The Authority Site Duel Challenge Portal
The Authority Site Duel is underway!
A few weeks back, Eric Gati and I casually challenged each other to building a solid, long term and profitable online business and an Authority Site Duel was born.
Both Eric and I have tried our hand at niche sites, which can still be viable although the “traditional” approach has significantly been impacted by erratic search engine behavior. You can read about three of my really successful niche sites here and my thoughts on why these are still doing well.
But aside from our respective blogs, neither one of us has a true authority site that is authored from our first-hand experiences, undying passion and subject matter expertise with our own names stamped on it.
With shifts in search engine behavior favoring more authority websites, we decided to focus on subjects we know and love best and turn them into a profitable online business.
So I went out and bought WWW.AUTHORITYSITEDUEL.COM, which points to this page. We will document our progress reports on our respective blogs and compile regular updates on this page.
We will openly write about what worked, what sucked, successes and failures. And for the first time and by popular request, I will be documenting my income reports resulting from this project.
You can read the rules of engagement here.
This challenge is open to everyone. Few brave souls have already jumped in. Send in your participation interest and I would love to include your site on the list below as well. Keep sending in your update posts as you publish them on your blog and I will update this portal periodically with links to it.
Special shout out to my friend Pat Flynn for inspiring this challenge. God bless his soul.
Feel free to shoot out any questions or comments in the comment section below…
Friends – Let the games begin! Good Luck to Everyone!
Sunil’s Updates
Authority Site: CPARequirementsHQ.com
Performance: Income Reports
Update 1: My Authority Site Preview
Update 2: Building a Long Term, Profitable & Sustainable Business Online With Your Expertise
Update 3: My Authority Site Revealed
Update 4: How to Find Your Niche for a New Internet Business?
Eric’s Updates
Authority Site: SlowCarbDietExperiments.com
Performance:
Update 1: Finally Revealed: My New Site & The Authority Site Duel
Update 2: Creating an Effective Content Strategy
Update 3: Dominating ALL Keywords in Your Niche: My Authority Site Keyword Strategy
Mike’s Updates
Authority Site: DividendStockAnalysis.com
Performance:
Update 1: Authority Now Has a Name
Update 2: Improving Site Traffic
Jon’s Updates
Authority Site: PayMyStudentLoans.com
Performance: Income Reports
Update 1: My Reason For Sharing This Journey and My Websites Income
Update 2: How I Picked My Authority Website Topic
Update 3: Keyword Research for a Competitive Niche
Update 4: Picking my Sites Domain Name
Update 5: Creating “Cheap” Articles
Update 6: Setting Up an Authority Website With WordPress
Ray’s Updates
Authority Site: EverydayPurpose.com
Performance:
Update 1:
Mike’s Updates
Authority Site: SimplySnare.com
Performance:
Update 1: My Authority Site Revealed
Update 2: Monetizing my Authority Site
Update 3: Releasing a Product
Update 4: Knowing When To Cut Your Losses
Andy’s Updates
Authority Site: CleanseAndBlend.com
Performance: Income Reports
Update # 1: My Authority Site Duel Entry
Update #2: Using a Rafflecopter Giveaway to Jumpstart My Authority Site
Update #3: Signs of Promise for My Authority Site
Dan’s Updates
Authority Site: BikeTrackDaysHub.co.uk
Performance:
Update # 1: Authority Site Duel
Update #2: Lack of Effort Equals Lack of Results
Update #3: That’s More Like It
Update #4: November Update
Update #5: One Year On
Patrick’s Updates
Authority Site: OnLearningPoint.com
Performance:
Update # 1: Authority Site Duel
Update # 2: Content and Links Update
Adam’s Updates
Authority Site: JobLessByDesign.com
Performance:
Update # 1: Authority Site Duel Challenge
Update # 2: Authority Site Duel Part Deaux
Previous: How to Set Quick Reference Static Calendar Dates in Google AnalyticsNext: July Income Report: $1,982,137.92/Year? New Site, New Income Report
39 Responses to “The Authority Site Duel Challenge Portal”
Leave a Reply
Earn Extra $1K Per Month
Subscribe & get a FREE copy of my report
"How To Make a $1,000 Residual Income Stream in Just 180 Days!" - All in your spare time!
Your Business at Your Own Pace
Previous Blog Posts
Blog Posts By Category
- Affiliate Marketing (7)
- Analytics (1)
- Authority Site Duel (4)
- Authority Websites (5)
- Back Link Building (11)
- Blogging (46)
- Capital Leverage (1)
- Career – Office (33)
- Credit Cards (4)
- eBooks (15)
- Email Auto Responder (2)
- Forum Websites (1)
- Freelance (6)
- General Entrepreneurship (146)
- Get Paid to Do Stuff! (21)
- Giveaways (5)
- Google Adsense (4)
- Guest (22)
- Income Reports (4)
- Internet Marketing (63)
- iPhone Apps (1)
- Keyword Research (2)
- Money Humor (1)
- Niche Content Websites (41)
- Outsourcing (5)
- Paid Surveys (11)
- Pay Per Click Advertising (1)
- Personal Finance (61)
- Productivity – Time Management (8)
- Real Estate (6)
- Retail – E Commerce (13)
- Reviews (5)
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) (18)
- Site Build It! (SBI) (8)
- Social Bookmarking (1)
- Tax Planning (13)
- The Extra Money Blog (12)
Very cool to put everyone’s info in one place. Sounds like everyone will be a winner.
It would be interesting to see how the bloggers progress each week. Love to learn from you guys.
feel free to ask your questions and contribute what is working for you Eddie
Eddie, I was planning on doing monthly in depth updates and what I think will be really interesting is getting my adsense API working and showing real time earnings for the last 7 days…that is something for the future though.
Jon
given this is an authority site, are you sure you want to monetize with Adsense? is this going to be your primary revenue stream?
My primary monetization strategy is going to be building my email list and then educating them on how tools/services can help them (Mint, loan consolidation).
AdSense will likely also be on the site but the site is not built to solely make money off AdSense.
This is just my initial strategy I will review and adapt as this site moves along.
What about you Sunil – whats going to be your main monetization strategy?
Jon
affiliate marketing stands out right now, but I want to develop products and services for my readership down the road
I have an abandoned site which I want to use as authority but other projects took over. Can I join with that same site? It has 50 posts (close to a year ago).
I can just get more articles and start working on it now if it’s allowed….
Sheyi
the rules are pretty flexible. have a read and if you feel it fits jump in my friend
Thanks for putting this together Sunil.
I am looking forward to seeing everyones updates and strategies, I am sure we can all learn something from each other.
Jon
looking forward as well
I love challenges. This should be interesting to see. Great that everybody picked topics in different areas.
would be interested in your thoughts regarding what topics should be covered in the challenge updates Miki?
Sunil, you have come up with another cool idea! I wish I could watch over your shoulder and ask questions as you take on this new challenge.
that’s the idea David. feel free to ask questions as the challenge progresses.
Hi Sunil, can I join in the authority site challenge? I think it’ll really help me stay focused on my goal. Please let me know if it’s too late or not.
Thanks much!
nope, not too late Andy, jump in
Woo, all systems go.
I will be getting involved, the only stumbling block I have is I don’t have somewhere to post my updates and/or lessons. Maybe it’s time I started my own little blog just to document the journey…
you will have to Dan. this challenge was started by Eric and I, both of who blog about our experiments – the authority site being one of them. I am not saying you need a full website or blog, but you will have to come up with a way to update everyone on your progress, what you did, what worked, what didn’t, etc. would be happy to add your stuff
I’ve been thinking about starting a little blog of my own anyway, if nothing else but to document my own personal feelings and progress for my own benefit. Maybe this is the perfect opportunity to get involved.
Plus I’d get to see what all the fuss is about with WordPress 😛
awesome Dan
*** CHALLENGE UPDATE – PLEASE READ ***
I have already been getting tons of emails about folks interested in joining. The more the merrier. However, please keep in mind not to send me links to posts/contents of your niche site.
The idea of this challenge is to talk about your niche site, its performance, what works, what does not, share results, lessons, failures etc.Typically you would document this elsewhere (i.e. on a personal blog).
Anytime you write about this niche site and feel it adds value to the challenge and its participants and followers, send me the link to that content page and I will post it each time I update this page.
Thanks and looking forward to everyone’s revised contributions
Hi Sunil, great initiative! I agree that -given the direction that Google is heading- thin micro niche sites will have a hard time.
I have an authority site in my drawing board (just domain name and a few articles now). It has a very targeted audience, and decent monetization options with affiliates, advertisements and ebooks. I am sure that by discussing progress, commitments and strategies in public, the project will move much quicker.
However … what is holding me back is to create new and wake up existing competition. I have been following some niche site competitions where participants have stopped, when copycats jumped onto the most successfull niches. What is your take on this?
it’s really about your personal risk appetite. I believe my market is large and segmented enough where there is room for many players. plus I feel 99% are interested, but only 1% is committed.
Hey Sunil,
I am excited to join the duel! I just revealed my authority site on my blog and have sent you an email with the URL’s…I’m looking forward to “duking it out” with everyone!
Let’s all build massive authority sites that add a ton of value to the internet!
Mike
welcome to the duel Mike
Hey Sunil,
thx again for this awesome idea! my site just got mentioned by the Daily Crux yesterday, I already got my first traffic pike! yipee!
congrats. I think it would be beneficial for us to hear more about how you got your site there and the specific impact it had on your site. perhaps in an update psot?
I’ll definitely talk about my update! Daily Crux will be a highlight of my month!
looking forward to it
I already have an eBook out on my site and plan on releasing the same book on paperback over at Amazon.
I will post an update once some results start to happen.
Thanks for this challenge and for pushing me!
how is your ebook doing on Amazon? what is making you publish paperbacks?
Hi Sunil. This is a great idea and would love to join the challenge with my new blog so add me to the list please. This will be a great way to motivate myself by seeing how everyone is doing.
Frank, I dont think you should worry about competition. thats just part of any business and part of the learning process is figuring out how you can outsmart the competition by doing things even better!
Good luck all!
feel free to send the relevant info Colin. welcome to the duel and all the best
Hi,
What is the latest point of entry for this duel?
I actually have it in my editorial calendar to build a site from scratch over my shoulder and produce weekly tutorials so why not tie it in with this =D
is this duel still active? I can only see the website of Jon doing very well.
Jon is certainly doing very well, while the rest of us are lagging. Personally I’ve been tied up with some other initiatives which I will soon be writing about here. I also intend to resume this “duel” so we can all learn from each other’s experience establishing a truly authority website on a topic in which we are well versed.
Just to clarify for yskan, I am always working away on my site. To be honest I stopped submitting updates because the whole thing fizzled out.
As a very brief update, I’ve released my own eBook off the back of my site and am making about $400-$500 a month at present.
Plans are afoot to open a membership area to the site that should greatly increase customer value, then I will be approaching affiliates.
I will be following this post on building authority niche websites with keen interest, thanks for this post.