The Big Idea Here Folks

I was worried that this business would turn into too much over-thinking and everyone would get bogged down with the minutest details - and I think it has. The problem in trying to explain the methods I use is that I don't have a set of steps 1-10 that I can give you all. My methods have developed in a sort of free flowing, ever changing, never ending series of trial and error experiments and over time I have developed a pretty good idea what the best way to proceed is given whatever circumstance I find myself in. The type of niche and the method of monetization I am chasing will determine how I go about building a site. I have laid out the big picture for you all to digest and am hoping that you will be able to fill in a lot of the small details that are particular to your own niches. I wish I could give you a set "map" of how to link all your blogs and tell you what blogs are farm only, second tier only, money sites etc. The fact is that it just isn't that cut and dried. I have turned crappy farm blogs into money sites. I have sites that I built to make a killing with aff. sales or adsense that didn't pan out and now they are farm blogs. I think I should start this discussion over and explain how I view building sites - any site. I get an idea. I immediately create a blog with the best URL I can get. I hammer out a huge long winded article - perfectly optimized for my main keyword and use lots of related keywords in the post. My usual goal is to make money with adsense so my ideas usually come from that premise. Hey, that sounds like a topic people will search for and I bet there are lots of ads available for it. I check. If there are lots of ads - adsense it is. If there are not a lot of ads I check to see if there are some affiliate products for it. If there is - great - it's now going to be an aff. blog. You'll noticed I haven't bothered worrying if there are people searching for my topic. I may or may not run it through keyword elite. Basically I don't care what the keyword tools say as I have learned that they aren't that accurate and my own hunches are usually pretty good. Besides, my long rambling posts always tell me if there is some interest in the topic. This will produce traffic for the main keywords or for long tails. If there is interest in the subject 1 or 2 long tails will get good ranking and I will get a few visitors. If I do get traffic I work the site with more posts and start getting links to it. If there is no traffic I then designate it as a farm blog and put it in the pile "to get back to". In essence I have sites that "I'm working on" and sites that I "will get back to". I have used the term farm blogs and secondary and money sites in order to give you folks some kind of broad outline but in reality I don't think of them that way at all. If I'm working a blog I know instinctively if it is a money site or if it is a secondary site I'm tweaking to aid another site. At the time I'm doing this I am also digging through my "get back to" pile looking for relevant posts or blogs that could help out. To put it simply I create a project or campaign and create new blogs, tweak old blogs or dust off the farm blogs in accordance to what the new project needs. As a result the farm blogs get links and updated and re-edited on a very happenstance schedule as opposed to me saying to myself - OK I have to build farm blog links today. tomorrow I have to add new posts to my old blogs. That would be way to organized and great if you can do that. I can't and don't. I work on lots of projects (campaigns) and as a result different sites get used all the time and they get updated then and more or less forgotten the rest of the time. keep in mind my projects aren't done in a day. I started a campaign to rank well for the term Payday Loans six months ago. I started another one to rank well for SEO 5 months ago. At the time I planned my attack I worked out my strategy and then began hauling farm blogs out of the dungeon and created new sites and basically put them all into the service of getting my posts on the MMO blog onto page 1 for those two terms mentioned. Those farm blogs are now "working blogs" and I have been building them up in order to build up secondary blogs which I already had for other purposes but are a good fit. I also built some lenses and started a GoArticles campaign and will be adding hubs to the mix. I have used other blogs to link to the GoArticle pages thereby boosting it's ranking and the lenses to increase it's ranking. I have also used links to boost the pages of people who have linked to my posts on the MMO blog. Think about that folks - I haven't mentioned this before and have never heard anyone else bring this up. If Elliot links to a post of mine on his blog then I get a PR5 link for a while until it falls off his home page. It then sites on a PR0 page for ages until he gets the page links and PR of it's own. Or I can help him by sending him links which gets his page a PR3 and guess what - I now have a lifetime PR3 link coming to me from a totally legit site that I don't own using the perfect keyword for what I want ranking for. Then Elliot becomes a p**ck and deletes my link! Bastard! ha. lol. (kidding Elliot) Anyhow - do you see what I am getting at. This isn't a one size fits all situation. Plan a campaign - a goal - what are you trying to do. Once you know this then build all the blogs necessary to achieve that first goal. This way you aren't just building meaningless "farm blogs". You will find it a lot easier to create 20 blogs, lenses, hubs, articles and do all the linking and posting required if you have a tangible goal in mind. When the campaign is done and you have either achieved the desired results or failed miserably you will have a 20 blog strong farm built. Start your next campaign. You may be able to use some of those 20 or maybe not and you will have to build 20 more for the next project. Eventually you will have a hell of a lot of blogs and hubs and lenses and articles out there and that's when your time line will decrease from the beginning of a project to seeing money in your pocket. At present you are getting hung up on what you should do and shouldn't do. Let your "GOAL" dictate what you should or shouldn't do. If you want to be making money with Adsense for the term "fishing lures" then sit down and work out what needs to be done and then build all the platforms you are going to need to achieve that one particular goal. Here are some tips. I would build the following. ageneralsportsblog.blogspot (Fishing is a sport posts and other sports) ageneralhealthblog.blogspot (fishing is relaxing and good for your health posts and other health posts) fishingrods.blogspot (targeted on fishing equipment posts) fishinglodges.blogspot (all about where to fish and how to fish posts - including posts about fishing lures) Fishinglures.blogspot (the money site) hubpages - lots - some on health, sports, fishing lodges, fishing rods, lures etc. and send links to those general and niche blogs but not to the money site. Lenses - same as the hubs. Articles on GoArticles etc. Different articles - different keywords pointing to all the blogs other than the money site. I would basically spend a month or two building links and posts for all the support blogs but no links from them to the money site. The money site would be getting frequent really well written long posts about lures and related long tails. I would get it all the crappy links I could find as well as article links. No Adsense yet. When my support sites start getting PR and crawled frequently I would then use them to link to the money site. When the money site makes page 1 I add the Adsense. Now you are making money. I have simplified this but that is the basics of a campaign. The more blogs used and levels of re-direction etc the better. The more platforms the better. I would have used the BS and LV link networks as well. I would have approached real sites associated loosely with the topic and offered to buy links. Joe has a website for his fishing lodge - hey Joe I will give you $50 if you put a link to my site in a blurb about "xyz lures". Bob has a site about flyfishing - buy a link. Some people will tell you to piss off - others take the money. Some you have to explain what a link is. It's always different. In the end I will have a blog on page 1 for fishing lures and either it gets lots of traffic and I make decent money from Adsense or the traffic sucks and I remove Adsense and stick affiliate links on it and then forget about it. On to my next campaign - camping equipment. Hey-look at that - I already have a general health and sports blog in the farm I can use. Better yet I can link a bunch of those hubs and lenses to some new hubs and lenses and so on and so forth. This is how I have hundreds of blogs in my network. They are simply the byproducts of a never ending series of campaigns that either failed or made money. Now - work the details out as you go. Get a plan together first and then make it happen.