Anyone Else Behind and Buried?

[projectpayday777]

We luv you Mr. Ed - but did you HAVE to say that? Oh man. Start over - OVER AGAIN!!

Just kiddin' - in part - like you've said, "93% last year trashed their first niche half way through and still finished the 2007 Challenge in time." or something like that.

BUT as a word of encouragement (and man we need it) it is actually MUCH easier the second time around.

I was totally lost by Day 7 and went back to Day 2 to start over. It was scary 'cos I was days behind for several days - but I have caught up. Still feel a little lost (because I'm still just following instructions blindly without fully understanding WHAT I am doing) but much LESS lost than a week ago!!

I feel confident that those of us who are still here on Day 14 will go all the way.

PS1: I'm on G- page ONE - thanks to your gang's teaching. God bless you!!
PS2: still no $$ though!?

tks,
Bruce

[Allison]

Now I don't expect anyone to follow my 12 days in 12 hours in the same time frame, but truly you can be up and running very quickly.

Just then I looked across from my desk, saw the fish tank, put "fish tank" in Market Samurai and out pops a couple of likely niche phrases.

You can do it

[succeed2k]

Allison, i've taken 5 days to try and find a niche... i have a headache, plenty of empty coffee cups, a number of breakdowns, but absolutely nothing to show for a niche.

What's the secret?

[SusanB]

I totally understand where you are at. I am taking care of my father who requires 24/7 care. I am a week behind.

Ed had said in live show that 93% of the people that complete the challenge have scrapped their entire project and have started over. I have taken great comfort in that.

I am on Day 8. I had trouble with Market Samurai (very buggy when I was able to be on) and I just put my blog up but have had trouble with the install with WPD but I refuse to give up also. My keywords are also fairly competitive but I am going to persevere and win.

Like you, I am so excited to be learning all of this and grateful to this opportunity and I don't want to miss a trick. BUT it is overwhelming.

I think the weekend away will give you a different perspective. I know when I spend so much time in front of my computer, it zaps my energy.

The truth of the matter is that life happens and I made myself nuts the first 4 days. Then I started to slow down and say this is my personal best given what I am coping with now. And though I wish I were current, I am grateful to be in the game.

Enjoy your weekend.

[Mom2One]

It is getting close to midnight and I've been working on finding a niche all day and all night. I have many, many niches I've been exploring. Finding niches is not the problem. They are everywhere. It's the numbers. I can't rely on SEOT numbers anymore from MS. I am checking and double checking with Google AdWords and with WordTracker and there are just not enough searches with low enough competition to even move to the next phase of checking competition. I am not buying another domain until I get into a niche that makes sense.

Is anyone else running into this problem?

----------------------------------

Thought this part of my horrorscope for tomorrow was funny:

"It's a good day to do business - but you've got to keep up!"

[succeed2k]

5 days and counting... yep, this problem is proving to be a real pain in the you know where for me also.

[Allison]

Originally Posted by succeed2k

Allison, i've taken 5 days to try and find a niche... i have a headache, plenty of empty coffee cups, a number of breakdowns, but absolutely nothing to show for a niche.

What's the secret?

No secret Though it does take some practice. Back in preseason I was talking about how to notice things. How it needs to be a conscious decision at first. but after a while your brain gets used to "seeing" the potential niches

Let's try an exercise
Clear your mind and think about what you did when you got up this morning
example
You opened your eyes and slipped out of your queen sized bed, slipped on your runners and went for a jog around the blog. You said hello to a neighbor who was bringing a paper in and another who was out early pulling weeds from their garden.
On returning you jumped in the shower and washed your hair. Then you ate a low fat breakfast with some home squeezed juice. Ironing a business shirt, while your whole grain bread toasted, you checked your watch and saw you had enough time to ....

Ok break it down (as they say in those funky rap battles)

Queen Sized Bed - queen comforters 730 306 20900 80%
Running shoes - best running shoe 266 111 28500 60%
Garden Weeds - garden weed control 217 91 17200 53%
??Shampoo - your turn
Low fat ?? --- your turn

That's just a couple of ideas without actually drilling down more in MS, and I didn't want to spend more than 20 minutes on the exercise

[Mom2One]

Coming up with the niches is the easy part...it is finding the numbers that work that is proving to be difficult.

I have blown through countless niches since finding out I have absolutely no traffic from the one I picked using MS numbers. Now I am analyzing teh numbers carefully, and it is not just the numbers, but the market itself...is it one that people are spending money on?

[succeed2k]

Thanks Allison, that helps more than you know

[Mom2One]

This is the best I could do after today's research. The numbers are decent, but the SEOC is not as green as I'd like. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

SEOT: 204
SEOC: 20,800
Google phrase match: 8,100
Google exact match: 3,600
Wordtracker: 84

Update: I just found out that there are 221,000 optimized pages for my keyphrase, not the 20,800 SEOC that MS gives!