Arganrecords thank you for this awesome thread! One of the most informative journey I've ever read!
I spent some time to take notes from your journey and also added some of mine so it may help here for some people - here is the summary:
1.Product Picking
You should first start choosing a macro topic - you can find it on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/site-directory/ref=nav_shopall_btn
You should choose a product category that people would buy online, this means that the socks are unlikely to be purchased online.
For this go for razor or a blender products kind.
100$+ Product
2.Keyword Research
Now you've product category and you need to find all ways people is searching on Google for this products.
-Method 1: You can go for KeywordShitter.com, then copy all results in Excel and apply the "Length" formula to all results.
Now sort from longest to shortest. I'm doing this every day and if you've good on-page optimization you can avoid keyword cannibalization.
I mean do not mix the various terms of long tails in contents and try to focus
only on words related to that long tail.
-Method 2:
Well, I go on the categories of Amazon and find relevant products, then I use SemRush and put product keyword as seed.
After that I download all keywords in SemRush database and I create contents for every single relevant keyword.
For me relevant = minimum 210 Searches per month + commercial intent + a lot of long tails available
My advice is to use competition analysis on SemRush and you need to do this things:
- Find competitors in your topic
- Scan them to obtain all keywords they're ranking for
- Download all keywords and sort them by competition (from easy to hard)
2.1 Analyze competition
Well, this are only metrics, never trust in this as "supreme law" because very often you will find yourself in situations in which the metrics say absolutely nothing (or they say the opposite of what actually happens).
For this first of all, to start with an analysis, all I will analize their content: open the sites one by one and read what is written.
Afterwards go to analyze the backlinks (
Majestic / ahrefs / moz ), to see what quality they are, if they are just links or links placed in thematically relevant contents.
After that I will analize their site's structure, if the link juice is spread well and with only related contents ( if I'll notice random internal linking will be easy to beat them).
In my opinion LongTailPro can speed up only the metric analysis but can't imporve your way to do Keyword Research because you need a lot more than simply few numbers
3.Build Content with Keywords
Yes, is in Italian and I target keywords that I can find in SemRush.
1) After having selected the keyword I go on
http://keywordtool.io/ to find all long tails.
2) Now I get traffic statistics from Google Keyword Planner to understand which keyword has volume (at least 20 searches per month) and I insert them in the text.
Doing this my contents are more contextualized because Google is self-learning and understands that I speak in full of a certain topic (it's basic rule of Information Retrieval).
This makes my contents relevant and my site can be reached by many different keyword's variations.
Another thing to consider is making your own keyword research by deepening the knowledge of your audience. Why?
Here's the Answer!
On a daily basis, 15 percent of queries submitted have never been seen before by Google's search engine! Read more on CNET
I'm targeting keywords like "product price", "cheap product", "product reviews".
But I can't really choose keywords, I take the easy ones that have any kind of commercial intent.
I'm creating individual pages for individual keyword, not product. So, if people search for "product X price" and "best product X" I create two different contents as follows:
Product X Price
I speak about the price (making tables with exclusive features) and where they can get it (with Amazon links and citation of big brands, this makes the content really relevant and less promotional).
Best Product X
I compare this product to competitors' products and review all Pros and Cons
Here the rules is giving what they're askin
g for.
Long tail is the best way to get targeted and high conversion traffic. I published a review content about one product on May 5 and after only 6 visits from Google today I get 1 sale of this product.
It is a small number of visits but I'm able to provide content with exactly what users want, this means have really high conversion rate (16% from site and 33% from only 3 clicks on Amazon's product page).
Example of long tail using:
Your main content should include all the long tails and for me "coffee machine with grinder" and "coffee machine bussiness" aren't long tails.
This are some of the long tails obtained from "coffee machine bussiness":
coffee machine business franchise review
coffee machine business franchise
coffee machine business for sale
coffee machine business expense
coffee machine business philippines
As you can see you can get long tails from every keyword, in this case I will create a content called "The Best Coffee Machine For Business" (just an example because can't really understand what kind of content I will write because I need to analize my competitors etc).
I will write inside all long tails because Google "knows" about this topic thanks to users searches, and Google will uderstand that your content answers better (for what Google "knows" about that topic).
3'1.Ranking Short & Big keywords tip:
To rank for "coffee machine" you need to have a lot of supporting articles "coffee machine business" + "coffee machine with grinder" + "coffee machine amazon" etc that are linking your main content that speaks about coffe machines
All supporting articles will give power to your main content and this will rank high without a lot of backlinks.
Now, more supporting articles you can produce and more power you can give to your main content.
3'2.Article Structure bonus
Price mention: Yeah, I'm adding the current price and
I'm using disclaimer that says that prices on my website can be unapdated and the original price is what users see on the Amazon.com website (this is mandatory according to Operating Agreement if prices aren't updated automatically).
Stars:
-Star rating plugin for reviews
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-postratings/
4. Hiring Writers
I'm paying an average of ? 200 per 10K/15K words. Articles have an average of 500 words .
I always search students and not professional copywriters, students need money and they write well about their passions. How I find Student? I use forums to find them. I'm publishing free ads or answer to copywriter's ads.
Guidelines for long tails in article:
Title: Best Citrus squeezer to buy online
Copywriter you need to develop the following topics:
- Best Citrus squeezer from 30 ? to 80 ? - H2 tag
- Best citrus juicer electric - H2 tag
features + differences from other versions
- Best citrus juicer for home - H2 tag
features + differences from other versions
5. Affiliate links ? Buttons/Images vs Contextual Links:
I'm using different tracking IDs to know which link/button/image get conversions!
Well, so far 80% of conversions came from call to action. For call to action I mean this kind of button:
*I'm using my own buttons without the Amazon Logo and this is just as example.
If this button had not been there I probably would have lost many conversions.
I enter from 3 to 10 links per page (products or categories) and I'm using links on images but
buttons win!
On other sites the percentage of conversions from the call to action is not so high, it makes me realize that really depends on the niche.
From my data, in a technological niche people is more likely to click on a link, in one in which people are not very familiar to surfing the Internet (thus the non geeks) buttons and images win!
This will make you think a lot about the importance of knowing your audience (I think it's 80% of your success with a site in general).
Image Links Method:
I mean that I'm using images with different sizes and I'm putting little images too (100x100px). In this way people will click to enlarge it and BooM, affiliate cookie installed
6. SEO (Regular Backlinks)
-Diversify anchor! Read - https://www.gotchseo.com/anchor-text
In my niche other authority websites have really spammy backlink profile compared to mine that is full of content and without exact match anchors.
My anchors are as follows:
50% -
http://www.mywebsite.com (naked)
20% - my brand name
10% - random forms or my brand name (Website.com -
www.mywebsite.com etc)
20% - anchors with keywordin it but there aren't exact matches (not "fruit juicer" but "the best fruit joucer online")
*To make your website authoritative on Google's eyes you need to send regular and quality backlinks.
This means that you need
guest posts, web 2.0 properties, comment links and citations (with or without link).
6'1.Avoid Penalty Tip:
Diversifying anchor text will help a lot to remain under the radars but to avoid a penalty you must also create many Brand citations without any link!
If your brand is well known not only have links, but surely will be mentioned in the forums and will be discussed around the web!
If this does not happen it is very likely that your links are purchased or manipulated (in the eyes of Google).
Check out the Panda patent for more info:
https://moz.com/blog/panda-patent-brand-mentions
7.Getting Free Real HQ Backlinks
I'm download MajesticSeo reports from websites in my niche. After this I will send a mail to this webmsters to ask for guest posting (here the gold rule is write a killing email).
I'm sending simple emails praising their work done on their website. After that I'm usign some social engagement liking on Facebook and Google Plus their posts, in this way when I'll ask for guest post they will be happy to give it to me!
To judge the backlink quality I look at Trust Flow from MajesticSeo (>18), Domain Rating from Ahrefs (>30) and how much backlinks this site is receiving from different domains (>50).
You can say: "It is not just to display prices but also to create content for comparing products that we actually tested" (this one fake)
So, after few hours of mails, one webmaster decided to place a link in related post that was already online (I have not written a single word of content).
From what I see that works, when I'm sending emails, I must be persuasive and praise my project, trying to make people understand that it has value, not just a list of links to Amazon.
Wordpress
Theme:
MyThemeShop, I'm also using ThemeForest and CreativeMarket themes
but you always have to be careful to header tags and all Seo optimization elements.
In fact it is not obvious and many themes are not Seo ready!
-Good theme for review - http://themeforest.net/item/news-magic-news-magazine-newspaper/10062983
Bonus Tools & Staff
Keyword check:
serplab.co.uk
WhatsMySerp
Silo plugin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D9exi_vj4M&feature=youtu.be