Keyword Sniping Into the Future
May 14th, 2008 by MarkEvery business owner should be thinking about the longevity and sustainability of his or her income streams. This is especially true for web business owners because we invest huge amounts of time into our sites, as opposed to money. It may sound a little crazy, but I’d rather lose money than time. I can earn more money; I can never get time back. That being the case, I want to make sure any project I invest time into is going to have lasting value.
Build Your Sites to Last
Some of you may have wondered if your keyword sniping websites will provide an income that can last years beyond when you set them up. They can, and they should. You’ll just have to be proactive in making sure your income streams not only don’t stop flowing, but grow. Here are a few things you can do to protect your future earnings:
1. First and foremost, make sure your content has value to a searcher. I’m not saying your sniper sites need to be the Encyclopedia Britannica, but I am saying that a reader should be able to learn something substantive by reading any page on your site. Quality, original content will protect you from being labeled a “Made for Adsense” site, which will get your account banned.
2. Strengthen your winners. I hope you’ll follow the advice to create 10+ (or 50+) sniper sites. In the short term the best way to have a high average daily income is to have as many fishing lines in the water as possible. In the long term you’ll start to identify which of your sites are performing best in terms of traffic and daily income.
When those patterns begin to emerge, pick your two or three most successful sites and focus effort on them. Add more content, build more links, and consider expanding into more a competitive, more lucrative niche. Any sniper site should earn between $5 and $20 per day; you can expand the best of them into sites that earn $50 or $100+ per day.
3. “Cut” your losers. Why do I put cut in quotes? Because I’m not necessarily saying you should get rid of your lower performing sites. If they are covering their own expenses (domain renewal and hosting), and not taking up any of your precious time, why not keep them around. They gain value as they age in Google’s index. Down the road you can either re-visit them when your winners are fully developed and you have more time, or you can sell them on the open market.
So by ‘cut your losers’ what I really mean is don’t allocate them mental or creative energy. Part of making your income sustainable is not spending your most precious asset (time) on sites that you know aren’t performing for you.
Always Keep An Eye On the Future
Above all else, maintain a long term perspective. Forgive the sports analogy, but today’s home runs aren’t likely to win tomorrow’s baseball games. We’ll all have to adapt and grow with the times. Optimize your business the best you can for today’s environment, and be flexible. The only people that will lose the ability to make money online are those who choose to stop learning and adapting.
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May 14th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Well said! This is the way to truly make a lot of money on the internet.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Hi Mark,
Thank you for sharing your knowledge! I’m always looking for ways to improve myself and I’m glad to have found your blog. Thank you for sharing with us.
Cheers,
Roy
May 14th, 2008 at 11:37 am
A couple of points.
Adsense sites can have very limited quality and still be well within guidelines. They don’t have to offer a detailed explanation or even an answer to the visitor’s question. In fact, the ads will probably perform better if they aren’t of great quality. Of course, they can’t be gibberish or certain types of scrapes (some are actually OK) but sweating for hours over the details of a post for a blog intended for Adsense clicking search visitors is a waste of time and will cause a much lower CTR, probably well under 1%.
Underperforming sites can be de-monetized and moved into a link cluster supporting position. As they age and obtain links they can be used to strengthen the search engine position of the money sites.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Both great points Frank. When it comes to sites optimized for Adsense, there is such a thing as content that’s too good.
What types of scrapes would be okay? That one is news to me, very interesting.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
In doing some keyword research I’ve found some Adsense sites that wrappered content like news feeds, newsgroup postings, article feeds and the like in their own content. I’ve even seen some pure WordPress excerpt scrapper blogs that are indexed and displaying Adsense and have been for a while.
I’m not sure how they pass muster, but they apparently do.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:47 am
I was just wondering…how strict is Google in their interpretation of sites created strictly for adsense? A lot of keywords, especially if they are very specific, really don’t have a ton of information on them. So it’s a stretch to create 10+ pages about the one keyword…and it takes some imagination to make them. Does anyone have experience getting their account banned?
May 14th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I registered a site late April and just this last weekend finished my 10 posts. I’m already around 150 on Google. Not bad I’d say. I have been trying to trade links with some related blogs but mine sticks out like a sore thumb in the niche I am in. I already emailed 10 or so blogs and no one even responded. When they check out my site (I know because of statcounter) they just see a website that looks and smells like an adsense site. How can I better trade links? Or should I focus on your other methods?
Thanks,
Dave
May 14th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Here are some ideas
1. If you’re using Court’s Keyword Sniper theme, switch to another one of his SEO optimized themes that looks more ’social’ for your niche. The idea is to camouflage your blog as a new flagship blog rather than an obvious niche marketing blog.
2. Add some social widgets like MyBlogLog or EntreCard. Of course, you shouldn’t be monetized at this point so smart pricing and the like won’t come into play. You can remove these widgets later once you monetize.
3. Do speedlinking post in your niche. This should help grease the wheels if you reach out with one-way links of your own. It also helps build the social blog illusion.
4. Keep building links outside your niche. While relevant links are good, links is links, so don’t ignore other link building opportunities.
5. Build your own link cluster to support this site, essentially make your own relevant links.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I like all your ideas Frank, and especially number 5. If you buy into the idea that you should be starting multiple sniper sites (and I hope you do), then you can start several sites at once and give them blogroll links from each other.
An example would be starting 3 sites: one about rifles, one about pistols, and one about shotguns. They all fall under the umbrella of guns, but they each have a unique set of keywords you can optimize for. Putting all three sites on the blogrolls of the others will give you somewhat relevant links every time you add content.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
“Do speedlinking post in your niche” I am not sure what that is? Could someone please explain this term?
As far as SEO Themes I think they are awesome as well as the SEO plug-in.
Thanks for the post Mark!
May 14th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
It would be a post that linked to other sites that mentioned your keyword or long tails. This could be other blogs but it could include authority news and information sites as well. Spammers rarely link out to sites other than their own so it seems to increase your credibility with both Google and other site owners.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:17 am
I spoke too soon. I got one link exchange. I guess you just throw enough lines in the water and don’t worry about the ones that don’t get bit.
Dave
May 14th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
You make some excellent points, especially about keeping the low earners around as long as they cover the expenses. I sold a handful of domains a few years ago that I wish now I wouldn’t have since they would be aged nicely by now.
Also, if one is worried about having there sniper sights labeled MFA they could always not have Adsense but instead other CPC or CPA ads displayed. Their are alternatives that can have a person earning more per site than Adsense.
May 14th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Mark,
Great post. I’m glad you are continuing with the keyword sniper series. I’m really getting excited about setting up these types of websites. I have a few in the works and I’m looking at buying some domains today.
I have a question for you about domain names. I am thinking about purchasing one in particular that has five words in it and thirty letters. I could get a slightly shorter one with a hyphen in it. I’m wondering what you think is best.
Having a long five word domain name, or a shorter one with a hyphen or two in it? For Keyword sniping purposes, I know it doesn’t necessarily have to be memorable and will probably never be directly typed into a browser, but I guess I’m wondering which name would be more optimized for search.
thanks!
May 14th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
As far as optimization for search goes all that matters is getting your target keyword into the domain. Ideally you want it in your domain exactly as you’re optimizing for it. For example, if your keyword is ‘purple window shades’ you could have ‘mypurplewindowshades.com’ or ‘purplewindowshadesdeluxe.com’.
Length isn’t really a concern in Keyword Sniping, although having a long ugly domain name would hurt the resale value of the domain and the site, as would including hyphens.
If you want to have maximum seo effect, and maximum resale value - keep the domain as short as possible while still including your keyword, don’t hyphenate, and use the .com if possible.
Good luck with your sites.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
You know the “cut your losers short” advice is probably the most important point in this article. I’ve been making sniper sites for a few months, and I can tell you that it’s almost impossible to predict up front which ones will be winners and which will not. It’s just too complex. So don’t fall in love with any of your topics - time spend trying to “fix” sites that don’t earn is far better spent expanding proven winners.
Anyway, you might be interested in my little project. I’m trying to earn a million dollars starting with a dime I found in the street. I’m using sniper sites as a key component of the strategy. Check it out: the Million-Dollar Dime.
Thanks for all the great info. Have learned a lot here.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Whoops, let’s try that link again: the Million-Dollar Dime. (Messing up my own link in a blog comment - talk about bush league!
)
May 14th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I just wanted to say that in a world of hyped up, half truths, (uh, if any) repetitive garbage, your site is a refreshing read! I’ve gotten more ‘nuggets’ from the past week or so, than in a VERY long time. (And I’m probably on about 200 different publisher’s lists)
I get your feed in my inbox, and I always drop whatever I’m doing to read it.
Thanks, and keep the good stuff coming!
May 15th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
More valuable info..Thank you Court!
I just launched my first kw sniping site and I’m very excited about it, am looking into more sites as well.
Olga
May 15th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Also,
I want to say that I totally agree with the comment made by Olaina, I have erased most all my feeds that were coming from the “hyped-up” “over-convoluted half truth posts” and the NO-content content from the so called “gurus” who have absolutely nothing valuable to say,
THIS site is so different!
Thank you Court for always giving usable, valuable and honest info!
May 16th, 2008 at 1:21 am
These days, many people are just interested in a quick buck. They set their site up, spend loads of effort on the first few months, and when they dont see the fruits within those months, they give up. Not only that, they load their sites with more ads than quality content. I totally agree with your first point. That i believe is the most important point.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:10 am
I agree with Vera but then many as well all they do is create a content that is self sufficient together with a domain + AdSense. Just use a dozen of those and they manage to earn traffic to generate revenue higher than domain and hosting costs. This way they don’t need to waste time on updating on the site everytime. But then the content must be good enough of course.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:29 am
I fail to see how BANS sites and colorado lasik surgery provide quality content and yet it is making ~$400 a month?
This site however is top notch.
Nick
May 17th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I am still trying to figure out how SEO works and why with all the keywords..
May 19th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Hi Court
I’m fairly new to this and have just started building a few sites using your techniques. I find the most time consuming part, at this stage at least, is the keyword research - that’s probably because I’m not using the right tools yet!
If I manage to get up to 20 sniper sites, which is my initial goal, how long do you think it would take each month to manage them - assuming all the pages are built and links found. Is it just continuous link building after that?
Ray
May 21st, 2008 at 11:16 am
It’s your keyword sniping articles that keep me coming back Court. Thank you for them!
May 24th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Hi webmaster!
May 24th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Hi webmaster!
May 24th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Hi webmaster!
June 19th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
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