One of the biggest (and best, in my opinion) ways to make money online is to rank for simple, long tail keywords using basic SEO skills and use that traffic to generate money either through Adsense, product sales or affiliate marketing.
First off, let me state that I’m no SEO legend – unfortunately if you’re looking to rank for terms like “credit cards” or “weight loss” which get millions of search hits per month, I can’t really help you there. However, if you’re looking to rank for longer tail keywords which see anywhere between ten visitors a day to a few thousand visitors a month… this report should help.
The problem with ranking for a term is that there are other people that you have to outrank, either because they’ve specifically decided to rank for that term or have done so without knowing.
Those guys are preventing you from making money, and the nicest thing to do is (politely) annihilate them.
No, you won’t be using blackhat techniques or illegal methods to cause harm to them, just using your own awesomeness and new knowledge to outrank them… and steal their traffic.
This was originally part of a paid product I wrote to build a list with a partner titled Google Hijack… it’s edited slightly and republished here so you guys can take advantage of the information.
This is the exact strategy I use for part of my own niche marketing business, and it works pretty well. 
Please note that this is my SEO advice which I have learned from a couple years of trying to develop niche websites (and eventually doing this successfully). You may not agree with parts of it – SEO is not an exact science – although the way I’ve detailed works for me and those that have put this into action. Just a little disclaimer.
Your first step is finding a keyword. I’m assuming you already have one – I’m not going to go into keyword research or anything in this post, although I will do a post about this soon if you guys like this type of content.
You’ll need a couple tools to begin (free)…
1) SEO Quake – http://www.seoquake.com
SEO Quake adds a toolbar to search results when you Google your keyword. Below is a screenshot example:
Here’s what the important terms mean…
PR: the pagerank of the domain. Pagerank in itself is a worthless number, but here it helps because it tells you the authority of the links linking to the website you’re trying to outrank.
L: Number of links to the exact page which has ranked for the term. So Wikipedia has 5,190 links to its Internet Marketing page.
LD: Number of links to the website. In this case, Wikipedia.org has over 104 million links pointed at it
Age: The older the website, the harder it will be to outrank as Google likes age. Luckily for you, most long tail websites will have been created within the last 3 years so they’re easy enough.
Now basically, Google looks at two things:
1) On page SEO (how your website is optimized for the keyword)
If you grab the exact domain keyword for a term (for example, internetmarketing.com (or .ORG or .NET) you have a much better chance of ranking for it than someone without.
If you install basic Wordpress on the keyword domain, with the All in One SEO Pack plugin (and input your keywords) and the Google XML Sitemap plugin, you will outrank 95% (and sometimes 100%) of your competitors just doing this, depending on their strength.
2) Off page SEO (in bound links and their quality)
Google rates links to your website by three things:
Number of links x quality of links x anchor text
So for example, ten backlinks with the anchor text “internet marketing” from Wikipedia, InternetMarketing.com etc would be a lot more valuable than 1,000 backlinks with no anchor text from unrelated websites.
Your basic hijack strategy is to look at the pages competing for a search term, better their on page SEO and better their off page SEO. It sounds simple, doesn’t it?
Your second tool you’ll need for the hijack strategy…
2) BacklinkWatch.com – http://www.backlinkwatch.com
This tool tells you the anchor text used in the backlinks for the domain.
You could replicate exactly the backlinks already pointed to a competitors website, add a couple of your own and bam, you’re outranking him/her easily once those backlinks kick in.
Now here’s what you do to outrank someone for a long tail keyword:
1) Buy a domain with the exact keyword in it. If they aren’t available in .COM / .NET or .ORG, grab keywordx.tld.
So for example, weddingcakesx.com
Or you could add shop / details / info… you get the idea. But you want your main keyword to start the domain and your terms to be all together.
2) Setup Wordpress and get the following plugins:
- All in One SEO Pack
- Google XML Sitemaps
3) Change your permalinks to /%postname%/
4) Add content to your website.
I’d like to add a special note about content.
You want to have your keyword mentioned around 3-5 times per 400 word article. No more, no less.
You want your content to be boring if you’re using it for Adsense websites (of course, grammar, spelling etc should be alright but don’t engage your visitors as they’re one time and all you want them to do is click your ads) and interesting if you’re using it for affiliate websites (so that they believe your content has value and will click through to the product you’re offering, or sign up to your list)
That’s it!
Some rules…
If the competitors for your keyword have less than 50-100 links pointing at the page and less than 300 links pointing at the main site, they’re insanely easy to outrank. (They’d be PR2-PR3 or less, anything more than that is still possible but will be a bit harder as generally that means quality of links is higher)
If your competitors are less than 2 years old, they’re easy enough to outrank. If they’re greater than 2 years old, they can still be outranked depending on the number links to the page.
If your competitors don’t have the exact keyword listed at least in the title and in the meta description (the text below a link for a Google search result) they’re easy enough to out rank unless they have thousands of links.
Now of course there are some exceptions…
If your competitor has a high PR, but is not optimizing for the term, they may rank simply because the authority of their website is strong. They’re easy to outrank if you optimize yours better than theirs.
If the competitor has very few links, but a high PR this may mean that they cannot be outranked (look at other examples on the page to see what the general strength of those ranking on the first page is).
Why? Because as mentioned above, 10 links from Wikipedia.org with the proper anchor text (you can use BacklinkWatch to check where links are from and their anchor text) is more powerful than 1,000 links with rubbish anchor text. And if a competitor has a high PR, it generally means links are from authority websites.
Your first step after this is to go look at different keywords and get a feel of the domains ranking for this. Once you examine competition for a bit, and try ranking yourself, you’ll get a better idea of exactly what it takes and whether or not you can outrank a term.
Now one of the ways I love to get websites that I can outrank is by surveying Flippa.com or DigitalPoint.com websites for sale section and looking for websites already on sale and making money.
Generally they want 7-10x revenue (so for example, a website making $10 a month the seller would want $100).
I can take 25-50% of what they want, invest it in a website and have it outranking theirs pretty soon.
That way I save 50% of the asking price, build my websites from the ground up and set up easy income streams that last ages if not forever. I can then sell these for 100% (or even more, if I optimize it and rank for other terms or increase it’s ranking to the top three so it makes more money).
Your goal is to build more backlinks than they do, either on the same pages or on pages that are ’stronger’ than theirs. So if they have 15 backlinks of which 10 have the anchor text required, you build 20 with 15 having anchor text.
It’s as simple as that.
Building 20 backlinks (which would take a day or less than $10 if outsourced) will take you above the website you’re targeting. And you could keep building more with that anchor text – having 50 backlinks with the anchor text would see you outrank some of the results above it and increase your ranking.
Find a keyword, optimize your website for it and destroy your competition. Sounds easy, right? You’ll find out how easy it is when you do it! There’s no point in having the information if you don’t use it.
The “hijack strategy” works for pretty much any non-authority website (it will work for an authority one too, but will take more time obviously as they have age on their side).
The basic concept (in case you skimmed the above post) is you find a website that looks hijack worthy, optimize your page to match it and then build more/stronger backlinks than it currently has. Once your website is making money, you either keep building backlinks until you rank #1 (or focus on other keywords as well) or create a new website. Rinse, repeat, etc.
Feel free to ask questions, otherwise good luck!
January 29th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
You see that is why we missed you Jason. All good common sense approach to achieving higher serps position.
I wonder if you have experience with becoming a wikipedia contributor, and if you do can you recommend a procedure to become a trusted source?
It does not seem like wiki would want people dropping anchor text all over their contributions, but then I have never tried.
Any comments?
Thanks.
Rich
Link Money´s last blog ..How to Search all Craigslist Cities at Once
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Jason (703 comments) Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Rich,
No idea bout becoming a trusted Wiki contributor. I have added my sites to their pages in the past but through their standard edit option. I’ve found that as long as your website looks professional, has solid information and no ads (I add the ads later) you’ll be fine. And you’re more likely to get accepted for more niche keywords where there isn’t a lot of solid information already out there, of course.
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January 29th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Wonderful report! I’ll definitely be putting this to use in on my next website. Thanks a bunch!
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January 29th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Long report, going to read it later on today
Looks plentiful, finally second post with you back.!
Cheers!
Adrian Winston´s last blog ..Lazy Week, Still Tweaking Around!
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January 29th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Any general strategies to get good backlinks or where to outsource? Don’t give specifics or they will soon get saturated, but can you give some general ideas for backlinks to spark some creativity?
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Jason (703 comments) Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
TR,
I will try and write a post on backlink creation soon. For now, concentrate on dofollow forum signatures (the more posts the better), blog comments and submitted articles with your anchor text to related sites and article directories.
There’s no real ‘creative’ way of getting backlinks (bar giving away something free that’s awesome, like a script/theme/program and getting it to go viral) but the ‘boring/traditional’ ways still work.
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January 30th, 2010 at 2:07 am
Hi Jason, good to see you back on this site.
Why do you advocate applying the All in One SEO plugin to WP? What does it do that is essential, given that you can now set up permalinks with /%category%/%post title%/ on the normal WP settings?
Rhys´s last blog ..You Win with This Proven Free Keyword Tool
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January 30th, 2010 at 4:44 am
Yah this is really useful post, but one thing is always getting my nerves on… Wont the blogs from blogger.com rank first in search engines inspite of good contents and SEO, they are lagging behind then sites with .com and .net paid domains any idea guys?
Gjivan´s last blog ..Personality dating service and tips
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January 30th, 2010 at 6:39 am
Love the post! Similar to TR’s question above, I’d be interested in hearing you elaborate on “Building 20 backlinks (which would take a day or less than $10 if outsourced) “.
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January 30th, 2010 at 7:43 am
The all in one seo plugin allows you to insert custom meta data for each post. Title, meta keywords & meta description.. The title & description are what google uses to display in search results!
Regards,
Josh
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January 30th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Yoh Josh – I’m really sorry about the typo – that’s definitely my bad!
Yep I understood that is what allinone is supposed to do, but I thought that was a very old idea. Search engines now are much too sophisticated to be taken in by meta keywords, etc. Google actually quotes the first sentence as the description (which is why it is vital to say it right!); unless your serp is for something buried down the page, in which case it quotes the relevant text around it as the description.
Google ignores your allinone meta description for this post for instance and quote the opening line instead, so I think allinone is quite useless on that count. It is much easier to use permalinks and they can automatically use the post title as the url. I’m thinking that it save the overhead of one more plugin, to use permalinks to get the keywords into the URL.
Rhys´s last blog ..The Three Essential Internet Marketing Tools
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Jason (703 comments) Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Rhys,
I tend to use it to optimize page/post titles more than anything.
I’m not sure about the changes WP have made in the latest version since I don’t really get the technical side of things, but from what I’ve seen in the past is that sites with AIOSEO and Google XML Sitemaps plugin rank better than those without with no extra work, even with permalinks etc enabled.
Of course this could just be down to G XML plugin but I’m not going to tinker much with something that’s working. If you run your own experiments let us know how they go!
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January 31st, 2010 at 7:57 am
backlinkwatch is no longer my favorite for backlinks. They take too long to load the backlinks and stop after a small list. Not to mention, it doesn’t display the PR.
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February 1st, 2010 at 11:41 pm
It’s better post than last ones, but still needs better insider tips. This is more or less common knowledge.
(I got to push you more)
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February 2nd, 2010 at 4:28 am
great post Jason! an awesome informative post to start your comeback, definitely looking for more great content like this, keep it up!
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February 2nd, 2010 at 6:47 am
The backlink checkers doesn’t work. It seems that it has reached its daily quota.
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February 2nd, 2010 at 9:30 am
Superb post. I am really out of words to explain how much i am happy after having read this. The backlink watch tool is great and I’ve already started to use it. Thanks for sharing these wonderful techniques. I am bookmarking this post right now for further reference. You make money making on the Internet seem a mere thing while actually it isn’t! Keep up the good work.
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February 4th, 2010 at 12:24 am
Great tips here Jason, going after the long tail keywords can really increase ones traffic quickly.
Megan Fox´s last blog ..Kerry Washington
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February 4th, 2010 at 10:23 am
What a way to restart a fresh innings. What a post. It took a while to read and assimilate, but was worth every minute of it. Thank you.
Nicole Price´s last blog ..Electric Vehicles to Save Money
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February 6th, 2010 at 9:17 am
[...] Read this post on how to analyse your competitors to see whether you could outrank them. [...]
February 10th, 2010 at 7:29 am
Now this is a damn good article, kudos! Great info on long-tail keywords too, they are much easier to rank for and start making money sooner (even while building for more competitive keywords for the long haul). Backlinkwatch is great and your tip on duplicating the strategy of another site that’s achieving is the way to go…why make it hard on yourself?
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February 10th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Very nice post on SEO, you just reminded me about backlinkwatch.com
PSN Cards´s last blog ..Free PSN Cards
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February 11th, 2010 at 6:31 am
Boy Jason, am I glad your back, it’s these types of posts that are so needed and yet seem to be so hard to find in the IM and MMO world. While most are blogging endlessly and at nauseum about the basically useless Social Media droll, those of us who just want to make money appreciate this type of content.
I see you have Comment Luv as well, have added you to my big fat list of 132 Comment Luv Plugins.
Anxiously awaiting more useful content!
JR ´s last blog ..List of 132 Comment Luv Blogs by Niche
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February 12th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
[...] that link, Jason is doing it right, no fluff, no BS, just step-by-step useable content, such as How To Steal Your Competitors Revenue and Traffic Legally and lots more. Jason is also a website flipping expert and offers lots of guides on how to get a [...]
February 13th, 2010 at 6:37 am
Great Article and very informative. However the backlinkwatch doesn’t seem to providing the PR and in some cases not even the anchor text , but still its a good way to find out the back links though
Nishadha´s last blog ..Making Money Online from Sweden
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February 13th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Jason’s back!
Great post, attempting this exact thing now and this extra information is good for me.
Helpful. Thanks.
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February 13th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Nice! Now, I’m ready to solidify three or five new blogs based on your words.
So, I’ll can compare results with my other blogs.
Christiano (Clube do Dinheiro)´s last blog ..Ganhando dinheiro no Squidoo – parte 1
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February 16th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
It is very useful but it is very difficult to read all of them.I have a question.Which kind of ad is profitable?
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February 21st, 2010 at 5:47 am
Another great post, Jason! I was looking for a plugin like seoquake the other day… I currently use the seobook toolbar and it’s great, but I’m sure if I were to continue clicking through each link to check it’s PR, I’d probably have wasted a good month of my life over time lol. Thanks for the link!
This is pretty damn insidious, espicially our niche as well… Sweet!
Thanks for the post,
Garrett
Garrett Miller´s last blog ..Effective SEO Isn’t As Hard As You Think It Is
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February 27th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
That is neat. Two thumbs up! I really want to steal my competitors traffic. I want to earn a lot but I know I’ll be doing a lot of thing. But no pain, no gain, right?
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March 2nd, 2010 at 3:39 pm
than you for nice trick I will use them especially backlinkwatcher.
J.Rooles´s last blog ..Aliens Versus Predator Classic 2000-TiNYiSO
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March 9th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Thanks for this very great method!
I will use it for the next website i will create, now it is a little too late with the name of my blog… ^^’ which has a keywork very competitive!
Sushie@ how to lose weight´s last blog ..Low carb diet
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March 30th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
How did I miss this? I currently have a new niche site and affiliate site that I’m trying to rank in the main search engines.
I will definitely be following your report as it seems you’re giving straight forward and effective strategies.
Sweet!
Moon Hussain´s last blog ..Are You Embarrassed Of Saying “Passive Income” Out Loud?
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March 31st, 2010 at 1:34 pm
I’m using JOomla, do you have any advice for Joomla Vs. Wordpress for SEO???
Valtorc´s last blog ..Valves, Acutators & Automation Packages
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April 2nd, 2010 at 1:48 pm
[...] #1. How To Steal Your Competitor’s Revenue and Traffic [...]
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Great post, I’m attempting this right now !
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April 7th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Just stumbled upon your site via http://www.experimentsinpassiveincome.com and I can honestly say that this post is the most condense and informative post I’ve read yet on the topic of ranking in the search engines. I’ve been able to find most of your advice my searching through a lot of fluff, but it is nice to see it all in one place and all in one easily doable step by step approach. Can’t wait to download and install the plugin and start getting to work on increasing my page rank!
Probably the most useful information for me was not using a keyword more than 3-4 times per 400 words. No one has really made that apparent before. Thanks again and I’m off to subscribe!
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April 12th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Thank you for sharing such a wealth of useful information and for free. There are definitely some good resources that I was not aware of before such as BacklinkWatch that I am sure will help me in my SEO/SERPS efforts.
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April 26th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Hi,
Great post Jason! an awesome informative post to start your comeback, definitely looking for more great content like this, keep it up!
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April 26th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Long report, going to read it later on today Looks plentiful, finally second post with you back.!
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April 26th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Superb post. I am really out of words to explain how much i am happy after having read this. The backlink watch tool is great and I’ve already started to use it. Thanks for sharing these wonderful techniques. I am bookmarking this post right now for further reference. You make money making on the Internet seem a mere thing while actually it isn’t! Keep up the good work.
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April 26th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Great tips here Jason, going after the long tail keywords can really increase ones traffic quickly.
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April 26th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
The all in one seo plugin allows you to insert custom meta data for each post. Title, meta keywords & meta description.. The title & description are what google uses to display in search results!
Regards,
Chris
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April 26th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Hi, backlinkwatch is no longer my favorite for backlinks. They take too long to load the backlinks and stop after a small list. Not to mention, it doesn’t display the PR.
John
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April 26th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Hi, It’s wonderful report! I’ll definitely be putting this to use in on my next website. Thanks a bunch!
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June 18th, 2010 at 4:14 am
Achieving top Google ranking for your webpages is not that difficult. It’s very easy. It only requires a bit of research. That’s it! Ever wondered why the leading webmasters or bloggers get more free organic traffic from search engines to their posts or articles??? The biggest mistake a newbie blogger or webmaster does, is they straightaway target the short and generic high traffic keywords. This is pure greed to make money instantly like these established bloggers or webmasters. This is where they falter and after a certain time when they see no results, they quit and apparently blame the online money making possibilities.
Help Desk Consulting´s last blog ..5 Tips Of Web Based Help Desk System
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June 30th, 2010 at 12:05 am
Absolutely vital points.I am amazed that most people are not able to implement such simple things.
Harshit Singhal´s last blog ..Spain to face Portugal in Knockout stageTime for Torres to shine
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July 14th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Holy cow! Freakin awesome post!! I’m going to try to method right away…seems so easy! I know of another tool that seems to be getting good reviews….called Market Samurai…ever heard of it, do you use it? Do you know if it’s any good?
Beyonce Posters´s last blog ..Beyonce Posters
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July 21st, 2010 at 2:07 am
getting many backlinks is very important for websites to gain search engine rankings..`:
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July 23rd, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Great SEO starter guide. Definitely something to bookmark and refer to as you’re starting your niche marketing campaigns.
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August 7th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
wow. Common sense. What a concept. All sarcasm aside, great article. Appreciate it.
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August 12th, 2010 at 11:29 am
why would you want to steal some 1 elses revenue. they worked hard so why cant you do the same an stop being so bloody lazy. it is a sin to steal, not that im a big holy person but i think do your own work or are you too stupid.
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