Just thought I'd mention that in this latest Google pr update, one of my BANS sites that I launched in March now has a pr 4. Several other BANS I set up in the last four months also have a pr4. A bunch came in at pr3. I also see a report in another forum that there are recently launched BANS pr5s out there. I don't want to get into a debate over whether pr is or is not meaningful. It's just that I don't believe Google would assign pr to BANS sites if they had flagged them all as "thin affiliate sites" as some would suggest. So much for that argument.
I have several BANS sites that are now PR3s (no 4s yet, but frankly I haven't done my due diligence in promoting them), some ranking very well for their keywords. I get steady organic traffic from Google for my sites. I think the latest changes in BANS 3 have really closed a bunch of the holes Google wasn't liking. Now I just need to catch up on my site launches! I'm way behind my projections for 2008.
That's really great, so how are you guys getting them ranked? Are you adding backlinks by adding to directories? All of my BANS related sites have PR0. Any advice?
Same for me. I know how to do articles and such for my main sites, but how the heck do you promote a BANS site?
backlinks are good for PR, try and add a couple/few each month, I've read somewhere that google does not like too many too quick as it is not "natural". The higher the pr of the site linking to your site the better. one tool to find who links to you or who google thinks links to you is the google webmasters tools, another useful site is wholinkstome.com
I am finally getting a handle on marketing for my sites. The whole month of May I'm dedicating to raising the ranking of my existing sites rather than launch new ones. I use a combination of article marketing, social bookmark sites, directory submissions, and the equivalent of glad-handing: finding relevant forums and posting real content with a link slipped into the mix. Since I've been doing more marketing my traffic (and profits) have gone up at least 60%.
Here are other ways you can drive traffic to your BANS store: -craigslist; -classfied ads; -banner ads at relevent website.
I mentioned craiglist as I have one friend who made money via eBay & craiglist in the past. I m not sure if using craiglist can get you banned from EPN. However, you can use craiglist to build up an opt in list of interested buyer, then direct them to your BANS site via email.
@Potentmix, if I may ask is your site with the highest google pr also the site with the highest google traffic ? Its not always clear what the correlation is, but you sound like you know what you're about
This is a valid point because I have a PR0 site that brings in a ton of organic traffic from google. The weirdest thing is that it's a highly saturated market.
As I mentioned above I don't want to get into a protracted discussion about whether pr does or does not relate to a boost in traffic. Suffice it to say that so far, this new site is doing quite well in it's infancy. I have much older sites with lower pr that have far more traffic. Part of my point is that Google must attach some importance to making pr public, or it wouldn't do so. From that, I also derive the conclusion that pr is a factor given an unknown measure of weight in the Google algorithim. Beyond that, it's all a great mystery residing in the minds of a few Mountain View engineering denizens whimsically adjusting the knobs in response to what seo gurus and spammers are doing at the moment.
Thanks for that Potentmix, I think pr is one of a large number of important variables, but possibly more important than the others,
You should not rely only on SE to drive traffic. Dont put all your eggs in one basket and do diversify your traffic source.
add me to the list of a successful update with Google. what I am usually finding is my new stores when launched usually show in the top 2 pages of Google for my keywords. They stay for about 2 weeks on average and slide back to page 10 or beyond. (some do stick though. Then through backlink building, they usually crawl back to page 1 or there abouts come update time. I have come a long way in SEO and can usually tell right away after indexing if the main page is optimized correctly. I highly suggest attaching Wordpress blogs and writing articles for the article directories. Sometimes, depending on the subject matter they go viral and will show up all over the place. I do not go crazy with directory submissions, but do them. I also shoot for 5-10 link trades with like sites. If you do everything at the correct pace your site should seed well on page 1 or 2 by 6 months time.
I've got a minisite that got PR3 in recent update. Not too shabby consider it only has 10 pages. my secret? quality articles and links.