It doesnt have to be a race.I have read several articles, seen several videos and even read a few books on creating profitable websites. Most of them have great information on how to pick a great niche. Many showed you how to find profitable keywords and then filter through the keywords to find the easiest ones to rank for. The websites can be niche sites to retail stores. This method of picking the weakest competition works. Can't argue with that.

Picking an easy keyword to rank for is a great start for someone that wants to make a little extra money on a few easy websites. It's tried and true. The thing is a blog is a little different.

Here's the deal, picking a keyword to name your blog is not the most important thing. In fact I would put little time into it as far as keyword research goes. Stick to picking a catchy name. Something that sticks. Something that people can remember and easily type into their browsers. --Warning-- I feel people will argue symantics with my next sentence but I truly believe what Im about to say. A blog is not truly a niche site -it can be niche- its not a retail store -you can have a retail store on your blog- A blog is something a little more personal. Its a log or journal of a person or persons life, hobby or interests. The word blog even comes from the phrase "web log".

This isn't the house :)This real estate deal is a deal that was found by a guy that used to work for me back when all I did was real estate. Here are the numbers if I had done the deal myself.

The Numbers
Asking Price: 70,000
Offer Price 50,000
Countered and accepted at 55,000

The property is worth fixed up about 170,000 but needs between 25,000 and 35,000 to get it to great condition. Roof, flooring new interior exterior paint and a new kitchen.

Selling at retail without a realtor would net close to 65,000 to 75,000 Depending on money costs. With a realtor knock off some more.

How This deal actually went
As I said above, I didn't find this deal or was even looking in that market. Recently I ran into a friend that had worked for me back 6 years ago. He said he was wanting to get into flipping and wanted to see if I could do a few deals with him. I said sure Im still involved and would love to go over things with him.

It wasn't more than a couple weeks and he called me said he had a property he wanted me to look at. So I checked it out and said great how do you want to do this.

Where Have I been!So since my last post was so vague as to what Ive been doing I thought Id share a little. I have been living the marketers dream, swimming in Tahiti. Flying from vacation spot to vacation spot. ----Im kidding-- I can't believe some people still go with that kind of stuff though lol. Anyways, I have been really busy with work. Was involved in a pretty tough project and didn't have nearly as much free time as I used to. Last thing I wanted to do was sit home and write.

Why not? Writing is fun
It's not that I don't really enjoy it. Its just that I had to choose between my normal tv shows and writing this blog. I had a pretty heavy commute to and from the job and when I got home I would have to do work for clients, and my other businesses that I am involved in. Then the little time left Id pretty much spend with my fiance and the tv.

I have been working on a couple clients websites, and am getting ready to start a marketing campaign for a larger company. I won't be able to write much about it as its just not good practice in my opinion. I will however be writing about the site I started as a partnership. I won't give all the details as again It still a partnership, but I can give the idea and how its progressing along with marketing techniques that we will be implementing. For up until now its just been adding content. These posts will of course be put in the case study area for easy reference.

Well, it has been a long time since my last post, and I apologize to anyone who is following my blog. I have been extremely busy with several different things and have just put the blog on hiatus for the time being. Its not that I couldn't find the time - Everyone has the time to do blog posts once or twice a week - its just that I haven't felt the urge. I do use this blog as a hobby and not a source of income. Regardless I will make an effort to start posting more regularly.

I have been able to free up some of my time and think I will make a strong effort to continue this journal on a more consistent pace. I have continued on a couple of the projects I started talking about - even though I haven't blogged about them - So I will start talking about what I've been up to in the next few posts.

For now I'll be playing catch up and should be posting probably once a day until I feel like I am caught up with what I have been doing. Once caught up I will most likely scale it back down to probably twice a week. I do plan on at a minimum once a week from this point on. Although I'd like to say I'll be aiming for 3 posts per week.

I look forward to getting back to writing, and I think many of you will definitely find value in my future posts.

Real Estate ExamplesI have decided to add this particular section for one particular reason. Proof of concept. Every deal that I put in this area is an actual deal that I have done and not a method. Each example will show the steps I took to get the deal from start to finish. How much money it took -including any marketing- and the amount of money it made or potentially could make.

Reading guides or peoples opinions on how to do real estate is great but most people won't act because they fear that they might miss a step or just do something wrong. This fear tends to keep them from even trying. The thing is there isn't a perfect step by step way to do each deal. There is almost always something that needs done differently from one transaction to the next. It could something small like a minor amendment to a contract or something big like repairs that must be finished before a loan gets closed. That is why you just have to get over the idea that everything has to be in perfect order before you even start.

Seeing actual examples can help to get over this fear. It allows you to see that not everything has to be done perfectly to make money with real estate. You have to be able to work with people to get the deals done. Title companies, escrow, real estate agents, sellers and more. With so many people involved, it is impossible to have one procedure that will work in every situation. You must adapt and real examples help to show you that.

Be a big fish in a big MarketI haven't posted in a few days and heres why. As I talked about in a previous post I thought I would start sharing some case studies. This and of course the holidays has eaten up a good part of my time.

I recently decided to start talking about a new niche site that I will update under this area. I don't want to give away too much about it but I will talk about the steps I have taken from beginning to end. This site is a partnership and as such I will keep it mostly private at least until it reaches certain goals. At that time I will talk with my partner and see if she is alright with talking about it here.

A little about the Niche
This niche is very large and I'll talk about the research I did on it later. It could be really considered its own market but it truly is a large niche within a health and fitness market. The potential is big but I like the challenge. It also makes it easier to add content as multiple types of content can be added.

The site is up and running and I just today setup google analytics on it. This is the tool I will use to keep track of traffic and other information that will be useful. I will post the information periodically as I talk about the methods for marketing and developing this site.

Since this site is geared towards learning by example, it is only fitting that I include examples. I am pretty excited to say that Welcome to our Case Studiesvery shortly I will be adding case study examples that will go into details on what I have done and what I plan on doing. Some sites I will give all the information on including traffic, methods and money. While other sites I will keep a little more discreet but will include all the basic information. The discretion is mostly because the some sites might be client sites and I would rather not mix the two.

I will most likely be starting with two sites. One will be a site that I have had for a fairly long time which I have let slip into the nothingness of the net. I will be attempting to bring it back from the dead so to speak. It is a comic book hero site and once I start posting on my progress –I have yet to begin- I will talk about its history, how it had done in the past, how it is doing now and how I plan to bring it back.

The second site is a brand new site for someone else. I won’t be giving all the actual site info but Ill be sharing the entire process from start to finish, along with stats and more. As we go I will be giving updates in blog posts which will be organized for record under the case studies tab in the top menu. It will also show up under the guides area as case Studies, as the each one is added you will be able to follow along by choosing the example to read, just like a book.

Niche sitesWhat exactly is a Niche anyways? The term niche when it comes to making money online is not an exact science. The vast size of the internet has made the term fairly hard to define.

In general as to internet marketing or web sites a niche is a smaller subset of a particular market that is more easily targetable. The question is where do you draw the line. I mean realistically an entire market could really be a subset of another market so that could technically be a niche as well. The point is that a niche is defined to the degree you want to define it. You can have a small niche or a large niche. Some will concentrate on micro niches. Which means there is just about no specific topic that can't be broken down further.

For instance, if you picked a topic like skiing, that could be a market but it could also be a niche in the outdoor sports market or winter sports market, which in itself is a subset of the sports market. But take it down further and you can say skiing could be broke down into locations like aspen skiing or mountain skiing or whatever you like. So in reality when talking about niches it is truly up to the person that is creating the site or blog that they are targeting. The smaller the subset of an individual market the easier it is to break into that market.

Conventional Loans are GreatThere are so many ways to make money with real estate that sometimes people forget that the standard old fashioned ways still work. If you find a good deal that fits all your criteria why not just go get a loan. There have been times when investors I know, have come across a crazy good deal that they wanted to buy. One example is a wholesaler I had just started working with that had been doing some direct mail marketing in the seattle area. He had gotten a call on a property that was in a good location, great shape and he could get it at a very low price. The problem he was having was that he wasn't sure what to do with the property. He called me and said he had a property to turn but wasn’t sure what to do.

The answer is sometimes too easy