At the start of this year I sent one email out to people on my newsletter offering a one on one consulting call. I figured that January would be the best time of the year to try and set people down the right path and in about two weeks I did over a dozen one on one calls. I’ve since raised my rates to $249 an hour here (up from $200 and frankly I should charge more than that), but I wasn’t really doing this for the money so much as I wanted to hear what people need help with most.
Table Of Contents
Here’s What I Learned:
1. Most people don’t understand how to do link building right:
There is a severe lack of understanding on how to build links to smaller niche websites as well as tactics used to build links to larger websites. So what I’ll be doing is buying monthly memberships to every major monthly recurring article marketing / link building style services out there (tell me what ones you want to see in the comments) and documenting case studies on my blog showing me (or one of my VA’s) using them.
My goal is to find some software service(s) that I can wholeheartedly recommend for building links more quickly to smaller niche websites. Higher end link building is something I can talk about as well, but so many people are interested in the niche website building aspect and they get stopped because of link building. Even if this costs me a few thousand dollars in subscription fees this should be worth it to be able to show some useable data to you. I’m not going to reveal the niche websites I’ll be doing the link building on (see this post for why), but I will document rankings, total number of links built etc.
2. Most people don’t understand how to find a good niche
This was another trend. Too many people had crappy niches that they’d selected. I think I might do a webinar talking about this in the future and sharing some of the tools I use, but more importantly how to interpret the data these tools provide into actionable tactics. More on this to come.
3. Most people don’t understand how to set up a niche website correctly
I saw a lot of poorly placed advertisements, bad looking websites, complaints about the time it takes to make a unique look for each website etc. I also received at least one hundred emails over 2011 just from people asking for feedback on their websites so I already knew this was a problem area. This is something I’m certain I can clear up for you. I’m going to be hosting a webinar with another niche marketing expert very soon (make sure you’re on the newsletter to get the invite). We’ve been working on the solution to this problem in the form of a WordPress theme that we’re calling the last niche website theme you’ll ever need to buy (presumptuous you say? if you come on the webinar you’ll see what we mean). We’ve been working on this project with a team of programmers since Oct 2011 and it’s finally ready for a limited beta release where we’ll be selling it at a discount to people that make it on the webinar.
In any case, we won’t just be pitching our theme on the webinar but just discussing general site construction as a whole and showing how the theme solves the problems.
Jan 30th Update: Do you want to be a beta tester? The theme is just about done, but we want a few beta testers to help out. Please contact me here if you want to work on the theme, provide feedback, submit bug reports and get the final theme for free.
Overall Impressions:
I know this feedback came from a small sample size of people when compared to the thousands of people on my newsletter, thousands that read my blog and listen to my podcast etc. but I’m sure there must be more of you struggling with these concepts and tactics. So I’m going to be spending some time talking about the topics above in upcoming blog posts.
1st: What link building services do you want me to pay for?
i.e. Unique Article Wizard, Build My Rank etc. etc.
2nd: What else do you want to learn from me in 2012?
Great post…! It’s not easy doing the niche site biz…! It takes work most people are looking for a short cut…or they’ve gotten so much info they don’t know what to do 1st….
Well I’m interested in these test results for sure.
Chris,
I definitely vote for you covering link building strategies in detail.
It’s one area I find that isn’t covered in depth on most IM blogs and niche building courses. Most of them tend to just gloss over the same techniques: article marketing, exchanging links with higher PR sites (never worked for me), posting comments on forums…
Yah, I’m pretty excited about it. Going to ideally find one that’s awesome and then I’ll see if I can hook everyone up with a discount too or something. But I haven’t used most of the services as I usually do one time link building packages so this will be interesting to discuss.
I know we talked about Article Samurai and I’d love to hear about your results using it. I’ve been mining the ping backs I am getting from my articles syndicated through AS and submitting them to Linkalicious and BacklinkIndexer, but I still feel like it’s too soon for me to determine how well this is working.
My VA just installed the software today and she’s going to be learning how to use it etc. and run it for me. The problem with Article Samurai is that it’s only opened on occasion so what I’ll probably do is use it but unless they plan to keep it open long term keep using some of the others.
Ideally I want to find one that works and then get them to give us a discount and then be able to finally have something I can recommend to the question I get all of the time.
I love Article Samurai. I sign up when it was first launched and it’s been working great, in conjunction with BMR especially when I marke the effort to get the back-links indexed using and indexing service.
Link building is a big one, especially since there is so much conflicting information out there and the purported methods seem to work for those people yet are discarded by others.
Also the difference in building links for a product niche site and product authority site: there must be a difference?
The value of different links. What value is a first page permanent pr 6 website link worth versus a link from unique article wizard?
When you do you reports I think it will be important to get into the nuances. That will give them much more value.
Yah there is a huge difference. Building links to an authority site using software etc. is not recommended at all…
UAW and Build my rank would be great. Specifics on link building would be great. I got in trouble w/ google by using too may exact match keywords in a row. so how to vary anchor text would be great.
Yah all of that will be covered as well for sure.
NIce post, you sum up the issues most people, including myself have when working on niche sites. I would love to learn some strategies on re-purposing content, and how it can help your niche sites.
Looking forward to your future post.
Chris
Internet marketer extraordinaire Shane Melaugh undertook just such a product comparison that he recently posted to his blog.
http://imimpact.com/blog-network-roundup-review/
He reviewed the following most popular 8 products listed below that he tested on a variety of his niche sites for 90 days. Here is the questions he asked.
Which ones of the many available networks should you join? Which ones are worth the investment and which ones should you avoid? And of course, the most important question: which networks provide the most and best backlinks?
That�s what we�re going to find out in this roundup review.
Blog Networks in this Review
Here are the candidates that I�m going to compare in this review:
ArticleRanks
Distribute Your Articles
My Article Network
SEOLinkVine
Traffic Kaboom
SpinDistribute
Unique Article Wizard
Authority Link Network
It would be interesting to see how your results compared to his.
Charles, thanks for sharing the blog post. I read it couple months ago.. and I was impressed with the way how he tested it. Would be very nice to see what Chris comes up with too!
It�s one area I find that isn�t covered in depth on most IM blogs and niche building courses. Most of them tend to just gloss over the same techniques: article marketing, exchanging links with higher PR sites (never worked for me), posting comments on forums.
Great to hear; it’s awesome you’re doing this! I’ve been wondering about Build My Rank lately and would be interesting in seeing some data on that. I’ve also been curious about the effect that buying a few carefully-selected Fiverr backlinking gigs would have on a new-ish niche site. Can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Chris, I’d say your conclusions are pretty spot on. Of all the emails I get the number 1 question asked is “What is your link building strategy?” and number 2 is “How do you find niches?”.
To answer your question I’d like to see some results from using Post Runner (something I use with success, but have never tried exclusively) and My Blog Guest (which I haven’t used).
That is so right on the point. I struggle with all those questions as a beginner. Overwhelmed with the amount of info both good and bad out there it can be paralyzing. I think as a beginner we are faced with a great amount of learning and uncertainty about the whole process. It is hard to stay focused and motivated when you keep hearing about the next shiny thing that will turn you into a super affiliate. The webinar sounds great around a new theme. I have been hearing/reading a lot about Build My Rank, that would be interesting to see results on.
Hey Tom,
Yah I think I’m going to do more webinars in general to sort of catch people up on whatever I’m working on that month. Overall, very excited about 2012 and the stuff I’ll be covering on the blog.
Chris
Hey Chris,
Personally I’d like to see what kind of results you get from Authority Link Network (ALN), Build My Rank (BMR), doing social bookmarking blasts (can typically be found in any BST section of forums, with a 1000+ social bookmark blast), or a High PR Blog Network. These are all currently talked about link building strategies for getting good rankings.
I’m doing to do a ton of different strategies and I’ll do my best to provide as much data as possible.
Hi CHris
I guess you will be including BMR and UAW
I would like to see
Article Ranks
My Article Network
Perhaps add something like the article posting through ABC plugin as comparison.
Your theme sounds like something that is definitely needed. I know you use your azon theme but have you or any successful amazon affiliates you know ever use review style themes. Like the proreviewtheme. Just curious if those review themes convert better
Hi Chris,
I am thinking about using Supremacy Seo and Seo Partner. Seo Partner is owned by James Schramko and Supremacy Seo is something I listened to on the Lifestyle Business podcast. I would love to see how you do with them.
Pat
Hmmm, never heard of those before I may investigate we shall see.
Hello Chris,
Have you had a look at the WSO “SEO Knock Out Cook Book: 22 case studies”?
They are mainly rely on the services from Linklicious.me , OneHourBacklinks.com , DripFeedLinks.com , and HighPRSociety.com.
Would be interesting to see if you can replicate their sucess.
Looking froward to see/hear your results!
Hey Joern, I haven’t looked at any WSO’s on SEO yet because their sales pages just throw me off so much lol. So we’ll see.
I’m going to focus on a variety of methods that I’ve used and do my best to collect data on them etc.
Chris
Chris, you mentioned in a previous comment you usually use one-time link building packages for your niche sites. I think it would be helpful to discuss what packages you use and the results from it.
Link building is a real pain in the butt so your coverage of tools will be really interesting, especially given that google is getting better at reading phony links and understanding natural link profiles. Another question is how many sites does it take to get to four figure income? And when do you go for a VA to get the work done?
Lots to cover and you’re doing a great job. Many thanks.
PS – I need to use your easy azon theme on more sites. You should go over it as an all purpose theme.
Hi Chris,
great idea, I will follow your adventures in linkbuilding land 🙂
It would be interesting if you could include the services mentioned in the wso “SEO Knock Out: 22 Real Deal Case Studies”
They mainly used Linklicious.me , OneHourBacklinks.com , DripFeedLinks.com , and HighPRSociety.com .
greetings,
Joern
I would love to learn how to pick a good niche and that means understanding the data that you see. See an example of good and an example of bad and an explanation of what about the data makes it good and what about it makes it bad. I think you hit on a lot of things that I would like to learn.
Nice post you got there. I got a lot of Ideas and I have realized that there are really things regarding online business that should be thought about evenly
Yeah, I’m interested in link building strategy too. I’m trying several things out right now. I want to figure out a blueprint. Just as you say, Chris: Do some sort of one-time-strategy to build links. Next thing I’m going to try is mass article with software like Unique Article Wizard. Would be great from you to cover this.
All I can say is that link building can really be tough, that is why a lot of people need help from guys like you.
Hi Chris,
For what else do you want to learn from me in 2012?
I would like some degree of talk on improving conversions on niche amazon sites and just generally getting people to click through so amazon can do there job of converting.
Thanks
Good call
Learning from experience is what we never forget. As you get more interacted with people more experience is earned. That not only improves our skills but also give a massive list of followers. More interaction with people gets more number of visitors to the blog. And that’s what each blogger needs.
I look forward to your reviews on link building services. Do you know anything about The Keyword Academy and its PostRunner guest posting software?
No haven’t heard of it if you don’t mind, feel free to email me a few paragraphs of information about it… to chris [at} makemoneyontheinternet.com
Yah all of that will be covered as well for sure thank u Chris
I have used link building services in the past that turned out to be a bad idea. The company was not very well researched by me and I put my trust in to a company that ultimately did not follow through and may haven been using unethical tactics. Since then I have done my research and found the right people. It pays to do a little research before you hire out !! Great article, Chris, very helpful info !
I don’t think this one has been mentioned, but I would like to hear how WhooshTraffic.com works. It’s a little more expensive, but thought I would throw it in the mix. it may be better for authority sites rather than adsense sites.
Tried them before actually but I’m going to compile the list soon so that I can begin working on them.
it’s true the most people don’t know how to find good niche. And they just randomly pick them without any valid facts and data. And most of them end up wrong. Or most of them end up scratching there heads because the niche they have picked don’t fit the taste of the people.
I just discovered your website and it is excellent.
I want to know what metrics you look for in a website
and how do you verify the numbers?
Thank you.
Yes, ‘Link Building’, ‘Finding Good Niches’ and ‘Setting Up Good Niche Websites’ definitelty are interesting Topics.
Topics that can help in creating a Happy Home Business
It’s good to pay special attention to such Topics.