This post was written by Tom Ewer, a regular contributor for MyWifeQuitHerJob.com!
If you’re a regular reader of my blog then you’ll know I spend as much time talking about my failures as I do my successes. Why? Because I often learn more from failure than I do from success.
With that in mind, today I want to share with you a story of one such failure. There is however a twist — I plan for this failure to ultimately lead to success. I plan to learn from my mistakes and apply the lessons I have learned practically.
The story is of an authority site I launched several months ago — an authority site that to this day has not made me a single penny. I’ll explain where I’ve gone wrong and my plans to make the site a success.
A Short History of My Authority Site
I launched www.freeonlinedatingadvice.net back in August 2012 after having read a compelling article (no longer online) that demonstrated how to rank blog posts in Google by targeting extremely low competition keywords.
If I were to hazard a guess I would say that the article was pulled down because the strategy was no longer effective — it certainly didn’t work for me. Over the next couple of months I wrote and published around fifty-five posts and attracted a grand total of twenty-eight visitors.
Originally the site was intended to be a case study in getting traffic from Google without obtaining links. It would appear that I proved conclusively that doing so is not possible. In order to rank in Google you must have backlinks pointing to your site — whether they are built by you or obtained “naturally.”
Although I did put some more work into the site over the following few months, my attention was waning. I was distracted by more profitable endeavors such as the creation of my first information product. However, a few weeks ago I realised that I needed to give the site a reasonable chance of success or give up on it altogether. I chose the former option.
So now I have a solid strategy that I plan to implement over the coming months. I have set a deadline — by which site either must be covering its costs or at least show the potential to do so. That plan is built upon the following lessons that I learned the hard way from the site’s failure.
1. Competition Isn’t As Relevant As You Might Think
In fairness, this lesson has been taught to me as much from my experiences with Leaving Work Behind as it has with my authority site.
When it comes to building authority sites people talk a lot about competition. That is usually due to two concerns:
The ease with which you can rank in the search engines
The supply of content relating to your topic already available
However, neither of these should be a major concern. Firstly, you should be thinking about creating diverse traffic sources — search engine traffic should only make up a fraction of visitors. As such, search engine competition should only be a minor concern.
Secondly, you can always approach a topic from a fresh angle. And even if you don’t, there can still be room for you if you have a good-looking blog with good content. There are literally billions of people surfing the net on a daily basis — you only need the tiniest percent of those people to pay attention to your site in order to turn a healthy profit.
I was wrong to build the authority site in the vain hope that I could build a passive traffic stream from search engine referrals. If you’re going to build a site you need to focus on all available sources of traffic, which makes competition far less of an issue. Furthermore, building Leaving Work Behind over the past two years has taught me that you can launch a blog in arguably the most competitive of niches (making money online) and still carve out a loyal following.
2. Branding Is Vital
Up until just a few days ago I was stuck resolutely to the idea that I would not create a custom design for my blog. I had installed and very modestly customized the default Twenty Eleven WordPress theme and done nothing more.
My reasoning for this was actually quite sound in principle — I argued that I had no need to create a particularly striking design until I had people looking at the site. Until then, I felt that I should be investing all of my time into content creation; preparing for Google to bless my site with a tidal wave of visitors.
Of course, that didn’t happen, which revealed a fatal flaw in my plan: in order to attract visitors you must first have a solid brand. Google wasn’t going to send me referrals without links and to get links I would need to demonstrate to real human beings that my site was worth of their attention. A default theme and no logo wasn’t going to achieve that.
Anyone who comes across your blog will look to your design first as an indicator of quality. Derek Halpern argued this point effectively in his article, The “Content is King” Myth Debunked. In order for me to attract links (discussed in my next point) I would need to have a logo and a decent design. Only then would I be taken seriously.
In short, I needed to brand my site — give it an identity that sets it apart and bestows upon it a sense of value and worth. As far as I am concerned, doing so is a key step in building a successful authority site.
3. You Must Go To Where The People Are
I have been using the above phrase for a long while now. It refers to the simple “rule” of marketing that you must find where your target audience resides and place your brand in front of them. On the internet this means just one thing: links.
And yet my initial plan for my authority site was based on having no links at all. It was an interesting experiment if nothing else, but ultimately doomed to fail. Attracting links is an integral part of building a successful website.
There are a huge number of ways in which you should “go to where the people are.” Here are just a few suggestions:
Set up and build social media accounts
Contact authors of top blog lists in your niche and asked to be added
Network with bloggers in your niche
Submit your site to high quality directories such as AllTop
Guest post on related sites
Submit comments on related sites
Create an infographic and share it with related sites
I will be employing most of (if not all) of the above strategies in order to build links to my site. Doing so has a triple-whammy positive effect:
You get links to your site (which is obviously good for SEO purposes)
You get referring traffic to your site from the links
Your site’s brand will grow
Once you have branded your site nicely and got into a good rhythm of producing quality content, you must take the step up and really hustle to get as many links as possible.
I think many bloggers fall into the trap of thinking that content creation is marketing. It is not — it is content creation. Marketing is hustling to get more people aware of your content, and you do that by following the above strategies in addition to anything else that you think can get you to where the people are.
Follow the Simple Equation
While one can argue all day about specific strategies for building a successful website, the basic formula is pretty elementary:
Good Branding + Good Content + Good Marketing = Success
If you can bring these elements together then you’ll be guaranteed of success. If you experience failure then you must evaluate where you are going wrong and adjust accordingly.
In reality, when I began work on my authority site I only had good content — my branding and marketing was non-existent. But now I think I have a solid plan that focuses on all three elements. Whether or not that will lead to my site’s success will remain to be seen!
Photo courtesy of fireflythegreat