Operation Imac And Master Files

Back at last! First with the bad news, I did not meet my goal for Operation Imac by Sept 1st. So yes I’m still typing this post on my old computer. However I did manage to earn just around $1000 in the past couple of months so it’s not all doom and gloom, more like a starting point to keep on improving.

Realizing that I was not going to make my goal made me rethink what I was doing. When I started this all off I created niche site after niche site spreading my focus over such a large area that it was hard to concentrate on what I needed to be doing.

And in between that I was also creating my own products too, it was mayhem. So what I did was create a masterfile in excel that listed all my current niche sites, within those lists I created a few columns that included information like…

• Domain Name
• Expires
• In Use
• Type
• Sales
• Conversion Rate
• Analytics Data

Domain Name: This one is self explanatory.;)

Expires: When does this domain expire? Meaning that if this niche site sucks but yet it has 3 years left to expire, I might consider a new site design/approach or even to try and sell it. But if the domain has a few weeks left, then maybe I’d consider letting it expire.

In Use: Am I currently using this domain as a site? I have this amazing ability to just buy domain names with the idea to start a new site, but never do. Is it only me that does this?

Type: This column is for if I do use this site what type is it? This could be a blog, e-commerce site, or even a sales page if its selling one of my own products.

Sales: Has this site made any sales at all? This could represent some potential in this niche.

Con/Rate: If it has made sales how is it converting? Do I need to get it mass traffic before I even earn a dollar.

Analytics Data: First of all is analytics installed? If not then I need to add it to get any idea of what the site is doing. And second, by looking at the analytics data I would decide what I’d be dealing with if I did go ahead with this site.

Other Info In The Master File

Other information I included in this masterfile were the usernames and passwords. When you have a few sites online you do tend to forget login details sometimes, especially when you don’t use them that much.

Once I had all this info in place I then color filled in the site lines that had made sales already, I would use this as a quick reference to see what ones had potential right away. The domains that were not in use I colored in a darker color, this would represent that they are not even online yet, so either I did something with them, or I looked at the keywords and competition data again to make sure they are worth pursuing.

Now I had all this data in the masterfile it really made me see things I’ve overlooked, it gave me a birds eye view of the performance of my sites, which with just one glance I saw where best to focus my energy. This will now save me a ton of effort on a lost cause, or make me rethink a new plan for the domains/sites that are not performing.

The best thing about this masterfile is that it made me concentrate on a site I didn’t even bother with for weeks, but yet it still made a sale, so I put in more effort over the past few days and yesterday it made another sale! Without me taking this step back that sale may have never happened.

If only I started this the same time I started Operation Imac, who knows I may have been typing this on one;) I do recommend a masterfile to anyone with a few sites, you don’t have to have excel either, even notepad will do the trick. You could also try the FREE Google Spreadsheet.

Whatever you use give one a try, it does not take long and could give you an idea of where to best focus your energy too. Good Luck.

Tags: google spreadsheet, master files, operation imac

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm and is filed under affiliate marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.