Rankings are a Trap. Focus on Traffic.

[FraserC]

@Mike Anthony - I think it's just the opposite kind of person who this might be attractive to. Who on earth would think that writing 1000 high quality articles is a shortcut? The shortcut is buy 1000 backlinks for $9.99.

I'm talking to the person who wants to focus on their website as a career and keep at it for years and even decades - to make money doing what you love. The more passionate you are about the topic, the better. The more you focus on the quality, the better. Obviously that quality impacts all your relationships and your reputation.

Here's Matt Cutts answering this exact question. Here are the methods of linkbuilding he suggests.

What are some effective techniques for building...

The status quo is to say, "that's not true, it's not possible, massive linkbuilding is the key." And I'm saying, you can do it purely on content.

ANy day of the week I can put up a few links and take your best keywords right away from you EASILY.

That's the trap. The focus on rank, not traffic.

[Mike Anthony]

Fraser I am sorry but I have to call em like I see em and having now had the opportunity to look over your backlinks i can say your premise is totally bogus and more than a little deceptive (edit - or if you prefer misleading).

You in fact have links from SEVERAL niche directories that allow you to place backlinks and whether you admit it or not someone has in fact submitted these sites for you or you have linked them yourself. The site you reference therefore HAS been using linkbuilding and rather CLASSIC link building

Your site has several PR links that are coming in from these niche directories. This site that you keep pointing to as proof of your concept IS gaining authority in Google's eyes from these links. Claiming otherwise is just nonsense. Whether you placed them yourself as a great many of these directories allow you to do pending approval (many of the sites have the classic "add your link" pages) someone else did it for you or not. Your site does not qualify to be talking about getting traffic or authority without backlinks. It is utilizing niche directory backlinks all over related to your niche.

Please stop using this site as an example. I don't figure that you intended for it to be but it is deceptive leaving that fact out

That is now a proven fact anyone who wishes to do a backlink check can now see for themselves.

That's the trap. The focus on rank, not traffic.

Please stop with this total nonsense too. It is a proven fact that the top three results of any serp gets the most clicks. Clicks ARE traffic. as long as you tell people to target certain long tail keywords the top is going toget most of the traffic for that serp. Third page on a long tail is not going to get you much clicks and again that is traffic. If in fact you do both content and link building across a niche the sum total of the combinations of anchor text will begin to count toward other keywords you are not targeting just as well.
for eg

automobile parts
engine parts
Automobile
car accessories
engine repair

Will help in

Car repair
automobile accessories
car repair parts

etc

So you can build an authority site with links much better and get higher ranks which no matter how you deny it is proven over and over again to result in higher volumes of traffic. Especially utilizing internal links. This is what has happened to your space site despite you not understanding it. The LINKS that you have built have created an internal flow of PR that is boosting your entire site and so several space related keywords have ranked not in the absence of those links but in the presence of them.

IF you feel there is another website that proves your point better then please present it but the one in your sig is a failure. You are getting ranking and traffic from link building PERIOD.

The status quo is to say, "that's not true, it's not possible, massive linkbuilding is the key." And I'm saying, you can do it purely on content.

Never mentioned massive link building ever in this thread. Ask around I am against it. So in a discussion with me thats a total strawman. you are still stuck in this idea that link building is limited to thousands of links for $9.99 and spammy links. Finally Matt in your video states right off at the top that he is only mentioning a few link building techniques. The ones he mentioned are not the total list.

[FraserC]

@Mike Anthony - I was a "good guy", now I'm "deceptive"?

Again, I provided that info as context, to explain the history of how I did my research. The backlinks I've gotten are a side benefit. That said, like you, I was suspicious about the success - my main site has just too much history and authority - so I performed an experiment to invalidate my findings. I started another site, from scratch without any directories or backlinks.

So, then I had two data points. And now other people people have tried it out and I've seen dozens of datapoints with brand new websites. You'll probably start hearing about them more and more over the coming months.

Google is the ecosystem, we can create sites that fulfill their requirements and allow us to succeed at the same time. We can get away from the cynical "it's all about links" statement.

I think we'd both prefer all webmasters take deeply nuanced view towards their websites and audience; to both value of the content and the relationships they build with other websites.

You can label me naive and misguided, but I think calling me deceptive is uncool.

You know my website, what's yours? What website have succeeded with?

[Mike Anthony]

Fraser I gave you the benefit of the doubt of whether you intended to be deceptive (or if you prefer misleading) but there is no doubt whatsoever that continually pointing to your website getting 100.000 visits a day while claiming that you can do it without backlinking is deceptive/misleading if in fact that site has in fact utilized LOTS of backlinking.

call it uncool if you want . Its just a fact. In post #12 you point blank referred to it and said backlinking was not necessary.

Originally Posted by FraserC

I know you disagree, but I'm saying, that's how I'm getting 100K search visitors a day. And I've done independent tests to confirm it.

Backlinking isn't necessary.

Thats deceptive if that site utilized backlinks and it most definitely did as anyone who cares to do a backlink check can see with their own eyes. having backlinks added to directories is DEFINITELY backlinking. I'll still give you the benefit of the doubt because perhaps you didn't check or someone placed them for you but that does not change the fact that the statement is very deceptive even if you did not mean it to be.

Now if you come in here with a sig stating that your keyword tool is how you generate that traffic and then state openly that backlinking is not necessary on a site FILLED with classic Directory backlinks don't be upset with me for stating thats not entirely true. I'm not being uncool for it.

[TheNewGuy2010]

Originally Posted by FraserC

It worked for Wikipedia, it can work for us.

Hi Fraser,

this is your opinion not a concrete fact that's accepted through out the IM community, correct?

I, just like every expereinced marketer have read tons of ebook about SEO and traffic and if you read 50 ebooks you're going to get 50 methods. I came to the conclusion, if they can make up their own system why can't I make up my own......so I did.

nothing is concrete and factual. no one knows what any search engine is looking for because they don't reveal it. we are all guessing.

What worked today may not work tomorrow. I do agree with writting content but I also think you need to put a lot of content on other 3rd party domains as well. No every one uses the search box to find what they are looking for.

Putting content all over the net and taking up as much space as possilbe in your niche is the way to get traffic. People will find your website using all sorts of methods. there more content that's "out there" the better your chances are of someone finding your website. Be it a video, Pad file or PDF.
























(good job promoting your sig)

[Atul Dhiman]

Hello all i read the Thread and it is very knowledgeable for freshers like me. now i put more attention in traffic not in clicks.
Thankyou.

[dagaul101]

I agree these days it's all about traffic, the trick ofcourse is finding or getting that great content that entices the visitors

[Tacit]

Wow can't believe how long this thread became! Definitely with Mike Anthony on this one. I work for an SEO agency and some of the sites we work with have awesome content but no links. Even stuff at the bottom of page 1 gets hardly anything. Do high quality content, and do link building. Its not one of the other.

[vivi62]

If you want backlink strategys or traffic creation strategys I have many free methods on my blog below.
Best wishes
vivi62

[markus88]

Originally Posted by FraserC

@Mike Anthony - I'm assuming that you're creating great content that fills a need. But the point is that you're targeting concepts that people are searching for. But yes, if you stick at it, you can absolutely create an enormous volume of targeted traffic... without much promotion beyond the content itself.

I know you disagree, but I'm saying, that's how I'm getting 100K search visitors a day. And I've done independent tests to confirm it.

Backlinking isn't necessary.

That's very impressive traffic. How many articles/pages were needed to reach that level? Is the traffic coming from forum posts??

[Mike Anthony]

A whole heap of articles and despite what the OP represented - A WHOLE LOT OF BACKLINKING.

[rkat55]

As someone who has been marketing online since '97 I can tell you that Fraser is 100% correct in what he is saying.

Not to mention his $23,000 a month ain't too shabby proof.

I've seen a number of sites like Fraser's over the years and they
all kick-ass just by providing dope content.

I've got nothing against pro-active backlink getting and all
that if that's what you want to do. But that's a different thing.
You can almost compare it to short-term trading strategies
versus long term buy and hold investing strategies.

Which one is better? Not necessarily either. They are both
great strategies in the right hands.

[FraserC]

@marcus88 - I already had about 8000 articles on my site, but they were mostly news oriented. So I'd write an article about some news event, like a new space mission launch, the traffic would spike and then a few days later it would settle down. I was getting a total of about 1,500 search engine visitors a day.

And then I was talking to my daughter and she wanted to know "what was the biggest star in the universe". I researched the article and then posted the result on my site. It spiked like a normal article, but it didn't go back to zero, it just kept generating search engine traffic day after day.

So I figured I'd try and see if I could get lightning to strike twice, and I wrote a second article about "why pluto isn't a planet". Same result. In fact, this is still one of the most popular search referrers for me.

At that point, I doubled down and added hundreds of articles to my site to see what that would do, and the search traffic went up and up. Each article provided an incremental increase in traffic. Now I've probably got 3,000+ articles that I've added over the last 3 years, which relate to what my website is about. Many written by me, but now with lots of additional help from a writing team. And like I said, it's now getting about 100,000 search visitors a day.

I was concerned that this was a strategy that would only work for an authority site like mine - lots of social mentions, half a million links to the domain, RSS subscribers, etc.

So I created a separate site as an experiment, starting from scratch, with my wife as the writer. She picked a niche that she was interested in, and then started writing articles both targeting search queries but also rambling about what she was interested in, our family, etc. Over the course of 3 years she's added about 250 articles to the site and it now ranks for all kinds of search terms, and brings in about 5,000 search visitors a day. The only problem is that she doesn't really want to work on the site; she works in a toy store, and enjoys interacting with human beings - go figure.

Again, we didn't build any links. The site has attracted about 3,000 links naturally from 665 domains, but not from us.

If you already have an authority site and you want to build up the traffic, I'd definitely consider adding keyword targeted content to your site. Don't worry so much about how you're ranking for any one keyword, just build your overall traffic.

I guess I'm saying that it's possible to grow a site doing the things that Google wants you do to.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by FraserC

Again, we didn't build any links. The site has attracted about 3,000 links naturally from 665 domains, but not from us.

Fraser this will be my last post to this thread. People can draw what they wish from it hereafter. I am not going to expose your backlinks on an open forum but the links that you can add sites to by pushing a few buttons are right there in your link profile and theres a healthy dose of them

One of them even states that they have stopped taking links because of spammers indicating how open they were to adding links in that niche directory. Several sites in your link profile have that same feature and acceptance of links with add your site URL buttons.

Its immaterial who placed them for you. No one can independently verify who did or didn't but they are very open to the public if you are within that niche (niche directories are a CLASSIC powerful backlink resource that has been somewhat abandoned by people who believe that all directories are discounted by Google - niche directories are in fact not universally. My clients who have and have had me backlink have done very well for themselves with niche directories).

The reality is if someone were starting an astronomy related sites they are there for them to use just as your link profile has them and it would be total foolishness not to since they are what helps your site get traffic.

Telling people that backlinking is unnecessary when your own site is the recipient of many backlinks from add my URl niche directories sites is TOTALLY disingenuous. Its what is helping to give you traffic and if people really want to emulate your site and approach they should go ahead and get those links not ignore them.

your own site disproves your premise - backlinking was necessary for it as well. I know many people will take objection to my stating that again but the fact of the matter is that as I can see form posts newbies have been led astray by the claims that are most definitely false.

You are however right that you can rank and get good traffic doing it Google's way but Google has nothing against adding sites to directories. They even suggest from time to time human edited ones like Yahoo and Dmoz. But alas - Its still link building and its what generated your traffic. Your keyword tool is not what "generated that traffic" by itself but BACKLINKS from CLASSIC add my url backlinking directories had a significant part.

unsubscribing. Newbies have been warned.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by FraserC

Don't worry so much about how you're ranking for any one keyword, just build your overall traffic.

I guess I'm saying that it's possible to grow a site doing the things that Google wants you do to.

OP, If you tweaked your site structure (internal links), I have no doubts that site could generate 25+% more SERP traffic from double/triple SERP listings.

I'm not trying to dis. but I don't see any planned site structure (categories, etc...).

Google wants the site to be user friendly, why are you skipping such an easy step?

BTW, is your site a Google News site (looks like it in the SERPs, when I search your post titles)?

[FraserC]

@Mike Anthony - I understand your position. Good luck with your clients and your sites.

@Yukon - I do have a pretty sophisticated internal link structure. And I chip away at it when I can, setting up more internal links. I think I've got a list of about 8000 keywords that don't even have a single internal link set up, but that's agonizing work to do, so I avoid it. I have it set so the internal links only display on pages which are older than 10 days, so it doesn't annoy my regular readers.

Yeah, I'm in Google news. That's definitely good for traffic, but the visitors are less lucrative than search engine visitors. I've also got a pretty big syndication network - my stories are in MSNBC, Christian Science Monitor, io9, etc.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by FraserC

@Mike Anthony - I understand your position. Good luck with your clients and your sites.

@Yukon - I do have a pretty sophisticated internal link structure. And I chip away at it when I can, setting up more internal links. I think I've got a list of about 8000 keywords that don't even have a single internal link set up, but that's agonizing work to do, so I avoid it. I have it set so the internal links only display on pages which are older than 10 days, so it doesn't annoy my regular readers.

Yeah, I'm in Google news. That's definitely good for traffic, but the visitors are less lucrative than search engine visitors. I've also got a pretty big syndication network - my stories are in MSNBC, Christian Science Monitor, io9, etc.

Still, your running Wordpress, you can automate internal linking with some upfront work, then it's all on auto-pilot for future post.

Just saying, some landing page planning will benefit your site & traffic long term.

[FraserC]

We've coded a Wordpress plugin that does all the internal linking based on the keyword-URL pairs you define. It goes a little further than that, giving you a todo list of all the outstanding keyword variations you need to insert in your pages as well as suggesting other pages within your site that could link back to those pages with the different anchor text variations.

So it's automated as much as possible, but it's still work.

[moneymoguls]

Originally Posted by FraserC

@marcus88 - I already had about 8000 articles on my site, but they were mostly news oriented. So I'd write an article about some news event, like a new space mission launch, the traffic would spike and then a few days later it would settle down. I was getting a total of about 1,500 search engine visitors a day.

And then I was talking to my daughter and she wanted to know "what was the biggest star in the universe". I researched the article and then posted the result on my site. It spiked like a normal article, but it didn't go back to zero, it just kept generating search engine traffic day after day.

So I figured I'd try and see if I could get lightning to strike twice, and I wrote a second article about "why pluto isn't a planet". Same result. In fact, this is still one of the most popular search referrers for me.

At that point, I doubled down and added hundreds of articles to my site to see what that would do, and the search traffic went up and up. Each article provided an incremental increase in traffic. Now I've probably got 3,000+ articles that I've added over the last 3 years, which relate to what my website is about. Many written by me, but now with lots of additional help from a writing team. And like I said, it's now getting about 100,000 search visitors a day.

I was concerned that this was a strategy that would only work for an authority site like mine - lots of social mentions, half a million links to the domain, RSS subscribers, etc.

So I created a separate site as an experiment, starting from scratch, with my wife as the writer. She picked a niche that she was interested in, and then started writing articles both targeting search queries but also rambling about what she was interested in, our family, etc. Over the course of 3 years she's added about 250 articles to the site and it now ranks for all kinds of search terms, and brings in about 5,000 search visitors a day. The only problem is that she doesn't really want to work on the site; she works in a toy store, and enjoys interacting with human beings - go figure.

Again, we didn't build any links. The site has attracted about 3,000 links naturally from 665 domains, but not from us.

If you already have an authority site and you want to build up the traffic, I'd definitely consider adding keyword targeted content to your site. Don't worry so much about how you're ranking for any one keyword, just build your overall traffic.

I guess I'm saying that it's possible to grow a site doing the things that Google wants you do to.

Awesome post and strategy. I'm so glad I found this thread. I'm done with backling. I spent way too much money on backlinks with zero return. I am moving forward with 2 new blogs and sticking to content only. Both blogs are only about 50 days old with about 100 posts. I'm writing everyday.

Thanks!!!

[dmtaylor247]

I agree with alot of what Fraser is saying in this thread, thanks for sharing it. I think the argument for the perspective of content creation is that it doesn't need thousands of targeted backlinks, there is no "anchor", any links are there simply to improve the site quality, the site strength and it's structure.

It's not to say backlinks don't help, but I feel content is just way more important ATM. The time I spent on a website before penguin was approx 90/10 (backlinks/content), now my focus is to change that to 5/95 (backlinks/content).

Only when I have over 1000 pages of decent content I will fire up a backlinking strategy with an aim to provide super high quality and relevant links, possibly a dozen PR6/7 with no anchors, no aim to rank for anything, simply to power up the site and it's internal pages.

I built the site yesterday, focusing on one large niche, with thousands of sub niches, and sub-sub niches, I've decided to scrap all of my other sites and just focus my attention on this one.

The domain has no keyword or anchor text and all of the internal pages are going to be long tails and categorised and tightly grouped together with user friendly tags but with no keywords, I will be posting hundreds of pages of content to this website, neither aiming to rank for any particular keyword, just writing loads of helpful content with LSI, but going after the topics that have more traffic, no competition and better pay.

I'm pretty sure by the time I start to consider backlinking the website, my users will have done it for me...as the sites content is pretty helpful from a user perspective.

The main reason I'm all for this;

You can enjoy a number #1 position in Google with backlinks and a 3 page website, but you're missing out on a great deal more traffic without loads of great content.

By simply saying "I will take over your keyword with backlinks in a blink of an eye" I would probably respond with "well I have 50,000 keywords so good luck mate".

It just more stable, how are Google going to kill you with no keywords? If one of your pages goes down, then who cares you've got 15,999 more..

The site would be so big, much of it's own ranking ability will come from it's own pages.. any attack on the site would be pointless because I don't aim to rank for anything, but it would probably end up ranking for some pretty nice keywords like "universe" because of the huge amount of relevance.

[wizzard1222]

With Social Media taking the main stage....ranking can be taking a back seat....!!!

[nest28]

First off I just want to thank Fraser for saying everything I was trying to say, but he said it way better. I can't believe he had to spend most of his time on this thread defending his methods, the same as I've had to do. I know for a fact this method will work because I've done it on a small scale with 100 page sites. Now these sites did have backlinks that I built myself, but the long tail keywords had no competition so the backlinks had nothing to do with it.

I'm getting the same comments on my threads, "if you build it ,they wont come" how do you know that, you never built a site without backlinks. Either way Fraser is only offering an alternative to the same oh, build backlinks to rank for one keyword.

Somebody said "I can build backlinks and take down one of your pages", who cares he ranks for thousands of keywords.

I would much rather rank for thousands of keywords than battle it out for one keyword, than somebody will probably try to perform negative seo on my site just to beat me.

Your getting advice from somebody that makes thousands of dollars from adsense a month and gets 100,000 visits a day, and you want to argue with him.

My man said if you want to find me look up "universe" I was over here cracking up like damn, who on this forum can say something like that.

Fraser's site and income speaks for itself, you can chose to follow the masses and backlink to a single keyword that may or may not have the search volume the gkt says it does, or you can build a quality website that you can be proud of, not to mention making thousands of dollars a month.

Fraser you have my utmost respect, this thread is a hundred times better than mine, you are the type of marketer I aspire to be, I hope to one day be able to have a great site that people love enough to backlink for me.

Edit: Join the Anti-Marketers Club and you to can have a site that gets thousands of visitors a day and makes thousands of dollars a month.

[OneManSEO]

I wish it worked as well as backlinking, but what exactly could a local plumber do to his website to generate great content? No, he needs great backlinks and good on-page SEO.

It really depends on what your focus is. Building an authority site that requires a ton of content is something entirely different than getting traffic to a local plumber.

Just sayin....and I agree with you.

[nest28]

Originally Posted by OneManSEO

I wish it worked as well as backlinking, but what exactly could a local plumber do to his website to generate great content? No, he needs great backlinks and good on-page SEO.

It really depends on what your focus is. Building an authority site that requires a ton of content is something entirely different than getting traffic to a local plumber.

Just sayin....and I agree with you.

I believe this method is for the typical marketer who is seeking to make a full time living from his/her website. The thing that I do like about this method, is it only appeals to a select few. I don't even have to worry about people running out and making a bunch of 5,000 page sites, that will be competition for me. While your worrying about ranking for one of my keywords, I have thousands more.

Edit: This is also the only method that I know of that could potentially make you a premium adsense publisher, at which point you wouldn't have to worry as much about getting banned, and would have more freedom with ad placement among other things.

[dmtaylor247]

Originally Posted by nest28

Somebody said "I can build backlinks and take down one of your pages", who cares he ranks for thousands of keywords.

I think this is a pretty shoddy statement to make in terms of the real "effort" that's required here, just to outrank all those keywords he would need to build thousands of pages himself or one huge page and spam the hell out of it!

Originally Posted by nest28

Your getting advice from somebody that makes thousands of dollars from adsense a month and gets 100,000 visits a day, and you want to argue with him.

I agree, I got some sites above 100k alexa with backlinking but none of them went above 25,000, simply because they didn't have enough content. I'm fed up now I want some real wenga

I think my advice post penguin would be just to pump out as much quality content as possible and don't even think about backlinking.

I built a mini web 2.0 around 6 weeks ago, from start to finish (collectively) it took me around 2 hours work. I stopped by to check a few of them out today and they were pagerank 5. If anything, all I will do is set a few of these up just to kickstart the site when required and they will sit there to mature while I pump out some content.

When the links are dropped I won't be targeted any keyword, I won't rank for a handful of keywords, I will rank for thousands of keywords . The pagerank will just flow down the archive pages hitting all those long tails on the way.

If Google don't like it then fair play, all I would need to do is remove a handful of links and not months of article drip feeding, thousands of blog comments or link pyramids with over optimized anchor texts..

[dmtaylor247]

Originally Posted by OneManSEO

I wish it worked as well as backlinking, but what exactly could a local plumber do to his website to generate great content? No, he needs great backlinks and good on-page SEO.

It really depends on what your focus is. Building an authority site that requires a ton of content is something entirely different than getting traffic to a local plumber.

Just sayin....and I agree with you.

I've built a few local sites and I can honestly say it's just as easy with content with these types of websites because it's the last thing all of the other websites around you would do.

I built a site out with 100 pages of tips related to "plumbing" for example. One of these articles was picked up and linked to alot, in fact it was a tip on how to clean burnt pans.

Other than this one viral article the site has got a few directory listings, a few forum links an ezine article and around 100 pages of good content with good internal linking. 20% of the links target the brand name 40% target a keyword and the other 40% is to this viral article keyword.

It's still ranking number 1 for many keywords. I've been trying to figure it out; but I think it was this one article that kept it there..

[FraserC]

Thanks for the support nest28.

I think the hostility comes from the natural skepticism everyone should have to anyone saying anything. Especially if they also a way to profit from it. I've got a tool that helps people manage large keyword-based websites, so it's natural to assume that my advice is skewed.

Skepticism is the default position, and the right one. It's up to me to defend my position, especially when it calls so many established "truths" about internet marketing into question.

But I also think that most marketers have an antagonistic relationship with Google - a relationship fostered in part by Google's treatment of marketers. Google is a great big nameless, faceless entity that you just can't reach. When you're spending time working in that ecosystem, and there's no way to reach the people within the organization, you don't really care what impact your actions have on them. And Google employees probably feel the same way too.

There's a badge of honor in being a rebel, doing things that Google doesn't want you to do.

[Carl Brown]

Please don't work too hard to convince them. Some of us would like to get ours established before there's too much competition.

[yukon]

I'll say this, large sites are awesome for testing new keywords in the SERPs.

I've been running test over the last month for new keywords, these keywords have never been on my site (5+ year old, +1K pages), no external backlinks for these keywords.

The only thing these keywords have going for them is keyword relevancy & good on-page SEO, nothing else.

I've had a few new keywords drop into positions 1-4 in Google SERPs while testing.

What I'm doing is fishing for traffic, lol.

I take note of the traffic & ranked SERP position, save that data to a text file, then repeat with a new site wide keyword, rinse, repeat... Couldn't get any easier. I'll go back later & build a category for each of the decent traffic keywords that hit positions 1-4 in the SERPs.

This also shows how tough competition is, If I can't get page #1 with a site wide keyword (1 keyword so far) I know the competition is tough. Save that keyword for later on, more detailed research of the competition.

Right now I have 4 more site wide keywords running on a single site.

BTW, all of these new keywords are two keyword phrases (example: camera phone) & all keywords are obviously in the same niche.

[edit]
No personalized SERPs.

[FraserC]

Epic method Yukon!

I really think that guessing the competition of a keyword beforehand is pointless.

But once you test out real keywords, you'll discover what works and what doesn't with real, hard data.

Originally Posted by yukon

I'll say this, large sites are awesome for testing new keywords in the SERPs.

I've been running test over the last month for new keywords, these keywords have never been on my site (5+ year old, +1K pages), no external backlinks for these keywords.

The only thing these keywords have going for them is keyword relevancy & good on-page SEO, nothing else.

I've had a few new keywords drop into positions 1-4 in Google SERPs while testing.

What I'm doing is fishing for traffic, lol.

I take note of the traffic & ranked SERP position, save that data to a text file, then repeat with a new site wide keyword, rinse, repeat... Couldn't get any easier. I'll go back later & build a category for each of the decent traffic keywords that hit positions 1-4 in the SERPs.

This also shows how tough competition is, If I can't get page #1 with a site wide keyword (1 keyword so far) I know the competition is tough. Save that keyword for later on, more detailed research of the competition.

Right now I have 4 more site wide keywords running on a single site.

BTW, all of these new keywords are two keyword phrases (example: camera phone) & all keywords are obviously in the same niche.

[edit]
No personalized SERPs.

[Chris Kent]

This doesn't necessarily work.

I've never chased backlinks and always written good content, concentrating on long tails and often even ignoring keywords.

Guess what? Google won't necessarily reward you. Many of my sites are a disappointment, SE traffic-wise.

I've now given up on getting traffic from Google. The real trap is relying on Google traffic. Now I leech traffic from other sites instead. Across multiple accounts, it's impossible to get hit hard in a single algo update. I can also target similar keywords without being penalized.

[nest28]

Originally Posted by Chris Kent

This doesn't necessarily work.

I've never chased backlinks and always written good content, concentrating on long tails and often even ignoring keywords.

Guess what? Google won't necessarily reward you. Many of my sites are a disappointment, SE traffic-wise.

I've now given up on getting traffic from Google. The real trap is relying on Google traffic. Now I leech traffic from other sites instead. Across multiple accounts, it's impossible to get hit hard in a single algo update. I can also target similar keywords without being penalized.

I think there is a lot of room for failure with this method. The key is to build a site that has no limits, instead of building a site on golf, build a sports site that talks about all sports.

Second use your Google analytic's to see how people got to your site and make articles based on that.

I've seen success with this method on all of my old sites, just on a much smaller scale than Fraser.

[FraserC]

Originally Posted by Chris Kent

This doesn't necessarily work.

I've never chased backlinks and always written good content, concentrating on long tails and often even ignoring keywords.

Guess what? Google won't necessarily reward you. Many of my sites are a disappointment, SE traffic-wise.

I've now given up on getting traffic from Google. The real trap is relying on Google traffic. Now I leech traffic from other sites instead. Across multiple accounts, it's impossible to get hit hard in a single algo update. I can also target similar keywords without being penalized.

I would have to see your sites. It might be that you're targeting long tail traffic, but neglecting some other part of the process. But if you've got a method of generating traffic that's sustainable and works for you, awesome.

This method works for me, and it works for many other people. Sometimes it's about the length of time that you stick at it. I always say, "never fear, wait a year". If you haven't been crafting content for at least a year, trying to give people as much value as you can, you're not really committed yet.

[markowe]

This type of method relies on very good site structure and keyword choice. You can create a site around "dog training schools" and find it progressively easier to rank subpages for

dog training schools in Utah
dog training schools in Nebraska
best dog training schools

...even with a minimum of or no (external) backlinking.

Yet, if you try to create some content like "best dog collars" you will find you get nowhere.

Google definitely looks closely at common themes on sites, that much is clear. Thing is, you have to do this intelligently - most SEO WSOs pretty much tell you to do the above, and it just looks spammy, and is probably a big over-optimisation flag nowadays. So you have to be a little more natural and less "ïntentional" about it and you are golden. I wouldn't say you can then rank with NO backlinks, necessarily, but it makes it MUCH easier to rank with the minimum of a few quality backlinks or even a simple social campaign.

[lutherlars]

Agree 100%
People who want to develop sites that will stick around for years to come, better begin to realize the work that will go into doing this, and the time they will have to invest with no return. The days of ranking a site with the push of a scrapebox button are coming to an end real quick.

[Jay F]

I've gone through this thread for the first time and am still slightly confused. I get that you should produce a lot of valuable content and that Google will begin to see you as an authority. But, without any backlinks, wouldn't you just be relegated to "not page 1" on Google?

[yukon]

Originally Posted by nest28

I think there is a lot of room for failure with this method. The key is to build a site that has no limits, instead of building a site on golf, build a sports site that talks about all sports.

Second use your Google analytic's to see how people got to your site and make articles based on that.

I've seen success with this method on all of my old sites, just on a much smaller scale than Fraser.

I would defiantly keep the entire site focused on a single niche.

Random sports would be more difficult to rank pages than an entire site totally focused on golf.

Staying focused is very important, IMO. Seriously, it makes ranking pages in the SERPs easier.

[CatherineMay]

I'm sorry if I overlooked a discussion that's already here on how to find the long-tail keywords you "anti-marketer" guys are going after, but I would really appreciate some input on this issue.

I hate backlinking. It's not so much because it's boring and tedious, but it makes me feel somewhat dishonest. I would love to move onto another plain of consciousness where getting traffic is concerned.

So, pray tell...what's the best way to find these long-tail keywords?


Catherine

[lutherlars]

One can be very successful not ranking a single keyword combo on page one of Google if they rank for a lot of long tail keyword phrases. Search for nest's other awesome threads, and read through them.

[Jay F]

But, don't you need some type of backlinking to those long-tail pages?

[CatherineMay]

Jay, these "anti-marketing" guys are saying, NO, you don't need backlinking.

This is what's so intriguing. It sounds like heaven.

Now, if I can just get a clear answer from one of them as to how they find these long-tail gems, I'll be happy!


Catherine

[Carl Brown]

I'm a newbie in this, but I'm using Keyword Researcher, Yahoo Answers (as nest suggested) and GKWT for keyword phrases, and questions getting only a few (less than 100) searches a month.

[Vivers]

Good points but would this also work for my cleaning service industry? I don't really know what you mean by long tail keywords. Would that mean how people may search carpet cleaners in mission viejo vs carpet cleaning mission viejo?

[footfoot]

niche authority site- whod've thunk?
Bet the OP could post "why doesn't the sun's gravity suck in all the planets?" and be number 1 tomorrow.

[nest28]

I use yahoo answers for ideas for post titles, just to get visitors to my site, until I'm able to use Google analytic's information to see how people got to my site at which point I take those keyword phrases found in analytic's and make article out of them.


It's also important to mix things up a bit, write naturally, talk about every subject related to your keywords, answer every question your visitors might have.


This is how I make a site, Take nursing for example.


adult nurse

nurse midwife

Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA)

Registered Nurse (RN)

Travel Nurse

Public Health Nurse (PHN)

Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN)

Now you can make a site based on the above keywords.

Lets find some long tail keywords from Google keyword tool for some of these terms. Lets take travel nurse and see what we can do with that.


travel nurse companies
travel nursing agencies
international travel nursing
lpn travel nursing jobs
international travel nursing jobs

Now let's look at yahoo answers for some extreme long tail phrases with little to no competition.

just type in "travel nurse" ok it has 3826 results, meaning there are a good amount of questions with the phrase travel nurse.

Now look for post/article ideas.

whats the difference in the schooling courses to becoming a nurse anesthetist and a travel nurse?

can you be a travel nurse with an associates in registered nursing?

How to become a travel nurse?

How much does a travel nurse earn compared to an RN?

How much does a new travel nurse make yearly starting off?

Now use Google keyword tool's long tail suggestions mixed with yahoo answers post/article ideas and start to make content, later add your Google analytic's to the mix.

Just find out everything you can about traveling nurses, than repeat the process with the other nursing careers and before you know it, you'll have a very large authority site on nursing.

I would also include information on, salary,classes,courses,books,exams, certifications,degrees,colleges,institutes,equipme nt,questions,tuition fees,school loans etc. All of these things are related to every kind of career not just medical.


My sites normally have a tab for most of the things mention above. Each sub-category should have as much information as possible, just make sure it relates to your specific niche.


So post titles may look something like this:

What school has the best nursing programs for nurse mid wife?

How do I get a student loan in order to become a nurse?

Best online nursing programs

top nurse programs in new york

How to prepare for nursing exams

is getting a job as a nurse difficult

Sorry I'm being lazy, by not further researching nursing, or else I could give better examples.

Whatever exams nurse take in order to get certified, write articles on them, explain how many questions are on the exam, how long is the exam, what books to read to prepare you for the exam etc.

This need to be done no matter what the niche is, find out everything you can and write or buy articles. Sometimes you will make articles in hopes of getting traffic, while other times you will write articles that are just helpful and informative.

[FraserC]

@CatherineMay - You should be able to find a lifetime's longtail keywords through the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Put in a seed keyword and it will return with up to 800 keywords. Target those.

I also highly recommend Keyword Researcher. You should be able to generate thousands of keywords quickly related to your business. Then run them back through the Google Adwords Tool to get search volume.

[nest28]

Oh yea make sure the keyword you go after has high exact local search, you don't want to build a authority site on something that get 5,400 a searches a month. So go after something with 30,000 searches ,broad and phrase will automatically be high which means there are a lot people searching for your keyword in question form, or in long string of words.


Don't worry about the competition because your not going after your main keyword, your going after all the long tail keywords nobody else cares about. You get enough long tail traffic and you can make much more than the person who is number for your keyword.


You could also take five keywords that are closely related and incorporate them into one site.


Edit: Fraser sorry I don't mean to hijack your thread, honestly I just like this one better than the ones I started lol.


I'm surprised this thread doesn't have 5 stars and 20 thousand views, there is extremely valuable information here.


Look if you wanted to rank for a keyword with 30,000 searches a month, you would have to do a ton of backlinking, fight other marketers,worry about getting a penalty from all of your backlinking efforts and worry about if somebody may perform negative seo on your site. All that just to be number one for a single keyword sounds crazy to me.


Normally when a keyword has high exact search count, broad and phrase are high, that tells me that there are a ton of long tails I can go after, if you make enough pages/posts you will see more than just 30,000 people come to your site.

Fraser's site is a prime example, while others are focus on being number one with a keyword that get's 30,000 he made a large site that ranks for thousands of keywords resulting a hundred thousand visits a day, instead of 30,000 a month.

[avajo71]

search engine ranking is just one of many ways to get traffic, and I think it is the most effective way to generate traffic for any websites.

[Wes888]

Hi Fraser,

Thank you for such an inspiring post. Just a few questions:

1) Do you make money from Adsense alone or do you have other income sources like do you use affiliate programs? What is your income mix?

2) Where do you get your content? Do you rewrite the news articles? How about the pictures? Do you ask for permission or do you just credit and link the source?

Thanks,
Wesley

[Will Edwards]

Well said Fraser. By the way, why not link your sig - I'd like to see some more of your writing.

Will