INSIGHTS•4 MIN READ
site 3 update 4-11-13
kamali
Published on April 12, 2013
Published on Wealthy Affiliate — a platform for building real online businesses with modern training and AI.
So it's about that time again for me to give an update on my test site. I want to cover lessons learned and plans for the future with this site and other sites.
I am also interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas. After all that is how we get better, and listening to the ideas of others is how i got to where I am today.
First off, the site address is http://howtobuytaxliensnow.com I was trying to rank for the keywords "how to buy tax liens". Unfortunately no matter what I did I am still not ranking for those keywords. I am however ranking for a lot of secondary keywords and my posts have been ranking pretty well.
I only have 10 posts at the moment as I was also experimenting to see if I could have a ranking website with minimum posts and pages. I had heard that 10 was a good number.
What I learned so far
Keyword in the URL - not so effective?
If you look at my past posts on this site you will see that I waited for several weeks at a time before doing anything.
I learned that having the keyword in my domain name does not seem to be helping my site rank. In fact I'm wondering if it is hurting my ranking for that keyword.
I have heard something about branding (here at WA) for websites and I have noticed that A LOT of the websites in the top ten searches for keywords DO NOT have the keywords in the URL. I find this VERY interesting.
Having backlinks are still important!
One of the most revealing things I learned is that back links are still very powerful. You just need to figure out a natural way of back linking. I think I may have some good ideas on this moving forward.
I had tried many things with my website with absolutely NO change in my rankings. i was not even on the radar. As soon as I started building some backlinks (I was using a paid service) my rankings shot up to top ten for a lot of secondary keywords.
This was encouraging because a couple of my sites (one in particular) got slapped HARD by google with the panda/penguin updates.
I do know that this is because I was probably keyword stuffing as opposed to "naturally" linking back to my site with links like click here as opposed to how to buy tax liens for almost every back link. Google specifically penalized people that were doing this.
One of my sites was really doing well as it was ranked #3 for a high traffic keyword. I am now wondering if I add natural looking backlinks if this will "dilute" my keyword density and allow me to regain some of my rankings. What do you think?
I know good SEO works..and there is a method out there....i just need to pull my sleeves up and find it.
Secondary keywords are the next big thing
I had planned on ranking for my primary keyword but as a result of some fairly well written articles and whatever else I accidentally did.....I am ranking for a few secondary keywords.
This is impressive considering I only have 10 posts. I think what is going to happen is that authority sites are the next big thing and ranking for secondary keywords will be lucrative.
My new main site is my options trading site and is ranks for a lot of secondary keywords.
On a side note: one of my posts (I really don't know what I did) is ranking extremely well for a lot of keywords. I really need to figure out what I did because this site has held up against all google slaps and updates, more so than my main page.
This is my side mission right now.
Plans for the future
For now I have just put some adsense ads on the site. I am experimenting with the ad types and locations to see how it works..
I am going to do some more research on SEO methods in hopes of figuring out what I may be missing and why I can't rank for my main keyword.
I am working on another website and I plan to reapply what I learn in the future as well as what I already know. I have not built any backlinks to this site yet as I still have to write a few more articles.
I am going to turn all my sites into authority sites meaning minimum of 50 posts or so per site.
I'm curious to here your thoughts, fire away. Also any feedback on the site itself is appreciated.
You can visit the site by clicking here
I am also interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas. After all that is how we get better, and listening to the ideas of others is how i got to where I am today.
First off, the site address is http://howtobuytaxliensnow.com I was trying to rank for the keywords "how to buy tax liens". Unfortunately no matter what I did I am still not ranking for those keywords. I am however ranking for a lot of secondary keywords and my posts have been ranking pretty well.
I only have 10 posts at the moment as I was also experimenting to see if I could have a ranking website with minimum posts and pages. I had heard that 10 was a good number.
What I learned so far
Keyword in the URL - not so effective?
If you look at my past posts on this site you will see that I waited for several weeks at a time before doing anything.
I learned that having the keyword in my domain name does not seem to be helping my site rank. In fact I'm wondering if it is hurting my ranking for that keyword.
I have heard something about branding (here at WA) for websites and I have noticed that A LOT of the websites in the top ten searches for keywords DO NOT have the keywords in the URL. I find this VERY interesting.
Having backlinks are still important!
One of the most revealing things I learned is that back links are still very powerful. You just need to figure out a natural way of back linking. I think I may have some good ideas on this moving forward.
I had tried many things with my website with absolutely NO change in my rankings. i was not even on the radar. As soon as I started building some backlinks (I was using a paid service) my rankings shot up to top ten for a lot of secondary keywords.
This was encouraging because a couple of my sites (one in particular) got slapped HARD by google with the panda/penguin updates.
I do know that this is because I was probably keyword stuffing as opposed to "naturally" linking back to my site with links like click here as opposed to how to buy tax liens for almost every back link. Google specifically penalized people that were doing this.
One of my sites was really doing well as it was ranked #3 for a high traffic keyword. I am now wondering if I add natural looking backlinks if this will "dilute" my keyword density and allow me to regain some of my rankings. What do you think?
I know good SEO works..and there is a method out there....i just need to pull my sleeves up and find it.
Secondary keywords are the next big thing
I had planned on ranking for my primary keyword but as a result of some fairly well written articles and whatever else I accidentally did.....I am ranking for a few secondary keywords.
This is impressive considering I only have 10 posts. I think what is going to happen is that authority sites are the next big thing and ranking for secondary keywords will be lucrative.
My new main site is my options trading site and is ranks for a lot of secondary keywords.
On a side note: one of my posts (I really don't know what I did) is ranking extremely well for a lot of keywords. I really need to figure out what I did because this site has held up against all google slaps and updates, more so than my main page.
This is my side mission right now.
Plans for the future
For now I have just put some adsense ads on the site. I am experimenting with the ad types and locations to see how it works..
I am going to do some more research on SEO methods in hopes of figuring out what I may be missing and why I can't rank for my main keyword.
I am working on another website and I plan to reapply what I learn in the future as well as what I already know. I have not built any backlinks to this site yet as I still have to write a few more articles.
I am going to turn all my sites into authority sites meaning minimum of 50 posts or so per site.
I'm curious to here your thoughts, fire away. Also any feedback on the site itself is appreciated.
You can visit the site by clicking here
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