General Marketing

$10,000 for a day’s work is a ton of money.

Would you like me to show you how I make – and you can too – that sort of money?

“You betcha sweet ass we would, Brendon!” you say.

“Heh, enough of the cheeky language….kids read this blog,” I’d say ;o)

And then I’d get on and tell you how I’m doing it:

The Start – $10,000 For A Day’s Work

Here’s what I did:

I went and did an amazing 7 day, 84 km wilderness trek along Tasmania’s famous South Coast Track with my 2 sons.

No real hardship there!

We had a great time and took tons of photos and a bit of video.

• When I returned I registered the domain name: SouthCoastTrack.com.au
• I then organised web site hosting.
• I then put up a WordPress web site.
• I then added lots of content about the South Coast Track to the site.
• I optimised the site for search engine rankings.  I focused on getting high rankings for 2 terms:

“South Coast Track” (currently # 7)

“Melaleuca Flights” (currently # 8)

• I added Adsense (Google’s advertising program for publishers – sign up for free in about 5 minutes) to the site (means I get $ every time someone clicks on an ad on the site)
• I added a free shopping cart to the site and I now sell a book about the walk

Once the site gets to # 1 for the term “Melaleuca flights” I’ll be approaching one of the 2 airlines that fly into Melaleuca (this is the start of the walk and the only way to get in) and see if they’d like to take an advertisement on the web site.

The Numbers To $10,000

So let’s take a look at the numbers:

• About 1,000 people a year walk the South Coast Track
• There are about 2,000 searches done a month (on average) for terms related to walking the South Coast Track

When you’re preparing for a major bushwalk like this, you tend to check out a ton of web sites.

I’d be pretty confident of getting 60% of those searching to the South Coast Track site.

• That’s 1,200 visitors per month to the web site

Let’s assume we sell just 1 book per week.  Each book gives us about $7 profit.

• That’s $364 in profit per year from the book.

Let’s estimate we make $1 a day from people clicking on the Adsense ads (can’t divulge the Adsense income we’ve got already, but let’s just say $1 a day is very achievable even at this early stage).

• That’s another $365 per year.

If you were marketing your airline doing $190 per person flights into Melaleuca (the starting point of the walk) then having a prominent ad on the most popular and extensive web site that talked about the South Coast Track would make a lot of sense.

Let’s assume we charge just $1 per day for that ad.

• That’s another $365 per year.

$364 + 365 + 365 = $1,094.

Let’s round it down to $1,000.

$2.74 Per Day – That’s All

That’s just $2.74 per day this web site is aiming to make.

That is chicken feed.

Or is it (insert scary music here!).

The web site has taken me a day to do.

It will make a minimum of $1,000 a year.

It will make that much for the next 10 years.

That is $10,000 for a day’s work.

The Naysayers & Haters – Their Angle

The naysayers and haters will come up with the following arguments:

1.  Not everyone can set up a site as quickly, easily or as cheaply as you.

Answer: Bullshit…..mostly.

South Coast Track is a WordPress site.  It’s free and bloody easy to install.

You can register a domain name for $10 and get cheap hosting in a ton of places.

There are a ton of free photo editing bits of software about.

If you have Windows, then you have Movie Maker for the video editing (the video I’ve done isn’t at all sophisticated).

2.  Not everyone can get a web site up in the search engines like you can.

Answer: Every single thing I’ve done to get the site into the search engines is stuff I’ve talked about for years on this site.

You can find all you need to know here, here and here.

Spend a couple of hours reading and you’ll be good to go.

3.  You’ll spend more than a day on the site by the time you deal with orders and sell direct advertising.

Answer: Yeh, you’re probably right.

But that extra time (about 5 minutes per week) is offset by me being conservative with the numbers.

Remember I rounded down from $1,094, I could make more money by adding affiliate programs, sell more direct ads, etc.

I could also spend that extra $94 dollars a year employing someone for the 4.3 hours it will take to maintain the site per year.

4.  Not everyone can write as well as you can.

Answer: Oh for heaven’s sake, stop ya bloody whingeing and get on with it!  Start writing and you’ll get better at it.

5.  I can’t afford to go on a wilderness trek.

Now you’re just being stupid.  The trip isn’t the important thing.  Just write about something you do/did/enjoy.

Aside from a $30 pass and $190 flight, the walk is free.

6.  Not everyone is as good looking in photos as you are.

Answer: Yeh, good point.  You’re probably right on that one ;o)

I am a very attractive man – I’ve been compared many times to a famous movie star…..Shrek ;o(

Ongoing Site Expenses

And sure, I’ll have ongoing site expenses – about $20 per year.

Can You Do The Same?

Can you do something similar to what I’ve done with the South Coast Track site?

Of course you can.

And if, like me, you have to go on the trip of a lifetime for a week long wilderness trek with your kids to get something to write about, then so be it!

All 4 Together + Phil

Hope the above helps – let me know how you go.

Cheers

Brendon

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