FAQ About the First Purpose Built N1WAY Guide Site
I have had TONS of questions roll in about the Putter Site, and thought I would address several in one post. They range from keyword research to content generation and of course, template and design questions.
FAQ About the Development of the First N1Way Guide Site
Q: Why Didn’t You Use the Theme Provided in the Guide?
A: I Didn’t like it!
Which leads to the explanation WHY I didn’t like it! You see, I am a code guy, I have been for 15 years… and when I started building the site, I did actually use the provided theme at first! Once I saw that the css file was 1900+ lines of code and somewhat built for their own purpose, I moved to a different theme.
Just to be clear – there is NOTHING WRONG with the theme they provided, its just that I chose a preferred method of using a non-re-purposed theme, and modifying it to my own needs. The css file used on the current site is just over 900 lines long, versus 1900, and just loads quicker.
Q: Why Does the GPG Site seem to Load Very Fast?
A: I am also an Optimization Freak! (OCD as it was recently referred)
Explain: When I go through the files, I do everything I can to reduce the load on the server. I remove extra code spaces, I optimize my images… and one thing I’m not sure I want to explain… I reduce the footprint of the database. You know how when you install BANS, it uses that large database .sql file to pre populate all of the data in all of the eBay categories? Well, I eliminate all of the ones that will never be used as soon as the site is built! In this case, the database is more than 27,500 records smaller than others! That may only equate to a second here and there, but every split second counts!
I do not want to step-by-step walk through it here, but will if you all want… just comment. It Involves:
1 – Giving all your pages a sort order value
2 – Using the MySQL Database tool to delete ALL category records WITHOUT a Sort Value!
Sounds easy – but one wrong hash mark and you are starting from scratch, losing ALL YOUR DATA! The plus side is that your database table goes from 2.7 megabytes in size, to less than 50k!
Q: Has the Site Made Any Sales Yet?
A: Yes – 6 to be Exact, and one was a Clickbank Putting Guide in the sidebar!
I will not publish actual figures until its 30 days old…Β but suffice to say, for an 11 day old site with little to no marketing, its doing much better than I expected!
Q: How Much Traffic Does the Site Get?
A: Roughly 82 Daily Visits, 294 Daily Pageviews
I actually put up a site-meter link in the footer of the site last week at some point. Anyone can go in and look at the site stats, anytime. The averages in SiteMeter are lower than the actual Analytics numbers, since it was installed 4-5 days after the site was launched. Analytics shows 121 daily visits, 304 daily pageviews.
Q How Much of That Comes from This Site, or How Much from Search?
A: From this site, exactly 42 visitors this month. From search engines, 386 so far this month.
The majority of the traffic that came from this site came in the first couple days of talking about the contest, which was last month. While some of the site contest participants HAVE linked to it from their own sites, a large majority of the traffic is generated from search.
Q: Is the Site Ranking as You Expected?
A: Better than I expected at this point…
Q: How Has it Been Working BANS Again?
A: There have Been a Few Challenges
Overall, there is nothing at all wrong with working in BANS… but as I have been developing a second site of my own in a completely unrelated and obscure niche market, WordPress is much easier. You write your post reviews one time, and all the relationships occur automatically. At this point, I definitely prefer to use Wordpress for the time saving factor alone. That is only out of preference though… and i don’t expect one or the other to be any better for seo or any other factors.
I WILL use BANS on another site in the future as well… When used properly, its a good product!
When I get the new site to a certain point, I will put the link behind a password protected post on this site, and it will be sent out via email to subscribers. It will be the only way into the site to view the URL.
Q: How Many Backlinks have You Been Getting
A: Unfortunately, None.
Chasing links is BY FAR the biggest hurdle I fight myself over. Aside from a few links that have been bookmarked by others, Stumbles, and links from Facebook, I have done nothing! I have dropped that ball for now… and am working on fixing that as we speak!
The first thing I have done is ordered an inexpensive Press Release for the site. It cost me $15 on eBay, and includes the 350-500 word article, plus distribution to 55 press release sites. aka Article marketing. I HAVE used the same sellers service in the past with good results. Once it goes out, I will let you know how it goes and post a link to the service if anyone else wants to use it.
I HAVE subscribed to the “Forward and Backwards” methods in the N1Way Guide, but have yet to take enough time to follow through and actually do anything with it.
Its My Biggest Weakness…
Q: What is Your Favorite Part of the N1Way Guide So Far?
A: By Far, the “Step 9 – Treat it Like a Business Section“
I would suggest everyone STOP everything you are doing right now if you have not read this section! It actually puts everything into very clear perspective and tells you the same thing you have heard almost everywhere else… this $hit Aint Easy – BUT, if you stick to it… you will win!
My Best Advice for Anyone Struggling
Do Your Niche Research BEFORE you Build a Thing!
In the Infamous Word of Robert Kardashian – If the Niche Don’t Fit – Don’t Commit! (I know, but its something like that)
Focus on your Content Reviews FIRST!
Your site is nothing without the product content reviews… AFTER they are completed and posted, they will make up 80% of the other site content you need to put up! Build your site from the Bottom – Up!
Most Importantly… Do Not Get Hung Up on Numbers!
Since researching literally HUNDREDS of niche markets in the past couple weeks – DO NOT get hung up on Google search metrics at the top level of your Niche Market! Just because this site is named Golf Putter Guide, I am not targeting guides in any way shape, or form. My targets are the [BRANDNAME] Putter Reviews and [PRODUCTNAME] Putter Review.
Pay attention to your INDIVIDUAL PRODUCTS… they are what make you money!
You said …”this $hit Aint Easy β BUT, if you stick to itβ¦ you will win”… I believe that as you have told me in the past… Some things are really difficult to start with and as time goes on…Site 2.3.4. etc… it gets easier.
.Heck a year and a half ago bans was hard for most of us…This N1way is the way to go.. which is teaching build from the ground up and there is no chance of having a thin site…..
You mention that “WordPress is much easier. You write your post reviews one time, and all the relationships occur automatically.”. In the guide, they have created all of their reviews by using pages instead of posts. Would you suggest writing reviews in a post format as opposed to a page format. Does it really matter which is used?
@Ottidid – It truly does get easier with time… and a 50 page “Content Driven” site, with auction listings sprinkled in, does alot better in just 6 months, than an out of the box BANS site, with no original content.
@frank – I am building the WP site with pages as well – I have just added some code to my theme, to automagically relate all the content.
I don’t think it would matter if you used pages or posts to be honest… they are in effect, the same thing, and only looked at differently in the sitemap, (posts – timely, like news. Pages – static, like encyclopedias) which can be adjusted with the Google sitemap plugin, to make them appear the same.
Mark
I’m curious about the Press Release from Ebay… I looked around and didn’t see any info on it.. can you give a little detail or point to it?
@Mark – I agree that they look and feel the same for the most part (posts and pages) but there is one distinct advantage to posts, they are included in the RSS feed. What I do is, write down the feed name for each category and do some RSS mashups and submit my RSS feeds, including the mashup, to RSS directories. So if you have a category called “Nike Putter Reviews” that will be the title of the feed when shown on RSS sites.
Good post Mark. You offer some great content dude.
Hi Mark
Some good questions answered there. I have to agree with the site load issue and OCD with code, I never used to be that picky about the length of the style sheet, image placement etc etc but I have a friend just like you who, over the past 2 years, forced me into it
. But every second does count, some articles suggest that for every second your site takes to load you loose X amount of visitors.
That’s fantastic that the site is getting so many visits without marketing.
It would be interesting to know, have you gone after high searched keyword phrases for SEO or just for phrases which you know have some searches but will get the visitors who usually convert? In other words do you think that it’s better not to get too hung up on keyword research but on building the site well and researching your niche well?
Ben
@Ben – Truly, the only attention I have paid to onsite SEO, is making sure each page has a properly formed meta-title, H1 tag, and in this case… I used meta-keywords.
I have been paying more attention to structured content versus anything else lately. (Usability)
Reviews -
Putter Reviews –
[BRAND] Putter Reviews –
[BRAND] [MODEL] Putter Reviews -
The interlinking of all the content together through the various summary and guide pages, seems to have had the best effect. Its ALL very “Logical” (As Spock once said)
Keyword/Phrase research DID come into play on alot of this, but only at the +3 word level, and it was ALL done BEFORE I ever built any of the pages. I paid no attention to: “putter reviews” unless it had a few other words in the string. Since, I have not revisited keyword research at all.
If you browse through all the main categories of the sitemap, you will see that many of the “review categories” are already ranked in the top 1-15 in search as well! (Callaway being the main exception)
Keep in mind – no links built yet!
The ONE MAIN THING I can say I am NOT doing on this site – is spending alot of time on it! Aside from a few hours yesterday adding more content, and 2-3 hours today starting a link strategy, I have walked from it! On other sites – I would still be fretting over things…
Mark
@Mark –
Well what you are doing is obviously working and paying off and as you mention you haven’t even built any links yet.
What I have found about this site build (using N1Way) is that I have enjoyed it far more than many other niche website I have built in the past and that includes some of my best performing ones.
Concentrating on the usability is definitely something which can often be overlooked, obviously in this case it certainly hasn’t. It’s often easy for individuals to forget that your building a site to please visitors and not just SE bots and this is something which is so important to remember.
I agree with the time factor, I may usually feel guilty about not ‘pampering’ a new site but in this case I really don’t.
Good luck with the link building
Ben
@Mark –
I mean’t to ask also, are you aiming for good extact/broad search volumes (i.e. a number of searches) on your keywords or are you more focused on the product sell through rate, popularity etc. e.g. callaway putter reviews gets a small number of searches per month but I guess your intention is that you get that small number of very tightly targeted visitors to that page, most of whom are likely to buy.
@Ben – I am paying more attention to what is selling (specific products) than anything else. BTW – You are starting to get into some of that “Secret Sauce” LOL… but here it goes…
Callaway Putter Reviews – is not really a “Target”, but a “Result” of the longer tails… (Its actually not even that… yet)
1 Year from now – “Putter Reviews”, again just a RESULT of all the efforts.
I posted this comment yesterday on another post – but it is a good representation of how I plan for the site to work:
The longer the tail β the easier it will rank β in the shortest amount of timeβ¦ eventually, spitting your short phrase rankings right out the bottom!
Ex: You will rank sooner for the phrases at the TOP of this list β which over time β leads to ranking at the bottom of the list β a Keyword Funnel! It takes TIME, Quality content and effort. The TOP of the list, longer tails, represent your MONEY phrases!
1 β This Website Has Callaway True Blue Tour Putter Reviews
1 β It Also Has Nike Black Oz T100 Putter Reviews
1 β It Also Has Yes Callie Putter Reviews
which over more time and with enough reviews, leads to..
2 β Callaway Tour Putter Reviews
2 β Nike Golf Putter Reviews
2 β Yes Golf Putter Reviews
which over more time and reviews, leads to..
3 β Callaway Putter Reviews
3 β Nike Putter Reviews
3 β Yes Putter Reviews
which over more time and reviews, leads to..
4 β Callaway Putters
4 β Nike Putters
4 β Yes Putters
And hopefully, ultimatelyβ¦
5 β Putters
5 β Putter Reviews
5 – New Putters
5 – Golf Putters
5 – Best Putters
etc etc…
@Mark – I knew I’d get it out of you in the end, what’s the point of having all that knowledge if we don’t drill it out from time to time
.
But seriously, that’s a good strategy for sure. I generally target long tail phrases first on any new site and do see the results you mention above.
Thank you for the insight and secret stuff!:)
I just wondered why it appears as if you’ve changed your mind from a post on thenichestorebuilder where you say to use pages. Here’s the link http://www.thenichestorebuilder.com/converting-from-bans-to-phpbay-method-2.htm. Does that just pertain to moving Bans to WP?
thanks
Cherie
@Cherie – Good question Cherie… and the answer is that they are two separate “Types” of website.
That particular site was geared to be a blog, where I posted several times a week, working to build it into an “authority” for people looking for information…
In my case, I wanted the general product pages to be an afterthought of the overall site, and drive traffic with the post content, which focus on specific products. The pages themselves are used as static info landing pages, linked from blog posts, and vice versa.
On this “Set it and Forget it” type site, I want to do as little as possible to drive the site, and let the content speak for itself more or less.
Also keep in mind that when I first started the new site following the N1Way Guide, I DID actually build it using pages… what I found was that the time I had to invest into the manual process of relating everything together was much easier, if I just used the posts… but made them LOOK AND FEEL like pages, which is what I did.
Good question for sure!!
Mark
Hmmm… by making a blog and using posts, are you doing “more than is necessary”?
@Steve. N – Great question Steve!
In the guide however, they do use WordPress as one of the methods for building a site. I actually found that building with WP saved me at least 50% of the time it takes to build.
In effect, I am also not using the site as a “Blog” so to speak, and turned off comments on the site. Each review or guide, although they are technically “posts”, are really just static pages on a website that will only change when a new review is submitted.
Mark
Thanks Mark.
Incidently, I remember you talking about such plugins to simplify the internal linking of a WP site, but can’t seem to find the reference to them. Could you list them again here please?
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Time & Money Spent Developing Site
- 1.5 Hrs - Initial Research
- 3 Hrs - Site Development Planning
- 4.5 Hrs - Draft Review Pages to Admin
- 2.5 Hrs - Template & Code Customization
- 4 Hrs - Finalized 24 Product Review Pages and added 11 category summary pages
- Added a home page, and Launch site!
- 3.5 Hours: Added 2 more Guides + 10 more reviews
Money Spent to Date: $186.00Niche Guide Tags
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