Ranking in Google for MASSIVE term... now what?

[BadGuy]

Alright guys/gals,

I put a website on around 8 months ago. It's basically a sales page promoting a clickbank product. It's made some good sales in its time, but it's now dropped off completely, and unforutnately the refund rate was always pretty dire - so I just don't see it being a viable thing to continue and left it.

Anyway, recently I checked to see if I was ranking anywhere in Google for some of the major terms in my niche - just out of interest more than anything - and to my complete suprised, I am. Even for the major keyword in the niche. (All this with no backlinks/linkbuilding efforts at all...)

Since its just a one page site (barring the contact/faq, etc.) every term I rank for is now straight to the .com sales letter. Anyway, no sales hardly, crap product... dire refund rate - I want to change it up a bit and turn it into a content site with AdSense.

What I wanted to know is, has anybody been in a similar situation to this? I mean, what if I took the sales page down, put up a good content SEO site in its place... would I lose all the rankings? Is there a way to make the transition from ranking sales letter to ranking content/AdSense site without sort of sandboxing the site or losing rankings?

Any advice is much appreciated...

 

[boomboomer]

You'll find a lot of products on clickbank/paydotcom which are similar to the one you are currently promoting. Just modify the product name and keep the majority of your page as it is.

This might help if you can identify a well converting product with less refunds.

You might also want to try out CPA offers that gel well with the content of your page.

 

[BadGuy]

Hi boomboomer,

Thanks for the advice. I certainly think it may be worth trying to promote another product; the problem is, I've more or less nailed myself to the floor with this page because the product I was promoting already was my own -- one modelled on and in fact BETTER than another very popular clickbank product. So I don't really see there been anywhere left to go so for as clickbank is concerned.

I certainly think most of the other products are the same in this market, and no matter what I do it will result in refunds. Which is why I wish to make the switch to content rather than continue with clickbank for this particular niche. No customers, no refunds, just content and AdSense.

Do you know much about what I originally asked, about how much the rankings may be effected should I change the page dramatically? Baring in mind it's currently only a 1 page site it's certainly not (in my opinion) deserving of the ranking it's got, so I don't see how it could hurt. I've heard it usually drops off for a month or two when changes are made, but as long as it's good content it'll bounce back - maybe even better than before.

I suppose I'll just give it a go.

 

[boomboomer]

What you could do is add more content in a directory or a subdomain. That ways you'll keep ranking for the main page and get traffic on other pages as well.

And as far as clickbank is concerned, it is very important to select the right product. For instance, over a period of time, I've had only 11 refunds in all the sales that I have seen (4 figures) ..

 

[BadGuy]

I think I'll keep the main page exactly as is, and try to build some smaller seperate article pages first, and see how they rank. That way when I eventually change the main page/sales letter (which I'll have to do if I'm to sell another product) if it loses rank it won't matter so much because I'll still be funneling people in from the articles.

Thanks for you advice, I really appreciate it.

 

[Gonka]

First, check your backlinks, see how they are linked to you, if they are natural links, then go ahead change your content.

As long as try to stay in the same category of what you are promoting, your ranking should not change much.

And once you have re-indexed by google, then start build more backlinks. So even if you did get ranking drop, you should gain back your ranking quickly because your original backlinks were still there.

 

[BadGuy]

Thank you Gonka for that advice.

It's one of them things where it's the first time I've ever ranked for anything. And it's not because I have 'great content' per se, because all I have is one sales page. I'll definitely be staying in the same niche when I change/add content so with any luck I'll either regain what I may lose, or I won't lose at all.

 

[ghands]

I've been in this situation before - can't believe that I never thought of this though.

 

[BadGuy]

What did you do ghands? Did you change the page and lose rankings or did you gradually change it and retain?

 

[mojako]

Alright guys/gals,

I put a website on around 8 months ago. It's basically a sales page promoting a clickbank product. It's made some good sales in its time, but it's now dropped off completely, and unforutnately the refund rate was always pretty dire - so I just don't see it being a viable thing to continue and left it.

Anyway, recently I checked to see if I was ranking anywhere in Google for some of the major terms in my niche - just out of interest more than anything - and to my complete suprised, I am. Even for the major keyword in the niche. (All this with no backlinks/linkbuilding efforts at all...)

Since its just a one page site (barring the contact/faq, etc.) every term I rank for is now straight to the .com sales letter. Anyway, no sales hardly, crap product... dire refund rate - I want to change it up a bit and turn it into a content site with AdSense.

What I wanted to know is, has anybody been in a similar situation to this? I mean, what if I took the sales page down, put up a good content SEO site in its place... would I lose all the rankings? Is there a way to make the transition from ranking sales letter to ranking content/AdSense site without sort of sandboxing the site or losing rankings?

Any advice is much appreciated...

Give your customer a bonus, an ebook of yours that contain an affiliate link to another clickbank product. If you change the structure page for an adsense, it will completely lose all the ranking.

 

[interpro]

Since your site is now getting a good amount of traffic, why not keep it the same? If you don't change it, you should still get the big traffic. Just add some more pages to the site and place a redirect on your front page (the one that gets the traffic). That way, you'll maintain traffic and ranking, but visitors will see your new offers.