My 1000th post: how I got my EMD to page one with almost no backlinks, Google caches me in seconds!

[markowe]

Surely not, my 1000th post already – I spend WAY too much time on here!

Anyway, WF has helped me a lot, and the SEO forum has some great knowledge shared on it (if you can cut through the large amount of nonsense and contradictions you hear, ha!). So I want to give you a little case study for a site I launched back at the beginning of January so you can see a different way to doing SEO and ranking your sites - it’s nothing new or revolutionary, and some won’t like it, but, well, it works for me, so take it or leave it!

How I started
I registered the .org for an EMD relating to a niche sports product.

Let’s call it hockeyboots.org (it’s NOT!) – the .net and .com were both taken unfortunately, and both on page one, one autogenerated, one very thin on content. The rest of the competition was an eHow (barrghhhh) a forum post, an Amazon page and a retailer product info page ranking no.1 (good content). Only about 2900 global exact searches, but hear me out – that does NOT ALWAYS MATTER! GKWT says 22,000 broad matches globally and the niche has a huge number of product-related keywords – a lot more than 22,000 searches, I bet. The CPC is only about $0.60 but that doesn’t matter as I plan to monetize with affiliate products that fetch much more than that – Amazon, eBay etc. and I will be going for high volume in any case.


What happened
After 6 months I now rank no. 4 for the main EMD keywords, having overtaken the .com (it expired! I am trying to acquire it), the Amazon and the eHow (in your face!!!). Yes, you CAN still rank on page one with an EMD with no backlinks. The no. 2 is easily within reach, no. 1 might be a BIT more tricky, but no problem, because I am pushing around 50 Google searches per day for this “new” site, almost all for an amazing array of long-tail keywords, plus my main EMD keywords, and this is growing almost exponentially by the day. Any new post that I add gets instantly crawled, cached and indexed by Google, and starts ranking straight away for different related long-tails. And I achieved this with almost no backlinking except a couple of forum profiles/sigs in related forums I am active in and REAL comments on related blogs (about 3 comments!).

So how did I do it?
Well, some people are going to hate this but…

QUALITY CONTENT!!

Hear me out – we are not talking an encyclopaedia here – this is ‘just’ a microniche, I only wrote about 4 longer articles (static Wordpress pages) in the space of 6 months, occasionally updating the content of some of them along the way. However, these are killer articles. The plan was always for them to be the best articles on the subject anywhere on the net. I happen to know a bit about "hockey boots” because I play “hockey” (not the real niche!), but I still had to do a bit of research, and you can too, though a topic you are interested in is always better. My articles explain hockey boots better than ANY site out there (I know this for a fact!) and basically consist of something like:

• what are hockeyboots and what is special about them
• what are the different types
• which boots are for grass and which for hard surfaces/what kind of studs do they have
• how to choose hockey boots (criteria)

Again, hockey boots is just an example! But this is not rocket science, these are simple, but very well researched articles over 1000 words that answer questions people will have about hockey boots when they are just starting, with images too. And I wrote them slowly, when I had time, over a 5-6-month period. Used a VERY basic, plain white framework theme, almost no plugins. And just watched it creep-creep up the rankings, right through all the Panda updates. Oh, and NO affiliate links or ads until I was on page one! I am still not earning from the site because I am not in a hurry, and most of the search traffic is hitting the earliest, informative articles I wrote – my search-engine bait, if you like. I am not patient generally, but this suits my style of picking things up every now and then when I feel like it. I have only just started writing product posts recently, just one or two a week, when I find time, and like I said, they are all getting instantly indexed and appearing in the SERPS for related buying terms.

In other words, I made an authority site in a nice, smaller niche with manageable competition. The ONLY authority site in the niche!

Isn’t that where we all want to be?

I now know that any post I write on a related product will rank for product-type searches that convert well and I now have a massive earnings potential there to be built on.


You can do this
Now, you hate writing “quality content”, right? It's much easier writing/outsourcing a $2 article and thrashing it with backlinks to get the same result. Well, it might be for you, and I am still tempted to do that sometimes. But what is easier, writing 4 GOOD articles on an interesting subject over a period of a few months (or paying $20 each for them), or messing around with the usual tedious backlinking techniques, many of them little more than spam? I know which I’d rather do, because the latter approach may get individual pages to no. 1 for a limited range of keywords. But the former approach gets my site authority, which is incredibly powerful once you have it and gets me ranking for shedloads of keywords. Sure, 6 months is a long time, but you think I wasn’t doing other stuff over that time?!

So why not consider this approach the next site you build? Here’s my “formula” for EMD ranking success, if you like:

• pick a good, general product-type niche like equipment for a specific sport, toys for a specific age-group, a particular type of gardening equipment, whatever
• decide on the exact keywords - do the usual Google Keyword Tool research to check for search volume, but also look into broad matches to see how wide a niche it is.
• do all the usual due diligence, make sure page one isn’t dominated by high-power, aged, authority pages that are well-optimised for the keywords, though I do not think that is the most important thing. You can beat even those, but it might not even be necessary.
• think about how you would monetize – are there high-paying Adsense clicks to be had, product affiliate programs (Amazon etc.), info products on Clickbank?
• try to get the exact match domain if possible, but that’s just a bonus, your content will get you there in the end anyway. EMDs are necessary if you want to get CRAP to page one, you must have realized that by now
• set up a Wordpress blog with the simplest theme you can find, so you can change it later when your site has taken shape. Install the usual basic plugins – sitemaps, All-in-one-SEO – no secrets here. I put SEO Search terms on too, but turned off the “search links” option when I realized Google was indexing hundreds of pages of duplicate content and I was going to get slapped very quickly.
• Write or outsource a fantastic general article on your subject of choice. It's got to be well-researched and answer the kinds of questions people ask about the subject, or the kinds of questions YOU had when you were getting into hockey or whatever – look around the forums, Yahoo Answers etc. to get ideas. Call it About hockey boots or something and stick it to the (static) front page. Don't worry about keyword density and all that – it will happen naturally.
• Gradually work on another few articles closely related to the main topic as I described above in my hockey boots example. You can make them child pages of the main page. That way you will get a nice hierarchy going. Actually, I started a couple of top-level pages – the second was tangentially related to hockey boots like, "hockey boot studs" and had a child page about specific types of hockey boot stud (generally, though you can mention a few models with a view to internally linking later). You can do this to gradually branch out your site and later you can internally link from these “master” pages to your product pages etc.
• DON’T be tempted to monetize out of the gate. It’s not that Google will “penalize” you, it’s the fact that you will spend your time messing around with ad placements instead of focusing on what matters – the content. WAIT till you have some decent traffic and you are actually writing about specific products
• Sign up for a few related forums and put your site in the sig – guess what, NO-ONE will “ban” you because there is no obvious commercial intent on your site, it’s just an informative, hobby site. You can even put something like “Here is my blog about hockey boots, why not leave a comment and let me know if I missed any info out?” etc.
• your site should gradually start creeping up the rankings for your main keywords and you will quickly start getting long-tail, “problem-solving/question-asking” traffic to it too.
• once you are on page one for the main terms, or you are getting a good volume of traffic, like a couple of dozen Google hits a day, at least, you can think about starting to write some posts. I planned out the categories carefully by Brand -> range -> type -> model, e.g. “Nike -> Super-Sport -> Men's” and then under Men’s I am eventually going to review or write overviews of all the men's models. And then I start writing simple posts (we turn off the static front page now and show posts on page one), first one for the main Nike category (who are Nike, overall info about their hockey boot range etc.), then one for the next one down, the Super-Sport range – what is specific about it, which models are in the range etc. There is NO rule about how often you must do this. I just schedule them out evenly though as I don’t want to get into having to write posts every day just to keep the Google monster happy! But it’s happy anyway, because guess what, I have three pages ranking 1, 2 and 3 almost overnight for, say, “Nike men's hockey boots”! No, it’s not the highest volume search term, but it has masses of long-tail related terms and it's all adding up very quickly!
• I can start thinking about putting some affiliate links in now - no need to stuff them everywhere. I use my own Wordbay eBay plugin, or you can use something similar to insert say 4-6 product listings, or even just text links here and there in the text, though a plugin is nice because it gives them a picture to click on.
• Eventually I get down to writing about individual boot models, and Google eats them up, and so do the searchers, and that it where I start seeing sales. And there are literally hundreds of hockey boot models, so I am not going to run out soon. Once things are going I can outsource this stuff easily.

And that’s basically how you get a microniche EMD seeing some proper traffic – don’t agonise over keywords, keyword density, what plugins to use, etc. etc. And don't write shoddy keyword-stuffed fluff articles and then start hurling backlinks at it and spending all your time on forums asking "Is my site sandboxed?" and "Do nofollow links count?". If you want to rank no. 1 for "garden gate hinges” just write the best 4 or 5 darn' articles anyone ever has on garden gate hinges and you bet you are going to be ranking page one before you know it with none of that mindnumbing backlinking!

OK, that’s it from me, I will answer any questions but remember, there is NO “secret” to this, just go and DO IT and see the results!

[paulgl]

Did you know this thread was indexed instantly and ranks #1 for

Surely not, my 1000th post already

Paul

[Kikos]

Hi, I have some keywords on page 1 of google (ranging from #3 to #10) and I do not have an EMD. Using a subdomain of one of my old domains. So you do not have to have an EMD to be on page 1, but probably it helps.

Good story, thanks for posting and congrats on 1000th post.

[markowe]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Did you know this thread was indexed instantly and ranks #1 for

Surely not, my 1000th post already

Paul

That's incredible! I wouldn't be surprised if this forum had a bit of authority going for it!

[Josh MacDonald]

6 months is still a long time though.

[guarino1235]

half a year with no income.. its too long..

[Chucky]

Great stuff! Thanks!

Sure people will complain this is slow, but what I've seen with my brief IM period is that those sites that rise slow and steady are immune to all Pandas and GodZillas!

One question, how about outgoing links? Do you link out to authority sites in the niche?

Another small tip from me that may help your 'On Page Only' campaign! Enable and encourage comments! Since you are really talking to people and giving them the answers they can't find elsewhere, you should be able to get them engaged.

With your long valuable articles, people are already spending a lot of time on your site. These help with reducing the bounce rate, average time spent on the site and all the other good stuff. Google is probably taking that in to consideration in deciding your rankings! Have you looked at your analytics account? Any idea what these figures may be? I'm guessing a bounce no more than 70% and an average time of a few minutes spent on the site per visit!

Getting people to comment (and answering those) will improve those parameters even further and Google will recognize the 2 way communication and reward you even further. This is something eHow doesn't have (as far as I know) and soon Google will realize you are offering more value than eHow!

Thanks again for a great post!
Chucky

P.S. A little grey hat tactic I use to get people to start commenting is to make that first comment (may be a bit of a controversial one to agitate people a bit)

[markowe]

Originally Posted by macdonjo

6 months is still a long time though.

Originally Posted by guarino1235

half a year with no income.. its too long..

I totally understand where you're coming from, but Chucky put it well - rank a site by this method and you will never have to worry about any Google update ever again! I told you, while my other sites were dancing around during Panda 1, 2, 3 whatever, this site NEVER WAVERED, just kept rising, rising.

I know, you want to be earning far quicker with your site but you have to bear in mind, I was doing PLENTY of other stuff during this time. In fact I TRIPLED my online earnings in the same period with other projects (my software products, Adsense-based sites etc.) I don't think I did more than 5 hours' work on this site in total! So if you were doing this all the time, you wouldn't worry about the time-frame, you would have lots of sites climbing up the SERPS all the time!

I also do what you probably do - create a minisite, start blasting it with all kinds of backlinks and sure, I have got these one page one and earning some money (with, like ONE keyword). But I spent HOURS on that stuff - it's a constant pressure to keep building backlinks, and watching your site Google Dance, disappear for weeks on end, reappear etc. I don't really enjoy that stress very much - this was very pleasant and relaxed for me! If I build some more niches sites soon (I am still working on a few big keywords, so don't want to start any new sites), I will definitely consider doing it this way again.

And by the way, I could PROBABLY have done it quicker if I had done a little backlinking - maybe some "white-hat" stuff like good article sites, like John Xfactor used to suggest with his method. I think the XFactor does still "work" - it just takes a little longer...

[markowe]

Originally Posted by Chucky

Great stuff! Thanks!

Sure people will complain this is slow, but what I've seen with my brief IM period is that those sites that rise slow and steady are immune to all Pandas and GodZillas!

One question, how about outgoing links? Do you link out to authority sites in the niche?

Another small tip from me that may help your 'On Page Only' campaign! Enable and encourage comments! Since you are really talking to people and giving them the answers they can't find elsewhere, you should be able to get them engaged.

With your long valuable articles, people are already spending a lot of time on your site. These help with reducing the bounce rate, average time spent on the site and all the other good stuff. Google is probably taking that in to consideration in deciding your rankings! Have you looked at your analytics account? Any idea what these figures may be? I'm guessing a bounce no more than 70% and an average time of a few minutes spent on the site per visit!

Getting people to comment (and answering those) will improve those parameters even further and Google will recognize the 2 way communication and reward you even further. This is something eHow doesn't have (as far as I know) and soon Google will realize you are offering more value than eHow!

Thanks again for a great post!
Chucky

P.S. A little grey hat tactic I use to get people to start commenting is to make that first comment (may be a bit of a controversial one to agitate people a bit)

Hey Chucky, props again for your legendary thread!

Regarding outgoing links, funnily enough, I didn't put any on there Nada, zilch, not a single one. Honestly never thought of it! I really think I got this one on the strength of the content. However, I do that with my regular mini-niche sites, link to a competitor's site, but not for the same keywords or page, pretty crazy but seems to help

Comments - yes, that's a good one and I DID encourage comments right from the start, so I have had to keep on top of the spam a bit. Actually I had very few comments - maybe I do need to, ahem, "create" some comments, although this site is almost like my "white-hat baby" so I am reluctant to do anything to sully it, he he!

Re: bounce rate, I only put Analytics on there the other day (was too slack before ) and I am getting a 60% bounce rate and people are spending 1:40 on my site on average, so I think you are right. I expect bounce to fall further now (it has started already) that I have started finally putting affiliate links on there, since they had nowhere to go before . However, I have a microniche that is doing quite well that has only 43% bounce rate and a similar time spent on-site and I don't think the content is THAT amazing (though it's not the usual MFA fluff) - go figure! I am pretty sure from what I have seen, though, that bounce rate IS being factored in in some way.

Thanks for your input - beating the eHow was a very good feeling, since it was only a few weeks ago I started a thread asking "Can you beat eHow?" and getting very mixed replies. You are right, it is easy to write more engaging content than eHow - I now know a very useful piece of information: see an eHow on page one for my search terms and I KNOW I can rank page one

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by markowe

That's incredible! I wouldn't be surprised if this forum had a bit of authority going for it!

You missed the point. He was indicating to you that the fact that you ranked number four for a long tail with relatively little traffic or competition with some forum backlinks doesn't mean your strategy can translate to others in other niches.

Its pretty easy to rank for terms no one else is trying to rank for. If I knew your niche I could probably outrank you in a few weeks with some good linkbuilding.

[markowe]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

You missed the point. He was indicating to you that the fact that you ranked number four for a long tail with relatively little traffic or competition with some forum backlinks doesn't mean your strategy can translate to others in other niches.

Its pretty easy to rank for terms no one else is trying to rank for. If I knew your niche I could probably outrank you in a few weeks with some good linkbuilding.

Yes, I realised that he was having a dig, but that is his custom around here, I didn't feel the need to rise to the bait. And my keywords are not THAT low competition - it was a strawman comparison, there are people actually searching for my keywords, and there are thousands of them to be mined and I can tap into them in the time it takes me to write an article and hit post. If someone wants to rank their post on a forum for some random words, well, whatever.

But about competition levels, I agree, that was one thing I did not emphasise in my posting - of course you are not going to rank for "car insurance" this way, this is more suitable for low-comp niches, IF you are intent on ranking for that single main keyword.

Most of us are obsessed with getting ranked for this one keyword, to the exclusion of all others, when in reality we could be working on authority content and picking up tons of relevant long-tail traffic and not worrying all that much about the main EMD keyword (though you might well get there naturally over time anyway). I am not saying everyone should do that, it's just another way of skinning the cat. Of course you could beat me out with heavy backlinking, but you wouldn't bother because you would perceive the niche as not being worth it, since with that approach you only care about a limited set of "main money keyword/s", and with my example those are not in and of themselves even that lucrative, it's the massive of long-tail that builds up this way that provides the value, and my experience with micro-niche keywords is that they tend not to provide this. One of my nicely-earning micro-niche sites gets over 65% of its traffic JUST for the "money keyword" which is great, but kind of silly/risky from a business point of view. Who knows, that could even be a ranking warning flag for some future 'Panda' - overoptimised sites.

Anyway, what I really want to point out is that producing quality content COULD be far easier for many newbies to do and see some success than following this, that and the other backlinking method that Google might penalise tomorrow.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by markowe

Yes, I realised that he was having a dig, but that is his custom around here,

pretty much and its a good custom when someone starts a thread implying that people shouldn't worry much about backlinking. I don't have to do too much backlinking to beat a site with few forum links. you got into a niche with low competition but thats all. I congratulate you on doing something but it could be misleading to others.

writing up a how to like its something that can be emulated by many others is misleading . As it is even with that weakness you are just at 4 after 6 months. So don't take it personal he was just poiinting out that weak competition can get pages to rank easily and it doesn't validate a strategy even based on content.

[Chucky]

Originally Posted by markowe

However, I have a microniche that is doing quite well that has only 43% bounce rate and a similar time spent on-site and I don't think the content is THAT amazing (though it's not the usual MFA fluff) - go figure! I am pretty sure from what I have seen, though, that bounce rate IS being factored in in some way.

Thanks for your input - beating the eHow was a very good feeling, since it was only a few weeks ago I started a thread asking "Can you beat eHow?" and getting very mixed replies. You are right, it is easy to write more engaging content than eHow - I now know a very useful piece of information: see an eHow on page one for my search terms and I KNOW I can rank page one

43%!! Wow that is awesome. Never got anywhere below 60% in my case. I know the bounce rate is 'controversial'. Some say it matters and others say it doesn't. I believe there is a video somewhere out there where Matt Cutts says they don't consider these factors in their ranking algos. Well whether they help me rank or not, I do my best to bring it down so that I know at least I'm giving what the searcher was looking for.

I'm stuck behind a double listing from consumersearch dot com (trying not to give any links to my competitors ). Their title tag, meta description, on page factors... nothing is optimized while my page (not the domain) is very well optimized. But their authority is hard to beat, but I like to think it's a matter of time unless Panda or some GodZilla sends me to oblivion.

Good stuff! Keep it up!
Chucky

[jondabach]

Awesome input...and totally accurate. The internet is FULL of useless garbage. I think if you had a goal to write 1 article every 2 weeks on that site and had 12 quality articles you might as well count on people referring your site word of mouth...good content is good content period end of story. Get into the IM game for the long run and you'll be rewarded in the long run.