Authority Site SEO Case Study

Today I changed the theme on the site as I like to do that periodically to keep things fresh. It takes me a little longer than most as I always change some of the files in editor and since I am terrible at design it is a slow process.

I change the themes on all my sites periodically so that there is a new look as that is part of my "making it look like a 16 year old girl" is the owner and not some guy that is looking to make a decent buck off of it. That may be a tiny insignificant thing to google but I'm cool with a few hours changing the look if that has a difference at all.

BTB, Do you have a theme you prefer to use when building that makes things easier and more organized for you're site's start up? If you had to pick a one or two themes that come in handy. What would they be and why?

BTB, I have noticed that google is indexing my articles in a weird way. The structure of the results we get on G is something like Title of the article, then below it we USUALLY have url to the article in green font and then meta description. What's strange about my indexed articles is that URL showing up in google for them is actually URL for categories... If I click on that result I get redirected correctly to my post page mysite.com/my-post-page, but in google it shows mysite.com/category-that-post-is-in ...

TL;DR - Google is showing my breadcrumb links instead of exact article link containing my target keyword.

Have you ever encountered something like that? Could it be because my site is days old or it's a sign of some fundamental problems in my site structure? Does it even matter actually? I have just noticed that some of my competitors have their URL shown correctly.

dannyslimited said:

BTB, Do you have a theme you prefer to use when building that makes things easier and more organized for you're site's start up? If you had to pick a one or two themes that come in handy. What would they be and why?

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Here are my thoughts on authority site themes:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...23-best-theme-authority-site-my-thoughts.html

Removed. Not necessary.

So how much are you earning from this website right now?


I am building one too however I checked a duplicate content checker and it noticed that my homepage often gets duplicate content due to my categories, would you recommend me to noindex my categories or are they important? I usually do 10 articles in a row per category, if categories are important I'll simply make 1 article per category to prevent duplicate content

Guys, google is very smart, believe me.
This means that it is not going to penalize you for duplicate content because of your categories. What it may do however is this:
Since your texts appear multiple times in various pages, categories etc. in would seem that you have let's say 100 articles while you only have 30. What google does by checking for duplicate content is to avoid being fooled to believe you have 100 and make sure you have only 30 articles. I hope what I say makes sense. In general, be assured that google will neither be fooled to believe you have more content than you have nor penalize you unnecessarily just for having category pages.

Hey OP. Interesting thread.

I have a question regarding using a new domain vs an aged one for the authority site. Suppose I can buy a new domain for 10 bucks, or an aged for 45 with some low quality backlinks. Is it best to go with the new one, and spend the remaining 35 on good backlinks, or should one go with the aged one? Just curious what you would do since you seem to know your stuff.

BassTrackerBoats said:

I change the themes on all my sites periodically so that there is a new look as that is part of my "making it look like a 16 year old girl" is the owner and not some guy that is looking to make a decent buck off of it. That may be a tiny insignificant thing to google but I'm cool with a few hours changing the look if that has a difference at all.

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Clever. Have you experimented, a/b tested on this before, or is it just a hunch that it will look more "authentic" to your audience?

I note you say you have 30-something authority sites, mostly in the finance/business niche.
As long as they're all in the same niche, one could ostensibly just build a large authority site, with 30k articles, rather than 30 smaller sites with 1k+ articles each.
So, what's the logic there? Just risk mitigation, or...?

tony_d said:

I note you say you have 30-something authority sites, mostly in the finance/business niche.
As long as they're all in the same niche, one could ostensibly just build a large authority site, with 30k articles, rather than 30 smaller sites with 1k+ articles each.
So, what's the logic there? Just risk mitigation, or...?

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If anything at least he wont get completely destroyed by one wrong turn/ update.

If you read the whole thread you will see he likes to experiment and tweak things and doesn't like to do the same thing twice.

and in the beginning i believe he states he is doing it for the feeling of accomplishment. Not really going to feel accomplished if you have a never ending project.

Not to mention some may be using articles that feed off each-other with either linking or similar articles covering the same subject just aiming different keywords.

Also looking into two niches, than looking at his method (i.e. the muscle car example) he could pick on small portion and run head long into at least 40 directions and barely hit the same ground twice. I noticed this while I was outlining my niche that somehow I am able to cover at least 300 articles in the business niche and my niche isn't even about business.

Just guesses though.

BTB, do you actually ever use Amazon for monetization?
I'm asking this because in my experience Amazon articles are laid out a certain way, with product reviews plus links to Amazon whenever possible. What I mean is, you seem to be building the articles now without regard to a specific way of monetizing, which, if you are going to monetize with Amazon at some point, will require a lot of work to go back and edit the articles to insert reviews and links.

You can't just put an Amazon ad in the article and call it monetization.
I'd be really curious to know how you use Amazon in your articles.

Thanks for this thread, it's great to have a pro share wisdom

You only need to have one method and hone during repeated. It will succeed.

spectrejoe said:

So how much are you earning from this website right now?


I am building one too however I checked a duplicate content checker and it noticed that my homepage often gets duplicate content due to my categories, would you recommend me to noindex my categories or are they important? I usually do 10 articles in a row per category, if categories are important I'll simply make 1 article per category to prevent duplicate content

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It is still in the 6.00 - 10.00 a day range but it is a seasonal site so I don't expect much yet. I did have that real nice day but that was a gift and not the norm. I never noindex anything but I would also not use 10 articles in a row per category. That is not randome enough for the way I think a site should be built... I would be mixing that up.

ThreadKiller said:

Hey OP. Interesting thread.

I have a question regarding using a new domain vs an aged one for the authority site. Suppose I can buy a new domain for 10 bucks, or an aged for 45 with some low quality backlinks. Is it best to go with the new one, and spend the remaining 35 on good backlinks, or should one go with the aged one? Just curious what you would do since you seem to know your stuff.

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All things considered, I would be spending 45.00 and get some aged links. You can get a pretty decent domain with nice links from accelerator_dd for less than 45.00. That being said, the majority of my sites were built with fresh domains and do fairly well.

Avid Learner said:

Clever. Have you experimented, a/b tested on this before, or is it just a hunch that it will look more "authentic" to your audience?

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I have not experimented, it is just one more thing I like to toss in to keep the site random and as authentic as possible. Aside from Wikipedia which is a Wiki site, take a look at some of the big ballers out there... many change up their look and, although I'm not nor will I ever be a big baller, I think they are on the right track. It helps with repeat visitors as they see something new but also gives Google a different look too.

It may also be a complete waste of time and I have no clue but I figure to be safe just in case.

tony_d said:

I note you say you have 30-something authority sites, mostly in the finance/business niche.
As long as they're all in the same niche, one could ostensibly just build a large authority site, with 30k articles, rather than 30 smaller sites with 1k+ articles each.
So, what's the logic there? Just risk mitigation, or...?

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Some of it is risk mitigation and some of it is due to the complete lack of correlation of content.

A site about Angel Investing (just gave you guys a hit of a niche) does not really fit into a site about Business Models or one that is about Employment as an Engineer. I probably could tie them all together but getting a handle on that is beyond my scope of thinking and if one happens to get bipped by Google, I am safe there as well.

cipango said:

BTB, do you actually ever use Amazon for monetization?
I'm asking this because in my experience Amazon articles are laid out a certain way, with product reviews plus links to Amazon whenever possible. What I mean is, you seem to be building the articles now without regard to a specific way of monetizing, which, if you are going to monetize with Amazon at some point, will require a lot of work to go back and edit the articles to insert reviews and links.

You can't just put an Amazon ad in the article and call it monetization.
I'd be really curious to know how you use Amazon in your articles.

Thanks for this thread, it's great to have a pro share wisdom

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I do use Amazon and monetize it with links and ads in articles. I do not write any review type content as I don't really review anything and my mind does not think like that anyway. I generate less than 3K a month from Amazon so it is not a huge aspect of my revenue but I do mix it in when I find it fits or I see something that looks good to me.

I do not monetize it as we would generally call monetization but I'm not big on that anyway. I don't push anything on my visitors as that is not who I am in real life. That may cost me a few dollars here and there but I've done the pushy thing and it wears me out.

Jobdollarr said:

You only need to have one method and hone during repeated. It will succeed.

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I would disagree with that vehemently. I have a dozen different ways I generate revenue from my online activity; these kinds of sites are one aspect of that. I would suggest to others to do the same.

Thanks BTB you're awesome as usual.

Just a few more questions, they might be a bit more tricky though.

Regarding websites, from what I got in this thread you prefer to wait a bit before starting the backlinking process and until you have some nice content, how much time and content are we talking about?

Let's say you just met your criteria in both time and content, how would you go in terms of backlinking? Focus on the first written articles first? Focus on all of them at the same time? How many backlinks daily are we talking about? And what about the homepage?

I really hope you can answer me with some detail to this because it's one of the things that bothers me the most when making these websites, it's choosing the right decisions without getting slapped




PS: I believe you said you make a soup.io and about.me web2.0 right of the bat a few days or weeks after your website is up and running, and you then blast them with 33k backlinks, does that mean they won't get penalized due to having a strong domain and as long as you update them with content? if so, how many articles do you have on each to make sure they endure 33k backlinks and from these articles how many point to your website

Hi BTB,

Just read the complete thread of 11 pages. It has more information than a lot of posts combined. I have always had an interest in building sites but have lost interest in continue to build them over time. There are various reasons for it - my offline job is hectic sometimes and pretty enjoyable, personal issues demanding focus, travel, etc.

There is an amazon affiliate website that I had built just about a year back and have got a pretty decent brand name for it, or so I think. I had stopped working on the site in feb-march of 2014 with some 2-3k words of content and no SEO. Recently, as my offline job has become very monotonous and repetitive, I have started working on this website again. I have put in another 3-5k words of content on the site, which are mostly product reviews. I have also started doing some SEO from the service providers you had mentioned in this thread. Without the SEO I have 5-10 KWs in the top 10 of google, but with very less searches. But it is encouraging to see them. I am currently focusing on getting longer and higher quality articles and working on some pointers I have got from reading this whole thread.

One question about monetizing the site with amazon affiliate links. What are the ways in which I can have the links in the content? I currently have call-to-actions with affiliate links and images linking to amazon. What else can be done? Also, how to make the content more gripping and engaging?

Thanks

spectrejoe said:

Regarding websites, from what I got in this thread you prefer to wait a bit before starting the backlinking process and until you have some nice content, how much time and content are we talking about?

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Both vary a lot... I think on this site I waited for around 100 articles or so before adding any backlinks with the exception of an about.me but I would have to look though the thread to give you actual specifics on this one. I have shared what I do as to backlinking for this site and vary that to a certain extent with all my sites.

Let's say you just met your criteria in both time and content, how would you go in terms of backlinking? Focus on the first written articles first? Focus on all of them at the same time? How many backlinks daily are we talking about? And what about the homepage?

I really hope you can answer me with some detail to this because it's one of the things that bothers me the most when making these websites, it's choosing the right decisions without getting slapped

Click to expand...

Details as to what one does exactly is not a good thing to share or people will try and follow that exactly and that will hurt them more than help them usually as it can create a footprint.

PS: I believe you said you make a soup.io and about.me web2.0 right of the bat a few days or weeks after your website is up and running, and you then blast them with 33k backlinks, does that mean they won't get penalized due to having a strong domain and as long as you update them with content? if so, how many articles do you have on each to make sure they endure 33k backlinks and from these articles how many point to your website

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See there is where you are going to get into trouble... trying to replicate what I do as to backlinks exactly. That is not a good practice and I would never do that.

kimiroger said:

There is an amazon affiliate website that I had built just about a year back and have got a pretty decent brand name for it, or so I think. I had stopped working on the site in feb-march of 2014 with some 2-3k words of content and no SEO. Recently, as my offline job has become very monotonous and repetitive, I have started working on this website again. I have put in another 3-5k words of content on the site, which are mostly product reviews. I have also started doing some SEO from the service providers you had mentioned in this thread. Without the SEO I have 5-10 KWs in the top 10 of google, but with very less searches. But it is encouraging to see them. I am currently focusing on getting longer and higher quality articles and working on some pointers I have got from reading this whole thread.

One question about monetizing the site with amazon affiliate links. What are the ways in which I can have the links in the content? I currently have call-to-actions with affiliate links and images linking to amazon. What else can be done? Also, how to make the content more gripping and engaging?

Click to expand...

I'm a little less aggressive than your average bear when it comes to a call to action on my sites for the monetization. I think that usually looks like a used car salesman owns the site so what I do is "softer" than most.

I'll have some links in the content (nofollow) as well as some images that link to Amazon as well (same with eBay) but nothing that would be construed as "Hey, Visitor! Check out the latest Sperry has to offer! These Shoes are the Bomb! Go here and Buy a few Dozen Pair!".

I may be leaving money on the table by not being aggressive but that is OK as the sites generally reflect my personality.

Thanks for the feedback. Another weird thing I noticed while I was searching manually for some of the keywords I am ranking for. Instead of the post targeting the particular keyword(s), the homepage was ranking in google? Why is that? My homepage is exactly like this page http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/. List of the recent posts with a small description and an imgae.

Afternoon BTB,

I have finally had time to read up on the thread and it has inspired me to try my own authority site. After reading the thread and your other posts to other things you linked such as theme selection and keyword research I have taken a fair few notes. If you have time could you please have a quick glance over my initial plan and let me know what you think ?

My niche is a diet niche....

My plan is to write the articles myself.
Each article will be a minimum of 1000 words.
The main keyword will be in the title, a sub heading, an image alt tag and around 1% keyword density.
I will add multiple secondary and LSI keywords into each article.
I plan to just content until I have reached 100 unique visitors in a single day before putting any backlinks on the site.

Do you see any problems with this ?

So since getting home from work I have settled on my exact niche, done my keyword research in a way extremely similar to what you posted in your keyword research for authority sites post leaving me with around 450 main keywords.

I have also wrote a first draft of my first article for my first keyword totalling 2261 words, later tonight if I have time or tomorrow I will edit it up to posting quality along with adding my LSI terms where they naturally fit along with as many of my secondary keywords for the article.

Thanks BTB for the inspiration!