Just a quick update to let you know that my niche site has made it to page one of Google. As I show in the screen shot below, I am currently ranking number one for the term “learn guitar basics” without the quotes. (And yes, I am logged out of iGoogle, GMail, etc). While this result is really cool, we should not declare victory yet. The most important reason for that is the fact that new WordPress blogs tend to “rank and tank”. What I mean by that is I fully expect rankings to fall again before they settle out on page one (hopefully in position one on page one).
But for now, it's sure fun to see the site in position #9.
Side note: Now here is the difference between me and Pat Flynn. I just jammed a screenshot in a post with no formatting. I wrote the post in 7 minutes. Pat would have clipped the below graphic with photoshop (using those cool torn edges that he always has), added a 3D shadow and circled the 9th ranking position with a red pen. Everything Pat produces is very high quality. You should pay attention to that, because good quality translates directly to your brand and (eventually) money.
Some errors (opportunities)
Note that in my haste to get the site up that I incorrectly specified the most important on-page factor — the title tag. The home page should have the title “learn guitar basics.” Instead, the page is titled “learning guitar basics.” Oops. Looks like there was a typo in what I sent to the VA.
No worries. Since we are using the All-in-one SEO plugin, this is very easy to change when we are ready. I am going to leave it as is for the moment. We'll change it during the “tank” phase.
You'll also note that the site description is defaulting to something goofy that needs to be corrected. It is important to use the site description to call the searcher to action, compelling them to click through to the site.
More on this and other topics in the next update.
Thanks,
Mark
Looks like great progress. Congrats keep up the good work. How many articles would you estimate you have on the site? Thanks!
50 or so. There is a bunch of unrelated PLR junk in there that I am trying to clean up too — I am just deleting that stuff.
Hello Mark,
Congratulations to reach that excellent position in Google, and thanks to share in so open way your methods, something that is a true aid for those who (like me) are looking for an effective way to get profits thru Internet.The honesty and clarity of your articles seems very refreshing to me!
The collection of videos in your page of LBG is impressive and even not being a guitarist, I stayed more of half an hour seeing them, later to end up clicking in some of your ads 🙂
I comment to you some things that catch my attention, from the point of view of a new visitor to your page of LBG: Particularly I like to see the About page to know a little about the author. I do not do it in first instance, but after reading some articles, if them seems to me interesting, generally always I go to that part and, in the case of your LGB site, the About information is the one that brings WP by default (duh)… I believe that you would have to personalize it, in the same way that the name of the author of the articles (admin seems to me too cold and do not help to establish confidence and empathy with the reader, I think).
And one last thing… I noticed that your permalinks are in generic way. I’ve heard it is better to customize it with /%postname%/ only, but maybe it isn’t an important thing, is it?
Anyway, I think your blog is awsome and you can count with me like a devote reader.
These are excellent points — I agree with all of them and need to add them to the list for my VA. The problem is that I have not sent the VA a complete list of “site build” tasks yet. All of these items are covered in my standard list.
Thanks!
Hey Mark,
Why do you say: “(And yes, I am logged out of iGoogle, GMail, etc)” ?
Excellent question. Google modifies your search results based on your browsing history if you are logged into iGoogle or GMail. They put sites you “like” higher in the results based on past visits.
Mark,
Very nice results ! page 1 : )
So what is the traffic looking like to your site so far ?
Sara
Yeah I had a google false positive 2 weeks back. I saw my site on page 1 of google after on 3 weeks and I was freaking out. Then I was on another computer and checked and I was on page 2 or 3. Then I realized what google does when you’re logged in. Like you said they show you pages you “like” to visit higher in the rankings.
Congrats on the page 1 victory!
Rank & tank, ha! That’s exactly what happens, though I’ve never heard that term before.
Mark, it’s been great following the challenge, kudos to you Pat, and Tyrone for your transparency.
Good luck with the new site!
Glad you are enjoying it. Rank and Tank is a term that I stole from someone else (maybe Lynn Terry).
Hey Mark,
Thanks for giving us the update on your niche process.
One thing we can all learn from this is that going for “beginner” or “basics” can really be fantastic for niches, traffic and monetization.
I have a niche site aimed at beginners and it’s been pulling in big traffic for well over a year now – if I went after the mid or higher levels I don’t think it would be as much because (at least my reasoning) is that people want to start something, not all will finish.
If you can at least help them out in the beginning you’re golden. From there, you could always do a follow up site that teaches the more advanced stuff.
Maybe, advanceguitarlessons.com? From the list you build you can point them that way afterward hehe.
Hey Mark,
Encouraging results! I had many blogs go through rank and tank as well. Its good that you are documenting phenomenon (if you can call it that) for everyone. Just as a tip, and this is not an affiliate link, I use google apps for my business and checking results on google and having to log out all the time is just not realistic. I use http://www.hidemyass.com to do quick google checks to keep the results real. This is a free proxy service that works great if you can get passed the name… =)
Thank again,
Kevin
Mark,
You make a good point about the importance of the site description. I didn’t even realize what it was Google used in the searches to describe a site. I went through and changed all of my site descriptions to something that fit in the space allowed and was catchy(kind of). It definitely worked as far as increasing clicks to the site. Thanks.