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Well, it’s the end of the month and I’m taking a page from Matt’s playbook by publishing a monthly recap post. I want to say thanks to all of you for reading. Also, I thank Adie again for hiring to me to blog.

Here are the highlights from July.

John Cow

Meet John Cow (Original Title: Your Site Can Be Linkbait, Too)
I was pretty early in breaking the news about John Cow, the John Chow parody site. In the same post, I also wrote about principles for making your site a link magnet. I should’ve broken this post into two parts, because most people just talked about John Cow and ignored the link magnet section.

John Cow Is For Sale!
John Cow put his site on the auction block. At the time of this writing, the top bid at SitePoint was $2000. Not bad for a two week old blog.

Video Case Study

SEO Secret Weapon: Video
I gave some reasons why video might be a good resource to use.

Prep For Video Case Study
I wrote about my plans for doing a video case study. Mark from 45n5.com joined the case study.

Video Case Study - YouTube Video Ranks In The Top 5
Mark’s video hits the top 5. Mine is nowhere to be seen.

Case Study Update - My YouTube Video Finally Made Top 10
After 11 days, my video finally cracks the top 10. Mark’s video and mine are #3 and #4, respectively.

Social Media

I wrote these three posts originally as one big post.

Is Content Being Dethroned By Social Media?
With the rise of social media, the best content may not win. Whoever has the most friends wins.

The Power Of Social Media
Social media is powerful way to get traffic and links.

How To Make Social Media Friends
This post talks about how to become popular within a social media community.

Miscellaneous

How Many Sites Should You Build?
This is a look at the common mistake of building too many sites.

Useful Blog Post = Answer A Forum Question
Answering a forum question is a simple but effective method of writing a useful blog post.

Upcoming

I plan on writing more about social media especially Netscape. I’m going to participate in the Netscape community next month and try to hit the front page a couple times. Also, I hope to do posts about networking and niche research.

What would you like me to write about? What were your favorite July posts?

Market research is the foundation of all good marketing. However, many internet marketers, in their rush to make money, skip this important step.

I made this mistake when I created a credit card site. It failed miserably because I had no clue about my market. I didn’t know why credit card customers applied for credit cards. I didn’t know the strength of my competitors. I saw the high credit card AdSense click values and that was enough incentive to jump into the niche.

Currently my credit card site just sits making me no money. I didn’t realize how competitive the credit card niche would be. If I had done proper market research, I would’ve seen it was filled with many strong competitors. And I still don’t know why customers apply for credit cards. This lack of knowledge made it very hard to sell credit cards.

How well do you know your niche? I thought of at least two areas we can research to increase our chances of creating a successful site.

Research Your Customers

If you’re doing affiliate marketing or e-commerce, it helps to know as much as you can about your customers.

If you’re planning monetizing your site primarily through advertising, it still makes sense to research your readers. Your readers are customers because they’re spending their time on your site.

The more you know about your customers, the better you can tailor your site to meet their needs.

Practical tip: Visit the forums where your customers hang out and read their posts. Ask yourself these questions while you’re researching.

• What are their emotional needs?
• How can you meet those needs?
• What are their problems?
• How can you solve their problems?
• Why do they buy the products you sell?

Thinking through questions like these goes a long way towards understanding your customers. As you grow in this understanding, you’ll be able to create something that provides value to your target audience.

Research Your Competitors

If you know what your competitors are doing, you can better differentiate your site. You can develop an unique site that provides unique value. It’s hard to be a purple cow (a site that stands out from the crowd) if you don’t know what the other cows (sites) look like.

Through research, you may find out that your niche is too competitive. There may be too many strong sites that cover all the needs in the niche. At this point, you should choose another niche or narrow your site’s topic to a subniche that’s less competitive.

Practical tip: Think about your top 5 competitors. Write down their strengths and weaknesses. Ask yourself if there is anything you can do better than them. The areas where you’re better than your competitors is where you stand to make the most money.

The “$10″ is not a typo.

I found out about this challenge from Yaro over at Entrepreneur’s Journey. I don’t know much about the challenge, but I like the idea.

For internet marketing beginners reading this blog, joining the Thirty Day Challenge might help you gain practical experience quickly. If you can make $10 in 30 days without having to spend any money, you’re on your way to doing well in the online business realm. Your experience of making $10 can help you make $50. If you can make $50, you can make $200. $200 can lead to $500. And so on.

I like the lower number because it’s an attainable goal for beginners. Many people are setting goals that are too difficult to reach. If you have no experience with internet marketing and you aim to make $2000 in your first month, you’re setting yourself up for failure. $10 is a goal someone can achieve with no experience at all.

Even if you’re a successful online businessperson, you may know someone that’s just starting out with internet marketing. They might find the challenge useful.

I joined the challenge even though I’ve made my first $10 already. I want to know how the challenge works. Hopefully, the folks there will do a good job of teaching the fundamentals of making money online.

Learn more about the 30 day challenge by reading Yaro’s blog post, Can You Make $10 Online In 30 Days?

And here’s the link again: ThirtyDayChallenge.com

Remember the video case study 11 days ago?

Mark and I were trying to rank for the keyword phrase worlds best internet marketing tools through YouTube’s domain. Mark’s video got on the first page of Google, but my video was nowhere to be found

Well, today I looked at the search results page and this is what I found:

I finally made the front page after 11 days. Interestingly, Mark’s blog post and video are in the 1st and 3rd position.  SERPs (search engine result pages) domination!

This case study illustrates the power of YouTube to gain indirect rankings. I’m glad Google is ranking 2 videos in the top 10.  Even if you’re competing against another YouTube video, both videos can still rank.

If you want to leverage online video sites and get more traffic, here is the step by step process.

1. Research keywords in your niche and find a low-competition keyword with some search volume.
2. Produce a short video that ties in with the keyword. I use CamStudio and Windows Movie Maker.
3. Upload your video to YouTube. Make sure to put the keyword in the title, description, and tags.  And don’t forget to add a link back to your site.
4. Link to your video with the keyword as your anchor text.

If you’re like many business people, you want to be more efficient and save time. With so many things to keep track of in online business (content, link building, business relationships, emails, SEO, social media), time is a premium.

I’ve got 5 freelance gigs right now, so I’m always looking to save time. You may be juggling family and a corporate job while also building up your sites. So, how can we be more efficient?

One thing that’s worked for me is batching tasks. Batching tasks is doing the same tasks for an extended period of time without being interrupted by other tasks. Batching tasks increases efficiency because much of our time is lost from having to switch tasks. Every time we switch tasks, we lose focus. Every time we lose focus, we have to spend time to regain our focus. That’s why it’s frustrating to hear the phone ring whenever you’re in the middle of writing a 600 word article.

Here are couple ways you can batch the tasks of your online business.

Answer email once a day.
If you can get away with checking it less often, that’s even better. Email is quite possibly the biggest time killer for internet marketers. Many of us have that sound turned on whenever we get a new message. Save yourself the temptation and turn that thing off.

Write content in advance.
If you blog, this means “future posting” your entries. It takes me awhile to get into a writing flow. My first couple of sentences are pretty bad. But once I’ve been writing for 15 minutes, I’m writing a lot better. Take advantage of writing flow and knock out 3-4 articles/posts at one time. By the way, I got this tip from Ahmed Bilal over at Performancing (check the 4th comment).

Answer blog comments 3 times a week.
Of course, this only applies to bloggers. The principle is similar to checking email once a day. I’m sure your commenters won’t mind if their comments are answered a day or two later.

Market your site 2-4 times a week.
Whether it’s commenting on blogs, building links, or participating in a social media site, make sure to schedule time every week to do site promotion.

Do creative brainstorming once a week.
This is important because every site needs new creative ideas. I think one of the reasons why we don’t batch tasks is because it seems too mechanical. And being mechanical stifles creative ideas. If you feel this way, simply schedule an extended time each week for creative brainstorming. Also, if you tend to come up with good ideas at weird times, keep a pen and small notepad with you at all times. During your scheduled brainstorming time, you can review what you’ve written down.

Make a schedule for the week on Sunday and stick to it.
I got this great tip from John Reese of Income blog. John says efficiency comes from knowing what you want to do. He says after he makes his weekly schedule, he’s a robot the rest of the week. He looks at his next task on the schedule and does it. Be like John. Make a schedule and stick to it like a mindless robot.

Focus on one site at a time.
I know I’ve been writing about this a lot, but it is so important. Unless you’ve built a successful site, you probably don’t have the experience to juggle multiple sites. Remember most new sites take months to become serious money makers.

Not only does batching tasks work, but you’ll be more focused. You’ll cut down your multitasking and decision making time. This increase of focus should lead to better quality work.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to write my next 3 posts today. :)

If you missed it before, I’m giving away free one way links to bloggers. All you have to do is apply the advice I gave in this blog post, Useful Blog Post = Answer A Forum Question.

Community Spark

Today’s example comes from Community Spark. Community Spark is an excellent community building blog written by Martin Reed.

Martin found relevant forum thread on SitePoint Forums. A new forum member asked about forum spam. Martin left a forum post and also answered the member’s question on his blog (Are you a spam fighter?) .

Get Your Free One Way Link

Answer a forum question by posting a blog entry. Then, leave a comment with a link to the forum post and your blog entry. If your entry is good quality, I’ll link to you. I’m giving one link per blogger. It doesn’t matter what niche you’re in as long as it’s not porn, illegal stuff, etc. I can end this offer at anytime.

I ran across this great post by Yehuda. In the post, Yehuda gives 10 excellent principles for starting a new blog.

1. Have something to offer.
Yehuda realized one of his strengths was coming up with new and creative ideas. What are your strengths?

2. Pick a subject you’re passionate about.
If you pick a topic you’re passionate about, you won’t run out of things to say. What would you blog about for free?

3. Don’t be afraid of failing.
Every new blog starts with zero readers. You’ve got nothing to lose, so why be afraid?

4. Make blogging a daily priority.
Consistency separates the “wannabes” from the successful bloggers. Even if you don’t have anything to write, write anyways. Yehuda writes, “Sometimes the ideas only start flowing after the pen hits the paper; most people want it to be the other way around, but this doesn’t work for me.”

5. Fight adversity
People including yourself will wonder if you’re wasting your time. Be patient. Realize it usually takes time to build a blogging audience. Think of blogging as gaining practical experience and education.

6. Learn from the pros.
Read Problogger, Performancing, Copyblogger, and other quality blogs. Apply what you learn.

7. Write about topics that aren’t covered in your niche.
Be different. Swim upstream. Be unique. Stand out from the crowd. Be a purple cow.

8. Be promiscuous with your links.
Yehuda writes, “I link to all the hundreds of people that I love and read. If only 10% of them link back to me, thats still hundreds of people with one link (from me), and dozens of links back for me.”

9. Focus on your readers.
Not Google. Not Digg. While it’s okay to write about Google and Digg, most of your posts should be written for your readers. They’re the ones that truly support you. They’re the ones that will promote your blog for years to come.

10. Look for opportunities.
After your blog has gained a substantial audience, you can focus more on making money. After 3 years of blogging, Yehuda now makes $50 a month. Not a lot of money, right? Well, Yehuda makes much more money as a corporate blogger. He used his blogging experience to land that job. Also, Yehuda is a boardgame designer and he had one of his boardgames published by one of his readers.

Make sure to read Yehuda’s whole post. You’ll learn and be inspired. His post is not too long and it’s an easy read. It’s a great personal glimpse of a blogger who’s provided value to his readers for 3 years.

Source: How I Became a Professional Blogger (via Performancing)

How many times have you written a blog post and wondered if any of your readers found the post useful? Many times when I’m blogging I’m not sure if I’m writing something useful. Here is a little tip that can help.

Answer A Forum Question

Find a forum in your niche. You can do this by searching for cell phone +forum. Just substitute cell phone with your niche. Once you find the forum, read the threads and find a question you can answer. If you can’t answer a certain question, you can do research to answer it. Then, post the question and your answer on your blog. That’s it. Nice and simple.

This method works because many people in your niche are probably asking the same question. However, they don’t speak up because they’re too lazy, too shy, or they don’t want to show their lack of knowledge.

Remember in elementary school. You didn’t understand something the teacher said. However, you didn’t raise your hand to ask a question, because you didn’t want your classmates to think you were dumb. Or maybe you were too shy. The same principle is at work with this method.

Get To Know Your Target Audience

Some of my favorite blog posts are when bloggers take questions from their readers and answer them. These blog posts are usually very valuable for me because the readers are oftentimes asking the same question I’m thinking of. Also, no matter how well you think you know your readership, it’s always a good idea to ask for feedback.

Another advantage of this is you keep up with the state of your industry. Having a good understanding of your industry is an underrated but very important principle. By reading the forum posts of your target audience, you’ll have a better grasp of their problems. Use this information to provide relevant solutions and your blog will become a useful resource.

I used this method in this blog post: Focus On Backlinks Or Content?

Free Link Offer

If you try this method, you’ll have a chance at a free link. Simply leave a comment with a link to the forum post and your blog post. If your blog post is good quality, I’ll point a free one-way link to you. :)

I’ll give one link per blogger. It doesn’t matter what niche you’re in as long as it’s not porn, illegal stuff, etc. And I can end this offer at anytime.

In the last two days, I’ve talked about social media. The first post was about how social media is trumping content. The second post was about the power of social media. Social media friendships are the key to leveraging social media sites, so today we’ll discuss practical ways to build these friendships.

1. Vote

Vote on other people’s submissions. This is the essence of social media friendship.

2. Comment

Most social media users don’t comment, so you’ll set yourself apart by following this tip. Be one of the first to comment. Also, comment on stories you think will make the front page. This will help you get noticed by the social media community.

3. Contact

Some users don’t check their comments, so this is a good way to interact with them. Write them about their submissions and the stories they voted on.

4. Submit

Don’t just sumbit content from your own site. Submit quality content from other sites. Do this so that the community won’t think you’re a spammer. Also, if you only submit your own stuff, you’re breaking the TOS. Your account could be deleted.

5. Notify Users Of Your Submissions

Use this step to get the votes needed to hit the front page. Again don’t just promote your own stuff.

By continually doing these 5 tips, you’ll be on your way to becoming a reputable user. You’ll have a great chance of making the front page. And by making the front page a couple times with content from different sites, you’ll gain a lot credibility from the community.

At that point, anything you submit will automatically get many votes. You can get instant traffic to your site whenever you want.

Miscellanous Tips

Don’t overdo the promotion of your own sites. If the community thinks your spamming them, they’ll stop voting for your sites.

Your story must be good quality. If you submit something mediocre, you may get voted down. Also, you’ll lose credibility. You don’t have to write the best resource known to man. Just write something your niche would find useful or interesting. Do some creative brainstorming. Look at your industry and find an untapped topic. Find humor in your niche. Hire a ghostwriter if you need to.

If people are submitting your content, by all means, contact them and thank them. These are the people that already like your stuff. Become friends with them.

Seek to build friendships with the popular users. These users are the ones that always seem to have a front page story. These users are active in the social media site. They’re more likely to vote. Also, I believe in some social media sites their votes have more weight.

Be patient. Like offline friendships, online friendships take time to develop. Stay motivated by focusing on the great reward.

Conclusion

All these tips have a common thread. The overarching principle is this: be an active participant in the social media community. Unlike other users who are borderline spamming, you want to engage the community. As you do this, people will respect and notice you. You’ll get more votes. Your site will be noticed more. And you’ll improve your site’s brand and your personal brand.

Do you have any other tips to add?

This is the power of social media: it allows you to bypass traditional SEO and link building. If you get on the front page of a social media site, you’ll get traffic. That traffic will lead to many links. And those links will lead to much better search rankings.

This means you won’t have to spend time emailing other webmasters for links. They’ll link to you when they see your content on Digg. You won’t have to buy links because the blogger who keeps seeing you on Netscape will put you on his blogroll.

Creating linkbait and promoting it on social media sites gives you the best ROI on your SEO efforts. Social media is the fastest and most cost-effective way to build links and get traffic. Here is a relevant quote from Andy Hagans of TropicalSEO. He’s hit the Digg front page over 100 times, so he knows the power of social media first hand.

From: Can You Compete with Industrial Strength Linkbaiting? (or, Why My Site Will Outrank Yours for [mortgage])

You may have great, relevant content. You may have 3 link ninjas working fulltime buying permanent links on trusted pages. You may have an authority domain from ‘99. You may have ranked for [mortgage] for the last 3 years and picked up a ton of ‘Filthy Linking Rich’ links just for being there.

But in the long run, you can’t compete with a solid link bait coming out every single waking day, 5 days a week, 51 weeks a year. Some baits flop. Many make the Reddit homepage or Delicious/Popular. One in 20 really hits it out of the ballpark and brings in 1,000+ links.

If you’re new to social media, it takes time to get a critical mass of friends who will vote for your sumbissions. But once you’ve built those friendships, you’ll have the best resource for getting traffic and links.