RealDaddy
Repeatedly violating rules
- Jun 30, 2018
- 9,011
- 11,300
Wow! You always inspire the hell out of me.
Cheers
KGR With a Twist (Case Study Round Two)
- Thread starter SEOMadHatter
- Start date
Cheers
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
I'm trying to finish up this week with a clearer pile of notes and to-do lists. The last two weeks have been super complicated with a couple of different projects going on but unless anything major pops up I don't have anything else on my plate really for at least 2 weeks and even then it should be a pretty simple MVP which leaves me with quite a bit of time.
Quarantine might be boring as fuck but it's also cheap. Combine that with the fact I recently finished Rich Dad Poor Dad and I'm trying to figure out how to best scale this project. Which really means figuring out how to get out of my own way.
Part of me feels like I should write the content myself and spend the money on backlinks because while I can write the content I can't (reliably) get decent sites to link to me without money. In terms of min-maxing the return for each dollar this makes sense to me. This is also the control freak in me talking. The part which wants to control the content of the site as well. This might not be so bad but even with a quiet two weeks ahead of me I still have other bits of work to take care off and there's only so much content I'm able to write.
So this is really flawed logic. The tests so far have been working so if I can give up that control a little and trust the writers to do what they do I can focus on keeping the pages going live and finding new niches. Based on the tests I'm seeing so far, this produces scalable results and I can always come back later to buy links or rewrite content myself if I really can't stop myself.
To that end, I'm trying to commit to this better and invest more money than I've maybe ever spent on a single project before.
I've reached out to the existing writers and upped their rates. The more they do, the less I have to edit so while I'm still posting content for the moment if I don't have to actually edit this it becomes a much faster task and much easier to pass to someone else if it comes to it.
I've also got a few extra writers who started this afternoon. I looked at content from writing agencies I've used in the past but it doesn't seem worthwhile. I paid a lot more but the quality wasn't much different.
The current plan is just to hire super fucking easily and quickly. I'll give them a set of articles to do and if they're shit I'll still post them to the parasites. I've ranked auto-generated text with minimum editing so how bad can they really do compared to that? If they're good then I'll offer them more work for the parasites and if I like them enough I'll ask them to do the even longer-form content for my own domain.
While they get on with that I'm going to do the part I can't easily outsource which is to find and prepare new niches. I already have a couple lined up, enough to keep a couple of writers busy for a while but I'd like to test a whole bunch of niches at the same time to find the easy wins and that way if other projects do start taking up more time there's a backlog for them to work through.
If I do manage to put together a bunch of new niches and I don't have any other projects to actively work on then I'll maybe get to write some of the content myself.
That's pretty cool to hear, thanks. Hopefully, this one doesn't blow up in my face and demoralize us both then.
I saw your PM by the way, I'll take a proper look either later tonight or tomorrow it's been a long weekend.
Quarantine might be boring as fuck but it's also cheap. Combine that with the fact I recently finished Rich Dad Poor Dad and I'm trying to figure out how to best scale this project. Which really means figuring out how to get out of my own way.
Part of me feels like I should write the content myself and spend the money on backlinks because while I can write the content I can't (reliably) get decent sites to link to me without money. In terms of min-maxing the return for each dollar this makes sense to me. This is also the control freak in me talking. The part which wants to control the content of the site as well. This might not be so bad but even with a quiet two weeks ahead of me I still have other bits of work to take care off and there's only so much content I'm able to write.
So this is really flawed logic. The tests so far have been working so if I can give up that control a little and trust the writers to do what they do I can focus on keeping the pages going live and finding new niches. Based on the tests I'm seeing so far, this produces scalable results and I can always come back later to buy links or rewrite content myself if I really can't stop myself.
To that end, I'm trying to commit to this better and invest more money than I've maybe ever spent on a single project before.
I've reached out to the existing writers and upped their rates. The more they do, the less I have to edit so while I'm still posting content for the moment if I don't have to actually edit this it becomes a much faster task and much easier to pass to someone else if it comes to it.
I've also got a few extra writers who started this afternoon. I looked at content from writing agencies I've used in the past but it doesn't seem worthwhile. I paid a lot more but the quality wasn't much different.
The current plan is just to hire super fucking easily and quickly. I'll give them a set of articles to do and if they're shit I'll still post them to the parasites. I've ranked auto-generated text with minimum editing so how bad can they really do compared to that? If they're good then I'll offer them more work for the parasites and if I like them enough I'll ask them to do the even longer-form content for my own domain.
While they get on with that I'm going to do the part I can't easily outsource which is to find and prepare new niches. I already have a couple lined up, enough to keep a couple of writers busy for a while but I'd like to test a whole bunch of niches at the same time to find the easy wins and that way if other projects do start taking up more time there's a backlog for them to work through.
If I do manage to put together a bunch of new niches and I don't have any other projects to actively work on then I'll maybe get to write some of the content myself.
That's pretty cool to hear, thanks. Hopefully, this one doesn't blow up in my face and demoralize us both then.
I saw your PM by the way, I'll take a proper look either later tonight or tomorrow it's been a long weekend.
EntertheDeals
Regular Member
- Sep 16, 2016
- 369
- 194
It might be worthwhile to hire just OK writers but also hire an editor. Maybe take your current best writer and make them an editor. Might help with the scaling. Just a thought.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
Trialed a writer out at $50 per 1,000 words who had to be asked to use a damn spell check and shortchanged the word count pretty severely. Had another writer go AWOL for two weeks only to reappear when I'd genuinely forgotten about them and just generally...
It's like herding cats. Cats with ADHD. On meth.
That said, I looked at some writing agencies from the marketplace but the quality hasn't been much better than some of the cheaper writers and at the end of the day, you're just paying extra for a middleman. I'm sticking with the plan of just keep hiring and offer the good one's more work. I've found a couple so far who are decent and while the TAT is still slower than I'd like it's slowly picking up.
I paid $30ish to have an article from my competitor's KGR piece rewritten. Their content was good and it would be a hard topic for a freelancer to write about but it's easy enough to change up the wording and structure of something until it'll read as a unique piece. Instead, they've clearly just run it through a spinner. It'll pass CopyScape but it's not fooling anyone. I wouldn't put this near a money site but I will be posting it to a parasite to see what happens. If it does rank then it might just be worth hiring someone full time to manually spin content a bit rather than trying to write something from scratch.
Not a whole lot of change lately. Traffic is pretty steady with ranks slowly increasing across the board. Our niche in health is moving a lot slower but I expected that one. It's a pity since these niches convert well but I think I'll be avoiding anything which falls under YMYL for the time being. Not really looking to commit to a niche that much.
We currently have about 3x the number of pages posted compared to when I started focusing on the scaling. A lot less than I wanted but I'm hoping that this week I should be able to clear through the backlog and I'm going to be much less of a bottleneck for the whole thing. Our TAT is picking up, there'll be less for me to actually do and I'll be able to start focusing on finding new niches and making sure everything is running.
There's a couple of projects needing my attention this week but I'm hoping to be through the backlog and get at least one new niche started/
I've never outsourced an editor before but I'm curious to see how it would go. I've a few writers just now doing some decent work I might give this a shot and see how it goes.
It's like herding cats. Cats with ADHD. On meth.
That said, I looked at some writing agencies from the marketplace but the quality hasn't been much better than some of the cheaper writers and at the end of the day, you're just paying extra for a middleman. I'm sticking with the plan of just keep hiring and offer the good one's more work. I've found a couple so far who are decent and while the TAT is still slower than I'd like it's slowly picking up.
I paid $30ish to have an article from my competitor's KGR piece rewritten. Their content was good and it would be a hard topic for a freelancer to write about but it's easy enough to change up the wording and structure of something until it'll read as a unique piece. Instead, they've clearly just run it through a spinner. It'll pass CopyScape but it's not fooling anyone. I wouldn't put this near a money site but I will be posting it to a parasite to see what happens. If it does rank then it might just be worth hiring someone full time to manually spin content a bit rather than trying to write something from scratch.
Not a whole lot of change lately. Traffic is pretty steady with ranks slowly increasing across the board. Our niche in health is moving a lot slower but I expected that one. It's a pity since these niches convert well but I think I'll be avoiding anything which falls under YMYL for the time being. Not really looking to commit to a niche that much.
We currently have about 3x the number of pages posted compared to when I started focusing on the scaling. A lot less than I wanted but I'm hoping that this week I should be able to clear through the backlog and I'm going to be much less of a bottleneck for the whole thing. Our TAT is picking up, there'll be less for me to actually do and I'll be able to start focusing on finding new niches and making sure everything is running.
There's a couple of projects needing my attention this week but I'm hoping to be through the backlog and get at least one new niche started/
I've never outsourced an editor before but I'm curious to see how it would go. I've a few writers just now doing some decent work I might give this a shot and see how it goes.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
The hop count for the second niche has been stagnant for the last week or two so that was getting a little concerning. I checked in on the actual content traffic and it's been showing some very healthy growth, however. The call to action I was using was just a placeholder and while I probably won't bother to change it just now that's a load off my mind.
So that's good.
I currently have... I want to say 8 different writers working on content and about 170 pages live. The onsite is all over the place depending on the writer and it's becoming a bit of a pain trying to manage that many but I figure a couple will drop off. I like the idea of having an editor fix up the cheaper content and maybe run it through SEO Surfer or something because a lot of this onsite is pretty hit and miss. For now, I'll make do for a bit longer. I'd like to reach about 300 pages live and give them a chance to sit awhile. If the traffic comes in then I'll start to look at getting this off my hands.
Started a new niche today. Pretty competitive niche in general and the onsite for this content sucks so I'll probably have to revisit it but I'm curious to see how it does. I usually don't pay attention at all to the SERPS for these but I've been in this niche before with some SEO traffic so there's money in it but some weird authority sites.
I've got content coming in for another new niche so I'll need to get that prepped later in the week.
So that's good.
I currently have... I want to say 8 different writers working on content and about 170 pages live. The onsite is all over the place depending on the writer and it's becoming a bit of a pain trying to manage that many but I figure a couple will drop off. I like the idea of having an editor fix up the cheaper content and maybe run it through SEO Surfer or something because a lot of this onsite is pretty hit and miss. For now, I'll make do for a bit longer. I'd like to reach about 300 pages live and give them a chance to sit awhile. If the traffic comes in then I'll start to look at getting this off my hands.
Started a new niche today. Pretty competitive niche in general and the onsite for this content sucks so I'll probably have to revisit it but I'm curious to see how it does. I usually don't pay attention at all to the SERPS for these but I've been in this niche before with some SEO traffic so there's money in it but some weird authority sites.
I've got content coming in for another new niche so I'll need to get that prepped later in the week.
Digital Media Lab
Regular Member
- Mar 11, 2017
- 255
- 161
Wanted to jump in and say you inspire me as well, a lot. This is one of the threads I really enjoy reading on here. Hope you'll keep up with that.
Not sure why are you struggling so much with writers, since you are willing to pay very decent rates. I have about 6 full time writers doing about 50+ pieces of content (total) on a monthly basis. They can handle even more than that probably, but I don't have more to assign right now. They all range between $25 and $38 per 1000 words of content, and write very well. No editing needed ever.
What has been my process?
I hire all my writers on Upwork. I target writers that ask for more money, and then negotiate a lot with them by offering consistent work and flexible schedule. This is what gets them hooked.
I usually outline a process of how things need to be handled, automate a decent amount of things so I can get out of my way and let them do their work.
You also kinda need to accept that they can't always hit exactly what you want without you telling them precisely. I have initially made some costly mistakes by thinking they can think the way I do, without me telling them. Even if things make perfect sense to me, I can't expect them to know it.
So I now have SOPs that outline each part of the process, so they can't go wrong about it.
Also, I hire writers that don't make grammar and punctual errors. I don't want those headaches.
If I want lower quality content (for parasites or similar), I pay about $10-$15 per 100 words.
Not sure why are you struggling so much with writers, since you are willing to pay very decent rates. I have about 6 full time writers doing about 50+ pieces of content (total) on a monthly basis. They can handle even more than that probably, but I don't have more to assign right now. They all range between $25 and $38 per 1000 words of content, and write very well. No editing needed ever.
What has been my process?
I hire all my writers on Upwork. I target writers that ask for more money, and then negotiate a lot with them by offering consistent work and flexible schedule. This is what gets them hooked.
I usually outline a process of how things need to be handled, automate a decent amount of things so I can get out of my way and let them do their work.
You also kinda need to accept that they can't always hit exactly what you want without you telling them precisely. I have initially made some costly mistakes by thinking they can think the way I do, without me telling them. Even if things make perfect sense to me, I can't expect them to know it.
So I now have SOPs that outline each part of the process, so they can't go wrong about it.
Also, I hire writers that don't make grammar and punctual errors. I don't want those headaches.
If I want lower quality content (for parasites or similar), I pay about $10-$15 per 100 words.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
Right!
So first of all - not dead. I work on a lot of different projects and I'm sitting in lockdown so I've been working 7 days a week for several months now. Burnout just got the better of me and I spaced out for a bit. Normally I'm pretty good at keeping a work-life balance and I'll do 20 hour days for a while on a cool new project then take a chunk of time off but there's not a whole lot to do at the moment and I'm reaaaaly missing travel so it's just been tough to keep up with.
A couple of pieces of good news though.
First (and most importantly) the traffic growth has kept up. The first niche I started scaling into is now generating consistent sales with the parasite traffic and that'll be a positive ROI already within a week or two. The other two niches started shortly after that are starting to pick up now as well. The newest YMYL niche has a couple of page 2 results showing now but the majority of those posts are still AWOL. The writer for that niche really wasn't the best but so far it's looking like niches like that are going to move slower.
I'm behind on where I wanted to be on the content count and number of niches but at least I've had a little extra time to prove it's scalable and it wasn't just a lucky start. Always a boost to motivation to see a project pay off.
Secondly - it isn't just the parasites. I looked at two domains I'd posted KGR content to and they've both had steady growth without backlinks. One site had actually lost a traffic source and I hadn't noticed because SEO has picked up daily sales. They're taking longer than the parasites which isn't surprising but they convert better and I don't have to worry about a parasite deleting my ranks.
I've started outsourcing some more traditional SEO projects now but I'll get more into the details and numbers once I've caught up with the burnout backlog.
Basically I've got cheaper writers working on the parasite content and then the better-paid writers working on domain content. Started two sites so far with the plan being to start a third this week once I pick out a niche. I'll outline the process a bit more later in the week once I get the time but the plan is to outsource the whole thing.
Much appreciated!
I (eventually) found a couple of good ones just by sheer numbers but I'm looking for more now so I'll be giving your process a try.
I'm attempting to switch two of my writers over to using SurferSEO templates this week. It seems very overpriced for what it provides I think there's a gap in the market for a cheaper SASS doing something like this but I think it'll be worthwhile and save me time for the moment.
So first of all - not dead. I work on a lot of different projects and I'm sitting in lockdown so I've been working 7 days a week for several months now. Burnout just got the better of me and I spaced out for a bit. Normally I'm pretty good at keeping a work-life balance and I'll do 20 hour days for a while on a cool new project then take a chunk of time off but there's not a whole lot to do at the moment and I'm reaaaaly missing travel so it's just been tough to keep up with.
A couple of pieces of good news though.
First (and most importantly) the traffic growth has kept up. The first niche I started scaling into is now generating consistent sales with the parasite traffic and that'll be a positive ROI already within a week or two. The other two niches started shortly after that are starting to pick up now as well. The newest YMYL niche has a couple of page 2 results showing now but the majority of those posts are still AWOL. The writer for that niche really wasn't the best but so far it's looking like niches like that are going to move slower.
I'm behind on where I wanted to be on the content count and number of niches but at least I've had a little extra time to prove it's scalable and it wasn't just a lucky start. Always a boost to motivation to see a project pay off.
Secondly - it isn't just the parasites. I looked at two domains I'd posted KGR content to and they've both had steady growth without backlinks. One site had actually lost a traffic source and I hadn't noticed because SEO has picked up daily sales. They're taking longer than the parasites which isn't surprising but they convert better and I don't have to worry about a parasite deleting my ranks.
I've started outsourcing some more traditional SEO projects now but I'll get more into the details and numbers once I've caught up with the burnout backlog.
Basically I've got cheaper writers working on the parasite content and then the better-paid writers working on domain content. Started two sites so far with the plan being to start a third this week once I pick out a niche. I'll outline the process a bit more later in the week once I get the time but the plan is to outsource the whole thing.
Much appreciated!
I (eventually) found a couple of good ones just by sheer numbers but I'm looking for more now so I'll be giving your process a try.
I'm attempting to switch two of my writers over to using SurferSEO templates this week. It seems very overpriced for what it provides I think there's a gap in the market for a cheaper SASS doing something like this but I think it'll be worthwhile and save me time for the moment.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
Didn't get a whole lot done in the past week. Took two days off and other projects sucked up the rest of the time. Still very behind on where I wanted to be but I should have a lot more free time in the near future to focus on this.
Started a couple of things scaling:
The existing domain is the one I'm interested in at the moment. The current KGR content is getting a healthy return so I don't mind putting some time and money into growing the site but I'm trying to get as much of this done sooner rather than later. I'm curious to see how quickly I can take an existing site like this and boost the traffic as I'm really interested in buying smaller sites and growing them.
The parasites are a no-brainer at the moment. They're ranking quickly and generating sales. Two newer have started to pick up in the last week so I'm scaling the amount of content in the existing ranking niches and starting to test new niches with the parasites alone. I have a couple of new niches to get started in and some scaling to do in existing ones.
Some obvious patterns here. The parasites are ranking a lot faster than my own sites but my domains are converting a lot more because I have more control. In some cases, I'm starting to target the same keywords now so I have a backup in the SERPS. Maybe not the best move for a short term ROI but I like a little bit of future-proofing and if the rankings hold it'll still be ROI+ from picking up the extra traffic.
The week ahead I need to pick out one or two new niches for the parasites, try and catch up on the backlog there a bit (it's going much faster now at least) and other than that I'm going to try and write at least 10,000 words for the existing domain just fitting that in around other projects as I can.
Revenue over the last 30 days from this was somewhere around $3000-$3,500. I'd have to go through and filter out traffic sources for some of them. Expenses for that were $0 it was maybe $500 in content and a couple of days work from earlier.
Expenses over the last 30 days somewhere around the $2,500 - $3,000 mark. All going towards future traffic. About $1,500 in links for two different sites one isn't purely KGR but does get a lot of KGR traffic. The rest all in content, most of which haven't been published yet.
Both of these numbers really should have been higher but other projects and burnout have got the better of me lately. I wanted to have 10x the amount of content but at least the delay has given me a better proof of concept and more data going forward.
Started a couple of things scaling:
- Started a fresh new domain. Spend about $550 in content and about $350 for some backlinks to help speed things up a bit. I won't be doing too much backlinking for this domain (at the moment anyway) I mostly just want to see how a fresh domain will do but I know this niche well enough to know I'll get a good ROI.
- I took an existing domain that is already doing well with KGR traffic. Ordered $1,300 in niche edits and guest posts mostly pointing at some higher competition keywords which are sitting further back in the SERPS this can't but help the KGR terms it's already targeting. I've also got about 50 new KGR terms to target with it and I've started publishing content that I'm writing myself. I know the niche well enough to write for it easily and I know the return will be a good ROI this is a site I should have scaled sooner.
- The parasite traffic has continued to grow. There's a backlog of content still waiting to go but I've put another $550 into content for that.
The existing domain is the one I'm interested in at the moment. The current KGR content is getting a healthy return so I don't mind putting some time and money into growing the site but I'm trying to get as much of this done sooner rather than later. I'm curious to see how quickly I can take an existing site like this and boost the traffic as I'm really interested in buying smaller sites and growing them.
The parasites are a no-brainer at the moment. They're ranking quickly and generating sales. Two newer have started to pick up in the last week so I'm scaling the amount of content in the existing ranking niches and starting to test new niches with the parasites alone. I have a couple of new niches to get started in and some scaling to do in existing ones.
Some obvious patterns here. The parasites are ranking a lot faster than my own sites but my domains are converting a lot more because I have more control. In some cases, I'm starting to target the same keywords now so I have a backup in the SERPS. Maybe not the best move for a short term ROI but I like a little bit of future-proofing and if the rankings hold it'll still be ROI+ from picking up the extra traffic.
The week ahead I need to pick out one or two new niches for the parasites, try and catch up on the backlog there a bit (it's going much faster now at least) and other than that I'm going to try and write at least 10,000 words for the existing domain just fitting that in around other projects as I can.
Revenue over the last 30 days from this was somewhere around $3000-$3,500. I'd have to go through and filter out traffic sources for some of them. Expenses for that were $0 it was maybe $500 in content and a couple of days work from earlier.
Expenses over the last 30 days somewhere around the $2,500 - $3,000 mark. All going towards future traffic. About $1,500 in links for two different sites one isn't purely KGR but does get a lot of KGR traffic. The rest all in content, most of which haven't been published yet.
Both of these numbers really should have been higher but other projects and burnout have got the better of me lately. I wanted to have 10x the amount of content but at least the delay has given me a better proof of concept and more data going forward.
RealDaddy
Repeatedly violating rules
- Jun 30, 2018
- 9,011
- 11,300
@SEOMadHatter Good luck!
Keep it up!
You are doing great, building great digital assets are going to pay off big time.
You always inspire the hell out of me!
Keep it up!
You are doing great, building great digital assets are going to pay off big time.
You always inspire the hell out of me!
kaudo
Power Member
- Jan 9, 2015
- 580
- 857
Just wallpaper the SERPs with your results...
AussieLocalSEOGuy
Regular Member
- Jan 6, 2013
- 251
- 112
Hey Madhatter, i sent you DM. Are you on skype?
thanks
thanks
barberchristij
Registered Member
- Jun 9, 2020
- 52
- 9
Much thanks for sharing.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
Alright. We've had our first $300+ day and I've not been around BHW in a while so it's probably time for an update. Might be quite a big one.
Slacking on BHW
First up - I'm not dead. Been away from BHW for a couple of weeks restricting things in my life and cutting out some which were taking more time than they were worth. I'm still riding out the pandemic in the middle of the Scottish countryside but I'm not working on 20 different things a day 7 days a week. That was a bit much.
Over the burnout now and actually enjoying the projects I've kept active.
If you've left me a PM here or you know me offsite and I haven't gotten back to you - I will try to go through them all this week. If it's urgent poke me again and I'll get back to you when I see it.
So What About the KGR Project?
Right! So there's actually quite a bit going on here.
Firstly - the existing stuff.
Rankings have continued to grow. Spotted a couple of patterns that have been slowing things down a bit. In my original test, I was spending more time myself on at least some of the content and when I started getting so focused on scaling fast I lost that.
As a result, the onsite structure from an SEO standpoint has suffered so while the newer stuff have been getting consistent growth, I can see why they're not performing as well. Given the kind of profit the earlier parasites have now made it's really worth either putting in the extra time or money into getting this stuff better quality.
The $300 day was an unusual spike but it is starting to average a fairly consistent $200/day now. Really should have been higher by now but other projects have sapped up way too much of time over the last couple of months. There should still be plenty of growth coming from the stuff which went up since then but I am shifting gears going forwards.
Pinterest
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed Google started rankings pins everywhere for terms they have no right ranking for.
I ran an automated Pinterest journal probably around 2 years ago now. I have domains that still get traffic from that project and that's obviously seen a spike now that Google has decided to rank it for terms it has no business ranking for.
I'm not a huge fan of Pinterest traffic. Even if the pin has a great CTA it's so easy for the traffic to stay within Pinterest and worse set when they're on a mobile. When they're on the app they're less likely to click through and less likely to actually interact with the site when they do. I'll not turn down the traffic they do send me but there's a reason I don't work with that project anymore.
I also don't think this was intentional. Unless Google bought a ton of shares in Pinterest I expect them to vanish again in a few months but I did start a few smaller-scale tests aiming for KGR terms with pins. I can see my competitors ranking pins and it beats making any actual content.
YouTube
I wanted to try a couple of different things with YouTube so I figured two birds with one stone and targetted KGR terms with some YouTube videos.
I haven't actually tried chasing keywords with YouTube before so I'm not really sure what to expect. I've found you can rank some of these terms very quickly in YouTube search and it's started bringing in some organic traffic and subs much sooner than expected. You can also use parasites on the Google SERP to drive views to the YouTube channel if you want to build up views on a channel itself.
I'm not sure what the usual timeline or process is like for getting YouTube to rank in the SERPs. Presumably, they use channel metrics for the normal Google results as well so I don't expect brand new videos to show up right away but I'm curious to see what happens.
I've been wanting to play around with YouTube more so this might spin off into a much bigger project in the near future. I've got a number of things I want to try and maybe just try to build up a channel or two for ad revenue rather than focus on promoting an affiliate offer. I'll see.
Shifting Towards Domains
The parasites have been going well but I'm not excited about building them. Truth is I have enough projects for the shorter term outside of SEO and I'm looking to invest it into something different. The parasites would be too easy to lose overnight.
It's been a while since I've really worked on 'traditional' SEO projects. Most of the sites I've worked with over the last couple of years have been for various forms of automated content and since someone suggested some Income School videos to me I actually quite like the idea of building up some niche sites stuffed with content.
I haven't decided exactly what form this is going to take yet. Probably a hybrid of KGR terms in the early stages and chasing the more competitive terms with backlinks. As dull as SEO timelines are I might drop this parasite project entirely and just spend a few months building my own niche sites.
Trialing a few writers around $40 for 1,000 words trying to get something people would actually want to read with minimum editing. Got one writer so far who produces great content but availability is sporadic. Hoping to find one or two more and I'll just focus on one site a month and try and hit 100 posts(ish) for each one.
Just liking the idea of doing some real SEO again for a change and some more diversity is never a bad idea.
Toying with the idea of keeping the parasites going as a smaller part of the main SEO project. Kind of feel like I should just quit investing in it while I'm ahead so I might entirely shift gears and maybe start a journal for trying to scale niche sites I really haven't decided yet.
I'm toying with a couple of variations of this idea. One thought is use parasites to test out a keyword and make something higher quality which will rank and convert better on a site if the parasite does well but that takes more patience than I'll ever have.
Plus some parasites will not convert as well as others and none will convert as well as having your own domain in #0 or #1. If nobody else is really chasing those terms then at a certain point you're just creating your own competition.
I have a backlog of DMs to get back to so if I haven't already I will. I don't have a public Skype though, sorry.
Slacking on BHW
First up - I'm not dead. Been away from BHW for a couple of weeks restricting things in my life and cutting out some which were taking more time than they were worth. I'm still riding out the pandemic in the middle of the Scottish countryside but I'm not working on 20 different things a day 7 days a week. That was a bit much.
Over the burnout now and actually enjoying the projects I've kept active.
If you've left me a PM here or you know me offsite and I haven't gotten back to you - I will try to go through them all this week. If it's urgent poke me again and I'll get back to you when I see it.
So What About the KGR Project?
Right! So there's actually quite a bit going on here.
Firstly - the existing stuff.
Rankings have continued to grow. Spotted a couple of patterns that have been slowing things down a bit. In my original test, I was spending more time myself on at least some of the content and when I started getting so focused on scaling fast I lost that.
As a result, the onsite structure from an SEO standpoint has suffered so while the newer stuff have been getting consistent growth, I can see why they're not performing as well. Given the kind of profit the earlier parasites have now made it's really worth either putting in the extra time or money into getting this stuff better quality.
The $300 day was an unusual spike but it is starting to average a fairly consistent $200/day now. Really should have been higher by now but other projects have sapped up way too much of time over the last couple of months. There should still be plenty of growth coming from the stuff which went up since then but I am shifting gears going forwards.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed Google started rankings pins everywhere for terms they have no right ranking for.
I ran an automated Pinterest journal probably around 2 years ago now. I have domains that still get traffic from that project and that's obviously seen a spike now that Google has decided to rank it for terms it has no business ranking for.
I'm not a huge fan of Pinterest traffic. Even if the pin has a great CTA it's so easy for the traffic to stay within Pinterest and worse set when they're on a mobile. When they're on the app they're less likely to click through and less likely to actually interact with the site when they do. I'll not turn down the traffic they do send me but there's a reason I don't work with that project anymore.
I also don't think this was intentional. Unless Google bought a ton of shares in Pinterest I expect them to vanish again in a few months but I did start a few smaller-scale tests aiming for KGR terms with pins. I can see my competitors ranking pins and it beats making any actual content.
YouTube
I wanted to try a couple of different things with YouTube so I figured two birds with one stone and targetted KGR terms with some YouTube videos.
I haven't actually tried chasing keywords with YouTube before so I'm not really sure what to expect. I've found you can rank some of these terms very quickly in YouTube search and it's started bringing in some organic traffic and subs much sooner than expected. You can also use parasites on the Google SERP to drive views to the YouTube channel if you want to build up views on a channel itself.
I'm not sure what the usual timeline or process is like for getting YouTube to rank in the SERPs. Presumably, they use channel metrics for the normal Google results as well so I don't expect brand new videos to show up right away but I'm curious to see what happens.
I've been wanting to play around with YouTube more so this might spin off into a much bigger project in the near future. I've got a number of things I want to try and maybe just try to build up a channel or two for ad revenue rather than focus on promoting an affiliate offer. I'll see.
Shifting Towards Domains
The parasites have been going well but I'm not excited about building them. Truth is I have enough projects for the shorter term outside of SEO and I'm looking to invest it into something different. The parasites would be too easy to lose overnight.
It's been a while since I've really worked on 'traditional' SEO projects. Most of the sites I've worked with over the last couple of years have been for various forms of automated content and since someone suggested some Income School videos to me I actually quite like the idea of building up some niche sites stuffed with content.
I haven't decided exactly what form this is going to take yet. Probably a hybrid of KGR terms in the early stages and chasing the more competitive terms with backlinks. As dull as SEO timelines are I might drop this parasite project entirely and just spend a few months building my own niche sites.
Trialing a few writers around $40 for 1,000 words trying to get something people would actually want to read with minimum editing. Got one writer so far who produces great content but availability is sporadic. Hoping to find one or two more and I'll just focus on one site a month and try and hit 100 posts(ish) for each one.
Just liking the idea of doing some real SEO again for a change and some more diversity is never a bad idea.
Toying with the idea of keeping the parasites going as a smaller part of the main SEO project. Kind of feel like I should just quit investing in it while I'm ahead so I might entirely shift gears and maybe start a journal for trying to scale niche sites I really haven't decided yet.
I'm toying with a couple of variations of this idea. One thought is use parasites to test out a keyword and make something higher quality which will rank and convert better on a site if the parasite does well but that takes more patience than I'll ever have.
Plus some parasites will not convert as well as others and none will convert as well as having your own domain in #0 or #1. If nobody else is really chasing those terms then at a certain point you're just creating your own competition.
I have a backlog of DMs to get back to so if I haven't already I will. I don't have a public Skype though, sorry.
EntertheDeals
Regular Member
- Sep 16, 2016
- 369
- 194
I am ranking some keywords with Facebook posts. This google update is weird for sure.
dlyhai
Elite Member
- May 31, 2015
- 3,499
- 515
What's the BST? how do you massivelly produce articles? do you use a tool to spin articles? thanks
dlyhai
Elite Member
- May 31, 2015
- 3,499
- 515
As you use duplicate content, do you have copyright issues?
dlyhai
Elite Member
- May 31, 2015
- 3,499
- 515
How do you generate automated content? thanks
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
Earnings yesterday: $254.95
Had a couple of trial writers at $60 for 2,000 words turn in work over the last 48 hours. Going to go through and see if any of them are worth keeping on.
I hate proofing my own work so reading these submissions is more work than you might think - which is why I'm completely procrastinating and spending time on BHW instead.
Spent some time yesterday looking at one of the parasites which went up maybe 3-4 months ago. It's picked up a couple of sales but has overall been pretty underwhelming and I can see why. The writers made absolutely no attempt to get the keywords in the text at all. Made a few tweaks to a couple of dozen pages and I'll be paying more attention to anything that goes up for now.
I think I'm going to end this journal here. Papering low competition SERPS with parasite content works. Not exactly news but it's also a higher risk model I just don't want to focus on any further at the moment.
I'll be shifting over to producing some content-heavy niche sites. I'll keep using parasites as a way to initially test niches perhaps and certainly to bring in quicker traffic while I wait for my own domain to build up but it'll be a smaller part of a broader SEO strategy in the future.
The BST is currently out of stock I'm looking at maybe making some changes but honestly, I've been making much more ranking them myself than I do selling them it hasn't been a big priority lately.
The article production was a custom build I'd used a while back for an old splogging journal. There are public AI content generators out there but when it started to make a good return I moved away from this and started hiring writers.
Arguably most freelance writers probably do a worse job than AI but that's another story.
Had a couple of trial writers at $60 for 2,000 words turn in work over the last 48 hours. Going to go through and see if any of them are worth keeping on.
I hate proofing my own work so reading these submissions is more work than you might think - which is why I'm completely procrastinating and spending time on BHW instead.
Spent some time yesterday looking at one of the parasites which went up maybe 3-4 months ago. It's picked up a couple of sales but has overall been pretty underwhelming and I can see why. The writers made absolutely no attempt to get the keywords in the text at all. Made a few tweaks to a couple of dozen pages and I'll be paying more attention to anything that goes up for now.
I think I'm going to end this journal here. Papering low competition SERPS with parasite content works. Not exactly news but it's also a higher risk model I just don't want to focus on any further at the moment.
I'll be shifting over to producing some content-heavy niche sites. I'll keep using parasites as a way to initially test niches perhaps and certainly to bring in quicker traffic while I wait for my own domain to build up but it'll be a smaller part of a broader SEO strategy in the future.
The BST is currently out of stock I'm looking at maybe making some changes but honestly, I've been making much more ranking them myself than I do selling them it hasn't been a big priority lately.
The article production was a custom build I'd used a while back for an old splogging journal. There are public AI content generators out there but when it started to make a good return I moved away from this and started hiring writers.
Arguably most freelance writers probably do a worse job than AI but that's another story.