Content Tracker Spreadsheet | Why You Should Use One!
Having your own copy of the articles you have written for your website is one good strategy to keep track of everything. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember every topic that you uploaded, especially if the website template you are using doesn’t allow you to backtrack the blogs you wrote years ago. That’s why I use a content tracker spreadsheet. This is where the importance of owning a good content template comes in. It’s very easy to forget what articles you actually have uploaded and made public; let alone all the content you have saved in drafts. A good content template spreadsheet is something that you need if you want to be a successful blogger in this industry where competition is very stiff. Having a good spreadsheet is also good for keeping a track of your finances and ongoing outsourced jobs plus many other factors. The biggest reason I keep a good content spreadsheet and use it religiously is for when I ever come to sell a site. Last year, I sold two sites and the first thing the new buyers asked me was: ‘How much content do you have, and how many words. What topics have you covered and how can I see them all?’ Wow, I had not thought of that and had to quickly go through my entire content on both sites and add them to a spreadsheet manually. It was very time consuming but without this, the new buyers were going to drop out of the sale. Lesson Learnt! I now make a spreadsheet for every niche website I have from day one and fill it in every day. Without fail! I live and die by my content trackers. Why Having a Content Template is Important 1) A content template helps you track your blogs Basically, a content template can help you keep track of your published content. Tracking the content you publish is important so that you can avoid plagiarism, especially when you are planning to sell your website. Once your site is put under a new owner, the content and blogs are not considered as your own anymore. It’s vital that you have a list of what you wrote before in order to avoid complications especially when you are looking for something new for your new website. 2) It helps you become an organized blogger Being an organized blogger is the best thing ever. Not everyone succeeds in becoming a blogger who stands out. One way you can survive the stiff competition is by being aware of the articles you wrote, so you can claim your ownership of them. If you have a content tracker spreadsheet saved on your computer, you can easily search for the topics you want to check and compare them to other content or website that you think is copying your ideas. being an organized blogger will help you discover the websites that are trying to steal your content! 3) It serves as your guide whenever you want to update your content How will you be able to update your content if you are lost on track? One good thing about having your own content tracker is that it serves as your guide to do updates. With this tool, you can easily search for the articles you want to update. The rows and columns provide you with enough information so you can easily find the content in your blog. You don’t have to scroll down or browse your website for the whole day just to find the article you are looking for. It’s pretty easy to find the date of publishing if you have a content tracker spreadsheet to hand. 4) You can get good topic ideas if you have a list of what you wrote already If you are someone who does content writing seriously, a content tracker spreadsheet is your best friend. If you list down all your topics and articles in the spreadsheet, you will have a good overview of what’s published already. You can then start brainstorming new topics that are not yet in the template. This means that with the help of this excel sheet, you can think of good topics to write without thinking too much about it. 5) It’s for record-keeping Finally, having a content template is like running a business. You need it for record-keeping. Your articles serve as your inventory and you need to somehow maintain a list in order to check if you are writing the right number of articles for the month. You will be needing this tool when you are selling content or websites. It’s best if you can keep something for yourself every time you serve your clients. In this way, you can promote the originality of your blogs regardless of the date and time you wrote them. You can also keep track of wordcount and cost per article and an overall view of the money you have spent on the content. Again, great information to work out the ROI on each article and the website in general. An example of one of my content tracker spreadsheets Where can I get a good content template? It’s very easy to get a good content template for your blogs. You can simply use Excel Spreadsheets and make your own with all the tabs and columns you need. However, if you’re not very familiar or good with things like that, I’m happy to share the spreadsheet I use for FREE. No, Email subscriptions or Fees! I have developed a simple and easy to use spreadsheet of my own and I want to share it with you. You can click the link below to download so you don’t have to worry about how you can organize your content and articles. You don’t have to start from scratch. You can use my format if you want to save yourself from the hassle of creating your own content template. Get my FREE Template Here! What Other Benefits can I get from Using a Spreadsheet? On top of having a tool that can help you organize your content; your spreadsheet could also be customizable depending on your taste and preference. You can add colors, adjust the size of the rows and columns, and put borders within each sheet. If you have spare time to go through the details, you can also attach pictures that can motivate your soul as a blogger. Becoming successful in this industry also relies on how you inspire yourself as a blogger. The FREE content tracker I have provided a link to download is very basic but perfect for anyone with a small to medium niche website. Anywhere from 1-1000 article can easily be tracked and recorded on this spreadsheet. If you would like to create something more customizable, I suggest learning how to use Google Sheets or paying someone to do this for you. I found a great Youtube video Tutorial on how to create your own Content spreadsheet which I have added below. https://youtu.be/FIkZ1sPmKNw These content templates should be versatile and can grow as your business grows. You can also use them for your own finances. I know that QuickBooks and TurboTax are popular software for bloggers who want to keep track of their earnings. But, if you don’t want to use them, you can settle to a conventional way to keep a record of your earnings. You can use the same content template. Just create another sheet tab and use a format you are familiar with. Organize the sheet and use formulas and graphs to make it more appealing and easier to use. Also, your own content template can be used as a calendar. It’s easier to make your own calendar in a spreadsheet because of the grids and borders in it. Plus, if you are using the same template for your content, websites, and blogs, it will be easier for you to access your schedule related to your tasks. With this type of content template, you can be more organized by using a calendar placed in the same content tracker you have. Conclusion: Why Do You Need a Content Tracker Spreadsheet? The benefits of having your own content template are endless. You just have to be resourceful to discover the best things that it can do for your life as a blogger. My intention was to never sell a website but when the offer comes, you’ll be glad you have all your content organized and in one place. It can increase the value of your website and attract more buyers.
Automate Your Content Quickly | Case Study
As a niche website owner, the dream would be to have an automated process for adding content to your site, right? Think about it, whilst you’re sleeping, content is being added to your site daily, weekly or even monthly with little to no effort from yourself. Automate your content for quick growth. We all know that the more content you add, the more traffic you’ll receive. We also understand that the quality of the content has a big bearing on the amount of traffic you’ll receive. If you’re like me, the owner of a small niche website, then you’ll know how time-consuming it can be to write all the content yourself. But its also hard to relinquish the responsibility to someone else. You worry about the quality, the topic and the style of writing that someone else will produce. I get it and that’s why it’s very hard to hand over the reins to someone else. But what if there was a way to do this without giving up 100% control and not spending a fortune to hire 5-star writers at 30-40 cents a word. Now, I know not everyone who reads this blog will be in a position to pay someone else or a company to produce and write content for their site. I totally get it. It can be a difficult mental process to automate your content and let others help. But I may have found an affordable solution to at least start the process of automation on your site. Are you considering placing ads on your site and making money from your traffic? If yes, Then checkout Ezoic! An amazing advertising platform for niche websites. Click here! What Do I Mean By ‘Automate Your Content’? Simply put, it’s allowing someone to research content, then write the content and then add it to your niche website without any participation from yourself. You don’t even choose the keyword or topic. It’s a totally automated and hands-off approach to niche website blogging. All you do is select the number of articles per month and the number of words (this is the secret) – I’ll reveal more later in this blog. Automation doesn’t have to be scary Re-Invest In Your Business Like any business, you need to reinvest your profits back into the business; to grow consecutively month on month. Automating niche website content when you first start out is probably out of the question for most people. I get it! This is a process and a website growth plan that you could consider when you’re making some money and would like to grow your niche website with a more hands-off approach. Monthly Content Service I have used several content providers over the years – some good and some not so good. Let’s not go there! Currently, I’m using BKAContent and ContentDevelopmentPro for my blogs and whilst ordering my usual content package I noticed they provided a monthly service. This service caught my eye! They provide a service that is totally automated and hands-off which sounds great. However, it can be costly. Even for a niche website that is making good money, it is out of reach for most people. See some of the prices below: The image above shows 4-Star writers which are very good but you can even go that one step higher and select 5 Star writers; which then jumps in price to $800. My Idea And Concept As you can see from the prices above, to order 10 x 1000 word articles researched and published onto your website each month is costly. So, to automate your content, you will need to consider the costs involved. So, what is my concept? Well, it’s simple and will cut down the cost dramatically. Yes, it’s not a totally hands-off approach but it’s one step closer to having great content with good keywords and topics added to my site monthly with very little cost to me. Let’s get into the detail of my concept The Case Study Place an order for 10 very small articles from Bkacontent or Content Development Pro for 500 words. The topics and keywords and all the hard work will be done by the content providers. In this case study, I will show you how I plan to get 10,000 words added semi-automatically (fully automatically if you have the funds). I will be ordering from ContentDevelopmentPro and sharing the process of this concept with you all in this blog and on my Youtube channel in due course. What Content Development Pro will do: They research the keywordsThey send you the topic ideas and keywords they foundYou approve or reject the keywordsIf you approve the keywords they start the writing processWhen completed, they add them directly to your websiteThey also add images and format the postsThen save them to draft for you to inspect and complete The key to this project or concept are the words above; ‘Inspect and Complete’. In a nutshell….. After they produce the researched content and add 10 x 500-word articles, you then go into each one and add extra content. You add an SEO paragraph in the first two or three paragraphs (I explain more on my Youtube video), you embed videos, tables, charts and even screenshots where needed. I would also add an F.A.Q and a paragraph or two to bump up the content. It’s as simple as that! For as little as $300 you have 10 x 1000+ word articles. Well researched topics with good SEO formatted articles written by 4/5 Star Elite writers and finished off by you! Now, where can you get 10,000 words for less than $300? Written by Elite writers. Ordering the service The ordering process is very simple. Simply select the package you want. The price will depend on a couple of things. Number of wordsQuality of writer (we use 4-star writers)How quickly you need the articleIf you want it published directly onto your site Time scales and data collection The turnaround time from ordering to approving the topics and keywords was 9 days. After three days we received the first article which was published directly to the site as a draft copy. That way you have a chance to go into the article and add extra images, links internal and external and affiliate links to products and services. The final article was published 9 days later. Publishing and Formatting We spent the next couple of days adding an extra 500 words to each article and an F.A.Q section which took the total word count to around 1100-1200 per article. We also added Youtube videos that were relevant to the topic and added data, graphs, tables, and charts depending on the topic covered. In total, it took just 11 days to publish 10 articles with a total of 14,350 words – for a grand total of $300. $30 for a great article which took us around 1.45 hr per article to complete and publish. The best part was the lack of involvement on our part. All the hard work of researching the topics and setting out the basic article was already done for us. Manually Writing Content Vs Automation The million-dollar question…. Should you write the content yourself or set the motions in place to automate your content? Well, this will depend on how much time and money you have. If your site is growing and earning money, then reinvesting back into your website is not a bad thing to do with the earnings. After all, your website will not grow without content. The search for passive income takes time and time is your most valuable commodity. By freeing up your time away from writing all the content, you can spend it on other worthwhile projects on your site like producing a podcast or making Youtube videos. Diversification in affiliate marketing is the key to longterm success. So spending all your time writing WordPress blogs is not the best business plan. Spread your time wisely! Pros of Manual Content You’re in total control over the content Your ideas will not get lost in translation to external writersYou don’t have to deal with emails and questions from writersThe satisfaction of writing and adding your name to a great piece of content Cons of Manual Content If you work a full or part-time job, it leaves little time to write contentIt’s hard to find topics to write about, especially if you already have plenty of content English may not be your first languageIt may take you longer to write than a professional hired writerIt’s often frustratingResearch can take agesWriter’s block can hit at any time Pros of Automatic Article posting Grow your passive income with very little effortThe quantity can increase as your earnings growYou’re in control of the word count and timingsYou can broaden your niche without the need for more researchIncrease your earnings month on monthCombine with automatic social media posting and 2 x your traffic100% original contentThey come up with the keywords and topics Cons of Automatic Contract Posting Costly – unless you add extra word count yourselfGiving up control can be hard for some peopleGood communication is needed between writers and contracts to ensure your writing style is provided that fits your website Who We Use For Content Writing When it comes to choosing a content provider in your quest to automate your content, there are several to choose from. Trust me over the years we have used most – if not all of them! We do have a team of writers that we have found over the years from Upwork. However, they only provide work that we ask them to write. Ie: We provide the topics, keywords, writing style, etc. Finding a company to do this for you is much harder. We have narrowed it down to three content providers and all have their own qualities. BKA Content BKA Content Okay, so we’re not going to go into too much detail in this post. We’ll save that for a full review someday of BKA Content. However, we like them for their quality writing skills, especially for longer articles that need lots of data and technical content. CLICK HERE FOR PRICES! Iwriter Iwriter Content Provider We use iWriter after testing a few of their writers and finally finding a couple of good ones. Once you find a good writer you can add them to your favorite list. This will make it easier for next time. We have a couple of writers that produce different styles of writing depending on the type of content we need. CLICK HERE FOR PRICES Content Development Pro Content Development Pro This is our go-to company for monthly automated content thanks to their flexibility on word count and prices. You often get a 10% discount for regular orders so that’s also a bonus. As we stated at the start of this blog, we use the 5 x 500 words or 10 x 500 words monthly service. It’s perfect for when you want to start to automate your content on a budget. CLICK HERE FOR PRICES! Do Monthly Content Publishing Contracts Work? When you own a niche website or multiple websites, you take notice of the big boys and how they grow their businesses. What’s that old saying… You learn from the best! I follow a few people and watch how they use automated content along with other methods to get explosive growth. This cannot be achieved without help. By using their income to purchase content they can increase the amount of content being posted on their sites and therefore increase income. Increased income = Increased Content = Increased income Once you’re on this automated wheel you will see rapid exponential growth. This is how businesses and websites like FatStack.com get their huge incomes. Read Jon’s content here. He is one of my favorite affiliate marketers who uses niche websites and native ads to make a fantastic monthly income. See some of his earnings reports below to see the potential of buying monthly paid content, automatically written and posted directly onto your website each day, week or month. As you can see, the potential for a niche website to grow and provide you with a life-changing income is there for the taking. But you can’t do it all alone. The amount of great content needed to provide you with $10,000+ income a month will be very difficult for one person to write themselves. Yes, It’s possible but it will take several years writing each week to reach those numbers. Conclusion: Automatic Content Publishing vs Manual Content Publishing So, how did we get on? Well, the results are looking good so far. We are waiting for all the content to rank and start seeing some traffic on Google, then we’ll publish the results. Sign up to our newsletter and we’ll keep you informed. Or subscribe to our new Youtube channel and be the first to see the results. There’s no doubt in our minds that the search for passive income at some point will need to focus on automation of some sort. Otherwise, you’ll limit your potential. If you’re pursuing a passive income, then I take it that you don’t have lots of spare cash to invest in content. So, try my method and see how you get on. $300 a month and a few hours work to publish 10 x 1000+ word articles can’t be bad. Imagine 2-3 years of doing this method plus writing some yourself! This will provide you will a healthy passive income for years to come. Of that, I have no doubt!
Why Niche Websites Should Update Old Content
As niche bloggers and online content providers, you spend hours writing and creating. Have you ever stopped to think about when the content you poured so much effort into will have the most views? And similarly, when will your content become dated? Why let your hard work turn into dead weight when you can reindex content and bring new traffic to your site. In this article, we’ll discuss why it’s important and what you can do to update old content. We’ll take a look at: Click-Through RatesThe Content ItselfSearch TrafficInbound and Outbound LinksDated and Updated ContentBreaking Up Your ContentContent Promotion Let’s get started! Click-Through Rate If you’ve been creating content for long enough, likely you utilize Google Analytics. It’s a fantastic resource for tracking all sorts of information when it comes to traffic and audience engagement on your site. We’re going to start by first taking a look at the “Search Analytics” in your Google Analytics panel. What does your click-through rate look like? It might be all over the map when it comes to various pieces of content. If you have some that appear much lower than others, that’s a pretty big sign that you need to tweak your older content to make it relevant again. Are you considering placing ads on your site and making money from your traffic? If yes, Then checkout Ezoic! An amazing advertising platform for niche websites. Click here! First, start by analyzing key elements like your title and the description. How does your content appear in a Google search? Your title should be concise and contain keywords letting the audience know what they should expect by clicking your link. The description should provide just enough of a teaser to intrigue the reader and make them want to read more. The more concise, clear, and intriguing your short snippets and titles are, the more engagement you’ll see. Luckily, these elements are easy to change, even after content is published. The Content Itself Editing is key. Let’s repeat that for emphasis. Editing. Is. Key. Even if you are short of time, there is no excuse to have grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors in your content. When you publish content that is poorly written, this will invalidate all authority you ever had over a topic. Your audience will view you as an amateur. They will no longer trust you as a guide and resource. Think about it, when you read an article and see a glaring typo or lack of spacing, how do you feel? Probably not great. Though it’s a simple mistake, it’s also an avoidable mistake. When you’re checking your click-through rate in the previous step, open up a few links to low performing pieces of content. Scan through them and check for any obvious mistakes. Try using a tool like Grammarly. There is a free version available, which provides a ton of help when it comes to proofreading and editing. Search Grammarly and click the ADD TO CHROME FOR FREE button They also have a premium version that will show you things like passive verb usage and sentence structure, which is important when it comes to SEO. We’ll get to SEO in a minute. Understand that you can make changes. Nothing is permanent. If you think an article is particularly lacking, then rewrite and republish it. However, if there are just a few little tweaks to be made, no need to do an entire rewrite. Just make the necessary changes. Taking the time to improve your writing will pay off in the long run, especially when it comes to building an audience who trusts you. Once you’ve built that, then they’ll come back again and again for more information. Search Traffic Heading back to our Google Analytics, it’s time to take a
look at our search traffic. Take stock in which topics and articles have good
traffic versus which ones have little to none. This is where SEO comes into
play. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it is incredibly important
in driving traffic to your content. If you use WordPress, Yoast is an excellent
SEO tool that essentially gives you a checklist of things to make sure your
article is optimized. Yoast offers a free plugin but you can upgrade to their premium one and add multiple keywords For SEO, you’ll want to make sure your article has a keyword. What is the focal point of what you’re talking about? This should be reflected in your title and article description. Your article will appear in Google searches when someone searches your keyword. You can also increase your SEO by having easy to read content and inbound and outbound links. That’s just scratching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SEO. While at face value, it may seem overwhelming learning all of this at once, remember to take it step-by-step and recognize how exciting it is that you have so many ways to improve and update your old content. Inbound and Outbound Links When digging through old content, be sure to test every link
included in your articles. You should do this every time before you publish
something as well. When it comes to older content, websites change, things get
deleted, products are taken off of the market. Have you ever read an article
about a product you were particularly excited about? You clicked the link
hoping to buy it but the product was no longer available. Avoid that
disappointment by making sure every single link you post clicks through. This is especially important when it comes to source material for factual content and affiliate marketing. Let’s say you have an entire business built around affiliate marketing, you won’t be making any money if your links aren’t clickable. Take a look at Link Whisper plugin. It will make adding interenal links faster, smarter and alot easier if you have lots of articles or pages on your site. You’ll also need consistent and substantial traffic to be qualified as an affiliate marketer. Taking the time to update old content will give you a better chance at qualifying for affiliate marketing. Once you’re approved for affiliate marketing, maximize your income by making it easy and possible for your audience to click outbound links. Click Here to find out more about LinkWhisper Similarly, you can add inbound links to content that is performing well. An inbound link is a link that takes your audience to another article or page on your site. If you have an article that receives a ton of traffic, consider adding a few inbound links to other lower-performing articles through your content. Or add a “Did you like this post? Go check out x,y,z for more”. This will bring your reader’s attention to other content on your site. Optimizing your links is truly essential for helping people find your content and increasing your traffic. We use two plugins or pieces of software for adding internal links and another for checking that all the links within your content are still working and not broken. The first is Linkwhisper, this plugin (PAID PLUGIN) will suggest a link for all your content without having to go through every word on your page hoping to find a suitable place to insert a link. It can save you hours and set up a solid internal linking structure which is very important when Google crawls your pages. It will help with ranking positions in the SERPs results. The second one we use is called GeniusLink which will detect and report back to you if any of your links are broken. As you can see from my report today I have 5 Links to Amazon Products which are broken. Imagine, you have written an awesome piece of content, you have found traffic and people are reading you review or product guide. Then they say ‘Hey I love this product and I want it now!’ They click the link only to see a 404 error! Arrrrrrgh! All that hard work to get a sale – gone! Well, GeniusLink will help prevent this from happening. Click here to read the complete review we did on this product. I’m sure you’ll find it helpful. Dated and Updated Content Let’s say, for instance, you have a blog post all about the recent fires in the Amazon. At first, it was reported that there was one massive fire covering thousands of acres. That statement was later retracted and it was announced that it was numerous tiny fires. These tiny fires were burning in order to make room for cattle to graze. If you don’t update your first article to reflect the updated news, your content becomes immediately null and void. Similarly, if your niche is in the tech or medical industries, changes are made all the time. It’s very important to fact check and keep your information relevant if you want to remain a trusted source. Let’s say you don’t want to rewrite an entire article about forest fires in the Amazon, you can utilize what’s called an editor’s note. At either the end or beginning of your article, add additional text letting your reader know what has changed. Add a date to your note along with the updated information. This will look great to your audience showing that yes, you did report on the initial information and you also took the time to followup and give them new information. Or you could use this as a chance to create a new post and utilize inbound links within your old and new articles to link them together. Breaking Up Your Content Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay Reading long paragraphs without any visual stimulation can
be drab. Readers’ attention rates are not high. Try breaking up your text with
elements like: Headers and subheadersImages & VideosSubheadersQuotesBulleted Lists Get creative! Adding all of these things can also add a
boost to your SEO. Do you see what we did there? We broke apart the text so
your brain had to take the time to register each of these things. Not only did
you have to read the initial sentence, but then you had to take note of the
bulleted list and the call to action letting you know how you can boost your
SEO score. When adding an image, you’ll see an area for alt image
description. This feature is used for people with low visibility or who cannot
see the image at all. This also allows sneaking your keyword into the
description, which will then register with google and boost your overall SEO
score. Similarly, Google also “reads” and registers your content through your headers and subheaders. Utilizing your keyword/s in a few of your headers will give Google more information about your work. When you give Google as much information as possible, they’re able to rank your content much higher in search results. Content Promotion What tools are you utilizing to promote your content? Are you relying solely on Google search traffic? That’s not enough, especially when there is a myriad of options to promote your work. In this day and age, social media is your best friend. Even if you don’t use it personally, using it for your business is a must. Set up your Facebook page, Instagram profile, and even Pinterest account. Image by Kevin King(Chandana Perera) from Pixabay There are many strategies when it comes to these, but the main key is consistency. If you utilize Pinterest, it’s recommended that you pin at least 30 pins a day. Make sure they are quality pins that correlate with your brand. Pinterest is great for linking to your blog posts. Create graphics and images for your content meant specifically for pinning. Add it to your own Pinterest profile and watch the traffic pour in. Pinterest also has a great business profile tool that will show you exactly how many times your pins have been seen re-pinned and clicked. It tracks the amount of organic traffic going to your content. Now Instagram might be the very best option. It gives you maximum audience engagement opportunities. However, it’s important to note, if you’re working to build a following don’t be spammy. What do we mean by that? Don’t just go through and like hundreds of random pictures hoping people will follow your account. This will trigger Instagram’s spam censors and your account will be blocked. It’s all about making the algorithm happy. Instead, go through and like 30 pictures at a time and comment meaningful engaging comments. Users will recognize this, especially if you’re consistent. With consistent and genuine engagement, your following will grow. Promote your content in your Instagram stories and IGTV. You should be doing everything in your power to make it easy
for your audience to find your content. You can even find subreddits that fit
your niche or business and promote your work on there. The possibilities are
endless. Reindexing updated content Once you have updated your content you’ll want to let Google know so it can crawl your site and see the changes you made. You would then hope that Google will rank your content higher thanks to all the hard work you’ve done improving it. How to re-submit your updated content for reindexing. Go to Google Search consoleClick the website that you would like to index content forClick the URL INSPECTION tab ( See image )Paste the URL for the updated post into the search bar and press enterGoogle will go fetch you post or pageThe press ‘ REQUEST INDEXING’ ( See image ) This can take a few minutes. Once do you’ll see a notice telling you it has been added to the list for re-indexing Now you have completed the reindexing process it’s just a matter of time before Google crawls your site again. This can vary from a few hours to a couple of days. Remember you can only resubmit for indexing a limited number of posts per week. We would only suggest reindexing a post once you have made significant changes to the content. If you change the URL or Permalink you’ll need to redirect the old URL to the new one then you don’t lose any traffic whilst Google crawls your updated content. After entering the URL of the post or page you would like to reindex Google Search Console will crawl your post and hopefully ping back green ticks to say it’s found it and it’s available for reindexing. Once this happens you can click the Request indexing button to tell Google that you have updated your old content and you’d like them to take another look at the post. If the updated content is good you should see some better results in Google Serps within days even hours sometimes. I have seen old content on page 2-3 of Google jump onto page 1 within hours. Conclusion: Should You Update Old Content If you implement all of the above strategies and work hard to update old content, you’re sure to see an uptick in traffic. Yes, it will take time to comb through your site, but it will be worth it. Taking the time to reindex content can drastically change your click-through rate, which in turn will increase your monetization capabilities. Take a look at the traffic screenshot below. See the spike after 30 articles around 1-year-old was updated. Two months later you can see the huge spike as many of the updated articles increased in Google Rankings. To briefly recap, start by checking your click-through rate. After that, take the time to analyze the quality of content you’re producing. Next, take a look at your search traffic and implement some SEO strategies. Make sure your content includes inbound and outbound links. Fact-check and be certain your content is up to date. Double-check that your content is broken up and captivating. Lastly, take a look at how you’re promoting your content and if it’s effective. If you break the process down into these steps, it’ll feel less overwhelming and more empowering. Remember you have the power to make these changes and to get your content out there. That’s exciting! It’s time to update old content and put your site on the map. Related Content You Might Find Interesting
Day-to-Day WordPress Tasks | Boring Or Fun?
Affiliate marketing and owning a WordPress website is all sunshine, rainbows and unicorns, right? Well not really. There are important day-to-day WordPress tasks, which although mundane, are necessary for the health of your website. As with any business (it is a business), it has its day-to-day tasks that need to be done. My WordPress tasks involve some very boring jobs that need to be done. You have to be structured in the day-to-day running of your website. Especially as your website grows and has lots of older content. Let me tell and show you what I do on my niche websites on a daily basis. If you’re looking for screenshots of huge sums of money and lists of hundreds of products sold daily on Amazon… You’ll be disappointed. As the title suggests, my daily WordPress tasks are very boring, but essential to the success of my websites. Are you considering placing ads on your site and making money from your traffic? If yes, Then checkout Ezoic! An amazing advertising platform for niche websites. Click here! What WordPress Tasks Should You Do? There are a number of tasks I do daily. Some I do every day and some every few days. Yes, checking my sales is always one of them. Ha Ha! Here’s my daily WordPress checklist Update plugins (after checking online to see if there are any issues with the update)Comments (I don’t activate comments of many sites but I do answer the ones I have)Check emails for issues from writers (some post directly onto the site)Check posts for completed work (this is the fun part)Check Google Analytics (the fun part – most days)Yes, Check Amazon sales (sometimes fun – sometimes depressing)Check Ezoic (my ad revenue company) – Always fun!Publish any new articles (after adding links, photos and checking SEO)Update my spreadsheet (where I keep track of all my content)Share on social media (I hate doing social media)Refresh and update broken links and old content (boring, but vital)Update spreadsheet (add a date and short description of work done) As you can see my day is always busy and involves some very mundane tasks. You need to understand that affiliate marketing is not easy! Yes, it’s easy to get started and add some content and start earning some passive income. But like all businesses, you have to do daily tasks to keep it running smoothly and keep your site fresh and updated. More fool you if you ignore this advice! Honestly, if you ask me which one piece of advice I could give you to help you run your niche website smoothly it would be… Update old content every 3-6 monthsKeep an updated and extensive spreadsheet I’ll explain later in this blog why an updated spreadsheet is so important. What We All Love To Do Each Day If you’re like me I bet you check your earnings daily. Right? That’s part of the fun of owning a niche website. The thought of ‘What if…’ springs to mind. I wake up, check my affiliate programs with the hope of ‘What if one of my posts went viral?’. The hope is that Google has shown one of your posts some love and spread the word about your great content. Sometimes it’s out of your control and you could, in theory, log in to see thousands of dollars commissions from a post that went viral. Can that really happen? It can actually and I have had it happen to me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a product-related post (it was a purely informational article), so I didn’t get any sales and I hadn’t even switched on ads so I made nothing, not a cent! It was fun though. What happened? I’ll make this short, I logged onto my Google app on my phone and checked the live data to see appx 27 people on at one time! Hmmm, strange I thought. The most I had seen was about 5-9 people at any one time. I checked in 30 minutes later and still 20+ people WOW! What the hell is going on I thought? This continued for 2 days. It was an information post that was getting shared around social media and featured on a big website. To give you some perspective, the traffic on that site was around 5k a month (a new site) over the 2 days I saw 9k people visit that post. It was awesome to see, but as soon as it started it ended just as quickly. But it was an exciting 48 hours. Now imagine that on a larger scale and with a product/buyer intent article. Now we’re talking! That’s what we all dream of and wake up each day to check if it’s happened. I know I do! What Tasks I Find Boring And Why Each day, as part of my daily routine, I update and check for broken links. It’s probably the most important part of my day but I do find it boring. You may like it, but I find going over old posts and updating them and fixing issues really boring. I know it needs to be done and it adds real value to my authority and Google loves to see you taking care of your content. Finding broken links is one of the best ways you can spend your time. Broken links have a negative effect on your rankings and can cause a poor user experience. Think of it like this… You’ve done all the hard work by creating the content in the first place. You’ve got the rankings and you’re sending people to your blog. They love your content and read through the blog getting more and more excited about what you’re promoting and start to trust your opinions. They get excited and decide to buy the product only to click the link to see the product is OUT OF STOCK or worse – a 404 Error message. Arrrrrrgh! Sales lost and what’s worse, trust is broken! By updating your content you fix multiple issues. Fix broken linksBuild trust with GoogleImprove your rankingsProvide a better user experienceGet more sales Why Are Spreadsheets So Important? Once I have updated any posts, I immediately update my spreadsheet for that website. One lesson I learned pretty quickly is to have a good spreadsheet for each website. It serves many functions and can be a godsend for updating content. I use my spreadsheet for these functions: Keep track of how many articles I have publishedTracks wordcountHelps optimize Title lengthHelps with hired writersTracks updatesDisplays published datesTracks money spent on contentCan track rankings Helps organize categories An example of one of the spreadsheets I use and update daily What’s The Benefits Of Doing WordPress Daily Tasks? Like any job, there are tasks that need to be completed daily just to ensure the smooth running of your business. (my niche websites are my business) Not only can you lose revenue by not completing daily tasks – like fixing broken links – but you can spoil the user or customer experience. For instance, if the article they go to read comes up with a 404 error or loads slowly. The bigger your site gets, the bigger your daily task list will grow. Yes. All niche sites are passive to a certain extent but not 100%. Unlike a regular 9-5 job, if I don’t feel like doing any work for a day I won’t see a huge impact on my income. However, if I neglect my niche sites for a few days, it has the potential to impact my business in a negative way. So, the first thing I do every day is to attend to my daily tasks! Yes, It can be boring…. But it’s better than working for someone else, Right! Stay Focused This is a saying/phrase – I will be every day in the affiliate, marketing, and niche website world. Something that stuck with me for a long time was watching a video of 3 very successful business people (I can’t remember exactly who it was right now) and they were all asked if they had one piece of advice and to write it down on a piece of paper. What would it be? All three wrote ‘Stay Focused’. I can totally empathize with that. I’m sure you are like me; you start a website and get a few months into it then get a great idea and think, ‘Hey, that’s a great niche’ and start thinking about building another site. Right? We all do it and get distracted. I’ve done the whole social media thing. Building fan groups and posting memes and pictures which take up all day. Then by the end of the day, you realize you’ve wasted the whole day and not written any content or really done anything to build your brand and authority. In the beginning, you might get distracted in your theme and how your website looks. Spending hours, days and even months before you think it looks good enough to add content. By then you’re two months into it and have only posted one or two pieces of content. You’ll then be asking yourself why am I not making any money? I’m two months into this now. Well, actually no. You’re one or two days into it because you spent months just sorting the look of your site. If I could give you one bit of advice – Stay focused on your goal. Don’t get distracted. Turn off the TV, put down your phone and spend as much time each day as you need to reach your goal. If it’s to get X amount of content on your site then don’t let anything distract you from doing that. Set Up A Daily Time Frame Okay, most of you will be working a full-time job as well as trying to build an online business (me too for a long time). So planning your day around work and home life is critical; for a number of reasons: To stop the dreaded ‘Burn Out’More organizedGet more doneStop your partner killing youGetting too tired; which affects the quality of workReach your goal faster Having a strict time frame may seem to go against what everyone tells you about affiliate marketing that’s easy, and can be done whenever and who cares attitude. But it’s totally the opposite! I hate going to bed thinking ‘oh s##t, I didn’t get to do A or B’. That keeps me up at night. I love having a tick box list of jobs that I know will help me get to my goals and keep me on track. If I’m going to post on Facebook or other social media then I want to get on there, get it done and move off. Bish, Bash, Bosh… Job done. Move onto the next task. Not sit on there for 30 minutes looking at cute cat pictures! Google Loves Consistency This is hard to prove but Google themselves have stated not only in video uploads but also blog content, that consistent and regular publishing is rewarded. Plus your followers and readers love to know exactly when you’re going to publish new content. How many of you can’t wait to get that update or notification from your favorite blogger? I know I do. I wait with bated breath for Income School’s blog every Monday and Alex Cooper’s (WPEagle) Youtube stream every Wednesday. Well, your readers and community will feel the same about you. Publish content on a consistent basis, daily, weekly or even monthly (if you publish in bulk). Just think…. if you publish 1 blog each week, your site will have over 100 articles within 24 months. For most sites that’s enough to earn you over $1000+ every month for many years to come. Boring Business My last boss had one saying that I still think is relevant today in the online affiliate niche website world, even though he spoke about it from a retail background. He said…. Your day-to-day retail life should be boring! WOW, I thought, that sounds depressing and dull. Ha Ha Ha But actually what he says is true. What he means is that your business life should be structured, be consistent and should have rhythm and routine. If your niche website day-to-day is dramatic and stressful, then you’re doing it wrong. You should have a plan of action, a daily structure and routine and it all should go to plan. No hiccups, no drama, no headaches. My day-to-day affiliate life is planned, perfectly executed and moves forward daily with no drama. Exactly how I want it. Conclusion: My Day-To-Day WordPress Tasks My advice to you is to create a daily WordPress and affiliate marketing plan of action. If you’re just starting, it may be as simple as writing some content, updating your plugins and adding value to your brand. For bigger more authority sites it may involve a lot more, but don’t ruin all that hard work by slacking on important tasks and upkeep of your site and business. Of course, once all that is done, there’s always time for fun. After all, that’s what we are in this business for. Right? For me, it’s a few hours playing golf really badly. But if I worked a full-time job for some corporate company, that wouldn’t be possible. That’s why I love niche websites.
What Is A Successful Article? It May Not Be What You Think!
After looking into my Google Analytics and trying to figure out which articles are doing well. It got me thinking ‘What is a successful article?’ Success is measured on so many different levels. Financial, longevity, creative and entertaining. For affiliate marketers like you and me, it’s often measured in traffic and visitors to your site. We often look at the short success stats like views and earnings. But is that how we should be looking at our niche websites? You can’t be blamed as a niche site owner to class success in a monetary sense. After all, that’s why we build niche sites, to make money. However, what got me thinking is the type of success we achieve from an article or content that can be judged in more than just a monetary value. Building a brand and a business model can eventually be more valuable than instant financial gains. Not every article I post on my niche sites makes money and not every article ranks well on Google. Start by knowing what you want and who you are, build credibility around it and deliver it online in a compelling way.– Krista Neher Does that mean they’re a failure? No, it can be the total opposite in fact. Providing content that helps build credibility and authority in my niche is priceless. Building a business has many levels; all of which are just as important as each other. The collective value is worth more than the individual parts. Are you considering placing ads on your site and making money from your traffic? If yes, Then checkout Ezoic! An amazing advertising platform for niche websites. Click here! Okay, enough of the business lingo. Basically it’s like building a Puzzle. You start with the fundamentals (the corners) and add piece by piece to make the complete picture. Without all the pieces of the puzzle (business), it simply does not work. Article ROI Once your niche website has a strong DA (Domain Authority), you can start to put a value on each article you write. The business term is ROI which means ‘Return On Investment’. I’m sure you’ve heard this term before. In affiliate marketing, it normally refers to visitors to your site that an article or piece of content you have produced compared to the cost of producing the content. So, what we’re saying is that articles that make no money and drive no traffic or very little are a failure, Right? Wrong! How can you put a number on anything you do on your website? One small action on your site could potentially lead to bigger things. That one image posted on social media (could easily) sends one of your articles or products into a mini viral frenzy. I had one once. A Pinterest image that got shared on a mega website which drove over 7000 visitors to my website within 48 hours. It was amazing to watch my live Ezoic data which shows my current visitors along with my live minute by minute earnings. This was a very new website; only 2 months old which wasn’t even out of the Google Sandbox (if you believe in that). If it wasn’t for that ‘pin’, maybe that website wouldn’t have been as successful as it was or, it may not have climbed out of the Google sandbox as quickly as it did. How can I put an ROI on that pin? You can’t, Right! It was just a piece of the puzzle that is all part of affiliate marketing. Is Money Success? Okay, this one is going to create some waves with my readers. Let me ask you a question. Why are you part of the affiliate world? Why have you built a website? To earn more money of course. I understand that, but not all people are driven by money. Most of us who build niche websites are, because that’s the whole point. To make more money to provide a better lifestyle for yourself and your family. But some people do it for other reasons. Yes, at the start it might have been all about the money but it can become something different. At what point does it turn into something different? I have no idea, but for me, the turning point happened when I told family and friends what I was spending so much of my time doing and they started to laugh. I understand their skepticism and their lack of faith in what I told them. I mean everyone thinks everything on the internet these days is a scam! I tried so hard to make people understand and believe that this is a true business model. In fact, affiliate marketing is one of the fastest business models in the world with huge companies buying into affiliate marketing. The best example I can share with you is a simple blog website built by Martin Lewis who created and ran the website MoneySavingExpert.com (MSE), which was originally designed for a cost of just £100 in February 2003. In September 2012 he sold the website to the Moneysupermarket.com group for up to £87m. Granted, Martin made money. The whole purpose of an affiliate website. However, his success did not come from a passion or drive to make money. He designed and started the website to save people money and lower their cost of living. His articles and information really helped people. He never wrote his blogs with the single thought of… ‘How can this article make me money?’. He wrote them with the reader in mind and with the sole intention to genuinely save them money. This ultimately made him millions. If Martin Lewis never made a penny by helping millions of people live a better life, would you class that as success? I know I would! Helping others enjoy a better life is success in my book Those doubters and people who laugh at me, drive me on every single day to get out of bed at stupid O’clock and work on my website. I want to prove them wrong, I want to show them I’m not mad and that affiliate marketing is a job, not a pipe dream. I also want to leave something for my children as I get older. I’m building their future, something they can look back on and say “My Dad did that”. That would be my success! Write Helpful Content I learned after many of what I called ‘failed articles’ (no such thing), that helping your reader or helping someone answer a question is the way to success. Whether that be financial, moral or supportive. I stopped chasing the money posts within a year or so of producing affiliate content. I never pick a topic anymore based on what the article or piece of content can earn. To me, that is impossible to figure out anyway. Yes, you could say that for every 1000 people who view my post I will make an EPMV of $18 (earnings per thousand visitors) – that is measurable data. Affiliate marketers love measurable data! I choose my article by asking myself…. ‘Will my readers want to read this?’ and ‘Will it help someone?’ If the answer is yes, I will produce that piece of content. I may not spend a fortune on it because I don’t have money to invest without some sort of ROI. But I will try to produce great content that helps people; which in return will help grow my business and brand. It’s a win-win for everyone! If you write content that answers a question or fixes a problem then you will eventually see the return on your investment without even trying. Some of my most valuable articles that earn me the most revenue are the ones I wrote without even thinking they would earn me so much advertising revenue. I just thought my readers would love to see the information and would enjoy the content. They did and it now gets shared every day; which is building my Domain Authority with Google, helping me to rank better. There will be some of you guys screaming at the screen right now saying… What about product reviews and selling more products? I get it, they help people find a great deal and save money for sure and there will always be a place for those types of articles. I too have articles exactly like those ones. But don’t miss my point, your first thought should be about creating helpful and informative content. Remember that film starring Kevin Costner, Field of Dreams? If you build it and it has great content…. They will come! I know that’s a bit lame, but it’s true. If you produce your content with the mindset of helping the reader, the traffic will come and along with it, the revenue. There’s a great saying in affiliate marketing – Get the traffic and the money will follow – It’s true! Without traffic and visitors to your site or blog, you’ll never make money. Visitors will only follow and come back to your niche website if they believe you’re trying to help them and not after their money. After all most affiliate website owners are not after their visitor’s money. They are after the affiliate commissions from the bigger companies like Amazon. Help them and they will help you! Build a brand Many people don’t think of websites in the same way they think of a high street store but they should. An affiliate website has the same business principles as any other business. Provide a great serviceAdd value to the end-userHave great productsBuild a loyal followingBe trustworthyBe a leader in your nicheListen to feedbackGrow and expandBe profitable For most websites, new visitors make up a huge part of the daily traffic. However, building a brand with a strong email marketing list can really help get more returning traffic to your blog. 77% are new visitors to one of my niche websites As you can see from a screenshot from one of my niche websites; that’s a whopping 77% of which are new visitors each month. To keep these new visitors coming back each month, you need to make sure you give them what they searched for; or try to answer their question in a clear and informative manner. Writing niche articles that are clearly designed and written with the user in mind, is the best way to win over your readers and build trust, authority and get more social shares. Readers/viewers are clever; they can see through all the fluff and waffle within seconds. TOP TIP: If you’re answering a question searched by someone on Google, then make sure they come away from the article satisfied and having their question fully answered. If they still need to search on Google after reading your article you have failed! Building a brand is more important than you think for affiliate niche websites. Letting Google know you’re a brand that can be trusted and people love your site is vital for growing organic traffic. Get visitors to love your site and Google will love it too. Conclusion: What Is A Successful Article? What Makes A Good Niche Article? Okay, I have gone on way too long, I know. I just want to reassure you that all your content is playing its part in building a brand and authority within your niche. It’s not always the articles that make money that are the successful ones. Who knows which article or piece of content sparks that trigger in Google to say ‘Hey, this is a great website. I’m going to start ranking their stuff better from now on’. You can, of course, have bad content, that’s content that can harm your reputation. Duplicate or plagiarized content will never trick or fool Google. Google is a clever beast and you’ll damage your brand, reputation and even risk getting a Google penalty for doing that kind of shady business. Affiliate marketing is simple. Give your visitors the best information and experience possible and they will come back time and time again. Then you’ll naturally make passive income without even trying.