Hello Everyone, This is my first post although I have been loitering on this board for a couple months now. My question is simply what other things I should be doing to generate improved SERPs and increased traffic on one of my adsense sites? My goal is to get to about 170 unique visitors a day and, I am currently at about 35 to 45. Details: Currently, I have a website that is almost three months old and gets roughly 35 unique visitors a month. The site has about 30 pages to it and I am adding a page or two a week. Promotion Facts For promotion, I have used a service to submit to 800 free directories (% of Directories submitted to with PR was about 43% of them). I have also posted on a number of forums with an anchor text link back to me sign. Also, just recently I had a service submit to social bookmarking sites. (I have seen a slight job in unique visitors from this already (+10) Finally, I have submitted about 8 articles to the top 10 article submission sites. About 2 of the 8 were unique articles to each one. Now starting to write unique article for each article directory as much as possible. Current Rankings I rank well for my main keyword although I am not ranking well for the other keywords on Google. Ex. main keyword 1st, but the others I am either in the high 50s to 100s for a small few and for others well past 500s. Also, I have currently about 40 links and top competitors tend to have 75. Finally, I currently have a PR of zero. Please advise what has worked for you in increasing traffic. Questions I have been thinking about: 1. Is it very important that the majority directory submissions have a PR of 1 or better? Is this only a slight plus for an adsense site particulary with the Google shift in algorithm in Sep 07? 2. What results do most people expect from social bookmarking? What should I be expecting? 3. Does blogging comments still work at all or is this pretty much spam at this point? 4. Article Marketing: How many articles a week should I be shooting for to see good results? 5. Since this is a relatively a new site (will be three months old after next week) is this part of the reason I am not ranking as well? If so, what type of improved ranking can expect to see over the course of the year from your experience? I apologize for the length, but this new to me and would appreciate any help you guys could give me. Plus, if you need additional information, please let me know. Thanking everyone in advance, JDSalinger
I think you should stop focusing on "Quick and Fast". Their is no get rich quick program! Like anything, it takes time! I recommend you to build your links on a natural even flow. Do not go all out and submit to over 100 directories in 1 day. For new sites, Google will think of it as spam. You need to build your "reputation" with Google which would include content, and site history. Most SE's have changed so dramatically over the past year / couple years. Social bookmarking is ok but you want to make sure you get your link posted to the correct and relevant content. For starters, you could always submit to a few high PR sites. Making constant updates by adding unique content to your site is key as well. With time you could increase your pr and site traffic. I hope this helps. Regards PS... why go for 170 uniques when you could get over 1700 ??? Then your conversion ratio is 10x more... It's possible to get that traffic. It's really not that much traffic still...
1. Is it very important that the majority directory submissions have a PR of 1 or better? Is this only a slight plus for an adsense site particulary with the Google shift in algorithm in Sep 07? Yes, it's a slight plus only. 2. What results do most people expect from social bookmarking? What should I be expecting? Social bookmarking can bring huge traffic to your website. 3. Does blogging comments still work at all or is this pretty much spam at this point? Blog commenting is still the best way to get referral traffic. if comment is related and interesting you can really see the difference. 4. Article Marketing: How many articles a week should I be shooting for to see good results? There is no fix numbers, if a single article is appealing, it will bring good traffic. The thing is that just keep submitting article without thinking of results, you will see good results in long run. 5. Since this is a relatively a new site (will be three months old after next week) is this part of the reason I am not ranking as well? If so, what type of improved ranking can expect to see over the course of the year from your experience? New site need time and effort to rank well for all keywords, try posting more and more good and unique contents and try optimize posts for your keywords. Again good results need time and patience. You can not turn all Google traffic to your website in a day. There is no secret other than hard work. Hope that helps.
Guys, you cannot start your project "top to bottom". Fistly, you gotta understand there's some tools available to discover full potencial of niche, how many visitors days etc. I see alot of newbies trying to start the house... by the roof. Go out there and searche some niches - above 1000 visitors days. Check out the competition in search engines. And then decide to move on. Not the oposite... lol
Hi Everyone, Thanks for the first round of replies. JPrice, I agree with your advice and, I am building it for the long-haul. I actually have been very careful and have not submitted to too many directories in one day and this was setup so not to have more than 30 in any given day. Still, my question is whether the submission directories will keep giving you value if you keep submitting to them or does this value from them level off after you get on a number of them. Sunil, It sounds like you think the most of blogging and social bookmarking. I would like to learn more from you on what exactly you have done to get the most out of this. How often in a month do you use these services and what exactly do you do? Scubita, Based on your comments, it sounds like you think I may have picked the wrong niche. I am assuming from this that you are used to getting a ton of unique visitors by 3 months of setting up a new website. I think that is great. I would really like to learn exactly how you pick niches. I personally use a strategy where are look at three things (1) see if can get key word in domain, (2) search engine results in google is under 2 to 3 million, and (3) the key word has at least 200 daily count based on SEOBook's word tracker count. Please let me know how you go about choosing an account. If you would feel more comfortable, send me a PM or email. Thanks again for all your responses. I am really curious to hear what others have to say and what specifically has worked for them. I would prefer specifics over generalities. Best, JDSalinger
JD, Usually submission directories will only allow you to submit only once. Search engines and yahoo, I heard from a lot of webmasters to "re submit"... I'm a true believer that you SHOULD NOT ever have to resubmit your site to Google or Yahoo. If you use Google webmaster tools, you can see when they crawl your site and also can adjust the crawl rating from normal to fast as well as use a lot of other helpful webmaster tools. Directories are different in many ways such as one directory will place you further to the top of the category due to PR and remember, you have to build traffic to help support PR. No traffic = nobody knowing about your site. Remember: Content builds traffic, traffic build link backs to your site, then PR goes up. This is the natural way that a site SHOULD gain PR... Pretty much, give an incentive such as great content for making someone want to link to your site.
When your website is new and not much known to world. These social bookmark sites can give you a good start. Try doing StumbleUpon for really good and interesting post and people will flow to your website like anything. Keep in mind that the traffic comes from these sites are onetime. You have to convert this traffic to your regular visitors by providing them a good reading. Otherwise they will never be back again. There is no count on the number of times i use the service, but if i feel that the post i wrote is worth reading by others, i do StubmleUpon and it gives me really good result. There are many good bookmark sites like digg or del.icio.us . Digging self post is not good and it's not at all effective in del.icio.us. So you can say someone else to digg your post. Later when your site will be popular, people will digg it anyway. You can use http://socialposter.com/ or http://onlywire.com/ to save your time to submit to all these social bookmark sites. Thanks, Sunil
Everyone thanks for the replies, I have few extra questions. Sunil, I am still curious on average; how many additional unique visitors do you pick up with each social bookmarking article you get. 5+, 10+, 50+, 100+? How about for your blog posting(added unique visitors)? 5+, 10+, 50+, 100+? Everyone else (2 questions), 1. What have you seen as having the biggest impact on increased traffic (recognize I am taking out directory submissions and building quality content): a. Blogging comments b. Social bookmarking or c. Something else 2. What are your basic plans for the first three months in promoting your adsense websites? For instance, I focus on trying to get a keyword domain and do directory submissions followed with article marketing. How have your strategies fared? Best, JDSalinger
More than 300 or 400 unique visitors sometimes, but on an average, 100+ for sure with social network. Blog comments is the referral traffic and it's ever lasting, I get more than 50 unique visitor everyday for one of my related blog comment posted on a popular blog. For one of my blog, 40% traffic is referral which comes from other blogs because of the comments i posted.
JDSalinger (btw, nice nic, I've used Holden Caulfield in the past) - Traffic isn't something you should really worry about. All the time you spend doing stuff to gain traffic is time spent away from doing the one thing that will guaranteed increase your traffic over time and that's building unique, original content. Content is the best way to get traffic but it takes a long time and a lot of work to build a site into something that gets a lot of traffic. Yeah, there are a lot of shortcuts you can take but they will bite you in the butt in the end. I know, I've been bitten so much I can't sit down. Social networking is only good for "social" traffic, mostly passers-by who take a look and forget about you unless you really have something worth bookmarking. See, that's the point. Make your site(s) something people want bookmark and come back again. Active, repeat visitors are the holy grail and once you have that, you're set. Sure you can get bursts of traffic from StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, etc but if your site isn't interesting enough and ready to offer visitors something they can bank on, you're going to get a lot of bounces.
Sunil and Bryce, Thank you for the posts. Everyone, Here, is what I am thinking about now. Ok, I recognize that good content will translate into good traffic down the line. Naturally, the more pages you have leads to a bigger showing on the web and is more likely to entice the casual viewer to bookmark if they like the 1 or 2 articles they read first. My question is really when will you start to see that happen as part of my challenge is that I am not ranking well enough on certain keywords to get the casual viewers there in the first place. Since my website is relatively new almost 3 months old, I am wondering when I can expect to see my pages climb in the SERPS so that I get more casual viewers? Currently, I have about 40 unique visitors and if I continue on the plan I had mentioned in the first post of this thread, when can I expect to see a jump realistically? I realize every website is different, but what I am saying is 3 months from now, can I expect the unique visitors to likely double to 80, or would it be 6 months from now? Basically, I am curious to see how it has worked for people who have had a adsense website going for a couple of years. Did you see a gradual increase like +5 increased visitors a week or month or was there a number of plateaus like when you hit the 6 month mark or 1 year mark? Another question: How much do you think backlinks helps in your rankings? Sunil, I noticed one of the websites in your sig has about 20 links to it in Google. Is this a relatively new site? I am just curious on what level of backlinks you try to shoot for? Everyone, What type of target goals do you guys have for backlinks for a website at 3 months, 6 months, a year, etc or what do you really use to gauge your progress for the "Long" term? Sunil, Thanks for posting the stuff about blogs. I am really considering adding this to my marketing plan. How have you gone about tracking down good blogs? Is it merely doing a search with the niche name and blog? Have you considered having a service do it for you? Bryce, BTW, yes, I like my screen name too. It is funny and a little sad, but you are the first person to comment on it. My guess is probably many people recognize the name, but aren't sure from where. Bryce, you mentioned social bookmarking brings social traffic, what are the types of niches that you have seen work well in this area: clothes?, video games? travel destinations? As always, thanks for all the help. Best, JDSalinger
How much do you think backlinks helps in your rankings? Backlinks will give your site a little power to be visible in search engines soon. As Google says- It's like authority, More backlinks, more authorities, hence more chances of apprearing in search results. I noticed one of the websites in your sig has about 20 links to it in Google. Is this a relatively new site? Other than my personal blog "Technology Makes life Easier" which is more than 2 years old , all other blogs are 3 months old but i have a good amount of traffic on all blogs which includes referral and search engine traffic. You can see the correct number of links from Yahoo, not from this Google link: operator. How have you gone about tracking down good blogs? Is it merely doing a search with the niche name and blog? Have you considered having a service do it for you? When you will start writing about something, you will get to know the god of it. Because they will always be on top of every search results. For Ex:- I write about latest technology updates and let say a news came that Microsoft purchased Yahoo. Most of the time, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, CNet and many more will be on top. Now you know where you have to comment. I know that once you start writing, you will really get to know about good blogs to post comments. I never consider any service, Once i read about a software commentKahuna here on DP, I tried it, but I am not satisfied with the results, so I dont use any service. Just when something new happens in my niche, i post it as well as give my comments to other blogs as well. Thanks, Sunil
Well... I just launched my new site for tutorials and I jumped from 9,928,505 to 9,915,200. I increased 13,305 page ranks in alexa. If you take a view of my site, click on any of the tutorials, then you can see the bookmark icon... Alone I just received 3 other peoples diggs and including mine on Digg.com that converted to over 70+ visitors in 1 day from the Digg I had created for the photoshop gothic manipulation technique. (So YES, submitting to some social bookmarks do in fact help. Hope this answers one of your many questions. ) also, REMEMBER that MySpace is using their msplinks so having a link on your myspace profile is kinda useless. I have submitted my RSS feeds to Yahoo and other RSS directories like FeedBurner and Ping-o-Matic, My XML sitemap to Google, used Google webmaster tools in order to "speed up" the "Crawl" since I've been adding a lot of content to my site. Submitted my sites to the SE's and several high PR Directories. Added some outbound and external links to relevant sites with high PR. From here on, time will only tell and within this time hard work shall pay off. I have to add new content every single day!!!!! Also on your tech news type of blog. I don't want to let your hopes down but do you realize that many many news services such as Fox, NBC, etc. get this information sooner than you? They might not announce it on television news however it is added to their site even way before they broadcast on television. That's highly competitive my friend. I don't recommend doing something like that however have a tech blog with more of your opinions rather than what happened (like your competition). Have titles like, Should Yahoo Have NOT Sold Out to Microsoft? I Think It Was a Mistake and Why and then write your opinions about this topic. Then you will have a bunch of blogger reply to it with their own opinions. Finally my friend, you will be able to succeed with traffic and awesome content. You could get 1st page ranking for terms like "yahoo and microsoft mistake?", "mistake that microsoft purchased yahoo", "why did microsoft buy yahoo?" and so on... I hope this helps you a lot. Good luck!
Sunil, Thanks for providing your information about blogging. You answered my question. Jprice259, Glad to hear about your success with social bookmarking. I checked out your site and, I can see why it is popular and hope it pays off financially for you. If I read your post correctly, it sounds like you are implying you are rising in the SERPs as well, is this correct? If so, that's great. One final question: How often do you send stuff in to be social bookmarked in a month roughly? TheVCCMatey, I do not have an exact figure, but I would guess that it averages to just under $1 a day. My focus isn't on payouts at this time as I am more concerned about getting quality traffic for the long haul. However, I would like to know what I can expect 3, 6, and 9 months from now in traffic based on my current plan. What has been your experience with your websites? Did you see a gradual increase? How long did it usually take for your website unique visitors to rise from say 30 to 170 or 200 unique visitors? Everyone else, Sorry about the long posts. It is true I have a lot of questions. Just want to get a feel for what has worked for you guys. Any and all comments are really appreciated. Best, JDSalinger
Great post and great replies, have learnt a lot from this post and have bookmarked it, keep up the good work guys !
JD, The greatest thing about using addthis.com or gigya.com is that you can actually get stats from who bookmarked what and when, how many bookmarks, and for what page of your site. It simply tracks all the bookmarks or submissions that have been made by the users that you have attracted from traffic. My SERP's are doing pretty well, I use the Google webmaster tools <- go check it out, I'm dead serious, it will give you more information about what Google is doing with your website. My planning on my tutorial site is above and beyond many webmaster's expectations. I want to attract over 200,000 visitors per day in the next 2 years. I'm confident that I will be able to achieve this. I hope you take my advise about the free "tracking" systems and apply it. Many noob webmasters or many hundred thousands of sites don't even do their web stats and use the free tools that are offered such as addthis.com. Just think of it as having more advantage over webmasters that don't use these tools! Sunil Thanks for your submission!!!!