Greetings -- I am on the road -- hanging out in Starbucks drinking an iced Mocha. It's hot in Texas, and coffee just does not work for me after noon on hot days.

The Buzz In My Inbox

So, I thought it was worth noting that I have gotten several emails today about this voting contest being run by Dean Hunt to identify the best "Make Money Online Blog." I was pretty surprised to see MasonWorld.com there.

At the time of this writing, MasonWorld.com is near the top of the list.  I'm sure things will move around, and I might end up last.  As Brad Pitt would say, "it's an honor just to be nominated."

After thinking about it, I immediately wondered "why am I even on the list"?  After all, there are lots of Make Money Online Blogs out there with more followers, more content, more controversy.   To be honest, I know why I would want to be on there.  What I mean by that, is while I have no idea why people would like my blog, I know exactly what I am trying to make this blog.  Here is my short list.

• I put transparency and honesty above everything.  When  I started this blog, I wanted it to known as a place where people could believe what they read.  I hope people get that.  I'm not perfect, but I always try to tell it like it is.
• I wanted this to be a "no hype" thing.  That's what I mean by the "Down To Earth Internet Marketing" tag line.  I try to keep the hype to a minimum (although sometimes I do get excited).
• MasonWorld.com is about Internet Marketing.  Making Money Online is just a small part of Internet Marketing.  So, I would like to think this this blog is more than just another list of ways to make $10 on the internet.
• Professionalism -- I am a real business person in the offline world, and I try to keep it professional on line.  If you want name calling and profanify, you have to look elsewhere.
• The Zig Ziglar factor. I really do believe that you can get everything you want in life by getting other people what they want.  That is what this blog is about, really.  Telling people what I have learned so they don't have to learn it by themselves.   I help people get what they want -- and I get what I want.  Warm fuzzies and an occasional affiliate commision from real products that I really believe in.  What could be better?

So Many Great Blogs, So Little Time

But before you vote for me (or not) -- let's talk about the other blogs on there.   Man, there are some great ones. Here are just a few:

Caroline Middlebrook and Garry Conn -- now, I must admit that I do not read them much lately. Both Caroline and Garry have dramatically decreased their blogging as they work on other business models, but there is a ton of great content in their archives.  I don't agree with everything that they say all the time, but you can learn a ton from their blogs about blogging (Caroline) and AdSense (Garry).

Jennifer's Pot Pie Girl Blog.  You probably remember me promoting her One Week Marketing Course.  I did that because it is a great course (I still recommend it), and she is a great gal.  Check out her blog if you have not already.

IM With Joe.  Do you know Joe?  You should.  'Nuff said.  Peace out.

There are some other great blogs in that list (sorry if I did not list you, e.g. Yaro), and some that I absolutely cannot stand and would never recommend (I would never list you, but you know who you are).

Several Missing Blogs

I was really surprised to see several missing great blogs -- most notably Josh Spaulding's Internet Marketing Blog.  Not sure what is up with that -- I actually think Josh's blog is a lot better than my blog.  I read every word he writes -- twice.  Oh well, you can never have a perfect top list of anything, I guess.  (Hansen's Blog is missing too).

Vote For Me!

So, go vote for me if you like this blog.  I am probably not the best blog on that list -- but I guess it might depend on how you measure it.  I still want your vote.

It's certainly good for business (note the transparency).  LOL

Thanks,
Mark

Several months ago I posted that I would be working on my sales letter for Niche AdSense Themes for WordPress.  You probably remember that this was one of my very first products, and that I am always learning by doing.  Man, that first product seems like a lifetime ago.

Edit -- See my special guest post invitation to real copy writers in the post comments.

Since I was "learning" on that product I did a "toss" rather than a launch.  What I mean by a "toss" is that I did not do a full court press trying to get anyone and everyone to promote the themes.  Rather, I worked with a few friends to do an initial promotion:

• Josh Spaulding and Garry Conn promoted the themes to their lists and blogs.
• Josh featured the themes in his excellent eBook $5 Formula.
• Caroline Middlebrook featured the themes in her excellent Niche Site Video
• James Jones sent my Micro Niche Finder Video to his list

The Results Of My First Attempt

Well, I learned a lot about having a product.  I thought that you might be able to learn some stuff too.  I actually made lots of sales.  From my perspective, it was a huge success (and continues to sell).

But, as usual, there were lots of opportunities to improve.  Here are some highlights (and opportunities to improve):

• Highly targeted traffic from a list that was expected to convert at 5% or more only converted at 3.5%.  What's worse,  less targeted list traffic converted very poorly.
• Less targeted traffic from blogs in the make money online niche converted at much less than 1%
• Traffic from ClickBank affiliates was converting at a very low rate.

Increasing Sales Page Conversions

So, I decided that based on that information, that I needed to look at the sales page.  Since I am a glutton for punishment, I posted a request for feedback on and criticism of my sales page on both the Warrior Forum and Digital Point Forums.  Well, as you can imagine, I got some.  You need flame-retardant undies to withstand the comments I got.

Note to new Internet Marketers out there -- don't get your self-esteem wrapped up in your sales copy if you are going to ask for feedback on a forum.  And, be prepared to hear from people that have no idea what they are talking about.

I also got some very helpful feedback from of my very own readers.  That was awesome, and I really appreciate it when readers take the time to comment.  Here are some feedback highlights:

• Work on the headline and sub-headline. It was described by one guy on the Warrior Forum as a "confusing wreck." The great thing was that he offered me a couple of much better alternative headlines that really illustrated his point.
• Work on the copy -- let it breath. Again, a member of the Warrior Forum supplied new copy to illustrate the point.  I got similar feedback from a reader of the blog.
• Make the site look more professional. The one comment from Digital Point pointed out the fact that a website that was selling wordpress themes needed to be "very professional looking."   I agreed.  Josh actually made fun of my graphics (several times).

Taking Action

So, based on all that feedback, I changed the sales template to something more professional, I changed the headline, and I re-did the copy.  Conversions are up considerably.  You can see the new Niche AdSense Themes for WordPress sales page here and you can compare it to the old sales page.

What do you think?  Did I make it better or worse?  Time and split testing will tell (I will be making a post on how to implement split testing next week).

Let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Mark

It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

I been doing some research with my Internet Marketing Guru buddy Josh Spaulding this week on pop-ups (pop-under, pop-over, light boxes, etc.).  I was motivated to do this based on results pop-up optin results published by  Caroline Middlebrook.  She published the graph below on Twitter to show the dramatic impact of the lightbox on he opt-ins:

So, I went looking for the best pop-up script.  Aweber has something simple available, but you cannot completely customize it (e.g you cannot completely control the graphics.).

I found "You Can't Block This" -- it is one of those "unblockable" JavaScript popups with lightbox effects.  It also does peelaway ads.  Since I knew that Free Stuff Friday was coming up, I grabbed the resale rights copy, and am offering a private use copy to you at no charge.  If you want to buy the resale rights or even the master resale rights, you can check out the You Can't Block This home page.  Once you have resale rights, you can sell this product yourself and keep the profits (or give this product away to your list).

I have this up and running on a test page here if you want to see it.  I have it set to only show once -- so if you want to see it again, clear your cookies.

As always, opt in to my list to get access to all the free stuff (opt-in box in the right hand sidebar).  As soon as you opt-in and confirm you subscription, you'll receive instructions on how to log into the members area.

Thanks,
Mark

Free Stuff

I'm really into Free Stuff lately, so I had to share this with you.

When I first got started in Internet Marketing in 2007, one of the first things that I found was a new blog with a large and growing following by a Brit named Caroline.  Something about her transparent style captured my attention, and I have been reading her stuff ever since (along with her nearly 3000 RSS subscribers).

There are lots of things to like about Caroline.  For starters, she is all about the truth with a no-nonsense approach to just about everything.  Secondly, she always digs into the important deails.  The two of great qualities really shine in her latest product, Stumble Rush.

But You Said Free Stuff

Well, that's the thing.  I did say "free" and I did say "product." Confusing, huh?

Over half of Caroline's product is actually free.  It is an amazing try-before-you-buy thing.  I personally think she is giving away too much, because there is no fluff anywhere in the entire thing.   You will be stunned by the quality.

The entire course is polished multimedia and driven by email, WordPress and Video (hosted on Amazon S3).  The entire thing includes 20 or so lessons.  The first half of the lessons are free.  In the free course, you will learn

• How to create content that gets stumbled
• Mechanics and ethics of StumbleUpon submission
• How to pimp out your profile!
• How to get more thumbs up votes
• The basics of networking on StumbleUpon
• Traffic boosting tips
• How you can correct mistakes

Hey, I Do Not Need To Know That Much About StumbleUpon

Yeah, I know.  That is what I thought too.  I think you are wrong (I was).  If you feel this way, I challenge you to go take the first 3 free lessons and comment here.   Once you see the information she is offering in this course, I feel confident that you will think it was time well spent.

Yeah, Sure, But What Is The Catch?

There is no catch.  Sign up now for the free lessons.  You will be amazed.  If you like them and want more, buy the advanced course.  Note that if you do buy the advanced course some day, that I will get an affiliate commission.

However, if you don't love the free course and you don't want the remaining lessons, seek professional help immediately.

Just kidding.  If you don't want to buy the advanced course, just don't.  That is another thing about Caroline.  She is a zero-pressure personality.

Regards,
Mark

There has been a cool contest going on over at Caroline Middlebrook's blog. I really like her stuff, so I am playing along. From an internet marketing standpoint, this is very clever. This contest causes you to do two things -- dig through all of Caroline's old content and create links to that content. This is a really great example of what is called "linkbait." Caroline has basically set up a contest that generates deep links back to her site. This will improve the value that Google places on her content as Google considers inbound links as "votes" for the importance of stuff. What's cool about this contest is that it is pretty classy.

If you are interested in participating, the contest ends soon (tomorrow UK time).

If you are reading my post -- no cheating. You have to find the eggs yourself (he he).

This is my favorite egg location: Caroline's Case Study of a Niche WordPress Site

You should read these posts anyway:

Twitter-Stumbleupon Deadly Combo
My Favorite eBook: Zen to Done

Doubling Subscribers to You Blog
Stats, Stats and More Stats
Keywords Will Set You Free

Others include:

101 CSS Galleries Backlinks

Focus or Deversify
Grow Your Twitter Audience
Caroline Who?

Cats Need Pagerank Too
Embedding Youtube in Your Posts
Blog HTML Validation
About Caroline
Niche Site Creation with WordPress

Warrior Forum Tour (great post)
Do Follow Please

Thanks to all the Stumblers

Pointless Blog Posts
Products that Sell (like teaching)
Building Assets, Skills, Wealth, Happiness and Harmony
Marketing Email Lists
IM Ebooks
PLR Content

Writing Ebooks Is Not So Easy
Ebook Project, Torrent File
Yaro Rocks!
Link Lovin
The Prize -- Email Course Project

Successful Blogging Secrets - Where's Your Head?

Regards,

Mark

One of the biggest challenges for me personally working on Internet Marketing part time is focus. As a part time Internet Marketer, I have a very limited amount of time to spend on tasks related to my new hobby. In fact, I try not to spend more than a couple of hours a day on Internet Marketing related activities. When I started out, my goal was to demonstrate that I could make some money on the Internet -- inspired by a segment I saw on the Today Show.

Since that time, I have started several blogs, a link directory, a couple of niche sites, some forums, switched blogging platforms, switched hosting companies, done some business/administrative tasks, read books, listened to podcasts, read and commented on blogs, studied marketing, joined countless affiliate programs, hired writers, won contests, built a mailing list, made friends, hired programmers, purchased software, written php code, changed blog themes many times, chatted on GTalk, and hung out on forums. The one thing that I have not done much of is make money. Go figure.

Speaking of distractions, I am writing this post on a plane bound for Hong Kong using ecto, which I mentioned earlier this week. I think this software is a keeper -- but I have not quite made up my mind. (Too bad they don't have an affiliate program). It does have some limitations that are annoying, however, For example, you cannot add a category or contol the post slug.  My friend Garry Conn likes Blogdesk.  I need to check that out.

Back to my story.  Don't get me wrong. I am having a blast, and I have learned a ton. The problems are that I haven't really finished anything - and the learning is not well documented. As it happens, my wife will tell you that this "unfinished project thing" also happens around the house. Great at starting projects; less great at finishing them. So, I thought it would be interesting to list all the current projects that I have underway or in my mind and see if I could prioritize them. Once again taking a page out of Caroline Middlebrook's book, I going to create a Projects page to document all of this so I can keep it straight in my own mind.

Another thing that I plan to do is increase my post frequency on this blog by making sure that I document what I did that day. After all, the value that I am trying to provide is an account of my experience. I am not trying to claim that I can teach people how to make $4B on the Internet this week. I'll categorize the posts by project. So watch for the post count to go up in the coming weeks.

So, what are all these current projects about? I'll work on a list tonight and post it tomorrow.

Best regards,

Mark

Make Money Online -- how many times have I heard that phrase since I started this internet marketing adventure in November of last year?  This phrase is used so many times on the internet, it even has its own acronym -- MMO.  Usually, people who want to teach you how to make money online need to take your money so they can teach you how to take other people's money.  I always wonder, if these guys are so good at making money online, why are they telling people their secrets?  Of course, the answer is that it is your money that they are making.

Make Money Online with the Good Guys

It's not all gloom and doom out there.  I have been able to find several really great folks that are trying to add real value.  Garry (intrepid designer of this blog) is a great example.  He has a make money online section on his blog that filters out his previously written articles and only displays the ones related to learning how to make money online.  It is part of his taging gadgetry, which is really cool.  (I now have the same gadgetry, but my tags are really bad.  Need to fix that).  Anyway, if you look at his MMO section, he is not selling you stuff.  The posts there are about how baseball is the key to MMO, how to use certain tools, etc.  Garry helps people -- he is straightforward and honest.

There are other honest bloggers our there.  I am trying to be one as well.  You should too.  Don't fall into the trap of looking for something for nothing.  Add value.  Be like Caroline-Middlebrook and try to add value with every post.   She just posted about CSS galleries today.  I learned something because of that post.  Her efforts helped me.

You can get everything you want in life by getting other people what they want.  -- Zig Zigglar

Regards,
Mark

So much has been going on in the last few weeks. Most obviously, I was able to convince Garry Conn to redesign my blog and create this killer custom theme just form me. Garry is a great guy, and he knows a heck of a lot about niche IM. On top of that, he is pretty handy at php, CSS and graphics. If you need someone you can trust to work on your blog for a fair price, I can honestly recommend him unconditionally. I am still turning some knobs and adjusting some dials (most notably, Aweber), but I could not be happier with the new look (and the amazing service from Garry).

Turning my attention back to Elvis Presley

Now that the new theme is up, I simply cannot believe that my plan to document my creation of a Niche Super-Site started on February 4th. Man, time flies when you are having fun with part-time Internet Marketing. In case you missed the press frenzy in early February (LOL), I am quite literally taking a page out of Caroline Middlebrook's free eBook and documenting my experience of trying to create a niche site. I picked a random topic (Elvis Presley), and so far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords
• Choosing a domain name
• Setting up your niche site
• Making things look nice
• Installing Plugins
• Getting listed in Google
• Making Money with phpBay
• Adding PopShops to your site
• Adding Adsense
• Adding Amazon Omakase Widget
• Adding a favicon
• Testing the Long Tail Keyword (1) (2) and (3)

At the end of the long-tail keyword test, we were able to declare victory because I now rank on page one of Google for the killer MMO phrase "Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie.” This shows that on-page SEO works to get listed for a search term. The problem is that where you rank for that term depends on your off-page SEO. For more on this, I recommend the free EasySEO eBook from Josh Spaulding. As I mentioned in my previous post, with “Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie” under our belt, it is now time to attack higher competition phrases -- “elvis presley collectibles" (74 searches per day), the "life of elvis presley" (226 searches per day) and "elvis presley history of" (4383 searches per day).

Simple plan for niche market SEO

Simply put, my strategy is to create a landing page for Elvis Presley collectibles and another for Life of Elvis Presley. I'll write good SEO copy and pay attention to details like making sure the keywords appear in the title tag, headers, beginning of the article, exerpt, etc. Basically, I will simply do all of the things that are documented in the free EasySEO eBook. Once those pages are complete, I plan to use the variation on Bum (article) Marketing taught in Josh's Article Marketing Domination (AMD). If you are not familiar with article marketing, the basic idea is to write articles about your niche containing your keywords. At the end of the article, you include links back to your site for your keywords. You submit the article to article directories. These directories are well indexed, and they allow you people to copy your article, propagating your links. (Note that you do not put these articles on your own site).

In Article Marketing Domination, Josh outlines some key steps for article marketing, including

• Creating effective articles
• Creating an effective signature block
• Submission strategies

So, I plan to put this to the test starting in a few days. The problem is, I need some articles. I am not sure I have lots of Elvis Articles in me (this is why it is useful to choose a niche you really care about).

Buying Articles

Article marketing is the perfect place to use a writer for hire (ghost writer). I was able to hire a lady on ScriptLance to write 20 300 word articles about Elvis for $70 ($3.50 per article). ScriptLance is neat because your job goes out for bids, and you can select from the people that respond. This writer has a BA liberal arts and is US based. The $70 is held in escrow until I am happy. Now, I might not always want to spend $70 on a marketing -- but this is an experiment...

So, we'll see how it goes. The traffic data for HistoryOfElvis.com is contaminated by this case study, so it may be hard to judge. Again, we'll see.

Topics remaining on my list for this niche super-site series include the following:

• eZineArticles Content
• Write your own content
• Set up AA404 plugin
• Set up a pseudo-link-directory as pillar content
• Remember to back up your data.
• Comment Kahuna
• Secure WordPress
• Other marketing ideas
• The 50 site checklist
• Others…

Best regards,

Mark

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I have mentioned how much I like Caroline Middlebrook's blog before. Caroline's eBook on building niche sites in WordPress inspired my current "Niche Super-Site case study." It's inspiring to watch her progress because she is doing what I want to do -- having success making money on line without going down the "snake oil path." A lot of people refer to Caroline as "the honest blogger," and that is about the highest compliment that can be paid in my book.

So, I was surprised and excited to hear that Caroline is finally working on an email-based StumbleUpon course that will result in her building an email mailing list. I was surprised because she has resisted this in the past. She finally settled on this project because it focus on delivering valuable free content, and not on selling. In fact, she has no definite plans to sell any specific products right now. For now she is happy to add value and learn about building lists. The press was stunned and amazed, and as you can see here, the story was instantly picked up by Net Money Daily.

I also said I was excited. I was excited because I have wanted to start working on my own list. Jay and Sterling over at Internet Business Mastery are always talking about the value of lists. Like Caroline, they focus on real businesses (not snake oil). They also happen to have the best Internet Marketing Podcast on the internet. Anyway, as usual I will be able to leverage off of Caroline's excellent work. This is great for me. As a part-time internet entrepreneur, I need all the help via mentoring I can get.

See, even though this is not Caroline's focus at this time, mailing list are important for sales. I heard once (from Sterling?) that studies show that it takes an average of 7 contacts before someone buys something. The cool thing here is that Caroline is not all about money - and she will build a list of people that know that about her. I expect that if she tries to sell me something from the list, it will be something that she really believes in. Why? Because that is her behavior. So, let's forget about internet marketing for a minute. What if one day Caroline's becomes aware of someone in her community that needs some help? She can use her list to ask for some help. It's permission marketing. People on your list have given you permission to talk to them. Lists are powerful -- they are the asset in an internet marketing operation.

Now the cool thing is that Caroline is introducing the project as a contest. The winner gets the privilege of having Caroline use their Aweber Affiliate ID to sign up for Aweber's excellent mailing list management service. This is an excellent prize as the affiliate commission is paid each month for the life of the subscription. Very cool. Aweber is really supposed to be the best, and if it's good enough for Yaro Starak, it's good enough for me.

So, I knew right away, I had to try to win.

But, Caroline has thousands of readers. No telling how many entries there will be. It's all very brilliant really -- a viral contest about mailing list to get mailing list opt-ins. I love it. Anyway, I was immediately worried. See, Caroline lives in the UK, and I live in the US. I was scared to death that she might still be pissed about that whole taxation without representation - tea party thing. Then I thought that maybe she is already over that. Phew. (God save the Queen and all that).

So, I settled on a multi-part entry. Here is my entry to Caroline's email course project contest in multiple parts:

1. Appeal to her European heritage. I've never been to Stratford-upon-Avon, but I suspect quoting William Shakespeare could have some positive effect. As it happens, much like Nostradamus, Shakespeare predicted the arrival of Web 2.0. "Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast." Of course he was talking about the dangers of quick love in Romeo and Juliet -- or was he?
2. Buy her a word. I actually bought the word stumble from The Big Word Project and pointed it at yet to be defined page on her site. (Caroline, you need to make a landing page. You now own the word "stumble". This is a big responsibility). The Big Word Project allows you to purchase a word from their list to represent a site. That site will then represent stumble in their list and when people click on it, they will be taken to Caroline's site. The project is aimed at changing definitions and creating a new tapestry of words, meaning altogether different things.
3. Write poetry. Women love poetry. I wrote a haiku:

Web two-point-oh comes

In it's wake, some will stumble.

Some will be stumbled.

4. Digg and Stumble her contest announcement. OK, that was shameless, I know. But, I did it. I'm not proud, but I did it. I really want to win. I need to win. Winning is everything.
5. Find a cool graphic for my post. Boy, I sure did that. The above "stumbling down the stairs" graphic is from All Sux dot Com. I have given them a backlink, so hopefully they wont be pissed that I used their graphic without permission.
6. Long sales letter. Caroline loves long sales letters. I suspect she will be using a lot of long sales letters in her email list. I could add testimonials and yellow highlighting. There could be bonus video and free ebooks if she picks me. It could be a limited time offer. I would win for sure then. Strike that. Just kidding Caroline.
7. Redesign my blog.  Sure, it's a big expense and a lot of work.  But if I really expect to win this contest, I need to go all out.  So, a blog redesign may be just the ticket!

8. Call on a higher power. Looks like some local advertising might be just what I need to win.

That about does it for my entry. If you like my entry, please leave a comment here for Caroline to see, stumble it, and then go visit her blog. Note that I reserve the right to augment my entry before the deadline...never know what the competition will bring.

Thanks,
Mark

I think my eyes are finally returning to normal, so I will be getting back to focusing on the Elvis project after a few days off. Did you miss me? I hope so.

So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords
• Choosing a domain name
• Setting up your niche site
• Making things look nice
• Installing Plugins
• Getting listed in Google
• Making Money with phpBay
• Adding PopShops to your site
• Adding Adsense
• Adding Amazon Omakase Widget
• Adding a favicon
• Long Tail Keyword Test
  

You will recall that the purpose of this case study is to get a niche site up and running as quickly as possible in the style recommended by Caroline's eBook and then expand the site into a "Niche Super-Site" by monetizing it with other methods like Adsense search, Amazon, PopShops and phpBay. When you need to get up and running quickly, you need content. The absolute best thing to do is write some compelling original content. Content is king.

Sometimes, you might want to get started by borrowing some content. In this context I really do mean borrow with the permission of the author. I do not mean steal.

One source of content that is "designed to be borrowed" is Ezinearticles.com. EzineArticles.com is a service that tries to match the articles of content authors to the needs of publishers. Article writers can post their articles to be featured on Ezinearticles.com. They have hundreds of thousands of original articles available for use on publisher sites (you are limited to 25 articles per year per site according to their Publisher TOS). Ezinearticles.com has some social-media-like features that allow popular authors (experts) to be featured on the site. The attraction for authors is exposure to "hundreds of thousands or even millions of people" (according to their web site).

So, with the task at hand being bringing up the HistoryofElvis.com website, I searched Ezinearticles.com for "elvis" and amazingly found 921 results. I selected on that I liked based on keywords and posted it on the History of Elvis page on the historyofelvis.com site. Now, organic site traffic gets something like what it expects -- some information on the History of Elvis, and I have started a base for some great original content (to be added later perhaps in the form of blog posts).

Of course, it is well known that use of massively duplicated content is penalized by google.  So, you should use this approach at your own risk.

Topics remaining on my list for this niche super-site series include the following:

• Traffic strategy
• eZineArticles submission
• Write your own content
• Set up AA404 plugin
• Set up a pseudo-link-directory as pillar content
• Remember to back up your data.
• Comment Kahuna
• Secure WordPress
• Blog by email
• Great podcasts
• Running adwords ads
• eBooks
• Other marketing ideas
• The 50 site checklist
• Others…

So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords
• Choosing a domain name
• Setting up your niche site
• Making things look nice
• Installing Plugins
• Getting listed in Google
• Making Money with phpBay
• Adding PopShops to your site
• Adding Adsense
• Adding Amazon Omakase Widget
• Adding a favicon

We really need to start turning our attention to traffic for HistoryofElvis.com, but I wanted to start a small test first. Everybody always talks about long tail keywords, and they can be important for making money in a niche. In fact, Caroline Middlebrook has an excellent article on Long Tail Keyword Research that you should check out.

As a complete aside, saying "Caroline Middlebrook has an excellent article" is completely redundant. Every word on her site is excellent. But, I digress.

Anyway, I thought I would run a test. Let's see if we can rank for a really long tail phrase on HistoryofElvis.com. The phrase I have selected is

"Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie"

Now, those of you on the other side of the pond will notice that I have intentionally selected the Yank spelling of Collectible. According to Wikipedia, although "collectable" is the spelling listed first by the Oxford English Dictionary, and is standard spelling in British English, the dictionary observes that the "-ible" form is also valid, and has come to be common spelling in the United States.

A quick check on google confirms that there are only 200 pages answering to this search, and none of them match very well. Additionally, a look at the Adwords keyword tool confirms that there is no search traffic and that there is no competition for that phrase. So, this should be like shooting ducks in a pond.

So, I have created a page on HistoryOfElvis.com with the following characteristics:

• Page title tag is Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie
• Page title is Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie
• Keyword meta data is set to variations on the target phrase
• Description meta tag is set to include the phrase 3 times.
• Page slug is elvis-aaron-presley-collectible-necktie
• The phrase Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie appears in the copy many times
• The page is linked from the HistoryofElvis.com home page
• There is lots of related product copy on the page

Now, to keep from passing page rank from masonworld.com to this page, I am not linking to it from here.

So, I launched the page today. You can find it from the HistoryofElvis.com main page of you are interested. Let me know what you think. I will report back the results in a few days (or you can check google yourself).

Thanks,

Mark

Topics remaining on my list for this niche super-site series include the following:

• Traffic strategy
• Really long tail keyword test
• eZineArticles Content
• Write your own content
• Set up AA404 plugin
• Set up a pseudo-link-directory as pillar content
• Remember to back up your data.
• Comment Kahuna
• Secure WordPress
• Blog by email
• Great podcasts
• Running adwords ads
• eBooks
• Other marketing ideas
• The 50 site checklist
• Others…

If you have a topic that you would like to see added to my list, please feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!

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So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords
• Choosing a domain name

So now it's time to register the name and set up the site. You will remember that last time we settled on www.historyofelvis.com. We had confirmed that it was available by checking either AjaxWhois or DomainBot.

If you don't have a webhost provider, now is the time to find one. I can recommend two -- LunarPages and ServInt. I have used them both with good results. Caroline Middlebrook recommends BlueHost (I think she uses them to host her blog). Note that while I think these are all great hosts, the previous links are affiliate links (I get paid if you use my link to sign up with them). So, do your research if that bothers you.

At this point, I am going to recommend that you read chapters one and two of Caroline's excellent free eBook entitled "How to Develop Money-Making Niche Sites with WordPress. In that book she teaches

• Signing up with a host
• Using Fantastico to install WordPress

There is a lot of debate about this, but I believe that if you are serious about running a business around WordPress, you should consider learning to install it yourself too. If that scares you, the fantastico route is great.

For installation, I recommend you install WordPress into the ./wordpress directory in your home directory and that you modify your wordpress configuration to make pages appear from your webroot directory. This keeps you from having the word "wordpress" in every URL, and generally makes things prettier. Here is what that setup looks like on the MasonWorld blog.

We are going to need lots of plugins and a theme to make things nice. I'm even going to recommend that you buy phpBay (you can check it out before we discuss it tomorrow if you like). Anyway, we will start to install plugins tomorrow.

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So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords.

Remember, our overall goal is to build a niche site that returns $2/day in residual income.

Today, we pick a domain name.

I think that domain names are of limited importance for SEO. Why do I feel that way? Search for "California Surfing" in Google. What do you see? You see none of the page 1 results contains both california and surfing in the domain name. Some have surf or surfing, though. So, while it can be helpful to get some keywords in the domain name, it does not seem to be critical to get them all.

I think that Dosh Dosh has this about right. To select a domain name, you need to:

• Determine what kind of blog you will have (we did that)
• Research keywords (we did that too)
• Brainstorm for domain names
• Check availability
• Register an available name

You will recall that our keyword search showed that people want to know about history of Elvis -- they are searching for elvis presley "history, born, death, funeral, etc.". Some quick brainstorming get you stuff like historyofelvispresley.com. As expected, a quick domain name search reveals that "historyofelvispresley.com" is not available.   Like Dosh Dosh, I tend to use either AjaxWhois or DomainBot to check name availability.  I tend to buy my domains from ServInt (they host this blog), and you can also check domain name availability there.   More on hosting tomorrow.

For now, we need to check some other names.  And, as if by magic, historyofelvis.com is available. Or, it was available. I own it now.So, based on our results, we have spent about the right amount of time selecting a niche domain name: http://www.historyofelvis.com. It has two of our keywords (history and elvis). In a few days, that will be up and running with our new niche site.

See you tomorrow, when we can talk about registering our domain name and choosing a web host for our site.  For that, we're going to rely heavily on Caroline Middlebrook's excellent eBook on building niche sites.

As promised yesterday, this is day 1 of my case study on building a "Niche Super-Site." I'm an engineer by training. For me that means we need to know what we are trying to do before we get started. (Note that this does not completely explain why I always need to make seven trips to Home Depot per home improvement project).

As I mentioned, I am an engineer by training. I love my job, and I am doing this for fun (and possibly profit) in my spare time using my own resources. I will be doing this late at night (and probably missing some sleep). The fact that I am an engineer means that I am not an internet money super-guru. I am just a guy with a laptop that has never done this before. I am not doing this to make a living. So, there is no warranty expressed or implied. Your mileage may vary. Not valid in certain states. All that...

Anyway, we have a simple goal:

Goal: Build a niche site that generates $2/day.

How did I get to that figure? I've got a number in my head that an worthwhile amount of money to make online would be $3000/month. That sounds like a very aggressive goal -- but so was landing on the moon. Problem is, I have somewhat fewer resources than NASA. For example, since I am doing this part time, I am starting with the assumption that the most niche sites I could ever build and maintain are 50. In round numbers, I am thinking I could launch an average on one site per week per year. If I wanted to generate $3000 per month in residual income with those 50 sites, each site would need to generate $3000/50 = $60 per month. That's about $2 per day in round numbers. If I can figure out how to do that once -- I can do it 50 times.

As a side note, there are super-humans out there like Garry Conn -- I am told he is at times running over 100 niche sites.

So, now that we have a goal, what are the design characteristics that we want to think about? Here are a few to start with. We may add some (or take some away) as we learn about the best way to do this.

• Keep it human. I am not interested in putting up sites that are not useful in at least some small way.
• Maintainability is key. If there will be 50 of these sites, I need to stay away from things that require a lot of time (like daily blog updates).
• Leverage existing software tools. I like to write code, but there are 100s of developers out there that are smarter than me focused on very specific tools. No reason for me to reinvent the wheel.
• Stay white hat. I am not interested in black hat tricks.
• Diversify. I'd like to avoid putting putting all my eggs in one basket (e.g. Adsense). There are lots of ways to make money out there -- I need to find several way to monetize my niche.
• Fast deployment. I cannot afford to spend more than 7 days on the initial launch of sites subsequent to the first one. The first one will take longer due to this diary and real-time research and learning. After that, the goal is 1/week until Christmas.
• Leave room for growth. If I find a niche that I want to grow into an authority site, my niche site structure should allow for this easily.
• Small start-up costs. I am not interested in paying $500 for some get-rich-quick software solution. I'd like to keep the total cost for the initial site below $100 total -- with minimal costs for subsequent sites.

That is about it for now. Those are the design goals and the design constraints.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about finding a web host.

Related posts:

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It's been almost two months since I initially got the bug to "make money on the internet." At that time, I stated my goal was to work at this part time, and that I was not interested in "black hat" money-making schemes. Just before Christmas, I published my initial plan of learning what I was doing by working on a few sites. Those sites are up, and boy have I learned a lot. Since Christmas, I have experimented with b2evolution and Joomla, and settled on WordPress as a content management system and blogging platform. I have played with Adsense, Azoogle, Commission Junction, ClickBank and other affiliate programs. I have written php code. I have purchased some software (like phpBay - affiliate link), and spent a lot of time reading. Tons of time reading.

Like everyone else, I've read John Chow and ShoeMoney, free SEO books, four million posts at DP Forums, etc. Right now, my favorite blog for this stuff is Caroline Middlebrook's site. I really like her style (she has been given the moniker "The Honest Blogger" by many of her loyal readers). Caroline is basically trying to do full time what I want to do part time. She recently released a good e-book about how to build a niche site with WordPress. It's a good read, especially if you need help with the mechanics of installing WordPress and other technical details that often get left out of other eBooks.

Inspired by Caroline's eBook and some of her postings, I am ready to integrate all of the knowledge that I have accumulated over the last 2 months in a live day-by-day demonstration. I have decided to build a niche site live as a case study on how to do this. Caroline's excellent eBook discusses building a "simple" niche site that relies on Adsense. That's an awesome place to start and perfect for the purposes of her eBook. I will be expanding Caroline's ideas to include discussions on PLR article content, news feeds, eBay auctions, backlinks, affiliate marketing, etc. The result will be a fully integrated niche site rich with content, ads and stuff to buy. I'm calling it a "Niche Super-Site." Pretty nifty, huh?

I'll post daily on my progress for a month or so, and we'll track the blog stats and progress together throughout February. I'll be accepting reader suggestions and ideas, and will grow the site live throughout the month. Along the way, I'll be handing out the "link love" posting links to all the references that I use to get the site operational.

So, stay tuned. It should be a wild ride.

Tomorrow, we'll tackle the topic of beginning with the end in mind, followed with a discussion about how to select a niche for our super-site. I will announce my choice for a niche after that and we'll subsequently register a domain name. Goal is one post/step per day (which is consistent with my part-time internet monetization strategy).

See you tomorrow.

Related posts:

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I was looking around on ShoeMoney last night, and I ran across Caroline Middlebrook's Blog.  It really resonated with me.   Caroline quit her day job about six months ago in order to follow her dreams of becoming an Internet entrepreneur.  Her blog is the record of that journey.

I have no intention of quitting my day job, which I love.  I do want to do exactly what she is doing part time.  So, I'll be following her progress closely.

Check out her free eBook -- it is an excellent technical guide for beginners.  In it she covers the "How To" for setting up a monetized WordPress blog (just like MasonWorld.com).  All you need is that eBook and some web hosting and you are ready to rock and roll.