Read Brad Callen’s lesson titled “7 Steps To Building a VRE Empire”.


Callen’s lesson is reprinted here.

7 Steps To Building a VRE Empire!

In a recent lesson on VRE I talked to you about using private label articles to create VRE websites. Then, in the previous lesson, I’ve talked to you about optimizing your websites for AdSense using proven strategies for increasing your ad CTR.

In today’s “special edition” I want to combine those two areas and tell you ““ show you ““ how you can create a VRE website and monetize it using AdSense in 7 simple steps.

All it takes is a website, some private label content and this tutorial. The best thing about private label content is that you don’t have to worry about doing keyword research and finding profitable topics ““ the hard work is already done for you. In addition, if you can find good quality articles (such as with PLRPro ““ the membership site I’ll be talking about in this lesson), that’s an added bonus.

Remember that you don’t have to use an article pack from PLRPro ““ it’s just something I’m using for the purposes of this walkthrough. You can use any private label content package ““ the key is to save time on researching your niche and on writing articles, and instead spend that time on building profitable sites.

In this lesson I’ll take you through the process of setting up a VRE site, and then you’ll learn how to optimize your AdSense, promote your website and automate this process so that building VRE sites becomes a snap.

Step 1 ““ Get your Article Pack

With private label rights content, all the hard work is already done for you. They pick the profitable topics, they get the articles written and they go through all the hassle of creating article packs that are almost plug-n-play. All you have to do is show up, pick up those article packs and put them on your website.

Go over to PLRPro, register (it costs $67 per month and you get 440 fresh articles every month ““ yes, that’s right, 440 new articles every month) and pick out an article pack of your choice.

A few words on the article packs provided by PLRPro:

* You get 40 articles for each topic ““ that’s rounds up to about 11 different niche topics per month

* For each set of 200 people that sign up, PLRPro provides 440 different articles each month.

* The keyword research is already done for you ““ to give you an idea of what these search terms are paying in Overture and in AdWords

* You get a list of top affiliate programs in each niche

* You get custom header graphics for your site

Once you’ve signed up and downloaded an article pack of your choice, we’re good to go to the next step.

Step 2 ““ Setup Your Site

To setup a VRE website, you need the following:

Domain name and hosting

For building VRE sites I’d recommend using a reliable, low-cost host such as BlueHost.

An easy-to-use CMS

For CMS I’ve gone with WordPress. In addition to being very easy to use and allowing me to change the design of the site with one click (using WordPress themes), I can also install it from most web hosts using the Fantastico scripts.

Any web-host that offers the Fantastico suite of scripts will let you perform an auto-install for WordPress that usually takes less than a minute to complete.

Professional site design

There are a lot of themes freely available for WordPress. Here’s a list of hundreds of WordPress themes for you to choose from.

With most themes you wouldn’t have much to do in order to start using them ““ as long as you can customize the title tag (as I’ve shown below) and add basic elements such as a graphic header and a simple menu that links to your most important pages, you’re good to go.

Since we are using WordPress, I have also put together a list of WordPress plugins you will need for SEO and advertising.

WordPress Plugins

To make use of these plugins, upload them into the wp-content/plugins folder on your website (where your blog is) using an FTP program such as CuteFTP. Once they are uploaded, simply navigate to the “˜Plugins’ section of your blog admin panel and activate these plugins.

AdSense Deluxe

Allows you to save your AdSense code in your WordPress admin panel and then have your ads display wherever you choose to by including a one-line statement.

Permalink Redirect

By default your WordPress posts look something like http://blogname.com/?p=1. With the Permalink Redirect plugin, you can automatically convert all posts to have search engine friendly urls (e.g. http://blogname.com/first-post.html).

To do this, go to Options, then from the sub-menu select “˜Permalinks’ (make sure you’ve activated this plugin first, using the steps I’ve described above). On this page, you have the options to create a customized permalink structure ““ I’ve used one that just puts the post title as the url and attaches a .html to the end. To get this to work, all you have to do is select the “˜Custom, specify below’ option and copy/paste this into the text box:

/%postname%.html

That’s it. Click on “˜Update Permalink Structure’ and you’re good to go.

One thing to note ““ the .htaccess file your server must be writable. If the Permalink Plugin gives you an error / asks you to update the .htaccess file yourself then you can do one of the following things:

“¢ CHMOD your .htaccess file to 666 (usually this amounts to locating the file in your root web directory (using your FTP program), right-clicking on the file, selecting CHMOD and setting the value in the textbox to 666).

“¢ If you can’t find the .htaccess file, create one yourself using this tutorial (just create the file, don’t have to follow other steps in the tutorial) and then copy the code given on the Permalink page into the .htaccess file (open it using Notepad or any other text editor). Once the file is updated, you can upload it back to your web server.

Google Sitemaps

This plugin generates a Google Sitemaps compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. While sitemaps won’t directly help you improve your rankings, the Google sitemap can help you get indexed quickly and if you monitor your site from the Google Sitemap interface you’ll be able to see what search terms are bringing traffic to your website and where you are ranking for them as well.

Optimizing Your Title Tag

In addition, you would probably want to optimize your title tags so that your post title appears in the title tag. For this, you’ll have to muck about in the header.php file ““ the simple way to do this is to navigate to the current theme folder on your web server (in the wp-content/themes/ area) and copy the header.php file on to your PC. There, make a backup of the file (in case you need to restore it later on), open it in a text editor or an html editor and locate the following tags:

<br />

Once you find that block of code, delete it and replace it with this code:

</p> <p>

If the visitor is on the main page, they will see your blog name in the title tag. On the other hand, if they are on an inner page, they will see the post title in the title tag followed by the blog name.

Simple, isn’t it? Once you’ve updated the header.php file just upload it back to your site and check your posts to make sure the changes have taken place.

There are more plugins that you can use, if you are just starting off with WordPress these three, along with the title tag optimization, are absolutely necessary.

Step 3 ““ Rewrite Articles

Since you are potentially sharing these articles with 200 other people (although effectively less than 50 of them will actually get around to building websites on these topics), you want to make sure that you don’t do anything obvious to trip off the dupe content filters in the search engines.

The PLRPro Guide that comes with the membership provides a detailed explanation of why the penalties for duplicate content are more of a myth than a real danger ““ however consider rewriting articles as a “˜safety precaution’ ““

They also have a short guide posted on “˜ How to Rewrite Articles’ ““ here’s a short summary:

* You can rewrite articles in under 10 minutes if you have a set process and prepare for it beforehand.

* Use related keywords ““ not only synonyms but also keyword tangents, brand names and terms from related niches (as well as the general parent niche).

* Use alternate content such as images, FAQ sections, definitions, etc to add more to your website.

* Change only the important bits ““ the article title, the introduction and conclusion.

* If possible, convert a central paragraph into bullet points (or vice versa).

While you could rewrite the whole article, it becomes a matter of time and effort when you have to rewrite 40 articles. So sticking to the basic areas and adding alternate content will help you create differentiated articles easily.

Step 4 ““ Upload Articles

This step is relatively simple ““ you can simply copy-paste your articles into WordPress one-by-one, make formatting changes (such as bold/italic text, bullet points, links, etc) and click on “˜Publish’ to post the article.

I usually use a “delayed” posting strategy to reflect a natural posting pattern. This means that while I would upload all the articles to the site at one time (or in two-three shifts), the articles themselves will be published only at a specific schedule.

For example, I could schedule the posts to go “˜live’ one by one every day ““ so that the first post is published on Monday, the second on Tuesday, the third on Wednesday, and so on.

You can do this by setting the “˜Post Timestamp’ to a specified future date and time of your choice (make sure you select the “˜edit timestamp’ checkbox).

Step 5 ““ Optimize for AdSense

Note: We are only talking about AdSense as a means of revenue here ““ however, you should not limit yourself to it. Use affiliate programs, or develop your own products (or even find a way to market your services) for your chosen topics.

As we discussed in the recent lesson on AdSense optimization, you need profitable, keyword-focused content to make any serious money with AdSense. Without it, you could apply all the strategies on increasing your ad CTR and you would still be leaving money on the table.

Luckily, we don’t have that problem here thanks to PLR content.

After you’ve setup your website, you want to make sure that your ads are fully optimized for maximum CTR. Here’s what you should be doing:

Ad Colors

You have five distinct ad components for which you need to set the color:

* Background
* Border
* Ad text
* Link url
* Advertiser url

As a general rule of thumb, blending your ads in with the colors of your website will increase your CTR because it will cause your ads to look less out of place and more like part of the content.

So, for the above 5 components, you would use the following pattern:

* Background color = content area background color
* Border color = Background color
* Ad text color = site text color
* Link url = blue works best
* Advertiser url = should not stand out ““ use light gray

Ad Formats

The best ad formats are those that match the shape of a content area the most.

High CTR Ad Formats:

* 336 x 280 (large rectangle)
* 300 x 250 (rectangle)
* 250 x 250 (square)

Use these formats on your website (best is the large rectangle) in the locations described in the next section.

Ad Positioning

You want your ads to be above the fold, in the center and middle of the reader’s browser ““ to make sure that they get maximum visibility.

With WordPress blogs your ad positioning will also depend on your theme (such as how you want to align the ads within content to place them in the center of the browser).

Like I discussed in the AdSense lesson, the best two strategies for putting ads on your site is to either place a large rectangle ad block between the post heading and the post content or to place rectangle ads inside the content (aligned to the right or left) and let the content wrap around them (scroll above and see the ads at the top of this page to see what I’m talking about).

I personally prefer the second option, as it allows you to put ads in a prominent location without giving your website a spammy look, but in some cases if it is implemented right you can pull off the first strategy as well.

Step 6 ““ Promote Your Site

With any website you have two distinct periods of promotion:

* Getting crawled and indexed
* Getting rankings

Let’s see what you need to do in these two steps for your VRE site.

Get Crawled and Indexed

The easiest way to get crawled and indexed is to make sure spiders visit your website early and often. To do this, you have to secure high PR links to your website (popular websites get spider visits regularly ““ if spiders go through them to your site, they will hit your site more often and thus index you quicker).

In addition, you would want to start using Google Sitemaps. In the previous lesson I even discussed a plugin that generates compliant Google Sitemaps for your WordPress blog ““ this sitemap will help ensure that Google indexes your site completely.

Get Rankings

* Web Directories

This approach will not get you high rankings, but it will establish some link credibility for your website in MSN and Yahoo.

* Article Submissions

With PLR article packs, you can easily use a few of them to submit to article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles and ISnare to gain one-way links back to your website.

You will still need to rewrite these articles though ““ use the tips earlier in this lesson to help you rewrite the articles.

* Link Exchange

Link exchange websites such as LinkMetro can help you get a high volume of reciprocal links without much effort on your part. These links will help you much more in Yahoo and MSN than they will in Google, so it all comes down to how you want to play things.

I’d recommend working hard on getting links through directories and article submissions, and using link networks to help you build reciprocal links. Considering that recips are less valuable than one-way links, it makes sense to spend more time on the latter.

* Getting themed links

Asking for links isn’t going to get you links ““ however, especially with bloggers, when you provide another blog owner with a link to a post that you think will be useful for their readers, you are likely to much more successful (assuming that the post you are promoting is actually good and matches what your target blog is about).

When doing link building, focus on getting links to your inner pages as well as the main site. In the same vein, get links from inner pages instead of getting them from linked pages ““ it’s harder work, but those links well help you rank really well in the search engines.

Creating Linkable Content

This holds true no matter what type of website you have ““ if you want top rankings in a niche, at the end of the day your website must be the best resource, bar none.

Develop your site as the ultimate resource of your niche – if you think there is too much competition then narrow down your niche a bit. Be different, but valuable. In other words, be the “˜go-to’ website for your topic.

If you can manage that, you will get lots and lots of natural links.

With PLR article packs this is still possible if you are creative enough to add something extra to your website such as detailed reviews on products in your niche, a section on definitions and FAQs, a collection of images for your topic or whatever else you can find to provide value to your readers while being unique.

One strategy that I’d strongly recommend is to find high ranking websites in your niche (use SEO Elite for it – it does a lot more as well), analyse the sort of content their users prefer the most and see how you can produce that on your own site. Once you’ve developed your website into a truly valuable resource (you might have different sections that cater for different types of websites), you can contact them and talk link building.

Step 7 ““ Automation

Automating your VRE sites is quite simple ““ you want to eliminate as much of the grunt work as possible from the process of building a VRE site so that you can focus on what’s important. In this case, setting up the site is grunt work; bringing traffic to the website (people that will click on your ads / buy the affiliate products you are promoting) is what is most important.

Creating a WordPress package

Put your most used wordpress plugins and a selection of themes together in one place on your computer so that whenever you need to setup a new WP blog, you can use autoinstall on the web host and then upload the plugins and themes, all from one place. When you are setting up a new site every month, having a WordPress package makes sense and saves you a lot of time.

In addition, it will also help you when it comes to outsourcing parts of your project.

Outsource whatever you can

Outsourcing the grunt work shouldn’t be looked on as an expense ““ in fact, you’re doing yourself a huge favor by using your time for something that is far more productive ““ that is bringing traffic to your site.

What should you outsource?

* Article rewriting (can save you a couple of days of work)

* WP theme modifications / site design (pick up a theme, think of the changes you want on the site, write down the specs and hand them to a designer).

So what’s left for you?

1. Select article pack
2. Install and setup WordPress blog
3. Manage outsourced work (article rewriting and theme design)
4. Build traffic

Since 1, 2 (with automation) and 3 (with outsourcing) take very little time you can focus all of your efforts on building links (and traffic).

That brings us to the end of today’s lesson. Before I sign off (and before you go off and start building your VRE Empire), I want to make a few points.

Firstly, remember that are the advice given here is about building simple VRE sites that won’t require any maintenance once they’ve been built and setup. You could also use these article packs to supplement already existing websites on similar topics, or use them exclusively to submit articles and build one way links to your site. The way you use PLR articles is your choice ““ I’ve just shown you one way of doing things.

Since your goal is to build a VRE Empire ““ hands-off income ““ you would want to automate as much of it as possible.

That’s it, and good luck with your VRE Empire.

All the best,

Brad Callen
Professional SEO
http://www.seoelite.com
http://www.keywordelite.com

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*IMNewswatch would like to thank Brad Callen for granting permission to reprint this lesson.

 

 

 

 

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