Here’s the funny thing I noticed this week about my niche site IRA vs 401k Central.com:
If you’ve been following along with my updates, then you’d know how hard I’ve been working to get the site to rank number one for the keyword “IRA vs 401k”. I’ve tried everything from optimizing the main homepage post with brain surgery precision to building literally hundreds of backlinks. Yet despite all my best attempts and failures, the site is still only about No. 14 in Google.
So you can imagine my surprise this week to find that 2 of my smaller posts were ranking right behind my main post! Not that those posts don’t deserve some attention. But here’s where it’s ironic:
- Those two pages weren’t even written with IRA vs 401k as the optimized keyword
- I didn’t put nearly 1/100th of the effort into building links for those two posts as I did with the main homepage
I think the lesson here is clear: Google works in mysterious ways. Despite how much we believe we can control the beast, it still has a mind of its own.
But nonetheless, I was pretty excited to get three spots in a row that were ripe for organic traffic.
… BTW – I will have a more serious niche site update ready to go on Monday. Please come back to see how we did in April.
Other Bloggers Who Have Mastered Organic Optimization:
In case you missed them, here are a few great stories you should check out this weekend:
- Dumb Passive Income – One Year of Being Dumb and Creating Passive Income
- Stumble Forward – Dining Out and Identity Theft: Restaurant Credit Card Scams
- Student Debt Survivor – If You Can’t Afford to Tip, Stay at Home!
- Pretired – PBS Frontline: The Retirement Gamble
- Budget and the Beach – Confessions
- Making Sense of Cents – Why You Should Start a Blog – So Many Positives!
- Money Life and More – Why I Work Instead of Watching TV
- The Happy Homeowner – Shameful Things I’ve Done to Save Money
Carnivals & Mentions:
My Money Design was featured on the following sites this week:
- Preparing to Retire – Wealth Management Carnival #12
- Carnival of MoneyPros – (Step Away from your computer and go outside- Edition)
- Carnival of Financial Independence, ninth edition
- Finance Carnival for Young Adults: Cinco De Mayo Edition
- Yakezie Carnival: Happy Cinco de Mayo
- Carnival of Retirement – Brick Building Edition!
- Carnival of Financial Planning: Oh Teddy!
- Preparing to Retire – Wealth Management Carnival #12
Thanks to everyone for linking to my site and enjoying my posts. I really appreciate your support and hope you continue to visit!
Posts This Week:
- My Dividend Stock Portfolio Update – May 2013
- Ask the Readers – Would You Support the Privatization of Social Security Accounts?
- Secured Business Loans – Are They the Answer If You Are Struggling?
Image courtesy of eCards
Thanks for including Catherine’s post this week!
No problem. Nice work getting a regular writer! That should free you up for lots of other things.
Your comment is spot on. It is almost impossible to understand Google and how they do something. Glad to hear about the two more spots.
Thanks Grayson. Just when I think I have them figured out, they go and surprise me like that. It was kind of cool to see my site take up so many spots, but I think as of today my success has already been shifted around.
Wow, thanks for the link, MMD!
You’re welcome.
That’s crazy on the search results! SEO stuff is wild these days and Google is always shaking things up!
And I thought I was doing so good. I would imagine that the other articles’ success were just temporary and that the main site with all the links will probably survive the long haul.
Totally agree MMD. I’ve tried to rank for a specific term and then wrote a similar article a few months later and that article actually out ranks the article I acutally optimized for the term. It’s odd because somehow Google knows how to depict what is a quality article and what it not.
Cheers and congrats on your niche site, I’m about to start my next niche in a few weeks.
Thanks Chris. I will have to look for your article and check out your progress on the new niche site.
I’ve come to believe that Google has a mind of it’s own, yes. We can put as much work as we want into a post to see it go nowhere but a post we put no effort in skyrockets… I’m sure there’s a method to all the madness. Have a great weekend mate.
Thanks CBB. I’m sure there’s a method too. I was just hoping I was getting closer to figuring it out than I was.
Google is transparent about some aspects of optimization and strangely protective of others… Guess it has something to do with their copyrights on search algorithms.
If everyone knew their secrets, then they’ be gaming the system left and right. You’re right that Google is mostly transparent on most things. But a lot of it is also open to interpretation and that makes it hard to know if you’re doing everything right.
Many thanks for mentioning me. Hope you’re having/had a great weekend!
Thank you! You’re welcome.
Thanks for the link in this one MMD! Looking forward to the more in depth update later today. I love reading about all things niche site related!
You’re welcome Matt. You can’t let a one year anniversary go unnoticed!