CC9 -- The Stormborn

[chaddicus.]

Hey guys. I'm the lucky holder of the Stormborn ticket.

I've been involved in internet marketing for about 4 years now. The first bit was on and off and helped me get through school. Got my degree from a major university but realized how badly I wanted to stay clear of the corporate world, so I started pursuing digital marketing pretty much full time. I'm still trying to build up to the baller status a lot of these guys here on BuSo are at, and still have a lot to learn. But I feel confident in what I do know and am eager to increase my skill sets.

I'm in an Informative/Entertainment niche if we're going by the thread Carter wrote up on WF a while back. Which I assume we are.

My overall goal with this traffic leak experiment is, probably pretty obviously, to increase my sites traffic without use of the SERPs. I want to build the traffic sources to bring my site over 1,000 unique visitors a day. I honestly don't know how quickly or slowly I can get there, so I will definitely need to reevaluate on a weekly or bi-monthly basis to make sure I'm not underachieving. This raise in traffic with directly relate to a rise in affiliate sales and referrals -- the main way this site is to make money.

Now, what do I get out of it? Well, besides interacting with everyone involved with this project, I'm going to get practical knowledge of driving traffic without relying heavily on SERPs. I have a few other sites/projects that could benefit greatly from the things I'm going to be learning and doing. Once I get the basics down and this project is over, I'll have the ability to grow my other sites traffic.

Each week I plan on spending a minimum of 10 hours on this site and project. There is a lot that goes into staying active or up to date on the industry and in researching different affiliate offers I plan to place on the website. Additionally, updating the sites social media accounts and building/maintaining engagement will take some time. Therefore, I reserve the right to dedicate more time if needed. But I plan on implementing the pomodoro timer strategy talked about in the BuSo goals thread to maximize my work time and dedication to a task. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a lot of these maintenance things done quickly and focus on the traffic leak portion more.

As it stands now, this site has next to no traffic. It's pretty new but in a niche of dedicated and loyal fans. And by new I mean less than a month old. So you're getting a real zero to hero experience here with me.

Personal goals... Basically to go into boss mode. I want this site to really help me realize more of my online potential. Up to this point most of my money has been made via localized lead gen and the occasional client work. This site has the potential of bringing in a good chunk of change each month. That will allow me to focus/reinvest more on my online pursuits and help loosen the noose of debt. I don't have a lot of it, but debt that isn't working for you is crippling IMO.

Currently, I have the site up and running, but I have a few tweaks to make before I'll consider it up to par. I'm in the process of getting a solid logo made, one I didn't just mock together to make the site look more like a real thing. There is also an infinity scroll feature I want to incorporate. It was supposed to come with the wordpress theme I'm using, but it's not functioning at all. Because nothing is this life is easy. I need to either find a plugin that will work with this theme and enable the infinity scroll feature or I need to hire someone from odesk or something to fix it. I'm open to suggestions from you guys as well. I have the affiliate accounts set up for the money making opportunities, so it's really a matter of polishing the site up a bit and producing quality content that will attract the right eyes.

And thus marks my first post in this journey. Looking forward to your comments, questions, concerns, and help. Till next week.

 

[CCarter]

My Official Take:

This fucking motherfucker... Honestly, fucking guy bro... This guy pissed off everyone with his first application. I read that shit was like "this motherfucker is on crack.", and promptly put him at the bottom of the list, like literally below people that didn't have websites. Then I went to his site, and he DIDN'T have a website!

And throughout the whole process, we compared everyone to him, "At least it's not chaddicus. level". It wasn't even that he had a bad idea, his idea is phenomenal, like really extremely good, and has a HUGE target base of opportunity. It's PERFECT for traffic leaking - like one of the best we've seen.

But jesus - I'll post one of the questions and OP's answer:

11: Give 3 examples of your competitors doing a traffic leak:

Nah. Honestly, I don't want to take the time to research this right now.

^^ wtf? lol, wat?

And it just got worse from there, shit was hilarious cause he was insulting the process like it would be a gift for us to take him on, otherwise he won't do the site overall. The question is, why the fuck would I give a shit if you want to sit around wasting your time doing nothing?

That's when the idea was made to reply to people and tell them why they didn't make it, but then we were like, nah, no point, waste of energy.

So we went along on the process and when we were narrowing down to the final ticket, literally, 23rd fucking hour, 59th minute before, this dude send a PM that was a complete 180. This application was a complete turn around, but I was still not convinced, until I went to his site, wow, dude put up a site in 2-3 days and it looked beyond decent - it looked amazing, it has a ton of potential and looks really good.

That's when we had to let him in, cause his idea was great, and the turn around in personality was beyond baffling, it was commendable.

Now, chaddicus. may not know what he did, but he created a strong emotion with the judges, really bad emotion, that literally stuck in our minds throughout the whole process. He made me laugh and hate him at the same time. And then came back hat in hand and did a strong 180 turn around, that it left us speechless. And the timing was crazy, cause if he had waited one more hour, it would have been too late. Whether he knows it or not, he hacked our brains and got us emotionally involved to a point that his turn around would was not only startling but again left us speechless. If he did it on purpose, that's some advanced level manipulation, if not he's got natural skills needed to think outside the box.

Either way, wow, we were left speechless and had to accept him cause of the mind-fuck we went through. And the site is great too. I'm still speechless about what I was a part of, but the story had to be told.

I'd personally like to know what he was thinking was going to happen when he wrote that first application, that shit was insane.

Anyways, this is clearly going to be fun...

 

[chaddicus.]

I started reading this and thought, "...oh... shit..." This came to mind:

But in the end, I'm extremely pleased with CCarter's insight to my niche. Humbled really. I know I still have a lot of work to do to get the site to where it really needs to be, but I'm working on it and looking forward to more input. I'll keep this thread updated as I get my tasks done.

I'm running into a wall with the infinite scroll function of the site. I'll give an explanation of what is supposed to happen and see if anyone can help me out with ideas. So this WP theme uses posts to feature each product or doodad that I use. The featured image is up on the homepage with the small blurb about it and a button to take you to the post/product. The theme came with a plug in that is supposed to allow for an infinite scroll feature, namely each page of posts/products is supposed to load automatically once you hit the bottom of the page. As they put it, "Automatically append the next page of posts (via AJAX) to your page when a user scrolls to the bottom." But with the latest WP update, the plugin doesn't work. And it hasn't been updated in like 2 years. I've been looking around for either a way to try and code this into the theme (NOTE: I am not advanced when it comes to coding, I can read and write a few basic things, but know my limitations) or to find another plugin that will work. So far I haven't found anything.

Also, because the theme awkward uses posts to feature products, I need to find a way to incorporate an external blog on the site that I can update regularly. I haven't looked into this a ton yet cause I've been trying to fix the infinite scroll feature. It allows user engagement to be so much higher than clicking and loading a new page.

Finally, the logo should be done by tomorrow. Thanks guys!

 

[CCarter]

You sure you need the infinite scroll? Is it something that's absolutely necessary to generate dollars, or just something that will look nice? I'm all for pleasantry, but wasting time on something that in the end might mess with the user experience, might not make sense. What eCommerce shopping cart have you bought from that has infinite scroll? Don't waste time on things that don't matter or add revenue to your bottom-line, in fact that might hinder your revenue if people get confused.

 

[chaddicus.]

OK, yeah. I see what you're saying. My thought was that having it would allow users to see more posts/products without dealing with new pages, but its more of a UX thing rather than a profit making effort. There are definitely other, more pressing/revenue generating tasks I should focus on. As long as it functions, its a back burner issue -- if not a non-issue.

 

[emp]

I personally HATE infinite scroll.

Try bookmarking.
Try going on a detail page and then back to the list.
Try and see how a search engine crawler sees everything after page 1.​

All that and more...

Just get rid of it.

::emp::

 

[learningcurve]

I personally HATE infinite scroll.

Try bookmarking.
Try going on a detail page and then back to the list.
Try and see how a search engine crawler sees everything after page 1.​

All that and more...

Just get rid of it.

::emp::

You can count me in on that list as well. I can't think of anything more annoying as a user, or as the site admin. I'm sure it makes sense in some cases, I just haven't seen it yet.

 

[chaddicus.]

Thanks for the input @emp and @learningcurve. I would have to agree with you about it being rather annoying in most cases. I just got it in my head somehow that it would help the site function overall, probably because I've seen it work -- and in my opinion, work well -- on a site that I've tried to loosely model this project after. But it's not mandatory. Not by any stretch.

 

[chaddicus.]

Update 12/10/2014:

It's getting close to the holidays, so I felt this gif was warranted. Welcome back to the show.

The last week has been spent working on a couple of setup items.

1. Social
I started by making sure the social sites were updated, posts cued, and ready for real engagement. I'm using mostly Facebook and Twitter at this point because I have those already integrated with my site. I've got them posting twice a day with related content -- either articles I can make tie in with the niche or images/memes that will get some laughs or shares. About every 7th or 8th share I have the social sites feature a product from the niche site.

I'm pretty comfortable with the way these social sites look, so now its just going to be a matter of building a following.

2. Site Speed
After reading CCarter's Big Brand Refresher I went back and looked at my site speed. It was pretty iffy. So I went through deleting a bunch of plugins and extraneous stuff. Then I decided to upgrade the hosting and get the CDN up and running. Here are the stats now.

Looking at all your ping posts, it looks like I have some serious work to do on the speed side, but for now I'm calling it good.

3. Validate Code
I'll just leave this here...

So, you could say I have some work to do... Now I see why CCarter says don't use other people's code. Damn you wordpress. Damn you. I'll be tackling more of this in the coming weeks. I have some research to do before I go messing anything up. But the site functions well as it stands now, and I don't think this should be a main focus at the moment.

4. Logo
Finally got a version that I can live with back from fiverr. I should be getting the source files here soon so I can do a few tweaks as they strike me. But overall I'm happy with it. It's up on the site now.

5. Infinite Scroll
This, thanks to your guys' feedback, no longer bothers me. It's done with until such a point that I feel it is necessary, if ever at all. So, thanks BuSo.

6. Blog Posts
I started making a list of different blog post subjects that could be used for traffic leaks and whatnot. I've listed out 15 different ideas and have started writing out a few of them. There are some post topics that are somewhat generic and I've been debating farming those out to save time, but haven't settled on that just yet. I can't decide if it'd be a good idea or not.

Also, I've sub'd to a few industry news sites so I can quickly write up a summary and link to those as/if needed.

I plan on posting the first article in 7 days.

7. Product Search and Posting
This is the most crucial part to my site. I need to have new products featured each day so that users will have incentive to keep coming back. As it stands now, I have the site adding one new item a day. That includes a good image of the product in use or being prominently featured, a short and witty description of the item, the price, and a link out to where it can be purchased.

It's not difficult once I find the product I want to feature, but finding the right product(s) takes a lot of time. I'm trying to streamline this process as much as possible, but it's not an area I can skimp on. It's the main way this site will be monetized.

8. Analytic Tracking
I just got analytics put up through clicky. I was one of those guys that used to use G's analytics, but like many others, have reformed my ways. I don't know of many other analytic sources out there, especially that are free, so for now its doing its job. If you guys have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

So that's what this last week has been spent on mostly. This week, I need to get the following done:

1. Finish Writing 3 Blog Posts
This is what my priority one for this week. I need to get some good linkable content out there and ready for when the leaks actually drop.

The issue I talked about before with the site using posts to show each product still stands. I don't know exactly how I want to proceed from here. Part of me thinks that as a momentary fix I will just post each blog post as a page and deal with the issue of a blog roll later. For the moment it seems like the easiest fix, so it's what I going with. I have other things to worry about.

But for my info, what do you guys think about installing a blog on a subdomain so its blog.example.com. Then installing wordpress on that sub and run the blog through there? I think the issue would be finding a template or theme that will work with my original site. I really don't know how to feel about it. Just floating an idea out there..

2. Find and Register with 10 Sources for Traffic Leaks
This is pretty self-explanatory. I'm taking a page out of @Calamari 's play book. Register and start light interactions.

3. Email Capture
I need to get an email capture device up on the site for regular updates and way better money making opportunities. I've worked with Aweber and MailChimp in the past, so I'll probably jump over there and set up an introductory email campaign.

Which reminds me, I need to set up an email account associated with this domain.

4. Contact/About/Terms
These pages all need some work. I'm going to combine them all onto one page to make it easier for the user and for my site management. I need to get some good graphics up on these pages and some better copy about who we are and what we do.

5.Work on Mobile Experience
The site isn't really mobile optimized how I would like it to be. But if you use the double-tap/zoom function on your phone or tablet its not bad. You can still see the products and copy really well. I've tested on both android and apple devices. But, like I said, it could always be better.

Problem is, I'm not a designer and don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get it up to snuff, especially because I'm anticipating @CCarter moving things along quickly. I've already come close to him busting my balls with the application process, so whatever keeps me on the good side I'm going to go with. Worse comes to worse, I'll go hire someone to work on it while I'm following orders.

6. Product Search and Posting
Same thing as what I did last week. However, this week I want to get a full 30 days worth of products scheduled out for posting. That'll give me more time to focus on the actual traffic leak part of this journey and not have to worry about keeping that part of the site updated. Eventually, we'll get it to posting more than one product a day (ideally it should be 3-5), but baby steps.

7. Social Media
Repetitive, but I need to keep the buffer full. Right now I'm using the free version of Buffer, so I can only have a few days worth of posts up and ready to go. It's not that bad though, it takes maybe 15 minutes to get everything cued up. I should look into buying a few twitter followers of fiverr too...

Time to get back to the battle.

 

[CCarter]

2. Your site speed is good.

3. Don't waste time on this, it's going to be mostly from your plugins / affiliate scripts.

1. A wordpress... within a wordpress?

3. Your site is missing a newsletter signup ASAP.

I don't have a lot to complain about. You're on the right course.

 

[Samwise89]

Lol ^ Inception!

I had to chime in and just say that I also hate infinite scroll, especially when stuff I want to click on is in the footer Infinite scrolls is great for something like Pinterest while you're on a tablet. I absolutely hate it on desktop no matter what.

 

[emp]

I really JUST realized that there is an actual post for the items on your homepage. Up to now, I only landed on the aff links.

That said... same as for the gardening shop - INFORMATION INFORMATION INFORMATION

Very thin right now.

But ... there is hope.

As these articles can be described in more details (actual information), they lend themselves perfectly to having loads of geeky fun in the description - thinkgeek style.

::emp::

 

[chaddicus.]

I know the posts are thin, and under any other circumstance I would agree 100% with you about adding a ton of info, but I've actually previously thought about this before I launched the site and settled on it remaining this way. The reasons are multifaceted, but the way the site needs to function for the best return on affiliate sales with this type of site operation is to have as many products featured on the homepage as possible (hence the infinite scroll function debacle) so that users will have a ton of options to see a product that visually and viscerally interests them. We're very much dealing with a fanboy group that makes impulsive purchases. At that point it's a matter of them clicking the affiliate link that sends them to the product's purchase page.

Since I'm not specifically trying to seo any of these product pages, creating a ton of content for each one both ruins the aesthetics of the homepage posts and eats up a lot of time.

Where I will be implementing a lot of content is going to be via blog posts. Those are what I am going to share when time comes to do the leaks, not any specific product necessarily.

I'd be happy to discuss more via PM and get your thoughts on the specifics, though. You're opinion is highly regarded here!

 

[chaddicus.]

Update 12/17/2014:

This week has been good. Haven't been as focused on actual website setup so I've been able to focus a bit more on getting supplementary things done. Things that will help contribute to the "leakage". When that day comes...

This week's Done List:

1. Email Capture
First thing I ended up doing was going and setting up an email capture on my site. I ended up using mailmunch to capture the emails and aweber to send out the first email. The popup comes in with an exit intent, which I may need to tweak and run some testing on. I'm used to offering a discount with first purchase on my other sites, so finding some compelling copy that makes people want to join in will take some brain power. But for now I think it's good and functions well. Once more traffic starts coming is when I'll be tweaking like mad.

2. Contact/About/Terms
Got this page cleaned up and put a form on there that I really like. I put up all legalese I'll need for the site and made it usable. Simple enough.

3. Find and Register with 10 Sources for Traffic Leaks
I've gone and bookmarked a lot of sites in my industry that has a large or growing user base. Some of them are filled with people that really know their stuff in my niche, so I'm just trying to get to a point where I can participate and not get eaten alive for being a peasant. Some of the others are pretty welcoming. I've just been trying to chime in from time to time with short insights or questions.

4. 3 Blog Posts
Done and posted. I wrote up three on industry news mixed with some real tech news. These posts aren't exactly the 1000 word monster posts that I want to get to -- ones that are both fun and informative -- but those are coming along. I have the outlines for a few done, and have some of the content written out.

5. Product Search and Posting
I didn't get 30 days worth of products up like I wanted. But I was able to get 14 days ahead. So I'm not stressing.

6. Social Media
Just kept up with the posting. I decided not to buy twitter followers, but instead to spend that money elsewhere, by actually trying to promote myself for real followers. Having a genuine community as opposed to a community that is build around fake profiles is better to market to, obviously.

7. Apply to More Affiliate Programs
The monetization of this site hinges upon showing a lot of products that interest the fan-base. To do this, it's important that I have a large pool of affiliates to draw from. A lot of the products I found I'm not yet an affiliate for. If a product doesn't have an affiliate program, and I still think it'd appeal to the fan-base, I use it anyway. But if there is an affiliate program, I try and apply before I post the product.

I tried to take a crack at the mobile experience, but as I said before, I'm not the coder I wish I was. I decided to leave it alone until I get to a point where I can hire someone out to fix it, and I'll have them rebuild the site while they're at it. The theme is coded on wp 2010 theme and looking at the code it just seems a bit outdated. But that something for future chaddicus. to worry about.

This week I'm going to:

1. Blog Post
I need to finish one of the 1000+ word article. It's meant to be more lighthearted and fun like "Who would win in a fight, Ron Swanson or Abraham Lincoln?" type of a thing. But with some analytic detail that this fan-base would enjoy.

2. Social Media
Same ole, same ole.

3. Product Search and Posting
I'd like to stay ahead. Spending an hour or two this week posting a few products just to make sure I don't get behind.

This week I get the feels that CCarter has some plans for the 9. So I'm going to wait and hear what's up next on his list before I go making my own.

Now I'm getting to make it a reality. This journey has just started, but I'm enjoying it and excited for the obstacles and challenges that are coming. Thanks to all for the feedback and suggestions. Keep 'em coming.

 

[CCarter]

@chaddicus.'s progress honestly makes me feel like I'm 90% sure he was trolling us with his first application... that and cause he's never spoken about it.

 

[chaddicus.]

Update 12/31/2014:

Well the holidays are just about over and life is about to resume in full force. This season has been rough, but I'm grateful CCarter had enough foresight to give us a little leeway.

My update today will be short, but you can expect the same detail as previous posts in the coming weeks.

I was able to get all of the CC9 homework done, and spent some time making sure it was exactly what it needed to be. So far I've been getting good grades. There's one more I'm waiting to hear back on, but i think it'll be decent!

I really need to go and find a lot of new products to feature on the site. But as it stands now, with the low amount of traffic, I've felt like my time could be better spent making forum posts and working on other parts of the project. Starting next week, however that will be my focus, as well as creating more blog posts -- according to what CCarter tells me.

I'm sorry this one is kind of vague and lame, but the holidays really take away a ton of my time. My 9-5 becomes a 7-7 kind of job during Christmas and the New Year, and then family demands. Needless to say, I'm excited to get back into my own routine with the new year!

This whole thing has got me like...

 

[chaddicus.]

Update 1/12/2015

Hey there neighbors. It's been a minute since I got this updated, and there really is no excuse. I just haven't had a ton to update on, and there have been a few opportunities that I needed to pounce on right away. I'm sure y'all can understand striking while the iron is hot. I'm sorry to hear about those of the CC9 who had to drop out of the running, but sometimes life hits hard. Best of luck to you guys.

As for the update:

1. New Product Posts
I was able to set aside some time and get a few more products up on the site and a few more scheduled. I haven't been driving that much traffic to my site yet (Only 61 hits in the last 31 days) so I've yet to see a return. I mostly need to get some polarizing content going and make it happen.

2. Re-upped Email Sub Service
I was having a few issues with the email subscription service I was using so I decided to move back over to Aweber. It's not my favorite, but its the only one that has continually worked for me. So I'm back to them. I've yet to get a subscriber to the site, but that will come with traffic, I'm sure.

3, Posting to forums
I've been trying to get a post in every two days on some of these bigger niche forums. Not necessarily trying to be a super strong presence, but at least be recognized and not piss people off when I start dropping links.

4. Social Media
I've been getting some followers on my facebook page and try to share something funny/informative every 2 or 3 days. Until I have a bigger following, I don't want to seem too needy on there just yet. I think I was sharing too much content to begin with, I have about 75 real followers on there now. Thinking about spending another 15 bucks to try and double or triple that number.

To Do:

1. Write Polarizing Content for Top Forums
I need to go through this week and get a few articles written that I know will ruffle feathers. I have a whole sheet of great titles that I need to start utilizing. I want to start dropping links soon. I gotta get some real traffic to my site and see how it performs.

2. Product Posts
This week I need to sit down and take about 5 hours to research and find some of the best products for my niche to have more content that users can scroll through. I need to doctor up some of their images and get short descriptions of them on my site. I should also recycle some of the older posts I have and schedule them for a future date so they have more visibility. I won't do this often, but because there is no infinite scroll feature, it's doubtful that many people will be going 7 pages back. It will also allow for some freshness for returning users.

3. Social Media
I want to start including tumblr in my social mix. I've never really used the platform and don't know much about it, but I've chatted with @RomesFall about it a little, and he knows how to get a following. So I'm going to be using some of his methods and try to get a few post up to see what I can do.

4. Forum Posts
This week I need to try and get involved in conversations on these forums instead of just posting a one or two liner. A lot of these guys on these forums are purists and/or way more knowledgeable than I am about the subject matter, so I haven't wanted to get into a full debate until I get @CCarter 's tutelage and head nod. But I can get involved in some convos about niche non-essentials just to be seen a bit more as a contributor.

5. Troll Accounts
One thing I haven't been keeping up with is my troll accounts. I need to make an effort to get these interacting with the forums so they don't get banned right away. I've definitely been negligent on this one. Need to remedy that.

Alright BuSo. That's gonna wrap it up for me today. I have a lot I need to work on and get updated, so I have my work cut out for me this week. There is a wedding this weekend that I need to go to, so I'll get all my work done and channel my inner Vince Vaughn.

Grind on, my friends.

 

[emp]

Hmmm...

@chaddicus.
Two things that I am still noticing on your site driving me crazy (design / usbaility wise)

One is that the last item breaks onto it's own line. ARGH... mabe you can reduce the number of items by 1?

The other one is that you should style the next page / previous page button - it is VERY easy to miss and might lead to visitors leaving the site prematurely.

::emp::

 

[chaddicus.]

Hmmm...

@chaddicus.
Two things that I am still noticing on your site driving me crazy (design / usbaility wise)

One is that the last item breaks onto it's own line. ARGH... mabe you can reduce the number of items by 1?

The other one is that you should style the next page / previous page button - it is VERY easy to miss and might lead to visitors leaving the site prematurely.

::emp::

I agree completely. I tried to figure that out earlier in this process, but I'm not nearly the coder I should be. And the way the theme is written is pretty confusing. I'll make this a priority though and see if I can't get those bottom nav buttons bigger and reduce the item number. Thanks for the input man.

 

[chaddicus.]

Update 1/21/2015
So first off, I killed this weekend.

So much so that I was asked to officiate at a ring ceremony in March. You bet your ass I'm going to do it, too.

What I ended up getting done:

1. Fix Site Issues
So I was able to finally get in and figure out how to get the next page buttons bigger and get more products on each page. Now I'm just waiting for some data to see what makes people stay longer and what converts better. I can switch it at any time, but I think its better.

2. Product Posts
I got a lot of these going. Some new, some recycled, but It adds for some new content and that's all I need.

3. Social Media
I've been consistently getting new followers on FB with some ad targets and decent posts. I really need to up my game with scheduled posts to keep the peeps involved.

4. Forum Posts
Just staying active, making a few posts to keep my presence on the forums.

5. Troll Accounts
I've made a few more posts with these, but nothing controversial yet. Just toes in the water type stuff.


So CCarter got in touch with me this week, asked what some of my concerns and potential roadblocks were. I also know that there is going to be some real HW coming up soon, so this week is just going to be maintenance and fine tuning aspects of my campaign. When I hear more and have some stuff to fix, I'll be back on here with an update. Sorry if this seems lackluster. Just tying to settle back in for the battle.

Grind on, boys and girls.