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I feel bad that I haven’t updated you all on my million dollar case study. For those of you who missed the project, I’m aiming to build an affiliate site which makes $30,000 per month, that could theoretically be sold for $1M. Though this goal is difficult enough, I also challenged myself to do it in just 12 months. You can view the earlier posts on my case study here, here, and here.
My project relied heavily on an exact-match domain for my targetted keyphrase, which set me back $550. This reliance was my downfall, but it’s not the only hurdle I’ve faced along the way. As a quick update: The site is currently on page 2 of Google for a keyphrase which gets 100,000+ exact searches per month.
When I hit page one, I’m still very confident I can bring in the $30,000 per month I was expecting to make from the site. I actually think this is fairly conservative. It’s only a matter of months until this happens, so I’m very excited about it.
Since I’m 13 months into the project, I didn’t reach my target of achieving my goal in one year. There are a few reasons why I didn’t reach my target, so hopefully you can all learn something from my setbacks.
No Exact-Match Love
If you can get an exact-match .com domain name for your keyphrase, then it’s usually much easier to rank in search engines like Google. Thanks to my own .com, I was number one in Yahoo within a few weeks, and ranking highly in Bing. I’ve made some sales from this traffic, but nothing to brag about.
My lack of exact match love is because my keyphrase has the words ‘how to‘ in it. I assumed that they would be counted as part of an exact-match phrase, but I don’t think they are. I mainly think this because the word ‘how to‘ is never bolded in a URL in Google search results. Since it isn’t in bold, I don’t think it’s being counted in the domain.
On top of that, I don’t think I’m getting the rankings I would have if the exact-match domain was giving me some kind of bonus.
Lesson learned.
I Didn’t Prioritise
I was going to title this section “I’m a busy man” but I really hate when people use busyness as an excuse. We have enough time to work on anything we want, just not enough time to work on everything. So, instead of telling you I was far too busy to give much attention to this project (which is true), let’s just say I didn’t prioritise it properly in my list of things to do.
I’ve had a very busy year, especially with planning to leave South Africa (and even having my leaving party) then finding out the Thai embassy had lost my passport. Not a good thing when you’re not in your home country. As a side-note to those who are interested: I’m in South Africa for at least another five months, most of which are going to be spent working hard on this site and others.
Based on the work I’ve done, I don’t actually think I deserve to even rank on the second page of Google for my keyphrase. I have built some quality links, but a very small amount. If I’m going to get on the first page of Google for such a lucrative phrase, my current backlink efforts are just not going to cut it.
In a niche like this I can’t rely on going out and get tons of free links anyone can duplicate. I need high quality links, and they can take some work to get.
A New Direction
As of today, I’m actually in the process of turning this affiliate site into a personal blog. How’s that for a change of direction? Over time, the niche it is in has actually became something I’m really passionate about, and I want to start writing in the industry and sharing my personal progress.
I’m actually in a tricky situation, since I didn’t build links to the site myself, but had other people do it. For that reason, when I do reveal it to the world, I’m going to look a little shifty when most of the backlinks are under pen names. I guess that’s just an image I’m going to have to live with from my fellow marketers.
I’ll run the blog in a similar fashion as ViperChill, posting about once per week but only including high-quality, detailed articles. The new blog will also allow me to be far more personal in my writing, as the niche it is in is more personal in nature.
The idea of running another blog excites me, as I think it will allow readers of this site and my new one to connect with me on another level. I’m also curious to see how well I can do in another niche where I literally have zero presence. Unlike ViperChill, I won’t be focused too much on building a large readership, but using the blog format with my presence, to help with rankings in Google.
I’m currently working on the redesign, which is going to take a week or two, and then I’ll share the site with you all via my usual communication channels.
If you do have any questions about the project so far, feel free to ask them in the comments!
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30.000 a month, the idea alone is making my head spin.
I’ll be dropping on a regular basis to see how this one is going to unfold Glen. I’d be happy if I had an affiliate site doing 1% of that per month. As it stands, I’m not even making $100 a month. A lot to learn, a lot to build, write and develop. But it’s actually fun to do.
Two blogs seems to be a better choice than one, especially if they both serve a different niche and are topics you really care about. Good luck! We all know you can (and will) do it.
That’s surprising, since you seem to have been at this for a while. A few customers in Cloud Living HQ have already surpassed $100 in just a few weeks, so that should show you how possible the numbers are
.
I’m happy to help if you have any questions.
Thanks for the kind words Christiaan, it is appreciated.
“I really hate when people use busyness as an excuse.” is exactly my problem :p I’ve got so many things going on I end up spinning wheels without getting anywhere.
I “know” how to set up a site and all that, but then again, I don’t actually know because I never built a minisite. I need a proper kick in the rear/head or someone to actually work with me. It’s completely possible, another thing I know. To me , the single biggest issue is actually finding a niche to work with. Some days. I end up looking at keywords for hours, always reaching dead ends. All I have right now are affiliate links on my blog.
I have but one question: do you run a highly personalized apprentice program? I need a mentor.
Note to Cloud Living customers: I sent out an email yesterday which didn’t seem to reach everyone (I’m looking into it). The email was to thank you for your support in my product, and to let you know that we’ve reached over 1,000 comments in the back end. In fact, about 70 new discussions have been posted in the last 24 hours.
Thanks for helping to build a thriving community!
This is exciting stuff Glen, will definitely be interesting to see how you progress in a niche where you have no presence at all!
As a side note, I would like to thank you for your efforts at Cloud Living ….. I have learnt a ton
Thank you Usman. It’s good to have you on board!
Glen a brilliant example of why goals should ALWAYS be fluid. Set tough suckers, but then if you dont hit them simply reassess, and adjust accordingly.
I’d be cool with waiting a few months for my check for $1m
Haha, thanks for the tips!
I’m curious if you’ll ever reveal that million dollar niche? If you won’t I want to know if it’s okay to let your fellow marketers know about your sites for certain reasons and for our own personal…I don’t know protection? I get asked a lot by people through email if I could share my own sites.
DO you think its okay to tell people everything you work on?
Thanks,
Wilson
As I mentioned at the bottom of the post, I will be revealing the site in a couple of weeks. Just let me get some non-affiliate content up there first
It’s really up to you. What do you want for security?
thanks my friend. always as real as you can be. I appreciate that!
Hi Glen
This is exactly what I learned from my blogging experience.I am currently working on it getting great result.I consider buying exact domain name is one of the important step.Can you tell me from your experience how much time a less competitive keyword take to get top ranking in google with exact domain website(No one is targeting that keyword)?
I don’t think there’s any accurate way to measure that. There’s definitely some kind of benefit, I see too many examples to think otherwise. How much of a benefit…who knows?
Looking forward to seeing your new blog. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the link
Jacob
Thanks buddy
Glen,
I received the email and I believe Pat did, too. It’s great to see all the activity in the CLHQ community.
Regarding your $1M efforts, have you purchased any high PR links? I’m looking into paying around $50 per month per PR5 link for a very intense keyword set that I’m chasing (Is this a terrible idea?).
- Tim
Yes I did purchase some, but don’t anymore (for my friends at Google).
I think you could get one much cheaper than $50 a month. I’m paying $100 a year for a PR5. Of course, it is a sidebar link and not a contextual link. Contextual is more powerful.
I’d stay away from text link brokers and find some regular bloggers with PR3+ sites and see if they want to make a little extra cash. For $25 you may be surprised at how many people jump at it who are not in the SEO game.
I also meant $25 as a one time fee, or yearly, not a month. People outside of the SEO game won’t know how much that PR5 is worth, and will probably be happy to make some cash to go to dinner or get drinks for about 2 minutes of work.
Glen, a bit confused about the exact match domain. Was ‘how to’ part of your keyword? And for some reason it’s not being recognized?
howto is in the domain and the keyphrase. If you type the phrase in Google, when my site shows, only the rest of the domain is bold, not the ‘how to’ part.
“For that reason, when I do reveal it to the world, I’m going to look a little shifty when most of the backlinks are under pen names.”
For me it’s often more about motives than tactics. A tactic gains a stigma when unscrupulous people use it for malicious or greedy purposes, but an honest person can still use it in an honest way.
Think about all the negative comments SEO gets despite being an essential part of building a website.
Well my motive is that I was too busy to do it myself, hence the outsourcing.
Any SEO has a negative motive in the eyes of search engines.
Awesome Glen!
It’ll be exciting to read another blog of yours. With your writing style and great content that you always provide, I’m sure you’ll have lots of followers.
Good luck man, and I’ll be looking out for the link!:)
Thank you Edgar
I think a blog will eventually get you high quality and natural backlinks. Well done!
Agreed
Thanks for the followup, I’ve actually been really curious about how your 1 million dollar project was doing. Will you be posting your backlinking strategy for this project as well?
Anyways, glad to see you back and alive on this blog. You always have so many great insights to share. For example, I never noticed that the words “how to” weren’t bolded on google searches. Weird. I wonder what other words are irrelevant to exact match domains. Might be a great future article topic!
HI Paul,
I will, but at the moment none of the backlinks were built by me, so there may be backlinks to the site using tactics I wouldn’t write about (or do personally).
Thanks!
For anyone has a dominant masculine essence, you need to follow suit with what Glen is doing here.
Masculine energy responds to challenge and when it doesn’t get it, or it shies away from it, it won’t flourish. It shrivels up like your nut sack does when you jump into cold water. Only when masculine energy is leaning into death, failure, challenge does it feel alive.
Recently I’ve taken on a 90 day personal development challenge and after not really pushing myself for a year or so, I can tell you the feeling is sublime. The feeling that I’m striving to be extraordinary. That I’m doing what other wussified people won’t and are scared to. It’s a wonderful feeling to say the least.
Men, you may not follow Glen in an affiliate challenge, but find some way to push yourself beyond what is normal. I guarantee you’ll be proud of yourself when you lean into and go through to the other side.
Glen, Thank You for being an inspiration to this community!!!
Heh, first time I’ve been described that way
Thank you NTN
Exciting news Glen! I look forward to the great reveal! You got the Midas touch my brother!
Thanks Mark
Great post Glen, I’m really enjoying following this one. Also looking forward to reading the new blog. Interested in Alpha readers?
Email me!
Definitely, when I have posts up there
Just done some searches are ‘How To’ is pretty much always highlighted in their URL.
When it’s in the domain name?
Yep, I see it. Interesting, I wonder why it isn’t for me.
I own a site with “how to” in the domain name and the “how to” are not highlighted for my exact match query. It’s highlighted in the title and meta description, but not the URL. Also for a competitive term.
Do you think that you are getting any exact-match benefits?
Yes, but only for the last half of my keyword phrase (after the “how to”). My title tag is structured as “how to keyword keyword” and I rank well for that exact query (but without the “how to” being bolded in the URL). I also rank *nearly* as well for a query of just ‘keyword keyword’ (without the how-to) which makes sense. It’s not quite as high because it’s not an exact title tag match like the how-to query, but I’m definitely seeing an exact-match benefit.
The other reason I’m sure there’s an exact match benefit is that there is almost zero content on the site and only a few junk links coming in so far. So, to rank at all in the top 1000 is down to the exact match (or partial exact match). I’m bouncing between page 2 or 3. I think when I build links and write 10-20 pages, it’ll jump to page 1 or 2.
I’m guessing my term isn’t quite as competitive as yours, but it’s got ~ 45k monthly local & 100k global. Not too small.
Hey Glen,
How do you determine the value of a domain?
For example, I’m looking at buying a domain that gets 8100 phrase searches/mo and adwords cost $4.71/click and the domain sells for $550 but when I see that you bought a 100,000 search key phrase for the same price I start to think I’m overpaying.
Thanks!
Thanks
The value depends on how much you think you can make for the niche. I would have paid more for my domain.
i am very happy that you are going to reveal the $1million site which i asked you some 20 days back (remember the mail i sent- Questions on $1million project)…Actually i wanted to ask you Urls of all the blogs you write ,so that i can read all your articles …i started to admire your writing Glen…anyways take care…i am waiting for the $1million site to be unveiled:)
Thanks Mohan.
Too bad your $1M case study did not work as intended. But hopefully you will make that targeted $1M from another projects.
Anyway, the most important thing is this: You have tried! And that means you will achieve any goal eventually. All you need is time and persistence – two most important things in every business I think.
Looking forward to see that new blog
Thanks Babo
I had that problem too when I was targeting a particular “how to” exact match keyword domain and saw that Google didn’t count it in their factors to rank it higher.
Good luck on your new blog!
I wonder what the reason is, since other domains mentioned below do actually bold ‘how to’ in them.
You mentioned that Google does not bold “How to” when you search. However, after running some tests on random “how to blanks,” I’m seeing that Google bolds it… sometimes. I wonder how they determine what gets bolded and what doesn’t.
I’ve discovered this since writing the post. Yes, I’m pretty curious about it now
Hey Glen,
Did you ever make that move to Thailand? I’ll be headed that way for 4-6 months the end of February, before heading down to Rio De Janeiro. Thank god for making money online lol.
Anyways, I’ll be training at Bangkok Brazilian Jiu Jitsu if you ever want to stop in and check out some BJJ or go scam on some girls.
Hey me too! Well not that gym, but another.
Guess I should read closer next time before I ask a question lol. I see that you are still in SA.
I can’t wait to see the new blog Glen! You have me wondering niche it’s in now. I am assuming by your post it’s not personal development or MMO.
Maybe
Hi Glen,
Can I just clarify what you said regarding the exact match? You were aiming to go after a keyphrase such as “how to mow the lawns” (random example obviously) and so you purchased the domain HowToMowTheLawns.com. Since then you’ve discovered you’d have actually been better off purchasing the domain MowTheLawns.com?
Thanks,
Will
Pretty much.
Though, I actually prefer my ‘how to’ domain.
Thats a very nifty number to achieve. And with Glen being in South Africa, he knows what the numbers mean in local currency.
It is reading this story and comments which should be a catalyst to “lift the proverbial butt”. I would suppose it happens to everyone at some stage – its how you decide to ligft your butt that matters!
Good luck with making the venture grow Glen – we will be keeping a beady eye cast on the progress
Go go go Glen!
I’m going!
Hi Glen
I don’t know much about internet marketing but I do understand the importance of getting the right domain name and being in those first few Google results.
Fortunately I’ve never had to compete with the big boys and got most of my small sites well ranked.
$30,000 a month just puts my head in a spin – look forward to the great reveal and learning from how you go about it.
Notice that you say “I’ll share the site with you all via my usual communication channels.”
Does that include your Email subscription?
Hope so.
I haven’t decided if I will blog it, but I will write about it on Twitter and Facebook, is what I meant.
Good article Glen. This highlights just how difficult it is to understand how Google works. It’s a shame that you didn’t get success as quickly as you would have liked, but I guess you’ve learnt a few lessons along the way. I’ll be looking out for the post where you reveal your new site.
Hey Allan, totally agree about learning some lessons along the way.
Thanks for your support.
For my own personal curiosity, I really want to see what the site and niche is. We corresponded a couple times as I gave you my educated guess as to your niche. I am quite sure I was correct and it will be interesting to see what you did with your creation.
I think I remember your email. I guess you’ll find out
I think you summed it up nicely when you said “We have enough time to work on anything we want, but not on everything.”
I repeatedly realise this when I run out of time to complete my ‘to-do list’. Real shame, but it’s true; if we don’t focus and prioritise, then we won’t get anywhere.
Like Confucius said, “He who chases two rabbits, catches neither.”
Nice quote.
Thanks for the comment, Stuart.
This is awesome Glen,
I can’t wait to see how everything goes. I can also relate with you about how we use our time; this month is presently the worst for me and I’ve not been able to give my business more time – I think it’s now time for an adjustment.
Thanks so much for the awesome post,
-Onibalusi
My guess is that it’s the dating niche.
Good call.
Howtomeetgirls maybe, let’s wait.
I enjoy reading the guesses
I guess the readers will enjoy your personal blog more then your affiliate site
I’m sure
I am waiting for you to share the website. Hope it will contain good and unique content like vipechill. Best of Luck Brother for your new project
It will indeed. Thank you Umer
Hey Glen, awesome update – I’m looking forward to checking out the blog, especially the videos I remember you mentioning awhile back…
100k monthly exact matches should yield about 1,000 – 1,300 unique visitors per day for a #1 Google result – what are your thoughts about the conversion rates on 1,000 UVD?
[for my math I'm using the Market Samurai approach ==> monthly exact search # x .0135 = expected UVD. I've found MS estimates to be a little low, though]
We are trying to do something similar, and we decided to iframe our site in Facebook to drive extra leads that way. Can you comment at all as to the efficacy of this approach? The iframed app is available below if you need to see it.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mindflash-Advertising/180033020422?v=app_4949752878&ref=ts
Hi Glen,
Great post – I’ve been wanting to hear more about the case study and am excited you’ll be revealing the site next week.
Question for you on your approach to creating mini affiliate sites -
Do you think that new domains can easily get sandboxed when trying to do the SEO for them? Should we not do new domains for our projects?
you the boss
A comment on exact-match domains. It appears the big G. doesn’t give weight to ‘how to’ in domains as thousand of IM’ers are putting ‘how to’ in domains to get their exact match to a product of phrase that’s usually almost always already taken.
So Google is viewing ‘how to’ as a words such as ‘and’, ‘if’ and various others that it omitts from it’s results?
Ben.
Really exciting stuff Glen, I think this is exactly what most people like myself want to see, the bigger affiliates leading by example and blogging their results making a massive $1 million site. I’m currently working on my first $1,000/month site.
Hey glen, like the sound of your new direction and i am really happy i came across your website. It should provide some valuable knowledge for my latest internet venture.
I’ve never posted before, however this post inspired me to post.
Where do you plan to sell your website if you do get the 30k per month mark? i know its almost impossible in flippa because of the audience there.
I have connections that I know would buy it, though I would have absolutely 0 plans to sell. I would rather keep the $360k per year.
May i know why the change of heart?
Glen,
I like the idea you had of taking a cashflow stream…and having it worth XXXX amount of dollars. A cashflow stream can be worth a lot of money for folks.
PS…I’m glad it turns out to be on a topic you can take an existing passion and turn it around.
Brandon
I know I’d rahter keep the cashflow. A millionaire within 5 years (even ten years) is good enough for me).
Ben.
Thanks for the great templates and the name display hack!
I have other fbml codes that show “fan-only” content once poeple click like, but your design is awesome and this kind of template is what I need for my small business clients. I have seen others sell codes like this for a hefty fee.
Hi Glen,
Great articles as always. Btw, what is the millon-dollar website. You still haven’t told us.
Hello Glen,
Great project. I’m just curious, are you close to your goal of 30K a month? You said you were on the second page. We all know you want to be at #1 on the first page, but I’m curious about what your page 2 ranking is netting you.
-Teodor
so, how was this project doing at this moment? i am very curious.