Online Case Study - Retire@21
January 18th, 2008 by CourtOk guys it’s time to take a look at an online business to evaluate what they’re doing right, and what they’re doing wrong. My site reviews have nothing to do with all the review b.s. that’s floating around the internet. This lesson is here to show you what this business is doing right, and what they’re doing wrong. If you would like me to evaluate your site, a paid review will give you an in-depth look and could expose some fatal errors that could be hurting you.
Great Brand Recognition
When Michael first contacted me about reviewing Retireat21.com, I have to say that I saw a lot of branding potential. He’s obviously a young kid (I believe 19 years old) and has the gumption to say that we all may be closer to retirement than we think - if we play our cards right.
Ok guys now this site definitely takes the flagship blog approach - very different from the keyword sniping approach we’ve been talking about lately. That means that the site needs a very identifiable brand, which it has. This is the kind of brand that I would consider acquiring eventually - it’s very different from other sites out there. If you’re going to take a flagship approach to blogging, YOU NEED TO HAVE A BRAND-ABLE BLOG! Look at Retire@21 for a good example.
In order to establish his site as a legitimate site for young entrepreneurs, Michael has done a few interviews with some brilliant young guys who have been just killing it:
- Paul Bourque (Paul has done over $200,000 in a single month with AzoogleAds.)
- Sean Belnick (His business does over $50,000,000 per year selling business chairs.)
- Matthew and Adam Toren (owners of YoungEntrepreneur.com)
Those are some pretty big names to have interviews from, and they are definitely worth reading. I read through each of them and there are a lot more than three there if you take a look.
Branding Setbacks
The first thing I would do if I bought that site would be to take down the feed count. All of the interviews with big online players would have led me to believe that the site is more established than it is - if it wasn’t for the feed count. I’ve talked about this before - I simply wouldn’t show the feed count at least until it reaches 100 or 150.
I would also make the blog more prominent. There’s only one small link that I could find and since this site is using a flagship kind of approach, the blog needs to be more visible.
Very Nice Design
As you can see, the site has a nice, unique design:
Technical Issues That Need To Be Fixed
I noticed quickly that you can view both the non-www and the www versions of this site. You can see that by going here: retireat21.com and here: www.retireat21.com. This will create two separate sites in Google and they will work against each other with duplicate content. The non-www version needs to be redirected to the www version, since it seems like that’s the one that it’s set up for.
I also noticed that this page wasn’t working properly: Ask an Entrepreneur.
Solid SEO
I have to say that the site is set up very well to rank for the keyword ‘making money online’. The site has the keyword in each of the page titles throughout the site, but keeps each title unique. Bravo! You can already find it in the top 10 pages of Google for that keyword and I’m sure that with time it will move up a lot. The site is quite new, and Michael seems like a very ambitious guy so I would have to say that this site will probably do quite well.
Don’t Be Mistaken!
Yes, I did find a few technical errors in this site but I would have to say that overall Michael is doing a very good job so far and I could see this site working out very well for him. I could find technical problems with probably at least 90% of the sites out there. I see this site as a very brand-able blog that has some good upside. I will definitely keep my eye on it.
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January 18th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I like the site. Looking forward to looking it over tonight. The design is nice.
The site lacks description tags on many pages. Looking at his site in Google, he has the newsletter signup box as his description on many of his pages.
Lacks keyword meta data on some pages.
How much does this really hurt him? I know their importance varies from search engine to search engine.
Also, I think he could benefit from using alt text on his images in his blogs. (both for seo and usability)
January 19th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
As far as G is concerned, I doubt that the description issue will hurt that much since this tag is not nearly as important as it once used to be (of course, implementing them properly would help, even if not all that much).
Alan Johnson
January 18th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Hey, hey, HEY! Be gentle. Some of that review BS that is going on around the Internet is going on at my site!
January 18th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I like the design of Retire@21 as well. I’ve seen the site before so I think they will be doing well in the future.
I wonder if there are people faking a higher feed count and if Feedburner is doing something about it.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I like the design of the site a lot and it is a very good brand. The one thing I didn’t like is his 125 ad spots had 3 “reverse funnel systems” when I visited. This is a known scam. Besides that fact I agree with your assessment.
January 19th, 2008 at 1:22 am
I had landed up at that site by chance and was frankly zapped. Your review has got me thinking differently about looking at similar accidental visits to blogs. Thank you.
January 19th, 2008 at 7:08 am
The feedburner feed count is always a pet peeve of mine. I mean I will only consider displaying mine once I get over 500 subscribers or something. It was being displayed when the site had only 5 subscribers a while back.
Other than that it is a successful site with lots of affiliate offers.
hehehe
Cyaz
Teen Blogger FabZ
January 19th, 2008 at 9:48 am
These case study is very much useful and most of the sites are doing so…
January 19th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Definatly a good layout site… eye catching… I even subscribed to the RSS (although like you say the blog was hard to find)
Court I have an off topic question… How do you feel about use of the tag? I use it so that I don’t ahve duplicate content on all my pages… but is it a help or hindrance?
January 19th, 2008 at 11:00 am
sorry that should say “more tag” i put it in like the code looks but it wont post it apparently
January 19th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I have a request, I would like to know how he would go about forwarding his www to the other url - as I need to do this as well.
Thanks
January 19th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Check out this tip:
Redirect non-www pages to www pages
January 19th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Put together a quick explanation of the yes and no www debate. And a how two do both.
Hope it helps
Yes or No WWW
January 19th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Court, can you correct my typo
meant to*
January 20th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Thanks for this post Court and also for your response Justin, hadn’t realised that this was an issue.
January 19th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Congrats, for Michael!
hehe.
I’ve already seen his site, it’s quite good, and the domain is a perfect bait (in good meaning)!
Just perfect, I’m also young already 21 :), I will set my goals to reach retirement at 23
Now I’m running a site for Budapest, Hungary, but considering to start a cool blog ;)!
Ps.: I’ have a little brother, I’m not telling how old is he now, but much more younger than Michael. He will start a blog too xD…
My Best Wishes from Budapest, to Micheal & Court!
Danyjel
January 19th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
It’s definitely refreshing to see young people running projects with potential such as this one. Personally, my son (a bit younger than Michael) is helping out with a few of my future projects and I couldn’t be more proud with the way he is handling things. It just goes to show that young entrepreneurs should never be underestimated.
Alan Johnson
January 19th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Court…
Is this a paid review?
Thanks,
Fabien
January 20th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Court,
I want to get into keyword sniping. So I read your posts and been looking for a suitable keyword. I discovered several keywords with below 100k search results and 200-300 visitors a day.
But in Google when I do a search for them, for all of them you get atleast 1 or mostly 2,3 “sponsered links” as the first results and then only the search results. Even if I try and rank 1 for them there’ll always be 1 or 2 sponsered result above mine.
Should I go for these kind of keywords? Please tell me
January 20th, 2008 at 11:49 am
People generally don’t even look at the sponsored links (CTR’s aren’t that high)… I personally wouldn’t factor them in when I’m looking for keywords
January 21st, 2008 at 1:42 pm
It depends on the type of users we’re talking about, it’s really impossible to speak in general terms as people who are accustomed to the Web tend to behave differently when surfing compared to people who are still getting the hang of things.
Alan Johnson
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:11 am
Yes Alan, that’s what I’m worried about. Court advices on targeting less tech niches for keyword sniping so you get high CTR. So wont these people who are likely to click on links when they come to our sites click on these links too because they don’t know the difference between ad links and real links?
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Return traffic generally has a very low CTR. I ran a message board and had to go with AdBrite ads because they would pay me CPM instead of CPC. The one thing I really took from that eBook Court mentions in a more recent post is the tip on using your blogroll as a deceptive thing for affilaites. Go look at the widget top left on my page.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:57 am
Planet Apex, indeed, in such cases, quite a few people won’t make the difference but even under such circumstances your CTR will be far better compared to targeting tech niches.
Alan Johnson
January 22nd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I guess I better build niche sites for those kind of keywords I told you earlier than searching endlessly till I find the perfect keyword.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Indeed, while everyone would like to find that “perfect keyword”, sometimes working with that you have at your disposal is a must
January 20th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
[…] Online Case Study - Retire@21. […]
January 21st, 2008 at 10:11 am
This site is great, ive learned a lot of things to remember on blogging.
http://www.money-on-blog-easy.blogspot.com
January 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Court,
This looks like a spam comment. That link is promoting a pay per post blog.
January 26th, 2008 at 3:19 am
Great site. I’m off to read all the interviews there. 10x for poniting this to me
January 27th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I think the layout and design of the site is very nice.
I also agree about the feed count issue.
Looking at the site without that, I would assume that it was a much more prolific site.
Jon
February 8th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
That site makes me want to motivate myself even more… I’m past 21, but it’s nice to see young people stepping it up in a big way. Good case study, I get an inside look at how you analyze a site and its potential.
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