Now what?!

I went from the elation of having made my first $40 online, being ranked in Google with not 2 but 3 sites, made it to the first page for my exact match and 28 out of 2.9 million for the broad match in a niche with no 30DC competition and less than 72 hours later my page is block, traffic is irrelevant and there sits my link, #8 in Google, mocking me.

But am I discouraged, NO!

Think about what I just said. There are 2.9 million pages that mention my keywords that are very unique to this niche so they are all direct competition and in less than 48 hours I was able to work my way up to #28.

Am I upset and frustrated, YES!

I had great content, in a niche I enjoyed and I was about to take it by storm! I admit that my 2 other sites could very well be considered spam and I was going to take them down this afternoon. However, my #8 ranking in Google was a great niche with lots of potential and truly a passion of mine.

So what to do now?

I have no idea. For the first time since the start of this challenge, I have no idea what to do.

Let’s examine the options:

Try my niches again with another Web 2.0 weblog service
Identify new niches and use another weblog service
Give up and ask Ed for a refund

Number 1 would cause me to go back to Digg, Technorati, Netscape, etc and try to submit new articles with the same keywords again. Is that spam? I’m not sure but how many “how to make sausages” articles will Netscape tolerate

Number 3 is completely out of the question. Ed, Dan and the gang are smarter than I am and I know they have a plan. I wouldn’t be here posting this blog if I didn’t believe in the process. I wouldn’t waste my time with this blog if I didn’t think it was helping people THINK CRITICALLY.

Number 2 is the only option but I’m not going to be quick to test this strategy. I was keeping a great niche under my belt until I understood the whole process. I wanted to make sure I had a guaranteed homerun, looks like I may have to call in the pinch-hitter sooner than expected.

So what do all the suspended sites mean? What are we supposed to do now?

I don’t know.

But I do know that yesterday was AWESOME, today sucks but now there’s no where to go but up! I am going to stay focused on the long-term goal (like I’ve been advising you to do) and trust the process.

Affiliate sales are neat but that’s not the goal. I’ve got much bigger dreams and goals, you should too!

Think critically,
Mike

I hope you enjoyed the post and don't forget to sign up for my RSS feed.

The end is near………

It’s already beginning. Digg has blocked us, Indianpad has joined in. Netscape will soon follow. Don’t you see it coming? All of the social bookmarking/new sharing sites are quickly catching onto us.

Thousands of us slapped up weblogs with very little substantial content and flooded their systems with stories about our pages. They are upset and rightfully so.I was so caught up in the excitement of creating a page and getting traffic that I didn’t see it coming. Now, less than 24 hours into the official start of traffic generating portion of the 30 Day Challenge and we are already being blocked from our precious resources…..

Did anyone stop to wonder, why Tumblr.com? On the forum we have been coming up with creative ways to make various Tumblr pages under the same niche. Why not just go to wordpress or one of the other hundred thousand blog sites?

Google likes Tumblr (or should I say liked) because Google didn’t know much about it. Google knows that WordPress is a hardcore blogging site. Therefore WordPress sites don’t rank very high. Think about it, did you see any WordPress blogs during your niche searching. Tumblr is so new that Google hasn’t had time to pass judgment on it. However, after today I think Google will be swift with it’s decision.

Listen to today’s podcast, they know it’s coming. The plan is to milk Tumblr until Google realizes what’s going on, then on to the next Web 2.0 site.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve painted a very negative picture thus far but there is definitely a bright side that I think Ed and the gang are trying to get us to. We are still in the research phase!

We are confirming “conversion.” What types of products are the people in our particular niche looking for and are they currently available? What are they buying, how much is it and how much of it are they buying?

I say all of that to say this, put your long-term thinking caps on. We are all very excited about making our first sales and bringing in a few dollars to show the fruits of our labor. However, a Tumblr page is NOT my corporate America exit strategy.

It is very exciting watching your site move up the rank ladder but don’t forget what you are trying to accomplish. We should be trying to identify what sort of traffic does a site in this niche at the number 1 or 2 ranking provide? What products are people looking for? What products are currently available? And can I produce/provide/find a better product to fit their needs?

Tumblr is just the beginning and the future is bright!

Think critically,

Did you miss it?

In the mad dash to secure your tumblr.com site before your competition could did you miss the sneaky secret in this lesson?

Dangit, I’ve been telling you everyday to pay close attention to the lesson and listen for the hidden lessons!

Let’s check to see if you were paying attention, here’s a pop quiz.

1. What is social poster?
a. A person who hangs signs about upcoming social events
b. A website that allows you to quickly spread the word about your blog and your posts

2. Netscape is
a. A washed up internet browser
b. An attention getter

3. Why tumblr?
a. Because it’s spelled funny and Ed likes funny
b. Google likes it, we can generate content, allows tags and links

If you answered B to any of the questions above, don’t fret but you are wrong. Simply watch the day 15 and 16 videos again. They have been the most important videos to-date.

So what did I do today to stay ahead of the game?

I went to social poster and registered for everyone of the networking sites so I can speed up my submission times.
I created my second niche’s webpage
Made two posts for my second niche
Added another post to my first niche
I researched other niches for post 30 Day Challenge development
Check my clickbank account 5 million times…..

What did you do to stay ahead?

Think critically

One Step Ahead….

Remember back in high school there was always that smart kid in class. It seemed like he knew everything! He got the best grades and all of the teachers loved him. He always ruined the curve by scoring over 100% on his test and everyone (everyone but the teacher) hated him. No matter how much homework there was, he always finished it all and worst of all he wouldn’t share.

Well I was never that kid! Well, almost never.

My junior year I took a computer science course. I had a free elective and it sounded easy so “sign me up!” It was that or Home Economics but I was saving that for my senior year. I know what you are thinking… “boy, Mike was quite the over achiever!”

There was something different about this class though. It turns out I was that kid in that class. Not because I was smarter than anyone else, I proved that with my SAT scores, but because I enjoyed it. Wait, scratch that, I loved it!

Everyday I looked forward to going to class so I could learn something new and exciting. And boy was that feeling weird. Normally I slept through my classes because I was so bored. It was great, a 45 minute class felt like 5 minutes if I slept through it.

There I was sitting in Computer Science class, wide awake, answering questions and actually enjoying it. I was becoming a nerd…..that dreaded kid who sits at the front of the class and finishes the teacher’s sentences, who finishes his assignments 2 days before they are due and the teacher loved me.

How did this happen? I’d morphed into everything I hated about smart kids, except I always made sure I helped out my classmates. If I finished early, I showed others what I had done to help them finish their project. I even tutored after school.

The reason for my transformation into the Brotherhood of the Nerd…. I liked the material so I worked ahead. I would read ahead in our book and search online for tips and tricks. I wasn’t smarter than anyone else in the class……did I mention my chemistry grade?! But I thought critically about each lesson and worked hard on my own.

That is the same reason I was able to close my first sale using techniques from the 30 Day Challenge on day 15! I watched the videos, studied the material and thought critically.

Here’s exactly how I did it:

Created a tumblr.com page
Signed up for Clickbank account
Found affiliate product to sell (I ruled out 2 other products)
Posted 2 of the 6 articles Ed told us to create
Produced a longer article, similar to Ed’s Dominiche articles
Posted the long article on Hubpages
Updated Web 2.0 sites

Stumbleupon
Digg
Google.com/Bookmarks
Del.icio.us
Netscape
Technorati

Set up $0.10 google Adword campaign (24 hours only)
Waited patiently…..okay, impatiently but I waited.

I ranked in the top 30 sites, got 222 impressions and 5 clicks with Google Adwords, 36 unique visitors with 9 returning visitors and 1 sale! All in less than 24 hours.

So what did I learn:

I CAN DO IT!
I can set up a website, create content and get traffic in about 36 hours
Google Adwords work
My niche may not have a lot of competitors but the few that I do have are tough!
Cracking the top 10 will be very difficult
I need more niches
You can do it too!

Later today I will post everything I’m doing today to stay ahead of the game. There were a lot of tips and tricks hidden in today’s lesson that I will talk about in that post.

Stay with me…..we are all going to make our goal in this year’s 30 Day Challenge.

I’m a big fat cheater

It’s true… I cheated.

I couldn’t help myself. I am easily excited and I love this challenge! Combine that with my ADD and I’m screwed. I think about this stuff constantly and I’m always trying to learn more.

So one day I was poking around the internet and a link to a page with the first 11 days of content from last year’s 30 Day Challenge. I posted that link in my twitter and on here but I guess it went under the radar.

While it is unfortunately not the complete challenge, I was able to get some ideas from it. I’ll get to those later.

While watching one of the current challenge videos I noticed something interesting…… Ed’s “Free Speed Reading” website. I googled “Free speed reading” and lo and behold, there it was. freespeedreading.tumblr.com

There was very little information to be gained from the site itself but I googled “freespeedreading.tumblr.com” to see how Ed was promoting the site using the various Web 2.0 applications he’s been teaching us to use.

So I quickly created my niche website and used the articles I had written as posts. I tried to replicate what Ed had done with “freespeadreading.tumblr.com”. I used the idea of running a Google Adwords ad for 24 hours to test the traffic and conversion rates.

Long story short I made my first $44. That’s right, I DID IT! I actually made money marketing a product online. I knew it could be done but I wasn’t sure if I could do it. Well I did and it feels great.

15 days ago, I could barely spell Internet Marketing and I didn’t even know my niche market existed. Today I’m the proud owner of what I hope is an entertaining and informative blog and an official internet entrepreneur.

The old saying is definitely true in this case…. If I can do it, you can too!

And you won’t even have to cheat….. guess it’s back to time-out for me but at least I’m $40 richer this time

Think Critically,
Mike

Copy Writing Tips (From the Forum)

Writing these articles is turning out to be more difficult than some people imagined. Don’t stress, keep it light and have fun with it. The 30 Day Challenge is supposed to be fun, isn’t it?

Here are some tips from one of the resident experts Pete Wailes.

What I like so much about this advice…it’s simple and easy to follow advice.

Thanks Pete.

Copywriting - 31 Tips and Examples

Go check it out.

Content is KING, right Tweetie?

No matter how much effort you put into identifying the perfect niche. No matter how many hours you spent cruising the bookstore looking for ideas. No matter how many “umbrella” terms you entered into WordTracker GTrends. No matter how many searches a day your keyword gets or how small your competition is, if you do not provide high quality content you won’t make a dime!

Think about sites you visit on a regular basis. Why do you come back? It’s not because their keyword is popular or they have pretty colors…. at the end of the day content is what matters most.

They key to providing quality content is to over-deliver. Creativity will pay huge dividends during this portion of the challenge. If you were hosting a free speed reading site, you MUST provide FREE speed reading tips. That doesn’t mean, you can’t sell to them. It just means that you must provide quality free content. Once you establish a reputation for providing VALUE to your visitors, they will be more willing to buy whatever you recommend. You can provide fun, interactive tools like speed reading games that test your reading speed, cool facts about fast readers (like Ed’s Harry Potter story) and reviews of speed reading courses but at the end of the day you MUST teach your reader’s how to read faster.

There is a lot of confusion in the 30 Day Challenge Forum. Many challengers are struggling to come up with quality content. It’s simple, search the internet for “things that make you go hmmm.” If you read something interesting, your visitors will probably find it interesting too so write up a quick blurb about that fact and give your opinion.

For example, did you know that in Florida alone the number of children prescribed anti-psychotic drugs rose over 250% and that those drugs were tested to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Some of the kids are as young as 3 years old?!

That is fascinating. Add some commentary about how those statistics make you feel and there you go… quality content.

The problem that challengers face is trying to convince themselves that their opinion counts. You don’t have to be an expert in a field to have an opinion. That is what blogging is all about…sharing your opinion with the world hoping to incite discussion. That is the same thing your content should do. Share interesting facts and your opinions with the world hoping to provide tips, tricks and advice on how to get the most out of your niche subject.

Did you know that the shelf life of a peep is 14 years? That little yellow slice of heaven will probably out live my car! Did you know that we consume over 600 million peeps each easter season? Apparently you guys aren’t holding up your end because I’m sure I eat about 2 million myself!

Fun facts are everywhere. Just do your homework and take notes on the “things that make you go hmmm” then tell the world about it!

Now I’m off to enjoy my perfectly aged box of peeps….. ahhh, 1996 was a good year.

Mike

Go Fly a Kite!

This whole niche market search has been so entertaining. Through my searching I’ve had memories of my childhood, when life was fun. Many of the niches I’ve looked at were things I found fascinating as a kid. Think about it, this is a perfect opportunity to let your mind play again! What did you love to do as a kid? Now you can be the expert and make a living from it! Imagine that…..

I used to live in South Carolina. We had a huge park within walking distance from our house. The first time we went to the park I was amazed at all the kites whizzing through the sky. It was awesome, bright bold colors….some big, some small…some fancy, some plan. Kits of every size, shape and design imaginable.I had to have one…

I spent the entire summer hanging out in the park with my friends trying to see who’s kite could get the highest and fly the fastest.

What a great niche…. I’ll teach kids “how to fly a kite” There is an art to it…. one string, two strings, toggles or a bar. This Internet Marketing thing is a blast!

This doesn’t look promising. Here we go again, I come up with a great idea only to be slapped in the face by the lack of traffic.

This is not fun anymore. You have no idea how many times this has happened to me. I spent a whole 2 days trying this method of daydreaming ideas, plugging them into WT and GT only to find out I wasted that 15 minutes.

Then I found Go Big Marketing. Why not just look up “Kite”?

Now that looks very promising! I can tell based on my experience that “kite” and “kites” are too general, kite runner/surfing/boarding are too extreme for a grass covered park in South Carolina but what about “How to make a Kite” That would be great!

Going big gave me more options and drilling down helped me find my phrase! But that’s not all, a little further down the page there’s this little gem:

Another great key phrase to use! I used this technique to find killer niches and key phrases in less than an 1 hour!

Think back to your childhood, what did you love? Imagine getting paid to tell people about it? Go Big Marketing is the key to uncovering your dreams.

Hmm, I wonder what would happen if instead of going Big I went HUGE?!

Think critically,

Mike

Here comes the bomb……

GO BIG MARKETING

I was going to wait until tomorrow or possibly Wednesday to post this blog but I couldn’t wait. I want to get this information out to you because I think this week is going to be very busy and I don’t want you to fall behind. I don’t want you to write 6 articles before reading this…. I just hope I’m not too late.

Here’s your guaranteed winning lottery ticket:Think Big.

That’s it. I know, it’s so simple I’m almost embarrassed. So simple yet so powerful. I’ve been trying to get you to think critically throughout the 30 Day Challenge. Well today, I will give you an example of what I mean.

I was so excited after the Wordtracker lesson on day 3. My Top 7 passed the tests with flying colors. I finished Day 7 just noticing and not judging. Then Ed introduced the evil Google Trends and Male Yeast Infection trick which ruined my day. 1…. only 1 of my 7 even came close to passing the traffic test. Heartbroken and dejected I spent the next 2 days floundering, looking for niche markets that fit the requirements.

I kept telling myself, it CAN’T be this hard! I will succeed! I have to make this work! So I started over. I went back to day 2, re-watched the videos, taking notes, thinking to myself…..what did I miss? Then it hit me…GO BIG!

In the wordtracker video on day 3, Ed said:
“You can even drill down in the search terms as well…. it gives you even more detail.”

But every niche I came up with turned out to be too small. None of them had enough traffic to qualify. So if WordTracker can drill down, can’t it help me go the other way? Can WordTracker help me with my new strategy…. GO BIG MARKETING!

Let’s look at an example. Ed likes to use speed reading so I’ll continue with that thread so it is easy to understand.

When you use the new WordTracker GTrends tool to search for “speed reading” you get:

Too much competition so Ed suggests drilling down to keywords like “Free Speed Reading” which will help eliminate some of the competition but it also eliminates some daily searches. So if “speed reading” didn’t have enought daily search volume, then drilling down to “free speed reading” would be counterproductive. That was the situation I found myself in. I was too small to start and Ed’s advice suggested trying to go smaller to get bigger.

Why not go bigger then go smaller. The birth of Go Big Marketing:

That’s right, why not go up a level and get more general. Now you have an enormous list of more general keywords to begin drilling down into.

I don’t believe in psychic readings but I’ve always had a strange interest in Taro Cards, which despite all my digging and searching during day 1 and 2 I never thought of. Thanks WordTracker for the reminder!

So I click on “Free Tarot Readings” and check the Google Trends results:

But that is also too big so let’s drill down again. “Free Tarot Card Readings” looks like it might work.

Jackpot! In less than 7 minutes I found a perfect 30 Day Challenge niche market. And talk about affiliates and adwords. Do you think there may be some money in psychic readings!?

It’s so simple, it’s crazy! Go Big Marketing will uncover unique niche markets that you are truly interested in that provide the recommended amount of traffic, competition and money making opportunity.

Take a look at your list right now. Are there opportunities to Go Big and Drill Down?

Think critically, I only scratched the surface of Go Big Marketing. Think about how you can take this technique and find even larger niche markets. I found 5 markets in 10 minutes that had over 500 daily searches with less than 25,000 competitive websites and no Web 2.0 content.

Live Richly,

Mike

The Holy Grail…..

I’ve found it…well I didn’t really have to look very far. It was sitting right here on Mike Mindel’s blog.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. The great folks behind WordTracker have brought you WordTracker GTrends. It combines WordTracker and Google Trends into one easy to use webpage. No need for me to go into details just go check it out now. Later tonight I will drop my bomb on you so you can get the most out of WordTracker GTrends.

Go now! http://www.webventurer.com/blog/thirty-day-challenge-3

What are you still reading? Get out of here already. But be sure to come back in about 3 hours….. it’s coming!

Mike

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