Yes, I do have ideas for products that you can create online. I’ve created the following infographic to help kickstart your idea phase. Below the infographic is a more detailed explanation of each general idea.

(Note: If you feel you don’t have the necessary skills to create the product, but have a great idea, then it’s time to look at outsourcing the product development phase. You might be surprised at what you can hire people to do at a cost you can actually afford to pay).

You can embed this infographic on your own site or blog by copy/pasting the following code.

<p>
<a href="http://www.dazzlindonna.com/blog/making-money-online/site-ideas/online-product-ideas-infographic/">
<img src="http://dazzlindonna.com/images/dd-online-product-ideas.png" border="0" alt="Online Product Ideas" />
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<p>
Infographic by <a href="http://dazzlindonna.com/blog/">DazzlinDonna - Making Money Online</a>
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Online Product Ideas

Start with your own knowledge base. What are your interests and passions? Narrow down to the one topic that you know the most about, have the most interest in, and have the most passion for. Now think about creating a product (which may be a website, an online tool, a digital download, or a physical product) in that niche that fills one or more of the following broad areas.

Solve A Problem

The surest product “win” is usually the one that solves a problem. What’s your biggest pet peeve in the niche you’ve chosen? Can you solve it? Can you solve a physical problem people may have (get fit, grow strong nails, etc.)? Can you appeal to the group’s vanity by making them look better? Can you solve an emotional fear they may have? Can you solve a financial issue they have? Make some related chore easier? Make the normal products they use every day better? Remember that you even very small, seemingly simple problems can be huge if solved in the right way. You’re more likely to score a win by solving one very small, very specific problem than trying to tackle a huge tangled mess of problems.

Enable Giving

People love to give to others, especially if it is easy and unique. Think beyond the typical flowers, gift baskets, or e-cards. Can you create a product for your niche group that enables them to share congratulations, express sympathy, or show their love and friendship in a unique way?

Design A Playground

Everyone loves to have fun. Create a product designed for your target audience that is fun, allows them to enjoyably waste time, or enables them to share fun quizzes and memes with their network of friends.

Let Them Manage

Is your target group looking for a way to manage their niche data? Can you help them organize it? Can you design a product that will allow them to store and retrieve it? Search and find just what they need?

Accessorize

Create a product that plays off of someone else’s product that your target audience uses every day. Maybe you can create skins or themes for a virtual product, or cases and other accessories for a physical product. If your niche uses a particular online application, can you create an add-on product that enhances the original?

Facilitate Connections

Are your niche users having a hard time finding each other? Could they use a product that helps them connect for group collaborations? Can mentors find people looking to be mentored? Do groups interested in similar hobbies have a way to meet and share? Does your target audience need a way to find like-minded people to date? Do they need a tool to help them find jobs in the niche or buy/sell/trade with each other?

Data Virtualization, Visualization and Manipulation

Can you enable your audience to create their own mashups, tools, and infographics based on public or private data sets? Can you make it easy for them to create graphs and charts, or share case studies with their audience? Can you provide a way to let them explore geographic areas, go on virtual vacations, or visually travel to outer space by letting them manipulate geodata?

Make The Idea Unique To Your Niche

Take any of these ideas and find a way to make it work for your niche; your topic; your knowledge; your interest; and your audience. There are probably similar products already available, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come up with your own unique product geared towards your niche audience with your own personal twist. Keep it simple. Don’t create a product with 100 features. Create a product with one or two crazy wonderful features, or one that solves one small but mighty problem. Remember that this product may be an online application, a small online tool, an entire website, a downloadable, installable application, a digital e-book, a physical, manufactured product, or anything else that can be sold online. Also remember that there are vast resources to pull from, and nearly anything can be outsourced when necessary.

Data Resources

Public Datasets can be found many places including:

• Google Public Data Directory
• Data.gov Catalog
• NBER
• Public Health Data
• KDNuggets List
• Geodata

Remember, you can embed this infographic on your own site or blog by using the following code:

<p>
<a href="http://www.dazzlindonna.com/blog/making-money-online/site-ideas/online-product-ideas-infographic/">
<img src="http://dazzlindonna.com/images/dd-online-product-ideas.png" border="0" alt="Online Product Ideas" />
</a>
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<p>
Infographic by <a href="http://dazzlindonna.com/blog/">DazzlinDonna - Making Money Online</a>
</p>

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ebusiness, infographic, make money online, Online Product Ideas
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How many times have you seen the panicked tweets of people who’ve had their blogs hacked? Ever wondered what you should do if it happened to you? Today, I’m talking to an expert in dealing with hacked WordPress blogs, Michael VanDeMar. Listen, learn, and then be careful out there!

How He Knows

Donna: I know you have a popular blog post that describes how to completely clean your hacked WordPress installation. In fact, it’s even been linked to as a resource by WordPress themselves (twice) and by the well-known WordPress geek Lorelle VanFossen as well. My question is, how did you become so familiar with hacked WordPress blogs? How do you know how to clean one?

Michael: I went through a period a few years back where I was getting hacked every other month, and on multiple sites. Usually it was because I didn’t follow one of my bestest friend’s advice*, and would procrastinate on upgrading. As it is I learned by necessity how to quickly and effectively clean up a blog, and have used that knowledge to try and help others as well.

Protect Yourself

Donna: So, everyone agrees that the best way to prevent getting hacked is to keep WordPress upgraded to the latest version. What else should we all do in addition to that?

Michael: Up until the most recent versions of WordPress, every single version that was released wound up having relatively serious security holes in them. Now that WordPress itself seems to have plugged all of those, there are 2 main ways that a WordPress installation can get hacked:

1) Insecure hosting environment. Unfortunately this year some of the bigger names in hosting have had security issues, and almost always when they were discovered, it was WordPress that was attacked by the hackers, and in many cases unfairly blamed for the security holes. You should always investigate your host before buying a package, make sure that not only are they safe, but check out how they responded to problems in the past. Those that owned up to them and addressed the issue, instead of repeatedly issuing denials that anything was wrong, are probably the ones who take security more seriously.

2) A virus on a computer belonging to someone who has ftp access to the web server. Although this is more rare, it does happen. Certain FTP programs store their passwords in plain text, which means anyone who can read the files on the computer can see what those passwords are. If a person is using one of those programs, and their computer gets a virus, there are viruses that will read those passwords and ftp up malicious files to the host. The solution to this, aside from using strong virus protection (or switching from Windows to Linux), is to not store your passwords in your ftp program.

There are some plugins that can sometimes help catch certain types of hacks, and you yourself wrote a very handy script designed to check the last modified dates on files located on the server and alert you of any change, but unfortunately there are ways that hackers have found to get around most of those (although of course they still help in many situations).

What About DIY?

Donna: I know you often clean hacked WordPress blogs as a service. In what situations would someone need to hire you to clean their hacked blogs? Can’t they just do it themselves?

Michael: Yes, many people can, and the guide I wrote was intended to be a DIY type of instruction manual for people to do just that. However, one of the main attractions of WordPress in the first place is that it allows people with almost no technical knowledge to be able to build and maintain their own websites. With one-click installation and built in upgrade functionality, you don’t even have to know how to FTP files to your server to be able to have a WordPress blog. Cleaning a blog (at least, cleaning one properly) involves actually going into the sql and looking inside the php files themselves. For many people that is unfamiliar territory that they would rather leave to a professional. Plus, getting hacked is scary. Some people who might even have some basic web development knowledge feel better having someone who is more familiar with the ins and outs of dehacking a website handle the job.

Back Door Access

Donna: Ok, I’ve actually been asked this question a few times, so I thought I’d let you answer it here. If I do get hacked, can’t I just upgrade my blog and everything will be ok?

Michael: Unfortunately in most cases that will not help the situation. When hackers get into a WordPress installation they usually modify more than just the core WordPress files, which is the only thing that gets overwritten when someone performs an upgrade. Theme files and plugins will get extra code injected into them, whole new pages that act as back doors to the site will get added, and the database will have malicious code inserted into it. The only sure fire way to make sure that everything is good is to start with a blank slate, and rebuild the files, retaining and carefully scanning only those files that cannot be gotten from fresh, clean sources.

Do The Happy Dance

Donna: Do you do a little dance when satisfied clients tweet how great you are?

Michael: Yes.

It’s Not Your Momma’s Cleaning Service

Donna: Tell us about your hacked blog cleaning service and how someone should get in touch with you if they need to hire you.

Michael: If someone does have issues with cleaning their blog, or has hired someone else to do it but still keeps getting hacked, I am available for hire to do cleanups. When I do perform cleanups myself, in most cases they are complete wipe and reinstalls, as I suggest doing in my guide, retaining only those elements that can’t be replaced with fresh downloads (the uploads folder, customizations to a theme, and the database). For all of the elements of a hacked site that I do retain, I carefully scan them by hand and then put the blog back together in it’s original condition. There are many, many places that hackers can hide malicious code in your installation, and none of the automated or scripted solutions out there will find them all. When I scan by hand, I don’t just look for specific lines of code, I look for broad matching patterns in all of the places where back doors and virus droppers can be hidden. I have written some tools to help me with this, so I can be both thorough and relatively quick at the same time, but I still need to visually examine the results to be able to determine what is malicious versus what is simply suspicious.

I actually finally added a contact form on my blog. If anyone is interested in my services, the contact form on my blog is the best way to get in touch with me.

Care To Share?

Donna: Is there anything else you want to share with us? About WordPress hacked blogs or the meaning of life, even?

Michael: I can’t think of anything for this one.

Disclaimer

Donna: Disclaimer: Michael is my best buddy, so yeah, that may make me favor him, but what it really means is that I know his work. I’ve seen firsthand, many times over, how he painstakingly makes sure he misses nothing. He spends much more time being careful to ensure that every single detail is handled than anyone I’ve ever met. So if I tend to favor his work, it’s not just because he’s my best buddy – it’s because I know my best buddy’s work so well. That, I believe, is the best kind of endorsement.

* “bestest friend” = me. Why does my advice go unheeded so often, and for so long? Don’t answer that!

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Post tags: hacked, WordPress
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Deciding To Change

Over time, my interests changed, and I subsequently sold SEO Scoop. I’d decided that I wanted to center my work days around the more general topic of making a living online, and I came to the conclusion that this was the place to discuss that topic. The problem was, I wasn’t sure how to move from posting about punks who knock down mailboxes, and momma birds attacking me when I got too close to her babies, to the conglomeration it has become – how to make money online.

I didn’t want to turn off all my regular visitors, but I knew that at least some of them came here because they enjoyed my take on everyday life. (Most of those were extended family members and I knew they wouldn’t really be interested in hearing what I have to say about ebusiness). On the other hand, I also knew that many of my regular visitors were people who had found this site because they had been regular visitors of SEO Scoop, or knew me from the SEO world somehow. I assumed at least some of those visitors would be happy to hear my thoughts on ebusiness.

Where To Engage Those Loyal Visitors

Around this same time, social networks were starting to reach the point where even my not-so-technical family members were starting to participate. That’s when I realized that I could continue to share my daily oddities with the people who wanted to know those kinds of things by simply participating in the social networks where they hung out. (I’m also considering using something like Tumblr for a mini-personal blog but I haven’t done that yet).

So, knowing that it was inevitable to lose some of my visitors, but that I could still keep in touch with them elsewhere, I began the transition here from a personal blog about my life, to one that is focused on ebusiness. How did I actually make the transition?

The Actual Process

• I changed my template from a more laid back one to a more professional one.
• I slowly started making more blog posts about ebusiness and less about my personal life
• I began creating more and more ebusiness-related categories, and started consolidating the personal categories into a new parent category called Life.

If you really believe you’ll lose most of your regular followers, and don’t want to engage with them elsewhere instead, then it’s time to have some one-on-one conversations with them. Ask them if they would stick around even if your posts became less personal. If they say yes, try to come up with a compromise solution. Maybe you can have a private section of the blog devoted to the personal side of your life. Perhaps you can blog once a week in that private section, and only those visitors that you’ve made arrangements with ahead of time, are allowed into that private section. That would be what I would personally do in that situation. Your regular visitors would probably appreciate being a part of a private community like that. I’m not sure what the best way would be to actually create a private section, but I assume there’s some kind of plugin out there to handle this.

My Ideas, Your Ideas

So interacting with users on other social networks is one idea to keep that connection with regular visitors after such a major transition, and a private area of the blog just for those visitors is another idea. Of course, you could always just start a new blog, but that’s the obvious choice, and isn’t really the point of this post. I’ll bet there are other great solutions out there that I haven’t thought of. Do you have any ideas to share with those who are thinking of transitioning a personal blog to a business blog? If so, please share in the comments below.

This post is part of the Big Girl Branding / Blogs With Wings carnival created to find out “how to best go about taking a simple blog and turning it into a business blog without it being a turnoff to the readers. What would you do to turn a blog into a business platform without alienating the readers and maintaining your blog’s integrity?” Since others will be answering this same question, they’ll be adding to the ideas, so go get their solutions as well. Between all those participating, the right solution is probably out there.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Things I Like About The Site

1. Giant phone number in the header. You can’t miss that call to action, now can you?

2. Map to the location to make it easy to find them – again right there above the fold, and in your face.

3. Menu that can be downloaded and printed out – again displayed prominently.

4. News feed, showing what’s going on, when they’re closed, what new items are available, etc. is great.

5. Reviews are great. That always makes a new potential customer feel more comfortable about ordering from you. Prominent position; good job.

Things I’d Change

1. Break up the paragraphs of text on the home page. Use headings for emphasis. For example, I’d use a big heading such as “Why People From Lancaster, Calgate and Morecambe Love Us, and then explain about their quality meat and fresh produce. A sharp photo of that high-quality food wouldn’t hurt either.

2. The ingredients list is a little weird. While I am a fan of tag clouds, it doesn’t make as much sense in this situation as it does in others. Clicking an ingredient takes you to a page showing the various meals offered that use that ingredient. It’s “kinda cool” but “kinda odd”, you know?

3. Hours of Service is preceded by a heading that says “Oriental Cuisine”. Huh? The heading should say “Hours of Service” or “When We’re Open” or something related. Sure, they do serve oriental cuisine, and that should be somewhere – but just not as the heading over the service hours. I’d also expect those hours to be a little more noticeable.

4. Subscribe for Offers list signup is a good idea, but I’d like to see a little more explanation to really convince the visitor to sign up. What kind of offers? Sell me on the really great deals I’ll get right in my email inbox, if only I’ll let you have my email address.

Summary

All in all, I really like the way this site has presented nearly everything I’d want to know right on the home page. I don’t have to work hard to find the information I need. My only real beef is that they could do a slightly better job of making a few things stand out, and really sell me on how awesome they are. But I like the site, and if I didn’t live 4,422 miles away, I’d place my order right now.

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Let’s Define “Content”

Content could be an outstanding article or blog post, but it can also be any number of other types of content. Here are a few examples:

• Infographics
• Widgets
• Online Tools
• Videos
• Incredible Images
• Presentations
• Podcasts
• Mashups

What Constitutes “Exciting Content”?

Think of exciting content as equivalent to “linkbait”. Exciting content is something that people will naturally want to link to, stumble, tweet about, etc. Exciting content is a level above standard blog posts or articles. It inspires users to share.

Typical Excuses For Not Creating Exciting Content

• I can’t think of anything to create.
• I don’t have the skills to make anything really cool.
• I don’t have time.
• I can’t afford it.

No Excuses – Take The Challenge

For every excuse, I can probably come up with a counter-argument to nullify the excuse.

Can’t think of anything to create? You haven’t really devoted time to thinking about it then. Inspiration can be found everywhere. Start with something you’ve unsuccessfully tried to find on the Internet (related to your site’s niche). It doesn’t exist? Create it! It exists, but is missing something? Create a better one!

You don’t have the skills needed to create it? You have several choices here.

1. Learn the skill. It will probably be useful to you many times in the future.
2. Outsource the project. These days, there are thousands of people with the skills you need waiting for the opportunity to use them for your project.
3. Barter or trade services with someone.

You don’t have time? If someone guaranteed 100,000 interested new visitors to your site today, would you find the time? Of course, there are no guarantees for traffic, but most people are pretty good at squeezing something into their day if the effort seems worth it. Creating exciting content usually falls into that category.

You need to outsource, but you can’t afford it? You might be surprised at the number of things you can buy for just a few bucks. Fiverr.com comes to mind as a prime example, but you can also have amazing things created at freelance sites for shockingly small amounts of money. Of course, look for signs that the freelancer is honest and produces good work. All of the good outsourcing sites allow clients to rate the freelancers’ work, so it’s not hard to find someone with a good reputation.

Commit Right Now

Many website owners just sort of flounder through each day, tackling tasks on a whim, or in between Facebook and Twitter socializing. I challenge you to reverse that trend today, and make a commitment right now to start creating an exciting piece of content. Begin the process. Think about what is needed. Think about how you can share information in a new, exciting way. Decide what to create and begin the process to make it happen. Now. Yes, right now. Grab a sticky note and write it down as a task.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: linkbait
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DOH! (Can you see my forehead hitting my desk right about now?)

Luckily, it’s only been a week or two (who remembers) since I uploaded the new site, so I quickly looked through the checklist once I remembered I had it. Want to know what I noticed? The same 5 things I almost *always* forget to include were the ones I forgot to include this time as well. Oy.

Ok, so, just in case there’s some kind of weird synergy between you and I, and you always forget the same 5 things when you create a site, here’s my abbreviated checklist (which of course is nowhere near as comprehensive as the one I listed in the first sentence of this post).

Robots.txt file

A default robots.txt file that allows search engines to index every page should look like this:

User-Agent: *
Disallow:

Actually, if you just want everything indexed, there’s really no need for a robots.txt file, since “Index Everything” is the default if robots.txt doesn’t exist. I usually include one anyway, just to cover all my bases. I often follow the “just in case” method of site building.

Don’t get confused and accidentally add a / after Disallow: If your robots.txt says Disallow: / (note the /), then you will be preventing the search bots from indexing your entire site. Very very bad.

There are lots of different things you might want to exclude with a robots.txt file, but here’s the most common (sample directories, substitute yours as needed):

Exclude certain directories

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /tmp/
Disallow: /junk/

You can generate a custom robots.txt file with a tool like http://tools.seobook.com/robots-txt/generator/ (Note that this tool will automatically default to Allow Everything, as soon as you load the tool).

TIP: Your robots.txt file MUST be in your top-level web (root) directory, not in a subdirectory.

For more info about what a robots.txt file is all about, go to http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html.

XML sitemap

In some ways, an XML sitemap is exactly the opposite of a robots.txt, in the sense that it is designed to make sure the search engines know which pages on your site you want them to index. It provides more information than just a list of URLs, however, such as giving search engines hints as to which pages are more important to you than others.

It’s not stricly necessary to have an XML sitemap. In most cases, the search engines will get around to indexing all (or most) of the pages you list at some point. However, any time you can exert some bit of control (or at least give strong hints) over your site’s inclusion in search engines, you should take advantage of it.

To read more about sitemaps, check out the site that Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft collaborated on at http://www.sitemaps.org/

If your site is powered by WordPress then just go download this plugin, and the job of adding a sitemap will be greatly simplified.

If your site isn’t WordPress-based, then one of the XML sitemap generator tools should work for you.

Custom 404 page

Don’t trust your visitors to stick around if they land on the generic 404 – Not Found page. Give them a custom error page and gently lead them to other areas of your site that might be useful to them.

To create a custom 404 page for WordPress blogs, simply edit your theme’s 404.php page template. The default WordPress theme has a 404.php file, but not all themes have their own custom 404 error template file. If your template has one, it will be named 404.php. WordPress will automatically use that page if a Page Not Found error occurs. Just edit it in your admin (Appearance / Editor) and include links back to your home page, your archives, your search box, etc. For more details, go to http://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_an_Error_404_Page.

To create a custom 404 page for non-Wordpress site that has a hosting account that uses Cpanel, login to cPanel and click Error Pages, under the Advanced block. Select the domain you want to create a custom 404 page for, and click the type of error page to edit – in this case, 404 (not found). Insert your own custom HTML code. The changes will be applied after you click Save. Here’s a screenshot of what my cPanel shows for the Error Pages section in my hosting account.

Favicon

It’s really easy to create a favicon for your site (the tiny little graphic that shows up when you bookmark a site). Just take any square image (like a square portion of your logo, for example) and run it through a favicon generator like this one. Place it in the root folder (where your home page is). Then add the following code to the head section of your pages.

<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.ico">

Analytics code

I think just about *everyone* forgets to add their analytics or stats code to their new site at least once. I forget every time! Anyway, whether you are using Google Analytics, Clicky Web Analytics or any other stats application, don’t forget to find the directions for your analytics code, and place it where it belongs (usually in the head section or just before the end of the page).

Now, if I *still* forget those 5 things next time I create a new site, just hit me over the head with either this post or the Web Design Checklist, ok?

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Post tags: Robots exclusion standard, Sitemaps, Web analytics, web design, Web Design Checklist
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Those who know me well, know that I have new site ideas nearly every day. Although I don’t act upon every idea that floats through my head, I do act upon quite a few of them. Occasionally, I’ll start a new site just on a whim, but I at least “try” to be sensible about it before starting one. Essentially, the smart thing to do before I waste time starting a new site is to determine several things:

1. Can the site make money – either while I own it or from selling the site later?
2. If the site can make money, am I knowledgeable enough to create the site, and am I interested enough to want to do so?
3. Finally, how hard will it be to compete in this niche?

This post will only concentrate on that last question – How hard will it be to compete? The competition level will determine if I have the timepower and manpower to make the effort worthwhile for me. If the competition is so tough that it would require a massive amount of time, energy, personnel, or money, then I may decide that it’s just not worth pursuing. If it’s still worth pursuing, even with a huge amount of competition to face, then at least I know what an uphill battle it will be – and I can prepare for it accordingly.

Each niche is different, so some may require more extensive research than others. Still, most niches can be scoped out pretty quickly with just a few statistics gathered. A quick glance at the top ranking sites within the niche I’m contemplating entering will tell me if I even want to do further research or not.

There are five main criteria that I check in my initial competition investigation.

1. Number of sites with main phrase in title
2. Site size
3. Number of Backlinks
4. Site Age
5. Unanswered content opportunities

I generally compile the data for the first four criteria manually for each of the top 10-20 competitors into a spreadsheet. (Actually, the first criteria is an overall number, and not something that gets calculated for each competitor). Once all the data is lined up, just a quick glance at the numbers gives me a good idea at what type of battle I’m going to be facing.

1) Number of sites with main phrase in title

To find out the number of sites that have the main phrase in the title, simply do the following search in Google:

intitle:”your main niche phrase”

So, for example, if you were thinking of creating a site that was all about the latest fashion styles in rubber boots, you would run a search in Google like this:

intitle:”rubber boots”

When I ran that search, it returned 196,000 results, which means that nearly 200,000 pages have that exact phrase in the title of the page.

Now to contrast that number, let’s say you were thinking of doing a site on the history of angels. Run this query:

intitle:”history of angels”

That query only returns 372 pages with that exact phrase in the title of the page. More than likely, the history of angels niche has less competition than the rubber boots niche has. Of course, that’s only one metric, so that is still just a quick guess, and it doesn’t tell me anything about the top competition. It only gives a general idea of how many people might be targetting this particular niche. Now I’d move on to gather more stats about the top competitors in the niche.

2) Site size, number of backlinks, and site age

The data for the size of the competitors’ sites, the number of backlinks each competitor has, and the age of the competitions’ sites can be obtained in any number of ways, but Firefox plugins such as SEO for Firefox or Search Status are usually the easiest. I use Chrome as my main browser these days, and SEO Site Tools is the best Chrome extension for gathering this information.

There have been good tools I’ve used in the past that unfortunately are no longer available, so I generally stick with the tried and true method of gathering the stats manually and analyzing them in a spreadsheet. Having said that, there is still one free tool that I’ll occasionally use to gather some additional stats.

NicheWatch lets you enter a keyword phrase and optionally your url. Submission then returns the top 20 URLs ranking for that phrase and attempts to include the following data about each:

• Backlinks to the domain in Yahoo.
• Backlinks to the webpage in Yahoo.
• Pages Rank of domain.
• Pages Rank of webpage.
• Keyword/Keyphrase occurrences on webpage.
• Pages indexed of domain in Yahoo.
• All in Anchor Rank of domain in Google.
• All in Title Rank of domain in Google.
• All in Text Rank of domain in Google.

(Note that not all of this data gets returned, with some columns being empty. So the tool is no longer perfect, but it’s still a pretty quick way to get at least some info).

All of these methods and tools return data that isn’t perfect. Search engines and tools often fail to give us perfectly accurate numbers. Still, when taken with a large grain of salt, and used just as a general overview, the numbers can give me a pretty good idea of what kind of competition I’ll be facing if I decide to start a new site. And really, a “pretty good idea” is much better than just starting a new site “on a whim” without any research done at all. I’ve done both, and the times I’ve gotten a “pretty good idea” have usually resulted in much more success.

But wait! I’ll bet you’re wondering about that last criteria that I haven’t touched upon yet, aren’t you?

3) Unanswered content opportunities

The fourth criteria for analyzing competition is that of unanswered content opportunities. Since this requires a completely different method of research, I left it for last. There aren’t any easy tools to help determine what the competition is for this aspect. This requires that I simply investigate top sites as thoroughly as possible to determine what they may be missing. What content haven’t they covered? What are they lacking? What content can I provide that no one else provides? If I can come up with some good answers to this, it may not matter how competitive the landscape is – I may be able to knock them all out of the running by giving users what they can’t get anywhere else.

(Hint: A good place to find content ideas that people actually want to find are the various Q&A sites such as Yahoo Answers. People are looking for answers to questions about your niche. Is the top competition in your niche giving them the answers they seek? If not, you should!)

4) So What Numbers Are You Looking For?

Sorry, but that’s not a question I can really answer. What you consider to be too competitive might be completely different than what I consider to be too competitive. Over time, with some experience under your belt, you’ll come to your own determination of what numbers you’d like to see and be able to “draw the line” at whatever point those numbers exceed the comfortable competitive point that you establish for yourself.

Your turn now

That’s how I quickly decide if I should tackle the competition in a niche. Do you do anything differently? Do you gather different stats? Do you get more detailed information, rather than relying on quick info like I do? Should I be more precise before jumping into a niche? Tell me what you think.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: competitive analysis, niche
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We won’t call them out publicly but lately we’ve noticed that some large websites with household names run really slowly, primarily due to the large number of images they feature. What happens to the really big guys can happen to all of you – your sites can be slowed down and that produces a real catch-22: a larger number of quality images means your visitors are likely to spend more time on your site, but the slower load time might frustrate them into clicking away.

The answer might be to use an image hosting site that will decrease the bandwidth you use and speed up your site significantly. Some of these sites are free, some require paid subscriptions, but all are worth a look. Here’s a list of the top 10 image hosting sites that will let you have both a better looking site and one that continues to run quickly.

1. Photo Bucket

This is one of the oldest photo hosting sites and they have continued to upgrade and innovative in order to keep ahead of their upstart competitors. The free subscription allows 1500MB of hosting with the ability to post, share and link to them all with ease. Load from your URL, email, or phone and share videos and albums or create slideshows. Professional paid accounts are available as well.

2. Flickr

Flickr leads the way in ease of use and offering the best photo management tools available. Their sharing is unmatched and delivers the ability to seamlessly provide photos and videos to all of your site visitors in an interactive format that will enhance their experience, and that’s always a plus. Like the above, free and pro accounts are both offered.

3. Smug Mug

This is a paid site all the way but many users feel they easily get their money’s worth. Unlimited storage, no ads or spam, and great tools to make your images and HD videos very accessible are just a few of the features that make Smug Mug currently one of the most popular image hosting sites. The new iPad app is a winner.

4. Image Shack

You can upload your images and video to Image Shack with any mobile or online device, so your site can boast the most current shots you’ve got. In addition, all file formats are supported with good editing capabilities. The 100 MB/hour limit is new, but won’t affect most users. Handy extras include image tracking, a browser toolbar for Firefox and IE, bulk uploads and an iPhone app. The service is free and highly rated.

5. Free Image Hosting

More exciting than its descriptive name implies, this service operates on dedicated Linux servers with pretty substantial bandwidth. It’s not the fastest but it is free, easy to use and allows you to manage a good-sized portfolio of images and videos.

6. Shutterfly

PC magazine likes Shutterfly and so do we. It is a professional image hosting service that offers unlimited uploads and great usability. Excellent speed and quality are the hallmarks of the service.

7. TinyPic

A favorite of bloggers and affiliate marketers, TinyPic features easy to use organizing and editing tools that allow you to quickly upload pics and videos to your blog, social networking sites and eBay. It’s a freebie.

8. Pic Tiger

This completely free service is perfect for users with lots of images they want to share or host remotely. It also offers easy editing tools and allows you to produce thumbnails, resize, create and arrange albums, and send your images anywhere you want them to go.

9. All You Can Upload

There’s plenty to like here, beginning with the obvious. This free service allows unlimited uploads though it supports .JPEG and .GIF formats only. Load files that are as large as you want them to be and leave them up for good.

10. Image Venue

Here’s another free site with unlimited upload, storage and bandwidth opportunities. No registration is required. The only limitations are that the file must be a .JPEG and the maximum size is 1.5MB for each.

Most users will get by quite nicely with a free site for their image hosting, so check out those first. Whether they will do or if you need a professional account, the improved functionality and speed of your site will be recognized by your regular visitors and appreciated by new ones. Every step you take to improve your site can be counted on to produce gains in getting your visitors to respond.

James is a writer and product analyst at Cartridge Save where he reviews and compares ink cartridges and other office supplies.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Flickr, Image hosting, Image Shack, ImageShack, James Adams, Photobucket, Shutterfly
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© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: niche, themes, WordPress
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If you plan to start a new site, or you plan to beef up an existing one, I recommend going full tilt with a plan that fully fleshes out the nitty gritty details of the content you’ll be creating. No matter how daunting such a plan might seem to be on the surface, once you break it down into pieces, it really isn’t that difficult to do. Give yourself a week, and I bet you can create an incredibly complete, and massively impressive content plan. I’ve done it in the past, and I know how well it works. I decided to summarize it here so you could implement your own version of it as well.

I recommend coming up with a name for your plan. I won’t recommend one because it should be personal to you, but think of names such as The Ninja Plan, or The Winners Plan, or The Plan To Beat All Plans! Whatever you decide, make it a name that gets you pumped up and ready to make it happen. For now, I’ll just call it The Plan.

The Plan

Strategically and systematically create content that does one thing and one thing only – leads the user to take an action that will increase income.

The Plan Breakdown

1. Create a minimum of ___ pieces of content per week. Content may be written, audio, video, infographic, etc. I recommend no fewer than 2 pieces of content per week. Whatever you decide, make a note of the number and stick to it.

2. Content will be created as far in advance as possible, and scheduled to publish on future dates.

3. Most, but not necessarily all, content will be created for your own site.
Some special content should be created for placement on external sites; either as guest posts or in ezines, article directories, etc. These pieces of content will always be high quality, but will always leave the reader knowing that there is more information she can find on the subject if she follows the link back to your site.

4. In all cases, main content will consist of either one of two generic types:

a. Topic Intro. This content introduces the basics of a topic to the reader.

b. Topic Blueprint. This content gives the reader detailed “how to” instructions that expands upon the Topic Intro already published. Topic Intros may lend themselves to only one blueprint, or may lend themselves to various blueprint branches. Regardless, always publish the Topic Intro content first, and follow up with the Topic Blueprint content immediately afer, spread out over a week or several weeks, but in a continuous flow.

5. All main content will lead the reader at some point to a call to action. This call may be subtle or not. Topic Intro content is often more subtle in its calls to action than Topic Blueprints are. Either way, by the time a user has absorbed all of the content surrounding the Topic, she should be seriously considering acting upon whatever call to action the content has led up to. That call to action may differ from topic to topic.

Example 1. Did the Topic Intro explore the best areas of a local region to find schools of largemouth bass? If so this topic intro content may be subtly leading the user to visit your local baitshop that is conveniently located next to a lake known for large populations of bass.

Example 2. Did one of the Topic Blueprints teach the user how to best catch a largemouth bass? Then perhaps the calls to action included buying the perfect rod and perfect bait to make that happen, with the ability to buy those items immediately. (Note that the products may be your own or they may be products that you recommend as an affiliate).

6. The majority of content created should be “main content” which has the topic focuses listed above. Some “filler content” is allowed, however, which may be only tangentially related to the main content topics. This filler content may include personal and social related material that helps create connections with the audience, or it may be material that reaches out to industry leaders by extending the conversation of content they’ve created. This filler content will very likely veer from The Plan in that it will probably not lead the user to take an action that will increase income. It will, however, provide support in some way for the main content, or for creating subactions such as generating traffic, interest, or networking. In many cases, this filler content will be reactions to current events or recent content discovered elsewhere, so it will not be created in advance, and will not be part of a schedule. Although it is usually created spontaneously, the act of seeking out tangentially related topics to connect with is part of a regularly scheduled activity. Spend at least one day per week looking for external related sources of fresh content that can become a source of filler content for you.

Putting It All Down On Paper

Spell it out. Plan in advance. Write down a list of all the main topics that you plan to cover. Break those topics down into subtopics and determine what kind of intros and blueprints each topic and subtopic can logically use. Rearrange as necessary if some topics should be covered before others. Once your list is fleshed out far in advance, add dates to each one so you know what content needs to be created by what date. I like to plan ahead for at least 6 months of content, but a year’s worth is even better.

Make It So

Now that you’ve got an outline of all the content that you’ll be creating, it’s time to make it so. Start creating, but remember to always keep The Plan in mind when you create each main piece. Strategically and systematically create content that does one thing and one thing only – leads the user to take an action that will increase income.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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