What is possible.... and what is not?

9 replies
Hello!

New Guy, but I am learning a massive amount quickly on this forum and am amazed at how much information is here.

I am looking at launching an online business aimed at a large medical niche. Perhaps niche is not the right term... my target market is big and there are lots of existing sites.

I am struggling with defining keywords and trying to narrow down things to a smaller niche that I could perhaps rank on google page 1 for, but I am also curious.

Reading lots of posts here and WSO's offers it seems that folks are ranking very high for keywords that are perhaps not quite so niche and in fact may be huge.

I am looking at competitive sites for example that in Market Samurai show a Domain Age of 9, PR5, Index Count over 9,100, Page Backlinks over 1,000, Domain backlinks over 3300 and all the other SEO stuff optimized. The rest of the page 1 competitors are almost as strong... PR4 being the weakest.

Is it possible to build a site relatively quickly that can rank on page 1 in a space like this?


Terry
  • Profile picture of the author OpticalOut
    Buy a domain with existing PR. That is what I would do if I were entering a competitive market like you are describing.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3313399].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author BloggingPro
    I would most definitely try and find a brandable domain name that already has some domain age and high pagerank. This is going to help you immensely and will definitely speed up the ranking process.

    After that you are going to need some serious backlinking tools at your side. I would encourage you to look into methods that will help you get high PR .gov and .edu links on pages with low OBL (out-bound-links).

    Have a set linking plan laid out BEFORE-HAND. Flying by the seat of your pants in the SEO game--especially for competitive niches can be stressful and a waste of resources (money).

    No niche is a solid wall. Find a hole and make your way in!
    Signature
    You're going to fail. If you're afraid of failure then you do not belong in the Internet Marketing Business. Period.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3313466].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author wilsonm
      With Internet Marketing anything is possible but I would firmly forget about making 6 figures overnight with no work as some of the guides out there seem to suggest.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3313488].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Tspringer
    Where would you go to search out aged or PR ranked domains? Would such domains necessarily be already up and running sites?

    I do have a backlinking strategy in mind though I am so new at this I have no way of knowing if my ideas are good or the fast track to the sandbox. I honestly think I would likely outsource a good bit of the backlinking work, though I would have writers generate unique articles for me and ensure no crap is posted to directories.

    I am not looking for overnight riches or viewing this as a get rich quick scheme. I am looking to build a long term business with high value for customers on an ongoing basis. If it takes a year or two, I am ok with that.


    Terry
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3313496].message }}
    • Be careful when it comes to medical niches or pharma. It might be easy to get to the first page but you might hit a road block when you try to move up the top 10 because the guys knowing seo will do stuff a lot different than you did to get there. Also, many pharma keywords are being policed actively by the FTC but I don't know what your keywords are so I just want to give you that little warning.

      Anyway, if the average PR in the top 10 is 3 then you can expect having to work a few months until you actually show up there, if your links only come from social bookmarks or articles. Did MS show that they did all their onpage optimization properly? 1000 backlinks to a page or domain aren't that much though but it depends on how good these links are, so use MS's link checking tool and see if they specifically targeted their anchor text (which should be the same as the keyword they want to rank for) and what PR these links have.

      Hit me up if you need any help with conquering very competitive keywords, I have a lot more in store than just profiles.
      Signature
      [ENDORSED BY LMC]
      Stop Building Backlinks The OLD Way, Use >THIS< Instead!


      >Let Me Build HIGH QUALITY Backlinks For You!<
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3313606].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author VeronicaD
    Even if you're not looking for an overnight success, it's much more inspirational and pushes you even more when you see SOME kind of results sometime soon. I'd say take the phrase you're looking at and dig deeper. Go ahead and put your site for your main phrase. But find ones that first page results you know you know you can bump off (articles on directories, web 2.0 pages, lesser authority sites with little backlinks, etc...) Then beat them at their own game and use the site you lead to to lead to your main site. Kind of 'feeder site'

    If you were going after "dog supplies" as main... the maybe a page/site you can easily rank for with "dog walking supplies" that leads to your main site for "dog supplies"

    Hope this makes sense
    Signature

    Contact me if you need to!

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3314363].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Tspringer
      Originally Posted by VeronicaD View Post

      Even if you're not looking for an overnight success, it's much more inspirational and pushes you even more when you see SOME kind of results sometime soon. I'd say take the phrase you're looking at and dig deeper. Go ahead and put your site for your main phrase. But find ones that first page results you know you know you can bump off (articles on directories, web 2.0 pages, lesser authority sites with little backlinks, etc...) Then beat them at their own game and use the site you lead to to lead to your main site. Kind of 'feeder site'

      If you were going after "dog supplies" as main... the maybe a page/site you can easily rank for with "dog walking supplies" that leads to your main site for "dog supplies"

      Hope this makes sense

      This makes complete sense and I plan to do exactly that. I fact, the plan is to build 5-7 "feeder" sites based on long tail keywords and get them ranked faster while also building the larger authority site.

      THANKS for the feedback!


      Terry
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3464536].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Tspringer
    Vgal...

    Thanks. A couple of questions so I can really understand what you mean.

    So you would basically build the smaller site and have lots of links in it leading back to the main site... right? Would you have the smaller site also be a sub-domain of the larger site, or have an exact match keyword for the smaller site and have it be fully stand along with lots of links. Just trying to make sure I have this straight in my head.

    Thanks!


    Terry
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3316154].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author tobyR
    I'd worry about a market as broad and big as you suggest and really succeed in it as someone new to IM. why not cut your teeth on something less ambitious to begin with - sorry but thats just my opinion
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3316900].message }}

Trending Topics