I have used PDF’s for some time to get my sites indexed across multiple search engines. Today Tim Nash has let the world know his results and they are very interesting if you are creating content sites and wish to get your content indexed.

How long before we have a new company selling reviews in their PDF directory?

So let’s not waste anymore of your time, click on over to his blog and see his results on PDF’s.

Oh and while you are there be sure to subscribe to his RSS feed.

Sorry to burst your pretty pink bubble, but making money like a real estate slumlord does not work very fast. It will take large amounts of time and an effective strategy to make it work for you.

While watching an infomercial that never seemed to end, I realized the connection between being a highly profitable slumlord and an online niche portal builder. The two really are not that far apart.

The infomercial was not directly telling you to become a slumlord, but it was pointing out the art of making massive amounts of residual money in real estate is to own a property that houses many people. When you own a property with multiple tenants you can have occupants pay many times the cost of the mortgage each month. The excess money that is paid into your bank account creates a substantial positive cash flow. How would you like a positive cash flow going into your bank account? I know I would!

Let’s get strait to the heart of how a slumlord and a niche portal are similar. Both have multiple sources of cash flow. That is it! Really is that simple to understand. Do I need to repeat myself? Both have multiple sources of cash flow…

To make a niche portal site work for you, you will need content that creates traffic to the site and in sequence sell advertising to someone willing to have their links on your site. If you have been online for more than a year, you will know that affiliate marketing dominates a vast amount of online real estate. This brings us to the point of either buying a prime property that has already been developed or creating our own. Buying a niche portal can be as easy as going to your browser and searching eBay. You may also spend some time diving deep into Moniker or one of many locations that sell both domains and full blown online businesses. (you are a pervert, get back to the story) As a bonus, an already developed niche portal may also have traffic piling on to it from many of the search engines. Either way when buying a developed site or creating one for yourself you need content to build traffic and sell links!

Today I am looking at crafting an entire niche portal from scratch.

So this brings us to our first major decision. What is our niche? Well that should be easy for you. What do you like? Are you an avid dog fan like Michael Vick, do you like furry little kittens like Hugh Hefner did in the 70’s, or do you want to show that you are just as good at parenting your little lumps of joy as Britney Spears is with her two children? We in the Internet marketing industry have been standing on rooftops screaming at the tops of our lungs for you to build your niche about what YOU LOVE. There is bound to be others that like the same things as you. Creepy as that may be. Exploit that deeply rooted niche!

About now you are asking what does this all have to do with SEO!!!

Content! Content is the driving force of your portal. Content is also the driving force that all of the crazed SEO’s are pounding away on their computers each and every day. Creating this quality content must be of interest to you, but it must also be interesting to others. At this point we want to know what the keyword phrases are that people are using to search for your content. Wordze is what I am using today, but WordTracker and many others out there work just as well.

What about the online real estate? Do we need a domain name? 

The perfect domain name is next in our quest to create this niche portal. Just how do we begin to choose a relevant domain that creates enough interest for searchers to click? You should look at a domain that has some age to it. Using the services of Moniker or one of many aftermarket domain name resellers are your best option here. Get a domain that has a minimum of two years on the registration. This helps with building credibility right out of the gate. Search engines love aged domains. I will let you in on a little secret. With an aged domain you also have an edge over a new one with affiliate companies too.

Hosting and software is your next adventure.

Web hosting is a farcical industry in my opinion. There are literally thousands out there and all of them, no matter how hard I try, I can’t find one that does not SUCK! But I do recommend that you choose one that has cpanel with fantastico. This helps with installing your CMS (Content Management System) on your server. The CMS is what powers your niche portal. Without it your site is just a plain site. A CMS will help you to organize your site so you can use the benefits of web 2.0 to you advantage. What do I man by web 2.0? With you CMS your visitors can and will be able to add content to your niche portal. Yes, that is right! They help build the site for you. I tend to prefer WordPress for my CMS since it uses a blog for the home page and I can create static pages in the background. I can also setup WordPress so a guest blogger can have their own column and be able to access their work from a remote location.

Back to niche portal content creation!

There are many ways of creating content for your niche portal. First there is scraping the article directories. Yes, I did just tell you to scrape a database of content. Scraping is not always a bad thing. As long as you make sure you are giving credit to the content creator, they are more than willing to give you their content for FREE. Writing the content yourself is also a way to build on your niche portals content. This sites content is written specifically just for this site. An advantage to writing your own content is there is less risk of the duplicate content factor in the search engine indexes. If the content was written for your portal and is located nowhere else, the chance of duplicate content has greatly diminished. Also when you write content for your site, you are the one to choose what keyword phrases are used. The next option is to use guest bloggers. Many bloggers would jump at the chance to write a column in your niche portal. When a guest blogger writes for you they are showing your audience an entire new perspective that you may not give them.

You have your site up and traffic is coming in, now what?

Now is the time to monetize your niche portal. Text links are the option of choice for most niche portals and affiliate programs are close behind. If you are giving quality content to your visitors then your traffic bounce rate will show in the analytics of your site. This is very important if you are selling links to your consumer. If you can show that your site is not just creating traffic but retaining them, they know that visitors will be returning to your site and this increases the odds of them clicking on their text links. Now is the time to broach the subject of no-follow links. Google, at the current time of writing this, does not like you purchasing text links that are not utilizing the no-follow tags. I personally think this is not a fair play on their end. I have been using text links long before they were even a company. So if I want to buy a link I think that I have the right to not use the no-follow tag. Your next option is to use one of the major affiliate programs. Affiliate programs are a great addition to your content creation. Consider that when you write a post focusing on a specific item, the reader would like to know more about how they may acquire this item. Why not have a way for them to get that item at a click length away. I still believe the reason Google does not want you to sell text links is that their AdSense program is in competition with this monetization method. Google does not want to share in the overall business model, so I am not going to give them more credit, other than they also have a method for you to monetize your niche portal.

So what’s next in creating this niche portal you ask?

Wait a minute; I do not know who you are, so why do I want to give you all my secrets? I am done writing today. It is my time to develop a niche portal on one of my ten year old domains. Go find your own niche portal! This should be enough information to get your juices flowing with ideas on how you can make massive amounts of money with your own niche portal. Now go away. But don’t forget to click on a link or too in the process!

 Reputation Management

It’s time for Google Bowling 2.0!

Google Bowling 2.0 is all about buying links for your competition. Matt Cutts has made Google Bowling very easy for you to accomplish. Matt Cutts wants you to do this! Matt Cutts is the head of Google’s anti-web-spam department. This makes him the top dog when telling Google who is using paid links to rank higher than YOU. Why not help him out? Go buy your favorite competitor a few hundred backlinks on your local newspapers website. Then send a friendly message to Google and let them know just how nasty your competitor is. Does Google still promote their "Do no evil!" slogan?

If you can’t find a good newspaper selling sitewide links, go to Digital Point Forums, there are always a few link spammers selling sitewide links there. Mention this post to receive a bulk discount!

Have fun with this endeavor as it will surely bring you success for a few days. That is till someone reports you for doing the same thing once you are now in the #1 chair. Because once you are in the Hot Seat everyone is now making you the next target.

My suggestion, go for the longtail and stay under the radar of your competition. Avoid using Negative SEO as it will only make you a person of interest. Most important of all don’t take this post too seriously.

 Reputation Management