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The Excitement and Anticipation Builds
April 03, 2007
I'm in the "soft launch" stage with two of my new content sites. One is in a more "advanced" soft launch stage - it's nearly ready to pop, after which I'll start posting about it here. The other one is tenderly new.
And I'm starting the process of getting out into the community when it comes to these two sites, and it has been very exciting.
I'm finding that it's fun to be able to have this sharper focus. Fun and easy, too. I'm starting to post at forums, and commenting at various blogs, and I'm discovering and learning a lot.
The other thing I'm discovering is that I'm watching my stats and visitor counts, rather than any of the income paths I've incorporated so far. Right now, my focus is in building up a core group of visitors.
And I have to say, this is such a different perspective! With my purely affiliate sites, I monitor my search engine results primarily (and of course, all my income paths). But with these new sites, I'm not really that concerned with my search engine results. I'm relying more on word of mouth, links from other people and lots and lots of return visitors.
It does feel good, I have to say, NOT to feel reliance on the search engines! I'm reminded of something that Steve Pavlina once posted, that only about 10 percent of his traffic came from the search engines. And he has massive traffic.
When I get up in the morning now, my thoughts go to "what can I write today?" Which is rather wonderful. Not that "what product should I promote today?" is such a bad thing, but focusing on my content and my writing definitely feels more creative.
I've also been loving all the comments and emails I've been receiving from those of you who have also switched your focus to building a few content sites. I feel very much like I'm on the right track. I have enough affiliate sites now, and they generate a nice passive income level - not a vast amount, but I'm making sales. My Adwords campaigns are fun, and more fun, and generate a nice level of passive income, too. Adsense, Chitika and Text-link-ads round out the income mix for me.
At this point, it just feels right to me to focus on building community and adding value.
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Posted by BJ at 01:17 PM in Building Value and Community, Web Publisher's Life | Permalink
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Comments
Hi Belle,
Came across your blog a while ago, I really like it.
Glad to see that you earning well with a nice passive income.
Definitely, writing is a enjoyable exercise.
Keep it up. I shall be popping in more often!
Cheers,
Jag
Posted by: Jag | Apr 4, 2007 6:49:44 AM
Thanks, Jag. I really like your blog, by the way - great writing on there.
Your name sounds familiar, too (your full name) - have we emailed previously?
Anyway, thanks for dropping by!
Posted by: BJ | Apr 4, 2007 10:01:45 AM
Hi Belle,
Did we? I'm not too sure, but I don't think so.
You flatter me. You are the one with the great writing, not me. =)
By the way, are you in technorati? I want to add you to my fave.
Cheers,
Jag
http://mypeculiarthoughts.com
Posted by: Jag | Apr 5, 2007 6:40:44 AM
Hi there,
I am at the exact stage right now. When I first started the whole affiliate marketing thing I used to think endlessly of ways to bring in traffic and earn money, but my sites lacked content so things didn't work out for me. Now I am concentrating on content first, trying to build a blog full of information then I can worry about traffic and income :)
Posted by: D. Shihab | Apr 14, 2007 5:33:42 PM
