Thread: SEO Based News

Hi guys,

In this thread I will detail the progress of an idea I have, which I call "SEO Based News Outlet".

This will be the thread where I discuss everything about this idea, and hopefully as a reward for sharing stuff with you I will get some helpful constructive feedback.

IDEA:
A structured, automated content publishing system that publishes content based on need, driving traffic through SEO. Revenue comes from advertising.

Same idea as the site "eHow" and those other sites, but for another niche.

Content written by people hired automatically and paid automatically on Internet through content platforms.

What articles to write and publish is managed in a systemitized way incorporating SEO research and finding probable articles for receiving a lot of traffic.

FASTLANE ANALYSIS:
Need: Filling in the "long tail of the internet" and enabling people to find articles about specific searches they make that are not satisfied today.

Entry: Difficult entry barrier as it requires creating the "automation" of SEO research and content writing. Will require me to write all the articles in the beginning, until I have enough revenue to outsource content creation to third party platforms.

Control: I have full control since I own the website and the system.

Scale: All English-speaking people. Can eventually be translated into local languages using automated translation services (at a cost of course).

Time: Can be automated if margins are viable. I will have to research this aspect further but since companies like "HowThingsWork.com" and "eHow" which are basically the same idea have succeeded, I think there is more than enough margin.

BASIC SYSTEM:
I will start by haiving a local folder system on my computer representing a "pipeline" of potential articles. Each folder represents a refinement and qualification of potential articles. The first folder is just SEO-research, the next folder is an idea for an article, the third folder is a half-finished article etc. until the last folder, which contains articles that have actually been published. Something like this:


10. Keyword research
20. Article ideas
30. Article proposals
40. Proofreading
50. Ready to publish
60. Published

The long-term view I am taking is that when I reach a point where revenue stream and margin allows me to, I will systematize each possible step until I have a "machine" which automatically fills in the long-tail of the Internet with content in my website.

I have also decided my specific niche, but I'll talk about that in a future post since I am right now only outlining the basic premises of the business idea.

I will focus on the niche that I call "Why XXX".

So if you go onto Google and type "Why" then you will get a lot of auto-suggestions on things like "why do cats purr" and "why is the sky blue" etc.

My content system will aim to fill this gap.

Reason: I have performed some quick searches and not found another content system that satisfies these types of searches. I interpret this as either lacking competition or weak competition, and I could easily write articles that can fill this gap and show up on the first pages of search engines, driving traffic.

Next step is to find some suitable names for my business. "thisiswhy.com" would have been perfect but it is busy (not the same idea though so not a competitor). I'll brainstorm some ideas but if anyone else has ideas feel free to post them! :-)

In this post, I will analyze the financial viability of this idea and outline a very general timeplan and revenue stream model. I am making some assumptions here which I don't know much about so I would very much welcome some constructive feedback from people more experienced in this field.

(Please - on this specific post I'm only looking for feedback from people with real experience from revenue models based on content systems, not just guess-work or feel-good back-clapping. If you think my analysis is flawed, I want to know it, and why you think so! )

Based on only one blog I have managed in the past, I would say that it is viable to expect (in the beginning) only about 30 hits per article per month.

I can publish 2 articles/week with my current time-limiations (aside from the time I spend building and refining the system), which means on avarage 8 articles/month -> increase in traffic by 240 hits per month. The traffic per month would then look like this:

Month 1: 240
Month 2: 480
Month 4: 960
Month 8: 1920
Month 16: 3840
Month 32: 7680

This is disregarding exponential effects coming from references, increased Google reputation/reliability, etc. So this is really a very low minimum amount of traffic that I should be able to generate, by brute force only, if I publish 2 posts/week and each post keeps receiving 30 hits/month. In reality, there will likely be some exponential effects. I have no experience in how big these exponential effects will be in reality, but if the effect were to be for example 10%, then the equation would look like this:

Month 1: 240
Month 2 = (Month 1 + 240) x 1.10
Month 3 = (Month 2 + 240) x 1.10
etc.

I've put some numbers in to XL, and calculating 0%, 5%, 10% and 20% exponential effects, we get this graph (link to Google spreadsheet with the calculations): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...0lnNVRVbUhjVEE

I think the most realistic scenario is 10% reputation/links etc. exponential effect (I'd need some feedback here - is this assumption realistic?), which would give me the following numbers:

Month 1: 240
Month 2: 528
Month 4: 1,193
Month 8: 2,972
Month 16: 9,390
Month 32: 52,640

Let's say that 0.5% of these visits lead to clicks, worth 70 cents each (again - are these assumptions realistic?), then the revenue would be as follows (also calculated in the Google spreadsheet linked to above):

Month 1: $1
Month 2: $2
Month 4: $4
Month 8: $10
Month 16: $33
Month 32: $167

Based on this model, I'd say the idea is not viable... But somehow, this seems strange to me. It is a real need, with other sites thriving on it (I would say) on their niches. Am I making some faults in my basic assumptions? Any comments?

Anyhow, if I keep doing it for 5 months (meaning in total around 20 articles in total), I will probably get some strong indications about how well my model holds up in reality. As a market research study, this is totally worth doing, since I believe the idea has such great potential. I can then adjust my model based on real market data, and come to a conclusion about whether it is worth continuing with.

Now that I've done the financial analysis (and also the means to adjust my model based on market feedback, in the Google Spreadsheet previously linked to), and decided to move to the next step, this is what I am going to do next:

Create Website

This includes the following steps (that I can think of right now on the top of my head):

• Research possible domain names and register them.
• Research how eHow and HowThingsWork have designed their websites.
• Create the website (I will either create the website myself - which will require a lot of study and time since I don't have the necessary skills yet, or hire a company I have used to create websites in the past, who are very good, which will save me time but cost me money and reduce the amount of control I have and knowledge I gain).

I will decide on the last aspect soon, but for now I'll start with the names research and domain registrations.

I have now decided upon a name and registered it!

whythiswhythat.com is mine! :-)

• Next steps:Research how eHow and HowStuffWorks have structured their content and websites
• Decide the basics of how my site is going to be structured content-wise
• Research how news-like content sites work, if they use special back-end systems etc, and find people who can build on such platforms (or if it might just as well be built with a system like ModX which works well with sites using normal HTML structures)
• Decide how to build my site (I'll probably have to outsource this its creation)
• Start building my site

use wordpress, buy a premium news theme and start publishing

Originally Posted by theag

use wordpress, buy a premium news theme and start publishing

Yes! You're absolutely right, that's what I need to do now. Just to start off. I can improve later, when I see whether the idea is working or not. And I can skip all the steps above in a go and just start implementing :-) Thanks for that.

Originally Posted by YelmisPravida

use wordpress, buy a premium news theme and start publishing

Done! :-)
WhyThisWhyThat.com

Need to edit it though, to make it look like I want. Should be a couple of hours of work, then I can start blogging.

Configured my template. I really like this template, I feel like I've selected one that fits my vision perfectly!

Next steps now are go through the template tutorial to learn it and Wordpress, while configuring the site further. After that, I'm going to publish my first article.

I've gone through the template tutorial and set it up about the way I want it.

Now, time to write my first article! :-)

I've developed a basic SEO research methodology in a Google spreadsheet, that allows me to see all search terms I've researched, with some basic information about each which will allow me to see which types of articles generate the most visits, and keep track of which search terms can be interesting to write upcoming articles about.

My first article will be titled: "Why Are Ocean Currents Important?" and be filed under the category "Nature".

Also, I've got a new idea from a friend which I will implement in the future, and which will differentiate my site, make it more social, make people more engaged, and drive visitors:

Each article that is published will have attached to it a question and some alternative answers (including the correct answer). The question will relate to the "Why" that is described in the article.

For example, my article "Why are ocean currents important" will have the question: "Ocean currents are important because..." and some alternative answers.

This will allow me to create collections of questions and answers, in a quiz-show format, attached to various places on my site. For example, under each category, there can be quizzes. When you are a member, you can answer quizzes and compare your results with your friends. I can extend this by creating a Facebook app which is basically a "quiz" app and lets you compare your results with your friends'. After a quiz, you will get the correct answers and the option to read more about each question in its related article. This should drive more visitors to my site and make visitors more engaged and interested in actually reading and learning from the articles.

This can make it possible for me to attach the tag "Know everything" or "Find the quiz master in you" or something like that as a USP tagline on my site, to differentiate it from sites such as eHow and HowThingsWork.

Hmm, having researched some phrases that could be used to start articles around, I have started to get some doubts around this idea.

Basically, anything I search for, I get very good answers around. So I have started to question the "Need" aspect of my idea.

In my original Fastlane analysis, I wrote this about the "need" aspect:

Need: Filling in the 'long tail of the Internet' and enabling people to find articles about specific searches they make that are not satisfied today.

However, whatever I search for on Google, I find perfect matches for. Search for "Why are xxxx" or "Why is XXX" or whatever, and anything that has a certain relevance has already got several hits, often exact matches. Sure, they are not collected under a single roof, but what is the value of simply rehashing these answers under a single roof?

One of the things that can create the value is the "quiz" focus which I wrote about above. There may be other "synergy" effects of collecting all "why XXX" type articles under a common interface. For example having the ability to give suggestions to help people learn more about a related topic. But isn't this already possible for anyone with remotely a sense of intelligence, by simply performing new searches?

Well, I'm going to keep on doing this for a couple of weeks anyway, as I said. My goal is to publish 20 blog posts (5 months of publishing 2 posts per week) to see which results that gives me. That should give me enough statistics to see if my models holds true. Then I can do a new analysis and either continue with this idea, or close it down and fire up one of the other ideas I have. At the very least, I'll have learned a variety of general knowledge by collecting all of these "why xxx" type articles.. :-)

You should create a blog. Millionaire Entrepreneur Forum - Recent Blogs Posts - Blogs
Some of the users on here might be annoyed by your posts and might mark your posts as spam.
The blogs are meant for this kind of posting.

Originally Posted by Trevor Kuntz

You should create a blog. Millionaire Entrepreneur Forum - Recent Blogs Posts - Blogs
Some of the users on here might be annoyed by your posts and might mark your posts as spam.
The blogs are meant for this kind of posting.

The blog section seems good for this actually. I didn't see that before. Thanks for the tip.

I'll continue this thread now since I've already started it. New threads like this will be started in the blog section. If more people complain though, I'll stop.

On the other hand I don't understand why people would be annoyed. If people don't want to read it, they can simply ignore the entire thread. Or am I missing something? And also I see several other threads in this section of the forum posted in a "blog-like" fashion and from what I can see nobody has complained to them..?

Now I got it!

The solution to the "me-too" problem (the fact that there are multiple articles on the same subject already) and a way to differentiate myself, while not deviating from the original "system" idea described in the beginning of this thread:

My articles will not be a rehash of the multiple answers that are allready out there. Instead, all of my articles will be parodies of existing answers, designed to make people laugh and to polarize.

Polarization and laughter create emotions, which fulfills the "Need" aspect of the fastlane requirements :-)

Now - back to the task, rewriting my first, half-finished article, and to be published this week :-)

Ok, first post posted! :-) whythiswhythat.com

I've started it. Now, for continuous improvement of the site, along with 2 posts per day, and keeping an eye on statistics to see if my model needs to be revised.

Comments welcome :-)

Originally Posted by YelmisPravida

along with 2 posts per day

I meant to per week :-)

My second post is up!

My first post ranks page nr. 3 on Google. Only 2 visits so far though..

I'm starting to have some doubts again about this idea.

The main problem is that the idea was not born out of a strong need, or a flaw that I saw in others' way of doing the same thing. There are plenty of sites, already very big, doing this, and there is no real flaw in them that makes me think "I could do this better than them in this way".

So in all honestly, I am being really "selfish" (as defined in the book The Fastlane Millionaire), in that I am doing this not to fulfill a need, but simply to chase money.

Not sure if I'm just wasting my time here, or if I would be better off spending my time implementing one of my other ideas which are more "need" focused (but also much more difficult to implement)..

On the other hand, if I can create 30 hits per blog post (by "brute force" only), then my financial analysis will be valid. And this should be perfectly achievable. And the exponential effect will then be up to the market to decide...

So I'll go on for a month or two and see what the results look like then.

I have decided to let this idea go, and instead I'm looking at some other ideas with more potential.

Basically I've written almost 20 posts now (which was my original milestone) and the stats show no increase in visitors.

Also, I'm very much doubting that there is potential in this, because I'm not really offering any value and not satisfying any need (other than the posts being somewhat funny).

So this is now closed :-)