Challenges

Challenges

April Mixed Bag Challenge

WOW! I haven’t done a public challenge in over 8 months, and it’s definitely time for one. I want to accomplish a lot of things, so this challenge will be a mixture of working towards getting traffic and increasing revenues for 2 sites: this one, and a niche site whose best traffic months are the spring and summer months.

In February 2010  I challenged myself to increase traffic for this site by 75% and fell short by just a little bit. But, for the second part of last year I was majorly distracted, and was very inconsistent with adding content, stopped guest posting, and even got sloppy with one of the main attractions to my blog: the free niche research.

So, in April I am planning to increase traffic by 25%. Here is a screen-shot of the the traffic as of today, March 31, 2011:

So, in April I need to come up with 948 more unique visitors, for a total of 4740. Now, in order to achieve this, I’ll do the following:

– go back to weekly free niche research

– guest post at least twice, and find at least 2 people to guest post for me

-create 2 how-to articles (these seem to attract traffic). Do you have suggestions? I’m all ears: please post below in the comments and I’ll either write it myself, or find someone qualified to we rite it for me.

Now the other site in this challenge is a niche site I challenged myself on last year as well (it was actually my April challenge for last year).

Here is a screen shot of my stats from that post last year:

April starts for niche site

And here is a screen shot from the first 3 months this year:

 

 

 

Big difference, right? My plan is to double traffic to this site in April, as well as double income (which is pitiful right now, at $122.60 for this month). It’s an ambitious plan, but I think I can do it. Here is what I am planning to do for this site:

– add content every day for the month of April (luckily, I already have all the content needed, so I just need to take a few hours to add images, links, etc., and upload them to the site

– guest post at least once (last year I wasn’t able to find a place to guest post, but this year I’ll try harder)

– build some links. Not exactly sure which route I’ll take for this. I may submit a couple of articles to article directories, send a press release, tweet, bookmark, etc.

– I’ll create and distribute at least 2 videos. I’ve tried creating videos myself in the past, but I am not cut out for it, so this will be outsourced.

– I’ll create a FaceBook page for this site (probably I’ll outsource this as well)

– create a list for the site, so I don’t have to always rely on just the search engines to bring in traffic. I already have my give-away for it (had it for more than a year and never took the time to create a list: shame on me!)

– pick 2 products, create detailed reviews, and work on ranking those 2 pages: shooting for top 5, but will be content if I reach page 1 🙂

– monetize the site better: I am using AdSense and Amazon for now, but I need to tweak it for better performance.

What are YOUR plans for the month of April? Wouldn’t you love some more traffic? Please join me in this challenge to increase traffic: just comment below.

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Challenges

July Challenge – Build Sites On Domains I Own

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve done a challenge here, so it’s time for a new one! This challenge is inspired by a couple of things: first, one mini-site I did about a year ago and never touched made a  very good sale. And second, I’ve done several hours of keyword research and even found some amazing domains, bur what good are these domains if they are just gathering dust and nothing else?

I have about 30 domains (probably more), and I promised myself I won’t buy anymore until I have a site on each one of them, so, since I found some really good domains related to the holidays, I am going to compromise: I’ll get these domains (I don’t want to lose them), but for each new domain I get, I promise to build a site for the new domain, and 2 sites for domains I already own.

I am off to buy 2 domains now: they are .com domains related to the holidays (I may end up building sites and flipping them), so by the end of the month I’ll have at least 6 new sites.

Here is waht I’ll do:

  • upload WP on each of the domains
  • outsource 5 articles for each site & upload them as soon as I get them back
  • outsource 2 more articles for each site & submit to article directories
  • add monetization (most likely Amazon, AdSense, SAS and/or CJ)
  • bookmark each site in at least 5 bookmarking sites
  • acquire at least 5 links for each site

My intention is to have all 6 sites built and indexed by the end of this month. I’ve never created 6 sites in one month, so this is a big challenge for me.

Do you have any domains that are just sitting there doing nothing for you? Join me in this challenge and let’s make these domains work for us. Let me know below if you decide to build some sites on your existing domains. And if you have any questions about my method, or anything related to building a site, just let me know: I’ll do my best to help.

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Challenges

April Challenge

I know it’s late into the month, but it’s never too late to start a challenge. Lynn Terry is challenging her elite members to double their traffic to a site. And since I did that for this site only a couple of months, I decided to take on this challenge for a niche site I have been neglecting, but nonetheless is getting some traffic. As a matter of fact, traffic on this site increased over 50% last month. Here is a screen shot of my stats as of today:

April starts for niche site

This challenge will go on for an entire month, until May 12th, 2010. I am looking to get 2904 unique visitors between now and then.

Here is what I’ll do:

– add at least 20 pages to the site (products pages, as well as blog posts, as the site has both)

– guest post once (this is not in the IM niche and guest posting is not popular, but I’ll do my best to find a spot to guest post)

– submit 5 articles to several article directories

– build some incoming links

Now, that’s what I’ll do for my niche site, but I will also submit 5 guest posts for this site: I’d really like to get to a consistent 5K monthly visitors by the end of this year.

What are YOU doing this month to grow your business? Public challenges are amazing: you’ll automatically be more productive, since there are others following your success or failure. Would you join me this month in growing your traffic? Post below and I promise I’ll check with you to see how you are doing.

Here is to SUCCESS!

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Challenges

Wrapping Up the PPC Challenge

ppc final stats

Today is the last day of the PPC challenge over at Matt Levenhagen’s forum and my last update. It’s going to be a short, one, as I haven’t been able to add any more campaigns this past week.

Taking a look at the image to the right, you’ll see :

Impressions: 87,922
Clicks: 889
CTR: 1.01%
Cost: $182.17
Commission: $115.82
Profit: – $66.35

So, I ended up spending more than I made, but that’s OK: now it’s time to go back and analyze things and make adjustments. As a matter of fact, I already paused a few ad groups.

During this challenge I found some amazing merchants that I want to explore/promote further: some I realized would do better with video promotion, some with bum marketing, and some by even creating sites around some of the products. In the end, that is the reason I blasted in the first place: to find merchants and/or products to promote.

Am I disappointed I didn’t reach my goal of 50? Yes, a little. But honestly, my first inclination was to set a goal of 20 blasts (one for each business day of the month), knowing I was going on vacation, and would miss some time. And I ended the challenge with 23 blasts.

Now it’s time to pick a challenge for the month of April, and I am not sure what to do. Here are my options:

– create sites for my existing domains just sitting there (probably 25 or so). This would be intense, but the results would probably be awesome!

– organize some of my PLR and use it to update several sites I have but really neglected for the past several months

– work on creating links and revenue for 2 sites I have and would love to flip, but not in their current state, as I want as much as possible for them.

Any thoughts? What would you like to see me do? Please comment below.

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Challenges, Google Adwords

PPC Challenge Update – Week 4

ppc results fourth week

It’s now been 4 weeks since the beginning of the PPC challenge, and the end is in sight. While the month is almost over, the challenge will go on for another week.

Let’s see: blasting new campaigns is not hard, but finding the time to sit down and do it, is another matter.

Last week I said I was going for 15 new blasts, and I ended up doing 7. My total count as of now is

– 2 to  landing pages

– 12 direct to a merchant on CJ

– 9 direct to merchants on SAS

And here are my stats:

Impressions: 72,301
Clicks: 631
CTR: 0.87% (it  went up a little more again. BTW, some of my ad groups are getting as high as 4.85$, but some are not getting any clicks))
Cost: $129.90
Commission: $115.82
Profit: – $14.08 I am still in deficit, but I am confident that once the blasting phase is over, and I go into the account and remove those keywords and phrases taht are getting lots of clicks and no sales, I will be in profit.

I made a total of 6 sales from 4 campaigns, and that is pretty good.

This week I went back and got reacquainted with the AdWords Editor, which I’ve used a lot in the past, but forgot how to use it, since I haven’t done much PPC in the past year or so.

My FaceBook campaign is also getting some action, after I increased my bid amount. No sales yet, but I am seeing clicks from there.

Nest week I’ll wrap up this challenge, and will probably give a follow up update in a month or two.

Do you need help stating new campaigns? Do you have questions? Post below and I’ll be happy to help you. Here is to PPC success!

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