Truth Files #5 – 18 Months of Data From the Network
UPDATE—
Yes, I am still using the same exact step-by-step plan I lay out in the InlineSEO System to achieve high rankings and traffic from the search engines. I’m using it still for this network (exactly as I show you in the training system) and for brand new sites that I’m building. I didn’t think to mention this in the report, but everyone seems to continue asking me this same question so I thought I’d address it upfront.
I’ll be using the same SEO system probably for years. It was something I started doing about 10 years ago and still works so no reason to change it 
I think the folks seeking out the latest and greatest shiny new ‘quick and easy’ fad are the one’s who will likely see the biggest problems with their search engine rankings. Unfortunately, all it takes is a 5 minute visit to an SEO forum to confirm this.
Also, this may be the last Truth Files report I publish. I haven’t decided yet for sure, but 18 months of letting everyone take a peek is kind of a lot so I might stop at this point.
All the best… Lisa
—-
I hope things are going well for you. I realized that I haven’t posted any new updates from the network of sites I profile in the truth files in a while.
So I spent some time putting together another PDF report. I would have just put it together as a blog post, but it turned out to be pretty long. So you’ll have to download it and you can do so here … Truth Files #5.
Anyway, it covers all the earnings from November of 2009 (when I started the network of sites) until May of 2011. That’s about a year and a half or 18 months. So this should give you a good idea of the work involved in making something like this happen for yourself. You can definitely do it, but it’s not going to make you rich overnight. However, I don’t know of anything else that will either (unless you buy a winning lottery ticket).
Again, you can read the latest Truth Files #5 here.
Always great to see something in my inbox from you Lisa because I know it’s going to great. Looking forward to reading the Truth Files.
Thank you for sahre this truth files #5. keep posting, regards from Italy
Hi Lisa:
Thanks for sharing your success once again and keep us motivated!
You are a true inspiration and I am embracing your ‘Content Publishing”
Business model!
You have proven it works….time and again, so why chase the guru silver bullet!
Will be looking for your insight on how you are doing on Social media in future posts… I guess they are mainly FB and twitter!
Cheers!
As always, Lisa, your reports are nothing short of inspiring and motivating. You make it “possible” for those of us willing to invest the time.
Question: are you still following the same blueprint you lay out in your SEO training?
Chris – yes, definitely still following the exact same think in the InlineSEO System. It’s how I’ve gotten this far. And will continue to be my main traffic generation strategy.
Thanks Lisa.
Is there a way to get you write an outsourcing truth file?
I’m really struggling about what to outsource when it comes the linking process. Does InlineSEO system goes over the outsourcing side of things?
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for sharing your 18-month report with us.It is really nice to see how your earnings grew each month and this is really motivating. I guess having build many sites before had a great plus for the success of your project.
I agree with you focusing on just one site at a time and growing it as much as possible. And that’s what I’m doing now.
As ever Lisa – Many thanks for sharing this and keeping me for one motivated!
I have been using your model with my new website that went live May 15th. I have managed to hit #14 in Google with my main keyword phrase and only 116 backlinks. I have 43 pages of content so far.
I noticed your CPA income has gone down a little or never kept up with the AdSense income. Can you explain what you have been doing that caused that?
Great information and I truly like your work.
Dennis
Hi Lisa
thanks for sharing your progress….its really inspiring to see that content publishing has this kind of potential. I have been mainly promoting affiliate offers and i am just wondering which CPA networks you are with for promoting your sites??
Thanks
Andrew
Thanks for the latest update. Very encouraging!
One of my biggest problems is finding content writers that are good and solid. I don´t mind paying a premium but I have real hardships finding good writers.
Any tip on a good solid writer who can do more than write generic amazon product reviews and 90% fluff would be greatly appreciated!
regards
Woot
Amazing stuff, Lisa!
A similar question to Chris, but do you periodically update your action plan or have you been following the same plan over the last few years (in terms of link building)?
Awesome pdf Lisa. Inspiring. Ahh…time to get into the Adsense and Content publishing niche. Truly, these truth files have inspired me to do that.
Hi Lisa,
Glad to see the upward trend and the glimpse into the future. Congratulations.
Shaun
Dennis – I’m not trying to keep my Adsense and CPA income at a tie or anything. That’s just how it’s worked out. Whatever layout is bringing me the most money is the one I keep and right now Adsense is doing better so I put it closer to the top.
Andrew – You need to visit offervault.com and find offers related to your market. That’s all their really is to it, but it’s something you need to do on your own. My best CPA offers aren’t going to be the same as yours since you’ll have a different set of visitors to your site.
Lisa
John – Yes this is all from the same plan I’ve been using for a very long time. I even just recently built new sites using the exact same thing. I guess it’s kind of boring doing the same stuff over and over, but when you get results it’d really be nuts to change it.
Lisa
No — please not the last!!! I am a customer and love your stuff. You are really so thorough and helpful.
Hi Lisa,
As this is the last truth files report.. congrats on the $$$$ reward on all the hard work and keeping us motivated. That it can be done. A great system you developed with InlineSEO. And for us.. we’re happy that you will share it.
Thank you. All the best.
Stefan
Thanks for posting your Truth Files. Definitely worthwhile info for someone looking to work in the content publishing space. Hopefully you’ll provide an update here and there.
Hi Lisa,
Once again, thanks for sharing this great information with us! You’re one of the rare persons I keep following now in the IM industry…
I love this Content Publishing model and try to walk in your footsteps… But still have a lot of things to learn even if I’m constantly progressing!
If you stop publishing the Truth Files, could you just letting us know if your projection of $165K at the end of 2011 is correct or not?
One of the hardest part is to create Magnetic Content, in my opinion… But that’s just a problem to solve among many others when we run a business!..
Anyway, thanks a lot for all that you’ve done! And please keep posting on your blog! (What you want!)
Greg
PS: Please note that English is not my first language… Sorry if I’m not always understandable!
PPS: Oh, are you still using the same step-by-step plan of your InlineSEO System?? RELAX! I’m joking!
I know you are…
I’m going to miss these updates. They give me hope. Although I think I’m missing something as I have never been able to make over a few hundred dollars a month.
So I have been letting my sites simmer on a back burner while I focus on building a few larger sites.
I know I’m not doing something right and I know many others are not getting the great results you get.
Which leads me to ask.I know you have a few paid courses out there. Do any of them go more in depth in your methods? Such as showing a sample of how you actually build one of your sites? If so, which course would you recommend? If not, are you planning on making a course like that in the future?
Hi Lisa,
I’ve been following since day 1 I believe – since you launched the InlineSEO System anyway.
If you feel the need to stop sharing progress, would you consider at least continuing it on a monthly pace for paid members? Meaning, charge $X a month to access your private posts/reports. This motivates you because it’s driving revenue and helps others learn the ‘real’ methods without all the fluff and BS most fill their inflated ‘tactic of the day’ products with.
Just something for your to consider. I, for one, would pay to access your monthly posts, insights, tips, ideas, progress, etc. rather than see you stop.
Hey Lisa; Thanks for all the insight you have shared with us on your quest to produce a few streams of income the right way. I been through your Inline course a couple of times and I just struggle with how to compile keywords for a topic/niche that has income potential. I got involved with this thing called Google Sniper sites and it seemed like a viable way to build several one topic sites but I run into so many obstacles along the way. Building back links you got to have SEO robot at 47.00 $ per month. Article marketing is so tedious and expensive when you hire it out. Joining forums and answering Yahoo questions and on and on. I really do feel like I have a job but it isn’t paying anything yet. Could you point me to a post or three of yours that offers a more direct approach to figuring out how to hunt out niches that are attached to what people are looking for and not something out of my life’s experience? Thanks. Sorry to be a whiner.
Lisa,
Thanks for all the great info and I do have your inline seo course and love it! I had a question though. I made a mistake and had someone blast a bunch of forum links for a page and of course saw my rankings go from #12 to #90 overnight (yeah that wasn’t smart). Is it possible to recover from this using the methods in inline seo or similar? Or would it be better to rebuild the site with a new domain? I really like this niche and want this site to become an authority site.
Thanks Lisa for keeping it real. There is so much hype and garbage out there it is really hard to separate the truth from the fiction these days.
It is good to know that it is possible to make this work with some
effort and consistency.
Thanks,
Phil
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa–don’t leave us. Thanks for the awesome info. Maybe you can give us an update or two on your new websites. YOU ARE AWESOME!!!!!!!!
Greg — Thanks for the laugh
I’m glad you get that I’m still using the same plan. I’ll have to think about sharing any more numbers or not. The reason is because I feel a little weird about it since the numbers are getting kind of high (at least I think they are, I’m sure there are some out there who feel this is change).
I fully expect to reach the projection and then some, but maybe I could just say whether I did or did not near the end of the year.
And I might post other reports. Even if I stop talking about this group of sites, I may start with another new one and follow it all the way through. That was something I kind of wish I had done instead of building so many at once. So you’ll still hear from me!
Thanks,
Lisa
Hi Cathy,
I do through the whole SEO strategy in the InlineSEO System. But it’s just SEO. It’s a lot of material though, you’ll know what you’re doing if you follow that. But again, you won’t get the market selection stuff and monetizing your sites (not sure if you need that).
Maybe someday I’ll create something bigger like that and put it altogether with videos, but for now I’d stick with the SEO System and start experimenting with 10 page sites in markets where people are spending money.
Best of luck to you…
Lisa
Hi Rob — that’s a really great idea, thanks for the complements and the encouragement, I just might do something like that in the future.
SDavenport – there’s a webinar I did with Matt Carter on here. I think the title is something like ‘Here’s some of my SEO secrets’. It’s over an hour and I do talk about some of that. There’s also some in the market selection category on the blog. I hope that helps.
Joshua – Definitely don’t start over. You can save that. Just start building better links and add content. Follow the action plan in the course and you’ll be back on track. I hit a few sites pretty hard with big link wheels a couple of years ago and they took a serious dive, but did come back up once I spent time building higher quality links to them. You don’t need to get these links removed, just dilute them out and you’ll be fine.
Thanks Phil and Chuck! I’ll still try to post some interesting and inspiring stuff, no worries.
All the best…
Lisa
Lisa,
thanks for putting this course and report series together. I bought your course a long time ago and recently I have been making over 10K a month for the last three months.
Im just posting that to counterbalance some of the people who say they are making nothing. It must be your niche selection or your presale, something on your page thats not converting. Maybe you are skipping from site to site ?
The SEO process Lisa outlines DOES work ..
My results – 10K/month for me ( ok not net profit because I reinvested 3K last month) — no adsense various affiliate programs only — I have worked my ass off also, reinvested at least 1/3 of my earnings in content, outsourcing, etc and its been 1 year maybe 1.5 since I found your course.
I went through your whole course and I havent finshed it yet Im on the final module. I also have modified slightly when I find certain things work better. Also I found your course after I had started some affiliate sites in some good niches. I check out other IM stuff and take a little bit here and there but I keep coming back to your system. You are on a very short list of people I listen to.
Im curious how SEO works so I keep checking out BlackHat, Greyhat techniques to see if they could work (on web 2.0 sites that link back to my site) but Im starting to think that my time might be spent better entirely focusing on developing good content and new sites. I see some competitors come up with profile links as an example but I believe the inline system is more varied and longer lasting.
Oh I definitely put very good and magnetic content on my own sites to add value and keep google and visitors happy
Anyways — please keep putting out some updates here and there. .. thanks again for your course
Hey Lisa, just wanted to let you know I bought InlineSEO a few months ago and have been following it. My rankings are starting to improve!
I would echo what you said about starting too many sites at once. I am a one man shop with some part time help from my wife and it is much bette to have 4-5 really good sites vs. the 25+ I have now. Having too many set me back at least a year due to analysis paralysis. Finally after all this time most of them have a little traction and things are getting better.
One question … I heard on your webinar with Mark Thompson you are (or were) using Directory Maximizer for directory links. Are you still using them? I’ve been doing directory submissions by hand but it’s well past time for me to outsource the task.
Thank you for your encouraging blog posts as always.
Hi – great stuff you have here. I’ve bookmarked your site, as I am still trying to learn as much as I can about SEO.
Great inspiration, i am planning to start 10 sites in the same format you follow, it would be great if you can give a small sample site.
Lisa,
After too many “Make 10k overnight with a push of a button” schemes, you are a breath of fresh air…and not surprisingly when I/we find a voice of reason and truth …we want to hear more.
I am implementing your system for a health care site…after 2 months I have 7 categories with 3 pieces in each…climbing the Alexa ranking as traffic grows (slowly) and I am at #12 for my “main” search term -my almost exact domain name likely helped plus all the LSI with the related keywords…. and have just broken onto page 1 for 4 of my lower tier keywords. No $ as yet as the traffic is still pretty low but I know I need to spend more time on monetizing.
Just for info…Market Samurai just added a new variable RD=referring domains which is really interesting. It seems to verify that that you can get much more “juice” from a LOWER but broader link profile. ie I have just 133 links (supposedly -seems low after all the work) but 11 referring domains and that profile makes me almost level with a site with 380 back links and 20 RDs
Hello! This is my first time visiting the site and just read the truth files. Thank you for posting all of your findings from the past 18 months. Sorry to see that this may be the last post but I will keep an eye out for more posts, just in case! Anyway, I learned a lot from the files and am giving some extra thought about the outsourcing, as discussed in the fifth truth file. Thanks again!
I really enjoyed this series and I wanted to thank you for putting it out there for us. It’s quite inspiring and shows just what you can do with some persistence and a sound, methodical approach. Good luck moving forward on this and I hope you’ll throw us an occasional update if not another truth file.
Hi Lisa!
Great job!
I have been following you for a while now, and am very impressed and excited by how you have done with your content sites.
This is my business model of choice aswell, so it’s great to read about someone else’s experience with it, and get an idea of what’s possible here.
Since last April, I have been building a pretty decent network of around 220 niche sites, in different niches, monetized with different methods (affs, ppc, cpa, etc). Some have 5-10 pages, others 50+.
My earnings are quite a bit smaller than what you are showing, but are increasing by the month. I would like to comment that if you want to build a network of sites, like you have, and I have myself, that if you want to see quick returns, it’s much smarter to work on getting a limited number of sites up, and then promoting them, and actually getting them traffic asap, before moving on to more sites.
What I did, was to build ALL my sites, and do minimal promotion (I have a couple of SEO processes that are quick and reasonably effective), but apart from that, let my sites slowly rise up in rankings and traffic.
The result of this, is of course, VERY SLOW growth of rankings, traffic, and of course income made from my sites.
So, I guess my point is, work out what your needs/goals are, and make sure that you are planning to build a network with these things in mind. Because I know from my own experience, I could have done things in a way that was much faster (I could have worked to get a small % of my sites making decent money, then reinvested that profit into outsourcing and following the same process for the rest of my sites).
Anyway, I have some great ideas on site promotion/backlinks which I think you may be interested in, and plus I would just love to chat with a fellow “content publisher” : ) about this. I LOVE this business, but not many of my friends understand what I’m going on about, when I tell them I spent the day updating my network of blogs with new plugins, etc. lol.
Feel free to email me, if you’re up for a chat on skype or something. Maybe we could help each other with some ideas.
Great following you.
Regards,
Nick
Many thanks for sharing this and keeping me for one motivated! Superb information.
I like what you said about people thinking they can do SEO some quick or easy way. Even with SEO tools like InlineSEO, you still have to put in a good amount of effort.
There’s no substitute for getting in there and working hard. Though I’d pay for one, if there was.
Hi,Lisa
Thanks for sharing this post.I agree with you focusing on just one site at a time and growing it as much as possible. And that’s what I’m doing now.
Great report as always. I haven’t tried using InlineSEO but I’ll sure will after hearing a lot of good things about it. Of course, I want my site to be on the top list.
That was a long read Lisa. Thanks for sharing it to us. I can’t believe that you have build a system that haven’t loss any rankings or traffic from the google changes. That really proves that your know your seo when optimising your sites according to google.
I bought some SEO eBook in the past and I get more just by reading your blog??
Your system (and results) sure looks amazing and by reading all the comments here I know that it’s the real deal…
I’ll surely consider your system if someday I decided to monetize my blog.
Thanks for the help, i am trying to learn about SEO, there is so many conflicting advice out there it is nice to get something concise.
Another great insight for SEO. Thanks.
The basics of seo has not changed over the year and it will probally continue to be be the same with a few tweeks as long as you are doing ethical seo
I’m a newbie in SEO and I know I still have a lot to discover..I’ve got to check out your site for new information that I’m sure I’ll be learning a lot..
Hi, really thanks for sharing this and keeping for one motivated! It is good to know that it is possible to make this work with some effort and consistency. Many thanks.
Thanks for sharing your seo tips, i am trying to glean as much information as possible in order to improve my seo skills.
Would you be able to stop in and do an update at the 2-year mark in November of this year?