help and advice for newbies and people who need a kick up the backside in 2009

[Seamaster]

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Congrats on your first sale! I really like your site - simple but effective. Did you create it using wordpress?

Well done.

Thanks. The potato one? I did that myself with HMTL and CSS. I'm working on a Wordpress site for another niche but I'm finding it a git to get to look how I want. For smaller sites I prefer to do it myself with HMTL & CSS but I guess Wordpress is going to be better for a bigger site? I'm going to be doing a few more HTML mini sites and see how they start off, if they prove to be sucessful then I will probably start moving them to Wordpress to get a blog and other features going but its a lot of time and at the moment I am just focussing on getting stuff up and indexed in Google.

[Seamaster]

Ok guys and girls, here we go

recipebooks / org / uk 2,900 exact a month
historybooks / org / uk 12,100 exact a month
medicalbooks / org / uk 8,100 exact a month
horrorbooks / org / uk 5,400 exact a month
educationalbooks / org / uk 2,400 exact a month
fantasybooks / org / uk 1,900 exact a month

I would like a backlink from each one to www / underwear / co / uk with the anchor text "underwear" please.

To monetise these effectivley, I would recommend using amazon as your main source as :

1. people trust amazon and already know it as a household name so are more likely to trust the site
2. they are normally one of the cheapest suppliers of books in the UK

I would also recommend using the ECU's for these as I know John and team were having problems with them, but they are now fully up and running properly PLUS they can now utilise amazon too ! (easycontentunits.com : Home)

Looks like I got one of these in the end as my registration appears to have gone though.

Not really sure what content to put in the site as it seems like quite a broad subject.

Got any tips?

[Wardy]

Looks like I got one of these in the end as my registration appears to have gone though.

Not really sure what content to put in the site as it seems like quite a broad subject.

Got any tips?

I think the best tip is get your head down and get writing content and stop looking for tips

If it's a wide subject category just try and split it down a bit more, for example if it was the "recipe books" domain you got think how you can drill it down into other categories to do with recipe books, for example: Puddings/Deserts, Childrens recipes, Christmas cooking, Barbecues, Weight Loss recipes etc.
Also look at famous chefs as other categories, Delia Smith recipe books, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Antony Worrall Thompson etc

Cheers
Wardy

[Seamaster]

I think the best tip is get your head down and get writing content and stop looking for tips

True, true. Just not sure what angle to hit if from.

[Michael_Anthony]

"I think the best tip is get your head down and get writing content and stop looking for tips"

If there's one piece of advice on this thread that's worth gold it's this one. I can't believe how many newbies get stuck into "paralysis by analysis".

Want to find out if something works? Then try it!

Want to learn to swim without getting wet? You need a day job.

Great response wardy - 10 out of 10 sir.

p.s. Interesting that the response was "Yes, I agree, but I still need some tips"

[Matt Seigneur]

you can always get a content writer from somewhere like rentacoder.com, while the contents being written, you can sort your site design, and seo the pages once you've received them. PM me if you need help finding a content writer.

[Seamaster]

p.s. Interesting that the response was "Yes, I agree, but I still need some tips"

No offence guys but although I agree with your comments about just getting on with it and I do have a couple sites up and running from using the advice in this thread I am still stumped on the niche I have picked.

I probably shouldnt have taken the domain but I missed out on all the others so was a bit desperate to get a Smingle Approved domain so took it without thinking too much as there is usually a short time to respond.

It is all well and good to tell people to just get on with it but as some of us in this thread are newbies we don't always know how to just get on with it.

I don't want to end up like these fellas (Cargo cult - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and just go off an try and create something based on someone else's methods without having a good understanding of how it would/should work.

I'm not saying the niche is crap, I'm saying I can't see how it could be targetted enough to get conversions.

[smingle]

Frank - thanks for your detailed reply, much appreciated.

There was an interesting discussion of a similar type on webmasterworld some time ago, which centred on the various approaches to getting a site ranked and making money from it.

The conclusion at the time was that there are 2 potential approaches which still work..

1) Low budget, niche focus site, SEO. Repeat several times.
2) Big budget, big market segment, PPC and SEO.

These days, for a really big money term (say one that makes several million per year) it is impossible to rank without spending money on links. There are a few exceptions, but these sites are those which have been around for many years and are considered "authority" sites.

Niche focus can make a reasonable income, and will definitely a better lifestyle than 9 to 5. What a niche site cannot do on it's own is make you rich.

So to really boost your income to the point where you can retire early it needs to either be a lot of work in buidling muplitiple niche sites and using SEO, or a more capital intensive lot of hard work in using PPC and SEO to play in a big market.

The common factor here is that it's a LOT OF HARD WORK to start with, as Frank rightly says.

Whether that hard work is in understanding the mechanics and constantly shifting sands that are the Google, Yahoo etc algorithms, or keeping up to speed with the complexities of PPC is irrelevant.

Like you Frank, I have enjoyed success with both PPC and SEO. What always frustrated me with SEO was how you could wake up one day and see all your hard work destroyed because someone at Google decided to make a few changes, and you were back into that "cat and mouse" game that gets played out on all SEO fora of "What do we need to do now? Is it Pagerank, inbounds, on page, off page, have they completed discounted reciprocal linking now, etc.

What I would say though, is that with a little money there is something that PPC can provide far more efficiently than SEO - immediate rankings, traffic and results. By throwing some money at PPC first, you can establish which keywords convert BEFORE investing the time and effort into SEO.

This approach has a major advantage - you don't waste your time and effort SEOing to the top for a keyword which turns out to be a dud. Maybe you get loads of clicks, millions of visitors, but not one single sale.

My old and now closed thread covered this very subject..

How to SEO your way to a million

Anyway, just wanted to add my 2p worth.

Keep up the good work Frank, great thread, great attitude and so refreshing to finally see something that isn't a product/merchant announcement or a stupid argument on here.

How come it isn't "moderator's choice" Matt?

Many thanks for your kind words Michael.

I echo alot of your statements, and I agree with most of them. It is very annoying when all your hard work is undone by an algorithm change, just as annoying when you receive a google quality score slap on PPC.

Seo is very hard these days and you do have to be very good at it to make money from real money terms.

I would not advise people to risk money they cannot afford on PPC, especially if they are in the brown stuff due to the current climate.

Your analysis of the niche sites will not make you rich, but will make more than a 9-5 is definatly true.

What I would say is if you make some decent money from these sites, then DO NOT spend it on rubbish or buy luxurys that you wouldn't normally buy - keep them until you have a stable income to afford them properly without living month to month.

Instead, reinvest the money into more domains and also some PPC which is very targetted and exact match ONLY (more to be covered on this shortly in another post I will be doing)

Your post holds alot of truth to it, and I am not saying to rule out PPC as it can be useful in more ways than one, which I will explain in more detail on a new post.

But as a professional SEO, there is nothing more satisfying than getting leads / sales from seo at no further cost at all, and to pass some of this satisfaction on to others feels good, especially with everyone feeling down and losing jobs etc. It is good to give others a chance of digging themselves out of the crap and bettering themselves in life, and also making them realise that working for yourself is better than ANY 9-5 job

Cheers
Frank

[fizzbird]

I'm not saying the niche is crap, I'm saying I can't see how it could be targetted enough to get conversions.

search the keywords
recipe book or whatever it is and see what everyone else is doing. then see what they are missing or if there is something you can do better?
eg:

Recipe books make great presents but does anyone actually use them?....here's some recipes you can use everyday to save you time and money.
These are my ten favourite books with recipes you can use everyday........

[smingle]

No offence guys but although I agree with your comments about just getting on with it and I do have a couple sites up and running from using the advice in this thread I am still stumped on the niche I have picked.

I probably shouldnt have taken the domain but I missed out on all the others so was a bit desperate to get a Smingle Approved domain so took it without thinking too much as there is usually a short time to respond.

It is all well and good to tell people to just get on with it but as some of us in this thread are newbies we don't always know how to just get on with it.

I don't want to end up like these fellas (Cargo cult - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and just go off an try and create something based on someone else's methods without having a good understanding of how it would/should work.

I'm not saying the niche is crap, I'm saying I can't see how it could be targetted enough to get conversions.

Im shocked mate tbh

These sites / domains require hardwork and input. If you are expecting a miracle then I suggest you don't register anymore domains as you will be very disapointted.

To be honest it is easy to monetise this site and it pains me to have to explain how to do it, but I will just to show you how lazy you are being (no offence)

Recipe books

Home page would be an introduction to your site with quick links using ecu (work taking away from you there) and also a menu system which will have pages such as the following :

recipebooks / org / uk / jamieoliverrecipebooks
recipebooks / org / uk / gordonramseyrecipebooks
recipebooks / org / uk / hairybikersrecipebooks

Then optimise each page around each sub niche of recipe books (by writing unique content on each subniche and then optimising with text links / ecu using the subject as the contents of that particular page) and that way you end up with lots of pages in search engines all with major targetted traffic for the chosen niches.



I can give you all the tools and knowledge and hours of research to hit the ground running, and by utilising this in the ways i have laid out, it isn't rocket science. However if you do not want to put any effort into this at all, and start thinking for yourself - this is not for you

Cheers
Frank

[Seamaster]

Cheers. I'll give it a try.

I don't think I am being lazy. I am spending hours on this stuff, during the day in my normal job, when I get home from work, when I get up in the morning before going to work. Just couldnt see how to work with that set of keywords. I've only really understood how you can target specific key words so far and felt more broader terms where beyond my skills as of yet.

[smingle]

Cheers. I'll give it a try.

I don't think I am being lazy. I am spending hours on this stuff, during the day in my normal job, when I get home from work, when I get up in the morning before going to work. Just couldnt see how to work with that set of keywords. I've only really understood how you can target specific key words so far and felt more broader terms where beyond my skills as of yet.

Maybe Lazy was the wrong word

Recipe books is a niche in itself, gordon ramsey recipe books is a drilled down niche which would convert higher if you present the visitor with exactly what they are looking for.

Look forward to seeing the site

[Seamaster]

Look forward to seeing the site

I've got next week off work so provided there is an internet connetion where we are staying I should get it done then (and the girlfriend doesnt get jealous of the laptop).

I've run out of money for this month so I can't get any more domains so this will force me to focus on the ones I have already.

I'll PM you the url once its live and you can chose where you want your link.

[Scorpioncart]

These sites / domains require hardwork and input. If you are expecting a miracle then I suggest you don't register anymore domains as you will be very disapointted.

To be honest it is easy to monetise this site and it pains me to have to explain how to do it, but I will just to show you how lazy you are being (no offence)

I think there are quite a few people reading this thread who are "Lazy Affiliates"

I've watched time and time again people just sitting on this thread (some for hours at a time) refreshing the page and waiting for Frank to post a domain name!

Instead of sitting around, go back to the first page and spend some time
reading through it

All the information is there for you, READ IT, take it in and go get your own domains!

This is without doubt the best thread ever for newbies and I wish it was around when I started out as it's taken me years to learn most of the basics which this thread contains.

"A kick up the backside" boy do some of you need that!

Great thread Frank keep it up mate.
Kev

[banksy247]

Hi there!

Firstly, may I say that I have become totally addicted to this thread, so thanks for starting it!

Secondly, I am extremely new to all this business of creating a website. I sat down in January and thought what can I do to bring some extra pennies in this year, and stumbled across this forum!

I have tried to create a website for my own interests to start off to see if I could do it, as I'm not the most techy minded that's for sure. I was advised to try Yahoo Sitebuilder, which I used, and found that I managed to create a site okay doing this.

Now I'm told by a friend that you have to get the site hosted by them and no-one else, or that it has restrictions - do you know if this is the case?

I have a selection of what I think are good ideas for future sites, I may ask you in the future if they are good or not though if that's okay??

A few questions I do have are:

Can you advise which web hoster would be best for hosting?

How do you get the information to sell products loaded onto your sites? (is it by way of going through the merchant sites, or is it by way of the ECU's that I have noted from reading the posts)

How do I get my site indexed?

Do I need to install/make a sitemap?

Apologies if I appear a bit uneducated, but I really am trying to start this from scratch in my brain!

The website that I have created relates to an island in the Maldives that I have great interest in, and my ideal would be to have travel companies advertising on my site, and end up getting commission through sales - do they work that way?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just eager to make a success of this so I can try and get out there and enjoy myself!

Thanks for your time, appreciate this looks a little like war & peace now I've read it back!

Regards, Banksy