I recorded the entire process of choosing a winner so you all follow along…

Video Length: 1:32 Seconds

Winner Information

Many of you who have used BANS for a period of time already know the winner – Tao! Comment #32 from the list below! You can learn more about him at his website, MegaTao!

Congrats Tao – email to follow very shortly!

Mark

In this post – I want to simply review what exactly you get by winning this contest!

Golf Putter Guide Site Info

First and foremost, you get both of the following domain names:

• GolfPutterGuide + .com (Registered through July 2010)
• GolfPuttersGuide + .com (Registered through July 2010)

These are through GoDaddy and will be transferred into your own GoDaddy account!

In addition to the domain names – I have the site setup under one of my own reseller hosting accounts – so moving it to your own host is your choice! I however, am going to provide hosting through the HostGator system as long as you keep the site!

• Hosting Included! (No addon domains allowed though)
• Full cPanel access, just like you are used to with HostGator!

Site info:

• 75+ Pages indexed in search!
• More than 40 published putter reviews!
• 7-10 “Ready to Publish” putter reviews added in the last 30 days!
• 3 Complete published guides
• 3 Draft Guides to get you started on adding new ones!
• All theme files
• All article content
• All image files

Site stats:

• 149,361 Alexa Ranking!
• Top 15 SERP’s for more than 40 targeted phrases (”putter reviews” is 12th in G, almost EVERY “[BRAND]+ Putter Reviews” ranks 10th-11th in G)
• Currently Averaging 72 daily unique visits
• Currently averaging 228 daily pageviews (3.17 pages per visitor)
• 60% Of all traffic comes from search!
• Averages .12 CPC in ePN (MTD 279 clicks, pacing to do $101.44 in monthly ePN earnings)
• Averaged 1.4 CJ Banner Sale per week, for a total earnings in Sept of: 38.19 (promo based banners)
• More than 50 back links – (Expecting a PR2+ on the next update, based on existing links)

Plan of Attack:

• Transfer domains
• Review the way the site was setup so you can work on it more!
• Publish the “Draft” pages in the system (After you learn how to add the images, etc) one per week.
• Complete and Publish the Draft Guides in place!
• Continue with Forward and Backward marketing per the N1Way Guide
• Learn and Earn!

Who do YOU think will win? You?

The Truth Is – The first year of your new affiliate websites’ life is going to be a series of ups and downs. Traffic will spike, traffic will be non-existent, and you my friend, are going to do what everyone else does… question your sanity, and wonder WHY you ever decided to build an affiliate website in the first place!

We All have two choices – Adapt to It, or Move into Another Line of Work!

The Early Months of Your New Site

It’s Blissful right? You just launched a new site, and within like a week, you notice that it’s indexed in search engines and already ranking in the top 30 for several well planned phrases! It’s like a friggin honeymoon… nothing could go wrong!

The first – second months continue to bring in good traffic numbers and you even have several sales on your new website! You simply couldn’t have planned this any better and suddenly you start to feel that you truly learned something from all your reading and efforts! Accomplishment! Check!

Around the end of the second month, you notice that traffic has started to dip just a little… but really pay it no attention – it must be a fluke right? Wrong. This is the point that REALITY starts to creep into the picture and you start thinking that something must be TERRIBLY wrong with your new site!

Chill out… step back… take a breath… its normal! Especially for an affiliate website! Why do you think the N1Way Guide suggests NOT revisiting the site for several months? Its by design!

The Cooling Off Period – aka – Unconfirmed Sandbox

From around day 45-90 of your new website being live, you are going to find that traffic dips significantly! In most cases, you will panic and start using search tools to see where you rank and find that the stellar rankings you had during the first 30-60 days, well… they’re gone! Now, you can’t even find your website in the top 100 search results!

Here is how it usually works:

• Days 1-45, Great Rankings, Great Traffic for a New Site! You are on Cloud 9!
• Days 30-60, Steady Rankings, Steady Traffic for a Fairly New Site! Already Thinking of Your Next Site – Gonna get Rich! Woot!
• Days 45-90, Drop in Search Rankings, Slowly Dwindling Traffic numbers. Uh-Oh, I Must have Done Something Wrong – Nahh… its just a Glitch!
• Months 3-6, Steady drop in rankings, traffic and earnings. WTF! This is like a Bad Dream! F*&k the N1Way Guide and Everyone who Read it!
  

It’s this point… that you need to realize it’s all by design!! If search engines took everyone at Face Value and treated every site the same, they would simply cycle through new sites every month, and NONE would ever grow into an authority!

This is the same point in time that 90% of us QUIT working on a site or walk away from Affiliate Marketing completely! The 10% who stick to the plan and move past it, well, they are the successful ones who will have build the foundation of a steady passive income in a few months!

From here forward, its going to be a slow process of your site gaining authority. The ONLY GUARANTEE beyond now, is that if you quit, you lose… everything else is up in the air!

What Can You Do During the Slow Months?

Follow the Guide, Continue with Forward and Backward Marketing, Build More Sites into your Downline, and move on… Remember, if it were easy… everyone would be doing it!

About 2 years ago, I wrote a post on the Niche Store Builder site about how building affiliate websites is like being a farmer, it’s just a different crop! In that post we were Growing DollaGreens. Now, you need to consider that when that post was written, you could push out a BANS site with a minimum of unique content and rank well… within 1 week! So at that point, the idea was to plant as MANY seeds as possible, weed out the bad crops and apply as much love as possible to the good ones!

Aside from the “As many sites as possible” part, everything else still holds true! As a matter of fact, you may even notice alot of similarity to the N1Way Guide!

• Build your Site and Water It
• While you WAIT for it to Grow, Build MORE! If you watch it like a hawk, you go nowhere!
• Revisit your Crops every now and again to Water Them
• Over Time, Weed Out the Bad Crops
• Rinse… repeat… never ending!

Again – the ONLY GUARANTEE you have from building these sites is that if you STOP WORKING ON THEM, you will FAIL! If you follow the N1Way Guide, build a downline of sites and revisit them in measured intervals, you will ultimately Succeed!

Not alot by any stretch of the imagination, but high quality – and takes less than 5 minutes a day!

Today – I want to discuss another Proven Link Building Strategy that works, blog commenting, with a twist!

Blog Commenting as a Link Building Strategy

Now – I realize someone is going to think or say – “But I Already Comment on Blogs” – I am not talking about simply going to a related blog, commenting and moving on, but instead… Finding a Quality Blog that will deliver the MOST Bang for the Buck for your comments! Yes… Blogs with Authority AND the Top Comments Plugin!

Why The Top Commenter Plugin?

Look on my own Niche Store Builder site – I have the Top Commentator Plugin running, and unknown to those not paying attention, when you make the top 10 list, you have a sitewide link, as well as authority juice from all the pages with PageRank, which are many!

In most cases, the Top Commentator Plugin removes the no-follow attribute and all links are readily followed and passing page authority to your link.

Finding the High Quality Blogs

You can spend all day looking for the right blogs – or you can simply pick up another tool for your site building toolbox, Fast Blog Finder. What fast blog finder does…

• Searches for Blog Posts based on Keywords You Enter.
• Sorts the Blogs by PageRank Authority, Updates, and Page Authority.
• Highlights Blogs using Do-Follow or No-Follow links
• Allows you To Keep a Log of Where You Have Commented (Important)

In a nutshell – at $49 Fast Blog Finder takes ALL of the guesswork about finding the Best Sites to begin a relationship with, and lets you simply focus on building the relationships.

Why Look for the Top Commentator Plugin NOW?

Simple – the beginning of the month is getting ready to roll around right? Well, in most cases, the Top Commentator section resets at the beginning of every month, and your single comment might just give you a sitewide link for quite a while!

Over the last week of September, you need to find and leave a comment on the blogs you want to “Make the Top Commenter List” on next month. When October 1st rolls around, your email and credentials are already in the blogs approved list, and you simply revisit, leave a comment (or two) relative to your site, and shazam – instant HIGH QUALITY sitewide link!

Putting it All Together – Step by Step

If you have Fast Blog Finder, fire it up and go to the search box. If not, you can search Google the same way, just not as easily.

1. Search for: “Your Niche” + “Top Commentator” (include the quotes and the + sign) Let the Fast Blog Finder tool run for about 15 minutes and go do something else while it compiles a list.
2. Sort the List by Domain PageRank, with the highest at the Top.
3. Visit Several of the Sites on the list, and engage in REAL Discussion! In other words, contribute REAL comments to the discussions.
4. Repeat the Process for several days, until you have a pool of several sites you are commenting on.
5. On October 1st, revisit the sites you commented on, and engage in further discussion, even if its just continuing the same discussion your originally replied to.

Before someone asks – pay no attention to the nofollow or dofollow attribute. Most of the Top Commentator widgets remove the nofollow, but even if they don’t, you will get good click traffic from the links as well.

Another Link Builder Review at the NSB Site

For those who don’t subscribe over the Niche Store Builder site, I wrote a review of another text link building tool last week. Read the TextLinks Review for further info, and take advantage of the Free 21 Day Trial Offer before it expires!

Since the buyer remained quiet about it… I will instead provide more of my own insight here. What I won’t provide however, is a link to the site or the domain name. If they choose to be involved in this discussion, that’s completely up to them…

Example of Why Chasing Search Demand is a Waste of Time!

Almost all sales activity is based off TeraPeak 90 Day Metrics. As I have said often, if you aren’t using terapeak… you are not even in the game!

The person, whoever it is, that grabbed the recommended domain and built the site, has made a crucial mistake in their research. He chased “Search Demand” first, versus paying attention to what really matters, the products people are buying, and THEN using search demand and SEO to get people TO those popular and higher volume of sales products!

What he has ended with… is a site that has great reviews of products that may rank well in search, but don’t sell! Literally!

Here are a couple of the [brands] and [products] the person chose to target on the site, and the reasons why they were wrong:

ADR Rims & Wheels (Brand)

On first glance in search, you would think you stepped in a goldmine! There is a high volume of search and once you get to the product level, there is very little competition… Good right? Wrong! The two products the person has chosen to review, ADR M-Sport and ADR Spartan, have very little sales volume on ebay in the past 30 days! ADR M-Sport has only sold $1200, and ADR Spartan, $900.

Akuza Rims & Wheels (Brand)

Same deal… when you look from a search perspective, they have great demand and very little competition at the product level! Again… you have ANOTHER product you can rank #1 in search for, easily! The problem is… in the last 30 days, not one person has bought even one of them on ebay! $0, null, zilch. So you may well rank first for the item, but what good is it if nobody is buying them?

The Total Earnings Opportunity

Instead of tearing apart every brand and product the person has chosen to target, which I assume, was based on search demand… I went ahead and looked at the TOTAL SALES Opportunity based on the roughly 25 exact [BRANDS] of PRODUCTS the person is targeting:

• Total Combined Sales: $46,000 / month
• Total # of Products with $0 Sales in 30 Days: 16 (Yes, that’s 16 product reviews of items that NOBODY has bought in the last 30 days)

While it may be a GREAT thing to target phrases in SEARCH with high volume and low competition, who really cares if you rank #1 for a popular term, when nobody is spending money on them?! In my post on the BANS forum, I started suggesting a few categories and products, based on 30 days of TeraPeak Sales:

Brand: XXR Truck Wheels and Rims

• XXR SportMax Wheels – $8400
• XXR 006 Wheels – $6600
• XXR 513 Wheels -  $9600
• XXR 518 Wheels – $4600

In reality – XXR is actually just an OK brand to target, but by itself, the exact PRODUCTS deliver more sales opportunity that 16 of the other reviews already on the site!

OK – So What’s My Point?

I often read page after page, blog after blog… about chasing the highest search volume with the least competition. While that is a Integral PART of the process, its NOT how you build a site! Ranking well for a product that nobody is buying is no different than ranking for abstract phrase nobody really searches for! It gets you nothing.

If you build your own site based off search volume, search demand, search competition, or the ranking for the EASIEST targets – you really need to check your targets first!

Alot of folks have emailed me and asked for more information about RankSpankers. All I can really say is that RankSpankers is a teaching site that walks through EXACT processes, step by step. It’s not a get rich quick scheme and it’s not a shortcut to fame… what it does do however, is show you step by step, SOLID practices that can be used to plan and build ANY website!

One of the launch training modules shows:

• How to FIND the EXACT Brands to Promote
• How to find the EXACT Products within those BRANDS
• How to PowerRank your Brands and Products
• How to Build Your Own Site Blueprint
• … much more…

… and that’s just ONE of the modules! Others include page structure, optimized url structure, on and offsite SEO, and much more!

If you have yet to sign up for launch updates… do so now! I am still on target for a October launch of the site… Incidentally, RankSpankers will do you no good if you aren’t using TeraPeak… it is the ONLY paid tool I even use anymore!

Just when you think you have it figured out… the bar is once again moved, and you have to relearn a few new strategies in order to succeed!

1 – Starting Without a Plan!

We have all done this and still do! If you start without a solid plan for your website, you are aimlessly heading nowhere! At minimum, your website plan should be able to tell you if you can expect to earn anything from your new site, the exact pages your site will launch with, and many additional pages that may bring traffic for the future! In addition, you should have a basic understanding of the type of information BUYERS within your niche seek out information. Whether that is reviews, product comparisons, specific features of the products, or any other measurable methods they use to make a buying decision.

Here are a couple posts to read:

• 5 Reasons to Avoid a Niche market
• Maximizing the Usability of your Content

2 – Using Site Navigation Links as LongTail Links

This is one VERY common mistake I have made myself and see quite a bit of in others websites. Site Navigation links should be short and sweet, doing nothing more than inviting your visitor to the [brand] or [product] page. Many times, we try to use the site nav links for long tail phrases and it comes out looking like spam!

Save the long tail for in-content links… and keep your navigation links to the point. Look at these examples:

Good Navigation Links:

• Callaway (Leading to several Callaway Items)
• Callaway Odyssey 2-ball (Leading to the Specific item)
• Ping (Leading to several Ping Items)
• Ping Anser (Leading to the Specific item)

Bad Navigation Links:

• Callaway Golf Putter Reviews and Guides
• Callaway Odyssey 2-ball Putter Review (Leading to the Specific item)
• Ping Golf Putter Reviews and Guides (Leading to several Ping Items)
• Ping Anser Putter Review (Leading to the Specific item)

If you find yourself repeating the SAME PHRASE over and over in your Sitewide Navigation links, you have to admit that it even looks kinda spammy to you! Just imagine how search engines and others see it! Save your long tail links for “In Content” and article links, and keep your site navigation as simple as possible!

3 – Building Pages that Have No Benefit to the Buying Process!

I make this mistake as often as anyone – but if your site is attracting people looking to “maintain or fix” something they ALREADY OWN, its not only going to provide you with non-targeted traffic, its going to hurt your new QPC score if they start clicking over to eBay to look at things they already own!

IF you have replacement parts on your site that’s another story… but if you have a site about cars, don’t include articles on washing the car, unless you have a specific section with cleaning supplies, that you use the related content to leverage the buying process!

If your site is focused on attracting buyers – don’t attract non-buyers just to have more traffic! Try to make sure EVERY PAGE supports the sale.

4 – Mixing SEO and Site Planning into the Same Process!

As much as this will be unpopular and present more questions than answers… its the truth! If you start worrying about search optimization as part of your planning process, you are setting yourself up for a failure before you even start! Skip your way OUT of the keyword demand process until AFTER you have the plan for the content in place! Its OK to look and see if there is basic demand for your niche market, but don’t get caught up in the trap of building pages to attract search visitors!

Once you know WHAT PRODUCTS people are buying, only then should you worry about getting them to your site! If you build your site around keyphrase demand first, you may just find that the phrase with a million searches only has $25,000 worth of sales in a month!

What are The Most Common Mistakes You think You Make when Building?

Separating Tasks for Best Results and Least Frustration!

Shhh… this is a secret! A secret that will not only save you time, but makes sure your niche product website will do its best, right out of the gate!

1 – Building The Site Blueprint- If you Have No BluePrint, You Have no Plan!

When you start planning your website – do ONLY that! Plan your site based on what people are buying and what your site is about! The ONLY important aspect of planning your website is that when you are done, you have a list of ALL the pages and ALL the Product Reviews & Guides your site will contain.

ELIMINATE SEO from this part of your site building… that comes LATER! You are not building a site for search engines, you are building a site that provides information for readers, and every page of your site should support the READER, not the search traffic!! (This step is a featured section of the RankSpankers Website – Stay Tuned!)

If you are outsourcing your content, submit it to your writer and forget about it, for now.

Step 1 Complete – 2 Hours.

2 – Build Your Site Structure

Once you have settled on your site blueprint, the next logical step is to build the foundation for your site. When I use WordPress, (Most Often) this is when I handle the install through Fantastico, install my plugins, create the category structure and almost every aspect of building a site on the WordPress backend.

Keep in mind that WordPress has a “Privacy” setting (Admin > Settings > Privacy) that you can use to block ALL search engine spiders for now, as a matter of fact… its now turned ON by default!

Step 2 Complete – 1 Hour.

3 – Create Your Content Titles

After you have the backend completely setup the way I want, I actually populate ALL of my page and post titles in place! Copying them from my BluePrint is simple and easy enough, and within 1-2 hours, ALL of my sites structure is completed, and I can review how it will flow to visitors.

Again, I am NOT paying any attention to SEO at this point in my page or post titles! They are what they are… and the main thing, is that they need to instruct a visitor to EXACTLY what content is included on that page! SEO is a separate process… that we will get to AFTER the site building is complete!

Step 3 Completed – 1-2 Hours.

4 – Source, Edit and Upload ALL Product Images

At this point in my site build, I usually spend a few hours sourcing ALL images at one sitting! It makes it much easier, since I am not piecing it together on the fly… opening new windows, tasking between applications, etc.

I Sit down with my Site BluePrint and go on the hunt! By the time I am done, usually 2-3 hours later, I have 100% of all my product review images uploaded and applied to their respective posts.

Step 4 – Completed in 2-3 Hours.

5 – Add the Post Content Once you Have ALL Of It!!

If you use a service like TextBroker, you can expect to have all your content back within a day or two, unless you choose a specific author for ALL your content. (Which is what I do)

Store your content in a text file as it is coming in… and ONLY when you have all of it, should you jump over and put it onto the site. You would be surprized how much time you waste opening and closing windows, when you post it as it arrives. I use my site blueprint for storing ALL the content to the site and once its complete, only then do I jump back into the admin and post it all to the respective titles.

Step 5 – Completed in 3-4 Hours.

The End Result…

For myself, I like breaking these tasks into separate days or sessions for many reasons:

1. I Don’t Get Bored with one Site when I break it into several days!
2. I STILL get things done while waiting for Content!
3. I am never jumping from window to window, task to task in the same session! Its like working in a factory… doing piece assembly… focusing on ONE SMALL part at a time!
4. I don’t lose a full day on one site, and can work on several sites in one day!
5. I OFTEN come up with different ideas during one step or another, that are easily implemented sitewide!
6. I am very Task Oriented, and have a starting and ending point to each task, thus I feel like I have accomplished something!
7. Its EASIER to track where you are on a site build!

I could go on and on… but the bottom line is that “It Just Works!” By following a repetitive protocal on every site build, you will begin to get super-efficient at each task you complete, taking far less time on the next site!

Repetition turns to habit… habit turns to productivity… increased productivity turns to money!

As you read this and begin to understand the cost and time involved, I hope it becomes clear what is involved on the build. As much as I prefer and TRY to help everyone learn the process themselves, there are some who simply prefer to have it done, at least once.

Outsourcing an Affiliate Niche Site Build

When you look at what you do on a site, it really doesn’t seem like alot, but it is a considerable time consuming process, especially if you aren’t equipped with the right software, or dont have the skillset yet to do it efficiently. Once you add in fixed costs associated with it – this really isnt a bad deal!

When I was asked by one reader last week, I quoted her $620, which to me, is very affordable for the service involved! She actually said – “Thats Appalling, and you should be Ashamed”… Whoa – here’s a reality check for ya!

The list below details what is involved in building a +/- 50 page WordPress driven Niche Affiliate Site, ready to launch.

1. Researching the Niche Market and Advising for or Against. (Usually 1-2 hours, several emails)
2. Building the site BluePrint for Launch. (RankSpanker Report, 1-2 Hours)
3. Outsourcing the Content for You (+/- 40, 250 word articles) for the Site launch. (Fixed cost: $200-$250)
4. Sourcing and Editing all the images for the Product / Item reviews. (4-6 Hours)
5. Installing the WordPress Backend on your Host Account (-1 Hour)
6. Install and Configure the Plugins in WordPress (1-2 Hours)
7. Configure your Chosen platform to display eBay Auctions (phpBay, or other WordPress plugin)
8. Create all Static Pages on the site: About, Contact, Privacy, Favorite places” (2-3 Hours)
9. Create Guide Index Pages (Built Into theme)
10. Create Reviews / Articles Index Page (Built Into theme)
11. Create all Guides and Guide Images. (2-3 Hours)
12. Create all Reviews / Product Articles, Include Product Images. (4-6 Hours)
13. Install Customized Arthemia Theme with Your Own Logo, and finally… (30 Minutes)
14. Launch Site! (Fixed Cost: $30)

14 Individual steps… that sound easy enough right? But when you consider I quoted $620 and she was actually OFFENDED, I decided to put this post for everyone to see… and it also gives me a place to simply refer people to now.

Why The Heck Does it Cost So Much?

Lets truly break down that $620 cost…

• Fixed Costs – $230-$280 on Content and Launch Package.
• Labor – 17-25 Hours of My Time
• Additional Labor – 2-4 Hours of email support, which you WILL need and I am KNOWN for giving.

So, when you take out the fixed costs of roughly $250, that leaves $370 for the labor side of it, which is going to consume 19-25 hours of my time!

How Soon Will You Earn It Back?

Since this is usually the NEXT question I hear… I will tell you what I tell everyone else. There ARE no Guarantees you will earn a penny! All I can do is provide a SOLID platform to get your site off the ground, where it goes from there is in your hands!As long as you follow the N1Way Guide and continue to work on the forward and backward marketing, you should succeed… but if you just look at stats for 6 months, you won’t get much from it.

Its like a car – you can have a custom hot rod built for you, but it will never go ANYWHERE if you don’t actually get in, turn the key and drive it! This is NO different than one of my own sites and if I don’t continually monitor, mold and make timely changes to my own, they won’t earn anything either!

If ANY of the site owners I have built sites for care to post their comments as to its value to YOU, feel free to do so.

RankSpankers is Coming to Life!

On another subject – I have decided to package quite a bit of my knowledge into a Members ONLY website aptly named, RankSpankers! At this point, the site will launch with 2 main modules in place, and 5 more on the table for monthly posting.

It is NOT a monthly fee service, I am monthly-fee’d out myself and get turned off by paying a monthly fee for anything nowadays! But as of yet… I truly haven’t decided how it will be put together.

My plan is to get the beta out of the way over the next 2 weeks and I have a small group that are going to help me finalize the first two modules:

• Niche Site BluePrint Builder – 6 Training Sections – 16 Video Screencasts!
• Niche Site Structure Optimization – 5 Training Section – 12 Video Screencasts!

Along with these two completed training modules – there are several individual modules already in place, like “How to Get the Best Domain Names”, etc. The site will also feature a Members Only forum, where we can share “one on one”, or “one to all” strategies, without fear and worry of pissing off Google Gods, or other marketing Guru’s.

There is ALOT going on in the RankSpankers backend right now – which I will share with you all as the month progresses… but one thing I will assure everyone, its NOT the “Same Old Crap” regurgitated in a different way!

What Were My 30-Day Goals

My ONLY goals for the first 30 days of the site resolved around getting the content indexed in search and starting to see a trickle of traffic to the site. I truly had no revenue goals, or even ranking goals in the first 30… since I realize that a new website takes time to gain foothold on the web. If you recall, the 5 guides and 25 product reviews are part of the launch of the site, so they really cannot be counted as completed goals.

Following along with the N1Way Guide, I really shouldn’t even be looking at, or changing anything at this point except forward and backwards referencing. Aside from checking stats once a week, updates to the site should be left to the 90 day point. When I originally launched the site, I only published 3 guides and 35+ reviews… so I will go ahead and make active the remainder of the guides and reviews this week. Just to be clear, there was no technical purpose for my method… other than adding my own twist on the guides method, and trickling in an update every now and again, but changing NOTHING else.

Per the Guide: “Over Advertising or Constant Tinkering will Cost You in the Long Run”

Goals -

• Have site fully Indexed
• Begin to see trickle traffic on longer phrases

First Full Month Site Metrics

Data is reported from Google Analytics, Google site:domain.com search, cPanel, ePN, and

• 61 Indexed Pages - this includes ALL guides, categories, reviews and supplementary pages like Contact, About, etc.
• 2345 Total Unique Visitors – this is skewed by the referrals from here, forums, and other places I have discussed the site.
• 3330 Visits - Average 107/day
• 12,713 Total Pageviews – Average 410/day
• 3.81 Pages per Visit

Since these numbers are skewed by referrals from here and other inbound linked sites, the real numbers I am going to look at are the search generated metrics.

• 6329 – Search Engine Driven Pageviews - These come from Google (71%), Ask (11%), Yahoo (9%), AOL MSN/Bing/Live (6%) and various others (3%)
• 587 KeyPhrases made up 329 different words.
• 31% of ALL search generated traffic came from 10 different, 2-3 word phrases!
• 42% Overall bounce rate (That’s good)
• 41% bounce from search traffic (That’s good!)

I REFUSE to post anything about how the site ranks in search for specific phrases, been there, done that, already been spanked by search engines for it in the past! But you are all welcome to go to the site and check the various categories for yourself.

Now for the nuts and bolts of why we do this… earnings broke down at roughly 60/40, with 60% coming from banners, 40% from ePN. Keep in mind, that a single banner transaction can earn quite a bit more, in this case, $15-$30, versus smaller amounts for purchases through ePN.  Also remember that ALL of these ePN numbers are skewed due to clicks from here, forums, and other referral links that were non-shopper visits.

• $69.86 – ePN Earnings (New EPC is only .06, I assume due to all the stray clicks, as all but one purchase has been right on target!)
• $93.40 – (3) Separate Site Banners
• Total: $163.26

Expectations – Plans for the next 45-60 Days

As long as I continue with my forward and backwards marketing as mentioned in the N1Way Guide, the site should easily continue to earn steadily. However, I also realize that looking at the Google insight Trends for “Putters”, demand in the market itself is at the exact point of dropping very sharply, and continuing to do for the next 60-90 days. In other words… search demand is about to fall off, until golfing season again!

I will go back into the site over the next 2-3 weeks and add the remaining reviews I have set in the system, as well as publishing a few timely guides I have planned.

Replicating the Process Across 9 More Sites

In the first 30 days of this being live, I have also launched 3 others of my own. I am working toward eliminating some of the sites that I just don’t feel are going to perform well in the new ePN Quality Click Pricing model, as is evident by the early trends I see. More on that in a future post…

In the next 3-4 weeks, I have 4 additional sites in various stages planning, building and launching, and once again… I will share more about that with you all very soon!

How Is Your First Build Going?

Before anyone gets started on this, as much as I wish I could,  I simply cannot answer “site specific” support requests on it, due to EVERY site being different! It will take me 30-60 minutes to help each person! I changed this theme to work for myself, and it relies heavily on using the posts and pages in WordPress, the same way I have done on my own site.

The directions below assume you already have your post reviews in place, as well as the phpBay plugin installed. Also, if you are not familiar with how to use the “Image” custom field in Arthemia, you should read the read me file in the theme as well. The theme itself relies heavily on the custom field, and this theme edit uses it in several places also.

1. Download and Install the Slightly Modded version of Arthemia to your WordPress backend.
2. Download and Install the List Tags Plugin.
3. Make SURE you already have your site setup with categories and pages in place.

Edit for Clarification – In the video, I show how to use a custom field for displaying phpBay plugin driven results on your site, the way the theme is coded. You DO NOT HAVE to use this method… it WILL work just fine if you use phpBay as it is intended. It is simply a shortcut I USE, to make the site more flexible for my own needs.

Edit 2 For Further Clarification – If you prefer to use the phpBay code within your posts like you are used to doing, it works perfectly fine! You are NOT required to use it if you have a market that comes from several different categories.

Watch the Video for Configuring the Theme to Work with your Website

Video Length - 19 Minutes
(Sorry for the long runtime – I tried to explain alot of things)

Links for working with Arthemia

• Original Arthemia Theme

Images FAQ For Arthemia (Also at the link above)

im-FAQ 1 : How to get the thumbnail image resizer working??

Actually the explanation above is clear enough for you to get the thumbnail working, but in case you missed something, you could read these step-by-step to-do list. Before you start, make sure that the image is already there, located in your own server. The script can not generate thumbnails if your image is located outside your server (eg. Flickr photos, Picassa, etc.)

1. Add a custom field in the post. The custom field key MUST be Image (letter cases are important).
2. Fill the custom field value with the path of your image. It MUST start with wp-content I repeat it MUST start with wp-content. If you have the image located at http://www.yourblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/file_name.jpg then the key value of the custom field MUST be wp-content/uploads/2008/06/file_name.jpg (Notice there is no http://www.yourblog.com/ in the value)