Comments on: Case Study of a Niche Wordpress Site

By: Scott Bikes

Scott Bikes — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:42:33 +0000

Howdy, I found your website a little while ago and have got through all the posts and comments quietly. I thought might make my firstpost. Not really sure what to comment but here goes. Interesting blog. Will call back soon to see what else youd like to offer.

By: EssEtch

EssEtch — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 06:06:53 +0000

1. In your introduction, the link to the website being discussed leads to a parked domain with a link farm. There is nothing to refer now. You may like to mention that at the outset.

2. The link containing your reader’s name leads to an obscure page about a gamesite forum.

3. The name is Josh Spaulding. (Good girls like you are not allowed typos!)

4. Thanks for a useful blog.

By: NBWeb.it - Nicola Boschetti

NBWeb.it - Nicola Boschetti — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:03:10 +0000

It's ok Caroline, thanks for the note :) NBWeb.it - Nicola Boschetti's last blog post..Google AdSense: la scelta delle keywords

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:08:02 +0000

@NBWeb, I did use a few tools to check ranking but none of them did really want I wanted so I gave up. These days if I want to check I simply go to Google and search for my keyword phrase and see where I come up. To be honest I don’t pay much attention to rankings as they change all the time anyway.

I’m not really an expert on SEO at all. I recommend you read Josh Spaulsding’s ebook called the Easy SEO Report – its short, concise, easy to read and free. It’s linked in my list of free IM ebooks – look at the top left of the blog for the link.

By: NBWeb.it - Nicola Boschetti

NBWeb.it - Nicola Boschetti — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:36:57 +0000

Hello Caroline,

i did a “keyword rank” for my most targeted keywords, but no one of them is highly indexed. It sounds pretty strange to me since i receive quite a few visits from SEs using some keyprhases, but if i do a keyword rank there is no result….

I would have two question, if you don’t mind to answer:

1) which tool do you use for checking keyword ranking?
2) you check keyword ranking for single posts or for whole domain?
3) there are many articles around here on how to improve keyword targeting on writing a post, but could you suggest me some guidelines to follow?

Thanks – Nicola

NBWeb.it – Nicola Boschetti’s last blog post..Google AdSense: la scelta delle keywords

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:26:25 +0000

@NBWeb, does your site rank highly for the keywords you have chosen? If it does then those keywords are poor choices as they are not being searched on. If your site does not rank highly then you need to work harder to get in the top 10 at least.

By: NBWeb.it

NBWeb.it — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:39:00 +0000

Hello Caroline,

i got back to this post of yours, because i would have a question about the topic “Main Keyword Choice”.

For my newest blog, i choosed carefully a set of 10 keywords (phrases /w 2-words) and i worked hard to build 10 posts on those topics (in my italian language).

Well, after a month of publishing of those articles, no traffic so far on those pages… i am wondering what’s the key to get the traffic i am hoping to…. i thought that publishing articles with a good SEO structure for my blog would be enough (and obviously marketing it a bit), but no traffic from SE is coming….

What is your opinion?

Thanks :)

NBWeb.it’s last blog post..Google AdSense: la scelta delle keywords

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 10:51:17 +0000

@Caroline -- thanks. I hope that I deserve the plug by that time. That should be 4 or 5 posts from now (I plan on posting daily), so you should have a good idea of where I am headed by then. Mark's last blog post..Niche Site Case Study

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 10:15:53 +0000

@Mark, nice post, I commented and stumbled it. It may also just end up in my weekend links :)

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:18:25 +0000

Hey Caroline;

I was inspired by this case study to do a spinoff — I will be using your ebook and other things that I have learned in the last to months to build a “super niche” site. I describe my plan here: http://www.masonworld.com/making-money-on-the-web/niche-site-case-study/

This work is inspired by you, so your feedback is welcome.

Mark’s last blog post..Niche Site Case Study

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:14:53 +0000

@Richard, yes of course I agree with all of that and lets not also forget the practical matter too – these niche sites are designed to get traffic from Google and if you lift content from Wikipedia you will be competing with Wikipedia (and all the other mirrors) and will never rank very highly. What I’m saying though is that Ryan may have just borrowed some content whilst setting up the site structure.

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:51:43 +0000

@Carol: It’s my understanding with PLR content your use of it is within the license. I believe Barb’s main problem, which I think you would agree, is taking and using other’s work illegally/wrongfully. It’s one thing for me take some quotes from a post of yours to comment on while crediting you and your post. It’s another for me to lift whole posts or significant sections of posts of yours and wrongfully use them, including presenting the material as if it was mine [which is exactly the implication when you don't credit it].

p.s. Also, just because you credit something does not mean the use is right. The actual use needs to be lawful or be permitted under the license terms of the work.

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:25:19 +0000

@Barb, thanks for the clarification of Adwords. Yes I agree also that it is better to write your own content though I also think it’s okay to use some freely available content just to get started. For example, for the niche site I built for the book I used PLR content just so I would have something to work with.

By: Barb A. Ryan

Barb A. Ryan — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:49:06 +0000

1) Here is a direct quote from Google Adwords, which I got by doing a search and then clicking the little circle with the question mark:

“Advertiser Competition — Statistics showing the relative amount of advertisers bidding on that keyword.”

To me this directly means that the CPC would tend to he higher with more competition. Basic economics implies that the number of pages competing would be higher, as well, despite the number of pages not being what the is measured.

2) Why ditch the site? Follow the keyword research suggestions. Go back in and look at “cycling,” “bicycling,” etc. and look to two and three word variations. Tweak the text for better keywords. See what happens.

3) One troubling comment was that “nearly all the content on the site was taken from Wikipedia.” Two problems here. First, despite the failure of many on the web to understand the basics of copyright law, you can’t (rather shouldn’t) just build a site by expropriating the content — even from Wikipedia. Read the terms of use and you will not find the phrase “just take what you want.” Now, I know that many be a novel concept… Second, build sites around subjects that you actually know something about. This makes writing easier and makes the site more convincing, which leads to more links. A site that you get high in the search engine rankings will not stay there, unless you get others to link to it and/or keep refreshing the content. Since niche sites are supposed to be low maintenance, the content should be reasonably good quality or you will not get links. No links — no longevity unless you update. If you are not going to update, you have to capture the links while you are prominent in the search engine listings.

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:31:54 +0000

@Ryan, now I’m going to sound pedantic but… your latest blog post, is ‘vidoes’ a deliberate misspelling? If not, that would be another example of a way of losing traffic.

By: Ryan Spegal

Ryan Spegal — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:21:28 +0000

Ahhh, so low advertising high search! I always thought it meant that high advertising was the ADVERTISERS competing for the spot on your website. So low traffic (less sites to compete with) and higher competition meant that advertisers would be paying more to put ads on your site due to not many sites being available... But I guess I just read it wrong and got things mixed up (better to know now than 5-10 sites down the road!). I think I'm going to put my next niche site on hold for a week or two, as I have quite a bit of work to do on some of my other "main" websites first. I run a couple of MMORPGs and they've been itching for an update. xD Ryan Spegal's last blog post..Vehicular Cycling Vidoes

By: cornelius

cornelius — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:02:09 +0000

Caroline, Thanks for a good post which taught me something about keywords. I appreciate your review of a blog to highlight what needs to be done in the blogging process. I am still learning about the process and have watched your blog grow which has been a good learning experience. As for going into crowded niches you sure have done that and now you stand out amongst the big names I feel. Cornelius cornelius's last blog post..Practise English and feed the poor

By: rebecca

rebecca — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:40:48 +0000

Caroline, thanks for that clarification — so glad I’m not the only one who’s been getting the ‘competition’ part of the equation backwards. Pages competing, not advertisers. Got it!

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:17:35 +0000

@Will, ahh ok maybe that was not the best tool to pick but I doubt that particular term is time sensitive so I would have expected something to come up at least. Perhaps a scout around some other of the tools will reveal something different.

@Ryan, you need the OPPOSITE metrics of what you have been looking for with that tool! You need HIGH search volume – this is the amount of times the keyword is searched for and LOW competition – this is the number of pages competing for that term. You can’t always find them that way around but if in doubt go for high search volume and worry about the competition later.

@Sawya, I don’t agree that you have to spend money to make money… A newbie to PPC could blow through a fortune by using Adwords incorrectly.

By: Mark Dowling

Mark Dowling — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 01:25:28 +0000

Ryan, have a look at the Keyword Discovery tool (not an affiliate link). They offer a free trial that uses their current dataset, which itself is an order of magnitude bigger than Wordtracker's. Although the quantity of results is limited, it's a great tool with an alternative "viewpoint" than Wordtracker. Mark Dowling's last blog post..Alexa Proves That Blogging Works

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:34:43 +0000

Caroline -- you rock! This is another great post. AllInOneSEO might help Ryan map his articles to secondary keywords mentioned above. I couldn't remember if you mention that plugin in your eBook or not. Mark's last blog post..Drobo may change everything

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:17:53 +0000

@Ryan, I’ve been thinking about your niche-picking in line with Ben’s comment on your strategy, above:
What about looking for a niche with high advertiser competition (lots of well-paying ads looking for a home, presumably) and moderate search volume (so, some level of natural search traffic out there to be tapped into) — or do I totally have hold of the wrong end of the stick?

By: Ben Helps | SBJ

Ben Helps | SBJ — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:29:25 +0000

“It said that it had high advertiser competition and low search volume, which made me think it would be a perfect keyword to build on.”
@Ryan:I think you may have gotten that up-side-down?

On the plus side when I just Googled “vehicular cycling” and your site started on the top of page 2.

I hope you’ve got Analytics going…

By: sawya

sawya — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:03:42 +0000

if u wanna find out how many searches a keyword gets just set up an adwords campaign for it, let it run for a week and then see how many impressions you’re getting. divide the number by 7 and you have the average no of searche per day for that keyword. obviously this only applies to google, but pretty much uses google. also you have to spend a bit of money, but whatever, you have to spend moeny to make money.

By: Ryan Spegal

Ryan Spegal — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:36:19 +0000

@Will As I said in my post above, I don’t have any funds to which I can buy eBooks or courses (at the moment). So the Google Keyword Tool was exactly what I used to do my “investigating”. It said that it had high advertiser competition and low search volume, which made me think it would be a perfect keyword to build on.

If anybody has any tips for FREE research/keyword sites or eBooks, that would be great. I would really like to get the idea of these niche sites (I became interested in them about a week ago), as they seem they really can rake in the cash if you can get the right keywords/niche. Any help is appreciated, my email is: admin@vehicular-cycling.com

Ryan Spegal’s last blog post..Vehicular Cycling Vidoes

By: Click for Nick

Click for Nick — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:35:24 +0000

you have a good point. if you choose a topic that very few people are going to read, then of course you will fail. but if you find a way to be sort of in the middle, a decent amount of traffic for a certain keyword then you might have a winner. Click for Nick's last blog post..Cheapest T-Shirt Websites: Shopping

By: Ryan Spegal

Ryan Spegal — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:30:24 +0000

:) Thank you very much for you review of my site Caroline. As I said in my email, I am poorer than poor at the moment, so I pretty much had to struggle to “try” to find a topic that I “thought” would bring in some traffic/money. But after reading this, I guess I was totally wrong, haha… This site only took me about 3-4 days to create, so I won’t be that upset if it fails miserably. Like you said in your eBook, if it doesn’t work out, forget about it and move onto the next one. ;) I’ll definatly be doing some more research before I select my next topic, as well as taking your advice that you posted above.

As of right now, my site is listed on page 9 of Google for “vehicular cycling”. I’m pretty sure that that’s about as high as it will go, since nearly all the content on the site was taken from Wikipedia. VC is not something I am into, so I have no “expertise” on the subject. I plan on finding something that I am interested in as my next subject though, so I can write some detailed unique content. :)

I just want to thank you again for giving my site and I your time. You can expect another email when I get my next one up, so you can see if I’ve made improvement or not. :)

Ryan Spegal’s last blog post..Vehicular Cycling Vidoes

By: Will

Will — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:30:01 +0000

I have serious issues with the free Wordtracker tool. It’s data is more than a year old! Do a search for “2007 calendars”, then for “2008 calendars”, you’ll see what i mean. On the internet a year is a lifetime.

I agree about the niche being a bit too exclusive. If I may offer some SEO advice, login (for free) at Google Adwords, go to Tools, then Keyword Tool. Enter a keyword in the first form field, and leave “synonyms” checked. When you submit that tool you’ll get invaluable information for your :

- Advertiser competition
- Last month’s search volume
- Average search volume

You can even add more fields like Average Search Trend.

Thus, I would add the following keywords to his list of what to target:
“bike as vehicle”
“bicycle as vehicle”

There are others there, but they seem slightly skewed from his topic. It’s all free to use though, so check it out.

Will’s last blog post..Geri’s Game

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:03:08 +0000

Your review of Ryan’s niche site has put a real spotlight on the importance of doing the research up front, and thoughtful composition of every element as the site unfolds — but even more importantly, I think, it’s a reminder that we need to step outside the specialized fields (with their own specialized language) in which we’re immersed, in order to reach out to readers outside that proscribed circle. That’s my own takehome lesson for today, at any rate… Many thanks for an extremely useful case study, as usual getting down to the practical “nuts and bolts” of it, much appreciated in a sea of theory!