An Authority Site Experiment - Building An Authority Site From Scratch and Making $$$

I've been reading around a lot of forums and seen people talking about the latest Google changes.  After putting some thought into it I have decided to finally do what Google pretty much tells you it wants you to do - build an authority site.   By that I mean a site that targets a specific but fairly broad niche (as opposed to micro niches), that uses high quality content posted in large amounts.

So no more micro niches for me (even if I do have a large number of them, some of which are still doing well despite the updates).

Why does this effect you?  Well much like my ill fated Hubpages experiment (ill fated as they got Google slapped within weeks of my experiment) I thought I would post about what steps I am taking here, as I take them.  This allows you to see what I am doing and duplicate my steps...if it proves profitable of course (why would you follow a nonprofitable blueprint).

Control

I am more excited about this than I was my hubpages one for a very simple reason - with hubpages you lack control over most of the site, and as they got slapped for the poor quality of articles that lack of control cost me.  Now I have complete control, and not just of the quality.  I control where the articles go, what I want on there, where the ads are - and I get a full payment of the ads...something no content network like Squidoo or Hubpages can claim.

Yes I lack the 'trust' that they had - but the trust Google gives them has turned into a hindrance, not a positive.  And I can get trust anyway - more on that in a moment.

Most importantly all the work I am doing I am doing for me.  I get all the money, I can flip the site if I want to, I can sell links, etc, etc.

So the Steps

So what I am going to be doing?  Not much!  

I get married in 47 days and with the huge amount of work I need to do to continue paying for that, the amount of time needed to organise, and the months honeymoon afterwards, I shall only have a small amount of time to dedicate to this. Which means I need to work smart.  This will mean outsourcing where I can afford it, but I do want to try keep costs down.

So what are my initial steps?

The first few days will be setting up.  

First things first - I need a niche.  It needs to be one that gets a large amount of searches in all sorts of keywords to ensure that I have plenty to write about and that I can get plenty of traffic.  I also need to have an interest in it as there will be a lot of writing done...and it needs to be profitable.  I have looked around and decided on the niche I want to enter ( won't disclose it exactly but it is a subniche in the 'health' category).
  
As I said earlier I like having a domain that was trusted by Google when using Hubpages...so I have decided to work smart here and buy a domain that Google already trusts.  One that already has a decent history.  So I have nipped over to GoDaddy auctions and won a PR2, 3 year old domain that is about right (no keywords unfortunately, but brandable...and no keywords just allows us to test the 'authority' idea a bit more).  The cost of that was about $22 in total.

So the next day or so will have me installing Wordpress on the site, with all the plugins etc, and then knocking up some articles.  I want to get about 15 articles up online (all 500+ words) before I launch it properly - all keyword targeted of course (more on my criteria next post).  Once that is done we will continue to add posts (about 3 a week) and start backlinking.

Backlinking is going to be playing a big part in this, after all it is how any site gets SERPs these days.  I shall be experimenting with the likes of Scrapebox and Xrummer blasts bought from Fiverr, as well as some other techniques.

Hopefully you will get something out of this - at the very least you get to point and laugh at me as I fail! wish me luck...

Anyway, off to get some articles written! 

 

Good luck! It sounds daunting, but you'll get there eventually. Thanks for sharing! Congratulations on your marriage!

 

Good luck Nick! Make sure you come back an update us on how get on!

 

Thanks for the congrats and well wishes.

So what I did yesterday

1)  Bought my domain via Godaddy auctions.  Actually this is a lie, I bought it a few days ago and it appeared in my account yesterday - they take a few days after you win them at auction.  Brandable name in my niche, but not keyword strong.  PR2, 3 year old domain and something like 60 backlinks in the Yahoo checker. 

2)  Set up Wordpress, including all the plugins, theme I will be using etc.

And that's it.  As I said a minimal amount of work will be done each day - as I can only give a minimal amount of work!

So what are todays plans?  Keyword research, and if I have any time, writing.

Keyword research  

What we are doing here is trying to put together an authority site.  This means we are going to need top class content - but we want that content to be able to be found, which means good SEO and targeting good keywords.  So right from the get go the articles need to be laser focussed on keywords that it can rank for.  Which means being careful about what I am going for.

I am yet to do the keyword research so I may end up changing my mind but the parameters I am currently thinking of are

Minimum 1k searches (exact)
Poor competition 

Now some people like to use set numbers to mean 'low competition', but I have no interest in that -  am more interested in how good the competition is on that keyword.  This means going into Google and checking out the top rankers for the keyword and looking at such stats as

1)  How many backlinks they have
2)  Do they use the keyword in the title?
3)  Any exact match domains (and any other TLDs for that matter)
4)  What sort of optimisation do they have for that keyword (keyword density, subheaders, alt tags etc)

I will then be taking those things into consideration before I decide if a keyword is rankable.

On top of that these articles will be 500+ words, aiming around the 700 word mark.  This means that I have room to be going after some more long tail keywords as well as my main one.  I shall be looking for very easy to rank, relatively low traffic keywords to include, probably 2 or 3 extra per article.  

Will be doing research shortly.  Wish me luck! 

 

I like your summarization of action steps. it is good to track that for action.
i was unaware you can buy several years old domains with PR.
I'll consider that for my projects.

Thanks for the post

 

Good luck OP. You have a solid plan right there so I don't think you will fail this.

 

The key to a quality authority site is dedication mate. It's not necessarily what you do this week but rather if you are still doing it in a years time. A very smart move to take it on but remember dedication is key!

 

Achievements Yesterday?

• Keywords researched = 10 (looking to get at least 15).  Criteria of poor SEO'd competition and at least 1k exact searches
• 15 Secondary keywords researched - these were for littering in articles.  Min 300 exact searches and awful SEO'd competition
• Wrote 3 Articles - in my research a few things caught my eye so I stopped keyword research and decided to investigate and wrote about those whilst I had teh inspiration.

Total Time about an hour and a half

So where does that leave me?

Todays Plans  

• Finish of the keyword research - 5 more targetable keywords 
• Write up another 2 articles minimum

  

As ever not a hugely inspiring list - but this is something that needs to be continual, not something I burn myself out on in a few days.  I antincipate having the site up and ready to start backlinking by Friday. 

 

Yeah, I love the auctions.  You can get them on GoDaddy for pretty cheap (not counting closeouts the lowest is about $12 plus registration fee - total cost about $22 which is well worth it imo)

Thanks - hope you're right!

Agree completely, which is partly why limiting the amount of time spent on it is a good idea imo, stops me burning out just on one site 

 

Interesting journal and hope you achieve your target before you get married!!

Do keep us posted and let us know how it goes. I had my apprehensions about using Godaddy's auction service, but your thread makes me think otherwise, will give it a go.

P.S: Keen to see how/what your backlinks strategy is going to be. Subscribed to this thread!

 

Thanks, glad you find it interesting!  TBH I am not that concerned about what happens before I get married, just would be nice to see some results (even if only a trickle of traffic) before I leave for my honeymoon.  I am then away for a month (going to New Zealand for the 2nd half of the rugby world cup - we're both HUGE rugby fans and met thanks to the sport) so leaving it to 'age' with only the tiniest amount of work from outsourcers done on it will be interesting.

GoDaddy's TDNAM auction service has served me well - note that is the domain name after market, NOT the main auctions - I have never used those.  they are rather expensive at the higher levels (PR4+) vs Snapnames and Namejet but at PR1/2/3 they are much more affordable.

Backlinking strategy needs some thought.  Current is simple - try xrummer and scrapebox blasts from suppliers on Fiverr.  think the plans needs fleshig out and work out how to test etc! 

 

Achievements Yesterday

• Keyword research finished - 15 keywords located
• 5 Articles created - 8 so far (all over 600 words, most over 700), just over half way to my launch number of 15

Total time - about an hour and a half

Going well so far and on course for my friday launch.

Targets today

Finish articles

that's it. another 7 should take about 90 mins or so, which is all I am looking to do per day really.

I am also thinking of starting another one, only this time testing a brand new domain rather than an aged one bought at auction. There is a niche I have been keen to break for awhile, which is also complimentary to the one I am running here. Will give it some thought over the weekend.

Anyway not much of a report, but wanted to keep things updated on how I am doing

 

That's some good advice man and good luck with everything! Best wishes.

 

It's always a great idea to experiment with many types to find out which type of site works best, and all successfull IM do split testing

 

I am doing the same thing dude. Instead of targeting various micro niches sites, i am building a huge site which covers almost subjects of my knowledge. My procedure is very similar to yours but due to other business, i am not able to give proper time to update contents regularly. Well, lemme explain a bit
1) Targeted in creating huge site ( Already 100 pages are being indexed by google).
2) Bought a domain having age archive of at least 3 years.
3) Using Market Samurai, adwords keywords tool, spyfu, semrush and keywords spy for keywords research.
4) Targeting low competition, average searched keywords ( combination of long tailed and short) . Now my range is 1000 exact local matches US based per month.
5) Writing unique articles or spun the contents get from market samurai and checking every contents in plagiarisma.net if they are copied anywhere in net or not.
6) Posting the article in my site and recheck it with copyscape.
7) Check On site seo ( keywords in title, description meta tags, header etc) and keywords density.
8) Interlink the relevant and related articles.
9) Created facebook fan page for this and asking them to write unique articles, poems, quotations and if they are of quality i will modify and repost in my site with their name.
10) Then right now i am in off site Seo. So, i need your suggestion here. For unique and quality backlinks building, what procedure are you using? Can you elaborate a bit?

 

Just check dp for latest update.

 

Ok, latest update - all articles completed. Ran a little behind schedule so looking at getting everything online tomorrow morning...my other half is away on her hen do anyway so probably the perfect time to sit there and get it done. My initial plan after that was to get backlinking but right now with my other half away I thought a few hours article writing might be the way forward, backlinking can get done with people moving around me, article writing is best done alone.

Mind you it's Wales vs England just after lunch so I'll be off up the rugby club to watch that one, no work getting done from then!

 

@gjivan

Very similar, sounds like you are a little further down the road than me!

I have not put into action any backlinking plans as yet

My initial thoughts

1) By an xrummer blast for the home page from fiverr
2) Same for scrape box
3) Similarly find someone that uses AMR and see about doing an article shot or two
4) Buy some high PR backlinks within the niche

These were going to be done spread over the next month and then left for the month I am on honeymoon. Sorry that I can not be more specific but I don't have specifics in place! Certainly the suggestions there are low work (the more hands off I am the better) and should be pretty cheap, not looking to spend much getting this set up

 

Great Thread. Hope to watch it grow... and would like to know the domain at some point.

 

Interesting thread indeed!
I'm trying to do the same but as a newbie it's taking me months!