A few things are contributing to an overall positive feeling this month. 1) I’m only 5 days in and already have £300 in revenue from my PPC site and 2) my infamous bar stools site has re-appeared in the SERPs and is now ranking #6 on Google.co.uk for its domain name.
As all regular readers of my blog will know, the bar stools site has been bouncing around the SERPs since February when I launched it but for about the last 3 or 4 weeks (since it last bounced out of existence) it has maintained a steady 2/3 visitors per day.
Up until this last drop, I’d always maintained that the reason for the bouncing was that there simply was not enough ‘quality’ indicators related to the site. When I say ‘quality indicators’, I am referring to domain age, backlink types, backlink age, on page SEO, internal linking structure and just a general ‘trust’ perception of the site.
During this last 3 week drop, I’ve really been left reconsidering all my beliefs about why this page was not ranking but today, all my fears were put to rest when the site resurfaced at position #6 in google.co.uk for it’s domain name. This has always been an indicator of other longtail searches showing up too and a quick search in google for ‘john lewis bar stools’ will show you what I mean…
So as of right now, I’m back in the top 10 and sending clicks to my merchants (33 today, in fact – and that’s not counting the ones to amazon so all in all, it looks very positive right now (9pm Friday night) but I’ll have to wait and see stats tomorrow to see how the full day looks.
Don’t be fooled, despite the site sapping me of all motivation or desire to work on it, I have not been idle and I have stuck at it, continuing to add one or two articles, built a few backlinks and reorganised several on page SEO factors (added unique category descriptions, removed duplicate content category posts to show only the excerpts, removed category descriptions from link titles and changed product links so that instead of the product title linking straight out to merchant, it is now a text link to it’s own product page).
I am hoping that the combination of all of these things, plus the increase in ‘trust’ and ‘quality’ value google is applying to my site (as a result of all of these things + link and domain age) has contributed to today’s massive swing and reappearance in the top 10.
Now, if this can just stick, finally, I think the site will have turned it’s corner. Interesting, seeing as though the beginning of August marks the site’s 6 month anniversary.
I must proceed with caution, however, because I’ve been here many, many times before….
.
August 9th, 2010 at 6:24 am
Total opposite to mine then
I’ve almost got my first PPC site ready to go
Just adding the last of the products and a few content pages. I’ve already started on the Adwords campaign, just need to wait for the site to be complete before I activate it.
August 9th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Shane – You always start off slowly and then make up for it later on in the month!
No, I have to say, this month has been a real freak month so far with earnings larger than ever before at this stage of the month. I don’t hold out too much hope for this to keep pace for the rest of the month but it’s a nice hope to hold on to.
As for the bar stools site, I’ve dissapeared from SERPs again so my page 1 position only held up for a day – again.
Can’t wait to see how you get on with your PPC site. I think it will really open up new streams of revenue for you and judging by the quality of your other sites, I have every belief you’ll do really well out of it. If I could offer any advice, it would be that if your first attempt at a PPC site doesn’t work, don’t give in on PPC. Try another niche instead.