Masako Houghton’s Story: Running, Submarines And Internet Marketing
Masako is one very interesting lady with diverse interests and experience…
She has made some great progress with her internet marketing, and hopefully I can guide her to achieve the success she deserves.
First, let Masako tell you her story…
Masako Houghton’s Story
My name is Masako Houghton and I live in Vancouver, Canada.
I am currently unemployed. My previous job was a Head Cross Country Running Coach at the University in Hawaii.
I like to train for 5km running races, work out in the gym, cook, drink wine, learn about web site design & internet business, research things on the internet, and create something by sewing.
I learned about internet marketing from the Niche Profit Classroom and Chris Farrell.
I am subscribed to Chris Farrell’s membership at about $35 per month, and have been subscribed for 6 months or so.
I am also subscribed to NPC (Niche Profit Classroom) by Adam Short at $67 per month, and I’ve been subscribed for 8 month or so.
My websites are:
www.vibramreviews.org – this is a niche site for the review of vibram fivefinger shoes & other related shoes. It has Google Adsense on it. I have only done some back linking on web directory’s for traffic. I had 64 visitors last month. I think this product is a good niche, and I want to work on this website a little bit more. But, I lost my motivation after Ezine article’s rejected my article submission.
www.learn2playviolineasy.com – this is an affiliate niche site made with one of the Niche Packs provided by NPC. I have installed a Clickbank ad banner. The only traffic strategy I have implemented is some back linking on website directory’s. I had 21 visitors last month. I would like to see this website make some money.
www.worldklassrunners.com – this is a running blog I created for my hobby and is the newest of all sites (about 3 months old). It contains Google Adsense & Amazon ads. I haven’t applied any traffic strategies to this site, but I am getting more visitors by organic search than the other two niche sites. I had 145 visitors last month. I would like this site to be my main money maker, because I am passionate about running and it is easy for me to keep writing articles. I would eventually like to write & sell my own e-book, and I’m also thinking of podcasting. I can interview successful runners.
My goal is to make $2,000 per month within the next 12 months.
I was born and raised in Japan, and moved to the U.S. in 1995. I’ve lived in the U.S. almost 18 years, and moved to Canada about 6 months ago, due to my husband’s job.
Running is a big part of my life. My running taught me to be dedicated & motivated to achieve my goals.I have completed 10 Marathons and I was recruited to be a college Cross Country runner at the age of 35 on a full scholarship. I then became a Head Coach for NCAA DII university.
I was also a Submarine Pilot in Hawaii (yes, it was a real submarine, but for tourists).
My Comments To Masako
Masako, I’m not sure if you have listened to this interview, but the path you are on with niche sites is the same path I was on many years ago.
Many years ago, it was possible to have, manage and maintain 10 or more blogs that made about $500 each per month. This strategy usually relied heavily on rankings in the search engines, to bring traffic to your site.
The problem is, if you have 1,000 pages (spread across the different niches) with great search engine rankings today, tomorrow you could have none. Reliance on search engine rankings, as a standalone traffic strategy, is very risky.
To build a successful internet marketing business you need many dependable and reliable traffic channels.
It takes effort and dedication to build different traffic channels. But it is necessary, so that if one channel changes or disappears, you have many others to fall back on.
However, traffic is only one part of the equation and conversion is the next critical component. This also takes effort and dedication to test and tweak different components, to ensure you have the best possible converting website.
Because of the effort and dedication required for traffic and conversion, it is very hard to effectively run, manage and maintain a website in more than one niche.
You may have been told, by the training you have completed, to build many niche sites, build backlinks to each of them, submit articles for each of them, and your web pages will rank well…
I can tell you from first hand experience that you may get many pages to rank in the search engines, but one Google algorithm change could put an end to that overnight.
I have over 45 websites which were painstakingly built over 12 months. Some have ebooks, some have sales pages, some have backlinks, some have had numerous articles submitted to directories and some used to make up to $50 a day. The penguin and panda Google updates ended the income overnight.
However, if someone took any one of those websites and focused on the traffic and conversion of just that one niche, they would probably have a winner within 3 months. I just don’t have the time, and I won’t outsource the work, because then I have to manage people again.
I suggest your running blog is where you focus and make that an authority blog. There is so much you can do and you have all the credibility to provide up and coming runners with good quality advice.
I look forward to your comments.
Have Fun,
Ian
