In brief, so far the Challenge has involved:

• Researching good keyword phrases using Market Samurai to find one that has more than 80 visitors a day when you have the top phrase in Google and less than 30,000 competing pages (phrase match)

• Analysing the top 10 sites for that keyword phrase in Google and seeing whether there is an opening for a well-optimised site with some good backlinks

• Setting up a WordPress blog (using WordPress Direct) that is highly optimised for the keyword phrase

• Adding an affiliate link to a relevant product to test the market

• Helping the search engines find the blog by submitting the first (and any subsequent) blog post to a number of social bookmarking/networking/media sites, such as DIGG, Propeller, Twitter and Delicious.

• Commenting on relevant blog and forum posts with the url of blog included in the signature or blog comment

• Using highly optimised Web2.0 sites to create quality backlinks to the main blog

This is not a lesson in Affiliate Marketing but a free and easy method for testing a market. With just 17 days of effort we should start to see traffic coming to our blogs and soon be able to judge whether any of these visitors are buyers.

My Own Thirty Day Challenge

So far, I have targeted two different niches. One is a completely brand new one, and the other is a niche that is practically new (I started a personal blog on this topic recently for some friends and then discovered that there were some excellent keyword phrases within it).

Site one was picked up very quickly by Google but is not ranking very high (maintaining a position around the 31-35 mark). Site 2 took nearly a week to be listed by Google but is now around the 10-12 position for phrase match.

It may not sound too impressive, but considering I have yet to actually catch up with the challenge and create any web pages on Web2.0 properties like Squidoo and Hubpages, this is pretty good going. I have only done some social bookmarking, rss submission and one or two blog comments (I haven’t posted to Squidoo or FriendFeed because I don’t want to reveal my niches). I probably wouldn’t have even managed all the social bookmarking if it wasn’t for the new Traffic Android tool I have been using, which makes it extremely easy to social bookmark more naturally and organically (read my review of Traffic Android on my Audible Marketing blog).

Why am I behind with the Challenge?

Partly because of keeping up with my moderator duties at the Thirty Day Challenge Forums (the forums have been incredibly busy this year) but also because of friends visiting and having to go away for a wedding. Also, I am doing quite a bit of writing outside of the challenge, so the extra writing involved to create all the required content is just more time at the keyboard.

Plus, I’ll be honest and say that researching markets on Market Samurai has become a new favorite pastime – it would take me years to follow the 30DC process for all the keywords I have researched but I keep looking anyway.

I’m not too panicked, though. I shall have a writing blitz over the next few days (I already dictated some ideas and notes to myself on the motorway today) and start setting up some more web pages.

What do I hope to achieve from the Challenge?

At the moment, it is too soon to say. If Niche One proves profitable I will probably keep it as an affiliate site and build up more blogs like it, but with the potential of creating a more general authority blog on the topic. Niche Two has more possibilities for an information product (or a variety of information products).

One decision I made early on, before the challenge even began, was that I was going to target higher priced products in my testing. I would rather sell a $2000 affiliate product than a $27 one. The effort and numbers required in traffic to make that sale are probably the same but the affiliate payout will be much better. So, if I can find a successful niche where visitors are going to buy a high ticket item (or at least 1 in 200 visitors to the money page are going to buy) I can make a much bigger chunk of change even at only 4-6% commission (that’s $80+ for most sales in these niches compared to $15).

In the case of both of these niches I would probably continue to manage them myself if they prove successful (but outsource much of the content). However, I am intrigued by Allison Reynolds’ business model of building blogs using this method, make them profitable and then sell them. When I have tested these markets and proved I can use this process to make money, I fully intend to pursue that line of thinking (check out Allison’s blog – she’s an incredibly intelligent woman and fellow IM Geek Girl).

So, that’s the challenge so far. Stay tuned for more.

My Thirty Day Challenge: Halfway Mark is a post from: Internet Marketing Geek Girl. Head over to the blog to read more..

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1. Another Thirty Day Challenge is Over…so How Did I Do?
2. Thirty Day Challenge 2008
3. WordPress Direct – The Review: Multiple WordPress Blogs in a Jiffy!