Hi ,

This month’s niche report is now available from the member’s area:-

http://affiliatenicheclub.bigcatskillz.com/members/

Insane conversions. That’s all I’m saying…

INSANE!

PS. I’ve got a brother who’s mad but I’m not…

Hey guys,

We often get asked how Thad and I got together and how our partnership works, etc.

Partnerships are not new in IM of course and like any business there is a lot of collaboration going on but I’m not talking about joint ventures as favoured by the Gurus. I’m talking about real partnerships.

We have Kyle & Carson at Wealthy Affiliates of course and Ed Dale and Dan Raine at the Immediate Edge. There are quite a few in the SEO world as well.

But they are still quite rare in this business.

In many ways of course that’s the nature of the business… work from home… online… ON YOUR OWN!

And of course you can do that… do it all yourself….

Niche research > Web Design > Web Content > SEO > Blog Posts > Articles > PPC > List Building / Maintenance > Bonuses > Product Review / Update >

And you can succeed on your own…

And you can fail on your own…

BUT what if you could share that load… share those failures… fail faster… SUCCEED FASTER!

Two heads really are better than one. If you can find someone who is good at niche research and writing articles whilst you are a whizz at web design and PPC, you could be heading for a match made in heaven.

But even if you have similar skills don’t let that put you off. A second opinion is a check and a balance on everything you do.

Thad and I got together via the then fledgling buddy system in Wealthy Affiliates, way back in 2006. We sparred for several months in the forums before we really got chatting and then we started to work on niches together. Just swapping ideas at first, literally just commenting on each others websites and campaigns, etc.

It takes a degree of trust for sure but I think most people can make a judgement as to whether you can be of mutual benefit to someone else. Then really, you just gotta take the plunge and start collaborating!

You don’t have to be a WA member of course. There are many other IM forums out there.

So, get out there… make friends… and BUDDY UP!

And we want to hear your stories. Do you want to buddy up? Have you tried and what were the results?

I’m feeling nostalgic today.

Looking back to the first thing Thad and I created together…

Destination Unknown was the site and we ran live campaigns in there. You could actually watch us succeed (and occasionally fail) on real life, real time IM campaigns.

The name of the site was inspired by this video:-

And the sole reason for this post is just an excuse to put up that vid again.:)

Follow me… and let’s go!

Hey, just wanted to give you a heads up about the FlexOffers affiliate program. Many of you may have heard of it already and could well be using it. If so great, if not check them out.

It’s kinda like a mini Commission Junction. In fact quite a lot of CJ Merchants are also available on FlexOffers.

And there’s tip #1. If you have already tried and failed to get approval from a CJ Merchant, try again via FlexOffers…

But wait! With FlexOffers you must first submit your sites for approval. That’s right you do need a website and I suggest you make it a good one.

Then once your site is approved you can apply for your chosen merchant. And guess what? We think this pre-approval process makes it far easier to get approved by the merchant.

Last year we tried several times to get approved by a group of merchants via Commission Junction without success. We had a fantastic site up, 50+ pages, an active blog, existing traffic, etc. Still we got turned down by CJ.

Luckily we’ve had a FlexOffers account since they started and we spotted these merchants were now available through them. We applied via Flex Offers and got approved 2 days later!

Check out FlexOffers here.

If you’ve been following our series on website design and content creation I hope you’ve enjoyed it!

Now, I want to summarise a plan that you can work to on all your campaigns.

Don’t delay. Start now!

Month #1

Week #1 - Niche Research / Gathering Information Part 1

Week #2 - Niche Research / Gathering Information Part 1

Week #3 - Website Construction / Content Creation

Week #4 - Website Complete / Initial Content Complete / First Ezines*

Month #2

Week #1 - Website Indexed / Start Backlinking** (initial site pages and Ezine* articles) / Gathering Information Part 2

Week #2 - Schedule new blog posts for this month / More Ezines*

Week #3 - Backlink** new posts / articles

Week #4 - Track SERPS position

Month #3

Week #1 - Gathering Information Part 2

Week #2 - Schedule new blog posts for this month / More Ezines*

Week #3 - Backlink** new posts / articles

Week #4 - Track SERPS position

Keep going!

* I’ve put Ezine but you can use whichever article directory you want and it’s probably better to use more than one.

** Try to spread out your backlinking among different social bookmarking sites and don’t link too often in a short period of time to the same url at the same social bookmarking site. They could flag you as a spammer, so be cautious.

It may take some time for your pages to rank well enough in the SERPS for you to get natural traffic and sales so keep doing whatever you had success with while testing the niche.

Keep writing articles, adding more lenses or Hubs, tweaking that PPC campaign. Indeed you can keep all that going indefinitely.

The more ways you target a niche the more chances you have of ramping up those sales!

Take this forward with you and have a happy and prosperous New Year!

You can download the free Wordpress Wonder Modules here:-

Download Wordpress Wonder Module #1 Here

Download Wordpress Wonder Module #2 Here

ANC Members get exclusive access to Wordpress Wizard. Find out more about that on this post.

How to choose the most lucrative keywords and products?

That’s a question we get asked a lot.

And you know the difference between picking good converting keywords and ones that don’t convert at all is very small. It can literally come down to adding (or even subtracting) a single word from a keyword phrase.

And don’t assume you always have to go for really long-tail keywords either. If you get the right phrase… one that is at the right stage of the buying cycle…two or three keyword phrases can convert really well and not be too broad.

Finding the right products is another key area. It’s all very well getting traffic but if your product sucks or there is a better one out there you will be wasting your time.

As ever, thorough niche research is the key.

Thad’s the man for that… he has a unique ability to really get under the skin of any niche.

Wanna watch Thad in action?

Here ya go… a video on the research Thad did for our latest Niche report:-

ANC Language Niche Video

Good stuff! (And there’s an even better tip inside that niche report.)

If you wanna see more you know where to come, right?

Happy New Year to you all.

Let’s make it a good one.

Under a blood red sky…

First up, I hope you had a great time at Christmas. Thad and I both got snowed in on our travels (separately)!

So much for global warming!! Record snow levels all over the place and more to come over the New Year. It will NOT stop me getting to the pub tomorrow and I hope you all have a great time.

But as ever New Year is a time for re-assessment. Looking forward…learning from the past… making resolutions… making progress… learningnew skills…

This month’s niche report focuses specifically on the latter. It’s a niche where the demand is solid and growing and we think it offers an excellent opportunity for those who are willing to go that extra mile…

ANC Members should head on over to the member’s area now to check it out:-

http://affiliatenicheclub.bigcatskillz.com/members/

We’ll talk again next year… have a good one!

Happy New Year!

Dave B / Thad

OK, you need to keep adding blog posts to your site, maybe the odd article. You want to keep publishing articles to Ezine, etc.

You must NOT leave your site static. At least not if you want it to rank well in the SERPS.

This is where it obviously helps if you are into the niche yourself. But even if not there are a number of things you can try.

First, you could just repeat your initial information gathering exercise periodically. Check out fresh articles on Ezine, etc., go back to the library, buy more books.

And I’d certainly urge you to do that to some extent. I mean why not? If you spot a good relevant book on a second hand stall, grab it!.

Why not subscribe to some relevant magazines as well, both online and off.

But how about getting the information to come to you?

This is really simple to set up but does require an initial bit of effort.

Google Reader

You could use any RSS feed aggregator but Google Reader is as good as any.

You probably already have a gmail or Google account. Just select ‘Reader’ from the top menu. Type in some relevant keyword phrases and then find half a dozen sites that post 4 or 5 times a week.

Have a look at the information. Is it any good? Worthy of comment or reference?

I wouldn’t pick a site that posts hundreds of times a week or you will be swamped with information.

Once you have identified a few sites that regularly provide good relevant content all you need to do every few days is scan through the information.

Then you can either re-write it in your own words or just reference it (i.e. link to it) and make comments on it.

Don’t just have the RRS feed displayed. You must add some original content (and therefore value) around it.

Let’s just look at the site structure again and then populate each page. This is quite a long post and there’s quiet a lot to do here but if you have already done the prep work you should be able to do this in a few hours.

Just knuckle down and crank out those pages!

The About Page

This one is easy and was covered in Wordpress Wonder Modules #1 & Module #2, your Contact Form at the top followed by your Privacy Policy.

Depending on the type of site you have you may need a Disclaimer, etc. Have a look at what other sites in your niche are using and if they are using any kind of Disclaimers, etc. consider using them and if you need to, just copy and amend them to suit your specific needs.

The Information Pages

Make an individual page for each article you have written. Use your chosen keyword phrase as the title (and therefore url). Use your keyword phrase in the article introduction and summary and once or twice in the article body. Write naturally and never force in a keyword phrase.

At this point your article urls will look like this:-

yourdomain.com/your-keywords-article-one

yourdomain.com/your-keywords-article-two

(After the ‘/’ is your article title, got that? Don’t title your articles article one, two, etc.)

Next create your information summary page. This page is going to be the parent of your individual article pages as per the diagram above.

The title for this page will be something like ‘Sausage Making Information’

The url for this page will be:-

yourdomain.com/sausage-making-information

And this page will appear in your main menu.

Now go back to each individual article page and set it’s parent page to be your information summary page. You do this under ‘Attributes’ when you are in Page Edit.

The urls for each individual article page will now look like this:_

yourdomain.com/your-information-summary/your-keywords-article-one

yourdomain.com/your-information-summary/your-keywords-article-two

These pages will now only appear in your sub-menus.

But we haven’t finished with the Information Summary page yet.

Add a couple of introductory paragraphs to this page about how you are putting together some helpful articles on the niche, etc.

Then put the title of each article and just a sentence or two that describes it.

And make the title an anchor text link to the individual article page.

You can see what I mean from the demo site here:-

http://bigcatskillz.com/information/

The Review Pages

You populate the review pages in exactly the same way. Write a review for each individual product and then on the Review Comparison page set it out like a standard 3 -5 product review page.

But link each mini-review on the comparison page with the more detailed individual review pages.

Again, check out the demo site here:-

http://bigcatskillz.com/reviews/

Hang on, Hang on!!!

How do you write your reviews? This is the hardest part!

I know, I know… let’s see how I do it…

Bottom line. The single best way to write a review is to buy the actual product, particularly now with the FTC clarification of their guidelines.

But that’s not always really practical when you are starting out, right?

So, improvise. Find as many reviews as you can on a product, read the sales page and that of competing products.

After a while you almost develop a sixth sense as to what constitutes a good product but in the meantime try and come up with your own objective review based on your research.

Refer back, in your reviews, to where you found your information such as relevant forums, etc.

You can always modify it down the line in light of sales and refunds, customer feedback, etc

And ultimately, we strongly recommend that you do buy any products that you review.

Be very careful how you word your reviews if you have not actually used the product.

The Home Page

The home page should be an overview of what the site is all about.

Mention on there that you have some articles and some reviews and add links within your text to those summary and comparison pages.

The Initial Blog Posts

The first blog posts are easy to do. Just do a post on every article and review you have added to the site and link to it.

There are some example posts on the demo site here:-

http://bigcatskillz.com/blog/

Just remember, always use an anchor text link using the article or review title.

And voila! Your mini-site is now content rich and ready to go. And what’s more all those internal links will help boost your sites rankings in the SERPS given time.

But what about ongoing content, how do you keep finding that? We’ll look at that in the next post…