 |
||
 |
|
|
Internet Marketing Coach
“Competitive” Keywords I’ve Conquered with Little Traffic
November 14th, 2007 | 8 commentsWhen we all start out, we’re told to concentrate on keywords that aren’t too competitive. After all, what chances do you really have at conquering “competitive” keywords? Well, even then, I wasn’t too interested in conquering low-competition keywords, so I didn’t listen to that advice. I figured if I was going to do this I might as well go big or go home.
Since then I’ve achieved front page rankings for every “competitive” keyword I’ve targeted, excluding a few I’m currently working on.
Here are a few of those keywords, which I thought were very “competitive:”
“make money online” - The main directory of this site ez-onlinemoney.com - Front page of Google - adsense income about $10/day - traffic from that keyword 100-200/day
“article marketing” - My article marketing ebook articlemarketingdomination.com - Front page of Google - income from that ranking 1 sale/day (at best) - traffic from that keyword 20-30/day
“article marketing ebook” - My article marketing ebook articlemarketingdomination.com - Front page of Google - income from that ranking 1 sale/week (at best) - traffic from that keyword 10/day
“article directory” - One of my older article directories articlesarea.com - Front page of Google and Yahoo - adsense income $2-$4/day - traffic from that keyword 50-100/day
“germany tourism” - The first two sites I ever created thegermantruth.com and everythingaboutgermany.com both hold front page positions for this keyword - adsense income $2-$4/day - traffic from that keyword 150-250/day
Those are just a few of many keywords I’ve achieved front-page rankings for, which equals a pretty solid income. BUT, when I began, I was under the impression that conquering a keyword like “make money online” or something as broad as “article marketing” would bring in biiiiiig bucks … I was wrong!
Some of these stats are guestimates, as I can’t track everything, but they are close. There are some other factors as well. The adverts on some of the sites could be placed better - I’m not the best copywriter in the world so I’m sure someone else could make my sales pages convert better etc. The difference between #1 and #10 can be very large in some cases. But when it comes down to it, these keywords don’t bring an incredible amount of traffic, as I believed at first.
I also conquer hundreds of low competition keywords with my articles and smaller niche sites. This is profitable because you can conquer these keywords in such a short amount of time. With very low-competition keywords the time investment involved is very much worth it.
When it comes to keywords and phrases that aren’t so much “long-tail” you may want to examine whether the time investment involved is worth it.
I believe you should either concentrate on many long-tail keywords or go VERY big or both. I do both. There are very few keywords that are “in between” that I toy with anymore. There one VERY competitive keyword that I’m going to try to get with a new site of mine, but other than that I’m concentrating only on long-tail niche keywords.
The point I’m trying to get across here is that some keywords that you may think are too competitive, may not be nearly as competitive as you think.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Related Posts
- Common Keyword Research Mistakes
- Should you Target Long-Tail Niches or Competitive Niches
- When the Long Tail is Too Long for Keyword Research
- Is SEO Worth your Time for Competitive Niches?
- An Excellent Example of the Power of Article Marketing!
- Adsense Isnt Always the Best Money Maker
- Comment Policy Updated - Use your Keywords!
- Do you Squidoo ?
- Do Keyword Rich Domain Names Really Matter?
- The Easy SEO Report Launches - SEO Advice and Money
Twitter
Linkedin
14th November, 2007 at 11:29 pm
The more I’ve seen, the more I’ve realized that obsessing over competition only does one thing….prevents you from taking action! You’ve shown that it really just takes a good site with quality content and some excellent article marketing to crack any term.
15th November, 2007 at 2:33 am
Congrats on the success, Josh. I like the fact that you are ranking for keywords where you really have something to offer…and that you’re getting those rankings the right way.
The sad thing is that AdSense used to pay a lot better than it does now…you probably would have made a good bit more back then (I know I did). Spammers, as usual, have tamped down the opportunity to make decent money and driven many of the advertisers away…cuz who wants to pay for an ad on an MFA website?
And advertisers have become a lot more sophisticated, too. Google needs to close some loopholes that allow advertisers to buy ads for a penny or two. Nobody wins with those things.
I don’t want to say that AdSense isn’t worth doing. Even though I make a decent living in voiceovers, Google is still my largest employer. However, AdSense is neither what it once was, not what it should be. That leaves me constantly on the lookout for new income opportunities.
In fact, I just stumbled across an interesting one today. I don’t think it means big money…and I’m not sure that it would be worth doing for most blogs, but for sites that have a fair amount of traffic and can afford a little above-the-fold space…you might find it worth a look. I plan to try it out on a few of my sites in the near future. It allows advertisers to bid on your available space. It looks kinda like AdBrite…but implemented a lot better, from what I’ve seen so far:
http://www.projectwonderful.com/
15th November, 2007 at 4:39 pm
@ Courtney, you’re absolutely right and thanks for your compliment
@ Chuck, Thanks! For the more “competitive” keywords (those that people think are competitive anyway) they are indeed subjects I’m knowledgeable in. However there are many long-tail keywords I have #1, #2, #3 etc. spots for many of my niche sites. Most of those are outsources articles, which still provide value.
Adsense is certainly lower than it was in the past, but with all my sites together it’s not too bad. I think there are two different types of “MFA” sites - white hat and black hat. White hate being an MFA site with unique, quality content and a black hat being a scraper or plagiarized site.
I run many “MFA” sites that contain good solid content. They just happen to have been create for adsense money. I’d imagine those advertisers are happy to have their adverts on my sites
If not, I don’t know why not. That’s targeted traffic being sent to their advert.
I know what you mean about those damn .01 and .02 clicks, kinda makes me mad. One visitors is worth much more than 2 lousy cents. It’s crazy to see how a mortgage site will get 5 clicks, which equal $5-$7 while my Germany sites will make about $1 for the same amount of clicks.
Thanks for the link, I’ll take a look.
15th November, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I would certainly agree with you that there are better and worse classes of MFA sites.
I ended up buying two ads before I went to bed last night, and since I had to get up very early, I ended up writing a more extensive explanation in a blog post. You, or other, might fight it enlightening as far as it goes:
http://braindump.chuckbrown.com/putting-food-on-the-table/cool-monetization-concept-project-wonderful/
15th November, 2007 at 5:31 pm
I’d be interested to hear the outcome. I just read your blog post and commented on it. I really like the idea of Project Wonderful. I’m just a little curious about where they get the data for the traffic of the sites in their network.
21st November, 2007 at 8:12 am
Hi Josh,
If I haven’t told you before, you’re really inspiring me. I’ve been thinking I better try a white hat MFA site. Still thinking about what topic / keyword to use / target and I don’t have much time to actually do it, but I really want to try this now.
Keep up the great posts!
12th January, 2008 at 12:53 am
[...] between AC and EzineArticles for example is AC actually directly pays you for your articles. You submit an article, wait a few days and they send you an offer. The offer is usually $6-$9 and the articles [...]
14th February, 2008 at 9:02 pm
I found your blog using “make money online”: I guess so many people think that this keyword is too competitive that they don’t even bother trying!