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Project VN Experiment aka Viral Nova Clone
Oscar Wilde was a man of many hats…and so am I!

So far, I have concentrated on creating niche sites, which to be honest, I have found success. Now, it’s time to get started with a new challenge.

It’s time for another online business experiment.

The candidate: Viral Nova!

Cringes :-/

Introducing the Viral Nova Clone Experiment

What’s Viral Nova?

I don’t feel I should have the above subheading in this article because I assume everyone has heard of Viral Nova.

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, simply head on to ViralNova.com

In a nutshell, VN is a video and images content curation website that uses click-bait headlines to generate traffic from social media, mostly Facebook.

Click-bait headlines are simply those shocking-type or funny-type of headlines that make you want to click a link and read an article or view videos/images to see what is going on.

You may have come across headlines like this:
- OMG, I Can’t Believe What this 7-Year Old Did to This Bully.
- No One Paid Attention to the Man…That’s Until He Started Playing The Violin
- 33 Cute Baby Faces that Will Make Your Heart Melt
Okay, hope you got the idea.

What the site does is simply find shocking, beautiful, or other interesting content from various sources online, repurposes them, creates and exciting or shocking titles and then simply posts the content on the site.

The result? Hundreds to thousands of shares on social media sites that leads to millions of unique visitors per month.

VN has seen major success throughout 2013 and 2014, both in terms of traffic and revenues. I would have started this experiment earlier when Glen from Viperchill brought attention to the site in his post here.

But the lazy me was not ready to get started. Glen followed up in another post on VN on how some of his readers had found success in the model. I still remained passive; no action taken.

And now, with the third post on VN and related sites, I dusted myself up and said, “What the heck”, time for a new challenge. So, here I am with my introduction post to my viral content style website.

Potential Opportunities

1. Proven models to follow

There is no need to re-invent the wheel. The circular ones are doing a perfect job.

This philosophy is what I intend to follow with my viral content site. I will simply take notes from VN, and a host of other successful knock-off or copy cats, and implement what they have.

Note: I will not be copying their content exactly. Rather, I will be looking at them for inspiration. For example, if I find certain content was shared a lot, I may post it on my site. If I like the design of a particular site, I may implement it on my site with some customization.

2. Low entry barrier

One of the biggest challenges of online businesses is creating online content. I first-hand know this as you can see I do not post every other day on my blog.

Why? Content creation takes time. It is tasking and just tiring.

The good thing with this experimental website I’m creating is that it is following a content curation model. Basically, curation means getting content from other sources, adding your unique perspective or value to it and then distributing it to your audience.

Of course, you have to credit the original source for the content.

Potential Challenges

1. Facebook Traffic

VN and other similar sites rely on most of their traffic from Facebook. However, Facebook recently tweaked its algorithm to reduce the number of fans that can see a brand’s content on their timeline.

This means the early successes that VN has in driving traffic to its site from Facebook may not apply to me. Today, if you want to increase your page’s visibility, you need to pay more.

At this time, I do not have any budget in mind. In fact, I haven’t set aside any cash for ads. Will I be able to break into the biz without paid ads? We’ll see.

2. Branding

There are lots of VN knockoffs at the time of writing. (Thanks Glen for broadcasting the gold rush on megaphone). How will I differentiate my site not to be regarded as just another VN knock-off?

What about the niche? Should I approach the website on a niche version or go broad? These are some of the questions I will ask and have to decide in the next few days.

3. Monetization

Google AdSense is my preferred method of monetization for the site. However, since most of the content posted on the site will not be my original content, I may get into potential problems with Google AdSense.

However, I have other options to go for. Some of the possible monetization methods I may consider include CPA (cost per acquisition), selling ad space, and sponsored content.

Recommended Reads for Project VN Experiment

Before signing off today, I would like to share a number of articles that I have found extremely helpful in understanding this business model and getting ideas on what I can do on my own site.

Here are the lists I have read, (and which I recommend you read in case you want to start a similar site).

Time Sensitive: How To Reach 100,000,000 Visitors in Six Months

$100,000 in One Week, A Viral Nova Follow Up

Are You Clicking These Headlines That Make Regular People Internet Millionaires? (Check Success Story #1)

For the above three articles, make sure you go through the comments. There are some real gems in them.

Upworthy: How to Create a Fast-Growing Media Company

Scot DeLong’s Success Formula for Viral Nova

Exclusive Interview With Scott DeLong – The Mysterious Genius Behind ViralNova.com

The Facebook Traffic Problem

Now, in case you missed it, Facebook simply just made it a lot harder for content sites like VN and the like to get traffic from its social network. This came out on 25^th August, and you can read the post on Facebook Blog.

But like everything that is algorithmically controlled, there are always ways to get around this clamping. For example, I believe increasing engagement with fans on Facebook will make them visit the website.

For the most part, I will be studying what ViralNova.com, Upworthy.com and Distractify.com are doing to their sites, and then get the gems from them. It’s all about experimenting.

On whether the Facebook algo tweak will have an impact on my experiment. Definately.

On whether the algo can be side-stepped, probably.

I looked at the traffic data of the three sites I am monitoring, and since the algo was rolled out, it seems VN and Distractify have seen increased traffic. Upworthy’s traffic has tanked a little bit. Still, perhaps it’s too early to see the impact of the algo.

Viral Nova traffic…saw a jump from August (when the algo was implemented)

Distractify also saw an increase in traffic from August.

Upworthy’s traffic tanked a little bit.

Another route I will be pursing would be to focus on SEO and other methods of generating traffic rather than relying solely on Facebook traffic.

This is just the scratch of the surface of some possible ends to get around Facebook clamping.

What Have I Done Already?

Now, let’s see how far I have done with the VN-knock off. Mark you, I started the site in August but I’m posting this article a little bit late. But providing the dates here will give you perspective on how things are going.

Okay, here are the timelines:

9^th August- Bought Domain Name

15^th August- Set up website (hosting, theme, plugins)

16^th August- Set up my social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram)

17^th August- Published first article

That’s the update I have today.

Stay tuned for my next post.

Would you be interested to see how things turn out with Project VN? Let me know in the comment section below.

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October 13, 2014
NSD Episode 4: Niche Site Content Creation

“No, we ain’t got an office yet. But we got big plans like an architect.” Lyrics from the Song WutUWanKno (Masta Ace ft. Edo G, A Long Hot Summer Album)
Welcome to another episode of my niche site case study.

If you have been following my blog, you know that I have already chosen my niche and set up my website with a cool theme. You can catch my last post on how I set up my niche site WordPress for SEO here.

Setting up the site correctly for SEO is important to make it easy for Google to find my content. While I will initially focus in driving traffic from different sources, ultimately I will want to let the site go on a roll and get organic traffic from Google.

Apart from this, setting the site correctly will help to avoid any issues that WordPress has with indexing duplicate content.

You can use a couple of plugins to easily make WordPress ignore any duplicate content on your site. I have outlined how to prevent duplicate content in your WordPress site in this video.

Now, back to the topic at hand. I have finished all the basics of setting up the the website, except for one thing: creating content.

Niche Site Content Creation

One mistake that I find many people make when creating niche sites is putting up mediocre content. By mediocre content, I mean using spunned content or content that does not make sense.

I believe content is the most important part of building a niche site. Heck, you can even sell to an audience if you have content alone (even without a website). But that is a post for another day. For now, let’s concentrate on content development.

Content does not simply refer to the articles you will post on the site. Rather, it includes things like articles, images, videos, infographics, eBooks, and so on. All of these are what we collectively refer to as content.

The content you create should achieve one or more of the following: educate, entertain and inspire.

If visitors stop on your niche site but cannot get any value from the content, making sales will be difficult.

Which Type of Contents Should You Create?

The audience you are targeting should help you determine the types of content to create. For most niches, creating informative articles will work. In fact, this is the primary type of content used 90 percent of the time.

For my niche site, I am selling some products. Based on this information, here are the types of content I’ve chosen to go with and why:

a) Articles – These will be posted on the blog and will also be used for blogger outreach (e.g. guest posting and syndication) and SEO purposes.

b) Videos – I plan to create videos demonstrating how the product I am selling is used. Videos can be helpful if you are selling a technical product that your target audience may want to know how to use.

c) Ebook – This eBook is primarily for the purposes of building an email list from visitors on the site and from other third party sites.

d) Infographics – These will mostly be used for link baiting and SEO outreach.

These are the primary types of contents I will be creating for my niche site. Let’s look more into the contents.

Niche Site Articles/Blog Posts

Whether you prefer calling them articles or blog posts, we are referring to the content that visitors read on the website.

For my niche site, I will be relying heaving on search engines to get traffic to the website. Therefore, creating content that is optimized for the various keywords I am targeting is important.

I use Google Keyword Planner, Google Keyword Suggest and Long Tail Pro to come up with keywords to target in the content. Every article primarily targets one primary keyword and includes a number of secondary long tail keywords.

Here’s a description of the main and secondary keywords I target.

Main Keyword. This keyword is what the whole theme of the article is about. I use the keyword once in the article title, once in the H1 (subtitle) title and once in the body.

Now, this rule is not written on stone. Sometimes, I find myself using the keyword more than the number I have mentioned. However, I strive not to make the word sound unnatural. Generally, I don’t want to stuff the keyword everywhere in the article.

Secondary Keywords. For an article, I may choose 3-4 secondary keywords to support the main keyword. These keywords are usually longer (more than 4 words) and have significantly fewer searches, sometimes less than 100, in Google.

I target the long tail keywords because of three reasons:

1. LSI relevancy. When Google bots read my website content and find the main keyword in the title, I want them to understand the page is specifically about that keyword I am targeting. I do this by using relevant supporting (secondary) keywords.

2. Targeted traffic. Long tail keywords may not have many searches than the shorter keywords. However, the keywords usually get targeted searches.

3. Cumulative traffic. Targeting long tail keywords can boost traffic to your niche site. For one, the keywords are easy to rank for since not many people are targeting them. Next, when you add the number of searches of the keywords, they can be nearly the same or higher than that of short tail keywords.

The content of the articles is bent on being informative rather than entertaining or inspiring. This is because the niche I am targeting is mostly looking for a solution to a problem they are have.

Niche Site Video Content

Video content is also part of the content strategy for my niche site. I haven’t created videos yet but I have a couple of ideas at the back of my head:

1. Hire a model or use Fiverr to get a video made on the product. The video will be short, less than two minutes, with a call to action to my website. I will upload the video on my niche site as well as video sharing sites like YouTube.

2. I can also make PowerPoint of Flash slides and convert them to video. These will mostly contain snippets on features and benefits of the products. The videos can be distributed on video sharing sites to build backlinks and drive traffic back to my site.

The video(s) will basically be reviewing the different products on the site. Ideally, the model will be holding the product and instructing the visitors how to use it.

The essence of creating video content is to improve the likelihood of visitors buying on my site. People are aware of affiliate marketers and the last thing I want to seem is an affiliate simply publishing information for the sake of gaining a sale.

Of course you can still be successful without having video reviews on your website. Sometimes, you may not even need a video review. However, videos improve visitors’ trust and are likely to improve sales.

Ebook

For the eBook, I have two options; write it by myself (I’m a great writer) or outsource the content creation. I am yet to come up with the topic or content outline of the eBook.

Writing the book on my own is advantageous because I will be able to guide the reader in the direction I want.

I will primarily use the eBook to gather email subscribers on my list at the website. This email list can be a great resource to tap on, especially if I would like to take things further in future and transition the website from a niche to an authority site.

However, writing a book is not easy. First, there is the issue of knowledge of the topic. I have to admit I am not an expert on the subject matter of the products I am selling. I can however research online and come up with something good.

Another option would be to hire a writer to help me create the book. I have previously hired writers from both Freelancer.com and iWriter.com and I have not been disappointed. The best thing with outsourcing the ebook creation is that I can get high quality content at possibly a lower rate.

Infographics

The main reason why I opted to use infographics is to get high quality niche links from relevant websites. The craze for infographic link building may have died but if used right, infographics can get you coveted links that your competitors may not get easily.

For infographics, I will mostly be creating them using Photoshop. However, you can easily create your own infographic using Visual.ly or get someone to create one for you for 5 bucks at Fiverr.

Creating infographics is easy when you already have the content you want presented visually. I will simply be getting statistics related to my audience online and using some points from my articles to create infographics.

Infographics are also good for building backlinks.

So, there we go. The above are the types of content I will be creating for my niche site.

Do you have any questions or comments? Let me know.

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September 16, 2014
August Recap & Traffic Report

“We… we… we gat a game plan. But unfortunately it’s not a game to us cause we ain’t gat the luxury of losing” Lyrics from Once Again (AZ, Aziatic Album)”

September is here and damn, how time flies. I just wanted to post a quick update on what happened in August, some of the projects I have and some plans for September and the coming months.

Without all the sugar coating and stuff, let’s get to business.

August Recap – The Low Down

DonModekali.com

This is a new update I have opted to include in my monthly recap series. The last time I tried including stats of my blog was way last year and honestly, I was just disappointed as I did not have any shiny numbers. Nevertheless, I have decided I will be providing a recap of my blog every month, regardless of the numbers.

Here’s what went down.

Blog Posts

In August, I tried providing updates on my blog. I wrote one article: NSD Episode 2: Setting Up My Niche Website. LOL, trust me. Writing one article is really an achievement, given that I didn’t post anything in July.

One thing that I am confirming about myself is that I am really lazy when it comes to blogging. I usually have a couple of posts lined up for the month but somewhere, somehow, life happens. Client works, unplanned excursions and the creepy fat man called Laziness.

I have to do better than this.

Traffic Report

I finally decided to install Google Analytics instead of Statcounter to keep track of my traffic and other metrics. I wanted to use Clicky but at this time, I don’t feel the investment is worth it. Plus the free version is just…huh, I don’t know. Let’s just say I prefer GA for now. Here are my GA stats for August:

Damn, this is a bad and dangerous curve.

As you can see, nothing fancy to brag about. I still consider myself a loner blogger. No hardcore readers yet. If you like my posts, sign up for my newsletter here:

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Niche Site 1

This is the niche site I am documenting in my Niche Site Case study. You can follow the study here.

Easy Azon Plugin

My niche site content has been growing fast and one problem that I had was finding the product URLs from Amazon and inserting them. If you have an Amazon site, you probably know how finding product URLs can be time-consuming. After scouring the web for some plugins that can help me install Amazon links on the site, I finally settled on EasyAzon plugin.

Easy Azon has made my life easier. I am planning to write a review or perhaps create a video on how to use EasyAzon for Amazon affiliate sites.

Theme Change

Another change with my niche site is with regards to the theme. I changed the WordPress theme I was using. For some reason, the products being pulled by EasyAzon were coming out blurred. So I decided to change the Gonzo theme I was using. Right now, I am using the Genesis Lifestyle Theme

Keywords

Last month I bought a HOTH package to build web 2.0 backlinks to the website. If you do not know what HOTH is, it’s basically a link building company that offers different links such wordpress.com, blogspot.com and the like. I bought the medium package for $ 200.

I will follow up with a review of the HOTH later this month when I have some concrete stats on my site.

Here are the stats and ranking for my 5 target keywords. The KW monthly searches are for US only since that is where majority of my target market is.. The Global searchers are about double that of the US.

KW 1: 2400

KW 2: 1300

KW 3: 1300

KW 4: 1000

KW 5: 720

I have only been tracking the position of the first KW that gets 2400 US searches. In July, my website peaked at No. 78 on Google for KW1. In August, I had some improvement, with the site peaking at No. 33.

Here is a screen shot of the 5 keywords I am tracking:

Good going here. I hope to break to the first page of G by the end of September.

This month, I’ll be adding more content to the site and building some more backlinks. I’m also debating whether I should write and eBook and build an email list for the site. I’m more likely not to do this. Blame it on the lazy me.

New Projects

And alas, the part that gets me excited. Of late, I’ve been feeling energetic like Kenyan runners on meth! So, I have two projects lined up for the month.

Project 1

I’ve already started one. And here it is (drum rolls)…create a Viral Nova–like site.

Yep, you heard. I’m going after VN. I’m always a late action taker and I should have dived into this sooner. But alas, better late than never. If you want to know why I’m doing this, check this post by Glen of Viperchill.

Perhaps you can also join me in the experiment.

Many people have already made such sites but I haven’t seen any public case studies yet. I will be doing a public case study of the experiment. Anyone interested in this we go head to head? Holla.

Project 2

If you noticed the banner on my sidebar, I have a link to Rank Heat. Well, that is my new premium domain brokerage/PBN services site.

At the site, I am selling high quality expired domain names that you can use for your own PBN (Private Blog Network). If you don’t have a PBN, it’s probably time for you to start investing in one.

Go ahead and check Rank Heat when you have some time.

September Goals

Goals are made to be broken. I must’ve heard that somewhere. Anyway, here are my goals for September:

i) Write 4 posts for this blog (A Gargantuan task for me!)

ii) Add 2 pieces of content for my niche site

iii) Build high PR links to the niche site

iv) Create two pieces of content for Rank Heat

There we go, an overview of what I intend to do in September.

Cheers to the new freaking month!

PS: Let’s connect on Facebook and Twitter!

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September 3, 2014
NSD Episode 3: Setting Up My Niche Website

Hey guys!

It’s been a few months since I last posted an update on my niche website. The truth is a lot has been going on behind the scenes. I have covered a lot of ground and I’ve actually finished setting up the website.

This post is therefore coming late but for the sake of chronology, and helping anyone who may be following the study, I thought it would be good to show how I’ve set up my niche site.

From my last NSD2 update, you already know I am using WordPress for my niche site. There are a number of reasons why I prefer WordPress to Joomla, other content management systems (CMSs) and perhaps creating static sites.

Here are the main reasons why I prefer WordPress, and why I also think it’s better than other options:

i) WordPress is optimized for SEO. It is easy to set up any WordPress for the best SEO performance.

ii) WordPress is easy to use. The CMS is more visual in nature. Creating and editing posts is easy.

iii) There are a wide range of plugins that can help me in driving traffic and generating leads on WordPress.

These are the main reasons why I love WordPress.

For a niche site, updating content can be crucial to your SEO. If you have a static website, you would need to download the page you want to edit, do the edits and upload the page again. Making design changes is also a big nightmare with static sites.

On the flipside, making edits in WordPress is a breeze. You can make edits and see them in real time.

Now, I believe everyone reading this is familiar with WordPress. If you are new to WordPress or are looking to switch from a static HTML site to WordPress, check my 5-minute WordPress installation guide. There, you will find solid information on how to get started with your WordPress site.

Now, back to the task at hand; setting up my niche site using WordPress.

Ultimate Guide to Setting Up a Niche Site Using WordPress

The WordPress setup that I follow is meant to make the website take advantage of SEO and be in line with Google’s best practices. Below are the things I did, in no particular order.

I will use screenshots of my primary domain name to show what I did. This will help you follow along in case you may not know what I’m talking about. Moreover, some people understand better when they see images (Did I hear a lady say men are visual creatures?)

Okay, let’s get started.

Site Design Matters

The first thing I started with was fixing the design of my site. You can actually use the free themes that WordPress provides at the dashboard. However, like I indicated in my previous post, I am using the Gonzo theme from Themeforest.

With the theme already installed, I went on and customized it to look good. I used the Gonzo theme since it looks professional. This professional look will be important in making visitors to convert on the site. I don’t want the site to look like another shoddy affiliate website.

I want visitors to be comfortable being at the site simply from its design.

If you have bought a premium WordPress theme, you will have to customize it depending on how it has been designed. The customization button will be on the left hand side menu or under “Appearance”.

If you have not chosen a theme yet, you can check the variety available at Themeforest. Most good themes cost from $40 to $60. This is much cheaper than it would cost you to hire a designer to create a theme for you.

Now, back to setting up the site.

WordPress SEO Site Options

1. The General Options

To access the General Options, you will have to click the Settings menu on the left hand side. Here is a run-down of what I filled, and what you essentially should for your niche site:

Site Title: Here, put the Title of your site. As you can see from the image below, the Title of my blog is Don Modekali, and that is what I filled. The title is basically the overall brand of the website. For the niche site, I filled product name reviews because that is the brand I want the site to rank for.

PS: Product name reviews means the actual name of the products that I hope to sell. Not the word “product”.

Tag Line: Filling this section is not really mandatory. However, it’s good if you fill it since it can give first-time visitors a reason to stay. The Tag Line should be a short blurb about what your niche site is about.

For instance, if you were selling iPhone cases, you may want something like “The Best iPhone Cases Online”.

WordPress Address (URL): Put the URL of your niche site here. You can either choose to have your website referred as with the “www” or without the “www”.

Now, you may be wondering with version to use. Before I explain further, I would like to explain the results of not specifying which version to use. Google Webmaster has a good explanation on the effects of using www or non-www for your domain.

In simple words, Google bots see www and non-www domains as separate domains. Therefore, any authority meant for your website can be shared between the two URLs.

Here is a good example.

Some websites will link to your site as http://yournichesite.com

Others will link to it as http://www.yournichesite.com

(Notice the difference in the www and nonn-www versions)

Now, any authority that the sites linking to your niche site are passing will be shared between the two URLs. To ensure you get maximum authority from any links from outside domains, you should specify to Google which is your preferred domain name.

How do you do this?

i) Log into your Webmaster Tools account

ii) Check the Gear icon and click “Settings”

iii) Next, indicate whether you want a www or non-www extension in the Preferred domain section

After completing the above steps, you will need to use a 301 redirect to tell search engines which is your preferred domain name version.

To create a 301 Redirect, log into your hosting account and find the .htaccess file. If you are not seeing the file, make sure you have set your cPanel to show hidden files.

Open the .htaccess file with notepad and add the following lines of code depending on whether you want the www or non-www version.

Force Use of WWW

Paste the following code in the .htacess file

# Start 301

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yournichesite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www. yournichesite.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]

#End 301

Force Use of Non-WWW Domain

Paste the following code in the .htacess file

#Start 301

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yournichesite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yournichesite.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]

#End 301

In the codes above, remember to change “yournichesite” to your niche site’s domain name.

Question: Between WWW and NON WWW, which one is better?

The answer is that there is really no version that is better than the other. If you have put the 301 redirect, visitors will be automatically sent to your website regardless of whether they put a www or not when typing your domain name.

Now, let’s go on with other WordPress settings.

Site Address (URL): This will only apply if you installed wordpress on a different folder from the default one. For instance, some people opt to install WordPress on their existing websites in a folder called “blog”. If this is the case, the URL to fill here would be http://www.yournichesite.com/blog

However, if you installed WordPress on your main directory, leave this part blank.

Email Address: This email is used for admin purposes. Set a separate email for this. Otherwise, you can get lost of user registration emails that can cloud your inbox if you use your primary email.

New User Default Role: Leave all users to be subscribers.

The next options are self explanatory and will not really have a major impact on the performance of your site. You can leave them in their default settings. The settings are for Time Zone, Date Format, Time Format, and Week Starts On.

Writing Settings

Leave everything in its default state.

2. Reading Settings

Here is how I set up the reading settings for my niche site.

Front Page Displays. Here, you have an option of setting the front page to display your recent posts or a particular page. For a niche site, I would recommend you set up the front page to display the main article you may have about the site.

For instance, if you are selling iPhone cases, you may put the front page to display a comprehensive review of the top 10 iPhone cases in the market. This way, you give visitors a headstart on what to read that is likely to make them purchase. Also, setting the front page to be a particular static page is likely to improve the pages ranking on search engines.

So, for this option. I chose to set the front page to be a static page. My static page is a review of the top products in my niche. For the Posts options, choose the page that you have designated as your blog page.

Blog posts to show at most. I set 5. You can set any number you feel like. But generally, try to keep the number under 10.

Syndication feed shows the most recent. I chose 3. You can choose any number. Generally, 5 or less is better.

For each article in a feed show. I chose “summary”,. You can set it to “full text” if you want. Your choice will not really affect the SEO of the site.

Search engine visibility. Make sure the box is unchecked, unless you do not want your website being indexed by search engines.

Follower settings. You can leave these as default or can customize them with your own message. I left mine in their default state.

3. Discussion Settings

This next section has a lot of options that you can customize to your liking. I will highlight the options that I think are important in setting up the niche site. Otherwise, the default settings will still work. Here is a screenshot of the Discussion Settings of this blog.

Default Article Settings.

I like to keep the three options here checked. Here’s why:

i) Attempt to notify any blogs linked from the article. When i publish an article and I’ve linked to other people’s blogs, the blow owners will get a notification that I’ve linked to them. They may in turn come over to check my site and even link back to me in their next posts. This linking is beneficial both in terms of SEO and driving referral traffic.

ii) Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). With this option checked, I will get notifications when other sites link to me. I can go over and check the sites and see what they are talking about with regards to my site.

iii) Allow people to post comments on new articles. You can check this if you would like people to comment on your articles. I generally like checking it to encourage readers to leave comments.

For the other setting, i.e. Other Comment Settings, Email Me Whenever, Before a Comment Appears, Comment Moderation and Comment Blacklist, you can leave them in their default settings or tweak them to suit your needs. The same also applies to the settings under Avatars.

4. Media Settings

Leave this section in its default state.

5. Permalinks

And this brings us to the end of the settings for our niche site. Hopefully, you have found value in this post. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment section below.

PS: Let’s connect on Facebook and Twitter!

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August 14, 2014
2014 Goals: 83 Percent Failure

I set goals, take control, drink out my own bottle I make mistakes but learn from every one…Tupac Shakur (Ghetto Gospel)

June 19th, 2015. It’s just 195 days remaining to the end of the year.

Being that we’re halfway through 2014, I figured it was time to take stock of what I have accomplished since January. My reality check will be with regards to the goals I’d sent for myself this year.

But taking stock, I have to say I have been terrible with achieving goals. This admission is not supposed to get me off the hook for what is coming. However, it is the truth. I can hardly remember when I last set goals and achieved them.

Life happens. Things come that distract you along way on your journey to your destination. Goals, oh goals. Why art thou so hard to be achieved?

At this time, I feel that the year has gone too fast. All the goals that I’d set to achieve now seem way out of reach. This is not to mean that I am just bumming catching up with the latest Game of Thrones episode. No. I am always working…running up and down, doing projects here and there.

Slowly but steadily, I’ve found myself slipping from the goals I had hoped to achieve. I still have 195 more days to go. Perhaps I will make them count. But at this time, from the looks of things, it seems like this post is a precursor to an admission of defeat. Being unable to achieve what I had hoped to. And it feels awful, trust me.

Let’s go through the goals I’d set to achieve, one by one and an overview of where I am in my quest to achieving them.

My 2014 Goals and How I’m Doing With Them

Here is a review of the now seemingly-Goliath goals I’d set to achieve this year.

1. Travel More

Traveling has always been on my to do list. You must have seen one of those posts where they talk about what people regret on their death beds. One of them is not traveling when they had a chance.

The best time to travel is when we are young. I’m 27, not getting any younger. This is the time I need to travel.

My 2014 traveling goal was to visit different places around Kenya. I had the plans, but work has a funny way of creeping into our plans. I planned to visit 12 towns (at least one every month) during the year. Apart from this, I planned to visit a yet-to-be-decided country. Somewhere far.

Reality Check: So far, I’ve only visited one town this year; Mombasa. I was in Mombasa from 18th April to second week of June. It was fun. I loved it. Now, that is what a holiday is supposed to be like.

Remaining Goals: I am yet to visit 11 more towns and one country. Anyone with ideas on where to visit? Let me know in the comment section below.

Percentage completeness: 10%

2. Network More

The second goal this year was to network more. I set out to build meaningful connections with people that can help me grow. I planned to use social media to reach these people.

Well, I have made absolutely zero new connections this year. Yes, I’ve met some awesome people online and offline. But these people are not the “mentors” I was looking for. Turns out I suck at making connections online. Guess I should just stick to the old fashioned meet-me-in-a-bar connection.

For anyone living the laptop lifestyle (you can call it internet lifestyle, travel lifestyle or any other fancy word), we thrive on virtual networking. I’ve made some amazing friends online, mostly through Facebook. I’ve also connected with a number of people in Kenya doing online marketing through my two groups that I admin: Online Entrepreneurs Kenya (For Online Writers) and Team Inbound (For Affiliate Marketers)

Reality Check: I suck at making friends. Getting mentors is even going to be harder. Naturally, I’m an introvert. Perhaps I should just let the stars take their course in this mentor thing.

Remaining Goals: Connect with at least 5 mentors

Percentage completeness: 0%

3. Work on my online businesses

My online businesses have been keeping me busy for the past six months. This is only natural given that I earn my income from doing online jobs. It has been six months of a roller coaster. I started out with an aim to expand my content marketing business. My initial goal was to sign up at least five high net clients by the end of the year.

Now, things haven’t gone as planned. I have 4 clients at the moment, but they are not high net worth as I wished. Don’t get it twisted, the clients are good. They pay well. One is a SaaS billing company, one is a MS Dynamics consultant, one a small business consultant and one is an inbound marketing company.

What I love about working with these clients is that I am slowly taking over their online operations, which means more income along the way. I initially started blogging for them but I’m now involved in running part of their online campaigns. I’m doing their graphics, email marketing, analytics and SEO.

Feeling pretty good about myself 🙂

Another goal was to create at least 5 niche sites by the end of the year. At this time, I have only finished creating one niche site, which coincidentally, is the the subject of my Niche Site Case Study

Reality Check: I have four clients, who are not really high net worth in my definition (i.e. their contracts are worth less than $3000 per month). I can’t complain though. They are paying well. I should however look for at least one high net worth client.

Remaining Goals: Connect with at least 1 high net worth client. Finish 4 niche sites and make them profitable.

Percentage completeness: 60%

4. Learn French

Oh my…I’ve not done well with my goal to learn French. I started out well, listening to Michael Thomas French lessons. However, along the way, I just fell off track. The biggest mistake I made is removing the audio book from my phone. I should get it back.

My approach to learning the language is to be able to communicate on the basic level. I do not have not set aside any specific time to listen to the audiobooks. I simply plug on my earphones and listen to some lessons as I’m walking to the bus stop, during lunch breaks and sometimes when I’m in the matatu (bus).

The lessons are great and I can understand some sentences and even construct some. The biggest let down is that I do not know the spellings of various words or even how to construct written sentences since I’m listening to an audio book. This shouldn’t be a major concern though since I have a huge library of French lessons in PDF files. I believe they will feature somewhere in my learning.

Reality Check: I started out well. I fell off along the way. It’s time to dust myself and get back on track to achieving this goal

Remaining Goals: Finish the Micheal Thomas French lessons audio book

Percentage completeness: 30%

5. Read 12 books

There is a popular phrase in Kenya that goes something like this; if you want to hide something from a Kenyan, hide it in a book.

This phrase reflects the poor reading culture we have. In January, my goal was to read at least one book every month. This is very achievable if I can spare at least an hour every day to read. Heck, I can even devour a book in one sitting over the weekend.

My first book to read this year was The Art of War by Tsu Tzu. I have the ebook on my phone and to be honest, it was very confusing. What I have is like a review of the book. So, I just got bored of reading the history-like review of the book. Perhaps I got the wrong book? I don’t know. If you’ve read the book, please tell me in the comments whether it’s worth reading.

With my failure to read The Art of War, I’ve not been able to read any other book over the last six months.

Reality Check: I need to set a routine for reading. Perhaps late night before going to bed? Or maybe on weekends during the day?

Remaining Goals: Read 12 books

Percentage completeness: 2%

6. Martial Arts

Okay, this painstakingly wraps my goals for 2014. And as has been the trend with the other 5 goals, I have not achieved much. The closets I have gone to implementing this goal is buying some Silat and Muay Thai training DVDs, some of which I have not even watched up to today.

In case you are interested, I bought the following Muay Thai DVDs from Amazon:

Mechanics of Thailand’s Muay Thai: Basics Part 1 (2007)

Muay Thai Part 2 Mechanics of Kicking Knees and Blocking

Muay Thai vol. 3 Saekson Janjira Mechanics and Drills

Learning martial arts has been another epic failure over the last 6 months. What’s my excuse this time? Time. I just don’t have time to study martial arts. I guess the remedy would be to create a definite practice time like I have to with reading books.

Reality Check: I consider this my worst failure. I have not made any effort to achieve this goal over the past 6 months. Shame on me.

Remaining Goals: Learn Muay Thai and Silat

Percentage completeness: 0%

The Way Forward

There are 6 more months remaining to the end of the year. I can feel some tings of cold feet setting in on some of the goals. That part of the brain that tells me I cannot do it seems to be getting stronger every day.

I can only hope that from tomorrow henceforth, I will strive to get back on track to achieving the goals I’d set. May this blog post be a reminder that I need to commit myself to achieve all the goals I’ve set.

Have you achieved any of the goals you set out for the year? If so, I’d like to know. Please comment below and let’s connect. I’d be especially interested to know what you do to stay motivated and on track to achieving your goals. Share your insights.

Until next time amigos, stay winning!

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June 20, 2014
NSD Episode 2: My Niche Site Content Strategy

Hey guys, I hope March is good to you. It’s been a minute since I posted on this blog and today, I have an update on my Niche Site.

Last time, we talked about finding a domain name and hosting services provider. If you haven’t set up your website yet, you can do it in under 5 minutes by yourself using WordPress.

—>Check this guide on how to set up a WordPress site in under 5 minutes

If you are just joining me, you can read the past episodes of the Niche Site Study here:

Now that we have our domain name and have, we have to think of content.

My Niche Site Content Strategy

Content fuels the web. It is what makes Google index your website and bring visitors. The whole essence of searching things on Google is to get information. Thus, for my content strategy, I have to think of what information my niche will be looking for.

When selecting my niche, I already had an idea of what people would be looking for. And since we are looking to make money online, we want to solve a problem that people have. When researching my niche, I found out people had a problem; they were looking for information on how to stop the problem they have.

Apart from this, there are a number of products in the niche that people are researching. They want to know if the products are good. So, they are essentially searching for reviews of the products. For this niche, my content strategy will consist of the following:

i) Writing educational articles on how to solve my niche’s problem. These articles will be in form of tips, lists, etc.

ii) Writing reviews of the popular products in the market that can solve their problem. So, I would have lots of “product X review” or “product X guide” type of articles.

Now, depending on your niche, you may want to explore other content avenues. For me, my content will mostly be reviews of different products that the market can use as well as

What Type of Content Will I Be Creating?

Now, creating articles is good as it helps to get your website to rank high. However, when creating your content strategy, think about which form of content will resonate well with the target market.   In some markets, having text content will work well. For example, if you are selling an ebook to your market, you can only review the eBook in in a series of articles or blog posts.

On the other hand, if you are selling a physical product (for example, let’s say you are selling a coffee maker), you might want to have a video of the coffee maker in action. This is apart from writing articles about it.

You see, different types of content will work for different types of markets.

In my case, I will be writing articles on the “how to” advise. Apart from this, I will be creating videos for the various physical products that the niche is looking for reviews on. In a nut shell, my content strategy consists of the following:

i)   Articles- How to, tips, lists, etc.

ii) Videos/Slideshows of the products

iii) Email course (This will basically be a series of emails talking about the problem and how it can be solved. It will also help me warm up prospects who are not ready to buy at that time)

My niche is very specific and I think the above forms of content will work. Now, depending on your niche, you may wish to explore other content forms such as podcasts, eBooks, webinars, demos and so on. Check the image below for more.

Niche Site Content Message

Every content you create should have an end goal. In any online business, you want to provide value to your market as much as possible. Providing value helps to establish you as an authority in your field. When your market can read your articles and think “hmm, this guys really knows what he is talking about”, then they start ing you.

Traditional and online businesses have very little differences save for the presence of a physical store and an online store. Apart from this, all the basics of business apply. Now, people buy from those that they trust. Always remember that.

Your content should make readers trust you. They should trust that you know the topic you are writing about and are genuinely interested in helping them. Your content should be:

i) Educative

You already know the problems that your niche market faces. Now, how can you solve this problem, at first without asking them to buy from you? This is where educational or advisory articles come in. Create articles that will give your audience tips on how to solve their problem.

For example, if your niche is on freelance writing, you can provide tips on how to get your first client online. This advice does not have to be packaged into an eBook and sold given that it is already freely available online.

TIP: Since Google Panda update, thin sites took a hit on their rankings. Therefore, you want to create more comprehensive content for your niche site. I recommend articles 500 or more words for your articles.

After putting the last full stop on your article, ask yourself: will someone who will read this article be better off that he was before reading the article? If your article has not provided value to your audience, you will have a difficult time getting your market to trust you.

ii)   Informational

Provide content that resonates well with your audience. People go online to search for information and you want to be the guy providing the information they are searching about. Find out the information that your target market is searching about.

Is your audience searching for reviews, guides, events, collections, etc.? Here, Google is your friend. Use Google Adwords tool to search for the keywords that your potential market types on Google when searching for information. If you want to drill your niche even further, I recommend you use Traffic Travis.

Apart from Google, check on forums in your niche and check the discussions going on. Usually, you will find people asking questions about a problem they have or a product/service they are looking to get. Forums can be a good place to find ideas on what to write about. The good thing with forums is that since it comprises of an audience that is interested in your niche, you can be sure that of getting targeted visitors to your blog if you happen to cover a topic that seems popular in the forums.

iii) Entertaining

Most people are online to get entertained. In as much as people have problems, they are also human and have emotions.

Creating entertaining content helps your audience to know that you are a real person behind the business and helps to break the ice than a new visitor may have. When marketing to your market, you don’t always want to have this serious tone or voice on your content. Break the ice, give your audience a good laugh.

Business is built on relationships. And having some personality in your content helps to build a relationship with your target audience.

There we have it, educate, inform and entertain. These are the three types of messages you should have on your content.

This is the exact content strategy I will be following for my niche. Did I miss something in the content strategy? Let me know, I’d like to hear your comments.

PS: Follow me on Twitter 🙂

TOOLS MENTIONED IN THIS POST

Traffic Travis – The No.1 Keyword research tool for finding profitable keywords in your niche.

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March 18, 2014
My Goals for 2014

It’s already 10 days in the New Year, but this is the time I am writing this year’s goals. Honestly, I’ve had the goals in my mind. I’ve written them on my diary, informally though. I feel by writing them on this blog, I will be able to be more accountable and committed towards achieving them.

The thing with goals is that they are damn hard to achieve without discipline. It’s just like when you are looking to quit smoking or any other addictive habit. Over the past years, I have consistently failed to achieve most of the goals I put for myself. Life happens, I get busy, plans get disrupted and in a flash, the year is over again.

This year, I want to do it differently. I want to achieve the goals I set.

The Plan

As I grow older, I think the most important thing I am learning is that simplification triumphs almost everything. For example, you may be in a situation that seems almost impossible to get out. You know, when things are just not working and the universe seems to conspire to make you a slave and block all your efforts at achieving what you want.

I’ve been there. And over time, the three most important things I’ve come to learn are “stay calm and breathe)-SCAB.

It almost always works.

Now, I don’t have a background in psychology or any human behavior rational discipline, but I know my SCAB method works. Now, back to the topic at hand; setting goals.

I have a couple of goals for 2014 and I have a plan to achieve them. The plan is simple; simplify stuff. There is no need to be complicated.

With every goal I have, I will simplify it into smaller “tasks” or goals that can be finished within a specific timeline (7 to 14 days). This way, I can mark my progress and stay on track to achieving the goal without feeling overwhelmed by the gargantuan huge end goal.

I will be reviewing my goals from time to time as I accomplish them or as situations change. This is not just a 2014 goal stunt that I am trying to pull. It’s something that I hope I will be able to follow through my life. Sounds good? Great. Now to the goals

My 2014 Goals

And now, here are my goals for 2014.

1. Travel More

Yes, I have always loved traveling. One of my favorite people on this planet is Lauren Rains (check her blog at The Mad to Live). She loves the travel lifestyle. The secret to being happy is to find what you love and follow it, regardless of what fears you may have.

This year, I plan to travel more. First, in my beautiful country Kenya and hopefully, visit a different country. I plan to visit at least 12 towns in Kenya (one per month). Also, At least one of my goals is to visit a faraway country (Thailand, anyone?) by the end of the year.

2. Network More

It’s been 3 years since I graduated from university. From the on-start, I knew the Bachelor’s Degree in Economics that I was studying was not going to apply to my career after school. I knew I was study a course that I will not use in future. Now and again, three years on, I find asking myself whether I should have quit school early rather than going through the 4 years of study. That’s a story for another day.

This year, I am looking to create meaningful connections with people that will help me grow. I will network more and try to form real bonds with mentors or leaders that can help me with insight in business and life. How I’ll do this, I don’t know yet. Using social media perhaps. I just followed one inspiring person from Kenya, Heshan de Silva.

3. Work on My Online Businesses

Yes, I work online. I have my own content marketing company (InboundMark.com). This year, I want to take things to the next level. At least, I look towards maintaining some good accounts and increasing my clients. Apart from this, I will work on my passive income sites. I hope to have at least 5 niche sites getting over $500 per month in passive income by the end of the year.

I also want to build my content marketing business brand, create partnerships with other businesses and simply kick ass with the revenues.

4. Learn French

I have always wanted to learn a foreign language. To me, French is an obvious choice because I did some basic lessons more than a decade ago when I was in high school. By the end of the year, I want to be proficient in French (or at least be able to construct meaningful sentences and understand French text and conversations).

I can always go for professional lessons at our local Alliance Françoise office in Eldoret but given my work schedule, I believe I can do well with a couple of PDFs and audiobooks. One of my friends has given me his Michael Thomas French lessons (costs $146 on Amazon). I will use this, and other PDFs to get the language thing going on.

5. Read 12 Books

The last time I read a book to the end was sometime back in 2011. The book was Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

This year, I plan to read more books to completion. And my magic goal number is 12. (one book per month). I will be doing Kindle and PDF books for one main reason: I already have quite a collection of good books in my collection. (4HourWorkWeek, Blue Ocean Strategy, The War of Art, and a couple more.)

I am yet to decide which books to include in my “to read” list. If you have suggestions, let me know on the comment box.

Disclaimer: I stole this idea from Spencer Haws from NichePursuits.com

6. Martial Arts

When I was in my teens, I had some lessons on Tae-Kwon-do. However, I never go to finish the training though I’m still proficient in some of the basic skills I learned. Now, more than 10 years later, I am getting back to martial arts. I am looking to Muay Thai or Silat…haven’t made up my mind yet.

I want to study martial arts for the health benefits and fighting skills. I have to find a local instructor over here in Eldoret to teach me martial arts or I will buy some DVDs.

So, there are my 2014 goals. I hope I will have the discipline to and dedication to get the goals accomplished.

Are my goals realistic? Do you have any tips that will help me be more productive and be able to achieve these goals? Let me know by commenting below.

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January 12, 2014
December 2013 Traffic & Income Report

Hi Guys,

First off, Happy New Year! I hope you have great plans for your online business like I have.

In this post, I will outline what I did in December for my blog as well as crunch the traffic numbers.

December was a lazy month for me. I still don’t have the discipline to commit entirely on my online ventures. I find myself having too much too do. I nearly missed writing this post due to commitments from other ventures I have.

I only managed to create one post in December. The post is on how to profit with evergreen niches. I also provided an eBook with 99 niches at the end of the post.

I also did some little modification on the website. As you can see, this blog is far from being set up.

My traffic in December slightly improved but is nothing close to where I can start boasting. I did some Facebook promotion in December and this may be the reason for the spike in visitors. As you can see from my Statcounter dashboard below, I had a total of 425 page views, with 219 being first-time visitors.

The Facebook promotion simply involved joining a number of internet marketing related groups and sharing my website from there.

Income

I am yet to see any income from the blog. I am not really worried because I know I still have a lot of work to do getting visitors on the website.

Income for December on this blog is $0.00

January Traffic Goals

My traffic goal for January is to get more than 1000 page views. To do this, I will promote the website in two ways:

a) Share my posts on FB groups

b) Participate in internet marketing forums

These are the strategies I will put to work this month. From this month, I will also be tracking visitors on my site using Clicky (Thanks to Lewis Ogden for his post)

Website Content

I also intend to add more content on the website. I am looking to make at least one comprehensive post on a topic I am yet to determine.

I will also post updates on my Niche Site Experiment.

That’s it folks.

If you are running a niche site experiment, I would love to hear from you. Comment below and let me visit your blog.

PS: Follow me on Twitter 🙂

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January 4, 2014