Niche Site Journey Ep.2 – Bought Domain and Initial Setup

Today I am back with the second episode in the Niche Site Journey! If you missed the first episode you can check it out here.I am happy to say that I have picked up an expired domain that I am really excited about. I was able to pick up this domain for $95 from tbsolutions.info which is a place where they sell expired domains.

I like buying expired domains for my money sites here because all of the sites that are sold go through a screening process that makes sure that every domain is clean and doesn’t have any spammy backlinks. They are a little pricey and that is why i only use them for my money sites. If I was going to buy a domain for my PBN then I would Register Compass and GoDaddy auctions.

Expired Domains Vs. New Domains

The reason I prefer expired domains over brand new domains is because they rank a lot easier and faster. Plain and simple. The reason they rank faster is because they are aged and have trust on Google’s eyes. Also if you do a good job of finding an expired domain they will already have brand links pointing to the site.

Before I talk about brand links I want to explain why we want a brand over an EMD. If you have an EMD it is really easy to trigger an over optimization penalty because the keyword is in the domain. For example if you were trying to rank for “lawn mowers” and your domain was “bestlawnmowers.com” and then you made a page on this site that you wanted to rank for the word “lawn mower” it would look like this “bestlawnmowers.com/lawnmowerreviews”. See how “lawn mower” is in the url twice? This is sure fire way to over optimize your site.

That is why I prefer branded domains such as a persons name or a non-related word. An example for the lawn mower site might be “snipclip.com” which would be great because the keyword or keywords that you are trying to rank for aren’t in the domain. The site that I just bought is actually a persons name and these domains are perfect. The reason for that is because the site can be about whatever you want. The domain does not restrict it you any niche. What makes these domains even better is that they already have links pointing to the site with the persons name as the anchor text. This is exactly what we want. This brands the site and makes your site look like an actual brand, not just an affiliate site.

Basically to break it down, an expired domain basically gives you an initial boost in the rankings and since it is trusted in the eyes of Google you can be more aggressive with your anchor text from your PBN. It also helps you from getting an over optimization penalty.

My Domain

I already told you that my domain was a persons name and it cost me $95. For an example the name of the domain would be something like “johnsmith.com” even though that actually isn’t it. I want to give you some of the stats of the domain from Open Site Explorer and Ahrefs. I like Open Site Explorer for the domain and page authority but I prefer Ahrefs when I am looking at the links.

Open Site Explorer Stats

Ahrefs Stats

My domain already has a domain authority of 22 and page authority of 35 which is great but what I like the most about this domain is the fact that it already has 96 backlinks. These 96 backlinks are all branded which means if the site was “johnsmith.com” the anchor text from these links would be “John Smith” “John” “johnsmith.com” etc. See how those anchor texts are the name of the site and generic? This means that the site already has a built brand behind it and is perfect for my money site. With 96 backlinks already, that means that I can start hitting the site with exact match anchor links from my PBN without being over optimized. Perfect!

Initial Setup

I mentioned in the first episode, I will be starting with six main groups of keywords. This means that each group consists of a bunch of related keywords and I will be trying to rank for all of them on one page. I found that trying to rank for a bunch of related keywords on one page is better than trying to make a page for all of those related keywords.

So now that I have bought my domain I will be setting up the silo for my site. If you know how to properly set up a silo on your site you will be able to maximize the power from all of your links. I setup my silo like the diagram below, it is very simple but a lot of people do it wrong.

To break this silo down, what I did was linkout from the home page to all of the main pages on the site. Then each page links to one another so that all of the link juice goes to each page. Just a quick note, each page that is listed above is a main page on the site and they are the pages that I am trying to rank for. When I add more content to the site it will not be apart of this silo structure. I will get more into that when I start to add more content.

I do not try to rank the home page on any sites that I make because I like to use the home page as a directory that points to the other pages on the site.

Spending

Domain – $95

Hosting – $45

Total Spent – $140

Future Plans

I will be setting up this silo structure for the site and preparing it for the first links from my PBN. I will add a little bit of content, maybe 200 words, to each page along with a related picture and video. Once I do that I will then start hitting the pages with links. I like to see some initial rankings before I start writing or outsourcing the actual content for the site.

I will keep you all up to date on the progress so make sure to come back for more updates! Thanks for reading. If you missed the first episode of this journey you can view it here – Niche Site Journey Ep. 1. To continue following the journey you can read update #3 here