The last three weeks I have been building nothing but niche Blogger blogs. I have had time to build two a week. Seems rather paltry, eh? I don’t want to rehash but let’s just say for each site I build Squidoo lens, article submission, submit the feeds to numerous rss directories (and one works like a charm – search for my keyword and that directory is listed top 10 in Google with my submission listed), I post 5 new articles initially, configure the blog design, etc. It’s a pain.
These blogs are new for me. They aren’t going to win any writing awards. Design awards. They are simply to collect Adsense and affiliate clicks. And they are working. Let me explain:
As you know I use PLR. I also thought I was doing a good job doing keyword research. I was combining these two elements to build my sites and hoping that Google would reward me for my thoughtfulness in presenting fresh original content. But Google could give a shit. I was writing (and rewriting) stuff too broad. My keywords weren’t long-tail enough. I thought Google would reward my diligence at providing it what all the guberus said it wanted. Originality.
I was losing in the search engine wars. Now I’m back. I dig into Nichebot as deep as I can to find a keyword phrase that is searched for between 100-200 times a day and has no more than a couple hundred thousand competitors. I take the PLR and substitute the phrase into the article and do a basic rewrite, paying particular attention to the title and the first paragraph. Google loves this mess. Google may have brilliant algorithms but it has yet to figure out if the content is any good or not. And I’m finding the key is not to give the visitors anything worth a crap to read. They need to move the eff along and click a link.
I’m pretty good at writing. I can rewrite PLR in about 10 minutes. It reads good, but it browses great. When people are researching they are clicking all over the place. They are skimming along looking for the next link. I am giving them exactly what they want. Click away. Here at Lost Ball, I am arrogant enough to not give you shit to click. I spent more than 10 minutes writing this post so I figure you ought to take the time to read it. At least I hope you want to. This blog is for readers not clickers. Griz taught me to think like that from his blog. From his post today on “How to Make Money With Adsense”:
Those of you who are new here may have noticed that this blog isn’t pretty. In fact it’s just a plain old free Blogger blog hosted on Blogspot. I have no fancy graphics and don’t do a dam thing to encourage people to stop and read my content. This is by design and for one simple reason – I am not after readers – I am after clicks.
The layout of this blog goes against all the conventional wisdom of how you should set up a blog. Keep this in mind – all that wisdom is about attracting readers – not making money. People don’t click if you get them reading. About 7% of the people who find this site through Google click my Ads. The uglier I make the site the higher this percentage gets.
I know this kinda goes against what I was trying to accomplish in the past. I still want to have some sites that are good quality, readable and interesting. But I want to make money and taking time to build beautiful and wonderful VRE takes too much time. Two blogs in a week is paltry. But I have six of these now. Built from what I learned from the four horsemen. The first three have made money with Adsense. The only thing holding me back is having to feed all my sites. The more I build, blah, blah, blah. I’ve whined about this before. Suffice to say, I want to make enough with these at some point to outsource the post writing.
But what really makes me excited is every single article that I have written based on a particular keyword I’ve researched has ended up ranking top 10 in Google. I cruise my keyword stats to see how people are finding my site and I use that keyword phrase in another post. Sure it may rank number 1 in Google and never get searched on again as long as I’m alive. But the deal is that indexed post will allow people to find the site using different keyword phrases, you dig? The keywords just keep building and keeping me motivated to write something else.
16 responses so far ↓
Grizzly // Feb 12, 2008 at 7:50 pm
If only everyone caught on as fast and as well as you have… it sounds like you are well on your way. Congrats and keep at it.
Darren // Feb 12, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Guy I gotta tell ya I love reading your stuff! You write like Steven Right does comedy. I was going to comment on your last post because I am that same guy, content, XSitePro, rinse, spin, repeat.
I am up to 140 sites now with 5 minisites that I am selling books on. These sites I used blogs on. I am just getting into blogs as well.
I always thought blogs would lose some of their luster and people would prefer normal html sites so I never bothered doing blogs.
Anyway, I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know I dig your writing style and I look forward to your next post!
Darren
Dan // Feb 12, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Hi,
I follow your blog and always find interesting things to read….
Regarding the new Blogger blogs you are building, I have one question, do you host them or use the blogspot….If you dont host them, how do you track your statics (keywords and so on…)
Thanks,
Daniel
Splork // Feb 13, 2008 at 9:10 am
Hey Griz, yea I kinda get it now. I felt like I was sort of on the edge, just not quite there. That something was missing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But after reading your site, Court’s, Vic’s and Frank’s, things started getting clearer.
I’d like to find the time to build more than two sites a week. I think I can probably knock out 5 a week now. It’s just the time it takes to build the site, rewrite some articles, the lens, promotion just continues to suck up time. If I thought that not building a lens or doing my promotion exercises were a waste I’d drop it but it does seem to help. Seems stupid to cut corners when what I’m doing seems to be doing OK for now.
Splork // Feb 13, 2008 at 9:18 am
Hey Darren, thanks for visiting. Yea I love XSP too. I have quite a few of those sites, many over two years old. Maybe close to three. I think I bought XSP in February of ‘05. I bounce between blogs and static sites. I use XSP for “authority sites” mostly now. I leave the niche sites to blogs.
Splork // Feb 13, 2008 at 9:34 am
Hey Dan, thanks for reading. I’m hosting at Blogspot. I know the risks. People say Blogspot will delete your blog. You can’t sell it. It’s on a subdomain. All this is true, but I’ve never had any Blogger blog deleted that was built by me and not a tool.
The way I look at it is if one of these sites just take off, say I’m making $30/day in Adsense then maybe it will be worth setting up a real site on a real domain. I kinda regard this as a test of sorts. People do this with PPC to see if there is money to made with XYZ niche so why not do the same building niche blogs?
I would hate to buy a domain and get hosting for a niche that I thought was the bomb only to find out it didn’t/couldn’t make any money. Conversely, one of these sites could blow up and I’ll wish I would have built it on a real domain with my own hosting. It’s a risk. Most guberus prefer you to buy a domain for each niche and host it proper. I don’t see how it matters much. And if you do find it is doing great then simply buy a domain, host it and have two sites generating cashflow. I can’t see a terrible downside to using Blogspot. Never have.
As far as stats go I use Google Analytics. I realize I’m providing my keywords back to the collective for the mothership’s use, but I’ve decided not to care about that. Surely the braniacs aren’t sitting in their pods eagerly waiting until my 15 keywords are uploaded into the grid.
John // Feb 13, 2008 at 10:38 am
Hi Splork
Long time reader. Love your stuff.
About a month ago I converted all my niche adsense blogs to static sites after a tip I got on WF.
There was a slight dip in traffic, but CTR went from 7% to 18% on average. So I am earning twice what I used to earn with blogs!
Something to think about…
Barry // Feb 13, 2008 at 10:49 am
I use Dreamhost for hosting. I find them cheap, reliable and helpful when I screw up.
I use Stat Counter for stats. They’re free and the statistics are comprehensive. I never found G Analytics that useful.
Sounds like you’re on thr right track with your latest incarnation. I’ll be interested in what sort of growth you get with these sites over time. If you can get to 25 and keep doing $30 a day, you’re into some nice change!
Barry
Splork // Feb 13, 2008 at 11:08 am
Hey John, yea for me it depends. I can’t figure out the whole CTR thing. I found a blogger blog template that works pretty well for clicks. I will say on the whole that the sites that I built with XSP do a little better but I have some WP and Blogger blogs that do fine too. I’m more concerned right now about getting traffic and figuring out what will get people to the site. Though a few Adsense clicks here and there have been nice.
On a couple of the new Blogger blogs I simply put a big ol’ medium affiliate banner up in the sidebar and forgetting about Adsense for a while to test how that works. Like the only place they have to click out is through that, hopefully very enticing, ad. But really for now I’m more concerned about getting traffic. The money will come I would think.
Splork // Feb 13, 2008 at 11:16 am
Hey Barry. Yea I don’t really know much about Analytics other than the keywords and number of visitor count that it provides me. I’ll let you know if anything comes of this work I’m putting in.
You know really nothing has changed except that I am way more diligent in the keyword phrases I’m using to write with. It’s just nice to see the work paying off with numerous top 10 rankings in Google for those terms. It keeps me motivated to continue. Also the lens and promotions efforts that I have been doing have been surprisingly effective. My Squidoo income doubled last month. $16. Big whoop. But it doubled because of the extra lens I’m building, promoting of those lens and keeping them fresh. Plus the traffic to my main sites is not insignificant because of Squidoo.
Oh, and speaking of Squidoo, looks like Google likes them again. I’m getting all sorts of rankings from various keyword phrases back to my new, and old lens.
Si // Feb 13, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Hey Splork,
glad to see things taking shape. Quick couple of questions:
1. RSS submissions – do you use software for this or is it just a quick submission using pingomatic?
2. Article submission – Submit to 1 article site or more?
3. Competing sites – 200k in phrase match or broad match?
No wonder few people have found my PLR Pro sites out there with the number of competing sites – I need to start paying more attention to my keywords than making my site as interactive and easy on the eye for visitors as I have.
Cheers,
Si
Splork // Feb 13, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Hey Si. Thanks for dropping by.
1) Both. I have a few sites like Feedbite that I submit to manually but I also use RSS Directory Submitter. Have no idea if that tool works much but I use it anyway.
2) I keep it simple. I submit to the only two that matters as far as traffic goes, EzineArticles and GoArticles. Submitting to others probably benefit you greatly with backlinks but as of now I’m not bothering.
3) You know I’m not sure. I just use whatever the “competition” results are in Nichebot. And 200K is just a number really. As long as it’s under like a million I think I have a shot at competing fairly easily.
Definitely go out and read Griz, Frank, Court and Vic. They are providing the best info on this stuff. I’m just regurgitating what they suggest to do.
Barry // Feb 14, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I got Griz, Court and Vic. Who’s Frank?
I wouldn’t say you’re regugitating; more like condensing and figuring out how things fit together and then telling your readers (and there appear to be more than 9 now) what you’ve done, how you did it and how it’s worked out.
You are also provide a consistent filter for the guru mess.
These are valuable.
Barry
Chris // Feb 14, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Hey Splork,
Do you mind me asking what template you use for your blogger blogs? You may have answered this before but I would love to know. Also, do you use the typical adsense placement?
Chris
Splork // Feb 14, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Hey Barry:
http://optempo.com/
Frank C // Feb 15, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Thanks for the mention. I’m flattered that you put me up there with the “3 Musketeers” but I’m really just throwing stuff at the wall to see what works too, especially what will work consistently. I’m tired of the feast or famine methods like eBay and PPC marketing.
I’ve also been experimenting with wrapping a blog around an affiliate offer. For example, check out my cigars blog in the signature link. That’s one I sort of have on ‘public display’ but I have a few others as well.
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