July I was able to get back to working and building my online business and it felt great!
Although I didn’t get as much done in July as I had planned (rarely do) it was great to see forward movement on several of my goals for 2015 that hadn’t made much progress through the first 1/2 of 2015.
Income was solid again but I didn’t see an immediate uptick for my increased effort but believe the changes in July will pay dividends moving forward.
For the last few years I have used every domain finding tool on the market including custom in house tools to try and make my team incrementally more efficient. After delivering or building 1,500 domains I am only now showing the second tool I use (first was talked about on my ultimate guide to expired domains and PBNs).
NOTE – The links here are affiliate links for PBN Lab… as you will see my team does use it extensively for my PBN business and this is only the second tool I have ever recommended for finding domains!
The reason I am reviewing PBN Lab is because it brings something different to the table. Most of the services and tools out there are some variation on a big list of domains that you can sift through and if you can’t find what you are looking for then wait for more domains to be added. Or the others are tools to make the scraping method incrementally easier. This basic setup is available for free at ExpiredDomains.net but you are very limited in the quality of domains you can get if you are also wanting to find relevant domains.
This is where PBN Lab is different – you can very easily find quality domains that can be VERY relevant and they handle the entire process with only the minimum number of inputs from the users!
In this article I will share…
The “problem” PBN lab created for my business
My PBN Lab Review
My Teams PBN Lab Tutorial (the exact training how my team uses it)
Heavier Emphasis on Relevance Over Authority:
The reason I like PBN lab so much is because it works well with my systematized processes and allows my team to find high quality and very relevant domains!
PBN Lab “Problem” for PBN & Expired Domain Business
PBN Lab has introduced one “problem” for my team… we have been finding a lot of domains in some very commonly used niches and as a result built up a surplus of domains we don’t want to lose out on. In addition with a supply of quality sites no longer used by clients I have launched a service that addresses some of the most common concerns raised by potential PBN clients…
RELEVANT DOMAINS – This is the part I like the most, the ability to find relevant domains in obsecure niches easily by using the search results and not generic keyword searches on other sites or the scrape method.
Queuing Ability – This ability to set up a series of searches and then let the system run while my VA’s
Works Well With My Systematized Approach
Multiple Logins – With one account my team of 3 domain finders can all set up their searches to run
Results – Finding GREAT domains!
Con:
Speed – It is fast but not instant. We often have a back-log of crawls waiting to be run. If it was instant I would like it more. If there was an easier way to jump the que and pause the current crawl so I could start the one that my short attention span had me wanting to look for now.
The ideal people to use PBN Lab are SEO Agencies who build their own PBNs in house or domain finders.
Who Is It Not For:
I think for smaller site builders/owners it is a fairly expensive route to go to find expired domains. If my only use for PBN Lab was my portfolio of sites making in the $3-$7k/month range it would be an expensive investment! But with the monthly sign up options using it extensively for 1 month to find many domains in your niches would be good value!
PBN Lab Tutorial
Here is the exact training and procedure my team goes through…
Once you enter your login details, you will be brought to your dashboard. Here you can quickly check the different jobs you have going and view the domains in each job. In order to start a new job, you will need to go to the side panel and click on Add Job Wizard.
You will now be brought to the screen where all the magic happens. You will want to name your job. I usually name my job using the same keywords I am basing my search on, so for this search I will use basement renovation tips. What PBN Lab will do is for your keyword that you use, it will take the top 50 sites in Google for that specific keyword(s) and check its backlinks to see if any of those domains are available. If you choose Crawl Depth 2, it will even check those sites backlinks to see if any of those domains are available. There are a 2 cons with going 2 deep; takes longer to run (as there is many more sites to go through) and the domains become less relevant to your keyword(s) you are aiming for.
Next, you will be brought to the Crawl Source page. On this page, the first thing you have to do is choose where you want the domain crawler to crawl. You have 3 different options to choose from; search by keyword, manual list of seed URLs or parse google serps results. I would suggest sticking with searching by keyword as this will bring up more domains and will be more targeted to your niche, however if you have specific sites you want the bot to crawl through, you can input them using the manual list of seed URL option.
What I really like about this tool, is the fact that you can choose which country you would like the search results from. This is really handy if you are looking to target certain countries. This tool will bring up domains that are relative to the country you are searching in. For this search I will stick with United States.
Next you will input your keyword(s) you are hoping to search for as well as how far back in age you would like to go. If you are looking for newer domains, you can change this year, however I keep it at 1998 as it brings up the most domains for you to sort through.
On the next page, you will find a summary of the details of your search. This page will also show you the sites it will crawl to find your domains. If you do not like what you see, you can always go back a page and edit the information. Once you have all the details correct, you can go ahead and click finish.
Viewing Results
Depending on the amount of sites PBN Lab has to crawl and the depth of crawling, it could take anywhere from 5 mins to 2 hour. If you click on Dashboard on the left hand side, it will bring you back to the main page. Here it will show you if you have any jobs being crawled. If you do have jobs being crawled, it will tell you how many domains it’s gone through, how many domains left to crawl as well as the amount of time until the job is completed.
The main screen will also let you know how many jobs are running, queued, waiting or completed. Depending on what type of plan you have, you can either have 1 job running at a time or 2 jobs running. If you bought the plan that has 2 jobs running, it will be quicker at getting through the jobs then if you were to have the 1 job running at a time.
Once a job that you are waiting for is completed, you can click on Completed. This will then bring you to a page that has all of your completed jobs. This page will also tell you how many domains turned up in the search at a quick glance. For my search, 25 domains are available. On this page, you can also redo the search, re-fetch the metrics or delete the job easily. This is helpful if you have done a search a while ago and you would like to redo the same search to see if any new domains or new metrics have become available.
Sorting Through The Domains
If you click on the number of domains for the job you are looking at, it will bring up all of the domains available. For my job, it brings up 25 domains. Once you click on the number of domains, it will take you to a page where you can view all of the domains the bot found for you. You can now go ahead and sort the domains in ascending or descending order by any metric you would like. If you have a specific TLD your looking for you can also set the filter to show only those domains as well.
Another way you can filter through the domains is by expanding the filter settings. I usually set the filters to:
PA > 20
DA > 10
CF > 5
TF > 5
By filtering the domains, it narrows down your search even further. This narrowed down my search from 25 domains to 4 domains. This allows me to spend more time looking at domains with quality metrics rather than sorting through a bunch of domains with weak metrics.
Once you find a domain you are interested in, you can click on the domain and it will give you a brief overview of the domain. If you want to further analyze the domain, you can click on Action and it will drop down a variety of different tools for you to use such as Moz OSE, Ahrefs, MajesticSEO, Archive.org, Screenshots.com, NameCheap and Hostnine.
I use the following to ensure the domains are quality:
Moz OSE : Use to confirm the PA and DA of the domain as well as checking the inbound links to the site.
MajesticSEO: Use to check the TF and CF of the domain. You can also check the anchor text, referring domains as well as the external backlinks of the domain. I ensure that the backlinks are spam free and the metrics are quality.
Archive.org: Use to look at the sites history to ensure that is was never abused with spam.
Thats its! PBN Lab is that simple to use. There is a lot of different customization you can use to suit your needs better as explained. Another good thing to do is to link you Moz API credentials to your account. This will help speed up the process when your bought is running the searches. You can set this up by going to your account settings on the left hand side at the bottom and clicking on Your Account –> Moz Access Credentials.
Happy Domain Finding!
Special thanks to our Project Manager Kelley for updating our PBN Lab procedure and turning it into this post.
It has been a long time since I announced this challenge and too long since I have provided a detailed update on what I have been doing.
In this post I share exactly what I have been doing to date and the results I have achieved so far. Including what I have learned (good and bad), my path forward and many of the precise details of the site…
Cost per article
Monthly burn rate
Income
Traffic
Org Chart etc
Like I talked about in my latest income post I have very clearly realized there were way too many goals for 2015 and my online business. I have not focused enough on this project to make it the massive success I was aiming to at the start of the year.
However the progress has been solid!
So far I have averaged triple digit % traffic growth month over month and the site is continuing to grow largely with organic traffic.
As I write this income report I have to appreciate the symbolism…
Several times I have stated that the reason why I work the hours I work is to provide financial security to my family and be able to provide the life we choose (in addition to the fact online business is simply a lot of fun!).
What we are working towards is $15k/month in reliable online income by the age of 35 to be in a position to move back to our hometown if we choose.
As of this writing I am sitting in my first hard asset purchased primarily with income earned online (a rental/vacation condo in my home-town) working at my childhood desk moved from my parents garage attic.
If I was a better writer I would talk about the symbolism of where I came from (childhood desk) what I am doing (working on my online business) to get to where we want to be (our hometown).
Alas a picture will have to do…
My Vacation Office – A Little Rustic!
June was a busy month again for my day job but as of this writing in July it is all wrapped up and I have a couple weeks to experience summer and dedicate more hours to my online business (expect a few overdue changes!).
In this report I will talk through my monthly results for…
LightningRank (get access to the most powerful PBN available!)
Key Successes
Systems – With my schedule and main project manager having gotten married in June the team is doing a fantastic job of continuing to provide the quality PBNs to our clients and also help to grow the website portfolio.
Website Purchases –Several purchases have performed well and I have set up a solid tracking system to be aware of how each investment has done. Overall the returns have been healthy but there are also several big losers in the group. For sellers I seem to be the sweet spot for some people…
With Lower earning sites who don’t want to give up a relatively high % of their sales to a brokerage site
Who don’t want to go through the long, time consuming sales process of other sites(Flippa)
Who have sites who may not qualify for the more premium brokerage sellers (Empire Flippers)
Who are looking to sell CRAZY FAST (money in PayPal accounts in 24hrs)
(If you have a site making money and are looking to sell please contact me at jonhaver11 (at) gmail (dot) com
Recovered Earnings – I mentioned the loss of income from missing some affiliate sales and this month I was able to get them all back. A $3,500 cheque showed up which was fantastic!
Key Failures
Time – June was much like May when it comes to how many hours I was able to work on the business(way to few!).
My 2015 Goals – I spent a lot of time on building my plans for 2015 and clearly I messed up…WAY to many goals. Just look at my income reports and you can see how many times I have not been able to progress a goal. Having so many it has left me more than a little unfocused!
Part 1 – Passive Authority& Niche Website IncomeProfit/Loss
No matter where my future business direction I would have a very very hard time giving up the fun of building, buying and running profitable websites.
5 Goals in 2015 for my Website Portfolio Business
1. Build Six Figure Website
JUNEUPDATE – Week over week traffic growth continues. Income is not as strong as desired (over $100 again). My progress on publishing articles has slowed with the key PM stopping work during my busy period and me not being able to replace in time.
June Stats
Traffic =10,523
Income = $162
2. Continue Building Smaller Profitable “Niche” Sites
JUNE UPDATE – Several small successes but the project I was working on is now on hold for me to free up time to focus on growing the sites I have.
3. Systematize Top 20 Sites in Portfolio
JUNEUPDATE –No progress on this front (again!)
4. Buy 2 Sites Per Month
JUNEUPDATE: One website was purchased…right now it is looking like it was definitely not a good purchase but overall I am still happy with my portfolios performance (although the total dollars invested remain relatively low).
GOAL = 12 sites purchased by June 2015
ACTUAL = 18 sites (+1 in June)
If any readers are looking to sell their profitable site(s) VERY QUICKLY let me know by emailing me. I can let you know in 12hrs if I am interested and complete the purchase in 24-48hrs – Contact Me Here
5. Improve Monetization of Existing Sites
JUNEUPDATE –GREAT NEWS…that $3,500 in missing commissions was realized in June. So a big uptick in income on my niche sites but controlling for the $3,500 I still had my second best month on my niche sites with $4k in net income. In July I expect to have a big effort to produce a detailed checklist and assign a team member to review all money sites each month to confirm this won’t be able to happen again.
PRIMARY GOAL – OVERALL INCOME FOR WEBSITE PORTFOLIO
Part 2 – Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss
My commitment on this site is to provide once per week posts from me in and one MONSTER of an ultimate guide a little later in the year.
3 Goals in 2015 for AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com
1. Post 1-2 times per week
JUNE UPDATE – As discussed last month I will be starting to slip on this front!
Plan = 4
Actual = 1
JUNE UPDATE – Very weak involvement from me here!
Interview = 0
Roundup = 0
Podcast = 0
2. 2 EPIC Posts Published
JUNEUPDATE –One mini-epic post has been published with me revealing the 301 building block strategy (Part 1, Part 2)
3. PRIMARY GOAL – GROW TO 30k VISITORS PER MONTH
Part 3 – Services Business Profit/Loss
Create Stand Alone Business
JUNEUPDATE – No progress towards this, this will come after #2 below has more progress.
Rework and Customize Systems
JUNEUPDATE – Minimal progress but systems are holding!
Systematic Customer Acquisition
JUNEUPDATE – Soft launch of affiliate program was a success (with a lot of hiccups) a more robust system is needed and is a big project for July!
PRIMARY GOAL – STAND ALONE SYSTEMATIZED SERVICES BUSINESS
In my 2 weeks vacation I have now this is the key business goal!
Overall Income Update
Original Monthly Net Income Target (original – $15k/month reliable income by age 35)
Target Net Income = $7,075
Actual net Income = $14,993
2015 Average Monthly Net Income = $9,838
Red Line = Reliable Income Goal
Final Comments
Overall from an income standpoint I flirted with the $15k mark but just missed it. A big $3,500 cheque and overall $4k performance in my passive income portfolio was great to see and boosted my overall earnings.
If there was one upside to me not being as involved in my business as I would like is that it provides me with both a an opportunity for problems to be exposed and a fresh perspective to see those problems. Because of this my to-do list in July is VERY long but working hard to focus on 1 thing until it is crushed!
I am in the middle of several improvements and looking forward to sharing those learning’s with everyone in the hopes it can help you in your business!
Hope your businesses are going well through the summer!
To everyone who is lucky enough to have the competing time commitments of a family, day job and working to build financial freedom through an online business I hope this monthly income report helps you.
Right now I am in the middle of another very demanding(but also enjoyable) time at my day job where for ~50 days my hours are often 5am-9pm (not including commute).
Work Life Balance – The desire for balance with my current schedule is not reasonable.However I have started trying to think through the balance question a little differently…over what time period do we consider having balance? Balance every day is currently not possible….waiting until retirement for balance is stupidity. Finding the right time period to havebalance is important! After this busy period I will need to re-commit to what is important and make the sacrifices on the not as important things (TV, sleep, exercise, socializing/partying without my family) in order to spend as much time with my family as possible and continue to grow a solid online business.
In this report I will talk through my monthly results for…
