KhalidsLife.com

I recently completed the ground work for Bar Vacancy by means of creating a network of over 50 sites relating to licensed trade work. It was tough and took many hours to complete, and in addition to this I forked out hundreds of dollars to sponsor many wordpress themes as a way of backlink building.

Like a good wine, you need to let a product mature before it becomes any good and so I must leave the network for a few months now and let the magic happen. As I can’t switch off - and don’t really want to - I have decided to focus my attention on a new site, relating to students across the UK. I have a neat .com and .co.uk name which I am using to create a wordpress based site targetting students and student nightlife in major cities.

I have already commissioned two writers from the UK to complete in depth articles and will be hiring photographers to assist in the marketing of the site - more on that in due course. I intend to launch during Freshers Week - the first week of term where students go out literally every night and party - a way of getting to know one another and form friendships.

Lukily, like with Bar Vacancy, I have one or two contacts in the nightclub industry that are keen to help as they’ll be getting premium exposure on the site. I’m really excited about this venture as I intend to generate revenue from private advertising through local businesses, rather than networks. Competition between these business is fierce and if you have a product or service that will give them a lead, they’ll bite your fingers off.

Like all of my projects, I don’t provide a lot of information until it is out there to avoid being copied. So watch this space and find out more soon!

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

I realise it has been some time since my last post but to be honest not a lot is happening. I am at the mercy of coders once again, two to be precise. One is doing his job well and on time, the other is a week overdue for a $30 script.

As I’ve been kept waiting, my mind has been thinking of new ideas and I’ve invested a few dollars into new domain names. I intend to build another network but that requires a custom coded site too, so back to Rent a Coder for more bids!

I’ll keep you posted in due course. Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, mostly whilst in bed and my entire flat is in a beautiful silence. I’m not turning weird I promise, but as a result of this deep though, I’ve managed to break down my $100 a day aim into different networks (by niche) and then further sub-divided this into single websites, each targetting a different keyword in the niche.

My aim is to dominate each niche I enter by targeting the top 10-20 keywords in that area. This does sound like a big task and yes it’s no walk in the park, but the benefits will far outweigh the labourious task of developing loads of sites.

The strength of having many websites in the same category ensures I have spread my risk evenly. When one network is complete, I will be adding fresh content to the main site daily and smaller sites monthly. This reduces the ongoing workload by greater than 50% whilst ensuring the network is not ignored. The time then available will then be spent on the next network.

I have it all planned out, but we know nothing ever goes to plan.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Definition of Niche: a position particularly well suited to the person who occupies it; “he found his niche in the academic world”

In today’s World Wide Web, where each keyword becomes a market and every webmaster is a vendor, simply having one stall doesn’t cut it anymore unless you have a truly unique product to offer. According to Verisign - the digital infrastructure authority that manages Internet domain names such as .com - there were 153 million domain names registered in 2007, up 27% from the previous year.

For many of us budding entrepreneurs, creating the next FaceBook or YouTube idea is simply something we probably won’t be able to achieve, or fund for that matter. It’s not that we’re unable to think of great ideas and market them, it’s that these sites are a one-of-a-kind and generally very successful or huge failures.

You are rolling a dice hoping for that success, but for many, the odds of 1 in 6 are too slim. Entrepreneurs are risk takers, but we like to invest wisely. Dominating a niche in an attempt to become the king of one sector seems like a viable choice… and it’s working for me.

The benefits of dominating a niche include the following:

1. You’re concentrating on one sector so your knowledge of it is enhanced, thus your website’s content will be too.
2. Each site is targetting a different keyword in the same niche so you are spreading yourself well over one area.
3. You will automatically have relevant backlinks available to each other as each of your sites will be in the same niche.
4. Linking to each other helps boost your overall SERPs, as they help pull each other up the ranks.
5. Adding a new site and targetting another keyword will be easier as you already have an established network setup to help it get indexed and ranked quickly.
6. By establishing yourself and building strong foundations in one area, you are making it harder for others to compete.

I’m sure there are additional benefits to dominating a niche, but these are probably the most important. However, there can be downfalls too:

1. If the niche you are targetting already has this operation in place it’ll make it much harder to compete.
2. If the niche does’nt have many paying advertisers, having “all your eggs in one basket” will probably not convert to the profit you were hoping for.
3. The content is limited so spreading it over a huge network of sites may not be easy. For example, news about “tattoos” is rare so spreading this over 10 tattoo sites won’t be a walk in the park.

Overall I think dominating a niche, providing you have researched it well and have a viable business model, can be a success. At present I am doing this and have 3 sites in the same sector, adding a 4th by the end of today. It’s a proftable operation that is earning me money, and my aim is to have 5 sites targetting 5 different keywords and ranking in the top 5 of the SERPs (tongue twister I know)!

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Of late I’ve been testing different ad networks to see which converts best for me. This has mainly been on OffBeatInk.com (OBI) as the site is receiving nearly 2,000 uniques per day and is less than two months old. Further to this, OBI is the only site in my network that is accepted by ad programs due to its popularity and content. Kortaz.com can only really work with Widget Bucks and Adversal due to the fact it relates to proxies.

Since opening OBI, Value Click Media has been a general winner, earning me aroun d $1 per day for both a 468 x 60 banner and a 120 x 600 skyscraper. Whilst this isn’t fantastic, I can’t grumble as I’ll happily accept anything given to me right now! At times I wish I still had Adsense but even if I did get it back I’d always be worried of becoming banned again.

I’ve  applied to Tribal Fusion as well as other CPM and CPC networks as I think its only fair us webmasters are paid for impressions too! Afterall, I bet the companies who pay these agencies are paying for it!

Playing around I’ve managed to rule out a few due to either lack of earnings or showing compeltely unrelevant ads (hence the lack of earnings lol!). One company was showing Van Insurance ads on OBI….why?????

Although it can be fun to test different network and play about with them, it can become frustrating as I’m not earning anymore. I think my next step will be build a strong PR rating and sell text links on my sites.

Ahh, the life and times of a struggling webmaster.