Case Study: $100 Per Month In Only 90 Minutes
This case study will show you an easy step-by-step plan to get some traffic and get another income stream up and running. It will also show you that PLR articles will get you traffic, even if you only change the title and keep the content the same.
As with all case studies you can copy it exactly, but if you really want to be successful think how you can incorporate parts or all of this plan into developing your business. Think outside the box!
I am not going to reveal my website, so please don’t ask. Not only will it distort my visitors and perhaps my Adsense CTR, but it will also open up my Adsense account for abuse. And yes, that has happened to a friend of mine who lost his Adsense account in the process!
I spent only 90 minutes on this site in total and now, 6 months later it gets 1,000 visitors a month, mostly from Google and earns me about $100 per month from Adsense. I did spend some money outsourcing tasks which sped up the process. However, you can easily do everything yourself, it will just take longer.
Now $100 is not a lot of money, but what if you had 50 of these sites? That’s $5,000 per month!
Keep in mind that this is just one (lazy) way of creating an income stream. If you put in a bit more effort than I did and you make this process your own with slight changes you can make so much more from it.
Here is a screenshot of the traffic when I started. The site went live on 25 December 2008 (yes I know it was Christmas!)
Step 1 – Choose Your Niche
I am a member of PLRPro so I chose one of their article packs. The one I chose showed Adwords cost per click at generally more than $2. I did not know anything about the niche and still don’t! PLRPro include 40 articles per niche in loads of different languages. I was lazy so I only used the English ones.
I did not do any keyword analysis, but just took the keywords PLRPro gave me.
=> 5 minutes using PLRPro
Step 2 - Create Content
If you did not use PLR articles you will need to write the articles yourself, or get somebody from Articlez to write it for you. I used all 40 articles from PLRPro.
I took the PLRPro articles and ONLY changed the titles. The last thing you want are pages with exactly the same title as 50 other websites.
=> 10 minutes using PLRPro
Step 3 – Register Domain & Hosting
I used Namecheap to register my domain, which was a .com domain and included my main keyword. I also have an Aluminum reseller account with HostGator which enables me to host unlimited domains, so after I registered the domain name I set it up on my reseller account.
=> 5 minutes
Step 4 – Create Website
I used a program called HyperVRE to create my website. You can use something else like XSitePro or Wordpress, but I believe one of the main reasons I am getting traffic with unchanged PLR articles is because I used HyperVRE.
HyperVRE has a cool feature where you can add random extracts, definitions, etc on a page, depending on where you specify it on the template. This might be a reason why my content was not viewed as duplicate content.
I used an extremely basic template, with no header picture, the menu on the right, an Adsense horisontal link below my site name and an Adsense large rectangle just below the title of the article. Below that is the article. I also used a random definition on each page as well as 4 random article extracts. If you have HyperVRE you will know what I am talking about.
If you don’t want to use HyperVRE make sure that you use some additional content on your pages to at least make it somewhat unique.
=> 15 minutes with HyperVRE
Step 5 – Add Blog
I created a very basic Wordpress blog in a different folder and linked to it at the bottom of my main site. I then added this blog to my Article Marketing Automation account and specified that 1 new blog post per day can be posted on my blog. I kept the subject of the blog roughly the same as the main site. Now every day I will get an automatic new post to my blog from Article Marketing Automation.
I also added a massive ping list to my blog functions so that every time there is a new post a bunch of sites get pinged.
Here is the list:
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc/
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.fakapster.com/rpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.britblog.com
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.wpkeys.com
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
By the way, I believe Article Marketing Automation is part of PLRPro and you get a free account when you join PLRPro. Or I did when I joined…
=> 10 minutes
Step 6 – Get 5 Marketing Articles
Unfortunately you cannot use PLR in this step. If you do, you will need to rewrite the whole article as Ezine Articles does not accept PLR articles.
I used the good folks at Articlez to write 5 articles around my popular keywords (but not the main keyword, as that was way too broad).
=> 10 minutes using Articlez
Step 7 – Article Marketing
Another lazy step here. I submitted my articles to Ezine Articles and waited for them to approve it (VERY IMPORTANT – make sure your articles are approved at Ezine Articles before submitting them to other article directories, it will save you a lot of trouble from Ezine Articles).
After it was approved by Ezine Articles I submitted it to GoArticles and ArticlesBase.
However, the key step was submitting them to Article Marketing Automation. I made sure to use their rewrite function and rewrote them about 30%. I also linked to my home page and two inner pages on each article. To date, my 5 articles appear on 514 different blogs in the Article Marketing Automation network. Talk about getting back links! Oh, and I only submitted the articles at the beginning of April 2009!
=> 30 minutes for all submissions and rewriting on Article Marketing Automation
Step 8 – Getting Back Links
My last step was submitting my site to 3WayLinks to get some more back links to my home page.
=> 5 minutes
That was it! Total time => 90 minutes!
Let’s look at the traffic stats for 2009:
Total Back Links To Home Page According To Yahoo: 156 (most are PR1 and PR2 with a few PR6 links as well)
Adsense Average Earnings Per Click: $0.82 with a CTR of more than 10%
Use this case study as an example. Test new ideas. Maybe add affiliate products or an Ebay store. Or maybe market your own or a PLR info product on the site. Add a newsletter and build a list.
There are so many things you can do with this foundation. I have not because I was lazy, although after writing this post I might have another look at the site and see what I can improve 
Step 5 – Getting Traffic
There are so many ways of getting traffic to your website that a 100 page guide would not be able to list them all! This is probably the question I get asked the most, so I will cover the 3 main ways that I generate traffic and mention a few more.
Free Search Engine Traffic
Search engines (like Google, Yahoo, etc) are my preferred traffic source. Why? Because it is free and with the right strategy and a bit of work you can receive tens of thousands of visitors a month.
Search engine optimization (SEO) deals with getting your site ranked on the first page of the search engines – preferably at the top spot! Each search engine uses slightly different ranking criteria, but as Google is the 800 lb gorilla of the search engine world, let’s see how we can rank on them.
There is a lot of incorrect information online about SEO, so forget everything you have been told and remember only this: Google ranks according to on-page factors and off-page factors. That’s it! Nothing complicated about it!
On-page Factors
These change all the time, but I generally do the following: your keyword should appear in your page title, in a H1 header, at the beginning and the end of the page. If you can add it to the alt text of an image of the page, brilliant. Don’t stuff your page with keywords. It does not work and can get your site banned.
Off-page Factors
Links, links and more links. That’s it! Get links to your site from wherever you can. One way links are best (one way links are where you don’t have to link back to the site linking to you). Another important point is to change the anchor text of the link to your keyword (the anchor text are the words forming the link).
Let’s look at an example:If you have a web page about “blue widgets” the anchor text of your link should be blue widgets, not click here. It is unbelievable how many people make this mistake. Don’t be one of them!
Where can you get links to your site? Loads of places. I use Article Marketing Automation and 3WayLinks. They work differently, but compliment each other well. I will do a case study in the future to show exactly how I use them. If I need more links, I will distribute articles, submit RSS feeds, etc.
Pay Per Click
I will be completely honest here. I have dabbled with PPC for 5 years (since reading Google Cash in 2004) but have never really built my websites or business around it. I am NOT a PPC expert, so I would suggest getting Google Cash, PPC Classroom or any of the dozens of PPC products being launched each year.
PPC is good for getting immediate traffic to a product or affiliate offer with very little effort. The problem is that it costs money and if you are not that good at it you can lose your shirt. I have a few times, so I know
Google Adwords is definitely king of PPC marketing, but don’t forget the second tier PPC markets like Yahoo, MSN, etc. Clicks are normally a lot cheaper through them than Adwords and I have had a few campaigns where traffic converted a lot more using MSN than Adwords. However, the amount of traffic from MSN was around 10% of the Google traffic.
My most successful PPC campaign is one I started a couple of weeks ago. Fuelled by the enthusiasm surrounding the launch of Google Cash Detective 2. Through more luck than skill I started a campaign that made me $30 profit per day for only one keyword. It took me all of 10 minutes to set up. With a bit of testing I got that up to $80 per day. The next step is to add more keywords and see what happens
Article Marketing
I am not a big article marketer, but I do incorporate writing and submitting articles into my marketing plan for two reasons: visitors and getting links to my website (remember the SEO section above?). Some people, like people following the Bum Marketing method generates a lot of traffic from articles and it works.
You write a keyword optimized article, submit it to Ezine Articles and a few more (I submit to around 20) and voila. You have back links to your site and if you did a good job on optimizing the article you can get a lot of search engine traffic to the article, and hopefully to your site if they click on your links.
Which brings us to the two most important parts of article marketing:
Firstly, the title. Get your keyword in there. Also, make the title interesting. Entice people to click on it and read further. If your keyword is “losing weight” don’t use a title like “Losing Weight By Exercising”. Rather use something like “3 Exercises That Will Make Losing Weight Easy”.
Secondly, your resource box is where you can convince the reader to visit your site. Don’t write about you or what you do. Rather mention what benefits they will receive when they visit your site. And try and include your keyword in the anchor text.
Squidoo Lenses, Hubpages and Blogger Blogs
There are a lot of social networking places where you can create a web page (or similar) for free. The above 3 are probably the most widely used. Think of little feeder pages on different social networks feeding traffic to your main site.
I create these pages only after a niche or website has proven that it makes money and I want to increase my visitors. No point going through all the effort if your main site is not profitable, no?
Step 4 – Monetizing Your Site
Monetizing a website can be tricky. You might monetize it with affiliate products and then hear somebody making thousands with Adsense. Or you will ask 5 people what to do and get 5 different answers!
I am not going to tell you what monetization method to use. I don’t know what your site is about, how big it is, your promotional avenues, etc. What I am going to do is give you an overview of the main monetization methods. Then it is up to you!
I actually want to clarify something. There is no right or wrong method. Choose one of the below methods and test your performance. Once you have sufficient data to draw conclusions, change your monetization method and test again. Eventually you will be able to identify the most profitable monetization method for your site.
Here are the main monetization methods from least to most effort:
Google Adsense
Google Adsense is very easy to implement. You just sign up, choose your ad formats and paste in the html code on your page. Google picks the ads to show based on what your web page is about. Nothing could be simpler, right?
Wrong. In order to make a decent amount of money right from the start with Adsense you have to be very lucky or very good. You need to choose a niche where advertisers pay a decent amount of money per click. For example, I only create Adsense sites where advertisers pay at least $2 per click on average. This means I will get around 80 cents per click.
To get the most out of Adsense you will have to test everything. Your site layout, your ad block sizes, your ad colors, everything. Your goal is to increase your CTR (click through rate) to as high as possible.
Think about it. Let’s say you get 100 people per day to your site and get 80 cents per click. If you have a 5% CTR you get only 5 clicks per day = $4 per day or $1,460 per year. If you increase your CTR to say 15% (not too difficult) you can earn $12 per day or $4,380 per year!
Affiliate Products
Affiliate marketing at its core is a simple concept. You create a website and advertise other people’s products on it. When somebody buys one of these products from your website you get paid a commission by the seller.
However, there are dozens of ways of doing this. The following is a brief overview of the main affiliate marketing choices you have to make. I will explore various cool ways of selling affiliate products in future case studies and articles.
Information products are very popular affiliate products because you can get such a large commission per sale. Clickbank has the largest collection of information products online where you can pick and choose what you want to market. They also show you what you will earn per sale, very handy!
For certain sites marketing physical products will be the more logical choice. There are a lot of different affiliate networks dealing with physical products, but the more popular ones are Amazon, Commission Junction and Shareasale. The biggest downside of selling physical products is that your commission rate will be a lot lower than with information products.
Another site that is worth a mention is Ebay. You can show Ebay auctions on your site and since Ebay is such a well known brand people will be much happier buying something on Ebay. Your commission rate will be very small, maybe a dollar or two per sale, but what you are really looking for is somebody registering with Ebay before they buy something. You can get up to $25 per registration!
Let’s look at an example:You have a site about dogs. If you want to list a dog training guide you should go for an information product from Clickbank rather than a physical book from Amazon. The difference? About £30 per sale! You can also list other physical dog products, like collars, food bowls, etc from Amazon or Commission Junction. So you can see that you don’t just have to market one type of product. Mix and match. And test!
Public Label Rights Products
A very good, but a bit more advanced, way of making money is to sell PLR products. Below is an explanation of how to incorporate this into your site.
1. You need to find a PLR product in your niche. Google is your best friend here Once you find the right product you buy the PLR. Make sure that the product includes a sales letter, graphics, thank you page and maybe an autoresponder series. It means less work for you!
2. With PLR you can change anything you want, so I would suggest creating new graphics, personalising the sales letter, personalising the product and putting your name on the product as the author.
3. Set up the sales letter, payment links (I suggest using Paypal), thank you pages and everything else you need.
4. Set up two autoresponders, one for people who bought your product and one for people who visited your sales page but did not buy. As any internet marketer will tell you, the money is in the list. You can market to these people going forward and if you treated them right (which means not bombarding them with sales pitches in every email!) they will buy from you again and again.
5. Put a nice, large ad on the rest of your site (your article pages) advertising your new PLR product. Make sure to include a graphic of the report or e-book as people will respond better if they can “see” the product.
Your Own Product
This is very similar to the PLR section, but you create the product from scratch. The advantage of creating your own product to using a PLR product is that it will be totally unique. Even if you rewrite a large part of a PLR product, it will still be similar to the PLR product being sold by other people.
Hopefully this section gave you some ideas on how to monetise your site. I had a bunch of cool monetization ideas that I cannot wait to share with you, so be sure to check back often! The next step in our income stream creation process is getting traffic to our site.
