Niche Websites - Building Niche Websites & Making Money Online

Job Niche Site Updates & Changes

January 15th, 2012

Jonathon

This is the third update on my progress with the local job related website that I am working on. You can read the other updates below:

Niche Website Introduction

Niche Website Update

The second link details what I have done so far to get this site to it’s current position. Since writing that, I haven’t done much, other than write a blog post on the site, and write a blog post on the blogger blog that I have associated with the website. I also removed some affiliate ads and replaced them with something more subtle.

The good news is that this local niche website is now safely on page 3 of Google, right at the top of the page. I expect within a few weeks to see it make it to page #2 and then on to page #1. My biggest concern is that I’m competing against a professional SEO company, which I have wrote about in the previous posts. One of the websites that is one the first page, also has associated websites and blogs on page one and two as well, which to me speaks to the work of a pro. My guess is that if I have taken notice of them, they have also taken notice of me. Of course, I could be paranoid, but they must have taken note of a website that came out of nowhere and is looking to bump them down the rankings slightly.

Time will tell, but I am happy with the progress so far, even though I’m not seeing much traffic as of yet.

Google+ Personalized Search Results

January 10th, 2012

Jonathon

Well…the day that many SEO’s have been worrying about has come. Today is the day that Google rolled out personal results based on information that they have been gathering from Google Plus. That’s right; If you signed up for Google Plus in the past 6 months, Google has been spying on you, see what you like and dislike and now they plan to serve up results that are supposedly tailored to you.

There’s been a lot of talk about this issue today on various websites and news outlets so I don’t think that I need to go into too much detail about what’s happening, other than to say that it stinks on a number of levels. First, this puts all the power in the hands of Google to serve up websites that it “thinks” that you want to see. Will they be websites that Google wants you to see? Of course; They’re in the business of practically printing money, so there will be a financial benefit for Google in all of this as it all points back to Google+. On a positive note, if you feel like stroking your ego, it’s possible that your own websites are on page 1 FOR YOU! I Googled my own site this morning, and sure enough…it’s on page #1. The trouble with that is that it’s not likely that way for everyone.

For those involved in SEO or Niche Websites, it’s very early to tell how this is going to affect your rankings, if at all. I would be interested in hearing from webmasters to see if your traffic has been affected in a negative or positive way over the coming days and weeks.

In the meantime, here are some great resources to get you up to speed on the latest change. Of course, you could “Google” the topic yourself and get another set of resources that Google thinks you should see…

http://searchengineland.com/googles-results-get-more-personal-with-search-plus-your-world-107285

Instructions to turn it off:

http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=54048

Niche Site Update & Tips

January 8th, 2012

Jonathon

I mentioned in my previous post about local Google search rankings and a website that I’m currently working on. It’s not a traditional “niche store” like many websites I built in the past, but still a niche website focusing on jobs, careers and career development. I belong to an affiliate program with one of the major job posting websites so I can have job postings, allow employers to post jobs and have other career development and employment articles on the website.

The city that I live in, not unlike many other large cities has over 9% unemployment, so I get a healthy number of searches for my main keywords.

I wanted to update you on how far my rankings have come in the past few days and it’s encouraging to say the least. Currently I’m sitting on page #4 of Google for my main keywords. While I’m still not getting some great traffic yet, I’m hopeful that the coming days, weeks and months will look pretty good.

Here’s what I have done so far to get the website to where it is:

1. It’s a WordPress based website that has some good interlinking between pages and 4 or 5 good quality posts that are on topic.

2. I have optimized the site with All-in-One SEO plugin, making sure each page has a good title, description and keywords.

3. I submitted it to some directories. Whether this is still helpful or not, no one seems to really know, but I did it anyway.

4. I have a Twitter account and Facebook page for this website which I do post on.

5. I created a blogger.com blog with the main keywords and wrote a few posts.

6. I created a good quality Squidoo lens.

7. I sought out some high quality backlinks on job related websites in my area. I did get one from a local University!

8. A submitted a sitemap to Google Webmaster tools and made sure that I set to it to target the country I live in specifically (Canada.)

9. Submitted the site to Stumbleupon.

That’s about all I have done so far that I can remember, but I’m always looking for more high quality backlinks that are targeted to my local community.

Quick Tip: I just don’t believe that more backlinks are better. Focus on GOOD Quality, targeted backlinks that make sense for your website. For example, if you have a Diecast Car website, don’t bother trying to get a backlink on a Wedding Dress website.