Noobie checking in, with questions

aircanada22 · 08-20-2011, 06:51 PM

Hey fellow warriors,

First off I wanted to thank everyone for providing such awesome advice and content. I've been a longtime lurker of these forums, and with the advice I learned here I began a micro niche site in March of 2011. I have the EMD for a term that gets 1000 local monthly searches at ~1.90 estimated CPC, which I thought was as good an entry point as any. I obtained rank 1 in this niche in early July, but have since lost it (currently sitting at 2) to a site that had its PR bumped up significantly (pr7!).

A couple of questions for those in the know:

If there is a search term that includes hyphens (in other words, the search term is my-keyword, is the EMD still mykeyword.com, or is it my-keyword.com? There are a ton of medical terms with hyphens that I want to target, but I'm unsure as to which route to take to get the EMD bonus.

I have identified backlinking as a huge weakspot for me. My rank 2 site, for example, only has four backlinks according to yahoo site explorer. When you go about creating a backlink, in, say, a forum post, do you then ping the forum post's url?
For a micro niche site, is ideal to build all of your backlinks to your homepage using your target keyword as anchor text, or should you diversify your backlinking using long tails as anchor text and different urls (ie keyword.com/long-tail-keyword)? When people talk about a site obtaining good long tail traffic, can that happen organically (ie my site ranks for the main term, so over time it ranks for the long tail as well) or does that usually only happen when I use a backlinking campaign to boost the long tail exposure as well?
Finally, can someone give me an estimate as to how many backlinks my site would need to overtake a pr7 site? Is there some kind of formula, or is it really just "keep backlinking until you win out"?

Thanks very much in advance guys and girls!

packerfan · 08-20-2011, 07:08 PM

Not sure about the hyphen thing. I assume Google will ignore hyphens, and treat keyword-keyword the same as keyword keyword, but I can't say for sure.

If your link is in a forum post, more than likely it will not need to be pinged to get indexed. Forums are crawled pretty regularly (assuming they are active).

If you're talking about forum profile links, then most people either pinging them or linking to them to get them indexed. I don't use profile links, and the kinds of links I usually use (BMR, Blog Posts, Forum Posting, Press releases) I never ping them.

You should building links to all your pages, with varying anchor text and different kinds of links. For my micro sites I target 1 keyword per page typically. I make the majority of my anchor text the main keyword, then make sure to use some other variations.

Depends on how well optimized for the keyword the PR7 page is. I don't think you're gonna get a solid answer on this one.

Josh MacDonald · 08-20-2011, 07:59 PM

Certainly find keywords that are have EMTLD (exact match top level domain) available.

warrich · 08-24-2011, 08:43 AM

Find the keywords that exactly match some of the keywords you intend to use for your site. Try building links for the individual pges of your site rather than having a general
approach that only targets the home page. Target specific pages that may be deep in the architecture and build links for them as well.

08-20-2011, 06:51 PM	#1
aircanada22 Warrior Member Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Montreal, Canada Posts: 5 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Noobie checking in, with questions Hey fellow warriors, First off I wanted to thank everyone for providing such awesome advice and content. I've been a longtime lurker of these forums, and with the advice I learned here I began a micro niche site in March of 2011. I have the EMD for a term that gets 1000 local monthly searches at ~1.90 estimated CPC, which I thought was as good an entry point as any. I obtained rank 1 in this niche in early July, but have since lost it (currently sitting at 2) to a site that had its PR bumped up significantly (pr7!). A couple of questions for those in the know: If there is a search term that includes hyphens (in other words, the search term is my-keyword, is the EMD still mykeyword.com, or is it my-keyword.com? There are a ton of medical terms with hyphens that I want to target, but I'm unsure as to which route to take to get the EMD bonus. I have identified backlinking as a huge weakspot for me. My rank 2 site, for example, only has four backlinks according to yahoo site explorer. When you go about creating a backlink, in, say, a forum post, do you then ping the forum post's url? For a micro niche site, is ideal to build all of your backlinks to your homepage using your target keyword as anchor text, or should you diversify your backlinking using long tails as anchor text and different urls (ie keyword.com/long-tail-keyword)? When people talk about a site obtaining good long tail traffic, can that happen organically (ie my site ranks for the main term, so over time it ranks for the long tail as well) or does that usually only happen when I use a backlinking campaign to boost the long tail exposure as well? Finally, can someone give me an estimate as to how many backlinks my site would need to overtake a pr7 site? Is there some kind of formula, or is it really just "keep backlinking until you win out"? Thanks very much in advance guys and girls!

08-20-2011, 07:08 PM	#2
packerfan Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 1,165 Thanks: 38 Thanked 210 Times in 144 Posts Social Networking	Re: Noobie checking in, with questions Not sure about the hyphen thing. I assume Google will ignore hyphens, and treat keyword-keyword the same as keyword keyword, but I can't say for sure. If your link is in a forum post, more than likely it will not need to be pinged to get indexed. Forums are crawled pretty regularly (assuming they are active). If you're talking about forum profile links, then most people either pinging them or linking to them to get them indexed. I don't use profile links, and the kinds of links I usually use (BMR, Blog Posts, Forum Posting, Press releases) I never ping them. You should building links to all your pages, with varying anchor text and different kinds of links. For my micro sites I target 1 keyword per page typically. I make the majority of my anchor text the main keyword, then make sure to use some other variations. Depends on how well optimized for the keyword the PR7 page is. I don't think you're gonna get a solid answer on this one.
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08-20-2011, 07:59 PM	#3
Josh MacDonald Keyword Baron War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Canada Posts: 624 Blog Entries: 1 Thanks: 12 Thanked 45 Times in 34 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Noobie checking in, with questions Certainly find keywords that are have EMTLD (exact match top level domain) available.
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08-24-2011, 08:43 AM	#4
warrich Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 687 Thanks: 2 Thanked 28 Times in 25 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Noobie checking in, with questions Find the keywords that exactly match some of the keywords you intend to use for your site. Try building links for the individual pges of your site rather than having a general approach that only targets the home page. Target specific pages that may be deep in the architecture and build links for them as well.
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