jwesley

Tumblr is for hipsters. Wordpres FTW...

I think it may be related to the drive for mental stimulation. The same way smart people devour information and ideas they also devour other mental stimulants like alcohol.

Do not let the tobacco companies get ahold of that one.

Better yet, just become a social media consultant and charge $300 an hour to overhype Twitter!

These quote lists are the oldest SEO trick in the linkbait playbook. No work required and people LOVE them. To get what I mean by SEO, check out the sweet "payday loan" links in the footer.

Not anymore, what with the economy how it is the bonuses are barely anything!

Keep posting threads here asking for tips.

Dumb people that don't do anything.

Full of pithy and sensationalist blog posts? Most certainly.

Good riddance.

You have it right on the money. If people keep coming back because they love to use the site, you should experience continuous growth. They will also be likely to tell other people about it, giving you viral potential.

If you cannot get users to stick, no amount of front page Reddits and newspaper mentions will save you. Even though organic traffic is consistent, even that levels off after a while, is hard to obtain, and is dependent on having a massive number of pages with unique content.

I was hoping for some affiliate marketing tips...

Nothing.

Black Swan is definitely worth reading. It is somewhat repetitive and you may find it dull if you don't have a taste for philosophy, but I think it's an extremely important book -- its an overview of the cutting edge of human thinking and illustrates the mistakes of past thinkers that continue to trouble us.

If you think SEO is bullshit, you are probably isolated in web-app-make-believe-land and think the only way to build an internet business is coding an ajax heavy service, getting viral growth, and being acquired.

This is not the way most internet businesses operate. Most depend on search engines to deliver prospective buyers to their site.

If you think SEO is easy, or completely self explanatory, you have clearly never tried to get a site ranked for a semi-competitive keyword. The vast amounts money associate with commercial search terms makes ranking highly competitive and the constant updates to Google's algorithm make it a constantly moving target.

Maybe all this anti-SEO sentiment stems from jealousy. Good SEO sites can make millions and have a much higher probability of success (compared to web apps) when orchestrated by an experienced SEO.

Your assumptions on this are off. He may be making $100K per year, but definitely not $25K for one search term. Google takes at least 40-50% of the CPC as rev share. Also, the traffic estimator you used is broad match, meaning it includes every query that somehow includes "personal development" such as "Tony Robbins personal development" or "personal development workshop". Many of these Steve will not rank for, even though he is number 1 for the exact match.

I've run a site with similar content and good search rankings that gets around 50% of the traffic of Steve's site (according to Compete), and our AdSense revenue was nowhere close to $100k per year. Even though Steve was using AdSense more aggressively, it makes me wonder how he was able to earn so much. The average earnings per click for us was only 15 cents or so.

The recession will have a cleansing effect on the startup landscape. All the "me too" companies that got funded by dumb money chasing the next Facebook will fail. Startups that don't provide value and generate revenue will fail. It will be much harder to get funding, but its the perfect time to bootstrap a company that can help businesses cut costs or consumers save money.

Wow this added so much to the Calacanis email...guess it proves you only need 10 friends to game Hacker News.

The problem with people whining about the content of social news sites...just be thankful the spammers haven't overrun this site like Digg and Reddit.

If you think the article is about a Get Rick Quick scheme you are entirely missing the point. It takes years of learning and a high level intelligence to make a bad website into a good one.

The real insight here is that profitable sites can the built and sold much more quickly by buying old sites and renovating them. This is because of Search, where old sites that already have some authority and rankings have a great advantage over recently registered domains.

I like the article, and it certainly got me thinking, but it understates the level of skill required to revamp a poorly done website.

To make that type of money flipping sites, you need to spot the right opportunities and make all the right improvements: programming, design, copywriting, marketing, SEO, and optimizing the conversion process.

Anyone with the ability to do all these things well deserves to make money. I'm also skeptical that finding a buyer who can pay 6 figures is as easy as posting to SitePoint.

I'm in a similar position to the author of this thread. I can hack well enough to set up and customize sites with open source CMS, but my strongest skills are copywriting and marketing.

I would like to collaborate with people with complimentary skills. Email or ping me at johncwesley@gmail.com, I'd love to hear about what you're working on and offer marketing advice if I can.

I'll have some snake oil with that, Doctor...

Successful - that's cute.

This is why startups need "business" people.

Clearly bought for the publicity and VC cash potential. I bet the price tag is sub 50K.

This list is mis-titled. It should be called "Most Costly Adwords Clicks" because it doesn't account for search volume.

The highest paying search terms are the ones that generate the greatest revenues. Daily Revenue = (# clicks/day)(cost per click).

11. Put ugly little text ads everywhere.

Of course no one would care. New ideas are always repelled by inertia. Why do you think we still use the terribly inefficient QWERTY keyboard?

Does PG really need a book? Maybe to make a little money, or for the vanity of being a published author, but his legacy is online. It's just the new medium.