That Winning Feeling
By Mike Mindel | September 23, 2007
You know that expression when it rains, it pours. This describes how after there has been no rain for a long time, it suddenly rains a lot all at once. Or when once something happens after a long pause, it happens in large amounts.
Well I was looking for an equivalent expression for when it’s sunny it gets erm… sunnier. But I couldn’t find one. Here’s whats happening to me.
It All Started With a Good Run at Party Poker
When you get into this situation in Party Poker you’re sure to have that winning feeling
Let’s just take a closer look at that shall we
Here I am with 12,660 chips, that’s 7,950 chips more than juju29555. I got a pair of aces in the hole and then I’m raised all in 2,030 chips by McCavity1. Now… you just gotta smile when that happens. (I came second by the way and won $15 but that’s another story).
Some Juicy Stats
Then I head on over to my howtowriteastory.wordpress.com blog and look at my stats
What’s this? I got 30 clickthroughs yesterday, 17 of them from my target keyword ‘how to write a story’. Hmm… I wonder if…
There it is ladies and gentlemen. I’m now 3rd for the exact match for ‘how to write a story’ and 9th for broad match. That’s where my traffic is coming from.
Here are the stats for the Wordpress blog from statcounter
So my Wordpress blog is averaging a healthy 44 unique visitors a day. Not bad. Not bad at all. The number of visitors is climbing too. (It’s just turned Sunday by the way so ignore the Sunday results).
Just when I thought it was over, Google reels me back in.
Seth Godin, in his book The Dip, says the following
Every new project (or career or relationship) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point - really hard, really not fun. At this point you might be in a Dip, which will get better if you keep pushing, or a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better no matter how hard you try. The hard part is knowing the difference and acting on it.
Now my struggle in this particular niche certainly felt like a dip. But I stuck it out and the rewards are coming.
The traffic is half the battle. When you’ve got traffic, you can play around with different affiliate programs until something converts. Then you know what kind of products your market buys and you get to know your market a little better.
Useful that!
Update: 6th October 2007
I just made my first $19.95 on September 24th 2007. Not quite within the first 30 days, but day 54. Woohoo!
-Mike
Technorati Tags: that winning felling, when it rains it pours, party poker, aces in the hole, search engine terms, how to write a story, wordpress, some juicy stats, statcounter, seth godin, the dip
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September 23rd, 2007 at 2:45 am
The good upswing couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!
Best to you Mike,
Ed
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:08 am
Yeah… but that depends on the traffic you’re getting!
Outside of TDC, I have a site that is starting to receive 1600+ pageviews a day (400+ visitors). I’ve tried various affiliate programs, but nothing has converted into a single sale. My only source of income from this traffic is Google Adsense and I’m averaging about $1 a day from it.
It really sucks because I know there has to be something that can convert that traffic into an income stream.
~Shannon
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:08 am
As someone that recently discovered the Thirty Day Challenge - and your amazing gtrends tool - it’s very cool to see this follow-up.
Thanks for all your content!
Vincent
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:12 am
Mike,
Thanks for such timely writing - I am finding myself in the dip you wrote of. Finding the time to research and write quality content is tough, at least for me. With a family of 6 and a full-time job - I’d be a busy guy even if I wasn’t trying to get something going online.
You make it look so easy and you are always so encouraging. It has gotten easier for me as I do more.
I guess the key for me is to keep doing something everyday. It could be research, write a post, twitter something, add a plug-in or widget - as long as I’m taking some kind of action.
Again, thanks for continuing to write for - and inspire us.
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Shannon,
Send me a message on facebook and I’ll give you some ideas.
The key factor is that you know the intention behind your traffic. In my case I know they want to learn ‘how to write a story’ otherwise they wouldn’t be at my site.
-Mike
September 24th, 2007 at 2:31 am
You have bullets and you come in second? That sucks! I hate when that happens.
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Don’t know if you got my last message but all my wordpress blogs have gone to the great wordpress tos. so I created an exact replica of yours with a text link to my clickbank in top right corner as you did. and guess what its gone . . .
so I am going to have to use buy a domain and install wordpress into it or install wordpress mu.
Hey I would be prepared to do this and let all the 30TDC ‘ers have their blogs hosted if someone could help. Have a cool domain to use and can set it up so its blogname.xxxxxxxxx.com.
Any ideas….
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Ah. But did you create the content first. Leave it for a few days to get ranked. Then add the textlink?
There’s no point setting up wordpress mu on your own domain as it won’t be loved by Google yet. That’s the whole point of setting up web 2.0 content sites as Google loves them already.
DON’T use your own domain yet. Otherwise you won’t get the benefit of pre-established domains.
-Mike
October 6th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Cool. I just completed the challenge!
October 8th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Ahh, thanks I will try it as you suggested and see what happens, but am I not delaying the inevitable then, when wordpress wil bar me later?
October 9th, 2007 at 1:19 am
regarding fresh domain names:
Using existing sites is the slap dash, wham bam, now now now, impatient way to get results. Long term I don’t feel its practical to keep all your keyphrase content hosted on other peoples sites. And you can get better results with your own domain name.
I recently purchased a domain name for a niche. So far I’ve targetted 14 keyphrases in the same niche, and given two of them love. Its taken a lot longer to get ranked than if i were to use a tumblr/wordpress whatever blogging platform, but one of the phrases I loved, with 230 searches per day, is ranked number 6, and the other, with 380 searches a day, is ranked number 7…. BROAD MATCH! Building slowly, since buying the domain name 16 days ago, I’m getting 80 daily searches.
So if you have a niche with multiple keyphrases, set yourself up a domain name with wordpress. Then you not only get the sales income, but you also own the domain to which traffic is directed, giving you an asset which you can sell.
Long term, or short term. Up to you.
October 10th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Hmmm… This keeps coming up. I think I’ll do a blog post on this shortly.
Don’t forget the all important market research step which is why we spent 15 days on it in the challenge. You use existing sites to get quick ranking and traffic to test your niche. If your niche converts you then have a reason to spend money & setup your own site. Whichever keyword is generating the most traffic will now inform your domain. This is the critical ‘market research’ step. Avoid at your peril.
Once you set up your own domain, you can then shorten the content on your existing site. Direct the traffic towards your own domain so users can see the full article which in turn drives traffic & improves ranking on your domain. The user gets additional value by clicking through to the longer, more detailed article.
There’s no excuse for risk in business if you can avoid it. You avoid the risk by creating content on existing sites first without spending any money and testing the market. You want to be ‘market’ driven not ‘guess’ driven.
-Mike
October 15th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Mike, I’m curious if you tried an A/B test between a graphic and text version of your affiliate link? If you did, what was the results?
October 19th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Hey Mike,
Congrats on completing the challenge!! That is very encouraging for those of us that just started it on October 15th. I’ll post to everyone on the Facebook group and let them know you’re good news.
Thanks again for all of your blog work. Not only did it help us visual learners with the challenge, it was a great example of content and blogging!
Great Job! Jewels999GreatEagle
October 31st, 2007 at 8:47 am
Mike, great news and thanks for your daily updates. I just got my first sale, and am following Ed’s diagram of keyword “clusters” all pointing to the same affilate/sales page. So when I get my own domain name assuming this converts, I just redirect to my new domain, let the content on the 2.0 sites site and move full force to my new domain? What about the 20+ original content articles scattered around my clustered 2.0 sites? Move it all over with a link to the longer articles?
Thanks again and congrats on completing the challenge!
November 6th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
What happened to Freekeywords???
November 14th, 2007 at 7:47 am
I get the impression that as Mike has now completed the challenge, hes moved on to bigger fish and this blog no longer maintained..
FreeKeyWords is still working.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Actually. I do intend to post to this blog once a month or so and not let it die out. I currently have my head buried in email marketing but I intend to resurface soon.
:-)
Mike
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:08 am
Yo Buddy,
congrats man I know you were really venturing into some new concepts during this challenge and especially know how much effort you put into this.
Its fantastic to see that you have the rankings you were looking for and a sale to boot.
I’d love to see you posting more to this blog, if anyone creates quality posts it is definately you Mike.
Cheers
Marc
February 18th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Nice work Mike, as someone who just discovered your blog today, I found your challenge interesting and a n interesting roadmap. There was certainly a large amount of work completed by you over the 30 days…how many hours did you spend building this asset?
May 7th, 2008 at 4:48 am
I just discovered your blog [from Blogsphere] and it is pretty instresting. You prove how one has to be consistent. Did you get Adwords?
May 9th, 2008 at 3:21 am
I love the picture with pocket aces. Nothing like getting some action when you got those.