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Just checking in with an update on my niche site building progress. For the last few days I have been feeling a bit under the weather along with feeling a bit burnt out, so I haven’t been very motivated.
 
I have 3 niche sites almost to a stopping point, I will do some marketing then build some new sites. I have 5 new domains already purchased for new sites but haven’t even thought about them yet.
 
Here is a quick list of where the sites stand:
 
Niche 1 - health
10 posts/pages live or scheduled
Squidoo lens with linkback
~ 6 social bookmarks
1 extra article for Article marketing
Outsourced - 1 article written and submitted to iSnare for distribution (not live)
 
Niche 2 - health
10 posts/pages live or scheduled
Squidoo lens with linkback
~ 6 social bookmarks
1 extra article for Article marketing
Outsourced - 1 article written and submitted to iSnare for distribution (not live)
 
Niche 3 - beauty
7 posts/pages live or scheduled
4 articles outsourced
~ 6 social bookmarks
1 extra article for Article marketing
 
I can’t decide when I want to submit the 1 article for niche 1 & 2 to the article directories since I have outsourced the writing and distribution of one article already. Not sure when exactly that will be complete and I think I would like to spread my marketing efforts out a bit. I am also holding off on more social bookmarking for that reason.
 
I know many people claim success going full throttle with social bookmarking and article marketing, but I still worry that the quick generation of backlinks will look suspicious to Google. So I’m holding off a bit for now.
 
Traffic on all the sites is minimal to non-existent but I guess I should expect that for now. Google hasn’t even indexed all of the pages yet on any of the sites.
 
I’m still waffling on how many pages to put on each site before sitting back to see which niches are most successful. I feel like the more content the better, obviously, but wonder what is the minimum amount of content needed to accurately predict long-term success. What if I see no results for a 10 page site, but 20 pages for the same site would have made a difference?
 
I’m thinking of letting the sites sit at 10 pages for now, but go back through and add a few more pages later once I get some new sites up and keep rotating through for awhile to determine which sites I should concentrate on. Since I am currently outsourcing most of my articles, that is an expensive gamble, so I’m playing it by ear for now.

The waiting game is the worst aspect of site building. Waiting for stuff you outsource to get done, wait for rankings, wait for traffic, yada  yada. It’s still early in the process but I am already impatient.

So I had a major setback in my niche building. Basically I decided to ditch a niche. It was the niche that I had the most hopes for because I expected the advertising payouts to be better and had potential for more creative linkbacks.

But as I did more research for writing articles I realized that it was a service I did not feel comfortable selling, not even through adsense. So I am dropping that site completely and moving on. Unfortunately, I have spent the majority of my time the last few weeks on that particular site and will never get those many hours back. Live and learn.

So that leaves me with just 3 niches at the moment, one of which may be too competitive. Found that out after setting up the site but I’ll give it go anyway. I’m feeling a little discouraged but all I can do is plow forward and see what happens.

I have decided to revise my strategy a bit. I am going to build each of my niche sites up with just 10 articles, then do some promotion, then let it sit and see how it performs. Perhaps the experts can know which niches will be profitable and worth the effort, but I do not. I think there is a lot of luck involved so I would rather build a few different small sites and then concentrate on the ones that show the most potential.

I have a few new niche domains picked out, but I’m not overly crazy about them. I would like to find niches that are actually of interest to me that I feel I could comfortably write upon without too much research, but it turns out I am pretty boring. Actually, the things I like just can’t be monetized well (like history) or are sorta broad categories (like parenting) so I will keep looking.

Now that I am one niche down, I currently have one niche with 10 articles either posted or scheduled to post. I am going to start some article market and Web2.0 building for that site soon. Another niche has about 7 articles posted or on deck, so I just need 3 more and then I’ll start marketing that site after I finish with the first. The last site only has 2 articles, but 4 in the works. I’m not going to put too much effort into that on until I make some progress with the marketing of the first two.

All of the sites have been indexed for a couple of weeks but traffic is VERY minimal. I do have some social bookmarks started on the one niche, but that one is also the highly competitive niche. I have been outsourcing all of the content now, which is a big help, but draining funds quickly.

Otherwise, I have been spending some time understanding article marketing and social bookmarking. Those two methods are not too difficult to understand, but I want to do things optimally. There is a lot of conflicting information out there so it can be difficult to navigate your way through.

That’s all for now.

Just checking in quickly. I have been working on the computer non-stop as usual but don’t feel like I have accomplished much. I need to start writing lists and goals to keep on track.

I did get my niche costs and keywords organized. I have someone writing content and that makes things much easier. I’m not paying much though so I am worried that won’t last long. I was worried about putting out money for content and not getting a return on my investment, but I figured I could likely sell any site and recoup most of my costs. Outsourcing the writing leaves me time to concentrate on marketing.

I’ve spent too much time on forums getting ideas the past few days. The Warrior Forum can be addicting. While that time spent is valuable for learning, I really should be working on content,especially for article marketing which I hope to start soon. Again, I need to write out a plan and not let myself move forward until I can check off essential tasks.

I have about 5 new niches picked out and I may go ahead and buy the domains and then just let them sit. It is difficult to find good domains available - that is where you really get a feel for how many people are working on niche sites. Although, it is funny, because many times a domain I want is taken, but if I type in the url it doesn’t exist. So there are clearly many people buying up domains but not doing anything with them.

I did get one Squidoo page up on one of my niches. I need to do some more work on it, but at least it is a start. None of my niche sites are getting much traffic, but the pages are getting indexed. I think submitting the sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools helped with that.

Okay, soon I need to post some stats on my progress since the primary purpose of this site is to serve as a diary of my niche building progress. I’ll add that to my list whenever I get one.

Well, I modified the adsense a bit on my personal site by removing one of the ad blocks. Because of my low CTR I was worried about smartpricing.

The first day after I did that I had a high day so I was excited that my modifications were working. But sure enough, after a few days, things are up and down as usual. It’s funny b/c about 2 months ago I started re-positioning my ads and my revenue jumped up siginificantly. But after a day or two the numbers went back down.

I have a theory now that Google is just messing with me. As soon as I make changes to adsense there is a really good day and I get all excited and then, like a cruel joke, things go back to normal. Whatever.

Otherwise, I don’t have much to share. I did break down and started outsourcing some article writing. Hopefully it works out and I can make the money back. I was struggling so much finding time to write content that I felt the investment was worth it.

Nothing exciting going on with my niche sites yet.

I got my first adsense click on one of my niche sites. Yeah!

I am now $0.82 richer - watch out. While that amount won’t exactly pay the bills, it is very encouraging considering my sites have been only been indexed for 2 weeks.

I was also playing with adsense on my personal site after reading a few things about smartpricing. Mostly I cut back on the number of ads on each page and I had a nice spike in my adsense yesterday. It may be just coincidence so I’ll have to track it for a few more days/weeks and then report back.

I finally broke down and started looking for a content writer. I just haven’t been able to do anywhere near the writing I need to do so I decided I was willing to invest some money into the sites in hopes it will be worth it. I would really like to know if this whole niche site building is going to work out or not and that is difficult to assess without a lot of content.

I’m really struggling to stay focused on my job. I just want to be working on my sites. There is so much to do and I have so many ideas, but I just need to be patient. Not something I am good at.

Finally, the niche that was not indexed is now indexed.

I also loaded my 4 niches into Google Webmaster Tools and submitted sitemaps for 3 of them.

I am still struggling with writing content. Thinking of hiring a ghostwriter to get me over the hump but I am cheap. If I knew I would get the money back out I would go for it, but obviously that isn’t guaranteed.

Plus, I have some new niche ideas and some other ideas and there just isn’t enough time in the day.

That’s all I have time for today.

I an starting to get a little bit more traffic on one of my niche sites. I mentioned in my last post that I had one visitor who came to my site through “mykeyword” as their search phrase. I now have had 2 additonal visitors using mykeyword in their search as well as two other visitors with different searches.

I haven’t checked on my position on Google when searching for my keyword as I do not want to inflate the search numbers for that keyword. Maybe that is silly, but I am weird that way. I wish there was a way to search for your keyword position in Google without Google actually logging that search.

My other niche site that hadn’t been indexed is still not indexed, but the Googlebot did visit after I posted the second article 2 days ago. I expect it to be indexed soon. My other niche sites are all indexed but are sitting quiet. That’s expected since I haven’t been posting on them any further.

I am really hoping to make some progress this weekend writing articles. I am tempted to hire someone to write a few articles for my first nich since I am getting some traffic, but I am just not sure the investment is worth it. I am trying to do all of this with minimal investment as there is no guarantee I would ever make my money back.

In the meantime, I did some more niche research and picked out a few domains. That part is a bit addicting so I need to be careful not to end up with too many domains that I’ll never have time for, but I also hate to not move on a domain when I can. Still thinking about that one.

At the end of my last post I said:

And just an update on my sites – my one niche site that wasn’t indexed the last time I posted still is not indexed. I may write a short article for that site just to get another ping in, but I’m not going to sweat it for now.

Not entirely accurate, I did sweat it a bit and went ahead and wrote a post for that site to try and get it indexed. It just was bothering me that it still hadn’t been indexed after more than a week when all my other sites had been indexed by Google.

So I published an article last night, let’s see what happens. I’ll check my awstats later to see if the Googlebot has stopped by for a visit.

And after my negative review of PLR in my last post, I actually had some luck in that area with this particular site. I came across a free download of PLR on that exact niche and the articles were actually pretty well-written. I did a quick search and found only one site using the article I wanted to post, but I did an 80% re-write anyway as I just don’t like slapping up PLR. It still seems too good to be true - why would someway give away good PLR?

On a sidenote, I also noticed yesterday that I had one visit to one of my niche sites using my keyword phrase as the search term. My domain is mykeywordphrase.com and the visitor who came in from Google had search for “my keyword phrase”.  I need these small victories to stay motivated.

With the weekend ahead of me I am hoping to get a few more articles written. I am already feeling burnt out which isn’t good. I’d like to make good progress on one site and then take a small hiatus so I don’t get completely burnt out.

 

 

 

 

I am making very slow progress with my niche sites. Writing the content is what is killing me. I am a slow writer and I can only write in the evening after my kids go to bed and by that point I am just tired. I have a bit more time on the weekends, but not much.

I was starting to feel a little bit discouraged this week as I really want to devote more time to building my sites, but with a full-time job and 2 young kids I am already tapped out. But I keep reminding myself that any progress I make is good and I just need to keep plugging along even though as of yet there is no reward in sight.

That seems to be the most difficult part for me. You spend so many hours working on your site and yet it could be months before you see the return. And some sites may see no return no matter how much time you put into them – some of the success seems to be dumb luck. Hard work is definitely involved, but niche site building seems to require throwing a large net (many sites) to end up with just a few good fish (profitable sites).

As I search around reading various blogs and forums talking about niche site building I start to feel like everyone and their grandmother is giving it a go. I always worry about some of these internet marketing methods that seem to be popular as there is 1) a saturation concern with too much competition and 2) I always wonder when Google will catch on and learn to avoid the methods.

The one saving grace I see though with niche site building is that there must be a high attrition rate as writing quality content in large quantities is difficult. Some people will quit after trying to write a few articles, some will rely on PLR junk (and not rank well), and some will bail out when they see no return after a few months. To “make it” in niche site building, you just need to avoid falling into those groups and stay committed. At least that is what I hope.

As far as my own unique content creation – I have learned already that I must write my own stuff. I purchased two or so PLR packages and one unique batch of articles and I don’t think I will do it again. The advantage of buying PLR or a cheap batch of unique articles is instant content, but PLR obviously requires some re-writing and even the unique content was nowhere up to snuff. I am sure hiring a good ghostwriter would generate higher quality content, but paying a minimum of $10 for an article on sites that may never be profitable is too much of a gamble for me.

I haven’t given up completely on using PLR or cheap unique articles – I’ll write about that another time. But for now, I think I’ll be focusing on writing my own content no matter how long it takes. I am anxious to actually start working on backlinks as that is more fun for me, but I am holding off until I can get more content on my sites. I am still trying to decide how many pages of content I should have up before starting to market for backlinks – 10 articles?

And just an update on my sites – my one niche site that wasn’t indexed the last time I posted still is not indexed. I may write a short article for that site just to get another ping in, but I’m not going to sweat it for now.

Well, 1 out of my 4 niches sites is still not indexed. I’m not worried, I know it will happen eventually but it does make you wonder exactly how Google decides what to index quickly and what not to index quickly.

My one niche that managed to place on page 1 for its keyword (without quotes) is now at the top of page two. I am prepared for it to fall farther due to the dreaded Google sandbox, but hopefully this initial success is a good indication of what is to come.

I think I will make some generic labels for my niches so it is easier to track here:

Niche 1 – Finance
Niche 2 – Health/Beauty
Niche 3 – Beauty
Niche 4 – Health

Now that I did that I realize that it is difficult to categorize these niches.  In another post I will try to give more details on each niche – searches/month, competition, etc.

For niche 1 and 2 I have 2 articles posted and 1 article ready to be posted. For niche 3 & 4 I have only 1 article posted. Right now I am mostly focusing on niches 1 & 2 b/c they have the most potential (I think) and b/c they are a bit easier for me to write content on. However, I would like to get 2 more articles posted for niche 3 & 4 before shelving them for awhile.

I am trying to space out posting articles for two reasons. First, my content writing is VERY slow. More about that later. Also, I feel like spacing out the content makes these sites look more like blogs (with fresh pings) and Google seems to like blogs, or at least fresh content.

More later.

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