Quick update: All the SEO information below is still useful and likely works. After Google started cracking down on PBNs, we started to start to focus our energy on business models that don’t only depend on SEO for traffic.
In my initial Authority Site Case Study launch article, I alluded to the types of sites we would either be building from scratch, or adding content to. In short, we will be:
- Starting new authority sites from scratch on fresh domains, usually in proven high RPM niches.
- Starting new authority sites on expired domains (testing to see if we can skip the sandbox with certain types of expired domains).
- Expanding existing niche sites into authority sites, of which we have 3 primary sub-categories:
- Adding content, mainly more review articles, to amazon affiliate sites. Taking these sites from 10-15 pages up to approximately 30-50 pages in total
- Adding content to existing high RPM sites and taking them up to 30-200 pages
- Adding content to existing high RPM sites and taking them up to 200-2000 pages sites
In reality, each of the above is probably a case study in an of itself and it is significant size project overall, which is why we have put together a team of nearly 30 people to help us fulfill our mission.
Introducing Two Case Study Sites
Whilst it is early days in that mission, I would like to introduce two of our precious little babies (soon-to-be authority sites) to the NoHatSeo community!
For now, my creativity eludes me and they will be referred to “Site A” and “Site B”!
Site A
Site A is in the Finance niche, a niche we have proven to be a winner in the past that can delivery fairly stunning RPMs of $500+. Not bad, ey?
Site A was born in late October 2013. We treated it well for the first few weeks but stopped at 10 pages of ok-ish content and SEO. We fed it well with PBN links for a period of time though and the site was making around $500 per month off long-tail alone by April this year.
Over the last 30 days it’s made nearly $1500 and that should increase quite quickly now that we are providing it with some TLC.
If I were to guess where the site will end up, I’d say it would be in the 500-700 pages of content range. It has a nice, broad domain and it’s obviously in a big niche.
We’ve started adding content, and the short-term results are promising!
| Week Commencing | Pages added | Unique Visits | Traffic increase week on week | Traffic increase – last 4 weeks | Earnings from new content | Notes |
| 28th May | no | 190 | NA | NA | NA | Top KW pos 11 |
| 4th June | no | 195 | 103% | NA | NA | Top KW pos 9 |
| 11th June | no | 260 | 133% | NA | NA | Top KW pos 10 |
| 18th June | no | 365 | 140% | 192% | NA | Top KW pos 10 |
| 25th June | no | 419 | 115% | 215% | NA | Top KW pos 3 |
| 2nd July | no | 312 | 74% | 120% | NA | Top KW pos 5 |
| 9th July | 21 | 323 | 104% | 88% | $0 | Top KW pos 5 |
| 16th July | 27 | 407 | 126% | 97% | $10.85 | Top KW pos 8 |
| 23rd July | 12 | 410 | 101% | 131% | $29 | Top KW pos 8 |
Notes on the above ^ (also relevant to Site B table below):
“Week Commencing” > is not a Monday, in case you were wondering. I started compiling the data on a Wednesday so stuck with that for now.
Pages added > pages ranged from 750-2500 word count
Unique visits > as it sounds, number of unique visits for the site over the 7 day period
Traffic increase week on week > compares traffic from a week to the preceding week
Traffic increase last 4 weeks > compares traffic from a week to the traffic in the week 4 weeks prior
Earnings from new content > total 7 day earnings from any content added since the 9th July
Notes > Anything important that could explain the results of skew data. In this case I wanted to point out that the main KW the site is ranking for, which is actually the only decent KW ranking on page 1, has actually dropped a bit so increases in traffic are not a result of the initial content on the site prior to us adding more pages.
Site B
Site B is in the Automotive niche, a niche we have also had previous solid-earners in.
Unlike Site A, Site B has a fairly narrow domain name and will probably max out at 150-200 pages of content. It was created in January of 2014 with an initial 4 pages of content and that’s where we stopped!
We link built it at a consistent, but not over-the-top pace, and it has been edging closer to page 1 for a decent KW and RPMs are commonly $200+. It’s a definite candidate for a quick build-out and then a flip.
The initial results of adding content are also promising
| Week Commencing | Pages added | Unique Visits | Traffic increase week on week | Traffic increase – last 4 weeks | Earnings from new content | Notes |
| May 28th | no | 82 | NA | NA | NA | Main KW pos 30 |
| 4th June | no | 102 | 124% | NA | NA | Main KW pos 30 |
| 11th June | no | 104 | 102% | NA | NA | Main KW pos 29 |
| 18th June | no | 145 | 139% | 177% | NA | Main KW pos 29 |
| 25th June | no | 85 | 59% | 83% | NA | Main KW pos 22 |
| 2nd July | no | 101 | 119% | 97% | NA | Main KW pos 20 |
| 9th July | 24 | 135 | 134% | 93% | NA | Main KW pos 19 |
| 16th July | 5 | 215 | 159% | 253% | $4.99 | Main KW pos 19 |
| 23rd July | 3 | 222 | 103% | 220% | $39.64 | Main KW pos 16 |
Summing up
- The sites above are two of around 100 that we are building out, but these two will form part of the handful that we feature as part of our case study.
- Content that has been added since 9th July has already started earning off of long-tail alone. No KWs with 500 or above LMS are ranking higher than the bottom of page 3 at this point
- Traffic has definitely shot up due to the content added
- As the case study evolves, I’ll look to isolate more specific detail, however this was just to give you a little taste of what we’re up to
- We have some encouraging initial results from launching authority sites on expired domains > more on that soon!
Its over to you…
Based on the above, what else would you like further information, or new information on? We’d love the NoHatSeo community to help shape this case study.
Nick says:
Nice case study. Just wondering how you go about deciding on what content you are going to put up? I.e ideas for topics
Thanks!
GregNunan says:
Hi Nick, we’ll certainly be covering this in future posts as the case study rolls along. We have a training module on this in our Internships and private training course too, so those that participate get a week or two on this included in the training.
For authority sites, we have three types of content:
1) the usual SEOd content (choose a set of KWs and build a page, or group of pages, around them). The only difference is that we go for slightly higher competition KWs here as opposed to only the low hanging fruit – this type of content is the short-term focus on authority sites.
2) we then move onto user-focused content such as answering common questions that users may ask, which we generally identify through studying other sites in the niche (we call this niche research as opposed to KW research) and then,
3) is viral content > content that we are just starting to add to a few sites now, but that is aimed at getting social shares and natural links, which is a big focus for use.
Hope this helps.
Tristan says:
Long time lurker here! I always love a good case study and can’t wait to see how it progresses.
Dennis says:
Thanks Greg, very excited about the case study. One question though, which is a bit the elephant in the room, as far as I’m concerned :
Could you detail “RPMs of $500+”? Am I correct when I think that it means that for every 1000 visitors, you manage to get on average $500, that is $0.5 per visitor?
If so, is it 100% Adsense? Or a mix between Adsense and other ways of monetization, like Amazon Affiliate?
Would love to read some more details about that.
Nice work guys, keep it up!
Hayden says:
It is $0.50 per pageview – and entirely adsense.
Dennis says:
Got it. Any tips/ressources on reaching these kinds of figures? May I ask what’s your usual breakdown between Click-Thru-Ratio and average CPC?
GregNunan says:
Given the niches, CPC are high. Not uncommon to receive double figures per click and CTR is usually double figures also. The key is building enough small sites across a range of niches to find out which niches produce the best results, and then focusing on the winning niches for bigger sites.