PPC Ian

Recently, I wrote about how my Epik affiliate earnings are up (quite a bit). That post generated a lot of interest in the Epik platform and I quickly got the question: Ian, how much are you making with Epik? Can you share your earnings like you did for eBay and Commission Junction? Today, I thought I’d follow up on my previous post and answer this question with real numbers!

I’m Earning $3,544/Year On My $15,000 Investment (24% Yield)

I own 55 Epik Product Portal websites. Most of these product portals are brand new websites. They’re domains I’ve acquired within the last few years that I decided to develop on the Epik platform. Others are websites I acquired from Epik (such as Stereo Amplifiers, portrayed to the right). All of my Product Portals have custom articles (2 per site) and most have custom header blurbs too (on each sub-section of the site). I spent a ton of time and money building the best content possible because it’s all about user experience at the end of the day. I’m building quality sites that truly benefit the Internet and always recommend over-investing in great content. Between domain registration fees, development fees, acquisition fees, and article outsourcing fees, my total cost is $15,000.

Now, let’s look at the revenue side of things. Here are my earnings over the last four weeks:

• 6/29-7/4: $113.09 revenue
• 7/5-7/11: $188.63 revenue
• 7/12-7/18: $123.14 revenue
• 7/19-7/25: $118.88 revenue
• TOTAL: $543.74 revenue

Now, $543.74 divided by 28 is $19.42/day. $19.42/day times 365 is $7,088 revenue/year. However, until you’re earning more with Epik, the rev share is 50/50. (You can read more about the Epik revenue share tiers here.) So, my take on the revenue is $3,544/year. As a side note: I’m very happy with Epik’s rev share model, it’s quite generous. Moreover, Epik is a true partner and without the Epik team my sites would not be where they are. The rev share is worth every dollar!

Personally, I feel that my revenue is going to come in much higher. Why? Most product shopping happens in Q4 (holiday shopping season). My earnings should jump up during that time! However, I like to be conservative in my financial modeling so let’s just say my annual revenue is $3,544 based on the last 4 week’s data. (Also, I am not factoring in my annual domain renewal fees of approximately $500 but again that should be hugely overshadowed by my holiday season earnings.) $3,544 divided by my $15,000 cost is a sweet 24% yield!

My Epik Yield Is Unparalleled In Other Investments

I’m a huge fan of cash flow and invest in all sorts of investment vehicles that offer cash flow. I’m talking about dividend-paying stocks, websites (both build from scratch and also buy established websites), and more. Very few investments return a 24% annual yield within the first year of the venture. In the stock market, even if you buy the high yielding tobacco companies or telecom companies, we’re talking about an yield in the high 5% range.

I’m not counting capital appreciation here but I’m not counting that for my Epik Product Portals either. Come to think of it, the capital appreciation with Epik Product Portals is much higher than stocks. Why? Sites like Flippa are heating up and it’s a hot market for income-producing websites right now. Just check out my last post about Zac Johnson’s eBook.

My end conclusion: Epik Product Portals are one of the best investments around. The websites are truly useful and are making the Internet a better place. I’m finding that by partnering with Epik, I’m earning extremely high yields with scale. My future includes many more Product Portals as I plan to expand my portfolio to well over 100 Product Portals over time.

Get Started For Just $224.10 With My Epik Coupon Code

Want to give it a test? Your first Product Portal will only cost you $224.10. The regular price is $249, but you get 10% off with the exclusive PPC Ian coupon (PPCIAN10). Click here to get started with Epik! Anyone else out there developing sites on Epik? I’d love to hear your experience. Want to learn even more? Below, I link to some of my other posts about Epik:

• My Personal Epik Product Portal Websites – Learn all about my personal websites on Epik.
• Epik Product Portal Domain Development Tips – Epik website development tips that work wonders, especially on Epik’s new Product Portal 3.0 platform.
• Epik Product Portal Tips and Special PPC Ian Discount – Even more Epik development tips and also my exclusive coupon code (PPCIAN10). If you enter this code upon checkout, you will receive 10% off your entire order.
• My Affiliate Earnings Are Up With Epik 3.0 – Learn about my recent success on Epik since the launch of their brand new Product Portal 3.0 platform.

Image in this post © PPCIan.com

Posted in: Domains | Tags: epik, epik product portal | Comments: 10 comments so far, join the discussion!

I’m a huge fan of Epik. I’ve been blogging about Epik here on PPC Ian for a while. After all, it’s my favorite web develop platform for product-oriented domains. Currently, I own 55 developed websites on the Epik platform. Today, I’m going to talk about Epik’s brand new Product Portal platform, version 3.0, and also some cool stats about my recent earnings spike! First, however, I wanted to link to my past few posts about Epik as they will provide you some great background around this sweet platform:

• My Personal Epik Product Portal Websites – Learn all about my personal websites on Epik.
• Epik Product Portal Domain Development Tips – Epik website development tips that work wonders, especially on Epik’s new Product Portal 3.0 platform.
• Epik Product Portal Tips and Special PPC Ian Discount – Even more Epik development tips and also my exclusive coupon code (PPCIAN10). If you enter this code upon checkout, you will receive 10% off your entire order

Epik Product Portal 3.0 Rocks

Now that you know a bit about Epik, I’d like to share some of my favorite features of Product Portal version 3.0. At the bottom of this post, you’ll see a screenshot of my Epik website Motorbike Jacket. As you can see, the site is really slick. Websites on Epik’s new platform are simply stunning. This is great from two perspectives: First, as an owner, I have serious pride of ownership. Second, my sites are converting better than ever (users love the new look and feel).

Aside from looking really great, Epik’s new platform is more SEO-optimized than ever. It’s all about content. Anyone reading PPC Ian can appreciate that. I’ve been adding quality, helpful content to my Epik Product Portals (and all my websites) from day one. As a result, search engines have rewarded me handsomely. Epik’s new platform makes it easier than ever before to add articles and place them in really prominent positions on your site. Want to learn even more? I recommend checking out Epik’s Product Portal 3.0 Announcement.

My Earnings are Up 5.6 Times

When I look at my Epik earnings from the past week (as compared to 4 weeks ago), my earnings are up 5.6 fold. Now, one reason I’m doing well is I own some seasonal domains that do well in the summer time such as Outdoor Sofas. However, the majority of my gains are due to Epik’s new platform. Not only am I getting more visitors but also my visitors are converting better than ever. Product Portal 3.0 (especially when the developer adds tons of great, custom content like myself) is very SEO-optimized.

My end conclusion: WordPress is the ideal platform for building a blog. The Epik Product Portal platform, in my opinion, is the WordPress of commerce-oriented domain names. If you’re looking to develop commerce-oriented domains, you’ve got to give Epik a try. And, don’t forget my special coupon code for 10% off your entire order (PPCIAN10).

Image in this post © PPCIan.com

Posted in: Domains | Tags: epik, epik product portal | Comments: 8 comments so far, join the discussion!

I’m just going to warn you up front, today’s post totally rocks! Not only am I going to present an exclusive Epik Product Portal SEO tip that has been working wonders on my extensive portfolio of 55 Epik sites, but I’m also going to share a special Epik Product Portal coupon code only for PPC Ian readers. That’s right, I negotiated this special coupon code with the man himself, Rob Monster (CEO of Epik), as a favor for PPC Ian readers.

I Invested $10,000+ In My Epik Product Portals

So, first of all, what the heck are Epik Product Portals? Epik is basically the WordPress of product comparison shopping sites. It’s an amazing platform that empowers owners of high quality product domains to build out amazing websites that drive extensive value for the user while providing outstanding monetization for the domain owner. Want to learn more? Check out my post about my personal Epik Product Portal websites and then my post about my Epik Development Tips. I’m so confident in Epik that I made a substantial $10,000+ investment in my personal Epik Product Portfolio websites in 2010 and I continue to invest this year. This is my very hard earned money, on the line!

My Epik Product Portal SEO Tips

So, as part one of today’s post, I wanted to provide a quick and actionable SEO tip for all you Epik developers out there (and Epik developers to be). Since I own 55 Epik Product Portals, I’ve experienced the excitement of testing many different SEO strategies across my portfolio of sites. Over the last few months, a clear winning strategy has emerged and that’s the strategy I’m going to share with you today! That said, results vary and I never recommend going with just one strategy. It’s important to test, test, test and want to underscore that this is just one winning strategy and there are others out there.

First, let’s look at a brand new Epik website. When you get a brand new site developed by Epik, it comes complete with everything (and I mean everything) you need for success. In fact, these off-the-shelf sites will do very well with zero modifications. Today, however, I wanted to show some ways to supercharge your Epik sites (for exponential returns). An example of an off-the-shelf Epik site? Check out my brand new site Outdoor Sofas. Key things to note:

• There are no articles (yet).
• The blurbs are the same at the top of each page. Check out the homepage versus the outdoor sectional sofas page.
• The keyword outdoor sofas in the top blurb refers to a sub-page by the same name and not the homepage, the root domain.

Now, let’s contrast that with my supercharged Epik Product Portal, Double Picture Frames. Some key things to note on my supercharged site:

• There are two articles (and more in the pipeline). An example: double picture frames ideas. Exciting note: Epik provides amazing packages to assist with article creation. They will even upload articles (you write on your own or via their own team).
• I link to the articles page in the blurb at the top of the homepage. Even though articles are direct linked on all pages Epik Product Portal sites, this extra link to the articles page in my homepage blurb helps search engines find (and weight) my custom, high quality articles. Remember: Content is king! Get credit for that content by linking to it.
• I link back to the homepage with the keyword double picture frames from within my articles (but am careful to not overdo it). This helps add authority to my high quality exact match domain name and tells the search engines what my site is all about.
• Instead of linking to a sub-page, the keyword double picture frames within my main blurb on the homepage links right back to the homepage. Like the links within the articles, this helps reinforce the exact match domain name with search engines. That said, be careful to not overdo it. It’s a balancing act.
• I write custom blurbs for every page of my site. For example, check out my metallic picture frames page. It’s different than the homepage and is optimized for these special metallic picture frames. Within these sub-pages, I sometimes link back to the same sub-page with the topical theme of the page as anchor text. These recursive links help tell search engines what your page is all about, although I don’t use this strategy on all my sites. I vary it a bit, and don’t like to follow a fixed template all the time.

So, there you have it! I am very confident that if you employ these simple tips on your current (or soon to be) Epik sites, you will experience great returns! At the end of the day, these tips are all about adding quality content (content that users will read and enjoy is always king).

PPC Ian’s Exclusive Epik Product Portal Coupon Code (PPCIAN10)

Now, the real fun! So I’m personal friends with Rob Monster, CEO of Epik. Rob is a serial entrepreneur, business leader, and overall genius within technology. He’s someone I definitely look up to because I’m personally trying to achieve fame in the corporate world of online marketing. You would think with his background that Rob wouldn’t have time to talk to individual Epik developers. That couldn’t be further from the case! I can’t get over the fact that Rob (and his entire team) always goes above and beyond to assist individual Epik developers with their questions and ideas, even though Epik has grown into a large company.

Anyways, I asked Rob if I could get a special coupon code for you guys and I was successful. Here’s the coupon code: PPCIAN10 – Enter this coupon code when making your purchase at Epik and you’ll receive a 10% discount off your entire order. (Here’s a link to the Epik website.)

Make sure to mention that you’re a PPC Ian reader and the Epik team will give you the red carpet treatment for sure! Whether you’re a current Epik developer or a new one, I highly recommend taking advantage of this coupon code. If you’re new to Epik, why not start small? Epik Product Portals start at $249, and only $224.10 with the PPC Ian discount. As an online marketing professional, it’s my opinion that you cannot afford to miss this opportunity. Of course, if you have any questions, please feel free to post them here on PPC Ian! I’m looking forward to some Epik discussion.

All images in this post © IJL Productions LLC

Posted in: Domains | Tags: epik, epik product portal | Comments: 17 comments so far, join the discussion!