good article - thanks for posting!

Nice stuff cwar, now I know wtf Cwar means!

site review time!

truegourmet.net

that's not my money site obviously. i'm just experimenting with quickly throwing together wp-blogs with good layout. i def think i'm gonna build on some kind of food-related blog network though.

Overall I like the format simple and clean is always the best place to start IMO so Ill just throw out some ideas that you could try out:

-Single sidebar format, going simple and clean unless you have a compelling reason for two thats not shown I think one works nicely
-Navigation menu, size it up a bit move it towards the middle
-Gradient background just going from the current color towards a lighter version
-Separate the content box from the top header, try out some rounded corners with the different sections (not sure exactly), basically go for the modern web design look
-Not a big fan of the dotted borders
-Seems like a perfect site for jquery slideshow on the index

I dislike the color scheme. I'm not a color expert or anything but it just seems muddled and drab to me.

I would probably consider posting just once a day and taking the time to carefully write that content. It's not that your content is bad- it's just that I can tell you could do better. Quality>Quantity imo.

Basically do everything cwar says lol .

hum... must be a chrome bug, because those dotted borders doesn't show up in my browser. weird.

I'd mark that with a big red blinking "it depends"...

Not a huge fan about a lot of that site I'm afraid, it's one I might go on because I'm interested in food but as soon as it loads I'm pressing back a lot of the time. It's got a lot of potential with the visual nature of food, I'd exploit that.

The double right side nav bars could be critisised for wasting space when the content exceeds their vertical height, making me read the main content at an awkward and unatural angle, it might be a lot better to simply have a left and right bar surrounding main content.

Btw I love the article title:

Why would you visit that site if you weren't interested in food? wtf

I think you misread me, I mean I'm interested in food but might visit it, but the design would put me off a lot of the time unfortunately.

I'd turn that sign off if Quality still equals one post per day. That's more than enough for a blog.

if you want to invest some money, i would recommend you themeforest
,elegantthemes and rockettheme

1 of my favourite themes: http://themeforest.net/item/fast-blo...preview/145138 (only bad beat = just 2 Columns)

nice free theme : grunge (68 widget positions)
http://demo.rockettheme.com/wordpress/?theme=grunge
http://demo.rockettheme.com/wordpres...get-positions/

so I read all of this thread yesterday, started my own website w wordpress installed on my host, bought a .com yati yata. First time doing this, having a blast. Now I need to work nonstop to put content.

How hard is it to start from 0 (creating a new site w a new .com ) and make this site a lucrative one? Would like anyone's point of view on this since it seems you guys are mostly buying established websites.

To get more traffic...
1) Post on other forums of your niche, be active in the community.
2) Talk with other sites/top blogs, link them on your site.

When should I look into SEO actively? Right off the start or should I wait a little before trying this.

I'm such a nub lol.

A lot lot of work particularly the first time. Best way to learn is by doing IMO but dont expect your first website to be a success.

If you're doing it for money I would start like 5-8 sites at once because the SEO/MMO game is a numbers game. It's easy for one site to take WAY longer to rank and generate revenue than another. And you also might have underestimated your niche and the amount of converting traffic it receives. I'd start learning SEO immediately.

Also, for true results, "never fear, wait a year" before bitching or giving up at least.

I'm not sure if that's always true.

I also don't really understand this sentence

There are so many variables in play when choosing sites that it's definitely better to have more than one site if you're trying to MMO. I would never advocate putting all your eggs into one basket. For instance, the first 5 sites I started, only one of them "took off" and made more than expected and achieved the results I initially estimated. If I'd started 1 site, it'd be a different story. It's just generally a better idea to have a handful of sites for variance reasons. It's also easier to keep generating content if you're switching up the topics.

The second quote is also speaking about general variance involved in anything, but applied to making sites. You only have a limited amount of information on your niche before you start making your site and your initial estimates can easily be off, thus starting more sites than a single one is generally a better approach to see results.

There are a crapton of variables involved that can apply to a certain site, but not others. One site might take a full year before something clicks and it starts ranking. I've had a site sandboxed for over a year and then it popped out in #5 for it's main keyword and is #2 for it.

Is there a site where I can find people working for me for cheap? Like lets say I want a small professorial logo and i don't really feel like wasting my time for that on photoshop. What is the best place to find someone? ty~

http://www.fiverr.com for logos and stuff.

http://www.odesk.com for anything else (or logos).

Yup these are great. I have a friend who has had had a great experience getting a quick piece of code done on digital point or warrior forums as well.

This has sort of been the debate since the beginning of SEO. I think Google is moving towards heavy brand favoritism and that would tip the scales towards the one site. That said if you are heavily reliant on organic results any algo update can arbitrarily nuke huge %'s of your traffic, making it hard to invest in growth. I dont think launching 5 sites would be a typical approach I personally like to study and plan out my niches with a lot of research. I have the benefit of having a lot of experience judging how competitive rankings are so that may be a difference where starting 5 sites will be a good a test for someone else without that experience (I have definitely heard of examples of this being done successfully). Still you will be culling these down to probably 1 or 2 in the end. Once you have a fully monetized site you generally are better off investing in that until the rewards begin to decline, that is the point I start thinking about secondary sites.

I was not talking about starting multiple sites on the same exact niche. I was talking about going after several different niches/topics because it would increase your chances of success since there are so many variables at play. It's one of the many methods of diversifying your portfolio in relation to MMO, e.g., utilizing different monetization methods like building an affiliate site Vs. CPC site (AdSense Vs. Amazon), running AdWords campaigns, etc.

My approach was more likely to do 1 website at first and then see what works and what not with this website and learn from it. Then actually expand to more niches with the experience I gathered with the first one. The website is about something I'm a big fan of. I'm not really going in the direction of a Blog type of site but more like a Fan/Community site. The site is almost done (excluding content obviously), the main menu and the links are working fine and every pages are created. I'm probably going to throw it here at some point and try to get you guys feedback on it.

I'm having a headache right now with IMG sizing. I installed wordpress on my host, bought a template for 35$. I'm having troubles with "Featured IMG" sizing. Not sure how to make it works properly because sometimes the image is cut in half and its not really attractive. Or the image is too spread on width and its disgusting for the eyes. It's probably something dumb but if there is some Wordpress geniuses around that can help me out, I would really appreciate.

It's almost certainly something in your style sheet or theme specific so it's really hard to help. You might have to email the support for the site you bought it from.