Printer Friendly Version
Email this thread to a friend
|
For Sale Russia/USA Marriage/Dating/Meeting Site (In: I Want to Sell My Website)
I want to sell my site, mzkforums.com (In: I Want to Sell My Website)
I want to sell my site, mzkforums.com (In: I Want to Sell My Website)
For Sale - Child Gift Web Site (In: I Want to Sell My Website)
For Sale PR3 Site with Lots of Authority (In: I Want to Sell My Website)
Featured Web Site Template |
|
Reflects user activity within the last 5 minutes
|
|
| Member |
Message |
bhartzer
Staff
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7042
|
Posted: 2006-Nov-03 14:39
About two to three weeks ago I decided that it was time to put up a new site. I’ve dabbled before in buying sites, and have even bought an occasional expired domain name. But this time I just couldn’t find a site I wanted to buy, and wanted to brand a new domain name (domain name has never been used before, it’s brand new, has no history). So, I went to my favorite registrar and bought the domain name, updated the nameservers, and set up the domain on my server. This was day one.
On day two, I set up Wordpress on the site (my content management system of choice right now) and started to populate the site with content. I edited the template with my typical “seo tweaks” like search engine friendly URLs and added my custom “ping list” of services to ping whenever I added content to the site. I think I spent about a total of 30 minutes or so, maybe 15 minutes, tweaking the CMS.
On day three I realized that I could write more content—so I spent about two hours total adding outgoing links to other sites in the niche, writing useful content that explained the industry, and adding recent news items that people in the industry are interested in reading about. This is day three now and I’m just getting around to adding more content to the site, which by the end of day three ended up being about 15-20 unique web pages on the site. I checked the domain in Google, Yahoo!, and in MSN and Google had the home page indexed—no other pages. Yahoo! and MSN had crawled, but had yet to list the domain. At the end of day three I decided “enough was enough” and left the site alone; enough content built “for now”. I did not do any link building exercises like I normally do, except for adding two or three bookmarks to the home page on my social bookmarking profiles.
On day four I did nothing.
On day five a friend of mine, in talking, mentioned that he worked in the industry—the same industry that I just put up a site about. So, I talked to him further about the industry, got some good information from him, and spent three and a half minutes adding a new page to the site with some unique content based on our conversation. Then I took 30 seconds to add another social bookmark to a few social bookmarking sites I frequent.
On day six I again did nothing, but happened to check the web stats for the site—low and behold there were thousands of visitors coming to the site. Apparently I had content on the site that people in this niche industry liked—so they suddenly were flocking to the site.
On day seven the traffic continued, and I noticed that there was more crawling activity from the bots, more activity from visitors (about the same number of visitors, thousands of uniques with them spending lots of time on the site). I added an email newsletter to the site that day and started to receive signups within about 5 minutes. I checked the site in Google (all page indexed), Yahoo! (still not even home page indexed), and MSN (home page indexed). Google’s organic search was sending traffic to the site, the site was ranking in the top 5 for competitive phrases in the industry, and what’s weird to me: people were actually searching at Google for my site’s unique name, a name I had made up about one week prior. That proved to me that the site, the domain, and the content was appearing to be “branded” in that industry.
It’s now day ten and the traffic continues. By the way, the site now has at least 80 backlinks to it (I have done no link building whatsoever except for a few social bookmarks of my own), and I’m actually considering moving the site to its own dedicated server. I may have to wait until I can respond to all the requests for advertising on the site from companies in that niche, though.
So, what’s the bottom line? I didn’t plan on going out and creating a new site that would perform so well right out of the box. I have launched new sites before, and my experience has generally been that it takes about 3-6 months before I start to see a return on my investment (with organic search traffic and a regular number of visitors every day). I personally will stop complaining about how long it takes to “age a domain” and “age content” and worry about “getting links” to a site in order to benefit from organic search traffic (mainly Google). The bottom line really comes to great, well-written content and a few other factors that I’m still trying to figure out.
|
 |
excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14512
|
Posted: 2006-Nov-03 14:48
Cheers! Very nice story, thanks for sharing!
Excellent post and well done for just doing it!. 
|
|
lrak
Joined: Nov 16, 2006
# Posts: 10
|
Posted: 2006-Nov-25 12:46
Nice read. Do you want to share that ping list? or want to share part of it. I am getting 0 hits after just over two weeks, i am guessing i am doing alot wrong. Does the fact xmlrpc.php, or whatever its called is blokeced on my server mess things up? cheers
|
|
flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
|
Posted: 2006-Dec-12 01:14
I was just listening to an MP3 on doing what you did. I've got an idea if you want to pursue it. Create a turn-key system with very limited decisions to be made to sell to others who want to do what you did.
Provide the domain registration and hosting and have the templates, mailing list (subscribe/unsubscribe/format), auto-responders (default number and timing ready for content), SEO, blog, ping, techie stuff already on it so the non-techie buyers just have to create content and don't need to do, implement, or learn anything else.
The fewer decisions they have to make and set-up details required the better. Ideally, have it start out with all defaults but have the capability to change settings for the use of the few who decide to get more ambitious later and have learned a few things.
Anyone who does that can count on me referring them lots of business. Heck, I'd be in line as the first customer. If that wasn't highly marketable I'd be simply amazed. In fact, do it and I'll market it for you.
|
|
flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
|
Posted: 2006-Dec-12 01:39
Forgot to mention having adsense or something similar already on it. And if you could make an automated way for them to add affiliate links that would be awesome. There are a lot more people who would enjoy creating content and adding links to resources than there are who want to learn all the technical stuff required to put that content.
You could offer various ways users could obtain your service:
1. A one-time up front cash price
2. A subscription fee
3. Free to try period with a higher subscription and buy-out price so they can see if they'll actually make money before they have to spend any
Or, if you get really fancy and incorporate tracking tools:
4. A percentage of income generated
|
|
talk2christie
Joined: Nov 28, 2006
# Posts: 25
|
Posted: 2006-Dec-18 06:49
bhartzer - really an enjoyable and informative story there..thanks!
Christie
|
|
flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
|
Posted: 2006-Dec-18 12:18
I'm sure Bill will know if it is best to only ping some places or everywhere. There is a list on the Pingoat site.
|
|
SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3600
|
Posted: 2006-Dec-18 12:42
For submitting updates, check out Feedburner's newest offerings. You submit to them, they submit to everyone for you - met the VP and Development in Chicago a couple weks ago - great guy, great company, great services.
|
|
hanleo46
Joined: Nov 19, 2006
# Posts: 3
|
Posted: 2006-Dec-21 16:35
Hey Bill
Thats a great story to share,,,,,,
What is the site name by the way? Is it listed in your Alexa site?
Thanks for the inspiration
Leo Hanes
|
|
bhartzer
Staff
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7042
|
Posted: 2006-Dec-21 21:25
hanleo46, I'd rather not disclose the site in particular as I'm trying to keep it "under the radar" so to speak. It's not one of the sites listed in my "Alexa" listings (luckily).
But, the overall key is to concentrate on content that real people want to read and then use Social Bookmarking and other tools such as press releases to let people know about your content.
Keep in mind that if you're going to use social bookmarking then you'll need to actively participate in those communities so that you build up your profile.
|
|
caljamscott
Joined: Dec 26, 2006
# Posts: 3
|
Posted: 2006-Dec-27 01:54
You were lucky. What Industry is this anyway?
|
|
flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
|
Posted: 2006-Dec-28 09:49
Samuel Goldwyn said "The harder I work, the luckier I get." I know Bill personally and luck has nothing to do with it. The odds of him doing it repeatedly are what handicappers refer to as a "chalk" bet.
|
|
quality-ins
Joined: Jan 18, 2001
# Posts: 360
|
Posted: 2007-Jan-01 16:03
Hey bhartzer,
Would you say that a good part of your success with this site is because of your reputation in the industry, and the social networking areas?
|
|
bhartzer
Staff
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7042
|
Posted: 2007-Jan-01 19:36
your reputation in the industry
Definitely not; none of the visitors to the site know I'm behind the site. Also, it's not even remotely related to the SEO industry or even marketing-related.
As far as social networking goes, that's really only a part of the whole process of telling the right people that the site exists. The actual content has to be there in order for social networking to work. However, keep in mind that I try--on a regular basis--to build up various social networking profiles by participating in social networking communities.
|
|
quality-ins
Joined: Jan 18, 2001
# Posts: 360
|
Posted: 2007-Jan-01 19:49
That's probably my sole mission this year to learn that part of the craft. Social networking and link development.
Hats off to you as I know that you've been working at this for a while!
|
|
wfbopt
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 45
|
Posted: 2007-Mar-03 00:54
Well done Bill!
I'm sure you have inspired a number of people to improve their own efforts. Sam Walton said that Wal-Mart was an overnight success 30 years in the making. These kinds of successes come to people who've done the trial & error already. All of our successes so far have been the 'apply consistent force for 9 - 12 months' kind. Of course it doesn't end there, but thats what it takes to get something started when you're learning as you go.
Again - well done!
|
|
You are not permitted to post messages in this forum or topic, because of one or more of the following reasons:
- You have not yet logged in, or registered properly as a member
- You are a member, but no longer have posting rights.
- This is a private forum, for which you do not have permissions.
If you are a recent member, it's possible that you simply have not yet confirmed your account. Please
check your email for a message entitled 'JimWorld Forums: Confirm Your Account' and follow the instructions
contained within.
If you cannot find this message, click here to Re-Send it.
|
If you are still experiencing problem, please read the
Login Assistance
Article for some advice on what may be causing your login not to work properly.
|
Switch to Advanced Editor and ...
Create a New Topic
or Reply to this Thread
|
|
Inbox
