If you are looking to start a site, but have no clue how, then I wrote this article just for you.  Seriously.  In this article, I lay out 7 steps to starting a web site from scratch.

These steps are very prescriptive.  In fact, I will be recommending specific tools and services for you to use at each step.  These recommendations are examples.  You do not need to use the specified tools and services to accomplish each step.  However, as you will notice, these tools and services are either completely free or as low cost as you can possibly find! […]

Craigslist is a great resource for a number of reasons.  Here are three reasons.  One, everyone uses it.  It’s ranked as the 10th biggest site in the US (per Alexa).  Two, it’s very well organized.  You start with a specific geography, browse by niche–finally, you can even search by keyword on top of that.  Lastly, it’s free.  Free and with no annoying ads! Man, that guy Craig is a good samaritan.

Now, for you to find customers on Craigslist, your particular niche has to be listed on Craigslist.  I suppose that’s the catch.

Let’s walk through a few, different examples of how one can effectively use Craigslist to find customers. […]

Before you continue, take a look at this blog post by Bob Cringely. It’s titled Parrot Secrets and tells a story of a guy making over $400,000 a year selling ebooks about parrot training.

http://www.cringely.com/2009/03/parrot-secrets/

Done?  Don’t cheat and skip ahead. 🙂

Now, let’s tie the brilliance of selling a digital book to our autoscale, autopilot, value-add model.  […]

The key take-away from a number of very popular business strategy frameworks is to FOCUS.  This includes Porter’s Five Forces, Blue Ocean Strategy, Bowling Pin Strategy, etc.  This same principle holds true for SEO strategy.

Like myself, I assume you are also a one-man team.  You have a lot of priorities, and so your time and energy is limited.  You may want to conquer your niche, but to do, requires focus.  In conducting SEO, take down a handful of keywords at a time.   Once you have them ranked high, or at least with upwards momentum, expand your list of keywords.

To help myself focus, I use 3 tools (pretty much on a daily basis).  They are all free. 🙂  […]

Search engine optimization is a subject that requires continuous study and practice, because Google is constantly updating its ranking algorithms.  However, there are basic principles of SEO that hold true.  I call these  the 6 levers to SEO.

Whenever you read about specific SEO tactics, it helps to anchor that discussion against these 6 levers.  You want your SEO strategy to span across all 6 levers and not focus on any single one. […]

So, imagine this situation.  Your page finally got ranked for that keyword.  But, now it’s stuck.

Sound familiar?

Here’s a simple and easy way to move up the rankings for your keyword.  Do a search for your keyword and scan all the listings before yours.  Maybe even look a few pages back after your listing.  Look for any page that allows commenting, which can take the form of a blog post, news article, forum thread, etc. […]

Okay, so now that you finally have your site up and running, tweaked it to your heart’s content (at least, for now), it’s finally time to play the difficult SEO game.  (If you haven’t even been indexed yet, get the Google indexing guide). In a nutshell, SEO involves getting your site ranked for targeted keywords.

For competitive keywords, this can be tough.  In fact, even for low competition keywords, if you aren’t well versed with SEO, it can be a difficult and frustrating process.

One technique that can be highly effective is the use of “link bait.”  As Matt Cutts defined it, link bait is anything “interesting enough to catch people’s attention.”  To be more specific, link bait is the creation and distribution of a very sensational web page (located on your site) in hopes that it will go viral and generate countless links back to your site. Here is more info on link baiting from Wikipedia.

Let’s examine at one of my favourite examples of link bait in action–the case of the 13 year old and 2 hookers.  Piqued your interest? 😀 […]

The inaugural post.  How exciting.

In this first post, I’d like to introduce the objectives of this blog.  This blog will focus on helping hard working individuals build autoscale, autopilot web sites that add value. Allow me to elaborate…

• Autoscale – Almost every site I build has over 5K pages. Many have over one million. These are not pages that are manually created. That would take forever. Autoscale sites organically scale in size. They are designed this way. An example of an autoscale site would be a niche search engine. For every search performed, a new page with unique content is created. Another example is a social bookmarking site. With each new user, a profile is created; with each submission, several new page are created; as submissions accumulate, archive pages are created. Therefore, with time, more and more pages are naturally created. From a SEO and monetization perspective, there are immense advantages to having a site of scale—especially one that scales automatically.

• Autopilot – Sites on autopilot require minimal upkeep. They become a source passive, residual income. This is just like rental properties—except this is virtual real estate. (Thinking of 4-Hour Work Week?) Whether you are looking to have a lifestyle job, or just to free up time to start your next project, there are clear advantages to having a site that runs on autopilot.

• Add Value – For an online business to be truly sustainable, it needs to add true value at the end of the day. It should have a value propostion that offers tangible convenience to your visitors. A blog that spins articles (mostly into gibberish) for the sole purpose of creating affiliate leads ads no value. In fact, it is spam.

With the above 3 criteria, a number of sites and business models are ruled out. We’re not after the small WordPress blog (not autoscale!). We’re not after the VC-backed Internet startup banking on the IPO (not autopilot!). We’re not after Pay-per-Click arbitrage (no value add!).

With all that said, I’m sure topics and themes will deviate as this site and blog evolves.  If there are specific subject matter if you have interest in, please feel free to suggest it here.

Don’t worry, the content will be newbie friendly.  In fact, I am creating content specifically for beginners.

Thanks for reading.

dave