In case you’re new here, I started building niche sites about a year and a half ago in an attempt to make more money from blogging and greatly accelerate my path to financial freedom. If you’re a blogger or even just a regular person looking to add on to their regular monthly income, then you’re going to want to check this series out.
All I can say about May was that it was a pretty eventful month in terms of up’s and down’s for my niche sites. Here’s a look at how things have gone over the past few weeks:
What in the World Happened to the Rank of NS4?
Oh no! About a week after I published my last Niche Website Update (#17), my latest website project (a music themed one which I call NS4) dropped from #13 in the Google ranks all the way down to #41!
Darn! No one is ever going to click on any of my affiliate links if my website is all the way back on Page 4 of the Google search results.
So what in the world happened? Last month all signs seemed to be pointing in the right direction for this site. I have a few theories about what possibly went wrong.
The first problem is that I let my anchor text proportion get all out of whack. In case you don’t already know, your anchor text (the words people highlight when they link to your website) plays a very crucial role in how your website ranks within the Google search results. If too much of your anchor text is a perfect match to the exact keyword you’re trying to rank for, then you’re going to get in to trouble and penalized by Google! (If you want to know more, check out this article on Quicksprout).
I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to me. A quick check using the free web-tool Ahrefs reveals that the anchor text for my main page (the one I want to drive most of my traffic towards) was over a 5% match to my primary keyword. That’s a problem.
Take my competition for example. When I look at the page that is sitting at number 1 for the keyword I’m trying to rank for, I find that:
1) It only has 16 links pointing to it.
2) None of the anchor text matches the keyword it is ranking number 1 for.
You might ask yourself: How do I control what words people use when they link to my site? The answer: Most of the time you can’t.
That’s not necessarily always a bad thing. Usually when someone genuinely links to one of your articles that they liked, they’ll use some variation of a phrase that matches your topic somewhat closely. That’s good for you and helps you to develop a natural link profile.
Now what about the links you can control (such as the ones you put in your guest posts or other exchanges)? Those are the ones where you’ll want to make sure you’re choosing a good variation of anchor text. Unfortunately that’s not what I did. I foolishly choose to link using my exact match keyword too much (thinking I’d have a far greater total of number of links than I have right now and the proportion would be much lower).
So How Do We Fix It and Get Our Rank Back Down?
First things first: I did some damage control.
To all the places where I had my website added to a blogroll or guest post, I reached out to the webmasters and asked to have my anchor text modified so that it appears more general in nature.
Lightning Rank:
Another thing I decided to do about this problem was to bring out the big guns!
My friend Matt over at Dumb Passive Income had just written a post about his success with a service called Lightning Rank. Lightning Rank is basically a membership into a clandestine group of websites designed specifically to help its member improve their rankings. Seeing as how the cost is pretty low, I decided to give it a try and see if it’s everything people say it is.
About half way through May my links were placed in the form of a new guest post on one of the sites. As promised, the post appeared on a niche-related website with a link from the homepage that has a PA39 and DA29.
A short time after the post went live I did notice my homepage crawling back up to Page 2 ranking somewhere between #18 and #20. To be fair it is tough to say if the benefit was from the Lightning Rank post or one of my attempts to re-allocate the anchor text.
Successful Niche Blogger Outreach:
Another thing I recently started doing (and should have done a long time ago) was to make a stronger effort to reach out to other bloggers within this music niche.
Last month when I talked about following the advice of Brian Dean’s Skyscrapper Post Technique, I tried to reach out to those websites that were already ranking to my competition to see if I could persuade them to link to my better +2,000 post instead. But I was disappointed when I received nothing but radio silence.
Glen over at Monster Piggy Bank encouraged me to get right back on the horse and give it another try – only this time it would mean reaching out to the other music bloggers that fit well with my latest website niche.
The process was simple:
1) First I complied all the “approved” comments that my VA had made for me over the past month in Excel. My logic here was that I’d probably have the best chances of connecting with website owners who had previously approved comments from my site.
2) Next I removed the duplicate websites from the list.
3) Then I visited each site and found the name and contact info for the website owners.
4) Lastly I sent each website owner a personal short message asking if they would like a guest post from me or if there was anything else we could do to help each other out.
How did that strategy work out for me?
Not bad! Out of 10 or so communications I received at least 3 invitations to write a guest post for their site. Comparing those efforts to the cost of Lightning Rank’s service, that’s a value of almost $225. Not a bad relative return for simply sending a few emails.
Over the next few weeks in June, I’m going to submit these guest posts and hope that it helps improve my overall ranking.
My Niche Website Income Report and Changing Focus:
Here are my earnings for May:
So far I have yet to earn a dollar from NS4. Although that’s pretty frustrating, the thing I need to keep constantly reminding myself about building this latest niche is that I need to be patient if I want it to be a long and steady success. The overall ranking of this site isn’t too bad and has plenty of room to grow. But what it all comes down to is how much more I want to invest in the project; both monetarily and time-wise.
The reason I bring this up is because I’m a big believer that you can’t do everything at once. To be the most effective, you need to concentrate your time and efforts where you’ll get the greatest amount of return.
Earlier this month I was very inspired by Matthew Allen’s latest income report when he stated that he made $1300 this month from Google Adsense alone! As you can see from my report above, I’m not making anywhere close to that with NS1 and NS2.
But what if there was a way I could?
With all this focus on NS4 with reaching out to other bloggers and doing guest posts, I figured: Why not do the same thing for NS1 and NS2? Not only will the same strategies likely work, but I’ll also probably see a much bigger boost in benefit from Adsense growth than I will from my NS4 efforts.
This doesn’t mean that I should give up on NS4 or stop working on it. But it does mean that I should experiment to see if my rate of return could be any better from working on it.
So far it has! Early experimentation with NS2 has almost doubled my numbers for traffic!
For NS1, ever since the Google Panda #4 update, it’s sitting at the No. 2 position! For me, that’s incredible! (Especially if you read all the way back to my first niche website updates where this site had virtually no ranking at all).
So in terms of my next big investment, I’ve decided the next thing to do is to pump more money into NS1 by way of having more content created. I researched some new low competition keywords using Long Tail Pro Platinum and hired a writer to create 20 new quality articles. When outsourcing writing, I’ve proven to myself time and time again that paying a little more to produce quality content greatly out-weighs going cheap.
All throughout June and probably July I plan to start adding these new articles as they become available. Let’s hope the financial impact is enough to persuade me to outsource more content for NS2 as well!
Readers – How many of you have found success with reaching out to other bloggers or website owners and offering to work with them? What other things are you doing to promote your blogs or niche website projects?
Previous 3 Niche Site Chapters:
- Update 15 – A Slow Start for NS4 and $935 in Passive Income!
- Update 16 – NS4 is Growing – Plus My Passive Income Report
- Update 17 – How I Went From Spot 500 to 14 in the Google Search Ranks!
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
“To be the most effective, you need to concentrate your time and efforts where you’ll get the greatest amount of return.” I could not agree more on this MMD! This is something I’ve really been seeing lately and something I need to do better at myself. It just can be so difficult to do when you see so many things you think you need to do. That said, I’ve been generally successful in working with other bloggers. It’s not always perfect by any means, but if you’re willing to work with them it can usually turn into something mutually beneficial.
Well put John. I think the hardest part about putting your time and efforts into something is walking away from it in favor of something else. Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to build something and make it perfect that we forget there might be a better opportunity that will require far less effort. I’m beginning to question if I’ve got one of those on my hands right now and should be trying to increase NS1 and NS2 bigger as opposed to squandering anymore effort over NS4.
I was just listening to a podcast and they were saying how sometimes it’s NOT YOU, it’s the niche. I was thinking maybe you just got a dud. Especially comparing your cumulative investments in NS4 vs NS1 against your income in NS4 vs NS1.
The podcast was TropicalMBA #125
That is totally possible. It’s very interesting but the results I’m seeing in Google Webmaster Tools for the keywords I’m targeting don’t seem to match nearly the search volume that is quoted in Long Tail Pro (which of course comes from Google Keyword Planner). I understand those search volumes are “average monthly figures”, but it does seem like they should be a lot higher.
Perhaps this will just end up being a really expense lesson to teach me what happens when I build sites outside the personal finance niche! 🙂
I just started doing more of the blogger outreach stuff and it’s worked well. I have been trying to slowly gain links for one of my posts and so far about 9 out of the 10 people I’ve contacted have worked with me.
Now I’m working on a huge blogger outreach for one of my clients. We’re gonna use Neil Patel’s method and contact 200 bloggers and 200 website owners. It’s really not something the typical blogger does but it can really, really pay off. Especially when you’re trying to rank for something competitive.
9 out of 10 is an incredible turn-out! God bless the generosity of the personal finance blog world!
That’s great that you’re able to apply the same techniques to help your business. I knew about the freelance writing, but when did you start taking on blogging clients??
One of the guys I was writing for has multiple sites and needed extra help. I already liked working with him so I agreed. And I actually enjoy it much more than writing.
I like being on the back end of things – creating pictures, scheduling social media, and coming up with marketing strategies. It’s definitely a nice break from writing.
Good for you! It’s funny how working with other people can lead to these kinds of opportunities. I agree – working behind the scenes is a lot of fun and a nice change of pace.
Wow! Very informative post as I have not one, but several blogs struggling to get traffic. The first point about anchor text may be the reason I am struggling. Add to that the exact match domain & my goose is cooked. 🙂
Now I know what I have to do. I don’t know if I have the energy to do it anyway, cause I had already given up on them.
It can be quite a struggle to make sure you are using the right anchor text and keywords that Google wants you to. There are a lot of times I question the energy I have put into my niche sites and whether or not I’m getting a proper return, so I can feel the frustration.
Great update. Congrats on the NS2 income jump from last month! I’m just getting into the niche website game. I have a hard time because I want a perfect site and I have a hard time settling for the MVP (minimum viable product) and just DOING things. Analysis Paralysis!
Anywho. I have never hired a VA for content generation but it seems like a very common occurrence. You mentioned that it’s worth it to pay an extra chunk of change for quality (I agree!) but what type of price range should I be looking within (Price vs word count & quality) I listened to some old podcasts where they mentioned what they pay per 400 words but I know it’s outdated and methods have changed over the years (higher quality longer posts are necessary now!)
It does require a lot of patience to make it to Page 1. It was probably a year ago that I was struggling on how to make my NS1 go from Page 4 upwards. Now it’s at the #2 spot.
I never pay more than $10 per article. You can find really good, qualified writers on Elance if you’re willing to ask the right questions and spend some time trying out different ones. I know a lot of people boast about hiring writers for $2 per article. But every time I’ve ever done that the content I receive is pure garbage. I would rather pay a little extra and get an article that I don’t have to change a thing.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Lightning Rank and I am really close to giving it a try. For me, the price seems a bit high, but if the results are there, it certainly is an option. Next in line: hire a VA to comment on blogs and basically do what you did to get some guest posts approved. Basically, this is a perfect strategy for those who have the time/resources to do so.
Thanks Calin! I agree Lightning Rank is quite pricey. But if you ever get solicited by advertisers who are willing to pay you a whole lot more, $75 for a permanent link seems like a bargain.
Blog comments, social media links, and guest posts is about as white hat of a strategy as I can advise. It does take some time to get results but its totally Google friendly and natural.
Nice job with the sites so far. Are you checking the Page Authority and Domain Authority of the guest posts that you’re doing?
Every time! I’ve got the Moz toolbar installed on my Chrome browser, so that makes it really easy to digest. Unfortunately not many of the websites in this guitar niche have that great of PA and DA. But they still beat my website, so I’ll take it.
Since you mention your LR experiments, I think it’s worth mentioning my own experiences with them. So far my niche site has seen some positive results from them – but I found that the rank increases take quite some time.
So if you’re not seeing too many results just yet I’d hold tight for the moment. In my experience at least, it seems to take Google a fair amount of time to “credit” your site with these links and I’m seeing ranking improvements *weeks* after actually publishing the links.
Here’s hoping for some good results for you 🙂
I agree Richard. And I think the fact that NS1 and NS2 are ranking so high (a year after creating them) is a testament to that claim. Whether you go through Lightning Rank or offer guest posts on your own, it takes time to build up your authority and credit if you want to have long lasting results.
Blogger outreach and guest posting sounds like way too much work. If I were working on only one site and I was totally focused and putting all of my energy there, it would make sense. But I don’t. Like you, I’m building multiple passive income streams in the form of various websites. The only way I would attempt an outreach mission like this would be to outsource it.
As for me, I’m looking for more hands-off approaches to getting links. Which is why I’m really liking Lightning Rank (and a few other link building services). Like you, I tried only one high PR purchased link to start out. And like you, it boosted my page for my desired keyword up to about position 20. Since then, I’ve upgraded my plan at LR to 5 posts per month and I buy links to internal pages on a few of my sites each month. It’s working wonderfully and I am ranking for more and more keywords. And the links to my internal pages end up increasing my main keyword rank on my homepage as well.
Glad to hear LR working so well for you Matt. I do think there is a lot of benefit there for a wide variety of niches. Perhaps if I decide to open up my budget I may end up getting the larger package.
I wonder if with a little training and coaching if the VA could handle the blogger outreach and linking for you. This would free you up to dream up the next NS5.
Do you have any sort of criteria on when to drop a niche site if it isn’t working? I have heard that if you aren’t seeing at least some kind of results in the first month or two and you have given it your best shot your time would be better served to move onto something else. You can always come back to it later if necessary.
I have thought about using a VA or even a partner to work on the blogger outreach. But honestly I think there is a little bit of an art there; and I’d hate to have them blow the one chance you get to make a good first impression.
Basically I had to drop NS3 when it wasn’t performing to my standards. It’s not so much a money thing; more of a traffic potential issue. If I don’t have a lot of inner posts ranking on Page 1 or 2 of the Google SERP, or if I don’t see high CTR percentages from the readers, I know that its not working.
Working with other bloggers can be very beneficial on both sides. You will get some ideas from them and learned from it. And of course they can get some ideas from you and learn as well.
Hannah,
I agree totally. Blog rolls is one of the best way to help each other out when you are just getting started.
And they can be a big part of your link profile too!
You can’t do it alone. Working together is the key.
Nice one MMD, I knew the blogger outreach would yield some results.
I actually trial a few different email templates which I send to other website owners to see what gets the best traction. Once I have the one with the best success, I go hell for leather and email quite a few blog owners.
Hopefully your sites start to see the benefits of those guest post links soon.
Thanks Glen and thanks again for the encouragement to give it a shot.
I’m interested to see if Lightning Rank makes a difference. Matt’s post was the first I’d heard of it. I think the Panda 4 update actually helped my niche site, but I’ve found a copycat site that’s growing much faster than my site. I’m wondering if it’s worth giving mine a boost. Curious to hear your results!