Thighmaster Teaches Niche Site Basics

So this morning my wife has me up in the attic putting away her Fall decor and pulling down her Spring decor. Only the women readers will understand that. Anyways, I was rearranging some boxes when out popped a set of Thighmasters. This exercise apparatus was popular in the 90's and was pimped by Suzanne Somers. The infomercials were everywhere at that time and they sold a ton of them. Well my wife saw them and decided she wanted to use them again. After our attic trip, she wanted me to pull her up some exercises to do with them.

Always being on the lookout for niches, I thought I would do some exploring keyword wise. A quick look with the Google Keyword Tool, reveals that the exact phrases thigh master, suzanne somers thigh master and thigh master exercises all bring in some great search numbers monthly as does the alternate spelling of thighmaster and suzanne somers thighmaster.

A quick search in Google reveals thighmaster.net (not going to link to it) ranking high if not number one on several of these main searches. I ran the term thigh master through Market Samurai and the site has a domain age of 9, but nothing in the archive really to speak of. It has quite a few backlinks, but mostly from sites that seem owned by the same owner. The onsite SEO is nicely done and believe it or not, the site only has 3 pages in the index and one is the Hello world default Wordpress post that is dated August 8, 2009. So at least we know when this version was likely built.

So what can we learn from this? Not really anything new, but it shows it does not matter how many pages of content a site has. It matters about backlinks, on and off site SEO, a great domain (although in this case likely a Trademark infringe) and some domain age. If you want to dig deeper in this site, follow the outlinks. Also research the type backlinks in Yahoo explorer. Nothing really secretive going on, just good hard work and all the basics. I thought I would point it out as a testament of what great keywords and hard work can accomplish. Nothing fancy, just the basics. Now I haven't dug deeper with various other tools, I will leave that to you readers, but it is an interseting site to learn from.

Can You Learn From TMZ?

Like most, I got caught up in all of the Tiger Woods hoopla. It is very uncharacteristic for me, but a train wreck I could not keep my eyes off of for a few days. Most of you already know about the website TMZ. There really is not too much to the site that you can't do with Wordpress. It also shows you that post do not need to be long in nature and the use of photos, video and audio can really engage surfers. Not that you did not know that, but their site is proof of it in action. Their monetization is quite simple as well. Of course they have paid sponsors, but they also use affiliate programs and Google Adsense as well. The layout is nothing extravagant, just simple, clean and easy to navigate. You can apply several things that they do to your own blogs. Have a look around at simplicity in action. Proof that sometimes we ALL over think things in this business.

Matt Cutts Site Review Video

I came across an older video I had not seen before. Matt Cutts has live examples of websites and actual reviews them as well as takes questions from the audience. The video is quite long at 62 minutes, but well worth the watch. You will indeed pick up a few nuggets of information along the way.

When Passion Meets Niche Store Building

As I was bumping around in the Build A Niche Store forum on Tuesday, I came across a user that does not post too much but did offer up a link to one of his stores. The user screen name is Largemouth Herald and to no surprise his site is Florida Bass Fishing. What is so refreshing is the fact that you can tell Herald is totally passionate about bass fishing and it shows in his site. He also ranks great for his target keyword and I am sure he gets his share of organic traffic as well. Also his fishing gear store is not front and center, and is using an early early version of BANS. This is a perfect example of taking something you are very knowledgeable about and turning it into an income producing outlet. A lot of niche store builders can really learn a lesson from his site. The only thing I would offer up to Harold is to in the near future considering re wrapping the whole site into a new Wordpress BANS type site that will enable him to perhaps manage the site better, but if it is doing fine right now, there is no sense in fixing that which is not broken. I'd like to thank Harold for giving me the opportunity to use his site as an example of passionate niche store building.

Need An Article? Unique Content Is King!

As many of you know who read this blog on a regular basis, I am constantly harping on unique original content on your Build A Niche Stores. If you are not adding content, you are in for a hard road. Without content you are just a thin affiliate site and unless you have strong backlinks either paid or unpaid, it will be hard to keep that store successful over a long period of time. You have to offer value with your stores on the web. By adding good solid keyword original content, you are also setting yourself up to acquiring natural deep linking backlinks to your store, which are priceless. As you also know, I like to write a lot of my own content, but with so many stores I wanted to maximize my time versus cost efforts without losing quality. I have been watching all of the reviews on the Need An Article service and recently joined to give them a test drive. I have used posters on the Digital Point forum as well in the past, but got inconsistent results. I ordered 5 articles on Need An Article and received them back very fast. The articles were very well written and factual. I also ran them through Copyscape and they passed with flying colors. There have been a few article spinners recently that have come down the pipe and I was just not comfortable with them and none where even worth a review. I only advertise products and services that I use and endorse on this blog. I could get away with promoting other things to make a buck, but in the long run it will not help you or the longevity and trust factor of this blog. Please do not take this as a crack on other bloggers or article spinner programs either. If you are using spinners and having good success, by all means keep doing what you are doing. Need An Article does have a monthly fee, so if you are on a budget, I suggest joining a month and then getting as many articles as you need done in the first month. I for one am keeping my membership as I like the flexibility of having these writers at my disposal. They will soon be offering a request a writer feature that will enable you to have your article written by your favorite writer as well. I had three different writers on my first five articles I had done and all were quality. I do feel if you are going to pay for some unique content I would make sure it goes on your own site first. Wait for that to get indexed by the SERPS before submitting it off to article directories if that is your plan. That way your article on your store is the original on the web. This will not be the last time you hear me harp on original content, but I do highly endorse Need An Article if you simply can't or do not like writing yourself.

Fashion Bans site review

I have been asked to do a review for one of my blog readers.

The site is Mirror Check Fashions

1. I like the domain name. It has brand ability to it.

2. Like the logo and colors.

3. No true keyword phrase on home page. This needs some work.

4. Each page needs some keyword optimization. Perhaps a few paragraphs about each brand type.

5. Needs some original content added to the site, such as articles on shopping fashions online or something that details the brands you sell.

6. not indexed yet, but this post should help with that.

7. Site has some great potential. Optimize it up and work on submitting to some trusted directories and social bookmark sites. Get an article or two written for an ezine site.

8. Great first effort.

If others would like to have a site reviewed, just drop me a line!