Bootstrapper Notes

Interlinking Pages

Tonight I spent about 1 1/2 hours working on site #4.  I noticed that on site #2 and #3 all the pages that are not linked from the home page or product pages are showing up as "supplemental results" on Google.

So I decided to put three "related articles" links at the bottom of each of the articles pages.  I am hoping that this will keep this issue from happening, since all the pages are interlinked.

I will let you know in about 3 months once Google gets my pages indexed. :)

I am off right now to submit articles to two more distribution sites - for site #4.

Article Submission Started for #4

I started submitting two articles for site #4 to the article directories tonight.  I got the articles submitted to two sites, before the "low battery" lit up on my laptop.

I figure this is a good reason to stop for tonight, and simply veg.  I worked late last night on my sites, and I am tired.

More submissions tomorrow night - I need to get those spiders hungry, so they eat up my site!

Moving Forward

I narrowed down my choices for the next three sites tonight (#5, #6 and #7).  Then I went over to GoDaddy and registered two domain names.  The third domain I already own, and it has been active since early 2004, and currently has a datafeed site on it.

I registered the two new domains for 3 years each - looking to see if this speeds up the dreaded "sandbox".

For the third site, where I already have a datafeed site set-up, I have a couple plans in mind.  I am going to rework the datafeed portion of the site as kindof a "store" to the content pages.  I have high hopes for this site, both in affiliate income, and Adsense income.  I know these products sell, and the Adsense payouts are not bad either.

I contacted my author over at Elance tonight as well.  I asked her for a bid on 25 articles per site, plus 2 PAD articles per site.  This combined with my domain registrations will take basically take care of my budget for October.

Hopefully site #4 starts to generate some income in October - I just might break the $500/month mark if it does! :)

Keyword Research

At lunch today I headed over to Wordtracker to do some keyword research for my next 3 sites.  I purchased the one day pass and ended up researching 6 different niches.  I get my money's worth when I purchase the one day pass.

I will run these all thru Keyword Results Analyzer tonight to see which of the 6 will be my 3 sites for October.  I know they all would work, but I need to look at the numbers some more to see which ones to focus on.  They all have keywords that pay at least .50 cents, with some upwards of $1.50 - and I don't see much competition from affiliate sites in several of the niches.  Plenty of merchants, but not much affiliate activity is a good thing in my mind.

I think I will get 20 articles written for each site, and two articles for distribution written for each site.  That will take my entire budget for the month. 

By the end of October I will have 7 content sites launched!

Adding Content

I fired up EZ Article Publisher, and added some content to two of my sites.

Site #1: Added 20 articles

Site #4: Added 16 articles

I can feel the money already! :)

Ramping up for growth

After reading several blogs that talk about ramping up for quicker growth, I have also been planning the same thing.

Last week I started researching different ideas for my next three site 5, 6 and 7.  Number 4 will be finished off this month, and all indications are that it should do well once it gets indexed.

What I am thinking is that for October I can outsource 30 articles per site (product pages and content).  I will also get 2 articles for distribution for each site, to get the back links rolling in.  Then in November and December I can simply add 30 articles to each site, each month.  This way by the end of 2005 I will have 7 sites each with around 100 articles.  This strategy also gets the clock ticking on the dreaded Google Sandbox, and allows me to add content on a regular basis for a few months.

I think it sounds like a reasonable plan, that should work.  The other thing I like is that I don't have to come up with new site ideas every month.  I can simply load articles into EzArticlePublisher as they come in.  I like it, minimum time once I get thru building out the templates.

BTW, I had an awesome Adsense day today! :)

Playing around with Adwords

Since I launched site #4 last week, I have been playing around with Adwords.  I set-up a campaign with about 1,200 keywords in it, and I am simply sending the traffic to the homepage of the site.

After tweaking the cost per click for the first several days, I am now at a point where I am doubling my money.  We are not talking about huge dollars here folks but so far I have been spending a couple bucks per day and making at least $4 per day in Adsense earnings.

Plus, Yahoo and MSN have started crawling the site without a single back link from anyone, except this PPC campaign - maybe thats a clue to get spidered faster.  I will have to test this again in the future.

So for now, I will simply keep tabs on this campaign, and maybe do some more tweaking in the future.

Site #4 is live!

Yesterday I finally finished off the major editing I needed to do to the template.   Sure there are still tweaks here and there, but it works well enough to start letting the spiders devour it.

For this site I purchased a greate template from Andrea over at Golden Pinecone.  In the past I have purchased my templates from another source because they were $5 cheaper.  BUT, after using this great template from Golden Pinecone, I will never go back.  Believe me, the small price difference is more than made up for by the speed of changing things, and the quality of the template.

Once I had the home and product pages all done, it was time to start adding the articles that have been piling up from my author.  So I then turned to EZArticlePublisher to get this task done - REALLY quick!

In about 5 minutes I had created the article and directory templates that are required for EZArticle Publisher, and about 30 seconds later I had added 50 pages of content to the site, and automatically created the directory (site map) pages that link to these articles.  You really need to give EZArticlePublisher a try - and you can try it for free.  Once you do you won't go back!

So thats it for now - once my PAD articles arrive I will begin distributing them and we will see how this site goes.  I have high hopes!!!!

List of tools I use

Just in case you didn't notice it, I added a list of tools that I use when I put together a new affiliate site.  See the right hand column, at the top.

I won't relist them here, but they are quality tools that you should definately look into.

I have one more that I will be adding soon - and it is really good!

Free iPod Shuffle

Okay folks - I NEED a free iPod Shuffle, and you can help me.  This is no scam, a guy I work with has already received a free iPod from these guys - it is totally legitimate.

Here is the deal, you simply click this link - Free iPod Shuffle - and sign up.  You will need to complete one of the offers.  Be sure you click straight from the site to the offer and complete it so that you get credit.

Once you do this it will give me credit as well. 

Here is the bribe I am offering:  If you complete an offer that turns "green" under me, I will have a friend sign up under you, and complete a requirement so that you will also get a Free iPod Shuffle.  Let me know via a comment if you do this so that I can keep track and reward you when the time comes.  (fine print: this offer is only good until I fullfill my requirements, so you better hurry)

So come on people - help your fellow affiliate marketer have a way to listen to some good tunes!