Build a Money Making Site in 30 Days

Find your Niche ~~~ Domain Name & Web Host ~~~ Create your First Page ~~~ Write your First Article ~~~ Free Website Templates ~~~ Create a Blog ~~~ Create Backlink Page ~~~ Write More Articles ~~~ Apply for a Google Adsense Account ~~~ Google Adsense Site Monetization ~~~ Write More Unique Articles ~~~ Create a Sitemap ~~~ Articles, Blog and Ping ~~~ Search Engine Optimization ~~~ Advanced Web Techniques ~~~ How to Build Backlinks ~~~ Build your List ~~~ Keyword Research ~~~ Handy Online Resources ~~~ Generate More Traffic ~~~ Affiliate Programs ~~~ Day Thirty, Congrats! ~~~ Get the Free Transcript ~~~ Start an Online Activity ~~~
The Author of these Tips ~~~ Build a Site in 30 Days Guestbook

You're going to spend your very first day thinking about the niche market you want to work with.

How to select your niche market.

The best way to choose a niche market to work with is to think about anything you like, a hobby you practice, a thing you have a passion for and find out as to whether you can write many articles about it.

What is a niche market?

A niche market is a small part of a big market. Here are a few niche market examples:

• Celebrities
• Cats
• Dogs
• Weight loss
• Cars
• Finances
• Fashion
• And many more

However, those niches are quite wide and the competition within these very same niches is huge. Therefore, and to ease the process of launching your very first money making website, you're going to narrow your niche. Let's take the example of home improvement. The home improvement niche covers a lot of different sub-niches. Here are a few examples:

• Kitchen remodeling
• Bedroom remodeling
• Bathroom remodeling
• Attic remodeling
• Etc.

You may find one niche market to exploit in those I listed above. However, once again, they're quite wide and you may have to narrow the niche even more. Let's take the example of "kitchen remodeling":

• Kitchen paintings
• Kitchen floors
• Kitchen cabinets
• Kitchen tables
• Etc.

You can even narrow these sub niches if you wish! The narrower the niche, the more chances you have to get your share of the online money pie. Naturally, you aren't going to choose a niche that doesn't work or that doesn't interest anyone but your neighbor.

Once you selected your niche market, you're going to look and see for affiliate programs that best match the type of market you decided to exploit. We'll cover this topic later, at the moment we'll start monetizing the site.

Photo: Work at Home Guide to Domain Names and Webhosting [Kindle Edition]

On your second day, you're going to find a good web host as well as a domain name for your new website. Most web hosts provide you with the opportunity to buy a domain name at the time you join them. Some even provide you with a free domain name for the time you remain their customer (HostMonster.com does that!)

How to choose your domain name?

It all depends on what you plan to do. Let's say that you'll just build one website related to one topic, then, choose a domain name that includes the name of the topic. Instead, if you make decision on treating a wide range of topics, then, I suggest to choose your own name as domain name or a name that relates to something you like and that can become your personal brand.

Example: if you plan to create websites dedicated to pets, choose:

http://www.allaboutpets.com
OR
http://www.yourname.com

If you want to cover more topics in the "dog" or "cat" category, then add use sub-domains: http://dog-care.allaboutpets.com to the domain name you choose; or extensions: http://www.allaboutpets.com/dog-care.

Once you have the domain name and the web host, you're ready to start building your first money making site. Beware: this can be addictive ;)

Photo: Adobe Dreamweaver CS5

1. The easiest way to create a website is by using a website builder software. If your host provides one, use it. A suitebuilder software guides you step-by-step through your site creation.

2. You can also use a simple HTML template (you can find free templates on the Internet on sites such as freecsstemplates.org) and work on it with Notepad (HTML editor) or NVU (WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get) editor.

Once you decided the tool you will use, then think about your site title as it will become the name of the file where you will upload all your pages.

For example, if your first website covers the dog-care category and if your website title is "Dog Care", then the folder name or subdomain where you'll upload your files will be "dog-care" or "dogcare" or "dog_care". Personally I prefer to use dashes or no space in file extensions.

Create your first web page and upload it in the main public_html directory of your hosting account. This page needs to be named "index.html", "index.htm" or "index.php" (depending on if you want to create .html or .php pages).

Photo: The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World

Now that your server is ready to start working, you're going to add your first batch of content to your new web page. It is crucial that your web page includes content before you jump on any further step in this course. So, you're gong to write an article that includes a minimum of 400 words. This article can be the presentation of your new site.

What you have to do with this first article is to be unique, useful and attractive so that whenever someone comes to read it, they want to come back to learn more. In this article, present yourself as an expert or at least as having such a passion for the site topic that people will want to listen to you and nobody else. Always be honest, there's no need to pretend to know things that you ignore.

On day 4 you'll gather the necessary information if you don't have it on hand and write the article. On the fifth day, you'll polish your very first article. If you're experienced and write like a pro, you can, of course, write more than one article.

Above all, make sure your article is unique, that its content can't be found nowhere else, therefore, that your article is useful for the potential visitors. If your article matches these criteria, it'll be indexed by major search engines quite quickly.

Blogging is the quickest and easiest way to start generate traffic to your writings. Therefore, you're going to set up your very first blog. I recommend to create a blog on Blogger.com platform as it's Google's platform and this will be handy for a future chapter.

Name your new blog with a name related to your niche site, write a first post that introduces your new blog and your new website. Include a link to your new site at the end of your blog post.

Here's a shorcut for having your site link included in all post you'll make on Blogger.com. Log into your Blogger blog and go to "settings", then click on "formatting" and scroll down to "Post Template". Type your site anchored link into the box and save your settings.

Then go to Feedburner and set up an account. Syndicate your blog feeds with Feedburner. Feedburner has been acquired by Google, therefore, I recommend to open a Gmail.com email address so that you can open all your next Google accounts with this very same email address and have all your info stored in one place.

Once your Feedburner account has been set up and that you created your blog feeds, go to Pingoat, type your blog name, blog link and copy/paste your Feedburner feed link, then check all the boxes and submit. Other sites will be informed about the update of your blog.

Each time you'll make a blog post, you'll go to Pingoat to submit your new blog post link.

Today, you're going to create your links page so that you're prepared for starting building links back to your website.

Create a new web page and name it "links.html" or "friends.html" or even "partners.html" - make sure to add the right extension. Do not upload this page yet. Instead, run a search on Google and look for site that cover similar topics to yours.

For example, if you own a site that talks through "electric coffee machines", then, find sites that cover coffee, coffee cups and other coffee related stuff. Open each link in a new browser window and look for their "partner" page. Write the link of each of these sites that allow patnership and save it on your computer. It'll be useful in the future.

From day eight to day fourteen, you're going to write articles so that you generate interest form major search engines and start establishing your expertise in your niche.

Day Eight

Because the articles you're going to post on your site must be unique, useful and human written, you have to gather information. Therefore, pend the day finding five subjects (i.e. Brand X model ABC espresso coffee machine, Brand Y model XYZ espresso coffee machine, etc.) to write on and then look for information about these five subjects, type the information on a notepad and save on your computer. Brainstorm a bit as you're also going to write a sixth article; which will be a general article related to your site.

There was a time I'd have suggested to use article directories that allow article republishing to fill your site with. Nowadays, these times are over and I definitely recommend to write all your articles yourself. If you have difficulties writing articles, pay Warrior Forums or Digital Point forums a visit, both have a section where you can buy articles or hire a ghost writer.

Day nine to day eleven

Start writing your five articles plus the sixth, don't rush, write useful and detailed articles. The best your articles, the more people will like them. You have three days to write your five articles. If you're an experienced writer, you can, obviously, write more articles.

Day twelve

Upload two of the articles you just wrote on your server. Make a post on your blog that introduces the articles - one blog post per article. Ping these blog posts at Pingoat.

Day thirteen

See above.

Day fourteen

Upload the last article, make a blog post, ping the post. Then, go to article directories such as ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, isnare.com, etc. and join them. Once you verified your new accounts, submit the sixth article you wrote about your new site. Remember to include a link to your new niche site in the resource box.

Photo: Google AdSense For Dummies

Google Adsense is the fastest and simplest way to make money online and, for this reason, you're going to apply for a Google Adsense account. In order to be approved for Google Adsense, you'll apply with your Blogger.com blog link. Blogger is property of Google and there are more chances to be approved through their own blogging platform.

As soon as you'll get your approval email, you'll set up the blog to allow Google Adsense ads to be displayed - just follow Blogger instructions (design tab).

Next, you'll log into your Google Adsense account and will create your first Adsense blocks to be displayed on your main website. I wrote a page about Google Adsense that might help you do this.

Tips to maximise your Adsense revenue:

• Embed your Adsense codes IN your content area (for example, let it float on the right or on the left of your text),
• Preferabilly use 250x250 or 336x280 sizes,
• Use colors that match with your site or simply use black and white ads (they must not look as a simple block of ads).

You may add up to three Adsense blocks on your page PLUS 1 Adsense Themed Unit.

Check your page title and meta description in order to have relevant ads on your page and change your page title to reflect exactly the topic of your page. Check your Adsense account to make sure your impressions count is greater than zero.

As a matter of fact, when you build a money making site, you need to constantly upload new articles; therefore, today an tomorrow, you're going to spend the days gathering information and writing one or two new articles that you'll upload on your server. You're also going to write blog posts and ping these blog posts so that blog and rss directories know that you added content.

Now that you wrote a few articles, you will create a sitemap. A sitemap is essential for any website and indexes all your links pages. You will thus create a new web page and add all the links of your sites on it (homepage, article 1, article 2, etc) ; add a link to your sitemap on each of your website pages.

Do not add Adsense codes on your sitemap as it does have no content.

Once it's done, go to: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com and create a ".xml" sitemap.

Upload the ".xml" sitemap on your computer and go to: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ (Google Webmaster Tools); register or login with your gmail identifier. Add the URL of your site, upload the sitemap and follow Google's instructions in order to verify your site. Your site is now ready to be indexed by Google.

At this moment, your site contains a homepage, some articles, a links page and a sitemap. You already received a certain number of visitors thanks to the articles you submitted to the articles directories.

Now that you have created your sitemap you will focus on your website content. Write two new articles. Once the first article is finished, upload it on your server, and write a blog post about it. Ping this post. Repeat the steps for the second article. Update your sitemap with the links to these articles.

Search Box

Add a search box to your site. Log into your Google Adsense account, select "search settings" and follow the instructions on how to create a search box. Copy the code and paste it on each of your web pages. I usually put large search box at the bottom of my pages and a small box on the top of the navigation menu. If your visitors make a search on your site and click on the result, you will earn money :)

Site Counter

Go to www.statcounter.com and apply for an account. Configure a new counter and copy/paste its code at the bottom of each of your web pages. You may choose to create a visible or an invisible counter (I usually use an invisible counter). You will then be able to track the number of visitors your site receives, its keywords activity and some other interesting things.

Articles Submission

Once it is done, submit an article to the articles directories and another one in two days. That will drive new visitors to your website.

Photo: Search Engine Optimization For Dummies

Remember day seven? Ok, so, it is time to use it and to add some partner links on your web pages. Make a search through your favorite search engine for sites related to the subject of your website.

For example, if your website is weight loss related, search for weight loss, weight loss surgery, weight loss programs, etc. websites.

Select a few of them (5 up to 10 ; not more) and add their link or your links page. It is important to add their link on your site before asking they link to your site. Some websites have a "link to us" or "links" page and you will follow their instructions to add your link on their page. Some other websites do not have this kind of page and you will have to contact the webmaster requesting a link back to your site.

Write a short email saying something like "Hi, I have a website with a subject similar to yours - short description of your site - and added a link to your site - your links page URL - and would appreciate a link back to mine, etc."

Wait for two weeks and if you don't get any answer, delete the link.

Depending on the competition in the niche you chose, a few or many people are coming to your site now. This is the moment to make them come back over and over again. This is the reason why you will want a mailing list.

In order to do this, you should provide them with a freebie (like a free report related to the subject of your site, of course) that your readers can download in exchange for their email address. For this, create a new page which you name "opt-in.html" or "free-report.html" and paste the code provided by your autoresponder provider. You'll have more information on how to do this if you visit How to build your list through giveaway events.

Then create your newsletter: write the articles yourself or buy PLR articles. The articles included in your newsletter must be related to your niche site.

Tip: Prefer to publish your newsletter as an extension of your site. Ex:
http://dogs.allaboutpets.com/newsletter/issuenumberX.html

It is time to add keywords on your website.

The keyword tool generally used by webmasters is "Wordtracker". I personally use Adwords Keyword Generator and "Keyword Elite". In this example, we will use "http://www.goodkeywords.com" as it is a free tool. Download it and install it. Let's continue with the Dogs terms...

So, type "dog" and then submit (always use the singular term in your keywords research).

The software returns a list of related terms ; the "count" column shows you how many times the keywords have been searched within the previous month. Scroll down the Good Keywords page to find keywords related to the subject of your site but with with less competition than for "dog".

You are not ready to compete against 100,000,000 other websites ;-)

Let's assume that the keywords you will use are:

• dog care
• dog supplies
• dog training
• dog collar
• dog types

You will need to focus on writing new articles on these keywords.

Photo: HTML, XHTML and CSS All-In-One For Dummies

Today, we're going to cover the best ways to drive traffic to your new site. Each time you write an article, you submit it to article directories, however, this isn't enough to generate traffic and build backlinks to your brand new website. For this reason you're also going to use other ways to build links back to your new online based business.

Onlywire is a social bookmarking service that will allow you to bookmark your new website article by filling a simple form. Once you'll hit the "submit" button, Onlywire will submit your bookmark to all the sites that are checked in your Onlywire account. But firstl, let's start by the beginning. Join http://www.onlywire.com and follow their instructions on how to set up an account, add their bookmark button on your all your webpages and start bookmarking your website using their one of a kind service.

Adding the Onlywire button on your site will allow people to share and bookmark your pages with their friends; which means more traffic for you.

Personally I bookmark the articles I submit to article directories such as Yahoo! Contributor Network (formerly Associated Content).

Generate traffic using forums

Another way to generate traffic and build backlinks to your site is by joining some related forums. So, if you build a site about electric coffee machines, join some kitchen appliance forums or coffee amateur forums and start posting. Make sure to set up your site link in your signature so that each time you'll make a post in the forum, it'll feature your site link too.

Make up to five posts per week (never spam a forum!) and make sure to not sell anything to your new online friends. Just write your thoughts, add your personal comments into an open thread, answer any question some might ask, etc. Be kind and make useful posts.

Use Web 2.0 platforms to promote your site

Another fantastic way to promote your site is to join some writing and publishing platforms such as HubPages and Click here to join Squidoo.. They allow you to build web pages on the topic of your choice for free and, by the way, earn some money to keep for yourself or to give the charity you best like. The only downside with these programs is that they can be addictive and you might find yourself spending more time building Squidoo pages than building pages for your own website. However, they're handy tools and really agreeable to work on.

Always make sure you play by the rules both on Click here to join Squidoo. and Hub Pages otherwise you might end up in their trash can or get caught in their spam filters. If you need help on how to build a Squidoo lens, check out For me a Good Squidoo Lens is...

Click here to join Squidoo.

There are many other ways to monetize your website! Now, you know that Google Adsense may help, however, affiliate programs can also work wonders in this matter. How do affiliate programs work?

It's easy as a pie! All you have to do is copy and paste their codes on to your web pages on which you publish related articles and drive traffic to them. Each time someone will buy a product from your page, you'll earn a commission. Naturally, you're going to make a point in featuring related products only otherwise your readers might wonder what you're trying to do and start questioning your expertise in the subject you cover.

As an example, if you build a site that relates to coffee machines, only feature coffee machines and coffee related products. If the article talks through coffee cups, then, feature coffee cups. If your article covers the last instant espresso machine from brand "Best Coffee Ever", don't feature automatic coffee machine from "Worst Coffee Ever".

When writing articles to be posted to your own site, you can also make use of things called "contextual links". What are contextual links? They're links placed in context via a special code; which is an HTML code. Here's an example of a contextual link:

"Welcome to our comprehensive resource about automatic home espresso machines."

When you click on the underlined words (electric coffee machine), you're brought to the merchant's online store. That type of contextual links are known for having a very high conversion rate; which implies that you should definitely make use of them. As with everything online, don't abuse of such links, of course.

Here's the way to create contextual links into an article that you plan to upload on to your web site:

<a href="your-link">automatic home espresso machines</a>

As you can see, the link appears like this automatic home espresso machines.You can get pre-made contextual links from your affiliate program provider such as Commission Junction, Amazon.com, Share a Sale, All-Posters, etc.