100 Day Small Budget SEO Project- Daily Journal

jeffrey

jeffrey

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Jun 22, 2010
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Right, so over the past six weeks, I've had every single campaign dry up on me and for whatever reason I can't get any shit going anymore. I'm currently down 80k from the beginning of the year until now and my motivation is absolutely pathetic lately. I've figured it's time to make a change and build some sites for some somewhat stable income.

I've never had to do SEO on any site I've owned in the past because I lucked out with an EMD that was registered in 2001. I posted some shitty content and bam I had the top ranking.

Here are my own personal rules/goals/whatever:
- I have a $500 budget so start, that includes everything.
- I will be writing every single piece of content that is posted on my site.
- Anything that isn't done by me such as linking, designing, whatever, will be purchased from a freelancer from wickedfire.
- I will post each day with the progress.
- The goal is to make back the $500 in 100 days.
- The start date is March 23rd - End date is June 30.
- I will be monetizing via adsense/Clickbank. Yes, here are a few legit clickbank products for my niche.

Any tips would be helpful, and if you are a freelancer, I'll return the favor and probably purchase some type of service from you.

Since the daily hustle section is private I guess here's my daily journal:

Day 1- I was looking at a program many of us got free called autonicheincome. I just looked at some of the keywords and took words from a whole bunch niches and found my own little niche. I found 5 keywords that receive between 35,000-70,000 searches per month with what looks to be relatively weak competition. I figured the competition could be beat within a good 60-75 days with steady content and backlinks. I mapped out a linking strategy with me doing about half myself, and using some freelancers for directories, spinning content for web 2.0 properties, and drip feed blasts to slowly build some steady links.

Day 2 - I wrote down the titles of about 100 articles, and actually typed six of them. I found a domain with one of the five targeted keywords in it, snatched it up, and am now writing this. I'm still stuck on a theme to buy, but with my budget it doesn't seem to likely, I'll find a decent custom theme for $100-200.
 


My advice to you would be to not worry about buying a theme/customizing it just yet. Get a free clean theme (have a look around, there are heaps of them) and then get a customized header done for like $10.

I'd avoid putting ads on the site if you think the site is any chance of getting natural links.

Goodluck and hit me up via PM and I'll give you some xrumer blasts fo' free.
 
I have been at this for a month my self. Made alot of progress, they really mean it that SEO is a marathon. Good luck
 
tencentpiece said:
My advice to you would be to not worry about buying a theme/customizing it just yet. Get a free clean theme (have a look around, there are heaps of them) and then get a customized header done for like $10.

I'd avoid putting ads on the site if you think the site is any chance of getting natural links.

Goodluck and hit me up via PM and I'll give you some xrumer blasts fo' free.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice and comments. I'm going to wait awhile before I start placing ads on the site. I'll hit you up soon, I'm sure I can repay the favor sometime.

Izaya said:
Following the thread, since am pretty much in exact position as you. With that $500 I'd buy some services from the bst. For theme you should check out Headway Premium WordPress Theme

$500 can take you pretty far actually, wouldn't be surprised if you hit #1 in under 3 months for a decent competition keyword.

Goodluck
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Thanks, I found a decent theme but if I find a better one I'll use that one. I'm hoping this project will increase my terrible technical abilities.

Laterz said:
I have been at this for a month my self. Made alot of progress, they really mean it that SEO is a marathon. Good luck
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm definitely in this for some long-term income and the experience.


Day 3 - Today I spent most of the day writing content and spinning it. I wrote 5 articles and spun them 5 times on sentence level and 5 times on a paragraph level. I'll be using these spun articles on article directories for some quality back links.

Day 4 - Today, I actually posted the first two articles on the site. I plan on posting two articles each day for at least another 10 days before I lower that to just one article per day.
I spent more time looking for some web 2.0 sites and article directories and compiled a list of about 40 I will be using for back links. I plan on using mixing in my keywords in both the articles themselves and anchor text at the end of my articles.
I also submitted my site to google, yahoo, and a few other search engines. Most of them seem to take a few days to index or even crawl the site. By then I should have 10 articles on the site.
I plan to start back linking within the week and at a slow gradual process before ramping it up within two or three weeks.
 
I just subscribed to your thread.

I want to embark on a very similar journey with a similar budget as well. After my first go-around with AF and losing money I definitely share your sentiment.

My account was registered in 2009. I lurked and read here and there, but I'm no where near knowing what SEO is and how to accomplish it.

My first stint was with google and facebook CPC.

I guess I can't lurk much and start posting if I ever want to ask for advice.

I'm still having trouble finding a niche. Any advice? Is the autoniche income program still available?
 
Xamot...believe me, you will easier find a good niche all by yourself then with the programs. there is no need to spend money on some "niche finder" programs, especially in the beginning. later, when you start to build a lot of micro niche sites (if that is what u want to do) and start linkbuilding them, then "niche finding" softwares can be useful...
 
custom theme for 100-200? wow do NOT pay anything for a theme.

a few hours worth of work will get you any theme you want. let me know if you need help customizing anything wordpress.
 
montozza said:
Xamot...believe me, you will easier find a good niche all by yourself then with the programs. there is no need to spend money on some "niche finder" programs, especially in the beginning. later, when you start to build a lot of micro niche sites (if that is what u want to do) and start linkbuilding them, then "niche finding" softwares can be useful...
Click to expand...

Is there a process or methodology for doing this?

Just google adwords/keywords tool?

thanks!
 
If you can manage to edit a Wordpress theme, don't buy anything more than what you need. If you can't, find someone on here, or Fiverr, to do edits for you.

I didn't notice any Social Media in this plan. I know it's a 50/50 shot in service, but I think depending on your niche, you can bring in more traffic.

Facebook Fan Page?
Twitter Account?
Reddit?
Digg?

If you want to make things easy for yourself, in Wordpress, download the plugin "Sexy Bookmarks".

It literally saves me 5-7 minutes after each article, page or post, by simply having the jquery links ready to go at the bottom.

Best of luck to you, and if you'd like to send me a pm with a url and keywords, I'll throw you some backlinks.
 
just use this theme and move on, no reason to worry about your theme this early in the game: WordPress › LightWord « Free WordPress Themes

Focus on adding content with semantically related keywords to your site and do link building every single day. I would assume you have a lot of time on your hands, so there's no reason you shouldn't be spending at least 5+ hours on your site per day.

Build 2-3 sites at once so you can stay fresh and be more robust.

DONT CHECK YOUR RANKINGS DAILY. Just build links. Write content. Build links. DONT CHECK YOUR RANKINGS DAILY.

Memorize the top 20 results in Google. Seriously. You should be able to recite your top 20 competitors from memory for your main keyword. Dig deeply into their backlink profile (don't buy tools, use site explorer and just look at where there links are coming from). analyze their keyword density, site structure, image usage, etc.

Don't buy services in the BST if your budget is $500. spend that money on buying High PR commenting lists and thats it. Add 2-3 articles to your sites per day, build links for 4 or 5 hours a day, and in a month, reevaluate. Do you have money to reinvest now? ok, spend that on more content and good links. Maybe buy some Amit's bookmarks. Maybe a small mini-net.

Pick up a copy of scrapebox and use it to scrape for High PR targets. Don't spam with it if you haven't done it before, you'll just end up with low success rates and be frustrated. Use it to create small lists of PR 4+ targets.

Don't get hung up on analytics, just keep building.
 
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Douglife said:
If you can manage to edit a Wordpress theme, don't buy anything more than what you need. If you can't, find someone on here, or Fiverr, to do edits for you.

I didn't notice any Social Media in this plan. I know it's a 50/50 shot in service, but I think depending on your niche, you can bring in more traffic.

Facebook Fan Page?
Twitter Account?
Reddit?
Digg?

If you want to make things easy for yourself, in Wordpress, download the plugin "Sexy Bookmarks".

It literally saves me 5-7 minutes after each article, page or post, by simply having the jquery links ready to go at the bottom.

Best of luck to you, and if you'd like to send me a pm with a url and keywords, I'll throw you some backlinks.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips, my niche isn't exactly something people want to share with the world though. It is still something to look into though and in my free time, I'll explore some opportunities.

sevnup said:
custom theme for 100-200? wow do NOT pay anything for a theme.

a few hours worth of work will get you any theme you want. let me know if you need help customizing anything wordpress.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the offer, If I need anything I'll hit you up.


dchuk said:
just use this theme and move on, no reason to worry about your theme this early in the game: WordPress › LightWord « Free WordPress Themes

Focus on adding content with semantically related keywords to your site and do link building every single day. I would assume you have a lot of time on your hands, so there's no reason you shouldn't be spending at least 5+ hours on your site per day.

Build 2-3 sites at once so you can stay fresh and be more robust.

DONT CHECK YOUR RANKINGS DAILY. Just build links. Write content. Build links. DONT CHECK YOUR RANKINGS DAILY.

Memorize the top 20 results in Google. Seriously. You should be able to recite your top 20 competitors from memory for your main keyword. Dig deeply into their backlink profile (don't buy tools, use site explorer and just look at where there links are coming from). analyze their keyword density, site structure, image usage, etc.

Don't buy services in the BST if your budget is $500. spend that money on buying High PR commenting lists and thats it. Add 2-3 articles to your sites per day, build links for 4 or 5 hours a day, and in a month, reevaluate. Do you have money to reinvest now? ok, spend that on more content and good links. Maybe buy some Amit's bookmarks. Maybe a small mini-net.

Pick up a copy of scrapebox and use it to scrape for High PR targets. Don't spam with it if you haven't done it before, you'll just end up with low success rates and be frustrated. Use it to create small lists of PR 4+ targets.

Don't get hung up on analytics, just keep building.
Click to expand...
+Rep for the amazing advice here. I found a great theme that is suitable for my niche. I do have a lot of time in between classes (college student) and will focus on content and building as you said. The only things I were really going to buy were a small link pyramid or mini-net as you stated. Nothing major, just some different web 2.0 sites for some extra link juice. Oh and a nice small logo to put on the site since my niche is very visual if that makes sense.


Micko said:
Listen to dchuk, really good advice. Amazing thread, please keep it going.
Click to expand...
Definitely going to keep this going, thanks for the support. The replies are really helping me stay motivated.

Day 4- Spent a total of about 6 hours working on the site today. Added two more articles to the website and starting posting spun articles on some pr 2-5 article directories. I managed to find a few niche specific directories with only a few hundred articles. My articles were the first in their niche and I mixed the anchor text among my 5 keywords. I managed to post on 29 article directories. Most of the articles, while spun, are spun multiple times by me personally so they still make sense and pass copyspace.

Tomorrows goals:
3 Articles Posted
Posts in 15 Article Directories
50 Social Bookmarking sites
 
Day 5 - Worked another 4 hours on the site today. Got two more articles posted and spent a lot of the day posting in web directories related to my niche as well as some social bookmarking sites. My pages are getting indexed at google pretty fast and I'm going to focus on content tomorrow. I'm hoping to get 4 articles up and another 30-40 article directories/web directories done. There are literally hundreds of directories out there in my general niche that haven't been abused yet so I'm hoping to take advantage of them. I counted 10 directories with pr4 or better and only a few hundred submissions. Hoping to keep finding them.
 
Day 6 - Only got a couple hours worked on the site today. Managed to post 3 more articles and got some more article/web directory submissions. I've gotten a few approval emails and I'm hoping my backlinks will be indexed within the next few days.

Question- My website is getting indexed as mysite.com and wwwmysite.com but all my content has the www in front of it. Is there any explanation and does that really matter?
 
jeffrey said:
Question- My website is getting indexed as mysite.com and wwwmysite.com but all my content has the www in front of it. Is there any explanation and does that really matter?
Click to expand...

I don't think it matters much, but anyway you could use a 301 redirect via mod_rewrite:

Code: 
[B]Redirect www to non-www:[/B]
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond % ^www.yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301
    [B]
Redirect non-www to www:[/B]
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond % ^yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
 
jeffrey said:
Day 6 - Only got a couple hours worked on the site today. Managed to post 3 more articles and got some more article/web directory submissions. I've gotten a few approval emails and I'm hoping my backlinks will be indexed within the next few days.

Question- My website is getting indexed as mysite.com and wwwmysite.com but all my content has the www in front of it. Is there any explanation and does that really matter?
Click to expand...

Most of my new sites get indexed that way initially. Set the the 301 redirect as mentioned here and make sure you stick to linking one version of URL. Give it a few weeks and G will show both versions, than take out the one you don't want.
 
It seems to be working itself out fine. Thanks for the help anyways.

Day 7 - Sadly I didn't get much done today. Had a fever of 103 almost all day and really can't stand looking at a screen. I can hardly bear writing this as we speak. Anyways, got a couple pages of content and I found a few do-follow PR 4-6 edu blogs that I managed to post comments. Two are already showing in google.
 
dchuk said:
Memorize the top 20 results in Google. Seriously. You should be able to recite your top 20 competitors from memory for your main keyword. Dig deeply into their backlink profile (don't buy tools, use site explorer and just look at where there links are coming from). analyze their keyword density, site structure, image usage, etc.
Click to expand...


You can get the free version of SEO Spyglass for looking closely at their backlink profile. For site structure and other useful information about a site you should get Screaming Frog Seo Spider. Both are free and easy to use.
 
I haven't been able to access wickedfire for the past two days for no dam apparent reason. Got a lot of site work done.

Day 8/9 - Managed to get a lot done over the past two days. I worked on my on-page SEO. Besides on on-page SEO, I really focused on building links. I submitted my site to about 400 link directories, 100 article directories, and found some relevant blogs to post. Today and tomorrow, I'll be focusing on Web 2.0 sites and will be blasting them with drip feed blasts.
 
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