Using SERPS for Keyword Ranking Reports & An Update on My Niche Site

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Here is something completely unprecedented in Internet Marketing: I’m going to give you exclusive access to my keyword ranking reports for my niche website, TheSnowboardingExperts.

Yup. That’s right. I’m going to put my money where my mouth is and show you exactly what my rankings are on the niche site I developed. That means that if my rankings drop, you get to see. If my rankings go up, you get to see.

I’m all about being transparent with my readers and clients. There are too many skeezy SEO companies and consultants out there. I’m not one.

If you want to skip directly to the login info, you can click here. Otherwise, I’ve written an in-depth article about why I track keywords for my sites and what I’ve done on my niche site.

In case you forgot, here are all the posts in this niche site development series:

In Case You Missed It:

• Want to Make Money Online? You Better Bring Hard Work
• How to Mind Map & Find Topics For Your Website

Instructions on Beginning a Blog or Website (& Making Money From It)

• Choosing a Niche & Performing Keyword Research with Market Samurai (video tutorial)
• Installing WordPress
• Learning From My Mistakes When Choosing a Niche
• Crowdsourcing a Logo Design Through 48HoursLogo

Maintaining & Growing That Website

• Using SERPS to Track Your Keywords & Progress (You’re here).

OK — You ready?

Why I Track Keywords

I track keywords for a number of reasons:

1. Insight into your SEO campaigns
2. Provides specific information about what happened to your site and when so you can pinpoint if you were hit by a Panda, Penguin or EMD
3. Concrete proof that SEO works
4. It’s fun!

I used to use RavenTools to track my keywords. Unfortunately, as of early 2013, they discontinued keyword tracking and ranking reports (you can see my full post on checking website rankings with RavenTools here).

That left me in a predicament. What platform should I switch to?

I looked at AuthorityLabs and a few others but ultimately was sold on SERPS.com for the ability to let clients log in and view their rankings. And just recently I had a shower revelation (isn’t all the best thinking done in the shower???): Why should just clients get to see their rankings? If I’m building this niche site from scratch and documenting it all, why shouldn’t my readers see the rankings whenever they’d like?

A Quick Update on my Niche Site Progress

I started TheSnowboardingExperts back in August of 2012. I chose the topic after mind mapping. Originally, I was going to build a site on Flight Training Schools. But I Kamikazed that (for the time being). Then, I was going to build a Snowboarding site AND an Adventure Tours website. In the end, I decided to abandon ship on all except snowboarding.

And here’s what I’ve done so far:

• Installed WordPress on my Bluehost account (click here to learn how to install WordPress in under 15 minutes on Bluehost)
• Performed keyword research on Market Samurai (click here to learn how I choose great keywords through Market Samurai — unrelated to SnowboardingExperts)
• Started writing content
• Built the site on a StudioPress theme
• Published content
• And then… DID NOTHING.

That’s right. I’ve done ZERO linkbuilding. ZERO marketing. Even though my backlinking strategies clearly work, I decided to use this site as an experiment and test out what happens when you write decent content in a non-competitive niche.

The Moment You’ve Been Waiting For… My Keyword Ranking Login

So, why don’t you hop in and check it out for yourself? Here’s the access to my keyword reports for TheSnowboardingExperts

1. Go to http://clients.seosherpas.com (not an affiliate link)
2. Email: traffic@seosherpas.com
3. Password: seosherpas
4. And when you’re done, click here to try a FREE trial of SERPS for your own website!

Important Disclaimer: At the time of writing this, TheSnowboardingExperts was receiving between 80-110 visitors per day. My rankings were very high for a number of keywords I was targeting. Tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year, traffic might be higher. It might be destroyed. I might rank #1 for every snowboarding term (doubtful, but hey, you can wish, right?). But for now, here’s a screenshot of some of my rankings, just so the record will show that at this time, this place, these are my results:

What’s The Future For My Niche Site?

I like building websites that don’t suck. And while pure review sites can function decently, I don’t believe they are a successful, long-term strategy. So I’ve hired writers that live and work at ski resorts around Colorado and California. They are writing in-depth reports about the resorts to provide an insider’s view. I’m excited to see where that strategy goes.

How Much Money Has My Site Made?

That’s the ultimate question everyone wants to know, right? Well, unfortunately the site hasn’t made much money off of its traffic. The affiliate linking strategy I tried is failing, so I’m revamping the strategy as I type this out.

My VA is adding a few new affiliate links in highly accessed locations (I use Clicky Heatmaps to analyze how people interact with my site). That should help it generate more revenue.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much time left. The season ends in April and then traffic will disappear (hopefully only to reappear next year!).

Here’s a breakdown of how much it has earned so far:

• Affiliate Links – $153.10
• AdSense – $9.01 (added at the end of December)

So not much ROI, clearly. But it takes time to build a successful niche site. And the truth is that, because I’ve done ZERO linkbuilding, it could easily get destroyed overnight. That’s OK for me. Again, this was an experiment in developing a niche site to see how much traffic and rankings I can get by doing ZERO linkbuilding. Normally, I always market my sites. In this case, I chose against it.

Conclusion

I hope that this post on my niche site progress helps you understand how straight forward it is to getting good rankings on Google in an non-competitive niche.

Will this invite additional competition? Probably. But I’m willing to live with that.

If you found any of this info useful and decide to purchase one of the tools I use, I’d greatly appreciate if you went through one of my affiliate links. Here they are for your convenience:

• Bluehost
• Market Samurai
• SERPS
• RavenTools
• StudioPress
• GetClicky/Clicky Analytics (and here is my full review)

What do you think? Is having access to my keyword ranking reports helpful?

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Yup! That's me. Perry Rosenbloom. And I'm smiling because I know you're going to succeed online, too... especially if you sign up for my newsletter right below...