Niche Site Case Study Week 6
September 27, 2007
I said I would wait two weeks before posting another update on my niche site case study. Well, it's been two weeks, and the traffic for the last two weeks is almost equal to the traffic for the previous month. Here's the stats:
Two weeks ago the total was 575 unique visitors. Now it's up to 949. Notice, too, that the total visits is 1,337, which means that about 30% of my visitors are return visitors. That's very important, as it demonstrates that visitors are seeing the site as a quality site worth revisiting. I thank the tools I used to build the site for that.
Even six weeks into the game, EzineArticles.com is still sending traffic. Here's the screenshot:
That's 269 total visitors sent from EzineArticles.com this month. Here's a snapshot of my EzineArticles stats screen:
According to this, EzineArticles has sent 413 visitors since I started the case study in mid-August. Comparing the stats to the stats from two weeks ago shows that I've gotten at least 100 or so additional unique visitors from EZA in the last two weeks.
Some exciting movement in the site's ranking in Google. Thanks to 3WayLinks.net, as of yesterday my site is now ranking #11 for its primary keywords in Google, and #14 for its secondary keywords. To date, people have found my site via 198 different sets of keywords. Thus, my Google traffic has officially overtaken my EzineArticles traffic for the month:
My traffic spiked now that I'm ranking better in Google for my chosen keywords. That resulted in a $2.90 AdSense day yesterday. That may not seem like much, but multiply that over a year and it's $1,058.50 — from one site. Build 50 or 100 similar sites and… well, you get the picture. So the goal is to keep things moving in that direction (which they are doing nicely).
I've also started getting a little bit of traffic from some of the other search engines (AOL and MSN/Live).
I am very happy that my site is already at the top of page 2 in Google's results for my primary keywords — and in only six weeks! I can't emphasize enough the power of 3WayLinks.net to get sites ranked like this. I'm hardly alone. I've read dozens of incredible success stories of 3WL members who are seeing the same results.
No doubt in a few more weeks my site will rank on the first page, resulting in far more traffic. The first page of results for any search engine gets a lot more traffic than the second page, and the top 5 results get far more than results 6 through 10 as well. My goal is to get my site in the top five for at least 2 of its 3 chosen keywords.
To date the site has earned $29.81 in AdSense revenue. I've been running AuctionAds.com ads on the site now, too, and despite 8,039 impressions, it hasn't earned me a dime. I'll be patient, since I've only gotten 38 clicks and the ads are well-targeted, but so far I'm not impressed.
$30 in 6 weeks may not seem fantastic, but look at the growth in earnings per day since the case study began:
Week 1 : 13 cents a day
Week 2 : 16 cents a day
Week 3 : 39 cents a day
Week 4 : 66 cents a day
Week 6 : 71 cents a day
My goal is to get the site up to $3 a day in revenue. Why? Because that means its earning about $1,000 a year. 5 hours of work for $1,000 in return per year is $200 an hour. Not a bad wage! Repeat the process 50 or 100 times and… like I said, the goal is clear. The site may do much better, as many of my sites do, but that's the goal.
Also, with Google you have to be patient. It takes a solid 2 to 3 months to rank well (even with 3WayLinks steadily aiming more links to your site from its network of websites). So don't give up on a site just because it's not getting a lot of traffic and earning wads of cash in its first few weeks.
Finally, one observation that I'd like to make is that my AdSense CTR is awful on this site, only 5.47% overall this month. However, it's spiked in the last few days since I started getting more traffic from Google for a variety of new keywords. Over the last 7 days my CTR was 6.46%. I hope that once the lion's share of my traffic comes from my primary and secondary Google keywords, my CTR will continue to rise. The preliminary evidence appears to be pointing in that direction.
I'll post my next case study update in about one month (October 25th). My family and I are going on vacation next month, and so I won't be available to post until then.
As always, to see exactly what I did to create this niche site from scratch, with only 5 hours of week, click this link.
Please post your thoughts and questions in comments below.
Comments
81 Responses to “Niche Site Case Study Week 6”
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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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Case studies are really impressive
Hi Jonathan,
those results are looking good! Glad to see your search engine traffic keeps rising, all for 5 hours of work!
Hi Jonathan,
Interested study…I would be really curious to see a second study running alongside this one WITHOUT using the 3WayLinks.net just to prove how much of an effect this site is having. As it stands, the stats look great, but there's no real way to totally qualify them without a similar study not using the link system. Just a thought.
Tony
This is amazing! Thanks a lot for the great details Jon. You could've easily made this as a commercial product, but instead you made this free. Thanks for your generosity :).
I remember that you used Niche Inspector to find your niche. Do you think it plays a big role in how well your site is doing? According to Myleena's Niche Inspector salespage, she claims to make about $15,000/month due to the power of Niche Inspector. And I think she has about 30 sites or so, so that means she makes between $10 to $15/day per site, and how is that possible? Do you think you can also get your site to earn that high daily income? If so, how would you plan to make that happen?
Hi Jon,
Thanks for your sharing, I have been following your case study, its realy impressive.
You mentioned you like to raise the AdSense earning per day to $3, how about your target CTR?
Btw, I also have installed the Auction Ads on more than 10 sites for more than 3 months, nothing worth mentioning indeed.
Once again, thanks for your sharing and looking forward to your next update.
Cheers,
Keith.
Well, I am quite impressed Jonathan. This is amazing the amount of traffic you are getting. You have convinced me to give the 3WL a try. I have a new site, got it indexed in 6 hours, but not seeing the traffic that you are. Will sign up right now for the 3 way links. Thanks again for your post, I look forward to see how the site continues to do.
Progress is really impressive, Jon.
What slips my memory is whether you mentioned of using your own RealTrafficExchange or not. It is interesting if you write about that point too, in case you are using it.
Nevertheless, congrats on this kind of fast progress.
Hi Jon,
The mechanics of the earning potential of this, and any other site are becoming very clear. (At last the pennies are dropping!)
Even at its current level of just 71 cents a day thats still $260.00 a year. 400 of these sites and thats a solid freedom lifestyle even if none of them go on to do anything better. Plus if you factor in targeted affiliate programs you wouldn't need anywhere near as many.
Thanks so much for providing this info its very eye opening.
Phill
Tony:
Thanks for the suggestion.
Frank:
I like Niche Inspector because it makes it super-easy to find targeted niches. Frankly, when it comes to choosing niches I'm not that creative, so its "random niche" feature is wonderful for me.
Keith:
I've got the AdSense ads in the best possible position, so there's not much I can do as far as positioning to improve the CTR. I think what's causing the low CTR is visitor intent. The keywords they were mostly landing on the pages with (until yesterday) weren't "buyer" keywords, if you know what I mean. I like to see a double-digit CTR, though. 10% is a "goal" (or, really, a "hope").
Life Insurance:
You won't be disappointed!
Alev:
I do not have RealTrafficExchange on this site, no.
Phill:
Good point. Seriously, 400 sites is (roughly) 2000 hours of work. If you work 40 hours a week at a J-O-B (ugh, dirty word), that's about one year's worth of work to create a six-figure income that is passive. Not bad, I'd say!
Thanks for your update once again Jon. I decided to start a new niche site the week after you began this experiment and also joined 3waylinks as i had a lot of static sites. They are nearly all now doing well and some of the keywords i'm ranking for are quite amazing - i even have a credit card site which i'd add to the network just for the sake of it and is now on page 1 for my main highly competitive keyword!
I aim to create a new niche site each week and have started my 4th new site today. For anyone sitting on the fence I whole-heartedly recommend 3waylinks and IAW.
Frank - $10-15 per day is very possible depending on the niche, I've had several sites earn me at least this, one was peaking at $96 per day. My credit card site i mentioned above made $8 yesterday with little traffic. Choose a good niche where you can rank well for some good traffic keywords. Simple SEO, build links, create content, target good keywords, and you'll hopefully be well on your way!
Jonanthan - did you use a particular template that comes with Hypervre Gold membership or did you use a custom template?
Wondering if you have a preference in terms of the templates provided by the HyperVRE team..
Thanks
Dave
Keep up the good work, Jon. Hope you and your family have a wonderful vacation — you need to chill out for a while!
Nick
Nick:
Thanks!
Dave:
I modified the standard template a bit for use with this site. I don't have a preference of one over another at this point.
The problem is that 3WayLinks.net is too expensive. It eats all your earnings.
Luckly you are the owner of that program.
Careful revealing your CTR i have heard of other mnarketers losing their accounts for that! Good job on the site though.
Salvador:
$47 a month ranking 50 web sites "eats all your earnings"? At $3 a day per site, that's $90 per month per site. Even one site earning $3 a day will give you a 100% return on your investment. If you put all 50 sites in 3WL that your account gives you, that's $4,500 a month. I'm failing to see how it "eats all your earnings".
Darin:
I've never heard of that, thanks.
Hi Jonathan.
Great case study. I would like to know what software are you using to track visitors to the site? I am talking about the first figure it appears in your post, how did you generate it?
Thanks for sharing this information.
Diego
When you use 3way links, I see that there are many not related links. Is there a chance google will punish this?
Hey Jonathan,
Love the case study. I've been doing a similar thing on my blog and more indepth for my clients. Initially the bulk of my traffic comes from social sites like Propeller and Digg.
I'm curious if you could share more about the EzineArticles results. I completely understand not giving up the niche but what about things like average word count and maybe a template of your resource box. Do you include any active links in the article itself?
Your clickthrough rate is quite high. EzineArticles has really benefited me more from getting my articles and links all over the web (my main site gets traffic from over 1,500 referrers in a month) but my clickthrough rate on EA itself is in the 7 - 11% range and yours, according to your screenshot, is a very impressive 26.63%!
Great stuff, Jonathan!
Gregg
Diego:
I'm just using the built-in AwStats for that.
kurt:
While Google does seem to links from related pages ("on theme"), my research shows that you can rank very well without themed links.
Great numbers Jonathan!
It appears your strategy and tools are working. I need to get in on your 3 way links some time. I see you've made some nice changes to your Article Wizard now. I think it's time I starting using that program regularly. I want to use it to write good articles/posts for my blog marketing. This tool helps overcome my writer's block excuse.
Keep up the good work!
That's great Jon, I love these case studies!
Marian
Here is a copy and paste from the google terms of use. You can see where is says not to reval the CTR but earnings are ok. I would hate to see you lose your account!
Darin
Confidentiality. You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent. "Google Confidential Information" includes without limitation: (a) all Google software, technology, programming, specifications, materials, guidelines and documentation relating to the Program; (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to You by Google; and (c) any other information designated in writing by Google as "Confidential" or an equivalent designation. However, You may accurately disclose the amount of Google’s gross payments to You pursuant to the Program. Google Confidential Information does not include information that has become publicly known through no breach by You or Google, or information that has been (i) independently developed without access to Google Confidential Information, as evidenced in writing; (ii) rightfully received by You from a third party; or (iii) required to be disclosed by law or by a governmental authority.
No Guarantee. Google makes no guarantee regarding the level of impressions of Ads or clicks on any
Crazy. Glad to know that. Thanks Darin!
Hey Jonathan,
I am impressed with those EzineArticle clicks after six weeks. Is this amount of traffic after six weeks normal from your past experiences?
More impressive is the organic traffic ofter such a short time. 3WayLinks is looking better and better!
Ted
No problem
Hi Jon,
Great case study. I've been following with great interest.
The old accountant in me is confused. In your week 4 entry, you reported:
"Revenue is up, too. Week one showed a total of $0.91, week two $2.30, week three $8.27. This week, week four, we're up to $18.64 in AdSense revenue by itself."
I took that to mean that you earned $18.64 in week four. I was stunned.
However, in this week 6 entry, you reported your average for Week 4 was $0.66 times 7 days is only $4.62 for the week.
The only way I can get to come close to your $29.81 total is to multiply your highest daily average of 71 cents by 42, days (6 weeks). But that's not a total actual revenue number, that's a calculated projection "as if" each day earned at the highest daily rate.
I'm not saying you're numbers are wrong or misstated, just that I can't understand them.
When you say "To date the site has earned $29.81 in AdSense revenue" then that looks like the total you can take to the bank, not the total you could calculate on a "what if" basis.
If these are averages for just the week reported, I would calculate your revenue thusly:
Week 1 : 13 cents a day x 7 = $0.91
Week 2 : 16 cents a day x 7 = $1.12
Week 3 : 39 cents a day x 7 = $2.73
Week 4 : 66 cents a day x 7 = $4.62
Week 6 : 71 cents a day x 14 = $9.94
For a total revenue for six weeks of $19.32. Where am I going wrong? How do you get from these averages to $29.81. If you're multiplying $0.71 by 42 days, you shouldn't say "To date the site has earned $29.81 in AdSense revenue" as it will confuse us accountants.
Regardless, nice work on this case study. 3WayLinks is clearly paying off.
Bob Bridges
Hi, Jon!
I've been following your case study closely from day one (especially since I am a 3WL's subscriber!) Your stats are very impressive! I know you don't want to reveal your site to us for obvious reasons, but once you've reached your goal, which I assume will be the end of the case study, will you be compiling all of your case study reports into an ebook? I just thought it would make for a great promtional tool for us affiliates in promoting 3WLinks. If not, would it be okay if we (the affiliates) did something similiar as long as it was a free ebook that could be branded? Just curious. I hope you have a great vacation! Mike
Jon…your case study has been a real eye opener for me. I purchased Niche Inspector and I love the tool! Finding a good niche for an adsense site is a piece of cake now! I put a niche site together on Tuesday afternoon/evening, and I'm waiting for it to get indexed in Google so I can get it into 3WL.
I use "Rapid Niche Websites" to put my sites together. It's a great tool as well and makes putting up a Wordpress based niche site really easy and fast.
Look forward to hearing from you in a month. Enjoy the vacation with your family!
Chris
John, your a bad {snip}. You come out with a new product at least every month and you have the execution of a seasoned executive.
I have a high level of respect for your work ethic.
Thank YOU,
Dane
Hi Jon,
thanks for continuing to share your results and stats.
Why you never mention the clickbank ad ?
ciao
alexander
Bob:
Those daily averages are for the entire time up to that point, not for that week.
Mike:
Excellent idea! I think I will indeed create a report for promotional purposes.
Dane:
Thanks, I appreciate it, but please watch your language on this family-friendly blog. =)
crescita:
I haven't made any affiliate commission from the ClickBank ads yet.
Great post Jonathan
There certainly are some awesome in depth details for review!
Like you say, its not the money increase at the beginning, its the growth that will create a long term sustainable business.
The proof is there. Good old fashioned actions create good old fashion profits.
Very impressed with this post. Keep 'um coming.
Thanks again.
Sincerely,
John Adams
Hi Jon,
another impressive case study and although
I am not using 3waylinks,I think that I am receiving pretty good traffic.
For those of you that have been following Jon's case study
I decided to do a case study within a case study.
I uploaded this site on September 2nd and happened to open one of Jon's emails about
a case study and decided that I would add my results whenever Jon sent his results.
The site was down for about 5 days last week.technical problems,however the site has
performed well otherwise.
Adsense earnings
for this short period of time was 6.00 total
it has received 181 visitors and 1392 page views,
the average visitors duration is approximately 30 min+ and 41% of the visitors bookmark and add to their favorites.
Ebay
has received 98 clicks but I haven't generated any revenue from that yet.
2 weeks ago I added a blog to the site and have had
46 visitors and 2 people commented.It received 15 referals from google and has been spidered 134 times.
I thought it was quite impressive when I typed in the name of the website into google search and it was already on page 5 of the google results.
I will continue to submit more articles on the blog and to article directories during the week.
Very cool Johnathan, it's looking good to me.
I am really glad that you are emphasising that the little gains make the whole.
I see to many give up because they dont make the big scores right off the bat when actually they in fact have done what it takes to build a great income.
If everyone would follow this example and rinse and repeat once they reach a goal then they could all retire in 5 years.
Jon,
What tool did you use to do all the tracking for all your statistics?
I have followed this very carefully and appluad your results.
My comment is simple really. I have my site on one keyword that is 3rd position out of 260 million indexed sites. I DO NOT get one visitor. Therefore it can be deduced that having a high Google position does not really mean traffic and I beleive more targeted traffic, such as from article sites, provides the better visitor for ctr.
Jonathan,
I too have been trying to get traffic to my new site. I have made some money using Google Adsense but I wanted (as everyone does) to make more! I have started to get into some affiliate programs. Can you tell me how you make affiliate programs work?
I have created some landing pages and started some Google Adword campaigns to drive traffic to them but they just do not seem to be converting as I wanted. Maybe you have some ideas about the process in general like starting with the PPC ad, then onto the landing page, and finally where the user lands on the merchant's site?
I sure could use the help. Thanks in advance and thanks for giving us poor struggling publishers hope.
Clayton.
The point Tony makes is a good one - for two reasons. It will define the impact of each promotion strategy and will help to strengthen any argument relating to the 3 way link value.
I'd certainly be interested in that outcome - my gut tells me the 3 way link process must help but just how much is the question.
Regards
Kevin
Discover how to use Binaural Beats and Brainwave Entertainment to reduce your stress and improve your mental health.
Jon,
Thank you for doing this case study and sharing your results freely with us. With regard to your articles and the 3 major directories that you submitted too, did you use the same article to submit to all 3 or did you submit differant articles to each directory?? I understand that your articles on your adsense sites are differant than those submitted to directories so as not to have duplicate content and be penalized for it. Also, once you reach 50 sites on 3way links, can you open a differant account for another 50 sites?? Thanks again, I look forward to your next post..have a safe and great vacation with your family!
David
Nice work Jon,
You say you are receiving traffic from secondary keywords. What do you mean by primary and secondary keywords? I thought each page of your was based on a keyword, and therefore each of these pages are relating to 'primary' keyword. So I'm just trying to understand what is meant by 'secondary keyword'?
Jonathan,
Thanks again for the update!
You're inspiring me to do it myself!
Chris
Not sure why but I still can't get any success with 3WaysLink. maybe my strategy is wrong.
1) my domain is brand new
2) i signed up 3wayslink during beta so i have 1 free account to fiddle around before i upgrade to get more.
it should be simple right … post content and use 3wayslink to get indexed into major search engine.
jon, are you doing the same way?
Oh yes, of course you have an clickbank link (does burnthefat.com sound familiar ?).
I wan't tell more because this would alter the stats of your great case study.
ciao
alexander
Sorry Jon, I have interpreted wrong your answer: I thought you had answered that you have not clickbank ads (instead you told you have not earned money from clickbank).
sorry again
ciao
alexander
Jonathon,
Excellent results so far and it can only get better.
I cant wait to start using your tactics for my own
site and prey it will be as successful.
Keep up the good work,
Regards,
Mick
[…] Jonathan says, "I said I would wait two weeks before posting another update on my niche site case study. Well, it's been two weeks, and the traffic for the last two weeks is almost equal to the traffic for the previous month". Niche Site Case Study Week 6… […]
Let's do some math:
Considering each article costed you $10
In order to get levarage, suppose you do 50 such sites
Your initial investment
number of such sites 1 10 20 30 50
initial investment
hypervre pro 137.00 13.70 6.85 4.57 2.74
articlewizard 67.00 6.70 3.35 2.23 1.34
ghost writer 100.00 1000.00 2000.00 3000.00 5000.00
domain (.info) 3.19 31.90 63.80 95.70 159.50
3 way links 47.00 4.70 0.24 0.01 0.00
niche inspector 127.00 12.70 6.35 4.23 2.54
total 481.19 1069.70 2080.59 3106.74 5166.12
w/o ghostwriter 381.19 69.70 80.59 106.74 166.12
monthly profits
month 1 (.71/day) -25.42 16.88 21.35 21.58 21.58
month 2 ($1/day) -16.60 299.30 607.77 911.99 1520.00
month 3 ($1.5/day) -1.40 451.30 911.77 1367.99 2280.00
month 4 ($2/day) 13.80 603.30 1215.77 1823.99 3040.00
month 5 ($2.5/day) 29.00 755.30 1519.77 2279.99 3800.00
month 6 ($3/day) 44.20 907.30 1823.77 2735.99 4560.00
making just one such site will take about 8 months to recoup your
investment.
Great stuff Jon
The brand new site we put in the network around the same time it went live to the public, is now since of yesterday, 3º for it's first KW 8º for it's second and 3º for it's third in G! That's with out article marketing! the site just had a few blog links to each page, thats it! There is no doubt that 3waylinks is one 100% the course of this.
I have just started submiting articles yesterday so i can focus on some smaller kws as well.
I do have one question in regards to article marketing, from what i remember and understood you once said that more then one link from a domain to a site wouldn't count hardly as much as the first!
If that is the case is it a good idea to do what a lot of article marketers do and link to say 3 pages of there site with different KWs? Do you think G will give a very low importance value to the last two links? do you think G would give a very low importance value to all 3 links?
Also what happens to all the other article links in the other articles that are on the site? would there value be lost too?
This is the problem with someone like me, a perfectionist with no experience, everything becomes questionable lol
Ps: are sub domains allowed? if not, why not?
I think we are going to see some explosive results when you reach the top 5 on Google.
In addition to that, when 3WL reaches its full potential there's no stopping a well targeted website.
October should be a great month I think in terms of traffic generated.
Dear Jon,
Thanks for this case study, your results is amazing and I try to do my own case study to share my experience with you and the whole group, but I have 1 question: You add to 3waylinks your site for the begining, can I do the same?? Can I add my site without be indexed for google???
Best regards and thanks for your time,
Alejandro Bustos M.
Hi Jon,
to: Salvador Calderon
lets do some math:
You are trying to mix some one time expenses with monthly expenses, and tossing in monthly profits. Like apples and oranges, you want both, but they cost differently, and you would consume them differently.
Too confusing for most people, and you stopped at 6 months, but then said 8 months to recoup your investment. Is that with hiring a gostwriter?
Just go and try 1 for youself, see if you can make some money by Christmas. I am trying it my self.
Thanks Jon
I am really trying to do it.
Hi Jon!
I think anyone who's a little bit longer in the game than just yesterday has to agree:
This live case study is much more worth than many expensive ebooks - as anyone can simply follow the steps with his own site - or maybe I'd better say: If one's read that many ebooks & tried, he'll just more likely to accept… combining all the pieces being patient and persistant- that's the way to go!
Thanks for sharing this!
Marcus
You must have at least your home page indexed. You should be able to do it in just a few days by getting a few page rank 6 links, blogs are easiest. It always works for me anyway
Jayen
Jonathan,
Did you use one of the supplied HyperVRE templates to create your site, and was any outside graphics design help required? Also, are your internal pages essentially rewrites of your 10 articles, and if not how are they structured?
Thanks,
Andy
Impressive indeed! And the stats will just keep on improving!
It's great to see that these results can be achieved with straight, honest, genuine, white-hat techniques. Using similar techniques to yours, Jonathan, I am also getting good results.
(A) Own niche website online first week January 2007. Google-indexed within 2 weeks. Current page rank: 3. Original content; EzineArticles (only); AdSense; AM (physical books only); no traffic exchanges; no AdWords; no blog; no mailing list; hardly updated.
Month UniqVis Visits Pgs Hits BWdth
Jan 2007 472 659 1443 5336 108.71 MB
Feb 2007 666 883 1582 6422 129.74 MB
Mar 2007 641 824 1443 5591 122.31 MB
Apr 2007 724 920 1584 6165 130.77 MB
May 2007 729 904 1500 6194 127.80 MB
Jun 2007 824 1061 1693 7186 142.33 MB
Jul 2007 1642 1951 2828 12803 248.55 MB
Aug 2007 2195 2583 3653 17255 325.58 MB
Sep 2007 3044 3511 5256 23080 456.78 MB
AdSense earnings to date: $66.99
Direct earnings through website from providing niche services estimated at average $150/month currently (and steadily increasing).
(B) Client's niche website online first week July 2007. Google-indexed within 1 week. Original content; AdSense; AM (digital & physical products); no traffic exchanges; no blog; very small mailing list; no AdWords; no article submissions; updated monthly.
Month UniqVis Visits Pgs Hits BWdth
Jul 2007 155 365 781 11672 83.12 MB
Aug 2007 235 435 736 13214 120.10 MB
Sep 2007 491 810 1239 24013 234.22 MB
AdSense for 1st July to 15th August 2007: $3.44
(Current earnings unknown to me.)
We have scrupulously followed all AdSense and AM rules. I am quite happy with the results. It has been said, build a business, not build a website. Our goal now is to focus on promoting the AM products we carry. And next, to create and sell our own info products.
Keep up the good work, Jon.
Best wishes.
PS: Some have asked about Jon's web stats program. If this has not already been answered, it's from the website's admin interface - CPanel. Many hosting companies install CPanel on their servers. Almost all admin panels will track the web stats of a site.
thanks so much Jonathan for taking the time to do this..
You (and you Pat!) have inspired me to create some sites following your methods, I already have 3-way-links beefing up my main money site and it is great..
You are definitely the '9th coolest guy'
I like you have tried auction ads on a variety of sites and even with a lot of traffic have had zero results. I think that space could be better used! I have enjoyed watching the progress of your 'case study'.
I have enjoyed watching the progress of your 'case study'. I like you have tried auction ads on a variety of sites and even with a lot of traffic have had zero results. I think that space could be better used!
Hi Jon,
very very encouraging results so far and very inspirational case study-iive also seen alot of return vistors to my site so i must be doing something right for them.keep up the good work!
Jonathan,
I really enjoy your site and your work. Very helpful to many people. I've been working on my website for about two years and enjoy over 30,000 unique visitors each month. It is a travel related website which I will not disclose here. I am constantly updating and adding information to the site to keep it up-to-date and useful. This takes a lot of time. I know a number of people who have numerous websites, but I find that even though some of them rank well, the information is of marginal use. I have never posted a single article written by anyone other than myself, although I would not, conceptually, be opposed to doing so.
How can one possibly maintain 50 or more websites and keep them up-to-date with relevant and accurate information and compete with authority sites within that niche? I have 3 websites and they are practically a full time job. I can see doing 10 or 15, but after that it seems to me that the quality of the sites has to suffer. Just my 2 cents.
Hi Jon. Thanks again for keeping everyone updated on your progress. It is very encouraging and teaches us that this internet marketing game does take time to build into something worthwhile and does not happen overnight.
As a matter of interest, I monitor my adsense clicks using your Adsense Gold software. If you are using this, it cannot be against Google's terms and conditions, because you are generating your own CTR and not quoting Google's CTR disclosed to you by them : - )
Have a great holiday. I look forward to seeing your next exciting episode when you return home.
Jon,
Great study. Can you explain a little more on how you modify the VRE templates. Does this make them rank easier? I am new to VRE so any advice would help.
Thanks
Sean
Hey Jon,
can you tell me how you accomplish a CTR of 5% and higher?
I tried many formats but I don't get more than 2-3%.
Thanks
Hi Jonathan.
I am a huge fan and am loving the results that you are accomplishing. I have a question that may be slightly off topic but still relevant to any Entrepreneur/internetMarketer that is following your case study. My question is, where would I find a quality software programmer to write a program for an awsome idea that I have (That is not out there yet). Thanks for your time and I know you'll keep up the good work.
Daveyboy.
Hi. You should definately join 3WL. I joined about a month ago and my sites are either on page 1,2,3 or 4 (mostly pages 1 & 2) for their keywords.
Jonathan,
I'm impressed as all get out with your work ethic, knowledge and your willingness to share.
Like everyone else, I've been closely watching your website and your case study, hoping for the best. The results are inspiring.
One question though: I saw that last week the Google Page Rank for two of your keywords were at #11 and #14. When I checked today for movement in PR I couldn't find your site anywhere under those keywords.
Can you explain this?
All my best,
Jared
In the UK we have an old saying: "Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves."
And I think it's true with making money off a niche as in this case study. Small amounts, nurtured and replicated, will grow into big amounts. And for most people you really don't need to be a millionaire to have a reasonable lifestyle. In fact for most people a few hundred pounds/dollars a month extra would make a difference to their lifestyle.
But I guess it's not always the most popular thing to do, telling the truth like this. Small sites, making small money, repeated and refined, will make big money.
Much as it would be nice to have a killer product that just makes a gazillion I bet, deep down, everyone really knows it's unlikely. But a small niche site, or 20 of them? That's easy to understand and believe in. And 20 niche sites at say $3 a day equates to $1,800 monthly - or just over £900 in the UK.
Best part? If you can do it once with one niche site you can do it twice. And if you can do it twice, keep going!
Great googly moogly, Jonathan!
I'm not sure why your site wasn't showing up over the weekend. But it sure is now!
I can't believe you made Google's 1st page! And after putting in just 5 hours worth of work.
I've just marked October 25th (your next post date) on my calendar. I can't wait. Kudos!
Jared
Jonathon,
Even though I am a month behind you I am having fun following along with my own site. Trying to do it similar to yours. So my site is up and running and I admit I am not getting as much traffic as you are.
I got the Niche Inspector (from Your Page) and I admit that is pretty good. So I picked a different subject but similar in power. I got my articles from GoArticles.com and So far no complaints from anyone. Then I got your Instant Article Generator. I have to say that is very cool. It can be used for lots of things. I made a small batch of articles that I thought were good and GoArticles and iSnare took them but so far Zine has refused them because the key word density is too great. I am trying to fix them a bit at a time. I have to learn to do several different key words for my articles instead of just one. So there is work to do there. Then I subscribed to your 3-way-links page. Out of about 8 pages I tried to load up 3 were permanently refused for various reasons and the rest were refused for technical reasons. Your edit guy is a bit heavy handed and I may have to drop out of that one. I do feel kind of insulted by that deal. I do have other ways to produce traffic and I am starting to get some unique hits and since it is primarily an adsense site I can say it produced $2.48 yesterday which I think is great. I can say I have a total of 41 web sites and about 18 or them are geared to making AdSense money. I have been at this for 10 months now and it took me that long to get some tricks up my slieve. My goal is different than yours. I read a comment that 97% of marketers make less than $500 per month and only 3% make over $500 per month. Well that is my goal. To make over $500 per month. I am 2/3 the way there and not giving up yet.
bob
Thanks everybody. I'm preparing to leave on vacation, so I can't answer all of the questions right now, but I wanted to address Jared's question, which was, basically:
"Your site was in the first page of results, and now it's not. What happened?"
That's typical Google behavior. Google will periodically recalculate the rankings, and that's a huge undertaking for such a massive index, so sometimes it will often knock your rankings out for a few days in the early weeks and months of your site. The site is back in the top 10 (even better than before), as expected. It will continue to rise, no doubt.
Jared, you are wrong, I look for the Jonathan website and I found this in better rank than they said, Jonathan is the best, I have no doubt about this.
John, is amazing, I join 3waylinks 1 month ago and have a bankruotcy site (very competitive niche) and google rank my site with the following:
Keyword 1: Rank 26
Keyword 2: Rank 15
Keyword 3: Rank 30
It's amazing, 3waylinks is amazing
Hey you guys. Congratulations on getting up there in the rankings. You still have a way to go though. Number 26 and 30 is good but number 1, 2, and 3 is much better. Several of my sites rank that high for some words. You will see a huge difference in traffic from number 30 to number 1 or 2. It is a difference as night and day. Like Jonathan says 250 links will get you started but I see that about 1500 links will be better.
bob
Can anybody tell me how you know it's Jon's site. I have searched under rowing machines and am not sure how to spot it. I know we can't give any adresses etc but can anybody please give a clue.
Thanks
Sean
Bob:
That stinks that Zine refused your article. Any idea what the keyword density of your articles are?
I did some snooping around, and discovered that the keyword density of Jon's articles average 4.05 (with a high of 7.2 and a low of 2.2).
Jonathan,
Your case study is screaming at me! Create websites like mine and make money! You are showing us the way forward, and as you said, "Create 50 or 100 of these sites a year" - Blooming heck that would be fantastic.
I think I need more confidence with writing articles, but I do have some software that might help me with that
Thanks Jonathan for helping us with this case study.
Kind regards
Brian
Wow! Jonathan, another HUGE jump in pagerank today, for both of your main keywords.
Congratulations. I can't wait to hear the AdSense results on Thursday. (I haven't looked forward to reading something like this since Jo Rowling announced the release date of Harry Potter 7.)
These were mostly articles made from Jon's Article Generator. I would not put them up on my own site but use them for the publicity they bring in Links. I have a couple adsense sites that I got a page rank lift from page rank 0 to page rank 1 just from article links. No SEO at all. Just what was there. I like to get my articles from Go Articles because they almost never argue with me. EzineArticles.com however is a lot more touchy. If you had Jon't Article generator you would see that Your key word is in almost every line. So you could have a 500 word article put together on 40 lines with the same key word 50 times. Now when Jon hints on his day one he had to disappear to do some rewriting I think what that means that I could combine some of these lines by taking out the keyword and inserting the word "And" to combine 2 lines. Other simple things work too.
Unfortunatly sometimes if you have to change too much you start to lose the meaning of the story. Then you have to add another similar keyword to the mix to be able to change key words without changing the meaning. Take a look at my wifes blog where I entered some (inital) wording. This was just for the key words. I'll let the search engines look at it then erase it and come up with some more. I hope that is clearer than mud.
bob
Looking good. I am truly impressed by the taffic you are generating from your articles. I am definatley going to use some of these tools and tips.
Thanks Jon!
This is in regards to Darin's talk about Google's TOS. Seems we are all walking on thin ice with the Big G all the time. I'm glad we have more than one option to create income from sites.
We have all heard horror stories so no need to repeat them.
I appreciate the new ideas and products that Jon comes up with.
He definitely thinks outside of the box and looks for new and innovative ways to help people.
It will be interesting to continue to watch how this one will unfold over time.
Thanks Jon!