From JP Schoeffel, striving to help you succeed online...
Fair warning: The following is the result of an extensive and exhaustive research work backed by millions of web visitors analytics and thousands of man hours of work during the last 5 years
1-You need to design a nice and clean looking Site
People are more and more used to navigating into « newspaper » like websites - as in blogs with multiple columns, featured articles, sponsor spots and different categories of content.
You need to target such a design when you want to create and operate an authority website.
Your website will need to be clean and modern just like anything else nowadays.
The old looking, crappy or flashy websites won't be read by your visitors and won't be effective.
Don't forget one of your primary goals is to get visitors to stick to your site, subscribe to your newsletter, and trust you and the value they can get on your website.
2- You need to carefully craft the layout to make sure the different zones of your site are positioned to create a maximum impact
A good design is useless is you don't position the different components of your content the way they should.
Your visitors need to understand what to do on your website and at the same time you want them to stick to it so that they spend more time browsing it and interacting with it.
This is truly important part and you can't skip it. You can check the most popular website in your niche and see what works for them. Then you can ask your designer to replicate such layout.
3- Perform Your Keyword Research Based On Social Media Tags
Keyword research will make or break the success of your website. Period.
You should really spend a lot of time researching keywords related to your niche.
Keyword research is not what it was just two short years ago.
Keywords are not a trend; they are still the most basic ingredients of any information online.
Every piece of information online uses classified keywords at the very end of the chain. Keywords are the foundation of online information and as such, you can't do anything without them.
When you go to Google, for example, to look for information on any topic, you enter some keywords. This is how it works.
Even social media based content is categorized using keywords. And this is the key!
Now, do you remember what we said about how much search engines are falling in love with social media websites, for the content they provide? Well, they are also in love with the keywords they provide!!!
Simply because these keywords represent the way real people are “perceiving” and describing a piece of information - in other words, the way they are researching it!
Therefore, your keyword research is about finding the popular and related keywords as found in social networks and other social media web properties.
You really must perform your keyword research the right way. This is fundamental and critical.
What I mean is:
If you publish content related to « related » keywords then you will rank better and get way more traffic than if you only provide information on just your main keyword
You need to go after your main keyword and identify what the related and popular keywords are. You need to go through YouTube, related forums, blogs, social networks and see what people are also discussing there and how they are tagging the info.
You need to capture those keywords and then build pages on your website around those keywords.
It is not an easy task. Sorry about that, but there's no workaround. This is what you have to do to create a website... for years to come. Period.
4- Update Your Keywords And your Content...Constantly!
The keyword research process is not easy, but once completed, you're not done!
It changes all the time (what is hot today might not be hot in 2 weeks). You need to adapt your website accordingly
It's not what you think is hot that is effectively hot.
Throwing hundreds of long tail keywords won't do the trick. If you keyword stuff your pages, you will be seen as a bot (read above our final principle)
You need to focus on the most popular and most important related keywords and adapt them dynamically
You then need to pull content from social media websites, aggregate it and update it on a regular basis based on your keyword updates.
When a keyword is not hot anymore, simply discard it and replace with new hot one
You need to make sure your visitors will be able to find all the information and the related content they would like to get.
It's like reading your visitor's mind and providing exactly what he is looking for!
Don't you think he would be willing to come back often? Don't you think he would be willing to subscribe to your newsletter to keep up with the latest information on Investing? Don't you think he would recommend your sites to his friends and relatives? Don't you think he would be willing to share your website with other Internet users through social networks?
I can guarantee they would do all the above. This is exactly what happens when you follow those steps.
5- Collect, Evaluate, Aggregate, Publish & Update Proven Reliable Content
We discussed it quite a lot above but here is a recap. You need to focus on dynamic , fresh and reliable content pulled from « authority » sources as seen by search engines, social media sites and by visitors.
Videos
Podcasts (audio is not as hot as video, but there's also a lot of audio content and people like that)
Related forums: when you're looking for information and that you're willing to go deeper, we all go to forums to see what is hot, what people are discussing and to share ideas too
Related blogs: blogs are active websites and people love them
Official news: news is always changing and people want to read the official stories too on top of the « social media » based content. It's also a good way for your visitors to compare the official stories discussed currently on blogs, forums, podcasts etc.
Press releases: less official than the news, it gives an overview of what is coming, what is pushed by other publishers... You might identify the future important keywords from there too
See what you now have? A highly valuable web property providing rich content, aggregating it from different authority sources.
Your visitors will love it, and search engines too.
HOWEVER, you need to update it so that it's still ahead of the curve and that you get more and more traffic!
6- What's Next? You Need To Make Money With Your Website!
Now that you have a researched, designed and filled your website with valuable and reliable content, you need to make money with it!
People buy information online all the time.
When you get visitors and provide value, you're raising your odds that this visitor will check your ads, and check what you have on sale on that same website.
If you can provide valuable resources then you might get commissions as well.
When it comes to generating commissions online, the two mainstream champions are:
EbayTM
AmazonTM
These are the undisputed ecommerce services on the planet and hundreds of millions of people buy from those platforms each-and-every year.
Your goal is take a share of that pie. Your visitors will buy products anyway. Better if they can do it directly from your website, right?
On top of the pure content, providing content from eBay and Amazon (related products, best sellers, auctions, and classifieds) will add more value to your website and turn it into an instant income stream!
Amazon and Ebay are part of our day-to-day life and it won't appear as advertising. It really appears as an extra service you're providing.
Now, you need to provide such content for each-and-every keyword you've identified as important in your niche!
"Simply" go to these marketplaces and grab products of interest for your visitor. Then add them to your site (copy the images, descriptions, and link using your affiliate link).
You may also join paid third party services that will provide a feed for you (but make sure you can really pull only the related products you want to sell on your website)
We're almost done...
==> http://www.powerlistmarketing.com/links/811
To Your Success,
David Dayan
Online Business & Marketing Coach
PS: make sure to watch the demo videos,
you will see how easy it is to generate
such powerful websites.
