30 Day Challenge: Day 3, Competitive Analysis

My journey through the 30 Day Challenge continues. I understand that a few of my AfroSpear colleagues may be joining me on the 30DC journey. I hope that they will also share their thoughts as they engage in the process.

Anyhow, Day 3 is all about analyzing our competition. The first two days helped me to determine the keywords that I plan to use in building an online business. Today, Guru Bob showed us that it is one thing to find a phrase that has the right number of searches and the right amount of traffic ... it's something else entirely to determine if someone has already staked their claim on that phrase, making it extremely difficult for us to compete.

There are two videos that run about 40 minutes in Lesson 3:

1. SEO COMPETITION ANALYSIS - Guru Bob walks us through Market Samurai to map out the competitive landscape in your niche. I had two keyword phrases entering into this analysis. At the end of the analysis I settled on the one phrase that I think I have a good chance to compete with other webpages that are currently in Google's Top 10. Over the next 27 days I will find out if my decision was a good one or not.


2. TRADITIONAL COMPETITION ANALYSIS - Ed Dale uses the second video to show us how to get the same data provided by Market Samurai using a free plugin for our browser. Unfortunately, this plugin is only useful for folks using Firefox or Flock operating systems. I'm old school. I still use Internet Explorer. So, this video didn't help me as much.

Today's lesson again showed me the power of Market Samurai. I still have 38 days left on my trial period with that software. I haven't seen the cost to upgrade it yet. Are any of you using the paid version of Market Samurai? If so, what are your thoughts.

30 Day Challenge: Day 2, Market Research

I continued my journey through the 30 Day Challenge. Whether you’re an Internet newbie or a bricks and mortar business owner looking to expand your web presence, these 30 days should provide rock-solid techniques for building a real, live sustainable business online.

The focus of Day 2 is market research. Choosing a market and selecting the best keywords to reach it are where the majority of mistakes are made when getting a new online business off the ground. I had a rough time with this lesson because I don't have a tightly defined niche market. However, I did make it through the full lesson. I had to redo one section four times before I was able to get it right.

We only saw Ed Dale briefly during today's lesson. He introduced an amazing tool that gives us keyword data to help accurately assess our potential niches and make our workload much lighter.

There are five videos in Lesson 2:

1. UNLEASHING MARKET SAMURAI - Ed introduces the magic of Market Samurai and walks us through how to download and install the software. It is a straightforward downloading process. 30DC participants receive a complimentary 40-day trial of the complete Market Samurai software.


2. KEYWORD RESEARCH - Guru Bob, head of The Lab, introduces the major concepts of keyword research. He also lays out what sort of numbers we should be looking for when you begin considering niches. At this stage of the game, he wants us to find micro-niches (keywords with less than 30,000 searches per day). He does a good job of defining terms in this section. I know the difference between a 'market' and a 'niche'. I also know that successful online marketing at my level requires me to identify a 'micro-niche'. This section focused on the theory of keyword research. In the next section, we actually do a case-study and apply it to our personal online business.


3. KEYWORD RESEARCH CASE STUDY - Guru Bob shows us Market Samurai in action, drilling down in the market "Guitars." It sounds innocent enough. I spent a great deal of time in this section because my preferred markets ('African Americans' or 'Information Technology') didn't yield me viable 'micro-niche' markets. Anyhow, I finally found two micro-niche keywords that I plan to carry forward into tomorrow's lesson.


4. MANUAL KEYWORD RESEARCH - Dan Raine steps us through how to do "manual" market research if Market Samurai doesn't work on your computer. I didn't complete this one. I'm counting on Market Samurai to cut away the weeds for me!


5. MARKET SAMURAI TUTORIAL - Ed shows you where to find in-depth Market Samurai tutorials and how to get support if you need additional help. This video was about 2-3 minutes in length.

The videos together run about 60 minutes, however, it took me much longer because I kept having to repeat that 3rd video. Anyhow, my advice to anyone who is just starting is to spend adequate time on the Day 1 lesson. Make sure you have a clear idea of the 5-10 ideas you want to use for this 30DC. I didn't have that clear in my mind ... and it cost me today.

30 Day Challenge: Day 1, A Magnificant Symphony

Pastor Cedric told me about the Thirty Day Challenge a few months ago. The Thirty Day Challenge is about making your first $10 online. I've decided to participate for a full 30 days to learn how to grow my own Internet business and generate income online without spending a dime. That's right, this is going to cost zip, diddly, nothing, nada, ziltch. The entire training program is free ... other than the investment of my time. No credit card required.

I will report back to you on my progress over the course of the 30 days.

The host of the program is Ed Dale. Ed uses the first lesson to demystify the four elements critical to the success of every online business, reviewing some essential tools and showing ways to get great ideas for our new business.

There are three videos that run for about 30 minutes in Lesson 1:

1. SYMPHONY OF FOUR PARTS - Ed covers the core building blocks common to every Internet business. I learned in this lesson that the market research should occur before the identification of a product. This is the opposite of what I've seen occur for most business owners. Most of us have a product or service in mind ... then (MAYBE) we do market research. Ed gave a compelling reason for flipping the script if we want to build a successful online business.


2. TOOLS OF THE TRADE - Ed gives a quick run down of the tools of the trade and suggests which to install first. The section about 'tools of the trade' was also full of new information for me. I knew about some of the tools like Twitter, Google Reader and YouTube. However, I wasn't using tools like StumbleUpon, Twhirl or FriendFeed until taking this lesson. Twhirl is especially helpful because I have a Twitter account for my personal and professional use. Twhirl allows me to handle them both with a single logon.


3. THE GETTING OF IDEAS - Ed shares his favorite method for getting new site ideas, and a cool way to have news about them delivered straight to our email box or newsreader. The lesson ends with a homework assignment to identify 5-10 marketable ideas. My plan right now is to focus on gaining online traction for my current offline consulting business. I guess I will find out in future lessons whether that is acceptable or not.

I would be interested in feedback from any villager that completed the 30 Day Challenge. Do you recommend it for others?

30 Day Challenge: Day 5, Getting Some Content

My journey into the 30 Day Challenge continues. I used the first four days to identify my keyword phrase, affiliate product, and initial ad copy.

The focus of today's lesson was on finding content. Ed Dale makes the point that content is the engine that drives the Internet. People go online to find information about a particular topic or to be entertained. Content is what they seek ... and content is what the search engines use to find our site when we are in position to provide relevant, unique information to our site visitors.

Anyhow, we learn how to create content (300-500 word mini-articles) without having to be writing superstars.

There are two videos (30 minutes) in Lesson 5:

1. FINDING ARTICLE CONTENT - GuruBob shows us how to use the Find Content module of Market Samurai to find content relevant to our target keyword. This is a very good tool that provides analysis on the strength of that content for our purposes. For example, we can see when the article was written, how many back links to it, what the Page Rank is for the article's spot in the Internet and how many times are keyword phrase is embedded in the article. This is a worthy feature of Market Samurai and gives me another reason to consider purchasing the upgrade at the end of the 40-day trial period.


2. MAKE YOUR OWN CONTENT - In this video, Ed uses Google Reader to show us other ways to collect news relevant to our target keyword and turn it into content that is uniquely ours. Ed also explains the Attribution Method for creating content fast.

Our homework for today is to create 5-10 mini-articles based on our keyword phrase. I haven't completed the homework as I type this blog post ... but, I plan to get it done before the end of the day! Wish me luck...

30 Day Challenge: Day 4, Finding Stuff to Test & Sell

My journey thru the 30 Day Challenge continues into Lesson 4. I have settled in on my keyword phrase at this point. I crunched the traffic numbers in Lesson 2. I analyzed the competition in Lesson 3. Today I'll work out if there are villagers or others in the marketplace that will reach into their pockets and make a purchase of my product over the Internet!

Today is all about finding products to test selling to my target market.

There are four videos about 50 minutes in length for Lesson 4:

1. FINDING AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM - Ed Dale introduces affiliate programs.
   He shows you how to find the many products and services available to test our market to see if the buyers are biting. Two examples that he shared were ClickBank.com and Amazon.com. I hadn't heard of ClickBank.com before today. However, I have been an Amazon.com affiliate for a number of years. I recently saw a post from Paula Mooney that excited me about opportunities to monetize my blog with Amazon.com. In my own research I saw other affiliate opportunities that I hope to explore in the coming weeks.


2. WRITING YOUR FIRST COPY - Dan tackles copywriting, and showed us how to take an existing piece of copy and turn it into a short "slippery" summary. This was the favorite part of the lesson for me. Writing blog posts and other web-based copy is an obstacle for me. Dan provided me with a specific example on how to be disciplined enought to create short (30-50 words) copy for my test product. I'm looking forward to getting my product up & in the universe now!


3. CREATING AMAZON LINKS - Here Dan gives a brief tutorial on how to create a unique affiliate link for any of the thousands of products available on the Amazon site. This section needs to be updated as Amazon truly improved the process for its affiliates in recent weeks.


4. MANIPULATING IMAGES - In the last video, Dan walks us through how to use a free web service to resize images to upload online.

I am very excited about today's lesson. I've identified the product that I plan to test market. Frankly, I feel mo' betta about the 30 Day Challenge today than I have at any point since the beginning of this journey. I look forward to tomorrow's lesson.

Any other villagers thinking about taking the 30 Day Challenge?