Mobile Phone Website

This one was very similar to the earlier mobile phone website. In fact, it was basically a copy, with different products.

The first site was for a customer and it was doing so well, very quickly, with search engine visitors that I decided to build my own copy, with a different datafeed.

Both sites were built using affiliate datafeeds, so all that I needed to do was to choose a different affiliate merchant and promote their phones. Lessons then learned from either site benefitted the other.

Unfortunately, I put effort into getting my copy some traffic, the customer expected it to happen my magic. My site is still out there (but it needs some TLC), his has been abandoned.

Endowment Mis_Selling Website

This was another venture into my own ideas. I already had a mortgage website running, so thought that connected with that it would be a good idea to run an endowment mis-selling website. Given I was going through the claim process myself at the time, it was on my mind!

So I set up this website, after travelling an hour each way to speak to a solicitor willing to buy leads from me. I generated a good number of leads and started off my own affiliate scheme (other affiliates generating leads for me).

But the solicitor was very slow responding to me and would take months to tell me which leads had signed instructions (the point at which I was paid). He asked me to see him again, so I travelled the hour there on the train, waited in reception for three quarters of an hour, because he was running late, then had a 2 minute chat with him then a few minutes with another guy. All both wanted to know was how to change their own website for better optimisation, nothing to do with what we were actually running together.

But it was taking ages to get cash from them. Usually a couple of months to confirm payments were due then even longer to chase up all of the outstanding invoices, so in the end I pulled out of the agreement. The website is still live, and will remain so until it expires, but just earning a bit of Google cash instead.

On the whole, I now stick to recognised affiliate schemes as they are far easier to get your cash from!

Ebook Website

Here's a customer that does try very hard with their sites.

He writes ebooks and sells them through his one page sites. We started with a financial guides, that was eventually withdrawn because of the complexity of keeping up with FSA recomnendations.

Then came the 'How To Play Blues Piano', which is still about, followed by 'A Football Manager's Guide', which went live about a month ago.

He has promoted these through article writing and PPC as well as other methods. Sales aren't going to help him retire, but they are there as a reward to his efforts.

What's more, he's a good customer. Not only paying on time, but also easy to please and tells me exactly what he wants. I love customers to be like that!

Mobile Phone Website

This one was another site for the same guy as yesterday's post. He obviously thought he was onto a good thing - finding a cheap webdesigner who could quickly put together sites for him.

I do have my own (older!!!) version of a similar mobile phone site. I've used adsense, leaflets and other forms of advertising to promote it and got plenty of commission from it - more profit than he was paying me to build a site for him. But again, like yesterday, he expected me to build a site and it to run automatically for him, at no effort or cost.

It's sad because it was a good website and did instantly start getting search engine visitors. But with no work, a phone site quickly goes stale and loses the interest of the search engines. I did try to get him using simple techniques such as news or a blog, but he didn't have the time and patience. It was expected that it would only take me to build him a couple of web sites and then he could become a millionaire.

If only it was that easy! But for the sake of a few adverts, the website failed. It wouldn't have taken much - just a small google campaign or some pop under advertising.

Insurance Affiliates Website

This was one of those customers that thought if he paid me a couple of hundred pounds in return I'd give him a site that was top of google listings for every conceivable search keyword.

It didnb't seem like that at the start. I thought the site he wanted was a basic directory of insurance schemes for him to promote through his existing outlets. But no, when it went live he expected to sit bck, cash monthly cheques and maybe pay me a further hosting charge the following year.

I'd say he was disappointed! Yes, I built a directory site that looked good and generated some search engine visitors, but the number dropped off as he wasn't using a news feature nor adding any new merchants. There was no attempt at marketing the site, so it failed.

Yes, I can build sites that draw people in and tick over nicely, but they require work from me each month to maintain their positions and content, like comparemortgagerates. And if I'm putting in that much effort that you are earning thousands each month, do you think I'd just be charging you a couple of hundred a year?

Hotels Website

This one was another idea of my own - another affiliate scheme I worked with for a while, and still do promotes occasionally. But the site didn't get the traffic I wanted, was hard to maintain (hence the low traffic...) and I'd thought of a different way of running it so decided to change tack.

So how did this one go wrong? It was a good idea, but it just took a huge product feed (10,000 hotels), split them into regions and expected people to find them. There was no real attempt to provide anything new - no original content. And my update method involved building the whole site on my laptop (using perl scripts) and then uploaded. 10,000+ hotels, plus relevant regions - it was never going to work!

Worse still, after I registered the URL I did a search on it and found various references to it in Google - but they were before I registered the site. Then I started to read these references and the previous site owner had basically destroyed the reputation of the site with search engines and so got out.

So it was an uphil struggle and I never really got the site a suitable page rank, so I surrendered when the site was up for renewal and let it expire.

The affiliate scheme was a good one - but like many ideas, it's on the back burner as there's too much other work waiting to be done.