Hi Neil, congrats on your community! How did you get your original traffic? Did it take long to get the ball rolling?

By writing good quality content that focuses on giving what people want they want to read, not what you think they need to read.
Originally I was all about the sales by being pushy, that used to work, but now it's best to focus on your visitors, not the search engines.
One site I have is a year old, gets traffic everyday and makes sales.
All the training on here will teach you how to do this.

Is the site that's getting traffic an brand/authority/referral site or was it originally designed to chase long-tail-keywords?

I like what you said about writing what readers like, not what we want to "sell" them. That's what I need to remember as well.

Won't you say that keyword research is related to "giving readers what they want." After all, keywords are entered by actual people browsing and asking questions.

Every word is a keyword if you think about it. But some are harder to target than others.
I put the keyword/keywords in the Title and maybe once in the article. But I'm not focusing on that keyword, I'm looking at all the other keywords that Google will pick up on which are derivatives of the original phrase if that makes sense.
Write content for your readers, nothing else.
All I can say is, try it for yourself.

I'm sure Google tries to display "best possible information" as they know it. So, the question is how much a long tail keyword in a domain name has to do with ranking. Will having the same keywords in a Post accomplish the same ranking with a none matching domain name?

I'm sure they try to but in practice the results don't match their policy.

I have been wondering how keywords in a post compare with keywords in a domain name too. They must be of more importance that keywords-in-domain-name, otherwise we would all be looking for just one magic keyword, the one we would use for our URL.

Since Google talks a lot about understand what your site is about. I'm guessing once they do, and you write a Post off-topic it won't rank as well. Make sense?

I'd rather have a branded site also. But the worst situation is building a branded site that ends up with no traffic. I guess the answer lies in one's own confidence in their own content and whether it will be successful attracting traffic that sticks and has visitors that do referrals. As the social media networks rise in importance, building a branded site begins to make even more sense, even for beginners. I'd much rather take care of one site than 50 small sites.

OK, but these days search engines aren't showing any real preference for EMDs. I've watched a couple of newcomers do extraordinarily well this year with "branded" ie. not search specific, domain names. Also, ask yourself what I think is a very important question, of the last 10 sites you made purchases from, actually spent money with, how many had long-tail keywords as their domain names? I believe the focus should always be on your customer, not search engines, they don't buy anything! :) Rich.

You and Kyle have always given excellent advice. Hope you don't mind thrashing around this important question a little more. Sorry, I don't know the term "EMD's." I suppose means the same as "long tail keywords."

Of the last 10 sites I bought something, roughly speaking, I'd say I was referred by a long tail keyword site once. So, should I say I bought from them? I bought 4 software packages from mid-sized software sites (maybe I was referred, don't remember). The remaining purchases where from large sites. I don't think we can draw a direct comparison between buying sites and referring sites.

Long tail keyword site marketing is designed to chip away at the ends and the sheer number of sites add up to good sales volume. They don't directly sell, but earn money from referring.

Rich's site is really a different animal. It's an authority, referral site. Maybe coining that category would clear up questions?

No, no probs. just that I and many others will disagree that branded domains are harder to rank than EMDs (Exact Match Domains). It was true before Google slapped them, and all things being equal they still might give a very slight edge. However, take a look around, http://www,wealthyaffilate.com http://www.jaaxy.com http://www.streetarticles.com none of these are EMDs. Wealthy Affiliate started out as a forum, it didn't "appear" as it is today. I started out my site with a branded domain and simply followed the training, building it a page and post at a time. It now provides me with a full time income. No EMD required! :) Rich.

Interesting, so the question is how hard was the Google slap and what is the degree of help an EMD site actually gives us ranking keywords.

If I wrote 10 separate WA Posts/Pages selling WA courses on my proposed authority/referral/general site (www.famouspoints.com), could I expect the same or better results (click or sales) than posting them as Posts and Pages on a single site dedicated to WA referral sales (www.affiliatemarketingdummies.org).

Wow long sentence, but let's get as specific as we can! I don't know the answer, but sure Google is dedicated to ranking the best information for their clients.

"The EMD Update — for “Exact Match Domain” — is a filter Google launched in September 2012 to prevent poor quality sites from ranking well simply because they had words that match search terms in their domain names. When a fresh EMD Update happens, sites that have improved their content may regain good rankings. New sites with poor content — or those previously missed by EMD — may get caught."

Wouldn't this new Google requirement to keep content fresh also be true for Posts, as well as EMD's?

It's just a difference of opinion. There's nothing wrong in using EMDs but they certainly don't get the love they used to and that's likely to get worse with future updates. I'm certainly proof that using "branded" domain names isn't a long haul for a "referral" site, I was earning a full time income in under three months of starting mine and in just over 9 months I'm earning twice what I was in a full time job. It's not all about ranking either, I watched someone at WA spend over a year working towards and getting the #1 spots for highly competitive keywords and never make a dime. They demanded to know why WA didn't work. Well, a quick visit to their site made it obvious, it was one only a search engine could love. I think the acid test is very simple, if you visited your own site as a stranger, would you spend money with it? If not, then no amount of EMD, SEO, traffic, ranking, etc. will earn you a penny. Rich.

Rich, thanks for the info! How did you get your initial critical mass traffic to get your ball rolling?

LOL, no idea what "initial critical mass traffic" is, I just followed the training. Which would you rather have, 100 visitors to your site that buy, or 1,000,000 that don't? :) Rich.