12-Page and 5-Page Websites Ranking. Work. Focus On Other Things. Review Data.

byJustAPerson

264 followers

Updated 5 years ago

I like to do something and get some feedback (data).

Relying on people being referred from search engine results is something I have always struggled with.

Not because I don't know it works. I know it works. I've done it before. In the past 16 years I think I've had easily over a dozen different websites even before joining WA.

I struggle with it because my approach to all of life is to do something... and then something happens (a result). Then I look at what happens (the data). Based on what happened I know how I should adjust what I am doing. That could be scaling it up (i.e. do more of what is working) or changing what I did (do less of what is not working).

I rely on that data... the result... what happened... to guide me. Ultimately, that data is the most important thing to me. It is not theory. It is not speculation. It is fact. It is the reality.

When I work on fitness I use the same approach. When I changed how I eat I use the same approach. In my career I used the same approach. Even in programming I use the same approach. Do something. See what happens. Decide what to do next based on what happened from my previous actions.

With the "relying on search engine rankings to refer people" strategy the biggest issue is the data is completely missing for many months. And because of this... it places me (us) into a sort of state of limbo. It's like working away with our eyes closed in a sense. And it really kind of drives me crazy. ha ha ;)

On the other hand I really like paid advertising and other forms of content marketing that provide feedback (data/result) within hours to days. Because then I can do something for what I consider to be a reasonable time (a week to 10 days), look at the results I got and know what I should do. Without having data to work with I have nothing to base the decision on. I have no way of knowing if what I am doing is right or wrong.

I Think This Is Probably A Big Reason Why People Quit

I have been thinking this is likely a major factor in why people quit when it comes to blogging, etc. I don't think they should quit completely.

I think... just do some blogging for a while then focus on other activities that provide feedback in a much more reasonable amount of time.

Then after a time (3 months, 6 months, etc) and you actually get a result from the action you took previously (months ago) then you can make a decision based on actual data and not opinions and guesswork.

Let's Look At Some Data

I have been focusing on other things the past many weeks including mindset and exploring other opportunities to figure out exactly what I want to do.

Not that I quit my niche websites. It's simply that I know this stuff takes time so I saw no sense to keep working on them without any feedback (actual real data) being available. And the more I forced myself to write articles the less I enjoyed it... basically it was great until I turned it into a job... one more thing I had to do. So I stopped focusing on these sites because I knew just letting them set eventually some would rank well and finally I would have some meaningful feedback.

I checked today and I finally have some feedback.

One niche site I launched about 5 months ago. This particular site has a total of 12 articles on it. I have not added any content to the site in the past few months.

Today that niche fitness site has 3 article pages ranked high on the first page of Bing.

These 3 article pages are all some of the oldest pages on the site.

Each of these articles range from 950 to 1,150 words including my disclaimer chunk of content (boilerplate I add to every article page).

So, what I get from this is perhaps 25% (1 out of 4) of the articles I apply the same kw research and writing style to will achieve a high ranking.

Articles do not seem to need to be 1,500 or more words to rank highly (I have other articles that do have hundreds of more words each and none are ranking within the first 3 pages).

A niche site does not seem to need dozens of articles to have pages ranked high on page 1 (at least in Bing).

I never made any links to these sites anywhere... not even here.

My Summary

This test seems to have produced information that contradicts some things many of us have heard were true.

Of course, it could be a fluke. Can it be repeated? My guess is yes it can be repeated. And my second niche site has only 5 article pages on it. My guess is that eventually it too will have 1 page that is ranked high in Bing. And when it does then it will give me a reason to add a few more articles to it. In the meantime, I will focus on other things.

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UPDATE! I hadn't bothered to check the other niche fitness site before writing this blog.

I just checked and my other niche fitness site that has 5 articles... 2 of those article pages are ranked high on page 1 of Bing for their key phrases. Basically 1 out of 3 articles on that site. Probably because the supply is somewhat lower than for the other fitness site topic.

So... there we have it. Repeated. With a site with only 5 articles on it.

.....

This all creates more questions... do new pages rank faster based on the # of total pages on the site (or # of total pages from that site that are already indexed)? Perhaps so.

Ultimately, the best thing about this is that for me, it confirms my theory that a good strategy is to do this "on the side" or to even work on multiple sites at the same time. Simply because it takes time for pages to be indexed and ranked.

This means I can occasionally work on niche sites with the target of relying on search engines referring people from the search results... and that will all happen on its own at the whim of Bing, Google, etc... and it will happen while I am busy working on other things such as doing PPC Affiliate Marketing, etc.

Just wanted to share this. Hopefully it is of some value to someone here.

Basically... this is a long game. But instead of working working working stressing yourself out over it. Work... relax... work on other things (other income streams) is a completely reasonable approach in my opinion.