Which brings me to the subject of article writing. Due to having to write so many articles everyday I’m becoming much more disciplined. Previously I could crank out 5-10 articles per day if I REALLY wanted to, but usually it would be more like one or two. You know how it is!

But now… now I think of 10 articles per day as EASY. In fact if I could get away with writing just 10 articles per day I’d be laughing. I am out of necessity however writing up to 30 articles per day to fulfill the WSO orders. And you know what? When I finish these orders I’ll probably bump the WSO to the top again! I like the money and I’m becoming a better writer.

I am still working on my niche sites and yes my 2008 plan is going well despite this extra work load.

I’d really love to hear how YOU feel about article writing. Do you do it all yourself? Do you outsource?
Do you hate writing, or do you love it?

Well, back to it. I have another 11 articles to go before I sleep tonight!

However if I had to recommend one host then it would be Hostgator. I have 2 accounts with them - 1 reseller account and one regular account. I’ve never noticed my sites down, and have never had to contact customer support for anything.

There are a number of other web hosts I also recommend and I’ll mention them in future posts, but if you need a host now and are overwhelmed by all the hosting review sites out there, then choosing Hostgator will not leave you disappointed.

Click here to visit Hostgator

I came across this excellent list of 100 very nice Wordpress themes all compiled on to the one page for easy access. These should keep you going for a while!

www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/

http://www.seoservice.org.uk/list.php

I generally submit to around 30-50 directories for a brand new site. I don’t make it a major focus, nor do I dwell on whether every single submission is accepted - it’s simply a good way to start your site off, gets a few backlinks and can speed up the indexing process.

From the above list you should be able to narrow down a shorter list of quality directories that do fast approvals and you can then use that short list for all of your new website submissions.

So have I achieved my hefty goals for the month? Just about

Build 4 new niche sites per month - done. I have 2 static sites and 2 Wordpress sites. I like to mix it up.

Each site must have at least 10 unique articles within the first month - done. There are 2 smaller very niche sites which I’ve done 5 articles for only as 10 would get repetitive.

Submit each site to at least 25 quality directories - done

Submit at least 5 articles from each site to Ezinearticles in the first month - 2 sites done, 2 sites still with articles pending approval (who said platinum authors get approved quickly!)

Form a keyword list for each site - done

No advertisements on the site for the first month - done

Submit a sitemap to Google in Webmaster Tools - done

Add 5 unique articles per month to each site, based on my keyword research - these sites have been added to my May list. The smaller 5 page sites will probably have just one new article added per month (I can deviate from the rules a little here!)

Submit at least 2 unique articles to Ezinearticles each month for each site - same as above.

So as you can see I’ve done pretty well if I do say so myself
I do intend to keep this up all year, it’s not something I’ll get bored of. Until now I’ve written and submitted articles when I felt like it, not according to plan. Plans however are the BEST way to achieve goals.

If you are following along or doing something similar yourself, leave a comment and let us know how you’re going

They are going for just 10 bucks here:
www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=238803

It is in fact a Firefox extension, so you will need to be using the Firefox browser to use it, but it’s well worth doing so if you are an IE user because this tool is AWESOME.

I’ve dabbled with other SERP checking tools but most either stopped working or hammered Google with requests which can lead to the banning of your site. Due to Aaron’s exceptional SEO knowledge, he does not allow this to happen with his tool Rank Checker. He also ensures it is secure enough that people can not spy on your data.

It is a very easy tool to use and I highly recommend it as a way to track your most important keywords.

You can find details and downloads at Seobook.com

If I had started some more sites in January, by now they would have been well indexed and receiving some traffic and possibly some earnings. That’s when it hit me… I need to do it NOW. Not tomorrow or next week, but right now.

True enough, I have several existing sites which are doing quite well, but it’s not enough. In addition to updating those sites regularly, I want to build an even bigger portfolio of niche sites. So I came up with a plan which would ENSURE that by December 2008 I would have a very nice portfolio of websites which are all hopefully earning a passive income.

My plan is simple.

• Build 4 new niche sites per month
• Each site must have at least 10 unique articles within the first month
• Submit each site to at least 25 quality directories
• Submit at least 5 articles from each site to Ezinearticles in the first month
• Form a keyword list for each site
• No advertisements on the site for the first month (more on that below)
• Submit a sitemap to Google in Webmaster Tools
• Add 5 unique articles per month to each site, based on my keyword research
• Submit at least 2 unique articles to Ezinearticles each month for each site

Simple enough isn’t it? When you think about it, the above is not hard. In fact, all of the above could be completed in 2 days (or less if you outsource the articles). It will take me longer than 2 days due to my client and membership site commitments, however achieving the above for 4 sites per month is an extremely reasonable plan, in fact I think it’s quite conservative. If I were more concerned with quantity over quality then I might build 20 or more sites per month, but I prefer to focus on quality.

Regarding no advertisements on the sites in the first month - I just use the first month to build some initial traffic. I am willing to sacrifice a few dollars whilst my site is getting indexed, ranked and accepted into directories. You have a better chance of this happening if the site isn’t plastered with ads. There is plenty of time for revenue and that will come after the first month of the site going live.

So, if all goes to plan and having started all of this in April 2008, here is where I will be at by the end of 2008:

• 36 live niche sites (not including my already existing sites)
• At least 50 articles on each site - for a total of 1800 articles across all sites
• At least 21 articles submitted to Ezinearticles for each site - for a total of 756 submitted articles
• A target of $5 earnings per site per day by December 2008 (keeping in mind that sites built from October onwards may not begin earning until early 2009) with a target of $180/day from all 36 sites. This is a very conservative estimate as I am aiming for $20-$50 per day from many sites

36 sites does not sound like a lot. However when you look at the number of articles, it seems a huge task. And it is! But…. I can write an article in 5 or 10 minutes. When you think of it that way, writing 10 articles per day is only a small part of your day. And if you can afford it, then outsource.

My other secret is to simply rewrite quality PLR articles. I find I can do this in under 5 minutes and boom - I have 10 original articles ready to go in less than an hour.

I’m halfway through April and already have 2 sites up with 10 articles on each. I’ll need to step up the pace to achieve my goal this month, but I plan to get there. Having a check list for each site really helps too!

I’ll be keeping you up to date with my progress throughout the year on this project, it should be very interesting to see what happens!

www.amazingwordpressthemes.com

Sometimes you just want a theme that fits a particular topic, without doing too much modification.

This site categorizes themes into various, well, themes!

You can see they have tons of categories like travel, cars, education etc. Although it’s generally easy enough to adapt any theme to any purpose, sometimes a Wordpress theme just doesn’t fit a particular niche. I’ve saved quite a bit of time by narrowing down my choices to themes within categories at AmazingWordpressThemes.com

Well, as of Wordpress 2.5 this plugin is no longer required as its functionality has been built into Wordpress.

You can read about it on the developer’s site here.