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I do not like the idea of Minisites because they are only a few pages long, take quite some time to get ranked in Google and they will never ever have any brand recognition because they are a spammy. A Minisite is so called because it is just that (Mini) no following, no brand, no loyalty. I’m going to build a “Mini Affiliate Site” It will still be mini at first but I want to try and build a brand and loyal following all the things MiniSites do not have.

The last time I did this I got lazy, I built it, through it up and left it. I did pay for some crappy traffic service from a well known (spammy forum).

My last one detailed here- Find Keyword Rich Domains Fast then Build a Niche Mini Site

To make some sort of half decent living out of Minisites I feel you will need at least 10 sites. (in my opinion) this idea if you stick at it long enough should bring you a decent living (more than 10 sites would) but also a brand and community (worth more and more rewarding). In actual fact you should end up with a business not a spammy throw away website.

Step One:

Domain name - I’m going to use one I’ve had for quite some time building dust. I have a nice domain OapInsure other search terms searched for in this niche are:

“oap insurance”
“oap holidays”
“oap travel”

Note:

I’m targeting the over 50s whom I have read have problems getting insured so I hope to alliviate their problems by creating a forum for them to help each other and offer them Affiliated deals.

To build my community I’m using this Forum software Phorum makes a nice change to use this instead of PHPBB or Vbulletin (paid option). Open source, very basic with lots of scope for development and they seem to have good Support.

Make sure to have a goal in mind and mine is to build a community as I thought it suited this Niche. When I get into the SERPS (Google, MSN, Yahoo) I can then start to build up the users hoping to reach 500-600 visitors per day before I start to Monetize.

Forums are notorious to get going and like blogs can be a time and energy Zapper until you start to earn. Got the forum software uploaded and database all done, I have added General forum rules and Forum Topics. Now all I need is visitors to fill my Forum and help build content.

Popularity: 86% [?]

Popularity: 86% [?]

I’ve started a series about capturing attention in the overcrowded internet. I’m basing the series on the book Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Thrive and Others Die written by Chip and Dan Heath. This book has 6 great principles that will help your site stick in people’s minds. Today we’ll talk about the last principle, Story.

We were made to tell and hear stories. Think about the last time you hung out with a good friend. What did you both talk about? Probably you told each other stories.

When you think about it, our lives are just one big story composed of smaller “sub-stories”. I don’t want to get too philosophical but stories are very powerful.

It’s curious then that online businesspeople talk a lot about statistics, principles, rules, and metrics. These things have their place. However, oftentimes the story aspect of business is neglected. Here are examples where telling stories has impacted niches and businesses and their customers.

Examples

This US News article about Made to Stick shows how Nordstrom uses stories to improve their customer service.

To get employees to buy into the Nordstrom model, the company doesn’t just hold meetings telling floor workers to smile, or use abstract phrases like “world-class customer service.”

What Nordstrom does, instead, is spread motivational stories about “Nordies,” floor employees who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in serving customers. Tales like the Nordie who ironed a shirt so a customer could use it in a meeting; the Nordie who warmed up customers’ cars while they shopped; or the Nordie who wrapped gifts customers had purchased at Macy’s. PowerPoints end, says Dan: “An unexpected story has a chance of living on.”

In my gaming niche, tournament reports are very popular. They generate traffic and buzz. The most popular reports don’t only talk about playing in the tournament. They also mention other things like how the road trip went, meeting new friends, Taco Bell runs, finding a place to stay, flirting with girls, and doing general crazy activities. (My niche audience is mostly 15 to 25 year old males.)

There is some talk today about earning the customer’s trust. Stories help because they build trust. Stories force businesses to be more personable. They increase openness and transparency. People are more likely to buy from companies they are familiar with. Stories help increase that familiarity.

One of the reasons why I paid $79 to buy Aaron Wall’s SEO Book is because he seemed like a trustworthy person whenever I read his very lengthy about page. On this page, he writes about how he got into SEO. He includes details like almost being bankrupt and using his current profits to help feed a couple poor children every month.

I trust Yaro’s product recommendations more than other internet marketers because he told a detailed story of how he became an online businessman. In his story, I could sense that Yaro was someone that appreciated quality products and would only give positive reviews for those type of products.

Be more personable. Tell a story.

Feedback

What stories can you tell that would influence your niche audience?

Popularity: 7% [?]

Popularity: 7% [?]

I’ve started a series about capturing attention in the overcrowded internet. I’m basing the series on the book Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Thrive and Others Die written by Chip and Dan Heath. This book has 6 great principles that will help your site stick in people’s minds. Today we’ll talk about the 5th principle, Emotion.

Have you ever noticed how illogical we are especially when we spend money?

We buy products out of impulse because of the way the products make us feel. We buy stuff we don’t need with our credit cards. Ever heard of buyer’s remorse? When was the last time you made a pros and cons list before buying a product? When shopping, we use emotion more than logic.

Examples in Different Niches

Online businesspeople in the make money online niche are notorious for using emotion to capture attention and increase sales. They don’t talk too much about how much money you’ll make with their products. Instead, they say you’ll be able to:

• buy a bigger house
• buy a Lamborghini
• spend more time with your family
• take three months vacation in exotic locations
• travel the world
• fire your oppressive boss
• avoid your annoying coworkers

Notice how the things in the above list tap into the emotion more than simply promising a higher monthly income.

Webmasters in the weight loss niche don’t only talk about how many pounds you’ll lose with their products. They also talk about being able to impress the opposite sex, fit in your old clothes, and be confident in a swimsuit.

I’m planning to jump in the popular gaming niche with a new website. I could talk about helping my niche audience win more games and be a better player. However, to tap the emotion, I’ll write about having their name plastered all over the internet because they won a prestigious tournament. Also, I’ll talk about having their picture taken with the winner’s trophy.

Multimedia

Pictures tap into the emotion better than plain text. Think of the average landing page for a make money online product. Oftentimes they have pictures of luxurious houses, expensive supercars, and beautiful vacation spots. Also, videos work well too. The conversion rates for video are higher than just having plain text. Add audio and video to your site along with text and you’ll do a better job of tapping the emotion of your readers.

Feedback

What are some ways to tap the emotion of your niche audience?

Popularity: 7% [?]

Popularity: 7% [?]

I’m not sure if you know, but I really love forums - The Internet Has “Officially” Gone MAD! Safe to say Forums don’t make Money!

I was recently contacted by Nicu Zara of VumPost pimping his software that captures (scrapes, cough, cough) results from Yahoo Answers.

“I developed a software that captures questions and answers on “Yahoo
Answers” and then turns them into topics and posts for your forum.”

This information can be used by:
- forum owners: to boost forum posts and make users interact more
- writers: to discover hot topics to write about without having to do a lot of
research
- developers: market research

As luck would have it, I have an empty forum that I have never ever marketed (lazy). In the following video I show the software in action.

[youtube width="425" height="335"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Evlc9CYWk[/youtube]

Here is my forum after I used the software AuctionForum

I’m really in two minds about this type of software and to be perfectly honest it’s a 100% unethical way to build a forum. I’m sure however, lots of lazy forum owners will queue up to buy it!

Do you feel the same way, would you use this software or do you think it is very unethical?

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Popularity: 14% [?]

Popularity: 14% [?]

I’ve started a series about capturing attention in the overcrowded internet. I’m basing the series on the book Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Thrive and Others Die written by Chip and Dan Heath. This book has 6 great principles that will help your site stick in people’s minds. Today we’ll talk about the 4rd principle, Credible.

Credibility is especially important in the online business or make money online niche. If you haven’t made much money on the internet, it will be hard to convince people that your site is worth visiting on a regular basis. Yes, there are exceptions, but for the most part, the big players in the niche have proven that they can make money online.

John Chow is famous for his monthly blog income reports. In November, he made over $27,000. I bet many people have subscribed to and followed his blog because of his income reports.

My income is less than John Chow’s and I don’t have my own website. However, in the last couple of months, I’ve made all my income through the internet. I did freelance blogging and link building. And now I work full-time as a search marketer for a company with over 20 sites.

Being credible does not always mean having expert status. You can become credible through strategic networking. If an expert vouches for you, you instantly gain credibility.

Tim Ferriss was a virtual unknown before he wrote The 4-Hour Work Week. He had never written a book before. However, he gained a lot of credibility by befriending popular bloggers at conferences. Many of these bloggers wrote about him and his book. This helped his book become a top 10 bestseller on Amazon.

What have you done to gain credibility?

Popularity: 7% [?]

Popularity: 7% [?]

I’ve started a series about capturing attention in the overcrowded internet. I’m basing the series on the book Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Thrive and Others Die written by Chip and Dan Heath. This book has 6 great principles that will help your site stick in people’s minds. Today we’ll talk about the 3rd principle, Concrete.

Concrete is all about making your content very specific. Instead of talking in abstract terms, you should fill your content with many practical examples.

Concrete is important in grabbing attention because people remember practical, specific ideas much more than theoretical, abstract ones. This is why tutorials and case studies get links and do well on social voting sites. Tutorials and case studies are concrete in nature.

Donna at SEO Scoop says that an excellent way to get traffic and links to write a good tutorial. She gives these 2 tips to help your tutorial be even more concrete:

1. Use lots of photographs and/or illustrations. Document every step of the tutorial with a picture to illustrate the point.
2. Assume the reader knows nothing. Give them details about the process. Doing so helps the reader, makes your tutorial more linkable, and gives search engines lots of juicy text to chew on.

Here’s a good example of this type of tutorial. Vittorio Bosio wrote a guest post filled with pictures and practical steps for split-testing your AdWords ads in 2 minutes or less.

I wrote a case study about gradual promotion through blog posts. I was concrete by giving commentary on every post that promoted the product in question. My case study got a lot of stumbles, which led to a good amount traffic.

The 4-Hour Work Week became a best selling book because it had many concrete aspects. Tim Ferriss, the author, uses the term definition as the first step to achieving a 4 hour work week. He argues that the reason we don’t excel financially is because we don’t have clear, well-defined goals. In his book, he tells us to go further than having monetary goals. Instead, he first calls us to set lifestyle goals. For example, these goals could be:

• Have at least 2 months vacation every year to the Carribean
• Own a supercar
• Buy a big house
• Hire a personal cook
• Work 15 hours a week to spend more time with the kids
• Start an altruistic non-profit company

These type of goals are more concrete than monetary goals. Tim advises on coming up with our monetary goals by figuring out how much our lifestyle goals cost. He says we’ll have more motivation to reach those monetary goals because we’ve determined specifically how we’ll spend the money.

How are you being concrete in your online business?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Popularity: 6% [?]

I’ve started a series about capturing attention in the overcrowded internet. I’m basing the series on the book Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Thrive and Others Die written by Chip and Dan Heath. This book has 6 great principles that will help your site stick in people’s minds. Today we’ll talk about the 2nd principle, Unexpected.

Out of all the 6 principles, Unexpected is my favorite. It’s the most enjoyable to implement. There’s nothing like doing something that catches everyone by surprise. Unexpected is powerful because people remember what you did even after time has passed.

In this audio interview, Dan Heath gives the example of a Volvo commercial. This commercial starts out like many other family-oriented car commercials. There is a good looking car, smooth roads, great scenery, and laughing kids. The mood is perfect. However, the happy scene is rudely interrupted by another car crashing into the Volvo.

Totally unexpected.

Volvo used this unexpected moment to capture our attention. Then they pointed us to the safety features of their car.

How to Be Unexpected

Being unexpected doesn’t have to be a complicated thing. I see it as a simple two-step process.

1. Know the expectations of your niche.
2. Shatter those expectations.

Step 1 is crucial. I still don’t think most online business people know their niches very well. Therefore, there is a huge opportunity for those who are willing to research and immerse themselves in their niche.

Once you know your niche well, it’s relatively easy to come up with something unexpected. I feel like I’m familiar with these niches: blogging, SEO, online business, and internet marketing. With my knowledge of these niches, I tried to write posts that were unexpected. Here are 2 examples:

Onpage SEO: 7 Tips That Are Easy to Implement
This article was written on a blog about blogging. I felt this would be unexpected because bloggers, in my experience and research, think SEO is difficult and time consuming. Therefore, I picked a couple easy-to-implement but effective SEO tips. Someone submitted it to StumbleUpon and it got 24 stumbles.

Why Building One Site is Better Than Building Multiple Sites
Many internet marketers think the the best way to earn money is to build multiple sites. In this article, I gave a couple reasons why building just one site is better. It went viral on StumbleUpon and got a couple of links.

Feedback

When was the last time you did something unexpected?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Popularity: 6% [?]