Can I Niche Duel Like Pat Flynn? – Part 3
This is part 3 of my “Niche Site Duel” series. It’s been a long time since Part 2 (coupled with the fact that I’m not really even dueling with anyone but myself), that I feel kind of silly even calling it a Niche Site Duel. But it is what it is. You can think of this as my own personal niche site case study if it makes things easier. I’m basically attempting to follow Pat Flynn’s niche site formula to see if I can reach #1 on Google for my keywords.
As promised in my last income report, I’m finally back with another update on my Private Investigator niche web site. If I were actually dueling with Pat Flynn, I would have lost by now. I think Pat was #1 on Google in a ridiculous 3 months.. It’s been 8 months for me and I’m just starting to see some front page action (although not for my originally chosen keywords).
If you follow me on twitter, then you may or may not already know my niche site. So without further ado, behold: BecomePrivateInvestigator.com
Where Did I Go Wrong?
Mistake #1 – Choosing the wrong keyword phrase. If you look back at part 2, you’ll see that I went with the phrase “become private investigator”. I really have no idea what the hell I was thinking when I chose this. Maybe I was drinking that night. Maybe I was running on too little sleep… But the phrase was only getting 170 exact phrase matches per month via Micro Niche Finder. Seriously.. I’d like to know what I was thinking at the time?? In general you should target a niche that gets at least 2K – 3K monthly exact phrase searches per month.
To top it off, I then went on to compare the results from Micro Niche Finder with the results from using the Google Keyword Tool and I couldn’t figure out why the numbers were so different. Thankfully a reader helpfully pointed out the fact that I was comparing exact phrase results in MNF with broad phrase results in Google Keyword. Oops!
Mistake #2 – Not realizing Mistake #1 and therefore losing interest. I had an idea that I might have incorrectly chosen my keywords, but I still decided to forge ahead. But after weeks of writing content and purchasing more content, and spinning articles, and submitting articles, I was not seeing any progress at all. And after a few months of building the site and working on backlinks (and seeing zero results) – I finally gave in and stopped working on the site. Pat had won.
So Why am I Back?
I realized that I’m not a quitter. Sure I’ve given up on other niche sites in the past and bought domain names, only to let them expire. But this was my first real, fully developed, rich content-driven niche site. I’d put too much time and effort into building it and writing lots of content, that I figured I had to give it a 2nd chance.
Either I was going to get it to the front page of google and hopefully a #1 spot for some keyword phrase, or I was going to burn myself out trying.
Another motivating factor was that when I would get a random adsense click, the payout was great. Much better than any of my other smaller niche sites. So the money potential is also a motivational factor, and another reason that I don’t want to let this project die just yet. Hell, Pat’s now making over $1000 a month alone, from his initial Security Guard niche website.
Steadily Creeping Up
Last month I mentioned that I was finally starting to see results. In October, my Private Investigator website earned $21.25. Up to November 15th (half way through the month), it has already earned $46.54, plus a few bucks in Amazon affiliate sales. Disclaimer: So far November has been a horrible month for adsense overall. The rest of my sites are tanking, so thankfully my niche duel site is finally coming to life.
In Part 4 of the series, I’ll try to discuss my backlinking strategy and how I finally started to climb the google rankings.
I probably won’t update the blog until my next income report, so have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.
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Good to see you coming back to the site and giving it a go. It’s all about the longtail keywords and sometimes you will stumble upon something by accident so good luck with this and looking forward to the next update.
Adem recently posted..Niche Website Bloggers Who I Follow
That’s exactly it.. I’m not ranking well for my chosen keywords, but finally starting to do well for other long tail words.
mike recently posted..Can I Niche Duel Like Pat Flynn? – Part 3
Glad to see you’re gettin’ back on the horse and trying to make your niche site as amazing as it can possibly be. Best of luck!
thanks for stopping by adam. still working on making your top 10.
mike recently posted..Can I Niche Duel Like Pat Flynn? – Part 3
As a new niche site like that, $46.54 half month is not bad at all. You may hit $100 by the end of Nov.
Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
Ken @ Make Extra Money Online recently posted..My focus in 2011