Hey all
Some context:
I registered a domain in 2013. Worked on it solidly, every day for months until it began ranking. Throughout the end of 2013/and first few months of 2014 it was ranking number 1 for my money terms, number 1/2/3 for LSi terms, and I was making good money from it (affiliate site). During its peak, it was making an average of $400 daily.
My niche was a discount code site for a select retailer. This then spun off into multiple retailers (the home page was my "money retailer" with sub pages for lesser retailers. I ranked for <retailer coupon> and similar terms. Off the back of this i made blog content to support the kind of products the retailer sold, as well as product reviews.
Around April 2014 it dropped from position 1 to 2-3, and kept dancing there. From 2015 it slowly began dropping. It never 'fell off" google, the decline was gradual. It now sits on page 9. As it dropped, i began spending more time working on it to try and get it ranking higher again, focusing onsite and offsite seo but no matter what i did the ranks kept dropping and i just abandoned the site. It made and continues to make marginal income, literally a few dollars a month.
I "gave up" on the site as I just felt like i'd failed. Rather than looking at it as "ive made <x amount in this time> i just looked at it and myself as failing and wanted to move on from the stress/anxiety of the failure.
---- ASKING FOR ADVICE ----
I've found myself with more free time recently due to lockdown etc and feel like this would be a good project to return to. My first goal is to get it back to making $14 a day, with a longer term goal being $28 a day and then assess things from there. (It currently makes around $20- 30$ a month)
The site average around 45 visits daily from random articles on the site - so im not starting from scratch.
The "money maker" page is the homepage. It is set up as a retailer discount code page. I flirted with the idea of moving this retailer page to a sub page of the site - but the entire site was originally built around this one retaielr then expanded over time - so I think it will probably be best to keep it on the homepage.
What are your thoughts on the above?
When i first started link building the site, i built manual super web 2.0s, forum links, and did some guest blogging. For the super web 2.0s i built tier 2 links to these using GSA (and some tier 1 links using GSA)
Im aware that this strategy went out of date in 2014/2015 - so i feel i need to strengthen the tier 1 links. This is partly why i began adding more blogs to the website, and began building guest blogging links to these.
What would be some "go to" foundational links to build in 2021 (would i need to build foundational links ? That site has a lot of age, but with things being so inactive for so long maybe this would be a good starting point?) Any advice around link building here would be useful.
Content on the site - should i continue adding other retailer pages to the site, or just keep it specific around the homepage retailer and some related blogs?
Again - any advice here would be appreciated.
In terms of an onsite audit - what should I prioritise? I have an SEMrush and Ahrefs subscription.
I am considering making this a journal to keep accountable to myself, and to also share the journey with everyone.
Thanks to everyone in advance for input and advice.
Some context:
I registered a domain in 2013. Worked on it solidly, every day for months until it began ranking. Throughout the end of 2013/and first few months of 2014 it was ranking number 1 for my money terms, number 1/2/3 for LSi terms, and I was making good money from it (affiliate site). During its peak, it was making an average of $400 daily.
My niche was a discount code site for a select retailer. This then spun off into multiple retailers (the home page was my "money retailer" with sub pages for lesser retailers. I ranked for <retailer coupon> and similar terms. Off the back of this i made blog content to support the kind of products the retailer sold, as well as product reviews.
Around April 2014 it dropped from position 1 to 2-3, and kept dancing there. From 2015 it slowly began dropping. It never 'fell off" google, the decline was gradual. It now sits on page 9. As it dropped, i began spending more time working on it to try and get it ranking higher again, focusing onsite and offsite seo but no matter what i did the ranks kept dropping and i just abandoned the site. It made and continues to make marginal income, literally a few dollars a month.
I "gave up" on the site as I just felt like i'd failed. Rather than looking at it as "ive made <x amount in this time> i just looked at it and myself as failing and wanted to move on from the stress/anxiety of the failure.
---- ASKING FOR ADVICE ----
I've found myself with more free time recently due to lockdown etc and feel like this would be a good project to return to. My first goal is to get it back to making $14 a day, with a longer term goal being $28 a day and then assess things from there. (It currently makes around $20- 30$ a month)
The site average around 45 visits daily from random articles on the site - so im not starting from scratch.
The "money maker" page is the homepage. It is set up as a retailer discount code page. I flirted with the idea of moving this retailer page to a sub page of the site - but the entire site was originally built around this one retaielr then expanded over time - so I think it will probably be best to keep it on the homepage.
What are your thoughts on the above?
When i first started link building the site, i built manual super web 2.0s, forum links, and did some guest blogging. For the super web 2.0s i built tier 2 links to these using GSA (and some tier 1 links using GSA)
Im aware that this strategy went out of date in 2014/2015 - so i feel i need to strengthen the tier 1 links. This is partly why i began adding more blogs to the website, and began building guest blogging links to these.
What would be some "go to" foundational links to build in 2021 (would i need to build foundational links ? That site has a lot of age, but with things being so inactive for so long maybe this would be a good starting point?) Any advice around link building here would be useful.
Content on the site - should i continue adding other retailer pages to the site, or just keep it specific around the homepage retailer and some related blogs?
Again - any advice here would be appreciated.
In terms of an onsite audit - what should I prioritise? I have an SEMrush and Ahrefs subscription.
I am considering making this a journal to keep accountable to myself, and to also share the journey with everyone.
Thanks to everyone in advance for input and advice.
