Obviously the goal with building these money earning sites is to make some money! With Google Adsense as my major monetization stream for this site (for now), I’m not going to receive nearly as much action on the bottom of SERP 2 as I would if I were at the No. 1 spot. That’s why cracking the Top 10 spots by getting to the first page of Google and eventually the number 1 spot is absolutely imperative if I want to see any amount of significant income.
And so that leads me back to the question of “what to do”. While that may seem pretty straight-forward, I’ve had some experiences that have left me a little puzzled. Here’s what’s been happening:
What Is Wrong With My Niche Website?
When things aren’t going the way you want to, you need to figure out what’s going wrong and then modify the plan.
Here’s what I know that I’ve been doing right:
- I’ve been slowly building a variety of dofollow and nofollow links
- Adding keyword sensitive / value added content
- Not trying to abuse any practices that Google would deem unacceptable.
Seems like I should be a shoe-in for the Google Top 10 for sure, right?
But I’m not. My niche site seems to be just outside the door of a very exclusive club. I’m banging on that door, but Google isn’t letting me in. So what is it that I’m doing wrong?
I was beginning to have doubts about my SEO abilities. Like I said in one of my previous posts: Maybe I’m not quite the SEO Casanova I thought I was becoming …
Or am I? Let’s pull it together and put things in perspective: Following along with Spencer’s Niche Site Project, I’ve done basically everything that he has done (or told us that he’s done). In fact, when I use Open Site Explorer to compare my niche site against his, mine actually has some of the stronger metrics. So this leads me to two conclusions:
1) My keyword sucks. It’s too competitive and I should go after something with lower competition.
2) My SEO strategy is ineffective.
I certainly didn’t want to scrap the young site after all this work, so let’s put No. 1 aside for a minute and focus on No. 2.
An Experiment in SEO:
Before I declare my SEO methods ineffective, let’s do one simple test. Suppose I was able to take a post from My Money Design of similar keyword competitiveness and search volume and use my bag of tricks to get it to rank better … How close to Number 1 do you think I’d be able to take it?
And so that’s exactly what I did. Here is what happened:
- The post I choose (I won’t reveal it because I don’t want to jade the experiment) was initially ranking at +500 in Google. That pretty much means that it doesn’t exist as far as the World is concerned.
- After some re-work and editing of the contents, number of links, etc, the post then dropped down to spot No. 39 in Google.
- After making a concentrated effort with link building, it now ranks No. 1 in Google! Outstanding!
SEO Casanova indeed! Perhaps my skills aren’t so bad after all?
If so, then what am I still missing? What is so different about the two sites to yield two different results?
And then it hit me….
The Importance of Page Authority:
My Money Design has been around for almost 2 years. It has a Domain Authority of 47. My niche site is still a relatively young site and only has a Domain Authority of 31.
While that is all fine and good, I have to remember that the competition I’m going up against for my main keyword is pretty fierce and they have much higher Domain as well as Page Authority than I have. For example, check out the results for my keyword in Long Tail Pro. Look at the Number 2 site. It has a Domain Authority of 95, but no PageRank, MozRank, Page Authority, or even links. Yet it is still enjoying the Number 2 spot. That should tell you something ….
[removed for security purposes 🙁 …]
While this is not the only factor in determining Google SERP rank, it is certainly an important one that could make or break where I stand.
So what can I do about it? The only thing I can do: Naturally build up my Domain and Page Authority. Part of this will of course come from building good links. But more so it will happen as I continue to have great keyword rich content get indexed by Google. Right now the niche site has one whale post and 16 smaller posts. If I want to keep pushing towards niche site success, I need to keep on adding some strong content.
More Money Earning Sites?
So while over the next month or two I’ll continue to add new content, I do feel like at some point I’ll need to draw a line in the sand and move on to another project. I’ve learned a ton about SEO from this whole process, and I’ve got several ideas for just how I could apply those skills in other ways.
As I already mentioned above, the major flaw with my site could be that I’ve simply chosen too competitive of a keyword. With a little effort, I’m sure I could find a different keyword that has good search volume, low competition, and great advertiser payout. Then, like Niche Pursuits, I wouldn’t have to work as hard to get my site to rank.
The other idea was to start a completely new site altogether. Not necessarily a new version of “My Money Design”, but something more entry level for the novice investor. The name of the game this time would be to outsource everything as much as possible. That would make the project and site as completely passive as possible, and would possibly accelerate the success. Even though it would cost a little money upfront, I’m curious what the outcome would be…
Readers – What do you think of my niche website progress so far? Any suggestions? Since I put it on the table, what do you think the next of my money earning sites should be about?
Previous Niche Website Chapters:
- Starting the Next of My Extra Income Ideas – Building a Niche Website
- Niche Website Project Part 2 – The Unveiling
- Building My Money Earning Sites – Niche Website Update Part 3
- Building My Money Earning Sites – Niche Website Update Part 4
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Looks like you are doing great! a DA of 31 is pretty good for such a young site. I tried to optimize a few posts but that is too much behind the scenes work and takes the fun out of blogging for me.
I will admit it does suck the life out of it when you spend 45 minutes researching the perfect keyword and only 15 minutes actually writing about what you want to. But just like in music how you have to practice your scales before you can be great at your instrument, so too is SEO a necessary evil.
Like Pauline said, I think having a DA of 31 is great at this stage of the game, but then again I am not certain what it “should” be at this stage of the game. I guess I would continue to build up those links and build up your link profile.
Thanks John. I was shooting for a DA of 100, but maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up 🙂
Very good work and an excellent post MMD. Do you have a post detailing how you specifically tackle link building?
Thanks Jacob. As a matter of fact, I do. Go back and read the earlier Parts 2 – 4. I discuss at length some of the things I tried, what worked, and what didn’t.
Greg has been talking about starting a niche site forever. We might actually think about it now that we have more time.
I’m sure that the newly minted “Holly LLC” entrepreneurship could find a way to fit that in under her umbrella of income schemes. Let me know if you need any advice.
I feel your pain MMD. Page and domain authority have a lot to do with how well your site ranks. You probably picked a very competitive keyword but my suggestion is to keep working at it because at some point you will eventually hit the top 10 once your authority gets a little bit higher.
I recently started my first niche site and to be truthful it was a complete failure and I even talked about it in my latest post on my website. I’ve been planning my next site and doing some keyword research however I don’t have Longtail Pro or any other keyword tool to help me out so I have to do a lot of stuff manually.
Anyways I like the updates, keep them coming.
Thanks Chris. Before I do anything with another site, I definitely plan to take about a month off to do nothing but keyword research and competition analysis. I bet I’d be on No. 1 already if I chosen a less competitive word.
If you don’t have it already, you should invest in LTP or Market Samurai. I was very skeptical about using a tool like this at first, but now I love it. It’s amazing how you can use it to pick up certain words and then you see yourself ranking for those words in almost no time. I feel as though its an investment that has paid off.
I tried so hard to show other bloggers how Long Tail Pro could/would pay for itself. I’m glad you are seeing this come to fruition.
And I thank you for that Matt. I would have never believed it, but it really has done dramatic things for my traffic. I now rely far less on commenting on other blogs and am receiving much more natural organic traffic than ever before. That’s a much more passive way of operating.
Looks phenomenal; clearly, the product of lots of hard work. So much depends on when you began, I think, as well.
Thanks Mike. Despite where I’m at today, there was a lot of effort put into it. And I think its not too bad for having almost no outsourcing. Though I think the next time I do this that will change.
I think that you’re doing great. On a SEO website I read something about PR and other metrics taking weeks to register. That means some of the methods that you employed two weeks or less before the update were not counted, but should be included in the next update.
Also, have you considered going with author tags to increase your author rank?
It does raise issues of anonymity, but could help with your keyword.
I’m not totally sure that it takes weeks to register. I’ve heard the same thing as well, but then on other sites (and through my own experience) its been shown that your site can get crawled and be back up in rank in no time. For example, when I had all those directory links on my homepage and then took them all off, I noticed a result in almost one day. I think it all depends on how often you site gets crawled by Google, which is different for everyone and can be found in Webmaster Tools.
I’ve never considered doing anything with my author tags. That has never been on my radar. I have heard that your site does do better if your WhoIs is listed to a real person rather than hidden (like mine). I guess that’s one area I’ll have to slack in. Can’t a guy have his privacy? 🙂
I think you picked a highly competitive keyword and you are doing amazing. I think its great to be on the second page for the age of your site and competition you have.
I have been trying to rank for the term ‘single mom’ and have been bouncing around from 10-14 for the past month. I can’t seem to beat spot number ten but my blog is fairly young as well.
Thanks Alexa. Page 2 isn’t bad, but you know where I’d rather be!
I just typed “single mom” into Google. There is some pretty tough competition there! But you were No. 12, and that’s not too bad either. I clicked on your blog. Hopefully that counts as a natural click-through and gets you a few points! 🙂
I love that you’re carefully analyzing what you perceive to be the problem – and I think you’ve nailed it. What if you just let this site sit for a couple of months and see if the domain authority goes up naturally. Maybe do a little bit of blog commenting in the meantime to drive a little bit of traffic… and then re-analyze your situation and maybe step your efforts back up in the future.
You could start a much simpler and smaller niche site while you wait. Now that you are using Long Tail Pro – you can easily find a super low competition niche. Build one of those micro sites with just a few pages of content and see how it goes. Can’t hurt. Just an idea… Doing this and finding success (even in a small way) can help boost your morale and confidence going forward.
Did you somehow find my secret notes on what I intend to do next? Honestly that is very similar to the plans I have for the next 3 months: Focus less on this project, do a TON of research, and start up a new project. I think you’re probably right Matt – perhaps the site just needs some time to age and pick up natural authority. In the meantime however, I do want to keep putting all this good information to use and will just need to make sure I pick the right keyword to tackle. Thanks for the suggestion.
I still feel like such a newbie with all this SEO stuff, page rank, etc. Honestly, I understand very little of it, but I know it’s important and need to put more effort towards it. To me, it looks like you’ve shown excellent growth in your niche site, but given all your effort, I can understand why you’d want to rank higher. 🙂 Maybe your next site should be on SEO, although I imagine that is also a highly competitive niche, and one I clearly need to check out, so I can learn some things!
I am very flattered. However, I think you’re right: Sites about SEO and making money on the web are some of the most highly sought after and highly competitive niches in existence. Maybe for now I’ll just continue to post them on My Money Design so you keep having a reason to stop back here 🙂
That’s an awesome DA already. It’s difficult to cope up with Google since they are changing every time. Not sure if you’ve read about it bu t still sharing it with you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQmQeKU25zg
Thanks KC for the share. Anything by Matt Cutts these days is a helpful clue.
A friend of mine and myself started up a blog in the highly competitive personal finance category a few weeks ago. We have been going from blog to blog to find out the best SEO practices and not make the same mistakes that other have. I have to say that doing “proper” SEO has been nothing but frustrating to me up to this point. I think we are going to settle on a list of best practices and not try to over think this SEO thing.
It can be an intimidating practice to learn SEO. But like all things, it will get easier as time goes on. Good luck with your newly minted blog.
Thanks for the post. We’ve been trying to figure out the best approach to get our blog and product out there to the masses. Lots more stuff to think about and new tools to look into.
Good luck with your efforts! I think the main thing is to try something different every week. Don’t get to caught up on Social media or commenting or whatever. Try a variety of links and SEO practices to see what works. You’ll know because certain posts will bring in much more traffic than others. That’s not a coincidence. Learn from both your mistakes and your accomplishments.
I think you are doing great if you asked me. Ranking on number 2 for such a great keyword is nothing but stellar.
Like many have already pointed out, I think what you have to do now is sit around and wait for the site to naturally build up some authority on its own – I think you have taken it to that level where it can “fend” for itself.
With that said, keep publishing high quality articles like 2 to 3 times a week, just to give the crawl bots something to “feed” on – and oh, don’t forget that you are diversifying your long tail search engine traffic at the same time.
Nice one here man. keep forging ahead. You will surely get there!!
Thanks Hugo. Just to clarify, my site is not in the number 2 spot. It is on Page 2, somewhere around number 14 in Google.
I do believe I will probably give the site some time and let it sit on its own for a while. However instead of publishing more articles I was going to focus more so on the link building efforts. With nearly 20 articles I’d like to believe I’m a point where adding more posts may not do me too much more good. Perhaps some fresh links will help do the job.
My bad. I actually wanted saying page 2 as you pointed out.
You make a lot of sense with what you said about focusing on building links as you are already 20 solid posts (and I know they are awesomely “solid” cos I took time to visit the niche site) on the site already.
You are such a good writer. I was envying how you write with ease. That thing called writer’s block ain’t easy on me here 🙂
Please keep up updated with your progress as you engage in the link building exercise.
Overall, I will love to see the niche site crack the top 10 and find its way all to the exclusive #! spot, as it will give me the courage to work more on my own new niche site – that i just started last week too.
Wishing you all the best mate!
Hugo,
Thanks a ton for the compliments! It’s taken me a long time to find my way with writing, so I can appreciate it when someone takes notice.
I’ll continue to keep the updates coming. I’m hoping that my focus on link building will improve the position and give me something worthwhile to report on.
What is the URL of your niche site?