Don’t Be a Tightwad – Reinvest for Success & Long Term Growth!
So… you had an OK month on a specific site and after expenses, you were able to bank $500 of profit for your efforts… what are you going to spend that money on now? Disneyworld? A New Car? How about the site?
I like use a 10% rule on ALL of my earnings, regardless of where they come from, how much I made and how much it took to make it! My 10% rule is pretty basic… I start by paying myself 10%. ALWAYS pay yourself first! Serious… Always pay YOU first :-) After you pay yourself, you need to put 10% aside for new business and 10% aside for reinvesting into the existing business.
This methodology will fill all 4 buckets you need to survive and thrive!
Reinvesting in Your Affiliate Business
For this example – I am not going to name the actual site, but will use exact numbers of how I will reinvest in it!
- Site: notgonnatellyou.com
- Age: 13 Months
- February 2010 Earnings: $580
- Paid to Me: $58 in Bucket 1 – aka Dinner!
- Paid to Business: $58 in Bucket 2 – aka for NEW domains, plugins, software, themes, etc.
- Reinvest: $58 in bucket 3 – aka for The Specific site Maintenance and Marketing
- Profit: $406 in bucket 4 – aka – gas in the car, heating bills, etc.
See how that works? Pretty simple for this case… I am going to pay myself and my business 10% each, then drop 10% back into new content and/or marketing for the site, and whatever is left over, well that goes to Kim!
How Will I Reinvest the $58 In to the Site?
First and foremost – i know someone is thinking it… $580 after 13 months, well, that sucks. Please… you keep on thinking that and chasing down the bigger fish! This 88 page website takes about 2-3 hours a month to maintain, and aside from what I explain now, I will forget about it for the rest of that month! $408/3 = $136 per hour.
So – Where does Reinvesting $58 Get Me?
- $8/ea gets me (6) totally unique and professionally written 300-350 word articles from TextBroker.com (Create your free account, login, and then click here to get direct to Rob) Make sure you tell him I sent you and that you want the “Mark Hansen” rate! :)
- $10 more, gets me (1) totally unique 500 or so, word article used for distribution to 10-12 different article directories. Yes, the same article to all of them on the same day!
There you have my entire “Maintain and Market” strategy for a mostly-passive income site! :-) I should write an ebook that covers that entire thing and charge $29 for it! Here it is… Earn, Pay Myself, Reinvest, Maintain, Market, Repeat!
6 months ago – the same site only earned $110 – and – I only added 2 new articles that month! One on the site and one to article directories!
Maintenance & Marketing of the Site in Under 3 Hours!
- After you get the new articles from Rob at Textbroker, you add them to your site (aka copy/cut/paste), and preset the post dates at random times and dates, 3-6 days apart in this case, but spread out for the number you are adding. Add a few images to make them prettier, optimize the “individual pages” for 3-5 phrases, and walk away.
- After the 500 word article comes in… you post it to the 10-12 top article directories and again, move on until next month! Instead of having a spin-gasm over the latest-greatest article spinner on the market, and ripping off 50 copies a week for backlinks, walk away from it!
The benefit of article marketing has nothing to do with how many human-looking-spun-article-backlinks you can get from the article directories themselves – it’s about how many quality websites pick up you’re great article and use it on their own site! Think about it…
I have a few article marketing posts written, just waiting to be finished and published. Once I finish up a few others that I neglected to complete… I will push them out.
Do You Reinvest In Your Sites?
This article was actually prompted by a friend who asked me if he should be spending any money on his existing sites, and if so, how much. There is no-such-thing as purely passive income in the IM world, the trick is to make it as passive as possible, while maintaining some sign of growth!
I use a 10% rule – what do you use, if anything at all?!
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- PepperJam’s Explosive Growth in the Affiliate MarketPlace
- Affiliate Website Budget – Invest to Find Success!
- If You Could Suggest Only One Element of Success, It Would Be…
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I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing.
That’s a great breakdown of what to do. I must follow it instead of throwing it up in the air and seeing what lands in which bucket. No, seriously, I tend to take 10% for me, and a whole lot more goes back into the business, rather too much. It’s just too easy to get caught up in the latest must have but I’m trying really hard to keep the blinkers on.
What do you use to change your article for the directories?
Great article Mark.
At the moment, it all goes into bucket 4 for me!
I do re-invest money into my sites, but the cash for that usually comes through sales of my BANS plugins.
Nice to see how you are so ritual about it all too. Gives me food for thought.
Do you use the same title and bio links for each article you post to the top sites? Or do you spin/change that?
Great advice Mark,
I have lived buy this method of breaking profits down by percent with my bricks and mortar business and paying myself 10% first and has served me well.
Also as I haven’t used an article writer before, how much information do they need from me to write an article? Do I have to research and show them wear to get the info, or do they do the research once I have given them the topic?
@Cherie – Seriously, I don’t change one thing the articles before submitting to directories.
I get a GREAT article – and use it ONLY for the article marketing, NEVER on the site itself. (Another post coming on that soon)
@Tao – I wish I followed ritual on “all” sites… Unfortunately, It’s that 80/20 rule… where only 20% of the sites, maybe less, even make it to the status of scheduled updates!
As far as the Bio’s and info… I only change it for the article themselves. If I submitted 1 article right now, the bio and title would be the same on all submissions.
@Magoo – The MORE info you provide, the better your articles will be! Read here and here… they were both popular when written!
The bottom line is to get your Author to answer the questions your Readers may have, based on YOUR research. When I submit article orders – I provide the FULL title that matches what I will use on the website.
M
Investment is the key to survival. I don’t quite do it your way but I currently reinvest about 25% of what I make each month. Thats a couple of thousand a month going back into the business for maintenance, new sites, outsourcing and tools.
Must be money AFTER taxes!
Seriously, I like your take on article spinning. I’ve been considering this technique and I have decided to avoid it. I just feel better about my business when I stick to techniques that offer quality.
@Mike – Its about the same end-result for sure Mike. Overall, a total investment of about 30-35% goes back into the business each month.
@Julie @ Abeka Homeschool – LOL – For sure AFTER taxes!
After doing the spin-to-win routine before, I came to the realization that the ONLY person I was fooling, was myself!
M
Mark,
I’ve always been curious about paying someone to write me articles like textbroker, however I have not tried it yet. When you ask someone to write an article for you, obviously you have to tell them what the topic is. But how accurate or relevant do you feel the actual article is when you get it back? The people writing the articles can’t be experts at everything. So that’s the reason I’ve never pursued having someone else write the articles. I’m afraid what I get back just won’t work with my site. I suppose it all depends on who is writing the article and if you get someone that is good they probably can do a decent job.
What is your experience with the articles you get back? Are they all good? Do you have to rewrite any part of them? You gave a link to an author at texbroker, so I’m assuming you’re happy with him/her. Can he write an article on any topic you ask him about?
thx
bill
@Billf – Textbroker allows you to specify the “level” of writing you want. The higher the standard, the more $ per word you pay. Also, you get to reject the article a number of times asking for it to be re-written or changed as you see fit.
I was lucky to find a “low quality” writer there who did exactly the kind of stuff I was after. I then directed the rest of my articles to her.
All I did as specify the title: Nike Red Widgets Review and specify that the keywords needed to be in the article no more than 2 times, but alternatives and synonyms were acceptable if included naturally.
I did reject a few from some people, but overall the standard was great!
Well worth $25 to test the water.
Hey Mark
Love your take on article distribution of “not fooling yourself”…. couldn’t help but agree with you 101%. Certainly, quality is far more important than quantity.
Care to share which of the directories you distribute your articles to?
Yan
I thought the 580 bucks was for February….I was starting to feel bad for a minute.
I don’t have a set plan….I spend what I need to keep up with my ideas and abilities to produce new sites.
I love my writer….so don’t share. :-)
@billf – Like Tao mentions… drop $25-$50 in your Textbroker.com account and go hunting for a writer!
Look for a writer with +100 completed texts – which means they arent going to run off with your cash and you know other people continue to use them also! Eventually, you WILL find that certain person whose writing style matches your goals…
ALL of your content will come from that person, from that point forward.
Rob at TB is just one of 3 that I have used regularly… and the ONLY reason I use others, is when the work is too much for one person!
@Yan – I have it ready to go into another post… watch in the next few days. In a nutshell, I use the same 10 directories that are in the article submitter I got 2 years ago!
@Bill – He is for sure getting busy man!! Between you, I and the small handful of others we have sent him, he is doing OK with it all for sure! (Which is a GOOD thing)
M
I am trying to wrap him up hard for a few months so get to him now. Lol. I might try to move him to SC if he’ll go for it.
Hi Mark
Curious as to which 10-12 directory sites you submit to you. Care to share your list?
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