That’s right 15 days after buying a brand new domain and building a 4 page site – and we’re ranking in the top 10 for a keyword that gets 30k searches a month and has 150k sites that are listed for the term.

The sale netted me about $5 – one more sale and the domain is paid for for the year – and since the hosting is all on the same plan for this site, and many others of mine – So in about 2 more sales the site will have paid its share of the yearly hosting.

I’m going to stick with this site and keep trying to get it ranked higher on page 1. That will surely bring in more traffic/sales – Right now I’m pretty low on the page in spot 10. Sure it’s the last spot on page 1 – but it’s still page 1 – and organic traffic to my site has doubled already today than it was yesterday when I was still ranking on page 2. And the day is only half over

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This morning I still had not been indexed – bummer, right – So I the first thing I did was hit up the social media sites – Submitted to digg, mixx, reddit, del.icio.us ect, ect, ect, etc – Stumbled it and sent it to all my friends. Sure enough about an hour later – I’ve been crawled for the first time – HUZZAH!

The next thing I did was reach out to my network of friends and contacts to see if anyone ran related sites and would be interested in linking to me – After all, the site provides some great information. I got a few links that way – then I went to some related dofollow blogs and made comments – the regular stuff.

After that I did what I don’t often to anymore – submitted to a bunch of free directories that I like and have helped me in the past. Sure this doesn’t do as much good – I even submitted to dmoz! (I KNOW RIGHT?!) It will be 6 years before they let me in - but it’s easy – and it can’t hurt.

I think tomorrow – and the coming weeks – will be more of the same and I may hold off on writing about it any further until I rank for my keywords and start seeing some REAL traffic.

Traffic since I put the site up and analytics running (by days)- 1 (that’s me!), 12 (that’s a couple of my friends and the Affiliate Managers), 34(Forum members), 89(mostly reddit/stumble people) – heh, lets hope this number keeps skyrocketing! I’m really excited to see when the first people are finding me through organic search/keywords.

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The first step in his process is to write down what you are interested in. This was an easy enough step and I came up with the following list: Camping, Dancing, Dogs, Music, Guitars, BBQ, Beards and several others. But these were the ones that I wrote down first.

Step 2 is to see if there is a market for any of these things and, all but beards, has a lot of search. Great, now all we need to do is find a product.

As it turned out the first product that came to mind was a product that I was actually playing with while coming up with this list AND it related to camping – My pocket knife.

Next it was time to see if my particular brand of pocket knife was something people searched for – I bought it back in ‘06 and it has been in my pocket every day since then, it’s not a multitool, but it has come in handy just about every day (even if I just use it to open letters and boxes).

Sure enough for the exact name/brand there are 22,000 searches a month – Checking to see the competition for my primary keyword I found that only about 150,000 pages even rank… Really not to many. Great. The clincher was that one of the secondary keywords (only the make of the knife) has 40,000 searches a month but only about 35,000 listings – Woah, this should be pretty easy to rank for (from my experience with SEO anything under 50,000 is doable with not too much work).

The next step was to find if there was a good affiliate program – turns out there are many (picking the right one is going to be the hard part)

So now I have a product that I really love and an exact match URL. Now it’s just time to make the site and try and rank for my words. Hopefully I can make and get the site up today.

Now, I’m probably not starting as small as laid out in Glen’s plan – but I do have a lot more experience with SEO and getting pages ranked than someone totally new to the game. So wish me luck!

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I read an article yesterday I just happened to find through following @Viperchill that was truly inspiring. Glen wrote about his successful process of creating affiliate sites. As many of you know I got my start in the internet marketing world with a few funny sites that got enough visitors to bring in a fun Google ads revenue.

I have never tried my hand at affiliate marketing. I have often thought about it but always found reasons not to.  After reading Glens post it’s time to give it a go. I am going to follow his process to nearly the letter and I will write about it here to keep everyone up to date.

Go and check out what he wrote but to sum up the process: Find one of your passions, see if there is a market, find a product that fits, make the site, get ranked, profit

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Since I started my Denver SEO website I have had so much work I have not had any time to even design out my site. Great news on that front – I have had such great success that I have found a designer to get to work and bring my very bare bones site to life. I am announcing it here as the 10k Things site is under going some serious modifications and the Blog there hasn’t been moved yet.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me while I got my own Denver SEO business off the ground. It’s amazing how much local work has been coming to me to do SEO work for them – Both in Boulder and Denver.

Be sure to get over to my Denver/Boulder based SEO company and check it out when it’s finally up to snuff with a great design near the end of November.

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I started thinking to myself that if I’m going to have this title I should put some reason behind it – or at the very least rank #1 in google for a search of Lord of Awesome. This is my mission now. I will spend time over the coming weeks to rank myself in the serps as Lord of Awesome.

This is where the SEO comes in – I will rank this page and others for Lord of Awesome as I have for my personal name Dave Winget. A search for Dave Winget comes up as the first 10 results pointing to things I have done and, given a little time, Lord of Awesome will come up as well.

If you want to help me out with this noble mission of branding myself as Dave Winget – Lord of Awesome feel free to link to this post and write about the best title – Lord of Awesome.

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Anyway, now that I am back in the drivers seat of my future and expansion of the company I am working for (myself) knowing how to choose the right clients comes into play.  Do you aim only for the top, bringing in only clients that you can get an ongoing monthly retainer or do you take on the small hourly jobs?

I have opted for both.  Naturally I want to expand my business with as many clients as I can, hire folks to handle the heavy lifting, wash rinse etc.  If I only aimed for ongoing larger clients I may get 1-2 signed a month, slowly building the base of the business – I can, however, take on small consulting work 3-5 hour projects at a much quicker rate.  In the past one and a half weeks of working on my own I have taken on 13 of these small projects.

With these small projects I have the luxury to pick and choose who I want to work with.  I haven’t chosen any that would be a once and out deal but rather I have spent this time to build relationships with other small design and development companies that will lead to more work in the future.  While these small projects are not long term contracts they ultimately can provide more value.

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So I did what any Freelancer turned Agency Worker doing side freelance work would do – Took it up a notch with my freelance work. I have always worked with designers and PPC consultants to help with my freelance clients – but now it’s official a company. The launch of the new internet marketing company site, 10kThings.com, should happen later this evening.

It’s pretty cool. We have been working together for a while now and interestingly enough we can do the exact same things any large agency can but for a much lower cost – As we have ZERO overhead.

We will see how things go – we have a few proposals out and a couple clients already signed. Who knows this thing could get huge… here’s to hoping.

To those wondering I will be keeping my full time job – and they were cool that I was working side work when they hired me as they encourage the entrepreneurial spirit. I am really happy where I am with this company and 10k Things will not be a direct competitor with where I am now. The current company I am with is much more large scale than anything 10k Things will be for quite some time.

Right now it’s just a fun project to bring in a little extra money with taking on a few clients and try something new.

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Lets look at some examples:

Exhibit A

This is the kind of sign that probably worked really well about 10 years ago. This man has been on the streets a long time but has lost touch with what works and doesn’t. He should really consider a redesign as the usability is just horrible, the information is jumbled and the font choices could be better. I’d also suggest that a he write better, less spammy copy – This would not only help usability but he might even be able to get higher SERP positions bringing in more traffic and ad revenue.

Exhibit B

This is a great example of good design but sadly they are not going to get the traffic they deserve. First of all the keyword density is lacking not to mention the fact that “work” and “food” are highly competitive keywords – ranking for these is going to be nearly impossible. With just a little keyword research we see that “Homeless Vet will work 4 food” would be a better choice – You can still get your message across and you find you will get a lot of traffic by putting yourself against less competition.

Another problem with this sign is that it’s out there so much – It’s duplicate content. Just changing the “for” to a “4″ isn’t enough to make the spiders think it is different. I’d suggest adding more words and maybe breaking up the content with bullets and H1’s. Even something as simple as changing “work” to “manual labor” would be helpful.

Exhibit C

Clearly this homeless man has some SEO experience. This man knew that he would get hurt in the SERPs if he used spam tactics or duplicate content. This is a great example of how great content will always be linked to and get a lot of traffic. Not only is this a link baiting sign it is a great example of niche marketing. He knew that ninjas are a big market and by by positioning himself for what people are searching for he gets the traffic. Not only that his copy writing and design skills are great. He gets his point across quickly and makes the reader want to buy.

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This AGREEMENT is dated and in effect as of the Month Day, Year, between “Company Name” hereafter referred to as “Consultant” and “Client Name”, hereafter referred to as “Client.” This agreement is with respect to the Search Engine Optimization of Company website, hereinafter referred to as the “Work.” Whereas, Consultant is a professional of Search Engine Optimization of good standing; Whereas, Client wishes Consultant to create certain Work described more fully herein; and Whereas, Consultant wishes to create such Work; Now, therefore, in consideration of the foregoing premises and the mutual covenants hereinafter set forth and other valuable considerations, the parties hereto agree as follows:

CONFIDENTIALITY:

The Client and Consultant may disclose confidential information one to the other to facilitate work under this Agreement. Such information shall be so identified in writing at the time of its transmittal, and shall be safeguarded and not disclosed to third parties by the receiving party. Confidential information shall not include information that:

1. is already known to the party to which it is disclosed;
2. is or becomes part of the public domain without breach of this Agreement;
3. is obtained from third parties, which have no obligations to keep confidential to the parties to this Agreement.

DESCRIPTION OF WORK:

A separate Proposal will describe the Work that is required of Consultant for the Client.

PAYMENT SCHEDULE:

The full length of this contract is as follows:

Starting date is Month Day, Year. and estimated completion Month Day, Year for the total amount of $X per month. Payment is due on the 1^st of every month.

DUE DATES:

Consultant agrees to deliver optimization suggestions on dates as agreed upon in the Proposal. Consultant will make every effort to meet agreed upon due dates. The Client should be aware that failure to submit required information or materials may cause subsequent delays in the production. Client delays could result in significant delays in delivery of finished work. The Client also agrees to make any SEO changes suggested immediately and to not second guess the Consultant. The Client acknowledges the fact that he/she knows nothing about SEO and will keep his/her personal opinions to themselves.

FEES & ADDITIONAL SERVICES:

Changes in client input or direction or excessive changes will be charged at $X an hour for any work the Client wishes Consultant to create, which is not specified in the DESCRIPTION section of this agreement, or in the attached Proposal will be considered an additional service. Such Work shall require a separate Agreement and payment separate from and above that specified in this Agreement. If the Client wishes to do nothing with the suggestions and changes offered but still expects his/her rankings to increase the Client accepts that he/she shall allow the Consultant to punch the Client in the throat.

ASSIGNMENT OF WORK:

Consultant reserves the right to assign other designers or subcontractors to the Work to ensure quality and on-time completion.

RESERVATION OF RIGHTS:

All rights not expressly granted hereunder are reserved to Consultant, including but not limited to all rights in sketches, comps, or other preliminary materials.

PERMISSIONS AND RELEASES:

The Client agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Consultant against any and all claims, costs, and expenses, including attorney’s fees, due to materials included in the Work at the request of the Client for which no copyright permission or previous release was requested or uses which exceed the uses allowed pursuant to a permission or release.

PUBLICATION:

The Client may publish or disclose information regarding the Work and shall acknowledge the support of Consultant in all such publications. The Client will not use the name of Consultant, in any advertising or publicity without the prior written approval from the Consultant. The Consultant will not use the name of Client, in any advertising or publicity without the prior written approval from the Client.

Termination:

Either party may terminate this Agreement by giving 30 days written notice to the other of such termination. In the event that Work is postponed or terminated at the request of the Client, Consultant shall have the right to bill pro rata for work completed through the date of that request, while reserving all rights under this Agreement. If additional payment is due, this shall be payable within thirty days of the Client’s written notification to stop work. In the event of termination, the Client shall also pay any expenses incurred by Consultant and the Consultant shall own all rights to the Work. The Client shall assume responsibility for all collection of legal fees necessitated by default in payment.

The Client and Consultant are independent parties and nothing in this Agreement shall constitute either party as the employer, principal or partner of or joint venture with the other party. Neither the Client nor Consultant has any authority to assume or create any obligation or liability, either express or implied, on behalf of the other.

This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of STATE applicable therein.

The undersigned agrees to the terms of this agreement on behalf of his or her organization or business.

On behalf of the Client: _________________________________ Date _____________

On behalf of Consultant: __________________________________ Date ____________

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