You may be wondering why and how I built Debt Consolidation Book in the competition against John Cow. I’d like to share some before and after thoughts on this as well as provide you with some insider tips and tricks on some of the behind the scenes events that took place in the first two weeks of this competition. Additionally, I will get you up to speed with what is going on now as the competition continues to take way towards the end.
You might be wondering why did I choose DebtConsolidationBook.com for my domain name. Let’s talk about that real quick. Prior to selecting the domain name, I already had it in my head the site that I wanted to build. I knew that I wanted to build a community based blog where folks could come and go seeking or providing advice related to credit card debt, personal or business loans, debt consolidation, elimination or reductions, etc..
With that being said, I already knew the general keyword phrases that I wanted to target. What I didn’t know for sure is which exact keyword phrases are hot and which ones were not. In my post published on May 24th, 2008 titled, Why I choose The Debt Consolidation Niche To Make Money Online, I explained that I used a product called Micro Niche Finder to help me determine which exact phrase keywords had the lowest amount of search engine competition while having the highest number of searches. This is a program that I have been using for almost a year now. It’s nothing new for me.
With using Micro Niche Finder, it allowed me to collect a very decent sized list of keyword phrases to use for my project. Here is a copy of the keyword list that I built:
Most every keyword phrase on this list gave me a green light in Micro Niche Finder and also fell within the criteria I was looking for. Again for a more detailed explanation of what I look for when using Micro Niche Finder, I would strongly recommend that you read the article I published on May 24th.
In choosing the domain name, I had to make sure that the domain name was rich in the primary keyword phrase that I was going to be using for the blog. Secondly, I had to couple this strategy with also developing a blog publishing model that would allow me a way to quickly and easily publish content on the blog and go hand in hand with the domain name itself. And lastly added to the mix, the domain name needed to also be naturally branded to promote some kind of product. Whether that be a future product I develop or one already made for me that I promote.
All in all, I came up with DebtConsolidationBook.com. Finding that domain name wasn’t difficult at all. In fact, that was the exact domain name that I wanted. So, first shot, it was available and I registered it on GoDaddy.com
Once again, depending on my trusty copy of Micro Niche Finder and my list of keyword phrases above, I was able to pick the top five keywords that also were naturally best suited to be category names. My current categories on DebtConsolidationBook.com are as follows:
When you have a blog where you need to organize your content, it is best to have about 5 to 10 primary categories. From there you can have tags that compliment or aid in fine tuning how you organize your content. On April 3rd, 2008, I wrote an article titled, Quick Blog Tips For Fast Results. In this article I explain in detail about how I organize my blog content using categories and tags by comparing my system to how a music store organizes their products according to genre and then by artist.
The tags are the fun part. With the tags, I basically get the opportunity to use my entire list that I developed from Micro Niche Finder and assign them to articles that have relevant information based off them. My current tag cloud is as follows:
The most wonderful thing about using tags on your blog is the fact that it makes your blog not only more user friendly but it also allows for more pages to get indexed in search engines. While many fear the the horror stories about duplicate content, I have quite the opposite thoughts on that subject matter. I believe that duplicate content is bad when you rob someone else (an external source) of their content. However, I don’t believe there is any harm in duplicating your own content. With that being said, there are still boundaries and rules that I have set for myself.
My post pages are the main source of content. However, that same source of content is used also on places like my home page, category pages, tag pages and archive pages. All these pages are visible to humans as well as search engines. My posts pages display the full post, while all other instances of the original content only display excerpts. In time, these sections on my blog become mini home pages of their own as the content found on these pages are relevant to the keyword of the category or tag. I skillfully write my content so that the first few sentences of the post have the keywords I want for syndicating in my various sections of my blog.
What people tend to not realize about categories and tags is the fact that you inadvertently build pages that get indexed in search engines. Thus you quickly increase your search engine visibility. In the case of my keyword list built using Micro Niche Finder, these are all very premium keyword phrases that get quite a bit of money search traffic while having a low level of competition. Once again, these keyword phrases are transferred from my list and have been assigned as tags on DebtConsolidationBook.com. It’s just a matter of time before they get picked up in the search engines and establish an excellent ranking for them.
In order for me to piece together my category and tag structure, I needed uniquely written content that have never seen the light of day on a search engine. As you know, my strategy to do that was to create a contest that encouraged people to voluntarily write the content for me. On May 13th, just one day after the contest against John Cow dot Com was started, I published the article titled a Contest To Win WhiteSmoke.com Software Package Worth Over $250 dollars. This was a huge success because in the end I had received around 25 articles to use and publish on DebtConsolidationBook.com. These 25 articles lead to the development of 5 primary categories pages and 42 tags pages.
The content used on DebtConsolidationBook.com was all original and very rich in quality. The authors who wrote the content were motivated to do excellent work because they knew that their submissions were going to be judged in order to win the contest. By having the jump start in publishing the 25 articles on the blog, I am now able to passively keep the blog updated by publishing a new article once every few days allowing me to devote time doing other things in the development of the site such as marketing.
Knowing that new content would need to be added, I have added a system in place to handle that. Recently I launched a new section on DebtConsolidationBook.com that promotes a free service where readers can submit a question into DebtConsolidationBook.com and have their question posted live on the blog for other community members to read and provide their feedback. DebtConsolidationBook.com encourages users to provide as much detail as possible when submitting their questions. They are encouraged to provide examples and as many facts as they can. The more information that they provide and the more time they spend fully explaining their situation the more likely another reader will be able to provide that user with accurate and helpful advice.
By encouraging users to submit very detailed questions it allows DebtConsolidationBook.com a very rich and unique source of free content to add to the blog. Coupled with this new system I am also able to passively update the blog with my own written content once every few days.
In order for a site to be very successful in ranking in the search engines, the site needs backlinks. Recognizing the fact that DebtConsolidationBook.com was in a quick need to acquire backlinks I developed a second contest and on May 25th, 2008 I explained about one of the most wonderful products I own from Joel Comm called Secret Classroom. This is a very high quality educational study course for learning how to make money online. It comes as a DVD Box set with over 675 minutes of 12 of the top leading Internet Marketers who spill the beans on all their secrets. The very next day, on May 26th, 2008 I wrote a second article that explained the contest and how people could win a copy of Joel Comm’s Secret Classroom for free.
In this contest I invested time into writing an article that I wanted to have distributed through the blogosphere. This article was carefully and professionally written in a way that included vitally important search engine friendly links that would point back to sections of the DebtConsolidationBook.com. Here is a copy of the article that I wrote:
Hey everyone, this is Garry Conn here and you have probably heard the news that John Cow and I are going head to head in a make money online competition to see who can build a blog and sell it for the most money in SitePoint after 30 days. I just unveiled my niche blog titled, Debt Consolidation Book and I want to briefly tell you about the blog and how you can win some really amazing prizes by contributing and telling people about it.
Debt Consolidation Book is a web site where you can read articles written by people who provide their opinions and tips on how to get out of debt. Additionally, you can get 13 high quality debt consolidation books for free. These 13 free debt consolidation books will teach you some amazing debt consolidation, debt elimination and debt reduction strategies. Many people have all kinds of debts and one of the most common is credit card debt. Debt Consolidation Book is geared towards helping people who have credit card debt as well as most all forms of debt.
In this competition against John Cow, you have a huge opportunity to win the Secret Classroom DVD Box Set from Joel Comm. This is an educational make money online study course worth over $520 dollars.
How Do I Win Secret Classroom
Winning Joel Comm’s Secret Classroom worth over $520 dollars is very simple. As you probably already know, I am not a very complicated individual. When I run contests, participating in them are very easy to do and take very little amount of your time. Your time is one of many things I respect and I don’t want to take up a lot of it. It will literally take you all of five minutes to participate in the contest. Simple, quick and easy.
If you would like to have a chance to win the Secret Classroom DVD Box Set from Joel Comm here is what you need to do. It’s very simple.
- Download a copy of this article that you are reading here and then publish it on your blog. This is a Zip File. Simply extract it and copy and paste the HTML code into your blog post.
- Join the Debt Consolidation Book mailing list and score your free copies of the 13 free eBooks! You will get over 275 pages of high quality material for free!
- Subscribe to the Debt Consolidation Book RSS Feed by Email.
- Drop a comment on this post to let me know that you have entered the contest by doing the above three steps.
Optionally, I would really appreciate it if I could get some votes:
- Click Here to vote on Digg.com.
- Click Here to add to StumbleUpon.
- Click Here to add to your Google Bookmarks.
- Click Here to add to your Technorati Faves.
- Click Here to add to FaceBook.
- Click Here to add to Del.icio.us.
- Click Here to add to your Yahoo Bookmarks.
- Click Here to add to Propeller.
- Click Here to add to Mixx.
Remember the first four steps above are not optional and you have to complete step four by dropping a comment on my post which will let me know that you have officially entered the contest to win Secret Classroom. The second steps 1 thru 9 are totally optional but will literally take you less than a minute to complete.
Join My Make Money Online Newsletter
I invite you to join my make money online mailing list and you’ll receive a free copy of the AFFAdMax WordPress theme. This is the same high quality and professionally designed WordPress theme I designed from scratch that I am using on Debt Consolidation Book! You’ll be the first to score a copy as soon as I release it in the next week or two.
Good Luck Winning Joel Comm’s Secret Classroom
Good luck with winning Secret Classroom. I will be assigning each participant in the contest a number and on Monday June 2nd, I will use Randomizer to generate the winning number. It’s a very simple random draw contest that could potentially win you a prize worth over $520 dollars. Also be sure to join my free make money online classroom so that you can learn more about how to make money online and stay in the loop with future events in the competition against John Cow.
This contest does multiple things for me. The primary goal is to get as many people to post this article on their blog as possible. I encourage folks to do so due to the simplicity of the request. I provide people with a pre-written copy of the article already HTML coded which is zipped in a zip file. Users are asked to unzip the folder, open the text file and copy the contents and paste it on their blogs and publish it. In doing so, I get the backlinks to fulfill my need of achieving search engine friendly backlinks.
As mentioned this contest also does quite a few other things for me as well.
In doing a contest such as this, you will find that months will pass and people will still be voluntarily publishing the submitted article long after the contest has already ended. This isn’t a trick, it is just a common strategy that places off the predicated behaviors of people. In general people don’t tend to invest much time into researching things. Consequently, many people will just the gun and download the article and post it on their blog long after the contest is over without even considering the fact that the contest is over. In many ways, this can be categorized as a form of viral Internet marketing.
As I recently mentioned in an article I published on May 27th, 2008 titled, It’s Not About How Much Traffic You Get But Rather What You Do With It. In this article I explain that it’s not really all that important to worry about how much traffic you get to a blog, but rather what is vitally important is what you do with traffic that you do get. This article explains the importance of retaining the little amount of traffic you do get on a day to day basis and provides advice and tips on how to convert that traffic into regular readers.
With that being said, DebtConsolidationBook.com is equipped with systems that capture the daily traffic and convert them into regular readers. The blog has an opt in mailing list handled by Aweber Email Notification Software. On March 12th, 2008 I wrote a post that provides some really creative things that you can do with a mailing list. DebtConsolidationBook.com is giving away a huge Debt Consolidation Book Bundle package for joining the mailing list. The bundle package contains 13 free top quality eBooks packed full of over 275 pages of information that will help folks learn more about debt consolidation, credit card debt, etc…
By providing users with the bundled eBook package, I am building up my mailing list which I can then use to funnel traffic back to the blog when needed or used to promote products or services that the subscribers will be interested in.
Second avenue of converting traffic into regular reader traffic is by encouraging people to subscribe to the various RSS channels. Through my own previous case studies, I have determined that the bottom of a post is one of the primary hot spots on a blog. In the same article published on May 27th, 2008 titled, It’s Not About How Much Traffic You Get But Rather What You Do With It, I talk a lot about that. On DebtConsolidationBook.com I have carefully added a section that encourages readers to subscribe to the blogs many various RSS channels. The bottom of the post is where most people create some form of action. This is the moment where readers typically do something. If you closely control and limit the options that they can do, the result will be in achieving the desired action you want from your traffic. In the case of DebtConsolidationBook.com, I have added a section that encourages visitors to subscribe to the many RSS channels available. Secondly, I once again encourage and entice visitors to join the free DebtConsolidationBook.com mailing list by promoting the free Debt Consolidation Book Bundle Download.
To keep things in perspective, all of the above I believe anyone can do. However, a lot of folks don’t know how to design WordPress themes, because of that, the current theme I am using on DebtConsolidationBook.com will be made available for free to the general public to use. The current theme being used on DebtConsolidationBook.com is a custom built theme that I designed called AFFAdMax, which stands for Affiliate Marketing Advertisement Maximum. It is actually a sister WordPress theme to my already released SEOAdMax, which you guessed it, stands for Search Engine Optimized Advertisement Maximum. On April, 16th, 2008 I released SEOAdMax to the general public. It is a free premium grade WordPress theme that anyone can download and use for free. AFFAdMax is WordPress theme that is more focused around affiliate based marketing rather than making money with Google AdSense.
I want to use this article also as an open forum for your questions, comments and suggestions with the competition against John Cow. Feel free to fire off anything that is on your mind and I’ll be sure to provide you with a response. I value your feedback and value what you say. Drop me a comment and share your thoughts. I will continue to keep my readers as well as my students enrolled into my class updated. If you haven’t enrolled into my make money online classroom, I would suggest doing so. If you haven’t joined my regular mailing list I would suggest doing so as well. I look forward to hearing your feedback.
Also, I tried to be as detailed as possible, but I am sure that I have missed some information in this write up, you may want to bookmark this page as I’ll be adding to it frequently. Also as an added note, when this competition is complete, I will be taking all the documentation in the article and producing an eBook. This article that you have just read will probably become the foundation of the book.
Also Try Searching: Aweber Mailing List Tips, CowPetition, Debt Consolidation, DebtConsolidationBook.com, Free Blog Contests, Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing Tips, John Cow, John Cow Competition, John Cow dot Com, Make Money Blogging, Make Money Online, Making Money Blogging, Niche Blog Marketing
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Date/Time: 5-27-2008 18:38:17 Comment #14584
First Great post. I know this competition takes you away from your other ventures. I hope the additional traffic has been profitable.
Here are some questions:
I watched the Micro Niche videos. I noticed in one of his tutorials he used a google blogspot blog. I prefer to have more control over the blog, but don’t necessarily want 100s of domains. Wouldn’t it be possible to have a general domain and then multiple blogs under it. So it could be “makingmoneyblogging” /jewelry_blog and …/debt_blog relief, etc. (naturally I would use MNF to pick better phrases). I use Yahoo hosting because I’m use to it. It isn’t bad, around $13/mo. Not too much, but still doing that 100 times adds up. What are your thoughts? He also seemed to use Squidoo. For SEO purposes it seems like you could have Squidoo rank for one term and have some affiliate links and then provide a nice link back to your main site for another term and have a combo of Adsense and Affiliates Anyway, I would appreciate some feedback.
Finally, I noticed Aweber requires you to have an address on the emails. As I am doing this out of my home, I’m not sure I want to broadcoast my home address. What are your thoughts?
Date/Time: 5-27-2008 22:12:43 Comment #14587
Hi there,
I wish I knew your name.
You bring some excellent question in your comment. You can for sure have one domain name (something generic) and run a bunch of sub-domain names from that. I think it would be better to do something like this:
Jewelry.surplus-discounts.com/
army.surplus-discounts.com/
trucks.surplus-discounts.com/
rather than doing:
surplus-discounts.com/jewelry/
surplus-discounts.com/army/
surplus-discounts.com/trucks/
It doesn’t really matter too much what the site is, it’s really your preference. For that matter, you could still use MNF the same and run a Newsvine.com account. I hear a lot of good stuff about Squidoo and I frequently see Squidoo sites return in the SERPs for things I am looking for in Google. Double check to see if Squidoo NOFOLLOW’s the links in the content you publish on it. If not, then that could be a great way to double link into something important such as your blog. That is kind of why I like Digg.com. Digg.com doesn’t NOFOLLOW the links and the link is an H2 or H3 tag (can’t remember which).
As far as Aweber goes, get a PO BOX or do what I did get get hooked up with a mailbox at the UPS Store so that way you can still receive packages.
Date/Time: 5-27-2008 19:17:29 Comment #14585
@Bank CD Rates…I had the same concern about posting my home address. What I did was use the address of the local postal outlet but when I checked back the other day someone from AWeber changed it back….I’m curious what other’s do…remember your domain names make your address visible as well from a WHOIS query…and it’s required by law to be accurate but you can pay extra for privacy…
Anyway…Garry….I noticed JohnCow is leveraging Facebook as a way to get traffic. It’s my understanding that it is against the terms to create profiles like that…Do you consider that a viable approach for viral traffic? I love the idea but I see him getting banned from FaceBook fast…I plan to ask him during the conference tomorrow but I’m curious your take on it.
Great post…
Date/Time: 5-27-2008 22:14:36 Comment #14588
He is more than welcome to create profiles for his blog. As far as what he is doing with FaceBook, I am not sure. You may know more about that. What is he doing with FaceBook that you feel he could get banned from? Do drop me a line back and give me a heads up so I can check it out.
Date/Time: 5-27-2008 19:30:40 Comment #14586
Wow — this is a lot to take in. I really like Micro Niche finder as well (which I purchased based on your recommendation). I use it daily for all kinds of things.
I can’t believe you a releasing another free theme — Woo Hoo. Thanks, man. That is really generous.
Here is an easy question — do you plan to do any article marketing? (I know the answer, but I thought you might want to mention it here.)
Thanks!
Mark
Date/Time: 5-27-2008 22:15:29 Comment #14589
Article Marketing… Hehe… Indeed. I was saving that for a rainy day. Just curious, is it raining yet in your neck of the woods.
Date/Time: 5-27-2008 22:38:03 Comment #14593
Garry,
Someday, I’ll be able to give me secret identity. Any thoughts on why subdomains may be better than sub-folders? I’ve used folder names and page names to help with SEO. I went and back and downloaded the SEO template so I’ll be putting that to work. I need to get some real content up so that I can get Adsense approved.
And I’ll look into the local UPS store. I just need to keep costs down at the moment. I’ll probably manage my own emails for a while.
As to the address being required for domains, I did do a private registration so that my home address wouldn’t be plastered everywhere.
I’m looking forward to read your article marketing post. I’ve seen some people suggest hosting the article first on your site so that it gets credit for ownership, but if your site isn’t as strong yet, seems like using the Article Sites popularity may be the way to go.
Keep it up.
Date/Time: 5-28-2008 11:54:24 Comment #14610
You should at least have a proper handle instead of a keyword phrase. Addressing you as Bank CD Rates just seems silly. If you don’t want people to know your real name, then make something up like Bill or FlyGuy123, etc…
As far as the UPS store goes, the rates my vary from State to State. You can visit their UPS Store - Mailbox Information page to get more info and discover the rates in your area.
Private registrations are great. Even better when you register the domain name with private registration coupled with your private mailing address, double the protection.
As far as subdomains:
Name.Domain.com/ VS Domain.com/Name/
I really don’t know if there is much of a proven difference. But I believe it is better to do Name.Domain.com/ for the fact that is pushes your keywords in the domain all the way to the left. If you look on the SERPS, you’ll see that a lot of the URL is truncated. I don’t know exactly what the cut off is, perhaps 30 characters.
So if you have a domain name such as this:
http://www.mydomainname.com/amazing-discount-jewelry-speciality/
that may get cut off in the SERPs and appear like this:
http://www.mydomainname.com/amazing-discount-jewe...
so you lose the added keywords on the back of the url
Where as if you use true Subdomains, you’ll never have your good keywords in the URL truncated.
http://amazing-discount-jewelry-specialty.mydomain….
As far as the article marketing post, it will be a great added value to the class. I actually have two special speakers who are in the process of forwarding me their article.
Date/Time: 5-28-2008 05:10:57 Comment #14600
Good morning G !!
When are you releasing Aff Ad Max? and any plans for a WP theme tutorial, add it to your already long list of things to do
The bottom of the post is the call to action area huh, hmm what a great idea.
Ok maybe I’m a little dense here, but I have tried to buy Micro niche finder and all I get is the optin form for the video content.
I really like the use of the tags and tagging going to be putting that to use very soon.
LOL I have an idea, i’ll post articles for you in exchange for a copy of Micro-niche finder.
Have a good one
Shane
Date/Time: 5-28-2008 12:00:46 Comment #14611
Hi Shane,
Here is the Micro Niche Finder Video Presentation web page. Simply submit your name and email address and on the next page you’ll be able to view video presentations of Micro Niche Finder and learn more about it and near the bottom of the page there is a link which will allow you to place your order.
I am not able to give you a copy because each copy is unique and activated with a license #.
I am unsure at this time when I will be releasing AFFAdMax. The theme is pretty much complete, as I have been using it myself on http://www.blogtheinternet.com for a few weeks now. I will be releasing it either sometime during the remainder of the competition against John Cow or very soon after. More likely sometime during the competition, possibly even next week.
What kind of articles would you be willing to write for me? Would it be on DebtConsolidationBook.com ? If so, then we can figure something else out to compensate you. You missed out on the WhiteSmoke.com contest. Annie Binn, is now the proud owner of the $250 dollar WhiteSmoke.com writing software.
If folks are interested, I have another wonderful prize to offer. I could do another writing assignment, but only if there are plenty of people interested. The first writing assignment was awesome. I received around 25 very well written articles. These articles are providing 25 people with very powerful backlinks pointing back to their blogs and one lucky winner scored a grand prize.
Date/Time: 5-28-2008 05:28:22 Comment #14601
Hi Garry,
Glad you got your site back up. I understand the majority of your article and need to have a closer look at things you do that I am not, like the RSS Feeds
and subscription box at the end of posts. More work! It never ends…
Date/Time: 5-28-2008 12:04:49 Comment #14612
Talk to me more about what you need help with in regards to the RSS Feeds and the subscription box. Tell me specifically what you want and I will guide you with achieving what you want.
Date/Time: 5-28-2008 17:12:12 Comment #14655
Hey G, I know this isnt directed at me but I would to know how the heck you do the what should I do now and the foot note ads thing, I’m poretty sure I could just view source and figure it out from there. I’m sure like most WP themes its tied to the CSS with class ids and what not. Or am I wrong on this.
Question about the AFF Ad Max theme will it come with landing page templates for those who do the PPC thing.
Sales page templates and confirmation page templates.
Ive seen a few WP blogs that are set up that way or something similar.
Cheers and Beers
Shane
Date/Time: 5-28-2008 20:50:06 Comment #14660
Hey Garry….will you be releasing AFFMAX also for free….I remember reading it in one of your post!!
Date/Time: 5-28-2008 22:50:12 Comment #14661
As to the name, there are two reasons for it being what it is. First, so I don’t cause conflicts with another site I manage in a similar industry. Second, although you may use nofollow on your comments (I haven’t checked), many sites don’t. And as a result, the “name” becomes anchor text for the link. And even if nofollow is used, it doesn’t mean that the link isn’t followed and indexed, it just means that as far as Google is concerned it isn’t given much weight.
There have been some small tests done to see if the link helps. The results seemed to show that for low-competition or obscure keywords it did indeed help. Which is what we are trying to target.
By varying the “name” and URI, you can actually achieve some deep links similar to what you might receive from an article.
This was a little trick I learned from another blog marketer.
:$)
Date/Time: 6-3-2008 20:28:52 Comment #14947
No matter what type of debt you have accumulated, there are debt consolidation management programs out there that will provide you with the perfect solution to your problem. Thanks for the article!