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Warburton
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136
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London
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 9:35 pm
Post subject: More encouragement for those on the first rungs...!
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Okay, one year ago - at the end of March 2004 - I posted that, after a long period of perservering with my site, I had finally cleared four figures in a single month. I wrote at the time:
| Quote: | | If I can come back to this forum in 12 months or so to report that I am earning five figures a month, I will be very happy. That's my next milestone to work towards. |
http://www.associateprograms.com/discus/ftopic3626-0-asc-0.html
And guess what?
Well, no, it's not what you're thinking - I've fallen short.
Not too far short though. I'm estimating I will see about $7500 this month - and that's close enough that I might even hit the five figure goal in May. (Only two months later than planned).
I guess the important thing is that if I hadn't visualised that goal in such a clear way a year ago, I would probably would be a lot further from it now than I am.
The two specific things I did to get from four figures to nearly five figures in the space of 12 months was to keep the goal in mind and to make sure I did at least one small thing to increase profitability each day.
In general I've experimented with a couple of different types of advertising - I use a diverse mix of CPM, PPC and CPA - improved the design of my pages and expanded the site by about 100% in terms of individual pages and topic coverage.
So for those of you who have just made their first ten dollars, keep that image of $100 in mind! |
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robertb
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Columbus, OH
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 12:48 am
Post subject: Re: More encouragement for those on the first rungs...!
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| Warburton wrote: |
Not too far short though. I'm estimating I will see about $7500 this month |
Not bad, none the less. 
| Quote: | | make sure I did at least one small thing to increase profitability each day. |
You're starting to sound like Allan! Maybe he does know what he's talking about. 
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AllanGardyne
Site Admin
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:54 pm
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That's wonderful! Are you prepared to make public your goal for the next 12 months? Mine is to double the time I spend away from the computer 
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Warburton
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London
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 10:55 pm
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Thanks Allan.
My goal for the next twelve months will be to go back to university and take an MA in Russian Studies.
I've been wanting to study an MA since 2001, but at first I was full-time employed (and needed the experience) so I had no time; then in 2002 I was redundant and had no money; then in 2003 I was setting up my own business and had no money or time, then in 2004, I was developing an increasingly successful website and I had no time.
So, hopefully, now the website has enough momentum, it will continue to grow with only a light touch needed to maintain it and I can go back to university and study full time. No doubt it will fun to be a postgraduate student and not have to worry about debt. |
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 11:07 pm
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That's fabulous! No doubt you have an excellent reason for doing Russian Studies. I started doing an MA in Political Studies. My main reason was to meet girls. I lasted about two weeks.
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Phil Tanny
Joined:
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1324
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Gainesville Florida USA
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 11:19 pm
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Bravo, excellent!
You mentioned you were buying ads, so I wondered if your income figures were gross income or net income.
Only if you care to share of course.
Keep it up!
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Warburton
Joined:
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London
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 12:20 am
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Thanks Phil!
Not buying ads, though, selling ads.
| Quote: | | In general I've experimented with a couple of different types of advertising |
That was a reference to the revenue streams I have deployed on the site.
The balance varies from month to month, but in general I see about 39% of my income from CPA affiliate programmes, 58% from PPC and 3% from CPM advertising.
The income figures were net income.
I try not to spend money on promoting my site because it's incumbent on me to be sufficiently creative to promote the site without spending money.
Some of the techniques I use to promote the site are as follows:
1) Elementary content based SEO (meaningful keywords and keyword synonyms in titles, headings, paragraphs and links)
2) Corresponding with people who read the site and who write in with questions - usually this is just a single exchange, but occasionally a couple of emails get sent back and forth.
3) Running a public forum on the site which sometimes even sees a little discussion
4) Researching and developing resources on the site which if people find useful once will more than likely return to use again
5) Having bookmark and "send to a friend" buttons on every page of the site
6) Managing a group on a social network site which covers the same theme as my site and where I can, if I wish, include links to my site in my posts
7) Working with a not-for-profit US organisation which runs a 24/7 chatroom and often being present in the chatroom to help people out with questions related to the topic of my website
P.S. Allan - I studied a BA in Russian with lots of friends way back in the mid to late nineties and most of us have - through work or other means - kept up the Russian connection and are still ardent Russophiles (not to mention being partial to vodka) so it seemed the obvious thing to study further. |
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Phil Tanny
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Gainesville Florida USA
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 1:07 am
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Ah, thanks for correcting my misunderstanding, I get it now. Again, impressive.
| Warburton wrote: | | I try not to spend money on promoting my site because it's incumbent on me to be sufficiently creative to promote the site without spending money. |
If you haven't already, perhaps you might consider redirecting some of your income and creativity in to learning how to buy advertising profitably. If you make it work, that could be what propels you to the next level. Given what you've accomplished already, I'm guessing you can make it work.
Do you have an email component? Are you publishing a newsletter, building a mailing list etc? If yes, how does income from the email end compare to your other income sources?
Keep us posted on your progress, more often than once a year if time permits.
Phil
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kleo
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25
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 1:50 am
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Warburton,
First off congrats. Is the $7500 from just one site or a bunch of
different sites? Either way,I think it is great. |
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Warburton
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London
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:23 am
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kleo, the $7500 is just from one site... I keep having ideas for other sites, but I've never successfully managed to get one off the ground, because it's so much fun to work on this one. The site is very broad though... different sections of the site could conceivably stand up as self-contained websites... but I'm guessing it's easier to promote one URL than it is to promote many.
| Quote: | | If you haven't already, perhaps you might consider redirecting some of your income and creativity in to learning how to buy advertising profitably. |
That's an excellent idea Phil. I've contemplated learning about Adwords for some time but I don't want to take the plunge until the site is more complete - there are still a lot of half finished resources and broken links and I want to fix all of that before I start paying to increase the number of visitors to the site (even if the return will be greater than the investment).
| Quote: | | Do you have an email component? Are you publishing a newsletter, building a mailing list etc? |
A big NO. I'm not a huge fan of email newsletters - though I'll make an exception for one or two, eh Allan? - and so, instead, I have news sections on the site which are regularly updated and I have one or two RSS feeds as well.
Perhaps when the site is more complete and I can put together a very high quality newsletter, then I will look into it (possibly). Until then, if people have to be nudged to come back to the site then, I'm not doing a sufficiently good job in encouraging people to visit again of their own volition... and that has to be the primary focus (because it's the most energy-efficient way to get repeat visitors).
I've also - and again, I may change my mind eventually, but probably not - always maintained that the whole idea of list-building is slightly suspect. When I go to a supermarket I don't use a reward card, because I don't want the supermarket to connect my consumer habits with my personal details. I want to be able to visit the supermarket in relative anonyminity, buy only what I want, sail past the marketing messages and leave. Similarly, I feel that visitors to my site should be free from being marketed at. If they only want to visit my site three times and never visit again, who am I to try to persuade them that it would really be in their interests to come back again? I detest this kind of thing personally. I also think it is misguided because it leads companies to develop less high quality products or services than they might do and then make up for the lack of buzz by marketing them.
I'm more interested in making the site good enough that regular visitors will create their own buzz... it's more credible if nothing else. |
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Phil Tanny
Joined:
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:45 pm
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| Warburton wrote: | | but I'm guessing it's easier to promote one URL than it is to promote many. |
Yes, that's the conclusion I've come to. I've just changed my mind for the 19th and final(!!!) time and am now putting all my content in to one site.
Kids, don't do this at home, it might not be a good idea, but it's what it takes to get me writing content so....
| Quote: | | That's an excellent idea Phil. I've contemplated learning about Adwords for some time but I don't want to take the plunge until the site is more complete |
If your site is making $7500/mo I'd guess lots of your visitors already like it just the way it is, but I know just what you mean and would likely do the same thing myself. In my case, I'm not sure if it's good business sense, or impractical artistic perfectionism, but I can see myself making the same decision.
I actually don't enjoy ad buying, but I do understand it's one of the ways one can leverage oneself to a new level in a hurry.
| Quote: | | A big NO. I'm not a huge fan of email newsletters |
Wow, you're making all that money without buying ads OR a mailing list.
This is _really_ good news for you.
I mean well here, so I hope you will forgive me if I'm frank and say that you are completely wrong about newsletters. I've been in the email business for 10 years, this is one of the few things I actually know something useful about.
Just because you've seen a thousand crappy ad riddled newsletters doesn't mean yours can't be concise, clever, funny, useful, adfree or anything else you want it to be. You don't have to pitch, prod, cajole or anything else you don't want to do. The same content you are proud of on your web site can be delivered via email.
If you were to show me your URL right now, I promise you I would immediately visit, and I also promise you I would forget your site before long, no matter how good it is, or what the topic is. Billions of pages on the Net, and my completely typical tiny attention span.
However, if you dropped me an email once in awhile that said nothing more than "Hi from Warburton" you could keep me in your orbit for years, assuming your site is relevant to some need of mine. Your income would be hook enough in this case.
Thanks to your success, you can easily afford to ignore this opportunity, or take your time overcoming this prejudice. Just be aware you're leaving a lot on the table in doing so...
If that is at all persuasive, I'd invite you to PM me and maybe we could discuss a partnership on the newsletter end. I could certainly learn plenty from you about web publishing...
In any case, thanks for the inspiration, and keep the reports coming.
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Marrah
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Canada
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:34 pm
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Very interesting post & comments. Thank you, Warburton, for posting your original message because it is encouraging for newbies like me to see that your one site is so successful. I can only hope for even a fraction of that! Thank you also for sharing some of your techniques. They will be helpful to a lot of people.
I have to admit that my curiosity is getting the better of me and I would love to see your site. Although, you probably have your own reasons for not wanting to share it here!
Good luck to you!
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Warburton
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London
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Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:16 pm
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| Quote: | | Although, you probably have your own reasons for not wanting to share it here! |
Heh. An industry colleague warned me very early on not to talk about site specifics in front of AM industry people. So, as a general rule, I don't talk about my sector or my niche or mention the name of my site and I never sign up to a new forum under the same username that I use on other forums.
You'd better believe the sharks are out there.
I'll be more confident to talk about specifics when the site is more complete... but it's such a construction site at the moment that it's all too easy to copy / backwards engineer... and I already have enough on my hands keeping several strides ahead of my closest industry sector competitors.
Thanks for your comments, Phil. I'll PM you. |
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:50 pm
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Yes, wise decision. Isn't it ironic that we spend all day every day promoting our sites but then have to keep them secret here? Such is the logic of life....
Here's something I want to try some day.
Build a site to promote a 2 tier affiliate program.
Make some money on my own first.
Then start telling people how much I make, and my site URL.
Code the site so that a 2nd tier affiliate could link to my site, and all my links would become their links. (an easy Perl job)
Thus, there's no need for people to steal my site, because I'd be giving them use of it for free, and I'd be profiting from any sales they generated using it.
I didn't invent this of course, I think it's been done a million times. I just like the way this system overturns the secretive part of web publishing, and gives a group of people a way to work together, instead of against each other.
It would be too complicated to do on a normal site promoting a lot of different programs... 
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Rsitez
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Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2005 3:48 pm
Post subject: Promotional techniques for newbies
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I must agree with Marrah, Warburton, your message does help newbies like us!...
Congrats once again....
But there is one problem I am facing for my new website....I have been trying various techniques and also considered a few of yours, however my website doesn't seem to do wonders for me.......
My traffic inflow ain't impressive enough and earnings...ha...don't let me talk about that too...
Any tips... if you like I could PM u....
I would like to know more about CPM, PPC and CPA .. Can you help me out or direct me to a place where I can get the details
Marray (ric): what techniques are you making use of, if you don't mind sharing them... Thanks..
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