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Day 21 - The Big Picture
By Mike Mindel | August 22, 2007
This content is summarised from Day 21 of the Thirty Day Challenge, presented by Ed Dale. Also see the Day 21 Pdf.
Where Are We Headed?
There’s a lot of speculation about where we’re headed. Today is really a rinse and repeat of yesterday, except for some vital information I’m about to share with you.
I (Ed) really wanted to take the opportunity to outline the vision of how your product and your approach to all of this will look down the track.
We Are TESTING
A lot of people said this was an affiliate system. No, it’s not an affiliate system.
It’s a TEST.
We’re using those initial keywords to test. Remember, it’s market research, then traffic. We have to make sure there’s traffic for a keyword or we will be wasting our time. It may well be that some of you make money from testing. But at the end of the day we are after a Kelly Clarkson and not a Sanjaya Malakar.
Kelly Clarkson
Sanjaya Malakar
What’s Next?
It makes sense to make money while we’re testing. But ultimately I want you to have your own product. Fortunately, the tools we have these days make creating a product so easy to do.
Remember it’s market research, traffic, conversion then product.
Market Research
Hopefully by now you know why we spent so much time on this. We copped a lot of criticsm about that. But the fruits of that research is paying off in spades.
The power of this method lives or dies on keyword selection. That’s why GTrends is so important.
Now you’re seeing benefits of it. Quality content, regardless of where you put it, ranks quickly.
Traffic
After years of doing this, even the most badly put together sites, if in a niche market that does buy stuff will convert at 1 in 200 with a bad sales letter.
Most copywriters would shiver in their boots at 1 in 200.
With 1 in 200 I’d like to make a sale per day.
A $47 product per day adds up to $1,410 per month, $16,920 per year. If you had a $97 product then thats $2,910 per month and $87,300 per year.
Thats why I’m so keen to generate up to 200 people seeing your offer.
Conversion
If we’ve got the traffic then how many people are coming through to our money page. Once they’re there, how many people are buying? We do that by measuring. There’s a whole process of testing and measuring.
If you’ve already got decent traffic then conversion is a lot easier as you can test things every few days. The number one mistake that internet marketers make is that they change things too quickly on the back of 20 visitors per day.
Product
A lot of people have been asking about product. But until we have sorted out traffic and conversion then we don’t think about product. Do I want you to have your own product?
Yes.
I don’t want you to be called affiliate scum.
Who Makes the Money?
Is it the person who creates the marketing system and puts it out there. Or the people down the line who sell it on their behalf. The most successful affiliate in the world makes half what the owner makes. I want you to be owners.
If you own the product, you have an asset that you can buy and sell. For example, there’s a huge market now in buying and selling websites.
So Where Are We?
We’re using various platforms of taking our targeted and carefully selected phase. At the moment they’re pointing to our affiliate site. That’s what we’re doing.
What Do We Want to Do?
We want to get that to 200 visitors per day. If we get 200 visitors going to our affiliate page then we can work out whether that market is going to buy anything. We only need that traffic for a couple of days to work out if it’s going to sell something or not.
How do I know when to stop? When you hit the magic 200 mark for that keyword.
Testing and Tracking
How do we know how much traffic we’re getting. Tomorrow, Dan will take you through the process of tracking your traffic. Testing and measuring is everything. You can’t manage what you don’t measure. But we don’t want to build up anything else as we’ll be wasting energy and time.
Do they come to your site and convert? That’s the question. If they don’t then you’re wasting your time.
By the way, it’s a legitimate result to find something potentially good but didn’t deliver the goods.
Whichever affiliate system you joined up with to promote, all have a tracking system which will let you know about sales.
Product
Eventually we want to substitute the affiliate site with a product. That’s the goal here.
The person who does the initial marketing for a product will make more than an affiliate.
A Note on YouTube
If you do a video you don’t have to appear in it. You can use KeyNote or Camtasia to record a presentation.
You can create a YouTube video and title it ‘Free Speed Reading’. Include a link to wherever you want people to go. You can also socially bookmark YouTube videos. You can then use that YouTube video as content in your other sites that you are setting up.
You can use Camtasia and CamStudio to do a powerpoint as an enhanced podcast.
Do hosted sites consider video good content? Of course. Why? Not everyone can put them up.
Clusters
Eventually down the track we want to see clusters build around each keyword in the market. As you do this, you generate a snowball effect. You get more and more power as you get more and more relevant content.
This is important for those who say you should host stuff on your own site. Yes. But at the right time. If you use Wordpress and Blogger you can take your own content and put it on your domain at the right time. You export the content out and put it on your own site.
Visualise this outer wall, like all the defenses in a castle. If you build up this huge defense and everything is feeding back and forwards with each other - over time you will see 200, 400, 600, 800 visitors. All of these clusters, even if they represent one sale a day build up… $50, $100, $150, $200 a day. It starts to get interesting.
Imagine if you could build up 10, 15 clusters.
Is it really that hard. Building a house in the beating September sun is hard work. Having to work at Wallmart as a greeter is hard work. What we’re doing here is not hard. As you build up money, you can start to outsource.
PPC advertising is all good. ONCE you know the value of your traffic. Once you know exactly how much each of these clusters delivers you then PPC goes from being a risky business to a no-brainer.
(Pay Per Click is a whole other way to attract traffic. It’s outside the scope of this challenge but was the source of traffic for the Thirty Day Challenge in 2005 and 2006).
Now PPC is judged on the quality of the site a visitor lands on. Google will rate your site as high quality so you will pay far less than your competitors in your particular marketplace.
Action
- Write three more articles per keyword. If you continue to do this but you can’t help but learn about your marketplace.
- Add one more web 2.0 property to your whole strategy. See Tip #17 - Decent List of Free Content Platforms.
- You must use fresh content on each and every platform you choose.
- You must use fresh content even if you setup the same keyword on different platforms.
- Responsible social bookmarking by yourself and your team.
- Make sure you read Mike Mindel’s So What is Quality Content Anyway?
Technorati Tags: day 21, thirty day challenge, where are we headed, we are testing, not an affiliate system, kelly clarkson, sanjaya malakar, market research, traffic, conversion, product, speed reading, wordtracker gtrends, gtrends, quality content, who makes the money, testing and tracking, youtube, keynote, camtasia, clusters, wordpress, blogger, ppc advertising, adwords,
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Topics: Daily Summaries |
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:30 am
[…] Day 21 - The Big Picture […]
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Love your summaries Mike. There were a couple of things that didn’t sink in until I read your post. Thanks!
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:13 pm
As usual thanks so much Mike… now everything is crystal clear. You are a blessing!
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Hi Mike, thanks for all your comments. One question that I have is: I don’t understand clusters. Is is possible for you to explain what a cluster is? Once I know that, then I can and will try to incorporate it into my projects. When I look at the picture that is posted, I still don’t understand.
Thanks
Mike
August 24th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Thanks for the summaries, Mike. I don’t understand the clusters part. Are we trying to “own” a phrase by having a lot of the top 10 search results pointing to our sites?
September 2nd, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Your summaries are excellent Mike.
September 25th, 2007 at 3:11 am
[…] Day 21 - The Big Picture | Mike Mindel - Thirty Day Challenger […]
March 31st, 2008 at 12:47 am
[…] REad Mike Mindel’s Blog for Day 21. This is an important day to read and take action. Make sure you write the content for each of your keywords. This is very important. Posted by julieanne on March 30th, 2008 filed in General […]