My Cheap New Laptop Parade

Last Update: August 03, 2010

From my 100Blogsin365Days blog. Please disregard the affiliate links. They're not meant for my WA buddies--I copied and pasted this from my most recent article today for those who've expressed interest.  I'm trying to document the process in the hopes that some of this will be helpful for those who are trying to launch similar projects....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On to Niche Blog Number 3 here at 100Blogsin365Days.  I was enjoying art posters a whole lot with the Andy Warhol Poster Party, and I was tempted to make #3 another art poster review site.  Maybe it'll be next... For this one, I got to thinking some more about the imminent return of the college students to campus--and this blasted recession.  And how many of those college students (and their parents) must be looking earnestly for cheap, full-featured student laptops. 

It would be nice to have a higher-ticket item among my early blogs.  The more variety I have in price points, the better I can test what works.  (At least, so my common sense tells me.)  I scurried on over to my beloved Market Samurai keyword software, and (without much hope of finding a good domain in this high-competition niche) stumbled across "cheap new laptop." 

Here are the main stats on what would become my primary keyword for CheapNewLaptop.org.  (Note the wonderful LACK of hyphens.  I'm seeing that my hyphenated portable-car-heater.com (#33)  is lagging behind the non-hyphenated andywarholposter.net (#21) in the rankings.  Even though it's already had time to get more traction. I think it's that crusty old Google turning its nose up at my spammy-looking hyphens.  (Thanks for the good info, my fellow Wealthy Affiliate members.  Oh, and thanks to PotPie Girl also for her research on hyphens in exact-match domain names!)

So, as for those stats.... 118 searches per day

49 SEOT (expected traffic for top-ranking result)

SEO Competition:  8660

Adwords Cost per Click Rate:  $2.94

Competition, upon scrutiny, looked manageable. 

The term yields 8 PPC ads in Google, which is quite fine.  (The advice I've gotten is to make sure there are at least 6 Google ads--less than that shows it's probably not a very commercially viable choice.)

My next step is to choose secondary and tertiary keywords.  Traffic and competition point me to "very cheap laptops" and "best laptop prices."  I'll structure the site around full exploitation of those words--hopefully with some pretty informative content.

"Fringe words," that I will use as blog post keywords are "cheap gaming laptop" and "cheap refurbished laptop"?  Gee, do you see a theme emerging? :-)

Okay, enough of that boring mush of statistical pablum.  Let's retrace some site-building steps.  I'm beginning to get better at this stuff.  No apologies for the fact that my websites look, um, pretty much the same--with only different color palettes, videos, and images.  Once you learn how the interface works and exactly how much space you have to work with in the content area, why repeat the learning curve over and over again?

And it's not as though a typical site visitor is going to KNOW every one of my sites looks like a painted-over carbon copy of the last.  So yes, if you're following, you're noticing that they are not very original.  So be it--the only thing that needs to be original is the content.

First is the actual setup.  I get my domain names at Namecheap.com, because I heard that makes it easier to flip the sites later.  I then point the domains (a very simple thing to do) over to Hostmonster.com, my tried-and-true host of four years.

Once the domains have been successfully pointed, I install Wordpress through the SimpleScripts installer on Hostmonster.  (Much nicer than Fantastico, by the way.) Since Hostmonster has such a wonderful file manager built into its CPanel, I no longer mess around with individually adding themes and plugins.  I just copy everything in my plugin folder and plunk it right into the appropriate folder in the waiting-to-be-developed Wordpress installation.

Then I go into the new WP site, change the password, activate the plugins, integrate with a new Google Analytics profile, add some pinging destinations to my MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer, delete the installed content, and tweak the settings.  (Most important is to change the permalinks to "custom" and enter the appropriate code for your hyphenated post titles to display. 

(Feel free to email me at Felicity@100blogsin365days.com if you want to know more about how to do this little step.)

I add a relevant video to the sidebar in my Blogging Success Theme (a discontinued iThemes premium theme that I find very easy to work with).  Then I begin tackling the content. I'll blog about that next. 

If you like what you're reading and find it informative, would you do me a favor and give me a "follow"?  I'd surely appreciate it!  Knowing I have readers gives me that extra little accountability spur. 

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moonvine Premium
oh yes, everything you write about your project is informative and encouraging to me!!! keep writing!
Fallulah Premium
I love your blog posts [lol] and I'm even learning new words! I read them with my dictionary next to me [lol] - trouble is I get side-tracked by interesting looking words in the dictionary then!!! Your style of writing is very easy and de-stressing and I know it will help a lot of peple who are a little behind you in the building stakes, myself included. I'm going to "follow" once I've worked out how to add an email address to one of my blogs [lol]. So much to do ... so little time :))) But it's such a delight now I'm learning to enjoy the ride ... Here's to life's journeys and loving them Maureen :)))
reefswimmer Premium
More time to respond later to such a great post, you. Couple quick thoughts for now. Are you familiar with Nicholas Negroponte at (Google him) at MIT. His vision is Really Cheap Laptops for third world everyone. His stuff offers , imo, great cultural context for the quest of getting those laptops simple simple, and out to everyone.
Agree on SimpleScripts,, Hostmonster CPanel etc. I just discovered them. As our own WA Wordpress develops, I look forward to discovering it may be equal or even better !
More later. thx
Diane, reefswimmer
reefswimmer Premium
More time to respond later to such a great post, you. Couple quick thoughts for now. Are you familiar with Nicholas Negroponteat (Google him) at MIT. His vision is Really Cheap Laptops for third world everyone. His stuff offers , imo, great cultural context for the quest of getting those laptops simple simple, and out to everyone.
Agree on SimpleScripts,, Hostmonster CPanel etc. I just discovered them. As our own WA Wordpress develops, I look forward to discovering it may be equal or even better !
More later. thx
Diane, reefswimmer
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