Day 15 Niche Site Project – Studying Long Tail Pro and Keyword Selection

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After listening to Spencer’s December 2014 and January 2015 podcasts, I’m leaning towards more authority site now.

I completed a lot of the study in the to-do list but don’t have much time to keep the blog updated.   It was all valuable though EXCEPT the LongTailPro training videos.    I learned most of that in the Niche Site Project 1 and 2 webinars.   They were also painfully slow.

The following  post was amazing though. Spencer’s feedback on Perrin’s keyword picks was key to my understanding this process:

http://www.nichepursuits.com/good-and-bad-examples-of-low-competition-keywords-niche-site-project-2-update/

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Day 7 Niche Site Project – NSP2 Conference calls and Neil Patel

Niche Site Project, , ,

I took Friday through Sunday off and was able to pick back up on Monday by listening to 3 audios during 4 hours of driving.  I wasn’t able to take good notes, but I’ll cover some highlights.

This time I listed to the Niche Site Project 2 (NSP2) before NSP1.  In NSP2, Spencer is going through the process with a student.

Both conference call webcasts were worth listening to and taking notes.  It really opened my eyes to how beginners to this process (like me) can make wrong assumptions on picking keywords without experience.  The key lesson was that ecommerce sites’ competitive may look low due to their low link juice or inbound links but Google ranks sites that sell something (ecommerce) with more weight than info sites. It will be hard for an info site to beat the ecommerce site.

Another concept that was revealed was that I could rank high for a number of secondary keywords if the primary keyword is too competitive. This is especially true if one finds a good niche but the topic itself doesn’t make a lot of sense to be its own home page. In the example mentioned, cheap hybrid bikes was that niche that could be a secondary keyword under cheap bikes.

In Podcast 44: Content Marketing and Traffic Tips from Neil Patel, I also didn’t get to take notes but I remember a few gems:

  •  Blog consistently. Pick a schedule and stick with it (e.g. once a week)
  • Go for long posts with LOTS of detail.
  • PROMOTE YOUR CONTENT. Find a list of 100 websites owners that write on similar topics that are not competitors.  Then email them and ask them to Tweet about it (don’t ask them to link to it).
  • Make some infographic content.

 Recommendation

Don’t start keyword picking until you’ve watched How to Perform Keyword Research: NSP 2, Coaching Call 2 and How to Analyze the Google Competition for 5 Example Keywords: Coaching Call 3 at a minimum.

I think it would be a good strategy to watch the two above,  take the niche site pro lessons, then watch the sister lesson from NSP1 NSP Update 1: Finding the Right Keyword to Target and Good and Bad Examples of Low Competition Keywords: Niche Site Project 2 Update!

ROI Tracking

Earned $ Expenses Planning Site Work Study
$0 $132 12 0 11

Day 3 Niche Site Project – How to Brainstorm for Niche Ideas and Two Podcasts

Niche Site Project,

The three resources I watched and listened to were the How to Brainstorm for Niche Ideas: Niche Site Project 2, Coaching Call 1, Podcast 54: Link Building Tactics for 2015 and Beyond with Jon Cooper, and Podcast 57: How Claire Smith Makes Over 5 Figures a Month with Niche Sites and NO Link Building.  (I had some drive time so I got in 2 podcasts)

I would recommend skipping the Brainstorm webinar and the Link Building Tactics.   The Claire Smith interview gave some real value.  The only problem was that I’m not familiar enough with what she was talking about to have real take-aways.  I could just tell that she gave a lot of good information.   I’ll come back to this one later in my schedule.

I purchased the SEO course to learn from an SEO expert (verses a niche expert) in the link building section.  I’ve added them to the “to do” list.

Recommendation

How to Brainstorm for Niche Ideas: Niche Site Project 2, Coaching Call 1 had some but not enough information above and beyond the NSP Webinar Replay to make it worth watching.   I liked the way it added the idea to mind map Fears, Passions, and Problems to your niche ideas list. If I hadn’t been writing this post 3 days after watching it, I would have remembered more.

Podcast 54: Link Building Tactics for 2015 and Beyond with Jon Cooper wasn’t worth the time either (except for a good traffic jam podcast) as he was either cagy about really good tips or it was too geared towards the Authority Site Project education website.  Overall, it was a confirmation that one needs to keep their backlinks coming from related topic websites and write really good content.

Podcast 57: How Claire Smith Makes Over 5 Figures a Month with Niche Sites and NO Link Building was good and useful, but should be listened to later down the list. Maybe after two months of working on the site.

I’m not going to be around for Day 4, 5, or 6, so there will not be any study then.

 ROI Tracking

Earned $ Expenses Planning Site Work Study
$0 $132 12 0 8

 

 

 

 

Day 2 Niche Site Project – Spencer Haws interview by Guthrie

Niche Site Project,

Today was just a quick 30 minutes listening to an Spencer Haws interview by Chris Guthrie. This interview was offered as a bonus in Guthrie’s Kindle book, “5 Proven Methods For Making $1,000+ Per Month With Websites (Proven Methods for making $1,000+ Per Month Online)”

Buy it on Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NO73V6Q/

The interview was great for beginners or as a primer for how the process works (high level) from end to end.  For me, it was not that beneficial since I already  had an understanding from yesterday’s studies (see post) reading Spencer’s blog on the summary of the results of his project/public experiment.

My Recommendation

Skip this interview unless you are a beginner and want to deepen your understanding of the niche website process through repetition.

ROI Tracking

Today’s time investment: 0.5 Hours of Study

Earned $ Expenses Planning Site Work Study
$0 $97 12 0 5

Day 1 (Part 2 of 2) Niche Site Project – Niche Site Project Webinar Re-play

Niche Site Project,

Niche Site Project Current Steps

My Response to Today’s Teachings

The blog, Public Niche Site Project: The Strategic Plan, was just a light intro into the webinar. It outlined some parameters, goals, and “rules”.  It was good to read this first so I had an understanding of what the project was and was not.

In the Webinar Re-play, I recommend saving some time and skipping to minute 17.  He started the webinar early to chat with the attendees. He also did some nice, but lengthy background story and setup.  The moral of the story was that not ever attempt will be a success, but you can improve your chances from learning from others and your own failures.

I took a lot of good notes.  It was a great example of looking over the shoulder of an expert. Not knowing Long Tailed Pro software yet, I had to slow it down and figure a few things out.  He repeated the process a few times though so it really sunk in after the 3rd example.  I think the software manual and training will sink in better now that I understand it’s practical use.

Recommendation for the Webinar

The overview was simple enough to understand, but I would recommend a beginner to watch it a second time after going through the Long Tail Pro how-to videos and trying it his or herself. There will be some techniques picked up the second time around that can go over one’s head if they don’t start with a base understanding.

Day 1 (Part 1 of 2) Niche Site Project – Understanding Spencer Haws’ Process

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I spent the morning reading Spencer Haws’ How My Niche Site Ranked #1 in Google in 62 Days! article. I studied it carefully and pretended I was having coffee with him.  That way I paid attention like I was given a golden ticket to hear how the best do their niches.

I took notes on the topics of keywords, his link building strategy overview, and his 3 way link trade secret. I learned about negative SEO and Google’s disavow links to remedy it.

Spencer’s an expert and has ranked #1 in Google many times before, so the tactics that he has laid out work. I could see building a multi-hundred dollar course (or a $2,000 seminar) off of everything he’s laid out. It may not be as tidy as a course, but it is gold.

I’ve purchase Long Tail Pro so I can start following along as I do the training videos in my niche site project to-do list.

Day 0 Niche Site Project – Making a checklist of the process

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My Niche Site Goal

I’m going to tackle building a niche site from scratch by following the steps of how experts do theirs.  I have experienced success in the past with other projects when I had the discipline to follow a “how-to” course to the letter and to the end.

I’ve had dozens of friends start processes like this with me (on other endeavors) only to see them fall off mid-way through. A few “do it their own way” and fail. Many ended up saying, “We’ll pay you to do it for us.”  There is a business in selling one’s expertise but that’s not what I was looking for.  I wanted to leverage economies of scale by having partners, not to do consulting or widget building.

In my life, I’ve had a lot of people envious of my knowledge, successes, hobbies or skills. The secret is that I dedicate myself to learning and follow it through … to … the …end.

With that said, welcome to my new learning journey.

ROI

I’m going to be interested in my ROI so throughout this process, I’ll report on 3 factors: Money Invested, Time Invested, and Revenue Earned.  If I can, I’d like to split it up to research / learning and site work.   For Day 1, I’ve invested about 12 hours of research and learning.  It took a lot of research to find the best course to follow for a successful niche website. I’ll build a graph for future posts.

Research

I did two days of research to find the best online course to build a profitable niche website.  In the end I found that the BEST “courses” were actually free blog posts.  Pat Flynn has a great series on smartpassiveincome.com.  The only problem is that it was published in 2010. The sequence is very difficult to follow because of the updates to the original posts all over the site. I was worried that I’d be following outdated information.

Another expert and trusted authority that collaborates a lot with Pat Flynn is Spencer Haws.  His Niche Site Project outline was done in 2013, much more recently than Pat’s. He did it once on is own (Niche Site Project 1) and a second time brining a student through he process (Niche Site Project 2).

Since he followed the same steps, I decided that I’d follow BOTH projects side by side. I’ll read Project 1 first and then the related topic on Project 2 to get a deeper understanding from another angle when he’s teaching a student. The Niche To-Do List below is a result of that research.

Update January 28, 2015: His last update to the above 2 projects was starting an “Authority Niche Project” in Aug 2014.  There’s only 6 blogs on his progress. He didn’t monetize the site until December after the ebook was launched. The two key blogs in the series discuss modifications that need to be taken into consideration from the lessons their small niche sites learned by the way of Google penalties. I’ve added those six posts into the lesson sequence below (labeled as ASP1).

Software

I was a little confused as to which was the best software to use going into this. I was worried about doing one training over another because some focused on picking a niche based on using one software over another.

After an hour or two of reading blog posts and forum comments, it was pretty clear that Long Tail Pro (LTP) had taken the reigns over Market Samurai (MS).  The primary complaint about MS was that it was way too slow. Supposedly the problems had been fixed, but research into what marketers are using most recently showed that LTP was the winner. There were some benefits for using BOTH to leverage both their strengths.  I’m just going to start with one, Long Tail Pro.

My Niche To-Do List (Updated Feb 6, 2015)

Completed Link and Description Source
1/28/2015 How To Make Passive Income With Niche Websites Spencer Haws interview by Guthrie Guthrie
1/27/2015 How My Niche Site Ranked #1 in Google in 62 Days! NSP1
1/27/2015 Public Niche Site Project: The Strategic Plan NSP1
1/27/2015 Niche Site Project Webinar Re-play (start from 17 min) 1h5m Note: Might not be necessary after Long Tail Pro Software video NSP1
1/29/2015 How to Brainstorm for Niche Ideas: Niche Site Project 2, Coaching Call 1 (September 3rd, 2013) NSP2
2/2/2015 How to Perform Keyword Research: NSP 2, Coaching Call 2 (September 9th, 2013) NSP2
2/2/2015 How to Analyze the Google Competition for 5 Example Keywords: Coaching Call 3 for NSP 2! (September 24th, 2013) NSP2
Welcome to the Authority Site Project! ASP1
4 Key Strategy Differences Between Small Niche Sites and Authority Sites ASP1
Authority Keyword Research Tutorial [with Video!] + SEM Rush Review ASP1
Authority Site Project Income Report for December 2014 ASP1
How To Videos for LongTailPro.com http://www.longtailpro.com/demo-videos/ LTP
LTP
Skip first  videos, use manual Long Tail Pro User Manual.pdf LTP
LTP
LTP
LTP
–          Video 6 – Understanding the Keyword Results Screen LTP
–          Video 7 – How to Use the Competitor Analysis LTP
–          Video 8 – How to Find Low Competition Keywords with the Competitor Analysis LTP
–          Video 9 – How to Use the Rank Checker LTP
–          Video 10 – How to Import up to 10,000 Keywords at Once LTP
–          Video 11 – How to Save and Use Favorites LTP
–          Video 12 – How to Use “Avg. KC” on Keyword Results LTP
–          Video 13 – Understanding the Average Keyword Competitiveness Number LTP
NSP Update 1: Finding the Right Keyword to Target NSP1
Good and Bad Examples of Low Competition Keywords: Niche Site Project 2 Update! (September 18th, 2013) NSP2
NSP Update 2: My Primary Keyword and Domain Revealed! NSP1
The Mystery Keyword and Brand Strategy: Coaching Call 4 for Niche Site Project 2! (October 1st, 2013) NSP2
Register for Niche Site Duel SPIB
Themes Plugins and Content Strategy for Niche Site Project 2: Coaching Call 5! (October 9th, 2013) NSP2
NSP Update 3: Niche Site Content Strategy NSP1
6 Ways to Create Content that Engages and Converts  
How to Self Publish a Book on Amazon: 23 Steps to Launching a Kindle eBook That Makes Over $100 a Day ASP1
Video Strategy Other
YouTube Links strategy Other
Niche Site Project 2 Update: Week 6! (October 16th, 2013) NSP2
NSP Update 4: My Niche Site is Live…Now What? NSP1
The Site is Revealed! An In-Depth Look at Perrin’s Website (October 23rd, 2013) NSP2
Preparing for Website Promotion: Niche Site Project Week 8! (October 31st, 2013) NSP2
NSP Update 5: Ranking in Google and Making Money! NSP1
How to Build Links for Niche Sites NSP1
1) Beginner’s Guide to Link Building (PDF) PBSEO
2) Conducting A Campaign (PDF) PBSEO
3) Strategies (PDF) PBSEO
4) Link Diversity (PDF) PBSEO
5) Tools (PDF) PBSEO
6) Advanced Section (PDF) PBSEO
7) Actual Link Building Opportunities (PDF) PBSEO
8) Blueprint For New Sites (PDF) PBSEO
9) Automated and Outsourced Link Building (PDF) PBSEO
Reddit Marketing: How We Got 10,000 Pageviews and a PA 48 Link from Reddit in 2 Weeks NP
Building Base Links for Niche Websites: Niche Site Project Week 9! (November 4th, 2013) NSP2
http://www.nichepursuits.com/how-to-build-links-for-niche-sites/ NP
   
THE Backlinking Strategy That Works – 2014 and Beyond Edition SPIB
How to Effectively Add Amazon Affiliate Links with WordPress NSP1
How to Get a Google Penalty Using Too Many Affiliate Links (And How to Recover) NSP1
Adsense Secrets Book 6th Edition – Layer on Techniques http://www.amazon.com/Google-AdSense-Secrets-6-0-Making-ebook/dp/B00SKIPFFO (Releases Feb 24, 2015) Joel Comm
Rankings Jump, Real Earnings, and Links! Project Review for Week 10 (November 12th, 2013) NSP2
Guest Post Success! A Simple Ego Bait Method that Can Get You Great Links! (November 20th, 2013) NSP2
NSP Update 6: Ranking on the First Page of Google! NSP1
Ranking Higher in Google and Selling More Products: Week 12 Recap! (November 27th, 2013) NSP2
Niche Site Project 2: Income Report for November 2013! (December 3rd, 2013) NSP2
Niche Site Project 2 Update: Google Traffic, Better Rankings, and More Sales! (December 17th, 2013) NSP2
Niche Site Project 2: Income Report for December 2013! (January 7th, 2014) NSP2
Niche Site Project 2: Income Report and Podcast for January 2014! (February 6th, 2014) NSP2
Niche Site Project 2: Income Report for February 2014! (March 4th, 2014) NSP2
Niche Site Project 2: Income Report for March 2014! (April 8th, 2014) NSP2
  Other articles:  
2/1/2015 Podcast 44: Content Marketing and Traffic Tips from Neil Patel NP
1/29/2015 Podcast 57: How Claire Smith Makes Over 5 Figures a Month with Niche Sites and NO Link Building. NP
Is My Niche Site a Victim of Negative SEO? NSP1
Niche Site Project Income Report for March 2013 NSP1
The State of SEO and My Public Niche Site Project NSP1
NSP Update 7: Rankings, Earnings, and Strategy Review  NSP1
Niche Site Project Income Report for April 2013 NSP1
Outranked! Was My Niche Site Copied? NSP1
Niche Site Project Income Report for May 2013 NSP1
Niche Site Project Income Report for June 2013 NSP1
Niche Site Project Income Report for July 2013! NSP1
I Got an Unnatural Links Warning!  New Manual Spam Actions Viewer NSP1
Niche Site Project Income Report for August 2013! NSP1
Niche Site Project Income Report for September 2013 and a Penguin Penalty 2.1! NSP1
Niche Site Project 1 Income Report for October 2013! (Nov. 18th, 2013) NSP1
SEO Attack Against BestSurvivalKnifeGuide.com: A Full Link Analysis and Case Study (Dec. 5th, 2013) NSP1
Survival Knife Project Update! Making a Comeback from Negative SEO? (August 27th, 2014) NSP1
Podcast 43: Niche Site Project Update, Disavow Links, and Recovering in Google (Sept. 1st, 2014) NSP1
1/29/2015 Podcast 54: Link Building Tactics for 2015 and Beyond with Jon Cooper NP

* Sources:

NSP1 : Niche Site Project 1: http://www.nichepursuits.com/niche-site-project-1-overview/

NSP2 : Niche Site Project 2: http://www.nichepursuits.com/niche-site-project-2-overview/

SPI : Smart Passive Income: http://www.smartpassiveincome.com

NSP: Niche Site Pursuits : Spencer Haws : http://www.nichepursuits.com/%20

LTP: Long Tail Pro

ASP1: Authority Site Project 1: http://www.nichepursuits.com/4-key-strategy-differences-small-niche-sites-authority-sites/

Guthrie: Chris Guthrie’s Kindle Book 5 Proven Methods For Making $1,000+ Per Month With Websites (Proven Methods for making $1,000+ Per Month Online) (Volume 1)