Ladies and Gentlemen, I take great pride in presenting you the Embedded Youtube Plugin (EYP). This Plugin pulls videos from Youtube automatically based on the keywords you supply. Once you provide the keyword, EYP will publish a video from among the TOP 5 videos for that keyword. You can see a working demo at Blogrepreneur homepage in the sidebar.

The Plugin is simple to use. Unzip and upload all the files to the plugins directory in your WP installation. Go to Plugins menu in your Admin and activate it. Then, go to Options – Youtube Video and provide your keyword and the height and width of the video. To place the video in the sidebar, copy and paste the below code wherever you want it to appear in your sidebar.

<li>
<h2 class=”sidebartitle”>Latest Video</h2>
<ul class=”linkcat”>
<?php video_link(); ?>
</ul>
</li>

You are done!

Download the Youtube Plugin.

Introducing Embedded Youtube Plugin

To start a Niche Marketing website, you need -

1. Profitable Niche

2. Keyword Research

3. Content

4. Platform

5. Traffic

6. Monetization

Profitable Niche – A profitable niche is one that pays over and over again. It is a niche that carries demand and never diminishes. It is also a niche where you can build a passive income over time with an almost zero maintenance.

Does such a niche exist? Yes it does. In fact there thousands of such niches that fit the above description. Your job is to find them. I use a software called Micro Niche Finder to unravel hidden niches with low competition and high profit factors. The software, when given a generic phrase or word, digs Google database and gives up to 250 niche topics off the main keyword.

For example, the first time I used it, I typed in the word “Cure”. It gave many results, one of which was Acne Cure. I dug the word deeper found certain profitable niches within with medium to low competition. Thereafter, I made a list of these micro niches and setup a blog geared towards them.

Keyword Research – This goes hand in hand with the previous heading. I wont go into much detail except that Micro Niche Finder helps you to accomplish this in simple steps. Please make sure to read the accompanying guide.

Content – This is a tricky one. This is the mode where many niche marketers get discouraged and quit. Unless you are interested in the topic you have chosen, you will have a hard time preparing content. Couple the fact with the issue of duplicate content. It is imperative to have original content if you are in for long term success. Niche Marketing, even though it sounds like a get rich quick scheme, or is portrayed that way, is in reality a long term money maker.

You have 2 choices here. First being Private Label Rights articles which you can easily re-write and give the required unique flavor. Private Label articles are pretty cheap and have reasonable quality. Rewriting them is not really difficult. Read my experiment with Private Label Articles for a better understanding.

Your second choice is to outsource the content writing job to a writer. This can cost you anywhere between $4-$10 per article and set you back a bit. If anyone of you is interested, get in touch with me and I can put you through some very good writers who are reasonable priced.

Platform – Upfront, Wordpress is my choice. The days of static websites are fading. They are not over definitely, but are slowly getting into the back burner. Wordpress is the most up to date dynamic content management system available in the market. Wordpress is open source and hence 100% free. There is no strings attached.

There are many web hosts that come with ‘1 click’ installation of Wordpress. I recommend Doreo.com. They are the best I have experienced in the past 4 years. Read my Blogging Guide to understand how to operate Wordpress and make it more Search Engine friendly.

Traffic – For a niche marketing blog, Search Engine traffic is the order of the day. Search Engine traffic is what makes this business a passive earner in the long run. If you do proper SEO and build legitimate backlinks with related anchor keywords, you will eventually start receiving organic traffic and this will only increase as you keep building relevant links. Traffic from Search Engines is your first success installment. Thereafter the game becomes easier to play.

Monetization – By now, your blog will be receiving quality traffic from Search Engines and other sources. When your analytics confirms that you are receiving at least 40-50 visitors from Search Engines, you can go ahead and monetize your blog. Do not overdo it. Start with Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher and slowly move to affiliate marketing and eBay auction products.

Let monetization be a gradual process. Never compromise with the appearance of your blog for a few bucks. Keep it clean and with quality content. Money will follow suit.

A Simplified Guide to Niche Marketing

Affiliate Marketing -

Uber Affiliate

Aojon

Search Engine Marketing -

Johnon

Search Marketing Standards – They have a print magazine too.

Stuntdubl

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Watch

Ask Kalena

Search Engine Guide

Grey Wolf

Miscellaneous – They each have a purpose

Caroline Middlebrook

Entrepreneurs Journey

Daily Blog Tips

Seth Godin

Copywriting

CopyBlogger

These are some of the many blogs I have subscribed to. There are many, but not all are worth the mention. Enjoy your Sunday reading with these gems.

Sunday Blogbits – My Favorite Blogs

Make sure you read to the last. I have something for you at the end. You shouldn’t miss it.

The Micro Niche Marketing project has been going on very well. I have decided to reveal the name of the niche I am working the project on as well as the URL. But before that, let me give you some stats. I have focusing on about 5 main keywords and about 15 long tails. Among them, 5 keywords have already entered the Google Top 100 list with one keyword hitting the second page of Google. The main keywords, the last time I checked were on the 80^th page of Google. It is going to take a long time to make it to top 100 as the domain is brand new and has very few backlinks. The link Building process is an ongoing one.

What I have done is, prepared a total of 20 articles and timestamped them with an interval of 5 days till the 15^th of March. This way, I do not have to pay attention to its growth and the blog will be updated regularly. Thereafter, I plan to update the blog just once a week, to keep the SE crawlers busy.

Okay, now to unveil the secret.

The niche blog I am building is on Acne Cure. I researched the most profitable micro niche keywords having low competition within Acne using Micro Niche Finder. The software made my job a snap. Visit Acne Cure Blog.

My brother sent me this news piece about the Tumor man. His name is Huang Chuncai and he hails from southern China’s Guangdong province. Take a look at his pain.

Huang Chuncai poses before his second operation to remove his tumors, which currently weigh around 10kg (22lbs), at a hospital in Guangzhou, southern China’s Guangdong province, January 3, 2008. Huang, a 32-year-old native from a remote village in China’s southern province of Hunan, says he is relieved after a part of his facial tumors, which originally weighed about 23kg (50.7 lbs), was removed last year. His second operation will remove another part of the tumors, which weighs 4.5kg (9.9lbs). Huang suffers from Neurofibromatosis, which is a genetic disorder of the nervous system that primarily affects the development and growth of nerve tissues. Picture taken January 3, 2008.

I honestly cant fathom the depth of his pain. Anyways, I will leave you all with this thought.

Great Sunday
Al

Sunday Blogbits – The Tumor Man

To start off, The blog made 3 Clickbank sales off one review that I wrote in the beginning of the month. It was for Micro Niche Finder. The total commissions ended with $91. It isn’t a great amount, but it definitely is not bad for a plain review.

The Blog received 330 visitors from Google and a few from MSN and Yahoo. The most searched were “Worlds weirdest homes” and Micro Niche Finder”.

According to Google Analytics, the blog received a total 6700 visitors and 10575 pageviews, much less than December. However, I am happy that the quality of visitors were better than what it was in December. I observed it from comments and personal feedbacks, as well as the source of the traffic.

The RSS Subscriber was static for the most part of the month. It changed last week after Yaro Starak from Entrepreneur’s Journey mentioned my book in his blog. RSS subscriber base jumped from 137 to 150 in the last 6 days. Not a great development, but a development overall. Thank you Yaro for sending the traffic as well as new readers.

I had a goal of 3 guests posts every month. I completely missed it. I am going to work better towards hitting that goal. Last month, I started off the Micro Niche Marketing experiment. It is still going on. I will give an update in a few moments.

Do I have a goal for February? Nothing specific really. As usual, I would like to see myself fire up top of the world posts, would like to increase my readership, linkbaits, etc. If there is one thing I would like for my blog, that would be to maintain the quality I started with. Everything else, in my view will be bonuses.

Now to the Micro Niche Marketing Experiment. There hasn’t been any progress in terms of Google ranking, as it is a pretty new domain. I have been building links slowly. Last week, I managed to get about 50 links. In my opinion, 50 links a week is pretty good. I am targeting the same keywords I did before. I am positive Google has sandboxed me. It may take a couple months before I am released from it. I am going to continue building it.

I have been getting a steady 50-100 visitors everyday from referral sites like StumbleUpon, etc. This traffic will help me expedite the time to get out of Google’s sandbox. Hopefully.

At the moment, the experiment is pretty boring. Next week, I will reveal the niche I am running this experiment on. Hopefully, that should bring in the excitement.

How was January for you?

Sunday Blogbits – Performance Report and more

I came across a pretty interesting argument at “King” Paul’s UberAffiliate.com about Shoemoney and JohnChow, both excellent marketers in my view, but absolutely useless bloggers. Every time I come across their name, I am reminded of the circus trained monkeys that entertain crowds. Nevertheless, the article is pretty interesting. I could sense Paul’s frustration in the writing.

PepperJam, the Internet Marketing company launched their much awaited Affiliate Network this week. If you are an Affiliate Marketing bum, take a look at their program.

So much for the week. I am sure there are other events, but I can’t cover them all. Let’s move onto the Case Study.

Basically In the past week, I did the following:

1. Acquired the domain officially in my account from TDNAM on Tuesday

2. Setup a Wordpress Blog and necessary plugins.

3. Upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress

4. Performed On-page Optimization with keywords from my initial research.

5. Converted the Wordpress Structure to become more SE friendly.

6. Penned down a brief bio for the About page.

7. Submitted 5 time stamped articles starting from Jan 1^st with a posting frequency of once every 3 days.

8. Optimized each article with an almost perfect keyword density and other SEO factors.

9. Stumbled each of the post for some overnight action, and yes they did.

10. Lastly began the Link Building ritual.

As of today, Google has about a 100+ links indexed according to Google Webmaster Central. Of course, that is no where enough, but I am building them steadily. Haste may lead to waste. Currently, Google has indexed all the pages and has also assigned ranks to a couple keywords. I had started the project with 5 keywords, but during the week, I added 2 more keywords. Here are the rankings in the order of importance:

1. Keyword 1 – Not in Top 100

2. Keyword 2 – Not in Top 100

3. Keyword 3 – Not in Top 100

4. Keyword 4 – Rank 79

5. Keyword 5 – Rank 58

6. Keyword 6 – Rank 35

7. Keyword 7 – Rank 10

So, Keyword 7 has already entered the first page in Google. It is keyword that is searched about 3500 times every month and a exact match competition of 9410 results. Pretty good if I rank number 1. I can definitely attract a chunk of the Search crowd.

So far so good. I will keep you updated on the progress. Just so you know, the case study will run for a total of 12 weeks and we are now in our second week.

Great Sunday!

Sunday Blogbits – Micro Niche Marketing Case Study Part 2

This case study was basically an inspiration I received after purchasing Micro Niche Finder. I decided to run a live experiment to rank a Micro Niche keyword in the first page of Google. I already did my research in the beginning of last week and picked up a fairly profitable niche that has about 50,000 per month search count in Google and an exact match result of 800,000. I am sure you are keen to know the niche, but I fear the Devil. I have already received a threat:

So, I have decided to keep the niche a secret at the moment. Let the ball roll and I will reveal it. I have chosen 4 other keywords apart from the main niche word to rank for. The following are the tools I will be utilizing extensively all through the experiment:

1. Micro Niche Finder: Though the initial job of finding the Niche market is over, I will continue to use it to find better keywords to rank for, within the niche.

2. Keyword Elite: I will use it basically for Keyword research purpose. Very helpful tool.

3. SEO SpyGlass: This tool will help me spy on my main competitors and give me an idea of the level of competition and help me gauge my progress.

4. Rank Tracker: This software will enable me to research my keyword positions in Google and other Search Engines on a week by week basis.

I have decided to go with a Wordpress Blog rather than a static website, simply for SEO reasons. The following are the plugins I plan to use on the Blog.

1. Akismet anti-spam

2. All-In-One-SEO

3. Challenge

4. Google Analytics

5. Google XML Sitemap

6. Maintenance Mode

7. Open Web Analytics

8. Permalink Redirect

9. StatPress

10. Wordpress Automatic Upgrade

11. Duplicate Content Cure

12. WP-Sticky

Each one of them has a purpose in assisting me in my journey. I have chosen them after careful consideration.

Domain name: I had a choice of registering the perfect domain name for the niche, but instead I went to TDNAM and picked up from the Live Auctions there. You ask me what is the benefit. I did it mainly to avoid Google’s Sandbox and delay the results. The domain I now have is over a year old and is indexed in Google. It also has 4 active and related backlinks from a Pagerank 8 authority source. Lets say I was lucky. It cost me just $13. The owner probably wanted to do away with the name. I was his messiah.

My goal is to have about 50 pages of original and quality content in the Blog. I have found a Lady writer from the U.K who has agreed to deliver the content. I can probably settle for 10 pages of good quality content, but I want the SE spiders to visit the Blog regularly and in order to maintain their visits, I need to feed them good content constantly.

I plan to maintain a posting interval of 1 article every 3 days. As of now, the Blog has no articles at all. I plan to post the first one tomorrow and take off from there.

I know this post was pretty boring as it contained pure facts and no spice. But stick with me and I promise you will love it. It will be a great opportunity for you to gain live “as it happens” knowledge and someday probably repeat the experiment on a personal level to make your fortune on the Internet.

Stay Tuned!

Sunday Blogbits – Micro Niche Marketing Case Study Part 1

Caroline Middlebrook has released her long awaited ebook on Wordpress Niche Marketing. She was supposed to have released it even before I released my book, but certain issues in her personal life, as she puts it, prevented her from doing so. I encourage you to download and give it a go. There surely is some interesting information there.

JohnCow has released GoogleTime.info, a set of Made For Adsense Splogs. Another false dream of creating automatic cash. I am not sure what John has in mind. Maybe he wants to create a Global Warming phenomenon in the Blogosphere by polluting it. Maybe his bank account is empty. Whatever it maybe, I am not surprised.

That reminds me, I am working on a Wordpress Adsense and Affiliate Blog. myself. Oh, it isn’t a Splog. The contents are original and of good quality. I just started work on it 2 days back. I will cover this in the next week’s Sunday Blogbits. This is a Live Experiment I will be updating here for all my readers with weekly statistics of the development. Believe me, it is pretty exciting project and I urge you to stay abreast by subscribing to my RSS feed or email.

Now to the meat of the edition. My Affiliate Marketing Policy. Last Thursday I announced that I will be launching an Affiliate Review section. I want to slowly and steadily introduce monetization channels for the Blog so it follows a self funding route, especially when I get in paid guest authors.

In doing so, I, in no way want to ruin my reputation by promoting anything and everything. So, I have come up with a few “rules of the game”.

1. I will promote a product I am convinced about.

2. Where it is possible, I will buy the product myself before recommending.

3. I will review each product with as much detail as I can gather.

4. There will be only 1 product every week.

5. I will, if possible write a value post in relation to the product.

6. I will talk about the good and bad and leave the court open for readers to judge.

7. I will, in no way be influenced by the compensation level of a product.

8. I will place priority to Quality and usability of the product.

9. If there is a catch, I will be the first one to expose it.

10. Lastly and obviously, I will expect the affiliate URL to be clicked upon and bought .

So, this is my Affiliate review policy and I will follow it closely. If I break my rules, I won’t worry, as you, my readers can correct always correct me.

Look forward to my first issue of Affiliate Review coming Thursday. At this point you will agree with me that you have much to lose if you go without subscribing to my Blog. Subscribe to Blogrepreneur.

Sunday Blogbits – My Affiliate Marketing Policy

When I did a Search for Social Media, Google gave me access to data back as far as 2004. Here is the first graph that shows a combined 4 years of growth.

You can notice that the Search trend has been constant in the 3 years except 2 times when it tanked unusually. This graph doesn’t really speak much as it is comprehensive. More on that later. Let me display the yearly graphs for a detailed look.

Year 2004

Notice the period between April and September. It was literally flat, meaning the Search Volume was the lowest for Social Media at that time. Then you see a sudden spurt in the volume in October and later months. Notice the falling graph at the end.

Year 2005

This year was similar but the time period the Search volumes tanked were relatively short. For most of 2005, the Search volumes were pretty good. Noticed the fall at the end of the graph.

Year 2006

Again, the trend this year was better than the previous year. There was a mild reduction in the middle of the year, but it picked up pretty fast. Notice again, the fall in the graph at the end.

Year 2007

The year 2007, in my opinion was very good for Social Media. The growth in Search Volume was pretty steady and organized. You can see the rise in the beginning and how it remained constant till July and then moved up again. It only explains the fact that people are getting educated more and more on the virtual culture and recognizing the power of online communities. A healthy trend indeed.

Here is a list of the top 10 countries, cities and languages that were the source of the Search Volume.

The reason why every graph showed a fall in the Search Volumes at the end is simply because of the beginning of the Holiday season. People’s attention diverted to priorities like Holiday shopping and preparing for the new year. The graphs below clearly explains what I am talking about.

Christmas Shopping

Look towards the end of the graphs. The Search volume pretty much skyrocketed compared to the rest of the year. Christmas and New year were clearly the winners at this time. A sure sign for us online entrepreneurs.

Back to the topic. Social Media online has definitely grown and gained wide recognition. I am not sure if we are nearing another bubble burst, but I can tell you the trend will surely continue for a long time before it crumbles.

Next week, I will try and cover Social Marketing trend for the past 4 years.

Social Media Trend – Genesis and Evolution Part 1

There was no way we were letting them take over our website, mainly for the reason that they did not have any kind of portfolio on their site or past customer testimonials, of course with evidence so we could contact them for opinions.

I was running a personal blog at marketsnipers.com that I had setup to share my thoughts about Forex markets and trading general. I picked up their $99 SEO service. I have to apologize, I cant find that page anymore in their site, but the package involved a basic analysis and optimization, Submission to few thousand Search Engines, 2 animated banners, keyword analysis and creation of 50 keyword optimized pages to be added to my blog for Search engines to crawl. In other words, SPAM. Anyways, I let them take the lead and signed up for the service.

About 72 hours, I started getting a flood of emails to my assigned Yahoo account. Websquash had started their Search Engine submission process. When I took a closer look at them, I was shocked. 5 or 6 emails from legitimate companies and the rest of the flood was confirmation mails from Free For All (FFA) pages. This is what they were referring to as 1000s of Search Engines.

They were supposed to complete the work in about 3-7 days, but after 2 weeks there was nothing except the Search Engine email flood. I never received any report of the work done. When I contacted them, they actually asked me for my details and had to look up in their database for my purchase. Then one of their support executive got in touch, asked for the FTP and Wordpress admin details and assured me the work would be done in 3-5 days.

Another week passed and nothing happened. I contacted them again and guess what, I had to provide my admin details for the second time. I was disheartened, but kept my cool and provided the details. He said he will get back to me after sometime, which he did and apologized for the delay and assured me the work would be done.

After a few days, I contacted them for the report of my blog’s work and they had forgotten about it. They said they had done the work and I would receive my report. I did not. I couldn’t handle them anymore and went ahead and asked for a refund. They initially did not honor it saying that they could not offer refund after the work was done. I asked for the report and they did not have it. After a few exchanges, they issued a refund of $90.

It was clear from the HTML meta codes in my blog that they had not done any SEO work at all. All they had done is got my blog connected to a massive SPAM network, to get out of which was impossible. They had never created the 50 keyword optimized pages, the animated banners or the keyword analysis report which was a part of the package I had signed up for.

To conclude, I am not going to call them scammers, for they did honor a refund even though it wasn’t a full refund. What I realized was that these guys were Black Hat SEO Professionals who didn’t care how they got your Site/Blog to the attention of major Search Engines. All they cared was that they got it. All I can say is Beware. Do your homework well before you commit to any company.

Oh, by the way, our companies SEO related activities are taken care by a New York based company.

My thoughts about Websquash SEO Service