Why you are putting so much effort into a single keyword/keyphrase
Or at least why you should be.
I know it can be hard to understand for newbies - I'm still learning a lot myself when it comes to internet marketing, my main source of income is writing, mostly newsletters for offline clients but also doing content writing and article writing for various clients. But I have started to work in internet marketing directly and it has opened my eyes.
I've dabbled before, for about a year or so, and only really earned a few bucks here and there, nothing to write home about but enough to cover hosting fees.
I had always been targeting keywords, but my efforts were limited to some on page SEO (keyword percentages, header tags, etc) and some basic backlinking from forums and the like. Not enough to challenge any of the big boys or get anything other than long tail traffic to be honest. But then something happened.
One Phrase
All of a sudden one of my CPL pages started earning a bit more. Only about $3 a day on the affiliate side and about $1 a day adsense, but that far outstripped what any one offer was doing for me before. So I checked my stats and sure enough the majority of the traffic coming into the site that was earning me money was to one article that was targeting one keyword.
So I checked the ranking - and there I was at number 4 position in the local (UK) Google search - still not ranking globally (or even in the top few hundred), but well positioned in the UK searches. This was bringing me some decent traffic... not huge but very, very targeted.
Since then the money has gone up and I am now earning about $6 a day from that lead page. Not breaking any banks but that is just one, average, keyword with little to know effort. What can be achieved by putting the effort in?
Going all out
To that end I started a site last month that was targeting keywords and doing so by going the whole hog. Doing what all the gurus suggest you do. Finding out keywords with decent traffic and little competition (I'm still slowly coming to terms with what those two phrases mean - getting specific figures is hard). Doing proper on page SEO and then, the hard work.
Whereas before I wondered why you should bother with the huge efforts going into creating a proper backlink for just one web page I decided to now go all out and attack one. This time I would be trying quantity of effort in backlinking, not quantity of effort in article numbers on site.
I created EZA articles, lots of them. I created Squidoo pages. I used social bookmarking sites. I used dofollow commenting and forum signatures. I purchased various backlink packages off of WSO's, I hunted out my own using similar methods and paid for some posters on DP to get those backlinks up (all using the correct anchor text and some variants). I used wordpress and blogger blogs. In short I did everything I could just to target and get myself ranking on a few keywords.
Now
Whilst it is only a month in I am ranking in the top 10 for 90% of the keywords I targetted - and they are brining in good traffic that is targeted. This is traffic that makes me money. Not big money yet, I'm still keeping my writing going, but traffic that is bringing more bucks in than ever before - and growing at a good rate.
It may seem counter-intuitive to be doing so much work that is not directly on your site - to be adding content to other pages I can assure you it is worth it. Remember that it takes time for these methods to work... it is only now, a month later, that my pages are starting to register most of the backlinks I created.
My advice is go all out on it for a couple of months. Target carefully chosen keywords and listen to the gurus. It may not work straight away, in fact it probably won't, but don't despair, your efforts aren't in vain. Keep working hard at backlinking and you will soon see your pages rank well and traffic start coming in.
And that is where the big money lies. Keep going and build on it day after day and think how well you could be doing in a year. Worth the effort.
So stop reading this and get out there - get targeting and backlinking your keywords!
p.s. The warrior forum has been a massive inspiration to me over the last year and I realised that I barely post here (only joining recently) and only ever add small thoughts and comments - this is my first attempt at giving some value back - hope you like it!
I know it can be hard to understand for newbies - I'm still learning a lot myself when it comes to internet marketing, my main source of income is writing, mostly newsletters for offline clients but also doing content writing and article writing for various clients. But I have started to work in internet marketing directly and it has opened my eyes.
I've dabbled before, for about a year or so, and only really earned a few bucks here and there, nothing to write home about but enough to cover hosting fees.
I had always been targeting keywords, but my efforts were limited to some on page SEO (keyword percentages, header tags, etc) and some basic backlinking from forums and the like. Not enough to challenge any of the big boys or get anything other than long tail traffic to be honest. But then something happened.
One Phrase
All of a sudden one of my CPL pages started earning a bit more. Only about $3 a day on the affiliate side and about $1 a day adsense, but that far outstripped what any one offer was doing for me before. So I checked my stats and sure enough the majority of the traffic coming into the site that was earning me money was to one article that was targeting one keyword.
So I checked the ranking - and there I was at number 4 position in the local (UK) Google search - still not ranking globally (or even in the top few hundred), but well positioned in the UK searches. This was bringing me some decent traffic... not huge but very, very targeted.
Since then the money has gone up and I am now earning about $6 a day from that lead page. Not breaking any banks but that is just one, average, keyword with little to know effort. What can be achieved by putting the effort in?
Going all out
To that end I started a site last month that was targeting keywords and doing so by going the whole hog. Doing what all the gurus suggest you do. Finding out keywords with decent traffic and little competition (I'm still slowly coming to terms with what those two phrases mean - getting specific figures is hard). Doing proper on page SEO and then, the hard work.
Whereas before I wondered why you should bother with the huge efforts going into creating a proper backlink for just one web page I decided to now go all out and attack one. This time I would be trying quantity of effort in backlinking, not quantity of effort in article numbers on site.
I created EZA articles, lots of them. I created Squidoo pages. I used social bookmarking sites. I used dofollow commenting and forum signatures. I purchased various backlink packages off of WSO's, I hunted out my own using similar methods and paid for some posters on DP to get those backlinks up (all using the correct anchor text and some variants). I used wordpress and blogger blogs. In short I did everything I could just to target and get myself ranking on a few keywords.
Now
Whilst it is only a month in I am ranking in the top 10 for 90% of the keywords I targetted - and they are brining in good traffic that is targeted. This is traffic that makes me money. Not big money yet, I'm still keeping my writing going, but traffic that is bringing more bucks in than ever before - and growing at a good rate.
It may seem counter-intuitive to be doing so much work that is not directly on your site - to be adding content to other pages I can assure you it is worth it. Remember that it takes time for these methods to work... it is only now, a month later, that my pages are starting to register most of the backlinks I created.
My advice is go all out on it for a couple of months. Target carefully chosen keywords and listen to the gurus. It may not work straight away, in fact it probably won't, but don't despair, your efforts aren't in vain. Keep working hard at backlinking and you will soon see your pages rank well and traffic start coming in.
And that is where the big money lies. Keep going and build on it day after day and think how well you could be doing in a year. Worth the effort.
So stop reading this and get out there - get targeting and backlinking your keywords!
p.s. The warrior forum has been a massive inspiration to me over the last year and I realised that I barely post here (only joining recently) and only ever add small thoughts and comments - this is my first attempt at giving some value back - hope you like it!