Day 8 - Productivity, Lots of Link Juice and Some Questions

Maybe there's something about Mondays, but I always seem to get a lot done. When I say 'a lot', I mean by my standards. Even though I got some important tasks done today, I still don't think I've reached the level of productivity required. Perhaps I'm building up to it. Last week, I did lots on the Monday, but never really repeated it throughout the week. I aim to have 6 or 7 'Mondays' this week.

First up was creating a press release for one of my sites to give it some welcome link juice, exposure and a little traffic. Press release sites are one of the important first steps I think you should take when establishing a site, both in terms of exposure and link juice. I created one, using my usual format, spun it using the Article Productions spinner(after writing one alternative for each paragraph) and hand submitted the spun versions to 3 of my favourite free sites:-

PR Log
Free Press Release
Big News

I also really like I-Newswire, but there was a reason I left that one out. I am going to be using Incansoft's PressBot to submit to 25 free press releases sites, and I-Newswire is one of them. I should add that I absolutely love Incansoft products, they are fantastic for the price and save me a lot of time. Instead of submitting to all 25 at once, I plan on doing 5 per day for 5 days. I will also use syntax to add a little uniqueness to each one.

I'm mainly doing this for link juice - although I'm actually dominating one 'buying' keyword phrase, I'm sitting at number 36 for the one that gets a good amount of searches and the title of the site. I'm hoping to get into the top 10 in the next couple of weeks. I once held the number 11 spot so I don't see why I can't.

Those hand submitted press releases were indexed fast and a couple of them appeared alongside the site high in Google. I don't expect much traffic from the press releases themselves, but who knows?

Next up was some web 2.0 posting. I posted some of the spun articles I mentioned the other day to them. I actually registered at a few of them for the first time, including Wet Paint, Blogs.com and Webs.com. I really like these sites, they're easy to use, easy on the eye and very nice for link juice. I do have a technique I'm using, in terms of linking them together, but it's not a link wheel per se. Hopefully they'll get indexed soon and I'll see if it helps move my site upwards, I'm sure it will.

A couple of things are bothering me. The first is the new opt in form I've put on my main niche site hasn't made any difference in terms of sign ups. We haven't had a single one since, and it's been 5 or 6 days now. The title of the Ebook subscribers get free when they opt in is pretty much the answer to the problem that makes them go to the site in the first place, so I really don't understand why they aren't signing up. I've tested everything to make sure it's working too. Perhaps it's wrong to be disappointed when we're only getting 10-15 visitors per day. If we were getting 100 per day, we could make more of a judgement then maybe. I can't help but be disappointed though.

It has also struck me that during this challenge, I really can't rely on one thing too much. I have been putting a lot of effort into a 'side' site(not my main one mentioned above), but the reality is that it could fall victim to the Google dance at any time, and all the press releases, web 2.0 will mean little in terms of this challenge. All it's traffic(and sales) is organic. Relying too much on organic traffic is a big mistake that I've made in the past so I don't want to make it again.

My main 'money' site isn't converting at the moment(expect for one CB sale last Monday). As I've said before, I think it's because there is too much helpful content on there. This is a good thing - I like to help people, but a sale every day or two would be really nice. My plan has always been to release our own product and sell that from the site at a nice price though, which I'll be starting on next month, so aside from collecting opt ins(or hopefully), it's kind of on hold at the moment in a way.

I think my best bet to have something to fall back on in this challenge is to really put some effort into another niche. I have two in mind, one of which I have some experience of, the other which I don't. I plan on driving traffic to a squeeze page, after which the visitor will receive 5-10 follow up E-Mails with lots of good info, and I'll pitch a product at the end. I'm currently looking for a really good PLR product with master resell rights, and a salespage etc. I absolutely refuse to sell crap to people, so I read through all the ebooks to see if they are good. I haven't yet found one I want to sell, but I haven't really started looking in depth yet.

Speaking of PLR, I signed up for Gold Membership at Resell Rights Weekly - a great decision. And yes, that is an affiliate link, and no I am not just saying that so you sign up under me! If you know me, or have been reading this, you should know I'm not that kind of guy at all anyway. The amount of products, articles, sites and general info that is there is mind blowing. It goes beyond being just a PLR membership site. I highly recommend you at least sign up for free to check it out for yourself.

So that's all for today. Oh yeah, today marked the first day so far that I haven't made anything at all. A bit disappointing, but it's a marathon, not a sprint - and I'm confident come Feb 5th I'll be where I want to be.