Obviously the eHow website has evolved significantly over the last couple of years to the point where the older content on this this blog is obsolete in terms of specific direction.
However, many of the basic principles still apply in terms of understanding affiliate links, Google AdSense, niche websites, etc. While terms like affiliate links, etc. now seem commonplace to me, there is in fact an entire world where the majority of people still don't know what those things mean, but more people are finding out and learning about them every day.
I've decided to use this forum to share with my readers other niche websites that I've worked on.
The idea is that hopefully this will help my audience better understand what I do and more importantly help you brainstorm ideas for similarly successful projects.
Interestingly, the idea of publicly revealing the niches someone is working on is somewhat taboo. This is because there's real fear that if you discover a great niche, you might ruin the opportunity for maximum financial gains by blabbing about it and then others can swoop in and capitalize on the opportunity either before or better than you can.
That is basically the reason I haven't always been completely forthcoming about what I'm working on.
For now at least I've decided to share some things I've worked on while keeping other things close to my vest.
Specifically the website I've planned to write about today is called:
How to cheat at chess and not surprisingly it's at:
www.HowToCheatAtChess.com
Among the topics covered are:
- Cheating at "Chess with Friends" - this is an iPhone app (wish it was available on Droid too) that I'm obsessed with.
- Basic chess cheating explained along with an example and video.
- Info about both a website and an iPhone app for cheating at chess.
- For chess enthusiasts looking for ethical ways to win more games there are also sections on:
To be perfectly honest with you the reason I picked this particular topic to make a website about is not because I thought it was:
- extremely lucrative,
- under served, or
- had minimal competition.
This side project about chess was mostly a labor of love and I think there's a lesson there. When you work on something that you're legitimately interested in it's easier to make a quality product, and in record time at that.
I made/wrote the initial project at the end of last week and then over the weekend I had some more thoughts about things that I forgot to include and more efficient ways to lay things out. So I came back today (Monday), added some more content and polished the site into the "finished" form you see right now. I put finished in quotation marks because every project, particularly ones you're genuinely passionate about can be perpetual works in progress because more ideas will always pop into your head about ways to tweak and improve the site.
Another thing worth mentioning about this chess website is the fact that there aren't any ads or even affiliate links even though there are a few obvious and appropriate places to put affiliate links. In the left sidebar there are logos for the iPhone apps "Chess with Friends" and "Chess Cheats". Through Link Share I'm actually already a member of the iTunes, App Store, Mac, etc. affiliate program. But I haven't put affiliate links in ... yet.
Another appropriate place for a trustworthy affiliate link would be on the how to be good at chess page about half way down where I'm discussing the 10,000 Hour Rule and how it applies to chess (specifically electronic chess on mobile devices).
I explain that this theory that aims to quantify a prerequisite for success was popularized by economist and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell. While he has numerous best-selling books, the specific one that most thoroughly explains this theory is called Outliers. Of course I have an Amazon affiliate account that I started years ago. In fact I started it around the time when I first learned about the concept/program and decided to write this post about affiliate links like Amazon's.
So why did I use an Amazon affiliate link to Gladwell's books on Amazon in the previous paragraph but not on the how to cheat at chess website? Along the same lines, why didn't I include App Store / iTunes affiliate links for the iPhone apps I'm blatantly explaining and promoting on the chess set?
The simple answer to those questions is that I'm trying out a new(ish) strategy to build up traffic to the chess site before monetizing it.
I'm not saying that search engine rankings penalize you for having ads or affiliate links on your websites. However, human readers generally prefer an online experience that isn't dominated by in your face ads and obvious self-promotion. Furthermore people are less likely to recommend and send their friends to websites that are clearly built for the self-interest of the creator.
Online browsing has evolved to the point where not only do people want free information, but they want it concise, easy to understand, nicely formatted, and with minimal ads.
These aesthetic points are particularly relevant for the website about chess cheating because I'm openly asking readers to link to my website. Here's a link to the page asking people to link to the cheating at chess website. As you can see the request is straightforward, brief, and polite.
Do I expect everyone who finds my chess website to link to me? No.
Do I expect everyone who reads the requests for a link to actually link to me? No, of course not.
However, I do think I'll get more links as a result of politely asking for them than if I hadn't asked at all. I'll report back on the results as data comes in.
The effectiveness of this direct "begging for backlinks" (a phrase I just coined) strategy probably depends on the type of audience you're dealing with.
If you're writing for a Make Money Online (MMO) community (like this one) everyone probably understands the concept of building link juice to impress search engines, etc. However, there are countless web surfers looking for information about all sorts of products and services and they're unaware of the fact that without a dime coming out of their pocket they can do you a solid by linking to your site and increasing your awareness, not just from the traffic they potentially send directory through their link, but more importantly in terms of search engine traffic their link contributes to you getting.
In short, I'm optimistic that by creating what I consider to be a legitimately useful website about chess with a unique spin (cheating), and original content that I believe will really give people what they're looking for I might be able to curry some favor with chess enthusiasts to spread the word about my little space on the information superhighway by linking to it.
I'll wrap up this post by saying that I hope you give me some link juice to this site and/or the chess site if you've found this post worthwhile. Even if you're not into chess you might consider posting a critique on your own MMO sites about what you think about the somewhat contrarian positions I'm taking with the cheating at chess website in terms of not putting any ads or affiliate links on the site right now and specifically "begging for backlinks."
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