Many of you know by now that I am combining my evaluation of SENuke X with my desire to get back into the Niche Site Duel.
Of course, this is a perfect match, since you will recall that my “spin” on the niche site duel was to participate using outsourcing and automation. Of course, that was back in August. I got the site up and applied to the affiliate program that I wanted to use. I even got to page one of Google for a while.
Since then, I have been completely distracted by this busy thing called “life”. Most of you know that I have four kids, a day job and tons of other stuff going on.
Still, while doing absolutely nothing about the Niche Site Duel for months, I have been following Pat’s amazing success with his niche site duel security guard experiment. Pat's approach is especially excellent for people who are simply looking for a place to start (getting started can be overwhelming, and Pat breaks it all down).
Where we are now
So, the site is currently sitting at 25 in Google (page 3) for “learn guitar basics”. That was accomplished with no promotion. It has visited page 1. I consider all of this to be a pretty good sign. You can see the current rankings below.
All of this has not resulted in much traffic, and the traffic has been falling month by month. I suspect that some of this is due to buzz around the niche site duel itself falling off. But it’s not all because of that….
As you can see from the below traffic stats, some of the hits have some from SE traffic. Specifically, hits are coming from my keywords. I suspect that most of this traffic came from the times when I was on page one for “learn guitar basics”.
So, the simple task in front of me is to fix up the website so that visitors have a chance to buy something, and to get to #1 for “learn guitar basics”. For that last task, I plan to use SENuke X.
I’ll keep you posted.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks!
Interesting stuff, Mark. I love reading the Niche Site Duel updates that you, Pat, and so many others post. Although I focus more on writing and blogging than affiliate marketing and niche sites, I have to admit, this looks like a ton of fun. I may end up joining the next niche site duel.
Thanks for all the great info you share with us!
-j.
Thanks Joe. No need to wait. You can start today with something that you really find interesting anyway. It is fun (and can be profitable). Thanks for the comment and the kind words.
I might just be a n00b, but I think 25th position is pretty good all things considered so far. i think it’s interesting that you’re going to be trying out senuke for this site. I remember doing a trial of senuke a couple years ago, it was interesting stuff, but I was no where near ready to use something like that on my sites at that time. I will definitely been watching this review series with interest.
Thanks Loretta. It’s not a terribly competitive keyword, so 25 is OK but not great.
I am excited about SENuke. Planning another update tonight.
Mason – I know exactly what you mean about getting too tied up with life to devote time to continued promotion efforts. Keep us posted on how things improve with SENuke X!
This is apparently a common marketing problem. Everyone loves to work on sites and products, but no one really loves working on backlinks and traffic. Go figure. 🙂
I am excited to see how well SENuke X works for you. I have been in the marketing world for quite some time now and am always keeping current with the new tools available. Backlinks and traffic are probably one of the most important things in my eyes.
And what is more exactly this SEnuke X? is like wordpress?
Hey Mark.
Great blog.
It’s gonna be interesting to see how SENuke will improve you rankings. Looking forward to further posts.
I remember messing with it 2 years ago when I new nothing about online marketing/SEO.
David
Mark
I have just started trying to work on niche sites by using WordPress. I have ranked first pages a few times and then I fall back to page 3 – 5. I haven’t seemed to get all my ducks in a row, let alone monetize the sites . It seems like a big experement so far. I must say that I like seeing the really world examples that both Pat and you have been showing.
Thanks
I’m interested in using SENuke myself, so I did a bit of research on different forums (like the Warrior Forum). SENuke seems to be amazingly powerful and can build potentially thousands of backinks. However, some people say that one needs to be careful as Google tends to penalize sites (especially new ones) that get too many backlinks in a short amount of time.
Thanks for the update. I recently came upon the Niche Site challenge on SPI and I’m checking out the other participants. It’s something I’m really interested in learning so I’ll be sure to stay tuned!