As you know most of my websites are powered by WordPress. I look at WordPress as a content management system and not a blog platform. A lot of readers tend to view WordPress as a blog platform and not a CMS platform. I have written several topics on WordPress, like choosing CMS platforms and a list of plugins I use for my blog. WordPress has help me create several niche websites which most run on automatic and they are not scrapers! The sites I create with WordPress are merely several page websites. The reason I use WordPress over others is because its simplicity and versatile plugins.
Recently, Caroline Middlebrook has contacted me on her new ebook titled "How to Develop Money-Making Niche Sites with WordPress." I had the chance to go and look over this free ebook and found it to be really informative! There are multiple blog ebooks out there that are being sold for $27 to $97! Caroline decided to beat the market by providing a really informative ebook about WordPress and how you can earn money from them. The best part about this ebook is it is ready for direct download which means you do not need to provide your email or tell any of your friends. Just wish it had some type of affiliate system tied to it =P.
The ebook is 41 pages long and these are the major sections:
- Chapter 1: Getting and Installing WordPress
- Chapter 2: Basic WordPress Administration. 10
- Chapter 3: Installing a New Theme. 13
- Chapter 4: Setting up Adsense On Your Site. 16
- Chapter 5: WordPress Plugins. 20
- Chapter 6: Creating Your Site Content
- Chapter 7: Final Thoughts
- Appendix 1: Uploading Using FTP.. 33
- Appendix 2: External Resources
Overviewing the ebook, Caroline's writing is very 'teachful' and informative, everything is step by step with images and context to help you along the way. I was kind of surprise to see this ebook is being provided for direct download and not use for growing her list or even an up sell. The ebook is very informative, targeting the newbies of blogosphere.
Conclusion, this informative ebook is geared towards on creating a blog from downloading to putting and using plugins to adding Adsense for income. There are multiple ebooks out there that will teach you the same thing but for a price and several upsales. Caroline decides to beat everyone by giving it to you for free!
What Kind of Niche Websites to Create:
- Fan Base Web Blog: These specific sites are very popular. If you watch the Google Trends, you can see most searches are names on a per day basis or per hour basis. Everyone likes gossip for some reason, they want to know what it is a popular person is doing stupidly wrong or want to know whose baby is whose. These specific type of blogs are mostly opinionated tabloids and short stories. Also most of these blogs are also image and video driven. Since web 2.0 is the new wave on the internet, since we are getting lazy day by day. With everyone wanting to know what goes on in someone else lives is kind of strange to me, but they want to know everything about a celebrity or team player. These sites generate a great fan base of readers just wanting to know what kind of shoe the star wore 2 days ago.
- Affiliate/Product Review Web Blog: Blogs are known to have authority no matter what your rank on the internet. It seems readers are geared to trust opinionated answers than reading facts. With a blog almost guaranteed to have good authority over someone else's good content, means affiliate reviews are being done on blogs rather than creating the standard sales landing page. A blog shows interaction than a place white box with text in it. This is a reason why blog reviews or review me on blogs do better than traditional redirects or simple landing pages. The interaction of a blog and the authority it already deemed as being trustworthy.
- Adsense Driven Blog: Adsense is the most popular thing to put on a blog, the reason for this is because Adsense is simple. Grab the copy and paste code and slap it on your template, boom you got a money making website. But there is more to just slapping the Google code. You will need to understand banner placement and color creations to make sure you get a high click through rate. Adsense is great for beginners but to really see high potential there has to be other monetization interacting with Adsense. What a lot of users do is scrap websites to give them content while the Adsense code generates income for them, I HATE THESE TYPES OF BLOGS!
- How To Websites or Blog: Talk about FireFox or Macintosh or even how to create videos from your camcorders. These help websites are very popular as well because it teaches and provide detailed information on 'how to' do something. These are also very search engine friendly because of very unique content. So you know how to install windows on your PC and make it spyware free but what about creating a transparent screen for your laptop? The uniqueness of 'How To' can become very viral in such a short amount of time. Depending on the uniqueness of the topic and the ease of reading the text and content. Informative "how" websites are great to build just making sure you have a lot of unique content to write! I mean how unique or how many topics can you write about a marble counting machine?
- Social Networking/Membership Blogs: These types of websites are always springing up, but using a blog platform such as WordPress can make life easier, users can simply just sign up and start writing for you. It can be content, short stories, small comments, etc. Or it can be a private blog for registered users only. These blogs have higher authority than traditional blogs because it is seen as "secret content." I am not sure if that is the case but perception does mean a lot on the internet. Why do you think ebooks from gurus are seen as potential wealth secrets, because gurus have authority and are perceived as holding back secrets.
There are other ways to use the power of WordPress to your advantage, I currently am creating a new website with the use of WordPress to create an auto generated traffic/income web log. It will consists 2 of the 5 topics list above. With so many topics on WordPress and how to install it, Caroline free ebook will definitely help you with your success on creating your niche empires via WordPress.
