Time to Stop Building on Sand

[The Expert]

It seems like a lot of people are rasigin a hue and cry about getting hit in the SERPS these days.

Makes me glad I never jumped on the whole bandwagon of building a myriad of sites targeting long-tail keywords with little competition, then building a micro-site with little content and even fewer backlinks.

One of my main money-maker sites is a 3-word "longtail" and is a wordpress site built to resemble an ecommerce site. Each "product page" has short blurb of into unique content and outro unique content. Sandwiched inbetween are ebay results pulled in by the phpBay WP plugin.

I use AIOSEO and create custom title/description/keywords for every page.

The site has about 300 backlinks to the homepage (which is ranking for the money keyword) and about another 50 links to the internal pages.

Site is over a year old.

I have not touched this site since the beginning of this year I've been launching a new site (again, in a competitive niche for higher traffic rates) and have not had time to maintain the old site while building the new one and going to school full time.

My friend told me about this algo update this morning and said her sites have been impacted. She has recently switched to the micro-niche model from the a) publishing articles w/affiliate links in the footer model and b)squidoo lenses revenue-share model. All sits on the new model have taken the hit.

It would seem that lite sites with few external backlinks are more impacted than heavy sites with plenty of backlinks.

I've been saying for a while now that people need to take over more competitive niches with bigger paydays by building authority sites. The kind of sites that require you to work for 6+ months without seeing any revenue return because it takes that long for you to build enough content and backlinks to break through the ceiling.

Once there though, you've actually got a solid structure building on a solid foundation. The "winds and storms" of Google changes won't be such and issue then.

As it is, so many people are focused on quick ranking and quick cash that they end up building the equivalent of a Indian slum shanty on a sandy beach. Then they wonder why what they have built gets washed away.

Then they swear that such statements don't apply to them. They equate "lots of work" with earned stability. It's not so. Just because you invested as much work building 300 shacks on the beach as the guy who built one solid building on a concrete foundation doesn't mean that you "earned" the same level of stability.

I was so tempted to go the XFactor route. I'm now glad that I didn't. This site will take till the end of the year to rank either 1,2, or 3 for all 8 keywords I'm targeting. It should easily pull in 5 figures a month by itself. Then I can take those funds and invest in 3 full-time employees for my next site (niche already selected, site skeleton already built and "seasoning") which will require about 24 months of work.

I'm prepared to pay 3 people for two years without any return because I know that when the site DOES rank (and it will) it will pay mid five-figures on an average month and break six figures on two peak months.

It seems that the concept of "divide and conquer" isn't working these days.

[thehobbster]

Yes, I'm totally agreed with you. Google is not only "not stupid," but have access to the greatest minds and computing power. They WILL find out how to get rid of these micro-sites from the SERPs. It's not a question of "if," but of "when." Authority sites will emerge the winners in a big way eventually. Plus, at least you can aim at whatever topic you want. Just about any topic that's drawing insane traffic will make enough money to justify the effort.

[Abledragon]

Yes - I'm with you as well.

Valuable, original content and lots of it provides the solid foundation for an online business. There are no quick fixes - it just takes work, application and perseverance.

Cheers,

Martin.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by The Expert

It would seem that lite sites with few external backlinks are more impacted than heavy sites with plenty of backlinks.

I think you figured out the 'secret code'.

Just remember, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.

YouTube - A Real Cool Hand... R.I.P. Paul Newman

Just make sure you don't spend a night in the box.

[Dan B Rusu]

Originally Posted by The Expert

I'm prepared to pay 3 people for two years without any return because I know that when the site DOES rank (and it will) it will pay mid five-figures on an average month and break six figures on two peak months.

It seems that the concept of "divide and conquer" isn't working these days.

The expert, Thanks for this informative post.

Do you only monetize your sites with ebay affiliate sites or do you do adsense or affiliate marketing as well?

I dont expect you to reveal your niches, but what type of site/ monetization method are you using to be bringing in 5-figures/month.

Exactly what do you mean by tough competition. Are we talking super-competitive like the keyword "weight loss" here or something like "acai berry"

[lexilexi]

Thanks for this - great article! I've been writing about the same subject. I think part of the reason for the "castles built on sand" is the internet gold rush fever that is propagated by marketers attempting to sell products which promise the easy buck.
It's a harder sell promoting a product where you are realistic and tell people "this is going to take some effort and it will probably suck for a while".
Real niche authority cannot be built overnight. It takes commitment. I'm doing exactly the same thing, focusing efforts on one main site which will in all likelihood take up to a year to show its true form. But on the other side of this, it is based on evergreen content and has every chance of being an auto-pilot earner for 3, 5 or maybe many more years after that. Anyway great post.

[jazbo]

The answer is of course to do both. build short term sites for short term gains and also build quality sites you can develop over years.