It's been almost two months since I initially got the bug to “make money on the internet.” At that time, I stated my goal was to work at this part time, and that I was not interested in “black hat” money-making schemes. Just before Christmas, I published my initial plan of learning what I was doing by working on a few sites. Those sites are up, and boy have I learned a lot. Since Christmas, I have experimented with b2evolution and Joomla, and settled on WordPress as a content management system and blogging platform. I have played with Adsense, Azoogle, Commission Junction, ClickBank and other affiliate programs. I have written php code. I have purchased some software (like phpBay – affiliate link), and spent a lot of time reading. Tons of time reading.
Like everyone else, I've read John Chow and ShoeMoney, free SEO books, four million posts at DP Forums, etc. Right now, my favorite blog for this stuff is Caroline Middlebrook's site. I really like her style (she has been given the moniker “The Honest Blogger” by many of her loyal readers). Caroline is basically trying to do full time what I want to do part time. She recently released a good e-book about how to build a niche site with WordPress. It's a good read, especially if you need help with the mechanics of installing WordPress and other technical details that often get left out of other eBooks.
Inspired by Caroline's eBook and some of her postings, I am ready to integrate all of the knowledge that I have accumulated over the last 2 months in a live day-by-day demonstration. I have decided to build a niche site live as a case study on how to do this. Caroline's excellent eBook discusses building a “simple” niche site that relies on Adsense. That's an awesome place to start and perfect for the purposes of her eBook. I will be expanding Caroline's ideas to include discussions on PLR article content, news feeds, eBay auctions, backlinks, affiliate marketing, etc. The result will be a fully integrated niche site rich with content, ads and stuff to buy. I'm calling it a “Niche Super-Site.” Pretty nifty, huh?
I'll post daily on my progress for a month or so, and we'll track the blog stats and progress together throughout February. I'll be accepting reader suggestions and ideas, and will grow the site live throughout the month. Along the way, I'll be handing out the “link love” posting links to all the references that I use to get the site operational.
So, stay tuned. It should be a wild ride.
Tomorrow, we'll tackle the topic of beginning with the end in mind, followed with a discussion about how to select a niche for our super-site. I will announce my choice for a niche after that and we'll subsequently register a domain name. Goal is one post/step per day (which is consistent with my part-time internet monetization strategy).
See you tomorrow.
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Thanks very much for the plug Mark, this should be an interesting case study. I have been so busy with my ebook that I haven’t actually done very much work on my niche site for a while!
Thanks, Caroline!
This will be interesting to follow, that’s for sure. I’m always curious to see how other people are doing it. Good luck!
@Simonne — thanks for stopping by. I’m sort of figuring this out as I go along. I am definitely interested in the idea of having sites that do not require a ton of daily work. We’ll see how this goes. I’m trying to write a guide that I would have liked to have found…
Hey,
I too have been playing around with these niche blogs and have been trying to start up a network of them. I’ll be reading your blog to see the progress as yours moves along.
-Scott
Your post is indeed very helpful. Thank you for a great post.
i proud of u really interesting Niche case study. I am absolutely interested in the idea of having sites that do not need a load of daily work. it’s really helpful topic. ……good work……keep it up….
Are you updating us on the Elvis Blog?
Thanks