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.

Before we go any further I should mention why I have set up this blog. I have a few friends that are interested in what I do. Some of them have asked me to teach them and I simply don’t have the time to see them all individually. By putting up all my info’ on a blog I can show anyone who wants to learn how to earn while they learn, without spending oodles of cash on big time marketers and untold products.

Ok, so now you have a general idea about what SEO is and why it is so important to webmaster around the world, it’s time to start making you first website. If you are alredy familiar with web-building then you can skip this section and move on to ‘Building Your Site For SEO’. If not then read on and discover the world of dot com money makers.

Before we look at monetising your website, you need to get one buit and out there for all to see so let’s start right now. There are a huge array of optinos out there and you may already have a site building program, if so that’s cool. Take one day (no more than 2) to learn the basics, don’t spend weeks learning every nook and cranny as this can be done over time as your build more and more. I use Dreamweaver as it was recommended to me by an SEO expert and I haven’t looked back since. If you do own this great program or are intending to buy it then get hold of the ‘Cafe Ipsum’ tutorial and let it walk you through your first site. Download this great document for free right here “dreamweaver design“. This is in PDF format so you will need Adobe Acrobat reader which you can also get for free here, “Adobe Reader“. This not only provides you with a tutorial but also plenty of screenshots to show what all the functions of Dreamweaver can do. 

 One thing I should have mentioned at the start is the fact that although it it will be very helpful for you to learn some basic HTML, there is no need for you to know how to write in code to design a website. There is plenty of scope for doing virtually anything you need within the Site Building Options.

 So, if you haven’t yet done so, go ahead and and build your first site (don’t publish it). Don’t worry about specifics and please don’t spend too long on it as we’re not actually going to use it. It’s simply for you to get to grips with site building. My next post is the one your really waiting for. We’re going to build AND publish our first real site. We’re going to display advertisements on it that will start earning us money very soon. And once we’ve done all this, we’re going to promote it.

When I talk to friends about my Internet endeavours one of the most common questions I am asked is “how do search engines work?”. Well, all search engines use complex algorithms to determine where your site ranks for any given phrase. Think of the SE as a question sheet and your website as the answer sheet. The more answers you get right, the higher your website ranks. This will include things like page relevancy, site structure, and good quality backlinks. It is said that Googles algorithm now considers around 2 million variables about each website. This is one reason why people with poor quality sites are beginning to lose the battle. Google becomes more efficient each day at filtering out rubbish, so whilst it’s impossible to know all the variables they consider when looking at your site, you can be sure that you need to provide real content and make your site a good resource for your target market.

Most SEO efforts are focussed on Google because they are the most used search engine. But people tend to forget that Yahoo still has around 22% of Internet searches, which is a lot of traffic we could be missing out on by not optimising correctly.  I read an experts post recently who stated that Yahoo’s algorithm is around 4 years behind Googles. This is an interesting theory. If it’s true then that means we use Googles past to rank better in Yahoo, but i’ll wait for further opinions on this before making any hasty decisions.

 TIP 4: How To Use PLR Content 

Hello, and welcome to Tip number 4. Today we will be looking at the do’s and don’ts of PLR Content. As I mentioned in an earlier post, once upon a time not so long ago, earning with Adsense was as simple doing an internet search for some cheap PLR (Private Label Rights) content that was already optimised for specific keywords. You could then use this to put on your website and hey presto, a whole site in as long as it takes to copy and paste. These days are gone…

This is mostly due to duplicate content but there are a few other factors. When you buy PLR content (articles in this case) you are buying a ‘pack’ that is also being sold to many other people. This of course means that if you all have the same content; Google will kick you out with a giant boot, (as discussed in the duplicate content post) but you will also be compteting with other for the same keywords.

However, PLR content does have it’s uses. Creating an article for every page on your website is very time consuming and if it’s a topic you have no interest in, then can be extremely boring. So the only other option is to outsource. If you do an Internet search you will soon see that there are many people on the web that will write you articles for around $5-$10 a pop. But, if you’re on a budget you can use PLR content and have it re-written for around $2-$5 per article. I should mention here that there is no substitute for completely unique content. If you are re-writing or having your content re-written then you must make sure that it appears unique. Copyscape is the most favoured tool for doing this and is very simple to use. PLR does have plenty of other uses but we will discuss them at a much later date.

We now have just one more tip to go and we’ll then we’ll start on our first website project. Tip 5 coming soon….