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My Niche Site Challenge Kicks Off - My Strategy

While I have created different blogs before and this website, niche site is new to me. Though I have been reading a lot about it.

This challenge is to dare myself, help me learn and perfect a new online business venture, create new income opportunities and show my readers another profitable way to make money online.

If you're completely new to niche sites, then first read the article on niche websites introduction

My Niche Site Challenge Inspiration

In August 2010 Pat and Tyrone started a friendly challenge to build a profitable niche website, write about their methods on their blogs, including the niche they choose, and have their readers hold them accountable. I thought it was cool.

They get to stay inspired to make the site profitable (this part is not always easy), learn new things and their readers get a great resource on creating profitable niche websites. A sure win win.

Readers where also welcomed to join the challenge anytime they want. So I decided I would take part when I had the time, hence this challenge.

It was amazing to see the kind of success they achieved in a short time. Pat picked the keyword niche "Security Guard Training" (www.securityguardtraininghq.com).

And in about two months, he was on page #1 and position #1 in Google for the keyword, and now making a decent income from the site.

According to his last update he has made $908.80 so far. And recently an investor offered him $10,000 to buy the site, which he turned down. But if he was to sell the site himself, he can sell it for about $25,000!

Wouldn't you agree this is good business? Making such money in just a few months. That was quite an inspiration for me.

As for Tyrone, he is also on page #1 and position #1 of Google for his site keyword "3 day detox" (www.3daydetoxhq.com). Though he is yet to make an update of his income from the site, he is using different advertising options to monetize the site.

The Rules of The Challenge

The rules set by the masters of the challenge (Tyrone and Pat) are:

• Paid advertising will not be used to generate traffic. Traffic must be from the search engines and other referrals.
• And we must reveal our chosen niche to our readers.

The two rules I will like to add for my niche site challenge are:

• No using of Paid Tools for the challenge except for keyword research tool.
• To Rank on at least Page 2 of Google in 60 days for my choosen keyword. The challenge count down time starts May 24th, 2011.

I wish I can say No paid tools at all, because I really want a process that a completely new person to the internet can duplicate without spending any money.

But keyword research is the most essential part of building a profitable site (I dare to say), and completely relying on free keyword research tools can give rough data, which wouldn't help your site.

Pat used some paid tools in building backlinks to his niche site but he did most of the task himself. While Tyrone's paid team did all the tasks for him using several paid tools for his backlinking strategy.

Tyrone's strategy may be difficult to duplicate since you'll have to spend lots of money to follow his exact process. Though of course it makes things happen faster.

But all my building strategy will be done manually and with free tools except for the keyword research tool I mentioned before. This will make this strategy extremely stressful for me. But I can't wait to see how it goes.

And my strength will lie on the fact that I'm also helping new ones to learn how to build a successful niche site without emptying their pockets.

Pat and Tyrone didn't set a fixed time to rank on the first page of Google for their keywords during their challenge, so they just worked on their sites and told us when they ranked.

Like I said before, it took Pat about 2 months to get to position one of the first page of Google. And I am not sure how long it took Tyrone.

I think a challenge should have a deadline. It makes the participants work faster. For me I am hoping setting a deadline will inspire me to work faster.

Of course I won't lose anything if I don't meet the deadline, but if I do, it will mean alot!

But note that because I am targeting 2 months to rank for my keyword, doesn't mean I will stop working on the site after 2 months or stop updating you about it. The deadline is just to keep me on my toe.

So far 25 other persons have participated in the niche site challenge but only 3 I think kept to it and ranked for their keywords, this include Pat and Tyrone.

My Goals

Personal Goals

To rank on the first page of Google for a profitable keyword. This will be quite an achievement!

To create new income opportunities, because if I make this happen, it will definitely open new income opportunities for me. Such as:

Duplicating the process. Create new small niche sites, rank them in a short time and start making money.

Since succeeding in the challenge will suddenly make me an expert in building a profitable niche site, I'll write a book about it.

Look into virtual online real estate, which means create small niche sites, build backlinks to them, rank them high in search results, make few dollars from them and sell them.

I am also thinking about how to help my local market with all I'll learn along the process.

To improve backlinks and traffic to this site. A challenge like this will attract new visitors to this site if done properly.

I intend to write a press release about it and write an article about it and submit to directories.

And of course, if you benefit from the challenge which I am sure you will, you'll spread the content through social bookmarking sites and link to it from your site. It will be a great added resource for your site readers and friends.

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Other Goals

I am making the challenge public so that I can carry you along and we can all learn together what works and what doesn't from actually practising it.

There's no guide better than a practical one especially when it comes for free.

When to Expect Report

I will be publishing my report about the challenge for the next two months and afterwards as soon as there's something to report. There's no exact time frame.

I could write 3 reports in a week, as I'll be doing in the first week of starting the challenge, since there'll be a lot to tell, and at times, one report in two weeks or a month.

What to Expect from the Challenge

Full detailed articles about what I am doing in the challenge and the results I am getting.

I will be doing all the tasks myself. Finding a profitable niche to build a site around, writing content for it and building backlinks and getting traffic to the site.

Lots of lessons. If you ever want to build a niche site, the challenge will give you one of the best resources ever.

I won't be recording the time spent on the tasks. This is because for the next two months my focus will be on making the niche site profitable, getting it to rank on the first page of Google and writing you updates about it.

Remember I will not be outsourcing anything, so I am looking forward to a lot of work.

Moreover, knowing the exact minutes or hours it took me to do a particular task doesn't really help you, because it might take me several hours to build the content for a single article, while it could take you 30 mins or an hour.

What you need to know is the step by step process I took to get the result I will be getting. And I will do my best to document that for you.

The step by step process will be available in form of articles on this website as the challenge progresses. And at the end I will document it in a PDF so that those who'll rather have all the process in one file could download it, but not without buying me a drink :)

My Niche Site Marketing Strategy

The advantage of a niche site is that it's built around a small niche market, so competition for your keyword is also small, which should allow you rank high in the search engines faster.

Type of Niche Site

You could choose to build a site around a product that appeals to you, get it to rank on the first page of Google and make lot of sales. Or build a niche around an actual niche market.

I will be doing the later. Reason being that the tighter a niche is, the less profitable it will be. I don't want to put all the work into building and ranking a niche website only to be limited in the monetization options.

Size of the Website

The strategy I have in mind is going to make the site more of a mini authority niche site. Almost like what Pat and Tyrone did.

I will be building a niche site that will make money even without building a relationship with my traffic (when people don't subscribe to a list), through pay per click advertising.

And also I will include an email list opt in form right from inception. This is because a good email list will:

• Increase the value for the site should I decide to sell it in future.
• Make available a ready to buy prospects should I decide to write an ebook for the market.
• Allow me to build relationship with readers and suggest an affiliate product that I will make a commission from, every once in a while.

As a part of building backlinks and traffic for the site, I also intend to publish a free mini ebook for the market that I will encourage readers to spread. I'll talk more on this in a subsequent article.

Disclaimer for the Site Challenge

I am not in a challenge with anyone but myself. I do not guarantee that I will rank a niche site in 60 days. I just want to dare myself to see if I can rank a fairly competitive keyword on the first page of Google within 60 days.

I think anything more than 60 days doesn't require a genius.

Moreover Pat did his for about that time, hence I feel 60 days should be enough. Though this will depend on how competitive my keyword is to his and how much I am able to do alone using free tools.

So no one should hold me to any claim, if after 60 days I am yet to rank for the keyword I choose. I do not claim to be a pro in building a niche site and as a matter of fact I am not.

This is the first niche site I'll be building and the overall goal is to learn some valuable lessons in the process, know what works and what doesn't.

How about you Dare Yourself Too?

Building niche sites is a great income opportunity to look into. It takes times two or three of the work that goes into a normal site, but so is the result that comes with it.

You get ranked on the first or second page of the search engines results faster for your chosen keyword, get lots of targeted traffic and start making money within a few months.

Honestly it's a lot of work and it scares even me, especially since I'll be doing all the work and relying on free tools. But no venture no success. If I can dare it, why can't you?

Moreover some 9-5 jobs require more work for less reward.

So if you'll like to dare yourself, start making your plan, write about your process on your blog, website or web 2.0 sites (infobarrel, hub pages, ehow e.t.c.) or article directories, such as Ezinearticles.

Then notify Pat (use link above) and he'll link to your content from the hub page for the niche site challenge.

Have questions or comment about the challenge? use this link . Or better yet, add your comments below.

Read the next niche site challenge update:

Planning and Finding a Niche Market

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