SEO Tycoon

**imported_Tom** · 08-04-2006, 01:07 AM

Shouldn't this be a sticky?

**grandcartel** · 08-04-2006, 01:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hitzatak

Shouldn't this be a sticky?

I second this. This topic is pretty helpful.

-spenda

**Libertate** · 08-06-2006, 09:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Think

Find a Niche [...]
Check Search Volume [...]
Check Competition - Perform some searches in the various engines for a few of your keywords to gauge competition:
- A key phrase without quotes search to see what sites get returned in the top 10
- A "key phrase in quotes" search to check for pages that touch on the niche
- A Google allintitle: key phrase search to check for optimized pages

Sorry for the delay. you know the rule - "those who can't, teach". Happen to also have to work :glare:

Checking competition includes not just searching by your keyphrases but by lateral, or "to the side" keyphrases. Use the tools mentioned in #2.

Visit the top 10 websites, as Think indicated. Look at the source code of the index page. In Internet Explorer use [View] --> [Source]; in Firefox [View]-->[Page Source], in both cases the "source" will be viewable in a text editor.

Search for the tag <HEAD> and </HEAD>. This is the area where key phrases are often placed in "metatags" by web masters. (This practice does help a web site, but not as much as most think.)

For example - take a look at earnersforum (I cut out the unrelated parts.)

Code:

<head>
[...]   
<meta name="keywords" content="earners forum, income, net, web, advertising, bulletin board, net income, keywords, SEO, SEM, search engines, rankings, salary, design, freelance, contests, business, web design, coders, google, yahoo, adsense, ypn, CPM, CPA, CPC, PPC" />
<meta name="description" content="Earners Forum - Online Money Makers Coming Together" />

Take note of your competitiors' keywords. They can be of great value to build your keyword list. Search for competition on keywords not on your list, but on the meta tag list for your competitior.

Run the competitiors pages through keyword density calculator. These tools will count the frequency, or the number of times, a specific key phrase appears within a specific page. SEOChat's SEO Tools page offers such feature for free. Check 1 word, 2 word and 3 word density.

Keyword density will reveal key phrases that do not appear in meta tags.

Search engines differentiate between quoted ("blue widget"), and unquoted (blue widget) searches. Most modern search engines translate quoted text as exact, while unquoted text as OR.

"blue widget" = exactly "blue widgets" within page (exclusive quotes)
blue widget = blue OR widget, any order and any distance from each other

Your primary target should be exact match (quoted), as OR-ed text is can be perilious.

All three major engines recognize "must include" + sign. This is important because in some instances, search engines decide to find lateral words for your search pattern. So instead of "blue widgets" it might return "blue whatchamacallits" (as every knows widgets and whatchamacallits are related, except one uses water and propelled from the bottom up :balloon

.

To force search engines to find the exact match prefix your search with a + (plus sign).

+"blue widgets" will return only and only pages that contain the exact phrase "blue widgets". (This can be extended to single words i.e. +widgets).

Check backlinks, or links to your competition from other sites.

In Google this is achieved using "link:competitor.com". This will show all the sites linking to competitor.com. Check to see if the link backs are "nofollow" ( telling SEs not to consider them), and if they are using appropriate anchor key phrases (<a href="competitor URL">anchor text or key phrase</a>), or just the URL.

MSN also recognizes the "link:" command, but not Yahoo!. (Use the "-site:" command to eliminiate the links of the competitor pointing to itself.)

Search using related sites using "related:competitor.com" on Google. This is what Google's algorithm thinks are related sites to your competitor.

MSN & Yahoo! does not recognize the "related:" command.

Further checking on competition can be done on Alexa traffic pages. Although Alexa measures only a fraction (1 - 5% as far as I know) of the traffic it can provide a reasonable estimate of competitors' strength. It also provides additional competitors you might have not found within search engines.

"Traffic Rank for..." provides a relative rank of the specified web site (not page). Right below this information is "People who visit this page also visit" with a list of potential competitors.

Under "Traffic Details", Alexa will provide traffic trends for several months, if your competition is sufficiently large.

Note that Alexa does not return true information for some niche market. You should always double check with other resources, such as Google PageRank, WayBack Machine, NetCraft's What's that site running and whois information.

PageRank is a Google ranking representing a web pages rank within it's niche. In general, many people discount PageRank nowdays, but to verify Alexa's traffic information a PageRank is invaluable.

There are many ways to "trick" Google PageRank, and Alexa traffic, but both require a lot of energy. Your chances of being "tricked" with both is less likely then individually.

Checking competition with the WayBack Machine will provide you an unusual lookback to a web site, of significance - how it looked months, even years ago! You can track month by month as they changed colors, meta tags, advertisors and more.

The NetCraft's What's that site running tracks what a specific server, even IP address a competitior was based at. This information can show you some surprising data. For example - moved from shared host for $5 month to dedicated $100/month server. What would that indicate? Insanity, new cash investment, or some major advertising success?

Although "whois" is not a specific web site per se, it is a treasure trove of information. The whois information can reveal when your competitor started, and if they are not too careful, where the business is physically located. A postal box verses a real address, a regular number verses a toll free, the same voice and fax number verses different numbers, etc. can define the size of the organization. (Un)fortunatelly this information can, and often is obfuscated.

At the end of these projects, you should have a list of competors, their general strengths, key phrases, approximate monthly volume of visitors, who they associate and do advertise with and where you fit in.

Remember those who are willing to link to your competitors' site, might also be willing to your site.

**prettypeach** · 08-07-2006, 12:12 AM

this thread is really helpful, thanks!

**xcentrix** · 08-08-2006, 01:23 PM

Think,

THis is great!

Please post about your idea generation process.

thanks,

x

**Libertate** · 08-08-2006, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Think

Find a Niche - [...]
Check Search Volume - [...]
Check Competition - [...]
Judge Monetization Potential - If you think you can compete with the currently ranking pages then check the bid amounts for these keywords using overture's bid tool, perform a search on google and count the number of AdWords adverts, then search for affiliate programs, CPA offers and anything else you could use to monetize the niche.

In this context, monetization is the process of making money with something - in this case the web site.

There are various solutions besides pay-per-click (PPC) such Adsense, Yahoo! Publisher, MSN, or TextLinkAds. Earnings are based on visitor clicking on advertisement on your web site.

Affiliate marketing - Companies like Comission Junction, LinkShare, Chitika ClickBank and similar are called affilate marketing. Earnings are based on when visitor purchases service or product from vendor, and arrived to vendor site through advertisement on your site.

Both of the above solutions are truly companies who are consolidators of advertisers.

You can find your own companies and vendors to advertise on your site, but these above companies have already built a network of vendors, provide accounting services, and manage, in general, the relationships -- for a percent of your earnings.

Service - there are several unique niche areas where access to visitors is based on a fee, such as dating sites. This niche requires certain amount of recurring payment made.

Product - selling a product or "virtual product" is the most basic form of monetizing a web site. A virtual product can be an electronic book, or a software. Hard products can range from apples to zebras.

There are many other "interesting" ways to monetize web sites - such as pixel per dollar and spawns there of. New methods come and go, but the above seem to have stay for now.

Caveat Emptor - Make sure you understand when you sign up for any PPC or affilate programs. The contracts are different between vendors, and some are drakonian, and almost always enforced. It is not unheard of people loosing their livelihood at a whim of a marketing consolidator.

These contracts can include - prohibition of any other advertisers on your web site, or all sites owned by you; you have to incorporate; cannot advertise or have content of certain type (most often sin topics); cannot have certain political or religious affiliation; be on a shared server; be accused of being a spammer; and many others.

Again, read the contract with a very fine tooth comb - research and ask others who are part of the consolidator, and those who left them.

Finding the appropriate pricing for a niche can be accomplished by looking at estimated traffic and advertising rates.

Both of these can be found at previously mentioned Google Adword and Overture Bid tools for pricing, and NicheBot for traffic.

**DronDron** · 08-08-2006, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Think

The following is my entire process for identifying a niche and building a content site to fill it.

I’m hoping that it will help people who have not yet refined their own process and I’m also hoping that some of the more advanced members will add some tips or suggest alternatives to some of these steps so that we all might benefit. So please participate in this thread by posting any additional ideas or steps you would take in a similar endeavor. Feel free to criticize anything you see here as well!

Find a Niche - Choose a few niche subjects - if you need help with ideas then visit directories like DMOZ, check Google News, Wordtracker's top 1000 searches list, go to a yard sale or flea market, check a store catalog, go to the mall or some other things of this nature until you’ve found some interesting niche subjects.
Check Search Volume - Check the search volume of the core keywords using your tools of choice (I use Overture, WordTracker, and AdWords Sandbox) The core keywords are the most basic keywords that contain the essence of the niche - the more obscure the niche is, the longer these usually are). Collect a modest keyword list for the moment.
Check Competition - Perform some searches in the various engines for a few of your keywords to gauge competition:
- A key phrase without quotes search to see what sites get returned in the top 10
- A "key phrase in quotes" search to check for pages that touch on the niche
- A Google allintitle: key phrase search to check for optimized pages
Judge Monetization Potential - If you think you can compete with the currently ranking pages then check the bid amounts for these keywords using overture's bid tool, perform a search on google and count the number of AdWords adverts, then search for affiliate programs, CPA offers and anything else you could use to monetize the niche.
Expand and Organize Your Keywords - Assuming you’re happy with the earnings potential now expand your keyword list using more diverse tools like MSN’s SRC beta, Vivismo’s Clusters, FindForward’s Yahoo Cluster, OneLook’s synonyms and take these new keywords back to your original tools to expand them some more. After you’ve driven yourself mad with keywords take the list and *guess* what surfers are really searching for based on the different combinations of keywords and arrange them into groups based on what you perceive their purpose to be. Some research into the niche may be required to get this part right – don’t be afraid to ask someone in the know what they think. After this you can decide how to attack the niche (a large informational site, mini sites, ecommerce site, etc.) and what the structure and 'flow' of the site should be like. For the sake of this example I will choose an informational content site.
Let it Stew - At this point let the idea cook for a week or so in the ole’ noggin. Come back occasionally and add or tweak something. Write every idea you have down regardless of how dumb it seems at the time.
Refine - When you return to the plan, you now have a basic site idea along with a list of ideas and keywords. It's time to sort through the ideas, generate some more, explore their possibilities and decide which are worth further investigation and which should be trashed. Use whichever idea generation methods you prefer –If people request it, I would be willing to detail my process for this in another thread.
Site Mapping - Time to design the structure of the site based on how it will be used. The main sections are dictated by your keyword groupings. Ideas that passed the last step get added to their appropriate sections. If you’ve chosen a CPA or affiliate program then add sales pages to each main section which will be used to monetize the traffic, these are the pages you will be driving your traffic towards. Draw (on paper or the computer) some mock-ups of how you want the different sections to look. Envision each part of the site. This is the stage where you should have selected the domain name as well. Host it and password protect it.
Choose a CMS – Make your own or use an existing one? Check your list of ideas and create another list of features needed in the CMS to make them reality. Install/build it and get the directory structure right, make any tweaks, install any plug-in’s, perform any hacks, whatever is needed to get the functionality needed for the finished site.
Design and Content – It’s time to turn those ideas into reality. Tools, scripts, and main sections of the site now get polished. Community features that let users add content are great assuming you can manage any spam or exploit attempts. Create or outsource your site graphics/template. All of your money-making (sales) pages should be ready to go at this point.
Make it Public, Grow, and Get Links – The basic site should now be operational. Open up the domain for the public and begin slowly adding pages to the main sections, each targeted at a specific keyphrase. These pages will be used to catch searches and will serve as entry-points into your site. Depending on the keyphrase targeted on each page, link to appropriate sections within the site to funnel the user to the appropriate sales page. If you’re only using contextual advertising then link them however you feel is most intuitive.

At the same time initiate a link campaign. Submit to niche directories, DMOZ and Yahoo’s Directory (If you have the cash). Find sites that you can negotiate links from, and syndicate articles deep-linking to your content pages using your target keywords without duplicating any of your content.

As you begin to see traffic, keep your eyes on your logs for the search phrases people are using to find you and make any adjustments that are needed to compensate for deviations or capitalize on opportunities. Set up a Google Alert using your URL to monitor for new links and rumors.

So there it is, out there, naked for all to see and scrutinize.

How can this be improved?

Wow, this is awesome

**Saadh** · 08-08-2006, 03:31 PM

Libertate, your ideas rule, but most of the specific niches I go for, the SERPs are majority dominated by inner pages from big forums or big sites. How do you judge it then?

**imported_Tom** · 08-09-2006, 04:23 AM

OMG, i'm learning so much. Thanks for sharing! thank you

**R. Solutions** · 08-11-2006, 03:59 AM

Hmm i have a long way to go.

**Libertate** · 08-11-2006, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saadh

Libertate, your ideas rule, but most of the specific niches I go for, the SERPs are majority dominated by inner pages from big forums or big sites. How do you judge it then?

I have no clear idea.

In general, I always look at the root, because eventhough a link my point inside the website, I think most visitors will go to the root sooner or later.

I also consider mostly on the whole site - instead of a single page.

Like to hear if someone else has a good way of valuating a single page, verses a whole site.

**studio** · 08-11-2006, 04:45 PM

hey maybe someone should provide more links for:

Quote:

Expand and Organize Your Keywords - Assuming you’re happy with the earnings potential now expand your keyword list using more diverse tools like MSN’s SRC beta, Vivismo’s Clusters, FindForward’s Yahoo Cluster, OneLook’s synonyms

I dont use one look but i use OXID THESAURUS (yes is mine), really great source for finding related terms, synonyms, and cool words regarding almost any word.

**Libertate** · 08-12-2006, 03:45 PM

If the words are by you, then I definitely look it up. Of course, I will run a spell check first.... You know... just so sinonyms <sic> do not become an issue... An maybe a grammar check... for run-on sentences. :clown:

Quote:

Originally Posted by studio

hey maybe someone should provide more links for:

I dont use one look but i use OXID THESAURUS (yes is mine), really great source for finding related terms, sinonyms, and cool words regarding almost any word.

**imported_aceshopper** · 08-12-2006, 10:31 PM

I would like to add on the topic of mini-sites pointing to a main site because i was just reading about this last nite in Internet Retailer mag.

This is what they say about it:

Quote:

But to further improve its appearance in natural search rankings, the retailer (batteries.com) recently launched the first five of about 30 special content microsites carrying information about particular product categories, such as alkaline batteries or laptop batteries.
The microsites carry product information that link to batteries.com for online purchases.

**studio** · 08-13-2006, 03:37 AM

Libertate i`m not an english native... and my mistake... with the "sinonym" problem, now is edited.
But the problem was other: SN’s SRC beta, Vivismo’s Clusters, FindForward’s Yahoo Cluster....

**Libertate** · 08-14-2006, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Think

[...]

Find a Niche - [...]
Check Search Volume - [...]
Check Competition - [...]
Judge Monetization Potential - [...]
Expand and Organize Your Keywords - Assuming you’re happy with the earnings potential now expand your keyword list using more diverse tools like MSN’s SRC beta, Vivismo’s Clusters, FindForward’s Yahoo Cluster, OneLook’s synonyms and take these new keywords back to your original tools to expand them some more. After you’ve driven yourself mad with keywords take the list and *guess* what surfers are really searching for based on the different combinations of keywords and arrange them into groups based on what you perceive their purpose to be. Some research into the niche may be required to get this part right – don’t be afraid to ask someone in the know what they think. After this you can decide how to attack the niche (a large informational site, mini sites, ecommerce site, etc.) and what the structure and 'flow' of the site should be like. For the sake of this example I will choose an informational content site.

As studio also added - search through various dictionaries.

Don't forget about

foreign language dictionaries,
don't forget about British/American/Australian/NZ differences,
miss-spelling by dropping a letter or two,
transposing letters,
plural or singular forms,
past, present and future tense of the verbs,
make nouns into adjectives (dirt - dirty, risk - risky, luck - lucky),
add the noun suffix -ist ( plural-ist, royal-ist, copy-ist),
make words into gerunds, verb phrases, present participles or adjectives ( teach-ing, learn-ing, sing-ing),
and so on with -ism, -ment, -ness, -ogy, -sion/-tion, -ian, -er/-or, -ation, -ice, and others...

There are some very specialized "dictionaries" available. For example, Onlook has a concept search - where you provide a concept, and various related words are returned.

Some of the word resources are:

http://www.dictionary.com
http://www.thesaurus.com
http://www.webster.com
http://www.thefreedictionary.com
http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml

Then go back and rehash the values of the newly discovered key phrases. Should they be incorporated into your list, or dropped?

**Libertate** · 08-14-2006, 01:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Think

[...]

Find a Niche - [...]
Check Search Volume - [...]
Check Competition - [...]
Judge Monetization Potential - [...]
Expand and Organize Your Keywords - [...]
Let it Stew - At this point let the idea cook for a week or so in the ole’ noggin. Come back occasionally and add or tweak something. Write every idea you have down regardless of how dumb it seems at the time.

Ummm... I think this is is self-evident, so not much to discuss.

You might consider playing a "game" with someone who might fit your target market. A "word-association" gave - whereby you present your key phrase and they have to say the first three words that pops into their head. You never know what you might discover...

**sasquatch** · 08-15-2006, 12:28 AM

Great thread but I have a question. Once you think you found a niche, how do you judge the monetization value?

**imported_themole** · 08-15-2006, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Libertate

MSN also recognizes the "link:" command, but not Yahoo!. (Use the "-site:" command to eliminiate the links of the competitor pointing to itself.)

Great series of posts Libertate! I would like to correct you on finding links on Yahoo (and hopefully I didn't miss where you did point this out)

You can use linkdomain:competitor.con -site:competitor.con to find external links to the domain. Yahoo has the probably the best link index of the big three. There's some other handy parameters, but I can't remember them right now...

(had to use competitor.con as it wouldn't let me use .com)

-the mole

**GetInspired** · 08-16-2006, 09:55 AM

Hey, geez thanx! I'll go thru it and let u know!