Marketing Question

[macdebbie]

A year ago, I took a course on how to run a business, thoroughly researched my market and niche as part of the course, wrote a business plan, and then found this forum which has been an enormous help. My niche is actually a sub-niche in a huge market that people are already making money in. I wanted to start small and specialized so that I'd have a better shot, knowing my traffic would be less.

I found a short free course on internet business since that was not part of my business course so that I could learn about SEO, backlinks, on-page and off-page optimization, PPC, all the stuff that was new to me. From this course I learned alot about keywords and did extensive research and testing before building the site.

As I was taking the course, I did the grunt work of forming an LLC, opening a business bank account, hiring a CPA, etc., etc. Knowing that I could easily get paralysis of analysis and not want to start until I knew it all, I made myself do action items every week and build the site as I went.

Since I am bootstrapping this, I learned enough WP to build the site myself, and started blogging.

In December of 2010 I started slowly monetizing the site. Initially I wanted to drop ship, but because I work FT, I decided to go the affiliate route. I also thought it would help me learn the business without costly financial mistakes and help me learn what sells and how to promote properly.

Three weeks ago I finally had my first sale, then last week another. The sales commissions are puny - embarrassing even, but it felt good. I felt like this could work.

Now I want to increase traffic and formalize my marketing. I'd like to be in a mode of spending 2 hours a night after work working on my site and spend one day on the weekend - maybe 4 hours on a Sat or Sun doing analysis work.

I'm trying to figure out if I should pick one marketing method or multiple. I don't want to stretch myself too thin and get discouraged, but I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket either. Early on I was on the first page of Google, and then fell off the charts when the algorithm changed. I've climbed back up to page 3 and 4 with just a few niche keywords but my traffic is not where I want it. I wonder now if my sub-niche might be too small... I'm hoping it's just a case of not having yet done enough marketing.

So far I've written a few articles, done some linking, tried to optimize my blog posts well, and don't know where to go from here.

Would I be better served to blog more often (it is all my own content and is a niche I know very well, so I have alot I can write about), find forums to comment on, try to optimize my site more, try some social media marketing, add more pages to my site???

Any advice would be much appreciated. I know this is all hard work, but it's still work I love, and I know it takes time. I have no intention of quitting my day job, and have realistic expectations - first a sale, then enough to buy dinner out, then a car payment, then a mortgage payment....

I'm prepared to put in the time and do whatever I need to do. I know I've still got tons to learn. Just not sure what to focus on next.

Appreciate the help.

 

[djbaxter]

Now I want to increase traffic and formalize my marketing. ... So far I've written a few articles, done some linking, tried to optimize my blog posts well, and don't know where to go from here.

Would I be better served to blog more often (it is all my own content and is a niche I know very well, so I have alot I can write about), find forums to comment on, try to optimize my site more, try some social media marketing, add more pages to my site???

What have you done so far in terms of on-page (on-site) optimization? That should always be the starting point, i.e., optimizing page titles and ensuring that they match page content, optimizing internal linking and anchor text in internal navigation links, etc. I take it your site is a blog? Wordpress? or Blogger? Self-hosted? or free hosted?

Blogging as often as you can, i.e., updating the site with fresh content relevant to your niche, is always a good idea.

What sort of link building have you done so far? i.e., where are thos links coming from? do you have decent anchor text associated with those links and are they varied for your major search terms?

 

[James S.]

Hello macdebbie,

I would say that you are off to a good start and congratulations on getting your first Sale : - )

What you may want to do is to build on your current success by blogging and adding new content on a regular basis. This will allow you to attract new visitors and give your current visitors a reason to visit your site on a regular basis.s

Now that you have started on the first part of your business asset (your website) the next thing that you need to do is to start building your email list. This is the second, and in some cases your most important business asset.

With a responsive email list (one that looks forward to getting and reading your emails) you have a way of building a long term sustainable online income ; - )

 

[Daniel08]

some other ideas are craigslist or outside sources like pennysaver, the flyer, and newspapers

 

[robertcwik]

Blogging as often as you can, i.e., updating the site with fresh content relevant to your niche, is always a good idea.

But not too often. You don't want to flood the search engines, but you want to give them the idea of constant development, i.e. once every three days is just enough.

That said, here's also a simple idea that you can utilize with the older posts and with the new ones to build strong backlinks.

Write a matching (but as much unique article as possible) to each post, and start publishing them in e-zine directories (like Ezine articles.com, Qondio.com), Web 2.0 places (Squidoo.com, Blog.com, Blogger.com) with links to your main site (in the body where allowed, or in the author's bio). But again, don't flood the directories, just put ONE article in each of them. And you do not need more than 10 of them to start. So doing it every three days should take you a month. Then you can scale to 15 directories/web 2.0 places/20, and so on. Just ONE article with a link or two to your site in each directory/ Web 2.0 asset.
So if your site is about healthy food, you'd link the phrase or a similar one to your site. Again, don't overdo it. Maximum 2 links per article. This way you'll build a strong backlinking from reputable sites over time.

Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Robert