Too Lazy to Blog From Scratch? Purchase One from Sitepoint
written by Anthony Dinh
Before I built DiariesOfABlogger a little over a month ago, I contemplated the possibility purchasing an established site that was already generating some decent traffic and revenue, but just needed that extra little boost from a wide-eyed and eager newbie blogger like myself to pump new life back into it. You’d be surprised, but there are many blogs out there that have been abandoned by their owners due to personal issues, new business ventures, lack of time or simply because the owner just lost interest. Also, many blogs are built by serial domain flippers with the intent of making a quick sale a few months down the road. Whether you opt to build one from scratch like I did or decide to purchase an established one, here are some things to consider in weighing the pros and cons of each:
Advantages
- established traffic and RSS readers
- already generating revenue
- indexed and ranked
- aged backlinks
Disadvantages
- requires a lot of time and effort
- design not exactly the way you want it
- domain name not to your liking
- takes time to index and get ranked
- possibility of getting sandboxed by Google
- takes time to establish loyal RSS readers
After doing a bit of research, I stumbled upon Sitepoint. Not only is Sitepoint a marketplace where webmasters come to buy and sell domains, but it’s also a great resource site for web developers, offering an array of books, web kits, articles, scripts and training videos. The domains listed for sale range anywhere from just a few dollars to 5 figures. Some of the more notable blog acquisitions that have transpired within the past few months include MomsCashBlog, JohnCow and BobMeetsWorld. GamerzReviewz and DebtConsolidationBook, owned by blogging heavy weights JohnCow and Garry Conn, respectively, are two upcoming blogs that will be listed in a few weeks once the Cowpetition winner has been announced. If you’re leaning more towards purchasing a mature niche blog rather than starting from scratch, I would recommend you check out the following affordable sites which have great potential that are currently up for sale at Sitepoint. If you want an even bigger head-start, they also have a Premium Sites section with sites boasting higher page views and income for those of you with deeper pockets.
Description: This Small yet growing community is running on phpfox. The site was custom skinned for the tattoo theme. Also, I purchased a vbulletin license and integrated it with phpfox. The site gains visitors/members without any advertising, however I’m sure that with the right advertising (on places like tattoodles or others) that this place could grow exponentially.
I just recently emailed about 60-70 tattoo artists to start the process of link swapping. So far a few have agreed. But the opportunities are endless.
Established: Sat Sep 30 2006
Page views/month: 45,000
Monthly Revenue: 10
Revenue Sources: Adsense
Google Pagerank: 0
Uniques/Month: 1,200
Price: $1200
Description: USAblogger.us is an automated internet business blog, launched on December 28, 2007, This automated site grows rapidly without advertising. All new feed items are banked and stored for life! USAblogger.us was built with Wordpress system that allows complete control of the website. We are including the unique website with complete ownership, all source files, the outstanding domain name (free transfer with godaddy) plus hosting which is paid until December 31, 2008!
The website is outfitted with google adsense ads and CJ ads. This website is being sold as a turnkey business, therefore treat as no/minimal revenue and traffic.
Website Launched on: Dec 28, 2007
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Created on: Nov 2, 2006
Domain Expires on: Nov 1, 2008
Revenue Details: We estimate $10 to $150 in revenue with ZERO marketing. The site could earn $500+ per month with only 5 referral hosting signup via the link in the header.
Price: $249
Description: I’m selling this site because I have no longer time to update it. Site is not monetized, but I think there’s a huge potential with adding affiliate links to the products reviewed.
More information upon request.
Revenue Details: There’s only text-link-ads currently on the site and it has been there only a few weeks.
Traffic Details: 92% from other sites, 7% from search engines. Good rankings for keywords like funny gadgets, weird gadgets.
Price: $2000
Description: I want to sell this site because of this 2 reasons
- I don’t have time to update it every day
- I need money
I guarantee this site can bring more revenue and has very good potential. I can also provide screenshots.
Established: Mon Apr 30 2007
Page views/month: 6,000
Monthly Revenue: 120
Google Pagerank: 4
Uniques/Month: 3,000
Revenue Details: site currently makes money from the banners sold on the site.
Price: $1225
This is just a small sample of what’s out there, but if you really take the time to look, you will surely find one that falls within your niche. Many of these sites have great potential and are very interesting with great content, a loyal user base, high page rank and are already generating some revenue.
The reason I ended up building my own site is because I’m very meticulous and particular in nature, so I needed to have complete control of every aspect from beginning to end. Also, personal satisfaction and knowing that I did it myself was a big driving force. I wanted the challenge of being able to build a blog from scratch, generating traffic and eventually earning money from it. I accepted the fact that it was going to take some time to establish a loyal user base and the possibility of even getting sandboxed, and I was willing and prepared to put in the long hours that it would take to nuture DiariesOfABlogger into a thriving money making machine. Whether DiariesOfABlogger ultimately ends up succeeding or failing miserably, at least I will know that I was in control of my own destiny.
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The New Face of Diaries Of A Blogger
written by Anthony Dinh
As promised in my previous post, today I will be unveiling the long-awaited new logo that will represent the Diaries Of A Blogger brand from this day forth.
Drum roll please…..dun,dun,dun,dun…..TADA!
OK, so what’s up with the baby theme you might ask? If you notice, my tagline is “A Newbie’s Journey to Making Money Online”, so the baby is representative of me, a “newbie” in this blogging game. My hopes are that hopefully, once you start seeing this logo around enough, it will be engrained in your minds and become synonymous with the Diaries Of A Blogger brand.
There were some comments saying that it’s not necessary to have a custom header logo to build branding, that there are plenty of bloggers who still make it big without one, and that it’s all about the content and how the author brands him or herself. I would have to say that I totally agree with these statements because branding strategy encompasses other aspects of a blog such as the domain name, the tagline, etc., and the logo is just one of them. However, having a logo that people can immediately associate with your brand is quite powerful as well. Think about all the logos you see around you on a daily basis (Nike’s swoosh, McDonald’s golden arches, NFL team logos, etc.). You can look at those logos and immediately associate them with their brand without any words needed, and this was my intention here, to achieve brand recognition through my logo.
If like the look and feel of my logo, and would like one of your own, I recommend enlisting the services of the talented Randy Ariestoteles of FreshMeatDesign.com. To get a better idea of what kind of work they do, check out their impressive portfolio of logos, banners, caricatures and mascots. Not only will you get quality work at a reasonable price, but the artists are very responsive and the turnarounds are quick as well.
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Keyword Sniping 101
written by Anthony Dinh
key•word snip•ing [kee-wurd snahyp-ing] - noun
1. selecting a keyword, and building a niche site or network of sites around the keyword with the intent of achieving #1 ranking for that keyword.
1. Selecting the Keyword
When deciding on a keyword to snipe, some factors to consider are:
- The more specific the keyword, the more difficult it will be to obtain a high ranking, so keep it broad for now (i.e. breast surgery vs. breast surgery doctor philadelphia).
- Your keyword is searched for at least 200 times a day, obviously, the more the better. There’s a bunch of keyword search tools out there, but I use WordTracker which shows daily search volumes, and it’s free!
- There’s less than 1 million competing pages returned for this keyword in Google, obviously, the fewer the better. You can determine this by searching “your keyword” with quotes around it.
- The keyword has value to advertisers. Basically, anything that can be sold or has commissions has value.
- Select a keyword that is outside of the techie/internet world. Think of a keyword that your average teen or 70-year-old would likely be searching for. Doing so will not only leave you with fewer competitors, but it will also increase your conversion rate as people who aren’t as tech-savvy are more likely to click on ads.
Just to give you a few ideas and to get your mind going, here are some niches I would consider looking at:
(pest control, lawn care, hair products, acne treatments, teeth whitening, mortgages, loans, debt consolidation, home improvement, baby products, men’s/women’s health, etc.)
The daily search volumes and competing pages figures mentioned above are just guidelines that I would stick to until you’re comfortable and have gain more confidence with keyword sniping. Once you achieve #1 ranking for the long-tail keyword, then you can certainly focus on ranking for the bigger keyword. One big advantage that you already have going for you is that most sites out there are targeting keywords with a single subpage. It’s much easier to obtain a higher ranking if you build a whole site(s) around a keyword as we are doing here.
2. Sniping the Keyword
- Building a Website/Blog Around the Keyword - In order to successfully target a keyword, you will have to build an entire site or blog around the keyword. Before you do this, you will have to purchase a domain, preferably one which contains your keyword. This will definitely help you rank higher for the keyword, not to mention it will be much easier to sell the domain in the future if you ever choose to do so. If you’re able to find a used domain on TDNAM.com that contains your keyword, it would make getting ranked significantly easier and much quicker as the domain has already been indexed and backlinked by other sites. Additionally, a domain that’s been live for awhile will help you in avoiding Google’s notorious “sandbox effect”. If budget is an issue, you can also opt to use a free Blogger sub-domain. I currently register and host all my domains with IX Webhosting, so I would definitely recommend them. Now that you’ve got your domain, the next step would be to either install Wordpress or create your page statically using straight HTML. Just remember that it is much easier to link build and make your site SEO friendly using Wordpress.
- Link Posts Back to the Homepage - You will need to create and publish a minimum of 10 posts surrounding your keyword with some solid content that speaks with authority on the subject matter. Though you are using Wordpress blogging software and your site looks like a blog, the difference is that you won’t have to post regularly as you would with a typical blog. As a matter of fact, I would suggest removing all post dates as the information you provide should not appear to be dated in the readers’ eyes.
- Post Requirements - Each of your 10 posts should be at least 300 words and contain a keyword anchor text link back to the homepage which also contains the keyword. It may seem like a daunting task to write 10 posts about the keyword, but you can simply Google for the keyword to get some ideas, but don’t copy or steal the content! Linking each of your posts back to the homepage with the keyword anchor will help your homepage rank by giving it more internal and external links with the keyword anchor text. The external links come into play in the event that an aggregator or scraper site steals your content, there will always be a keyword anchor link which points back to your homepage.
- Keyword Location and Site Structure - The structure of your site must be built correctly in order to achieve SEO optimization and higher ranking, so it’s important that you chose an SEO friendly template. Courtney Tuttle offers a few nice ones that I would recommend.
Once you’ve installed your template, place your keyword in the following locations:
- Page Title: This can be accomplished with the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin. I prefer the “post title | site title” format.
- H1 Tag: The keyword should appear in the H1 tag on all your site pages.
- Footer: The footer should contain a link that points back to your homepage using the keyword as the anchor text.
- Inpost Link: As mentioned above, each of your 10 posts should contain a link back to your homepage with the keyword as the achor text.
- Homepage: Ideally, your keyword should appear about 6-7 times on your homepage, but this is usually covered by virtue of the links that you’ve placed within each post. Being the homepage, it will get ranked for your keyword, so be sure that your keyword appears on it enough times. To avoid tripping off Google’s spam filter, your homepage should contain at least 1000 words, this should be covered if you have 4 posts with a minimum of 300 words each.
- Backlink Methods
There are many ways of creating inbound links to your site, but if you focus your efforts on the following methods, you will surely be able to out-rank all the other sites.
- Varying the Anchor Text: By varying the anchor text while still maintaining your keyword within the links, you will be able to avoid setting off the Google link spamming filter. For instance, if I’m targeting the keyword breast surgery, I can vary the anchor text with words like “breast surgery doctor”, “breast surgery philadelphia”, “about breast surgery”, you get the idea.
- Obtaining Links from Pages About Your Keyword: To achieve this, write an article about your keyword like “What You Should Know About Breast Surgery”, and submit it to a bunch of article distribution sites like Article Marketer or Ezine Articles. Then, use the author profile/bio section to link back to your sight with the desired anchor text. Also, you can start forum discussion threads about your keyword and then link back to your site using your signature.
- Obtaining Links from Other Types of Pages: Though not as effective as getting links from pages pertaining to your keyword, getting links from other pages will still contribute to your ranking to an extent. You can comment on other blogs that don’t pertain to your keyword and use your brand to link back to your homepage, but keep it mind that some authors may ban you for keyword stuffing their comments, so use it sparingly. Also, this method will only work if the author has disabled the “nofollow” feature.
- For more tricks on building backlinks, check out Courtney Tuttle’s “102 Ways to Make Your Site a Backlink Superstar“.
As far as timeline goes, getting ranked for a used keyword based site can vary, but you should have no problem achieving it within 1-2 month’s time. Getting ranked for a brand new site, on the other hand, may or may not take more time. There’s simply just too many variables to tell, like the number of existing competing pages for your keyword, so starting off with a single, long-tail keyword would be the route to take. Once your’e comfortable with the whole process, you can go for the gold and start targeting bigger keywords. If you follow the steps that I’ve outlined here, you should have no problem achieving a high rank for your keyword and blowing your competition out of the water!
* source: CourteyTuttle.com
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Customize Your Header Logo to Build Brand Recognition
written by Anthony Dinh
After hours upon hours of browsing the internet and googling for just the right Wordpress theme, I finally settled on one. I downloaded it and was pretty pleased with the 3-colum layout, its adsense and widget ready capabilities, its ease of navigation, as well as its pleasing color scheme which was easy on the eyes. Still, something seemed to be missing…aha! It was the header! The template was lacking a header logo which made it look very, well, for lack of better words, “amateur”! It had a very pre-canned, out of the box ready feel to it, and I had to do something about it. I wanted readers to eventually be able to associate my logo with the Diaries Of A Blogger brand just from the logo itself.
So, the search was on again, but this time, it was for a logo that would represent my brand. I burned through a couple more hours looking for something that spoke to me, and by now it was almost 2am, so I decided to retire for the night and continue searching in the morning.
It was Sunday morning and I usually sleep in late on weekends, but I got up at 8am, too excited with ideas running through my mind to sleep. I plopped down on the couch with my laptop and started to brainstorm, then it hit me. Since I can’t seem to find anything that I like to use for my logo, why not make my own? That thought was quickly denounced as I remembered how limited my art skills were, not to mention I didn’t have any quality graphics programs like Photoshop at my disposal. I drudged on using whatever crude resources I had at my fingertips (Word, Paint, etc.), and came up with this.
Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. Nothing too dramatic, just plain and simple, but it gets the job done. I uploaded the image and refreshed the page, and voila! I was quite happy with my work, so I decided that it was time to grab some breakfast. About a week later, while researching for SEO methodolies and reputable affiliate programs, I came across a few sites that had visually appealing headers which caught my attention. Johncow.com, TheUniversityKid.com and TylerCruz.com all had something in common which I liked - they were all cartoony in nature. Their headers made mine look plain and absolutely pitiful, and no longer was I pleased with my artwork.
Once again, I perused the web looking for reputable graphics designers and after debating between a few that I liked most, I decided on FreshMeatDesign.com.
They specialize in logos, banners, caricatures and mascots, and their portfolio is rather impressive. I immediately placed an order and received a rough sketch for proof of concept the very next day…these guys are fast! The package I purchased included 3 unique design concepts, unlimited changes and direct chat with the designer. I’ve been swapping ideas back and forth with my designer, Randy Ariestoteles, and now I’m waiting for my final revision. Next time you stop by, hopefully you will be looking at my new logo! I won’t spoil the surprise, but in case you don’t quite get the connection, it’s related to my tagline, “A Newbie’s Journey to Making Money Online”.
If you’re looking for a customized header logo, I suggest you head on over to FreshMeatDesign.com, they do quality work at a reasonable price. For more information on how to modify your header logo, check out this post at ShifterTheme.
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Don’t Be Foolish, Backup Wordpress Regularly and Before You Upgrade!
written by Anthony Dinh
As a followup to my Wordpress 2.5.1 Released post, I just wanted to stress the importance of performing regularly scheduled backups of both your Wordpress installation files, as well as your MySQL database since it contains every post, link, comment, plugin and css modification you’ve ever made. For you new bloggers out there who are just joining the blogging community and even some of you seasoned bloggers, regularly backing up your files is a good habit to get into. For the rest of you, if you’ve already implemented a solution to cover your butt in the event of a natural disaster or file corruption, give yourselves a pat on the back! Taking the few minutes required to perform a backup now will save you a lot of headaches in the future when a major catastrophe strikes, and trust me, you’ll surely be glad that you did it.
How often should I backup?
This is totally up to you, but minimally, I would suggest at least once a week. Some things to consider are how often do you blog, how much information would you lose if something were to go wrong, how much of a setback would it be if you were to lose the data, and how would you feel about the loss of the posts that you worked so hard write?
How many backup instances should I keep?
Typically, I think most authors retain 1 instance and overwrite it with each successive instance in the interest of saving space and time on managing multiple copies. What if the backup gets corrupted or is lost, you might ask? I would recommend keeping a copy in at least 2 different locations that are geographically remote from each other using any one of the following formats (flash drive, CD, hard drive, remote ftp/host server, etc.). It wouldn’t do you any good to have a copy at home and one a couple miles down the road at work in the event of a major flood like we had with Hurricane Katrina would it?
How do I address large databases?
If the database is large, you can try compressing it using any of the various file compression tools such as Winzip for Windows based systems, or you can just tarball or gzip it on *nix platforms. Also, if you are running any anti-spam or statistical plugins that are constantly logging large amounts of data, you can opt to exclude these tables from your backup since they are not too important to keep.
How do I automate backups?
There are several methods available to automate backups via cron or scheduling, but regardless of whichever method you choose, I would highly recommend running backups manually once in awhile so that you can verify nothing has “broken” and that your backups continue to run properly.
1. Backing up your Wordpress installation files
Below are the files that should be backed up
• Wordpress Core Installation
• Wordpress Plugins
• Wordpress Themes
• Image Files
• Javascript, PHP, CSS and other scripts
Most hosts backup their servers regularly, but you still run the risk of losing some data if their latest copy is older than what you’d like, not to mention the downtime you would incur while waiting for them to restore your site, so it’s best to put control in your own hands rather than rely on sombody else. You can either use WinSCP or 2Bright Spark’s Synchback to keep a mirror of your site on a remote server or local machine, or you can use FTP or *nix shell scripts to copy the files to a folder on your local machine.
2. Backing up your MySQL database
phpMyAdmin is the database management system of choice used by most website hosts, so I will explain how to backup your database using this method.
• Click on Databases in the control panel
• You may see several available databases, select the one that you created during the Wordpress install
• Only default tables will be listed, you may have other tables if you’re running any statistical plugins or anti-spam software, select only the ones containing your Wordpress data and hit Export
• Check the “Add Data Drop” box, “Complete Inserts” box , “Save as File” box, “None” radio-button for compression, and click Go.
For detailed instructions and additional information, please visit the links below.
Resources:
Skippy’s Wordpress Database Backup Plugin
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