In 3 Years I Have 390 Review Posts Promoting Wealthy Affiliate.
When I joned Wealthy Affiliate 3 years ago and decided to tackle the "make money online" niche, the threshold for starting to see results was 300 posts...
My review posts promote Wealthy Affiliate.
Fast forward 3 years and it's changed to 400 posts...
I've worked very hard for 3 years on a part-time basis creating review posts with some personal development posts mixed in to reach that 400 posts threshold.
At this point my review posts alone number 380. I have another 80 posts related to personal development that also promote Wealthy Affiliate.
However, instead of seeing small, incremental increases in activity and potential sales, I've seen decreases.
I'm not sure what's going on, but obviously somethings not quite right here...
I use AIOSEO (I don't have AIOSEO Pro) and I went through every single blog post to make sute they wene all optimized.
All of my blog posts look like the screenshot below:
ALL of my blog have similar scores between 93 - 100
So regarding optimizing my blog posts, it seems I've done the right thing.
However, when I go rummaging through Google Search Console, the stats I see are not encourging.
For example, the screenshot below shows that from 2/6/21 through 5/5/21 I've only had 294 total web search clicks:
When you look at the coverage as well, the stats for my blog aren't promising as the screenshot below shows:
Let me say this: I am not familiar with reading every aspect of Google Search Console, however, in light of the poor performance ofmy blog I certainly need to do so.
Also, according to Search Console, my blog's "average position" is 44.3.
At that rate, I'll be flipping burgers at some fast food joint if this doesn't improve relatively soon!
When I look at Page Experience on Search Console from the screenshot below, the stats on my blog are almost non-exsistent.
It's even more depressing when I look at my blogs mobile stats.
Regarding "Page Experience On Mobile" this is what Search Console Has To Say:
This is all I get out of almost 400 review posts???
Here are the "Coverage Details" on my blog from Search Console:
This is enough to make your head hurt!
My point is this: Are these stats indicating that something is seroiusly wrong with my blog or am I making much to do about nothing???
Could Duplicate Content Be An Issue Or The Use Of Too Many Images?
When I say duplicate content, this is what I mean:
I have a number of review posts that deal with multi-level marketing, and near the end of the post I usually feature stats from the FTC on the difficulty of succeeding in a MLM.
It's a list of 16 bullet points outlining the problems with MLM's.
I've used the same stats on most of my blog posts dealing with multi-level marketing.
However, when I ran these articles through Copyscape before publishing, some of them got flagged as duplicate content from my own blog.
I got around that by switching the bullet points around so they're in diffrent order; after I did that it passed Copyscape.
Nonetheless, could that be a issue with Google?
Also, when I look at the blog posts of WA members who have successful blogs in the "make money online" niche, I've noticed that they use very few images.
I've used a lot of images in my blog posts , probably more than the average blogger.
So I'm starting to wonder if I've used too many images and if that's having an adverse affect on my blog.
However, when I look at SiteHealth on the WA interface, this is what it says:
According to SiteHealth, my blog is doing very well...
I really am at a loss to explain this!
The bottom line is I'm not sure what Is going on!
What On Earth Is Going On?
At this point, I cannot understand why my blog is performing poorly according to Google Search Console.
Does the fact that I have not finished the Affiliate Bootcamp; presently I'm at 41 %, have anything to do with my blogs performance?
For those who meed to see it, my blog is BIG Online Profits
I've been focused on creating content so I can hit that 400 post goal.
However, I don't see the connection between not finishing bootcamp and why my Search Console stats are so abysmial.
Similarly, I could be complete WRONG and I'm having problems because I didn't finish bootcamp before writing all of these blog posts.
Also, every post I've created I've personally run through Copyscape to check for duplicate content.
Everything I've published on my blog has a clean bill of health from Copyscape.
Nonetheless, I just get a sense that something is not right, and my Google Search Console stats say the same thing.
What's frustrating is as close as I am to 400 review posts, my blog should be steadily improving - both in traffic and in potential sales.
What I Need From The WA Community
Frankly, at this point I need knowledgable WA members to help me understand what is going on with my blog.
I need help from WA members to figure out what I'm doing wrong.
If any of you in an attempt to help me feel the need to send me a PM, please do so!
If you want to do that, please send me a PM.
The purpose of this blog post is to reach out to any WA members who can help me understand what's going on.
Also, others who read this post may benefit if they're having similar issues.
I have over 2 years invested in this, so this is very serious to me.
Everyone in my family thinks I'm crazy for trying to set up an online business and make money online.
I don't want them to be proven right!
Over the past two years I've had to endure tremendous critisism sticking with Wealthy Affiliate, so this is not some casual request for assistance.
I would be deeply grateful to anyone who can help me set matters straight.
I know all of you are very busy in these challenging times.
However, If I don't get some understanding of what's going on, I'm done - finished!
Thank You in advance for your help and your patience,
Howard
Recent Comments
47
Hi Howard.
It's great that you've raised that up because I do face a similar predicament. I have over 350 posts on my blog yet I receive around 1000 visitors a month. I stopped blogging due to sheer frustration and I have decided to find an alternative source of traffic.
Pinterest is a visual search engine and if you learn how to work with its algorithm you can begin to drive traffic to your site. I have been actively using it for about a month now and I have seen an increase in traffic so it might be worth giving it a shot.
Thank a You for your reply, Colorman...
I’m actually starting to wonder if this is really going to work.
Right now, a I’m not very positive about Wealthy Affiliate.
Howard
Just don't give up. I sometimes regret why I went into the MMO niche. I have come too far to turn back so I just have to keep working on it. All the best Howard and wishing you success.
Hello Colorman,
I wanted to take the time to thank you for responding to my concerns and for the encouragement...
You are a kind soul and it's my hope that you become successful in your online endeavors...
Thank You again for your reply.
Howard
As some have already said, finishing the Bootcamp is extremely important. I would also get a YouTube channel if you don't have one already. This helps tremendously. It seems like you've got a lot of helpful feedback and hope it is of great benefit to you as I would love to see you succeed considering how hard you work on your website.
Hello Defiant6,
Yes I’ve received some helpful feedback, but frankly what I need are answers.
Sometimes just getting “feedback” isn’t enough...
There are people in this community who know how I can fix this, but so far I haven’t heard from them.
Nonetheless, thank you so much for taking the time to reply...
Kind Regards,
Howard
I think some of the feedback you have received are answers to your problems or at least part of them. The dead links issue is a very good answer to your problem and completing the boot camp is another important answer also.
I’m learning that you shouldn’t just rely on the search engines alone for traffic because as you’ve seen, algorithms change and traffic can suddenly drop, leaving people scrambling to figure out what has happened and how they can get that traffic back. You need to have something to offset that and all things that can help are social media use, your own YouTube or video channel and email marketing. I’m really beginning to see great results with those.
The biggest thing is to not stop taking action. The MMO niche is one tough nut to crack there is no doubt about it, but the important thing to remember is that it CAN be cracked because people are ALWAYS looking for ways to make money online and that will NEVER stop! The reason so many people fail at it is because they don’t want to take the action necessary in order to be successful. They don’t want to learn the right ways to make money and they want to make money very quickly.
Even if you can’t find all your answers here, don’t hesitate to look elsewhere as well as I’ve found some REALLY valuable stuff outside of WA that can also help you inside WA. Constantly learning and not giving up will definitely get you results. Keep pushing forward and I hope you find all the answers to your issues.
Helo Defiant6,
You are another WA member I wanted to personally thank.
You have taken the time to address my concerns and I really appreciate it.
Too many times we take for granted that WA members have busy lives apart from WA, so when someone like yourself takes the time to help a struggling member, it's genuinely appreciated.
Again, Thank You...
Howard
Hi Howard,
It seems that Thomas has got you covered with some REALLY good feedback and suggestions there.
His points are very valid.
Admittedly, my entry into the online world has been somewhat different than most here in WA.
I began by transitioning my offline consulting business to online.
As I learned here, I expanded the service offering of my business and now my range includes corporate services, individual coaching, training and online support services such as writing, SEO interventions, social media and website management.
I ventured into the MMO niche in 2020 with 2 websites.
The first is a general niche website for different ways to make money online.
My second website, launched in August 2020, is my personal brand, WA specific MMO niche, Cassi Of Troy.
All 3 are progressing well and I am earning income.
This month I started my own YouTube Channel and will be using those videos in my Cassi Of Troy blogs.
I also promote my blogs and WA brand on social media.
My blogs here at WA bring in quite a few Referrals as well.
The approach I took was to define a strategy BEFORE I dived into anything - niche or MMO.
It took a few months to understand what I was getting into and how I want to navigate.
I also have a 3-5 years strategy that I am rolling out.
The dots will eventually connect.
I trust that this may help, if even a little.
Please feel free to PM me with any additional questions or comments that you may want to share directly.
Cassi
Hey CassiOfTroy,
As in the case of Nathaniell, you are another WA member that from the beginning have always answered any questions I may have had.
You have always taken the time to try and help, and it's really appreciated.
Thank You,
Howard
You are very welcome, Howard.
I know that building a business the "WA Way" is not the easiest or fastest road.
I always let my Referrals know that going in.
I have so many ideas to strengthen our efficiency and effectiveness at WA BUT, I am like you, a paying member. 🙂
I will continue to work with the best that it has to offer.
Cassi
Hey Howard,
You’ve managed to write more content in two years than I have in 12 years. You definitely have a strong work ethic.
Are you mainly reviewing other products and comparing them to Wealthy Affiliate?
If so, how many of those products are still around? I would recommend going through each one of your posts, clicking on each of the links, and make sure they’re still linking to valid web pages and the ones you originally linked to.
A lot of products in the Make Money Online niche don’t last very long. They’ll do a launch and eventually fizzle out. If they shut the website down you are left with a dead link on your website.
This could affect you in two ways.
First, the dead link will cause a 404 page not found error when google’s web spiders crawl the link. If you have a lot of links on your website that are dead and lead to 404 pages, then this could lead to Google not wanting to rank your pages because dead links are bad for user experience.
Second, if the websites are dead and gone, then there is no one actively promoting the product and people are no longer searching for the product. You could have 1,000,000 pages and it wouldn’t do any good if people aren’t searching for the product. It’s kind of weird, people are searching for reviews of the product because the product is actively being advertised and promoted. If the product no longer exists, no one is advertising and promoting it, and nobody will be searching for it.
If a lot of these products are dead, then that’s actually a pretty good selling point.l for Wealthy Affiliate. You can make a post of all the products you have reviewed that are no longer around and contrast that to Wealthy Affiliate which is still going strong after 16 years.
If the review posts aren’t working for you, then you may want t shift gears and write content about other things that meets WA’s recommended guidelines on quoted search results and monthly traffic. You might want to review things like themes that you use, plugins, any software programs you use to help you make and manage your website, stock photo websites you may use, etc. It’s not directly related to promoting Wealthy Affiliate, but you are reviewing and talking about things that are used by people who might be interested in WA.
You may want to sit down and think long and hard about people who would find Wealthy Affiliate useful. Wht needs do they have that Wealthy Affiliate would fulfill. What would they be searching for to fill those needs?
If the written reviews aren’t working, then maybe turn them into Youtube videos and embed the videos on your review page. I’ve read a lot of posts on WA lately with people being successful with YouTube videos.
Magistudios does website hot seats occasionally where he’ll critique websites. Maybe you can request your website be a part of the next hot seat he does?
Finally, if the Make Money Online niche isn’t working for you, then you can always try a different niche. There are tons of things to promote online. You don’t have to stick with just Wealthy Affiliate. Sure it would be nice to get 300 sales in one year and get to meet Kyle, Carson and the other super affiliates in person, but the ultimate goal is to make money. I would rather make money and never meet Kyle and Carson, than to continue down a path that is working.
Of course you have a considerable amount of time and energy invested in your website. It seems natural to see if you can make some adjustments to what you’re doing to improve results rather than starting over.
Here’s an example of one of your reviews that has two dead links in it:
https://bigonlineprofits4you.com/what-is-passive-profits-breakthrough/
Hey ThomasPaul,
As far as dead links from products that no longer exist, I've located about 8 posts so far...
I intend on going through my blog and removing any posts that have reviews of dead products...
One thing is for certain - I would never encourage anyone to tackle the "make money online" niche...It's just to brutal...
I'm thinking about what to do next if I can't turn this thing around...
I really don't want to start over after 3 years but I gotta make a decision...
Thank You for your reply,
Howard
Great analysis and support, ThomasPaul! Thank you so much for the expertise displayed in handling this problem.
Howard, I don’t think you have to remove the posts, I would just remove the dead links and write something like “this course is no longer available you may want to check out this course instead” at the top of the post and link to your wealthy affiliate review or any other review that has an active product.
Also, if you don’t want to start over, then don’t. You may want to read through Nathaniell’s blog posts. He has a lot great content. Search through WA’s training for relevant material. Right now it seems you’re struggling from a ranking problem.
Go into Google Search Console and look at what search terms your website is being ranked the highest for. Click on those search terms and find out what web page is being ranked. Try to find out why those pages are ranking the way they do. This may give you ideas for content to write about. This is really valuable information that’s hard to get.
Are you targeting specific keywords with each post? Do you use that keyword in the post title and the first paragraph? Does that keyword have a Quoted Search Results (QSR) of less than 100 in Jaaxy?
ThomasPaul, I really appreciate your comments.
In reply to your last paragraph regarding Keywords, I've always used Jaaxy, Keyword in title, keyword in FIRST sentence, and I always use words with a QSR of less than 100...
That's what's so confusing about this...I SEEMED to followed the rules, but the results aren't there...
Littlemama (Grace) stated that you need to reach 400 actual posts...You would think that the closer you get, you'll start to see some movement...
Your comments have really been helpful and I appreciate it...
If you have any other suggestions, please don't hesitate to make them.
Also, I sent you a PM...
Thanks for your insight,
Howard
I looked at some more of your posts and I see a common theme:
-Most(all?) of your WA affiliate links are banner ads that link to WA. I would get some text links in there. I believe people are more likely to click on text links than banner ads.
-Not all of your banner ads are hyperlinked. You try to click on some of them and they're not clickable. Makes it confusing which ones you can click and which ones you can't, especially when some of them say click here, but you can't click them. For example, this review has a banner ad at the bottom with "Click Here NOW!", but the image isn't clickable:
https://bigonlineprofits4you.com/is-ministry-of-freedom-legit/
-No links to a WA review. I would recommend changing all of your direct affiliate links to your WA review. If you don't have a WA review, then write one. You're losing a lot of great opportunities to link back to your Wealthy Affiliate review. For example, on this review:
https://bigonlineprofits4you.com/is-ministry-of-freedom-legit/
In this paragraph:
"You will still find better courses on affiliate marketing for a much cheaper price, and with my #1 recommendation, you can even try the platform for FREE to see if you like it!"
I would hyperlink "my #1 recommendation" or possible even "#1 recommendation, you can even try the platform for FREE to see if you like it!" and hyperlink to your Wealthy Affiliate review.
-Your summary of what you're reviewing should be first thing people see and include an affiliate link. This way if people are looking for a quick "Should I buy this?", then they can see your recommendation and a convenient link for them to click on. I would put a brief summary at the top of each review that includes, but is not limited to:
Product Name
Whether you recommend the product
An affiliate link to the product
For example, on this page:
https://bigonlineprofits4you.com/greg-gottfried-review/
I would move this section to the very top:
Greg Gottfried Review – Quick Facts
Marketer: Greg Gottfried
Business model: Affiliate marketing, print on demand
Do I endorse it? Not exactly
Overall rating: 3.5 / 5
and add an affiliate link to the website.
Finally, I've heard Google doesn't like websites where every single page consists of affiliate links.
Linking to your Wealthy Affiliate review instead of directly to WA will probably help boost your WA review and drastically cut down on the number of external affiliate links you have on your site. You WA review will help presell the visitor on WA instead of just sending them to WA cold.
Hey Only1Hugh,
Thank You for your reply on this post topic...
I really appreciate it.
Howard
Hello ThomasPaul,
I couldn't get to send you this message sooner because my window cleaning business has been keeping me busy...
I wanted to say THANK YOU for your outstanding suggestions.
Honestly, this is the top quality advise from a top quality person, and I really appreciate it.
As I mentioned to Nathaniell above, the people on this post are not the one I actually expected to respond.
Some of you I've never interacted with before!
However, you have a exceptionally kind heart.
You didn't have to take the time to look at my content and point out how I could make improvements, but you did and I am truly thankful!
I am immediately going to review every single post and implement your suggestions.
If you continue to be the kind, concerned and insightful marketer you are, you are going to go a long way in this business!
If there are any other suggestions you have, please don't hesitate to point them out.
I look forward to communicating with you again.
Once I'm done going through these posts, which is going to take some time, I will contact you to take a look for your feedback.
Thank You again ThomasPaul, and I wish you much success in your online business!
Howard
See more comments
Sorry for my short and direct answer here. I'm writing with a broken hand but want to give you some simple feedback to help.
1. You have a great work ethic. I know doing work and not seeing results is frustrating, but the good news is that you already have 80% of what's required to be successful. A slight change of tack will likely get you good results.
2. Thomas was right below. Check the products you are reviewing. If you are looking at other blogs to get ideas of what to review, stop doing that. Many are old and outdated. Review NEW products.
3. Product reviews in the MMO space are good, but will only get you so far. Work on branding to provide value beyond "Product A sucks. Buy Product B".
4. Start looking at what's actually working on your site, and build on that. Check your top 10 posts with analytics and see what people are reading. Then use Pretty Link to measure which links get clicked on those pages.
Figure out what is working, then double down on that.
What you are currently doing is not working for you. At 390 reviews, THAT is what your site is telling you. "This isn't working man, try something new".
You have a great foundation so far, but start looking at what you can change and run some new tests.
Hope that helps!
Hello Nathaniel,
Thank You for your reply...
I understand you are very busy, yet since I've been here at Wealthy Affiliate you have ALWAYS taken the time to give me a reply...
This is HUGE because there are many times I've contacted other WA members, especially the ones who are quite successful, and I never get a reply.
I do understand that people get caught up and busy, but when a WA member asks for help through a PM, even if you can't answer for whatever reason, just let the person know "Hey, I would love to give you a reply, but I'm so overwhelmed right now that I'm unable too..."
I would understand that...
Again, thank you for your kind heart and willingness to help.
Howard