Today is the day.

Niche Site Duel 2.0 officially begins!

What is it?

How does it work?

What can we expect?

How can someone participate?

Great questions! Let’s get right into it…

What is a Niche Site Duel?

In late 2010, I was challenged by a friend to create a niche website from scratch to see if I could get it ranked in Google and start to earn an income from it. He started one too, and that’s when the Niche Site Duel was born.

Although I had built successful blogs before, I was not familiar with keyword research and I only knew very little about search engine optimization, which I soon realized would be the core to the niche site strategy.

Since it was something new to me, I thought it would be awesome to document the entire process from start to finish – so that’s what I did. From keyword research and selecting a niche all the way to building the website and monetizing it, I documented each and every step along the way, including all of the mistakes I made and things I wish I had done differently.

Using various strategies that I picked up from other experts and blogs, and putting in at least one hour of work a day on the case study, I was able to take my brand new site and climb to #1 in Google in 73 days. Since then, the site has generated over $50,000.00 in net profit.

The niche site duel has become one of the premier, free examples on the Internet about how to build a website from scratch and has already helped thousands of people start their own websites. Many of those people are now earning a side income, and a number of people have taken their websites full-time, which is awesome!

A lot has changed since 2010, as we all know, which is why I’m really excited about Niche Site Duel 2.0 (NSD2.0)…because we’re going to do it all over again.

How Does it Work?

Starting today, I’ll begin searching for a potential niche to serve. I’ll be using the criteria outlined in this post here to make my selection, which is based on a number of things including Google search volume, SEO competition, the Grandma test, earning potential, content potential, and “beastly resource” potential.

After finding this niche, I’ll then create a website to serve that space and begin publishing content on it. I’ll be using selective techniques that we’ve learned from the half dozen or so NSD2.0 research posts that were recently published to increase it’s ‘find-ability’ – its search engine rankings as well as awareness in the niche itself. Then, we’ll see what we can do to earn an income.

I will document the entire process right from the start, publishing detailed updates whenever I reach any key milestones or anything important happens that you need to know – good or bad.

My goal with NSD2.0 is to not only create a successful, long-term niche website that serves a particular audience, ranks high in Google and starts to earn an income, but the case study is also here to share as much as information as possible throughout the entire process so that you have something to use as a starting point and a guide for your own online journey. Whether you decide to follow along and participate in NSD2.0, wait until the case study reaches a point where you’re confident this is something you can (or want) do on your own, or even if you already have an established online business and are just looking for updated tips and strategies in the context of a site that’s actually using those techniques, this is definitely going to be fun and exciting – especially because who knows exactly what’s going to happen!

What Can We Expect?

Before we get into how you can participate in NSD2.0, I want to first talk about what we can expect from this case study.

I want you to remember that I’m not an expert at this stuff – that’s why I’m doing it. I never claimed to be awesome at SEO or even building websites. I am good at doing and learning as I go, and I happen to be good at sharing what I learn along the way too. This means that you’re not only going to get an over-the-shoulder look at what I do and what seems to be working, but you’re going to get an over-the-shoulder look at what is not.

I love to lead by example instead of just preach things I don’t even do. It’s called show and tell, not just tell

I will make some mistakes. I could even completely fall flat on my face. This is all part of the process. I don’t try to fail, but when I do I welcome it because that’s how I learn.

All this to say – expect it all. I don’t plan on hiding anything during this process.

As far as timing is concerned, building a successful website takes time. Patience and time.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. Higher quality and care have higher priority than speed and quantity. That said, I’m not going to waste time either. You’ll get a good idea of the pace once things start moving, although depending on what stage we’re at, the frequency of updates will differ.

For example, we’re starting with the keyword research phase. In my experience coaching over 50 students in the past, keyword research can take some people several weeks before they land on a keyword that meets the criteria. This makes sense because it’s the most important phase, so it might take me a couple of weeks to find one that works, or I might get lucky and find one on the first day.

We’ll see, but the updates will come as things happen.

How Can You Participate?

For those of you looking to join the Niche Site Duel with me, I’m really excited because this time around, we’re taking things to the next level.

During the first Niche Site Duel, I simply asked people who were following along to send me an email with a link to a report on their own blogs about the niche site that they started. This worked okay for a while and there were about 100 people building niche sites of their own, but it was hard to gather any useful information from the group of participants as a whole, and as useful as all of their reports were, it was a lot of content to read, people didn’t always update and when they did, some forgot to send me their links. It was just a mess.

This time, we’re systematizing how people participate.

Before anything (and this is important), if you choose to participate, you also need to consciously commit to what you’re about to do. This isn’t something that you can just say you’re going to join and then you’ll magically find a keyword and a website will appear out of nowhere. This stuff takes work. It takes time and most importantly, commitment.

As much as I’ll be here as a guide doing this along side you, this isn’t going to be easy. You’re going to meet roadblocks and encounter several hurdles along the way, but if you’re committed to learning, figuring things out and making this work – then you’re ahead of most people already. Plus there’s the power of the group working in your favor – you’re not going to be the only one going through all of those roadblocks.

Commit now, or forever hold your peace. 

—

Okay. If you’re committed and you’re doing this, this is how it’s going to work:

If you’re interested in joining me in for Niche Site Duel 2.0, you need to sign up to the Niche Site Duel email list below. This isn’t a list that’s being built to market stuff to you, this is simply here so that I can directly contact each of you who are participating, and send you important participant updates as they come along. You don’t need your keyword or target niche yet . If you want to get started, sign up below, but I recommend that you keep reading first just so you know what’s up.

Think of signing up below as a pledge to committing to this process:

Enter Your Name and Email Below and Click

After you sign up, you will get a detailed email from me about how you can participate and then you can begin the keyword research process.

In a couple of weeks, you’ll get another email from me with a special link to a site that is being developed right now where we’re going to house the niche site duel and list all of the participants. More information on that coming soon, but it’s going to be awesome! We’ll be able to keep track of a bunch of things and almost create a leaderboard type of thing with it – really “gamifying” the process to make it fun, interesting and it’ll help keep people motivated and hold them accountable.

The immediate followup email will also include information about how to apply to be one of the 5 people who I will choose to work with directly throughout this entire process in a Mastermind Learning Group (MLG). I call it this because we’ll meet at least a couple of times per month (probably more – we’ll see) via GoToMeeting or a Google Hangout, and not only will I be there to coach and guide, but I’m in this with you too. We’re all going to learn at the same time, help each other out and hold each other accountable.

What’s really cool about this group is that we’re going to use the MLG niche sites as detailed case studies for NSD2.0 too, ones that we can track and highlight over time and watch the progression on and learn from. Instead of learning from just my example, we’ll have 5 others examples to learn from as well.

Now, there is worry about the fact that these MLG members will be sharing too much information – enough where it could potentially either work too much in their favor, or too much against them and skew the results either way.

Unlike myself who will assume that risk (and I’ll talk more about that in the last section of this post), I’m going to keep the 5 MLG members and their target keywords and URLs hidden throughout the entire process until they get to a point where it makes sense to share that information if they choose to do so. We’ll address each of the members using interesting little pen names so we can remember and keep track of their progress, and we’ll share all of their keyword data (searches, CPC, SEO competition numbers, etc.) eventual rankings, traffic numbers and the general category that they’re in  (health, fitness, education, etc.), but the exact keywords and website urls will remain hidden at first. I think this works in everyone’s favor, especially since this case study seems to be on everyone’s eyes right now.

So that’s how the MLG works. In the email you get after signing up to participate, if you want to be a part of the MLG, there will be an application process – a set of 5 questions that I’d like for you to answer.

You can simply reply to the email when you’re ready.

The first question is: what is your target keyword is and why did you choose it?

So, this means that before you can apply for the MLG, you must first find your target keyword. This will help me form a group that covers a wide range of niches, and of course it makes sure that the people who do apply are the ones who are more likely to follow through.

The other 4 questions will help me learn more about you.

“But Pat, you’re making us do all of this keyword research and you want us to send you our target keywords, and that doesn’t guarantee we’ll be selected? You’ll have hundreds of potential keywords to choose from for your own stuff, or to sell! You snake!”

If you’re worried about me taking your keywords and either building my own sites from them or selling that list off, then don’t send me your target keyword! I’m not the kind of person to do something like that, and just think of what doing that would do to my entire brand and what it stands for. The trust I’ve earned from you means much more than any list of keywords or amount of money.

And don’t forget, you can easily participate from the sidelines without sending me anything!

Now – when I conduct keyword research myself the next couple of weeks, there is definitely a chance that I may select a niche that someone else has selected. This can happen very easily. When I did this before, I think I saw 3 or 4 websites in the firefighter niche go up all using HQ in their domain names. I’m not going to look at anyone’s application until I find my own target keyword, and I’ll probably go for something a little ambitious anyway.

I’ll announce my niche (once I find it!) and then look over the applications – if by chance I happen to select the exact same keyword as someone else, then well take it from there. I hope to find several different potential keywords on my own so I may have a bag to choose from – we’ll see.

Remember, I haven’t even started yet. So that’s how all of this is going to work. If you’re interested in joining the duel:

1. Enter your name and email in the opt-in box on this page.
2. You’ll get an email with all the details about how you can participate.
3. Start your keyword research and find one that meets your specific criteria. Here is mine.
4. In about 2 weeks you’ll get an email from me with info on how to put yourself onto the NSD2.0 leaderboard.
5. If you’re interested in the Mastermind Learning Group, once you find your keyword (even before the leaderboard stuff is ready) reply to the questions in the initial email that was sent to you.

There will be no deadline to sign up for the NSD2.0 leaderboard. That will be ongoing, at least for a while. The leaderboard will be for sites created in and around the NSD2.0 timeframe – we don’t want people to enter data for websites that have been up for a long time already. There will be a way to login and add data later too in case you join after you discover a keyword but have yet to select a URL. I know this all sounds kind of new, kooky and strange right now, but the “Duel Master” system is still being crafted as we speak and it’ll all make sense once it’s ready for you.

There is, however, a deadline to apply for MLG, which is June 5th, 11:59:59 PM PST - any answers to the application questions submitted on June 6th (12:00:00 am PST) and forward will not be considered for the MLG. This gives everyone, including myself, plenty of time to discover a niche site opportunity while keeping things moving forward. I will select and email the 5 MLG participants by end of day Monday, June 10th. I’ll announce the participants (using their fun pen names) and their niche site keyword data (not the actual keyword) later that week, so we can all begin to remember what niches they’re in and start to keep track of things.

Phew!

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Okay, one last thought…

Concerns from Niche Site Duel 1.0

One of the major concerns coming from NSD1.0 is that because I revealed the niche and the exact URL, that obviously led to a lot of external things that wouldn’t have happened to the site if I didn’t reveal it. Many said that the strategies wouldn’t have worked under normal circumstances because people don’t normally have a platform this big to share the progress of a new website on.

That is a fair comment, but there are a few things to consider.

Hundreds of people who did not have a platform did see results from following the experiment and the same strategies. Many have created new income streams for themselves – some large, some small. Some people even had enough success and momentum to quit their jobs and go full time with their new sites, which is awesome.

I never linked to the site from SPI before I got to #1 in Google, and most other people didn’t either. A quick PR5 link coming from SPI would have helped immensely, but I wanted things to be as natural as possible. That’s definitely hard to come by considering how public the case study was. A lot of people did cover the initial Niche Site Duel and linked to the niche site, but mostly after I got to #1 in Google, since that was finally something worth writing about.

The thing is, it’s so helpful to see exactly how I chose the keyword and niche, how I decided to write the content and structure the site and then finally monetize it.

It’s like with Texas Hold’em poker on television – it only blew up and got interesting once all of us could finally see the exact cards each player holds, even before they were played or flipped over. I feel like if I hid the keyword and url from you, it would take away from the realness and excitement of this case study.

Having the 5 unrevealed MLG case studies to go along with my revealed site will definitely help. I can also ask you to please not link to my site and instead link to the niche site duel hub, but I know people will still link to it.

I could hide the keyword and URL until some movement has been made in Google – but then again everything that happens before SEO and monetization would be weird. Blurred out keyword research and content creation videos would be tough to make, and not very useful.

Then there’s the idea of doing two sites at the same time: one all out there, and one hidden until I get to a top spot in Google – but I’m not sure that would solve the issue either. I’d split my attention between the two and the overall effectiveness of each the sites would go down. I shouldn’t do two when I just published a podcast episode specifically for NSD participants about doing one niche site at a time.

This is why I love the SPI community – you all have such great ideas and much of what I’ve already done on SPI comes directly from suggestions from you, so while we start NSD2.0 and our keyword research together, I think this would be a good opportunity for us to discuss different ways to keep this experiment interesting, but also pure at the same time. I’m not even sure it’s possible, but we can work toward that I think and do our best.

Anyway, I hope you’re as excited as I am about this. I’m off to rest and get well (I’m still sick as I write this post…) and then get ready for some hardcore keyword research in the next few days.

I’m in. Are you?

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Sign up in the box above if you’re ready to get started!

Cheers, and all the best!

Niche Site Duel 2.0 – Let’s Do This! Expectations and How to Participate is a post from: The Smart Passive Income Blog

The official launch of Niche Site Duel 2.0 will be this coming Wednesday!

On Wednesday, we’ll kick off NSD2.0 with a post about:

1. How you can follow along and participate.
2. The application process for joining the ‘learning group’ of 5 people who I will personally select to not only ‘coach’, but learn with while we build our niche sites together.
3. And also details about the schedule and what to expect.

Because this is such a public case study, I’m going to be very thorough throughout the entire process. I know you’re all anxious and want things to move fast, but I want to be able to provide the best case study and information to you. I don’t want to speed through this because this is the type of thing that could change a person’s life, as I learned in NSD1.0.

Plus, this is the type of thing that requires patience and hard work anyway.

So, look out for that post on Wednesday. The podcast for this week will be rescheduled for next Wednesday, which works out because I (and the rest of my family) are incredibly sick, and my voice isn’t working right now.

For NSD2.0, I haven’t conducted any type of keyword or market research yet , so this is going to be lots of fun! I hope you’ll join me.

In the meantime, I have one last pre-launch research post – a guest post actually – from Jon Cooper of Point Blank SEO.

This monster post will give you yet another vantage point of what’s working today in SEO and Link Building. After reading this post, I was blown away. With all of the research we’ve done so far (see the Niche Site Duel Hub for more), it becomes obvious that there are so many different strategies we can use to climb the ranks of Google. The challenge will be selecting which ones we want to use for our sites, and the long term viability of each, especially with Matt Cutt’s recent video about what’s to come in SEO this summer.

Thanks again to Jon for this wonderful guest post – I hope you enjoy. 

Effective & Long-term Link Building for Niche Sites

Whenever I get asked about how to build links for niche sites, one of the first follow up questions I receive is “should I use tactic X or strategy Y? Will it hurt me?”

9 times out of 10, they’re talking about something on the darker side of the SEO hat.

Don’t get me wrong – black hat SEO is still alive and well, but their cycles are getting shorter and shorter. This idea of burnout is the reason why, even though it can be effective in the short-term, I don’t like to play with it for niche sites, which usually have the goal of having long lasting passive income.

I wouldn’t call it passive if you’re back on Pat’s blog 12 months later reading Niche Site Series 3.0 wondering what new link building tactics will work for the next Google algorithmic cycle.

So for that reason, let’s throw both hats out the door, and just look at what’s a long-term approach, regardless if it’s Google approved.

Strategic Goals to Aim For

Before we get right into the nitty gritty, let’s understand some of the things we’ll be shooting for. The last thing we want is to invest a lot of time into tactical link building and to not see 100% returns on the effort we put in. I’ve definitely been guilty of this, because sometimes I’m so eager to get started.

First, you’ll be trying to get as many different link types as possible. Here’s a good list to get you started:

• Editorial citations – getting mentioned within the context of an article from a blog or news website.
• Resource links – getting mentioned in a list of links pertaining to the topic or subject matter.
• Web directories – There are a ton of them, but for the most part, they can be split up into:
  • General – directories listing websites from every corner of the Web.
  • Niche – directories listing websites only on your topic matter; i.e. an environmental directory only listing environmentally friendly websites.
  • Local – directories listing websites only in a certain geographical area.
• Blog comments – Leaving a comment with your name as the anchor text of what will most likely be a nofollow link.
• Forum discussions – Getting mentioned in a forum in the context of a discussion.
• Profile pages – Listing your website on your profile page if the website allows one.
• Web 2.0 + article directories – Getting a link in the context of an article or Web 2.0 property.
• Author Bios – getting a link in the bio you provide for a guest post or contribution.
• Image links – linking an image, possibly with a keyword rich ALT tag, instead of text.

There might be a few other minor ones, but for the most part, a good portion of the links on the Web you’ll be trying to get can be split up into these categories.

Your goal is to try and not just get blog comment links, or just directory links, but to sprinkle in all of these different link types.

Second, you’ll be trying to get links at a consistent pace over time. This is called link velocity.

Don’t plan to have a link building binge on Week 3, then stop for 4 weeks, then go to town again on Week 7. Instead, set a steady pace for yourself. You can make this process manageable by doing the following things (just examples):

• Grab the RSS feeds of different blogs you want to leave comments on and throw them in a feed aggregator like Feedly. Then, instead of leaving comments in mass, set aside 10 minutes every day to leave comments on the posts that went live that day.
• If you’re going to submit to a list of directories, split them up into a weekly or daily submission calendar. I.e. set aside 10 minutes a day until you’re out of them.
• (If there are any quality ones) Spend 10-15 minutes a day participating in forums, and only occasionally dropping a link to your site when it’s relevant. A good indicator of how you’re doing with this will be how many clicks your links generate and if the forum moderator removes them.

Again, these are just examples. You might have a lot of blogs in your niche, or very few. Same goes with anything else; find where opportunity is ripe, and make sure you divide up your time accordingly and not build a ton of links at once.

Third, you’ll be trying to have a healthy deep link ratio, even if your niche site is meant to target one particular head keyword.

One of the biggest upcoming factors in SEO that I’ve started to focus on is best illustrated by looking at the Top Pages of a particular website. If their home page has, say, 100 linking root domains (unique sites linking to them), while their next 5 most linked to pages have only 2 or 3, then that’s not a good sign.

You’re looking for a healthy deep link ratio. Deep links are links to your website that aren’t going to your home page. There’s no exact number you’re shooting for (consult your nearest keyword SERP to find your competitor’s average), but as an example, if I had 50 linking root domains to my home page, I’d try to get at least a couple subpages on my niche site to have around 10.

You don’t want Google thinking “well, it looks like people like this page on their site, but everything else is garbage,” because Google is increasingly looking to show brands in their search results, and brands usually don’t have only one highly linked to page, and no secondary pages being linked to.

Besides those 3 strategies of link diversity, velocity, and deep links, I’d also like to mention Alex’s rule of thumb in terms of anchor text. I think 20% of anchors being exact match is a little high, just because very few natural sites even have that high of a ratio, but for the most part, that shouldn’t be a deal killer.

The anchors I target are usually branded, partial match, and naked (URL). Those should cover the bulk of your link profile. For example, if my site was BobsPlace.com and I was targeting the keyword “blue widgets”, I’d aim for anchors like:

• Bobs Place (this would be the most used anchor)
• Bobs Place – Blue Widgets for Sale
• Bobs
• Bobs Place – Blue Widgets
• Buy Blue Widgets at Bobs Place
• BobsPlace.com
• www.BobsPlace.com
• http://www.BobsPlace.com

Obviously mix in some exact anchors (find the average ratio of your competitors), your name as the anchor when leaving things like comments, and generic anchors like “click here”, “over here”, and “on this site”, but for the most part, these should make up the bulk of your anchors.

“But Jon, what about for Exact Match Domains?”

This is a valid question I get a lot, and they’re definitely a unique situation. Despite this, the biggest misconception I get with them is that you can get away with a lot of keyword rich anchors because your brand IS the keyword you’re targeting.

But that’s just not the case; sites hit by Penguin with heavy & unnatural anchor text ratios included a lot of EMDs.

So, instead of using your keyword as your brand name, use your domain name and URL more frequently. For example, use ‘BlueWidgets.com’, ‘www.BlueWidgets.com’, and ‘http://www.BlueWidgets.com’ instead of ‘Blue Widgets’. Yes, you can be a little more lenient on anchor text (i.e. can aim a bit over 20%), but again, be safe and use domain & URL anchors.

Tactical Link Building

Now that you know what you’ll be aiming for, let’s get into specific tactics that will net you some high quality links.

Fail-Proof Content

Unfortunately, I’m not going to give you another lesson about why content is king or how content marketing is the new link building. I am, however, going to show you how to use content to produce measurable returns in terms of links.

In short, you’ll be creating content that you know, for a fact, you will be able to get links to. But to best illustrate this tactic, I’ll use a highly relevant example.

Back at the end of 2011, the niche site series Pat created was about a year old. He created a page on his website that outlined the entire series, and he also (at the time) linked to other participants in the duel outside of Tyrone Shum.

After realizing this, I went out and created a niche site series of my own (not linking to because it wasn’t anything special), then I sent Pat this email (I’m paraphrasing):

Hey Pat, your niche site duel series is over a year old, and from an SEO perspective, a lot has changed since then. That’s why I decided to create a more recent series showing how to do a niche site in today’s search engine environment, so is there any chance you could list the posts on your niche site duel page with the rest of the participants?

Being the kind of guy he is, Pat said yes, and within 24 hours I got a few links to my blog. Even better – they were sending clicks (according to Google Analytics, about 1,800 over ~12 months).

Even though that’s a very small example, and only yielded one link opportunity  (Pat’s site is highly authoritative and sends clicks, so it was still worth it), that should give you a good gist of what I’m talking about.

Let’s look at another example. Google this: site:.edu “history web links”. As you’ll see, there are numerous university pages that are linking to history related content. If your niche site could host an original, quality article on a history topic that was somehow relevant, then in theory, you’ve got a huge list of high quality prospects that have already proven they’ll link to you.

“But Jon, how do you actually find these opportunities?”

A lot of times, you just have to keep your eye out for them, because there are only a few cookie cutter ways to go about finding these content opportunities. However, I’ll show you the one I use most.

1. Look at the best links the biggest authorities in your industry have (could be competitors, organizations, trade shows, etc.) by throwing their domain into Ahrefs or Open Site Explorer. Make sure you’re looking at all the links to their domain.
2. Starting with their best links, look for pages that link out to a fair amount of different resources, i.e. Resources pages.
3. Be on the lookout for links on those pages, both working links and dead links (use this to find dead ones), that have a large number of LRDs (linking root domains). I usually aim for 100+.
   1. If you find a working page of content with a lot of LRDs, look at their best links and see if you see a theme in terms of the pages they’re getting links on. Can you also create similar content, and get links from these pages and similar ones?
   2. If you find a dead page of content with a lot of LRDs, use the Wayback Machine to see what content was on that page. Was it content you could recreate, then get in touch with those webmasters to switch out the dead link with a link to your newly created resource?

One quick check you should do when finding fail-proof content ideas is to ask yourself,

“If you reached out to those pages to ask for either them to add your link, or them to replace the broken link with a link to your newly updated resource, would they add it? Or would they have a valid reason not to?”

If you’re wondering what are some of the valid reasons for a webmaster not to add your link, here are a few I’ve run across from experience:

• The domain name looks spammy. I.e. link to my resource at bigbluerunningshoes.com/shoe-history-article.
• Your website’s main theme is irrelevant. I.e. link to my resource at bobsplace.com/romeo-and-juliet.
• Your website has commercial intent. Check the prospect pages to see that they’re linking to other commercial sites ahead of time.
• Your resource is crap. They won’t say it with those exact words, but it needs to be up to par with the other resources listed.
• They’re no longer updating the page. Yep, it really sucks sometimes.

I went into some pretty good detail about fail-proof content, but if you’re looking for some more examples and a different format to learn this tactic, check out my first podcast on this topic (WARNING: don’t expect a podcast with Pat Flynn like quality).

Everything Else

It sounds lame to go into such detail for one tactic, then group everything else as another, but the truth is, most of link building is pretty straight forward and has been talked about. I’ll try and guide you through these well-known tactics and give specific & essential tips for each.

Note: you can find a lot of opportunities for these different tactics simply by looking at the links your competitors have via a tool like Ahrefs or Open Site Explorer. 

Broken link building

In the same way that we looked for broken resources that had a lot of links to them, we’ll be looking for broken links on pages we already know we can get links on (i.e. if the page already lists a few different competitors).

For example, let’s say we had a niche site related to fountain pens. With a quick Google search, I found this PR3 page. It would be an awesome, relevant link to get. But instead of pitching the webmaster to link, like everyone else, check the page for broken links.

If it has any (I found 4), then I’d reach out to the webmaster emailing him about it. In the first email, I’d just say I stumbled across a few broken links, and if he’d like, I can point them out to him. If he responds and says something like ‘yes thank you’, I’d say i.e.:

Of course, no problem. Here they are (http://www.billspens.com/billlink.htm):

• Link #1
• Link #2
• Link #3
• Link #4

Hope that helps!

By the way, are you taking suggestions for new websites to add? I recently launched Fountain Pen Mania (foundtainpenmania.com), and so far I’ve gotten some great feedback on the resources I’m putting out. It would make my day if my site could somehow be added.

Well, thanks for your time!

-Jon

To get the best results, mix up your templates and A/B test. Believe it or not, almost every niche is different in terms of the types of things they respond to. And personalize, personalize, personalize! If it’s obviously a template, they’ll be less likely to respond or add your link.

If you want more info on broken link building, checkout the Broken Link Building Bible by Russ Jones. It’s a lot more advanced, but it’s 10x as awesome.

Guest posting (cautiously)

I won’t talk about guest blogging much at all, just because it’s talked about so much and its low quality form has the potential of being hit in a future Google update, but I will say this.

A few guest posts won’t hurt, and they’ll help diversify things. Make sure you’re contributing content that’s of decent length (600+ words) and includes a link to you, but mix it up in terms of where it’s located. Also include links to social profiles in your bio, such as your Google+ author page to get authorship markup.

I do barely any work guest blogging because I use Blogger Link Up. Sign up, get the emails, and let the prospects come to you. A great walkthrough of this is actually a post on my blog written by Daniel Callis.

Blog commenting

Search for a curated list of blogs in your industry (i.e. “top pet blogs”) or by going to blog aggregators like Alltop or Technorati. You’re looking for blogs that allow you to leave a comment and get a nofollow link as your name.

As I said before, throw 10-20 of these industry blogs (or however many is good for you) into a feed aggregator, then check it daily and leave comments on new posts.

One common mistake is trying to use your keywords as your name. There are two issues with this. 1) Your comments are unlikely to be accepted, meaning you don’t get the link, and 2) you ruin a potential relationship with the blogger (which could yield editorial links in the future).

Forum participation

Not always are there relevant, click-driving forums in your industry, but when there are, take advantage. Just ask Pat –his Green Exam Academy site was built on sales driven from links on relevant forums.

Forum links are really unique & awesome because, as I said, they drive clicks, as well as SEO value. But make sure you’re not dropping links everywhere you can. Only include links when you’ve written something on your niche site that either answers someone’s question or sheds some extra light on a topic. Don’t drop a link just for the sake of SEO.

Remember: forums are a great opportunity to get links to deep pages on your site (because you’ll be linking to content that provides context), which, as I outlined before, is very important.

Article/Web 2.0 submission

I wouldn’t make it a priority, but if you’re still needing some diversification, have a few articles written that can be submitted to the following sites:

• Squidoo.com
• TheFreeLibrary.com
• EzineArticles.com
• GoArticles.com
• ArticleSnatch.com
• IdeaMarketers.com
• Amazines.com
• SooperArticles.com
• SelfGrowth.com

I wouldn’t submit more than one article per site (you can do more if you really want), and I’d never include more than 2 links.

Get the content written with a service like Textbroker, because the only thing it needs to be is readable; you’re really only doing it for the link.

Yes, some sites allow you to submit articles already published on your site, but don’t submit them thinking those links are going to have much (if any) impact on the bottom line.

Directories 

I wouldn’t waste my time with general directories; there are a few good ones that can be diamonds in the rough, but even still, they won’t provide a ton of value long-term as they get overrun.

However, niche directories are worth going after. For example, if you ran a arts & crafts niche site, this would be a solid link.

The best rule of thumb, as Alex mentioned in his niche site link building post, is to sort through sites by whether or not they have PR. I usually look for PR2+ for niche directories, and PR4+ for general directories.

If you have a beautifully designed site (doubtful; it’s a niche site!), you can also get some quality links from CSS showcases. Just use Google to hunt them down; the most worthwhile ones aren’t hard to find.

 Use HARO (optional)

I guess really any of these tactics are optional, but I say this one is the most optional because it depends on whether or not you have any credentials in the field that your niche site is about.

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is a tool that connects journalists with sources. For example, I use it for my personal blog by looking out for press inquiries relating to SEO & Entrepreneurship, but it can be used in really any field, and best of all, it’s free.

As stated, if you don’t have any credentials or experience that shows you’re somewhat of an expert on the topic, then your chances of the journalist using your response in their story (as well as a link in 90% of cases) is dismal. Social proof is great evidence of expertise, so if you’ve got a following on social media or a website with social metrics that show people enjoy your content, then you’ve got a shot.

But to be clear – these links are usually VERY authoritative. A link from a few news outlets can go a long way.

If this sounds like something that you could take advantage of, Matt McGee wrote a great post breaking the entire process down.

Other quick tactics

There are a few others that don’t take too much explaining, so I’ll just fire them off:

1. Press mention pages – Find high authority pages from relevant sites that list their mentions in the press, and see if they link out to more than just the CNNs of the world. If they do, interview their founder or CEO (by email), then ask if the interview could get listed on their press mentions page.
2. Update old content – if you find a highly linked to page that’s severely outdated, ask the webmaster if you could help them update all the information (say you’ll do it all yourself). When you do, try and get a link to a relevant article on your site (where it fits).
3. Fight Viagra hackers – or hackers injecting links about really anything. To best explain it, search intitle:“buy Viagra” KEYWORD/NICHE. You’ll find relevant sites that obviously have been hacked. Go let the webmaster know, help them fix it if they ask (do some research if need be), and if they give a big Thank You, ask for a link on an appropriate page.
4. Q&A content – use a tool like Mention.net to find mentions of relevant questions that get asked a lot, then create a really detailed article on the topic. Next time it’s mentioned on a Q&A site or forum, give a short answer, and link to your article for more details. Sure, the link might be nofollow, but it still provides value (and possibly clicks).
5. Link Roundups – find relevant bloggers that do daily, weekly, or monthly roundups (they’re few, but out there; i.e. Kikolani), and get on their radar by leaving comments. Next time you produce something worthy of a mention, drop them an email letting them know. They’re quality editorial links, but tough to get.

If you’re looking for some really creative & outside the box ideas, I asked some of the top experts around the world what was the most creative link they ever built. Some of them are really only possible with a decent budget to work with, but regardless, hopefully they can help spark some ideas.

Domain Disclaimer

Whether or not you realized it, the domain you choose plays a huge role in terms of the link building tactics you’ll be able to take advantage of.

For example, if you chose a 3 or 4 word exact match domain (i.e. bigbluerunningshoes.com), don’t blame me when people are rejecting your requests to link. Your domain is screaming spam, and doesn’t look like a brand at all, so it’ll definitely be overlooked by human eyes.

However, if you choose to grab a domain that looks more like a brand (i.e. I don’t know, 99shoes.com), then you’ll get a lot more positive responses, because you look like a real company.

Also, if you choose to enter a notoriously spammy vertical (i.e. insurance, poker, adult, etc.), then don’t be surprised either when you’re not getting any positive responses.

Final Words of Advice

If you do decide to take advantage of tactics like fail-proof content, broken link building, HARO, etc. that require an actual human to decide whether they should link or not, make sure you use zero SEO terminology. For example, I never use the word “link” in outreach emails. I’ll say something like “list” or “mention” instead. Once they know you’re doing it for SEO, you almost never get the link.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, if you choose to go the route of grey/black hat SEO, don’t be surprised when a year later you’re reading all the latest SEO posts on what’s working because your site(s) got torched.

If you’re looking for more link building goodies, check out my link building blog, Point Blank SEO, and follow me on Twitter (140 characters is all I need sometimes). If you have questions, I’ll try to answer as many in the comments.

Thanks for reading, and thanks Pat for the opportunity!

Thanks again to Jon from Point Blank SEO for the great link building tips. There’s definitely a lot here that I will implement during NSD2.0. Jon actually has a popular course about link building that I checked out myself and was extremely impressed by. I know we’re not quite there yet in the NSD, but if you’re interested in Jon’s course, he has offered a $10 off discount to SPI readers for a period of 2 days after this post goes live. You can get the discount and information about that course by clicking here. This is an affiliate link and I was given free access to his course, but as you know I wouldn’t share anything that I didn’t find value in.

Look out for Wednesday’s post, and let the Niche Site Duel begin!

Niche Site Duel 2.0 (research post) – Effective & Long-term Link Building for Niche Sites with Jon Cooper is a post from: The Smart Passive Income Blog

In this session of The Smart Passive Income Podcast, I talk about an incredibly powerful productivity tip that can help you get more and better results faster – however, it’s one of the toughest strategies to implement, especially for someone with an entrepreneurial mindset, like myself.

What is this tip?

Work in small, but complete batches, taking one thing at time.

This is something you’ve probably heard of before, or some variation of it, but there are a number of different levels to the “work on one thing at a time” strategy that I wanted to discuss today.

This episode is relatively shorter than the rest, but it’s an important message that I wanted to hone in on, especially since many of us are gearing up for Niche Site Duel 2.0.

How does this episode apply to NSD2.0?

After Tuesday’s post (which received over 1,200 comments within the first 24 hours!) I received a number of emails from people who said they are totally committed to participating in NSD2.0, but they wanted to create multiple niche sites at the same time, instead of just one.

This may seem like a good idea, since you could target several different keywords in different niches at the same time, build out many different websites and then end up with multiple sites each with the potential to earn an income, but after listening to this episode you’ll have a better understanding as to how and why each project should be done and completed one at a time.

A lot of this is inspired by Eric Reis’s book, The Lean Startup (affiliate link), which I just recently finished reading. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the book since it’s related to the startup world – which I’m not really in – but almost the entire book applies to what I and everyone else here does as bloggers and online entrepreneurs.

A lot of what you’ll hear in this session sounds counter-intuitive, which is what makes it so hard. Our intuition tells us something else is actually better, when in reality it’s the opposite. But, this is also what makes the ideas in The Lean Startup so interesting and so powerful.

These tips also provide a lot of insight into just how much time is actually wasted while we transition from one task to another. Not only do we tend to allocate our time to many different projects and/or tasks, but we’re actually losing precious time during those transitional periods when we switch from one project to the next – perhaps seconds on the micro level, but in the grand scheme of things it’s potentially hours, days or weeks of time that we are losing.

In this session, you’ll hear me talk about two different ways to create wedding invitations and which one is better. You’ll hear me talk about how I’ve applied these same strategies in projects that I’ve worked on – even though on the outside it may seem like I have more than a handful of projects going on all at the same time.

You’ll also hear about one of my very first jobs working in a Halloween Costume factory and how that made me feel, and finally I’ll go over an example of what happens when you try to create three niche site at the same time, versus just one.

Right click here to download the MP3

Resources Mentioned in this Podcast Include:

• The Lean Startup by Eric Reis
  
• Eric Reis Google Talk about Lean Startup Methodology
• Stuffing Envelopes Video

Question or Feedback? Leave Me a Voicemail!

If you have a question you’d potentially like answered on the show, or just feedback in general (constructive criticism and praise is absolutely welcome!), feel free to visit my voicemail page to quickly and easily leave me a message.

Thank you!

Thank you all for checking out this session of the SPI podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can get updated sessions delivered right to you as they come out.

Finally, if you haven’t done so already, I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick (and honest) rating and review of the show on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful!

CLICK HERE to leave a review for the show. 

Thanks again for spending some time listening to the show today, I appreciate you!

Cheers!

Transcript

Click Here to Download the Transcript for Session 68(PDF)

SPI 068 : The Most Powerful (and Toughest) Productivity Tip to Implement is a post from: The Smart Passive Income Blog

When starting a brand new website, choosing the right topic for your site is the most important part of the process. Everything about our website – the name of it, what it looks like, what we publish – is determined by the topic or niche that we choose, so it’s mandatory that we spend some time discussing this before we actually begin.

When building a niche site, specifically, the target keyword that you choose to build a website around can mean the difference between success and failure.

I personally believe that anyone can compete with any keyword. Yep – any keyword. Even 1-word keywords. The question is, how much time and money do you want to spend to outrank the existing competition?

High volume search terms combined with high levels of competition means that you’re typically going to spend a lot more time and money on your campaign before you see any results. That, or you’re going to have to be incredibly creative, which can work, but you also have to assume that the existing sites in those competitive markets are already heavily competing with each other as well.

This is why, at least for most of us with a limited budget, and perhaps a limited amount of time as well, it is better and makes more sense to try to dominate a niche where domination seems feasible and reasonable.

Have you ever heard of the phrase:

“The riches are in the niches.”

Well, it’s true. It’s not because there is more money flowing in smaller markets – markets within existing markets – that’s obviously not true. Get to the top of Google for a keyword like “laptop computers” and you’re golden, but the fact is that getting there is going to be difficult. Very difficult.

Niche down, and you’re more likely to land higher in the search engines. Yes, you’ll be higher for keywords with less search volume…but also for keywords with less competition.

I’d rather be on the 1st page of Google for a keyword that gets 3,000 exact searches per month, than on the 5th page for a keyword that gets 300,000 searches per month. Nobody visits the 5th page. Heck, nobody visits the 2nd page either!

If you’re doing a search and you don’t find what you’re looking for on the first page, what do you do?

You refine your search.

You “niche down” and get more specific with the words that you write in the search field. This is the advantage building a niche site has over building a more general website – you and the site you build are there to serve specific queries from people looking for specific answers. If you can become the ultimate resource for that topic, to serve those answers, naturally your website is going to (eventually) rank higher, but beyond what happens in the search engines, you’re actually helping people.

And THAT is my first criteria for keyword selection as we approach the official launch of Niche Site Duel 2.0 – that whatever topic I decide to choose to build a website around, whatever keywords I find during the keyword research phase, that it’s a topic that I believe I can do something to help people, one way or another.

Whether that’s through my skill or knowledge within that topic (i.e. GreenExamAcademy.com), or my ability to research and curate information that I find better than what’s out there already (i.e. SecurityGuardTrainingHQ.com from NSD1.0), as long as I feel like I can help, then that’s a potential topic or keyword. Then, I can investigate further.

For the rest of this post, I’m going to further define a specific set of criteria that I’m going to use when I conduct keyword research and select a topic for my website.

If you’re following along, you can use this criteria for yourself if you’d like, but feel free to change things around if you wish based on where you feel you’re at with the process.

1. Search Volume [Exact]: min. 3,000 Local Searches Per Month

Search volume is the number of times a particular keyword is searched for in Google, and it’s typically reported on a per monthly basis, although daily is also common. It’s a decent indicator of how much potential traffic you could get to your website (from that one keyword) if you sat in the #1 position in Google for that keyword.

There are three types of searches: broad match, phrase match, and exact match.

Without getting too detailed about what means what, just know that most keyword research tools, such as Long Tail Pro and Market Samurai, and even the free Google Adwords Keyword Tool default on broad match, which is dangerous because the data can be terribly skewed. Make sure you conduct your keyword research using exact match at all times.

One more time: Make sure you conduct your keyword research using exact match.

This will give you true data for how many times a keyword (and that keyword only), in that particular order has been searched for in Google. 

Why a minimum of 3,000 searches?

In SPI Podcast Session #66 , Spencer Haws from NichePursuits.com and creator of Long Tail Pro shared that for his multiple niche site business, his search volume criteria was a minimum of 2,000. That’s less than 67 searches per day, and you have to understand that even if your site is sitting at the top position in Google, not all 100% of the people who search for a specific term are going to click the #1 result. Yes, there are long tail keywords which come into play, but I’d rather start at something much higher, so a minimum of 3,000, or about 100 searches per day, seems reasonable. Again, this is a minimum, and I’m hoping for something much larger. This will simply be a part of the filtering process.

Just to give you some perspective, my primary keyword from NSD1.0, security guard training, has 5,400 exact local searches per month.

2. SEO Competition – Is there room in the Top 10 of Google?

After finding keywords that meet the search criteria above, the next most important thing to look at is what the existing competition for that keyword looks like in Google. Specifically, how difficult would it be to get on the first page? How about the very top?

As much as we can see the exact information related to specific websites that we’re competing against, determining whether or not it might be possible to get on the first page or to the top of Google is a skill that doesn’t come easy, and it doesn’t come right away. Some may even call it an art.

Only through experience and learning from the example of others can we make wiser decisions about where to focus our time and effort when building niche websites.

During NSD2.0, you can be 100% sure that I’ll give you an over-the-shoulder look share my exact competition research process with you and everything that’s going through my head. Specifically, I’ll be looking at things like:

• Is the keyword used in the URL of the pages listed in the top 10 of Google for that keyword?
• Is the keyword used in the Title of the page, and the description?
• The number of incoming links to those pages, and the quality of those links.
• Page Authority
• mozRank
• Page Rank
• Anchor Text distribution.
• Content on the competing page.

With so many things to look at when it comes to competition, it can sometimes be difficult to put exact numbers on everything. A set of competing pages, for example, may look great for us except for 1 or 2 of the above. Does that mean we have to move on to another keyword?

Not necessarily.

Again, there’s sort of an “art” that comes when it comes to SEO competition, so I’ll hopefully give you some things to think about when I’m going through the process with you soon.

As I previously mentioned, I’ll be using Spencer’s software, Long Tail Pro (affiliate link), to more quickly assess the competition for specific keywords. The truth is, you don’t need to spend any money on keyword research software because you can manually find the above information on your own and put them into a spreadsheet before you choose your niche, but software like Long Tail Pro and Market Samurai, among a few others can save you a ton of time.

Spencer has been kind enough to offer a $30 discount to all Smart Passive Income readers for Long Tail Pro! Thanks Spencer!

Click here to get Long Tail Pro for $30 OFF the original price!

(The above link is an affiliate link and I do earn a commission when you make a purchase through this link, at no extra cost to you. If you have any questions about the software, please shoot me a quick message on Twitter or Facebook and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can! Thank you!)

3. The Grandma Test

This is an easy, but important test – at least to me.

Once I find a keyword with decent search volume and relatively low competition, I’ll ask myself the following question:

If I created a website in this niche and it became incredibly successful, would I be comfortable sharing my success with my grandma?

If the answer is no, then I may have to think twice about getting into this particular niche.

4. Can I EARN Money in this Niche?

So you’ve found a niche with decent search volume and low competition, and your grandma approves too – the next most important question is, can you earn money from it?

As much as people build niche websites in order to generate an income, relatively little care and research goes into the possibility of monetization. Isn’t that absurd? That’s why sometimes you hear about people who have websites ranking high in Google, maybe even in the top position, who are making little to no money at all.

Researching monetization is just as important as doing keyword research for search volume and competition. You don’t want to put in all that work and get to the top of Google only to then realize that you’re in a niche with little or no earning potential.

Note the specific use of the term earn. It’s not make money in or generate profit from, but earn – meaning: you’re able to contribute something to the niche and get paid back in return.

When it comes to earning potential, the idea here is to understand if there is money flowing within that market, and if there are specific ways for people to pay you back for something that you provide. Here are some specific tests and metrics you can use to see if there’s earning potential within the niche that you’ve selected:

• The Average Cost-Per-Click (CPC) in Google Adwords. The average CPC is a metric that can be found in the free Google Adwords Keyword tool, and in most paid keyword research software as well. The average CPC is the average amount that advertisers who are using Google Adwords are paying every time someone clicks on an ad relevant to that specific keyword. This is not how much money we’ll earn on our website for each click if we were to use Google Adsense. If you publish ads using Google Adsense, you will earn a percentage of the overall CPC per click. A higher CPC means that advertisers are competing and bidding against each other, which is often a good sign that there’s money flowing within that specific market. More advertisers also means that there are potentially more products, tools and services that you could promote on your website. 
• What Advertisements Show Up in a Google Search? This one is easy. Type in your target keyword in Google and see what ads, if any, show up at the top and/or side of the resulting page. If there are a lot of advertisers, this is another good sign that there is some earning potential here. Advertisers are willing to pay for premium spots in Google search, which means they might be willing to pay you, or work with you as a partner. If there are few or no results, than that’s something to take note of and the niche requires further investigation. Don’t completely scratch the keyword off the list just yet – not all markets have companies that advertise using Google Adwords.
• Are There Books or Products that Show Up in an Amazon.com Search? Amazon.com is a search engine. It’s not just any search engine though, it’s a search engine where we know the people doing the searching are buyers. They aren’t looking for free information like many people do on Google – they are there to buy stuff. If there’s a decent quantity and quality of products and/or books that show up relevant to your target keyword, then that’s a good sign that there are people willing to pay for information or products within that specific niche. Plus, you’ll be able to see if there’s anything worth promoting as an affiliate too.
• Are Other Sites Promoting Stuff, and if so, What? Do a quick search for websites related to your potential target keyword and see what comes up. Click around and see if any of the resulting websites or blogs are selling anything – either stuff that they’ve created on their own, or products or services that belong to someone else. Be sure to note the difference between an automatically generated advertisement (like a Google Adsense ad, which usually has a little tag on the ad itself that says “Ad Choices” or “Ads by Google”) and a real partnership or promotion. The ads are still useful, but the partnerships and affiliate promotions tell us an even better story of what’s available for us. Make note of the promotions and websites that you find. If you wanted to find blogs, specifically, type “blogs:target keyword“ (without quotations) in Google, and you’ll get a list of blogs in your search result. These are good sites to include in a database for potential outreach later.
• Search for ‘Money’ Keywords. Here another fun trick. To discover if there are potentially things that you could promote and sell on your website, run the following Google search queries (with quotations):
  • “target keyword” “on sale”
  • “target keyword” “for sale”
  • “target keyword” “price”
  • “target keyword” “affiliate”
  • “target keyword” “partners”
  • “target keyword” “media kit”
  • “target keyword” “product description”
  • “target keyword” “equipment”
  • “target keyword” “services”
  • “target keyword” “products”
  • “target keyword” “customer review”
  • “target keyword” “testimonial”
  • “target keyword” “now available”
  • There are a lot of other potential keywords to use here, but you get the idea. Not all of the above will produce resulting products or items that prove this is a market with money in it, but a lot of them will, and you should obviously keep track of the ones that seem legit. If you get nothing from the above searches – then you may need to think again about the specific niche that you’re targeting.

Passing the above tests for earning potential won’t necessarily mean that you’re 100% going to earn an income if you build a website in that niche. Of course, there are a lot of other factors involved, many based on you and your website’s performance, but at least you’ll know there’s potential here and you’re not blindly throwing darts at the wall.

5. The 50-Post Test

The 50-post test is a particular criterion that addresses something else that a lot of people, including myself, tend to forget sometimes because we’re so enthralled with search volume and SEO competition.

Once we select a niche and put up an optimized website, we’re going to need to put some content on it. The 50-post test ensures that we have the ability to write a decent amount of content for our website, or at least hire someone to write for if it we wanted to.

Sure, you can choose to have a 5-page website about a particular topic if you want, and if that content is great then you can make something happen with it, but personally I’m shooting for a bigger niche site, one where there’s enough content to get even more traffic from the long tail keyword searches that people type in related to the topic.

With my security guard training site from NSD1.0, I had mentioned that security guard training gets 5,400 exact match searches per month. What you may not realize is that less than 10% of my traffic comes from that one keyword. The rest (over 25,000 hits per month) comes from the sum of long tail keywords that people are using to find me in Google, which comes as a result of the amount of content I’ve published on the site, which at this point is about 200 posts.

(I climbed to #1 in Google in with less than 50 total posts, I’ve just continued to add content and grow over time)

Here’s how the 50-post test is going to go down:

After finding a potential keyword, I’m going to create a spreadsheet for that particular keyword and begin to write down blog post ideas. I’ll start with as many as I can think of off the top of my head, approaching the topic as a complete beginner or someone trying to understand that topic. If I run out of ideas before 50, which is always the case, I’ll use the following strategies to fill in the holes:

• I’ll use the primary keyword as a seed keyword in Long Tail Pro to find related keywords that I could (and should) write about.
• I’ll do a Google search to see what other sites are talking about related to the niche. I’ll use that as inspiration for new blog post ideas. I may discover other topics that relate to the primary keyword that I can branch off of too.
• I’ll go onto Amazon.com and type in my keyword to find books on the topic. If there are any, I’ll “look inside the cover” to view the table of contents to make sure I hit all of the important points related to the niche. I’ll also make note of the book as well because that’s something I could promote as as affiliate down the road. If anything, it at least it shows me who else I might need to connect with.
• I’ll search for problems or issues people are having related to the topic in discussion forums or social media.

The nice thing about this strategy is that once you have this list of 50 potential posts, you already know exactly what to publish. If you’re hiring somebody to write for you, then you can just hand them this list, or a part of it when you begin working together. These topics can also turn into videos and other forms of media as well.

If I struggle getting to 50 posts, then I have to reassess whether or not it’s a topic that I really want to get into.

6. The Ability to Create a ‘Beastly Resource’

In SPI Podcast Session #67, Neil Patel from QuickSprout.com shared some SEO strategies that really impressed me, and also made a lot of sense.

One of those strategies was the use of a massive guide or resource – an extensive, noteworthy and epic publication or tool that solves a specific problem or educates people in such great detail, that it can’t go unnoticed. To give you some perspective about what these guides look like, check out Neil’s Advanced Guide to SEO, and his Advanced Guide to Content Marketing.

Now, 45,000 words like what Neil publishes is probably a bit overkill for what we’re trying to do,  but an “all you need to know” guide published on a website, as opposed to that same content put in an eBook or something, which is less likely to be shared or found in the search engines, or promoted on other people’s websites is smart, and it’s going to be the core strategy during the launch of whatever website I choose to create.

Trevor Page from SPI Podcast Session #55 used a similar strategy to jumpstart the launch of his website, which teaches people how to program with Java. In less than a year, he’s been able to get thousands of visitors to his website each month, sell an eBook and start a membership site, and it all started with a very detailed Programming 101 guide, which eventually got picked up on LifeHacker.com and other websites.

For whatever keywords fit the criteria so far, I’m going to determine if there is a way to create a ‘beastly resource’ that can’t go unnoticed. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a written guide either, but it could be something different and unique that is extremely useful for people who are looking for information within a specific niche. For example, on Spencer’s survival knife niche website, he built a matrix or table of all of the available survival knives that potential customers can sort and filter based on their specific needs.

Marketing and launching the website with this resource is a topic for another discussion, which we’ll get into in the near future once I start building that resource.

Any niche, I believe, could have it’s ultimate resource or tool, but if for some reason I can’t imagine or think of creating this resource, then it will probably reflect on my ability to serve those in that niche and may be a niche to stay away from.

Where We Are At Now with NSD2.0?

The purpose of this post was to share my thinking process when it comes to the niche that I’ll be selecting for NSD2.0. I know a lot of you are anxious to get started, and I am as well, but it’s important that we first understand the path and direction we are taking before we start the journey together.

Look out for an upcoming post about the private learning group I’m creating for NSD2.0, where you’ll have a chance to work directly with me and a handful of other people so that we can work through our niche sites together. That said, anyone can participate in NSD2.0, and I encourage you to.

I’ll be setting up a system to help us all hold each other accountable, keep track of everyone’s progress and keep each other motivated.

This is going to be awesome!

To remind you one more time, you can get $30 off the original price of Long Tail Pro by clicking the link below:

Click here to get Long Tail Pro for $30 OFF the original price!

If you’re going to participate in NSD2.0, let me know in the comment section of this post. I’m going to randomly reach out to 5 commenters and hook you up with a free copy of Long Tail Pro (not including the platinum upgrade). If you’ve already purchased it, I’ll refund your upfront cost. I’ll reach out to the winners via email by the end of the week (Saturday May 18th, 11:59:59pm PST).

Cheers, and good luck!

Niche Site Duel 2.0 – Criteria and Thoughts for Keyword and Niche Selection is a post from: The Smart Passive Income Blog

In this session of The Smart Passive Income Podcast, I’m honored to interview Neil Patel, founder of the popular blog QuickSprout, and co-founder of CrazyEgg and KISSmetrics.

Neil’s resume is beyond impressive. By age 21, the Wall Street Journal named him one of the top influencers on the web and Entrepreneur Magazine listed him as one of the top entrepreneurs in the nation. In addition to CrazyEgg and KISSmetrics, which are software solutions that are used by some of the top businesses in the world, companies like Amazon, AOL, GM, HP and Viacom, have reached out to Neil to help them make more money using the web.

He helped grow TechCrunch’s traffic by 30% within 60 days. He’s helped Gawker Media websites earn 5 million more visitors in only 3 months, and he writes some of the best and most detailed guides you’ll ever find on the internet, like the ones he wrote (and are freely available) about Advanced SEO and Content Marketing.

Neil knows what’s up, which is why I invited him onto the show.

As you may very well know, I’m currently doing some heavy research before I launch Niche Site Duel 2.0, an experiment and case study where I’ll be picking a topic, building a site from scratch and publicly reporting what I do and what happens here on the blog.

The first time I did this was a major success, but a lot of things have changed since then, which is why I’m connecting with as many people as possible who are getting results today and I’m sharing that information with you.

In case you missed it, here are the other research interviews I’ve conducted so far:

• Interview with Alex Becker from Source Wave
• SPI Podcast Session #66 with Spencer Haws of Niche Pursuits

Out of all the interviews I’ve done so far, including this one, I have a feeling I’ll be using a lot of the strategies Neil talks about more than the others, but we’ll see. I still have a few other people to interview who will be providing some insightful information about what’s working right now, which will give me a wide range of strategies to choose from, and we’ll also be able to discover any patterns that all of them have in common. such as high-quality content on our websites, which is a given, but is there more?

Make sure you listen through to the end because I reveal more information about how participation in NSD2.0 by you, if you’re interested, will be handled.

In addition, in this session you’ll find out about:

• Why and how Neil became an entrepreneur at such a young age, and the one thing that he discovered after he started to make lots of money.
• Neil’s thoughts on black hat vs. white hat SEO tactics and the long-term effects of each.
• Two big things that are working in SEO today.
• Why blog posts aren’t the best type of content when utilizing content marketing.
• How podcasting plays a role in SEO.
• How he got suspended by Dropbox for 3 days after sharing an online guide he created after just a few minutes of launching.
• Neil’s thoughts on really really detailed content and how everyone else’s laziness can be used to your advantage.
• The best way to create links to your website.
• The 200 Outreach Program, explained.
• An example of how Neil would contact me via email to get me to possibly link to something that he created.
• How Neil would use Twitter Direct Messages.
• Neil’s take on Keyword Research.
• How Neil is taking advantage of the fact that social signals play an important role in SEO today.
• Why guest blogging is still a viable strategy, but the one thing that you MUST do if you’re running guest posts on other sites.
• On-site SEO and what big name websites are doing wrong – and what we should be paying attention to.
• How your 404 page can help the rest of your site get indexed.
• Everything you need to know about using infographics for SEO.
• How Neil uses a popular black hat tool for white hat marketing tactics.
• Plus a whole lot more!

Here’s a notable quote from Neil that stood out to me during the interview:

“Write about what people want. Search engines will eventually catch up.” (click here to tweet this quote…)

Right click here to download the MP3

Resources Mentioned in this Podcast Include:

• QuickSprout
• CrazyEgg
• HelloBar
• KISSmetrics
• Qualaroo (formerly KISSinsights)
• The Advanced Guide to SEO
• Odesk
• SPI Podcast Session #55 with Trevor Page
• The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing
• jobs.problogger.net
• Dribbble
• WetPaint
• Neil’s TechCrunch Case Study
• ScrapeBox

CLICK HERE to give some love to Neil on Twitter and let him know that you enjoyed the show.

A Question from a Listener…

This session’s voicemail question is from Deborah Richmand from TekkBuzz. She asks:

“What are some (more) specific ways to use text messaging as a strategy in your online business?”

I share my answer (er, actually Greg’s answer) to Deborah’s question at the end of the session.

Question or Feedback? Leave Me a Voicemail!

If you have a question you’d potentially like answered on the show, or just feedback in general (constructive criticism and praise is absolutely welcome!), feel free to visit my voicemail page to quickly and easily leave me a message. I may feature you and your question on the show just like Deborah’s!

Thank you!

Thank you all for checking out this session of the SPI podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can get updated sessions delivered right to you as they come out.

Finally, if you haven’t done so already, I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick (and honest) rating and review of the show on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful!

CLICK HERE to leave a review for the show. 

Thanks again for spending some time listening to the show today, I appreciate you!

Cheers!

Transcript

Click Here to Download the Transcript for Session 67(PDF)

SPI 067 : Niche Site Duel 2.0 (research interview) – Neil Patel on How to Rank a Website Today is a post from: The Smart Passive Income Blog

In this session of The Smart Passive Income Podcast, we welcome Spencer Haws, founder of Niche Pursuits and creator of the popular keyword research tool, Long Tail Pro.

This particular episode, along with a few other upcoming episodes and posts, are a part of an ongoing research phase that I’m conducting for the upcoming Niche Site Duel 2.0 challenge.

Before I start building another website from scratch and sharing everything that happens along the way with you (I did this once before here), I want to make sure I’m up to date on everything I need to know before diving in – and of course you’re coming along with me every step of the way.

So far, I had a chat with Alex Becker who shared some very interesting, almost controversial strategies to rank websites for himself and his clients. The interview, which went up last week, has nearly 300 comments at the time I write this post.

Today, we have Spencer from Niche Pursuits who recently built a brand new website that is now ranking #1 in Google for his target keyword, and the site is now generating more and more income each month. I wanted to bring him on the show to share exactly how he made that happen with us.

Spencer has a long history with building niche websites. He’s built hundreds and has earned well over 5-figures a month from his sites – that is, until he was banned from Google Adsense last year. We talk a little bit about that in the podcast session as well as what he did to get most of his income back.

Spencer provides us with another account of what seems to be working in SEO and Keyword Research today. Please note that I am still in research mode and some or all of the NSD2.0 related strategies and methods mentioned during this session, or any other podcast session, post or video, may not necessarily align or become the same strategies that I end up using myself. You will hear more about my specific strategies and tactics soon, which will be based off of my own knowledge of building websites and search engine optimization, as well as what I am learning from others.

More specifically, in this session you’ll find out about:

• How Spencer turned his hobby of building websites into a business.
• The light bulb that went off in Spencer’s head that allowed him to finally start seeing results with his work online.
• Exactly how many websites Spencer had when he quit his job in 2011, and the range of income he was earning from each.
• How Spencer “manages” a large number of websites at the same time.
• How Spencer’s business model has changed since he first started.
• One of the most common mistakes when conducting keyword research.
• Spencer’s exact parameters and exactly what he’s looking for when analyzing keywords.
• Specific strategies for finding ‘seed keywords’ to put into tools like Market Samurai and Long Tail Pro
• What Spencer looks for when it comes to the competition for a particular keyword with search and traffic potential.
• Tools to help you determine how authoritative a competitive site may be.
• The start to finish process that Spencer used to rank a site in the survival industry, including the exact keyword he built a website for.
• What ‘juice page links’ and Page authority are and how to determine if a niche is too competitive to build a site for.
• Spencer’s content plan and what he did to stand out from the rest of the competition.
• How Spencer built links to his site.
• Plus a whole lot more!

Right click here to download the MP3

Resources Mentioned in this Podcast Include:

• Niche Pursuits (Spencer’s blog)
• Long Tail Pro ($30.00 discount available for SPI readers & listeners ONLY - this is an affiliate link)
• SEOMoz (you can sign up for a free account)
• Elance.com
• Point Blank SEO by Jon Cooper
• The SPI interview with Alex Becker.
• SlideShare
• DocStoc
• Spencer’s Niche Site Project

CLICK HERE to give some love to Spencer on Twitter and let him know you enjoyed the show.

$30.00 Off Long Tail Pro for a Limited Time Only!

After we recorded the episode together, Spencer was kind enough to give the SPI community a massive $30 discount on Long Tail Pro, his keyword research software, to celebrate the start of Niche Site Duel 2.0.

Thank you Spencer!

All you have to do is click on my referral link below and the discount should automatically be applied. Of course, I do earn a commission when you go through my link (at no extra cost to you!) and if you do end up making a purchase, please shoot me a note on Twitter or Facebook so I can thank you personally!

Get Long Tail Pro for $30.00 Off <— Here

I still use and love Market Samurai, another great keyword research tool that I’ve used for years, including during Niche Site Duel 1.0, but there are some things I like about LTP that excite me for the upcoming challenge, especially for beginners who are joining. Both Market Samurai and Long Tail Pro are fantastic, so if you already have Market Samurai please don’t feel like you have to get another keyword research tool, at least for what we’re doing. If you have MS and will be following along during NSD2.0, you’ll be able to do most, if not all of the things I’ll be doing myself with Long Tail Pro during the series.

Please note that there is a platinum version of Long Tail Pro that does include a small monthly fee. The features that the platinum version unlock are mostly quicker (yet, powerful) ways to run the data, so the platinum back isn’t completely necessary, but it can definitely be helpful. I’ll be sharing both “platinum” and “non-platinum” ways in Long Tail Pro to discover keywords and execute competitive analysis during my NSD2.0 tutorial videos.

Here is that special link one more time:

Get Long Tail Pro for $30.00 Off <— Here

NEW! A Question from a Listener…

From time to time, I will play a voicemail question from a reader or listener during the episode and then followup with my answer.

This week’s question is from Aarin from Paint Crush Magazine, a beauty magazine and blog. She asks:

“How do you podcast for a niche or market that is primarily visual? Should I consider it, or would it be a waste of time since podcasts are just audio?”

I share my answer to Aarin’s question at the end of the session.

Question or Feedback? Leave Me a Voicemail!

If you have a question you’d potentially like answered on the show, or just feedback in general (constructive criticism and praise is absolutely welcome!), feel free to visit my voicemail page to quickly and easily leave me a message. I may feature you and your question on the show just like Aarin’s!

Thank you!

Thank you all for checking out this session of the SPI podcast. Make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you can get updated delivered right to you as they come out, and finally, if you haven’t done so already, I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick (and honest) rating and review of the show on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful!

CLICK HERE to leave a review for the show. 

Thanks again for spending some time listening to me today, I appreciate you, and look out for a special edition of the SPI Podcast going live this coming Friday, as we continue our Niche Site Duel 2.0 research with an interview with Neil Patel from QuickSprout.com – you don’t want to miss this one.

Cheers!

Transcript

Click Here to Download the Transcript for Session 66(PDF)

SPI 066 : Niche Site Duel 2.0 (research interview) – SEO and Keyword Research with Spencer Haws is a post from: The Smart Passive Income Blog

Welcome to my April 2013 income report!

Each month, I write a detailed report about my online businesses and web properties.

I do this not only to help me keep track of my own progress (which I could obviously do in private), but I want to be open and honest about what’s going on in my business. I want to lead by example by showing you what’s working, and what’s not.

I also include an extremely detailed breakdown of the income I’ve earned online.

For those of you new to SPI, you might be wondering why I care to post my income reports in the first place. Here’s why:

Companies in the stock market share their earnings too, which gives people an idea of how the company is performing. Based on that, people can make a decision whether or not to invest (or continue investing) in that company.

Although you’re not investing money into my company, you are investing time – time to consume my content as well as any time you use to execute the strategies and methods that I share. It’s my responsibility to be totally upfront, honest and transparent with you, and to give you a snapshot each month of how I’m performing.

Before I get to the meat of this month’s report, if you’re just starting out online, please understand that making money on the Internet is definitely not an overnight thing. Not even close. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to pull it off.

A lot of people will attempt it and many people will fail, but I absolutely know that it’s possible to find success.

And remember, I struggle through trial and error every single day too, so as long as you have a goal and constantly work towards it, you’re giving yourself a great chance for great things to happen.

I hope you enjoy this month’s report!

Important Going-Ons in April

April was the first month in a while where I felt like everything was finally, at least for the most part, running at full speed again. If you’ve been a long time reader, you probably felt it too.

When my servers went down for an entire week at the beginning of  March, it threw me off a bit. Last month, I was finally able to get back on the saddle and start producing content regularly again. Not only that, it was content that seemed to truly resonate with people, as the number of comments that were coming through were much higher than the previous months.

Here’s a convenient list of what was posted on SPI in April, in case you missed anything:

• My February and March 2013 Monthly Income Report (164 Comments)
• SPI 061 : Successful Startups and the Entrepreneurial Mindset with John Saddington (118 Comments)
• SPI 062 : Marketing and Monetization with Mom Blogger, Meagan Francis (63 Comments)
• Are You Taking Advantage of Your Unfair Advantage? (7 Examples) (182 Comments)
• SPI 063 : Monetizing a Hobby Blog and the “Magic” of Membership Sites (47 Comments)
• Reader Challenge Roundup: Readers Choice and the Next [BIG!] Challenge (58 Comments)
• SPI 064 : Podcasting for More Exposure, Leads and Money (My SMMW13 Presentation!) (48 Comments)
• Niche Site Duel 2.0 (pre-launch) – What’s Working in SEO Right Now with Alex Becker (273 Comments)

In April, the SPI blog saw record numbers both in terms of monthly traffic and downloads to the podcast.

Also, both the blog and the podcast hit huge milestones this past month:

• 5,000,000 visitors since October of 2008
• 3,000,000 podcast downloads since July of 2012

Mind blown. That’s really all I can say.

‘Let Go’ is a #1 Best Seller!

The biggest news coming out of the month is that my new book, Let Go, shot up to become the #1 Best Selling Small Business and Entrepreneurship book on Amazon.com! Not just on Kindle, but overall!

Now, you might be wondering how this all happened, since I originally published Let Go on another platform first.

Here’s the story…

At the end of March, Let Go was published on a brand new multi-media platform called SnippetApp for iOS, which allowed me to do some cool things like embed videos, images and even social media (i.e. a Twitter hashtag conversation – see #letgobook) right inside the content itself.

The format allowed me to tell my story in a way that I couldn’t really ever tell it before, especially when it came to the videos that were included in the book. For example, at the end of one of the chapters you can tap a button to watch a personal interview with my wife. I had just proposed to her right before I was told I was going to get laid off and the interview examines how she was feeling at the time and why she was so supportive or my decision to work for myself. There’s also an interview with my dad who had originally suggested I go back to grad school after I was let go. Plus a lot of other cool on-location videos at the end of most of the chapters.

Beyond that, I definitely wanted to seize the opportunity to become one of the very first authors for this very forward-thinking platform.

In a little over a week, I sold over 2000 copies of the book through SnippetApp, which was awesome considering that a lot of my audience couldn’t get it because they didn’t have an iPhone or an iPad. AND the fact that people had to download the free SnippetApp first, and THEN get my book from there. That’s asking a lot of my audience, so thank you to those of you who picked it up!

As a result of hundreds of emails from people who were disappointed that they couldn’t get the book, and because it’s something my team and I were planning on doing eventually, we made it a priority to reformat the book and optimize it as best as possible for Amazon’s Kindle platform. The beauty is that anyone with any device can read a Kindle book: Kindle devices plus iOS, Android, and even desktop on Mac and Windows. (See free Kindle Apps for more info on how this works)

The challenge was trying to figure out how to best translate the multi-media SnippetApp experience into a Kindle book. There are many different Kindle devices (e-reader, PaperWhite, Fire), not to mention the free Kindle Apps  – but there was no way we were going to be able to embed videos, images and social media into the content like it was before.

The solution we came up with was to simply link to the videos within the Kindle book. On some devices, it would open up the video on another application on that device. In some cases, like for e-readers and PaperWhites, one would have to manually type in the (friendly) URL to watch the videos. This definitely isn’t optimal, but it works. There are many instances while reading the physical version of Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Body, where I would manually type in a URL to watch a video related to something that I just read, so I thought this would be okay.

After a few rounds of edits and the inclusion of a Bonus Chapter (a video to my younger self, which is included on the newest version on SnippetApp too), I signed up for Kindle’s Direct Publishing (KDP) and my team submitted Let Go for publication on Kindle.

Within 12 hours of submittal, on Thursday, April 18th, the Kindle version of Let Go was available on Amazon.com. I was in Chicago for an event at that time, so it made sense for me to wait until Monday the 22nd to begin any sort of push to my audience.

On Sunday evening, I decided to share the link to Let Go on Amazon on my social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter) and then also with my private Kindle Author Facebook Group that I started almost a year ago, which currently has over 3,000 members.

Apparently, that was enough because when I woke up on Monday morning, my book had sold over 300 copies on Amazon and was already ranking #1 in the Web 2.0 category – while also ranking #2 in Kindle > Entrepreneurship category, and #7 in Entrepreneurship overall.

After hanging out with the kids in the morning, I immediately crafted this email.

By 5:00pm that day, Let Go was the #1 book in the overall Small Business and Entrepreneurship category!

And that’s how it happened! I plan to do a second push for Let Go in the near future using some strategies that Jeff Goins shared with me for an hour over Skype recently. The rankings have dropped a bit, which is expected, but the 2nd push could take the book even higher overall than it was before. I guess we’ll see!

That conversation with Jeff was recorded and will be put into a future podcast episode, one that not only includes the tips and strategies that I’m going to test, but also a future recording that we’ll do together after I implement the strategies where we’ll talk about the results and what I did right or wrong.

If you’re interested in getting free early access to the first part of that recording, be sure to join my Private Facebook Group, which is the only place where I’ll share it before the episode actually comes out.

To those of you who picked up Let Go already, on any platform – thank you! You rock!

If you picked it up (on any platform) and have yet to leave an honest review, you can do so by clicking right here. (You don’t have to purchase ‘Let Go’ on Kindle to leave a review on Amazon – if you bought the SnippetApp version, you can still leave a review on Amazon – it’ll be extremely helpful!)

And lastly, if you haven’t picked up Let Go yet, here are the links:

• Let Go on SnippetApp (for iOS)
• Let Go on Kindle and Kindle Apps
• Let Go on Nook ( just came out yesterday)

Niche Site Duel 2.0

If you haven’t heard already, Niche Site Duel 2.0 is on the horizon!

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am for this, and I know a lot of you are too.

For those of you who don’t know, the original Niche Site Duel (NSD) was a public challenge to create a website from scratch, get it on the first page of Google and start earning an income from it. In 73 days I was able to work my Security Guard Training website to #1 in Google, and since then the site has been earning between $1,500 and $3,500 per month with very little upkeep involved.

In total, since last month’s income report, that one website site has earned over $50,000.

The strategies I used for NSD1.0 still work today, just not as well and not as consistently as they did before, since Google has made a ton of algorithm updates since them.

This is why now is the perfect time to start up Niche Site Duel 2.0 and see if I can rank a website from scratch, using tactics that are working today.

Before I select a niche and primary keyword, build a website and begin my marketing strategy, I’m in heavy research mode right now. I’m  conducting interviews with people who seem to know how to build and rank a website in today’s environment.

I recently interview Alex Becker who shared his search engine optimization strategy in a video interview that was posted last week. The transcript to that interview is now posted on that page as well.

Alex’s primary strategy is to purchase expiring domains that have an existing Page Rank, and create links on those sites to a main site, all while maintaining a diverse anchor text profile.

It proves to be working very well, however there are two reasons I’m not going to be using his strategy in NSD2.0:

1. The strategy involves a lot of additional money (to buy the domains and also put them on separate IP addresses and servers); and
2. It’s not ‘white hat’.

I won’t get into the arguments here about white hat vs. black hat vs. gray hat SEO strategies – I recommend you check out the amazing comment section of that interview post for some good discussion on the topic. Just know that I’m going to do my best to take an honest approach to this challenge, and yes some link building will have to happen but I’m going to try to go as ‘white hat’ as possible for a more long-term approach, although I’ll still do what I can to rank quickly.

Other Interviews

I’ve also scored interviews with other people who seem to be doing things to rank well in Google today, including Spencer Haws from NichePursuits and creator of Long Tail Pro (the Keyword Research tool I’ll be experimenting with during NSD2.0), as well as Neil Patel of QuickSprout.

My interview with Spencer goes live on SPI Podcast session #66 this coming Wednesday, where we will explore exactly, step-by-step, what he recently did to get a brand new website to #1 in Google, and also some great tips for proper keyword research.

My interview with Neil Patel will be a special edition that goes live this coming Friday in podcast session #67.

It’s like SEO week here on SPI!

In Neil’s interview – well, it’s just incredible. He’s in a league of his own when it comes to SEO and really has me excited to get started with NSD2.0. He’s helped companies like TechCrunch and Gawker Media get millions more visitors per month to their sites as a result of his work – and in Session #67 he’s going to help us. He reveals some strategies I have never heard before – you’re going to love it.

Glen Allsop is also in line for an interview. He revealed some strategies in SPI Podcast Session #3, way back in 2010, which helped me pick a good niche, and I’ll have him on again to help us figure out how today we can do the same thing.

Lastly, a lot of you have been asking me if you can participate in NSD2.0 with me.

Well…right now I can’t even call it a duel since it’s just me…so I’m going to need people to duel with – so of course you’re welcome to join in!

Logistically, this is all still being figured out, so just look out for more information in the near future.

Also, a special few of you will be able to work directly with me along the way – in scheduled webinars and a private group discussion somewhere. There will be an application process and I’m sure there will be a lot of applicants, so it’ll take time to go through them all, but I figured it would be fun to have a select group of people to highlight and keep progress on along the way as well. This’ll be a great way to see how the strategies work and if they are just a flash in the pan, or really something that anyone can do.

Again, logistics are still being figured out, but just look out for that information within the next month or so.

Excited yet?

Ok, I think it’s time for some numbers…

Income Breakdown

Disclosure: many of the links below are affiliate links that will earn me a commission if you purchase through them. If you do, I absolutely appreciate it and if you have any questions about any of the products or services please contact me!

Also, please note that a lot of these are figures from reports from each individual company for the previous month. It does not necessarily reflect the actual payment which, for some of the companies listed below, come 30 to 60 days later and may change because of potential refunds or corrections.

• GreenExamAcademy.com Product Sales:
  • Total: $3,110.19
    • Previous Month: $3,456.12
      
    • Difference:-$345.93
      

• SecurityGuardTrainingHQ.com:
  • Adsense: $2,478.83
  • Job Board: $53.18
  • Affiliate Earnings: $176.95
  • Total: $2,708.96
    • Previous Month: $2,836.57
    • Difference: -$127.61

• CreateaClickableMap.com:
  • Total: $319.68
    • Previous Month: $489.51
      
    • Difference: -$169.83

• 2 Other Mini Experimental Sites and YouTube (adsense):
  • Total: $721.21
    • Previous Month: $420.10
    • Difference: +$301.11

• iPhone Applications:
  • Paid Apps: $2,156.95
  • Free Apps: $462.01
    
  • Total: $2,618.96
    • Previous Month: $2,715.09
    • Difference: -$96.13

• Affiliate Earnings (primarily from SPI + other niche sites):
  • Market Samurai: $4,270.74 (market samurai free webinar replay)
  • The Best Spinner: $1,688.00
  • Unique Article Wizard: $1,815.60
  • Bluehost.com: $30,450 (Create a blog in less than 4 minutes with Bluehost)
  • iPhone Apps w/o Experience eBook: $575.54
  • Thesis Theme for WordPress: $1,159.00
  • Long Tail Pro Keyword Research Tool:$553.43
  • Aweber: $1,224.58 (my collection of top email list strategies)
  • Elance.com: $108.00
  • 99Designs: $25.75
  • E-Junkie.com: $146.60
  • Virtual Staff Finder: $375.05
  • Build a Blog That Matters Course: $797.61
  • OptinSkin by Glen Allsop: $1,368.30 (my review and bonus!)
  • LeadPlayer (my review): $937.30
  • Amazon.com from SPI: $407.70
  • Total: $45,903.20
    • Previous Month:$44,829.89
      
    • Difference: +$1,073.91

• eBook Sales:
  • SnippetApp: 634 sales
    • 50% of $2.99: $947.83
  • Amazon Kindle: approximately 1100 sales
    
    • 70% of $2.99 (minus $0.20 delivery cost):  ~$2,082.30
  • Total: $3,030.13

• Gross Total in April: $58,412.33
  • Previous Month: $54,747.28
  • Difference: +$3,665.05

• April Expenses (Below is what was paid last month. It does not include pro-rated yearly fees. Most are related to the Smart Passive Income Blog and new projects under development. Travel fees and related travel expenses were not included this month since they were reimbursed):
  • Web Developer Virtual Assistant: $700.00
  • Researcher / Admin Virtual Assistant: $400.00
  • Server and Hosting Fees: $680.00
  • Assistant Web Developer / Server Optimization: $1,050.00
  • Dropbox: $9.99
  • Libsyn.com (podcast file hosting): $15.00
  • Transcriptions and Podcast VA: $227.00
  • Aweber: $453.00
  • E-Junkie Shopping Cart Fee: $5.00
  • Paypal Website Payments Pro: $30.00
  • Certified Public Accountant / Bookkeeping: $260.00
  • Skype $2.99
  • Team Payments for Let Go: $2,937.50
  • Voiceover work for Podcast Intros: $175.00
  • Affiliate Payments for GreenExamAcademy.com: $180.45
  • Venue and food for meet and greets at Conferences: $1,520.00
  • Total Expenses for April:  $8,650.93

• Net Total in April: $49,761.40
• Net Total Previous Month: $45,823.54

An awesome two months despite the downtime! Earnings are right around where they have been the past several months, which is a sign that the businesses are growing since I had a week off at the tail end of February and the beginning of March. My Bluehost earnings are still going incredibly strong. If you’d like detailed information about where my Bluehost links are located and where those conversions are coming from, you can read this post here. The volume is much higher than when I wrote that post, but the percentages are roughly the same.

A Quick Note on my Affiliate Earnings:

I’ll be the first to admit that a significant portion of my total online income comes as a result of The Smart Passive Income Blog – mostly from the products that I recommend as an affiliate, which are products I’ve used or am extremely familiar with and have helped me in one way, shape or form.

When I first started this blog back in 2008, I never intended to make any money from it. If you go back to my earlier income reports you’ll see that all of my income was coming from outside of this blog through other businesses. Over time, however, the SPI community has grown and as a byproduct of being helpful and giving everything away for free, I started earning from this site too. Because I believe in total honesty and transparency, I decided to include the income from SPI on these reports as well. It wouldn’t feel right hiding this from you.

My non-SPI related income has hovered around the $10,000/month mark for the past year, which is much more than I ever made working my 9 to 5 job in architecture, but I’m truly blessed that I have the support from an amazing community here at SPI who is willing to pay me back for all of the information I publish and the help that I try to provide for free. Some people go out of their way to make sure I get credit for an affiliate link, often emailing me to make sure I got it, which means the world to me. Thank you so much!

With this type of community comes great responsibility and I will never take it for granted. I will never promote something just for the potential income that can come from an affiliate offer, even though those opportunities are definitely there.

I’m incredibly grateful for everything and I will continue to give back with valuable content and my experience in return.

Something Else to Get Excited About

In 2010, I was introduced to a company called Only72, which was co-founded by my good friend Adam Baker.

A couple of times a year, Only72 brought together some of the top digital information products around the web, packaged them together and sold them at a massive discounted price to customers, for only 72 hours – hence, Only72.com.

I’ve been a customer before, and I’ve also been a successful affiliate for them too.

Because Adam is a really good friend of mine, I was really interested to see how this business was going to work out for him when he first started it, and I was so happy to see how successful the first few launches went. The first Only72 sale in 2010 went through the roof, and the company was able to donate about $30k to Charity:Water as a result of their success.

During the second launch in 2011, I joined as an affiliate and sold several copies of that particular group of products to happy customers here on SPI.

Then, I started to notice that some of the later launches weren’t quite as spectacular. Sure, they were still offering great deals but I didn’t end up promoting them as it seemed a bit formulaic and overall, it just lost its excitement. There was no theme to the sales anymore – it was just sort or whatever they could scrap up and sell at a discount.

I’m just being honest here.

I loved the business model through, so it was quite unfortunate that things seemed to go in the direction they did.

Well – a couple of months ago Adam contacted me via phone. We talk from time to time, but this time he wanted to talk business. He told me that his partner Karol Gajda was leaving the company to work on other things that needed his time and focus.

Then, Adam popped the question, “How would you like to partner with me on Only72.com?”

I didn’t expect this question at all when I picked up the phone, so I didn’t really have an answer for him. I had to think about it for quite a long time. I knew the history of the company, and also knew the trajectory that it was on.

But, I also remembered, as a customer and an affiliate, things that I wish were done differently. I wanted things more SPI style: getting really into the details of each of the products that were being offered, showing videos of each product before people decide to purchase, actually talking to the product owners and sharing those conversations, and just giving away a ton of massive value and focusing on customer experience. All of that stuff seemed so obvious to me, yet, it wasn’t getting done.

With only a few sales a year, for only 72 hours each, I felt like this was something I could definitely add to my plate and add value to, so after long consideration, I decided to say yes and partner with Adam! I really wanted to make sure that things would be taken to the next level, and Adam was really excited because my ideas aligned exactly with what he wanted to do and where he wanted to take the company:

Careful selection and transparency with all of the products that are being offered, getting customers completely familiar with the products in the deal, and again just focusing on customer experience and overall value, which must never be forgotten. I also asked for some changes in the web design and other small things like that, which aren’t reflected on the current design yet, but are coming soon.

I’m super stoked because in addition to selling information products related to online business and blogging, we’re planning on expanding outside of this niche. There are hundreds of other potential markets we could run similar sales for, and if we can get a team to do most of the legwork for us, which they are doing already, then we’re golden.

It almost feels like an advisory role, in a way, and I’m excited to be working with someone who has, time and time again, executed on his ideas. Adam was the one who created and produced the documentary, I’m Fine, Thanks, in about 3 months!

The next Only72.com sale is coming up within the next month or so, and we have something special planned for it. Not only am I now a partner with Adam on Only72, but for this next sale I’ll be contributing an info-product of my own. It’s gonna rock!

So look out for more information about that when you start to hear about the Only72 sale from me or others around the web.

Woo! A ton of awesome stuff happening in 2013 – and it’s almost half over already. Time for a progress check on your goals for the year!

Cheers, and I wish you all the best!

My April 2013 Monthly Income Report is a post from: The Smart Passive Income Blog

In this session of The Smart Passive Income Podcast, I interview mobile marketing expert Greg Hickman of MobileMixed.com. We talk about everything that we as bloggers, online business owners and entrepreneurs need to know about our growing mobile audience and how to better serve them to get better results.

Beyond sharing exactly why mobile is so vital to our online businesses, he also gives us a ton of actionable tips and how-to strategies that we can implement right now to better utilize (and also grow!) our mobile audience.

Even though Greg and I have only recently met, he and I have become extremely good friends ever since we hung out together at New Media Expo in Las Vegas this past January. Besides being extremely knowledgable and enthusiastic about mobile marketing, he’s probably one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. I connected with him so well because like me, he really wants to help other people succeed.

He also likes to rap battle me on Twitter from time to time.

Greg has been a mobile marketer since 2005 – this was a couple of years before the iPhone was introduced, just to give you some perspective. He worked with the New York Jets, the Florida Marlins and a handful of other teams. He’s also done some consulting on using mobile technology for small to medium-sized businesses.

Now, Greg is here to help us.

When you really think about it, by not being ready for a mobile audience you are actually doing a huge portion of your audience a big disservice. Often times, the first experience people will have with your brand will be through a smartphone or tablet device. If you don’t cater to them, there’s almost a 50% chance that these potential readers, subscribers and customers will leave and never come back.

More specifically, in this session you’ll find out about:

• What “going mobile” in your business actually means and why it’s so confusing to a lot of people.
• Why mobile marketing is the most personal form of marketing today.
• How podcasting and video play a role in mobile marketing.
• The number of people who have visited SmartPassiveIncome.com via mobile in the last 30 days and a surprising finding about their visits.
• The idea behind responsive design and how to make it happen on your own site.
• How to cater to “fat thumbs”, like mine.
• The impact of mobile on local search and how that benefits local businesses.
• The percentage of people that connect to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube via mobile and how that impacts the visitors to your website.
• The number one thing you should do as a blogger or online business owner to “go mobile”.
• The hierarchy of mobile needs.
• Why “pinching and zooming” does not count as being mobile friendly.
• How to convert people to your email list using mobile.
• Greg’s thoughts on the WP-Touch WordPress plugin.
• The incredible impact of mobile on email marketing and tips for getting people to read and click the links in your email on their mobile devices.
• How to use text messaging to continue the experience your audience has with you after a podcast episode or presentation.
• Plus a whole lot more!

Right click here to download the MP3

Items mentioned in this podcast include:

• Greg’s site, MobileMixed.com
• Brad Frost Interview on MobileMixed
• ThinkTraffic.net (example of responsive design)
• PatFlynn.me (another example of responsive design)
• Michael Hyatt’s mobile-responsive theme
• Gumroad.com
• Gumroad being used on Nathan Barry’s website
• Mogreet

Also, CLICK HERE to give some love to Greg on Twitter!

Question or Feedback? Leave Me a Voicemail!

If you have a question you’d potentially like answered on the show, or just feedback in general (constructive criticism and praise is absolutely welcome!), feel free to visit my voicemail page to quickly and easily leave me a message. I’ll feature you and your question on the show!

Thank you all for checking out this session of the SPI podcast, and finally, if you haven’t done so already, I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick (and honest) rating and review of the show on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful!

CLICK HERE to leave a review for the show. 

Thanks again for spending some time listening to me today, I appreciate you!

Cheers!

Transcript

Click Here to Download the Transcript for Session 65(PDF)

SPI 065 : Go Mobile or Get Left Behind with Greg Hickman of MobileMixed.com is a post from: The Smart Passive Income Blog

Niche Site Duel 2.0 is right around the corner! 

For those of you who don’t know, the original Niche Site Duel (NSD) was a public challenge to create a niche website from scratch, rank it high in Google and start earning an income from it. In 73 days I was able to work my Security Guard Training website to #1 in Google, and since then the site has been earning between $1,500 and $3,500 per month with very little upkeep involved.

In total, since last month’s income report, that one website site has earned over $50,000.

The tactics for Niche Site Duel 1.0 still work today, but there’s a catch…

Several people continue to email me with success stories using my case study as a template for their own, however it’s apparent that the strategies, in particular the search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, aren’t working nearly as much as they used to. In running my own experiments, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Why?

Because Google made a lot of changes to its search algorithm since NSD 1.0: the Panda updates, the Penguin updates, the Exact Match Domain update and a slew of other mini updates. (See entire Google algorithm change history here.)

My security site has stood the test of time, but some of my other experimental websites did not.

Before I start the Niche Site Duel 2.0 challenge and create a brand new website from scratch publicly here on the blog and keep you up to date on its progress, I want to take some time to first educate myself about what’s working right now, and then decide what strategies or tactics I might use to help rank and promote my new website, in whatever niche that may be in.

Part of the time and effort you put into learning something can pay itself back several times over based on the mistakes and errors that you don’t make as a result of that eduction. That said, you still want to make sure you make decisions and then ‘GO’.

Today’s post (and video) will be the first of several where I ask an expert who seems to know what they’re doing when it comes to certain aspects of niche site development.

Then, sometime in June or July, after a few of these interviews and more research, Niche Site Duel 2.0 will be a GO.

Today’s Guest: Alex Becker of Source-Wave.com

Alex Becker has a website at Source-Wave.com where he writes and creates videos primarily about SEO Marketing. Like me, he’s very open about his strategies, which is why he has massive appeal to many people interested in SEO today.

Alex has recently been able to rank several websites, some of his own and many the websites of his clients, for rather competitive keywords and in a relatively short amount of time. This is why I was interested in having him as a guest to share what’s working for him right now.

Below you’ll see the video interview we did together.

Right Click and Save-As here to Download the Transcript of this Interview

Please be sure to read my commentary about the interview and Alex’s strategy below the video after watching.

(here’s the link to the video on YouTube)

Note: the timestamped questions below are paraphrased…

• 00:42 – Alex, tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and what your website is about.
• 01:40 – Why are you on the show today, what do you have to offer us?
• 02:56 – What should people avoid in order to get better search engine rankings or avoid getting slapped by Google?
• 05:53 – What’s working best for the types of anchor text to use right now (on other sites linking to you)?
• 08:04 – How are we building these links? What’s working right now (for link building) and what should we avoid?
• 13:35 – Is it the PageRank of the page that the anchor text is on, or the PageRank of the root domain that matters?
• 14:33 – What are these tools that you keep mentioning that you use?
• 15:17 – Are you writing articles for those tools? Is that how they work?
• 15:45 – Blog Networks in the past got murdered. You’re suggesting to create one of your own, aren’t you worried about that being a red flag signal to Google?
• 19:13 – The domains that you buy for your ‘link network’ – they don’t have to be relevant to the site that you’re linking to in order for them to work in your favor?
• 20:12 – Where would you find these sites / domains that you could add to your network?
• 21:39 – How many of these sites do you want to shoot for for your network?
• 21:55 – Do you need only 1 link coming from those websites to point to your main page?
• 23:00 – What about for people who don’t have a budget and money to spend on tools and buying websites?
• 24:06 – If your site got slapped in Google’s recent algorithm updates, can you fix it to get it back to where it should be?

Alex’s Downloadable PDFs

Below are the two PDFs that Alex mentioned he would provide in the video, just in case you’re interested in learning more about his particular strategies:

Right-click and SAVE AS to download to your computer:

• Alex’s Medium Competition Strategy (PDF)
• Alex’s Tough Competition Strategy (PDF)

My Thoughts

First of all, a big thanks to Alex from Source-Wave.com for openly sharing how he does what he does. The PDFs definitely help us understand how his strategy works in more detail.

Alex’s primary strategy of purchasing domains with existing Page Rank and then linking them back to his main site makes perfect sense, and it’s no wonder he’s able to rank highly competitive keywords in a relatively short amount of time, especially considering he’s tested these strategies several times over while working for companies that gave him the budget to do so.

Although I mentioned in the video that I would put Alex’s strategies to the test, for NSD 2.0 I’m going to reconsider that statement. I’m doing this for two reasons:

1. Not everyone who will participate in NSD 2.0 will have a budget to buy other domains and websites to build out a private blog linking network. As the main example, the less money I can spend, the better. I don’t want people spending a ton of money on creating a network of websites if they don’t have to. Although in theory the strategy makes perfect sense and it would probably work most of the time, at least for now, in practice it’s just not possible for everyone. I’m going to continue conducting research for a more economical way to possibly get the same affect. That said, even though I’m not going to use the exact same strategies as Alex, I will definitely keep the theories behind them in mind. I still find this interview with Alex to be extremely helpful.
2. It’s sort of “gaming the system” and not really White Hat SEO.

In regards to #2 and gaming the system and doing things that are un-natural to look natural to Google (and I know I’m probably opening up a huge can of worms here), there are a lot of points to be made.

For one, when you think about it, isn’t all SEO a way of “gaming the system”? Even guest posting, with a specific attribution link with a specific anchor text at the bottom of the post – that’s “gaming the system” too, isn’t it?

Of course, there are varying degrees of doing so, but where does one draw the line?

With Niche Site Duel 1.0, I did practice some unnatural backlinking tactics that I learned from “what was working then”, and it worked – very well.

It helped my site get to #1 in Google and as a result has helped thousands of people get started in their career as a security guard. There’s proof in the number of people who connect with employers on the job board each and every day. So, does this mean that it’s okay when the website you’re trying to rank actually helps people?

How about the links that I built – could they be considered spammy? They were created just for the purposes of linking back to something else, so in that sense, perhaps – but they weren’t bothering anybody or getting in anybody’s way, which is what spam traditionally does. Those sites and their links just take up some of the infinite space that’s available on the web. Is that bad?

There are lots of things to think about when it comes to SEO. White Hat, Gray Hat, Black Hat. What works? What doesn’t? What’s right? What’s wrong?

I know what I say, write, record and publish has a lot of influence on what people do. As a leader in this space, I want to use this opportunity and the upcoming Niche Site Duel 2.0 challenge to see if I can White Hat my way to the top of Google. Alex’s strategy, at least for most people’s standards, is not considered White Hat.

But what does White Hat mean exactly? I looked to an online dictionary to find out.

From Webopedia:

In search engine optimization (SEO) terminology, White Hat SEO refers to the usage of SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that focus on a human audience as opposed to search engines and completely follows search engine rules and policies…

Cool, human audience – I like that. But the rest of the definition is where it gets confusing again:

…For example, a Web site that is SEO optimized, yet focuses on relevancy and organic ranking is considered to be optimized using White Hat SEO practices. Some examples of White Hat SEO techniques include using keywords and keyword analysis, backlinking, link building to improve link popularity, and writing content for human readers. White Hat SEO is more frequently used by those who intend to make a long-term investment on their Web site.

Wait…backlinking and linkbuilding – White Hat? Now I’m confused again.

The truth is: some link building has to take place. Depending on the niche that you’re in, the success of your website may depend on it, but there are different ways to build links and what it could come down to is common sense – but even that differs from person to person, as we all know.

I also think it comes down to creativity. We might have to get a little creative in how we get links back to our websites, which could be a lot of fun too, especially when taking a White Hat approach. Furthermore, I feel that a White Hat approach would be more likely to stand the test of time, no matter what Google may end up deciding to do in the future with its algorithm.

To conclude, I just want you to know what’s going through my head right now as we prep for NSD 2.0. Although I don’t have a clearly defined answer for what’s right and what’s not, I’m going to approach NSD 2.0 by always remembering that I’m here to lead by example, so I’ll do my best to try and set a good one.

What’s Next

Up next for NSD 2.0, I have an interview with Spencer Haws from NichePursuits.com and creator of the popular keyword research tool, Long Tail Pro. Spencer recently got to #1 for a niche site of his own that he’s sharing publicly on his blog, and I’ll be going deep into his keyword research strategy, as well as his backlinking strategy in a podcast episode that’ll go live in a couple of weeks.

What Do You Think?

I’d love to hear from you. Whether it’s a comment on Alex’s strategy, excitement about the direction of NSD 2.0, your opinion on white hat vs. gray hat vs. black hat SEO and what’s working now, let me know what you think.

Here are a question for some direction:

What is your definition of White Hat SEO, and do you think it can compete with other SEOers who are ‘gaming the system’?

Niche Site Duel 2.0 (research interview) – What’s Working in SEO Right Now with Alex Becker is a post from: The Smart Passive Income Blog

In this session of The Smart Passive Income Podcast, I re-record the live presentation I recently did at Social Media Marketing World, a conference that took place here in my hometown of San Diego earlier this month.

As many of you know, me and technology don’t get along very well during my public speaking appearances. Although there weren’t any technical issues that affected my presentation, someone apparently unplugged the recording device at the conference during my talk to charge their laptop or mobile device. So, my session was one of the only ones that was not recorded at the event.

Of course, lol!

On the bright side, this gave me the opportunity to re-record the session and tailor it just for those of you who listen to the podcast and read the blog. You’ll even get an insider view of some of the presentation techniques I used during my talk, since I did interact with the crowd and did some things during my session to further emphasize important points, which I can’t actually do during the podcast.

In today’s episode, you’ll hear me talk all about podcasting, more specifically:

1. How to get more exposure to your podcast and
2. How to get your listeners to take action.

Podcasting has become such an important and integral part of my overall branding strategy, so much so that earlier this year I decided to switch from publishing 2 podcasts per month, to 1 per week, a decision that has already proved to be well worth the extra effort. More and more people are discovering my brand through my podcast, and it continues to be the number one way that people discover me, more than SEO, Social Media, YouTube and links from other sites.

At the conference, it was even said during the opening keynote that podcasting is the hottest trend in content creation and social media right now!

If you are interested in starting your podcast, but you have yet to get around to it, I’ve made it really easy for you. You can check out my 100% free Podcasting Tutorial (no emails or opt-ins required) that has already helped hundreds of people already start their podcast.

During my talk, you’ll discover:

• Why podcasting is the most powerful content delivery medium available today.
• How to properly optimize your show to increase search engine rankings in iTunes (and Google).
• 1 Tip about your podcast artwork that can change everything.
• How to leverage other podcasts for more exposure to your own, even without being mentioned on those shows.
• The formula for a high ranking podcast in iTunes.
• How to get listeners to keep listening to your show, even if it’s over an hour long.
• 5 Tips to keep people engage during your episodes.
• How to get people to share your show with others.
• How not providing show notes is actually hurting your show.
• A secret strategy to get listeners to take action, even when they aren’t in front of a computer or mobile device.
• Plus much more..

Right click here to download the MP3

Items mentioned in this session:

• My Best Selling Book, Let Go, on Amazon!
• Pat’s FREE Podcasting Tutorial
• Stitcher
• My iTunes Page for the SPI Podcast
• Social Media Examiner Podcast iTunes Preview Page
• Michael Hyatt
• Michael Hyatt’s ‘This is Your Life’ Podcast
• ‘The Mobile Mixed Podcast’ by Greg Hickman
• Sally Hogshead on Social Triggers Insider
• Bit.ly
• Click to Tweet
• Pretty Link
• Michael Hyatt’s Show Notes (Episode #34)
• Amy Porterfield
• FreeAudioGift.com (from Internet Business Mastery)
• EbookstheSmartWay.com
• KeywordResearchWebinar.com
• NicheSiteDuel.com
• StartAnEmailList.com
• PatsFirstBook.com
• ThankYouPat.com
• ThinkTraffic.net (view on Mobile for mobile optimized page)
• MobileMixed.com (view on Mobile for mobile optimized page)

Question or Feedback…Leave Me a Voicemail!

If you have a question you’d potentially like answered on the show, or just feedback in general (constructive criticism and praise is absolutely welcome!), feel free to visit my voicemail page to quickly and easily leave me a message.

Help the Show!

I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful for the show!

Leave a review for Pat’s podcast!

Thank you again for your support, and I wish you all the best!

Cheers!

Transcript

Click Here to Download the Transcript for Session 64(PDF)

SPI 064 : Podcasting for More Exposure, Leads and Money (My SMMW13 Presentation!) is a post from: The Smart Passive Income Blog