O.K folks, the baby site is now live and ready to make money, (almost). I say almost because as a preference it is considered a good idea by many not to place adverts on your site straight away. By keeping your site ad free for say 3 weeks you will find it easier to get incoming links and your site will not look as though it is made purely for Adsense. So far I have used Super Apprentice to do the following: (you can do this manually if you are not a member).

Submit an article to major article directories including EzineArticles and GoArticles. Do not be tempted to use auto submit software that submits the same article to hundreds of directories. Not only will you have duplicate content all over the web but you could gain links from sites that search engines consider spammy and this could count against you.

I have also submitted my site to many of the quality link directories, the same rule as above applies here.

In a few days, (as soon as the writer has completed them) I will be submitting my blog posts using the Super Apprentice blog network. If you aren’t a member of any blog network this can be tricky but not impossible. Just search on Google for “blog: your topic“. Now you can look through blogs that allow you to post and add a link within it. Another word of warning here. Some blogs use the “rel=no follow” rule which means that you will not be credited with any link power from that blog and it will not help you rank in search engines. In my opinion this is one of the most difficult parts of website promotion to fulfill unless you are a member of a service that gives you access to blogs. Unfortunately these services don’t come cheap which is why Super Apprentice is becoming so popular. The cheap stand-alone service I have seen is $97 and the most expensive is $297. That’s a lot of money on one service if your just starting out.

Now we can’t expect results straight away. We should start getting a few hits in 2-4 weeks but it is likely to be around 3 months before we start seeing a steady stream of traffic and some noticable income to our site. Once my sites have reached this stage I like to forget about them for a while and concentrate either on further promotion or creating more sites, in this case on a similar theme. You could search for Ebooks or content for Ebooks that allow you resell rights so you can begin to dominate your niche. You can also start researching more keywords that will enable you to create your next site.

So I’ll close this chapter for the time being and report results as soon as I have them. But please keep coming back because this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Just a quick note to let you all know that I haven’t forgotten. I have now completed my keywords for project niche domination and using the Super Apprentice outsourcing interface I have requested my articles. It should take between 7 and 10 days for these to be returned. At this point we will continue full steam ahead.

Just a little side note here. If you are thinking of joining Super Apprentice and want to know more I will have something for you very soon. You may have seen a few short reviews but this is something else. I will be taking you behind the scenes with a dedicated review site and showing you exactly how everything works, with screenshots of all the juicy bits.  I wanted to show you just how great this Internet Niche Marketing Software is, but without sounding like i’m just another guy pushing a product. Hopefully this will do just that. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s finished.

Let’ slook at the next stage of keyword selection. I am going to build a 10 page site (initially) and I need to choose the best ten keywords for each of those pages. To keep from being repetetive I will just show the first 1. For my home page I have chosen the phrase “free baby samples” which you can see in the list from my last post. The reason for this is as follows:

1) There are a fair number of searches per month on this phrase, according to our research 3,574.

2) There are less than 50,000 pages on the web for the competing page, 25,900. So that’s great.

3) The estimated cost per click is $0.64 - $0.80. This isn’t fantastic but it’s not bad for the market.

4) To back up point 3 we can see that there are over 8 PPC (Adwords) advertisers bidding for this phrase. Just type the phrase in quotes into your Google search bar and you will see all the advertisements down the right hand side of your page.

5) The #1 spot in Google for this phrase is not a homepage (that’s good) and is only a PR 3 so it should be fairly easy to outrank and additionally it only has 70 links pointing to it. Again, not too hard to beat.

6) As an added bonus, the top competing page does not have good on-page optimisation and ours will, so it seems we are on to a winner.

Now I have one of my main keywords it’s time for our “sub-keywords”. This may be referred to as LSI (latent Schematic Indexing) but I don’t need to worry too much about this. Here’s how I choose these keywords, (you’ll be amazed how simple and effective this is, yet no-one does it).

1) using Wordtracker (I use the same facility provided within Nichebot) type in the phrase “free baby samples”.

2) From the list of words you have returned take out all instances of “baby”, “samples”, and words like “free” or “best”.

3) I will now have a raw list of keywords like this:

Shower Invitations
Printable Games
dedications
feeding
britax
facts
bath chairs
calm

On their own these words mean very little, but SEO experts believe that Googles algorithim expects to see certain words associated with others. So by sprinkling these keywords onto our webpage we are giving (what we believe) Google expects to see.

So, For my H1 tag I have decided to use the following Title: “Free Baby Samples, Shower Invitations, Printable Games”. You could put all of these keywords in meta tags but I don’t bother. Google does not rate Meta tags any more and most other search engines are ignoring them also. So I have to put them somewhere else.  I will get an article written (Super Apprentice let’s you outsource articles to other writers) but you can write one yourself if you wish. I will make sure that the writer includes all of my chosen keywords within the body of the article. I will also make sure that in the “description” tage I include all of the words from my page title, but not in the same order. So my decription will be “Find out where to get free printable baby shower games, invitations, and free baby samples”. This is what people will see when this webpage is listed in Google.

 This (IMO) is the best way to complete your keyword research. Repeat this for each of your page keywords but remember you don’t have to thoroughly research all of your sub-keywords (LSI), only your main page titles.

Hi again and welcome to the first stage of Project Niche Domination. Here is where we choose our keywords for the five websites. The first thing to do is think about your niche. I have chosen the baby market to do my keyword research for the following reasons:

1) There will always be a consumer
2) There is a never-ending supply of products and hundreds of sub niches (closely themed niches - example - baby feeding solutions).
3) It is a cash rich niche. This simply means that the consumer is happy to spend money on the product, (golf is a very popular niche for this reason).

Now, Keywords….

I used Nichebot for this but you could use the keyword helper in Super Apprentice (if you are a member) or there are some free options out there. Wordtracker offer a free trial and Google have a keyword selection tool but this will only give you a graphical representation, not figures.

So, using nichebot I typed in the one word phrase “baby”.  I then filtered the results to take out any keywords that had over 50,000 results in Google and / or less than 100 search count. This list is expandable but this is what we have so far to give you a taster:

There is a lot of information here but we are looking for key points. The keywords with a high search volume and few results are obviously the best ones to use. Aside from this we can look at average Cost Per Click. In our case the higher the better. But, even the keywords with no ads can still be sprinkled on our pages is it means we can rank in search engines, (but I wouldn’t use them for a main page topic).

I will not bore you with this here but we can go deeper into detail here either using Nichbot or doing things manually. The next task is to check the top 3 - 5 websites in Google for each competing phrase. We can see what their Google Pagerank is and we can also check how many backlinks they have. The lower the better as it will be easier for us to rank above them.

 This concludes the nasic keyword research. Next we need to look at how to best use these keywords to build content for our websites. please not that I would consider the above to be enough keywords for one site. I will copy this process for the other four sites but I didn’t want to just present a huge list to you as there would be nothing to gain.

Come back soon.

Ok People, I haven’t posted for a while. To be honest i’ve been so busy with my own projects that my blog got put on the back burner. I apologise now but hopefully you will see far more regular info from now on.

It’s time to put my money where my mouth is. Like any other Internet marketer I am always learning. Anyone who thinks they know it all already is doomed to failure. One of the most important parts of making your business work is to test, test, and test. At a future date I will show you a fantastic tool for getting all the data you need in order to improve clicks, increase conversions, etc etc but it isn’t free so for now let’s not worry too much about that. One of the things I have been really getting into lately (and should have concentrated on earlier) is social bookmarking. This is not the be all and end all of promoting your websites but it will certainly give them a boost if you do it right.

I am going to do something that few (if any) have done before. It is considered most unwise but I really think it will help you to understand far better and it will help me document my exact steps. I’m going to call it Project Niche Domination and split it into five steps.

 Step 1 
What I am going to do is target a niche by building five Adsense websites on a similar theme. I am going to show you my exact keywords I am targetting and how I select them (I haven’t even chose them yet).

Step 2
I am then going to introduce Ebooks to to this empire, perhaps on the adsense sites or perhaps using related sites (again I haven’t decided yet and need to do some more research).

Step 3
The next step is to start building an opt-in list. By having a list of names and email addresses of people who REQUEST to be on the list, I will then have a targetted market to which I can sell products that will be of interest to them. It is important to remember that anyone on a list doesn’t simply want to be sold to all the time. You need to provide them valuable conent and a good reason to stay on your list. Remember this is not spam. Anyone can unsubscribe from you opt-in list whenever they want.

 step 4
Now we can sell affiliate products to our customers. More details to come.

Step 5
We are talking some months ahead now but ultimately I am looking to construct a paid membership site. Members will pay for access to resources, tools, products, and information related to their particular interest / niche.

So the first step is choosing keywords for my 5 websites. Please come back soon and I will walk you through my process on this one.

Getting visitors to your website is quite obviously crucial. No visitors, No point in owning a site! But with all the millions of websites out there how the heck do you make yours get noticed? This is where our keyword research pays off. You remember that each of your webpages targetted a specific keyword? This will be our key to success.

First of all, don’t bother submitting your site to Google, Yahoo and the other big search engines. It will take weeks or months before you are listed and there is a much easier way. What you need is “one-way backlinks”. This term simply means that a website links to you but you don’t link to them. The more authority that website has, the better quality the link will be (in the eyes of a search engine anyway). Now for the magic touch.

You have to be careful to get a variety of links but the best ones (in moderation) are those with your keyword link text. So for example, if your keyphrase was “fast speed boats” you would want to sites to link to you using that phrase. Also, don’t just get links for your homepage, by getting links to your inside pages also you will get each page ranking well in the search engines which ultimately means more vistors foor you. As a rule of thumb I would suggest 60% of links go to your index page and 40% go to other pages. Getting good quality one way back-links isn’t easy and can be very expensive. Next we will look at where to get these links without breaking the bank.

So we’re about half way there now. It’s time to monetise your website. If you don’t yet have a Google Adsense account you should get one now. It’s very simple to sign up and won’t cost you anything to do so. Sign Up Here:


Simply follow the on-screen instructions to set up your account.
Now, there are differing opinions on the best colours to choose for your advertisements. The best thing you can do is try out a few and see which ones get you the best CTR% (Click Through Rate). Basic methods are:

1) Blend the adverts into your webpage. By making the ad background the same colour as your webpage background, and the Title and URL’s the same colour as you have done for the text and links in your site, your ads will not look spammy and will blend in very well.

2) Make your ads stand out. By using bold colors that make your ads stand out from your page you will ensure your vistors see them clearly. One option here that is prefferred by many is to make the title RED. This has had some very good results for some people.

There has been a huge amount of research into this topic and the web is covered with information on how to optimise your advertisements. Personally, I like to blend my ads into my pages. This looks professional and has achived me clickthrough rates of upto 60%.

Even more important than this is ad placement. Where you put your ads will have a dramatic effect on how well they perform. First of all, put them above the fold. By this I mean place them on the first half of the page so that visitors will see them before they scroll down to see more of your page. One very effective way of doing this is shown below.

The best advice I can give you for your first website is to create a custom channel for each page (Google help will show you how to do this) and try a different version of advert placement on each one. This way you will see which has the highest CTR% and you can update your others accordingly.

Sidenote: Please read Google T.O.S VERY CAREFULLY. They have strict procedures on what you can and can’t do. If you break any rules (even accidentally) you could lose your Adsense account.

O.K, I allowed just over a week or so for you to get your 25(ish) articles together. Now let’s put them to use. For me, this is the most interesting bit. We are finally at the bit headed “MAKE WEBSITE“. If you have been following from the start you will already have a basic idea of how to get your site made. If not, shoot me an Email at admin@articlesandproducts.com and I will send you my step-by-step course (no cost) using the exact methods that I follow myself.

You can play around a bit here with the colours and layout but for search engine optimization purposes, there are a few points that you need to remember which are vital to “on-page optimization“. First of all, If possible make your navigation bar appear at the right-hand side of your pages. This will tell the search engine spiders (discussed later) to read your text before your links, that’s a good thing. If you can’t (or don’t want to) do this, then here’s a sneaky little tip I learnt from one of the big names. Just above your navigation bar, add a blank field/table. This will tell the search engine spiders to read the body of your text before the links.

The next thing to make sure when creating your page is that your main keyword phrase (whereever possible) appears at the start and end of your page text. example:

The beginning of your page (in HTML View) will look something like this.

—————————————————————————————-

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd“>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en”>
<head>
<title>Main Keyword Phrase</title>
<meta http-equiv=”content-type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″ />
<meta name=”description” content=”Page Description Using Your Main Keyword Phrase” />
<meta name=”keywords” content=”Associated Keywords (optional but many search engines don’t use them anymore” />
</head>
<body>
<div id=”container” >
<div id=”header”>
<h1>Main Keyword Phrase</h1>

—————————————————————————

To get your keyword in at the end of your text use a copyright line in your footer.  Example:

——————————————————————————
<p>&copy; 2007 Website Name - Main Keyword Phrase </p>
———————————————————————————-

On the rest of your page make sure you don’t overdo the amount of times your keyword appears and make sure you mix things up a little. Otherwise your website optimization could do more harm than good. Instead of “dog training for the blind” use “training your dog for the blind” and “guide dog training for the blind”.

Try this out (just on your homepage as inside pages are slightly different) and we will take the next step (how and where to put our advertisements) soon. So Go Ahead - Make Website.

So far, we know how to build a webpage (no design awards yet but that doesn’t matter. We are here to make money, not display our artistic talents). We also have our 25 - 30 keywords (if you haven’t, and don’t fancy UnselfishKeywords then you can now get a FULL two week trial at Nichebot for only $1.00. This is a deep digging keyword tool that will not only help you find keywords, but tell you exactly what the competition is and even the average Adsense Bid per Click).

Now, we need content (don’t worry, we will get to actual site building soon, but as with anything - preparation is the key). If you have read my earlier posts then you will know about PLR and Avoiding duplicate content. If not, skim them now to bring yourself up to speed.

In case you weren’t already aware, our websites are going to be made up of articles. Why? Because Google is hungry text and the easiest way to get lots of text on a good website is to create articles. They are not only great for search engines but they add real value to your site. By far the best method, is to write (or pay someone else) to write your own unique articles. Unless you love writing, it is a good idea to outsource all of your article-writing needs. Have a look around the net and you will see that there are plenty of people willing to create articles for you. This should cost you between $5 and $10 per article. Alternateively you can use PLR content. Again, make sure it’s RE-WRITTEN. If you simply copy and paste the same article, you will be wasting all of your efforts. Again, you can outsource this. Outsourcing an article re-write can cost as little as $3.

Whether you are writing yourself or outsourcing, make sure your specific keyword phrase appears a few times in your article. There are tools for measuring keywords density and varying opinions on the ideal percentage. For now, I wouldn’t worry too much about this. For a rough guide, make your keyword appear once in each paragraph. All articles should also be over 450 words.

Now you know enough to get on with it. However you choose to get your content, come back when you have your 25 keyword optimised articles and we’ll start putting them on our webpage, (I know…search engine optimization has it’s boring bits just like any job, but the rewards are more than worth it).

Hello again. Hopefully by now you will have know how to build a basic website, if not then have a look at the previous posts and come back here. Let’s get on with building our first site. Contrary to the last post I have decided to split this up into multiple sections as there is so much information it would be unfair to my readers and friends to sqeueeze it all into one post.

 First of all you need to choose your niche. This is the most important part of the whole process. Get it wrong and you may not rank anywhere for your website. You need to find 25 good related keywords. Remember my earlier post? There are a number of ways to do this and various tools you can use. Personally, at this stage (especially if you are a beginner with a limited budget) I would save yourself the time and register with UnselfishKeywords. This will give you 20 different niches (each with more than enough keywords) to choose from and all of the keywords have been thouroughly reasearched for you. I personally use this tool all the time. You can of course research your own keywords if you wish and and you may well find some real gems. Tools like wordtracker or nichebot are both good options but there are so many other services and tools around I will not bore you with them all right now.

Now you have your keywords it’s time to set about turning them into content for your site.