Site Review Exchange – Case Study Of A Successful Authority Website

My review of a rapidly growing successful authority website.

On my road to earning six figures passively again I have built a useful niche website and made an effort to find other great examples I believe are on the path to success as well.

Jon’s blog and authority website immediately caught my attention.

Soon after ‘meeting’ Jon online he suggested we review each other’s authority sites publicly.

I thought this would be a terrific idea as a great format for showing others what works well and help each other.

The Authority Website Review

We agreed to publish on the same day at 12 high noon EST on 10 December, which means that our posts will be unbiased by each others. His review of my authority site is here.

We also agreed on Five Important Elements to review and make up a successful website, which are:

1. Monetization
2. Content
3. Web Design / Engagement
4. SEO On Page
5. SEO Off Page

Note to Jon:

In this post I am going to be very open and honest. I grew up in small town Australia so this is the only way I know. Like all good North Americans though, I am trying to learn how to be diplomatic and politically correct at the same time. This hasn’t come easily for me, but the truth is that I really want your website and many others to do well, so I will not be holding back any concerns I have, despite the fact that in general I think that what you are doing is awesome.

With that out of the way, let’s dive in.

Monetization

Prior to writing this review, I asked Jon a few questions about how he intends to monetize the site. The main reason was to be better able to advise on every other element of his website. When I review websites, monetization is the most important aspect of a website – everything else revolves around it if you want to make money.

Initial impressions: based on the site itself, what I see is a collection of articles and Adsense.

On the surface Jon seems to be executing a flawless Adsense strategy similar to Pat Flynn’s security guard training site.

Personally I am not a huge fan of Adsense Only websites but Jon acknowledged recently he wants to move up the value chain and I found out the majority of his earnings already come from better ways to monetize. This is awesome news because I think much bigger opportunities await Jon’s website.

Jon has a problem though and one which he acknowledged in his most recent income report.

Since email marketing is without a doubt one the best ways to generate trust and sales, I really think he needs to find ways to make this work.

To help with this I tried putting myself in the shoes of Jon’s visitors and to understand the sales funnel he could create.

Here are the questions I ask myself to create a sales funnel:

1. What does his ideal visitor look like?
2. What would his ideal visitor buy?
3. Why would someone sign up to his newsletter?
4. Finally, how could he get them to buy once he has them in the funnel?

I would encourage anyone who is trying to create value and sales to answer these questions and I talk more about this in my recent ninja marketing post.

In Jon’s case I think he may have two types of ideal visitors;

Groups of visitors who may want to spend money:

1. People with one loan and who just want to save money
2. People who have have multiple loans and would do well to consolidate these

In each case, different products might apply and I suggest he target one group (the one he is most likely to make money from) to start with.

The products: Jon has mentioned, Mint and debt consolidators and I think Mint may apply to one Group (1) and debt consolidation to Group (2)

So why would they sign up to the newsletter and how could he assist them to use a debt consolidator or start using Mint?

Some of the most common examples are giveaways – ebooks and training courses are all great examples.

“Sign here and receive a free….”

However unfortunately all these are also pretty big projects in their own right and Jon works full time at a “real” job. Fortunately, I like adding value with as little work as possible, so my idea is to use Jon’s strengths in combination with the needs of visitors who are in debt and need help.

As an aside: Adding value is my specialty and also the reason why just one of the pages on one of my websites has made me tens of thousands of dollars. I have a few of these pages and to this day the majority of income I make is from work I did years ago. If you want to find out which page and how I did it, my newsletter has more details. 🙂 I will be removing this email soon so if you are interested now is your chance. Unsubscribe immediately after if you wish, but I would like you to have this tip in its entirety. (I really hope you don’t unsubscribe, but please get the tip).

Based on what I have seen on Jon’s blog he could produce a highly useful spreadsheet relatively easily and the spreadsheet could be very valuable to students who want to pay down their debt. For example, the spreadsheet could show how much savings could be made if extra payments were made and used Mint to help with that. The spreadsheet could also show how much they would save if they consolidated all their loans.

The spreadsheet could take a number of forms but as long as its a tool to help people get out of debt, I think it would be a great addition. Simplicity is the key here.

The additional beauty of a spreadsheet tool such as this is that he could also feature it on his blog and show people how they could use it. Some real examples would be awesome. He could also promise to send out free updates to all those who sign up. In his last post he said, “Interesting Side Story – I was approached by a company who does a large volume of leads for debt consolidation counselling” … it is not a stretch to see Jon selling sponsorship opportunities for a spot on the spreadsheet or better still affiliate links to recommended services. Likewise he could feature Mint.

Debt consolidation is big business. Jon would be doing people a big dis-service by not helping these financially strained people.

Content

I am a very value focused guy so right from the start when I found out that Jon was outsourcing his content at $2/article I had serious concerns.

After all, I have used oDesk and not been impressed with the results produced for writing articles. I have also had entire websites written (Jobaroo.com) for $15/hour and got great results.

So far, for me this is the most unique part of Jon’s business. His content creation method is impressive. In a nutshell, the method focuses on attracting high end native english speakers with little experience on oDesk who want to get more five star reviews.

Before we give content a big fat tick I do see one major improvement that could be made with this way of working.

Right now he basically has a collection of articles which means that visitors are coming to the site for the articles and then leaving after they read that article. Google rewards engaged visitors these days but more importantly in Jon’s quest to raise the value bar and get people to sign up, he needs visitors to stay and consume more content.

The solution is to interlink relevant articles based around topics. Not just additional random links mind you, but links which keep people genuinely engaged. Not only does this mean that the articles themselves provide better value, but that he builds trust and is going to be even more likely to convert these people into sales.

Beyond this I would also like to see comparison charts and possibly even reviews.

Another easy way to increase engagement and add value is to embed appropriate videos from youtube. I have been doing this on Jobaroo with great results.

Web Design / Engagement

In general the look and feel of the site is clean, functional and enticing. Jon uses Studiopress as his premium theme which is what I use as well. I have many good reasons for using Studiopress which I intend to highlight in an upcoming post but for now I just will commend him on his choice.

However, there are some things I think Jon could definitely improve.

Logo is non-existent. A professional logo goes a LONG way to raising the first impression of anyone entering the site. For just $99 anyone can have an off-the-shelf logo which I believe will be a great investment.

Navigation – right now what I see is topics rather than enticing headings.

Solution focused headings may be “Tools”, “Consolidation Reviews” and “Grant Types”. These headings would be more luring and also descriptive thereby providing the visitor with a better experience.

SEO On Page

I have already mentioned the importance of interlinking. Technically I am sure Jon has all the right elements. Just by using Studiopress he is already on the right track, because it has inbuilt search friendliness as recommended by Yoast. Assuming he has the keywords he is after in the titles and he writes great articles about these keywords, I believe he is off to a flying start.

SEO Off Page

Prior to this post I asked Jon, what he is doing in terms of his SEO off page. Here is his off page SEO strategy he emailed to me, with my comments:

1. Blog comments and social profile interaction to build relationships (love it)
2. Guest posting on relevant sites (love it)
3. Web 2.0 properties like wordpress.com blogger etc using the ok quality articles my content creation system puts out (see link building notes)
4. Building backlinks to web 2.0 properties using LinkAuthority.com with the lower quality content my system creates (see link building notes)
5. Finding expired highly highly relevant domains and 301 redirecting to my site (only a few and ONLY if they are very very relevant) (like it)
6. Finding expired relevant domains and building a small “feeder” site using original relevant content (no benefit yet – this is my long term foundation) (love it)
7. Building backlinks to my feeder sites with linkauthority.com with the lower quality content my system creates (see link building notes)

Jon likes to walk on the wild side and it is paying off for him. It is hard to fault success and I have written my reasons for not link building, but I recognize that it can work short term at least.

For me, only building websites that do well pays the bills so I can’t afford to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars (again) from any changes to Google spam detection algorithms. My thinking these days is that I can always link build later if need be but in the meantime, by not link building I am actually focused on content which attracts natural links – which will eventually win and I think be much more likely stay won.

In almost all cases all the link building Jon is doing is to sites that he owns, therefore he theoretically has control over these properties and can get rid of them if he sees problems. Jon’s strategy seems to be pretty low risk as far as link building goes and if I were to link build this would be a great example.

Conclusion

I have learned a great deal about the inner workings of Jon’s business – I have studied his blog and methodologies. I firmly believe Jon is on the road to earning six figures with this website as a big part of his website portfolio and I hope that my advice helps him get there faster. I also want to thank Jon for giving me the opportunity to review his excellent site. I think when you read Jon’s post reviewing my website that he has a lot of insightful thoughts too.

Thank YOU for reading.

If you have enjoyed this review and would like your site reviewed contact me by email – quinnATcubiclefree.com (replace the AT with @)

I have always enjoyed the process of reviewing websites and I know that a third party can add lots of value from a different point of view.

What did you find interesting about my review? What do you agree with or do you think I have it all wrong?

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net