My friends and mentors Andrew Hansen and Collen Slater just released a free video promoting their new product -- Niche Blogging Institute.   The video is great.  Andrew reveals three important keys to niche marketing.   I recommend that you take a few minutes to watch it.  It is a promotional video, but it is great content and you don't even have to opt-in.  You can even skip the first 4 minutes if you want to jump straight to the content.

Anyway, seeing that video made me think about Andrew's other products -- specifically Firepow.  I use Firepow, I have promoted it, and I get a lot of questions about the Firepow software.   Specifically, and specifically whether or not it is worth the cost.

When I am asked this question, I usually tell people that it depends on your business model.  I often think in terms of "wide" business models and "narrow" business models.  A wide business model would imply that you have lots of streams of revenue, and this probably means lots of web sites (and lots of blogs).

If you have a narrow business model, then you might only have a few streams of revenue and a couple of blogs.

I like wide business models because they are well suited to passive income and can allow you to diversify easily in many cases.  Nothing wrong with narrow business models -- I am just a fan of wide.

When you have a wide business model, Firepow is easy to justify in a lot of ways.

Here is a simple one.  Check out this image from inside of FirePow.

As you can see, at this writing, I have 74 blogs live inside of Firepow.  Most of them have something that needs to be updated.  These updates are critical for security and blog functionality.  What a pain.

Let's say that without Firepow, it takes just 15 minutes once a month to update the plugins and WordPress software on a blog.  (It takes me much longer some days, LOL).  If I have 74 blogs that means I need to spend something like 18 hours updating sites every month.

With Firepow, I just click the big green button.

If my time is only worth $10 an hour, that simple task "costs me" $180.  Now, I know don't actually have to spend $180 out of my pocket that day -- but in reality my time is worth more.  If I take that 18 hours and invest it in another Firepow blog, it will be worth a lot more than $180 to me.

So, Firepow is totally worth it to me -- that's my answer.

Wondering if it is worth it for you?  Andrew let's you try Firepow for a dollar.  But whatever you do, make sure your investments in your business make sense for your business model.

Thanks,
Mark

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie. Last night I had Jalapeno Chicken and fried rice. Basically, I call this "Texas Chinese Food." It was really spicy hot, and that explains this week's cookie that talks about a hot new blog from Garry Conn.

The Cookie Speaks The Truth

As you know, everything you need to know about running an internet business can be learned from fortune cookies. This week The Cookie has obviously been surfing the Internet.

Hear The Cookie:
"Big things come in small packages."

Of course, the fortune cookie is obviously referring to the fact that I got a small little email from Niche Blog and AdSense Guru Garry Conn last weekend announcing his Next Big Thing -- a new blog!

Garry has launched BloggingQuestions.com, a blog where you can go to get your questions about blogging answered by the blogging community.  Here's how it works (in Garrys' words):

How the blog works is very simple:

People can follow or subscribe to the blog and read newly asked questions or even archived ones. Because these questions have been asked by readers such as yourself, it is very likely that you will have a personal interest in the questions being asked and the answers that go with them.

The part that makes BloggingQuestions.com "one of a kind" and totally unique is the fact your questions are welcomed! There is no such thing as a stupid question on BloggingQuestions.com. You are invited to ask your own questions! Simply create a free account and post your question LIVE on the blog. From there people who read the blog (including myself) can provide you with answers by using the comment form.

Besides being the coolest domain name that I have seen in a long time, this promises to be a great resource for bloggers.  Truly, a big thing in a small package.

The Cookie Speaks About Value -- Follow The Cookie

One of the things that I like about Garry is that he really tries to help people.  Sometimes, he does this to a fault, and people take advantage of him (you know who you are).

When I was just starting out working on MasonWorld.com, Garry took tons of his own time to help me.  This new BloggingQuestions.com blog is another great example of Garry's willingness to lend a hand.  Pay attention -- Garry builds trust and gives people something in exchange for their participation in his business.

As a side note -- I think Garry has a cousin or someone like that who works at GoDaddy.  That is the only way I can explain how he gets these killer domain names.

So, listen to the cookie.   Watch out for the small packages.  There may be something big in there.  Check out BloggingQuestions.com today.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie.  Last night I had General Tso's chicken.  It's funny, because a Chinese guy at a restaurant told me once all about General Zuo Zongtang, who was a Qing dynasty General.  He explained how the dish was prepared for the General by his wife and served for him and his staff.  Sources I can find on the internet suggest that the dish was actually invented in New York City in the 1970s. Go figure. I like the Qing dynasty version of the story, but I am thinking the NYC version is probably right.

The Cookie Speaks The Truth

As you know, everything you need to know about running an internet business can be learned from fortune cookies. This week's cookie actually hits right at the heart of Google rankings -- "The thing that you lost will be found this month."

Of course, that fortune cookie is obviously referring to the fact that one of my newer eBay sites using phpbay was "sand boxed" this month. I was ranking on the first page for my terms and making some nice sales. Suddenly, the site is nowhere to be found.

So, I am adding the site into Firepow to see if I can add some content and back links to it to get it back in play.  Firepow has a new very cool "blog import" feature that I am testing. There are still some bugs, but it is working well for a couple of my niche blogs. I plan to use the Firepow "BNet" to get some back links and some of the other Firepow promotional tools. It will be interesting to see if that helps the site or makes things worse. It's really hard to tell, because you never know what Google is doing in the first place.

Stay The Course

I've had this Google Dance happen before. The sites impacted by a sudden loss in ranking usually come back stronger than when they left -- which is what the fortune cookie is trying to tell me.

This is another really good reason to have 60 sites making $100/month and not 3 sites making $2000/month. If you are at the mercy of Google for your traffic, you are hosed if they slap your site or otherwise impact your rankings.

So, the message for you today is, don't freak out if your site moves in the rankings (especially if it is still indexed). Generally speaking, it will come back. Keep working on the site while it is in the sandbox and watch it come back even stronger in many cases.  Use good fundamentals (keyword targeting, on page SEO, white hat linking techniques, etc) and you should be fine.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit:  Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

I am a little behind on my commitment to blog all week about Firepow, but don't worry.  I will get all of the information out there and answer all of your questions -- even if it stretches into the weekend.

To be completely honest with you, the first time that I saw Firepow, I wondered what in the world could be worth $100/month or more a month.  I had a hard time getting throught the long sales letter.  And, I don't like to buy software with recurring cost, and I really don't like to spend $100/month.   So my initial reaction was "Yikes."

Just to be clear, at the time of this writing, Firepow costs $147/month for the Premium membership and $117/month for the basic membership.  I have arranged a Firepow discount with Andrew for my readers that saves you $25/month.  So, when I say "$100/month or more, know the cost depends on the discount and what offer you pick.

Whether or not Firepow is worth the cost is a personal question. Anyone who tells you differently is just trying to sell you something.  It's all about return on investment (ROI).  If you invest $100/month in Firepow, will you get back more than $100 in savings or profit?   It really is that simple.  Don't be confused by all of the other crap out there.  You should only buy Firepow if you think it will make you money (good ROI).

In order to understand the ROI, you need to first understand what Firepow is.

From my point of view, Firepow is a tool targeted at people that want to create and manage "lots" of niche websites.  Whether "lots" is 5 or 50 or 500 is a question we will explore later.  It is certainly possible to make use of Firepow on a single authority site, but my feeling is that the best use of Firepow is across multiple niche blogs.

To make Firepow worth the money, you need to create 5 blogs that make at least $20 a month.  Or, ten blogs that make $10/month.  Or, 20 blogs that make $5/month.  You get the idea.  The cool thing is that creating 20 blogs with Firepow that actually get traffic looks amazingly easy.

Firepow Is Three Things (at Least)

From my point of view, Firepow is web-based software for creating and managing blogs, creating content, and promoting those blogs.

• Creating and managing blogs: The first thing that you do when you log into Firepow is create a blog.  Firepow is based on WordPress.   Enter some key information (URL, FTP information, Blog title, and some keywords), pick a theme, pick some plugins, and click "create".  A new blog is created instantly.  It takes me hours to set up a blog, download the software for themes and plugins and get everything up and running (including AdSense) for a new blog.   Firepow does this in 5 minutes (or less).  This is the ultimate in "one click setup" because it includes far more than just the initial install of WordPress.  There are tons of plugins (some unique to Firepow) and lots of cool options.  But suffice it to say that you can get a fully featured blog up and running in minutes.
• Creating content: One of the critical items that a new blog owner faces is getting some initial content out there.  For this problem, Firepow offers several unique and creative solutions.  You can "automatically" republish content from Article Directories, you can get content from RSS, and you can create your own blog posts using "cut and paste tools" from various sources.  Pretty slick.  You can create your posts right in the Firepow interface without ever logging into WordPress."
• Promotion: Ranking in the search engines is the key to organic traffic, and backlinks are a key to ranking.  The Firepow premium network includes access to the Firepow "blog network."  I will be covering this in a future post, but know for now that this provides backlinks in a way that is "similar" to article marketing (but you have much more control over the content and links).  You can also automatically promote your blogs via RSS and social networks.  This all looks really powerful to me.

There are some other really cool features like task plans that help you organize and manage your blogs and an amazing support forum.   More on those things in a later post.

The Bottom Line On Firepow

So, that is my personal opinion on what Firepow is.  To summarize, Firepow is software that allows you to rapidly create, manage, populate and promote niche WordPress blogs.

Over the next few days I will be getting more into what Firepow can do and why I think it is cool.

What are your questions about Firepow?  Let's make sure that we get all of them answered.

Greetings;

I just got off an email exchange with James Jones of Micro Niche Finder.

As you know from reading my blog, Micro Niche Finder was the first keyword tool that I ever bought, and I still use it today.  To be fair, I use some other tools now too -- mostly because of some missing advanced features that Micro Niche Finder 3.0 is lacking.

So, about that email.

James sent out a mailer about six weeks ago indicating that he was about to release Micro Niche Finder version 4.0 (with plans for version 5.0 in the works).  I was excited then, because once you are a Micro Niche Finder customer, you get free updates for life.  He is adding the features I was looking for, and I will get them for free.

When I spoke with him today, he indicated the price will be going up next week.  James said:

Yes, as soon as we release this we'll give the tire kickers a day or
so to get the old price but then it's going to $97.00.

There will also be a price increase with version 5.0 and it may be significantly higher.  In fact, I may even have to go to a monthly fee with 5.0 since we'll be accessing data from other websites that have to be maintained and this adds an ongoing cost.

It will still be a great deal at the new price ($97).  However, if you buy it today you can effectively get a $30 discount because you will get the updates when they are released (for life).   There is no risk as James offers a 60 day return policy.

Some off the new features rumored for Version 4.0 are described by James:

The first release will add some basic functionality such as showing you the Commercial Intent for a particular keyword phrase, LSI keywords, the number of Google Ads for a keyword phrase and a bunch of other minor features that you may find useful.

But the really cool stuff will be in Version 5.0:

Version 5.0 will take keyword research to a whole new level. I can't tell you much about it just yet except to say we're going to take all the guesswork out of selecting profitable niche markets and basically give you an "Easy Button."

I don't have a release date just yet for version 5.0 but it will be before the end of the year.

That's all I can say about 5.0 for now.

Just thought you might want to know.

I don't know what an "Easy Button" is, but is sure sounds great.

I've made money with Micro Niche Finder, but I hope you don't feel any pressure to buy this tool.  There are lots of keyword tools on the market, and some really good free ones.  If you have questions about keyword research or the Micro Niche Finder tool, please let me know.

Regards,
Mark

For those of you that are interested in building niche sites for AdSense revenue, I wanted to let you know that I will be moving my focus back to niche site creation for the month of October.  My goal in October will be to end the month with 30 niche AdSense sites up and running and promoted.

I got motivated to do this after finally getting a look inside FirePow.  This is a really cool tool that should make it possible to create and promote niche blogs quickly.

I'll be doing lots of the following in October:

• Niche keyword research
• Buying domain names
• Setting up niche blogs
• Creating content
• Outsourcing content creation
• Article Marketing
• Social media promotion
• etc.

Some of the 30 blogs will be brand new, and some will be brought back to life (like the Elvis Blog).  My old readers will remember that one.  Others will live on domains that I have already purchased that are currently idle.

I'll try to report my progress as I move along.

My plan is to get to 30 blogs up and generating AdSense revenue and stay there for a while, touching 1 blog a day each month for about an hour.  On Monday, I'll post some additional information on my October Blog Blitz.

Let me know if you have any questions about niche blogging and I will try to answer them in October.

Thanks,
Mark

I think most of you are probably aware of the contest that Garry Conn is running against John Cow. Basically, the two of them are in a death match to build and sell the best blog in one month. The winner is the site that sells for the most on SitePoint.com.  Participation in this contest is a great way to learn about internet marketing strategy.

As it turns out, some heavy hitters are in Garry's corner.  Joel Comm has contributed a copy of his highly acclaimed Secret Classroom course.  You can win a copy of the course (so read on below).

And now, a message from the Cow Slayer, Garry Conn

Hey everyone, this is Garry Conn here and you have probably heard the news that John Cow and I are going head to head in a make money online competition to see who can build a blog and sell it for the most money in SitePoint after 30 days. I just unveiled my niche blog titled, Debt Consolidation Book and I want to briefly tell you about the blog and how you can win some really amazing prizes by contributing and telling people about it.

Debt Consolidation Book is a web site where you can read articles written by people who provide their opinions and tips on how to get out of debt. Additionally, you can get 13 high quality debt consolidation books for free. These 13 free debt consolidation books will teach you some amazing debt consolidation, debt elimination and debt reduction strategies. Many people have all kinds of debts and one of the most common is credit card debt. Debt Consolidation Book is geared towards helping people who have credit card debt as well as most all forms of debt.

In this competition against John Cow, you have a huge opportunity to win the Secret Classroom DVD Box Set from Joel Comm. This is an educational make money online study course worth over $520 dollars.

How Do I Win Secret Classroom

Winning Joel Comm's Secret Classroom worth over $520 dollars is very simple. As you probably already know, I am not a very complicated individual. When I run contests, participating in them are very easy to do and take very little amount of your time. Your time is one of many things I respect and I don't want to take up a lot of it. It will literally take you all of five minutes to participate in the contest. Simple, quick and easy.

If you would like to have a chance to win the Secret Classroom DVD Box Set from Joel Comm here is what you need to do. It's very simple.

1. Download a copy of this article that you are reading here and then publish it on your blog. This is a Zip File. Simply extract it and copy and paste the HTML code into your blog post.
2. Join the Debt Consolidation Book mailing list and score your free copies of the 13 free eBooks! You will get over 275 pages of high quality material for free!
3. Subscribe to the Debt Consolidation Book RSS Feed by Email.
4. Drop a comment on this post to let me know that you have entered the contest by doing the above three steps.

Optionally, I would really appreciate it if I could get some votes:

1. Click Here to vote on Digg.com.
2. Click Here to add to StumbleUpon.
3. Click Here to add to your Google Bookmarks.
4. Click Here to add to your Technorati Faves.
5. Click Here to add to FaceBook.
6. Click Here to add to Del.icio.us.
7. Click Here to add to your Yahoo Bookmarks.
8. Click Here to add to Propeller.
9. Click Here to add to Mixx.

Remember the first four steps above are not optional and you have to complete step four by dropping a comment on my post which will let me know that you have officially entered the contest to win Secret Classroom. The second steps 1 thru 9 are totally optional but will literally take you less than a minute to complete.

Join My Make Money Online Newsletter

I invite you to join my make money online mailing list and you'll receive a free copy of the AFFAdMax WordPress theme. This is the same high quality and professionally designed WordPress theme I designed from scratch that I am using on Debt Consolidation Book! You'll be the first to score a copy as soon as I release it in the next week or two.

Good Luck Winning Joel Comm's Secret Classroom

Good luck with winning Secret Classroom. I will be assigning each participant in the contest a number and on Monday June 2nd, I will use Randomizer to generate the winning number. It's a very simple random draw contest that could potentially win you a prize worth over $520 dollars. Also be sure to join my free make money online classroom so that you can learn more about how to make money online and stay in the loop with future events in the competition against John Cow.

Several months ago, I started a case study of the Elvis Niche. I built a site, added content, and demonstrated that I could rank for a very long tail keyword with no competition. As I mentioned in that post, I felt like there was no stopping me after I ranked for “Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie”, and I announced my intention 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). My plan for ranking was to use Link Directories and Article Marketing.

Well, I have not started my article marketing, but I am accumulating backlinks

Backlinks Make The Difference

Because of this post series on niche sites, I have quite a few backlinks for terms similar to "history of elvis" and history of elvis presley or "elvis presley history of". A quick check of Google shows that we are magically on the front page! Woo hoo!

Obviously, the next goal is to move up the page.

Using Link Directories - OK or Not?

Sometimes, you learn as you go along based on the advice that you get. One guy that I trust recommended that I use free link directory submissions as a way to get backlinks. When these directories are new (and free), they have very low page rank. Once they get older, the page rank may increase, making the link more valuable. This takes a long time.

I tried to figure out if this was "white hat." According to Google's Webmaster Guidelines, they recommend:

Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

Now, free link directories are not exactly "industry specific expert sites," but it is pretty clear that Google does not consider all link directories to be bad. When these directories are new (and free), they have very low page rank. Once they get older, the page rank may increase, making the link more valuable. So, I'd be interested in your comments regarding the acceptability of free link directory submission (and the effectiveness).

Next step is article marketing as described in Article Marketing Domination.  I've hired someone on ScriptLance to write some content for the site, and I'll be writing about that experience in a future post.

Thanks, Mark

Be sure and check out these related posts.

%RELATEDPOSTS%

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

%RELATEDPOSTS%

 Well, I did it. In a previous post, I declared my intent to test long tail keyword theory. Now, I proudly rank on the first page of Google for the highly competitive term "Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie." What does this tell me? Look out "internet marketing" and "make money online." Mark Mason is an unstoppable SEO POWERHOUSE.

Well, not exactly. Actually, it tells me that if you can identify long tail keywords with low competition where you can make money, you can easily rank on the first page of google. If you read the free EasySEO Book, you will begin to believe that you can rank in google for any term you want.

So, let's try that. I still have the goal of writing several articles for ezinearticles. So, let's attack something harder -- "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). To do this, we are going to create three specific "landing pages" (one for each term), we are going to write 5 ezinearticles (with a resource box targeting each term), we are going to pay to get submitted to directories, and we are going to buy a few blog posts. Let' see how we do." More on this 4-part traffic strategy in the very near future (like tomorrow). For the meat of my strategy, i plan to follow Article Marketing Domination.

For now, I will bask in my glory.

%RELATEDPOSTS%

OK, this is simply the best free SEO book I have seen.  That's right, I said free.  This is everything that you need to know about Search Engine Optimization to get started on your site. Best of all it's free.  the kicker is, if you If you download it from Josh, I get two dimes!  I don't really care about the $0.20.  If you are just getting started and are mesmerized by all the SEO noise on the Web, this eBook will get you started (and finished).

In the book, Josh makes it really simple -- on page and off page SEO.  A few key tips, all good solid advice that it takes most people weeks or months to learn.

Check it out.  Download Josh Spaulding's Easy SEO Report now.  It's free.  You'll be glad you did.

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

Over the last to days, we have talked about how you could diversify your niche income by taking advantage of the eBay affiliate sales program using phpBay Pro and how you can make affiliate sales of niche items using PopShops. The third piece to our monetization puzzle is, of course, Adsense.

If you don't know about Adsense, you are living under a rock. In fact, you are living under the same rock that I was under until my wife learned about Adsense on the Today show and asked me about it three months ago. Adsense ads are everywhere, but I never stopped to think about how I could benefit from them.

If you are following along in Caroline's eBook on how to build a niche site with WordPress, you will be using the Prosense template from Dosh Dosh. That is a great template because the Adsense stuff is already done for you. All you need to do there is change your publisher ID, and optionally set your ad channel. I wonder how many clicks Dosh Dosh gets from people who forget to change that?

In our case, I wanted something a little different for HistoryofElvis.com, so I am using the k2 WordPress template. To make Adsense work with that, I am also using the Adsense Manager WordPress pluging. There are other managers, and you are free to choose the one that you really like. I am placing the following Adsense ad blocks on my nice site:

• An Adsense for search box at the top of the middle column.
• An Adsense link unit block at the top of the middle column, just under the search box
• An Adsense skyscraper adunit in the second column under the link unit
• An Adsense link unit at the top of every page at the start of the 1st post
• An Adsense ad unit at the end of single posts

I usually set one ad channel for the entire site. that way, I can tell the difference between ad clicks coming from historyofelvis.com and those coming from masonworld.com. If traffic gets high, it might be worth setting one channel for each ad placement. But, until we have enough traffic to optimize for, it does not make much sense.

In my case for the k2 theme, I actually edited the theme to so that the Adsense ads related to posts (the link unit at the top and the ad unit at the bottom) would appear where I wanted them. So, if you know a little php, this is a nice thing you can do (and something that you don't need to do if you are using the Prosense template from Dosh Dosh.) If you want to attempt that, be sure to check out the complete usage instructions for Adsense Manager. The other thing that I like about Adsense Manager is that you can send a percentage of the click revenue to the plugin developer. Pretty neat.

So, that is about is for Adsense. There are 16 other Adsense Plugins for WordPress if you don't care for Adsense Manager.

Tomorrow, talk about one more revenue tool from Amazon.com.

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

You'll recall from our List of Niche Super-Site Design Goals that we are striving to create a niche site that generates $2 per day in residual income. We said that we did not want to rely only on Adsense alone to accomplish that. So, one thing that we can do to diversify our niche site income is add affiliate sales. One great affiliate program to look at is the eBay affiliate sales program.

As I reported previously, phpBay Pro is the way to go when you want to add eBay auctions to WordPress.  According to the Wired Studio’s website, phpBay Pro enables web publishers to quickly and easily add keyword rich eBay auction listings to WordPress or php driven sites to generate serious affiliate revenue in a matter of minutes!  Boy, can I confirm that claim personally.  In our case, we need to focus on the feature rich phpBay WordPress Plugin (for more information on why, see Build Niche Sites with WordPress). There are at least two great ways to use this plugin. You can embed auction items in posts, or you can created entire pages of auction listings.

Wired Studios’ product boasts several important features:

• Simple installation takes minutes to get up and going
• Keyword rich results adds SEO value to your content
• List auctions from specific categories
• List auctions from specific vendors
• Mask outgoing Ebay links
• First Class support in case you have a question or need help

From my point of view phpBay Pro delivers all of this and more. Specifically, the support is over the top - outstanding.  In fact, since I was new to WordPress, I had a couple of newbie questions that were answered by the developer himself (Wade) the same day.

You will recall that our niche site (www.historyofelvis.com) is up and running in WordPress.   When people visit there, we would like them to buy things (thus helping us make our $2/day).  The great thing about  phpBay Pro is that we can install the plugin and have a page up and running in just a few minutes after becoming an eBay affiliate.  Generally speaking, the steps are as follows:

• Sign up with Commission Junction (www.cj.com)
• Apply to become an eBay affiliate.
• Install the phpBay Pro plugin for WordPress
• Set your affiliate sales ID in the software
• Insert one line of code in any WordPress page and see your auction come alive.

You can see an example on HistoryofElvis.com implemented in the Elvis Autographs page.  The cool thing is that phpBay content is indexed by Google.  If you mix in some ad copy, this can have a dramatic impact on your page SEO for your search keywords.

So, that's it for today.  Tomorrow, we'll talk about PopShops.

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Some progress. Three pages showing up (including About and Login).

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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