Whitehat VRE Empire: Creating the First Site’s Content
At this point we’ve created the skeleton for the first site in our whitehat virtual real estate empire. Now comes the hard part — adding some real content!
Simple Stuff First
When I deploy a new site, I like to flesh out the simple stuff first, including:
- the home page;
- the about/contact page;
- the privacy policy; and
- common page elements.
I do these things first for a couple of reasons. First, it’s easy to forget to do them — witness how many default “about” pages for WordPress blogs you can find by doing a simple search for “This is an example of a WordPress page” (over 1 million!).
Second, it gets you thinking about the site: What kind of contact information do you expose? Do you need a disclaimer? What’s the site about? What kind of copyright message do you want? What will appear on the home page?
Also, they’re easy edits to do and you feel like you’ve accomplished something after doing them!
The privacy policy page is pretty much boilerplate code. The tool I’m using generated an AdSense-compliant policy automatically for me. If you use a different tool, you can model your privacy policy on this one. (If you are creating a WordPress blog, use my free Privacy Policy for WordPress plugin to do it.)
The about/contact page requires some thought. If you put an email address there, expect to be spammed — you should definitely create a separate email address for it that you can forward elsewhere. You probably don’t want to put a physical address and phone number on your site, even if it’s exposed in the domain registration. Some kind of contact form is a good idea.
The home page probably requires the most work. On sites I generate with PLRSiteBuilder, the home page is basically just an introductory paragraph or two and a list of the articles on the site. This lets it do double-duty as the human-readable sitemap and makes sure that all the pages are easily crawlable by the search engines. But you may choose to do it differently and put the article list somewhere else entirely. You may or may not want to show AdSense ads on the home page — I don’t think dropping the ads from the home page will hurt you much and it may make the page look better to anyone who happens to land on it instead of on one of the article pages.
Don’t spend too much time on this stuff, though. You can always change it later. You want to quickly get to the meat of the site.
Writing the Content
Creating the content for your first site will take more time than setting up the site itself. That said, if you chose the right topic it shouldn’t be that hard. It’s much harder when you don’t know anything about the topic you’re writing about!
You’ll want to start with at least five to ten pages of content. The more, the better. Each page should be a different subtopic and focus on a different keyword phrase. One technique that works well is to do what I discussed in Profitable AdSense Article Marketing and use the AdWords keyword tool to generate a list of related keywords and split them into two sets, the “traffic set” and the “money set”, based on their relative cost-per-click values. The “money set” becomes the nucleus for your content.
(Note: Again, I have to remind everyone that the CPC numbers you see with the AdWords keyword tool do not directly reflect the actual CPC numbers you’ll see in AdSense. See The Problems With High-Paying Keyword Lists for a detailed discussion why. Since we don’t have AdSense keyword data, we have to rely on the AdWords numbers and assume that advertisers who pay more for search placement will also pay more — substantially less, but still more — for placement on quality AdSense sites.)
Let’s try this with the “adult braces” topic. Using the keyword tool, I see that the CPC range for these keywords ranges from $0.05 to about $13 for exact searches, with most clustered in the $2-$4 range. Here’s a small sample:
From this list I’m going to pick some likely phrases on which to base my content. These ones seem particularly apt to what the site’s about:
- adult braces or braces for adults (vary their use)
- lingual braces (a type of brace)
- invisible braces or clear braces (another type of brace)
- cost of braces (sure to be something they’re wondering about!)
- removable braces (definitely of interest to adults)
- types of braces (good for an overview)
- ceramic braces (a type of brace)
- metal braces (a type of brace)
- dental insurance (goes well with “cost of braces”)
- teeth straightening or straighten teeth (why do you need braces?)
- orthodontic retainer (something you wear after the braces are done)
- fast braces (how quickly can braces work?)
- orthodontist (more about the special type of dentist)
Now transform those keywords into page titles:
- Do You Need Adult Braces?
- Lingual Braces
- Invisible Braces
- The Cost of Braces
- The Pros and Cons of Removable Braces
- Common Types of Braces
- Ceramic Braces
- Metal Braces
- Dental Insurance and Adult Braces
- Teeth Straightening in Adults
- Why Orthodontic Retainers Are Necessary
- What is an Orthodontist?
It’s not rocket science to come up with titles that include the target keyword. The URL of the page should also include the keyword in question, but here you can be more flexible. For example, the page title “Do You Need Adult Braces?” could be “do-you-need-adult-braces.html” or “adult-braces.html” or even just “adultbraces.html”. Or, in this case, maybe even “braces-for-adults.html” just to vary things.
Once you’ve gotten your initial list of titles, look for any gaps in content, and be sure to fill them in (or plan for it later). Look also for any opportunities to link between pages. For example, in the list above there’s a natural linking from the “types of braces” page to the pages about metal, ceramic, invisible and lingual braces.
Now sit down and write! Write for a human, not a search engine. I’ve already given some tips on how to do this in my previous post Human Search Engine Optimization, please spend a few minutes and read it.
The only other thing to think about is spacing out the delivery of your content. If your system supports it (I can do this with PLRSiteBuilder, and you can easily do it with WordPress) then use a scheduling feature to get the content posted at regular intervals instead of all at once. You’ll want to post the first two or three articles right away, but everything after that can “drip” out. This will ensure that your RSS feed (which your site should always have) has some new content every once in a while, at least for the first couple of weeks. After that you can decide to go and write some new content or just leave the site as-is. (My Invisible Fence site’s been up for years now with no changes…)
And make sure your sitemaps are updated as you add new content, too.
That’s it for today, I have to run off now and write the content for my new site! In the next post we’ll talk about what to do when the site is ready to go “live”.
Tags
AdSense, content, keyword tool, search engine optimization, virtual real estate, VRE, whitehat, writing
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57 Responses to “Whitehat VRE Empire: Creating the First Site’s Content”
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Eric, nice post…I always use your Policy plugin for my blogs, and it is a real time saver for me.
I have an outline of the steps I take to create the blog; besides the privacy page I also always add a somehat generic about page, T&C page, and a contact page (with my email as “admin(at)mydomain(dot)com”). And I have a plugin to create a sitemap.
Content for the most part I outsource; it just takes me way too long to write even 5 articles!
I agree, writing content takes time. Outsourcing is one approach, another is use PLR (with modifications), or even free articles from article directories. I’m going to explore all of those, as well as creating WordPress blogs. That’s the plan, at least, I hope readers are finding this useful — not too much comment action on the last couple of posts!
Eric
Well I am finding the posts useful; I need all the help I can get with my adsense sites. Thank you for writing them and your replies.
I have a zillion PLR articles and get new ones every month, but it’s sometimes tough to find articles on the subjects I want. Like I might find a great keyword such as “toilet plunger repair” or something, and I would have no PLR articles about that. So I need to outsource to get articles. Maybe I should try the opposite, take my PLR articles about a subject, rewrite them and create a site from them!
Thanks, Rich! Sometimes I put stuff up here and I wonder if anyone actually reads it. I know the FeedBurner stats say there are 1500 readers, but FeedBurner stats are dubious measurements at best. The Alexa rank has gone up as of late, but still…
Eric
I really love the way feed burner allows you to customize your RSS feeds. This is also a good way to brand your blog and increase its over all value.
The point you have made about the URL being the same as your keywords is probably one of the most relevant things you can do for index ability. I have found that for me any way, it works better if you do not add hyphen in-between keywords in the URL. The search engines are sophisticated enough to detect individual words in a URL. In several test I have both URLs with and without hyphens. I have optimized them virtually the same and the hyphen less URL’s always beat the ones with the hyphens.
thanks eric, I now know to be about making the correct adsense sites, this one in my building site. so the result naught
Planet Buzz: Yeah, I’ve noticed that the hyphens aren’t necessary. It makes sense because in the early web few people used hyphens as spaces, just jumbling the words or partial words together to form the URL. I think I’ll do it this way for the initial site’s content and we can discuss the issue more.
Eric
@Bill: “I really love the way feed burner allows you to customize your RSS feeds. This is also a good way to brand your blog and increase its over all value.” I agree, but still there could be iimprovements in the customization of ones RSS feeds.
Thanks! Very useful post! This will definatly help me with my blog.
I really love how you chose to start with low and mid paying keywords.
I personally do not even use a RSS on my sites as I do not see the point since I do not update content.
That is another thing.
Since I have so many sites people always ask me how do I provide content for them and I tell them I don’t. Creating New content for the same old site is for bloggers I am an internet marketer.
Your “Invisible fence” site is PERFECT for Adsense. The only thing I would change is I would place the menu below the chitika ads.
Great post! I hope you cover the reason for Class IP’s soon.
It never really occurred to me but my having placed my e-mail address on my sites is the likely reason why i get horrendous loads of spam. Shucks. Thanks for knocking on my common sense.
By the way, this is an extremely excellent blog, very detailed and genuinely informative. It’s definitely not the usual generic tips blog that every Dick and Harry already know
Thanks for the post , you have raised a very good point to write about the human and not for search engine
useful post! thank you very much! sometimes adsense is not easy to make work
I’ve always been scared of using PLR content because I figured Google doesn’t want a million people posting the same content everywhere and would discount you appropriately.
Has anyone had a positive experience with the article rewriter/spinner type software that is supposed to get around the duplicate-content penalties? I think it’s used a lot for article directory submissions.
I was looking for invisalign information and stumbled on this site… I am a bit confused. I pay for Adwords, does this mean my ads are being displayed on other peoples sites?
Thanks.
Dr. Roy: If you choose the “content network” option in AdWords when you setup a campaign, then yes, the ads are shown on other people’s sites.
PLR content has its uses, but you can’t expect to get the same levels and quality of traffic as unique content. Article rewriting software seems to require almost as much work as manual rewriting, IMO.
hello friend,,
can you give me tips about hoe to make a good artikel ??
Iam always use PLR for my adsense blog,.
How much content are we talking? Your focus shouldn’t be on drafting content if this is going to be massive, you need to hire writers or outsource to ghost writers imo.
Thanks for the tips. I never thought of using the AdWords keyword tool, but it seems like something worth taken into consideration.
I have just started to use the Adwords Keyword tool more for finding higher paying keywords. It can take some time to find just the right keywords, but it could potentially be worth it.
I haven’t had a chance to see the impact, but I am expecting to find out over the next few months.
Great idea on how to get more ideas for content on a site. We already write content for our site to a degree about we never thought about using adwords to generate keywords to write about.
Yep, you are right about transforming keyword to page titles. People search on search engines for questions. So if your title is a question, you would have a better opportunity to rank higher on search engines.
If I increase the lenght of my blog’s posts will I rank higher?
It has always seemed to me that adsence just attracts a lot of spammers. What do you do to get focused traffic?
I like the emphasis on genuine content. As with anything else, the process starts with a good idea and sincerity.
For a new blog, I agree that it’s best to stagger your content if you have large portions of it initially. If you dump it all, it comes off as spam. I like to set my blog content on specific days/weekly basis, that way I don’t burn myself AND my readers out.
I think it makes you site look cheap
Thank you for writing this! It’s a very comprehensive article and I feel like I’ve actually learned something from reading it. It’s good, valuable content like this that makes you stand apart from, oh, about 99% of the sites I’ve seen on this subject (at least in my opinion!
). I’ll definitely be reading more of your work.
Cheers!
Mina
Thanks for the tips. Using adwords to find keywords to write about is a great idea. I’ll try to apply your tips on my sites.
Oho.. very good, I have followed to read this blog long ago, it is valuable very for type my novice, everything data advantages for me and every person , thank you very much
Thanks for the article.
I had actually forgotten to do my about page on both my wordpress and blogspot DIY blogs.
This had a ton of great information thank you so much for writing it. I have never thought about naming my pages in the form of questions that are relevant to my topic. Great idea!
I can’t afford to pay a professional writer.
I have trouble with my adsense. I have adsense account but there’s no adsense for content, only adsense for search and for feed. What could I do for fix this problem (To get adsense for content)?? Can you help me, please!!
You have to email adsense-support@google.com and get them to help.
I guess the Google ads content is not eligible to your country, I ever find this problem when i applied in Blogspot in Indonesian language.
It sounds like you have a setting turned off. Also if you are using their new interface, not all the features are in yet, you might switch back to the old layout and see if you can find what you are looking for.
Francis: Focused content!
Not necessarily, but you’ll probably rank higher for more keywords…
Thanks for the wonderful tips. Using Adwords to find keywords to write about is a great idea. I’ll try to apply your tips on my sites.
Thanks for the post , you have raised a very good point to write about the human and not for search engine
The hardest part is to write the content…you can pay…but what if you dont have money…copying from free article directories I think it’s not SEO healthy…
I have never put a privacy statement on any of my websites (only three of them). I do mention that I never sell their information or give it to anyone, but I suppose a formal statement should be used.
PLR Sitebuilder looks like an interesting tool, but there are freeware text-to-HTML generators and index generators that could do the work too. It’s nice it’s got a Word converter in it, ‘though.
Only problem with PLR is the duplicate content issue. Much more profitable to look into ways to generate readable, original content inexpensively.
Thanks, I will be implementing some of your tips. I am just starting with Adsense and content creation. Time consuming but I thing it’s worthwhile.
I loved how you used the adult braces example. I am one too. I wear them in my 40s. It looks like there is money to be made just talking about my story? Katty
I would have to agree with you on this Rich! This is an extremely excellent Post, very detailed and genuinely informative.
Good advice. I been working on websites for like 5 years always thinking about the long term…I think will try short term and go for keywords that pay more.
First time commenting here, hopefully I will learn a lot =D
Thanks for the wonderful tips. Using Adwords to find keywords to write about is a great idea. I’ll try to apply your tips on my sites. I can’t afford to pay a professional writer.
Its so true AND so simple. I think not taking things in an order like this is what derails most people. Having a step-by-step system can do wonders. Love your stuff.
For generating and posting content automatically I use a WP plugin called Article Auto-poster.
I think Adsense makes the website look cheap. I don’t think you can earn a lot of money with it. There are better ways of making some pocket money online.
Otherwise thank you for your effort you put into writing your article.
Wow the way you go about finding keywords and laying it all out is really remarkable. Thanks for all the help you dish out.
The most important when make money online with google adsense I think is content. Content is the best.
When you have good content, you can get tons of backlink and your site will have high ranking, and you’ll get much money