I buy a lot of domains.
Here are my guidelines for my GUYS when selecting a domain for a niche website.
I have them do almost all of my research for me.

1. I want a .com almost always. There will be times when a niche is too competitive to find a reasonable .com and in that case you can find a .org (first) or a .net (if the .org isn’t available).
2. I want the main keywords for that niche in the domain. If the niche is “pet insurance,” I want the domain petinsurance.com. If that’s not available, try “bestpetinsurance.com.” If that’s not available, try “petinsurancesecrets.com.” If that’s not available, try something else (maybe petinsuranceworld.com or petinsurancesite.com or something like that.) Or, try putting dashes (-) in between the keywords (like pet-insurance.com)
3. I want the shortest domain with my keywords in it first, and then if that’s not possible, add other keywords to it (best, secrets, world, …). If you have to add 2 words to get a good domain, tray adding the dashes to the domain to get a short one.
4. Use your brain on this to get the domain that makes the most sense for that niche. For example, BestDogObedienceTraining.com makes sense, but DogObedienceTrainingSecrets.com is better, and DogObedienceTrainingWorld.com isn’t very good. Just try to think of what would be the best for getting someone who is looking for “pet insurance” to click and come to the site. What domain would they be most likely to believe willhave the answer for them.
5. Ask me before buying any domain, but try to narrow it down to a single domain. I don’t want to have to sift through multiple domains most of the time. If I don’t like a domain, I’ll let you know.

More of my trainings like this are available as a member of ReplaceMyself.com. This is the training I give to my Filipinos to make my life easier.

So often I have people ask me questions that I don’t have answers to:

• “What kind of person do I hire first?”
• “How long does it take them to get up to speed?”
• “What do I have them do for me?”

The other day I got an email from Lisa Schwartz that hinted towards her having a great experience that answers these questions.

I got on skype with her and recorded the call.

Download The MP3

Here are the answers to the questions above:

• “How long does it take someone to get up to speed?”
  • She has been at this for 6 weeks and has had 6 sites built in that time. She expects to be building 2-3 sites per day within the next few weeks
• “What kind of person do I hire first?”
  • She hired a “blog builder.” Someone to get everything up and running.
  • Then she hired an “SEO” person. Someone to promote the blogs (your blog builder could do this themselves)
  • Then she got a “VA.” Someone to do everything else that’s required.
• “What do I have them do for me?”
  • Build Blogs
  • Research
  • SEO
  • Video marketing
  • Article marketing
  • Social Bookmarking
  • Social Networking
  • Phone calls
  • Reporting/Tracking
  • …

Then, notice some other general business items she talks about:

• She understands her business model very well. Please think about this for yourself. If you don’t understand your business model VERY well, go back and learn more before continuing.
• She is working on just one thing. She’s doing it very well. She’s not chasing bright shiny objects (the latest and greatest launch)
• She synthesized all the info from all the things she’s learned and is using it all in this business. Remember, you’re running a BUSINESS here. There will be set-backs. Work through them!

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Training for all of what her GUYS are doing for her is available inside ReplaceMyself.com.

She’s using Joel Petersons Mini Site Formula which I reviewed here.

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During the years of running my online business I’ve come across a lot of different ways of doing online research.

Lots of the info out there is pretty dumb.

Dumb…meaning…it’s just not info that will help you know what’s good and what’s bad.
Dumb…meaning…what they’re telling you XYZ means, just isn’t true.
Dumb…meaning…”this does not help me pick a niche!”
Dumb…meaning…”I will never do this because there’s nothing at all scientific about what you’re teaching me! and it’s too time consuming and there’s no way in the world I could have someone else do this for me.”

So I’ve developed my own way of doing niche research.

• it’s very scientific
• the numbers are super meaningful
• it’s easily outsourced (just give them this video!)
• you will uncover GOLD using it

Here it is for you:

Here are some myths you’ll hear people say:

• Use overture to find keywords
• Look at the number of results returned by google to find how competitive a niche is. For example: (this tells you nothing!)

I use this method when:

• searching for new niches to enter (I create lots of spreadsheets on lots of different topics)
• researching within a single niche to find out what keywords I should target
• researching a market someone has brought to me as a “gazillion” dollar idea

I outsource all of my research.

UPDATE: I had someone tell me that what I said about the PPC ads isn’t clear. I’ll explain.
In general, lots of PPC ads means there’s quite a bit of money to be made in that niche.
If I want to run PPC ads for that niche, then having lots of PPC ads is not good. It means it’s very competitive and probably very expensive. I might want to run PPC ads if I KNOW I’m entering a niche but the pagerank is high and I can’t compete with SEO.
On the other hand, if I discover a niche that has lots and lots of ads, but the pagerank is low, that means that the niche is very profitable (lots of ads = lots of money to be made) and that I don’t have to compete with the high bid prices due to the amount of ads. The low PR means that I can do SEO, get my site to the top, and get the traffic for free. In this case, the “lots of ads” is an invitation to me to enter that niche because it means the niche is profitable.

Yesterday I got a PDF document back from my GUYS:

The Top 7 ROI Activities Your VA Can Do

I asked them to write it. I’m going to add it as a bonus in ReplaceMyself.com. They would know the best ROI activities better than I would…they’re the ones who do the work and who check it’s effectiveness.

Here’s the real kicker. This is why I created ReplaceMyself.com in the first place.

They sent me the 2nd draft. Along with it one of my GUYS said:

Sir,
I think we should add your affiliate links into the PDF for all the tools you’re recommending they use.
What do you think?
[name]

So, he’s actually looking out for me and my business. He actually wants me to succeed and make money.

The crazy thing is that after the first draft, I had thought “I should put affiliate links into this…but I don’t want to go find them…so nevermind.”

HE DID IT FOR ME!!!

Talk about replacing myself!

After Giving your GUYS my training, this is what you should expect from your GUYS too.

This is why outsourcing to the Philippines is soooo different than anywhere else in the world.

DISCLAIMER: The GUY who said this to me has been with me for 3 years. That’s why the title of this post has “(and time)” included in it. It takes both time and training for someone to understand your business as well as he understands mine.

Here’s what I’ve done for the past 24 hours:

• Checked my email
• Talked with my partner Dan
• Wrote a blog post
• Wrote 2 emails to be sent to my mailing lists
• Used jing to make an explanation video
• Played golf
• Chatted with a few of my GUYS in the Philippines
• Ate dinner, played with my kids, practiced more golf in my backyard, …
• Read a book (it was only 130 pages)
• Slept
• Ate, got ready, played with my kids, went to the LDS temple
• Had a meeting with someone who wanted help
• Played Golf
• And am now writing this blog post (it’s 11:56am)

Here’s what actually got done in the past 24 hours:

• Email got filtered, checked, and responded to
• 2 domains got bought
• A squeeze page, sales page, and website got put up
• An autoresponder series got put into aweber, along with sales emails getting inserted into them
• The 90 minute call I did a few weeks ago with ReplaceMyself.com members got partially transcribed
• 2 blog posts got done on my affiliate sites
• A new test version of one of my sites got created…I haven’t seen it yet, I just heard it’s done
• My golf game improved
• One of my GUYS learned a ton about the inner workings of wordpress while creating a new theme for me

All of these things were done by my GUYS in the Philippines. 100% without me (except for the golf and email).

Hiring GUYS in the Philippines is the way to go if you work from home and actually want to be productive in your business.

Hiring GUYS in the Philippines is NOT optional.

Since most of the people who read my blog spend a good amount of their time in front of the computer, I thought I’d share some of the plugins I use to boost my productivity.

This post is inspired because of my latest favorite: LastPass.

I’ve always looked for a great solution to storing usernames/passwords but haven’t found it. I’ve tried keepass, roboform, and the built-in firefox password manager, all with very little success (they didn’t work to my liking).

Now, with lastpass, it stores all the passwords from all of my computers (AND MY BLACKBERRY!!!!).
It also tells me when it has user/pass info for me, something other systems didn’t always do.

Yes, it stores my passwords online, and yes, I’m probably giving up a bit of security with it (although, they don’t seem to think so), but I’m fine with that from the peace of mind I get by knowing I’m always going to be able to get back into the site.

Here are my other favorites:

• Faviconize - I keep lots of tabs open all the time. Now, those tabs are smaller.
• Session manager - because I HATE when I accidentally lose the 15 tabs open in my browser.
• S3 Organizer - because it makes it super easy to put stuff onto S3. I don’t even have to open a new program!
• Delicious - because keeping my bookmarks online and synced is priceless
• LivePageRank - because I like to know what the PageRank is for sites, but I don’t need an entire google toolbar to tell me.

I’d love to hear what plugins you love that make you more productive in your business.

I have people ask me ALL THE TIME what my Guys do for me, and how effective it is to have them.

I recently had a great example, that I hope will illustrate why YOU need to have GUYS in the Philippines.

Keep in mind as you read this that my GUYS have been through my “mini net creation” training that’s available as a ReplaceMyself.com member.

Here’s how it should work:

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We recently launched a new product.
I sent an email to one of my GUYS asking him to put together a marketing/traffic plan for the site.
He sent me a plan. I asked for more detail on the “Mini-Net” he wants to create.
Here’s what he sent me.

Here are the 3 diagrams he sent me:
Figure 1

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Figure 2

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Figure 3

If you don’t understand what’s going on with the Mini-Nets and the diagrams, GREAT THAT’S THE POINT! I (You) don’t have to understand exactly what’s going on. As long as my GUY does, the work will get done, I’ll get traffic, I’ll get to the top of the search engines. Simple!

In fact, when he sent me this email, I replied to him saying “Great, go implement it.” without even looking at the diagrams first. I knew it would be good. I trust him. He’s had my training on how to do this.

This is how Outsourcing should work for you. If this isn’t what your experience is like, you need to be a member of ReplaceMyself.com. It’s designed to make you smarter, not harder.