Archive for the ‘Affiliate Tips’ Category

The Best Niche Site

November 9th, 2011

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The Best Niche Site ?

There are thousands of courses, blogs, and forum posts about various methods for niche site marketing and the best format for niche sites. If you are brand new to internet marketing then it is important to understand that a niche is a subsegment of a larger market. (For example, senior online dating is a niche within the Dating market)

For information on evaluation a niche you can my past post How to Target a Niche as this article is more about explaining the different types of niche sites.

There are lots of types of niche sites but the main styles are either product focused sites or informational style sites.

Product Niche Sites

Product Focused can be focused on 1 specific product like a review site or on multiple products within a specific market like a comparison review site. The product sites is very common and you will see then monetized many times with amazon product ads or ebay ads.

These product niche sites usually rank by either targeting:

A small niche to do a comparison site between the products within a submarket (example: Shared Web Hosting is a very popular niche for comparison review sites as you will usually see a side by side comparison chart about the popular shared hosting companies as that is what consumers find most useful.

Specific product model names to get long tail targeted buyers looking for information about a specific product model they are interested in. Single product review site is popular in the health niche like weight loss where you see a site that discusses why a specific weight loss program/pill/supplement product is the best solution.

Informational Sites

Informational sites are usually geared around providing information about a niche and tailoring some content about providing a solution so that the visitor signs up to your list or buys an information product or clicks on your ad for more information.

Informational sites are popular for answering questions about a topic or providing solutions to a problem. Informational sites work great if you target your niche correctly and really address the visitors want or need but leave them wanting more so that they take a desires action such as clicking on a ad or buying a product.

Niche sites are very popular because you can tightly target keywords for better ranking than a site that covers a subject broadly and niche sites are great for being able to tightly target a specific type of customer(example- Rather than a general weight loss site you can target speficially to weight loss for diabetics).

You will see lots of example of niche targeting in the dating market. The same dating company will segment out their dating products to target niches with targeted pictures/colors/”pain points” in their marketing :

Specific ethnicity (Asian, African American…….
Sexual preference
Age group (Seniors, College, Middle Age…..)
Relationship status(Divorced, Widowed…)
Religion (Christians, Jewish…)

There is niche targeting everywhere because you can target your relevance of your site to the specific customer and get better conversions.

Niche Sites of The Future

An important evolution with niche sites is that Google is getting more demanding for having quality sites in their search results so creating a “thin” niche sites with only a couple pages that are only geared around targeting a couple keywords are going to get harder to stay ranked in Google unless you are really able to engage your visitors and provide value-add content.

If you are targeting only organic search for your results then you need to realize that Google will continue to figure out more ways to measure individual sites for quality and relevance by looking at visitors bounce rate, time on site, click thru to your ads, backlinks, traffic sources to your site, social media presence,etc….

If the last sentence sounds overwhelming to you then just make it simple and think about building a site that answers the visitors question or provides the data they are seeking. For example, a lasting niche site will have:

Good information that reads well. If doesnt have to have each post being an essay with the best content but it needs to cover the infomation about the keyword that you are ranking for and provide the reader with some type of solution or action.
Proper site structure with related keywords and interlinking to make the site natural.
Mixing content with images, videos, comparison tables for product reviews
A mix of backlinking not just from one source of traffic(mix social sites, article sites, forums,etc..) so it looks natural to search engines
Have relevant ads and don’t overwhelm the site with ads.

Anything that you can do to provide relevant content that keeps the reader on site and tells google that the visitor finds your site useful is a win-win for you.

Overall, no matter what style of niche site that you create, the best niche sites are the ones that correctly address the customers questions and provide a relevant solution.

Posted in Affiliate Tips

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Are You Building an Internet Business ?

August 19th, 2011

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Are You Building an Internet Business ?

I have been thinking about this question a lot lately as I have been around enough to see what works and what doesn’t in internet marketing and I know it is easy to chase the latest method or trick to make money online but over time do those methods last.

I have been asking myself recently if I am creating a solid foundation for passive income online. Many internet marketers have experienced the disaster of having their main source of income online shut off overnight like a Google adwords account closed or Facebook advertising account ban or even a change in Google’s search algorithm that caused your sites to be dropped from the rankings(or even deindexed).

There is a constant onslaught of make money online products and latest tricks or tips for outsmarting google,etc….but is that what you want to base your business on ? It is important to think about how you can create a lasting income source online whether it is though quality niche sites, or creating a product, or even just buying an existing online business with a proven track record. There are hundreds of ways to make money online but unfortunately most people get caught up in chasing the latest “easy, push button method” which usually are just hype.

Point of this post is to provide a reminder to step back and evaluate what you have been doing online. Ask yourself:

Are you constantly chasing the latest hyped-up product or are you staying focused on a known, proven method that works (and really truly understanding it.)
Do you actually LIKE what you are doing online or are you just doing something that you hope makes you the quickest money ?
Are you building assets online that will generate income if you stopped working ?
Do you have goals and an outline for how to be successful with you online efforts ?

Those question above are some of the things I have thought about and hopefully will help you really take a minute to evaluate what you doing with your online business.

Posted in Affiliate Tips, Misc

Tags: building an internet business, internet marketing advice, internet marketing tips

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Are You Building ASSETS ?

April 1st, 2011

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Are You Building Assets ?

I was listening to an interview with a PPC marketer that did over $2 million in a year that was being interviewed about a software product he created and is focused on. The interviewer asked him why bother with time creating a product like software and supporting it,etc…when he making millions and essentially the PPC marketer said because he wants to create an asset and driving traffic with Pay Per Click is not an asset because you have nothing if google shuts you down or a campaign dies or an offer is pulled.

I have been thinking about this before I heard this interview and owning assets is really what differentiates the internet marketers that last vs. those that don’t. Do you ever wonder why advertisers are willing to pay you a couple bucks for an email submit ? It is because those advertisers are the ones that understand the marketing process of owning a list and being able to build trust/sell their customers over time.

I would say the #1 thing I wish I did since starting online was more focus on building a list. I mean I barely even bother with creating a list on this site(It is on my to-do list). Coincidentally I got an email from a popular and ethical internet marketer Eric Holmlund that mentioned a new product he was putting out called Real Guys Real Money which is essentially a full course teaching you how to build a list with the ability to also resell the entire course as a PLR product.

The truly successful internet marketers are the ones that have mastered the sales funnel process in that rather than just driving traffic all the time, they actually understand how to monetize the traffic and build a list at the same time.

Anyways, hopefully this quick post opens up your mind to what you should be doing to build a lasting business and asset online. The Real Guys Real Money course is very professional and I think it is definitely worth the money even if you never bothered with the plr rights and just watched the list building course.

If I could recommend 1 thing to take away from this post is to think about building a list.

Posted in Affiliate Tips, Products

Tags: building a list, eric holmlund review, internet marketing tips, real guys real money review

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Death of Autoblog ?

February 27th, 2011

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Death of Autoblog ?

I mentioned in a recent post about the changes taking place with Google’s search algorithem. They are are targeting low-grade sites and poor quality search results many of which are autoblogs and auto-content affiliate sites.

Well, they started rolling out these changes recently and the latest is called “Farmer” update. They essentially targeted blog farms, user contributed sites(Ezine, Hubpages, Associates Content,etc..) and sites without unique content. They downgraded these sites in their search results not only for a specific post that might have ranked well for a keyword but entire sites.

Popular sites used for generating backlinks like Ezine articles and Hubpages got clobbered in their rankings. Expect to see a lot of affiliate marketers will see a significant drop on their site ranks for low quality sites and especially bad autoblogs. Autoblog Blueprint 3.0 already provides detailed outline for creating autoblogs that help avoid these google changes as this was known to be coming sooner than later, so these changes by Google will only strengthen the ranks of sites that follow Autoblog Blueprint’s site building methods.

Here are some good articles discussing the Google “Farmer” change and its immediate results:

“What Google Farmer Update Means to your Business”

Ezine Articles Blog about the Farmer Effect

Google Farmer Update : Initial Test Results – Excellent Article(look at the massive drop in Ezine Articles)

So realize that the days of low grade, push button sites are becoming a thing of the past and if you really want a comprehensive outline for proper site building with automation then check out Autoblog Blueprint 3.0.

Posted in Affiliate Tips, Misc

Tags: autoblog blueprint review, autoblog lessons, autoblogging news, google farmer changes

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Successful Autoblogging

February 1st, 2011

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Successful Autoblogging

One thing about internet marketing is that is evolves quickly. There are tons of techniques, products, new software focused on the latest traffic source, hot technique, latest trick,etc…

If the area of internet marketing that you decide to focus on is creating websites for organic traffic while using some type of automation then you are lumped into the category of “Autoblogging”. Autoblogging can vary depending on what you decide to automate whether using automation software for complete site creation and content generation or just using some software to automate time consuming tasks like distributing your written content to other social and article sites.

There are all degress of automation that can be used but as time goes on and as google and internet shoppers become more savy you will have to adapt or be lost in the graveyard of crappy autoblog sites out there. Yes, you can still get ranked on page 1 sometimes for longtail search phrase with an autoblog….but the ability to last on page 1 is becoming tougher and tougher.

Google is on the mission to improve its search results to get rid of low quality, affiliate sites so they have been constantly evolving their search algorithem to give a higher weighting to sites with unique content and quality backlinks. Just last year they implemented their “Mayday” change that caused a lot of autoblog sites that had thousands of pages all targeting very longtail search phrases being dropped from their page 1 rankings. Most of those sites had poor content and little to no backlinks.

As significance of having backlinks became more relevant last year, autobloggers(and products for autoblogging) started rolling out blog farms, and article networks generate backlinks for their sites. A popular method was creating thousands of sites at WPMU(WordPress Multi User) that would create links back to your money sites. All these blog farms,etc…..are the latest target of Google and you can be assured that autobloggers that are sloppy will get caught.

It’s not that you cant make money having thousands of automated niche websites but its getting harder to do and some autobloggers are seeing more of their sites all the sudden removed from page 1 or 2 rankings. That is why I have continued to recommend Autoblog Blueprint as the best course and information source for people that are serious about creating lasting autoblogs. There are lots of autoblog courses that claim push button ease but those sites aren’t generally long lasting.

Autoblog Blueprint 3.0 is coming out in a week after a lots of testing on what works now and will provide members with the latest methods and best practices for creating last sites. If its anything like Autoblog Blueprint 1.0 and 2.0 then expect it to overdeliver.

The other development in autoblogging to be wary of is using copyrighted material. There are lots of plugins that are pulling RSS feeds but pulling the full feeds instead of the intended partial feed/post that was provided creates issues. Some content providers like online newspapers are suing site owners and internet marketers for using that content. The use of RSS feeds is something that people should read up on if using that content. The popular autoblog information sources like PLR, article directories, yahoo answers, flickr, youtube,etc…..are all OK to use as long as you follow their terms.

Realize though that slapping out sites with those same content sources that ever other autoblogger is using is pretty tough to get quality ranks so its important to differentiate your sites by having a good understanding and foundation for proper site creation, how to mix content sources for unique layouts, and how to stay ranked in google. There is still a lot of push button, all hype products out there so I hope that reading this post will help save you the time, money, and frustration from going down that path. If you want to read more about Google’s focus on weeding out garbage sites, read their Blog post from Google’s head search guru Matt Cutts

If you want to learn how to create quality sites with automation then go with Autoblog Blueprint 3.0. (I’ve written about Autoblog Blueprint 1.0(see post) & 2.0(see post) in the past.

I have also heard some good recommendation on the methods used in Easy Paycheck Formula which I will probably purchase to learn the process she follows (although I am wary of using the simple 1 post mini sites shown in the promotional videos as google will get you eventually with those minisites. The product was recommended by some internet marketers I have respect for and seems like a great resource for beginner internet marketers and even experienced).

Posted in Affiliate Tips

Tags: autoblog blueprint 3.0, autoblog blueprint 3.0 review, autoblogging lessons, easy paycheck formula, successful autoblogging

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