This is my favorite part of the Niche Site Challenge. Creating and setting up the niche site. I can easily outsource this part, but why pay for something when you can do it in less than 20 minutes.
Now I know that there are tons of info and ways on how to do this part. However, as I said before, I’m going to show you how I do it. I’m also going to show you all the tools and resources I use. If you know or have any tools, tips, and resources, you’re more than welcome to share them with us. We’ll greatly appreciate it.
Domain I choose and why I choose it
After doing some heavy searching, I’ve decided to go with the domain DominoTableSite.com. A few good reasons why and I’ll share them with you here today.
First, I really wanted to have the word “Domino Table” in it, for obvious reasons right, lol. It’s keyword rich. Would have loved to get the domain dominotable.com, but it’s not available. There were a few domains that I struggled to choose from. I didn’t want to just get any domain with the keyword. I really wanted one that will make sense to the visitor.
Here’s the domains I had to choose from:
- howtobuildadominotable.com: I actually bought this one but, it’s to damn long and I didn’t want it to be just about building dominio tables.
- dominoetable.com: Almost went with this one, but after doing some extensive research, I found that the word “domino table” gets searched more than “dominoe table”. I think it’s because of the “E” at the end.
- thedominotable.com: Just hated having the word “the” at the beginning.
- dominotabletips.com: Good keyword density, but not to crazy for “tips” in it.
- dominotablesite.com: I like this one cause when someone searches the plural word domino tables, it will show up in the search engines (dominotablesite.com), pretty slick huh, lol. Also that term gets a good amount of searches. So this domain will serve sort of a double purpose for me. so I rolled with it and bought it.
Blog and theme set up
Ok so I’m doing my niche site on a worpress blog. Why? Cause it’s all I know, lol. Plus it’s easy to use, easy to set up, there are tons of plugins and tools to use to make your site more powerful, and anyone can use it.
I’ll be hosting my site with hostgator.com. Don’t worry if you never done this before, I made a video showing you how I did this in 2 minutes, (you can watch it here).
Two themes to choose from
I’ve always used Genesis from StudioPress, this very blog you are on is built on genesis. I’ve always wanted to try Thesis themes. Many people use them and I’ve heard good stuff about them. I purchased it, and let me tell ya, I did not like what I found.
Here’s the thing. I wanted a theme that I can easily install and quickly set up. I wanted one that was somewhat ready made for you. With thesis I had to do a lot of extra coding, (which I didn’t know how) just to get it the way I wanted it and to look like.
With Genesis I had a ton of theme templates to choose from, which made it a hell of a lot easier. I can easily install it and get to working on the important stuff like, content, seo, and other goodies.
In case you’re wondering, I went with a theme called Prose Child Theme. I wanted something with easy navigation, easy to read, and most important, easy for me to work on. Didn’t want to spend a lot of time figuring stuff out. Plus it looks awesome.
This is just a sample of how the site will look like.
Before You Do Anything
The very first thing you need to do, before you do anything else is configure the permalink. You want to have your links looking pretty. For example. If you dont do this you’ll end up with a link that looks like this (www.joeykissimmee.com/?p=18967), this looks horrible and it won’t give you SEO juice.
What you want is to have a link like this (www.joeykissimmee.com/keyword-research.php), this will give you very good SEO juice.
This is very simple to configure. Go to the settings tab and click on permalink.
Then copy and paste this ( /%postname%.php ) into the correct field.
QUICK UPDATE!
Thanks to my peeps here I learned that you should take out the .php at the end. So make SURE you copy and paste this ==> /%postname%/ <== instead of the one above.
This is why I love doing this. You never stop learning. I love it ;-) Thank you guys…
Plugins I use
Every time I create a blog, I use the same set up plugins. These are important because not only does it automates a lot of the stuff that I would normally have to do manually, but it helps your blog perform better and a lot smoother.
Right click to download set of plugins <==
note: You must unzip this folder to get the set of plugs I use. Only unzip this folder. Once unzipped, inside you’ll find my set of plugins I use. DO NOT UNZIP those plugins. Just upload them as they are straight from your wordpress back office.
Now I really don’t wanna spend to much time on the install process cause it’s really easy to do and it will take a lot of space here. All you gotta do is go to your wordpress back office. Click on plugins tab, click add new, click upload, search for the plugin folder I gave you, upload each plugin one by one, once your done uploading all of them, activate each of them individually.
Here’s the list of Plugs I use:
- Google XML Sitemaps: This is the very first plug I activate. It creates a certain page or file on your site. When Google spider bots crawl your site, they go through this file to find content on your site and indexes them in google. Once you activate this plugin, you don’t need to do anything else. The plug works on its own.
These plugins require some configuration.
- All in One SEO Pack: This is a very important plug to have. It gives you that extra oomph of SEO Juice. Without it, you’re basically running blind. Below are the settings I use. Feel free to set yours up the same way.
Top part of the All in one SEO
- Easy Privacy Policy: This plug is just as important. Google requires a privacy policy page on your site. This plug automatically creates a page for you.
- Google Analytics Dashboard: Helps you keep track of your analytics right from your wordpress backoffice.
- Robots Meta: This plugin allows you to add all the appropriate robots meta tags to your pages and feeds, disable unused archives and nofollow unnecessary links. Below are the settings I use. Feel free to set yours up the same way.
- Max Banner Ads: Easily rotate banners and ads in almost anywhere in your wordpress blog without editing the theme.
- MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer: Saves your wordpress blog from getting tagged as ping spammer by installing this plugin.
- Page Link Manager: Some times you create pages that you don’t want seen on the home page. This allows you to choose which pages appear in the site navigation.
- W3 Total Cache: This is a must have plugin. It improves the speed and user experience of your site. Very important especially when your traffic starts to pick up.
- Advertisement Management: If you’re going to monetize your site with Adsense, then you’ll want to activate this one.
These are the first plugins I activate. As the site grows and the more traffic it gets, we’ll add other plugs to help monetize it better and more efficiently. For now this is all we need.
The Content
As I mentioned before, I will be creating all the content my self. I’ll be using both video and written content.
If you are not comfortable or are not familiar with the niche you created, you can simply outsource this part. There’s a podcast episode I did with a great friend of mine that covers outsourcing and what projects you should outsource. You can listen to it here <==
As far as coming up with content ideas, I’m going to use the same keywords I chose to target. That’s a great way to find content to write about. Take the exact keywords and create a list of possible questions, solutions, and maybe even how to tutorials.
Another thing I like to do is actually actually spy on the competition. You will usually find people asking questions in the comments section. Or you can enter the question in google search and you’ll get a list of yahoo answers and other goodies.
I’ll cover more on that in the next post which I’ll be going through my content strategy.
Anyway, this post has gone quite bit long so I guess I’ll finish up now.
These is how I set up my blogs and all the plugins I use. There are a few more plugs to use for monetizing and optimizing for maximum results. But we will get to that part when the time comes. You really don’t need them now and will only be getting in the way.
Thanks a ton, I hope you enjoyed this one. Also a big thanks to all the folks who have joined me on this journey. I’m having a blast and hope you are too. Let’s just keep moving forward. Together we’ll see results ;-)
C-ya on the next …
Any Plug Recommendations Are Welcome:
If you have any favorites or some good plugins you’ve used before, don’t hesitate to post them in the comments section below. I would greatly appreciate it and I’m sure everyone else will too.
About Joey Kissimmee
Niche Site Challenge 002: Finding Profitable Niches
Niche Site Challenge 007: Ranking in Google
Niche Site Challenge 006: Starting My Brand Niche Site
Niche Site Challenge 003: Keyword Research
you ok linda i dont normaly give it out but this is the contact
filling address , they have 20% discount now,say neesoms give you there number
Hey Joey,
Another great update on your niche site series man.
I did not know about Robots Meta and Advertisement Management, both of them seem to be pretty handy so thanks!
About Thesis, I don’t think it is for anyone but I think it is pretty robust. I own developer licenses to both frameworks (Thesis and StudioPress) and I know both of them have pros and cons.
You’re right though that StudioPress (Genesis framework) allows you to have more flexibility on building something good looking straight out of the box but I still think that Thesis is way more hardcore on SEO rankings.
Still a matter of choice, I just moved from Thesis to Genesis on my main site. ;-)
Glad you have found your niche and that you installed Prose on it, what I don’t understand is why is the site still empty? :(
Sergio
Thanks brotha. The reason that site is empty is because I went with another domain. In the next I share why. And you definitely need the Robots Meta tag. The Advertisement plug, it’s up to you. I personally use OIO Pub. That’s a paid plugin. But on my niche sites I use the AM plugin. Seems to work well.
Hi Joey,
Brilliant advice and help, as always. Do you know Randy Smith, from the UK, he is another Internet Marketer who knows the value of generosity, and that by giving you can create an income, and he has taught me a great deal as well. A man just like yourself.
One plug-in I use is WP-Cumulus It is a tag cloud, but flash based, and your tag cloud turns into a revolving sphere which the site visitor can control the speed and rotation direction just by mousing over.
Barry
I’ll check that plug and Randy out. Seems like a guy I would like to meet and chat with.
Thanks…
Hey Joey, I just started getting into niche sites myself. So Im joining the challenge too! Im ready for the next video to follow along with so keep em comin! This is the easiest method I’ve seen so far on building niche sites. thanks Joey. Keep up the great work! …Now time to fill my niche site with quality content!
Thanks again,
Tony Novelli
good thing brotha. keep me posted on you niche site.
Any recommendations on allowing pings? I’ve been looking for advice on this for awhile and you seem to know your stuff. Should or should we Not allow pings? Thanks & God Bless!!
I get that question a lot. I’ll be doing a post on it soon so keep an eye out for that.
Hi Joey – I’m really new to I.M. and have just started reading your blog which is extremely interesting and helpful but probably a bit above my head for a newbie. Can you please tell me what the differences are between wordpress, studio press and optimize press. I did hear once that Google can take a wordpres blog away from you for no reason. Is that correct please Joey?
Cheers from Berny
South Australia
Hey Berny. I have a getting started section just for you. Just click here and it’ll take you there.
As far as your questions …Wordpress is a platform for blogging and publishing content. It is the main source for what you actually see on site. However, it’s now being used for basically anything. It’s replaced regular static sites, html, capture pages, sales pages, etc.
The StudioPress and OptimizePress are themes and templates you can use for WordPress. Optimizepress has extra features in it where you can create optin pages, sales pages, funnels, an all in one type of package.
With themes like these, it allows you to customize wordpress without having to know coding like php, css, etc.
Hope this helps ;-)
I missed to answer your last question, sorry. The only way to keep from getting your blog taken away is to host it on your own server. If you use the free wordpress, blogger, tumblr, etc. you can get it shut down without any warning, depending on what you’re doing obviously. But why risk it. Just get yourself a hosting plan and you won’t have to worry about it. Hope this helps ;-)
I enjoyed reading this article and even went so far as reading the comments that followed. Good nuggets to use in my website setups. I will bookmark this site for future reference.
Thanks Joey for the step by step info on niche building using Word Press. I have been wanting to learn more about this; it was next up. Then , here you are! Much thanks and bless you.
Wow Great Blog I’d Heard Of you Before (From Omar Martin) Have Really Never Run Into Your Products But This Blog Sure has Some great Info. I’am Going To Book Mark IT Will Be looking for your products in The future
yeah Omar’s a great friend of mine. Thanks for coming by.
Aloha Joey!!
ScottyBoy from the beach!
Thanks for the awesome step by stepin’
This newbie enjoys all the training you give.
You rock because you make things clearer and
easier to learn.
Keep em coming!!
Appreciating everything you’re doing!
Mucho Mahalo!
Aloha, hows it going Scotty, lol.
Thanks a ton brotha, keep coming back…
thanks so much for a great post! this information was just what I needed. A little guidance on what plugins and how to set them (configure). I really appreciate your blog. Be Blessed!
you are most welcome ;-)
Wow….I woke up this morning with a bum toe and thought let me check some emails from my iPhone as walking around this big house is a pain to do on crutches. So your email was the first one, I have sat here the last ten minutes reading every word, and every single comment. Very informative and practical info to say the least. I still have my blog you helped me build with Vick…lol (ah the good ol days). Although I am not much into building niche sites, I do have a niche I am in which I think this would be a good approach for. In thinking about this once everything is set, how do you really get it making good money, and what type of time do you have give to keeping it generating that type of money? I am talking 5k plus a month at least. Anyway get at me, great content, and I look forward to the rest of it.
HI Joey, I suggest you look at the plugin WordPress SEO by Yoast.
This plugin can replace three of your plugins: Google xml sitemaps, Robots Meta (also by Yoast :-)) and All-in-one-SEO.
It is awesome, try it, I think you will love it.
I do have that plug, thing is there’s so much to it that I stick with the others cause it’s just easier, lol. I guess it’s just lazy ;-)
Thanks though
I recently learned about the plugin Sharebar. It makes some share button go with the scrolling. People who like to share, will not all look for the share buttons. So when they are there, it is easy for them.
Of course you should have YARPP.
I always add the plugin: WP Mobile Pack and WPtouch, for mobile phones and iphones.
And there are a couple more helpful plugins.
just got wp mobile and about to test it. Thanks for the recommendation. Awesome ;-)
Hey Joey
Really enjoying the tutorial so far. Looking forward to the next one now so keep up the good work. :)
Hey Joey i like reading real examples, awesome read this is going to be great following your progress.
I recently bought the theme called Acne Theme made by the guy who made Socrates, it was only $27 and i think is pretty good.
I just updated the post above with you guys recommendations on taking the .php out. I was going to change the image and fix it, but I think it’s good to show you that even I can make mistakes and that it’s ok ;-)
Thanks a ton for the feedback folks. I just love this. you never stop learning!
I found a very good post on the permalinks thing we been talking about here. The post is by Steve Wiideman: http://www.seosteve.com/best-permalink-structure
Now according to his survey, many seo people say that you should use a permalink ending in yoursite.com/category/keyword or /%category%/%postname%/
For me, I hate using the category in my links. it makes it to long and ugly. So I’m not sold on that. however I will be using the /%postname%/
I can’t do it here on my blog cause it’s an old blog with old content and thousands of backlinks. If I change it it will break all those links I worked so hard to build. I’m fine with it though.
From what I’ve researched so far, having the .php does not hurt. So I guess it’s all on your preference.
That post there gives some really good insight on the subject so hope you enjoy.
I just love these plugin suggestions. I will defiantly install them tonight. I have followed all of you posts for this niche challenge and this one is awesome. Of course this is when a site gets exciting. I can’t wait to see what you do to this site and how every thing turns out. This is my very interest (building niche sites). It is fun and can be a good piece of internet real estate, after it takes off. I have 2 I’m working on. Also 2 more domain names (that I bought aged). Aged domains are a thing to look at also. It takes a lot of searching, but it’s cool to find those nuggets. I used a tool called Registry Compass. It works well.
I like your choice in a domain name. You could have gone with dominoestables.com (5400 global and 3600 local). I believe with that domain you target both sides and it’s very clean. Have a good one and I will wait for your next post.
glad you’re enjoying this series. I’m sure having a blast with it ;-)
Quick question about aged domains. Does it have an impact on ranking and seo juice as oppose to a regular domain?
Reason I ask is cause this question I get asked a lot and I have now idea, lol. And since I been getting into niche sites again, would be good to know so I can start buying aged domains.
Thanks brotha.
Hi Joey,
Your post is very informative.It helps new bloggers to setup or update their blog.
Keep up the good work.
Lowel
Hiya Joey, good stuff as usual!
I’ve gotta tell you that I only heard of you was when I listened to my buddy Kieran’s Back Against the Wall webinars, and I was impressed by what you had to say there. So I’m keeping my ears open to you :-)
Here are some of the plugins that I like using:
SEO by Yoast plugin — I guess it’s similar to All in One SEO but includes an XML sitemap. I haven’t actually compared the 2 plugins.
Invisible Captcha plugin – this has eliminated all automated spam comments since I started using it.
Facebook Like plugin – I just threw this one in because I like interaction :-)
Good work Joey. I’m impressed by how you just keep on giving!
Thanks so much for the kind words. Yeah Kieran is a great friend of mine. I love what he’s been doing and what he’s doing for people. He’s one of the few that actually cares for people. Thanks again.
Great stuff Joey, thanks for the set of plugins..
Gonzalo
Thanks for your reply =)
Now, seeing it’s possible to actually add .php in the end of the permalinks (doing what you do, but without the .php thing is always the first thing I do when I set up a site anyways), I might want to try it in html.
After all, I have heard “static” html sites tend to rank better in google. I know there even are plugins to convert your site into html just for that purpose. But if it was possible to simply change it there AND it gave SEO benefits, we might have done a great find here ;o)
Hey Preben, I wouldn’t do that just yet. Cause a lot of themes work on php stuff and html will just screw things up. Also I just tried to change my blog and took out the .php and screwed everything up. mainly because I’ve always used it as .php so all posts are published with the .php. I did change it on my new niche site though. It just kept eating me up, lol. I’m still trying to find a good reason why or why not to use it. I will keep you guys posted.
Joey, I’m not sure how I became a part of this challenge, but every time I open an email from you I get a huge amount of information. Thanks!
I used to use the plug in commentluv which encouraged people to leave a comment because the latest post they made would be posted under their name. I had some stability issues which I thought might have been connected to the plug in so I deleted it. It wasn’t the problem though, so I might go ahead and re-install it.
when I get a bug like that and I don’t know what caused it, I usually trace back the plugs I installed and uninstall it to see if it goes away.
Sometimes when you install a new plug and errors starts to happen, it usually means it’s conflicting with another plugin.
If that’s the case I usually uninstall that new plugin and delete. Hope this helps.
Joey
Great post. I will be following you on this. Still not clear why you are adding “php” to the end of your posts.
Keep up the good work.
Matson
lol, the .php thing is killing me, rofl. If anyone can tell me what the difference is between them, I would greatly appreciate it. I’m doing some search on it now as we speak. Still can’t find a good reason why I would or wouldn’t or which one is best.
Hey Joey,
Love the tutorial,always looking for new methods and ideas.I recently got WP Simplicity plug in and love it so far.If you are going to set up multiple blogs it will save a bunch of time.It automatically builds your privacy,about and contact pages in about 2 minutes.You can also search for content (pics,videos,news,articles,etc.) by keyword from your admin area.Saves a bunch of time!
Thanks for sharing – Mike
niiiice. I’m gonna look for it and try it out. thanks homie ;-)
I’m really curious why you use the permalink
/%postname%.php
instead of
/%postname%/
It looks like a tricky trick and I’d like to understand the reasoning behind it.
Thanks!
/joey b
seems like a popular question, lol. The reason behind it is, because that’s how my blog is set. I set up all other blogs the exact same way. There’s really no logic behind it. It’s a preference I use. The object to this section is to have SEO friendly sublinks. Which will help in ranking. I honestly don’t know if /%postname%.php will work better than /%postname%/. I just know that using SEO friendly links will help with ranking.
I will search and find out though. I’ll let you guys know in the next post. Thanks
Hey Joey,
I’m really impressed with your blog here. I also use genesis as well as woo themes for my niche based sites. I just got in to the niche website arena over the past month or so. I love it, and it is a lot less noise than you’ll find in the get rich quick or mlm industry. I like developing sites and it’s motivation seeing them come alive. I believe that I found my home with this niche stuff. Wow , your alexa and traffic is very impressive with this site, congrats. I think the reason why is because you are bringing it with content. I hope to be able to up my game to your standards at some stage, until then I’ll just keep learning and improving.
Great post! I do it quite the same way really =)
A few questions though:
1. Wouldn’t google like it more if you went with dominoetable.com? Since it has dominoetable? and not much more to it, other than the e?
2. Why do you write .php at the end of the permalink? It still works without it. So… Maybe it is even possible to call them .html? Which might give seo benefits.
Great questions Preben. 1: I didn’t want to “e” in the word “domino”. but, and a BIG BUT, I found some interesting things while doing some more research. I’m actually creating the next post which I’ll go over what I found.
Number 2: The permalinks settings is for when you publish your posts, the blog will use SEO friendly sublinks instead of the “?p=1234″. If you publish pages, it automatically takes off the .php. The .php is only giving on posts. Everything is done automatically. You want your sublinks to be SEO friendly. This will help with ranking.
hope this helps, ;-)
Thanks Joey. This is shaping up to be one of the best tutorials I’ve seen and believe me I’ve been through a million of them. As I mentioned in my last message, I’m particularly looking for design help. How deep will you go into that aspect of blog set-up?
Thanks Peter, I really appreciate that. Glad you enjoying them.
As far as the design, I really don’t do much to customize them cause studio press has tons of themes that really look good. Themes for all types of niches.
The thing I would do is once the site starts to get going (as far as traffic and leads, etc.), I add little features like my custom news section you see right below my Menu Tabs.
I had that section custom build so I can add banners, news updates, etc. It only cost me about $150 to do. Things like that increase conversions and results.
But like I said, I wouldn’t worry about any of those things until your site starts rolling.
My blog you see here only has 2 custom sections, the news section under the menu tabs, and the top right corner section.
That’s it, everything else is the same way as studio press provided. Don’t sped money you don’t have to. If you’re going to spend money, then do it on tools that will help you do things faster to get you results quicker.
Hope this helps. If you have anymore questions, just hit me up at joey@joeykissimmee.com and we’ll get together some time.
Joey,
You continue to blow me away with the information I learn. The plugins you use are top notch.
Oh, and I do open your emails.
Thanks Dude,
Duncan Judson
You’re very welcome Duncan. I’m having a blast making this series. Haven’t enjoyed something this much in a long time. And yeah, those plugs are awesome. There are some other ones you can use, but we really don’t need them now.
We’ll get to them when it’s time.
Thanks..
Wow! Nice post.
Thanks for the step by step instructions.
thanks Ray. I’m glad you like them ;-)