money

Niche Site Experiment Update: Nothing, Not Even The Domain Registration Fee

Niche Site Experiment

I’m officially scuttling the entire experiment.

That’s right, I’m scuttling the whole project. Not only because I haven’t made any progress, but rather because I’ve realized that I already have multiple niche sites and therefore do not need to launch any new sites.

I wish I had realized that before I spent money buying yet another keyword research tool that I didn’t need, but at least I didn’t go off and buy another domain name that I was never going to populate with anything.

Here’s my advice to you, look at what you’re already doing and figure out how to do that better. Don’t go off looking for a new way to reinvent the wheel. Just do what you’re already doing better.

If you already have a real business, focus on your real business. Focus on what you need to do to make your business more successful and don’t waste your time chasing magical internet money unicorns.

I present to you my conclusions from the niche site experiment:

Just do your thing, and do it well. Don’t pay attention to the competition, to the keywords or to anything else. If you’re interested in something, make a blog and just go for it. Make the best blog or website that you can. Don’t just get into something just because the metrics say there is money in it, go into something because you care about it.

Ultimately, if you don’t care about something, it will show. No one will care about your site if you don’t care about your site.


podcasting logo

Podcast Hosting sites

Plans,

I’ve been playing around with the idea of starting up the podcast again. Well, maybe not this podcast, but rather a podcast.

I’ve got several options as far as both what the podcasting topic will be as well as where to host said podcast.

One of the podcasts, could be a sports podcast for my Texas sports site. I could also do a photography podcast, or just restart the marketing podcast that I used to do for this site. Lastly, but not leastly (that should be a word), I could just do a personal podcast just for the heck of it.

If I do reboot the Marketing Latinos podcast, perhaps I should call it a retooling or something like that instead of a reboot. Maybe I’ll just call it “Season 2″or just because I like cheese, call it “Marketing Latinos Podcast Season 2.0″or something ridiculous like that.

My TV mind, is telling me that the old brand is likely dead and I should just create a new one instead of resurrecting that old one. My heart however, tells me that I should keep the old brand and use it just because I like it.

Regardless, of what podcast I start, I have decided not to self-host the podcasts here on my server. There are just too many variables to account for.

Primarily, I asked myself:

  • What if, lawd forbid, more than 5 people want to listen to the podcast at the same time? Will my hosting account be able to accommodate that?
  • Is hosting a streaming podcast against the terms of use of my hosting account? Actually, the answer to this question is yes, yes it is.

In fact, most shared hosting providers have a caveat in their terms of use against using shared hosting for streaming.

Given that I can’t self host, I decided to go out and look for podcast hosting providers. Here they are, in order of my preference:

http://www.libsyn.com/

http://www.blubrry.com

http://www.podbean.com/

http://www.podfeed.net/

Those are not affiliate links, so I will not get a commission if you click and sign up for hosting with one of those companies. This post, is more for me than it is for you. Sorry, but that’s the truth.

If you do decide to use one of these services, would you let me know in the comments what made you go with one over the other? I’m leaning towards libsyn, but blubrry is a very close second. The other services look promising as well, I just don’t know them personally.


skip_this_ad

I Like The “Skip This Ad” Button

Adwords, Digital Advertising, ,

I seriously do. Let me tell you why.

I like the “Skip This Ad” button, because it’s a vote. You elect to watch a commercial or not, so the producer needs to make something that is compelling enough to make you want to watch it.

skip_this_ad

Sure, it might hurt publishers to not get paid for the full commercial play, but in reality, I care much more about my time than I do about some publisher getting paid. Don’t you care more about your time than you do about some nameless, faceless publisher?

I realize that I’m probably cutting my nose to spite my face here. I am a publisher, as you can see by the ads on this site and the ads that I authorize to run on my ads. I am well aware of the irony here.

I just like watching commercials that are interesting and entertaining. I don’t mind watching interesting commercials more than once. For instance, I’ve watched that one GoPro commercial with the dirt bikes I don’t know how many times, and I will keep watching it every time it comes on until a newer better version of that commercial airs.

I hate boring commercials.

The only thing that I hate more than boring commercials, are boring commercials that have to buffer before they play. Like on Comedy Central, I hate watching clips of “The Daily Show” or “The Colbert Report” over there because they always pre-roll a lame commercial for something lame and you can’t skip the preroll ad.

I understand that creating content costs money, and making money from advertising pays for creating the good quality content that I want to watch, but do I really have to watch the same commercial 5 times to watch 4 clips of the show? Do I really have to watch a 60 second ad in exchange for watching a 45 second clip?

I think not.

In fact, I can tell you what the last interesting and compelling commercial that I sat through on YouTube was, but I cannot tell you a single commercial that I’ve ever seen during those Comedy Central prerolls.

That, should tell you something.

By that, I mean that it should tell you more than I have the attention span of a gnat with ADHD.


adwords

Pay Per Click Campaigns: What’s The Most Important Metric?

Adwords, Digital Advertising, ,

adwordsWhen launching or running a pay per click, or PPC campaign, what do you think is the most important metric to keep track of? Not long ago, I thought that the cost per click, or CPC was the most important metric, but I was completely wrong.

Although the CPC measures something that you should keep track of, it is not the most important metric. Your daily budget, or daily spend is also not as important as the truly important metric and neither is your total ad budget.

The most important metric for you to keep track of, is your ROI or Return On Investment.

When I was going through the AdWords certification process, I was introduced to the concept of an “infinite budget” campaign. I couldn’t understand how such a thing could exist, until I became comfortable with tracking ROI and what ROI means to a campaign.

It doesn’t matter if you spend $50 on a single click, as long as that click leads you towards making a profit. Even if it’s only $51 worth of business. That’s an extreme example, but hopefully, you get the gist of the meaning.

Keeping track of your CPC is important, it’s just not as important as your ROI.

If it’s costing you more money to advertise than you are getting in return business, then you either have to rethink your advertising, rethink your campaign or rethink your business.

You’re in business to make money, not to lose money. Every dollar that you spend on your business, needs to lead to more than a dollar in return. Otherwise, you won’t be in business for very long.

Seems like such a basic thing to understand, but it’s a hard lesson to learn and take to heart for many of us.