I want to show you something:
The graph you see is for one article I wrote for hubpages back in the beginning of March, 2010. It took me all of 20 minutes to write – probably less than what it takes me to write this up. I wrote the post, and 25 or so others and forgot about them for the most part.
But do you see what I see? Over time, content you write that offers real value on hubpages, or any other site seems to age over time and attract more visits. This online thing is really just one part time, and one part effort. The more time and effor t and time you can commit, the better the results.
These particular numbers are for a seasonal product – electronics – that will be replaced by something bigger better and brighter next year for certain, so this chart wont’ always look like this but had I written more timeless content, like how to get of of debt, or how to skin a cat, or how to to clean your keyboard, or even (wait for it) kitty litter boxes, over time you gain some trust and the web realizes that heck maybe this guy’s stuff isn’t so bad even if he does write about pink kitty litter boxes
Now as you can see, even at it’s highest point I’m only seeing 5 visits a day. It’s a popular product and there’s a fair bit of competition. So? What if I wrote about 100 similar products? or topics? It could be cats or home theater accessories or how to live your life in a zen like state, the topics don’t really matter. They need to serve a need, solve a problem, or maybe just maybe convince the reader that they can’t live another day without a pair of woman’s boots or books on travleing to china, and which I’ve sold and made money that can go towards my debt, thank you very much whomever you are who made those purchases. I hope the boots fit and the trip to china is wonderful. If you need anything else I’m here to help you find the best deal.
Another example: This may change and your mileage may vary – but if you write about stuff or terms that nobody thought about or that there’s only a little demand..you get ranked in the SERPs pretty quickly, whether your content is on your site or on a site like hubpages doesn’t really matter. Start out writing about the odd terms or long tail terms if you will and you will get some visits. Not a lot at first, but if you keep at it and have the patience to create a site that is an authority in your topics over time you start to rank number 1 for some results that you wouldn’t think possible. In fact, you can rank number 1, number 2, and number 6 out of ten possible slots on the front page of Google. That means out of 2.5 millon possible results I rank 3 out of the ten spots. Do I see a lot of visits for debt snowstorm? No. But maybe I will, or maybe there will be something in the news, where debt snowstorms are all the rage. It doesn’t matter, I would rather be able to provide value to the one reader a month, if that that searches for debt snowstorm.
Where am I going with all this? It means I’m going to do a lot more testing, writing and simply working. I had thought about giving up on this site and chalk it up to another failure but then I though, shucks, one more failure. Who cares if I only seventeen visits and nobody ever reads this? This site is for the two or so readers I really do have that check here daily to see what I’m up to. I’m not much for faceboo ,but somehow I can prattle on here and find it fun. There’s no deadline and spellcheck. And even though I only have 2 readers here, I have value to them. This site already is a success in their eyes. Yes, it would be nice to have millions of readers but maybe over time it will be, and that’s why I’m still here: You just never know what lies around the next corner.
This is a blog about my road to debt freedom. Earlier this week, I was upside down in a ditch on that road, in the debt snowstorm (see how I managed to squeek that term in one more time?) but I’m still here.
When I started this site, I had planned to get out of debt in 1000 days. I’m about 200 or so into this and that means that there’s still lots of time for me to get out of debt by 2012. Heck, even halfway would be a success. So I’m going to keep on keeping on and report to you how I’m doing, as that’s half the fun too.
There’s days I only make .32 (yesterday) but I’ve also been lucky and have had $100 days too. It all adds up and it all can go to the debt freedom . But, I really need to step up the content, both on this site and on others. According to the graph above I have had some luck with hubpages, so I’m going to start there. Hubpages makes it easy for you to get some content up on the web easily and it’s s a great way to write some stuff and see what works. I wouldn’t be the kitty litter king without writing about it so I’m going to keep on keeping on with hubpages
100 hubpages challenge.
I love tests and challenges, and this is going to be one of them.
I’m going to bang out 100 of these and see if any stick. It only takes me a half an hour to write one so I should be able to bang out 100 in month, maybe even less and I’m going to share my results here with you. If I could make $100/month with the hundred pages then we have something to work with: I would be averaging a dollar a month for 100. So I write 1000. Now I’m up to 1000 dollars a month. And as you have seen over time they tend to gain some traction and could earn even more if the content is timeless. (That one I wrote on electronics – it will get no traffic a year from now).
In a way, it’s really just math. Do the work and get it out there. But you can’t count hours or time spent. You have to believe in tomorrow and that if you keep at it, things will get better (just like the road to debt freedom). There’s only one way – up.
This web content or writing for the web really is just a numbers game and a bit of luck. If you toss enough stuff at the wall some will stick: Some math – 1000 articles that average $1/month. Some will make zero, but some will make much much more that’s just the way it is. So I make $12 a year for every 20 minutes or so that I work or write. It doesn’t matter whether you have one website or six hundred – it’s the content. So to make three thousand dollars a month, I need to have 3000 articles out there making me money every day. And that’s the beauty of entrepreneurship. What you do today, could pay off forever if you plan and build a system.
Let’s do some more math: I want to make ten thousand dollars a month. I need ten thousand articles or pages out there. Nobody says I have to write them all myself. I just have to publish the content. So we’ve determined that each article makes a dollar a month on average or $12 a year. So even if I pay $5 an article to somebody else, I still clear $7 the first year, and then the year after and after that, I get the full 12 again. (We’re assuming it’s quality content that helps somebody – Where to Buy White Shirts for an example) It is possible over time I could double my money by honing in on the profitable stuff too and dropping the non profitable stuff. Some pages are going to average ten dollars and some nothing. That’s just the way it is.
But to start you have to write, write, write (and then later, farm it out). I’ve made $300 in June on a site that I wrote 100 articles for so I’m not just pulling numbers out of my hat either. The $1/month per article is a very safe bet I would think.
But there’s only one way to find out. Start writing. LOTS.
Stay tuned, this is going to be fun.
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