When SEO Works

I started in this business as an affiliate and have since moved to the advertiser side while building a multi-person company in Los Angeles.

A few years ago I bought a one word premium domain that I figured I would keep on the back burner and slowly develop over time. This was 2.5 years ago.

About four months ago the site started getting serp visitors for a set of keywords in which I saw trickles of profitability. Adsense clicks pay $4+ and affiliate offers pay $35+ in this niche so I decided to try my hand at really pursuing SEO which I never gave serious thought to before.

There was really no need to try SEO when I could fire up affiliate campaigns and within a few days 50% of them would be profiting $x,xxx+ per day. But now that those days have slowed down, I figured I would spend some extra time each night to really learn SEO and test what I learn.

What I Did

I spent 2 – 3 hours each night for about a month reading what different SEO experts had to say. Keep in mind that I had a decent SEO background in terms of having read SEOBook twice before, reading Matt Cutts’ blog, Shoemoney and others; never too attentively but enough to have a good grasp of it.

After my month long SEO bootcamp, some of my favorite SEO’s that provide the most accurate and value-added content are Aaron Wall, SEO Moz and Carey Bergeron. I say this now because they are who I learned the most from and looking back at the success of my site’s growth they get the credit for having good, actionable tips.

Anyways, since my premium domain site had about 250 pages of content I had casually built up, and started getting a couple dozen daily visitors for a set of very profitable keywords I wanted to see what would happen if

1. I learned everything I could about SEO
2. I created an seo plan for myself and
3. I implemented it.

What Happened?

Last week I ended up reaching page 1 of the big three search engines and the traffic flood gates opened.

Traffic increased ten-fold and revenue (if extrapolated) is in the mid $xxx,xxx per year. I didn’t let myself get too excited upon seeing my newly acquired ranking last week because I know position fluctuation is common but so far so good as far as holding onto my page 1 rank.

What’s the point?

The point is that it’s a very rewarding feeling that comes from setting a goal, sticking with it, executing it and seeing it reached. If you end up surpassing expectations that’s even better.

So here’s what I did – I studied everything SEO related I could get my hands on for 1 month for 2 – 3 hours per day; including reverse engineering high ranking sites and what they were doing to get their rankings. I created a plan in writing then implemented it for 3 straight months. Yes, I’m talking an average of 2 – 4 hours per day (after a 12 hour work day in the office) 4 – 6 days per week.

And finally after 3 months, I reached page 1 in the big three engines. The revenue that came from it is nice but its the process that gets me excited. The fact that I researched something, developed my own theory and actionable items from it and executed it to reach  self established goals.

Last Note

When reading about SEO there is a lot of junk and “guru talk” out there. The guys who can’t do it write about the high-level theory behind SEO. This is pointless to read. If you have a site that you want to move up the rankings, you have to read actionable tips that you can execute. Who cares about the high-level theory when it’s not actionable. The three guys I mention above are well worth reading and following. If you think you have a site worth developing in a desirable niche, building a large following or community site is well worth the time both monetarily and for your personal satisfaction.