Wow, that's a great initial consultation Mike. And I almost missed it as I didn't receive the thread update notice. Phew, close one!
Ok, balancing act here. I want to respond to all your questions, and of course I love to talk about my own projects. But let's also try to keep a focus on you, what you can do for clients, and what we can learn from you.
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I don't think their is a viable search engine market for the type of site you have. That is not to say that you won't have search engine traffic...
Around 650 unique visitors a day now, mostly from Google of course.
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...but internet marketers are usually looking for those keywords that they can rank for in just a few months and that can bring them a few thousand visitors a month.
Hmm... Brainstorming. Does this help? Say I optimized a squeeze page for a keyword, got links to that page, got on first page of results. And then repeated the process, again and again, creating more optimized squeeze pages. An SEO plan?
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I haven't done any research yet, but I'm not sure those kind of keywords exist for your type of site.
Ok, just to be clear, I'm not requesting you do a bunch of free work for me, but that we use the thread to give all of us an insight in to how we can learn from you, here, or as clients.
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Who is your target market?
Nature lovers.
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What do you think your target market is searching for on Google?
I have Statcounter and Analytics installed, and so can see all the keywords being used. At this point, the site is primarily about nature locations and wildlife, so the searches reflect that.
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Give me some ideas what you think people might search for to find your site.
Here go, some recent searches.
raising and rescue of squirrels in north carolina
wildcat campground point reyes
Baby Squirrels
horsetail falls oregon
oneonta falls
new nature videos download
caladesi island
Oconaluftee Visitor Center (Milepost 469) picture
boat in camping at tomales bay
little talbot island state park photos
letchworth state park map of park
map of peaks of otter
blue spring state park
big shoals state park
oceans
are killer whales found in the gulf of mexico
oleno state park in florida
Peregrine Falcon
anjana tigers
hubble telescope extraterrestrial life
squirrel youtube videos
cedar key tides
driving directions to alafia state park
killer whales eating sharks
EARTHQUAKE TRAIL
nature talks
all about squirrels
download videos of nature
Planets
blue fawn beagle
uttarakhand nature video download
whale eating kayak
buy a squirrel
blackwater river state park pictures
map of rainbow spring
baby fox squirrel
soundtrack of waves at seashore
how do i add weather to my website
raising and rescue of orphaned squirrels in north carolina
fox squirrel
nature video download
cedar key tide fl
armadillo dinner
gardens
orcas hunting rays and sharks
evolution of species images
little shoals state park florida
video killer whale teach baby seal ice waves
science
maclay gardens map of ravine trail
nature videos
fernandina garden phil
video loop nature download
Oleno State Park campsite photos
killer whales getting iceburgh seals
mexican wildlife
orcas teaching young to hunt video
oconaluftee visitors center
john yeon state park pictures
midget forecast
blackwater state park florida
tomales bay camping
clam digging portland maine
memaloose state park map
universe
peregrine falcon pictures
oleno state park florida map
homosexuality in animals
fox squirrel facts
killer whale attacks on humans in the san juan islands
orcas in gulf of mexico
black hole galaxy
downloan nature videos
chandra sombrero filterui:imagesize-large
outer banks frisbee golf
letchworth state park map
cedar key nwr shell mound
cute polar bear attack email
human evolution
orcas eating on iceberg
Linville Falls roanoke va
cumberland knob milepost
wittenberg trail condition
cayo costa florida nude beach
solar sun pics
future space shuttle
watkins glenn harbour hotel pier camera
First Man On The Moon
waterrock knob visitor center
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What is your objective with the site? For example, do you want to make a sale, educate the public, drive traffic to something else, etc.
1) Adsense for now.
2) Get enough traffic to launch a network of nature forums on the site, thus largely automating content creation.
3) Get enough traffic to make it worthwhile to get in affiliate marketing, to diversify beyond Adsense.
4) Introduce my hosting services.
5) Have a career that I enjoy enough that I'd do it for free if I won the lottery.
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You did mention driving people to subscribe to a newsletter. Is that the only objective?
The newsletter is part of the overall grand scheme.
I mentioned it as one possible way to limit the scope of our work together in this thread. You know, a specific measurable goal for us to focus on.
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Also, if you want signups, the site needs some changes. The "subscribe" button and text is just to small. It is not jumping out at anyone.
I agree completely. Actually I get most of my signups currently from the confirm page on my ezine service, where I have a full page multimedia type ad. But yes, the signup form on the site needs work for sure, I hear ya.
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My philosophy is pretend that a website visitor who finds your site will never find it again. You need to collect their email address on that first visit or they are never coming back.
Couldn't agree more.
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Their eyes are drawn to the top left initially. That is where you need to put some kind of "call to action" for your visitors to entice them then to signup to your newsletter.
Ok, good plan, I like it. I'll have to design a form that will fit at the top of each article. Bring the form out from behind the hidden panel. Agreed, agreed.
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This is really the first case I have run into where in my mind, there isn't a viable search engine market for this. I could be totally wrong, but I don't think people are searching for "Ghana charities" or "How can I give money to improve the country of Ghana".
I'm still not sure what you mean by viable, but a site all about Ghana would seem to bring in folks that are at least interested in Ghana. Perhaps a newsletter could be the mechanism to sort further to find the contributor types? Dunno.
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I think you have a similar case here. People may be searching for things like "nature hikes" that you could target, but those kind of phrases probably have a ridiculous amount of competition. You could very well rank highly for them, but it might take a year or longer.
Well, this might help. Nature could possibly be the broadest topic there is, as it includes all of reality. :-) This seems very different, perhaps the opposite, of the small very targeted sites you seem to focus on.
I'm thinking in terms of tens of thousands of pages, tens of thousands of links, tens of thousands of visitors. Low profit topic, requiring high traffic.
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What we are proposing to this potential client is the same thing I would propose in your case. Social Media Marketing.
Oh dear, you've hit my biggest weak point. I'm still trying, struggling, to remain open to social sites, but honestly, I seem incapable of understanding what is fun about Twitter and Facebook.
I LOVE forums, as we can have real conversations here, rich with real content. The social sites seem to be mostly tidal waves of little blurbs of nothingness. VERY popular obviously, but not so much to me, Professor Blowhard. :-)
Not to rain on the parade, just full disclosure about the scope of the challenge here. I don't get social sites.
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One interesting fact about Facebook, I forget the number of users on there right now (I think it is over 600 million now), but over 50% of the users of Facebook log on everyday.
Clearly that's VERY impressive. Numbers like that are why I'm still trying to be open minded.
All that said, with a little guidance and encouragement I could give Facebook another try, IF I could document some real results. I'm still not convinced anybody actually reads Twitter. :-)
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Especially initially, I think you'll find far more traffic through social media than SEO. Maybe you can convince me otherwise.
Hmm.... Let's see.
Well, my impression (correct me if I'm wrong) is that your focus and skill is with SEO. So, if we're going to keep this about you more than me, perhaps we should stick with SEO?
Using SEO to drive traffic to one or more squeeze page signup forms?
To me, this might be interesting for readers, as it would illustrate using SEO to plot an escape from the SEO rat race?
I dunno. I'm open to suggestion and direction. My main goal here is share an interesting conversation where we all get to harvest your insights and experience. I'd guess few readers here, me included, know much about the automated type techniques you are involved in.
Over to you, and thanks. Perhaps we can turn this thread in to sort of a sales tool for you? You know, something you can refer prospects to?