Are You An Authority? A Case Study

By Steven · Sunday, May 6th, 2007

There has been a lot of buzz about Authority Sites lately with the release of Jack Humphrey’s Authority Black Book (www.AuthorityBlackBook.com) as well as John Reese’s latest report (that I wrote about in another post here: http://www.affiliatemarketingdiary.com/the-birth-of-internet-marketing/).


Not to mention that additional buzz created around Adsense / Authority sites with the re-opening of Portal Feeder, Adsense Wealth Empire Manifesto (I forget what it’s called), and also the revamping of ContentDesk (Authority Site Network).

In any event, I have been experimenting with a method of building niched "hub" site for a couple of months now (based on Jack Humphrey’s teachings) and have built the beginnings of a few Authority sites.

As you can imagine there’s a lot of work that can go into a site of this caliber; however let me give you an example of what happened with my first site using this method…

It was built around a niche that I had "staked out" for some time know on a domain that I have owned for about six months (there was no content on the domain prior to launching the site).

The niche is aimed at parents and my two primary keywords for this niche have about 1200 searches per day according to WordTracker; with a total search volume for my primary and secondary keyword phrases of around 6,000 per day (not a terribly huge niche, but good enough).

This is essentially what I did to launch the site:

I should also mention that I invested about $260 to launch this site, which includes the cost of: 30 articles, PLR ebook, header and sales page graphics, and two domain names. And it took me about two weeks working about 3 - 5 hours per day to put everything together (niche research, PLR re-write, blog post writing etc.).

The results:

The site was "launched" almost 70 days ago now and currently enjoys about 400+ visitors per day. And I can see this site getting to over a thousand visitors per day in the few months as I am starting to rank well for "fringe" keywords as well in the SERPs and the site is also starting to go viral. By the way, none of the blog posts were keyword optimized, however the articles I had written were written around specific keyword phrases.

So, how much does the site make?

The eBook sells for $27; and the site currently averages about 3 ebook sales per day (some days I’ll sell seven while on another only one… or none). The Adsense ranges anywhere from $12 - $50+ per day. The average profit for the past ten days have been about $81 per day (both Adsense and eBook sales); which isn’t too bad. I figure the site will generate at least twice the amount in another couple of months as I’ll be receiving more traffic as well as adding more affiliate products into the mix.

This site is now an authority site in it’s niche; and I dominate the search engines for many of my secondary keywords (and it took me less than two weeks to do so for several of the keywords). It is my belief that it will continue to do so and be an authority siteas long as I keep it up (or until I sell it).

I reckon that in another 90 days or so I could turn around and sell this site for five figures (if I choose to do so).

For what it’s worth, this is what I think John Reese and Jack Humphrey mean by Authority Sites and giving away free information.

I have already created two other sites that are experiencing similar successes (I have others come up with content for the blogs) and will be adding more to my portfolio as time allows.

[tags]authority site building, traffic tactics, adsense, blogging, blogging for money[/tags]

Topics: Case Studies · Tags:

Comments

Steven,

Thanks for sharing your stats! I know a lot of people would be happy just to get where you are now and many are asking for hard numbers trying to figure out if these sites really work.

I guess you answered that for a lot of people!

Keep up the great work - there’s really no stopping you after you’ve reached this point.

Thanks Jack! I will be sharing some "hard" numbers in probably another 30 days once I have more metrics. I really appreciate all of the help you have given me via your blog / report / seminars. I owe much of my success to your teachings.

awesome news! thanks for sharing the details with us.

I’m happy to share.
There’s more to come. :)

This is really great stuff! Man I wanna be like u when I grow up. Thanks for sharing us your stats!

Excellent tips! I gave you a Digg :)

Cageybee

Learn how masters increase traffic by 300% http://click-here-fast.com/2go2/vfg.htm

Excellent post…for 2 reasons: (1) you have presented a live case study in which you have done it in a short period of time, always very motivating, and (2) you have provided a specific list of things you have done in order to get there…a guide for others to follow…

I’m surprised that you got there so soon - especially getting 400 UIPs within 2-3 months of start is outstanding, with no marketing budget!

Thanks for the post, I have included it at my page for inbound links - LinxJinx - The Inbound Links Encyclopedia @ http://www.billdoll.com/dir/r/ci/internet/marketing/linxjinx/linxjinx.html

Nice & useful post…

Just wanted to ask: I’m a bit surprised that you had started ranking in Google so quickly to reach 400 UIPs in 70 days…which brings me to the most important question: you have mentioned “traditional link-building methods..” can you name some of them? Because I’d reckon they were the key to your success?

Any thoughts would be welcome

Btw, have included this interesting post at my web page on building inbound links - LinxJinx - The Inbound Links Encyclopedia @ http://www.billdoll.com/dir/r/ci/internet/marketing/linxjinx/linxjinx.html

Have a nice day

This was a nice case study to read, it again proves how to interlace outsourcing and doing the hardwork yourself…nice job…if you can give an update that would be great

You know I really love this case study you posted about. I’ve read this post and the follow up one. Will you be posting any more walk throughs for people? How about covering finding the niche, choosing keywords to write about on your site and which ones to use in articles to be distributed, etc. I know you from a few forums and it’s amazing what info you give out for free!

An excellent example of creating value as a promotional measure…contributing

So do you continue to add new material to this site to keep it ‘fresh’, or are you able to now sit on your laurels and bring in $400 a week for very little work?

Very plausible, and well laid out instructions

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