There are hundreds of different ways to setup a niche website – you know this, but I’ll outline my process for you below because it’s easy to follow and it doesn’t require much know-how. If you have anything to add, I’m sure the people here who are unfamiliar with this process will appreciate your insight in the comment section.
1. Setting Up The Blog
For my niche site challenge, I’ll be using a WordPress blog with a domain and hosting from Bluehost.com.
In the past, niche sites were almost always static sites, and blogs were just a way to keep your friends informed about the shenanigans from last weekend’s party. They weren’t given much in terms of priority and ranking in Google’s search engine algorithm.
Now, as I’m sure you’ll know, blogs can rank high – really high.
Why?
Well, I don’t know the exact answer, but it’s probably because blogs have a better site structure and coding, promote conversation and interaction, and are usually straight to the point containing the most important, relevant keywords.
Whatever the case may be, this works in our favor because a blog is really easy to setup, and you don’t need to know anything about html, css or any of that stuff to get started.
There are many blogging platforms out there you could choose from, such as Blogger, Typepad & Moveable Type, however WordPress is the most popular. All of my websites, even static websites, are run on the WordPress platform.
Please note that there’s a WordPress.com and a WordPress.org.
The .com is where you can setup your blog for free. You don’t need to pay for anything, and you can have a blog up and running in no time. However, your website name will always have the word “wordpress” in it, such as smartpassiveincome.wordpress.com, which decreases it’s authority in the search engines. Also, you are limited to what you can do with your wordpress hosted site.
The .org is where you can download WordPress to put on your own hosted domain. There is an installation process that can hold some people back, which is why I recommend using a hosting service like Bluehost.com because you can get your domain and hosting cheap, and simply click one button to install WordPress on your site. It literally takes 4 minutes (I know because I timed it), and you can watch this YouTube video if you’re looking for step by step instructions about how to set that up.
2. Plugins
For the rest of this tutorial, I won’t be going step by step through how to install plugins, how to install a theme, etc. Most of that is self-explanatory within the wordpress control panel itself, but if you do have any specific questions please don’t hesitate to ask here in the comment section, or just contact me privately instead.
As far as plugins are concerned, I install the following 4 plugins immediately after WordPress is loaded:
- All in One SEO Pack
- Google XML Sitemaps
Easy Privacy PolicySyon Policy- Google Analyticator
Then, I configure each of the ones that need configuring:
All in One SEO Pack
This plugin is the most important plugin you can install because from it, the search engines will look for information about your site. The plugin overrides all of your normal wordpress settings for your blog title, tagline, etc.
As you know from my previous niche site duel entry, I’ve decided my research led me to tackle the Security Guard Training niche, and pick up security guard training hq dot com. The exact match .com domain was not available, but it was for sale for $35,000.
Ugh, no thanks.
HQ on the end sounds kind of cool anyways for this niche, since headquarters is a term used in the industry already.
Moving on, it’s important that I properly setup my All in One SEO Pack plugin to be optimized for my niche.
Side note: I’ll do my best not to use the domain name I purchased, or even mention my niche so as not to skew any of the search engine results and numbers. It’s going to be impossible for me to keep my niche site 100% clean of non-related visitors and some incoming links, but that’s the price I pay when being totally transparent and sharing everything with you in this challenge. I hope that makes sense!
Here’s what I have:
Home Title: This is the title that will be shown at the top of your browser on your homepage and in the bright blue letters on the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERPs). I have included my keyword twice for more oomph (title and then tagline), but you have to be careful here because using your keyword too much will penalize your site.
I like to use the rule of 2 max. 2 max in your title, and 2 max in your description.
Home Description: This is the paragraph that gets shown underneath your blue link on the SERPs. Many people don’t use this plugin and fail to set this up, which leaves their description totally weird looking, sometimes containing random excerpts from their websites.
Be descriptive here, and be sure to include your primary keyphrase once again. I also used a secondary keyword that is related to the industry (protection services) as well here, just to give it a little bit more relevance to the
Both of the above (title and description) are what people see in the SERPs, so you can have more of an impact (i.e. get more traffic) by not only optimizing for keywords, but optimizing to catch people’s attention too. Sometimes, a #3 ranking site will have more traffic than a #2, simply because the copy is better.
My copy changes from time to time, so what you see in Google now may be different than what you see above.
Home Keywords: Keywords in the meta data (background of your site) are less important nowadays. The weight has been taken heavily off of them since a lot of people would just insert unrelated keywords into their meta data and rank for keywords they shouldn’t. Still, you should put in your primary keyphrase first, followed by any secondary keyphrases related to your niche which you know are being searched for.
Google XML Sitemaps
This super important plugin helps create a certain file that is used by Google’s bots that crawl your site and it’s content, for proper indexing in their system.
Once you activate it, it’s ready to go – you don’t need to do anything further.
Easy Privacy Policy Syon Policy
This is a cool plugin that automatically creates a page on your blog that suits the needs of Google as far as a privacy policy on your site goes. Sites without them get docked, which is why you see them on most high ranking sites. You can see mine at the bottom of my blog here too.
The plugin will put a link to your privacy policy in the navigation of your blog. For those of you who don’t want that there, you can use a plugin called Exclude Pages to stop it from showing up there. I usually do this and link to it manually within the footer.php file.
Not totally necessary – just something I like to do.
Update: for some reason, all of the privacy policy plugins are getting deleted from the WordPress plugin directory. Instead, I advise that you use this private policy generator found here.
Google Analyticator
This plugin helps me hook up my site to my Google Analytics account so that I can see all of the traffic and keyword data I need to see right on my wordpress Admin panel. There are a bunch of advanced options that go along with it, but I don’t mess around with that stuff at this point.
Before setting up this plugin, you’ll need a Google Analytics account. Then, follow the instructions on the plugin settings page to get everything configured properly.
3. The Theme
The theme of your website (the look of it, which can easily be swapped for another look), is really easy to setup.
I’ve changed the theme on this blog (Smart Passive Income) 4 or 5 times before I finally ended up with one I liked, but what’s nice is that there are a million and one themes available to you (both free and paid), so there’s bound to be one that suits your needs.
For my niche site, I found an awesome free theme, SimpleFolio that works for what I’m trying to do at the moment. It has a number of features that a lot of paid themes include, which is cool.
It’s not a theme, however, that you can get in WordPress’ free theme directory. So, you’ll have to visit the link above, download the zip file, extract it, and plop the folder into the …wp-content/themes/ folder in your site. Then, it will show up as a theme you have installed on your blog, and all you have to do is activate it to make it live.
If you purchase a premium theme from a site like WooThemes, you’ll have to use the same method to get it onto your site.
Here’s a screenshot of my niche site up and running with the SimpleFolio theme:
You can see some of the content on there already, and in fact as I write this post, I see that my page has actually already been indexed by Google. Not ranked, just indexed, which means they know it’s there. I’ll go over how that happened in the next post.
Right now, the look of the theme isn’t actually that important, since no one is going to visit the site until it’s on the first page of Google, which is my top priority. What’s important now is that the content I publish is categorized, tagged and optimized for my keyphrase, and that I’m sending backlinks to the site (again, I will discuss this process in a later post).
Monetization?
Many people have been asking me what my plan for monetization is, since I’m not starting with a product keyword as I normally do. This is something that I thought about before deciding to tackle this niche, which is something everyone doing niche sites should think about before they start building a site.
There are training manuals available that I could be an affiliate for, but I’m looking more toward the online training courses that are required as part of the process to become a security guard. There are a bunch of them, and I’ll have to contact the site owners to work out a deal of some sorts (which is exactly what I did with my site at GreenExamAcademy), but that won’t happen until I have some leverage and traffic in this niche. Until then, I will probably and strategically sprinkle the site with adsense, since I know the cost-per-click is rather high, at $2.32 per click.
Again, I started GreenExamAcademy.com the same way, using Adsense, and what’s cool is that I can actually see what ads are popping up on my site and contact those companies directly for advertising and affiliate opportunities.
Niche Site Content
For the purposes of this challenge, I’m writing all of the content myself.
You can (and in some cases, probably should) hire and outsource people to create the content for you, but I like to write, and since this is a topic I’m actually interested about (since it came from my 777 passions-problems-fears niche selection method), I know I’ll be able to produce content that people are looking for.
Because I know nothing about this niche, I’m in the same shoes as those who will actually use my site. Because of this, I think I’ll know exactly what people want to know and how to present it to them.
I’ll talk more about what I do with the content in one of the next Niche Site Duel posts, but just to give you an idea about how I come up with the content, I simply create a list of questions, concerns and topics that I could possibly write about and go from there.
Some come from common sense, some are based on further related keyword research, and some are generated from research with competing websites.
Cool Resource: You can use this Keyword Questions Tool to find out what types of questions people are typing into search engines related to your niche. I wouldn’t look too hard at the numbers next to the questions, but you can get some good ideas about what kind of content people want to know about. Here’s a screenshot below:
Based off all that, here is a screenshot of a Google Doc that has a few of the posts that I will be researching and writing about:
So Far, I’ve Spent…
Setting up the domain and hosting, the WordPress blog, configuring the plugins and uploading the theme took a total of about 1 hour.
Doing the research required for the content topics for the site, maybe another 1 hour or so.
Each blog post I’ve written so far (shown in red in the screenshot above), has taken about 30 minutes to 1 hour each, so maybe a total of 4 additional hours.
Total Hours = 6 hours.
I could stop with the blog posts I’ve already written and just work on building backlinks, but I really want to go hardcore in this niche which is why you’re seeing a lot more than 4 or 5 blog posts, and why some of them aren’t totally related to the training aspect of this industry. I want the site to look natural (which it will be), because that’s what works best.
As far as cost, all I have paid for up to this point was the domain and hosting package, which runs at $6.95 a month from Bluehost.
Total Cost = $6.95.
Not bad!
Anyways, this post is rather long, so I’ll finish up and get back to work. Remember, it’s all about working hard now, so you can reap the benefits later.
Tyrone, my challenger in this duel, has selected his niche, but I think he may be switching it up too because of some further research done on his initial selection. I’ll do my best to link to his updates as much as I can. It’s difficult to coordinate perfectly because of our time zone difference (he’s in Austrailia, I’m in California), but we are trying to coordinate everything for you as much as possible.
Thanks again for your support, and I wish you all the best. Cheers!
Other Posts in The Niche Site Duel Series
- Niche Site Duel: I’ve Been Challenged, and I Accept! (8/16)
- Niche Site Duel 002: Finding a Profitable Niche – My Process Revealed (8/18)
- Oops. The Niche I Selected is Bad, and Here’s Why (8/20)
- Niche Site Duel 003: How to Setup a Niche Site – Before You Add Content (8/25)
- Niche Site Duel 004: My Content Strategy (9/10)
- Niche Site Duel 005: My Backlinking Boo Boo (9/13)
- Niche Site Duel 006: My Backlinking Strategy (9/14)
- Niche Site Duel 007: Ranking and Traffic (and Earnings!) Update (9/29)
- Niche Site Duel 008: My Monetization Strategy (10/26)
- Niche Site Duel 009: I’m On The First Page of Google! (10/27)
- Niche Site Duel 010: I’m Ranked Number One in Google!! (11/8)
- Niche Site Duel 011: THE Backlinking Strategy That Works (11/10)
- Niche Site Duel 012: An Experiment and Income Update (11/29)
- Niche Site Duel 013: CPA Promotions, Private Advertising, Job Board and Income Report(1/14)
- My 275% Increase in Adsense Revenue (1/26)
- Niche Site Earnings and Directory Listing Update (3/11)
- I Was Just Offered Five Figures For My Niche Site! (5/11)
- Niche Site Update – New Content, Record Earnings, and What’s Next (5/26)
- Niche Site Duel – One Year Later (Earnings and Traffic Update (8/15)
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Hi Pat,
The theme you had selected fits your niche really well. I am eager to visit your site once it’s up. Its pretty amazing that you are outsourcing any of your contents and do it all by yourself. I bet you are already quite busy with your other blogs. I wish you well and looking forward to your next updates.
Thanks Lye. I just want to show people it can be done with primarily doing the work yourself, and so that people who actually do want to know how it all works will have a place of reference. Cheers!
Hey Pat,
Those photos on the top slider pictures look really cool – “very official looking”. Same goes for the logo and the title of the website on the top. Have you outsourced it for designing a custom logo or did you do that yourself somehow.
Thanks Sammy – actually I did everything my self up to this point, including those graphics. My photoshop skills from my 9 to 5 have proven to be quite useful, however it wouldn’t cost much to get something like that done somewhere for those who don’t have any graphic design experience.
I’ll talk more about customization and stuff later on – the graphics aren’t SUPER important at this point because I have no traffic yet. Hehe.
Cheers!
I am sorry i mean you are not outsourcing. Too eager to post my comments
This is way too cool. I’m getting my popcorn out for this series, couldn’t be more entertained!
Dan – woot!
I’m really looking forward to learn how you drive traffic to a new site. I think that’s going to be the secret sauce of of a successful niche blog. (I read the term “secret sauce” on Maren Kate’s site and it stuck).
Hurry Up Pat
Hi Pat, great post to read. I recently bought Profit Instruments which describes setting up a blog (almost) the same way. Working on my first dutch niche blog, with no experience at all. Besides my own personal blog. I’m curious how it will work out for you. Thank you for sharing
Hey Christel – awesome! Good luck with everything, and remember that even if your first profit instrument doesn’t work out well, you’ll have the tools and knowledge to setup more fast and you’re bound to hit a homerun.
Great post pat. Keep up the good work…
Cheers Tony – thanks!
Really great post Pat,
Concerning the plugins, I installed the google analytics and the xl plugin – I use thesis theme and it has a default SEO box provided, it replaces all in one seo pack.
Keep up the good work!
Yeah, Thesis will work great and replace the need for that SEO plugin, but for those using a free theme, it’s essential that they install and activate it for their site.
Thanks Onibaliusi!
Great post Pat.
I’ve never really understood how people do niche sites so it’s really cool to read your posts that go along with what you are doing for you own niche site.
I think doing a post for each step is a great idea as well because I personally find it a lot easier to understand what you are doing than if you had done one massive 3,000 word article.
Well – this post was actually over 2200+ words, so it is a bit long, but yea – I think if I did everything in one post, it would be over 10k, for sure.
Hi Pat,
This is great! It’s exciting to read about the work you’ve done for your niche site and I learned something new at the same time. I have been using All in One SEO Pack and Google XML SiteMap. Will definitely check out Easy Privacy Policy and Google Analyticator later!
Thanks and looking forward to read the next posts.
Thanks for following the challenge Fariza! I’m really happy to have the opportunity to teach people something new here, if possible. Cheers!
Still following along borderline-religiously, Pat…great post, as always…
P.s. Did you see the change Ryan implemented to the Author’s Bio box, on each article, yesterday, on Info Barrel? With THAT placement, you are going to see a HUGE influx of users…just watch
Hey Howie – Wow – I just check out the new Author Box at InfoBarrel, and it looks awesome. I want to write some articles related to my niches now
Just watch the traffic surge right in….maintaining that delicate balance between quality content, and spam garbage will be tricky, but I’m confident they can pull it off.
P.s. I know your’e busy and all, but, for reasons I’ve been hounding you about since last August, I think you should seriously consider uploading content over there
It’s cool to know that management is actively work hard to tweek things in order to increase writer CTR, as well. I’m over $300/month now JUST from the revenue share aspect of the site….and, it’s ONLY a PR4 site….as my articles mature, with 90% revenue share, I’m confident I can earn $1,500-$2,000 (at least)/ month.
See ya’ over there
Good article Pat. Wordpress makes it so easy to get started. Your theme looks great. Did you make the header image yourself? If so, where did the images come from?
I’m enjoying the different ways you and Tyrone are going about the challenge.
Good luck.
Hey Allan – I did make the header myself in photoshop with some stock images I had purchased in a package a long time ago, but that part is not totally necessary which is why I didn’t talk about it just yet. I’ll talk about theme customization later, probably once I start seeing traffic coming in, which is when it matters. Cheers!
Really enjoying this series Pat… lot’s and lot’s of interesting info to come I’m sure.
Please keep at it, because I’m loving it. And good luck!
Thanks Jaime – I appreciate your support! Cheers!
Curious if your link out affiliate masker (i.e. http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/bluehost) is a wordpress plugin too? Or custom programming on this site?
It’s simple. Download a plugin called “pretty link”.
This is really cool to watch the process Pat. Excellent idea and I have already found a couple nice tweaks I can make to my blog. It seems this will be a good learning experience for all. Take Care, Mike
Awesome dude, that’s really what this is all about – helping all of you learn new things, no matter how big or little they are. Thanks for the support Mike! Do your best, and forget the rest!
Excellent resource, Pat! Wow. I’m not a niche blogger and don’t plan to be, but I know a lot of my readers are on this path and even more hope to be. I’ll definitely refer them here.
Hey Jean – thanks for that! I appreciate it! And even though you don’t plan on becoming a niche blogger, I’m sure there are things I’ll be talking about that anyone can apply to what they do online, no matter what it is.
Cheers!
And here I thought I knew everything there was to know about setting up a blog. I had no idea that there was a plugin like Easy Privacy Policy. Thanks for sharing it, and I went ahead and installed it on Cash Campfire.
Watching your niche blog progress is fascinating. How often are you planning to post on your niche blog? Once a day? Two times a day? I think you should also think about your post frequency as well. This will help you to set goals in place.
Great post and looking forward to reading more!
Christina
Great question Christina, and it’s one that I’ll be covering in my next installment, but I plan to do one post a day for a while, possibly even more with some content that I know can be churned out pretty fast. I think this will increase my rankings and authority in this niche faster than if I posted less often.
More to come on that! Thanks for your support!
You really got us hooked here my friend. I really like the cleanliness of the site, so many amateurs make the mistake of making these niche sites look so crappy and spammy. I lot that I learned about making a nice looking site I learned it from Adam Short.
Yeah – I did the same thing when I first started, but I learned that no matter how many ads and random graphics you put on your site, it doesn’t matter unless you have people visiting your site.
This is getting hot, Pat! I admire your ability to put together these well crafted posts and the fact you’re tackling your niche site by yourself. Incredible!! Your niche site looks awesome, by the way – you’re going to kill it.
Thanks for sharing.
Michael
Thanks Michael! And really, if I can do it, anyone can. I hope I can kill it! Cheers!
Hey Pat, it looks like you’re off to an awesome start here. I really like the approach you’re taking, so I’m looking forward to when you actually implement your monetization (I know you said you’d be starting with AdSense) and begin to see results. Also, I think a lot of people REALLY appreciate the step-by-step nature of this series so far.
Keep it up man!
- Eric
Thanks Eric! I can’t wait until I get to that point either. Since I’ve stopped using adsense as my primary monetization method, they’ll actually come out with some cool features, like being able to change the font and really integrate the ads into the site.
It’s funny how ads are usually supposed to stick out like a sore thumb and grab people’s attention, but what really works better is if it integrates and flows with the look of the site. I’ll definitely let you all know when I get to that point! Cheers!
Wow, it really has been awhile since you’ve used AdSense.
It is weird how ads that blend in are actually more effective than those that stick out. I think it has more to do with the fact that the visitor of the site believes that the ad links are a part of your site, so they’re more likely to click on them.
In general though, people have become so “ad blind,” mainly because they’re more focused on the actual site content itself. If your ads look like the actual site content (part of the reason why contextual ads are SO effective), it becomes relevant to your visitors.
Hmm, perhaps I was wrong about my “it’s been awhile” comment. The changing fonts feature does seem fairly new, unless I missed it before…
Pat,
As usual, killer content that is actionable.
I started with Blogger, moved to WordPress.com and just recently “graduated” to a selfhosted site with WordPress.org. It was so easy, I with I had done it sooner. The one thing I did that was helpful was I got all the kinks out, created custom graphics for the theme I was using, and learned a lot about HTML off-line before I made the switch from WordPress.com.
I have to thank Jonny of TheLifeThing.com for turning me onto Fealess Flyer for a killer theme. Check out the site and let me know what you think.
Regards,
Stephen
Whoa, so you had quite a bit of of journey to finally arrive to your own site with the .org wordpress installed. That’s awesome, and I’m sure you learned so much along the way. I like the theme, Stephen – good stuff!
Hey Pat,
People are really getting a front row seat on how building and creating a niche site. People need to realize that making money online by setting up shop with these types of sites are mind boggling easy.
But it’s great your able to walk the world through the steps, and showing them how simple they could be strating thier own niche site today.
What your doing is remarkable, and I my 10 yrs marketing online..I never seen no one who will actaully gothrough the process steps by step live.. Keep you the good work bro..a lot of people look up to you now.
“TrafficColeman “Signing Off”
Thanks man – I like to try to stand out from the crowd. Cheers!
Hi Pat, You’re putting together a really good series of posts here, can’t wait till the next installment.
Thanks Mark – I appreciate it! More to come
Contacting Adsense advertisers might go against Adsense TOS, if I’m reading it correctly.
If you agree, then you might want to remove that line from your post.
https://www.google.com/adsense/terms
Communications Solely With Google. You agree to direct to Google, and not to any advertiser, any communication regarding any Ad(s) or Link(s) displayed in connection with Your Property(ies).
Mike
Hey thanks for that, Mike – I didn’t realize that was in their TOS. That may have been added since I started using adsense a couple of years ago. Well, if that’s the case I might skip adsense and/or just type in my keyphrases into Google search and find out who is advertising from there.
Thanks Mike!
Hi Pat,
I don’t think that is what they meant, what they are trying to say is in regards to the quality of the advertisments e.t.c.
BTW: You might want to try reply me wordpress plugin:http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/replyme/ it will automatically notify your readers if you reply their comments.
What do you think?
Pat, I’ve been blogging for years now, but I always manage to learn something new from every single post you publish!
This time around, it was the fact that my sites could get docked for not having a privacy policy – whoops! I made sure to install the Easy Privacy Policy plugin and like you said, within a matter of minutes, it was posted. Good stuff!
Glad to help out, Jimmy! There is so much to learn out there, no matter how much experience you have there is always something new we can use to improve what we do. I’m learning new things everyday.
Cheers, and thanks for your support!
Never used the privacy policy plugin. Good luck on the competition, and thanks for the tips. ~Ryan
“Because I know nothing about this niche, I’m in the same shoes as those who will actually use my site. Because of this, I think I’ll know exactly what people want to know and how to present it to them.”
*That quote alone is worth gold. Its a good point a lot of should embrace. Being a beginner can actually be an advantage, mainly because the majority of niches are filled with beginners.
Another great post.
How do you feel about making niche sites with PLR articles? Do you think the articles work, or should I invest the time to research the material and write them?
Hi Pat,
Traditionally, I’ve been avoiding the use of Wordpress/blogs for my information dispersion/affiliate efforts, but it’s tempting to make the switch with the ease of use you’re showing and cool plug-ins.
Thanks for the content.
Tim
“Easy Privacy Policy”–have of it and will definitely check it out. WP is a great option to use. Looks like you’re making good progress with your niche site.
I’m simply astounded by how much I’ve learned from you in the week since discovering your site. Right now, there are scores of “guru’s” who are either: *copying everything you’re doing for their next amazing make-a-million course… or *plotting to put a hit on you for revealing this info.
Pat, you’re the best.
Thanks for sharing those great plugins. Crucial info for a newbie blogger like myself!
I haven’t been around for a while because I’ve been focused on some personal projects – but I must say this challenge really interests me. I have a bunch of niche site plans I’ve wanted to jump on using WP, and I’m actually glad that a lot of the things I’ve started are things that you’re currently implementing in your challenge.
I thought It wasn’t going to work because I wasn’t experienced enough so I shelved them. Turns out – they will work.
Thanks for doing this, because now I’ll have the confidence to finish the articles and post the blogs.
Pat can you please explain this sentence of your post a little more. “Until then, I will probably and strategically sprinkle the site with adsense, since I know the cost-per-click is rather high, at $2.32 per click.” What do you mean the cost per click is high? Loving the niche challenge thanks for making everthing clear.
Hi Jman. The Google Keywords Adwords Tool, I can see an estimate of how much people are paying per click when they signup to create ads through Google Adwords, for those specific keywords. Based on that, I see relatively which keywords are worth more than others, and which ones could make me more through adsense, since adsense pays me a percentage of the overall cost per click.
Hey Pat
I am quite eager to see where this goes. Nice stuff.
Some quick questions.. You have used the term Security guard many times in the website. Wont it impact the SEO of the page negatively? How do you calculate how to stuff the right amount of keywords??
Also how do you research the topic?
Looking fwd to your replies…
Good questions.
Obviously, you shouldn’t use the term too much, or else it’s unnatural. I’m writing the articles in a natural fashion, using the keyword as I would normally so I don’t think it will effect the SEO negatively. About 2% of the article should contain the keyword (I hear this through EzineArticles.com, which won’t allow you to post an article with more than 2% of it being the keyword).
Also, research is done through competitor websites, keyword research using tools like Market Samurai, Twitter, existing articles on the web, and even real people who want to become one.
6 hours so far,
it might took you more time to write this Niche Site Duel post.
~~Juan~~
Excellent post, i’ve been using wordpress for all my sites also: it’s simplicity and ability to rank well is all you need. I’ve seen many themes but never heard of simplefolio. It looks promising tho, so i will check that out soon
I like to make my own templates but i use inspiration of other themes offcourse. My ugliest design has the best CTR so i’m not complaining.
I must say that i’m very satisfied of SEO Ultimate plugin which I use on one site. It has the same options as All in One SEO and a few extra. Are the above plugins the only ones you will be using or will you be adding others in the process?
Quick question tho: How do you estimate the earnings per click you’ll receive from adsense? Spyfu, adwords-campain, … ?
Dude, the more and more I’m reading through the both of you duke it out…the more I feel like I’m watching a real life movie challenge or something.
This would make for an awesome reality show man! LOL
I can’t wait to get started on some niche sites bro…u truly are daman brotha!
Hey Pat, would you mind to share some of traffic and income benchmarks that you hope to acheive in relative time frames?
Also, yes your posts have been pure knowledge and pure gold; but they’re also pure MOTIVATION! Thanks bro!
Go Get It!!
Hey Pat, great stuff. One request, will we be seeing a post on how you spend your time on each post? Cuz I seem to lost in how to write a great post that I would want to link to if I was in that specific space.
My technique has been to take the keyword/phrase and take the top 10 pages in Google for that term and take all the info and points from them, then summarize into a large post. Then I plan to use IAF to take what I’ve learned to create posts for article directories to link to my post.
But that can take longer than 30min to 1 hour. So can you tell us your secrets? lol. or just point me to a post that you’ve talked about doing this?
Thank you very much. I think I will have you to thank for my final online success.
Colin
Hey Pat,
This is my first post here, but I have been following this site for a few months now. I have to say, I really like the fact that you are a man of action. Very inspiring and courageous work!
Cory J. Thomas
Interesting work Pat, I’m still watching with great interest. Especially looking forward to seeing your finished niche site, but still concerned about the Quality Control of your informational products. Most of the questions you wrote articles to answer have some very wide ranges of answers that could all be considered correct. Anyway, keep it up, can’t wait to see the next installment!
Hey Pat,
Loving your new security guard website layout! It’s easy to ready and stands out nicely. I’m one step behind you and my team is starting to catch up on this.
Also here’s my new video on the mistakes I made and also here’s the new niche I’ve chosen as well:
http://www.tyroneshum.com/niche-profit-mistake/
BRING IT ON!
Hi Pat, This is a fantastic post! I am so motivated to get going on my personal niche site, you rock! Thank you for adding so much detail about setting up the site, especially the info on your select plugins. I’m going to go over our SEO on my current site and get that optimized asap. A new keyword tool and inspiration for new posts is always appreciated—great tips! Looking forward to #4. Thanks!
Karen@fidelisartprints.com
Hey Pat, Nice to know your updates. and thanks for http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions/ this as i didn’t know about it before.
all the best!
Thank you so much for answering questions for me in your email. I hope you’re ready for a lot more haha
Hi Pat – I’m really loving watching you build this site, and learning a lot. One thing I want to point out though is that people need to be very careful when using free wordpress themes. There are a lot of really shady websites out there offering free themes that are full of encrypted code (often in the footer.php, but not always) that can possibly contain malware or viruses.
Hi pat finally I got your blog. Here it is: security guard training hq (dot) com. (url edited by pat)
It was easy to find out the blog through google with those screenshots you had provided
Hey Adnan – thanks – but I’m trying not to place any links to that niche site here on this blog, so I don’t skew any of the numbers. As you can see, I edited the url.
Adnan I think you missed last scroonshots of this post. Just take a look. You will get the domain name (which already you got)…:D
BTW: happy to see here bro…
Some other great plugins and sites are:
“Ozhs who see ads” plugin
and
http://www.serprank.com/privacy-policy-generator/
for your privacy policy.
These are free. But some things are better when paid for, such as wordpress themes. Maybe I’m just picky on that point.
This was an awesome post, Pat. The screen-shot looks awesome.
I’ve been toying with the idea of creating my website before I’m ready to post content. This post has convinced me to go ahead and dive in.
When do you plan on submitting content? Do you submit in batches?
Hi Pat,
Believe me i just can’t do without this blog. Too loaded. This is a great post. Very detail and straight to the point. I will go ahead to test those plugins on my own website and i hope to set up a niche site soon following your step by step guide.
Thanks Pat.
Wow, a very in-depth post.
I’ve set up a few niche blogs over the past year to see if I can earn anything from a popular keyword. I think when I next do one I’ll follow your advice.
Keep goin, very impressive, I’m following you
Hey Pat nice job..and your competitor is doing some nice things too..This is super unique that two guys are sharing the inside story of there duel. Cool ! I’m learning a great deal thanks. My question is how were you able to remove the Blue Host or WP logo and place yours on tabs and in the browser windows ?? I want to do this for my site.
Well, the “S” that you see actually came with the theme, and you can easily change it in this particular theme’s settings menu.
Do to it manually, you have to create a small graphic file (16×16) and name it favicon.ico, and place that into your site’s root directory.
Hope that helps!
Thanks, Pat. I finally hit the tipping point after reading this post and signed up a new domain at BlueHost – using your affiliate link of course
Dio – I saw that come in earlier today, thanks so much for your support, and I wish you all the best with your niche site. If you need anything, please let me know. Cheers!
Great job Pat
The template looks great and i do agree that now it’s not the most important aspect, but it 2 weeks it will make the difference
Quetsion: How to you choose your writing priorities (Keyword analisis / List of Question / Mix) ?
hey Franck – good question. Keywords are important – yes, but also just what seems natural for a new visitor as well. I ultimately want to create something here that is actually useful, so useful posts will naturally help the site rank higher.
Interesting post Pat. I wasn’t aware of the privacy policy issue with Google. Where did you find that information out? Thanks.
Hey Dustin, I remember getting an email when I was running Adsense, that if I didn’t have a Privacy Policy I would be denied their service. I looked furher into this, and this is why you see all sites with Privacy policies now – plus, I read on a number of PPC forums that people’s site get docked by Google if the landing page of their ads do not contain a privacy policy.
Thanks for the info. I will have to get to work on that.
Hey Pat, how do you make these nice screenshots? Is there a Photoshop filter for that or something? Looks great!
Hey Robert – actually, it’s an easy trick of mine that I kind of just did by accident one day.
I take a screenshot with my mac using command+shift+4, which is just a plain rectangle screenshot. Then I drag and drop it into Pages for Mac, and then put that “frame” around it (which is just a one click setting). I then take a screenshot of that using the same method, and there it is.
After writing it out just now, it may seem like a lot of steps, but it really only takes me a second, and it’s well worth the additional second I think. Thanks for the kind words! Cheers!
(oh, for PC users, I think there’s this program called SnagIt that can capture screenshots with a similar border.)
@Robert- Another great option for capturing screenshots is Jing and it’s free too. Just Google “Jing Project.”
Thanks, Pat for this explanation! I am on a PC so will try out SnagIt or Jing (as suggested by Kevin, thanks too)
content rich / niche sites are typically relatively easy to research and start – the challenge is always the fresh content to get it big enough to attract search engine traffic. unlike a blog, monetizing niche websites depends heavily on content creation that is well optimized that you can rely on to bring in organic traffic over the years. i established my first few myself, but then began outsourcing the rest. it is the best way for me to get the most bang out of my buck and time investment.
good luck and anxious to see how it turns out.
Thank you so much. I just installed all four plugins and made sure I followed what you did with all in one seo plugin. The keyword question tool is tight too =)
Pat, what software do you use to take screenshots? Your pictures always have a cool fram around them
1
Hey Pat,
as always, very inspiring ! I just started my own blog thanks to you and your site.
I have a question concerning All in one SEO. In your post, you say you configure it for your whole blog, but how about posts ? Do you also configure it for each individual post to improve the SEO ?
Hi Pat
New to your site, but read pretty much all your articles in one go. Great stuff! Am really following this niche duel and look forward to see how you go through the later steps. I kicked off a new niche site myself (http://www.ironrichfoods.info) just around the same time as you started with the challenge so I’m keen to use anything I can learn for my own niche! Can’t wait to read your next update…
By the way, there are now articles appearing from Mark Mason suggesting he’s also joined in the fun?
You’ve set-up a great-looking site and a well-chosen niche as well. And you doing all the wok came out superbly! Wishing you all the best!
Pat, I had no clue about the privacy policy and using the keyword questions tool. You always bring about good ways to monetize a website. You are brilliant and always are a help to newbies like me. Thanks..
I love your site, I stumbled on it on accident in via itunes! Glad I did. How and where did you come up with your photos? Is there a free resource or did you pay for them? If this question has been asked, sorry. I did a search of your site and I’ve been reading your free ebook and website daily. Thanks in advance!
Pat,
Are you familiar with Adam Short’s Niche Profit Classroom techniques?
I am wondering how your approach is different from that taught in his course.
Pat
Can I have your valued opinion on something that kind of confuses me?
I am not a blogger yet but am working on it. Now, I have Market Samurai (MS) available (thanks for the recommendation on your blog), I have my “777 list” ready and now am digging into MS to work on some key words. If I am not mistaken the process is as follows:
1) I enter one of my key words, e.g. let’s use your ‘security guard training’ (SGT) example
2) I look for related key word/s in order to decide on my niche within my main topic SGT
Where I am getting confused at is: when can I say I have reached a niche? I mean: SGT is already a niche, i.e. a niche within the bigger subject of ‘training’. Actually, from a hierarchy point of view, you could look at it like this, from top to bottom (for sure not a complete list, just trying to illustrate my point):
training
- security training
– security guard training
— (maybe further scaling down possible)
So, when do I know that I have arrived at a niche? Why don’t I just go with ‘training’, or ‘security training’ instead? In your SGT topic: how did you specifically know that this is your ‘niche’, i.e. where you don’t have to niche it down any further?
Not being a native English speaker, I hope I could make clear what I mean.
Thanks in advance for your answer, Pat (and whoever else wants to answer)!
Best regards from Greece,
David
These 4 plug ins rock! I’ve decided to do some research and added Akismet to my list for comments.
Hi Pat!
I somehow stumbled upon your site from some other site a couple of days ago. I haven’t gotten around to read much of your site. But I’ve read the first three posts of the niche challenge. And I have to say, I think it’s quite interesting.
I just started studying at university for the first time, and I’ve been actually thinking about doing something like this for the past 2-3 years. I thought that if I made it work, it would be a great learning experience and a nice little income on the side (which is important – cause as a student I don’t have much time to have a part-time job)
In other words: I’m happy your guys are writing this up all in detail. I’m learning a lot, and maybe I’ll jump on the niche-site-making-wagon. Haha.
i alredy start a niche blog but i bought my domain before reading your post….
Please answer me…
@ are you recomanded to buy .com domain?
@ Are you recomanded to buy domain without any – (example: http://www.my-blog.com)
thanks advance
I think for marketability and ease of your visitors a .com is recommended, but traffic is what really matter.
I think traffic is no mater if a blog has good content and The blogger has good marketing policy…But without marketing good content can not Up a blog business..
am i right?
Hello Pat
First time posting and i wanted to say Thank You. Thank you for having a great blog and showing your thought and process. I found your site about 15 days ago and it seems that i visit it every day. I have gotten alot of tip and ideals from your post. I myself have several niche site but havent broken through the next level. Stuck with little traffic and small income. I have started a niche site to play along your challenge. Goog Luck with your site and coninue to post your process.
Oh by the way your Podcast is great.
Hey Pat, I ordered marketing samurai right from your post and am running my own niche site experiment by following your posts word for word. I ran into a problem in that I was not able to match the domain name exactly to the keyword. How important is that? What if instead of using domain name keword.com, I used ultimatekeyword.com, or instantkeyword.com?
Will I be screwed SEO-wise if I don’t use the exact domain name that marketing samurai suggests? or will I still be able to point to the same keyword by using a different domain name?
I enjoyed the video on the niche site however at the end of the video i was instructed to “Click on the start here button right at the top.” the button is shown on your screen shot above but not in the live version. Makes things hard to follow and not flow well. I am really enjoying the competition and am learning a lot. Also awesome podcasts.
Pat I’m a long time reader but this is my first comment. Will you consider doing an article going into detail about the wordpress plugins you use and why you use them?
Hi Pat,
I’ve noticed that you usualy use URLs like http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/bluehost for your affiliation links, which tool or plugin are you using, does it provide stats ?
Thanks for your response
Hey pat, you’ve inspired me to try and start my own niche blog! I’ve already bought my domain name, made my wordpress account, downloaded the plugins and i’m almost ready to post my first blog =) yay! im excited. I had one question. How exactly do i put my privacy policy in the footer of my blog, i can’t seem to figure it out =( i’ve installed the exclude page plugin but i can’t even find where the checkmarks would be.
Thanks again for being an inspiration and motivator to me! you rock =)
Ok, Pat, so I’ve been watching you guys for a couple of weeks now, and have decided to try this whole niche marketing thing. I’m sitting here reading and re-reading everything you guys are laying down. Thanks for all of the tips and step-by-step instructions. It’s amazing how much I don’t know. (I mean, getting docked for not having a privacy policy? Man, wonder how long I woulda’ been beating my head on the monitor screen over that one!) Here’s to that day when I ditch the 9-5.
This post is so interesting, it’s great to see a step-by-step guide like this.
Hey Pat,
I’m personally playing with this template on my own niche site and was struggling to get the setup to look somewhat similar to yours. It may be too detailed of a request, but I’d really like to see a walk-through of your settings and preferences to make the home page and blog page appear as they do.
Thanks,
Adam
In particular, how did you get the header to stay on every page?
This ‘duel’ is a fantastic idea. I am already learning so much just from following your progress. Thanks!
Hi Pat,
I am a total newbie in this field and I am very glad to have found your blog.
I have learned a lot from you and hope to be able to earn a good income like you one day. Thanks so much!
Cheers,
Carolyn
Well….I see a plethora of things I have been doing wrong and thank you for outlining this blueprint for success. I will be referring to your entire duel posts as my battle plan for all future projects….Thanks Pat
Pat, how did you add AdSense to your site? Is there a plugin?
Hey Bronson,
There are quite a few plugins and I have tested most of them. By far my favorite is the QuickAdsense plugin. Its FREE
Trent
What do you like about BlueHost for purchasing domains when compared to other services? For Hosting?
Regards,
Andy
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