the site?
Thanks so much for your effort and teaching Jon!
1) Absolutely no optimization changes after initially putting up the site.
2) Yup. No more, no less.
3) I would expect that you could reasonably expect the same (or very similar) results, yes.
4) Sorry, for security purposes I'm not giving out the site name. It's in the 3WL network and I don't want that compromised.
wow great case study, i like em all…gives me hope that diciplin and hard work is the way to go and now i have a proven strategy too…
must go and work some now!
thanx jonathan
hopes that vacation did well
There is no doubt that IAW and 3WL gave you an edge. I started a site the same time you did and have had great results as well. This case study was awesome, and should remind people that it is not hard to make money online!
Dearly Beloved Jonathan:
Greetings and welcome back.
I have been following this series and it is so awesome how it has come out.
A lot have been learnt here and the key one is PATIENCE.
Thank you so much for sharing.
Remain blessed and a blessing.
Regards,
Olakunle Solomon Fatoye.
Jon,
I've really enjoyed following your case study series as it's been a shining example of just how easy it is to create a profitable website as long as you focus your efforts to allow you to keep on top of a project until it's where you want it to be.
You shouldn't stop here though, I think it's important to revisit in a years time to check up on progress; traffic levels, rankings and revenue.
Thanks for sharing this!
Will
I really like IAW 2 for creating articles. (I actually had version 1 refunded, because I didn't like it - but 2 was worth it). My only question is how can you create 10 articles? Maybe the topics I'm choosing aren't that large, but that's a lot of quantity to create "uniqueness". I guess you could change a sentence here and there.
One feature I think would help IAW would be the ability to select a sentence and hide it for any future research. This would allow you to research the same topic over and over again and get absolutely unique results.
That is very cool Jonathan, I have IAW and 3wl and hyper vre gold. I don't have the niche inspector. I think your research is very impressive. I am hoping that using the 3wl on my sites, I hope to see improvement soon. Been with you around 3 weeks, so have to give it more time. Thanks for all you do. You are one of the few, who, the only time you hear from is when they want your wallet. I respect that in you. Thanks. Steve
Thanks for the responses Jon! And I appreciate why you wouldn't want to share the site for 3WL's sake.
Two more of my too-verbose but really just quick questions:
1) Do you think you're numbers would've been better if you had created a 15 page site rather than a 10 page site? I appreciate the point that a 10 page site is simply easier and quicker to put up, but I'm wondering how these numbers would scale up with more pages. Would you prefer three sites of 10 pages to two sites of 15 pages?
Specifically, I was wondering if more pages on a site with good internal linking would help the domain rank better than a site with fewer pages.
2) With 3WL, does the script we would install on our site create links from our site to other sites? Do we have to design a page into our sitemap structure with that in consideration?
Thanks again Jon!
Jon,
Thank you sharing this case study. It is so refreshing to see someone have the confidence to put themselves on the line and prove that they know what they are talking about.
It also shows that anyone that wants to make money online can. Not a million over night but a real growing income.
Thanks again.
Hi Jon,
Absolutely fantastic! In 10ish short weeks you have clearly demonstrated that your strategy works and more to the point you've let us see it happen without charge!
Designing and uploading 2 sites a day for just three weeks using your methods would give you an annual income of over $40,000 at the end of three months based on $3 per day and 10 weeks to achieve the $3 a day level. Thats the equivalent of an average wage in the UK working a 40 hour week, week in, week out.
I would love to write something about this on my own blog, using my affiliate links for your products. Any idea how I should go about it without loosing the complete sales to you as opposed to sharing them with you?
Once again well done and thanks,
Phill
Hi Jonathan
I bought your excellent software.
It is really great.
But I think it is much better if you can send your customers a mini-course!
We need you how can we start from A to Z.
This could be a daily course, in just one page every day.
We need you to explain everything.
I suggest if you can deal with a certain topic (anything you like). Then in very easy step by step, show us how can we prepare an excellent article, an ebook in a certain topic, the front page of a website, …….., as you said before, there is no-end for the possibilities!
Another thing please, we had seen some other related products, which can publish many different articles (100 for example), from just one as an original article, can your software do things like this, or something similar? If yes, how can we do this?
Can we put a group of keywords in a certain topic, and let your software prepare one or more article for each one of these keywords? if yes, how?
You see, there are many questions and idea, we really need to know. Could you please teach us, as your customers, in easy steps, how can we use your software efficiently!
Thank you very much for your valuable time and effort.
List M. List
Jon,
As a former scientist, I think you did a great job setting up the study. However, I think it would have been better not to tell your fans the keyword, since they may have looked it up on Ezine and skewed the results.
Also, I have read that the free website program you version of Hyper VRE, that you used in the video puts links to the creator's websites in it. It also reports the keywords you use. If that is true, I would be hesitant to use it. Maybe that is why you paid for it.
I also tried out the keyword tool you used, Niche Inspector, and when I hit the brainstorm button I got "rowing machine" 3 times in a row as one of the "random" keywords. That does not seem random at all!
I personally love 3 way links and think it helps my sites. I also love Instant Article and use it as a research tool for my ghost writers. It gives me an idea of how competitive a keyword is in addition to lots of fast information on a topic.
IE
Its all great, and very exciting, but can I ask what your genuine opinion is Jon about the long term viability of these types of websites - such as, what if Google do their famous slap, or chnage an algorithm or stamp out sites similar to this - I kepe reading elsewhere that genuine, regular updated quality data is the only way, and that sites which are mass egnerated in this way will eventually be pushed out of Google.
Firstly.. I'm No expert, not in any way.. Ive not even tried to do anything like this.. but can I ask Jon, is your own "personal belief" more of "take it while its there, and get what you can out of it, and then move onto something else when this fails".. or simply are you interstd in long term websites..
Forgive me, like I say, Im not an expert, but id be so disappointed to throw myself into this for then next 3 months, have it taking off, and then get slammed by Google..
Thanks.. and I look forward to genuine open discussion, and Jons thoughts
shaun
IE:
I'm not sure about the HypreVRE thing, though that really doesn't sound like something Matt Callen would do (unless the link thing was for the free version, which would be understandable). I know that paid version does not add links.
As for Niche Inspector, I'm not sure how it determines the brainstorm keywords, but I've not seen rowing machine in that list since I used it for this case study site, so who knows.
Shaun:
This site is not a "mass generated" site. Each of the articles on the site were written by me, supported by the Instant Article Writer tool. IAW is a research tool. It does not "generate" articles. That said, I expect this site to endure in Google for a long time to come.
As for Google changing their algorithm.. that will happen, no doubt. They are always updating their algo. If I could predict the future of their algo accurately, I'd retire from all other work and just hand out predictions for 6 figures a piece.
But if you don't do anything out of fear of something changing, you're missing out on huge opportunities.
Jon,
Thanks for sharing. I too have been building small incomes from multiple adsense websites and I can see how they relate to your test results.
It has been interesting watching your results and comparing them to mine.
Thanks so much for taking the time to share.
Jackie
Jon,
Thanks for sharing this with us. Very helpful to see one, complete, marketing campaign. It has made it easy for me to focus on what I want to do.
One question though, would you please share your thoughts on monetizing a site with multiple forms of revenue? Do you feel adding more than adsense distracts the visitor, or do you feel it increases the chance of making money?
Cheers,
Mike
Thanks Jon for sharing this amazing case study, it has been an a-ha experience for me.
ciao
alex
Hi Jon,
You are an inspiration to all of us. Yet, as member of 3WayLinks, I'm not surprised to hear about your success.
I love getting traffic from google, and better yet, I get that traffic for free.
Rock on Jon!
Ken
A good method shown to us, many thanks
Thanks Jon
Don't worry, Im in your camp.. just I guess, trying to iron out thoughts roaming in my head… Im a fan of yours, purchased the $7 scripts some time ago
Keeep up the good work
Hi Jon,
I thought you have read my post, and you will reply!
Thanks anyway.
List
Greetings Jon! Welcome back from vacation!
One of the biggest things I picked up from this experiment was Niche Inspector. It really helped me to understand how & why it is "much" better to build a site like this based on a profitable keyword or phrase. You can build sites all day long, but if no one is searching for your keyword, there is no advertising competition or if the advertisers are paying mere pennies for clicks, then your sites aren't going to make much money. Niche Inspector rolls everything up into one screen full of information where it's so easy to see what to build a site around!
I've been using your other tools for awhile, so I already knew how great they were
Thanks for sharing this study with us!
Chris
Ok Jon, I sifted through the comments and could NOT find this answer.
Why not grow the site even more? Are you saying that the time invested to grow the site would not be equal to the time it would take to start 2-3 other sites?
At 5 hours invested per site, Would the 5 hours invested to publish 20 more articles, 10 for site, 10 for distribution be worth your time?
Hope you had a good vacation, with winter closing in on the UK, looks like I'll be off to the US in a month or two.
The fact you point out that to make $3 a day per site is excellent advice, the vast majority of folk think the site is doing crap as most advertising blurb mentions $10,000's……so they give up.
I'm a pro-gambler, and see 90% of people drop out of my membership during losing runs, and drum into those that stay that you run as many methods/systems as possible, from small banks (lowering the risk), and make a little on each, rather than trying to go for broke with one. Which in the case of a website, if Google change the algo, can put you right up poop street!!
I did see 'rowing machine' appear again last month, but have used it quite a lot, so the % of repeats is very low. I'm not totally sure but they may get the 'brainstorming' keywords from Google's product lists, or something like that. I think Keyword Analyzer does something similar.
With Overture going on the blink, and down the drain, times are changing…..and constant research, and launching of new sites can keep you ticking over nicely.
Dane:
I've not experimented with adding more pages, though I can tell you from my stats that it would certainly be worth adding more content. The home page of the site has received 1,246 page views so far this month, but the inner pages total 2,000 page views for the month, so the inner pages (collectively) are receiving more traffic than the home page.
Without doing another case study on this, it does appear that it's worth your time to add more and more pages. For me, and my personality, I find it more interesting to build new sites than to expand existing ones, but there is certainly much to be said for the merits of growing a quality site with new content.
Hi Jonathan,
Congratulations on your terrific results. I'm not into adsense myself but I stand 100% behind your article software. I pumped out 10 articles easily in a week with great content that was accepted (I even got an expert status award) for those from ezinearticles.
P.S… before I go, even if you do get dumped by google in the future you've still got your articles out there driving traffic to your website you still should be able to make some money.
Jon
My site that Has no seo or is not in 3 way links but using your ideas it has been doing suprisingly well. I can tell everyone that learning by doing is better than learning by reading. My web site is at the 6 week mark I suppose and it is number 2 or 3 or 4 most days in money from Adsense for all my sites. That includes the high page rank sites. I can only imagine how it would do with the 3 way links. I can say that I have been fooling around with adsense for 10 months now and started all sorts of web sites mostly on rumor or feelings how they would do. Your ideas have drawn together my focus and I can do this again. especially if I don't have any more major problems (Ask Amin).
Good luck.
bob
It shows how much traffic is coming from Google, if it wasn't for Google the whole thing would be a different story. In the whole scheme of things wouldn't it be better if MSN, Yahoo, AOL etc. all provided similar traffic so the whole world wouln't have to rely on optimizing a site just for Google only to have them change their algorithm down the road.
Ottawa:
Google has relied so heavily on link popularity for so long that it's very, very unlikely that the sites will drop significantly in rankings over the long run — UNLESS Google stops relying on links, which is also very, very unlikely.
MSN and Yahoo provide only a tiny fraction of the traffic, and require (believe it or not) more investment in time and effort to rank for (in my experience), so frankly I don't think they are worth the trouble for the return, not when I can plug my sites into 3WayLinks.net and practically guarantee good rankings in Google as long as I target the right keywords.
Hi Jonathan,
the information you are sharing are invaluable.
Thanks a lot
Paco
Jonathan,
It has been proven time and time again that one way text links with your targeted keywords from high ranked sites is the way rise in the rankings. Thanks for making 3WayLinks to make this so easy!
Ted
Jon
Considering the fact that if you build 50 sites to fully utilize the 3WayLinks membership cost, domain registration for 50 sites does add up even at a minimum of $5 each for a .com domain. My question then is: Do you use sub-domains to keep cost down and what guidelines do you follow?
Dan:
3WayLinks.net does not allow subdomain sites in the network, for footprint reasons as well as Google's algo valuing top level links more heavily (in my experience).
I personally always use top level domains for my content sites as well. I've thought about experimenting with subdomains, but right now I'm not using them.
Jon,
When you initially submitted the 10 unique articles to ezinearticles and goarticles, did you submit all 10 of them together at once or did you spread your submission over a period of time?
Thanks,
Joshua.
Joshua:
I submitted them all at once.
I have just run Niche Inspector on brainstorming, and come up with 6 decent enough keywords. I then decided to checkout the SEO content of the top sites that contain those keywords, Keyword Analyser does this very.
However, KA has always relied mainly on Overture…which as we now know is screwed!! So what they done was save all the January data to a database and that is what they feed us. Good enough for general research, but not for recent.
Anyway, the keywords from NI I put into KA came back with EXACTLY the same search counts, for EVERY keyword. So both KA & NI are using 9-10 month old stats. So BE CAREFUL with it.
I know KA are talking with Wordtracker, and a few others for data, but it will then be subscription, instead of a one-off payment for the software, I have no idea what NI is doing about it, they can't use old data for ever, although on NI you can search via Google.
…and KA's brainstorming data comes from Froogle, so I guess NI's does as well, and looking at the keywords, they are all general products.
Just thought you should all be made aware of the data issues.
Was the domain brand new or had it been aged?
Hey Jon,
You certainly have shown many people the power of your system and your case study was
excellent.I hope that you re-visit the site with a follow up to your case study in a year.
As you know I had uploaded this site on September 2nd,2007 and have been providing details of my case study with in a case study
these are actual figures copy and pasted from
awstats
Robots/Spiders visitors list -
7 different robots* Hits Bandwidth Last visit
Googlebot 89 1.90 MB 22 Oct 2007 - 23:34
Sep 07 OCT 07
visitors 106 140
visits 209 365
Pages 1559 1521
Hits 3732 1360
{snip–this isn't the place for rants about other people's products and services, thanks}
HI Jon,
Can you tell me what the program was that you used which gave you all the stats. that you have displayed
Thanks for providing this case study Jon. It is a very interesting and informative study to follow.
I not from the comments that there are a number of new webmasters reading your teachings. It would be nice if they were able to follow in closer detail exactly what you have done and how you have done it. Perhaps this could be the subject of a training book by you that you could sell for $7 (or more)?
Good luck in the future.
Barry
Hi Jon,
This is awesome… Let us know probably in 6 months and then a year… to see how much you are earning from this site. Great case study and well done!
Cheers,
Carlo
Thanks for a sharing such an interesting and informative case study and not hiding it away. I'm looking forward to putting this into practice for our own network of sites.
Thanks again =)
Great results Jonathan!
Good post. I can appreciate the skills when you follow the rules. Once again you've shown how following a formula with the right tools gets the job done.
A fantastic lesson for all of us. Thanks again.
Sincerely,
John Adams
Exactly Jonathan…
Keep in mind also that there's a TON of keywords out there that can pull in much more than $3 a day. It's all a numbers game though.
Say you set up 100 sites. Some may pull 20-30 bucks a day for several months, some might only pull 70 cents a day. They will all fluctuate as well.
But they will all average out and you will know exactly what you earn per site per day. Running a network holds all sorts of advantages as well that make growth very powerful and easy.
Keep up the great work and keep experimenting, that's how you find the gold
Dave
This has been a great case study, and you have me convinced to join 3WL.
As List List says above, if we join 3WL, do you have a user manual, or
specific instructions available to guide us in using the software?
Jonathan,
Perhaps this has already been asked and I missed it, but I'm curious as to whether your site is in a language other than English.
Chris
Thanks for all the great info Jon.
Hi Jon,
I have been following your niche site case study and also purchased your IAW pro and 3waylinks.net, because of the possibility of earning good money via adsense doing just only article marketing, linking strategies. As a matter of fact, I am very impressed with your sharing and would implement for my niche marketing campaign earning adsense monies.
Regards,
Eddy Kong
Hi Jon
Been told that when submitting articles to Ezine Articles, you can only link back to your home page. So how did you manage to submit 10 articles and have them link to all your web pages.
Thanks
Genny
Jonathan,
Thank you for posting such an interesting series. It's really been quite an eye-opener.
How much time do you plan to spend on maintaing the website in order for it to maintain its search rankings?
1. Dearly Beloved:
2. I think going by the free report for one of the tools used by Jon, it explains what Robert Lang was talking about. (Actually similar to Bryxen Software - SEOElite).
3. Everyone can sign up for the Niche Inspector free report and take some 45 to 50 minutes to read the information of about 47 pages through the link that Jon provided here earlier and see the eye opener to all what Robert Lang was trying to explain here.
4. Everything must take some work and patience and of course, there is always a monetary involvement to something and anything worth a while.
5. Of the truth, the information here is not for total novice but at the least someone who will listen to the truth and run with it will have a good sense of direction from here.
6. The pain is just that, if there is no monetary involvement some of the times, people do not take this type of case study serious. There is always a need for a sledge and hammer to drive home ideas and truth into the mind and head of people sometimes by giving a blow of financial commitment like hundreds of dollars to get an information…
7. I'm still learning and am totally prone to peruse so no worries…
8. Remain blessed and a blessing all.
Jonathan
Thanks for the great case study, hope to emulate your ideas soon. Just on the topic of Niche Inspector, if it is using 10 month old data from the now defunct Overture, is it still worth $127 or should I hold off until it is using more up to date data? I cant get a contact email for myleena to ask her.
Thanks
Jonny:
Niche Inspector also has a secondary source for keyword and traffic data, which is the one I use. I think it's worth it, yes, which is why I still use it when deciding what niches to build sites around.
Jonathan
Just wanted to support you in your comments in response to Robert Lang. Thought you responded to each point made very well. Totally agree with you and totally disagree with Mr Lang.
Jonny:
Thanks. I deleted Robert's comments since I found out that he does not, in fact, represent the company that he claimed to represent, and therefore was misrepresenting himself. Imagine that: claiming that I'm lying to people while lying about who he works for.
1. But I have refreshed this page twice now and I am still seeing R. Lang's post and your own response Jon. has disappeared!
2. I think it will be better to have yours and R. Lang's removed if any is removed.
3. Whatever you can do to get yours back on the page, it makes the flow of comments better than it missing please. Thank you!
4. High regards, –OSF.
jon, I think you deleted your response, and not "Robert"'s comments.
Great case study, BTW. Show this method still works. You just have to put in the time and effort.
Sorry guys. His post is gone now.
Hey thanks for the reply. Brad Callen asked me to clarify my position with Bryxen Software Inc. I have been sub-contracted to Bryxen Software since last February.
The link is just that, a link for information. I actually could place several other links, but they would all lead to the same place. Bryxen Software, Inc. Why? I have been working there since February and created all the software training manuals, podcasts, and video training series for almost all of their software.
It was completely unforgivable of me misleading your viewers Jon that I was representing Bryxen Software Inc. And as such, I have concluded my existing contract as "Senior Programming Analyst."
Let it be understood Jon, if Bryxen Software, Inc. ever ask me to Represent them, I will say, "No" Jon. I would never want to come under your wrath as a "liar." My email came up in your comment form as a matter of "auto fill." I have been using the Bryxen Software email address for some time now and did not realize it until afterwards. I simply threw in the affiliate elite website as a favor to Bryxen Software, Inc., in case anybody wanted to see it.
My relationship with Bryxen Software, Inc.? I am "sub-contracted" for ease of cost placement. I cost more than Bryxen would like to pay me. In fact, I have some time right now to develop my own "beasts of burden."
So, there is no lying, if you understand "employee, sub contractor, and the word, "Representing." To which Jon, I stand corrected, I do not represent the opinions, view or otherwise of Bryxen Software, Inc.
Yes Jon, I gleefully concede to the exact truth. My name is Robert Lang, and I am contracted to Bryxen Software and not an employee thereof. I apologize for the confusion. And I told Brad Callen, I would use one of my other email addresses than the one I have at Bryxen Software, Inc.
And clearly, this does not remove the stated facts about your case study. I do not believe I ever said you "lied" Jon. I said, "what purpose does it serve to mislead your readers with half truths about the actual costs of producing an income?"
Misleading is an "act of omission," whether intentional or not. Meaning you have not explained all your cost factors in your case. When you do so Jon, you will have a completely different outcome. And of course you will see the flaw in this design and re-design it accordingly.
Finally, I am glad you have responded Jon, because it shows you actually read your comments. And I like some of your software ideas. In fact Jon, I like one of them and will buy it.
But please do not expect me to blow wind up your back end. I am not here to agree with you today. I other very rare occasions I have commented here and have agreed with you. Today I can not, because I have stated the other part of your truth here. The part which is not omitted in you case study.
As I have already stated, "I would like you to make a posting of all the costs someone else other than yourself will pay starting out with nothing. And then let them see the costs and the revenue and exactly when the estimated break even point will be."
So if you feel better Jon, that this comment to your posting comes from me personally, it does. And the only clarification and correction I am now giving is it comes from your existing customer, Robert Lang and not a Representative of Bryxen Software, Inc.
And to be fully understood Jon, finish the case study please. It is not even close to being completed. It is still far into the red. Your choice Jon, but if I had me posting on my blog like this, I'd come up with at least an open discovery of the facts and "invite" others to shoot holes through my theory. How else could I become better. Sorry Jon, I'll come back and post you a link you can have your "fan club" here come and shoot holes through all my facts in a few weeks.
And don't worry Jon, you are not alone. There are scads of Internet Marketers selling the next big thing. This is not the problem. The problem is they only tell the good parts. They all learned form Microsoft over a decade ago. You probably noticed, they only told you what it did, not what it didn't do. If people really read the disclaimer of the products they bought, they wouldn't really buy it.
But you have probably learned what all other online and off line marketers have learned. People only want to hear what your product will do for them, not what it won't do for them.
I bet that makes sense to most people. Until they finally figure it out what the product won't do for them. Unfortunately, it's usually past the "Return for a Full Refund" date.
I hope the above extra information clears everything up Jon and disproves your claim of "Imagine that: claiming that I'm lying to people while lying about who he works for."
And to add a final touch let's change the signature line…
Sincerely, Robert Lang
Adsense Gold and Article Wizard Pro Customer
How's that Jon? Let me know what it changes in my original comment here. And thanks for allowing me to only comment when I agree with your postings. Yes, I received an immediate reply to your letter to Bryxen. I have apologized to Bryxen Software, Inc. as well. After all Jon, I am a man of my word. I got that way by people like you correcting me. Now I am even more honest that I was a couple of hours ago.LOL.
Hi Jonathan,
As a complete 'newbie' I've found this project fascinating and inspiring. I now know that I CAN make money on-line by using this information to move forward some ideas I have with just my existing skills and experience.
Thank you so much for taking the time and interest to share this with me.
Jeff
You really know how to inspire the world. Makes me think, I can do that too!
I was curious what your plans for the site were now. Will you put a little more time into it and try to make it more of a money maker? If so, how are you going to accomplish that?
Or any another way to ask that same question: If you were going to attempt to increase your revenue, what else would you do for/to the site? Something like PPC, Affiliate Programs, Forums entries, Press Release?
Thanks again Jon.
The point about doing the math is actually a good one. The delivery stunk and the now deleted poster made some really bad points along the way, but the basic idea of knowing the numbers is smart.
Ok… let's really do the math.
Let's say you want to do not work - maybe a few hours over a year.
The one time investment at retail for IAW, NI, and HyperVRE is $341. Let's say you hire a stay at home mom and pay her $20/hour. In five hours she learns how to use these programs ala the case study.
That's $441 invested. The recurring fee is $47/month for 3wayLinks.net
Now, you pay her to make sites. You also pay for 10 articles. 5 hours for her to make sites is $100. 10 articles at $10 each is $100. Let's say hosting and a domain are $25 total. That's a per site fee of $225.
Google pays monthly so payouts are always NET 30.
Finally, let's assume that when you launch a site in week 1-4 it makes $0/day, weeks 5-8 $1/day, week 9-12 $2/day and by week 13 onward it makes the magical $3/day. Your milage may vary of course.
Here are two scenarios:
1. Build a site a week for 12 weeks and stop.
Your net profit at the end of 52 weeks is $6391. Your Net 30 profit taking Google payments into account is $5383. If you let everything settle down by week 65 you made $9479 net profit and Google just paid you again so your Net 30 is now $9227.
You've done nothing other than provide instructions to a stay at home mom and paid for things. You need $3000 on a credit card or cash in order to finance this. In 52 weeks you made almost $6400.
2. Build a site a month for 12 months and stop.
Your net profit at the end of 52 weeks is $2233. Google paid you $1337. If you let everything settle down by week 65 as before by week 65 you made $5237 net profit and Google just paid you so your Net 30 is $4895.
Here, you needed $1500 on a credit card or cash. In 52 weeks you made more than $2200.
Your mileage may vary, this isn't a 100% sure thing, etc. You can use different math and save here and there, spend more here and there, etc.
But the point is that it isn't hard to do article marketing and make money with adsense. Plug in other revenue sources like affiliate marketing and work the math.
Thank You good information.
PS. Where not all guys. LOLLOL
Hi Jonathan,
is Keyword Explosion an alternative to Niche Inspector? What are the key differences?
Robert:
First, I appreciate your change of tone and the correction of the information you posted regarding your relationship with Bryxen Software.
Second, I will respond to your notion that the system does not work in my response to Dave's numbers.
Dave:
First, let me thank you for actually putting numbers into your "other side of the coin" arguments. That shows you actually put concrete thought into your arguments, and being a programmer, I appreciate numbers and the concrete rather than abstract nay-saying.
However, I think your numbers are rather off, and will attempt to demonstrate that in a point-by-point response:
DAVE: The one time investment at retail for IAW, NI, and HyperVRE is $341. Let's say you hire a stay at home mom and pay her $20/hour. In five hours she learns how to use these programs ala the case study.
ME: Okay, there are some major problems here. First, my case study does not have anyone else creating the sites for you at an hourly wage. So let's toss that "expense" out right now.
DAVE: You also pay for 10 articles.
ME: Says who? Use Instant Article Wizard and write them yourself. So toss that expense.
DAVE: Let's say hosting and a domain are $25 total.
ME: I pity you if you're spending that much on domains and hosting. A .com can be purchased for at most $10, and I can get top quality hosting with 24/7 support and 5 9's uptime (99.999%) for $7 a month with plenty of bandwidth and all the technology needed to support the site building.
However, there's no need to pay even that much if you know that you're going to be building at least 50 sites. If you're building at least 50 sites, then get a dedicated server for $250 a month, which will easily support 150-200 mid-traffic content sites. That puts your cost down to $5 a month (for 50 sites) or $2.50 a month (for 100 sites).
So let's rerun the numbers more realistically:
Software costs = $341 one time
100 domains x $10 to register them = $1,000 one time
Dedicated server to host all 100 sites = $250/month
2 3WayLinks.net accounts for the 100 sites = $94/month
Let's say you build one site every other day, 5 days a week. It would be easy to do more, but let's just put it at that. That means you would have 96 sites built after 8 months. Let's do the math:
Even IF you purchased a dedicated server from the very start (at $250 a month), you would be profitable in month 4. Of course, very few people are going to get a dedicated server from the get-go, which would make you profitable much sooner (though your bottom line at the end of the year will be a bit less since you're paying more in monthly hosting fees).
Also, these numbers assumes a much lower earnings success than I'm having with the case study site, just in case the nay-sayers want to claim that it's a "perfect world" scenario. If I used my case study numbers, after the first 2.5 months you would have 30 sites and a total of earnings of about $2,700. In my far less than optimal numbers shown above, the case study numbers aren't achieved until after month 4.
So as you can see, even with expenses calculated in AND using a much lower success rate than the case study is demonstrating, it's still a very profitable means of building an income.
(P.S. It was just easier to work the numbers at 96 sites instead of 100 due to the 12 sites per month multiplier, so I just left it at that.)
Jon,
Are you planning to add content to the site once in a while or are you just going to leave it untouched ever again?
If you plan to leave it untouched, would Google drop your rankings in the SERPs?
I've heard they like fresh content, and if your site does not have any fresh material then they are going to drop your ranking. Is this true?
Thanks.
Rodney:
The first query that comes to mind for me is "old time radio". Run a search for that at Google. The #1 result, RadioLovers.com, has been exactly the same for years now (zero changes or additions).
Many of their competitors, whom they outrank of course, add "fresh" content in the way of new radio shows, pages, etc. every month. Yet, who is #1? RadioLovers.com, the static site.
It's all about the links. That's my experience.
Jonathan
You continue to overachieve! Not only have you provided comprehensive and consistent results, but you've really overdelivered on the depth of your answers to these comments.
I would love to see you put the case study into a report format with a few more to-do's for people who are newer to the net. I know that many of the newbies on my list would eat it up.
I'd be glad to help with this, if it's something you feel would be valuable.
Jeanette
Hi Jon,
Fantastic results - and thaks for the very (real world) results-very encouraging!
Hi Jonathan,
thanks for the ride with the case study. I've followed your case study for 3 months now while traveling across the US, and it was a pleasure to learn from you. I'm curious as to what softwares you are using for your stats, (displayed in the graphics above).
[…] Jonathan says, "It's been a little over 2 months since I first started my niche site case study. Every few weeks results in a surge of improvement over the last, and this time is certainly no exception". Niche Site Case Study Week 10… […]
Thanks for this study. It has really shown the power of article writing to boost traffic.
Jonathan,
Yes, I think your numbers are fine and still represent what you can do with reasonable effort.
The model I built was very conservative - 12 sites over 12 weeks with complete outsourcing and a domain/hosting account at cost.
I do agree with you — It was maybe too conservative. But the flip side is that it represents so little work and needs a $3000 capital investment to produce an excellent residual income with 12 sites ($21/week * 12 sites = $228/week) let along what you can do with 52 sites or 96 sites, etc.
I believe the part one of the case study said you had 10 articles developed for submittal to ezinearticles and goarticles so I factored that in.
The bottom line is that most any way you work the revenue model it is profitable over the long haul and then eventually produces a passive revenue stream. And this can be outsourced, insourced, and optimized in many ways.
Interesting how the products you link to use are your own products yet when reading about them from this page it sounds like you "just stumbled across them", many would call limking to your own products in that way (without saying i have made excellent software than can do this, this and this) spam.
It's a nice case study you have done but it has lost credibility the second i realised you own/made the stuff you are linking to.
Dave:
Very true. I've been number crunching to see whether or not I can make it quickly profitable even if I outsource most of the work because it is so easy.
rob:
1) Only two of the four products are mine.
2) I never "masked" the fact that two of them were mine. Since both products have been heavily promoted by me to my list (who are the primary readers of the case study), I took it for granted that 99% of the readers of the case study already knew those products were mine. Perhaps I could have been more clear about that, but seriously: if a product works, it works. Who cares who makes it?
Hi Jon,
Can I ask how many of these sites you currently have going? How old or new they are and whether you are finding results typical to this particular case study or any variations, especially in revenue?
Jon,
Thanks for the case study. It has really opened my eyes to what is possible.
Earlier this year you made a post that page rank does not really matter in how google rank your website. If google does not really factor in PR, then what is the benefit of a website having a high PR instead of a low PR?
And how do you make a website to have a high PR? What requirements are there before Google gives you PR?
Thanks as always Jon.
Jon
1.You say you use AWstats for tracking etc., what is that? Does the AW stand for Article Wizard or what?
2.If I use Xsitepro instead of HyperVRE, what do I do re. the rotating phrase facility? Is it really important to include?
3. The RSS datafeed you mentioned - what is that exactly and how is it used on these sites?
4. Do you suggest we need an About Us link or Contact Link on these sites to boost credibility?
Thanks
Jonny
Hi Jon,
I have been following your case study since Day 1. I must say it is awesome !
One question and I have in mind is, if I use Wordpress blog instead of HyperVRE Gold, will that make any difference in terms of earnings ? I am asking that because I am used to WP blog and know very well how to optimize it.
Thanks
Rgds
Ben
Well i want to share some real facts.
Earning $2-3 in 2 months time is not at all a difficult job as Jon has shown. It can also be made with a simple site without using none of the tools Jon has used. They are not at all required, if you can creat some good articles and submit some articles in ezine as well do some dir submissions.
Secondly, as Jon says create 100 sites and a chance to earn $100,000 a year. that's simply not a good idea.
100 sites. (100 domains + hosting costs + efforts to make content for 100 sites + articles for them) It needs a lot of time and you need to update all those 100 sites in order to maintain your revenue otherwise it would take no time to go to 0 as well.
So i do not think 100 sites making $ 3 each. I would better say 20 sites making $10 a day or similar to it with 30 sites and $7 or so. It is easier to handle. you can try to update every website after 2-3 months or submit articles and expect to reach $20per site by next year.
Further i have a question to Jon.
100 sites.. Why not 100 Blogs (they are free) or 100 sub domains of 1 site?
Blogs ar necesary to be updated otherwise it takes no time to just vanish. However still it is easy to handle.
Let me see response for this..
Cheers!
Sahil:
1) See my numbers in a previous comment about why 100 sites are VERY profitable in the long haul.
2) See my comments above about why posting new content to sites is not a requirement to stay ranked in the long haul.
3) You could do something similar with free blogs, but free blogs cannot be included in the 3WayLinks.net network, which is why I do not advise them in thise case study.
4) Subdomains cannot be added to 3WayLinks.net, either.
I'll take 100 sites making $3 a day over 20 sites making $10 a day any day of the week, because it's 30% more money. If you have a dedicated server, the hosting cost is exactly the same. The only difference is domain registration, which will cost you $800 (roughly) more initially for the 80 extra domain names. But since you'd be earning $100 per day MORE, you'll make that money back in just over a week.
Jon agreed.
But lets keep 3Way Links.net separate. I know about this but haven't read it carefully. So i would talk about it on its related page.
So lets keep 3Way Links.net separate and for knowledge sake what do you recommend: original sites, blogs or sub domains?
The other thing, do you recommend interlinking all those 100 sites with each other or linking them 1-1 or keeping them separate.
Secondly as per your answer, i do not think that if you keep your site to 11 pages for the whole year and don't update anything, you can maintain this income(just by 3links.net) I have such 2 sites for 30-40 pages each, which i haven't touched for an year. It's income is almost 0 now.
I am thinking about your idea of building 100 sites. So i am deep thinking and may ask many more ques
Thanks
Hello Jon..
No doubts in it and i totally agree with your case study now. However i am not convinced with 3links program as your site is giving away links to soooo many websites.
Secondly in your above stats given to Dave, assumption is
11 articles for site + 10 articles for ezine, total 21 articles,
Choosing niche topic, 21 articles creation, web designing, web page creations, article submission in 2 directories = all in 2.5 days (12.5 hours) and 100 sites by working 5 hrs for 5 days a week for 1 year (continuous process.
If people say these figures are possible, i would start with the program next week otherwise your stats should be real looking.
Sahil:
And yet the site is ranking incredibly well for its keywords … guess it works, even if you think it shouldn't.
Other thing, i want to point out Jon is that adsense on your case study site does not has any channel and that same ad sense is being used in this blog by you, without any channel. So it is not possible to point out where the money is coming from. So how are you giving these click figures???
Oh good lord Sahil. I used a url channel, so of course you won't see it in the AdSense code. Any further comments by you that attempt to say I'm lying or cheating or otherwise misleading everybody with this case study will be deleted.
This is a good case study, I am particularly interested in the article wizard. I have several sites that I am working on and getting good original content is a full time job!
Well done on this work and on your great results
Hey Jonathon,
Nice case study! Thank you for sharing it. Being one of your customers and beta folks, I've come to expect great things from you … and I have to say, you haven't let me down!
I look forward to reading what you've come up with when I get e-mails from you, so please keep up the good work.
I'm not sure how all these folks who've posted here have gotten here, but I figure they must know something about you to be here! Sorry to see that some folks have been nasty and argumentative with you - seems there's always some like that - eh? Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for all the great things you're doing AND sharing that info with us.
Thanks again!
-Mark
Jonathan
Please answer my 4 questions above which were posted before your regular replies to Sahil!!
Thanks.
Jon,
Your a doll for giving me this insight! I hope to use it to increase my website traffic. I just love getting new ideas. I can't wait to try them out!
'Til next time, Sweetie!
Alexia
Jon i had never said that the case study is a fraud or something. It is infact an easy way to earn money. However it only asks for 8 months of dedicated wor. 8 months, 100 websites is not a easy job as you have described. Only a few can do this. I can do this and so i have suspicious questions in my mind that if i spend my 8 hours, then will i achieve this income for ever or for 1 year, 2 years etc.
Anyways i appreciate your quick reply and give 100% marks to your case study. No doubts. I would like to know how many ppl can accept this challenge along with me.
Cheers!
Hi Jon,
I've been using tips from your case study for my new WM business and it is on fire. I'm getting free traffic from article directories just as you've explained. Thanks for the case study.
Lewi
Jon,
You say that you are receiving very little traffic from the article directory and that most is from the search engines . How successful do you think a site such as your case study would be if you DID NOT create those 10 articles for the articles directory, instead you only created the 10 you used for your site content, and simply submitted the site to 3waylinks. This would save A LOT of time in creating those extra 10 articles. Just curious as to whether it would still work.
[…] Jonathan Leger placed an interesting blog post on Niche Site Case Study Week 10.Here's a brief overview:It's been a little over 2 months since I first started my niche site case study. Every few weeks results in a surge of improvement over the last, and this time is certainly no exception. (…) […]
Jonathan,
thank you very much for the wonderful case study!
Can somebody comment is this:
The number of monthly searches for "rowing machine" in Jonathan's video is 4,525. According to Overture tool, the number is 24,759? and the wordtracker says 50490? How come? This number is squared in the KEI formula so depending on which tool you use you get completely different results!
NI in the video shows that "kitchen tv" is being searched 56,994 times per month, but Wordtracker shows 12600 and Overture only 1980?
Are my calculations ok? I know these are only estimates but the difference is huge.
Articles have a lot to do with search engine traffic because of the relevant links to the site that are in the articles. So although people don't click much on those links they help the site rank higher in Google.
Jonathan,
Thanks for the final update.
Now that you've got traffic coming to the site, what changes will you make? Will you change monetization methods?
Just curious.
Thanks again!
Hi Jonathan
Thoroughly enjoyed and motivated by your case study. I have read the Niche Inspector report but I have not purchased it as I believe that Keyword Elite (which I have purchased) provides the same information. Would you agree/disagree and is there a particular reason why you prefer to use Niche Inspector compared to a tool like KE. Thanks.
Mark
Mark, (I'm not Jonathan but I thought to share my view)
Niche Inspector is a tool to find niches and Keyword Elite is a tool to research keywords, so those two are for quite different purposes. Niche Inspector doesn't need any input to do some brainstorming. It pulls some data from sites that might have some good niche candidates and hints you on a profitable niche. Keyword Elite would be more useful to further research a niche, to mine some keywords based on some "short tail" keywords you enter.
Hi,
$3 a day means $90 a month. Minus $47 for 3WL, about $43. This is not including other costs.
This process involve higher cost. Except the articles that can be written through article wizard. I wonder how much profit it can brings me.
tq
Adams:
That's only if you only build one site. If you build 10, then it's $900 a month minus $47 for 3WL, or $853. And 3WL lets you put 50 sites into one account. That's $4500 a month minutes $47, or $4453. You can easily put 50 sites on a dedicated server that costs you $250 a month. That's $4203 a month.
After subtracting $10 per domain to register the domain names, after one year you're looking at $49,936.
Doesn't look so expensive now, does it?
Hi Jonathan & all others
I think that this has been an extremely exciting and informative case study; I do have a few comments.
I think that Jonathan has been under selling 3-way links, if you join 3-way links you can add up to 50 sites (and PR4 + sites do not even count towards this total) so it could be as little as $1 a moth to use this service, $1 for 250 links, sounds like value to me.
Jonathan says it takes 5 hours or so to create a site & promotional material, using his numbers of a site every 2 days over a 5 day week that is just 2.5 hours a day, most people can afford that much time, to be financially independent in 6-12 months time, even if Jonathan is some sort of super typist and it takes you twice as long to create the material you can invest some of your time to get things moving and you could have 50 sites in less than a year, that should be about $4500 a month.
I understand that people with family commitments have little spare time, but just think what you could be giving to your kids, after 6 months work you might be able to stay at home permanently with your family, if you can why not get the whole family involved, 2 people working this system together for 6 months at 1 hour a day could produce 12 sites a month, you just need to get out of bed 1 hour earlier, or stop watching those new TV shows (I know it’s a big ask but you can buy the DVD box set when it comes out with your profits from this system) and you can change your whole life.
For those who are worried about having 100 sites and then trying to keep them up to date, why not just reinvest your profits and pay for an article to be written for each site, this will cost $500 - $1000 a month – you could be making $9000 a month so not a huge cost to keep the site up to date, or if you wish to keep the money why not just write 10 articles a day – you have the software & have had lots of practice with it – 10 a day gives you 200 a month – enough for 2 updates per site.
The thing to do is start, after that is just gets easier.
Thank you very much for your time Jonathan I will let you know when I leave my full time employment, from using this system (The problem is I love my job).
Sean
Jonathan,
You are by far my favorite internet marketer. Love your products, your ideas, your methods. My question is about the 10 articles you outsourced. Do you feel they are good enough to use as the actual content on your website (instead of submitting all of them). I'm thinking of putting 5 on my site (one for each keyword), then submit the other 5 (so have 2 articles written for each keyword). I would write all the content for the index page myself, the subpages would all be outsourced including the ezine articles. Is this a bad plan? I'm trying to find the fastest way to build 50 more sites (already have 50 now) and outsourcing seems reasonable.
I recently joined 3waylinks, hoping for good things on my existing sites (once they are approved).
Thanks,
Heather
Heather:
Thanks for the great feedback. Makes me feel like I'm not just talking into the air.
To answer your question: they articles I outsourced were definitely good enough to use on the site itself. In fact, if you can afford the initial investment, I recommend getting a few samples from a writer (or writers) and outsourcing all of your content-site creation. That gives you more time to focus on site building, traffic generation and search engine ranking.
That's not possible for a lot of people just getting started, but it sounds like you've been swimming in the content-site waters long enough to start thinking about that.
Jon
1.If I use Xsitepro instead of HyperVRE, what do I do re. the rotating phrase facility? Is it really important to include?
2. The RSS datafeed you mentioned - what is that exactly and how is it used on these sites?
3. Do you suggest we need an About Us link or Contact Link on these sites to boost credibility?
Thanks
Jonny
Another excellent example with good information we can use. The software you suggest is excellent
Hi Jon.. Thanks for your ideas and products. I am starting my adsense project, but I have one doubt. Please tell me your opinion. If I use sub-domains for this sites the results are going to be better, not better, not good, in terms of SEO terms?, In you experiences its better to use an unique domain for each adsense page?? I hope you can post your opinion Thanks!
Hi Jon,
How's the site doing now in terms of earnings per day, 2 weeks on from this post, has the earnings increased per day?
Thanks.
Justin:
My daily average is now over $3.60 per day since this post was made.
J. De La Cruz
I'm not Jon but wanted to give my input, I have both domains and subdomains in use. I started with subs for budget reasons, but now do entirely full domains. Two of my alltime best paying sites are on subdomains, the SEs didn't seem to care. However, membership in 3waylinks requires a full domain, no subs, so if membership is a plan for you, better use full domains.
Heather
wow what a great case study. I'm going to use your guide and see if I can do this and earn some decent money. I just have to be patient in the 1st few weeks if I dont earn money.
Thanks
Jon
When you first built the site, did you manually submit it to any of the search engines? Google, yahoo or MSN specifically? Or do you let the bots automatically find it…
thanks,
Heather
Jon:
My question? How did you manage the 25%+ URL click through rates for your EzineArticles? Anything special about your author box? Or is the relatively high click through rate somehow due to the subject? Or a high value free offer?
The best I seem to be able to do is in the 4%+ range. And that's with a free offer.
Thanks for putting the numbers out there on your studies, it's been very helpful.
Hi Jon,
Some great comments here and great feedback since my first post back in October 23rd.
What is your take on Directory Submissions? Do you advocate we do this? It's more inbound links so I guess it will only help with the sites ranking.
I can get a manual submission service for $35-$50 for 500 directories. And as it only needs to be done once per site I'm thinking it's a good idea.
What do you reckon?
Peter
P.S 3-way-links rocks! My new blog has a page rank 2 (soon after I joined).
Peter:
I've used directory submission services, though I would be wary of one that cheap which claims 500 manual submissions. Did they help? Perhaps… but frankly I've gotten 10 times more mileage from 3WL than from directory submissions.
Thanks Jon,
I'll cross it off my list.
One more thing…Given the choice, (IAW aside), would you rather spend $100 per month on PLR articles (approx 400 in different niches) e.g. 'PLRPro' or $100 per month on 16 totally unique, excellent quality, tailor made articles?
I'm thinking the original articles would be better as I can get them tailored for specific keywords. But would appreciate your opinion.
Cheers,
Peter
That's not really a one-size-fits-all question, Peter. It really depends on how much you like to write. =) If you are comfortable adding to and modifying PLR articles to make them at least 30% unique, and don't mind doing that for every single article, then you can certainly get more mileage out of the PLR. But if you aren't comfortable, or don't want to spend that kind of time writing, then stick with the unique.
Hi,
Just stumbled across this case study and have been busy reading it. I'm very tempted to try 3 way links although I'm wary of spending that much per month and getting no results… still the case study does seem to speak for itself so I may take the plunge.
Cheers
Penny
Jon,
You say to Jay that you did no more optimization after posting the original site but in your week 3 update you said you played around with the templates to get a better CTR.
Larry:
I meant search engine optimization, not AdSense placement optimization.
Hi Jon,
Thanks for the replies above.
Like you I use semiologic pro. Would it be just as effective to use SLP instead of HyperVRE?
The only difference I can see is that SLP doesn't incorporate a rotating description.
I'm quite used to SLP now and can set up a blog very quickly especially with the new 'clone' feature.
Cheers,
Peter
Honestly Peter, it's the links that make the vast majority of the difference. You can rank just about anything with 3WL. Just keep your Title tag on-target and make sure your page content is related to the keywords and you'll do great with a blog.
Nice one! That's what I wanted to hear.
I've had a look at HyperVRE and although it looks good, it's just something new and extra to learn and add to the equation.
I'll just concentrate on the SLP blogs.
Thanks for the quick reply - really appreciated.
Peter
Hey Jon, just curious as to how the site is doing now. Could you give an update on the earnings?
Hi Jon,
This is a great idea that really has me going, I will be doing my first site this week!
1. Do you think posting your keywords here skewed results at all?
2. In checking out a couple of your articles, I noticed they went to pages like this, that I don't think you've gone over on your site.
How do you make sites like that, do you recommend it over the hvre sites?
Thanks!
Nice case study. But I'm looking forward to seeing your stats for a period of 1 year.
How many of these 10 page sites do you have Jon.
The keywords you use for the 10 articles, how competitive
are they.
I have heard that people have had their adsense account suspended for using VRE. Is this something that you think we should worry about? A am going to create 100 sites over the next two monthes, but I don't know if I should use VRE or XSitePro. Please guide me, Dustin