Exactly @ron. I've had an Amazon site I put up 3 years ago as well that brings in $10-$30/mo every single month. Sure, it's chump change, but I haven't even upgraded to Wordpress 3.0 on that thing and it doesn't care - it still brings in money like clockwork. That pays for my phone bill every month!
People need to try starting small sometimes. I think almost every eBook/guide/tutorial/forum post I've EVER read always preaches "Don't look at keywords under 1000 searches a month, its not worth it" (some may even say 500 is ok, but any lower it's not worth it anymore). Well, you know what you darn tutorial 'gurus' (not referring to you ron lol) who don't seem to know a hoot about actually making money, my search term brings barely ANY traffic in but miraculously I have $130 and growing affiliate commissions. 1 click a month is all I need to gain another $10/mo on top of that commission for a mere 30 minutes of up front work.
@ron@banditim this is also relevant to going after big KWs
You can use a keyword ladder to start ranking the easy long tails and then when you start to get more long tail KWs ranked, the halo effect makes it easier to go after the bigger KWs
@davbel - Funny you should mention that. Back about 8 years ago I really didn't think I could compete in the big markets, but I was wrong. And I ended up becoming one of the big dogs because of what you just said. I aimed for lower volume phrases, and I kept getting ranked for more keywords in the 'stem'. Eventually I was top 3 for years in the main keyword in the stem. When you get there, that is automatic 6 figures for just one website.
It used to work that way until about a year ago), but things are a little different now. But I still use the same approach.
Regarding your confirmation on "I assume you are using keywords as anchor" and you said "yes"
Then what keywords are you using for your projects and how many are you using? And if keyword as anchor text, then how you are only using 1% to 7% target anchor text for your main keyword. This is a bit confusing.
Hey folks, when you talk about main anchor %, do you consider anchor variations like "cheap windows vps", "cheap vps windows" and "windows vps cheap" as one keyword or 3 keywords? And how much do you focus on the main word density in long tail kw-s, if "vps" was the main anchor in this example and additional anchors were "best vps", "get vps here" etc...
@Tim89 how much do you think of this when you have hundreds of kw-s like you previously wrote..
or @davbel and @ron in your low-volume-phrases strategy ..
I wonder cause I often see these threads from ppl talking about their anchor % (let it be either 2% or 10%), but the fact is it depends so much whether you use such anchor alternatives and the amount of these. IMO when I look backlink profile in tools like ahrefs or majestic, such 3 kw-s in my example above are brought out separately, but I tend to think google sees them like same but in more natural way though, rather than using only one exact phrase (prob not so important for bing/yahoo). And the main word like "vps" can be included in long-tails as anchor terms (ahrefs) up to 50% of the time.. or do you find it too high? But what do others think...
Another story is if you consider anchor % of referring domains or referring pages.. I focus more on referring domains as the amount of pages varies too much across cms/platforms so seems more natural this way
I also think with blog comments it might be better to use fake names for a better success rate. However, that will be something I'll test in the future.
Nice thread, I think the anchor text ratio is very important. My MNS is jumping like crazy ever since I played with the anchor text, right now I am at #15
@ChrisLance blog comments are great for referral traffic, but they do little in link building. I'd still do it because it helps a lot of traffic especially if you contribute to their topic.
Hope other people who ranks MNS can share their experience here!
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You can use a keyword ladder to start ranking the easy long tails and then when you start to get more long tail KWs ranked, the halo effect makes it easier to go after the bigger KWs
@ron might be the niches, but I'm still getting mucho success doing it this way
Then what keywords are you using for your projects and how many are you using?
And if keyword as anchor text, then how you are only using 1% to 7% target anchor text for your main keyword.
This is a bit confusing.
@Tim89 how much do you think of this when you have hundreds of kw-s like you previously wrote..
or @davbel and @ron in your low-volume-phrases strategy ..
I wonder cause I often see these threads from ppl talking about their anchor % (let it be either 2% or 10%), but the fact is it depends so much whether you use such anchor alternatives and the amount of these. IMO when I look backlink profile in tools like ahrefs or majestic, such 3 kw-s in my example above are brought out separately, but I tend to think google sees them like same but in more natural way though, rather than using only one exact phrase (prob not so important for bing/yahoo). And the main word like "vps" can be included in long-tails as anchor terms (ahrefs) up to 50% of the time.. or do you find it too high? But what do others think...
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@ChrisLance blog comments are great for referral traffic, but they do little in link building. I'd still do it because it helps a lot of traffic especially if you contribute to their topic.
Hope other people who ranks MNS can share their experience here!