For those of you who have become regular readers of mine, you should know enough about me by now to agree that I am an honest marketer.  I tell things the way that I see them, and I say what works and what has not worked for me.

With that said, I have a bit of newS to tell you about.

My Adsense Account Was Disabled on March 16, 2012

Yes, you read that right.  Adsense disabled my account after nearly 6 years without notice, and without warning.  How do I feel about that?

Honestly, when I first saw the email, I wanted to crawl through the computer and scream at someone – until… I realized that it is just another detour, another set-back – nothing that I have not come across before.  So I will move forward, and I will not quit internet marketing.  I now know that it is possible, as I have had a taste, so I will continue on, and I will make it work.

After I got past the part where they were not going to pay me the earnings that I had in my account, I realized something:

I realized that it is the exact reason why we DO NOT PUT ALL OF OUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET!

Read that again!

I have said that before, as have all other serious internet marketers, however, the time we spend on certain aspects of internet marketing becomes almost too much to consider beginning another project.

On for my 2nd lecture: OUTSOURCING AND AUTOMATION

Luckily, I began outsourcing and automating my business last year, which allowed me to ramp up my progress.  Unfortunately, the majority of my sites were earning strictly from Adsense. Luckily, I sold 4 of my sites  a little over 2 weeks ago (prior to my account being disabled) for $2,000 on Flippa. That was a blessing, as is the fact that Google did not ban my sites from earning Adsense, they just banned my account.

I then decided that if the remaining sites were no use to me, I may as well list them on Flippa. So I listed 1 site last week.  I then realized that I had no proof of earnings, as when Google disables your Adsense account, you can no longer access any part of it.  Now What?  Well, I remained honest, I told the truth, I published as many screenshots of stats, etc. that I could, and the site sold for $800.00 2 days ago.

Boy, Did This Change ALL Of My Plans… In a Good Way

Why? Because when you begin relying on something, it becomes dangerous.  Google is not a job, and therefore they have all of the control over what we do.  It is a fantastic program for internet marketers, and I encourage you to continue building your Adsense sites, however, please create other sources of income JUST IN CASE!

I am not telling you my story to scare you, just to put it into perspective.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts.

I will be posting on another day what my plans are, as right now, I am a bit off-kilter.  I must sit down and create another plan, and then I will share it with you.

KEEP BUILDING!

Melissa

I have been building sites a little different from what I have  done in the past as I continue to try and “please” the big “G”.  I will also be posting to let you know what I have changed.

I would love to hear from some of you and get an update on what is going on in your internet marketing world.

I will be posting soon…

Melissa

Last month had some ups and downs and some of my sites were still struggling to recover from the Panda update several months ago.  The good news is, they appear to be back on the rise.

I began to question my method after the update when some of my sites lost their rankings, and I did some research to determine what I should be changing if anything.

Here is What I Came Up With Regarding My Niche Building Process:

1. I still use exact match domain names (.com, .net, .org)
2. I have changed the way I title my posts.  Instead of just using the exact keyword, I am adding more to to the title.  For example if my keyword was “Christmas Gifts”, I might title my post “Christmas Gifts They Can’t Wait to Open”.  It doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary, and should not take take too much time, but just having the extra wording in the title has helped quite a bit.
3. Backlinking is still the last thing on my priority list, and again this is only because of the types of keywords I try to rank for.  Less competition is easier to rank.  I will say that for some of my keywords that have more competition, I have noticed that the sites that I created backlinks for using Unique Article Wizard have maintained great rankings throughout all of the updates and algorithm changes. I mentioned in a previous post that I was beginning to use Unique Aritcle Wizard, and I am finally able to give you this review.  It is a bit expensive with a monthly membership fee, and does take some time, but if you have the extra money and are looking to improve your rankings, it is a great tool.
4. The number of words for the main post of your site should be well over 700.  I used to use 500+ for the main page, and 300+ for the secondary posts, but I have increased the main page to 700+, and rotate the secondary posts from 300-500.
5. I found a plugin that I think is the best one I have ever purchased.  No more guess-work when creating your posts. When building niche sites, the idea is to get them up and running and move on.  I don’t want to spend too much time on each post, but on the other hand, I don’t want to forget something that is vitally important for SEO.  This plugin is called Clickbump SEO, and I cannot say enough about it.  I installed this plugin on my sites that were having difficulty ranking post-Panda, and within a week, rankings improved, and 2 of them were sitting at the #1 spot.  I highly recommend this plugin for any one of my readers that are building niche sites.  It only takes a minute to install, and it shows you your SEO score as you build your post.  If you forgot something, it will tell you exactly what it was, and tell you exactly how to correct it.  I really love this plugin, and have gone back and started installing it on all of my sites.
6. Content.  This one is a biggie, and I want you to really think about this.  My niche sites had anywhere from 2-5 posts and were able to rank almost immediately, and maintain rankings pre-Panda.  Now however, I have decided that what Google wants now is more content.  We will no longer be able to maintain long-term rankings with a niche site of only 3 or 4 posts.  I am not saying that when you build your site, you should put up 10 posts (unless you are using the Wordpress feature of setting your post for the future).  In fact, that is the worst thing you could do.  What I am saying is that “over time” you should continue to monitor your sites, and the ones that are earning should be the ones that you go back and add more content to.  There is no sense paying for 10 articles for a brand new site until you know that it is going to be a winner.  So here is what I am recommending:
   1. When you first launch your site, put up one post, and make it sticky.
   2. Week 2, add 1 or 2 more posts.
   3. Do some backlinking, or purchase a gig from Fiverr for $5, and let someone do the backlinking for you.  If you are a member of Unique Article Wizard then this is a good time to begin your article promotion.
   4. Week 3, another post
   5. After this, you should begin getting traffic and showing some decent rankings if you have done proper keyword research.  Continue to add content to this site ongoing. If you are not ranking, I would move on to another site and wait this one out.  Don’t put too much money or time into a site that has an uncertain future.

I hope that you really review this post and evaluate how you are building your sites.  I want you to succeed, and I want to hear about your successes.

Now, for the moment we’ve all been waiting for:

My November 2011 Niche Site Earnings

Adsense: $994.47 (-235.98 from October)

Amazon: $37.20

CPA Network: $200.63

LinkShare: $242.00 (This was for one site that I launched on September 10, 2011.  It is not seasonal, however it does get more traffic during the Christmas holiday season)

Flippa Sale: $1,650.00 (Sold 5 of my niche sites)

Total November 2011 Earnings = $3,124.30

As you can see, my Adsense earnings have gone down, however, I have sold 11 of my sites, totaling $400.00/month in Adsense earnings over the past 2 months.  It is hard to complain about the drop when I made up for the loss x 10.

I am continuing to build more sites, but I am no longer going to post how many sites I am building as I do not think that it is helping my readers.  I feel that it is only discouraging, as we should be focusing on one site at a time.  I may occasionally let you know what I am doing, or if I decide to do another challenge, I would report that to you, but I think for now it is best if we worry about one site at a time.

Please let me know if you agree with that last statement by putting a comment below.  If many of you look forward to seeing how many sites I build/month, I may add it back to my report.

For now, I hope that you have learned something from this post, and I hope that you have a very safe holiday season.

Melissa

I am learning more and more that adding pictures to your website posts is a fantastic way to boost your rankings.  It is working for me.  Every site that I have updated to include pictures in the post has gained in the search rankings.

Take a look at the screenshot below:

When adding a picture to your post, make sure that your keyword is not only in the Title Field, but in the Alternate Text field as well.  Test it out on one of your sites.  Ad an image to all of your posts, use the post title for the Title and Alt Tag of your image, and see if your rankings improve.

By the way, that image of a wedding cake was just an example.  I do not have a website in the wedding cake niche.  Way too broad for my liking!

I’d love to hear feedback on this.

The good news for October is that I finally listed some of my sites on Flippa to see what would happen.  I listed them with no reserve, which scared me a little. I would have hated to see a bid for $50 win the auction, but it was a chance I had to take.

I listed 6 of my sites together as one auction. The total Adsense revenue for all sites was $200.00 per month. I set the auction to last 5 days, and there were bids almost immediately, although they were low bids, it was a good thing because the more bids you have, the higher your listing goes when people are searching Flippa.

At any rate, my sites sold for $2,000 to a very honest buyer.  It was a scary process for me, but I am so glad I jumped out of my comfort zone and finally went for it.  Now I know what my sites are worth, and that is exactly what I wanted to find out.

October 2011 Earnings

Adsense: $1,230.05

Amazon: $45.96

CPA Network: $266.64

CJ: $39.73

Linkshare: $22.41 (new addition to my affiliate programs – I am currently promoting one website with this network, and the results have been looking pretty good)

Flippa Sale: $2,000

Total October 2011 Earnings = $3,604.78

My original plan for October was to build a site a day, but I failed miserably.  I have been focusing on getting my sites back up in the rankings, and hopefully when I report for November, I will be able to give you more details.

I only launched 5 sites in October, and I swear I will do better next month.

Keep on building your sites, and don’t let things like Panda discourage you.  If you are seeing results, then you are doing something right!  Now just keep doing it.

I only launched 9 new sites in September, but it’s better than what I have been doing

I don’t really have anything new to report from September, as I am using the same process as before when building my sites, so I’ll get right in to my earnings.

September 2011 Earnings

Adsense: $1,737.12

Amazon: $50.37

CPA Network: $347.62 (more than double from what I earned last month)

CJ: $13.50

Total September Earnings = $2,148.61 (increase of $303.22 from August 2011)
I have been continuing to outsource my article writing using iwriter.com, and have had a great success with that.  I am also using Unique Article Wizard for backlinking, and it is paying of as well.  I will do a more detailed report on that at a later date.

Well, first I want to thank all of my regular readers who come here to honestly try and learn how to be successful rather then just spamming my blog (those don’t get published).  I appreciate you, and I hope that you are taking action on whatever it is that you are set out to do.  Whether it be Clickbank, physical products, Adsense, or creating your own product, the truth of the matter is it will never happen for you if you don’t start right now, and make it happen.

The reality is, it’s work (don’t let anyone tell you it’s not), takes a lot of time when you first get started, and can be extremely frustrating at times, making you feel discouraged, and like giving up. Why does that happen?  Because it is work that’s why.  But the real problem comes in when there are so many people telling you what to do that you feel like your brain is going to explode with information that you have no idea what to do with.Is the information even accurate? Are they just trying to get you to click their affiliate link or buy their product?

If you look around on my site, you will see that I have not recommended a paid product related to internet marketing (other than the CTR Theme) since I purchased 3 products back in February and March of 2011.  If you go to my Affiliate Product Reviews category, you will see that there is no affiliate link in any of the 3 reviews I made in February and March of 2011, and there never has been.  Why?  Because they were junk, and I would never recommend a product if I did not feel it would help my readers.

With that said, I want to share a personal milestone that has been a long time coming.

Although I now make more online than I make working at my full time job, I am not quitting my job just yet.  What I am doing is going down to part time.  Instead of working 5 days/wk, 8 hours/day, I have reduced my week down to 3 days at my job.  I know that this may seem silly to many of you, but to me the reality has not really sunk in just yet, and I want to be very comfortable with my monthly earnings before I actually “Fire my Boss”.

With the 2 extra days per week, while my husband is at work and the kids are at school, what do you think I am going to be doing?

1. Watching soap operas
2. Buying more junk affiliate products
3. Playing on Facebook
4. Spending the day at the mall
5. Building niche websites

You got it!  I am going to be building more websites, and increasing my monthly earnings so that I can quit my job for good, and know that I will be ok, even on a bad month.

My question for you is, what are you going to do after you read this post?

1. Go out with your friends
2. Play on Facebook
3. Read emails
4. Buy more junk affiliate marketing products
5. Do keyword research, buy a domain name, write some articles, and build a niche website

It’s your future, so you decide, but I would love nothing more than for all of you to answer #5.  That is where it’s at guys.  You don’t have to build sites forever, build them for a few months, get a steady amount of income coming in from Adsense, then venture off into something else that you feel comfortable doing.

If you need a reminder of how quickly you can make money with Adsense, read this post!

If you do take me up, and start #5, please leave me a comment. I would love to root you on!

I have decided that it is time to report on the results from my 30 site challenge.

For those of you who have been with me since, you know that back in March, I decided to challenge myself to a 30 site challenge.  I reported a few times about my results as the sites were growing, but I have yet to report on the finalized statistics and earnings so that you could see just how powerful niche marketing really is.  Well, today is the day!

I will be reporting on the order that the sites were launched, and will give you the month I launched it, the monthly adsense earnings per site, and the total Adsense through August.  I will also show you how the sites ranked from early August (that is when I began tracking their rankings) through today, September 17, 2011. I only logged a rank if it was found on page 1 or 2.  I did not look any further than that.  I earned commissions through a CPA Network as well, and I will report the monthly totals for that, but it will not be by site, as the main goal with my challenge was earning through Adsense.

Ok, Here It Goes

As you can see, only 9 of these 30 sites are not ranking in the top ten of Google.  But 9 are in the top 3!  Look at Site #11.  It has NEVER made it to the top 3 spots in Google, but it has consistently earned $70 plus per month! How about Site #8.  That baby has been #1 in Google 6 times out of the 8 I checked.

How about Site #24 and 26 – they were making good money right out of the gate.

You may wonder what I have been doing since my challenge.  Well, many of you already know that when I posted my August Niche Site earnings, I had to admit that I really had not worked at all for a period of about 2 months this summer.  I decided that it is September now, and I really need to get back to work.  I launched site #44 this morning, and plan to have site #45 up here in a couple of hours.

I hope that this is proof enough for all of you reading that this is where you need to be.  BUILDING NICHE WEBSITES!  Forget about all the hype about finding keywords that have a CPC of $20.00.  In the time it takes you to find one, and the months it will take you to rank, you can build 5 sites, get ranked almost immediately, and be earning while everyone else is fighting for the high paying keywords, then finding themselves on page 10 of Google.  In my opinion, it is not worth my time.  I figure every site I launch is going to average at least $40 month.  It took me 7 sites to figure that out, but once I did, the rest is history in the making!

So what now?  That is the question I am asking myself.  As I continue to build sites, which will be my main task forever probably, I do want to begin other ventures.  I plan to begin flipping sites here in the next month or so, as I have been watching the auctions on Flippa, and I am finding that the real money is in flipping your sites.  I would never flip all of them, but I think it may be worth it to set up an auction with maybe 5 of my sites that earn at least $30/month, and see what happens.  I saw an auction just the other day where someone had sold a batch of 10 websites that earned just under $200/month, and make over $4,000 on the sale.  What does that say to you?  I know – it says that my sites are earning way more than an average of $20/month, so if that person can get $4,000, I can surely get that at least.  I found another auction where the seller had ONE SITE that earned $500/month, and you won’t even believe what that one sold from… $11,000!  Is that unbelievable or what?  Spend an hour or two on a site, maybe $15 invested, and get $11,000.  Unbelievable. I would like to wait until at least half of my sites are about 6 months old, as there will be more proof of earnings, which will make the auction more successful.

Please let me know your comments on my reporting for the 30 site challenge.  I am interested to know what your thoughts are.

I have received some questions that I would like to share with all of my readers, as I think it is where many affiliate marketers get stuck and overwhelmed.  It’s where the “Make or Break” comes in to play.  My goal is to get ALL of my regular readers to “Make It”, hence the whole purpose of this website.

Please remember that this is free information, and I have no reason to steer you down the wrong path.  I want you to succeed, but remember that the information I am giving you is what has worked for me, so I cannot guarantee anyone’s success, as you have to put the work in, but the results are well worth the frustration.

The future depends on what we do in the present. Gahndi

Question 1:  When Do I Add the Articles to My Niche Site?

I add my articles at the same time.  I used to add them, and adjust when they post, but I believe that if there is more content on your site when Google stops by, the better chance you will have of ranking sooner.

Question 2: How Do I Select My Niche and/or Keywords?

If you do not currently have a favorite niche, you have to go out and find one.  The only way to do that is by putting a keyword in your keyword tool (I only use the free Google keyword tool), and let your mind take you where it may.  Chances are the first keyword you put in will not be the right keyword for you, but if you look through the results, you are bound to find another one that you can put right back in the keyword tool to get more results.  Eventually, you will find a good 3 word keyword phrase with at least $1.00 CPC, and anywhere from 800 – 3,000 matches. I would check it in Google WITHOUT QUOTES  and make sure that there are no more than 500,000 competing pages, at least to start.  If it’s good, then check it WITH QUOTES and make sure it is reasonable. Also, if trying to earn with Adsense, make sure there are at least 5 sponsored ads when you search for the keyword without quotes. It is all about testing and all keywords are different.  If you are in a highly competitive niche, it doesn’t matter how many competing pages there are in quotes, it will still be difficult to rank.

Example: I have a website around a keyword that has 880 exact matches, Almost 1 million results without quotes, and 73,000 results with quotes, and it is sitting at page 1, and is one of my highest earners.

Go figure.  The numbers are not always accurate with keyword tools, so you just have to go for it.  Don’t let your mind think too hard about it.  If most of it looks good, and the domain name is available, BUY IT, then LAUNCH IT!

Question 3: What Do I Do Other than Content to Make My Sites Rank?

In a nutshell, nothing… at first.  I make sure that the following things are in order, I launch the site, then I move on to another one:

a.  Use keyword 3-4 times throughout article.  Make sure that you use it once in the first sentence and bold it, and use it once in the last sentence using italics.  Link your posts back to the main page using your keywords as anchor text.  Be careful not to use the same keyword every time, as Google will not give you love.  If you are promoting a product or CPA offer, make sure those links are above the fold, and your links back to your home page are below the fold.

The one thing I do once I launch my site is add it to Backlinknetworks.com.  It is a free service, and it does give it a little help at the beginning.  In my experience, it has been enough to rank my sites.  If I have a site not ranking after 4-5 weeks (most times they are on 1st page within a week), I will do some Squidoo pages, Hubpages, and articles.  I recently joined Unique Article Wizard, but it is too soon to give you a review, and since it is a paid product, I would prefer to wait until I see some results (or no results) to give you a proper review.   Honestly, my entire process from finding my keyword to launching my site may take a total of 45 minutes (keeping in mind that I outsource my article writing).

If you are choosing non-competitive keywords, and properly optimize your site, backlinking is not as important at the very beginning.  I am NOT SAYING that it is not important, especially if you plan to build sites that you do not have to continue to add content to, which is what I do.  In that case, you may want to add some backlinks down the road so that they do not drop in the rankings.  Backlinks are also very important in getting your “other” pages to rank, and not just your main keyword phrase.  In that case, make sure that when you set up your articles, you are linking to ALL pages of your site (using different articles of course), and not just the home page.

I truly hope that all of you will take my advice, and start your niche site army.  There is great money to be made in this area of affiliate marketing, and the possibilities are endless.  The sky really is the limit, but you have to build the sites.  End of story.

I remember feeling like I was never going to make it to $10/day.  Seriously, I can remember feeling so down because I was lucky to make $3 in one day, and that was not even on a consistent basis.

If that doesn’t show you that it is possible to make money pretty quick with creating niche sites, that I don’t know what else I can say.

Well, it has been a laid back (or some may call it lazy) couple of months. I launched TWO sites in July, and ONE in August.  It almost makes me feel sick to my stomach thinking about all of the money I gave up, but I have to say the Florida vacation, and just hanging out with my husband and kids over the summer felt pretty good. I’m almost happy that the summer is ending because now things can get back to normal, and I can begin working on launching some more of my niche websites.

I have been playing with numbers for the past week or so, and something hit me.  Like a ton of bricks actually! I created a spreadsheet to try and help me plan how many sites I could launch in one month.  This exercise led me to look a little further down the road.

Right now, my websites average about $57 per site every month. That is a pretty darn good number considering that most of them only have 3 or 4 posts on them.  Why do I bring this up.  Well, let’s do some calculations:

The information that I am going to share with you may seem far fetched to many of you, but because I have a system down (almost like a science at this point), I can pretty much gauge how much money I can make on an average depending on the number of sites I can launch in one month.

What does this mean?  Well, this means that I can write my own paycheck!  Yes, that’s right.  I am finally at a place where I can actually plan how much money I want to make, and if I work hard enough, and plan my time right, I can make it happen (or at least come close ).

So, let’s say that I believe that I can build 20 sites per month for the next 4 months which will take me to the end of 2011.

If each site made me $57 per month, that would add an additional $4,560.00 to my current earnings (which I promise to share in just a moment).

Now, let’s say that I continue to build 20 sites per month through the end of 2012.  Now I would have a total of 20 sites per month x 16 months = 320 new niche sites.  If each site averages $57/month, I would be adding $18,240.00 to my current monthly income. Now we’re talking!

I know for some of you, this sounds too good to be true.  But I am living proof that it is not.  I know how you are feeling if you are just starting out, and are barely making $1/day if that!  DON’T QUIT! If you can build niche sites for 6 months, you are an exception to the rule.  Why?  Because most people who start in the online marketing business quit before the ball even gets rolling.  If you can keep up with that ball, it will lead you to a life that you never imagined possible.  Many of you are regular’s on my site, and that makes me very happy because I know that you realize the potential with niche site building, otherwise you would not continue to read my posts, or show any interest in how my income is progressing.

Ok, enough of the pep talk!  Let’s talk dollars…and cents:

August 2011 Earnings

Adsense: $1688.95 (increase of $38.22 from July – but remember, I have not worked hardly at all for 2 whole months!)

Amazon: $47.13

CPA Network: $148.34

CJ: $8.10

Total August 2011 Earnings: $1845.39 (decline from July of $58.76 due to less money being made with other networks outside of Adsense)

Still, a great month all things considered.

So, what is my plan for September?  Well, I have been doing some research on outsourcing, and I paid my first monthly subscription to Unique Article Wizard due to it’s extremely high reviews with backlinking, and the ease of article submissions.  I will not put an a link to UAW until I am able to fully review the product.  If you don’t know me by now, you know that I am brutally honest when it comes to what programs work, and which ones don’t.  If they don’t work, you will never find a link to their site from mine!

Another outsourcing site I discovered is iwriter.com.  As many of you know, I have been outsourcing my articles for some time now using the Amazon Turk website, but I have to tell you, I am really frustrated with the spam that goes on there.  It has become overwhelming trying to get one good article from the writers.  So, I have moved!  I tried out iwriter.com, where I can get my articles for $2.50/piece, which is more expensive but well worth it.  I no longer have to wait 6 or 7 days before a good writer finally decides to pick up my article and write some decent content.  I posted a job of 5 articles this morning, and within 2 hours, they were done, run through Copyscape (the paid version), and ready for me to download and I never had to do anything after requesting them.  That was awesome!

What this means for my niche site goals is that I will be able to launch 3x the amount of websites as I was doing in the past just because of this program.  I HIGHLY recommend it if you plan to outsource your content needs.  If you are interested, you can go to iwriter.com, register in 1 minute, have a job posted in 10 minutes (assuming you already have a site ready to launch with keywords prepared), and have your site launched within 2-3 hours from your article request!  That my friends is pure GOLD!

I launched a site today, and have 4 more to launch by or on the weekend.  I’m off to a good start for September, and stay with me while I launch 20 niche sites in the month of September ( and remember, I am still working a full time job and taking care of my family as well).  It won’t be long now as I plan to retire for good in the next couple of months.  Just want to make sure my earnings are going to continue to be consistent, and continue to increase with the launching of new sites.

I will definitely keep you posted on that.

For now, I must go to bed.  One more day, then a 3 day weekend that I plan to spend in my office – along with my computer, my keywords, and my Adsense ads!

I would love to hear what you think about my plans and calculations.  Let me know if you think I am being naive, or if you believe that I can write my own paycheck.

Talk to you soon,

Melissa