Nov 07

Testing out the waters, the Pikachu way

Doodling, Feed the Spiders, Fishbait, Heavy construction, Inorganic agriculture, Internet Marketing, Milking horny guys, Mind over Pixels, Moniez, Noobs, RGBhat, Social abuse, Techniques, Web 2.0 Cutesy Bullshit, WebWriMo challenge No Comments »

All affiliates, at least the advanced ones, test out many micro niches at any given time. If I, for example were to consider the pokemon niche, I would do some keyword research, and come up with a good keyword list, that includes both competitive and untapped keywords.

Then, I would buy a few domains, preferrably with those keywords in them. Pokemon have lots of products, so I would go the tangible product way, setting up 10-20 Mcjiffy ebay stores. If one of the domains got some traffic, I would switch it to ppc ads just to get an idea of the bids, as well as the advertised websites.

I would also set up around 10 splogs, to test out the keyword list. And a picture gallery, as well as a video gallery filled with youtubes.

I would social bookmark all of those sites, and see which social bookmarking site performs better for the niche.

After a timeframe that gives me significant statistical data, I would print out every bit of info I had gathered, lay them all out on a table, and start brainstorming on possible utilization avenues.

Maybe the video blog performed well? Maybe I got 2 keywords that brought in lots of traffic, something like “pokemon teddy bear”? Maybe the niche needs more boobs? Or less boobs?

Simple questions really. Then I would use my experience to see what I could make on each category, with which engine, and which tools.

I have made for example, a successful anime pic gallery in the past. I used the Gallery2 engine. I already have a folder with the engine, templates and useful plugins. Cool, that is one project on the list.

I have also made a successful anime adwords campaign in the past, with deceptive ad copy. Kids are much easier to deceive… Great, that means I can do the same and get lots of cheap traffic.

Where to send it though… Hmm. I scour the CPA networks, and find 2 lead offers related to pokemon or kids. Cool. So the second project has the title “Adwords campaign, with deceitful ad copy sending traffic to a thin pokemon site, filled with the CPA I found”.

I saw that Adsense performed poorly, so I decide to leave it out of the deal.

Then I do some different kind of thinking. I have never done it before, but I know that avatar sites work well. Why not niche avatar sites then? That is my 3rd new project. Will need some research, checking out the other sites, and finding the script for the job. I will also think about bundling the avatars on torrents and uploading them, putting the site info in the torrent file. The latter is a technique that I know it works.

This process, gives me:

  • A keyword list to focus on.
  • Keyword rich domains to play with.
  • Indexed domains to play with.
  • Domains with relevant traffic.
  • 2 tried and tested methods to make money.
  • A brand new project to keep me from falling asleep from boredom.
  • About a month’s worth of data to extrapolate information.
  • Worthless sites, that can be splogged for linkjuice poured into the performing ones.

Cool. We have work to do. Pika?

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on torrent

Popularity: 33% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , , , , , ,

Nov 05

Google Analytics is scrubbing your data

Blogs, Doodling, Google, Heavy construction, Internet Marketing, Mind over Pixels, RGBhat, WebWriMo challenge 5 Comments »

I had a recent talk with an advertiser, who was interested in buying banner space on this blog. The discussion reminded me why I didn’t want to bother with individual advertisers in the first place. 

I was trying to tell him that my blog gets 400 uniques/day, and his argument against that was that my Alexa rank was not high enough, and that I was not getting that many visitors in reality. Here is my Alexa traffic rank, it is all public information anyway.

As I was saying, he claimed that a blog with a rank of 330.000 could not get so many visitors, and I was trying to explain to him, that despite the skewed Alexa data, the number you see there is the overall traffic rank. If you look at the bottom of the page, you will see a little graph that shows 65% of my visitors are from the US. And the chart right below that, shows my alexa traffic rank for the US, 73.000.

EDIT: Just to prove how irrelevant Alexa is, look at what Alexa shows as a relevant site to mine.

An analysis changes a lot depending on how you look at it. The pitfall here is when you look at the wrong kind of data. For example, people want to buy links from high PR posts omitting the new posts on authority blogs that are bound to get PR in a few weeks. Dumb, yes, but people do tend to think like that.

It is a good thing to check the numbers, but make sure you are looking at the right ones.

And now a fact I have wanted to point out for a long time: Google Analytics is scrubbing your data.

It really is. The analysis for glowleaf.net shows 1/10th of the visitors! That is a huge gap, it goes far from a simple discrepancy. Just to make sure, I used another 3rd party analytics script, and the data it showed were pretty much the same as my hosting tracking report. Losing 90% of my visitors is a crappy way to report my traffic…

Despite the crappy tracking, the Google Analytics tabs have a lot to tell me about my blog.

 

Traffic sources, all traffic sources:

 

Source/Medium Visits Pages/Visit Avg. Time on Site % New Visits Bounce Rate
1.
(direct) / (none)
 468 1.77 00:05:15 49.57% 71.37%
2.
wickedfire.com / referral
 91 1.32 00:01:15 52.75% 79.12%
3.
google / organic
 70 1.34 00:01:17 64.29% 75.71%
4.
blindapeseo.com / referral
 14 1.57 00:02:30 35.71% 57.14%
5.
forums.digitalpoint.com / referral
 14 1.07 00:00:12 85.71% 92.86%
6.
cull.gr / referral
 11 1.09 00:00:35 100.00% 90.91%
7.
bobit.gr / referral
 8 1.12 00:03:29 75.00% 87.50%
8.
bluehatseo.com / referral
 3 10.67 00:51:53 66.67% 33.33%
9.
yahoo / organic
 3 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
10.
adbrite.com / referral
 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
11.
contempt.me / referral
 2 2.50 00:02:44 50.00% 50.00%
12.
insomnia.gr / referral
 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%

The avg time on site column is what I see as the most important, and it is worth noting that a simple comment on bluehatseo gave me a loyal reader. 5 minutes on average for the majority of my visitors are enough for me.

Visitors, depth of visit:

 

Depth of Visit Visits Percentage of all visitors
1 pages 520.00 73.97%
2 pages 94.00 13.37%
3 pages 33.00 4.69%
4 pages 22.00 3.13%
5 pages 13.00 1.85%
6 pages 2.00 0.28%
7 pages 9.00 1.28%
8 pages 2.00 0.28%

Here we see that my readers are shallow diggers, with hardly more than one page visited on average.

Visitors, Loyalty:

 

Number of Visits Visits Percentage of all visitors
1 times 384.00 54.62%
2 times 44.00 6.26%
3 times 20.00 2.84%
4 times 13.00 1.85%
5 times 12.00 1.71%
6 times 9.00 1.28%
7 times 8.00 1.14%
8 times 7.00 1.00%
9-14 times 39.00 5.55%
15-25 times 45.00 6.40%
26-50 times 40.00 5.69%
101-200 times 66.00 9.39%
201+ times 16.00 2.28%

This table on the contrary, shows us that half the visitors are repeat readers, with a nice percentage of ~20% coming back for more than 20 times. The information we derive from this table and the previous is that the shallow diggers we saw earlier are basically repeat visitors who stay updated on every post.

A thing we can do to fix that problem of shallow visitors, is to use plugins that show relevant posts etc.

Visitors, length of visit:

 

Length of Visit Visits Percentage of all visitors
0-10 seconds 522.00 74.25%
11-30 seconds 9.00 1.28%
31-60 seconds 10.00 1.42%
61-180 seconds 39.00 5.55%
181-600 seconds 49.00 6.97%
601-1,800 seconds 44.00 6.26%
1,801+ seconds 30.00 4.27%

This table shows us something interesting. While 75% of the visitors barely skim the site (maybe its the big fat smileys on top that deter them, but who cares…) we have a loyal percentage of ~20% who are definately reading the posts, and when we factor in the repeat visits from the other tables, we see that they do so often.

Traffic sources, keywords:

 

4.
wickedfire skittles
 5 2.20 00:08:19 40.00% 40.00%

I just had to write this, it is so funny that I cannot bear it! Average time on site 8+ minutes from the “wickedfire skittles” google search, making that keyword the biggest avg time on site on the keywords page…

All that data, gives me the information that 20% of my readers, that is 80 out of the 400 daily visitors, are my loyal readers, who keep coming back for more (no idea why…)

Sounds good enough for me. Now, where can I find an advertiser that will rent adspace based on 80 loyal uniques/day?

Screw that, I am just waiting for these guys to go live… (crappy anchor text courtesy of their non inclusion in their beta phase of my blog)

Related Blogs

Popularity: 20% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , , ,

Nov 03

Rip out your F5 button

Blogs, Doodling, Fire and Forget, Internet Marketing, Mind over Pixels, Moniez, Noobs, RGBhat, WebWriMo challenge, Who? Me?, mAdsense 4 Comments »

You need to stop refreshing your stats.

You all agree right?

You need to stop refreshing your stats.

Got it?

No seriously, STOP REFRESHING YOUR STATS.

Part of the shift to the businessman way of thinking means maxing out the “fire and forget” motto. Emphasis on forget, and it literally means forget. Fire up that campaign, make sure it works, all links go where they are supposed to, and then forget about it completely.

Set up that splog farm, make sure all crons fire, all rewrites work etc etc.  Then forget about it completely.

Buy that domain for the great new project you have in mind, set up a slow splog with relevant keywords on it to let it mature, and forget about it completely.

Why do I keep telling you this? Because you have to train yourself to fire and forget. Remember, fire and forget does not mean neglect, it means set everything right, make sure it works, then work on something else without refreshing the stats every 2 minutes. If the visitors come, they will come. If the product sells, it will sell. Keeping an eye on it makes no difference at all.

That is the big trap for newbies with Adsense. Adsense is a great and easy way for noobs to monetize their site, and they sit there and refresh the stats page instead of working on the site to make it more profitable. But, ok, the noobs are noobs, they have a reason for getting excited for making money online. What reason do you have? Is it your first check? Is it your 100$ milestone? Your 1000$?

Oh it is? Then why not spend your time working on the next milestone, instead of watch the first one come towards you slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly.

Here is what being an expert means:

  • You know the lay of the land.
  • You have the techniques mastered.
  • Your experience tells you what works and what doesn’t in different situations.
  • Your guts show you the opportunity.
  • You research the idea.
  • You make the investment.
  • You set up everything the right way.
  • You make sure everything works as it should.
  • You forget about the whole deal.
  • You go to your next project, while casually keeping an eye on the first.

Of course you are not an expert, because then you wouldn’t need to read this. Read the above steps, and fill up whatever aspect of them you are lacking in. Yes, it’s that simple. You don’t know the playground? Learn it. You don’t have the techniques mastered yet? Practice more. No money to invest? Make more! You d… etc etc.
Someone might ask here: “But I can’t leave the first project alone, it needs constant tweaking and monitoring!“

Why oh why my dear friend have I been yelling all this time about the 80/20 rule? Make the project NOT need constant tweaking and monitoring. How? FIGURE IT OUT!
Keywords are: outsourcing, automation, cron scripts, moderators, user contributed, useful tools, viral growth.

Keep on generating assets. As soon as something becomes stable and profitable, let it work and focus on your next project. Don’t try to squeeze out the first project for a few extra cents. Yes, optimize, but learn to recognize when it is time to stop and focus on the next one.

Only if you are an expert on anything will you understand what I am about to say below.

Experts see, evaluate, adjust, squeeze the trigger and walk away before the bullet hits the target. Why? Because they have already seen the bullet hitting the target in their mind. A veteran basketball player turns his back before the ball starts coming down. He knows if he will score or not. The actual physical event of the ball hitting the net is just a confirmation of what he already knows.

An expert plays all scenarios in his mind, the possibilities rush through his thoughts. The techniques are already mastered, it’s the strategy that matters now. He even invents new techniques all the time, his understanding of his craft makes him a pioneer.

An expert is never lucky, he sees that opportunity coming from a mile away and when it approaches in his trap he grabs it hard and rapes it till its dry.

An expert teaches, because through teaching you force your mind to sort through the endless amount of data on your craft, and categorize, analyze, prioritize in order to feed it to the student in manageable chunks. Through the act of teaching he goes through the basics again, and sees them with a wholly different eye, resulting in more skill and experience.

If you really want to become an expert on something, go read the above list again. It is the only guideline you really need.

Related Blogs

Popularity: 27% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , , ,

Nov 02

Finally an actual use for Spydermate!

Can of SPAM, Cardinal Sin, Doodling, Feed the Spiders, Heavy construction, Inorganic agriculture, Internet Marketing, Mind over Pixels, RGBhat, Techniques, Unreal Estate, Virtual War, WebWriMo challenge No Comments »

I remembered an old technique that I have learned a while ago. This one is so simple, you will slap yourself when you read it.

I do not claim to have invented it, but I cannot find the thread that I learned about it…

Here it is. In tight SEO fights, the ones where you have every fucking relevant link on the planet, and the ranks go up and down every day, you just need that little bit of edge to take over the competition. Well, here is a sly technique.

In summary, you pay for links from your competitor’s website.

Fire up spydermate the seo site crawler, register if you haven’t already done so, and crawl one by one your competitors sites. This will take a while, you just need them indexed. Go for the top 20. A few hours later, when you have stats for all of them, go to the history tab, and check out the broken links report in everyone of them.

Check out the link equity of the page, its pr, the broken link’s anchor text etc. You goal is to find old abandoned high PR pages, with plenty of incoming links, and preferably with some decent anchor text. Most big sites have abandoned pages, with lots of broken links pointing to some other website. Find those outgoing broken links that carry plenty of link juice, and point to abandoned domains. 

Snatch the abandoned domains!

Go to waybackmachine and find out how the linked site looked, copy it, set it up at the linked domain, fix the broken images etc, and link back to your main site. Using those crappy freehost’s that come with new domains is amazing here, because you get a new IP link as well.

There is no step by step guide on this technique, use your fucking brain. Use your experience to evaluate the worth of the broken link, the spyder is there just to point it out, and help you pick up the best ones with link equity.

The technique is very simple, yet effective. An indirect link from your competitor can sometimes mean the outcome of the fight. Did I mention you can also make them link to banned domains? No? Huh, I thought I had…

Also, you may not find any broken links pointing to dropped domains, even when you expand the search to top 30. If that is the case, then your niche sucks and you are a poser.

For example, a quick search on my top 20, showed me two authority websites, having 78 and 133 broken links, with 4 dropped domains for the first and 3 for the second. And the first has good anchor text. Just try it folks.

You may also find links pointing to blogspot accounts etc. Try to snatch those as well.

Because I am sneaky, I prefer to make the linked page same as the old one, and link 2 good keywords to my main page. That way, it passes a casual inspection. Others might prefer just buying the domain and redirecting it to their site, to pass 100% linkjuice. Whatever you want, I just rather have a long term benefit. It depends on the niche too…

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on spydermate

Popularity: 25% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , , , ,

Oct 27

Bum your marketing, you will stay a bum forever.

Doodling, Fire and Forget, Heavy construction, Mind over Pixels, Moniez, Noobs, RGBhat, Who? Me? 8 Comments »

It’s all about the proper mindframe.

Did you know that 95% of the world’s wealth is handled by the 5% of the population? I firmly believe that if a global redistribution of wealth were to occur, in 2 years tops, the situation would be the same. Rich would be rich again, and poor would be poor.

To even strengthen my argument, take a look at all those lottery winners. It takes every single one of them, one year at maximum to spend all that money they earned and go back to their old lives.

Why is that? Why do some people know how to make (and keep, and invest) money, and most of the others do not?

Well, for one thing its education. I sincerely believe that the world education system is meant to produce spare parts for the existing generation of workers. Overspecialization makes people narrow minded, unable to think or seek out different avenues in their lives.

The system makes you a worker bee, a perfect piece of the larger picture, but not your picture.

Not everyone is a free soul, don’t worry, I am not that naive to believe that they were. I have talked about this issue with so many people, and I have reached to the conclusion that some people simply want to be used.

Some of them want to use you,

some of them want to get used by you,

some of them want to abuse you,

some of them want to be abused…
 

I have tried to explain the concept of passive income, of small constant investments and of cashflow to many people, and I have managed to break the mental handcuffs of only a handfull.

In the next few posts, I will try to explain these concepts. But for now, I will talk about the bigger picture, the proper mindframe.

People who think like workers will remain a worker their entire lives.

People who think like businessmen will ultimately become businessmen no matter how many failed projects they bury.

It is always about the way of thinking. You can always do a lot of work by the “brute force” method, but you are not a businessman if you think like that.

  • A worker will work his ass off and write 200 original well written articles.
  • A businessman will work his ass off and create a community of content writers to pump out original well written articles day in and day out.

Do you see the difference? Well, you fucking don’t. Everyone says that they understand the concept but the very next minute you see them do something stupid again.

To stick to the SEO issues, if you need 2 hours to get a link to your site you are a worker. If you need 100 hours to make a tool that will give you links at any quantity and anytime you request them, then you think like a businessman.

Sure, you can submit your site to every damn directory in the Internet, and outrank the businessman. But you will find out next month, that he has been spending his time writing one piece of linkbait that builds him 1000000 links overnight.

My point here, is that if you think like a bum, if you work one hour for 10$, then the next hour for the next 10$ etc, you will stay a worker forever.

Businessmen work one hour, to get 10 cents income. And the next hour, to get another 10 cents. Those cents build up, and they get to a point where you make money without doing anything. And stupid people call you lucky.

SEO issues again. Ask yourself, be truthful, you answer only to yourself. Hopefully, they will get you thinking. Here they are:

  • Do you write and submit articles to article directories?
  • Do you markov and rss scrape for content?
  • Do you create content generating communities?
  • Do you outsource the grunt work?
  • Do you submit to social sites one by one?
  • Do you make the social sites link to you?
  • Do you fix every tech issue yourself?
  • Do you have a dedicated techie who is a wizard in computers?
  • Do you research keywords one by one manually?
  • Do you utilize keyword suggestion tools to create large lists of “Shotgun spread” targets?
  • Do you build a unique and sooooooooo damn cute template for every little stupid project you come up with?
  • Do you simply use a template from your inventory, and work on the project after it has shown potential?
  • Do you make tools that others are dying to use?
  • Do you promote unique products in unique ways?
  • Are you doing the same stupid things that everyone else does?

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on mindframe

Popularity: 22% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , , ,

Previous Entries Next Entries