Woo Hoo. My main keyword is on page 1

. http://prntscr.com/eyk649
I started this case study in the last week of Feb. So far, I've spent only $75. All inclusive. Except for the website layout, everything was outsourced.
Special thanks to
@hacko who recommended using the homepage instead of ranking an inner page. I think that's one of the major reasons why I ranked so quickly and cheaply. This is one of the best tips I've ever received.
I haven't made any money on this site so far (and maybe never will) but that wasn't the point of this case study. It's still possible to rank quickly and cheaply if you read up and follow a process. Some things I've learned:
- I kept changing around the keyword densities to see what works and I was surprised to see that adding or removing a keyword even a couple of times has a big and instantaneous effect of rankings ( I was forcing Google to crawl after each change). I don't think it's a coincidence, but I saw 5-10 position movements just because I added the keyword twice in the content. This may be because my keyword was really easy but I could actually see the effect of on page after each change.
- Like I said earlier, ranking the homepage is the best decision I made. I don't think I would have had similar results if I had tried to rank an inner page.
- Starting off with an expired domain (Thanks @Nargil) with lots of links really brings down diversity costs. Even a cheap diversity pack with mostly spun content is about 100 bucks. I got all the diversity I need (and then some) for 10 bucks.
- You don't need multiple articles to rank. In addition to the privacy policy, TOS, contact us (all auto generated) and homepage, I don't have any other pages on my website. All my content is on the homepage. All my links point to the homepage. (404 to 301)
- Not that I had any doubts, but PBN sites are the cheapest and easiest way to rank sites. I've only bought 10 links and even though the work was completed just last week, I'm already on page 1. I expect my rankings to improve even more. (Thanks @nikchaing)
- Obviously, keyword research is the most important part. I would never be able to rank for a keyword with any sort of competition for 75 bucks. I bought a keyword from @ZlatanTheGod and I highly recommend his service. He has super easy keywords.
Shortly, I'm going to start an Amazon Affiliate Site Case Study. I feel that it'll be more expensive to rank an Amazon Affiliate site because they keywords are likely to be slightly harder and the quality of content will have to be a little better than the content required for a CPA site. If I outsource everything and don't use any of my existing PBN sites, I feel that I should be able to rank the website within $200. All inclusive.
Wish me luck!