This is Post #5 of The Niche Marketing Case Study

As of right now, the traffic is still good for the niche sites and the rankings have increased for all of the major terms.

For all the major terms, her sites are either page 1 or page 2.  We did this by using WordPress blogs, some automated content, and some link building.

She got approved to be an affiliate because she commanded those rankings and was able to display her Alexa stats (some vendors still rely on that as an accurate tool for traffic volume).

She’s made a few sales here and there for some affiliate products but the audinece isn’t really buying much of what she is offering.  As it turns out, this niche would rather buy hard cover books from amazon that digital products from ClickBank.

This is the part of the research process that was overlooked because if we knew ahead of time via careful research what this niche was buying, then there would have been more sale.

However, without a lot of traffic, it is difficult to determine the reality of what is really selling in this niche.  Her sites are getting traffic via top rankings in the search engines, and it’s just a mtter of finding out what the site visitors want to buy, or be sold.

She is also making her own ebook/digital product to sell on all her sites, and this should convert pretty well when the visitors see that it’s not an affiliate product for sale, but a product written by an true expert in this field.

When it comes to niche marketing, the research process must be conducted thoroughly to shave off a lot of time when it comes to finding the right product to sell.  Since this niche site is centered around her passion/hobby we took some shortcuts and didn’t do enough of the right kinds of research since we were both already committed to building sites for this niche.

This is the last post for the Niche Marketing Case Study since business is ever-changing and these posts could really go on forever…

I’d like for you to consider the all-too-important lesson here which is that anyone can get high rankings for their targetted terms, but if the niche marketing research wasn’t fully fleshed-out ahead of time, you will stand to lose a little time making your niche sites convert into money machines.

Please click here to see my site on Niche Marketing Research and Niche Affiliate Marketing

Niche Case Study Post #4: Watch Me Build A Profitable Site From Scratch

This is post 4 for the Affiliate Marketing Case Study…

Well, we were hemm-ing and haww-ing on what niche to pursue, then we went back to an old, tried and tested method for developing a niche marketing site…
To go with the passion and the “guru within”..  Read this post here to fully understand what I mean, the come back to reading this post….

Here’s the first 2 things we did:
1.We did some keyword research on her “passion-niche” but I can’t tell you what it is or she’ll cry “fowl” (that’s a hint, by the way) 
2.We use Google’s Free Keyword Research Tool to determine what the search volume was for her niche.  I was amazed not only at how much traffic there was to be had here, but also how little competiton….

Then we made a game plan, and here it is:
1.Create a new blog, transfer old pages from old dying site with no traffic over to new blog that I created for her and trained her on how to use WordPress (just like I would do for any Marketer’s Relief member…)
2.Start writing articles, and linking back to her blog from those articles. ( the interview I did with article marketing expert Fabian Tan proved very helpful)
3.Start adding new pages to her new blog once a day (when it’s your passion, you actually enjoy doing that)
4.Came up with some ideas for pillar blog posts (series of blog posts addressing a certain topic, great for SEO and authority building)
5.Started some blog commenting on the authority sites in this niche to get noticed by the bigger bloggers ( good for getting backlinks from her comments to her site and also a good way to get a guest author post there, too)
6.Started a link building campaign (easy and automated)
7.Discussed strategies for future of the site ( monetization, traffic streams and rivers)
8.Started watching to see just how this was all working out in regards to traffic generation.

NOTE: The blog has been installed for less than 30 days and she has attracted an average of 50 visitors a day, and should get about 1500 targetted visitors this month.  People are already commenting on her blog, and some of her posts are on page 1 already, with others on pages 2 and 3…

Here’s what she has going for her, besides being smart…
She’s a writer
Passionate about her blog and niche
Works hard
Learned WordPress in an amazingly short amount of time with a little help from me ( one it’s installed all you have to do is configure it properly)
Is exhilirated that her blog posts are being seen on page one of Google
Surprised and pleased she’s already getting comments on her blog
Is also working a full time job during the day and freelance writing and blogging at night.
She’s going to get over 1000 visitors to her blog this month, perhaps 2000 and in the next few months will be close to getting about 5000 visitors a month.

NOTE: We have already started monetization procedures here, even though I recommend that most people wait a while until they start looking for income from a new site.  Her site isn’t exactly new, just went from dead in the water to alive and well with a properly optimized WordPress blog, links and allowing user interaction.

Summary: 
1.We took a dead site with 60 published pages and transferred them over to a new blog. 
2.We designed a plan to get links to those sites to get new pages, posts and article indxed:
3.Blog commenting to develop inroads for future guest posts and establishing some traffic streams and rivers.
4.Article marketing for backlinks and developing authority status
5.Monetization methods are being investigated and used.
6.Watching the SERPs for certain blog posts and working to get more links via manual and automated methods.

Once the traffic hits 2000 visitors a month, we will display site income in the next post in this pillar series… 

Here is Post #1 of the Niche Marketing Case Study
Here is Post #2 of the Niche Marketing Case Study
You’re reading Post #3 Of The Niche Marketing Case Study

Building a business is a system and an orderly process, so I recommend you read these posts in order so you truly understand how to Build A Profitable Site From Scratch.
In Post #2 we touched upon how we did some Keyword Research to determine what to write about.
Knowing what to write about and what words to use is extremely helpful for a number of reasons.
1- You have a “honey-do” list.
You know, like, honey-do this, honey-do that… Married guys understand what I’m talking about here
2- You know what you have to do and why.
You’re writing and publishing content to attract traffic. Many people flounder from one thing to the next because they have no sense of purpose with their business, and most of those people fail. When you’re armed with a to-do list and a reason why list, you’ll be more than happy to get to work knowing that soon positive results will ensue.
If you don’t like to write, outsource it or quit thinking you can run an online business that is almost wholly dependent on words on pages.
3- The more you write the better you get at it.
4- The more articles you publish to article directories, the more traffic you get.
I’m not a prolific article marketer by a long-shot, but these are my stats at the time of this writing. The important statistics to look at here are bolded:
· Article(s) Views: 12,773
· Profile Views: 191
· Articles Published: 365
· URL Clicks: 2,493
· Comments: 9
· Emailed: 1
· Live Articles: 54
These are actually pretty good statistics for someone who hardly has any time to do article marketing. Think of those 54 published articles as 54 backlinks that also sent me 2,493 visitors….so far

5- The more pages you have on your site, the more traffic you will get if you write for traffic and human visitors.
See the stats above which prove my point. Check to see where your pages rank for the longtail keywords you’ll be going after here
6- The more site pages and articles you have published and viewed, the more you will be seen as an authority on your niche topic.
7- The more of an authority you seem to be, or are, the more people will really tune in to you.
However, there’s something else that you need to realize about Keyword Research before we continue onwards to site design:
Many SEO experts say that Keyword research is near useless because the words and phrases your site gets found for is actually all sorts of words and phrases not shown in any keyword research tool.
The key to getting traffic is simply to have lots of words on lots of page and linking to those pages. Keyword Research is important because it tells you how to get the easy traffic, basically. But again, the more you write and the more you expand your known presence on the Internet with numerous linked-to pages, the better off you will be.
OK, enough of that, let’s get down to site design….
It’s far better to get traffic to an ugly site that has words on it that people read than it is to have a flashy site with garbage content.
Build a blog using wordpress, nothing else. Get a free wordpress theme indicative of your niche.
When you arrive at a site for the first time, is it immediately apparent what the site is about?
Is this blog pretty clear of what the subject matter is?
Words sell, pictures don’t.
Fancy flash images and animated banners distract your visitors from reading the content that drove them to your site in the first place. Create an easy to read site that is also easy to navigate. Blogs are good for this since you can easily create categories and sub-categories.
At this point in the process,
You have a list of keywords upon which to base your written content.
You know the basics on how to create a good looking site that people like.
Plus, you know WHY you’re doing these things, which is really important.
NOTE: Many people say you should do Niche Research to see if a niche is Profitable. Well, the traffic that is so very easily obtainable with the niche we’re doing for the case study, there’s no need to worry about that. With the massive amount of traffic to be had here, even minor league monetization will pay off nice dividends.
*- If you don’t know how to do Article Marketing like a “pro”, I interviewed an article marketer who makes $6,000.00 a month and you can get a copy of that interview here.
**- If you don’t know how to set up and create a blog, you can get all the videos and plugins to learn that here.
***- If you still don’t know how to do Keyword Research and site-building, you get all the videos and to learn that here.
The next post will cover how to start getting traffic to your site instantly and how to double it every 45 days.
This is the end of Post #3 Of The Niche Marketing Case Study

Watch Me Build A Profitable Site From Scratch

A decision was made early this morning on what niche to go after for this Niche Marketing Case study.

There are unlimited niches to go after and I got a bit sidetracked thinking of all the niches I could go after.

The Boston, Massachusetts area where I live is a haven for quality Mixed Martial Arts practitioners.  I was sorely tempted to go after that niche since I practiced it for years and have easy ways to contact national public figures in that niche since many of the up-and-coming fighters are from this area.

It would have been extremely easy to make this niche site into a great authority style site.  But… after a lot of hemming and hawing, I decided to do something that serves my interests as well as yours.

As you may know, I run a site called Marketer’s Relief where I teach members how to build their business one step at a time, with every step spelled out in great detail.  Anyways, I was chatting with one of my members on Skype last night and early into the morning and decided to do what I do best: help Marketer’s Relief members get their businesses going.

Well, this member is a very common type of aspiring marketer, hypnotized by the glamour of marketing to other marketers, yet is already an expert in her true passion. She is very smart, is a good writer and makes money writing for others.  I’ve been trying to get her to stick to just writing and to her “passion-niche”.

EDIT: I strongly urge you to read this post (opens up in new window) before continuing forward reading this series of posts.  Seriously, read it here, then come back to reading this post.

After doing about 15 minutes of Keyword Research, we came to a decision that her site could be the niche we go after for this case study!

What’s the niche?

Can’t reveal that, but I will say this. It’s related to nature and animals and pets, all in one.

1- Her site currently has an Alexa ranking of 11 million.  This means it has pretty much ZERO reach as a website that attracts visitors.

Here’s a link to my alexa statisitcs to show you what I’m referring to here.

2- Her site has 76 un-noticed pages written for it and has a Page Rank of 2, which obviously means nothing as far a getting traffic is concerned.

3- We’re going to take her site and turn it into a blog since that’s really THE publishing platform you want to be on these days.

4- I’m going to build the blog for her and set up categories on her blog for the terms she wants to get traffic for. (I normally charge $500.00 for this)

5- Her current hosting doesn’t have a proper Cpanel set up so we’re transferring her site to my VPS (Virtaul Private Server) because I have a normal set up there, with all the necessary webhosting statistics tools and other features.  She also had her blog hosted with Godaddy, which absolutely stinks when it comes to web hosting.

6- I will do everything for her on the SEO side of things and she will merely do the writing.

7- I think she can devote 1-2 hours a day for this, which should be plenty of time to get some extra streams of traffic coming in.

8- I will also put her site on autopilot to fill her site with unique content and that should be good for 70-100 visitors a day, or 2k-3k visitors a month without doing any extra work.

9- She is going to find a free WordPress theme related to her niche so no money is spent on graphics design

What  I discovered in 15 minutes of Keyword Research with the MicroNicheFinder Keyword Research tool.

1- This is a niche that gets almost as much traffic as the dog training niche!

2- There’s tons of zero-to-little competition keywords here that she can get ranked for quickly.  These keywords and search phrases are all totally relevant to her niche.  I am tempted to call these long tail keywords except for the fact that they will bring in a total of about 10k unique visitors a month just by going after 5-7 of those terms.

3- I am/was amazed at how much traffic she’ll getting with just a little work.

Oops did I just say a four-letter word?  Yup, this will take her about 1-2 hours a day for about a week to get more traffic than my blog does, and this blog gets about 7.6k unique visitors a month which isn’t too shabby.

Quick Note:  Have you ever seen those videos where people show you they got 50k visitors to their sites?  Well, guess what, visitor counts doesn’t mean jack, but the # of unique visitors is the real statistic you should be paying attention to when you’re looking at your traffic statistics via your webhosting’s cpanel and AWSTATS.

Here’s a blog post (opens up in new window) that shows you How To Do Deep Keyword Research Read that before continuing on.

4- After doing the keyword research, we now have a list of easy terms to go after and we start writing content based on that.

But first, how to design the site?

The next post will explain how to properly design a site and more importantly, how to get traffic to it.

I’m going to continue on with the next phase of building this business in the next post.

Any questions so far?

Here is Post #1 of the Niche Marketing Case Study

you’re reading Post #2 of the Niche Marketing Case Study