Many guys asked me to repost this thread. I actually had it removed because I wanted to create a better version of it, time doesn't allow me atm but that would be soon though. Enjoy this one meanwhile I write something better, bigger.
Leave your suggestions on what you want me to write next and I'll prepare it until Christmas.
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So I've been promising an addition to my latest thread: How To Create An Authority Site - Solid Site Foundation. Since I'm very busy (lately especially) get ready because we'll be going fast.
Just a few mentions before starting, don't expect a money making button. I can't expose secrets on a public forum, that will most probably cause some serious business damage for me and some of my friends. That's the reason why I don't offer any consulting services, I'd have to ask big numbers to even teach you something extremely valueable. Just giving you a couple of ideas.
Let's get down to business.
I'm pretty aged in this business, worked and connected with plenty of big guys, launched huge sites, launched huge products and what I learned from all this is that you need to choose quality!
Let me be straight with you, you are going to be out of business if you don't innovate. You have to be strategic, you have to run experiments, you need to always have a thrist for knowdlege because that's the only way you'll be able to know what works and what will work. And by going through all these processes and by gaining knowdlege in your area (websites, SEO whatever is your passion) you'll be able to innovate and bring the next hot thing for your market.
I've said something about passion right there. The fact is, you've always heard succesful people saying you need to choose what you're passionate about. While that is a big clique used to sell motivational books, it's definetely very true. The best example I can give you is Apple. Steve Jobs had a passion for quality and innovation and that's why Apple is succesful. Check out Steve Jobs on passion (notice how I sent you to a YouTube video that starts at an exact time I choose, that's innovation keeping YouTube at the top).
You don't have to copy Steve Jobs but the techniques that he has followed over time are the ones that will work for anybody.
Steve Jobs quote:
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.”
If You Choose To Do Quality Then Competition Will Be Irrelevant
It's clear by now that I'm addicted to creating high quality products and businesses.
Websites, apps, books, anything that brings value to people and is of quality. Anything that is useful to people and make them happy or solves their problems. And since I'm having this passion for quality and for building better things, I have no competition. To put it simple, if you look to build better things than everybody else then there isn't going to be any competition for you.
If my business is about creating an ebook on how to train dogs then I'll make sure I include everything on that topic. I will make sure I have the complete, best and most useful information on the subject, from how to train puppies to how to tell your big dog when to attack.
So, If you innovate better than Apple, Facebook, Angry Birds or whatever your market leader is then you'll be the leader. Any brand, business or product will die eventually but that will happen only when they stop to innovate and when others will start innovating better than them.
Pay attention to details. Words, design, structure, functionability. Solve any errors and problems that may exist on your site, and when the visitor acceses your site make sure what he finds is an abundance of great experience, usefulness and joy. This is the difference between succesful and unsuccesful websites.
Everyone wants to enjoy the finest things so make sure you create that cool thing people will want. Have this approach when building websites and you'll see what true value, quality and success is.
The most frequent question I've been getting was on how to do keyword research, market research and how to stand out in a competitive market.
Have I said you should read the previous thread before reading this one? If you haven't already, read that first as it has a good introduction to authority sites, and it also has other tips that might not be here.
Keyword research
While is true you need to be aware of your competition, I don't suggest to create an action plan motivated by your competition. Do you think I will spend time searching and analysing stats with Market Samurai or I'm going to actually find some ideas and topics and then fire up the best content possible (and then promote it)?
Market Samurai or any other tool can can help to identify a few long tails and keywords and that's why these tools are good (though, I don't use any of them) but anything else is pure garbage. The competition analysis part is so very irrelevant and is not going to make any difference.
Use Google Keyword Planner, Google Instant and Google Trends to get ideas on niches and to find hot keywords. Think about broad niches and what people search for, pick a few broad but specific keywords and go from there.
Twitter is another way to find trending terms. Find out what keywords are hot right now and start writing articles on that.
Use a few of these phrases and words, I'm sure you figured out how to use them:
- Problem
- How to, how do you
- How does .... work
- How many/How many times
- How long
- Help, help for
- Easy, easy ways to
- Instructions, instructions for
- Should I
- Can I
- Guide to
- Simplified, simple, simplify
- Quick way to
- Fast way to
- How do I
To develop your niche site even more, one of the simplest ways is to go to blogs, forums, chats and so on regarding the niche topic. Interact with the people there, and ask in what they are interested. Another cool thing you might want to do is to create a few templates to use for sending emails or messages on social networks to relevant people. It can't take you too much, either you hire someone or automate in some way, after a couple of days you'll have to check the email or Facebook profiles for new messages. The comments, problems, complaints and their replies will often give you ideas on how to create a great product, site, guide, article that offers helpful solutions to these issues.
Learn as much as you can about their concerns and look for solutions, so you can start to become the go-to website for all things to do with your niche.
Your competition are all visible and you can learn all about them. Remember, don't feel intimidated about them but do study them. Buy all your competition products, read their sites, see what's their approach, read their sales page, become their customer, ask their customers (or check for reviews, see what are the customers most asked questions or most asked features and implement that in your product). The point is to create one better, either is a site or product.
Then you might wish to go to Compete.com, Alexa.com and Quantcast.com to see more about who is going to the website – men or women, their ages, income, status and so on.
Once you've got your niche categorize your main area of interest as a general area, such as pets. Then fine-tune it. For instance, Pets dogs, dog breeds, cocker spaniels, dog training, puppy training. There we go, talking about puppies again ;)
Research as many online sources as you can to determine how many products you can find related to your niche. Yahoo Answers, About.com, Google Scholar, eHow.com, Askville check out these sources as well. Also look at authority websites in your category of keywords to determine what articles they have, what recommendations they make, links they post and so on. Look for top blogs and different sources, forums, discussion groups. The point is to absorbe everything about your niche, only in this way you'll be able to beat any competition.
Research directory websites such as DMOZ, see what sites they've got in your niche and study (Basically, steal their keywords) with SEMRush.
To know who else is targeting your keywords but also to find other related keywords you may want to check them through tools like Keywordspy.com and SEMRush.com. As soon as you're more comfortable with your budget, don't be afraid to invest in tools like SEMRush or Ahrefs. Data research tools are worth their money big time, even if you use them a few times a month.
Other tips on how to find keywords
You can use these tips to find keywords and long tails, can be very useful to also find ideas and keywords to include in an article you write.
Say you got a nice list of keywords, put them all in a notepad. Make two copies, first one add * as prefix, second one add * as suffix. Remember, the keywords are the same.
Now, go to Google Instant and get each one of the keywords one by one and replace the * with a letter. Our keyword is puppy training, we will want to do these searches on Google:
a puppy training
u puppy training
any letter your keyword
I picked only the ones that had a few more suggestions. That will get you a nice list of phrases that are searched by actual people and Google suggests that because the phrases are quite popular. Search for a tool that does this task, there might be some I think.
Another way to find more keywords on your niche is to use Google Multiply keyword lists which can be found on the Keyword Planner page. You'll have there List 1 and List 2, in the first column add the previous phrases I gaved you but these ones as well:
(besides finding new keywords you can use these for better targeting)
Problems:
how to
why
where to
instructions for
manual to
guide to
book to
program to
manual
guide
book
instruction manual
step by step guide
Gender/Age:
for her
for him
for children
for seniors
for teens
for mothers
for fathers
for working mothers
Reviews:
best
top
highest
greatest
most
Seasonal:
2013
for 2013
halloween
christmas
father's day
mother's day
Buying:
buy
coupon
discount
purchase
order
get
cheap
Solutions:
cure
stop
quit
fix
lose
get rid of
relieve
clear
help
get help
remedy
Informative:
tips
cheats
hacks
articles
help
hints
learn
info
So if you put these keywords in the Multiply lists that will find you other keywords, sort them by searches and see what anything else new you've got.
How To Write Article Titles That Get Clicked
- create a hook that get's people attention
- first words should be one of the SEO keywords, you want to make sure the searches knows 100% the article is highly related to what he is searching
- use numbers like "Increase your profits by 5 times!", create top 10 lists like "Top 10 Most Watched Christmas Movies".
- include the words "PHOTOS" "VIDEO"
Title formula:
Number (Reason/Ways) (to/why) like "5 Reasons Why Your Site Doesn't Make Money"
There isn't a number of articles you should have, the more the better. The more articles you have the more keywords and long tails you'll target and eventually rank for so that means more traffic.
A natural keyword density could be 3% (of total related keywords). Use images, videos (where is needed), provide quality for the user and you'll always be rewarded for doing so.
Since you've got the keywords, to build the site read my previous thread, no need to talk about it again: How To Create An Authority Site - Solid Site Foundation
Why Less is More
Many guys have been asking me how do I do my SEO. How I do SEO is quite easy...
Very easy.
I'm following the less is more approach, that's how big dogs are doing it. Google is devalueing all kind of links these days but the only type they will not devalue ever is trusted backlinks. The kind of authority links from big sites, local newspapers, Google News sites, authority sites... they can't devalue high trust backlinks because these links are the 1# (and most important) factor that they use in creating their SERPs.
If you're looking to hit big in this industry, start creating quality from now. You're not going to resist by building links with GSA, that's only to do when you're bored, that's far from making any serious money. Why would anybody prefer 10.000 links beside 5 links... Quality over quantity...
Once you realize what these backlinks do you'll be like:
You can have 1 high PR backlink from a very trusted and authority site for $1000 or you can have 10.000 blog comments, automated links that weight nothing.
These days you can dominate a whole niche with a few backlinks. A niche of $20,000/month with the price of $2000 for a few backlinks, it's a no brainer.
I'm soon going to launch an ecommerce, this site will start bring profit of $100.000/month for the first 2 months and I'm going to throw PR 8 and PR 7 backlinks for all the big keywords, long tails and buying keywords. The site will outrank Amazon and other ecommerce sites and that's because I will be the single one to have high PR links for that keywords. It can't get easier than that.
Now you may not have the budget to buy PR 8 backlinks, which is totally fine because you'll get these only when your at some level and also you don't want to have profits of $100.000/month but let's say you're trying to build an authority site to make at least $300-$500/day. Sounds reasonable? Yes, it does. And it sounds easy too, for one that knows what he is doing.
Here is what you need to do:
The best way to rank a MNS or rank for low competition keywords with a low budget is by sending emails to niche relevant sites within your niche. Since the competition of your keywords is low, you won't need more than a few backlinks. Say you have a $50 budget, contact small site owners offering them $3 - $10 for a link.
That and a few relevant comments on niche relevant blogs and you will get the first spot without any doubts.
Another great way to get high trust links is to do guest posting. Though, there must be a twist - tell the blog owner to not post it as a "Guest Post". You only want a high quality contextual backlink and you want to be discrete about it. Many blog owners will be happy to post a link in change of a good article that gets him traffic (that's when you have to be convincing and "sell" him the reason why he should accept your guest post).
Paying directories like Yahoo a fee of $300 is well worth the money, that will give you another advantage over the competition since most are cheap and don't know to make smart investments. So, the high quality paid directories are gold. Don't forget about DMOZ, it can take some time to have an editor approve your site but with the right connections you'll be able to get your site listed sooner (search for guys and editors who take care of the DMOZ category your site fits and try to "buy" the listing in some way or another).
Document sharing sites, these are all having a nice amount of authority and trust. You just need to make an article, make it a PDF and upload to a hig PR doc sharing site and you got a nice backlink that will increase your site's trust. Same with Youtube views and other video sites.
Reach out to relevant niche sites and ask owners what does he want for a link. Content, money... Be creative, there are people out there that, only if you ask them, will share and add a link for a quality site. Also, look out for people that write on your subject and leave a relevant comment. Besides the link power, if it's a popular blog or forum, you can get some traffic with your comment.
If you establish yourself as a brand and have knowdlege in conversion rate optimization and other tactics, people will work to make your website popular just like you see with any other big site.
Overall,
Less is more.
Quality over quantity.
This is why less is more:
I wish I could give you more content but I just can't have the time to come up with ideas to write on. So let's transform this thread in an AMAA (ask me almost anything). What's the best thing you could do is to ask specific questions and I'll do a complete 300-400 words answer.