Step #1 - Niche Research

Niche research can be a tough task.

One of the best ways to do it is to look for a problem many people are facing, and then offer a solution. Another is to follow hot trends, or better still, be ahead of the curve. A third is to focus on 'timeless' niches like self improvement, dating, pregnancy or travel. One more way is to follow your passion or area of expertise - as long as enough others are interested in what you do.

Some resources that will help you are online discussion forums, chat groups, news websites, magazine sites, and trend watching sites.

After doing your niche research, the next step is to look for the top keywords in your chosen niche. Again, there are a wealth of resources, tools and services that will let you do this quickly and effectively.

Try and get a list of at least fifty keywords, popular ones, to build your content around.

Step #2 - Setting Up Your Framework

I like using an integrated framework that has a content management system, an interactive section and a convenient 'relationship building' vehicle - all working together seamlessly.

And surprisingly enough, setting this up is not very difficult!

First, set up a blog to be your content management system.

Why a blog?

1. It is easy to set up, even if you are not tech-savvy

2. It is naturally search engine optimized, with a structured linking pattern which ensures each section of your blog is connected so a spider can explore every nook and cranny.

3. It allows simple, effective keyword optimization

4. It does not require HTML coding or fancy programming to get going

5. It naturally encourages updating - on a regular schedule

6. Search engines love them - and so do other bloggers - giving you near instant traffic

7. They come with RSS feeds which allow another promotional vehicle and distribution channel for your content

Convinced? Good.

Next, integrate your blog with your forum/bulletin board.

Essentially, the link at the top of the blog points to your forum. Also place another link to the forum below every blog post, with an invitation to discuss the article/post. You can set this into the template of your blog, if you know how. Otherwise, simply copy and paste the link into every blog post that you make.

Third, you set up an autoresponder account which you will integrate with the forum and blog.

Aweber will automatically pull content from your blog and mail it out to your email list on a schedule you decide. You can choose to include 1, 2 or more posts, have them inserted into a template that you can customize, and have it mailed automatically or only when you approve it.

What you get, in essence, is an automated email newsletter created from the content you post on your blog!

Then, to encourage your site visitors, blog readers and forum members to join your autoresponder list and receive notifications, you place your opt-in form on the blog and forum - offering suitable inducements to encourage as many as you want to opt-in.

Step #3 - Creating Your Content

There are many different ways to get content. You can create it yourself. You can hire someone to do it for you. You can license someone else's content. Or you can buy packs of pre-created content (with resale rights, or private label rights) and customize them.

Which route you go depends upon your available resources (time, skill, money) and how you prefer to run your business.

Try and focus on creating 'chunks' of content that is optimized for each of your keywords. For instance, create 5 to 7 articles around the theme of your top keyword. Then another group of articles on your next keyword. Then, put them into their own 'minisite' - and link to them from your blog, forum and ezine!

This way, you create multiple 'keyword rich zones' - each of which is tied in to your main content resource, giving you the best of both worlds... huge content resource on a specific theme, plus tiny segments laser focused tightly on specific keywords.

Step #4 - Optimizing Your Content & Blog

The key to profiting from online content is to make sure the resource you are building ranks high on search engines for your chosen keywords, offers valuable content for human visitors interested in your niche, and is regularly updated with fresh, useful content.

Master these 3 and you can't keep the traffic away if you wanted to!

Here are a few tips to optimize a blog:

- Create categories and name them with your keywords (Wordpress and Movable Type let you do this)

- Add Technorati tags to your blog posts, and sprinkle your best keywords (ones related to the blog post)

- Place a list of your top keywords somewhere on the blog as a navigation menu - and link each of them to the specific keyword-rich minisite you created

- Make your blog username one of your top keywords. For example, if you set up your username to be '[Your Keyword] Guide', then every post will have 'Posted by [Your Keyword] Guide' below it - adding to your blog's keyword optimization

- To the end of every post, add descriptive links like:

"Discuss this [Keyword] post on the [Keyword] Forum"

"Share this [Keyword] article with your friend"

"Permalink to this [Keyword] post"

Get creative. There are many places you can insert your keywords for better optimization.

And after you've done this, go ahead and do the same with your content.

Make each post you make on the blog focus on one of your top keywords. By rotating posts around, you can ensure your blog gets listings of all your top keywords over time!