No, seriously.

It is after all what I started out doing in the first place back in 1997 just for fun and then for a handful of paying clients over the next couple of years. It’s really what lead me to doing everything else I do these days in the first place.

In fact, stuff I’ve designed has actually been mentioned on a couple of big design blogs (smashingmagazine.com, for example), which is always pretty cool.

And in all this time, I can honestly say that the design and development process really hasn’t changed much for me at all. It’s still the same 5 steps.

What 5 steps? These 5 steps:

Step 1: Think.

Before I start actually doing anything, the very first thing I do it sit and think. What am I looking to do? What do I want this site to be? What is its goal? What is my goal with it? Who is it for? What is it for? What will it have? What won’t it have? What would make it fucking amazing? What would make it suck?

This will usually lead to me making a sloppy unorganized list of things that I will need to keep in mind and look back at throughout this entire design process.

This is a very underrated step in the creation of a new site in my opinion. It GREATLY helps ensure that I won’t get deep into the design phase only to stop and realize “oh shit, I needed to have this over here or this like this or this can’t be like that.”

This step allows the design process to run smoothly in one direction without me having to stop and go back and fix things.

Not only is it a potential time/work saver, but it makes it really hard for things to get left out or forgotten along the way.

Step 2: Lay it out with pencil and paper.

This is really where the actual design work begins. I always wonder if this step started because I used to draw site designs in class rather than take notes or pay attention in high school. If I didn’t do that, would the design process still begin on paper for me?

Who knows. All I do know is that this is how I kick this shit off… good old pencil and paper.

What I do here is literally draw the site. I’ll draw headers and footers and sidebars and logos and everything else I plan for the site to have. I’ll make myself little notes about things like widths and colors and fonts. I might write “put a border here” or “this should have a gradient background.”

If I plan for the site to have an email list, I’ll draw the sign-up form into the design in the spot I think will be ideal. I’ll even draw in stuff like Retweet buttons and RSS icons.

This of course is all just basic layout related stuff. If all I’m creating here is something simple like a blog, that might be all I need to do. But lots of times I’m creating a bit more than just a simple blog. In those cases, I’ll take it way further and draw out stuff like user interfaces and conversion pages.

I’ll usually go through quite a few pieces of paper and draw a few different versions of everything.

Basically, whatever it is I’m looking to create here with this new site, I first draw out every single aspect of it that I can envision it containing.

Now that I typed all of that, I just realized I could have summed this entire step up with the word “blueprint.”

I’m a dumbass.

Even still, that’s what this step ends up leaving me with… a blueprint of what the site will be.

Step 3: Create a mockup with Photoshop.

Once I have the site pretty well mapped/planned out on paper, it’s time to bring it to life off paper. How?

With Photoshop.

I’ll open a new file the height/width the site will be, and then put everything I sketched out on paper into place. I’ll essentially transfer that “blueprint” of mine from paper to computer, only it won’t just be a blueprint anymore. This is when I actually make it look like what the site will look like.

Colors, headers, footers, sidebars, logos, backgrounds, images, gradients, shadows, fonts, text, buttons, etc. etc. etc. go into place in the way they should ACTUALLY look. On paper I might have drawn a little box somewhere with some instructions in it, now I actually follow those instructions and make that little box into what it’s supposed to be.

By the end of this step, just about every image the site will need (including a logo) will be made, the color scheme will be picked, and the entire design of the site will now exist in the form of a PSD file (which is Photoshop’s image file format in case that’s not obvious enough).

Step 4: Build it with code.

Once the full design of the site has been created with Photoshop, it’s time to break it all down and build it back up with actual code.

There isn’t much designing or creativity in this step. This is really just me taking the mockup image of my site that I made in Photoshop and turning it into an actual website. Meaning, this is when all of the HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript and whatever else the site will need gets written.

It’s the least fun step of them all, for sure. Although, seeing this thing gradually become a website is kind of exciting. Just 1 more important step to go.

Step 5: Make an infinite number of changes that make everything WAY better than I ever imagined it being.

This is really where all the magic happens for me. This is where everything I have originally thought up, planned for, mapped out, sketched and Photoshopped becomes a little less like exactly what the site will be, and a little more like my guide to exactly what the site should be.

What I mean is, this is when I basically change, test, move, try, imagine, and generally fuck with EVERYTHING. Really, this is when the obsessive perfectionist in me comes out and just goes nuts.

This of course can be both a good thing and a bad thing. For me, it’s always a good thing because it works. Time and time again, this is really when I make shit happen design-wise.

However, it’s bad because this could go on forever. There is really never a point in the design process where I stop and think “this is it, this is perfect.” Instead, I’ll just keep thinking “this is better” or “I know I could still improve this” or “this is almost perfect” no matter how perfect it actually ends up getting.

As you can imagine, this could potentially suck up a ton of time that could have been better spent on things more important to the overall success of this site.

Don’t get me wrong, the design process is important (sometimes even extremely important), it’s just that spending days/weeks trying to bring the design from “amazingly super duper perfect” to “slightly more amazingly super duper perfect” is rarely ever important or necessary, and is almost always a waste of time.

Over the years I’ve sort of trained myself to where I can usually snap myself out of it when I reach this point and feel this start happening. But man, it ain’t always easy. The important thing for me though is that by the time I’ve reached this point, I always have something really special to show for it.

Thanks crazy-obsessive-perfectionist-version-of-me. You da man.

Sometimes what I end up with is just a much better version of everything I originally planned for the site to be, and sometimes that original blueprint of mine is only barely noticeable anymore.

Whatever it ends up being though, it’s perfect, and there is never a doubt in my mind that it required every second of every single one of these steps for me to get it that way.

This time was no different. The design = done.

Unless of course your “excuse” is relevant to the topic of your blog. That would be the one possible exception.

Let me clarify…

I didn’t get to post about baseball on my baseball blog this week because I was too busy driving across the country in an attempt to see a game at every stadium along the way.

That’s a great time to do an “I’m sorry I didn’t get to post” post. Your excuse is something relevant to the topic of your blog, and that means your readers will care and be interested.

On the other hand…

I didn’t get to post about baseball on my baseball blog this week because A) things have been hectic at work, B) my internet has been down/computer is broken, C) I’m busy packing for my big move, D) kids started school, E) my girlfriend’s sister is getting married, F) anything similar.

This is a horrible time to do an “I’m sorry I didn’t get to post” post. In this case, you should be posting whatever you would have posted had everything been normal and on schedule. Anything else is just a big annoying bunch of nonsense to your readers.

With all of that being said…

With all of that being said, I’m only a couple of weeks into The Successful Site Experiment, and I’m already a full week behind trying to blog about it in real time.

This is harder than I thought.

Reason being, I have a funny work ethic. I only want to go at 100% at all times. I can’t (or just don’t want to) put 50% into this, 50% into that. I’d much rather put 100% into this, and 0% into that.

This means my new site is getting literally 100% of my time and effort right now, and 0% is being put into blogging about the entire process over here in real time like I intended to. My bad.

Now, this really wouldn’t be so bad if I just forget the “real time” idea and just blogged about it all anyway. I mean, so what, it won’t be in complete “real time” and my blogging here may be slightly behind what I’m actually up to.

The problem with that is that when I’m in (let’s say) the design and development phase, blogging about finding a web host (something I did before the design and development phase) is already uninteresting to me and feels like a chore to blog about at that exact moment.

So, what’s the solution?

Simple. I’m going to keep the “real time” concept going even if it means chronology gets fucked up along the way. Meaning, I may leave some stuff out and then come back to it later on.

For example, I’m currently in the design and development phase of this site, so that’s what I’m currently in the mood to blog about. (See next post.)

However, doing so would mean I’ve skipped blogging about the “finding the perfect web host” phase. It’s ok, I’ll just come back to it some time later on in this process.

There ya go, problem solved. Hooray!

One other excuse you’ll be interested in.

While I’m on the subject of giving you excuses for not blogging (note that these are relevant excuses that you will care about), I woke up today to find something else that will eat up a tiny bit of my time over the next day or two. This…

That’s a screen shot of traffic stats for another site of mine that I took today at about 11:30am.

As you can see (underlined in red for added obviousness), the site is at over 25,000 unique visitors as of 11:30am today which is well above its usual daily traffic (I’m guessing it will hit at least double that by the end of the day).

This is due to a piece of content from this site getting mentioned by a pretty huge blog sometime early this morning.

So now I’ll be spending some time today basically managing everything that happens as a result of a huge influx of traffic like this. I must say though, if anything was going to take some of my time away from working on this new site… this is definitely what I want it to be.

One thing I won’t be doing today though is worrying about this site staying up or slowing down or having any similar problems as a result of all of this traffic. Why? Because I have the perfect web host.

Shit. I knew I should have just written the “finding the perfect web host” post.

First up? This bad boy needs a domain name.

In my 10+ years of playing with the internet for a living, the naming process always proves to be one of the key parts of the eventual success of every one of my sites.

That’s not at all to say that these sites would have been doomed to fail if I ended up with a less than perfect domain name.

It’s just to say that, if you do end up with the perfect domain name, the odds of your site being a success increase big time and the work required to make it happen becomes a little easier.

And yeah, I have the first hand experience to back that up.

For this reason, the naming process for me always begins with one very specific goal in mind: to get this shit as perfect as possible.

How? Like this…

The 10 Characteristics of a Perfect Domain Name

Whenever I need to register a domain name, there are about 10 very specific characteristics that I either aim for or avoid to ensure that I end up with THE perfect domain name. In no special order, here are those 10 characteristics:

1. It should be identical to the name of the site.

If you want to name your site Super Cool Site, then you need to register SuperCoolSite.com. If it’s unavailable, fuck it… time to come up with a new name. Simple as that.

Having a domain name that is one thing and a site named something else will just confuse the crap out of people no matter how ALMOST identical they are.

In my opinion, domain name availability should most definitely dictate the naming of your site. It always has (and always will) for me, and it certainly should for you, too.

2. It should end in .com.

In my opinion, if the .com version of your ideal domain name is unavailable, fuck it… time to come up with something else. Simple as that.

The only time I have ever registered a domain name that ended with something besides .com is when I already registered the .com version first and then went and got the .net/.org to prevent other people from getting it.

The reason why is simple… people think domain names and they automatically think .com. Therefore anything that isn’t .com is automatically not perfect and a potential cause for confusion/problems.

End of the world? No. Just far from perfect, and I’m aiming for absolutely perfect. You should too.

And for everyone thinking “well what about sites like problogger.net and seomoz.org and the many other very successful sites that end in something besides .com?” Here’s what…

Send that site owner an email and ask them what they would do if they found a time machine.

I got 20 bucks that says their answer will be to go back and start off on the .com version of their domain name.

And not to mention, 9 times out of 10 that site owner has since gone on to do whatever the hell they needed to do to get the .com version of their domain name. Why? Because they have come to find that having a domain name that ends in something besides .com is a pain in the ass.

So, save yourself the headache and go .com only.

Oh, and if you’re even considering .info or .biz, please kindly leave this blog and never come back. Thank you.

3. It should not contain hyphens or numbers.

Speaking of pains in the ass, hyphens fit that description for various reasons. First, no one ever remembers they are there (this includes both visitors AND the people who want to tell others about your site). Second, it takes about 10 tries before you can verbally say your domain name to someone and have them actually understand it.

Bare in mind, this is coming from a guy who actually has a site with a hyphen in its domain name, and that site averages about 20,000 unique visitors per day.

Obviously I overcame the disadvantages of the hyphen, but it was and still sometimes is a big pain in the ass (enough so that I’d never do it again).

Well, except once… in the case of an exact keyword match (like weight-loss.com or internet-marketing.com or firstname-lastname.com). This is the 1 true exception to the no-hyphen rule, and even then I’d give it some thought.

Numbers in domain names are bad for similar reasons. Is it the number 4 or the word four? The number 50 or the word fifty? Is it to, too, two or 2?

Anything that’s even remotely confusing should be avoided, and numbers and hyphens fall into that category.

4. It should be easy to spell.

People are idiots and very few of them can spell. Keep this in mind when registering your domain name. If it contains something people may have a hard time spelling, don’t use it

Why? For starters, some people will never get to your site. They’ll just misspell something and end up somewhere else, or maybe figure your site just disappeared. Some may realize they’re spelling something wrong and figure it out and fix it. Most won’t bother.

And, people will just as easily misspell your domain name when trying to link to you. Happens all the time. People end up linking to nothing or just some other site altogether and you miss out on both traffic and what the SEO nerds call link juice.

This is another argument for avoiding hyphens, numbers and anything else that has any chance of causing any confusion.

5. It should be as short as possible.

How short? No idea. I have no specific number of letters that I aim for. I just try to keep it as short as possible.

The longer a domain name is the harder it will be to remember or type without mistakes/typos. The shorter it is the easier it will be to read in a link, a tweet, a search engine results page, etc..

And keep in mind that the domain name isn’t the URL of every page of your site. 99% of it will be www.domainname.com/content-of-some-kind. The shorter the “domainname.com” part is, the more visible the “content-of-some-kind” part is.

6. It should be descriptive and accurate to some degree.

No, the domain name of your car blog doesn’t need to be ThisIsAReallyCoolBlogAboutNewCarsAndOldCarsAndTheresAForumToo.com.

It just needs to give people some idea of what the site is before they actually see what it is. Is it something they might like, want, need or be interested in? The domain name should at least partially give them an answer.

Similarly, your domain name shouldn’t make your site seem like it’s going to be something it isn’t.

7. It shouldn’t sound like or resemble something you don’t own.

Oh the horror stories you will hear from people who registered a domain name with someone else’s trademarked name in it. They create this great site with great content and great search engine rankings and great traffic and great earnings.

And then, one day out of the blue the company whose name is being used in your domain name finally notices you and calls their lawyers.

What happens next? You’re fucked, that’s what. They always win this battle, and you will always have to get a new domain name for your site.

How fun does that sound? Reaching the point of having a successful site and then being forced to change its domain name? I’m not quite dumb enough to have experienced this myself, but from what I hear, “the complete opposite of fun” is a pretty accurate description.

8. It shouldn’t be tainted.

Millions of domain names are already taken. And, millions of the ones that aren’t were taken at one time. If your perfect domain name turns out to be one of the ones that were taken at one time, you’re job is to find out what the hell it used to be and what kind of reputation is associated with it.

Basically, your job is to find out if it’s tainted. If it turns out it is… fuck it. Find something else.

Tainted how, you wonder? It could have been porn, could be banned from Google, could be blacklisted, all sorts of stuff. Granted, there are ways to fix this… but why start off with the unnecessary headache of having to fix the problems someone else caused?

As for how to find out if your domain name is or is not tainted, the first place to start is the Wayback Machine. Enter your URL and see what (if anything) it used to be. Beyond that, just searching for it in Google will turn up all kinds of stuff (assuming there is anything to turn up in the first place).

9. It should be brandable, memorable, unique and awesome.

Reading through this list may make you temporarily forget one other teeny-tiny thing you want in a domain name.

It should be great.

You know, something that you can build an audience around. Something that people will remember. Something that expresses an identity. Something that is just flat out great.

Obvious? Maybe, but still a huge part of what makes a perfect domain name perfect in the first place.

10. It should contain your site’s #1 goal keyword/keyphrase.

Here’s the thing. The majority of the links to your site will use your site’s name/domain name in the anchor text whether you like it or not.

And, if you read the SEO Flowchart To Awesome Search Engine Rankings, you know that the biggest SEO key of all is really just getting a shit load of high quality links and having your goal keyword(s) in the anchor text of those links.

So then, if most of your site’s backlinks are going to use your site’s name/domain name in the anchor text, and your site’s name/domain name happens to contain your goal keyword… do you know what’s going to happen if you end up getting lots of high quality links?

SEO magic, that’s what.

But wait… stop.

This doesn’t mean you should register weightlosspillsmortgagesfreeporn.com or anything equally dumb. It just means that before you begin this whole domain name process, you should have a really good idea of what your site’s main goal keywords are.

Then, you should aim to get the prettiest one of them all into your domain name.

BUT, it must only be done in a way that makes sense and doesn’t interfere at all with the other 9 items on this list.

Got that? Good.

Wanna hear a secret? I rank amazingly for some of the most competitive keywords in existence. Some are just really competitive, but others are on a whole other level. You know, the kind of stuff most smart SEOs will tell you never to bother even trying to rank well for.

I have these rankings for 3 reasons. First, I created amazing content and provided crazy amounts of value. Second, I marketed the crap out of it and got a ton of super high quality links. Third, my domain name contains my site’s #1 goal keyword therefore causing most of these links to use this keyword in the anchor text.

The result is that I ended up ranking very well for these very competitive, highly sought after keywords. Here’s an example…

You know that site I talk about in the How to Increase Traffic to a New Site or Blog case study? Well, that site’s domain name happens to contain its goal keyword. Not a keyword it would be nice to rank well for, but the super duper bestest keyword of them all.

And, because of how well that launch went and how well marketed that site was and how many amazing links it ended up getting and the fact that many of those links ended up using my #1 goal keyword in the anchor text, I ended up ranking very well for that keyword.

Now, if you keep everything in that scenario the same but remove that keyword from my domain name, sure… that site would still be a huge success and have a ton of amazing rankings. No argument there.

But, would I rank as well or even at all for that specific #1 goal keyword of mine? No, I wouldn’t. It was having it in my domain name that played a huge part in making that happen.

My Results

The domain name for my new site has now been registered, and it’s perfect. On a scale of 1-10, it’s a 10. It really couldn’t be any better. It’s absolutely perfect.

Specifically, it…

• is the same name as the site.
• ends with .com.
• does not contain hyphens or numbers.
• is easy to spell.
• is short enough.
• is extremely descriptive and accurate.
• doesn’t screw with any trademarks/copyrights.
• has been registered before, but is not tainted at all.
• is as brandable and memorable as can be.
• contains my #1 goal keyword.

It’s the perfect domain name.

Question & Answer

What registrar did you use? GoDaddy.com

Where did you look up domain names throughout this process? AJAXWhois

How do you know what your site’s goal keyword is? A combination of researching my niche/audience/competitors, the AdWords Keyword Tool, and experience.

Did you do a private or public domain registration? Public. Any site that I am really truly serious about is ALWAYS a public registration. I only use private registrations for little side projects I don’t really care about and this one blog where I may occasionally discuss how much money I make and therefore don’t exactly want my name and address easily visible (that’d be this blog in case it’s not obvious enough).

What if I don’t have/didn’t end up with the perfect domain name? Great content + great marketing can overcome anything, even a not-so-good domain name. Get it perfect though and good things will happen because of it.

What’s next?

Finding the perfect web host. This will be easy because I kind of already found it 5 years ago.

You’ll see.

However, everything I already know about this niche comes from the perspective of the visitor, the user, the customer.

Now I’m looking at it from the perspective of someone who will HAVE the visitors, the users and the customers.

There’s a big difference there, and it’s worth noting.

So, here’s what I know so far…

The Niche And Its Audience

The overall niche my new site will be a part of is quite big and popular. Actually, it’s really big and popular.

The much more specific sub-niche that the site will truly focus on is not quite as big and popular as this larger overall niche. However, it is still definitely big and popular enough to eliminate any concerns of there being a lack of interest in it. No doubt about that at all.

Plus, despite focusing solely on this specific sub-niche, my site will definitely appeal to this entire niche as a whole. It’s all connected, really.

For the sake of an example, think of the sports niche, and imagine my site is about baseball.

As for audience potential, there really is no specific demographic I’d be targeting or avoiding. Old, young, male, female, black, white, rich, poor, fat, skinny, dumb, smart… doesn’t matter. The site will equally appeal to everyone.

Location is a slightly different story. The site will be US (and Canada) oriented for sure. People in other countries probably wouldn’t have much use for it.

The traffic potential of this specific sub-niche is pretty tough to gauge (although using my top secret internet powers I see a potential competitor of mine is averaging around 8000 unique visitors per day).

But what I can tell for you sure though is that the bigger niche my sub-niche is a part of has virtually unlimited traffic potential.

I’d like to make sweet sweet love to those 4 words.

So basically, the interest is there. The audience is there. The traffic potential is there. All systems go.

The Competition

My goal here was to figure out not only how much competition I have, but to see exactly what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, how successful they are at it, how it can be done better, how big their audiences are, and really to find out how doable it will be for me to not just compete, but stand out and overtake.

I also paid some attention to additional things of eventual interest such as what their methods of monetization are, how many links they have, where those links are from, what their sites look like, if there’s an RSS feed or a blog or an email list or a forum… stuff like that.

What I discovered during all of this research is pretty much what I already thought… competition in this specific sub-niche is pretty slim.

The bigger overall niche has too much competition to count (huge, HUGE niche), but this sub-niche… there’s really very few sites out there focusing solely on this.

There’s really only a handful worth paying attention to, and honestly, I only view one of them as a legit competitor. Why? Well, they’ve pretty much single-handedly dominated this sub-niche since – wait for it – 1997.

I have a feeling that this fact is a big reason this sub-niche is so uncrowded. You see this site, you see they’re already doing what you want to do (and they’re doing it very well), you see they’ve been “the man” in this sub-niche for a pretty impressive 13 years, you take a peak at the crazy number of links they’ve built up during that time (not to mention trust and authority), and it’s enough to make some people think “nah, forget this.”

Me? Nope. I see someone doing something that I’m going to do differently and better. How much better? That’s the key. It needs to be “better” to the point where if their visitors were shown their site and my site and asked to pick one… they’d pick mine.

This is why you really need to be able to step back and objectively look at what you’re doing a lot of the time. Is your site, your design, your piece of content, your writing, your whatever… is it better because it truly is better, or is it better because it’s yours?

In my best objective view, my site will be better because it truly is better.

In my mind, it’s really just going to be a matter of getting this audience to notice my site and realize there is in fact someone out there doing it better than everyone else.

Also worth mentioning about my competition is that there are a lot of sites in that bigger overall niche of mine that “cover” what my site will “cover.” So, counting them, I guess there technically is a lot of competition.

However, these huge sites are all forced to do it in more of a “and we also do this” sort of way. I’m going to be doing it in a “this is all we do” and “this is our only care and focus” sort of way.

That’s a huge advantage to me, and stealing away everyone who goes to these sites for things related to this sub-niche should be fairly easy. But like I said, this can only happen if they actually know I exist.

And – confident psychic spoiler alert – they will. I’m going to kill this shit. Very excited about the marketing phase.

The Earning Potential

Don’t know, don’t care.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it a million more times: I don’t give a shit about making money until I reach the point where I have something I can actually make money from.

Making money is the easy part. Any idiot can do it. Doesn’t matter what kind of site you have or what kind of niche you’re in. There will always be a way to make money.

It’s reaching the point where you are actually capable of making money that takes work.

So sure, thoughts of monetization will pop into my head at various points throughout this process. And yes, if any of these thoughts seem interesting I will certainly write them down.

But, that will pretty much be the extent of my care about money until I have a site that is actually capable of making some.

Until then, 100% of my time, effort and focus will be on reaching that point.

That point = money. Simple as that.

What’s Next?

Names. Coming up with the perfect name for the site itself, and then registering the perfect domain name for it. They’ll both happen simultaneously, and they are both going to be key to my site’s eventual SEO.

You’ll see.

In this series of posts, I will take you guys through exactly what I’m thinking, exactly what I’m doing, exactly how I’m doing it, exactly why I’m doing it, and of course everything that happens as a result of it all.

I’m calling it The Successful Site Experiment.

And it starts… now.

I figure the very best way to kick this off is with a little description of what the site/my idea for it actually is. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I’m not really comfortable with discussing the really specific specifics, but here’s what I can and will tell you about it.

What The Site ISN’T

For starters, it’s not a blog or an article site. It will definitely have a blog, and that blog will definitely be where all of this site’s article-like content (which there will definitely be a lot of) will go and be managed. But the big picture of the site is not at all about blog posts or articles.

It’s not a membership site either, as there is no reason or need whatsoever to have members or users… at least not in the short term. Long term may be a different story.

It’s also not a community/social site, or a site built around user generated content, or really even a web app.

In terms of my role, I will not be the expert/teacher. On the blog you’re reading now, that’s pretty much the side I’m on. On this other site, there’s really nothing to teach, so there’s really nothing to be an expert in. I’ll therefore be on the same level as every visitor to the site. Just another dude interested in the same thing they are, only I just so happened to create a badass site about it that they will love.

What The Site IS

The best way I can explain it is by calling it a compilation of information. And that rhymes, so hell yeah that’s how I’m going to explain it!

I’m the Dr. Seuss of internet marketing.

Basically, there is information that exists, and it changes on both a daily and weekly basis. This information is freely available online and any idiot can find it and use it if they wanted to (and MANY people do).

What I’m going to do is take all of this information from all of the various sources that are putting it out there, and compile it all in one super pretty, perfectly usable, ultra convenient format.

And as this information continues to change on the daily/weekly basis that it will infinitely change on, my site will update accordingly. My very early guess is that this site will require about 1-2 hours of work per week to maintain. While obviously FAR from a lot, it’s actually 1-2 hours more than any of my current sites require. Should be worth it, though.

In addition, I’m going to be doing something else with it all that will make the entire thing a little extra special. This will also be the thing that sets my site apart from (and makes it way better than) anyone else doing anything similar.

That is, of course, if anyone else actually is doing anything similar. Speaking of which…

What’s Next?

In a word, research. There are certain things I want to learn more about before I actually start working on the site itself.

Specifically, I want to get to know all of my potential competitors (and begin planning how to pwn all their asses), and learn a little more about this niche as a whole, its audience, and my traffic and earning potential.

You’ll see.