There is no such thing as Get Rich Quick!
It is not often in the world of SEM that you will get the full freedom to create any work you like and do it from the ground up, but it happens from time to time and if you are unfortunate enough to never be in the lead or get a work like that then you can always try for yourself in your spare time. It is not very expensive and most attempts have potentiality to get you some money back. I have for the past six months been busy with a multilevel enterprise where I have tried and tested a lot of what the SEO world hold for truth without anything substantial backing it up. With the Sem world I even include the bigger communities such as Sphinn, SEOMoz and SE Round table.
Most freelance SEO turning up here and there try to tell you that you must invariably niche yourself but the enterprise I have in operation, while far from the success I was hoping for has already returned its investment six times over.What these people mean is that it is a lot easier to make the money in the niches as it has more specific customers that already exist inside the purchase cycle. Creating the need as well as supplying the service is to say the least time consuming and most will give up before they have even commenced.In this post I will however discuss the easier side of life and maybe give you an idea or two as to how you can get started on your very own undertaking.
Before you begin you had better be mindful of one very important thing. There is no such thing as a get rich quick solution! Even with my most advantageous attempts the return on the investment is far from anything I consider “get rich quick”. Once you have that sentiment out of the way you can commence with the reality check.
Let us have a little Q and A
Will it cost me money to get started?
Yes, about the same amount as two pizzas from Dominos.
Will it take a lot of time?
Yes, but this depends on many variables such as discipline, planning and personal interest.
How long does it take you to see any return?
For me personally it is usually three weeks before I start to see the first monetary gains, this includes pre launch, and project viability research.
What about tools for automation?
You can play around with tools if you like, just make sure you have the discipline to make use of them as they tend to be more play than action. Action is what brings you success so that is what you should focus upon.
Do you buy links or services?
No, never do that if you intend on doing this for the long haul, do it your self so you can control and maybe even re-use some of them for future projects.
Now that we have had these points sorted out in an honest way we can get down to the real business. Before you get too excited there is one more dimension I want you to be aware of – even if you consider your first or your hundreth venture into this as “what you do in your free time” it is still an investment and I strongly advise you to start taking notes on how much time you spend on the project.
The first phase of Catching the Trend
This is by far the most time consuming and where most well researched enterprises realise that they have no justifiable gain. As it is a very large topic to cover I will not go in to it in great detail but rather point you toward the nearest book repository where you should pick up a book or two on project management and project research.I am a big fan of talking about things I do know, have passion for and still the drive to be better or learn more about. I dare say that you are also like this, it is always easier to speak and create content about something you love or have an interest in.
Look around you and see what topics there are that you can talk about, or would like to talk about. Make a list of these and as soon as you have a full paper about your topics start categorising them. It may feel a bit disheartening when you are done with the categories and you discover that you only have two or three really major categories. Do not worry, this is where the SEO Research comes in and will reveal quality content for you to use in your upcoming SEO Strategy.The reason you categorised your topics is twofold, the first is to facilitate the Seo for you and hopefully prevent you from going in to a tail spin while you try and chase down every single keyword under the sun. There is time for that later. The other reason is to be able to locate an area where you can make a profit from your knowledge, expertise and skill.
There are several networks where you can become an affiliate for merchandise, some of the more notable ones you can find on Amazon and Google even have one of these up and running. Sign up and start browsing around for merchandise within you categories and see if you can locate relevant products for sale.
As usual you should make a list of the products you located or better yet – document it as it will allow you to back trace and see where you went wrong or in the best of cases have a record of exactly what you did that was so successful. I hope that you are keeping track of your time invested as well as it is the only real quantity by which you can determine a success or failure.
SEO Analysis for your Quality Content
This is where you will be able to determine if your list of products are profitable or not. You have your two lists, one with topics and categories and another with products and details. Combine the lists and go crazy on the search engines trying to be as creative as you can while trying to find your merchandise. Make sure that you record these findings as you go along. The goldmine is to find listings that are topped by Ask and Answer websites such as wikipedia, ask and forums.Yes this will result in another list, but we are almost there, only two more to make. But first we must take care of this list we have at hand.
Once you have found the keyword and key phrases that are topped by these Ask and Answer directories it is time to dig deeper and find out who is searching and why they are searching.To find out who is searching you can use Google Keyword Tool and although it only reveals sampled data it is a good indicator to find out competition and locate more keywords you did not think of in the beginning.
To find out the why, you need to find testimonials, product descriptions and more. Things that tell you why someone is using it or why they would use it, there is a lot of bull shit testimonials out there, yes I dared say it, but it is true. Most of these fantastic awesome product pages with “do not listen to me, listen to what customers have to say” are fake, the pictures with them equally so.
Is it working?
Short answer: Yes!
Is it of value to you?
No!
The set up.
Now that you have the keywords, the product, the reasons and a waste basket full of crumpled notes you need to set up shop. This is where it is easy cruising depending on your technical level. First you need to find a domain and preferably with someone that hosts at the same time, so you don’t end up with your URL at one company and your web hosting at another. Name of th URL is important but not as important as some would have you believe, it just takes a bit longer to sort the definition of what your URL means if it is not keyworded. Having an URL like “DVD-players” is not impossible to get ranking for Make Up Handbags, but it is very difficult and involves a lot of work.
It is not the end of the world if your Dream URL is taken, you can choose other top level domains as it carries no importance to rankings if you have a Dot Com or not. Google accounts for content more than the Top Level Domain. Once again it is kindergarten easy with the Dot Com but a well played, content accurate, active and properly linked to other TLD can easily kick the Dot Com off of the first page. Once again it is all down to the meaning of the website and how the search engines define the website that matters, not the URL.
The URLs primary function is for the humans as it is far more easy to remember something catchy as opposed to something that is unrelated or in its “naked” form which is the IP number. With the URL and the hosting sorted you need to get a homepage up there to display your content. The quickest way is to install a Content Management System, it may sound very hightech and advanced but it is just about the same level as sending emails. One of the most popular ones is WordPress and the reason I am bringing that one up is because you can familiarise yourself with the backend system for free so that you are somewhat experienced once you need to go live on your own domain.
There are tons of sites offering free WordPress templates and if you feel like spending a moderate sum, about the price of a pizza again you can get some really nice templates over at Theme Forest, you may click the link as I am not affiliating with them.
Setting up your WordPress SEO and your theme should be finished before you add any pages, blog categories or comments. This is so that you do not end up mass adding hundreds of pages and then when you look at the page for real it looks like chaos and panic ensues. Add content and utilise the preview as often as possible to see the result.
So now you have gotten this far, you are all set up and ready to go, but what was the name of this article? That is right – Catching the Trend. You have your selected keywords, you have all the lists but when is this going to become big? You remember the tip about Google Trend that I told you about earlier? Well, did you manage to find some of your keywords that were just recently starting to boom?
The trick of Catching the Trend is to be able to plan ahead. Within your own domain this will be a lot easier but you want to have a look at how many others are interested in this and if it is something that will be released soon. I have two different examples to give you.
The first example is if something new is about to be released say a new digital camera, then it is also likely that the geeks and trendsetters in that industry will be buzzing about it, providing you with more keywords to target and more data to analyse.The second is more risky and a lot more long term. Let us say that Volvo had released Fancy Car 100, Fancy Car 200 and Fancy Car 300, then it would be a safer bet that sometime in the future the Fancy Car 400 will appear.
I believe that with these two paragraphs alone you have more ideas than my entire article explains. Remember that when you go for names and products that are not yet released to make sure you are covered legally and that you are not going too far into branded territory as most companies can be quite hostile when it comes to what they consider their territory.
So the bottom line is; get comfortably close without stepping on their toes.
SEO Shepherd is an experienced SEO Freelancer in London, with background in SEO since 2003 he provides his clients with valuable comprehension and he takes great care in ensuring that the clients are aware and can see the result of great SEO through clear and easy to understand methods. If you require assistance with online marketing SEO Shepherd can help you with SEO Services London and much more.
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