The Render Q

I had been meaning to post my one year report back in October when my site was actually a year old. Now it is exactly one year and 2 months since I created my site. Overall, I am extremely happy with what I was able to accomplish on my very first niche website. If this is the first time you’re reading my Niche Site Duel updates, then I encourage you to read my first update where I explain that I had no experience creating or monetizing websites.

The image above is a freeze frame of one of the videos I made for the niche site with my Canon EOS 7D shot on a green screen.

Like many people getting into internet marketing, I had almost quit at one point. But after a few months of letting the site sit dormant, I decided to really put in some effort before throwing in the towel. I ended up finishing the site and monetizing it about 5 months after I initially installed WordPress. My previous updates explain in detail what I’ve done so far… so with this report, I’m going to show you current stats after one year online.

Earnings

I have to say that I am pretty happy with the earnings for now especially because this site runs on autopilot. My only method of monetization is through a single affiliate program though Animoto. As you can see from the screenshot of my Animoto account, the monthly income fluxuates but there are a few months read more…

A few months ago, I posted a how-to video on how you can connect a Canon 7D or other DSLR camera to a portable DVD player and use it as a cheap external monitor for shooting DSLR video. While the solution was both effective and inexpensive, it did not achieve the ideal results. It was usable but not as good as a dedicated HDMI external monitor because I had to use the analog output of my camera.

In another review, I demonstrated a better solution: the IKAN VX9 HDMI external monitor. You can see my video review here. It’s a nice monitor and offers many professional features. However, it is expensive. At $1000, you’d better be shooting lots of decent paying gigs to pay this one off!

Lilliput 668GL 7-Inch External HDMI Monitor

While the above solutions will do the job, there are drawbacks to each. The DVD player solution only offers analog monitoring while the IKAN VX9 is quite expensive. In between those two options is the Lilliput 668GL  7″ on-camera Field HD Monitor for DSLRs with HDMI Y/PbPr and Composite Input.

Why is the Lilliput monitor a great choice? First, it costs about the same as a portable DVD player. The Lilliput 668GL costs $200. 2nd, it offers HDMI input as well as composite and Y/PbPr inputs. It offers the most flexibility at the lowest cost. If you only shoot projects on a part-time basis, you can put this monitor to work in other situations until you need it for a shoot:

• Use this as your external DSLR monitor
• Connect directly to a DVD player
• Use in your car as part of an entertainment system
• Connect your video gaming system
• Use as a CCTV monitor
• Use as a 2nd mini computer monitor

Audio Video Connections

Even though this is a fairly inexpensive external monitor, the Lilliput 668GL does offer some professional features like read more…

A while back, I posted instructions on how to copy a DVD in Edius 5. Today, I am updating the instructions for how to copy a DVD with Edius 6 Disc Capture. In reality, the Disc Capture function doesn’t exist in Edius 6… or at least it’s not called Disc Capture anymore.

Here are the step-by-step instructions to rip or copy DVD video files so you can edit with them in Edius 6:

Step 1: Click on VIEW>Source Browser

Step 2: Insert DVD into your computer. Your DVD will mount and you can see it under the Audio CD/DVD folder. On my computer, the optical drive is labelled E:

This DVD has 4 tracks and you’ll see them appear on the window to the right. read more…

Over the past year, I learned some great skills to help me get into internet marketing… resulting in generating my first dollars online. I had been a fan of Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income blog and I soaked up everything I could about blogging and internet marketing. When Pat’s Niche Site Duel challenge was presented, I knew I had to follow along either in public or private. I decided that I’d do it publicly and present my updates on Pat’s site along with all the other participants.

At the time I started, I had not made any money online. I had one website… the one you’re on now. I had never performed any keyword research or SEO for that matter! So I made up my mind that this was going to be an excellent learning opportunity. Something profound Pat said was that by documenting his progress, it made him accountable to see the project through… and that’s the attitude I took. It was the motivation behind my entire niche site project. Whether I made any money or not was not my goal. The real goal for me was to learn new skills and actually take action.

I knew this would be a launching platform for future online projects. I had taken this type of approach in other things in the past and it has benefitted me greatly… mostly in my career, but in a different way. I am constantly learning new skills in my job to stay on top of current trends and software in my profession. In documenting my journey of creating my first niche site, I thought I could go back and review what I did and possibly be able to repeat the process. Now it is a year later and I am getting ready to post my one year results. Looking back with what I know now about niche sites, there were some things that I didn’t do right in the beginning. But that didn’t matter. This whole process gave me a year to get “hands on” experience to make mistakes and figure what I could’ve done better. A year is way too long to spend on just one site but I needed the time to get to where I’m at now.

And you know what? It paid off! I haven’t touched my niche site in about 4 months but it’s making a consistent income right now. You can see my most current Niche Site Duel updates here. I will work on the site again in the future and plan to occasionally document the evolution of the site.

I’m very satisfied with the results from my first monetized site but it is only the start. But how do I continue this momentum? This month, I am creating 3 sites simultaneously using a new strategy I learned and I will be documenting it in a series I call the Niche Video Challenge. The reason I’m keeping a journal of this new project is to help keep me motivated like it did in Pat’s Niche Site Duel. However, this new challenge is not being published anywhere except here on this site. I’m not documenting it for the publicity necessarily; it’s to keep me personally accountable for what I said I’m going to do and to keep me on the task.

Am I going to do this for every project? No. But I will do plan on doing it every once in awhile when I need the extra motivating factor to see my projects to completion! In conclusion, one of the biggest lessons I took away from the original Duel was the documentation of the task which is my biggest motivator in my online endeavors. Everyone needs motivation to get things done at times and I’ve found mine when it comes to my online projects!

What This Challenge Is All About

Today, I am starting a new challenge for myself. After some success participating in the Niche Site Duel, I’m ready to use what I’ve learned in the past plus methods from a recently purchased training course to create a new income generating niche site. I will be following the methods described in the Niche Video Tycoon training course.

What makes this training so unique is that the keyword research tactics in Niche Video Tycoon goes against what every other online marketer teaches. What I mean is that usually, you’d want to build a website that has a lot of search volume for keywords that you want to rank for in Google. In this challenge, I am going to be targeting low (extremely low) search volume keywords. As you’ll see shortly, the keywords I’m going for have less than 1000 searches a month!

Part of the reason for documenting my process here is to help me stay motivated and stick with my plan. It worked out with the Niche Site Duel and I hope it does the same for me on this project. A secondary reason to keep track of my progress is that later, I could possibly turn these notes into instructions for a virtual assistant to follow so I can automate and repeat the process with future websites. If this course helps generate a $500-$1000 a month income from a single website, then I will definitely be building more of these.

Overview

Here’s a condensed version of the tasks I’ll be performing:

• Find a low volume seed keyword
• Find 7-15 related keywords which also have low volume searches
• Build a WordPress site with pages targeting each keyword
• Make a video targeting each keyword and embed into the corresponding pages
• Build backlinks to each page
• Add an opt-in form on the site with a free give-away
• Create an email autoresponder series
• Create a free giveaway to entice subscriptions
• Create a 2-3 hour video-based training product to sell
• Create an upsell product for an additional charge

For about a week, I studied the process in Niche Video Tycoon and found a book at Amazon.com that is in my niche. That is one of the “green light” indicators to go ahead and build one of these sites. The niche I’m pursuing is in a growing trend and I only found 2 paperback books on Amazon that are directly related to my niche. At Clickbank, I found one ebook for $27 that is an exact match for my niche and about 15 vaguely related products. The Clickbank product is cheap compared to the price I’ll charge for my info product. That’s the beauty of creating a video based product because the perceived value is higher. I then went to Market Samurai to begin my search for keywords.

Before I go any further, I want to let you know that I will not be revealing my keywords in this challenge as I did in the Niche Site Duel.  Thank you for understanding. One inportant thing to look for in the keyword research is the title competition. In Market Samurai’s keyword research tool, I’ll check mark the SEOTC box to get that info. I’ll be looking for keywords with an SEOTC of 5000 or less… if its less than 1000, even better. Without showing you my keywords, I’ll reveal the stats on the keywords I found in my niche:

Keywords

1. Searches: 590 – SEOTC: 1410
2. Searches: 320 – SEOTC: 1250
3. Searches: 260 – SEOTC: 77
4. Searches: 260 – SEOTC: 454
5. Searches: 260 – SEOTC: 35
6. Searches: 260 – SEOTC: 380
7. Searches: 210 – SEOTC: 772
8. Searches: 210 – SEOTC: 59
9. Searches: 210 – SEOTC: 1830
10. Searches: 210 – SEOTC: 15
11. Searches: 170 – SEOTC: 7
12. Searches: 170 – SEOTC: 1710
13. Searches: 140 – SEOTC: 8
14. Searches: 140 – SEOTC: 1910
15. Searches: 140 – SEOTC: 66
16. Searches: 1600 – SEOTC: 11000 (might not be used)
17. Searches: 1000 – SEOTC: 6120 (might not be used)

Each keyword is related to keyword #1. To me, it looks like I should be able to rank at least in the top 10 for my list of keywords. I’m staying pretty conservative on my estimates because I don’t want to get too over-confident in my ranking skills. Here’s a look at the competition of the top 5 keywords in my list:

Some of the keywords have quite a few backlinks to them and higher page rank than I’d normally like to see but the “on page” factors look good and most of the sites aren’t even targeting my keyword. I’m still experimenting with ranking sites so we’ll see if my data analyzing skills measure up in a month or two.

Picking A Domain Name

I don’t know why this is so hard for me but I’m agonizing over the domain name for my site. I keep doing different combinations of the keywords and I’m being very unproductive because of the time I’m spending on this. But I eventually came to a decision. For the domain name, I chose  keyword #1. You might be wondering why I have keywords #16 and #17 in my list. Well, those 2 words are definitely related and I’d love to rank for them but the SEOTC is too high so I’m going to keep those on the backburner for now. In the end, I chose keyword number 1 because I’m able to get an exact match .com domain.

Building This Site Will Be Different For Me

One major thing that will be different when I’m building this site is that I will be outsourcing some of the work. I will not be writing all the articles for this site which removes a huge burden right off the top. This means I’ll have content for my site shortly after I’ve got WordPress installed. I’m also paying a friend to shoot some pictures and video that I will use on the site. The reason is that he lives 5 minutes from the location where I need the images shot… whereas I’d have to drive at least an hour to get to that same location. This saves me at least half a day!

But for now, I’m off to GoDaddy to get my domain and start the next part of the process.

Let’s Spice Things Up A Bit!

Actually, to compound the income potential and to make this project really interesting, I am not only creating the website I described above… but will be creating 2 additional sites in 2 other niches at the same time. So when I’m done, I’ll have a total of three websites built around the Niche Video Tycoon course. However, I will be mainly documenting the step-by-step progress of the first website. I hope you stay with me and see how this all turns out. See you in the next update!

If you’re in the market for a 3D HDTV, right now, here is a deal where you can get 4 pairs of Toshiba FPT-AG01U 3D Glasses for free! These are the high quality 3D glasses that have the Active Shutter liquid crystal lenses and feature a sturdy resin frame and comfortable arms and a nosepad. These are powered by a CR2032 coin battery.

Features:

• Fits over prescription eyeglasses
• Adjustable nose pad for comfort
• Auto power saving feature to prolong battery life
• Easy to find replacement batteries
• See more features

How To Get 4 Pairs Of Toshiba Active Shutter 3D Glasses For Free

To get 4 pairs of Toshiba 3D glasses for free, purchase a Toshiba 46WX800U 46-inch LED 3D HDTV and the 3D glasses at Amazon.com. Add all items to your cart and the glasses are yours for free. Full retail price on each pair of Toshiba 3D glasses is $170! You save $680.00!

Full details of the offer can be found here. Now your whole family can enjoy 3D movies at the same time!

Why Buy Your Toshiba LED 3D HDTV from Amazon?

You might have doubts about buying your HDTV online but here are some advantages when buying from Amazon (not including the Free 3D glasses)

• Free Super Saver Shipping
• Schedule your own delivery time
• Free returns on HDTVs and projectors

So with free shipping, scheduled delivery time and free returns if you don’t like your purchase… this is one of the best 3d TV 2011 deals I’ve found.

More info on: Toshiba FPT-AG01U 3D Glasses

More info on: Toshiba 46WX800U 46-inch 1080p LED HDTV

More info on: How To Get 4 Pairs Toshiba 3D Glasses Free

The price of the Toshiba 46WX800U 46-inch 1080p LED HDTV at the time of posting this article is $899.98. Regular price is $2599.99 – A savings of $1700.00!

What’s Included For $899.98!

To recap, for $899.98, you get the Toshiba 46WX800U 46-inch 1080p LED HDTV and 4 pairs of the Toshiba FPT-AG01U 3D Glasses! Truly one of the best 3D TV 2011 deals found online!

I’m a huge Photoshop fan and user so when I came across this sneak peak at what the guys at Adobe are working on, I had to share it here. I remember just before Photoshop CS5 came out how blown away I was at their Content-Aware Fill that allowed users to remove objects in a photo and automatically replace it with the background that would be behind it. And now at the Adobe MAX 2011 conference, we find that they have been working on a Photoshop image deblurring feature.

As indicated in the video, there is no official word on when or which future version of Photoshop this will be included in. But, as you’ll see from the cheers of the crowd, this feature is amazing! The Photoshop image deblurring feature as the name implies can take a blurry image and “unblur” it. You have to see the video. Unfortunately, the video quality isn’t the best but you can see it work and by the reaction of the audience, this feature doesn’t disappoint. Check it out for yourself!

Here’s a deal I found on the Sony Alpha NEX-3 digital camera where you can get a 16mm f/2.8 wide angle lens for free! This a 14.2 megapixel camera and is one of the smallest cameras available with interchangeable lenses.

The big thing for me is that it shoots 720p HD video and it has one touch recording. This means it has a dedicated video button for instant recording. No more switching dials to get into video mode. And the Sony Alpha NEX-3 features auto-focus and auto exposure while recording if you want this camera to behave more like a camcorder.

If you’ve ever used a wide angle lens before, you know how useful it can be. This is a great opportunity to get into DSLR video while getting a free wide angle lens at the same time! At times, I wonder if I should sell my Canon 7D and get a smaller camera like this. I often find it is too much of a hassle to carry around a full size DSLR. So this looks like an affordable alternative to DSLR video.

The Sony Alpha NEX-3 comes with a 18-55mm lens and if you get it before December 3, 2011, the 16mm f/2.8 lens is free. For complete details and more images click here:

Buy A Sony Alpha NEX-3 Camera, Get A Wide-Angle Lens Free

If you’re a fan of Tron Legacy, you’ll love this! Parker Brothers Custom Choppers has built a REAL LIFE electric power Tron light cycle. The replica from the movie started out as a gas powered model but was recently re-introduced as an electric light bike.

At the heart of this machine is a 96 volt electric motor powered by lithium ion batteries. It can reach a top speed in excess of 100 MPH and has a 100 mile range. Battery charge time is a mere 35 minutes! This light cycle looks great on the streets in the day but is super awesome at night when it’s all lit up!

The cost of the original gas powered cycle is $55,000 but as the title of this post indicates, you can get one for free! How? Well this is where your skills as a video producer come in!

Parker Brothers Custom Choppers is having a Tron Light Cycle Giveaway video contest. Here’s what to do:

1. Register at http://www.parkerbrotherschoppers.com/index.php?main_page=pb_registration

2. Submit a video no longer than 3 minutes, indicating why you deserve the light cycle.

3. Semi-finalist videos will be placed on their website and the public will vote on the winner.

This is the perfect opportunity to put the HD video capabilities of your HDSLR or compact digital camera to good use for a chance to win a great prize!

It doesn’t matter if you’re using a top selling DSLR camera, HD digital camera or HD camcorder, video contests are always a great way to get great prizes or recoup the cost of your camera. In this case, you could be the proud owner of a Parker Brothers custom electric power Tron Light Cycle!

Please be sure to read the complete contest rules. The electric power Tron Light Cycle Giveaway contest ends November 7th, 2011 so start planning your video now! One last thing Parker Brothers Custom Choppers wants you to remember… Keep it simple. DON’T DO ANYTHING STUPID!

While we’re on the topic of electric vehicles, you might want to check out a video I shot from a trip to the local Tesla dealership in Seattle featuring the Tesla Roadster and Model S luxury sedan.

End Of Line……

I recently got my Canon EOS 7D back from the repair shop with the bent pin repaired in my compact flash slot and everything is fully operational again.

Before you read on, if you missed my initial post where I showed pictures of the bent pin on my 7D, go to this post: http://therenderq.com/canon-7d-bent-pin-in-compact-flash-slot

I assume you are here because you have a bent pin in your 7D and you might be wondering how much this repair will cost you? If your camera is under warranty, you might be able to get Canon to fix it for you for free but don’t count on it. I’ve heard stories both ways where Canon has fixed the pin for free while for others, they will not cover the cost.

My Canon 7D was repaired locally at Photo-tronics, Inc. in Seattle. As you can see from the receipt below, the total cost ended up being $366.83. From looking at their website, you can send in your equipment for repair if you don’t live in Seattle.

So you can realistically expect around that much if you were to take it to a local repair shop. They said the only way to fix this problem was to completely replace the compact flash assembly.

It only took a couple of days since they had the part in stock but it sat in their facility for about a week until my friend had time to go pick it up.

The cost is nothing to sneeze at though. For the price of the repair, you could get some nice accessories for your camera like a Zacuto Z-Finder or even a nice camera slider. Next time, I’ll have to insert the compact flash card a little slower and hopefully avoid this from happening again.