Keyword Sniping Case Study Update
March 28th, 2008 by CourtOk guys I have an update on they keyword sniping case study I have been working on. Back in December I created a niche site specifically to show everyone that I could get it ranked in Google and make money. That site happened to be about LASIK surgery and you can find it here: Colorado Lasik Surgery Guide.
Just so that you can get an idea of what has happened with the site so far, here’s a basic timeline:
- Dec. 30, 2007 - I purchased the domain, coloradolasiksurgeryguide.com. I bought it brand new.
- Dec. 31, 2007 - I created 5 posts and added About, Contact, Privacy Policy, and Terms and Conditions pages.
- Jan. 1, 2007 - Jan. 30, 2008 - I casually built some links to the site and reached as high as page 2 in Google for ‘colorado lasik surgery’, only to fall again in the rankings to page 16.
- Feb. 1, 2008 - I put the site on hold because it won’t move up in Google. The site was in Google’s sandbox.
- March 25, 2008 - The site appears to emerge from the sandbox (more on the sandbox here) and has appeared on the first page of Google in many data centers (I check that at McDar). I resume work on the site and create two new, unique posts to freshen up the content.
Right now it’s hard to be certain, but it appears that the site is coming out of the sandbox, which means I can finish doing the work that it will take to get the site ranked first in Google. Right now the site is already getting traffic again. If it falls back into the sandbox, I will have to wait another month or two.
The amount of work I’ve done to have a site ranked in that position right now (assuming it sticks) is ridiculously low.
If you would like to see where people lose with this strategy, take a look between Jan. 1 and March 25. People can’t accept that the site will come back so they give up on it. If you have unique content and legit links the site will always come back.
Guys to make this strategy work you have to get your niche sites up as soon as possible. As you can see, it has taken almost three full months for my case study to emerge from the sandbox. Unless it’s a false alarm, I’ll always be able to make money with it from here on out.
If any of you still aren’t using this strategy, get started!!! This has to be the easiest strategy out there. Guys I didn’t sprinkle magic pixie dust on this site - you’re looking at what I did! Do your research, get your domains, get your sites up now.
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March 28th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Two months is pretty good, I transitioned my blog from a blogspot to a personal domain (early Jan)and I still haven’t gotten organic traffic back.
I’m trying to keep my site, lean and mean, cutting back on a few things.
But you are right, Got to keep plugging away and not let the search engines get ya down.
March 28th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I can’t even get my sites indexed by Google now. I think you were able to point a nice PR5 link from this blog to your site? That gives you a big advantage over someone like me who is just starting out. Doesn’t it?
March 28th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Hey Jason,
I’d recommend one of two ways for getting a couple links and getting our site indexed:
1. Head over to the D-list and leave some relevant and constructive comments on a few blogs, preferably with some PR.
2. Go to http://addurl.nu and submit your site to a few directories with the appropriate anchor text and description.
These should help you get your site indexed more quickly, and they’re the first step to building links and doing serious seo.
Good luck!
- Mark
March 29th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Best way to get indexed is to point links at your site.
If you do the submit request… it may take weeks, it may get you sandboxed.
In addition to the other mentioned things.
Work on link trades. Although link for link trades don’t carry as much juice, it will help Google locate your site. The more links you point to your site, the better.
Go to bloggingzoom. This is one of the reasons Court and Vic made the site. It gives you an SEO advantage.
The directory suggestion is a good one, but some of the good directories take a while to review you.
The newer / less popular ones might push your link through faster. So if index is you major concern, maybe start at the bottom of the PR list, and work your way up.
Check out Vic’s link directory:
http://www.theedgedirectory.com/
And with the D-list. Make sure you check them. Not all have do follows. Some have special “rules”. But when you look for a post to comment. Go for high PR posts and their newer posts.
Lastly, consider some social sites. Lots are nofollow, but it’ll get your site out there, and may generate some links for you.
In all though, Court having his site to push his link will help, but he can’t use his site all the time.
I’m sure Court has many more sites he never lists here. Google doesn’t look kindly on using your sites to boost the hell out of your other sites.
March 28th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Now that you’ve noticed it’s out of the sandbox, how long before you can throw ads on it?
I have a few sites like this one that were relatively easy to get onto the first page of the SERPs for the targeted keyword, and I’m just wondering what the best time is to start ad placement.
March 29th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Hey Aaron!
I’ll probably be putting ads on there pretty soon. I wasn’t keeping ads off because of the sandbox though. It was because my updates on this site were sending a lot of traffic to the site which wouldn’t have converted to clicks.
I need to make sure my adsense click-through rate is as high as possible to avoid getting smart priced. Once the majority of traffic on the site is what naturally comes from the search engines I’ll put ads on there and they should convert great for me.
March 28th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Was not putting ads. on the site a deliberate strategy and if so is it one that you recommend for every site ?
March 29th, 2008 at 12:04 am
No, Vic. I usually recommend monetizing right from day one. This was a special case due to the click-through issue I mentioned to Aaron above. Hope that helps!
March 28th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Thanks Court for the update on the Case Study. Sometimes we need visual proof that it is as easy as you say.
Your results, as we’ve followed along, are an inspiration to those of us who have been apprehensively “sitting on the fence.”
March 28th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Thanks for the update Court! I’ve been spending a lot of time reading your informative posts and have put the keyword sniping to use. I’m a firm believer that with hard work, it’ll pay off.
Keep up the great work!
March 29th, 2008 at 12:10 am
Thanks Sal! Always feel free to ask any questions you have as you implement what I’ve covered.
March 28th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Court, I noticed that you didn’t post for almost 2 months while your site was in the sandbox. Was this intentional?
This next one is probably a dumb question but I’m new to the blogging world so bare with me. Does it hurt me in anyway to continue to add content during those 2-3 months that I could be in the sandbox?
March 29th, 2008 at 12:08 am
Yeah Luke it was intentional during those two months because I get so busy and I didn’t want to invest time into a site that was sandboxed. Now that it’s out I’ll add some content occasionally.
Not a dumb question at all! It won’t hurt you to add content while you’re sandboxed, and depending on your keyword you might not get sandboxed in the first place.
I recommend watching how google treats your site as you start to build links. If you think you’re sandboxed, you can hold off on adding content. On the other hand you could be better off with more content on the site when it comes out of the sandbox. Basically I’m saying it won’t hurt, and it could help, so it’s up to you!
March 29th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
I’ve had my KW Snip site sandboxed, but I continue to generate content.
My method is to find the long tail of my long tail. I find other related keywords to my main KW, but they usually only have 3-5 to 50 searches. I focus posts around those words. Although I don’t list well for my main kw, I do list so so for 50 other keywords. And the majority of my SE traffic comes from 1-20 hits from 50 different keywords.
I also find that traffic to be very targeted. They tend to have the longest time on site, and th e lowest bounce rate.
March 28th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Court, good points. I started following your advice with the keyword sniper case study, and it has progressed just like you said it would. I have also found that if I post new content once a week it helps boost its position. Thanks for the information, and keep up the good work!
March 29th, 2008 at 12:10 am
Great to have you here Larry! And you’re right, when you add new content it gives the bots something to come see, and it can boost your rankings. Thanks for the input.
March 29th, 2008 at 4:48 am
That is indeed a very interesting case study. I have been with you on this site and its development and am already a believer and this post only reinforces my faith in your system.
March 29th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Thanks for the update Court. I have created a couple of keyword sniping blogs since December. I love you technique.
March 29th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Court,
Great to see it out of the sandbox.
I have one question about aged domains.
I have bought several domains recently, and a couple I am pretty sure were “banned” by google as I feel they were spam sites. I have submitted them for reinclusion into the index, one has been so far, the other, nothing yet.
At what point should I monetize them to avoid raising red flags? Any tips on buying used domain names, as both of these still had PR3 status, but 0 indexed.
Thanks!
Elliott
March 29th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Monetizing them doesn’t seem to affect the process at all so you can monetize them as soon as you have some traffic.
I actually only buy used domains if they are indexed by Google - haven’t ever been able to get good results with a domain that’s banned!
March 29th, 2008 at 10:02 am
I asked this in the “questions you guys have” post earlier this week…
What are some really good link buidling tips. I became a top commenter on your blog for my niche site (not by spamming), and that was the majority of my backlinks. I am going to try and drop off next month, and see how that affects me.
What else can i do to improve the site’s stength?
March 29th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
There are tons of different methods that you an use to strengthen a site. Did you already read the article on authority building for this type of a site?:
http://courtneytuttle.com/2008/01/09/keyword-sniping-case-study-authority-building/
March 29th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Good info.s i got from this great
website and discussion,my website was indexed by google feb. but all of a sudden kicked out but now it s back indexing i don’t know why?
March 29th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I was just checking this site the other day and was wondering what was happening with the Lasik Surgery.
I hope you keep us updated for I am trying to build some Adsense income.
March 29th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Hey Court. Great post — I have a similar experiment going on regarding Elvis — but I never saw the sandbox effect. Any idea what triggers that?
Thanks,
Mark
March 29th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Hey Mark! I actually wrote about that earlier this week:
http://courtneytuttle.com/2008/03/25/brilliant-question-on-keyword-sniping/
March 29th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Thanks for sharing this Court - it’s much appreciated.
Sorry if you’ve covered this elsewhere, but could you expand on the “I casually built some links to the site” bit please?
March 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Hey Peter! I’ve actually written about this tons of times. Make sure you read this one:
http://courtneytuttle.com/2008/01/09/keyword-sniping-case-study-authority-building/
March 29th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Grats on coming out of the Sandbox Court. I hope your site stays out.
The other day I commented and reported my site came out. I spoke too soon. 4 day later, my site was sandboxed again. Went from page 4, to so far down I can’t find it.
March 29th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Hey Courtney, I saw that you recommend proud domains, so I went and checked out their site and they offer free hosting if you let them put their advertising on your site.
So here’s a thought - would it make sense to create a bunch of sites now and host them on Proud Domain, use their free hosting for three or four months during that “sandbox” period when no-one’s going to notice your site anyway…and then switch over to their paid hosting once the site starts to rise in the rankings and can make some money?
Also - is Proud Domains wordpress friendly?
March 29th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Yes Dana that would definitely make sense and ProudDomains is very friendly to WordPress.
March 30th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Good update. It would be interesting if you could publish the predicted keyword volumes along with the actual number of visitors you’re getting now that you’re ranking well.
March 30th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Whoops, that was meant to be a general comment. But about Wordpress - I set up a domain via Proud Domains following the Keyword Sniper approach and they can install Wordpress for you which makes it easier, but it wasn’t the latest version unfortunately.
March 29th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Hi Court…thanks for another inspiring update.
I have 5 sniper sites now, all using your free themes (not always the KSniper one though)
Almost all of them were or are sandboxed but they still get some hits because my keywords are very rare.
I just keep writing for them anyway because I like it.
I’m getting low hits, but excellent click-thru rates, so I am optimistic for the future.
Keep these great updates coming!
AL
March 30th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Not sure about your HTML / php knowledge, but check out
http://housecatproductions.com/2008/mask-your-keyword-snipping-site/
I outlined how to turn courts free themes into a KWS theme.
I think varying a theme is useful to help mask a footprint.
March 30th, 2008 at 10:32 am
thanks Justin!
Great info and just what I needed.
AL
March 31st, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I think what you’re doing in that post is a good idea. As much as I want to give credit back to Court for the help he’s provided to his readers, I’m not comfortable leaving a footprint on my niche blogs. I doubt Google would slap sites using the theme. What is more likely is someone wanting to thin out the competition reporting the site to Google and getting its Adsense account banned. Not a good thing.
Most of us have a personal blog. How about giving Court credit there? Include an anchored link in a relevant article (e.g. “Sites That Have Helped Me Make Money Online”). Or include him in your blogroll. But only on a site you’re not trying to make a living off of.
March 29th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I have only built a few websites in the past for personal reasons. My most recent site, an investment site dedicated to teaching people how to invest, was created as its a hobby of mine. Trying to get organic traffic from this site is a complete headache. It has only been up for about 15 days and gets around 50 visitors a day. Only about 5% of that comes from search engines. Bleh
March 30th, 2008 at 12:34 am
I have already created a few sites running and intends to see the results in 3 months time. I hope it will work out the way i want.
March 30th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I dont see any adsense or affiliate links on the Lasik site at this point. At what point will you add monetization and do you wait till some traffic level to do this to rank with Google mnore quickly.
March 30th, 2008 at 9:26 am
I just wanted to add that this post finally made me understand the experience I had with my adsense site. I put it up in November, started writing ezinearticles that were first posted at the end of November. Wrote 40-odd articles, and I finally got sick of it because every time I stopped writing articles articles the traffic died down and I felt like an article writing hamster on a treadmill. So at the beginning of February I stopped writing articles and just gave up.
So…around mid-Feburary…traffic starts picking up for no reason. End of March - more traffic than ever. I haven’t written any articles or updated the site(a wordpress blog) in two months, and NOW the site is doing well and made about $130 this month. Given that I haven’t touched the site in two months…heck, I could do a few dozen sites like that and in four to six months I’d be making some decent money.
Note: I put about 40 blog posts on my site as well, all original, informative posts and all with at least a few different variations of my keyword phrase/niche in each post.
March 30th, 2008 at 11:39 am
I so love how you make everything sound simple. And doable. This is a very motivating post for me. It’s one of those “Anybody can do it!” posts..anyone with patience and a bit of persistence. Thanks Court.
March 30th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I like the theme that you chose for the Lasik example. You elected not to add any monetization just yet. When you do put ads on this site, where will you place them? On the sidebar? Around the posts? Above/below the posts?
March 30th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
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March 31st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
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March 31st, 2008 at 2:45 pm
This post is featured in today’s FullTiltBlogging.com’s Daily Blog Summary - a 5 minute summary of the top 50 Make Money Blogging sites. Great post.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Court,
I noticed that other tld’s were available like coloradolasiksurgery.org etc. Do you only use .com’s and if so can you tell me the reason.
thanks,
roger
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 am
It really is just as much about patience, isn’t it, Court? I think this is one factor that leads to people giving up on this as too many demand instant results. I have a few sites which go into the sandbox and I’ll just wait till they get out and do some maintenance and linkbuilding in the meantime.
April 5th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Hi Court,
Great information. I have a couple of questions:
(1) Does the keyword phrase need to be part of the URL for this approach to be optimal? I have a couple of URLs which I might want to use for this, but they don’t include the entire keyword phrase. As an example (not the real URL), I own MyFujiApple.com and the keyword phrase I want to use is “Fuji Apples.” Do you feel that would be an OK URL?
(2) Do you feel that you should use a .com or would a .info work well enough?
I look forward to your reply. Again, great posts on keyword sniping. Thanks for all of the info.
Lane
April 9th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I think I’m missing the part where you actually monetize the site. Yes, you’ve shown it doesn’t take a ton of work to rank for an uncompetitive three-word phrase but 1) what are your traffic stats and 2) how much money are you making and how?
April 10th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I totally agree that you need to have faith in your sites, even when they drop, that they return in their rankings. That’s one of the most important things when you’re advertising online — you need to have patience. Many of the most competitive phrases and keywords won’t rank easily; you need to put in the work to make the successful. Like many other things in life, it requires perseverance to be successful. However, when you do keep working towards a goal, then you will eventually succeed. This laser-like focus will keep you going, even when your site dips in rankings.
April 13th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I’ve been following your keyword sniping series with much interest. I sure need something that works. I am getting MINIMAL traffic. Questions:
As of today 2008-04-13, you are on page three in Google for “colorado lasik surgery” (using quote marks for the Google search). Not in top ten pages for the term without quotes. Is that enough to make any AdSense money?
Has the site search position dropped since your post about this back on March 28?
Are there other keyword phrases that you get good ranking for and that have decent search volume so that you get some page views?
I looked at the site for the <h1 tags. They are top right, black on black. I thought Google frowned on that sort of obfuscation. Or is the style sheet stuff that sets up the <h1 sufficient to 1) make Google happy or to 2) confuse them enough so they don’t find it to penalize you?
Regards,
DB