In today’s Podcast Episode I quickly address my most common question, which is to explain my process for doing keyword research for authority sites.

In addition, I provide a quick update on renting/selling websites targeting local search terms, from Episodes 93 and 94.

I’ve gotten some great feedback via email and from the folks in the Private FB Mastermind group about those last two episodes and many folks are interested in trying out the idea for themselves.

In today’s Episode, I also provide an update on what’s been going on these past few weeks and the schedule of things going forward for the next month or so.

Links mentioned in the show…

My Exact Keyword Research Process w/Long Tail Pro – YouTube Video

Long Tail Pro Discount

How to Choose a Niche Topic w/Market Samurai – Post/YouTube Video

Market Samurai Discount

Be sure to tune in for full details and as always, thanks for being part of the community!

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Some of the links above may be affiliate links.  If you make a purchase, I would receive a commission at no additional cost to you.  Thanks for your support.

This week’s Podcast Episode is a case study of ranking brand new websites on the first page of Google, with minimal effort.

In the last Episode, we talked about the idea of building very basic websites, with just one piece of content and a contact page, targeting local search phrases and once they rank, to rent them out or sell them to relevant local businesses.

Much to my surprise, I was able to rank two brand new websites, on the first page of Google, in less than 24 hours.  All that and I haven’t even created that first piece of content yet!

All that I have done so far is register two new domain names at NameCheap, add them to my unlimited hosting account at WebHosting Hub and install WordPress.

During the WordPress install, it asks you for the Title and Description for your website. I provided a title that matches my domain name and targeted keyword phrase and included 50 words or less in the site description.

Then you just go to your Google Webmaster Tools/Search Console account, add in your new domain name, verify and then choose the “Crawl” -> “Fetch as Google”.

That will tell Google that your website exists and they will start to determine how to rank your content.  That was it!

In the Podcast Episode, I provide you a full breakdown of exactly what I typed in for the site title and description for one of my sites and provided additional details for how you can also rank a brand new website, quickly and easily.

The results were impressive and I’m looking forward to helping those two sites rank even higher and also looking forward to targeting additional site ideas and phrases with more traffic, to attempt to replicate the good results so far.

Be sure to listen in to this week’s Podcast Episode for full details and to be sure to subscribe via email to get the future case study results, as soon as they go live.

This week’s post and Podcast Episode topic came from another great suggestion from Marcus.

He forwarded me some details about the concept of building websites to rank for local search terms in a particular area and then renting them out for $500-$1000/month or selling them for a profit.

The concept is simple, build a bunch of different websites for terms like “atlanta plumbers”, “tampa pool companies” or a similar type of service that customers would be looking to spend money on in a local area.

Additionally, the primary article I used for research also talked about ranking for terms like “near me”, for instance, “antique stores near me” or “apartments near me”.

Building 1-2 Page Websites For Profit

The sites will be VERY simple, 1-2 page websites with a primary article with around 1000 words targeting the particular phrases you’re looking to rank for and a contact page.  That’s it as far as content goes!

Here is an example from the reference article…

You can see it is definitely nothing fancy.  No professional web design skills needed.

Then go out and get 1-2 backlinks from pretty much anywhere, just so Google will see the link and head on over and crawl the site to get your rankings going. You can use any existing websites you might have for that, or just search for “internet directory backlinks” in Google.

Then do the same for a bunch of similar sites for different terms or locations and let them sit out there for a month or two and see which ones start to rank on their own.

Since this is not an exact science, you’ll probably be surprised which ones rank and which ones won’t, so the more sites you can put out there the better. As Glen said in the reference article…

This is a numbers game. The more sites you have in play, the more chance you have of succeeding.

After a month or two, type in your targeted search terms into Google and see how your rankings are going.  Or even better, plug your URL into either the limited free or 14 day full trial of SEMrush and let it report back on what you’re ranking for automatically.

If you went from oblivion to page 1-5 of Google, that’s what you’re looking for. For those sites, add in another article or two to rank for some related terms, go out and get another couple easy backlinks and keep an eye on things over the coming weeks.

The goal is to have website(s) centered around a particular phrase on the first page of Google, that a local business in your targeted area would be more than happy to pay for, to get additional exposure and leads for their business.

The best part is that once you get there, you already have the social proof that you know what you’re doing, since you’ve been able to rank a website on the first page of Google.

Renting or Selling Your Site For Profit

At that point you just have to decide which route you want to go.  You could approach small businesses over the phone or via email to try and get them to rent your site for somewhere between $500-$1000 a month, or whatever you feel is appropriate.

If the idea of reaching out directly to folks is intimidating, or something you’re not comfortable doing just yet, you can always just post the website for sale on a site like Flippa and take the profits and use them to build out more sites.

Here are two examples from the source article showing where Glen was able to se...

Today’s post/Podcast Episode is all about how to utilize the free version of SEMrush to find additional phrases to target, to rank higher and bring in more traffic to your website(s).

This tip involves plugging in the URLs of some of your existing content into the free version of SEMrush at this link.

As long as your article has 1000+ words, you should get back great results showing some terms you are currently ranking for, what position you’re ranking at and you will most likely see other phrases listed that you can target to bring in additional traffic.

Be sure to listen in to this week’s Podcast Episode, where I will go full detail on my efforts of trying this out, not only on my own content, but the content of 3 other long time community members as well.

The free version of SEMrush does limit you to 10 searches per day and the results provided are limited to 5, but even still, you can get some great actionable details to help you bring in more traffic and increase your rankings quickly.

SEMrush 14 Day Free Trial

This morning, just after the post and Podcast episode went live, I received a response back from the folks at SEMrush.

I had asked if I could provide you guys with a free trial of the full version and they provided me a special link to a full 14 day free trial.

This link is different from the link mentioned above.  This one takes you directly to the sales page with a cost of $0 for the 14 day trial.

SEMrush Full Version – 14 Day Free Trial

Rather than limiting you to just 5 results and 10 queries per day for the free version, the 14 day trial provides you with all the results of their paid product.

So be sure to have all your URLs handy to plugin and find out what you’re ranking for, find out other great phrases to target to bring in more traffic and plug in competitor URLs to get some additional ideas and see where they’re getting backlinks from.

Thanks to Marcus for the great tip this week and congrats on your new book, published on Amazon this past week!

In this week’s Podcast Episode I talk about a huge advantage of having your own online business, I provide an SEO tip that you’ve never heard before and also provide some great suggestions for Podcast apps to try, for iOS and Android devices.

Be sure to listen in for full details.

By the way, you may have noticed that I have a new logo and caricature of myself at the top of the site. What do you think?

It was a Fiverr gig that was $25 for a logo and cartoon style “mascot” creation, with up to 4 revisions included free of charge.

It was one of the best deals and experiences that I’ve had on Fiverr. I sent him my existing logo and a picture of myself and a rough idea on what I thought I wanted and he used his creativity to take care of the rest.

I utilized 3 of my 4 free revisions to tweak some colors and he was very responsive every step of the way, with minimal feedback required.

If you’re looking for a new or updated logo and “mascot”, definitely give this very reasonable logo creation gig a try.

Thanks for being a valued member of the community!

In this week’s Podcast episode, I talk about some recent questions from the community in regards to how to actually SUCCEED online.

One specific question was from the Private Facebook Mastermind Group and two related questions were received via email, all centering about how to build a successful online business.

Be sure to listen in for full details and thanks for being a valued member of the community!

In today’s Podcast Episode/post, I talk about how you can increase your WordPress site speed, with minimal effort, for free.

Be sure to listen in to the Podcast, as I will walk you through the steps below, in addition to providing the details behind the recommendations.

I’ve included screenshots of the steps mentioned in the Podcast and links to the tools, for reference below.

As always, before installing any plugins or making changes on your website(s), be sure to take a full offsite backup.

The plugin I recommend for backup and restore is the Updraft Plus WordPress Backup plugin. It is free for normal use and it works great.

I recommend you utilize DropBox as the offsite storage option. If you sign-up for a free DropBox account through my affiliate link, we will both get an additional 500MB of free storage.  Bonus!

In addition, BEFORE you attempt any of the steps below, I recommend you run a quick speed test of your site at GTMetrix.com, or your favorite speed test site.   You can download a full PDF report as a baseline, for later comparison.

Steps For Speeding Up Your WordPress Website

CloudFlare Sign-Up and Config

Sign-up for a free Cloudflare account and then sign-in.

Click the +Add Site button, enter your URL and then “Begin Scan”.

After the scan is complete, click the “Continue Setup” button.

Click “Continue” on the DNS verification screen.

Scroll down and choose the Free Website plan and click “Continue”.

Take note of the DNS servers you will need to change to and click “Continue”.

Note: the DNS servers shown in the image below may differ, be sure to use the ones shown in your own account.

Login to your Domain Name provider and change your existing DNS servers to match the ones referenced in the step above.

I utilize and recommend NameCheap for Domain Registration.

Below is a screenshot showing where you would make those changes on your NameCheap account.  Be sure to click the green “Save” check mark.

At this point, it will take a little bit of time for the changes to propagate throughout the internet.  They mention to allow up to 24 hours, but usually an hour is long enough.

After some time has passed, return to your Cloudflare dashboard and click “Recheck Nameservers”.

Once that is successful, you will see the screenshot below showing that your free CloudFlare account is now fully active.

Now click on the “Speed” tab along the top and within the “Auto Minify” section, click the check boxes for “JavaScript, CSS and HTML”.

Scroll down to the “Rocket Loader Beta” section and select “Automatic”.

Switch over from the “Speed” tab to the “Caching” tab.

Scroll down to the “Always Online” section and turn this On.

That’s it for the options within CloudFlare.  Now we’ll install and enable the Imagify plugin for optimizing and shrinking down images.

Installing and Configuring Imagify

Go to your WordPress Dashboard, select “Plugins” and “Add New” and then type in “Imagify”, select “Install Now” and then click on “Activate”.

After clicking on “Activate”, you’ll see the screen below.

In this week’s Podcast Episode, I talk about some of the different options when it comes to enabling HTTPS for your WordPress website.

Below, I will show you the steps for enabling HTTPS in just a few short steps, for free, utilizing Cloudflare.

Cloudflare utilizes SNI for their free SSL plan. For technical details and to decide if this method is right for you, click here for a full breakdown.

How to Enable HTTPS For Free on WordPress

Sign-up for a free Cloudflare account, by clicking the Sign-Up button in the upper right hand corner of the site.

Click the +Add Site button, enter your website URL and click “Begin Scan”.

Once the scan is complete, click “Continue Setup”.

On the DNS verification screen, scroll to the bottom and click “Continue”.

Choose the free plan and click “Continue”.

Make note of the Cloudflare DNS servers for the next step.

Login to your domain name provider and switch your domain name servers to the ones referenced in the step above.

This is a screenshot showing where to do so if you utilize NameCheap.

At this point it can take up to 24 hours for the changes to take effect, so give it a bit of time.  Usually 1-2 hours is fine.

Return to your Cloudflare dashboard and click “Recheck Nameservers”.

Once that is successful, you will see the following screenshot showing that your status is now active.

Login to your WordPress dashboard and install the Cloudflare Flexible SSL plugin.

Click activate.

You should now be able to access your site by typing your URL into your browser with https at the beginning. Test it and make sure it works.

Assuming all is good, go to your Cloudflare account and click on “Page Rules”.

Click on “Create Page Rule”.

Type in your URL as http://*yoursite.com*, click “Add a Setting” and choose “Always Use HTTPS” from the pull-down menu and click “Save and Deploy”.

Navigate to your website with the regular http URL and it should automatically redirect to the https version for all of your content.

Congratulations!  That wasn’t so bad right?

Quick Note: If you try your site in Internet Explorer and get a message that some of your content is insecure, it is likely an outdated plugin causing the issue. Either disable the outdated plugin or install this one additional plugin and that should fix the issue: Really Simple SSL.

Change Your URL to https in WordPress Dashboard

Go to your WordPress dashboard -> Settings -> General and change your URL to https from http

Add HTTPS URL To Google Search Console and Analytics

Now that your content is properly displaying via HTTPS, you will need to add the new version of your URL to Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Login to Google Search Console and click on “Add a Property” and input the https version of your site.

Choose one of the verification methods provided and click “Verify”.

You should then receive a message saying your site is verified.

Congrats, only one step to go!

Login to your Google Analytics account and choose the relevant website and click &#...

Hey everyone, Happy New Year!

In this week’s Podcast episode, we talk about taking all that optimism and refreshed energy that a new year brings, to help make progress on your goals and dreams!

For those of you brand new, just starting to embark on your online journey, I recommend beginning at my Start page.

For those of you with website projects already underway, be sure to check out my Resources page for special discounts on hosting, keyword research tools, themes, plugins, etc.

I hope everyone has a great start to the new year and may all your efforts turn into great achievements!

P.S. Don’t forget to change the Copyright date at the bottom of all your blogs and websites to 2017!

In this week’s Podcast Episode, I answer a question regarding how to properly utilize content from an existing outdated website for a new website, without getting a duplicate content penalty.

In addition, I answer the question as to whether content translated into another language, is considered duplicate content.

We’ll then do a quick year end wrap-up and provide some tips on what to focus on in the new year for success!

Be sure to listen in to this week’s Episode for full details!

Thanks you for being a valued reader/listener/subscriber and all around great person!

For everyone celebrating, I hope you have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Festivus or whatever it is you might be celebrating along with a very Safe, Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!