One of the obstacles many non US based marketers face is that while most of you are targeting the US market, when you do a search on Google, the results default to your country version of Google’s SERPS.

But there is a very easy way around this.

When you perform a Google search and you get your results, Let’s say you are in the UK and searching for Apple Ipod..

your result URL string will look something like this
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=apple=ipod

Now if you want to see the US Google results, it’s very simple to do so, simply add..

&GL=us

to the end of the search string and repeat:

In this case

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=apple=ipod&GL=us

and that will give you the US results.

- Dave -

Someone buys one of your products, your system sends the buyer their login info etc..

Five hours later you receive an email from this person stating they never received their login details.  fine, happens all the time.

So you rpely, with their login info again, then two hours later you get another email from the same person stating they still haven’t received their login details. You email them again. Three hours later the process repeats itself. This time they are accusing you of running some type of scam etc..

Well, then you take some time and do a little research, trying to figure out what is going on, and what do you discover? This individual is using a spam arrest or other similar service to protect themselves from junk mail.

And you’ve got a half dozen junk mails from spam arrest sitting in your junk folder requiring you authenticate yourself before the email can be delivered.

Now to a buyer, this may not seem like a big deal, but for the busines owner, who deals with volume it is a huge deal.

Here’s the bottom line. Those emails these services send out requiring someone to confirm who they are also end up in most junk bins.

To expect businesses to sort through junk mail and confirm who they are when you are the one that has purhcased a prooduct and needs to receive certain information, is a bit of a stretch.

There is nothing wrong with using these services for personal email. But if you’re conducting business online, either buying or selling, stop using these services because it’s not the business owner that is ignoring you.

- Dave

The question is, will you buy one?

The Nexus one will be available on two carries here in the United States. Verizon Wireless come spring 2010 and T-Mobile, (available now)

The cost to T-Mobile users is $179 for the phone plus a 2 year contract requirement.

For those of you in the UK it appears Google will work with Vodofone though it will not be an exclusive carrier

You can order the Google Nexus One phone here:
http://www.google.com/phone

You will need to login using your Google account and the only option for checkout is Google checkout.

You can also see a demo of the Nexus One Phone here.
http://www.google.com/googlephone/tour/

So what you think of Google’s venture into the phone world. Will it be an Iphone killer?

What are your thoughts?

- Dave

So what do I mean specifically?

Consider this..

Which of these scenarios is likely to give you the best chance of success?

You have 10,000 projects and you repeat each 1 time

or

You have 10 projects and repeat each of those projects 1000 times.

I think the answer should be obvious..

Let’s see what you have to say?

- Dave -

Having been in this business for over 14 years I have seen pretty much everything from every angle. I have dealt with all kinds of people and about 98% of those experiences have been positive.

I can’t even begin to guess how many emails I have answered in those 14 years but it is a lot.

The one thing that most of the emails I receive have in common is the intense desire the person writing has to succeed in online marketing.

But we all know that there is a ton of garbage online, products where the person doing the selling knows full well the claims made are complete and total B.S.

The bottom line is if someone promises you riches and especially quick riches, run, just get the hell away, and move on. It’s not going to happen unless you win the lottery.

I’ve always had one primary mission with any business I’ve been involved in, and that is to help people succeed.

Now I’m not going to in any way try and make the case that everyone I have tried to help has succeeded, many have not.

And it’s not for lack of me trying and it’s often not from the lack of the other person not trying. Sometimes an individuals skill set is not suited to a specific task or career, as well as another person’s might be. Not everyone is good at everything.

I can ski. I’ve tried to teach a lot of people to ski. Most never achieve anywhere near the degree of skill that I have. Not everyone is born to be a good skier. Bottom line.

But let me get to the point I want to make, and this is where the rant comes in..

We all know that the economies in most of the western countries have not been great this past year or two.

In that time I have received quite a number of emails from customers or potential customers who have told me a very similar story. That they need quick money, they lost their job, they need to make this work or they are going to lose their house, they are looking for some kind of guarantee that I can solve their problems with some product or service that I am offering.

They want a guarantee that such and such a product will get them out of their dilemma.

Let’s look at a couple realities.

If you are in need of quick cash, or on the verge of losing your home, or something that falls into the really awful category, do not, I said DO NOT even think about online marketing as your salvation. It is not. Online marketing is a career, a business, it is not a means of getting quick cash in your pocket.

Do not, I repeat DO NOT spend any money with me or anyone else if you are down to your last dime. It’s not that you can’t make money online, but that is not your immediate problem if you happen to need a quick infusion of cash. You need to resolve the immediate problem before thinking long term.

Once you get things under control, then you can consider other options for building a business but when you are down to your last few pennies and are on the verge of losing your home, please don’t look at the online world as your way of getting out of the hole you are in. Your hole will only get deeper.

But I think it’s so easy to understand why people naturally turn to the Internet as a way out of serious financial problems, and it has to do with all the B.S. hype surrounding far too many products. And let me be specific, I’m not talking about a sales letter that tries to get you to buy a product, that is advertising, what I’m talking about are the hucksters who prey on the newbies or those very people needing quick cash, making claims of fortunes to be made in a very short time, telling you how you can make tens of thousands each month. It’s all B.S. And the sooner most people accept that the better off everyone will be.

My goal is to teach people how to make $500 not $50,000 in a month. Believe me. For most people earning $500 in a month in what could be considered extra income is in fact, life changing money.

But here’s the really sad part of how the promises of get rich quick schemes have hurt people in ways most people never consider.

In the past year alone, I have received a lot of emails stating all the things I mentioned above.

I own several businesses, and in 21 of those cases, I have actually offered people a chance to work for one of my businesses. In other words, I would pay them for work they do. It costs the person nothing. Yes it does involve real work, and while the pay may not earn you 50K per year it certainly can earn you 4 figures per month, plus the offer allowed people to work on their time and work as much or as little as they wanted, but the key word here is work. it required people to work.

Guess how many of those 21 offers I made were accepted?

ZERO.

And you know what? I don’t blame the people who did not take my offer. I don’t think these people are lazy or are people that really don’t want to succeed, quite the contrary. I feel the problem is in most cases, that they have fallen victim to the hype, that they can make a lot more, a lot faster with a lot less work if they just find the right ‘program’ online.

The even more amazing thing is that many of these very same people have probably already been around the block so to speak, with quite a number of over hyped products that promised the very things they are still searching for without success. And they still don’t realize, it doesn’t work that way.

I really hope that none of you falls into this category but if you do, a reality check is in order.

What I do is not a hobby, it’s a business, and most people fail to understand that making money online involves creating and running a real business.

As the title of this post states, internet marketing is great but… it’s a career choice, a real business, not a get rich quick scheme.

There’s a lot of really good people in this business, but also a lot of hucksters. Remember the old adage, if it sounds to good to be true… it probably is.

- Dave -

There has been a clause in the Adsense TOS for quite a while that states you cannot place Adsense on a site whose sole purpose for existing is to display ads.

As is the norm with most things related to Google and any of their TOS, that reference has a lot of ambiguity in it.

Well let’s look at some specifics that I can tell you with 100% certainty are resulting in some people losing their Adsense accounts.

Do you create sites or pages that have 100% totally original content? Unique content? Relevant content? Well, a lot of article based sites are built this way, A quality article and Adsense on the page. Guess what? Not good enough. It doesn’t matter if your article content is unique, original and relevant. If that’s all you have on your page, and Google does a hand review of your site and find more than  a handful of sites in violation, poof, goodbye Adsense account.

You need to provide your visitor with more options than simply reading an article or clicking on the ads. Your site has to have a reason for existing besides Adsense.

Some of those things could be, selling products, books, etc. You could use Amazon or Ebay feeds. You can link out to other sites that have more useful relevant info. There are a number of things you can add to your site that will make it comply with the human editors who work for Adsense. My point here is not to tell you how to build your site, but rather how not to build it if you are using Adsense. The bottom line, If you just have Adsense and an article and nothing else, and a human editor reviews your account, don’t be surprised if you get the dreaded email stating your account has been disabled.

- Dave -

Now for those of you who live in the United States, that name is quite familiar to you. For those that don’t, Comcast is one of the largest cable TV and broadband providers in North America.

I really have no complaints about the Internet service Comcast has given me over the past 7 years. They have been reliable, and quick to resolve any problems, and the number of outages has been very low.

I’ve been paying approximately $65 USD per month since 2002. My rates have not changed more than a couple dollars, while the speed of the service has increased several times.

Until yesterday my service was rated at 6 MBps download speed and 1 MBps upload speed. Compared to some services that’s pretty fast although in the real world your actual download speeds never reach the actual speed that your service is rated. At most the best I was seeing was about 10% of that speed or around 600KBps. Still not bad but not great for 2009.

I happen to live in an area where there is actually true competition for your ISP and television service.

I can choose from a number of companies, but until recently they were all pretty much the same, cable companies using the same basic infrastructure.

This past year Verizon, another huge mega company in these parts of the US installed their fiber optic network into our region.

They have been constantly trying to get me to switch both my TV from my current satellite provider and also my Internet service.

There offers have been quite tempting, especially for the Internet service where they were offering me basically 4 times the speed at the same price I was paying now.

Internet service is kind of like a lot of things in life, you don’t really pay attention to it most of the time if it’s working correctly. It’s there, you use it, but you don’t think too  much about it unless you have a problem.

I was just about ready to make the switch and go with Verizon’s FIOS service, but decided I would give Comcast a call first and see what they could offer me. After all, no company likes to lose a customer.

But I have to admit I was pretty surprised at what Comcast actually offered me. I made it very clear to them that I was strongly considering switching to Verizon FIOS. Not only did they offer to triple my speeds, they offered to do it at a price of $29 per month. They were willing to cut my monthly bill in half, and then some and give me far more speed without requiring any long term contract.

So I said yes, Verizon’s service would still have been a bit faster but also more costly and then you have the hassle of changing over your networks, and personal email addresses.

So within 10 minutes of making the call, my speeds literally tripled.

So I wonder just how much money I’d given Comcast that I really didn’t have to over the past year?

If you live in an area where you have competition with both your television and Internet providers, you may be surprised at just how much pull you have, even if you’re not really thinking of switching providers, you can certainly use the option of switching as a bargaining tool.

I also did the same thing with my satellite TV provider getting them to substantially cut my monthly fees and offering me some new updated equipment at no cost.

Unfortunately I know a lot of areas in the US where there is limited or literally no competition for either television service or Internet service, and I’m sure that applies to many reading this.

But if you are lucky enough to live in a region that offers competition and choice, make a few phone calls, you might be surprised at the response you get. I was. Well maybe I wasn’t. Just don’t be lazy like me!

- Dave -

It’s not that I am really interested in buying any of the offers
these people make me, though I will never say never as sometimes
there are some real gems in their offers, but it’s their process
that intrigues me.

You see, even though I’ve been making my living online for over
13 years, I’ve never been a big list marketer, but that is one of
the things that I have begun to focus on over the past year or
so.

But the best way to learn is not really from buying some super
expensive course but to literally observe what others are doing.

My buddy and sometimes business partner Chris Rempel is a great
example. While Chris certainly offers quality products that a lot
of folks can benefit from, just reading his emails, and following
his methodology is a tutorial unto itself. And one which you
don’t have to pay a penny for.

I’m always amazed when people complain about receiving
newsletters, and send you nasty emails demanding you remove them,
newsletters that they willingly subscribed to, and have an easy
unsubscribe link at the bottom, These people are seemingly not
realizing that they are complaining about the very process which
they are trying to understand and make a living from.

On one hand they are spending time on marketing forums, buying
products, probably in most cases struggling to make a few
dollars, yet are often ignoring the obvious. If you follow the
process involved in many quality newsletters you are getting a
virtual goldmine of free information.

And there is no one exact way to approach the process. You’ll
find so many different styles that are used by different
individuals, but don’t get confused by the differences, it’s what
works for that person.

There are marketers whose newsletters are very short form, just
giving you a link to something they want you to see. There are
others who write very detailed tutorial type newsletters.

There are those who rarely try and sell you anything, and those
who try and sell you something every day.

All of these have a place but not all of them are necessarily the
right fit for you.

But there is an education in these newsletters far beyond the
actual content contained within them.

Who are some of the people whom you read? Some of the people who
you feel have the ‘process’ down and really get this type of
marketing.

Remember, no matter how successful you become in this business,
there is always going to be people who do other things better
than you, the learning curve never really goes away, it just
evolves.

Some of the people whose newsletter process is worth following
are of course, Chris Rempel,  but also Jeff Johnson, Yanik
Silver, Keith Baxter, Shoemoney, and quite a few others. Each of
these individuals has a very different style, and are fairly big
names, but don’t confine yourself to just the big names. You’ll
be amazed at how effective some of the ‘unknowns’ are with this
kind of marketing. And don’t confine yourself to the names I read.
Your list of favorites is probably very different than mine.

Start a folder collecting emails from certain individuals and
you’ll find you have a crash course in list marketing that didn’t
cost you a penny.

- Dave -

But probably one of the easiest and most reliable ways to get traffic is through the creation and submission of articles to article directories.

This me seem really simplistic and your first reaction might be, yea, tell me something I didn’t already know.

But there are many different ways of approaching article submission, some that will work a LOT better than others.

There are a lot of tools that will allow you to submit your article to hundreds if not thousands of article directories.

But let’s talk reality here, there are not thousands or even hundreds of article directories worth submitting to.

The truth is there are probably 20 article directories that would be considered good choices for submission, but of those, probably less than 10 are the real players and of those we start getting down to 1 or 2 that can deliver for you.

But I want to tell you how I approach article marketing and why.

1) I never submit the same article to more than 1 directory. No dupe content is submitted anywhere.

2) I don’t even bother with anything more than the top 2 or 3 article directories and even then, I generally focus on just one the majority of the time. Ezinearticles.com

3) 100% of my content submitted to article directories is unique. It is not spun content, it is not scraped content.

But doesn’t spun content get you a lot of links from second tier directories? Well, yes and no. Go ahead and spin an article using one of the many tools available, submit it to 1000 directories and see how much traffic or link juice you get from it. It won’t be a lot.

But take one unique well written article and submit it to EZA and you’ll get far more in return.

Another mistake I think people make is that too often article submission is looked upon solely as a link building technique, and while it can certainly help with link building, one of the biggest benefits of article submission is the direct traffic it can bring you.

Let me give you some examples.

I have a few accounts at EZA. One of my newer accounts has 376 live articles. These were largely submitted over the past 8 months.

In that time these articles have received 150,044 views, and have received 24,463 clicks from my author bio link to my sites.

That’s a CTR of over 16%

For those of you who have read my Profit Loophole course, you know that I mention the power of traffic from EZA.

You really don’t need to do a lot of additional promo on articles submitted there, they tend to do pretty well on their own.

But I’ve had sites whose sole means of traffic is direct referrals from an EZA article, and these were sites that I ended up cashing out for a pretty decent sum of money.

Recently I tested a product that is selling like crazy at Clickbank. It essentially is an article spinner, supposedly one of the better ones.

Well, I spent a decent amount of time learning the program, and wanted to put it to the test. I created what were really pretty good spun articles. The program comes with an article submission module as well.

You know how many of 527 articles that I created from 1 original got through EZA’s initial automated filters?

Exactly 3.

Sure, some of them were accepted at second and third tier directories, but what I am trying to say is, what a colossal waste of time when I could have, in that same time frame, myself, written probably 4 or 5 articles of far better quality that would in the long run deliver far more back to me than those 527 spun articles would.

I’m not saying there are not ’some’ uses for spun content, but it still amazes me that so many people are still buying this stuff, and still looking for the magic bullet, that one shortcut that will lead them to the promised land of online riches.

If you want to make money off of spun article content, or mass directory submissions, it’s not likely to happen doing it the way most folks do. What you need to do is build another tool like all the others, because people will still buy them in droves.

And then when it doesn’t work, they will buy the next tool that claims to do it better.

Having run a business where we insisted on original content in our network, I can tell you that it is a waste of time, and is so easy to catch.

Just last week, we had an individual whom I am pretty certain was using this exact software tool I mention above try and slam one of our networks with 60,000 spun posts. Guess what. All deleted.

If you are really serious about making a real living online, focus on what really works, not something that may work for a couple weeks but has no long term viability.

With the kind of traffic I receive from EZA, I could easily make a consistent $40K-$50K annually when combined with what I teach in the Profit Loophole course, with no other source of traffic.

That is very close to the median average annual income in the US. And it’s sitting right there in front of everyone, and so few actually capitalize on it, opting for failed shortcuts over sound business practices.

- Dave -

http://www.greenbeansnmore.com

This site is a perfect lesson on organic SEO and how to apply basic techniques and turn a site into a traffic powerhouse..

This site currently averages around 5000 unique visitors per day, and that’s on a normal day. during those times of the year when holidays are upon us, this site has pulled in as many as 25,000 unique visitors per day.

The comments you will read below that are Cathy’s are attributed to her, I have added my own comments when needed.

Let me state that even though I come from a background of SEO, I really never spent much time teaching Cathy SEO. I gave her the owners manual to Dreamweaver, signed her up for some HTML 101 classes at the college which they canceled before her courses were complete, and I spent maybe an hour or two with her at the beginning.

This site is a passion and a labor of love for her. It was not built to make money but does pretty well.

The niche was selected simply from a conversation we had where Cathy said she had no idea what topic to build a site around. I told her she made some really killer green beans and that was it.

She likes to cook. And this site 2 years later is the end result though it is always a work in progress.

There are no professional graphics. To this day she rarely asks me a question about anything related to the site, in fact she doesn’t let me near it or have anything to do with it.

It’s her baby, and one she is quite proud of.

It proves that you don’t have to always have a site that is in those all too common niches to make some decent money online.

If you have a passion, it can turn into a very profitable site if you put some work into it. It won’t happen overnight.

But it can certainly be done.

Cathy’s comments:
I had taken html coding classes at our local community college and needed to use what I’d learned before I forgot it. I decided to write about green beans because I like them! It was Dave’s idea to call it green beans “n more” so that I would be able to add information about other vegetables on the site.

Dave’s Comments:
I did suggest the domain name and registered it for Cathy, she had no idea of how to choose a domain name nor register one and still to this day, doesn’t.

Cathy’s Comments:
I used a very basic site design with the menu on the left. I chose to use broad topics relating to green beans on the menu such as “how to grow green beans”, “freezing green beans”, “canning green beans”, “varieties of green beans” and “green bean recipes”.

Dave’s Comments:
I did help Cathy create the very basic template, that’s about all I did, I created the images and the very basic layout. As you can tell, I’m not very good at site design which is why I make my living in other more suitable areas.

Cathy’s Comments:
Once I had the pages above made I started adding green bean recipes.

As the site grew I got a lot of traffic several months after it was launched, in the following spring for the search term “growing green beans” and similar searches, but then the traffic would slow. It was Dave’s idea that I add topics that would have people searching my site on a more year round basis. I decided to add Thanksgiving content. I then added “Holiday Recipes” and “Valentines Day and Romantic Dinner Ideas”.

Dave’s Comments:
This site absolutely rocks at Thanksgiving time especially. The traffic is incredible. When I suggested that Cathy expand her search terms she really didn’t think there would be much search traffic for them. But go to any keyword database and search for terms as seemingly benign as pork chops, and you’ll be amazed at the number of searches, and virtually no competition.

Cathy’s Comments:
Over time I have added recipes for BBQ’s and cookouts, Mediterranean and Indian recipes. Each adding potential for more traffic and giving me more traffic year round.

Here are some of the things I do.

1 ) Keyword research.  I NEVER make a page without doing keyword research – NEVER.

I use Keyword Universe in Wordtracker for this. I search the
terms in Google with quotes. When I do a search for a
particular term – use “avgolemono” as an example, I use a variety of the terms in Wordtracker such as “avgolemono sauce”, “avgolemono recipes”. I do a Google search for the actual term to find different words associated with it on other pages, such as “greek lemon sauce” and “greek recipes” and “egg lemon sauce”.

When using Wordtracker I pay attention to how many searches the term receives. Of course you’ll find the more searches the term has the more competing pages it has.  When my site was new I chose terms with less than 50,000 competing pages in Google, when searched with quotes,  Now that my site is ranking well in Google I will use keywords with more competing pages. I use a variety of words with high and low competing pages.

I use a variety of keywords (usually 8 to 10 or more) when writing content on a page and when writing the meta description, title, h1 tag and url. Always remember to keep the writing natural. Don’t overstuff with keywords. Here’s a pretty good example of that http://www.greenbeansnmore.com/greeklemonandeggsauceavgolemono.html.

Dave’s Comments:
Keyword research. The most important element of any project. Choosing a niche that is both doable and gets search traffic. But the way you use the keywords is very important. Those of you who have purchased my Profit Loophole course have a very detailed explanation detailing what Cathy broadly describes above.

I confess, that the couple of hours I spent with her at the beginning dealt with keyword research. Get it right and you will do very well. get it wrong, and well, probably not.

But it is not rocket science, it is one of those areas that you can apply some very specific techniques to and come away a winner more often than not. The key is to truly understand the concepts, apply them and repeat them.

Cathy’s Comments:
2 ) Quality content & Updating the Site. One thing that’s always been very important to me is the quality of content on my site.  I did a lot of reading and research to come up with informative content for my pages. I still do reading and research and update my pages “growing”, “canning”, “freezing” and “variety” pages several times a year.

Dave’s Comments:
The point Cathy makes here is an important one. Her site is a constant work in progress, it is never done, Any page is subject to being updated with fresh content, and she does this on a regular basis, I’m not talking massive changes, but small changes and additions. But this is not a site for which she spends hours per day working on. In fact we’re talking a couple hours, a couple days per week.

Cathy’s Comments:
All content on my site is in my own wording. Where I have quoted or used exact recipes I give a link or name the source.

3 ) Updating the site. I try to add at least two recipes a month, sometimes it’s more. I also use my own pictures on the site.

4 ) On some of my early pages I used bbq-a, bbq-b, bbq-c, etc. as page url’s. I now use keywords in my page url’s – example;

http://www.greenbeansnmore.com/persianlovecake.html

5 ) When writing a title I use up to three keywords, and use a combination of terms that have high search numbers and lower search numbers. If I am posting a recipe from a particular source (and I try to use trusted sources that are well known) I may use the name (author or website) in the title. I use other keywords in the h1 tag.

6 ) As I often see my page come up on a Google search with the meta description I take care in writing a description that I think will catch the eye of the searcher.

7 ) I update the index page on a fairly regular basis using content corresponding with a particular time of year. Spring it’s growing green beans, Summer it’s bbq and cookouts, Fall and winter it’s Thanksgiving and holiday recipes.

8 ) Whenever I add a new page or update pages I always update my sitemaps.

9 ) Getting links has probably been the most time consuming and frustrating thing I’ve had to do. When the site was new I sought out links from other sites. As I had no “page rank” there were very few who would link with me. I literally sent out hundreds of requests. Now that the site has some ranking I often receive link requests. I have opted to only link to similar type sites and I don’t accept directory links. If you visit my link to us page you’ll see my link criteria.
http://www.greenbeansnmore.com/link-to-us.html

Dave’s Comments:
I gave Cathy NO direction in this area really, she came up with her own policies and decided how she wanted to do her linking entirely on her own. I bet in the past 2 years she has not asked me more than 5 questions about linking.

Cathy’s Comments:
I think what has also helped my site to rank well is linking that others have done to me on websites (chowhound.com, mothernaturenetwork.com) blogs (cumberlandfarmersmarketassociation.blogspot.com), gardening sites (schoolgardenweekly.com), and even newspapers (Chicago Sun Times, Charleston Gazette).

What has brought these people to my site is QUALITY CONTENT.

Dave’s Comments:
Build Quality Content and the big sites will find you, and if you’ve got something good to offer, it can pay off big time without you even having to do much. Several years ago I had a site of mine featured in Wired magazine. I had no idea till I saw my traffic go through the roof for about a week. It was a site that was on a normal day making about 20 sales and that shot up to over 100 per day just from one link, and it was all direct traffic.

Links from big sites are not just about the link pop they can give you. It’s about buzz. Those people who come to your site from major sites, are quite likely to bookmark your site. That’s stickiness. Those people tend to return again and again, and then tell others. It’s not true viral marketing but has some viral aspects to it.

Cathy’s Comments:
10 ) Article writing. This is another great way to get links to your site. I used ezine articles, especially when the site was first launched. They review all the articles and will let you know what they do and don’t like. They only post QUALITY articles. A great place to use the keywords you’ve researched.

Dave’s Comments:
EZA is a great source of traffic as well. Their articles tend to rank very well in Google. Good quality articles submitted to EZA can expect to get a click through rate of about 15-20% to your site listed in the author bio.

Cathy’s Comments:
11 ) Monetizing the site. I did not put Google Adsense on my site for several months. Dave felt it was best for the brand new site to appear non-commercial. I have several affiliate ads on my site which obviously work within the green bean/recipe theme (gardening, spices).

I have had the “opportunity” to eavesdrop on many conversations that Dave has had with clients over the years on how to get their sites to rank higher in the search engines.  While I really didn’t understand much if any of what he was talking about at the time, once I started building my site certain things that I had heard often, started making sense to me.

These are the points I’ve picked up:

1) Choosing a market you can rank well in
2) keyword research
3) quality content
4) updating the site on a regular basis
5) linking

Please keep this in mind – results don’t happen overnight. Don’t give-up on your site. You will be rewarded in time for your good work.

Several months ago I asked Dave a question about a link I was offered and his reply to me was “continue to do what you’ve been doing”.

Dave’s Comments:
While this is just a very broad overview, it should give you a good idea of what it takes to build a single site from scratch that can start out as nothing more than a hobby, an interest, or a passion you have, and turn into something much bigger.

Remember, a lot of the biggest online sites today were never built with the intention of making money. They were built as hobbies, projects, a means to share.

So while there is nothing wrong with working in the more common markets if that is your choice, don’t ignore things that may often seem out of the ordinary or a topic not often discussed on marketing forums. The reality is there are so many topics and niches that can turn into money makers, that you are only limited by your imagination, and the effort you put into it.

- Dave -