KEY STATS as of 30th, April 2019.
- Revenue: Over NGN 800,000
- Unit Sales: Over 250
- Published Materials/Works: Over 3,500
- Alexa Global Rank: 415,739
- Email Subscribers: Over 1,000
- Staff: 2 Full-time and 4 Contract
- Average Daily Page Views: 1,500
- Domain Authority (DA): 22
NGN 800,000 in 5 months may be relatively too little but this could be some high morale and motivation to keep you and I moving.
In this story of mine, I will be sharing with you some practical killer guides on how I managed to do this, step-by-step with no step skipped. This is only for learning purposes.
Below is a quick view of what I will be sharing with you today. You may want to grab a cup of coffee and be chilling while we run this show together.
- What PROJECTS.ng is all about.
- How I researched the market and found some interesting revenue opportunities.
- How I acquired the domain name, projects.ng.
- How I acquired and published over 3,500 works in some months.
- How I improved my search engine rankings in a very short time.
- How I outranked the bigger players in the industry for the major keywords using the term âPDFâ.
- How I made my first sale and never looked back.
- What I am doing to stay relevant in the industry and pull off more sales.
- What you may need to do for your next business.
- What I want to do next.
1. WHAT IS PROJECTS.ng?
PROJECTS.ng is an online academic library in Nigeria.
We provide research project consultancy services for final year undergraduate and postgraduate students.
We have in our archives, ready for instant downloads, project topics and materials for studentsâ reference purposes only.
We are also friends to all undergraduates (NCE, OND, HND, BSc, BA), postgraduates (PGD, MA, MSc, MBA, MLA, PhD), entrepreneurs and corporate bodies as we deliver custom writing services for all. This is something our âHire a Writerâ page takes care of magically. Search for âHire a Project Writer in Nigeriaâ, we are taking charge gradually.
2. HOW I RESEARCHED THE MARKET AND FOUND SOME INTERESTING REVENUE OPPORTUNITIES
Being a lover of the tech ecosystem in Africa, I had always looked out for the opportunities that tech gives one to enable business growth.
Starting from my days of FraNKAPPTech (dead now) to FraNKAPPWeb Technologies to appwebSMS (my love) to Mart.NG - Mart Technologies Limited (my sunshine) to LatestJobs.ng to PROJECTS.ng (my world), I have been so hungry for business success.
Even though some of these outfits are beginning to become interesting, I had made hundreds of mistakes in the process. Major of them all is improper/inadequate market research which had made me fail a lot of times.
Most times I do get lots of business ideas and boom, Iâm already out there in the market struggling without proper research and analysis.
So some months ago, I was thinking of another business idea that is not hyperlocal (not location limited).
I used the Alexa tool to search for the top websites in Nigeria and find out whatâs giving them traffic. I needed something that will have vast revenue models other than AdSense and other ad channels.
As I was going down the list of top websites in Nigeria, I came across lots of news sites but I wasnât interested in them until I got to the point where educational websites became the chair of the list.
Some of them are websites that offer the same services that PROJECTS.ng do offer now. I also noticed that 90% of them get 70% of their traffics organically through Search Engines. Wow!
At this point, my interest got into a blue world and I decided to pack my tricycle (Keke Napepe) and move no further down the list.
I had to use tools like SEMRush, Alexa, and Moz to analyse these websites. I got all I needed concerning their traffic sources, revenues and other metrics and it became my inspiration.
Seeing that there were a lot of holes in the industry that needs a professional player to fix, I decided to start, bearing in mind the results I got from my analysis.
I started like that one business that is trusted even before arrival. My motto was customer satisfaction.
3. HOW I ACQUIRED THE DOMAIN NAME, PROJECTS.ng
Most times, a lot of people do ask me how I normally get these short and precise .ng domain names like mart.ng, mart.com.ng and projects.ng and I will answer âRESEARCHâ.
Prior to the launch of PROJECTS.ng, I had earlier used the name projects.com.ng because projects.ng was somehow not available then.
Being a lover of the .ng extension, I never gave up. I would wake up every day and check if projects.ng was now magically available.
I kept checking with funny hopes until the 7th day and booooooom, it was available. What? Like how? There was some sort of Eureka (I have found it) moments in me.
That day, I had just about NGN 4,500 in my personal account which I always used for online transactions, so I quickly transferred all the money in my business account to my personal account to enable me to purchase this name in joy.
My brothers and sisters, âmy village peopleâ came to work. The transfer I made didnât go through. I waited and nothing dropped.
I had to quickly use my friendâs fund to run the transaction.
Do you know that the so-called bank transfer that I did arrived 4 days later? They can never see me jaree.
This was my adventure in securing this domain.
4. HOW I ACQUIRED AND PUBLISHED OVER 3,500 WORKS IN SOME MONTHS
In a nutshell, I worked over 30 hours in a day. How? Refill your cup of coffee and continue chilling down this story.
A few months ago, I visited 5 major universities in Nigeria in order to get past research works from students and other research businesses around. I also made some students ambassadors to their schools. They get/sell these materials and get paid.
I also recruited 2 full-time staff to handle the publishing of the works and 4 contract partners for custom research work delivery.
This way, I had a lot of time to focus on and monitor my other businesses like appwebSMS and Mart.ng while being massively productive with the new project.
5. HOW I IMPROVED MY SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS IN A VERY SHORT TIME
Give it to quality contents and backlinks.
This is simple. You can never rank on Google without quality contents and high-quality do-follow backlinks.
With those two, you are made. But how easy it is to get those? Itâs a big question.
When I launched projects.ng, the websiteâs SEO was really too poor. Of course, it was a newborn baby.
From the knowledge that I got from guys like Neil Patel, Harsh Agrawal, and other SEOs, I decided to start putting up great contents real quick.
After contents, comes backlinks. Without these, you are going nowhere.
I never got reasonable traffic until I started pushing for backlinks from high DA websites.
I got a sizeable number of backlinks through forums, guest posting, blog commenting, and local business listing websites to mention but a few (ask me later for the guide).
This did not happen in one day. It took me 1 month to pull off and my website started getting some chunks of the organic traffics.
6. HOW I OUTRANKED THE BIGGER PLAYERS IN THE INDUSTRY FOR THE MAJOR KEYWORDS USING THE TERM âPDFâ
As a new baby in the industry, I needed to carve out a niche that will sell me more quickly.
I started keyword research with tools like the Amazon Alexa, Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush, and Moz.
I found out that a lot of users search for things like âproject topics PDFâ, âaccounting project topics PDFâ, âcomputer science projects PDFâ and yet, most of my other big competitors in the industry are not optimizing for this term âPDFâ.
Itâs at this point that I said to myself, sweetheart, welcome onboard in the industry.
I started optimizing for the term âPDFâ and smiles became my friend.
Check for keywords like âNigeria current affairs PDFâ, âaccounting project PDFâ, âcomputer science project PDFâ and many others, PROJECTS.ng ranks number one at the expense of the bigger players.
Itâs just a niche. Think about it.
7. HOW I MADE MY FIRST SALE AND NEVER LOOKED BACK.
The day I made my first sale, I sold 3 units worth NGN 9,000. Let me tell you how it happened.
So after all the search engine optimization and an increase in traffic, there was still no joy to it. I made no sale in the first 6 weeks. I thought it was because I was just new in the market and Iâm still building, NO, itâs not. Let me tell you whatâs up.
Wait, check your cup, itâs like your coffee is going down so fast? Refill it ASAP!
I was in pains because I had not done any sale yet, until one day, I came across this WordPress plugin called WordPress WhatsApp Chat Support. Itâs a paid plugin on CodeCanyon.
I had to quickly get this plugin and integrate it on my website.
On the very first day of integrating this plugin, I got over 20 chats directly into my WhatsApp from the website, and at the end of the day, 3 out of 20 purchased from me that day.
It was like a daydream. I was so excited. Now over 70% of our customers who have purchased from us so far, did so because they first chatted with us on WhatsApp and became convinced to pay (feels like a home).
Thanks to WhatsApp and thanks to the developers of that amazing plugin.
8. WHAT I AM DOING TO STAY RELEVANT IN THE INDUSTRY AND PULL OFF MORE SALES
Itâs pretty straightforward. Iâm ensuring:
i) High-Quality Customer Support
ii) Customer Satisfaction to earn referrals.
iii) More High DA backlinks
iv) Publishing of New Contents
v) And many more.
9. WHAT YOU MAY NEED TO DO FOR YOUR NEXT BUSINESS
Very quickly, RESEARCH!
You need to do in-depth market research and analysis. You need this to know where your next marketing budget should be channelled to.
Donât waste money and energy. Be LEAN!
10. WHAT I WANT TO DO NEXT
About 30% of our revenues so far came from outside Nigeria.
We are getting a fair share of the international customers but my mind is telling me that itâs not enough.
I could remember rendering a great service to a lady in Zambia for just $10. She was so happy and referred 4 clients to me. These 4 clients paid a total of $150 for their project work (TRUST factor). They never bargained when I charged them.
I also have other happy international clients that have loved us so high.
Now, I have a feeling. Iâm feeling that we may not be getting a lot of traffic from the international community since our domain extension is .ng.
Because of these, Iâm contemplating changing our domain name to something like UniProjectTopics.com or something related so that we will be more visible to the international community.
Although, I love the name PROJECTS.ng so much because itâs short and precise but my only concern now is more money.
Please, whatâs your honest opinion on this?
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