All Ping

A Montreal fifth grader pleaded guilty this week to hacking multiple government and public websites for the web collective Anonymous in exchange for computer games. The boy broke into the Montreal Police Department, the Quebec Board of Public Health, the Chilean federal government and other websites.

When creating a new site be it a niche or an authority site, choosing the right topic is always the most vital part of the process. Your site’s name, the appearance, what you writes, etc. are all determined by the name or topic you chose.

Specifically, when building a niche site, the keyword you chose to target can ultimately mean the difference between your success and failure.

However, it is very much possible to compete with any keyword out there depending on the amount of time and money you have to outrank the existing competition.

A very higher volume search combined with high volume of competition means that you will have to spend a lot of money on your ads campaign before you can see any meaningful result because, there will be some bigger brands that are already competing with each other on that same keyword.

Recommended Reading: NSP Update 1: Finding the Best Keyword to Target

So, it is very much better to for those of us with limited budget and less time to try and dominate a niche with lesser competition.

All we have to do is, niche down, targets a market in a sub-market and, you’re going to rank higher in the search engines. Like Pat Flynn said, I’ll rather be in the first page for a keyword that gets 3000 exact local searches than be on the 5th page for a keyword with 300,000 exact searches.

For the rest of this article, I will be sharing with you the criteria that I’m going to use while conducting keyword research for my website based on my experience on this project, you can also follow along with these same criteria.

The tool I will be using to do my keyword research and the same tool that has been doing lots of wonders to other niche site marketers out there is LONG TAIL PRO.

Long Tail Pro is the best and most simple keyword research tool out there. It’s not free but, it’s worth whatever they are selling it. You can also use the free Google keyword research tool but, Long Tail Pro will certainly make your keyword research process a breeze, very simple and accurate. It’s a tool that will give you all you need to know about any keyword within a twinkle of an ey

My Keyword Research Criteria

1. Helping People

I will make sure that whatever topic, whatever keyword I’m going to target and build my website around, that it will be a topic I’m sure that I will be able to help people through my skill or knowledge of that topic. It’s not going to be about the money alone but, I must be able to help people too.

2. Search Volume [Exact]: Min of 3,000 Local Monthly Searches

Search volume is the number of times a particular keyword is searched for in Google, and it’s usually reported in per monthly basis. It’s an indication of how many potential visitors you expect to be getting per month if you land in the number one position in Google for that particular keyword.

NOTE: Always perform your keyword research using Exact Match. Most keyword research tools always default on Broad Match but, it’s advisable to always set it to Exact Match as this will give you a true data of how many times a particular keyword alone is searched for in Google.

3. SEO Competition: Is there room in the top 10 of Google?

This is another thing that is of utmost important after we found our keyword using the criteria above. You need to know what existing competition for that keyword is in Google. This is to find out how difficult it will be to get to the first page.

In my own case, I will be looking at the following factors….

*Is the keyword used in the URL of the pages listed in the top 10 of Google for that keyword?

*Is the keyword used in the Title of the page

*Is the keyword used in the description of the page?

*The number of incoming links to those pages, and the quality of those links.

*Anchor text distribution

*Page Authority

*Content on the competing pages

*Moz rank

*Page rank.

Using Spencer Haw’s tool….. Long Tail Pro (Aff Link) can really make all these easy for you, you can easily use it to find all the data’s above without doing it manually.

3. Is there money to be made on this Niche?

By now, you must have found a keyword with a decent search volume and has lower competition, the next thing now is to ask yourself the question……. Can I make money on this niche?

Researching your monetization before choosing any niche is just as essential as performing key word research. You don’t want to waste all these time only to realize later that there is no earning potential forthe keyword you selected so; it’s of utmost important that you research your monetization strategy before deciding on any keyword.

In this case, some of the things I will be looking at include:

*The average cost per click (CPC) in Google adwords

*The advertisements that shows up when I perform a search on Google using that keyword

*If I also perform a search on Amazon.com, are there books or products that show up?

*What products are other sites promoting related to the keyword?

There are many other factors to look at, you just need to know what you want as, i may not be looking for the same thing as you and, getting a keyword that passes the above criteria will not guarantee your earning on that niche, it also depends on your efforts and the performance of your site.

4. The Grandma Test

I learnt this one from Pat Flynn . It goes like this……

When I’ve selected a keyword based on all the criteria above, I will then ask myself the following question:

If I created a website in this niche and it became incredibly successful, would I be comfortable sharing my success with my grandma?

If the answer is no, then I may have to think twice about getting into this particular niche, isn’t that fun ?

This is it for now.

Now, follow up on my next post about how to brainstorm and select the perfect keyword for your niche sites. Join my email list or, subscribe to my feed so that you won’t miss any of the posts.

Feel free to comment and ask me any question based on this post and, I will be here to answer you.

And please, remember to tweet and share the post with your friends. Please use the buffer button to tweet for now because, the twitter button is not pulling the post URL until, I resolve the issue.

Cheers and happy new month.e. I will write more about it later.

If you are a photographer, creating a portfolio is certainly one of the most important things you need to do. There are a number of benefits that a portfolio can bring you: it helps you showcase your work online, pulls in new clients and builds a strong and wide online exposure for your work.

The sad thing is that, not all photographers possess technical skills for building a portfolio. Some may feel a little intimidated due to lack of coding skills and the others may think that building a portfolio needs a lot of time as to them, it’s an intricate process to go through.

The good news is that there are a number of platforms for you to build an online portfolio for your work without wasting your precious time and with no coding skills required.

Here is a list of the top 10 portfolio-building websites for photography lovers, in random order.

1. Photoshelter

Photoshelter is one of the most popular platforms for building photography websites and online portfolios. The site allows you to control the layouts, fonts and images of your portfolio with ease and mobility.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t require any coding. Photoshelter doesn’t only provide you with tools to showcase your work; it also attracts buyers to purchase your photos. Its integration with social media sites and SEO turns your photo business strong and solid.

2. Orosso

Orosso is a portfolio building tool that allows its members to build professional and smart portfolios and maintain them easily. It doesn’t take much time to build a photography portfolio website. With Orosso, the process turns out easier and simplistic. In a matter of minutes you can have your portfolio created in a flash and highly customizable towards your looks and requirement.

Artists, designers and architects may consider Orosso as a viable option to create portfolios for a strong online presence. You can try it for 14 days and decide whether it’s worth a pay or not.

3. Foliolink

Foliolink is an online portfolio-building tool specifically for photographers and artists who want tobuild professional portfolios and sell their work online effortlessly. It doesn’t require any knowledge of HTML or CSS coding to get the portfolio created.

Foliolink features iPad and iPhone shadow sites, customization and e-commerce tools, and Search Engine Optimization for your online portfolio. You can create a free 7-days account before deciding what plan suits you best.

4. Zenfolio

Zenfolio is an online tool that helps you make amazing online portfolios fast and painlessly. Whether you are photographer looking for building a stunning portfolio or a photographer serious about selling your work online, Zenfolio is the right choice for you.

The user-friendly ecommerce interface, point-and-click interface and easy customizers are the features that can make you complete your photography website in a flash. The subscription fee starts at $30 per year. However, they provide a free premium account for trial (there is nothing to lose).

5.FolioHD

FolioHD is a self-hosted portfolio platform for photographers, artists, architects, models and designers. They offer essential features to build a website in a simple way and according to the plan you register for. In folioHD there are 3 plans: basic, power and pro. The basic only supports up to 36 uploads of media files, but the plan is free.

On the other hand, the power and pro plans provide more exciting features such as, Google Analytics, privacy options and the Fotomoto access. The power and pro plans only differ in the amount of uploads, which is 1000 and 2000, respectively.

6.Folio Websites

Folio Websites is a portfolio building website for creating mobile and professional photographywebsites. What makes Folio Websites stand out from the overcrowded marketplace, is their clean, simple and clutter-free design.

They work on WordPress, which is highly customizable, offers SEO benefits for better search ranking and mobile compatibility. You can register a premium account starting at $14.60 per month.

7. 1X

1X is more of a social network and online community for photographers than a portfolio building tool. However, photographers can use this platform to get strong exposure with thousands of users in this community.

The interesting thing about 1X is that, not every photo you upload is going to be published. Every photo you submit is selected for publication by a curator. 1X has a forum community whereprofessional designers discuss the projects they are working on and give suggestions for a better craft. You can give it a go for free.

8. 500px

500px is a personalized portfolio building tool and market platform for photographers to sell their work. This platform helps photographers to create online portfolios easily.

In 500px, you maintain and control your site whenever you need and without having to touch any code. They provide their members with great features, such as, advanced tracking system of visitors, unlimited photos upload, custom domain name and a photo store that allows selling of photos online.

9. SmugMug

SmugMug is a platform for digital photo sharing where photographers can expose the masterpiece of their work to a community of thousands of members. SmugMug provides the users with beautiful and elegant themes to build professional portfolios that spark interests.

The portfolio building interface is simple to work on, with easy customizers to select photos, fonts, colors and themes. For wider exposure, share your work on Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks.

10. Pixpa

Pixpa is a portfolio building site that allows photographers to create amazing and elegant portfolios to show off their works. It provides you with hundreds of pre-designed templates to choose and you can select the one that best fits your needs in just a single click. Customizable fonts, backgrounds, colors, menus are among a plethora of features to build your site with ease.

If you are craving for your own domain name to build a strong online presence, Pixpa also supports that. In Pixpa you can also sell your photos online using an e-commerce integrated platform called Fotomoto. Give it a try for 15 days (no credit card required).