The Extreme White Hat Challenge! - Get A New Site Ranked and Loved By Google...

[Steve Crooks]

[Moderator Comment] Follow Along threads are not permitted.



I feel the urge for a new challenge again! This challenge is going to be me trying to get a brand new site indexed and ranked in Google's top 10 for a few competitive keywords within 5 months from today.

"Big deal, I can do that already!" You might be saying, but here is the twist..

I will not...

1. Use any form of article marketing to get backlinks.
2. Do any form of blog commenting of any kind.
3. Contact any web publishers asking for backlinks or exchanges
4. Use any linking schemes or backlink scripts of any kind
5. Use any bluefart techniques whatsoever

In fact, this is going to be the extremist form of white hat promotion of a brand new site that anyone could imagine, it will be so white hat that Matt Cutts will be very proud of me!

I will be...

1. Writing unique content for my site.
2. Using video on my site.
3. Using audio on my site.
4. Using link bait in the form of giveaways on my site.
5. Ensure that every piece of content on my site will be about creating a buzz in the niche I choose!
6. Publicizing the content on my site using forums, newsgroups, press releases.
7. Getting all my on page SEO spot on.. (Internal linking structure, usabilty pages, META stuff etc..)

Before anybody asks, there is absolutely no way that I will give out the URL of the site to anyone for the obvious reasons. In fact everything will be done with brand new hosting, pen names etc.. It will be untraceable for the super sleuths out there

I will be detailing every step I take here in this thread though and going into more detail on my 100 bucks challenge blog.

Here is a list of initial steps that I will be taking..

1. Locate a good, competitive niche.
2. Buy a brand new domain and new hosting for it.
3. Sign up to as many niche relevant forums, newsgroups, web 2.0 groups as possible (facebook, twitter etc).
4. Start posting regularly to those forums to build up a reputation.
5. Research the niche inside and out to determine biggest problems, anxieties, tips in fact everything that makes people crazy in that niche.
6. Create all forms of content around the buzzy topics.
7. Get analytics, webmaster tools etc all set up.
8. Submit to a few highly respected directories like DMOZ and Yahoo.
8. Start promoting my site in a non-spammy way on all the forums etc..
9. Write and release press releases.
10. Build a mailing list.
11. Try as many viral methods as possible.
12. Wash, rinse and repeat..

This is purely about letting the content on my site go viral and attain backlinks the natural way. This is about doing things the way Google would really approve of! As things start to develop then I am sure the plan will have to evolve and I am prepared for that.

My next post will be about the niche research that I will conduct.. Stay tuned! In that post I will detail how competitive the niche's main keywords are and the criteria I used to find it.

[desi4eva]

Wow I am Steve's big fan will follow you all the way!!!

Your last challenge got me hooked into SEO and Adsense hopefully this will inspire more people to.

Good Luck!

[Steve Crooks]

Thanks, I am really pumped up about this challenge. I have been testing and researching these methods for a few months now. After spending ages feeling that there must be a better way of doing this promotion thing than the usual methods of trying to beg for links.

Originally Posted by desi4eva

Wow I am Steve's big fan will follow you all the way!!!

Your last challenge got me hooked into SEO and Adsense hopefully this will inspire more people to.

Good Luck!

[bgmacaw]

I don't get why you think this is 'bad'....

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

Use any form of article marketing to get backlinks.
Do any form of blog commenting of any kind.

When this...

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

[*]Publicizing the content on my site using forums, newsgroups, press releases.
3. Sign up to as many niche relevant forums, newsgroups, web 2.0 groups as possible (facebook, twitter etc).
4. Start posting regularly to those forums to build up a reputation.

...is acceptable to you.

These methods are just a different way of doing essentially the same thing. You're simply changing who you're 'link spamming' from article directories and blogs to forums, social sites and press release distributors.

[Steve Crooks]

I never said it was bad, you are missing the point. This challenge is purely about seeing what is possible when you create good, interesting and buzzworthy content on a site. The thing is I won't be directly asking for any links or overtly using signatures for backlinks but I will be using those places purely to promote myself as an authority in that niche. Any links I do give will be because I want people to read or see it not for spiders to follow.

Don't get me wrong, back in the real world I still use all the weapons I can in my promotion armory but this is a challenge about attaining backlinks the natural way, the way Google would like all of us to do it, that all..

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

I don't get why you think this is 'bad'....



When this...



...is acceptable to you.

These methods are just a different way of doing essentially the same thing. You're simply changing who you're 'link spamming' from article directories and blogs to forums, social sites and press release distributors.

[dddougal]

Il be surprised if you can do it using them techniques alone but good luck anyway. I liked your previous challenge with the $100 from a blog...The one about cruises.
I always struggle to write sites that rank naturally for some reason, i guess i should start writing better content.

[Steve Crooks]

Well, that is what this challenge will be all about, creating great content.

Originally Posted by dddougal

Il be surprised if you can do it using them techniques alone but good luck anyway. I liked your previous challenge with the $100 from a blog...The one about cruises.
I always struggle to write sites that rank naturally for some reason, i guess i should start writing better content.

[desi4eva]

Steve are you going to be writing content and giving it away for backlinks in return to other sites?

[Steve Crooks]

I will be hoping eventually to do some guest blogging and hopefully get asked to supply articles but that all depends on how much of an authority I manage to become in the niche I choose.

Originally Posted by desi4eva

Steve are you going to be writing content and giving it away for backlinks in return to other sites?

[dddougal]

Have you chose your niche yet?

[Steve Crooks]

Not yet, this is my current task. I will report here when I have chosen.

Originally Posted by dddougal

Have you chose your niche yet?

[Steve Crooks]

Niche Research

So, to get the ball rolling these are the criteria I have used to find a good niche for this challenge..

1. There are at least 10 advertisers on adwords for the main keywords associated with my niche.
2. The top 10 of Google for the main keywords in the niche are not all made up of big players like amazon, microsoft, wikipedia etc.. (I don't mind a couple of them just not all of them)
3. There is a search volume for these keywords of above 15,000 per month on exact match.
4. There is an abundance of active forums, newsgroups, social media sites, videos etc associated with the niche.
5. It is an interesting subject that can potentially be newsworthy.
6. It has to be something I am interested in, even if just a little bit or something that I can get interested in.

With this criteria in place, where do I start the whole process?

1. Brainstorm as many subjects as possible that I am interested in, or maybe just remotely interested in and list them down.
2. Keyword research to nail down the high search volume niches.
3. If the niche is quite broad I will dig down to check out the subniches.
4. Shortlist the best niches.
5. Research forums and other social sites to see how active people are in these niches. Looking for plenty of posts and a lot of new ones.
6. Check out the competition in Google's top 10 for each of the niches to see if I can take them on.
7. Check out the level of adwords advertisers in each niche and how much the average bid is for the main keywords.
8. Make a decision on one.

An Example...

For the sake of this example I will pretend that I am interested in sleep (not literally ) and after a bit of digging I decided to research "sleep apnea" as a niche to see if its a good one.

First of all "sleep" gets an exact search volume of 368,000 per month and "sleep apnea" gets a very healthy 135,000 searches per month so it passes that test.

The next step is to see if there are any active forums etc in that niche. I googled the following term "sleep apnea" + forum and immediately I find apneasupport.org/forum-1.html which is extremely active. Hmmm.. looks good so far. While looking I will do a quick snapshot to see if there are some recurring problems or topics on the forum but that is as far as it goes so far. I can see with sleep apnea that there is, so that is another tick.

I will repeat the search to find videos, web 2.0 sites, newsgroups etc. and then log the URL's onto a spreadsheet.

I will then go to google or better still fire up market samurai to look at the top 10 on Google for the phrase "sleep apnea".. Oh dear, the competition is big, in fact to big for me to take on easily. Time to dig down deeper or also cast my net wider into sleep. After a bit more research I find "sleep aids" which passes all the previous tests but also has a top 10 in Google that I reckon I can take on. There are some big players in there but also some that can be beaten I am sure.

After a quick check on CPC and number of advertisers then "sleep aids" pretty much ticks all the boxes!

** This is purely an example of the approach I am taking, I have not decided on "sleep aids" as a niche **

[Steve Crooks]

I now have a short list of candidate niches that I am now digging down into. I forgot to mention in a previous post that the benefit of looking for high advertisers and CPC is because it is a good indicator that money is being spent in that market.

It will also mean that the niche will be great for Adsense as well..

[desi4eva]

So Steve Adsense will be the main source of income for this blog?

[Preciseim]

Hey great challenge! Isn't it interesting that doing something 100% whitehat is almost looked at like what are you doing!!! Yes supposedly according to Google this is what we are meant to do. i.e create good content and wait for people to link back to us...

Be keeping my eye closely on this one! Well done.

[Steve Crooks]

Monetizing is a bit of a side issue for the purposes of this challenge. However, to be a competitive niche it generally means that advertisers are willing to pay for top positions for keywords.

Getting ranked high for these competitive keywords could potentially be lucrative whatever monetization model is used. Also it will depend on what niche I finally choose.

Originally Posted by desi4eva

So Steve Adsense will be the main source of income for this blog?

[Steve Crooks]

yes you are absolutely right! We all seem to invest a great deal of time, money and energy in finding ways to bend google. This challenge is purely about the power of going viral with excellent content.

My biggest challenge is getting this standard of content together and I will be detailing the steps I take over the coming weeks.

If I can demonstrate that it might not be as difficult as we all think then that would be extremely cool for me.

Originally Posted by Preciseim

Hey great challenge! Isn't it interesting that doing something 100% whitehat is almost looked at like what are you doing!!! Yes supposedly according to Google this is what we are meant to do. i.e create good content and wait for people to link back to us...

Be keeping my eye closely on this one! Well done.

[mrsray]

do you mind if I try this along with you? as long as you keep leaving fantastic tips on your steps, I would like to follow your methods as you go.

this sounds like a fun challenge

[Steve Crooks]

Please do! I will explain my steps as much as I can.

Originally Posted by mrsray

do you mind if I try this along with you? as long as you keep leaving fantastic tips on your steps, I would like to follow your methods as you go.

this sounds like a fun challenge

[Oscar D]

WOW, sounds like a hectic challenge.

Will be interesting, I will be following this. In my opinion the domain of this project will make or break it, so a good idea will be to find a good domain name.

Best of luck

[Intrepreneur]

It's interetsing but why fix something that's not broken?

Also I notice you said no article marketing.

Article Marketing is probably the most whitehat method you can use.

Should be interesting all the same.

Good Luck.

[Kritesh]

Wow. Great contest. Is there any way to subscribe to this, so I can receive the updates via email too?

[m4ster]

Just above first post you will see a menu. Choose 'thread tools' and then 'subscribe to this thread'.

[blanchi]

I see how this can help with my own $100 Adsense Challenge (30 days has long come and gone... now it's a matter of getting to $100). Like many others here, I plan on following this closely and using your techniques to rank highly in Google to increase my earnings. Thanks for great thread, Steve, I'll let you know whether it works for newbies like me!

[Kritesh]

Originally Posted by m4ster

Just above first post you will see a menu. Choose 'thread tools' and then 'subscribe to this thread'.

Thanks a lot. Subscribed

Good luck with the challenge Steve!

[Steve Crooks]

I am going to be away for a few days but will still try and update this thread when I get some down time.

[JBorhez]

I'm going to subscribe to this thread right now. So much to learn, so much to learn!

Thanks for posting!

[onlineleben]

... so I can receive the updates via email too

Dangerous - Steve's famous 100buckschallenge some month ago got around 11,000 posts.

Steve - good luck to you

[Big JP]

Good luck Steve, and thanks for sharing...again

Are you targeting stricly 1 keyword phrase, or mixing a few relavent to the niche? Can you give an example?

All the best

JP

[Black Hat Cat]

Before anybody asks, there is absolutely no way that I will give out the URL of the site to anyone

Making this experiment, for all intents and purposes, worthless to the rest of us.

[jbolte1976]

Thanks Steve, I look forward to seeing how you do this. Sounds like the start of a great thread!

JB

[fortony]

I assume you will make another WSO with what you have learned in the end? WF is all fine and dandy, but I for one do not have the time to wade through all the posts...

[Mr Money Maker]

Goodluck Steve I'll be watching to see how this one goes.....hope it works out great.
Stick to the plan......Thanks

[rimam1]

these challenges are a display of discipline and generosity. much appreciated Steve.