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in reference to: Cheap Desktop Computers (view on Google Sidewiki)Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Keyword Research
Probably the most important part of your niche business is your keywords. Keywords are a mystery to many people. The term itself is misleading. When I hear "keyword", I think of a single word. Most people do. That's why they are confused when I try to explain long-tail keywords to them. The term itself should be changed to "keyphrase" or something like that. That would be less misleading.
A keyword isn't just one word usually. It's a phrase. These phrases are important to your niche sites because they bring in organic traffic. Organic traffic is simply traffic from search engines. This traffic is good because it doesn't depend upon anyone else other than the search engines. There are other ways to get traffic such as articles but those fade away quickly. If your site ranks well for a good keyword, it will get plenty of good visitors daily.
The difficulty of ranking your site for a keyword depends completely on the keyword itself. A single word keyword will be pretty much impossible to rank for. Even a two-word keyword will be nearly impossible to rank for. For instance, you couldn't rank for the word "printer". By rank, I mean first page of Google. You also couldn't rank for the keyword "HP printer". There's just too much competition for either of those keywords. You'd be lucky to show up in the first 100 pages or results.
So you have to look for keywords that aren't as difficult to rank for. Most of the time these will be three, four, or five words long. These are called "long-tail" keywords. If your site is optimized for a good long-tail keyword, you can rank for that keyword and get plenty of organic traffic. At the same time, you have to make sure that you are trying to rank for a keyword that gets traffic.
The two main things to remember when choosing a keyword is competition and search volume. You want low competition and high enough search volume to make the keyword worth your time. A high search volume keyword is useless if there is a ton of competition. Likewise a low competition keyword is useless if there is no search volume.
There are many factors when it comes to finding competition, but a useful strategy is to check the keyword in quotes in a Google search. Look at the amount of results. You should shoot for keywords with under 10,000 results competition. If you are just starting out, it would be best to shoot for under 1,000 results. This is a good way to judge competition. There are other factors like the quality of the first page results and such, but this is generally a good indication of how hard it will be to rank your site for that keyword.
That part isn't very complicated once you know what you are looking for. The other side of the coin is search volume. To find search volume, I suggest using a free tool called Traffic Travis. It has other functions as well, but the keyword tools works very well. It will show you how many searches a keyword gets per day on each search engine. Look for keywords that get around 10-100 searches per day. Ideally, you'd want more, but that's a good number to find the correct amount of competition.
Start with a single-word keyword that deals with the main subject matter you want to build a niche around. Use the keyword tool to find long tail keywords that relate to that niche and get 10-100 searches per day total. Make a list. Then check the competition of these keywords (in quotes) on Google. Scratch out any that have a lot of competition.
From the list of keywords you have left, using Godaddy's domain search, find out if the .com name is available. For example, if your keyword is: cheap laptop computers, look to see if cheaplaptopcomputers.com is available. Also check if cheap-laptop-computers.com is available. If your keyword is in your domain name, your site will be much easier to rank for.
I'll post more about keyword research later. This is some good pointers for keyword research. These steps should be done before you buy your domain name. This will save you lots of wasted time.
A keyword isn't just one word usually. It's a phrase. These phrases are important to your niche sites because they bring in organic traffic. Organic traffic is simply traffic from search engines. This traffic is good because it doesn't depend upon anyone else other than the search engines. There are other ways to get traffic such as articles but those fade away quickly. If your site ranks well for a good keyword, it will get plenty of good visitors daily.
The difficulty of ranking your site for a keyword depends completely on the keyword itself. A single word keyword will be pretty much impossible to rank for. Even a two-word keyword will be nearly impossible to rank for. For instance, you couldn't rank for the word "printer". By rank, I mean first page of Google. You also couldn't rank for the keyword "HP printer". There's just too much competition for either of those keywords. You'd be lucky to show up in the first 100 pages or results.
So you have to look for keywords that aren't as difficult to rank for. Most of the time these will be three, four, or five words long. These are called "long-tail" keywords. If your site is optimized for a good long-tail keyword, you can rank for that keyword and get plenty of organic traffic. At the same time, you have to make sure that you are trying to rank for a keyword that gets traffic.
The two main things to remember when choosing a keyword is competition and search volume. You want low competition and high enough search volume to make the keyword worth your time. A high search volume keyword is useless if there is a ton of competition. Likewise a low competition keyword is useless if there is no search volume.
There are many factors when it comes to finding competition, but a useful strategy is to check the keyword in quotes in a Google search. Look at the amount of results. You should shoot for keywords with under 10,000 results competition. If you are just starting out, it would be best to shoot for under 1,000 results. This is a good way to judge competition. There are other factors like the quality of the first page results and such, but this is generally a good indication of how hard it will be to rank your site for that keyword.
That part isn't very complicated once you know what you are looking for. The other side of the coin is search volume. To find search volume, I suggest using a free tool called Traffic Travis. It has other functions as well, but the keyword tools works very well. It will show you how many searches a keyword gets per day on each search engine. Look for keywords that get around 10-100 searches per day. Ideally, you'd want more, but that's a good number to find the correct amount of competition.
Start with a single-word keyword that deals with the main subject matter you want to build a niche around. Use the keyword tool to find long tail keywords that relate to that niche and get 10-100 searches per day total. Make a list. Then check the competition of these keywords (in quotes) on Google. Scratch out any that have a lot of competition.
From the list of keywords you have left, using Godaddy's domain search, find out if the .com name is available. For example, if your keyword is: cheap laptop computers, look to see if cheaplaptopcomputers.com is available. Also check if cheap-laptop-computers.com is available. If your keyword is in your domain name, your site will be much easier to rank for.
I'll post more about keyword research later. This is some good pointers for keyword research. These steps should be done before you buy your domain name. This will save you lots of wasted time.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Using ProNicheStore to Create your Niche Site
I personally love ProNicheStore when it comes to creating niche sites. It's a great content management system that integrates eBay and/or amazon feeds very easily. Building sites with it is a breeze. There are more complex software packages but they are generally not made just for niche sites.
That's where ProNicheStore stands out. It has quite a bit of built-in SEO. Other niche software products have had trouble when it comes to SEO and getting de-indexed due to them making it easy for people to create thin sites. Thin sites are sites with very little content on them. ProNicheStore makes it easy to create pages of content and add affiliate feeds, but it doesn't generate pages and pages of content automatically. That's a good thing when it comes to making a quality site. Check out ProNicheStore. If you want to see some example sites, check out Guitar Slides, Used Acoustic Guitar, Cheap Desktop Computer, and Buying a Desktop Computer.
That's where ProNicheStore stands out. It has quite a bit of built-in SEO. Other niche software products have had trouble when it comes to SEO and getting de-indexed due to them making it easy for people to create thin sites. Thin sites are sites with very little content on them. ProNicheStore makes it easy to create pages of content and add affiliate feeds, but it doesn't generate pages and pages of content automatically. That's a good thing when it comes to making a quality site. Check out ProNicheStore. If you want to see some example sites, check out Guitar Slides, Used Acoustic Guitar, Cheap Desktop Computer, and Buying a Desktop Computer.
SEO Techniques That Work
Getting your site to rank on Google, Yahoo, and Bing can be frustrating. Where you rank depends on many many factors. Before you buy a domain name, consider the keyword you want to rank for. Most people don't buy a domain thinking about what keyword they want to rank for, but this is a great first step. This technique can help tremendously when trying to rank for keywords less than four words long.
If you want to attempt to rank for a keyword like "buying a desktop computer" for instance, the first place to start is by looking for a domain that contains "buying a desktop computer". Ideally, buyingadesktopcomputer.com would be the best choice. Any .com will rank better on Google and other search engines than a matching .net or any other top level domain (.org, .us, .ca, .co.uk, etc). If you can't get the .com look for variations that incorporate dashes between the words, like buying-a-desktop-computer.com. This would be better than buyingadesktopcomputer.net in most cases.
Another major factor for getting higher search engine ranking is, of course backlinks. Each search engine handles backlinks differently. Google is probably the strictest of all about what it considers a listable backlink. They generally don't consider rel='nofollow' aka "no follow" links as highly as "do follow" links. I believe they still use 'no follow' links, but they don't list them as 'in links' to your site. 'No Follow' links do seem to help Yahoo rankings, though. When it comes to backlinking, my motto is "there's no such thing as a bad backlink". There is plenty of information out there about the ideal backlink. The ideal backlink would be a "do follow" backlink with your keyword as the anchor text. That backlink would also be coming from a page with a high Google pagerank. These are the types of backlinks you want to shoot for. However, those usually require one to do some link trading. I personally don't use link trading. I rely heavily on 'no follow' backlinks.
Most SEO experts will concentrate heavily on Google. This is understandable because Google is the number 1 search engine. It is used on average 4 times as much as most of it's competitors. About every keyword I lookup gets around 4 times as much daily traffic on Google as it does on Yahoo. It's easy to see why everyone would be concentrating on it. I, however, like to show love to Yahoo and Bing as well. Yahoo shows me more love than Google in most cases as well.
One last minute quick tip:
Yahoo tends to like .us domains better than Google. This is important because .us domains are much cheaper to register on GoDaddy. If you want to concentrate on your Yahoo rankings alone, you can get great organic traffic from them with a .us domains and some 'no follow' backlinks. More on backlinks later.
If you want to attempt to rank for a keyword like "buying a desktop computer" for instance, the first place to start is by looking for a domain that contains "buying a desktop computer". Ideally, buyingadesktopcomputer.com would be the best choice. Any .com will rank better on Google and other search engines than a matching .net or any other top level domain (.org, .us, .ca, .co.uk, etc). If you can't get the .com look for variations that incorporate dashes between the words, like buying-a-desktop-computer.com. This would be better than buyingadesktopcomputer.net in most cases.
Another major factor for getting higher search engine ranking is, of course backlinks. Each search engine handles backlinks differently. Google is probably the strictest of all about what it considers a listable backlink. They generally don't consider rel='nofollow' aka "no follow" links as highly as "do follow" links. I believe they still use 'no follow' links, but they don't list them as 'in links' to your site. 'No Follow' links do seem to help Yahoo rankings, though. When it comes to backlinking, my motto is "there's no such thing as a bad backlink". There is plenty of information out there about the ideal backlink. The ideal backlink would be a "do follow" backlink with your keyword as the anchor text. That backlink would also be coming from a page with a high Google pagerank. These are the types of backlinks you want to shoot for. However, those usually require one to do some link trading. I personally don't use link trading. I rely heavily on 'no follow' backlinks.
Most SEO experts will concentrate heavily on Google. This is understandable because Google is the number 1 search engine. It is used on average 4 times as much as most of it's competitors. About every keyword I lookup gets around 4 times as much daily traffic on Google as it does on Yahoo. It's easy to see why everyone would be concentrating on it. I, however, like to show love to Yahoo and Bing as well. Yahoo shows me more love than Google in most cases as well.
One last minute quick tip:
Yahoo tends to like .us domains better than Google. This is important because .us domains are much cheaper to register on GoDaddy. If you want to concentrate on your Yahoo rankings alone, you can get great organic traffic from them with a .us domains and some 'no follow' backlinks. More on backlinks later.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Science of the Web
How hard is it to make money on the web?
The best way to approach making money on the internet is not to throw something online and pray that it generates money. This is actually the technique many people use. Not to get into a religious debate but throughout the years, people have tried to change things through prayer, and it quite frankly doesn't work out very well for them.
I mean, do you think we would have went to the moon if rocket scientists had just gathered around their rockets and while holding hands, prayed for the rockets to reach space? I'm getting side-tracked, but my point is that you have to approach it as a science, especially when it comes to search engine optimization.
Science is about formulating a hypothesis and proving or disproving that hypothesis through experimentation. I've found that I don't spend enough time experimenting. I bet most are the same. The truly successful online entrepreneurs are those that have a systematic formula for their success.
They test new ideas and verify whether those ideas make any money. They know what works, and they know how to test their techniques. They don't all share their methods. In fact, it's rare to find someone who actually knows what they are talking about. I've found that a lot of views conflict with one another. It's a dark world where everyone seems to be trying to make money from everyone else, especially other online entrepreneurs. Cutting through the BS and finding the golden nuggets of good information is sometimes difficult.
In order to minimize the amount of BS, one has to experiment and learn from that experimentation. It can then be possible to formulate an idea of who actually know what they are talking about. That's my goal for the coming year. I plan to experiment with various new techniques for generating traffic and creating valuable content.
The best way to approach making money on the internet is not to throw something online and pray that it generates money. This is actually the technique many people use. Not to get into a religious debate but throughout the years, people have tried to change things through prayer, and it quite frankly doesn't work out very well for them.
I mean, do you think we would have went to the moon if rocket scientists had just gathered around their rockets and while holding hands, prayed for the rockets to reach space? I'm getting side-tracked, but my point is that you have to approach it as a science, especially when it comes to search engine optimization.
Science is about formulating a hypothesis and proving or disproving that hypothesis through experimentation. I've found that I don't spend enough time experimenting. I bet most are the same. The truly successful online entrepreneurs are those that have a systematic formula for their success.
They test new ideas and verify whether those ideas make any money. They know what works, and they know how to test their techniques. They don't all share their methods. In fact, it's rare to find someone who actually knows what they are talking about. I've found that a lot of views conflict with one another. It's a dark world where everyone seems to be trying to make money from everyone else, especially other online entrepreneurs. Cutting through the BS and finding the golden nuggets of good information is sometimes difficult.
In order to minimize the amount of BS, one has to experiment and learn from that experimentation. It can then be possible to formulate an idea of who actually know what they are talking about. That's my goal for the coming year. I plan to experiment with various new techniques for generating traffic and creating valuable content.
Friday, February 26, 2010
ProNicheStore is about to be released
I've been away from my blogs for quite some time, which is a complete "no no" when it comes to blogging. You have to create a habit of blogging to be a successful blogger. I never quite made that happen. Instead, I have a coding habit. I spend hours upon hours every day writing code.
I wouldn't call the code itself remarkable, but the code itself doesn't really matter. What matters as a programmer is that the code you produce is used by other people. Case in point, whats-hot-weekly.com which I wrote in 3 days, as a learning experience. I was using it to learn more about the eBay API and web services in general. That site gets over 150 visits per day. That not bad for something I haven't touched in 5 months.
The reason I haven't touched the site in 5 months is because I've been engrossed in a new project that is much larger. I'm creating software that may be a huge success within the niche affiliate market. It is going to be designed for the notice user. I have a lot of confidence in the product. It is my best work to date.
There are currently a few bugs that need to be worked out, but it is nearing release date.
I wouldn't call the code itself remarkable, but the code itself doesn't really matter. What matters as a programmer is that the code you produce is used by other people. Case in point, whats-hot-weekly.com which I wrote in 3 days, as a learning experience. I was using it to learn more about the eBay API and web services in general. That site gets over 150 visits per day. That not bad for something I haven't touched in 5 months.
The reason I haven't touched the site in 5 months is because I've been engrossed in a new project that is much larger. I'm creating software that may be a huge success within the niche affiliate market. It is going to be designed for the notice user. I have a lot of confidence in the product. It is my best work to date.
There are currently a few bugs that need to be worked out, but it is nearing release date.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Rumors
I'm not one to start rumors, but a new affiliate store software is coming to market that will blow many affilliates away. Of course, I wrote it, so I'm at least partially biased. No, really it's going to be great.
I've spent the last years planning and developing the software. It's made to replace BANS, Associate-o-matic, PHPBay, PHPazon, and other affiliate store software. It has many advantages over each of these.
I tried to take the good points of all of these programs and combine them into a complete suite for everyone to use. It has a very modern admin dashboard and I'll be releasing it within the next few weeks. My tentative schedule dictates that the software be release on March 1.
I've spent the last years planning and developing the software. It's made to replace BANS, Associate-o-matic, PHPBay, PHPazon, and other affiliate store software. It has many advantages over each of these.
I tried to take the good points of all of these programs and combine them into a complete suite for everyone to use. It has a very modern admin dashboard and I'll be releasing it within the next few weeks. My tentative schedule dictates that the software be release on March 1.
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