Website Building Update – Week 12
It’s been almost three solid months of work on these websites. Sometimes it feels like so much longer. Gone are those sweaty summer days of August when I decided to build the first website. Little did I know that this project would consume the next three months of my life. And who knows how long I will have to keep actively working on this stuff.
Anyway, one of the ways I’ve been building backlinks is by submitting spun articles to a blog network. It’s basically a symbiotic relationship. They are essentially too lazy (or whatever) to write their own unique content, so they accept articles that I’ve written. Each of these articles has backlinks to my websites in the them. They get content, I get backlinks. It’s taken a while, but all these backlinks are starting to get indexed by search engines. This is really nice, because I wasn’t really sure if it was worth it.
I had another keyword hit the front page of Google, which is nice because the bulk of my traffic was coming from essentially one keyword. I didn’t like that and I’m glad to have the source of my traffic being diversified.
Website #4 is essentially done now. I just need a newsletter and then I start building backlinks. Pretty sweet. Only one more website to go and I’ll have my first five sites up and running!
Other than that, there are still no sales rolling in yet. I’ll admit that I’m starting to feel pretty discouraged about all of this. The days keep getting darker, colder and rainier here in Seattle, and my bank account keeps getting smaller. I made a promise to myself that I would finish five websites by the end of 2009, though, so I need to follow through with that. I really really hope that I start to get some sales by then. Otherwise, I really doubt I’ll be able to keep this up.
I guess I’m putting a lot of hope into Website #4. It’s supposed to be a very hungry niche, so if nothing else, I should be able to make at least a few sales with that site.
Anyway, here’s my weekly sales report for the week. No new sales. That’s just a re-bill from something I sold back in my direct-linking days.
This is getting old
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Clay-
Just keep rockin’ it, man. Thanks for sharing these numbers with us – it’s cool to feel like I’m not alone in, um…not making money. YET.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Keep going!
I’m in a similar position and have been working on my site for 2 months and I haven’t had my first sale yet.
This is the Dip that Seth Godin describes. Push on through it and you’ll succeed.
cheers,
Keith
November 30th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Ash, don’t get too caught up in making money right off the bat. Remember, it can’t be too easy or else everyone would be doing it. Especially in the beginning, it helps to measure success on other things besides how much money you’re raking in. Pay attention to things like if you are increasing the amount of traffic to a website, the number of order form impressions, or just the sugar-high of finishing a website. Don’t get discouraged and keep going. Sometimes a little hardheadedness is all you need to push through those first tough weeks/months.
November 30th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Keith, thanks for stopping by my corner of the web. Yes, it definitely takes a little time to get some traction with websites. Maybe things would be a bit more interesting if I had some extra cash to play with PPC, but for now I’m just relying on straight SEO. Good luck with your site.