Building
Value on the Web
By: Aaron Wall
Tricks of the Trade
There are many SEO tricks which can help boost your
rankings, but for the most part they are continuously
changing. If you want to do search engine marketing
for a living it might be worth it to learn them, but
for the most part its not necessary
to learn any tricks.
The General Business Cycle
For a business to create great wealth it first has
to create great value. How I look at
the internet is that I can read about and test things
that interest me for a few thousand hours and then redistribute
these ideas quick and free. If it is something I am
interested in learning I tend to discount the value
of my time since I am just learning what I want.
Many people want instant profits. Generally it is not
possible to make long term profits which start today
unless you are busy learning and building a reputation.
Short term profits are possible, but my goal is long
term.
Every week thousands of people glance at my site and
hopefully can save a few minutes or hours. Thus the
overall return is time saved. If I save someone time
hopefully they will consider linking to me or telling
their friend about me. My marketing power expands as
third part votes add up.
Niche is Better
If you are starting a website as a hobby it is much
easier to pick a smaller market to
dominate. Some opposite examples:
- Marketing is an extremely large
category.
- Internet marketing in an extremely
large category.
- Even search engine marketing is
a fairly large category.
Some people have wanted to make an online Canadian pharmacy,
which can generate tons of revenue. The problems with
such an idea are:
- It is a super competitive environment.
- Many of your competitors will be spamming in various
ways making junk link rings and throw away sites.
By the time their current site gets penalized their
newest site will already be competing with you.
- The drug companies and doctors themselves will be
directing traffic and sales.
- Often times the person with this idea knows nothing
about drugs.
- Very rarely does this type of idea build any long
term value.
A better idea is to pick a drug or disease and become
the knowledge source for it. I prefer
disease, since drugs have patents on them which eventually
run out. Also, by only collecting data about a specific
drug it will make your information biased. Information
about a disease can be unbiased with the resulting solution
for the problem promoted.
The Indirect Route
The road to profits is sometimes an easier path if you
use an indirect route. Relative to the size of the web
there are not many unbiased topical directories
and resources. Those that do exist may sometimes be hard
to find. Some even discredit themselves greatly by selling
irrelevant ads. Simply put, its not that hard to be the
best in a focused topic that interests
you.
One of the biggest tips I have for most people is to
write out what you know in a non commercial
website. If you can place the text into small
palatable chunks you can create articles which are not
only well appreciated, but also easily syndicated. Using
this knowledge base and the popularity it brings you
will then allow you to more easily acquire links
to your future slick conversion-geared website.
An Example
I actually have had a few of my articles from my site
referenced by many other websites. Its usually not a good
idea to tell people what your future plans are, but I
will:
Another topic I am greatly interested in is mental
health and more specifically depression. From what I
have learned 5 HTP is an amazing supplement which can
help people overcome depression. If you look at the
5HTP.com website you will see that Dr. Murray is a moron.
He is advertising the 48 hour Hollywood diet at the
bottom of his page. This move is killing his credibility.
Hunting for good 5HTP articles I have found there to
only be about a dozen or so good ones which are easy
to find in search engines.
Recently I have purchased a half dozen books on 5HTP
and serotonin. After I get done reading the next 5 of
them I will put my knowledge down in web format
and be one of the top sources on the internet for 5HTP.
Becoming an Expert
For you to be able to really extract the desired profits
people will need to view you as an expert. Having articles
appear around the web will make you seem more like an
expert. In addition having articles on other sites which
link back to your home page in the tag line will give
you topical authoritative inbound links.
It is human nature to be skeptical. If independent
people say exceptionally kind comments about you (and
publish your work) then it is easier to accept the comments
as truth.
The biggest expense we all face in life is time. It
is something that you can not recoup. If a person is
willing to pay you $5 / hr they will likely be willing
to pay $50 or $100 / hr. if you have proven that you
can help save time.
The Payout
After you are well developed you can
decide to change your focus. While it is a good idea
to keep your content up to date you may decide that
it would be better to distribute your information
in a way that allows you to extract more profits.
You can create niche specific sites
which drive people to the desired action. In addition
you can reformat the knowledge or try new marketing
schemes. After you are beyond self sustaining everything
you do will only improve the future payout.
Eventually links just start showing up without you
asking for them. When that happens it is a fair assumption
that you are doing something really good (or really
bad). |
