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Whitehat linkbuilding:- RESULTS + COST Breakdown

by retsek
121 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Well since the public blog networks have died, people have been asking what methods still work. What produces results ?

Here's a case study:

The site in question is 2 months old, the domain itself is over 2 years old but had no pages indexed. No freshness factor is play in here.

For launch, 150 articles were added. The goal is to eventually have 1,500 pages each 1,000 words or more in addition to regular blog updates covering news and whatnot in this area. Total keywords targeted add up to about 650,000 exact matches per month. The homepage targets two keywords which are 110,000 and 22,000 per month.

After launch, I waited until last week and did a PRWeb Press Release.
COST: $199 ($149 with coupon)

The thing is here is that your press release MUST be news worthy. It must be interesting.

RESULTS: The release was picked by the usual yahoo news, a few related sites, some us newspapers, etc. The real juice came from several authority sites who adapted the information in the release and wrote articles of their own and linked to the site in those articles.

In another case, it was a featured site in another PR7 site's daily updates. That alone is brought in 10k uniques in traffic from that site during the time it was featured.

The press release and being mentioned on these big sites also caused social traffic and buzz to increase around the site and many small bloggers have linked to the site as well. Many of these sites are copied by scrappers, so more links there as well.

The site is now ranked #10 for the main keyword, and it's not an easy keyword.

The site is monetized with adsense - revenue over the 7 days since the publication of the press release was $540, even though the site intentionally does not have an aggressive ads layout. In fact, the CTR was just 1.2%. $400 of that revenue came on the days when the authority sites published their unique articles on the press release content.

All this happened with just $199 + $50 paid to a good writer for the release.

Buying 50 Fiverr gigs will not give you these results. Buying a single PR5 or PR6 link for 250 per year will not give you these results. Renting 10 PR4 links at 25 each monthly will probably not to give you these results either.

It's that easy, folks.

My next steps with this site are:

- Yahoo Directory + Other Quality Niche Directories
- I've contacted a few sites which published the press release manually (ie. not via automatic feed). I offered them unique content tailored for their site and many gladly accepted, so I'll sending those out over the next few weeks.
- An infographic + accompanying press release + use of the contacts I've made above and on twitter via the original release.
#breakdown #cost #linkbuilding #results #whitehat
  • Profile picture of the author JSProjects
    Good thread.

    Some are going to be put off by the initial cost, plus there definitely is some luck involved. But you're proving that there are plenty of alternatives to buying a ton of Fiverr gigs, sitting back, and hoping to rank.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by JSProjects View Post

      Good thread.

      Some are going to be put off by the initial cost, plus there definitely is some luck involved. But you're proving that there are plenty of alternatives to buying a ton of Fiverr gigs, sitting back, and hoping to rank.
      There are A LOT of people on this forum paying SENUKE X more than that every 60 days though.
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  • Profile picture of the author Legit SEO
    Thanks for sharing this, might try this with my authority site but I think it would be hard to get a PR release picked up by yahoo and other big news site if it's just a small niche site.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by talkmeow View Post

      Thanks for sharing this, might try this with my authority site but I think it would be hard to get a PR release picked up by yahoo and other big news site if it's just a small niche site.
      PRweb advanced packages and above almost always get pickup by Yahoo. Plus they also send it out to whatever industry channel you pick.

      Even though the yahoo pickup sent a bit a traffic, I don't think it contributed much for SEO results.
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  • Profile picture of the author Deltia
    Interesting idea, might try this for a new(ish) authority site I'm trying to build up. It's got decent age but I'm struggling to get some traction up the SERPS.

    Might find a keyword to target for the press release with story and target it at a subpage and then basically ride off any decent links incoming to boost the general authority of the site as a whole.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by Deltia View Post

      Interesting idea, might try this for a new(ish) authority site I'm trying to build up. It's got decent age but I'm struggling to get some traction up the SERPS.

      Might find a keyword to target for the press release with story and target it at a subpage and then basically ride off any decent links incoming to boost the general authority of the site as a whole.
      Good luck.

      Having a strong internal structure is key with large sites. So whatever internal page you choose make sure it links to other internal pages where possible.
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  • Profile picture of the author EdwardDennis
    Do you mind sharing your writer?
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by EdwardDennis View Post

      Do you mind sharing your writer?
      I'm interested in that writer as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author EdwardDennis
    Btw, I believe PRWeb is only good if your website is targeting US, correct?
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by EdwardDennis View Post

      Btw, I believe PRWeb is only good if your website is targeting US, correct?
      You might be right.

      Originally Posted by sandra98 View Post

      Congratulations! Thanks for sharing.

      Do you mind describing how you chose the topic for your website? Is something that you already have experience and an interest in? Did you consider the Adsense CPC?

      You also mentioned adding 150 articles to the site. How do plan out the content and determine that the 150 articles written meet with your quality standard? Thanks.
      Yes Difficulty, CPC, amount of investment required were all considered.

      I'm not willing to share the content source. But I review everything before posting. All 150 were posted manually with unique images and formatting added where appropriate. New content is being added at the rate of about 20 per week.
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  • Profile picture of the author sandra98
    Congratulations! Thanks for sharing.

    Do you mind describing how you chose the topic for your website? Is something that you already have experience and an interest in? Did you consider the Adsense CPC?

    You also mentioned adding 150 articles to the site. How do plan out the content and determine that the 150 articles written meet with your quality standard? Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Sounds like you have quality content on your site, considering the other sites linking back.

    You mentioned 150 pages of content on the site, did you write the sites content or did you outsource, If you did outsource do you mind sharing what you payed per article (not the writer, just the amount invested)?

    Also, can you run as many press releases (per domain) as you want & as often as you want on PRWeb? Example, can you replicate this once per week/month?

    Thanks, & good thread.
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    • Profile picture of the author rinor81
      Amazing what authority sites can do for you.

      Great thread, something to think about....thanks.
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    • Profile picture of the author intelinside
      I can answer the 2nd part.

      Yes, you can do as many PR as you like for the same domain.

      I have an enterprise client and we do about 4 PR a month.

      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Sounds like you have quality content on your site, considering the other sites linking back.

      You mentioned 150 pages of content on the site, did you write the sites content or did you outsource, If you did outsource do you mind sharing what you payed per article (not the writer, just the amount invested)?

      Also, can you run as many press releases (per domain) as you want & as often as you want on PRWeb? Example, can you replicate this once per week/month?

      Thanks, & good thread.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Sounds like you have quality content on your site, considering the other sites linking back.

      You mentioned 150 pages of content on the site, did you write the sites content or did you outsource, If you did outsource do you mind sharing what you payed per article (not the writer, just the amount invested)?

      Also, can you run as many press releases (per domain) as you want & as often as you want on PRWeb? Example, can you replicate this once per week/month?

      Thanks, & good thread.
      Yeah you can do as many as you want. But unless you're CNN, i don't think I can generate newsworthy content that often. Not to mention some niches are quite boring.

      And then there's the issue of cost. At 199 each it can really add up. That's why it's important to do outreach after every press release and build new relationships with other site owners. That way you get as much return on your money.

      They do offer a package for $2700+ where you can submit unlimited advanced releases capped at 1 per day. There's also one for monthly releases. I've done about 12 x 199 packages with them for various sites over the last year. I might just go for the special package, and step it up.

      So yeah it can be replicated. i mentioned before, I'm going to try my first infographic and push it with a press release.

      For content, I paid around $25 for each 1,000 word article.
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  • Profile picture of the author sovereignn
    Great post, wish I was still whitehat :[

    can't resist the dark side

    make me seriously want to try the method though the initial cost actually isn't that bad

    If you want blackhat done well it will cost you the same if not more
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  • Profile picture of the author 4morereferrals
    Pics or it didnt happen ...
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    • Profile picture of the author wilsonm
      Originally Posted by 4morereferrals View Post

      Pics or it didnt happen ...
      This is not a chick he is talking about.
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  • Profile picture of the author mrehan
    how many keywords can you target in a press release?
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by mrehan View Post

      how many keywords can you target in a press release?
      If your press release, looks or smells anything like spam it won't be picked up. Don't focus so much on keywords. A naked link surround by relevant text is almost just as good.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    You can use PR's as much as you like as far as I know. Just don't waste your money like most people. You need quality link bait - an infographic or a very controversial article. If you use an infographic, cut it up into smaller pieces and add it as a page on your site. Make it work - you need those backlinks.

    PR's don't need to be long. Most news sources are going to visit your site and write their own article with a quick mention of your website + whatever resources you give them. So give them something to work with. leave real contact details so they can get in touch with you if need be.

    Because this takes a considerable amount of preparation, you should give your material maximum exposure once it goes live. Stumble it, tweet it, facebook it and add it to as many social sharing websites and resources as you can think of.

    For more high quality links:

    Subscribe to a list of blogs in your niche (or similar) and comment on new articles. Write meaningful comments.

    Do high quality directory submissions. I tend to skip Yahoo dir and submit to 6-10 other PR6 directories instead (same price). There are quite a few PR5+ directories with PR4/5 pages, you just have to look.

    Try to get your articles accepted on PR6+ news sources. It's a little tricky, but possible. Hit up 5-8 different outlets and you'll land 1-2 posts. You need really high quality content for this (and by that I don't mean perfect grammar).

    I have a network of niche specific blogs that support my sites, but this isn't mandatory. It does help though.

    edit: forgot to mention this - with PR's your goal isn't to get anchor text links. You want links - from as many different sources as possible. Doesn't matter in what form.
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  • Profile picture of the author JimSEO
    This is an excellent thread, thanks a lot. Going to be trying this out with one of my own sites I think to see how it fares with UK domains.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mack Attack 77
    This is a good thread. I've been thinking about using PressReleaseMonkey.com to promote a new app I'm developing for my authority site.

    I know you guys discuss PR Web, but has anyone tried Press Release Money before?
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    • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
      Originally Posted by Mack Attack 77 View Post

      I know you guys discuss PR Web, but has anyone tried Press Release Money before?
      I use PR Monkey from time to time. They're good, but don't have the reach of PR Web's Advanced/Premium packages. But - PR Monkey is cheaper (there's a coupon to get $50 off - Google it) and they actually write the PR for you (at least they used to).
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      • Profile picture of the author DeskCoder
        Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

        I use PR Monkey from time to time. They're good, but don't have the reach of PR Web's Advanced/Premium packages. But - PR Monkey is cheaper (there's a coupon to get $50 off - Google it) and they actually write the PR for you (at least they used to).
        I just ordered a Press Release Monkey press release. The PR they wrote was awesome. Think I can use this same PR for PRWeb? Would it be beneficially to do both PRMonkey and PRWeb?
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        • Profile picture of the author WildGale
          Thanks for the share, retsek. I've been working on a release, inspired by your post. We'll probably send it out next week. Gearing up for it has been a lot of work.

          You mentioned getting in the Yahoo Directory. I know you just sold off a slew of microsites and I wonder if you used the directory with them or if you are basically graduating to it with a larger authority site. Are you bellying up on it based on first-hand knowledge of its SEO power, based on intuition?
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  • Profile picture of the author Mack Attack 77
    As far as I can tell they still write the press releases. Thanks for the tip on the coupon bnetwork.

    I think for the project I'm working on that will fit perfectly in the budget and provide the necessary 'juice' I need.
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  • Profile picture of the author retsek
    Update:

    Today traffic spiked again with about 3,000 visits from referers like us.mg201.mail.yahoo.com, 36ohk6dgmcd1n-c.c.yom.mail.yahoo.net, mail.aol.com, mail.live.com, webmail.earthlink.net

    Obviously somebody must have added the site to their newsletter and it's driving me crazy because I can't tell who.

    Also picked up a few links from resource/links pages with PR. Never seen them before; the owners must have seen the press release, or saw it on one of the big sites, or on twitter.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by retsek View Post

      Update:

      Today traffic spiked again with about 3,000 visits from referers like us.mg201.mail.yahoo.com, 36ohk6dgmcd1n-c.c.yom.mail.yahoo.net, mail.aol.com, mail.live.com, webmail.earthlink.net

      Obviously somebody must have added the site to their newsletter and it's driving me crazy because I can't tell who.

      Also picked up a few links from resource/links pages with PR. Never seen them before; the owners must have seen the press release, or saw it on one of the big sites, or on twitter.
      I get those types of Yahoo email URLs from my Feedburner email subscribers.

      You should setup your own Feedburner email list & monetize your Adsense on the backend (inside emails). I would set that up ASAP, to help catch any traffic still flowing into the site from the press release, plus before you build new pages.
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      • Profile picture of the author retsek
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        I get those types of Yahoo email URLs from my Feedburner email subscribers.

        You should setup your own Feedburner email list & monetize your Adsense on the backend (inside emails). I would set that up ASAP, to help catch any traffic still flowing into the site from the press release, plus before you build new pages.
        Already have. One of the first things to do when launching. The list has only about 80 so far, so it can't be the source.
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      • Profile picture of the author ebizman
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        I get those types of Yahoo email URLs from my Feedburner email subscribers.

        You should setup your own Feedburner email list & monetize your Adsense on the backend (inside emails). I would set that up ASAP, to help catch any traffic still flowing into the site from the press release, plus before you build new pages.
        How do you setup your own Feedburner email list? :confused:
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  • Profile picture of the author Mack Attack 77
    That's amazing, and just more proof that quality content always wins.
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  • Profile picture of the author fahimk123
    really interesting. just a small question with out doing the SEO and leaving the website just like that will not help it lying on top for long???
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  • Profile picture of the author chris_surfrider
    PRWeb is okay.

    Use eReleases.com. Far better distribution.

    We've seen awesome results with them, even in niches that... well... aren't exactly newsworthy.

    Go for the $399 or $499 option

    -Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author keivn2
    Wow, good information. You made it looks so easy to achieve.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    retsek,

    How many pages are you publishing per day on your site?
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    • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
      Very interesting thread here. I am thinking about doing 2-3 pr's for a couple of my sites over the summer months so that my ranks increase for October and into the holiday season.

      Are these quality PR's good for Seo purposes? I want to target two pages on my site and get them ranking. They are currently ranking for their keywords on page 3, but the goal is to rank them for positions 1-3. I can imagine that all these news sites and other sites that pick up the news, write there own content and link to the site as well?

      This has got to be good for building your rank also?

      Thanks,

      Sean
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      • Profile picture of the author Jordan Kovats
        Originally Posted by seanybyrne View Post

        Very interesting thread here. I am thinking about doing 2-3 pr's for a couple of my sites over the summer months so that my ranks increase for October and into the holiday season.

        Are these quality PR's good for Seo purposes? I want to target two pages on my site and get them ranking. They are currently ranking for their keywords on page 3, but the goal is to rank them for positions 1-3. I can imagine that all these news sites and other sites that pick up the news, write there own content and link to the site as well?

        This has got to be good for building your rank also?

        Thanks,

        Sean
        I have found that a quality Press Release, ie paid service, that has legitimate 'newsworthy' content gives you good link juice and can drive immediate traffic. I'e only ever used PR Web. They were one ingredient into building a successful SEO strategy.
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  • Profile picture of the author John34
    I personally had negative experience with PR web. Here is what happened ..

    Around last month, i bought a PRweb submission offer for one of my site which is 5 month old and has 26 quality articles. Site was ranking on second page (15th spot) for main keyword when i ordered. After 8 days of publication, it jumped to 9 and then after 11 days my site has lost all the rankings, its nowhere in top 1000 results. It does not even rank for LSI and long tail keywords.

    I contacted one of the SEO guy and he told me that i lost rankings because many sites picked up my PR, I had 2 links in PR, so basically my PR was posted to many different sites/media/blogs with same links and with same content, may be this triggered the anchor text over-optimization filter?

    On the other side, my other sites with just 1 PR submission to top 15-20 PR sites increased in rankings.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jordan Kovats
      Originally Posted by John34 View Post

      I personally had negative experience with PR web. Here is what happened ..

      Around last month, i bought a PRweb submission offer for one of my site which is 5 month old and has 26 quality articles. Site was ranking on second page (15th spot) for main keyword when i ordered. After 8 days of publication, it jumped to 9 and then after 11 days my site is has lost all the rankings, its nowhere in top 1000 results. It does not even rank for LSI and long tail keywords.

      I contacted one of the SEO guy and he told me that i lost rankings because many sites picked up my PR, I had 2 links in PR, so basically my PR was posted to many different sites/media/blogs with same links and with same content, may be this triggered the anchor text over-optimization filter?

      On the other side, my other sites with just 1 PR submission to top 15-20 PR sites increased in rankings.
      On a 5 month old site, you could still be in the Google dance. With a quality press release, quality web sites pick up the Press release if they think it is good or newsworthy. Therefore, 1000's of websites could pick it up, or only a handful. You realy don't know until your content is made avalable to the news sites. Google knows this and doesn't penalise syndication.
      Doing it the manual way as you suggest, is just that. You are distributing it to a handful of sites. Odds are if your realease was quality and newsworthy, isn't going to get pick up as well since it is from a low quality PR site.

      Think about it, if something goes viral and is distributed rapidly amogst the internet, the last thing you are going to get is a penalty.
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      • Profile picture of the author John34
        Originally Posted by theseoguys View Post

        On a 5 month old site, you could still be in the Google dance. With a quality press release, quality web sites pick up the Press release if they think it is good or newsworthy. Therefore, 1000's of websites could pick it up, or only a handful. You realy don't know until your content is made avalable to the news sites. Google knows this and doesn't penalise syndication.
        Doing it the manual way as you suggest, is just that. You are distributing it to a handful of sites. Odds are if your realease was quality and newsworthy, isn't going to get pick up as well since it is from a low quality PR site.

        Think about it, if something goes viral and is distributed rapidly amogst the internet, the last thing you are going to get is a penalty.
        I don't think it has anything to do with google dance. I own many different niche/affiliate sites and have good experience in ranking sites. The PR was of high quality and hence got published on many different authority sites.

        I am sure same duplicate content (PR) posted on different authority sites with same anchor text caused penalty.
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        • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
          Originally Posted by John34 View Post

          I am sure same duplicate content (PR) posted on different authority sites with same anchor text caused penalty.
          In that case it's probably better not to submit content to platforms you have no control over or just don't use anchor text but http://

          Google have got double standards, they will hire their own SEO's for their own venture capitalist investments and tell them to submit press releases, this is all they do.. without any punishment by the looks of things.
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          • Profile picture of the author John34
            Originally Posted by dmtaylor247 View Post

            In that case it's probably better not to submit content to platforms you have no control over or just don't use anchor text but http://

            Google have got double standards, they will hire their own SEO's for their own venture capitalist investments and tell them to submit press releases, this is all they do.. without any punishment by the looks of things.
            Good point, from my experience i can say that PRWeb mass distribusion got me good results before penguin update.

            I think less is more after penguin. Anything related to blast/mass submission/mass distribution/automated links should be avoided.
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  • Profile picture of the author wilsonm
    Hey OP.

    That is really excellnt to hear.

    Fantastic.

    What sort of niches is this stuff works on? I am figuring writing some articles on toasters (or even an ecommerce site) will not suffice.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by wilsonm View Post

      Hey OP.

      That is really excellnt to hear.

      Fantastic.

      What sort of niches is this stuff works on? I am figuring writing some articles on toasters (or even an ecommerce site) will not suffice.

      If your niche is toasters, then create a fun infograhic. Quick ideas off the top my head:

      - The history of toasters (People love fun facts they can easily digest)

      - You know that show 1,000 ways to die?

      You could do an infographic displaying like 10 ways REAL people have died accidently or intentionally by way of a toaster. Something like this would absolutely explode if you promote it right.

      Optionally, instead of an infographic - make it a 10 page series post on YOUR site, but still include graphics on each page.

      However, a simple infographic page would likely acquire more links and shares, while a series of pages will get you page views.

      Some niches are boring yes, but you have to get those brain juices flowing. You can't compete with Amazon for toasters unless you start thinking like their Marketing Department.
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    I've just signed up to the yearly deal with PRweb, too bad they have the restriction that I always have to quote my company name in it. Especially cause most of my clients are SEO companies and they obvious don't like my name quoted in the PR for their clients.

    In about 2 months I will offer the $369 version for $70,- on this forum.

    My first spinned pressrelease from my largest client got rejected, cause they are nagging that it was more of an advertisment instead of a pressrelease.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      I've just signed up to the yearly deal with PRweb, too bad they have the restriction that I always have to quote my company name in it. Especially cause most of my clients are SEO companies and they obvious don't like my name quoted in the PR for their clients.

      In about 2 months I will offer the $369 version for $70,- on this forum.

      My first spinned pressrelease from my largest client got rejected, cause they are nagging that it was more of an advertisment instead of a pressrelease.
      Why would you submit a spinned press release to PRweb ??

      I think you might be missing the whole point. PRWeb is about sending out a message and marketing. Your primary goal isn't about getting a backlink from them.

      If you're submitting spins, you'd be better off sending them to the hundreds free press releases sites that gladly accept them. How much do you think Google values those?
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by retsek View Post

        Why would you submit a spinned press release to PRweb ??

        I think you might be missing the whole point. PRWeb is about sending out a message and marketing. Your primary goal isn't about getting a backlink from them.

        If you're submitting spins, you'd be better off sending them to the hundreds free press releases sites that gladly accept them. How much do you think Google values those?
        I'm not missing the point at all and our primary goal IS about getting the backlink.

        When I offer it here at the forum they will get a unique written pressrelease focussed on their niche.
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      • Profile picture of the author wilsonm
        Originally Posted by retsek View Post

        Why would you submit a spinned press release to PRweb ??
        That is funny...this place deals with the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post et al and a spinned story get submitted!

        Just because the OP has success with it, does not mean everyone else is going to have the same luck. To get your investment back, it is going to mean going for a relatively higher searched keyword. And they are going to be a bit more competetive then 1000 exact serches, receiving backlinks from the various places does not automtically mean a position on the first page. As for 1000 exact term serches, there is not significant number of visitors to make it worthwhile for the costs.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by wilsonm View Post

          That is funny...this place deals with the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post et al and a spinned story get submitted!

          Just because the OP has success with it, does not mean everyone else is going to have the same luck. To get your investment back, it is going to mean going for a relatively higher searched keyword. And they are going to be a bit more competetive then 1000 exact serches and receiving backlinks from the various places does not automtically mean a position on the first page. As for 1000 exact term serches, there is not significant number of visitors to make it worthwhile for the costs.
          A yearly deal is like $4k, that's for 365 PR's a year, so what's the price of 1 PR? See still worthwhile to go after 1k exact searches or less.

          Yes that is the deal for $369 costing Pressreleases, do you already feel ripped off when sending $369,-

          Now if I paid $369 or $200 I would gladly pay $50 for a good news worthy press release indeed. Our goals are a bit different though.
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          • Profile picture of the author wilsonm
            What sort of site does it have to be? I am assuming they are going to want a proper legit professional looking website, non of this MFA nonsense. (Is the cost involved not exactly cheap?)

            Assuming for a 1000 exact searches, the site ends on position 5, it going to get about 100 visitors a month. What can someone do with this figure unless a high ticket item on sale or the website is complementing an offline business. For purely an online venture, you need a lot more traffic, generally.

            But a business in selling press releases is a reasonable idea.

            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            A yearly deal is like $4k, that's for 365 PR's a year, so what's the price of 1 PR? See still worthwhile to go after 1k exact searches or less.

            Yes that is the deal for $369 costing Pressreleases, do you already feel ripped off when sending $369,-

            Now if I paid $369 or $200 I would gladly pay $50 for a good news worthy press release indeed. Our goals are a bit different though.
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            • Profile picture of the author nik0
              Banned
              Originally Posted by wilsonm View Post

              What sort of site does it have to be? I am assuming they are going to want a proper legit professional looking website, non of this MFA nonsense. (Is the cost involved not exactly cheap?)

              Assuming for a 1000 exact searches, the site ends on position 5, it going to get about 100 visitors a month. What can someone do with this figure unless a high ticket item on sale or the website is complementing an offline business. For purely an online venture, you need a lot more traffic, generally.

              But a business in selling press releases is a reasonable idea.
              Ever thought about a website targetting 100* 1k exact keywords instead of some MFA site?
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              • Profile picture of the author wilsonm
                Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                Ever thought about a website targetting 100* 1k exact keywords instead of some MFA site?
                I am lazy and don't want to put my heart and soul into all this. The only thing i can think of is MFA. Is there any alternatives for the lazy guy?

                (Well I go to work during the day (non IM), only got 2 hours or so per day with this stuff max).
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                • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
                  Originally Posted by retsek View Post

                  Obviously somebody must have added the site to their newsletter and it's driving me crazy because I can't tell who.
                  I know you probably already are, but I just wanted to ask - are you tracking your referrals?

                  As in Google's url builder/Google analytics?

                  Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                  I'm not missing the point at all and our primary goal IS about getting the backlink.
                  I disagree. As said within many threads here on WF, too many people obsess over rankings and backlinks. You should be building sites for PEOPLE and TRAFFIC.

                  retsek - glad to see someone 'doing it right' for a change. Props dude.
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                  • Profile picture of the author retsek
                    Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

                    I know you probably already are, but I just wanted to ask - are you tracking your referrals?

                    As in Google's url builder/Google analytics?
                    Yeah I am nuts about Analytics. Also have Piwik setup for real-time tracking.
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                    • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
                      Originally Posted by retsek View Post

                      Yeah I am nuts about Analytics. Also have Piwik setup for real-time tracking.
                      Not sure how it compares, or if you've played around with it - but GA has that real time stuff now.

                      Seems more of a gimmick to me though.

                      (4,000 posts )
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                      • Profile picture of the author retsek
                        Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

                        Not sure how it compares, or if you've played around with it - but GA has that real time stuff now.

                        Seems more of a gimmick to me though.

                        (4,000 posts )
                        Yeah I saw it, Piwik is better for that and they don't hide IPs.
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                  • Profile picture of the author nik0
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

                    I disagree. As said within many threads here on WF, too many people obsess over rankings and backlinks. You should be building sites for PEOPLE and TRAFFIC.
                    For most offline businesses it's all about rankings. Take a plumber for example. You really think people care about a site with tons of content? Nope, they need a phone number to get their stuff fixed/installed. In fact when you provide too much information they might be able to fix things theirselves instead of hiring the plumber. Besides that, most offline businesses don't need to go viral through the whole nation, it would only be useless traffic.

                    People make easy things way to complicated.

                    Anyway, although you commented on me this doesn't apply to me anyway, I don't build sites, I rank sites and most of my clients are local businesses.
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              • Profile picture of the author Lloyd Buchinski
                Originally Posted by retsek View Post

                For content, I paid around $25 for each 1,000 word article.
                So for the 150 articles to start, $3750, and for the goal of 1500 pages, add another zero to that, $37,000.

                I'd consider quality content to be an important investment, and to have a strong influence on the results you are getting. It might be worth adding that to math in the op.
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                • Profile picture of the author retsek
                  Originally Posted by Lloyd Buchinski View Post

                  So for the 150 articles to start, $3750, and for the goal of 1500 pages, add another zero to that, $37,000.

                  I'd consider quality content to be an important investment, and to have a strong influence on the results you are getting. It might be worth adding that to the op.
                  I don't think I could have stressed more about the quality of content in the OP. I mentioned I had paid $50 to write the press release.

                  But yes you are definitely right. If the content wasn't good, other quality sites wouldn't want to touch it. For this site, I am making content which technically is already available just not in a form that is easily digestible. That's a big part of why others are eager to link to it. But they won't do that unless they know about it.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Lloyd Buchinski
                    Originally Posted by retsek View Post

                    I don't think I could have stressed more about the quality of content in the OP. I mentioned I had paid $50 to write the press release.

                    But yes you are definitely right. If the content wasn't good, other quality sites wouldn't want to touch it. For this site, I am making content which technically is already available just not in a form that is easily digestible. That's a big part of why others are eager to link to it. But they won't do that unless they know about it.
                    Sorry, I can see now that I wasn't clear at all about that. I meant adding the $3750 to the math. The 2 or 3 hundred that you did mention in that post wasn't much compared to this.

                    But I'm not at all trying to knock you in any way. Nice topic, great info. Just another detail from another perspective.
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      • Profile picture of the author nbatioco
        Originally Posted by retsek View Post

        Why would you submit a spinned press release to PRweb ??

        I think you might be missing the whole point. PRWeb is about sending out a message and marketing. Your primary goal isn't about getting a backlink from them.

        If you're submitting spins, you'd be better off sending them to the hundreds free press releases sites that gladly accept them. How much do you think Google values those?
        Maybe his rich enough to buy it as a link. His a funny man.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by nbatioco View Post

          Maybe his rich enough to buy it as a link. His a funny man.
          lol I am not rich enough, but when we do the math $3850/365 press release = $10,50 for a few good links, so it's not such bad of a deal really.

          And you can't say it's throwing away money either cause I can get such yearly deal an unlimited amount of times if I want to.

          Besides that it's also a bit of testing and trying, I heard from many that in most cases it's not the magic bullet to rank. To get the most out of it you really need a newsworthy PR and that is kind of hard when you want to do it dozens of times for the same HUGE site that is laser targetted at a very specific niche.
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          • Profile picture of the author nbatioco
            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            lol I am not rich enough, but when we do the math $3850/365 press release = $10,50 for a few good links, so it's not such bad of a deal really.

            And you can't say it's throwing away money either cause I can get such yearly deal an unlimited amount of times if I want to.

            Besides that it's also a bit of testing and trying, I heard from many that in most cases it's not the magic bullet to rank. To get the most out of it you really need a newsworthy PR and that is kind of hard when you want to do it dozens of times for the same HUGE site that is laser targetted at a very specific niche.
            Well, were always upto testing and tyring to find the perfect campaign for our websites.
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      I've just signed up to the yearly deal with PRweb, too bad they have the restriction that I always have to quote my company name in it. Especially cause most of my clients are SEO companies and they obvious don't like my name quoted in the PR for their clients.

      In about 2 months I will offer the $369 version for $70,- on this forum.

      My first spinned pressrelease from my largest client got rejected, cause they are nagging that it was more of an advertisment instead of a pressrelease.
      They definitely won't let you do that. When you buy their subscription, they require the link to be from your site and won't link to any other site. In addition, they iframe your site as well, on every PR. They say it's impossible to use this for anything other than your own business.

      There is an Agency account but it's almost $10,000 for a certain amount of PR's.
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      • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
        Really enjoying this thread.

        Could the OP explain a little bit about how he mapped out the 150 articles to receive 60% of long tail traffic? Did you go after keyword phrases with low competition? Or did you just write about the niche without the care of keyword research?

        Thanks,

        Sean
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        • Profile picture of the author retsek
          Originally Posted by seanybyrne View Post

          Really enjoying this thread.

          Could the OP explain a little bit about how he mapped out the 150 articles to receive 60% of long tail traffic? Did you go after keyword phrases with low competition? Or did you just write about the niche without the care of keyword research?

          Thanks,

          Sean
          Let's say the niche is pets. Domain would be something like AllPets.com for which I'd ultimately want to rank 1st page for "Pets".

          Then 1st level categories:
          allpets.com/indoor <-- I'd want this to rank for "Indoor Pets"
          allpets.com/outdoor <-- this ranks for "outdoor pets" and so on
          allpets.com/aquatic
          allpets.com/exotic
          allpets.com/virtual

          Then content pages begin, for example:
          allpets.com/indoor/cats <-- this'll rank for terms like "cats" or and "pet cats" or "feline".

          Then under that you'd have articles like:
          allpets.com/indoor/cats/cat-years <-- long tail keywords like "how long do cats live?" might match this
          allpets.com/indoor/cats/history-and-mythology
          allpets.com/indoor/cats/cat-behavior-101
          allpets.com/indoor/cats/10-top-mistakes-of-cat-owners
          etc
          etc
          etc


          I go after topics as difficult as "pets", and I don't ever look at competition as a deterrent to entering a niche. It's good to look at them though but only to see what's working and then do it better.

          70% of all searches are long tail. Another big percentage of daily searches (i forgot the exact figure), are searches that were NEVER performed before -- meaning never-before-seen unique combinations of keywords.

          So yes while I obviously do keyword research to get of an idea of what people are searching for, I don't limit the topics or content to just those keywords.

          Edit: I see http://allpets.com is actually registered. What a waste.
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          • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
            Originally Posted by retsek View Post

            Let's say the niche is pets. Domain would be something like AllPets.com for which I'd ultimately want to rank 1st page for "Pets".

            Then 1st level categories:
            allpets.com/indoor <-- I'd want this to rank for "Indoor Pets"
            allpets.com/outdoor <-- this ranks for "outdoor pets" and so on
            allpets.com/aquatic
            allpets.com/exotic
            allpets.com/virtual

            Then content pages begin, for example:
            allpets.com/indoor/cats <-- this'll rank for terms like "cats" or and "pet cats" or "feline".

            Then under that you'd have articles like:
            allpets.com/indoor/cats/cat-years <-- long tail keywords like "how long do cats live?" might match this
            allpets.com/indoor/cats/history-and-mythology
            allpets.com/indoor/cats/cat-behavior-101
            allpets.com/indoor/cats/10-top-mistakes-of-cat-owners
            etc
            etc
            etc


            I go after topics as difficult as "pets", and I don't ever look at competition as a deterrent to entering a niche. It's good to look at them though but only to see what's working and then do it better.

            70% of all searches are long tail. Another big percentage of daily searches (i forgot the exact figure), are searches that were NEVER performed before -- meaning never-before-seen unique combinations of keywords.

            So yes while I obviously do keyword research to get of an idea of what people are searching for, I don't limit the topics or content to just those keywords.

            Edit: I see AllPets.com « Your one stop shop for all your pet supplies! AllPets.com is actually registered. What a waste.
            Thanks man... I see what you mean here...

            So your forth tier level, you aim at long tail kw's. This is what gets you most of your traffic. I assume your not back linking any of those long tail pages as they rank high in the serps as is. If your not familiar with a niche, how do you come with with the topics? I guess a writer can help you with that.

            Also, what do you backlink to via your guest posts, PR's etc? Your homepage? 2nd/3rd tier pages? How are you working the anchors via the PR's these days?

            Thanks dude! Great Thread

            Sean
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            • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
              Hey Retsek,

              How are you? You doing good?

              I just wanted to know what your thoughts were for the above?

              Thanks

              Sean
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            • Profile picture of the author retsek
              Originally Posted by seanybyrne View Post

              Thanks man... I see what you mean here...

              So your forth tier level, you aim at long tail kw's. This is what gets you most of your traffic. I assume your not back linking any of those long tail pages as they rank high in the serps as is. If your not familiar with a niche, how do you come with with the topics? I guess a writer can help you with that.

              Also, what do you backlink to via your guest posts, PR's etc? Your homepage? 2nd/3rd tier pages? How are you working the anchors via the PR's these days?

              Thanks dude! Great Thread

              Sean
              If you're building an authority site, the majority of links will go your optimized homepage. That means it might not be best to have a regular blog layout, but it does work for some.

              Look back again at the example I gave for siloing, see emedtv.com. Notice they have their important pages linked from the homepage. Notice none of those links are in a "footer" or "sidebar" div.

              Depending on keyword difficulty, I don't actively do backlinking for internal pages. In cases, I do have to - it usually takes no more than a handful good links.

              According to OSE, here's the Top 12 anchor text going to the homepage of one of my sites:

              awesomedomain.com
              awesome domain
              www.awesomedomain.com
              awesomedomain
              money keyword
              http://www.awesomedomain.com/
              http://www.awesomedomain.com
              (img) [No Anchor Text]
              another money keyword
              awesomedomain.com - my awesome home page title tag
              awesome domain com
              (img) [awesomedomain.com]

              That's what natural looks like. In fact, most of the those links are natural.

              In that example above, the domain is only partial match for the main money keyword. No. of root linking domains range from 600 at the top to 150 at the bottom.

              You need to have WMT on your site, so you can monitor your anchor text distribution in near real-time. (they are the fastest). You need to be careful with press releases because if they are widely circulated and you have a targeted anchor text included, you might tip the scales out of your favor. Long story short, I wouldn't include targeted anchor text in a release. That's not the goal of your release in the first place.

              I come up the initial topic through regular keyword research. It helps to have an idea of what people are searching for, but I dont look at difficulty.
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              • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
                Originally Posted by retsek View Post

                If you're building an authority site, the majority of links will go your optimized homepage. That means it might not be best to have a regular blog layout, but it does work for some.

                Look back again at the example I gave for siloing, see emedtv.com. Notice they have their important pages linked from the homepage. Notice none of those links are in a "footer" or "sidebar" div.

                Depending on keyword difficulty, I don't actively do backlinking for internal pages. In cases, I do have to - it usually takes no more than a handful good links.

                According to OSE, here's the Top 12 anchor text going to the homepage of one of my sites:

                awesomedomain.com
                awesome domain
                www.awesomedomain.com
                awesomedomain
                money keyword
                http://www.awesomedomain.com/
                http://www.awesomedomain.com
                (img) [No Anchor Text]
                another money keyword
                awesomedomain.com - my awesome home page title tag
                awesome domain com
                (img) [awesomedomain.com]

                That's what natural looks like. In fact, most of the those links are natural.

                In that example above, the domain is only partial match for the main money keyword. No. of root linking domains range from 600 at the top to 150 at the bottom.

                You need to have WMT on your site, so you can monitor your anchor text distribution in near real-time. (they are the fastest). You need to be careful with press releases because if they are widely circulated and you have a targeted anchor text included, you might tip the scales out of your favor. Long story short, I wouldn't include targeted anchor text in a release. That's not the goal of your release in the first place.

                I come up the initial topic through regular keyword research. It helps to have an idea of what people are searching for, but I dont look at difficulty.
                I get most of what you are doing. I build my authority site and my aim is to rank my money pages (3-4 product pages and a category page) by building links to those pages. I dont always send links to my homepage. I am certainly varying up my anchor text these days. If I go for a "money keyword", I use that anchor text on a few editorials where it sits on authority sites. I will also vary it up with other anchor text such as urls, "click here" etc etc with other guest posts.

                I see what you mean about the PR's too. But when a PR is distributed to journalists, dont they write their own editorial about that news? Do they use the same anchors and urls? Or do they make their own decisions on that? In most cases, do they just use the original PR to publish on their site with your specific anchors/urls?

                When I do a few of my release's for a couple of pages on my site, I think I will just use the url.

                What you think? Thanks retsek

                Sean
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              • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
                Originally Posted by retsek View Post

                You need to be careful with press releases because if they are widely circulated and you have a targeted anchor text included, you might tip the scales out of your favor. Long story short, I wouldn't include targeted anchor text in a release. That's not the goal of your release in the first place.
                Im seeing some press releases being submitted now with garbage in their anchor text just as a means to 'dilute' the keywords within their backlink profile.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Paul Gram View Post

        They definitely won't let you do that. When you buy their subscription, they require the link to be from your site and won't link to any other site. In addition, they iframe your site as well, on every PR. They say it's impossible to use this for anything other than your own business.

        There is an Agency account but it's almost $10,000 for a certain amount of PR's.
        When someone buys my pressrelease, he is MY client right? So I am free to announce him as my client, and yes my site shows up in some iframe that is correct. I dont make this **** up, the contact person suggested me to do it in this way by announcing new clients and such.

        It's allowed to link to other sites within the pressrelease, 1 link per 100 words. The 2nd pressrelease went out of the door today and approved so....

        They have an advance release program for the $199 pressrelease. Gives you about 50% discount when you buy in volume.

        We are now mentioned at cbsnews, yahoo news, daily herald, and a few other solid sites. Not bad at all
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  • Profile picture of the author wilsonm
    You definately can't get involved, now, in the Internet Marketing SEO with a $100 budget.
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  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
    Great thread man! This strategy has definitely taken my interest as a supplementary traffic alternative.

    A bit off topic here but I am curious about the long tail traffic you are pulling in via the search engines from the 150 articles you published on this site?

    Thanks!
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

      Great thread man! This strategy has definitely taken my interest as a supplementary traffic alternative.

      A bit off topic here but I am curious about the long tail traffic you are pulling in via the search engines from the 150 articles you published on this site?

      Thanks!
      The site is up to 2,000 uniques per day so far. Here's how analytics looks over the last two months. 60% of this traffic is long tail. Most of the mid level keywords I'm targeting are at the moment at the bottom of Page 1 or on Page 2.

      ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

      Adsense is doing $50-80 per day. eCPM is around $15, it would be better but I'm not running heavy on ads and not all pages have them yet.

      So far for both content & promotion I've spent just over $11,000 on this site, still in the hole but will definitely be profitable within 3 months. If you're wondering about funding, see my other thread on the fire sale I did a few days before penguin hit.

      Conservatively, I estimate traffic will hit 20 to 30,000 uniques per day by this time next year.

      Here's a rundown of how I've spent the 11k:

      Content (includes site content, over 40 guest posts for other sites, press release writing) - $6,300
      3 PRWEB Advanced Releases - $600
      2 Infographics - $600
      Graphics/Coding for a piece of linkbait - $1750 (plan to spend another $1500 for completion & for seed promotion)
      9 Paid General/Niche Directories - $840
      1 year Membership to a Niche Related Organization - $400 (tons of value in this beyound the PR7 homepage link. There's a private community which I also gain access to and many of the members are web publishers with large sites of their own. In addition to picking up some guest articles on their sites, I've floated the idea of the linkbait above, and many of them will likely help promote it.)
      13 Bribes/Donations/Sponsorships to Websites/Curated Resource Lists/University Pages/etc - $750 (many more to go, these all look competely natural and I find them by looking at the backlink profiles of competing or related sites that rank well. Only about a 50% success)

      These are only activities that require money. I do ALOT more work where cash doesn't exchange hands.
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      • Profile picture of the author swym
        Originally Posted by retsek View Post

        The site is up to 2,000 uniques per day so far. Here's how analytics looks over the last two months. 60% of this traffic is long tail. Most of the mid level keywords I'm targeting are at the moment at the bottom of Page 1 or on Page 2.

        ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

        Adsense is doing $50-80 per day. eCPM is around $15, it would be better but I'm not running heavy on ads and not all pages have them yet.

        So far for both content & promotion I've spent just over $11,000 on this site, still in the hole but will definitely be profitable within 3 months. If you're wondering about funding, see my other thread on the fire sale I did a few days before penguin hit.

        Conservatively, I estimate traffic will hit 20 to 30,000 uniques per day by this time next year.

        Here's a rundown of how I've spent the 11k:

        Content (includes site content, over 40 guest posts for other sites, press release writing) - $6,300
        3 PRWEB Advanced Releases - $600
        2 Infographics - $600
        Graphics/Coding for a piece of linkbait - $1750 (plan to spend another $1500 for completion & for seed promotion)
        9 Paid General/Niche Directories - $840
        1 year Membership to a Niche Related Organization - $400 (tons of value in this beyound the PR7 homepage link. There's a private community which I also gain access to and many of the members are web publishers with large sites of their own. In addition to picking up some guest articles on their sites, I've floated the idea of the linkbait above, and many of them will likely help promote it.)
        13 Bribes/Donations/Sponsorships to Websites/Curated Resource Lists/University Pages/etc - $750 (many more to go, these all look competely natural and I find them by looking at the backlink profiles of competing or related sites that rank well. Only about a 50% success)

        These are only activities that require money. I do ALOT more work where cash doesn't exchange hands.
        Mind to share where do you buy the infographics? And what do you mean by "Graphics/Coding for a piece of linkbait"?
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        • Profile picture of the author retsek
          Originally Posted by swym View Post

          Mind to share where do you buy the infographics?
          Try: http://visual.ly
          Look for graphics there that you like and contact the designer for a quote.
          Prices can range from as low as $250 to as much as $2500. Sweet spot is around $500.

          Then when you get your infographic, don't forget publish it there as well as at Pinterest and other good infographic directories. These are good backlinks to get AFTER you've published it on your site and visits/shares have died down.

          Originally Posted by swym View Post


          And what do you mean by "Graphics/Coding for a piece of linkbait"?
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          What do you mean by this (html?)?

          Can you be more specific without giving out private info?

          Thanks,
          Well it started when I found an abandoned project which was great in theory, but no longer worked. The guy that created it is a 'data visualization expert' and didn't have time to work with me. I paid him for rights to it as is, and we agreed he'll be credited for the original work -- which is fine with me as he'll no doubt talk about it on his popular blog & tweet to his thousands of twitter followers when it's re-launched.

          So I hired a group of coders from Pakistan to fix bugs, add new features, make it prettier, and brand it as my own.

          It'll be sort of an interactive web app/infographic that will visualize some published data in a way I think people in the industry will greatly appreciate. It'll help them spot trends easier and should be something everyone will reference over and over again, rather than linking to the actual source which is just a huge pile of data that must avg. people can't tell heads from tails from. It'll definitely be picked up initially by many major sites, but I'm also looking for some genuine, natural links from .gov's.

          It requires extensive coding because it will be self-updating when fresh data becomes available and the user will be able to manipulate it. That means it'll always be relevant, so that increases its value as linkbait even more.

          It will be in HTML5, and it will directly interact with my wordpress database so it can pull permalinks for articles on the site whenever certain keywords occur in the "app". Interlinking, FTW.

          When it's ready in about 10 days, I'll simultaneously do the following things.

          - Press release
          - Buy traffic from StumbleUpon to it (this will help spread the word)
          - Use of the contacts and friends made before
          - I've built a huge list of journalists, bloggers, and influencers in the industry. On twitter, via email - they'll all be hearing from me.
          - Since it's an web app - will try to get sites like Mashable, makeuseof, lifehacker to notice it. There's a trick to being successful with this.

          By simultaneously, I don't mean at the same time but it'll have to coordinated in such a way that it all happens within a few hours. For example, the outreach and press release will have to be done a few days before.
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by retsek View Post

            Well it started when I found an abandoned project which was great in theory, but no longer worked. The guy that created it is a 'data visualization expert' and didn't have time to work with me. I paid him for rights to it as is, and we agreed he'll be credited for the original work -- which is fine with me as he'll no doubt talk about it on his popular blog & tweet to his thousands of twitter followers when it's re-launched.

            So I hired a group of coders from Pakistan to fix bugs, add new features, make it prettier, and brand it as my own.

            It'll be sort of an interactive web app/infographic that will visualize some published data in a way I think people in the industry will greatly appreciate. It'll help them spot trends easier and should be something everyone will reference over and over again, rather than linking to the actual source which is just a huge pile of data that must avg. people can't tell heads from tails from. It'll definitely be picked up initially by many major sites, but I'm also looking for some genuine, natural links from .gov's.

            It requires extensive coding because it will be self-updating when fresh data becomes available and the user will be able to manipulate it. That means it'll always be relevant, so that increases its value as linkbait even more.

            It will be in HTML5, and it will directly interact with my wordpress database so it can pull permalinks for articles on the site whenever certain keywords occur in the "app". Interlinking, FTW.

            When it's ready in about 10 days, I'll simultaneously do the following things.

            - Press release
            - Buy traffic from StumbleUpon to it (this will help spread the word)
            - Use of the contacts and friends made before
            - I've built a huge list of journalists, bloggers, and influencers in the industry. On twitter, via email - they'll all be hearing from me.
            - Since it's an web app - will try to get sites like Mashable, makeuseof, lifehacker to notice it. There's a trick to being successful with this.

            By simultaneously, I don't mean at the same time but it'll have to coordinated in such a way that it all happens within a few hours. For example, the outreach and press release will have to be done a few days before.
            Cool!

            You've defiantly turned the table in a very short time since selling off your network of smaller sites, I'm impressed.
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          • Profile picture of the author retsek
            Originally Posted by retsek View Post

            - Since it's an web app - will try to get sites like Mashable, makeuseof, lifehacker to notice it. There's a trick to being successful with this.
            Somebody messaged me asking what's the secret sauce behind this ^^

            There's no secret really. This guy explains it well:
            How To Get Covered In a Major Tech Blog - dan shipper

            #5 is the most important item on that list. If your site looks like ****, it won't fly - doesn't matter if it's got the greatest content.

            Make your greatest effort with the larger sites. If one or two of them pick it up, most times the rest will follow like sheep.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by retsek View Post

        Graphics/Coding for a piece of linkbait - $1750 (plan to spend another $1500 for completion & for seed promotion)
        What do you mean by this (html?)?

        Can you be more specific without giving out private info?

        Thanks,
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      • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
        Originally Posted by retsek View Post

        Content (includes site content, over 40 guest posts for other sites, press release writing)
        Not sure what niche you're in, but if ever you'd like me to publish as a guest blogger - hit me up
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        • Profile picture of the author retsek
          Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

          Not sure what niche you're in, but if ever you'd like me to publish as a guest blogger - hit me up
          I try to hire people with experience and education in the field, so I can leverage their Google+ profiles with the content they provide. I think that will matter ALOT in future.
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          • Profile picture of the author WildGale
            Originally Posted by retsek View Post

            I try to hire people with experience and education in the field, so I can leverage their Google+ profiles with the content they provide. I think that will matter ALOT in future.
            Smart.

            My photo doesn't show in search consistently, though I am actually an expert. My Google+ profile is only about a month old and I've probably only got about 50 followers to my personal page. Do you have any sense of what's necessary to get author snippets in the results consistently? Does domain authority help?
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            • Profile picture of the author aygabtu
              I'm assuming this is some sort of blog site? What is news worthy about that? For most sites, it is hard for me to translate a news worthy article about it. The closest I can imagine is a press release about the site, but press release <> news worthy article, correct?
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              • Profile picture of the author mosthost
                Originally Posted by aygabtu View Post

                I'm assuming this is some sort of blog site? What is news worthy about that? For most sites, it is hard for me to translate a news worthy article about it. The closest I can imagine is a press release about the site, but press release <> news worthy article, correct?
                That's why he's saying go the infographic route. Add something new/of value to make the press release more viral.
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            • Profile picture of the author retsek
              Originally Posted by WildGale View Post

              Smart.

              My photo doesn't show in search consistently, though I am actually an expert. My Google+ profile is only about a month old and I've probably only got about 50 followers to my personal page. Do you have any sense of what's necessary to get author snippets in the results consistently? Does domain authority help?
              Give it some time. It takes a while to settle. When I first started adding rel=author, I would notice that the snippets would disappear and re-appear everytime the cached copy of the page is updated.
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          • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
            Originally Posted by retsek View Post

            I try to hire people with experience and education in the field, so I can leverage their Google+ profiles with the content they provide. I think that will matter ALOT in future.
            You've lost me.

            BTW, Im SEO, Webdesign, IM etc
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  • Profile picture of the author wilsonm
    Quality stuff, thanks for taking the time to post this stuff. Is this your full time job?
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by wilsonm View Post

      Quality stuff, thanks for taking the time to post this stuff. Is this your full time job?
      It's part-time
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  • Profile picture of the author eurekapsycrille
    Hi retsek! How about gambling related press releases? Do they accept those kinds of writings?

    Good post.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by eurekapsycrille View Post

      Hi retsek! How about gambling related press releases? Do they accept those kinds of writings?

      Good post.
      No idea, but "site:prweb.com casino" shows over 9,000 results so I guess they do.
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  • Profile picture of the author Vivers
    This is eye opening to say the least. I am in the works of writing some good press releases and see if I can be as lucky as you. Good post and thanks for the numbers!
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  • Profile picture of the author swym
    Hi retsek, once you have decided on the niche, how do you usually look for good writers who know well about the niche?
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  • Profile picture of the author LucyLane
    How would you submit a PR revolving around payday loans? I mean, that's not an easy niche and I'm actually not black hat... I'm trying to keep my site as white hat as possible and it's hard sometimes. I'm ranking for several keywords on page 1, but they are not the money makers. Google's latest update dropped almost 2/3 of our keywords (not really sure why) and now we're fighting to get back up there.

    I would love to try and do a press release, but do you really think that it would work?
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by LucyLane View Post

      How would you submit a PR revolving around payday loans? I mean, that's not an easy niche and I'm actually not black hat... I'm trying to keep my site as white hat as possible and it's hard sometimes. I'm ranking for several keywords on page 1, but they are not the money makers. Google's latest update dropped almost 2/3 of our keywords (not really sure why) and now we're fighting to get back up there.

      I would love to try and do a press release, but do you really think that it would work?
      Sorry that's one niche I don't touch. It's also one where I admit going completely whitehat might not give much success.
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      • Profile picture of the author LucyLane
        Originally Posted by retsek View Post

        Sorry that's one niche I don't touch. It's also one where I admit going completely whitehat might not give much success.
        Thanks for the vote of confidence

        I'm just hoping that eventually Google will wisen up and find a permanent way to get rid of all the black hatters that are filling up the search results. It's not fair that as a white hat site I'm getting penalized and these other black hat sites just seem to be climbing the ranks.

        But, the question was - do you think that there is a way to utilize the press releases in my niche? Does anybody here think that it would be effective?

        Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author ebizman
    retsek - what do you recommend using to find long tail keywords for a particular niche? how do you keep generating new keywords?

    do you have photos on each of your articles?
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by ebizman View Post

      retsek - what do you recommend using to find long tail keywords for a particular niche? how do you keep generating new keywords?

      do you have photos on each of your articles?
      Keyword research + common sense + putting yourself in the searcher's shoes + looking for what's missing in your niche and providing it

      Photos are good, but it's not required for every article.
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  • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
    Hey Retsek,

    I have been thinking....

    Lets say that you do a couple of PR's for your site and you are targeting a couple of internal product pages on your site. The PR's get great exposure and many sites receive the PR's... creating their own unique version of the PR on there site.

    Now... since I am interested in getting backlinks to my internal pages... How do I encourage those sites to make sure they link to my internal pages and not other pages such as the homepage. I guess there is no guarantee that they will link to my specific internal pages if they create there own version of the PR. They could link to anywhere on my site.. right?

    I just want to make sure that the internal pages I am looking to backlink get those links and not my homepage or some other random page on my site.

    How do you combat this?

    Thanks man

    Sean
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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    ^^ the main purpose of PR's isn't (or shouldn't be) to get backlinks (though it does help).
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    • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
      Why shouldnt it be? It can be used to create awareness along with developing a backlink profile. I think its perfectly fine do get backlinks to your site... In fact... its probably one of the best ways to achieve that.
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      • Profile picture of the author retsek
        Originally Posted by seanybyrne View Post

        Why shouldnt it be? It can be used to create awareness along with developing a backlink profile. I think its perfectly fine do get backlinks to your site... In fact... its probably one of the best ways to achieve that.
        Don't worry about it. If the thing that is the subject of the PR resides at a specific URL, most of the time they'll link to it. Other times, they'll link to your homepage. Either way, you get a link that benefits you. So really don't worry about it.

        One time, a major news site mentioned my domain WITHOUT hyperlinking. The effect of that was huge. Many sites rely on them for news, so when they did their own versions of the story they linked.

        Another odd thing I noticed is that BOTH majestic seo and Webmaster Tools are reporting that inactive 'link'.

        It seems like url mentions count and are crawled even though they aren't hyperlinked.
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        • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
          Originally Posted by retsek View Post

          Don't worry about it. If the thing that is the subject of the PR resides at a specific URL, most of the time they'll link to it. Other times, they'll link to your homepage. Either way, you get a link that benefits you. So really don't worry about it.

          One time, a major news site mentioned my domain WITHOUT hyperlinking. The effect of that was huge. Many sites rely on them for news, so when they did their own versions of the story they linked.

          Another odd thing I noticed is that BOTH majestic seo and Webmaster Tools are reporting that inactive 'link'.

          It seems like url mentions count and are crawled even though they aren't hyperlinked.
          Hey Retsek,

          Thanks for getting back to me on this. Interesting concept regarding the domain mention with hyperlink. Google really is getting smarter!

          I just want to make sure that I am getting links to important pages on my site... ie... pages that are my money pages. (Product pages & category pages). I have a couple of product pages I want to rank in the coming months and want those pages getting links via the PR.

          The Press release theme itself wouldn't exactly correlate to the links I have at the bottom of the PR. I know that getting a link to the site is great, but I just want to make sure that its predominantly to the pages I want to rank. Perhaps I need to have a PR that will relate to the links at the bottom of the PR? So if the links are to a product page, the PR needs to relate to the product somehow.... right?

          Thanks Retsek,

          Sean
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          • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
            Originally Posted by seanybyrne View Post

            Interesting concept regarding the domain mention with hyperlink. Google really is getting smarter!
            It's been that way since forever... Look up citation analysis and all that stuff.

            Some of my sites have 80% or more of their backlinks from "naked" URL's and rank very well for competitive keywords. This is one of those SEO "secrets" that info product gurus haven't picked up on (yet).
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            • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
              Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

              It's been that way since forever... Look up citation analysis and all that stuff.

              Some of my sites have 80% or more of their backlinks from "naked" URL's and rank very well for competitive keywords. This is one of those SEO "secrets" that info product gurus haven't picked up on (yet).
              Very interesting alright! I can see how it works. So even without a hyperlink, you can still gain ranks in the serps Awesome.

              Are those backlinks of yours "urls", or anchor text?
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              • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
                Originally Posted by seanybyrne View Post

                Very interesting alright! I can see how it works. So even without a hyperlink, you can still gain ranks in the serps Awesome.

                Are those backlinks of yours "urls", or anchor text?
                URL's, they'd have no way of linking simple text to your sites. Here's what I mean by a "naked" URL: site.com. That's it - no hyperlink, just plain text.
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                • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
                  Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

                  URL's, they'd have no way of linking simple text to your sites. Here's what I mean by a "naked" URL: site.com. That's it - no hyperlink, just plain text.
                  I got ya.. thanks for that man
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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    ^^ they always have.

    Even stuff like "site.com" counts.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

      ^^ they always have.

      Even stuff like "site.com" counts.
      Yeah ..first time I actually saw it in action.
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  • Profile picture of the author PatrickLSO
    Awesome case study.

    There is one thing though. You say your total cost was $199. Were the 150 articles free?

    That alone would cost at least $500 and for decent ones, closer to $1000.
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  • Profile picture of the author thepresence
    This is a great case study showing solid results (I wish we could see the hard data). As for putting in your keywords, this is not a good idea anymore. Your article will get syndicated and you will have massive inbound links with the same anchor, a clear signal to Penguin.
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    • Profile picture of the author seanybyrne
      Hey Retsek,

      I was wondering how the site is performing these days? Is it making much adsense revenue? Have you added other income streams? Have you made your investment back?

      I'd love to know how your doing with this site now? Are you ranking well for the keywords you wanted to rank for?

      Please share with us if you can..

      Thanks mate

      Sean
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