Niche Blitzkrieg Review – A good system or a scam?

After seeing several positive reviews for the Niche Blitzkrieg (NBK) system I thought I would take a look to discover if it was as good as promised.

In this review, you will see what’s included and if you should consider this program to create your online business.

Product: Niche Blitzkrieg
Overall Ranking: 60 out of 100 or 3/5 stars
Price: 7-day trial for $4.95 then 1 payment of $77
Owner: Michael Brown
Website: nicheblitzkrieg.net/

What is Niche Blitzkrieg?

This is a step by step training program designed by Michael S Brown, who has produced several online programs to teach people how to make money online. This system has been around since 2009 and has been updated several times.

In Niche Blitzkrieg you are taught to choose a niche and then build small websites. To monetize your sites you will use affiliate marketing and AdSense. Sounds good so far but to earn any money you will need traffic.

Michael teaches you how to obtain traffic from natural rankings in the search engines and also from other sources of free traffic.

Incidentally, Blitzkrieg is a term that dates from the second world war, is an attack of great speed and force using the air force and mechanical ground force. So, I suppose Niche Blitzkrieg is a concentrated effort on a specific niche.

Who is this for?

This for anyone who is interested in earning money online. You receive some good training that is ideal for anyone just beginning in affiliate marketing. There is both written and video training.

You won’t find any rash promises that you’ll earn a fortune in a few days. Michael even says that if you want to get rich overnight, then this course isn’t for you. This makes a very refreshing change.

What’s included

The course is divided into different sections as you can see from the image.

Lessons 1 to 5 are the most important part where you learn about starting your websites.

Let’s have a look at these 5 lessons in a little more detail.

• Lesson One. Market Research

This is further broken down into 4 sections of which the first 2 are important. The other 2 sections are a challenge and a test which you find in all the lessons.

The challenge is to select your niche today and the test is just a bit of fun to see if you have understood the main points of this first lesson.

Choosing your niche

The real training starts with finding your niche and keyword research. Michael provides some great training for finding a niche using the Google Keyword Planner.

Once you have the principal keyword phrase that you will be setting up your website around, you need to check the competition. Michael does this by checking the backlinks for the sites on the first page of Google for the keyword phrase.

In the Niche Blitzkrieg system, the sites you’re competing with should have less than 200 backlinks, the less the better. To check the links it’s recommended to use Majestic.com.

Today, I don’t think this is the best way to check the competition. I prefer to use the Moz bar to check a site’s authority or use a good keyword tool to get an idea of how hard it will be to rank for a keyword phrase. But it’s still true that sites with fewer high-quality backlinks are easier to beat in the rankings.

• Lesson Two. Designing Your Website

This is broken down into 6 steps plus the challenge and test.

Domain name and hosting

The first step is to buy a domain name and get hosting. Before taking the plunge and buying your domain name make sure there are affiliate programs to promote in your niche. Then you are recommended to buy a domain that is keyword rich.

Keyword-rich domains worked well a few years ago, but today the search engines depend on many more signals. This means the domain name matters less and less.  You may still see keyword-rich domains ranking well but this is because they provide great content rather than because of their domain name.

Next, you sign up for hosting and install WordPress.

Setting up your site

After choosing a free theme for your site you are recommended to install 3 plugins All in One SEO, Google XML sitemaps, and CKEditor for WordPress.

These may be good plugins but All in One SEO, include XML sitemaps. Therefore, the XML sitemaps plugin isn’t necessary and CKEditor hasn’t been updated for a year.

For these reasons, I wouldn’t use these 2 plugins. It may be difficult to keep up to date with everything but using a plugin that hasn’t been updated for a year could cause problems with your site and shouldn’t be recommended.

Michael shows you how to add pages and posts to your site and also set up your Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, Contact, and Your Product Pages. It is recommended to have 10 posts when you begin.

You are shown how to add content to your site, given some tips on finding subjects to write about and where to include the keywords for SEO.

Affiliate products and AdSense

You will find your affiliate products via affiliate networks such as ClickBank or Shareasale. Adding your affiliate links is the next subject. You are also shown how to add Adsense to your site.

The final part of setting up your website is creating your menu and sitemap. The building of your first site will have taken 1 1/2 to 2 hours according to Michael. Once you get used to the process you will get faster.

The writing of your posts probably isn’t included in this time frame, this isn’t made clear. You would need to add several hours to this time to get your posts written.

• Lesson Three. Getting Indexed fast

This is broken down into 3 steps.

Google Search Console

The first step is getting indexed by Google. You are advised to sign up with Google Webmaster Tools which is now Google Search Console. Once you have added your site you add your XML sitemap. Google will then find your sitemap and start to index your site.

This is good information and should definitely be done. As well as adding your sitemaps Google Search Console provides lots of other useful info and is a really great free tool.

Bookmarking sites

The second step is to get a few links from the social bookmarking sites, you are shown how to do this and given a list of sites to sign up for. It is recommended you sign up for at least 5 of these sites.

RSS Feeds

Another method used in getting your site indexed is RSS. You are recommended to submit your site to some RSS Feed sites. These sites will notify the search engines when you update your websites and will also give you a backlink.

While it’s probably worth getting links from a couple of social bookmarking sites, submitting your site to different RSS Feed sites would only have very limited results.

• Lesson Four. Link and Traffic Building

This lesson is broken down into 12 parts and there is an extra step reserved for premium members.

Link building

Your aim is to achieve first page rankings on Google and to get these results the Niche Blitzkrieg method is to create backlinks. You are given different sources and ways to obtain these backlinks.

• Article submission – you write a 400-500 word post and submit it to an article directory. You include a link back to your site in the resource box where you also write a few sentences about yourself.
• Press releases – a short article with one or two links to your website

Both these methods worked well in the past but today they are much less effective. I wouldn’t bother with either. Several of the sites that are listed to submit articles to, no longer exist.

Although having a few quality backlinks will help with ranking your site in the search engines, today it’s better to concentrate on writing quality content. Find low competition keywords and write articles that will help your readers.

Social elements

The next item is adding social elements to your site. You are shown how to add a plugin to your site so you have the social media buttons to enable your visitors to share or like your posts. You are also instructed on how to share your posts and install Facebook comments on your site.

The training is good and I’m sure you will learn some new things but it dates from 2012. It would be nice if it was updated, the WordPress editor and even Facebook look different now.

There is also training on adding images to Pinterest and another social media site Snip-It. Snip-It stopped operating in 2013!

Traffic

Traffic from forums is the next subject. Find forums in your niche and answer questions you find in the forum. In your signature, you will have a link to your website or a post. This may get you a little traffic to your site.

Another way to attract visitors is from the answer sites, today one of the best known is Quora. Unfortunately when Michael made the page recommending answering questions and including a link to your site Quora was probably only getting started. He does recommend Yahoo Answers and another site Askville which stopped operating in 2013.

Question and answer sites are a good way of building your brand, getting traffic and perhaps getting a few backlinks, but again a little updating needs to be carried out to Niche Blitzkrieg.

Optional Items

Classified Ads – Michael recommends using this as a way of getting backlinks as these sites get a lot of love from the search engines. This might have been true in the past but today many classified sites don’t allow links. This is another method that is out of date.

Directory Submission – a tried and tested way to get backlinks, although not as powerful today as it used to be.

Most directory links are pretty much worthless these days, although there are a few rare exceptions. You should search for directories that are relevant to your niche and offer a dofollow link.

• Lesson Five. Putting It All Together

This lesson contains 3 steps plus a couple of advanced steps.

Stats and analytics

In the first step, Michael shows you how to install a tool called Stat Counter to keep track of your stats and visitors. It’s a free tool but today would someone use anything but Google Analytics?

The reason Michael recommends this tool is that it’s easier to use for beginners. Once you are more experience he does recommend using Google Analytics.

The next 2 steps are just a summary of the course and Michael Brown wishing you well on your journey online.

Advanced steps

Add more content

The first advanced step is about growing your site. Here there is some good advice about adding content to your site. After some of the earlier lessons, I had the impression that this program recommended having a site with just 10 posts. But I am pleased to say that Michael does recommend to keep adding content. In fact, he suggests adding one post per day for 30-60 days and then keep adding content regularly.

This is good advice and if you do this you will get rankings in the search engines. Of course, you will have to target the right keywords.

In the end, you will have built an authority site and many of the link building processes described earlier, that are a little out of date and not so effective today, won’t be necessary.

Mobile friendly

The next step was written a while ago, maybe in 2012 and Michael recommends using a plugin to make your site mobile friendly. Today most themes are responsive so they adjust automatically to the different devices.

This is another part of the course that is a little out of date, but it’s a good reminder to check that any theme you use is mobile friendly.

Overview

That’s about all of the training which is quite good although a little out of date in places. Several links to sites that no longer exist and backlinking methods that are no longer effective. Too much emphasis on gaining backlinks from sites with little or no value.

Promoting Niche Blitzkrieg

They have an affiliate program that pays well and after the first few lessons, I thought about promoting NBK. But by the time I had gone through the program, I was frustrated that no effort had been made to keep the training up to date.

Therefore, I won’t be recommending this to my readers.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Some good training
• Cheap 7-day trial and a reasonably priced program
• 60-day guarantee
• Instructions on how to get a refund included in the main menu. This is rare enough to be mentioned and shows Michael has or rather had confidence in the program
• No promises of quick money

Cons

• Training isn’t kept up to date
• There is an upsell. This is to obtain access to a couple of extra tools in addition to the regular program
• No free trial

Help and Support

Niche Blitzkrieg has what was once an active forum. As a member of NBK, you have to sign up separately to the forum, which I did. 48 hours later I was still waiting to have my account activated. In addition, there were very few, just 2 people on the forum. I wonder if your questions would ever be answered!

There is also a link to the support center where you can submit a ticket and wait for a reply.

A program that offers very little in help or support to its members, can’t be recommended. Someone creating an affiliate marketing site for the first time will have questions and need support.

How much does it cost?

You can become a member of NBK for a fee of $4.95 for a 7-day trial and then if you don’t cancel you will be charged a one-time fee of $77.  It’s nice to see an internet marketing training program that doesn’t have a monthly recurring fee.

If you want a refund there is a 60-day ClickBank guarantee.

There is one upsell to Niche Blitzkrieg premium which costs $104. For this price, you get access to the standard course plus a couple of extra tools.

The extra tools are software for cloaking your links and access to the NBK article directory to obtain more traffic.

I am surprised Michael suggests paying for link cloaking software when there are very good free plugins available. Paying for access to an article directory isn’t necessary. If you want to use this method to promote your site, although I don’t recommend it, you certainly don’t need to pay.

Extra costs that you should budget for are hosting, domain names, and a keyword tool would be useful.

My final opinion

This is certainly one of the better programs I have reviewed, but still, I am disappointed that it isn’t kept up to date. In fact, I was going to recommend the program because of some good training and the reasonable price.

However, in the end:

• if they can’t give me access to the forum quickly
• they recommend paying for software when there are perfectly good free options (and this as an upsell!)
• other information isn’t kept up to date

I wonder why the program is still being promoted on ClickBank.

Michael Brown has another program, Niche60 that was released in 2013 and is being promoted now. So Niche Blitzkrieg seems to be dying a natural death. It’s a shame that some people will invest in NBK and be taught certain methods that are not effective today and might do a site more harm than good.

Michael seems to be one of the good guys in internet marketing and I have even seen him replying to questions about NBK on another review site. This shows he really cares about his program and customers. So when will he take NBK off the market or update the program? Why doesn’t he redirect people from Niche Blitzkrieg to Niche60?

What Should You Do Now?

You could try Michael Brown’s latest program, from first appearances it looks quite decent and is reasonably priced. But for how long will it be updated? Having seen Niche Blitzkrieg this would be my biggest concern.

Finding a legitimate affiliate marketing training program that’s kept up to date is difficult. My #1 recommendation is Wealthy Affiliate. You receive awesome step by step training, plus all the tools you need to get started – site-building software, hosting for up to 50 sites, a keyword research tool, weekly webinars, and help and support from the most active, friendly community I have encountered.

This program is frequently updated and has new features added quite regularly. There is a free trial that doesn’t require your credit card details, so it’s worth checking out to see if it’s a good fit for you.

If you’ve been a member of Niche Blitzkrieg or had any experience with any of Michael Brown’s training programs I would love to hear your opinion. Or if you have any remarks or questions please leave them in the comments section below.

Thanks,
Peter