Got a EMD, site set up, now what?

I am a complete newbie with IM, though I have been building websites professionally for 15 years, and I understand the principles. I'm just getting started with a couple of side projects, and the one I think has the most potential is a MNS with an EMD. The keyword gets 9900 searches/mth and 4400 locals/mth with low competition. So, I got the domain for $5, built a nice looking site around it in WP with all the fun plugins (SEO, etc). It is a funny photo site.

Anyway, got some content in there, got facebook and twitter going, got some adsense on there, and I've got a few backlinks. So, I've got it things started, but I don't know where to go from here. I think the site is indexed, but I'm not ranked, yet.

Since it is a photo site, there's not a lot of text for keyword placement. What should I do? Add some text to each post, add keywords to meta, or what? Should I invest in adwords for a little while (I got a $100 coupon), just to get some traffic going?

What about hiring out some web 2.0 articles, would it be worth it? Maybe just getting some fiverr folks to post my images on forums and reddit? try and go youtube for some traffic? What works best for a EMD photo site?

Even though I'm not ranked, I am getting a little bit of traffic. The site is a week old, and I'm averaging about 3 uv a day. I have had a few clicks on adwords, I think I'm up to maybe $2. Some of this is from facebook, some from google.

The whole goal of this is to set up a bit of passive income through ads, and then probably sell the site to try out some of the ideas I've seen on this forum. I don't need much to live on, but it would be nice to work up to $500/mth, and then I can stop working so hard as a web master.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. I have been reading a lot on this forum, and I've learned a lot. I' just wanted to put some of it into action!

Regarding the Adsense-Adwords bit, those should never be combined. You use either service. PPC traffic should never be monetized with Adsense or any paid for clicks programs.
Also did you tick Exact Match in the keyword tool?

Id slowly start building backlinks but don't get carried away. Maybe do a bit of bookmarking with unique descriptions.

yeah, I have exact match ticked with the keyword tool.

Do you guys think some article marketing would help? I was thinking since it is funny photos, maybe getting on some forums and posting around some of the photos (they are watermarked wit my url). That could end up being a lot of work, but if I could get on some decent forums, it might generate a bit of traffic.

I think once the ball gets rolling with the traffic, it will build up.

I just checked my traffic, up to 130 visitors from 10 uv yesterday. I'm also up to 45 cents/day on AS

Add a photos daily for 30 days.If you can add a little content to each photo like a brief description or your take on it. Give photo credits avoid copyright infringement.
Treat this like curation blog
Use three or four tags. Set up a Facebook friends box after you have couple hundred (buy friends on fiverr)

Good luck Alan

yeah, I have content scheduled for the next month or so, 3 posts a day, spread out a bit. everything auto-posts to FB and twitter, too.

Just checked my stats, again, and my UV for today is 463!!! wow, what a bump! nothing from the search engines, it's all referral links from my backlink efforts.

I think I am going to work pinterest with this as well, and add descriptions on the pages, too. I might even try and get a few web 2.0 articles out there to help me while I wait for google to rank.

ahh teh backlinks bro

my total UV for yesterday was 460!! that's all from my backlinks (posting on forums), and a little from social networks.

what are people's opinions on squidoo and hubpages? They are decent on google searches, so I'm thinking a few articles with good tags and some likes should get some attention, maybe even generate some hits. What do you guys think?

Can I use FB advertising for my MNS+Adsense site?

Seems like your backlinking is paying off. You should check your site statistics and concentrate on those point which bring the most results.

Junkfood00 said:

Regarding the Adsense-Adwords bit, those should never be combined. You use either service. PPC traffic should never be monetized with Adsense or any paid for clicks programs.
Also did you tick Exact Match in the keyword tool?

Click to expand...

Chances are he used broad, as it's pretty uncommon to find an available domain with that many searches unless it's a brand. The last one I registered with those size of searches, was several months ago.

I might have to try out setting up a funny images site. Sounds like they do pretty well pretty quickly.

hope u inform us your progress.! thanks

well, visitors dropped some yesterday, back to about 100 for the day. Today is doing a bit better. I am concentrating on the sites that are getting me the most hits and doing some more posts on the forums. Pinterest is starting to pick up a bit, and I've optimized the site to help with that. I was not using a broad search, only exact. Exact is 9900 global, 4400 local. For broad, it is 49,000 global, 22,000 local. I'm still not ranked, so I need to get some articles out on the web, I think. It is kinda hard to do keyword stuff with photos, I've learned. At least the traffic is doing decent, and I'm earning a bit of revenue from adwords. I'm not sure adwords is the way to go with this, though. Any ideas for better monetizing on a funny photo site?

photo sites do well if you have unique content and you can get it front of teenagers and people who pass things around the web. I had a bit of virality the other day with a photo, and that's what got me the 460 UV for the day. I'm gonna try and keep that going, picking out my best photos and get them into hands of the right people. FB has earned some hits, but twitter is a total let down, so far. I've got a handful of followers there. so, my plan now is to focus on forums and social bookmarking.

macdonjo3 said:

Chances are he used broad, as it's pretty uncommon to find an available domain with that many searches unless it's a brand. The last one I registered with those size of searches, was several months ago.

Click to expand...

I think you're looking in the wrong places, I find quite a few EMDs with that number of searches and higher, not branded. .COMs are a bit harder to find, but plenty of .ORGs and .NETs.

Small world OP, I think you bought this domain from me! If it is the domain I'm thinking of (pretty sure wexzone bought it over on DP) then yes, it is 9900 exact searches.

Site looks pretty good, just keep adding fresh content and using places like Digg and Reddit as well as forums and Facebook to drive traffic.

Building too many backlinks too quickly will end up penalizing you in Google. Especially if they are poor quality backlinks.

Post the pic of difficulty of your keyword, i mean market samurai or traffic travis.