The Information:

Sites: Codename: Titan

Domain : Exact Match Domain + s .net
Keyword: Three Word Long-Tail
Exact Monthly Search Volume: 2400 Global | 880 Local
Google Contextual Targeting Suggested Bid: $1.38

Experiment:

With this domain we will take it very slow, from indexation to backlinking, to pushing it up the SERPs.  We are going to baby step this and treat this bad boy like a fragile butterfly while I continue pounding away at other projects.  The idea is to avoid bouncing and avoid sandboxing.  These backburner sites are a sure fire way to winning with less effort by letting age be your friend.

Expected Revenue:

I want to be very conservative in this calculation, so we’ll just add up the exact monthly global searches and use a guesstimate on a 3rd quartile CPC value.  That should make-up for not taking the time to add in the long-tail searches.  My guess is this resulting number will be far lower than what we see in the end.

• 2,400 exact monthly searches x 40% of the searches in the top spot / 30 days per month = 32 visitors per day
• 32 visitors per day x 3% click through rating =  just at 1 click per day
• 1 clicks per day x $1.38 x 68% revenue share = $0.94 per day or $28.15 a month

Now, with such low searches per month, this is very light competition.  If we caress these gently, there is no reason it shouldn’t rank highly and quickly.  I have a feeling that the equations above are very conservative.  (EDIT: I know so, because the first click was $2.25!)  My experience is that click through rating increases with positioning in the SERPs.  Maybe I’ll get up to 5% CTR.  Some people report upwards to 15% CTR.  We shall see.

The Competition:

The screenshot below is from Market Samurai.  Such an awesome program.  Anyways, below is an overview of the top 10 competition.  There are three brands, and a few inner pages from big time sellers.  I still think I can take them all.  As you can see, the actual backlinks to the pages is pretty weak.  Not many of them have any real on-page SEO done either.  This is mine.  All mine.  Muhahahaw!

Below is a screen capture from SpyFu, which I leave you to investigate.  What you see is a CPC (cost per click) of around $1.50.  That is good enough.  The best part is 16 advertisers.  I suspect that the CPC will actually fluctuate higher at times since that’s some good advertising competition.  I actually got the first click at $2.25 so you gotta test your niche.  You can always just go by what these tools tell you.

The Journal:

Day #0

The domain was purchased and nameservers set.  Neither add-on domains, wordpress, nor mysql databases were created yet, so there is nothing to index.  I’ll find a theme tomorrow hopefully and get that all slapped together.  I plan on hitting the site with a single high PR backlink to help index.  I’ll decide tomorrow!

• Completed: Domains purchased for $7.50, Nameservers Set
• Expenses: $7.50

Day #0-Addendum

I got around to creating MySQL databases, assigning the user, uploading wordpress, creating add-on domains, and slapping plugins on there.  The site is sitting with the default them with no backlinks for now.  My VPS provider cheated me on what they sold me so I’m either finding a new provider or purchasing a windows machine and getting a second cable line out here or seeing if I can upgrade the bandwidth on this existing line.  Until then backlinking is going to either be on hold or I’ll start slow and outsource a small amount of social bookmarks to each domain for indexing and tiny bits of link juice.

Day #2

The site now has about ~500 words on the homepage with pictures and all that good stuff.  On-page SEO is superb.  The theme is fully customized with a nice header image, and ads are now present.  Gotta get indexed!

• Content: Homepage written
• Indexed: No

Day #35

The site was indexed forever ago.  I haven’t done anything to it since setting up the homepage, and guess what!  I found that beast sitting at #33 already!  Heck. yeah.  Today I decided to celebrate by slinging about 250 random blog comments at it.  I’m going to keep letting this sucker cook.  Don’t be surprised if you don’t see me report back for another month.  Slow and steady on the backburner with this one.  Oh, and today as well it recieved its first click at $2.25!  Who the heck found the site and clicked it is beyond me, but there it is.  That’s a great sign of things to come.

• Indexed: Yes
• Rankings: #33! (+∞)
• Expenses: $5.25

Day #40

I ordered a High PR network package that allowed three urls, so I tossed one site with a penalty in to see what would happen, and then this url, and Codename: Nectar in there as well.  It’s only 10 links, but the domains are PR4+ big boys.

• Backlinks: 10 High PR In-Content links
• Rankings: #31 (+2)
• Expenses: $12.75

Day#44

Got the report for the 10 High PR links.  Rankings have falled back quite a bit.  I’m sure it’s all part of the dance.  I’m not sweating it either way, because this is the passive site.  Whatever happens happens, because it will eventually hit page 1 and spot 1 as I work on other things.

• Rankings: #132 (-101)

Day #47

Nothing new on or off-page on the site itself, but the rankings have jumped quite a bit…

• Rankings: #11 (+121)

Day #55

I haven’t done anything to the site since Day #47 until just now.  I added two pages of content and I ordered a 130 blog post package to be split among two URLs, one of them being this one.  I also tweaked some on-page SEO that got past me.  Hopefully these changes will show some impact in the next week.  However, up to this point, we’ve seen some good movement in rankings…

• Content: 2 Articles
• Backlinks: 130 Blog Posts
• Rankings: #7 (+4)
• Expenses: $18.75

The report for the 130 blog post package came in.  Turned out to be 162 posts.  I saw a two spot jump up to #5 then it dropped back to #6, which is still up one spot from last time.  I slung about 3000 comments at those posts too.  Should see some movement from that in a week or two.

• Backlinks: 3000 comments to the 162 blog posts
• Rankings: #6 (+1)

Day #63

On this 63rd day, He-Who-Reigns-Over-The-Trickle-Cheddar-Kingdom posted a total of nine articles to the Titan site.  He-Who’s-Name-Cannot-Be-Spoken-By-Mortal-Tongue also slung about 500 randomly anchored comments at the homepage and all the inner pages to get some anchor text variation going.

• Content: 9 articles
• Backlinks: ~500 randomly anchored comments
• Rankings: #7 (-1)
• Expenses: $39.75

Day #64

I just slapped up two more articles on this bad boy and am building a buttload of links.  Read below for the details.  Found the site at #3 for a while, but right now its back to 7.

• Content: 2 articles
• Backlinks: ~500 specifically anchored comments to all pages, ~200 article submissions, ~850 wiki blasts
• Rankings: #7
• Expenses: $45.75

Day #68

Today I ordered a High PR comments package and split it among four domains with this being one of them.  It’ll probably get 5 links out of it.  I haven’t done anything else to the site since the last update and right now it’s sitting at… dun dun dunnn… #2!  Maybe these new links will give it a final push.  I’ve got a boatload of new articles to add as well that I’ll backlink some which will funnel to the homepage a bit as well.  We shall see!

• Backlinks: 5 High PR blog comments (PR2-5)
• Rankings: #2 (+5)
• Expenses: $48.75

Day #70

Tossed about ~30 high PR blog comments at the site.  I have a boatload of content to add as soon as I can.

• Backlinks: ~30 High PR blog comments
• Rankings: #2
• Expenses: $57.75

Day #74

In the past four days I’ve sent about 2000 comments at the homepage.  Today I’ve added 14 articles to the site.  I plan on juicing up all these articles with PR and having them pass it to the homepage as well.  This will add to the long-tail rankings and increase revenue big time.

• Backlinks: ~2000 comments
• Content: 14 articles
• Rankings: #3 (-1)
• Expenses: $99.75

Day #81

This stubborn bastard has been force fed four new articles in the past week.  However, there’s been quite the development recently.  I found that the home page is ranking for two other nice terms that are also in the domain, just not exact.  One of those is #6 now which was on page three or so at the time.  I used some interlinking in the new articles to push it up there.  The other term is at #47 using the same method, which brought it up from beyond the hundreds.  I also restructured some of the on-page SEO on the homepage to help include these terms, which I’m sure helped their rank.  These will triple the worth of this site alone.

• Content: 4 articles
• Expenses: $112.75

Day #85

Although I’m spending more time and energy on Codename: Karma right now (should probably not carry four case studies at once anymore!) I’m still slinging backlinks at this one.  It’s going to be pretty profitable once it ranks fully.  Especially with the two new terms as well.  Tonight I ordered for it a 105 PR 0-6 blog posts package using all three anchors.  I hope that jogs it a bit in the SERPs.

• Backlinks: 105 PR 0-6 blog posts
• Rankings: #3
• Expenses: #119.31

Day #91

On top of the 105 blog posts I got last time, the outsourcer hooked me up with another 30 for giving him a nice review.  I’ve slung those out, but the site isn’t budging.  It’s all good.  It’ll get there, mainly because I refuse to let it sit at #3 since I’m doing this case study!  I’ve got a good little pack of articles to add as well, that will complete all of the content for the site.

• Backlinks: 30 assorted blog posts
• Rankings: #3

Day #101

Been working on link building this sucker.  Seeing great movement on those other two terms I brought in the game, but the main one is still having a hard time.  Getting past #2 and #1 have proven to be a beeyotch.  Check out what I’ve done…

• Backlinks: 800 wikis, 100 articles, backed by 10k comments, and 410 blog posts
• Rankings: #3
• Expenses: $131.81