Since my post yesterday about my new adventure with building 1 page sites, I started to get second thoughts about this practice.
I try to stay away from the warrior forum during the day so I can concentrate on my tasks for the day but at the end of the day, I like to pop into the Adsense/PPC forum discussions. An old thread had reappeared and what I was reading started to scare the crap out of me. You can read it here if you are interested. but basically this guy suddenly had all 15 of his xfactor modeled sites deindexed. His adsense account was still active and still displaying on his sites but what good is the point if all his sites were deindexed? He swears he did nothing shady and he had the contact, about and privacy pages included. The only thing he thinks it may have been is that they were all 1 page sites. Even then, he said the content had about 1,000 words. Who is to know for certain if he just had crappy content that was just a cleverly rewritten amazon product description or if they were brand name domains. I’m not sure. But I just don’t think I am willing to take a chance on my sites getting deindexed. Especially, with the amount of hours I am putting in and more importantly the money I am investing.
I was doing some keyword research this morning and stumbled upon an exact Clickbump 1 page site and it was even using Clickbump’s wordpress template. Then just 20 minutes later I stumbled upon a rather weak looking xfactor template 1 pager. Both 1 page sites had maybe 350 words posted. I was looking at those sites and wondering why they are still acceptable. They were both ranking on page 1 too so they must be earning something decent but I guess just not enough for google to be concerned with…yet.
I am sorry to be so wish-washy but since my whole model right now is to earn at least $50.00 a day by the end of April with adsense, I have to protect my empire…my investments.
So now back to my previous model of 5 page sites which will be a bit nicer on my wallet this week, otherwise I was having to register 6 domains a day versus my old method of 3 domains a day. My writers might be happier to switch back to my previous model too. having to research 2 different niches a day probably made it a bit harder.
As for the content that they have written to equal out 12 1 page sites for me, I think I am going to still build them as 1 page sites but I will also hook up some RSS feeds of similar topics so it does look like my sites is naked. I also plan on using Unique Article Wizard’s plug-in to receive some unique articles for them rather than having my writers come up with more articles for them.
I will still let you know how the xfactor sniping with those sites goes though. I am anxious to see if they rank higher than my previous luck.
I have received enough content to hit 75 sites. So about 1 1/2 more weeks of having my writers creating content for 25 more sites. Once I hit my 100 mark its back link city. I will be hiring them to then write articles and rewrite them for article submissions to back link my sites or just hire more blog commenters. I haven’t decided yet.
Ok, I need to get back to work. Just had to share my thoughts.
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Good approach Sara,
I was also reading ClickBumps thread and the other thread you mentioned and it is a little concerning. Anyway, I’m not sure how other people manage to build an ‘empire’ with 1 pagers, it just doesnt appeal to me. Even though we all have 1 page sites up and running, with me personally its all abtou eventually getting around to building it up and not keeping it that way.
Theres far to many crappy xfactor type sites out there that are just sooo shocking, its just a matter of time before google in my opnion starts to deindex them. Do you use the original xFactor theme, colours etc on your sites?
Oh and 100 sounds like a lovely number hehehehehe, just backlink the hell out of those sites, I can’t wait till you start hitting those top 10 rankings
Z
For my first 20ish rookie sites, I was using his ugly green and black template but shortly afterwards I moved over to using the Adflex SEO wordpress theme and I also started using a modified version of my original template in which I had changed the coloring a bit. but now I am using clickbump’s wordpress theme. I love his latest released version and he has another one I use often that is based after the inove wordpress theme.
Are those the WordPress themes he is promoting on his site?
Yep, its for wordpress.
Ok so one pagers are a no go! Thanks for updating
I’m not sure about the Xfactor theme – I’m using it but you’re right you just click a few links in EZA bio boxes and you unearth hundreds of the darn things. I have changed my colours though as I read somewhere that green puts off buyers so I’m using blue.
I have a couple of sites using the seo theme you mention (i think its the same anyway) and it gets a great CTR even though it has more than one ad which John says is a no no (confusing!)
Where do I go to see this click bump one?
.-= Clare Swindlehurst´s last blog ..IM Web Graphics Pack =-.
HI Clare. Here’s Scott’s blog with info on his templates. I am sooo in love with “clickmagnet”. http://clickbump.com/ce/
Also, are you a member of John’s forum? he recently showed examples of other layouts he uses and it was interesting because on a few of them the sidebar was located on the left hand side which was weird to me because according to the adsense heatmaps, people are likely to click on the upper left hand of a site, so a sidebar on the left hand side would encourage them to click on your pages and posts rather than on the ad blocks.
I quite like the look of clickmagnet – you can see how the layout is similar but it doesn’t *look* like an Xfactor site.
.-= Clare Swindlehurst´s last blog ..Newbie Knockout =-.
Yep, its fantastic! You can change some of the coloring around too so it just looks like a nice site. I also love the inoved theme he converted which is great for electronic niches or anything that is “classy”.
As far as I can remember the only reason why John doesn’t like multiple ad blocks is because it gives visitors the opportunity to click on lower paying ads (because the ads lower down the page are from lower bids).
Right. originally he had guided us to put text links in the sidebar but I only did that on the first few sites I built because it had dawned on me that with multiple ad blocks, there was a greater chance of visitors clicking on the lower cpc ads. So now I only have the 336 block.
I think you’ve made the right call here. I know it’s tempting to take the short cut of single page sites, especially when you’re pumping out so many, but in all honesty you’ve obviously got enough conviction and motivation that you don’t need these short cuts.
It was never clear to me that the OP’s sites were de indexed.
It sounds to me like they were just somewhere on page 86 or sth. He also said they were “de indexed by the search engines” Does he mean all of the search engines?
Nowhere does he say, and nobody asked, if he typed in his url on Google search and came up with nothing…
And why would Google de index a site just because it has one page of content? Plenty of those sites out there…. I can see if Adsense would remove their ads from such a site, (not saying they will, but that would be a lot more likely than the site being de indexed…)
Personally I do not make one page sites. But… I can see if one goes for the really low competition kw’s with lesser searches that it is easier to bomb with a site since Googles numbers aren’t always correct.
What I will probably do is something like setting up a one or two page site, maybe not adding adsense to it, (I’m chicken) and then if it is in position higher than 5 and is bringing visitors then it is worthwhile to build the site out and add the adsense. If the site ranks well and still isn’t getting traffic, then not too much money/effort has been spent and one can just move on.
This would of course require being a lot more organized than I am
Keeping track of it all, but it could save some money and labor when effort is only directed towards sites that are actually having potential.
Evita
Very good point Evita. Now that you mentioned it, I do not recall him ever saying he was unable to do a search for his sites. So yea, maybe they are just majorly sandboxed because Google felt his sites were “junk”.
I think you probably made the right choice, but I’m not much of a risk-taker. These XFactor sites are everywhere, many with a footprint, and I do wonder how long it will be before Google tries to take care of it. And I have to wonder if the NET income of having all those sites is worth it in the long run.
I know it looks good to be bringing in $100 of adsense per day, but if your domain costs, hosting, ongoing backlinking, software fees, additional content, etc are costing you $50 per day (hypothetical) along with all your time – I’m just not sure that is the route to go. I’m not saying you personally, but I do wonder what kind of a net profit people are bringing in AND how long will that last? If Google figures out a way to deindex XFactor sites like it did BANs sites, that would be a big loss for many.
But hey, I’m not earning that much myself so what do I know!
.-= Carrie´s last blog ..Sites Shuffling Downward =-.
Well the short term goal is that they earn me $100.00 a day but eventually these sites should be earning me significantly more than $100.00 a day, like in a few months. And obviously I am not going to be paying for outsourcing on content and back links for them everyday. Just a one time ordeal, so maybe my first initial investment on one of these sites is: $9.00 domain + $15 for 5 articles + $12.00 for rewrites and spins + $10 for 60 blog comments = $46.00.
But hopefully the site will earn $3.00 a day in 2-3 months. So it basically has the potential to bring in $90.00/month x 10 months left of a year before next renewal = $900.00. That’s a significant profit. And of course that amount can be a little lower or a little higher. But because we target such low competition, very little upkeep will be necessary, i.e. article marketing or further back linking. Most likely I will invest in another $15 on more articles to boost earning potential. especially for sites I know are money makers already.
Those calculations look a bit better although you also need to calculate in things like UAW and other memberships, right?
I guess we’ll see what happens in a few more months. How old is your oldest XF site?
.-= Carrie´s last blog ..Sites Shuffling Downward =-.
Yes, that is true. I did not include my monthly subs for UAW $67.00, TK $147.00 and now that WSO article membership $12.00. And granted not every site is going to bea hit. On some sites I might invest $46.00 and maybe barely break even in a year’s time or not even break even. Where 1 site likes another will overcompensate though. So there is always a balance.
I would say my oldest, true xfactor site is 3 months old. I did a few in december that fit xfactor’s suggestions at 100%. That was just relying on the SOC with MNF though. Now that I use Clickbump’s suggestion of 3 PR- or PR0, my sites have a higher chance of ranking faster and earning more money.
Not all your site would bring you money. I have 2 sites at #3 on google for their keyword, and I get $0 from those sites. I have 1 site on #7 (position #3 and #4 are shopping pictures). I get about 30 visits a day according to WP stat (I think it is true because it shows me the searched keywords) and I get $0 from that site.
True.
It is a numbers game. Some will make no money, or very little.
Others will make a lot more, making up for the “duds”.
Then some will be real gems, providing a steady income for months and years to come with little to no effort on your part.
The more sites you build the more successes you will have.
I agree with Evita and the main thing is to never go for keywords that are not product related. I am not talking about going after brand names, I never go after brand names as my main keyword for fear of receiving a cease and desist letter. With adsense you want to target visitors that are obviously interested in buying products.
You should avoid any keyword that has the word “free” in it.
example of keywords not to go for:
free birthday invitations
printable invitations (this could be profitable but a lot of your visitors could be looking for a free online service that lets them print for free online. Instead target something like “printable invitations software”. See, that’s a buying keyword now!)
[insert keyword here] photos/pictures (this is bad news. Your visitors are not looking to buy photos. Why would they when they can look for free ones and download them for free?)
keyword info (this is a tough call but probably is not a buying keyword phrase)
You want to focus on products. Usually anything with “cheap” , “discount”, “buy” and “online” is gonna be a money maker.
cheap birthday invitations
discount birthday invitations
buy birthday invitations
find birthday invitations
online birthday invitations
Sorry I am fixated on invitations right now because my son and I just went shopping for some today after school. lol
I go for mostly product related stuffs. I don’t know if this is true, but I heard add “buy” doesn’t get clicks. I notice that the any keyword with buy does get a lot of exact monthly search.
So for a $46 initial outlay, let’s play it really conservatively and go with the numbers Mikeman is averaging, average you could make 0.70 per site per day.
Just being conservative,,,, prolly in the long run it is a lot more than that.
So you spend $46 and make that back in roughly 2.5 months.
Do you know of any other business with that kind of ROI? And that fast?
I don’t
With hours you can set yourself. In a great environment. No boss hanging over you. (Except your cats of you have any..)
Now, there will be some ongoing expenses. But they need not be very high. Hosting is cheap. Domains around $9. Throw some links to the site here and there. UAW subscription at $67 is cheap to maintain an income of $100 per day and is just part of the game.
I love the numbers I come up with when calculating my profits versus expenses setting up these sites.
Evita
But Evita, are you actually making those profits? Yeah, the ROI you listed is good, but can you make a sustainable living off of it? If Google decides to de-index all your sites or ban your adsense account, then what?
Like I said, I’m not a risk-taker so I’ll never be rich from IM or even close. But I also won’t go broke.
.-= Carrie´s last blog ..Sites Shuffling Downward =-.
To be honest, Carrie, I do not have a perfect grasp on my expenditures to give measurements that make sense. There are way too many stages and variables.
I started this doing it all on my own, so had very small expenses. Now that I am making money and can reinvest to build my income, I still can’t give specific number since I have sites that I have paid to get content for but still not uploaded, sited that are a week old and just indexed and sites that have been indexed for a few weeks but aren’t ranking yet, sites that make steady income, and a bunch of sites in between
That sort of thing… But what I can say is that I am making money, my operating expenses, (which I count to be domains, hosting and monthly subscriptions) are a small fraction of my income.
The outsourcing that I purchase, to *grow* my business, is a different animal all together. I COULD do it myself, but that would take forever. I’d rather buy it. That money also comes from my Adsense income. And it means that my income will grow a LOT faster than if I do it myself if I care to reinvest some of my profits.
So, yes I am making money, while being able to use some of that income to grow and make even more money. I sorta like that….
Can Google ban me? Sure they can. Is is a concern? Yup it is.
But.
Life doesn’t come with guarantees. I can get fired from my job, or have a serious traffic accident, or any such event. I try not to worry about things that I have no control over. If I worry about Mother Google too much, then there is really no sense in doing this. It would just be an endless source of stress…
That said, though, I DO try to keep mother Google happy
and try to follow the rules to the best of my ability.
This is very much a mind game. It takes experience to get the game.
I really don’t have THAT much experience but am drawing a lot from a couple of sites I set up a couple of years ago. Some bombed after me spending MONTHS (months…..looong months…these were authority type sites…lots and lots of pages….) writing content, and some did well and I got to learn how a site ranks, and the time involved, the sandbox stuff yadah, yada..
A lot of the stuff I used to do, I look back and say to my cats: “What the F*ck was yo Mama thinkin’ ???
It is all part of the learning process.
Hope this ramble somewhat answers the questions you asked
Best,
Evita
Evita I totally agree.
I used to freak out thinking “Omg what if Goodge decides to give me the stick!”. I don’t do anything black hat. All of my sites are legit and provide my visitors with the information they seek. I have built my empire with blood, sweat and… well no tears yet but lots of blood and sweat I guess. I have sacrificed many sleepless nights and even fun things because I didn’t complete some tasks for the day. Google could just come along and say “BAM…account banned” for any reason really. Google has been really good to me and I hope they continue to be. but life is uncertain. Just as Evita has said, even working a “real job” is uncertain. Especially with the economy today. One day you could be working hard in your cubicle and the next receive a lay-off notice.
The best thing about my sites is that they are all product related. So if worse came to worse, I could find an affiliate for that product and earn as much, if not more than had Google ads been the only source of income for it. There’s always Amazon and I personally love Google’s affiliate network. So many options!
I have a google sniper site I built last summer that has 3 posts on it and its all fixated on an actual beauty product. It doesn’t do a great chunk of earnings for me. maybe $20 but I have not touched that site since I built it. If I put ups some more content on it, I bet i could easily triple the amount it earns. I just haven’t bothered because I am so focused on my micro niche sites right now. This is actually the longest I have ever worked at one program/system. I’ve been doing this for 5 months now. Dang, when I say it like that it makes me sound like a failure. I should be already at $100/day by now. lol
And on the note about outsourcing. now that I have been outsourcing for 5 months, I could never and will never go back to writing my own content. The only content I write on my own is this blog and 2 other unrelated blogs. But those blogs were never intended to earn money with. I had started them long before I discovered internet marketing. But of course I have monetized them. lol
Outsourcing saves time and sanity. I am pretty certain most people that have many sites have to outsource. It would be too difficult to keep up with them all.
Wow you’re moving ahead so fast. I bet things will move very quickly once you start that backlinking.
About the 1 page sites, I tend to agree. I was going to try it too, but had second thoughts for the same reason as you. It just doesn’t feel right to me (that said – some of my sites are just 1 page simply because I never finished them. I need to get that sorted!)
.-= Ruth – Web Career Girl´s last blog ..I’m Back With A Free Gift! =-.
Yea, I am sure they will. I am already seeing changes from the blog commenting that started last week. I have no doubt my sites will make it to page one and most in the top 1-6ish.
Evita & Sara,
Sorry, I’m not trying to be a downer but just trying to add a wee bit of caution. Yes, you can lose a normal job, but I at least have never had to pay out money before starting a job while not even having a guarantee I would ever get paid later. I’m sure those jobs may be out there, but your typical cubicle job will pay you for your work without any upfront, non-refundable fee on your part.
I guess what worries me (and this was not directed at anyone in particular) is that people see the $$ that someone says they are making, yet the upfront and ongoing costs aren’t always listed (or the lack of money that could have been coming in from an outside job). Someone may be making $100/day in adsense, but maybe they already spent thousands of dollars in outsourcing/products to get there (or ran up their credit cards to pay for groceries b/c they were FT IMers). Now, if that $100/day was guaranteed to last for a long time then that would be fine, but there are obviously no guarantees.
It’s the financially-conservative part of me that flinches sometimes when I see people taking huge financial risks. Yes, that can payoff big-time, but it can also sink you into debt if you’re not careful. In IM I think we hear and spotlight the success stories, but all those people that lost their shirts and bailed probably don’t just disappear without leaving behind their story
Just trying to provide a little balance, that’s all. I’m not saying live in fear of big, bad, Google – just be careful.
.-= Carrie´s last blog ..Sites Shuffling Downward =-.
I get what you are saying Carrie. It’s true that many times people do not understand what they are getting into. People are so quick to jump on any sort of “get rich” quick system these days, that no one actually does some research first to make sure there is long term potential. i.e. Niche Devil. I forgot how much the ebook was but I bought it (maybe $97.00) and look at the fruit that system bared. I think I made a whopping $5.00 and they launched the system in September and now even the main sales page no longer exists. I wish I would have researched it more before buying it.
The truth is with internet marketing you are going to have to invest something. We’ve all done it. We’ve bought useless ebooks, software and domains. Granted it may not be thousands of dollars spent (like I am currently doing right now) but there will always be a start up costs. There is always going to be that first start up cost when purchasing a domain and some risk with that purchase because you don’t know for sure how well you can rank it for.
I am not usually a risk taker and especially being a single mom, I don’t have a lot of extra money sitting around to spend on my web business. When I started outsourcing in september, I was using whatever money I was earning from my blogs and reinvesting it back into my business. I was also using part of my paychecks from the dental office to pay for my outsourcing.
The only reason why I feel so confident in slapping down my credit card on outsourcing is because I “get it” now. I have learned from my mistakes and I have totally fine tuned my keyword research. I can look at page 1 positions and be able to tell you within 5 seconds whether or not that is a keyword worth buying a domain for. I am positive my sites will rank and even if they are not on page 1 immediately, I know it is only a matter of a few weeks and some back links that will push my site to page 1.
Its good to be conservative and think things through. I am that way about everything in life. I am very cautious when it comes to finances, dating men and making time or event commitments.
But with this part of my business, I merely cannot throw some seeds into a pot of dirt and say “Now grow little seed” and expect a full blown tree the next day. I have to take action. Without all the basics of earth, water, sunlight AND time; that plant will never grow. In my business, I have to plant the seeds and nurture them so that in a few months from now I will have trees that bare plenty of fruit!
I guess it all comes down to how deep is your faith. I watch “the Secret” and several other like videos a week. Most of the time I have them playing in the background as I work. This helps remind me that I can succeed. I will too!
I don’t disagree with anything you said Sara and I am sure you will be successful. Now get back to work!
.-= Carrie´s last blog ..Sites Shuffling Downward =-.
Woot! haha I worked hard yesterday. I will update today about it.
Totally agree Sara,
I think once you get to a point where you’ve been around the block several times, hopefully you kind of get to know whats the real deal and what’s BS.
Its like when the xFactor course was introduced I think all of us marketeers kind of knew that this was was actually going to work. Purely becuase a lot of us have been through the trials and tribulations of failed attempts at making money and also becuaseof the fact that he is a credible person on the forums who was followed for months prior to him releasing his course.
I think you hit the nail on the head in the paragraph wher you said you ‘get it’. Being able to tell if a nich is going to work or not from just looking at the top 10 and also a few figreus from MNF is somethign that is only learnt through experience.
My point is that once you nderstand the process which can initially take a few months and you do ‘get it’ then you are taking a risk but its a calculated risk with enough due dilligence.
Anyway, good luck with it all.
Zaheer
Hi Sara!
You said: “I watch “the Secret” and several other like videos a week.”
Can you please tell me what “other like videos” you watch? I LOVE the secret and would love to know what the other videos are so that I can check them out! Thanks
There is also one called “Beyond The Secret” which is obviously an extension of The Secret. I also like one by Louis Hay “You Can heal Your Life”.
Ugh. Evita & Sara, I answered you guys above your own posts somehow:
http://www.noteworthytips.com/week-4-of-full-speed-ahead-5-page-wins/comment-page-1/#comment-696
I need some sleep I think.
.-= Carrie´s last blog ..Sites Shuffling Downward =-.
Sorry Carrie. That was my fault. I was changing the “nesting tables” and it jacked things up. It’s fixed now…I think. lol