500 Words Isn't Enough - Mini Case Study

I'm going to provide a more in-depth case study later, but I wanted to shed light on something with how much emphasis there has been on link building and private blog networks lately. Long story short, 500 words isn't enough anymore.

As of this moment I have 6 domains I am running (AdSense and Affiliate income). Of the 6, one is ranking on page 5 or 6 just by having the keyword in the domain (not EMD tho), having good on-site SEO and having 1,500 words of content on the homepage. It is a thin site with only 2 posts, but it is also a 50,000 search/month keyword. I have not built a single link for this site, and have done nothing but one socialadr blast (which did some good in the short term but nothing lasting). I did not even go through the Google Dance with this site; page 5 or 6 just by having lots of content.

My second site I started before I knew how to do keyword research properly. After starting the site I learned how to do research, and let's just say I wouldn't have gone for this KW had I known how to do it right in the first place. With that said, by having 800+ words on the homepage and using great on-site SEO, my site is on page 1 despite being a mere three months old. As for link buildling, I am doing 1 or 2 BMR posts maybe 5 days/week since Feb. 1st, and did not start varying my anchor text until maybe 2 weeks ago. I have no doubt I can move up into the top three once I start doing link-wheels/pyramids and moving beyond BMR links.

On the other hand, 3 of the other 4 domains I am running that only have 500 words of content on the homepage (and no more than 800 in some of the posts) are not doing so well despite the fact that I am using the same exact link building strategy (BMR and occasional SocialAdr blasts). Further, the keywords I'm pursuing on these sites are less competitive (sometimes much less) than the second site I already have on page one. The only one that is doing well is in an odd niche, and I am convinced it's doing better because I waited a month before sending BMR links (versus sending them in the first 2 weeks, which is another case study I'll be posting eventually).

Because of this I am now updating all of my homepages to 1,500 words minimum. Somebody else posted on here a while ago how he had been building links for weeks and nothing was working, but when he sat down and cranked out a 5,000 word post he jumped up to page one virtually overnight. The post gained some attention but not too much, so I thought I would reinforce what he learned here.