Forum Moderators: skibum
...it just seems that the work on this site never ends. Adding new products, managing keywords/referer information, possibly getting adwords to drive traffic(and this is a whole new thing unto itself), tracking new merchants for the products listed, the list goes on and on...
or, I can start a couple more sites in the time it would take me to do all that for just one.
So, do I become a jack of all trades, or a master of one? :) in other words, for those who may have been in this same boat, what is more valuable, an authority site that's very thorough(well, the information will be there, wether it will rank, that's another matter), or several fringe sites and 'diversify'?
No matter what you will have to maintain a hefty workload but you will not have your income stream reliant on 1 site. Too may things can go wrong.
Take what you have learnt and advance.
But you do have to get that site over the $100 a day mark so you can complete the thread ;)
Creating an enviroment where he still earns from 1 site but develops other sites at the same time makes sense.
Get the 1st site to a point where it runs itself on a day to day basis. Create 10 more sites each in different niches. If one market goes belly up you are still earning from the others.
Diversification is different from total abandonment.
Sure, keep working on your current site, but if it is taking a huge amount of your time, see if you can't find a way to keep your income around the current level (for that site) while automating most of what needs to be done.
Then start another, and another.
Given it some thought and these replies have made it clearer. Actually, with all my sites, I've started them all up pretty crappy looking, and then only now that some of them showed real potential (like the site mentioned above) have I gone back and really put some serious effort into it.
So that'll be the strategy - launch a couple more sites with a 'just get it out there' attitude, then see how they perform before putting extra effort.
This is where you start building tools to help you.
Adding new products -- look at datafeeds and xml feeds
Managing keywords / referer -- good package like urchin and some rank analysis software combined with spreadsheets
Adwords -- they email you reports start using those and build your analysis into a spreadsheet
By the time you build a new site and it gets indexed it could be months before you have any data to make decisions.
I think the days of throwing up a quick half day datafeed site are gone. You need ways to make it unique. The absolute best way you can do that is handwritten content. But we all know how time consuming that is. Am I going to write 1000 pages of content for digital cameras?
What I like to do is create an adwords campaign with all the keywords and model numbers you think you may target. As a matter of fact many datafeeds can be a big help to create rather large keyword lists. See which ones get the most impressions and CTR and then focus on those items.
Even if you can crank out 3 pages per day you will have 90 pages in a month. I am willing to wager you will earn more with these 90 pages than som 5000 page generic datafeed site.
I used to scoff at those that wanted to build quality sites with the user in mind but my attitude is changing.
Remember if it's easy to do it's probably not worth it. These days it takes very little knowledge to toss up a datafeed or web services site. A few years ago it wasn't as easy and some affilaites made a few dollars.
Now if I would only follow my own advice :)
I think the days of throwing up a quick half day datafeed site are gone. You need ways to make it unique.
I would agree. My sites tend to be datafeeds with the ability to write reviews. I think this type of site restricts me in the type of products that it would be successful with, and if I research the web, I'll find similar sites as mine. As I 'progress' in the affiliate marketing learning path, I'm considering a directory type site, and also outsourcing some content writing...
Shri: I'm building some tools myself to let me better add/edit products/price offerings, and an automated keyword/referer parser. I figure these tools I can build into any future sites I make, so therefore are a good investment.
Now if only I could get some help with Adwords, because that's a beast I find hard to tackle.
Can you explain what you mean when you say your site is "fully automated"?
...it just seems that the work on this site never ends. Adding new products, managing keywords/referer information, possibly getting adwords to drive traffic(and this is a whole new thing unto itself), tracking new merchants for the products listed, the list goes on and on...
The site I mentioned does most of that stuff, too, but it's all automated. Scripts, programs, crons, etc.
