When to Move On?

[nicnicstew]

I currently have an Affiliate website in which I have invested nearly $1,500 into ($1,466.79 to be exact). Nearly $900 of that went into an SEO service and another $400 went into about 20K words worth of top tier content. Nonetheless, the website hasn't reached the level I would have hoped for at this point. It is currently not even ranking in the top 50 for any of its main KWs. Howbeit, the niche is mildly competitive, and my white-hat SEO tactics do take time. I should note the website is about a year old, but I have only been performing Off-page SEO for the last three months. I know the website can convert and would be quite profitable if I could get to the level I want, but if I have to pour several thousand dollars into it, is it even worth it? I know how easy it is to continually pour money into a project hoping it turns out profitable when in reality you may need to move on.

Anyways....

I'm mainly writing this post up to talk through some of my thoughts. But I would love to hear from you guys as well.

(For anyone curious on how I know the website converts well, I used a $200 Bing Ads coupon to send traffic to my website in an effort to see how well it would convert. My conversion rate was nearly 7%. Not great, but pretty decent overall.)

 

[Wilson Grant Fisk]

How is the on-page SEO?
Is the site making any money?

 

[nicnicstew]

How is the on-page SEO?
Is the site making any money?

On-page SEO is good. All the reports I've run look positive. Content is gold, and the webpages are interlinked quite well, IMO. Website design is nothing special, but it loads relatively fast and converts well. Currently, the website is not earning anything. That mainly has to do with the fact that the website is only getting 1-5 unique visits a day, mainly from social media platforms. The website is currently ranking for nearly 100 KWs, but none of those rankings are even on the first page, with the exception of an extremely low volume KW. But like I said, when I ran the Bing Ads Coupon, I did fairly well. I'll post a screenshot below.

 

[3bisu]

From you screenshot you made something, I think you should learn more seo and stop buying every package that promise some magical ranking

 

[MisterF]

OP,

How much more did you spend on the Bing ads out of your own pocket?

 

[nicnicstew]

OP,

How much more did you spend on the Bing ads out of your own pocket?

I spent around $20 for the Bing Ads coupon.

 

[zionbar]

First off, learn your lesson. Before you pour money into any business venture you must DO YOUR HOMEWORK very thoroughly, it doesnt seem like you did that.

Second, from what you're saying something is wrong. You either chose bad/hard to rank KW's or it might be something else. I think you under-estimated the amount of effort it will take you to rank and make money with this method and thats why you are losing your motivation bro.

I would suggest asking someone thats really good at SEO about your specific keywords and maybe pay him for an SEO analysis to realize what went wrong.

GL Bro!

 

[nicnicstew]

First off, learn your lesson. Before you pour money into any business venture you must DO YOUR HOMEWORK very thoroughly, it doesnt seem like you did that.

Second, from what you're saying something is wrong. You either chose bad/hard to rank KW's or it might be something else. I think you under-estimated the amount of effort it will take you to rank and make money with this method and thats why you are losing your motivation bro.

I would suggest asking someone thats really good at SEO about your specific keywords and maybe pay him for an SEO analysis to realize what went wrong.

GL Bro!

I would hardly say I've lost my motivation. And I did quite a bit of research before starting this venture. Everything pointed to my main KWs being mildly competitive. The top domains were nothing special. I was pretty confident I could rank ahead of them.

 

[zionbar]

I would hardly say I've lost my motivation. And I did quite a bit of research before starting this venture. Everything pointed to my main KWs being mildly competitive. The top domains were nothing special. I was pretty confident I could rank ahead of them.

If you're still confident in your website why did you start this thread?

 

[mak3r]

You should feel when it's not worth your effort anymore. It's hard to say STOP to yourself once you've invested so much time/monet into something.

I know the feeling, I've just abandoned one of my projects like a month ago, I've been working on it (part-time) for almost 2 years, investing thousands of dollars into it but didn't really see any DECENT returns. I just decided that it was the time to let it go and I stopped renewing hosting for it and now my project is dead.

 

[natmicon]

If you're still confident in your website why did you start this thread?

Not all projects work out, and some of the worst advice to give someone is "Be more motivated! Throw more money into the pit! Eventually it will work" because that's not always the case. This isn't some magical fairyland where if you wish hard enough and work hard enough, a particular project will come through. It's hard to know when to walk away, especially if you've put up a significant investment.

Personally, I give myself 6 months to see results on a given project. It may not be the most profitable results, but I have to see a significant amount of potential to continue.

 

[crack_dhat]

how's your site metrics by the way? is it good? also, have you tried putting additional contents? give your self another year but this time, publish additional contents on a regular basis targeting low comp keywords related to your niche

 

[dhia27]

I think you're on the right track. I mean you spent $20 and got $44 back, right?

• Are you doing SEO by yourself or buying packages?
• Did you check if your domain is penalized or not?
• What's the page1 of your keywords look like, authority sites domination or what?

 

[nicnicstew]

Here are the website's metrics, as well as the metrics to my top 2 competitors. (Obviously, it is not going to be easy to pass these guys up, but ranking on the first page should not be difficult at all. According to Ahrefs, the difficulty for my main KWs ranges from 1-10. That is why I find it slightly baffling that I have yet to break the top 50 for any of my main KWs.

 

[tkitek]

This will help you for sure with SEO: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/3-years-on-bhw-the-only-seo-guide-thats-worth-your-time.873651/

 

[nicnicstew]

This will help you for sure with SEO: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/3-years-on-bhw-the-only-seo-guide-thats-worth-your-time.873651/

I came across this guide earlier. Super informative. Thanks for the share.

 

[SEO]

How about just continuing with paid traffic? Try to run ads with a low enough CPC that your Amazon earnings outweigh the cost of the ads. Then it's just a matter of scaling. Just an idea if you hadn't considered it.

 

[nicnicstew]

How about just continuing with paid traffic? Try to run ads with a low enough CPC that your Amazon earnings outweigh the cost of the ads. Then it's just a matter of scaling. Just an idea if you hadn't considered it.

I've considered that. But, when I used the $200 Bing Ads Coupon, I only made $44 off that. CPC was around .60 cents, so in order to be profitable, I would have to drop that significantly, and I am not sure I could do that. I suppose I could keep making new accounts and using coupons, but I would no doubt be banned eventually.

 

[SEO]

I've considered that. But, when I used the $200 Bing Ads Coupon, I only made $44 off that. CPC was around .60 cents, so in order to be profitable, I would have to drop that significantly, and I am not sure I could do that. I suppose I could keep making new accounts and using coupons, but I would no doubt be banned eventually.

Yeah, I think with the numbers you've shown you'd need to get it around like 15 cents. There are other places to buy traffic, or the other option is promote more profitable items. Another thing to keep in mind, although I wouldn't hinge my strategy on it, is that more referrals give you a higher referral percentage on Amazon.

 

[issorc]

75 ranking keywords for 20.000 words of content seems a bit low for me. Especially if you've already pointed links to your pages. Are you only focusing on one keyword in each article or do you use relevant terms and phrases too?