I am DEFINITELY doing something WRONG.

[Augustus]

I am sure I am doing a whole lot of things wrong, and at this point, I could use some expert opinion on the way to go. I rarely give up on stuff, but I've been stuck in a single spot for over 18months now, and I am close to throwing in the towel as far as amazon affiliate niche site is concerned.

I have two sites at the moment, both of them actually started out well, but after five months or thereabout, I just can seem to go beyond page two. It's so frustrating, so much that I abandoned the first one and created another one, then the second one started doing well, and then got stuck again.

At some point, i thought I have been penalized (even though I did not get any mail from Google, and I don't know anything about blackhat SEO, aside for the scholarship links i did for one of the site), i changed my domain name, did a 301 redirect, and gave it time to see the changes, well, the same thing happened again, I got stuck in page two.

I'll love to share some images with you and would love it if an expert can please have a look and help the poor me.

If I have a site that makes $1,000 per month, I would probably build a mansion in my home town. (lol). I mean, I am not aspiring for a 10k per month site (which wouldn't be a bad idea), all i want is something that can sustain me while I am studying full time.

Experts, can you please come to my aid. I don't mind sharing URL privately, with seasoned members of Builders Society.

Site One: BABY/Parenting Niche.
Age: Almost 2years Old.
Earnings: 0$

Site Two: Supplements/Vitamins Niche
Age: Over 18months
Earnings: $50/Month or less. $18 so far this month

Can somebody please help me and save me from this frustration of toiling and not seeing any improvement?

Infact I am open to a JV if you know how to bring this site into profitability. I don't mind at this point in time.
Thanks for you time

 

[darkzerothree]

Would love to do that and I have a good hand in improving projects.

Shoot me a direct message

Best

 

[Sutra]

You didn't mention anything about the relevance of the articles to search intent, your link building efforts, or the competition you're up against.

Based on just the niches alone, you'll be up against monsters, so you'll need a SOLID foundation with on point SEO and a great link profile. But again, you didn't say much so maybe you're targeting some long tail stuff that you could get easy (relatively). Need more info.

 

[Augustus]

Thank you for your response @Sutra I targeted mostly long tail keywords. About 80% of my articles are "Best kind of something for something" sort of articles. The search volume is not extremely high and it would pass for what SEO considers as KGR as of late.

As far as link building is concerned, I haven't don't much because I have focused more on content creation as against link building. Onpage SEO is pretty basic, but offsite nothing much has been done.

Would love to do that and I have a good hand in improving projects.

Shoot me a direct message

Best

Done. Thank you.

 

[Apex]

As far as link building is concerned, I haven't don't much because I have focused more on content creation as against link building. Onpage SEO is pretty basic, but offsite nothing much has been done.

Here is a possible cause. If you create content but don't promote it nobody will know it.

 

[Ryuzaki]

just can seem to go beyond page two.

That's where the real competition begins in any medium competition niche. Your two niches are somewhere between medium and hard.

The search volume is not extremely high and it would pass for what SEO considers as KGR as of late.

The keyword golden ratio stuff really only works with some level of consistency if you have some domain authority. Google still ranks on keyword but focuses on the general topic too. So just because you're optimized for the term doesn't mean you'll beat another site that's optimized for the topic if they have the domain authority. The only way to build that authority is age, content, and mainly links.

As far as link building is concerned, I haven't don't much

That's why you're not busting onto page 1. There are at least 10 (there's thousands if not tens of thousands) of sites in both of these niches with pages dedicated to the same topic that have gotten a link or two or 50. For the most part, optimization is easy. Every webmaster can get it up to 90% dialed in, and that last 10% isn't going to make it or break it that hard once links come into the picture. Going for utter on-page perfection helps when you're neck and neck, of course. But if you have very little to nothing in the way of quality links and they do, you'll never beat them.

 

[Calamari]

Based on all the info you have given, you're exactly where I would expect you to be.

Bottom line is you need a handful of good links to get things going.

With these targeted kw's on page two I would expect to see some traffic. Are you seeing any traffic at all?

 

[Augustus]

Thank you so much @Ryuzaki Secretly, I was hoping you would chime in on the conversation. I know link building is important, and based on what you've explained above, I can't agree less. My problem, however, is that I have zero skills when it comes to building links. I have read the crash course couple of times, and still, I can't seem to score links despite my approach.

@Calamari Yes. I get some traffic every now and then.

 

[Calamari]

I can't seem to score links despite my approach

The solution here is pretty obvious. Keep trying different approaches until something works. I'm willing to bet you gave up too easy and went back to creating content because it was easier.

 

[Focused]

My problem, however, is that I have zero skills when it comes to building links. I have read the crash course couple of times, and still, I can't seem to score links despite my approach.

Do outreach and create content in exchange for a link in the content to your site.

 

[Samwise89]

i changed my domain name, did a 301 redirect, and gave it time to see the changes, well, the same thing happened again, I got stuck in page two.

Was there something special about either domain name? Did one have a lot of links? Doing a 301 isn't going to give you a boost just because it's a 301. The redirected domain has to be transferring something better like link power, or the new domain needs to have that. There's no magic in a 301 itself, it's about what transfers through.

 

[Encrypted]

Just had a look at your supplement site and content is okay. Looks like you just need links to push beyond page 2.

By the way i know you , we're from the same country. Hit me up if you'ld like to connect

 

[Sutra]

Yes, as you're being told in this thread, you need to get links.

 

[seoauthority]

outreach and linkbait type approach would work great in getting you niche relevant backlinks

 

[Augustus]

Thank you everybody, I guess it's time to beg for links as much as I can.

 

[CCarter]

Thank you everybody, I guess it's time to beg for links as much as I can.

It’s all about perspective - if you consider it begging it comes off as weak from a low position; if you consider it helping and benefiting their userbase and audience it comes off as doing a favor for them to make them look good in front of their audience.

That’s why mortgage calculators and tools like that for your own industry will also naturally get links. There are direct benefits for the website owner to look good in front of their audience - key being value.

If you aren’t providing true value no one is going to link to you. So make sure you got something valuable to offer them or their audience. Even a page with different stats within your industry and the JavaScript graphs/charts to play with will add value. Getting links to those is a lot easier than to some bland blog post with no images (or a single header image) or value to visitors.

 

[MuffinS]

As a different approach, why not try buying a single AWESOME domain for a PBN?

SEO is like drugs... Don't do low quality at volume. You'll get caught.
Be a good boy - valedictorian - and then take the highest quality stuff you can afford when it matters (but only do it once!)

 

[Ryuzaki]

take the highest quality stuff you can afford when it matters (but only do it once!)

This is a good point in general, but I wouldn't recommend it to @Augustus at this point. There are a lot of 'above water' link building basics he can do and get great results from without doing anything risky, largely because he's saying he hasn't done any of it.

But yeah, you CAN get away with a lot of things if you stay below the radar. I always think of it as a threshold value and each time you do something shady, you raise a red flag with a certain number of points associated with it. After enough red flags, you'll trip the radar and get looked at.

But if you keep it at one time per shady thing, you'll basically have plausible deniability. The algorithm is looking for certain amounts of shadiness so they can have statistical confidence before penalizing you. So by doing each bad thing once, the main risk you carry is getting the link devalued, versus a full blown penalization.

And of course this has to do with your risk tolerance and what you can afford to risk. I don't recommend doing it for a project that you're hanging your everything on, and especially not until you have a good grasp on the lay of the land and how the algorithms work.

There's also things like offering cash to sites for posting content with your link in it, without a guest post attribution or author profile. As long as you aren't coordinating this through Gmail then there's no real way to know that's what happened. I'm not condoning this kind of thing nor condemning it, but pointing out how much is possible while still being relatively safe.

Definitely tap out as much white hat stuff as possible and then scale that before moving into the gray area. Your previous white hat efforts will cushion and reduce the overall percentage that gray hat links make in your overall profile.

As for me and my family of sites, we will worship the white hat lord.

 

[bernard]

A few links can go a long way, but you need a few.

I also would look objectively at the content. Is it really better than the competition? Do you really deserve to be ahead of them? It's easy to be selfabsorbed in this regard, but it has to be looked at objectively. Not as "good enough", but "too good not to be first page". It needs to be BETTER, simply put, demonstrably better, not just "as good".