This post is in continuation to this post on the SEO experiment.

WTF is this SEO Experiment?

I am experimenting changes to a fully keywords-based website to see the effects on the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and web-traffic of the website. You too can be a part of it, just guess the website from the description below and you get a chance to experiment! Yes, if you are in top 3 of who correctly guesses the website, you would be entitled to make one change to the website/experiment and see its impact.

This is how the entire process of the SEO experiment unfolded.

Choosing a domain name

This is by far one of the most important and time consuming exercise when starting a website. Just make a word and you would find a domain already registered with that name. And somebody said choose the right keyword in domain name! Crazy!
For me it was easy since I was not building a product but a small experiment. I checked out the list of top 10-20 keywords for year 2011 for India and zeroed in to some of the top keywords:

  1. Facebook
  2. Facebook Login
  3. IRCTC
  4. IRCTC Login
  5. PNR Status

Finally, registered an arbitrary long domain name so that it contains the keywords.

Setup Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and Adsense

All I needed was to setup 3-4 static pages with Google analytics and Google Adsense account. Yes, it is needed for even a nearly bare site to provide metrics.

Content – SEO & Original

Original content around the keywords is required for a better SEO as well as better site. Most part of setting up was spent writing few paragraph about each of the strong keyword such that keywords are repeated.

Guess the website

Below is a screenshot of the website traffic and the keywords bringing traffic to the site. From the below picture, if you guess the website right , you win a chance to run one experiment of your choice on the website. Why would you care to run one SEO experiment? Because, you have a website which has consistent traffic and a disposable(?) product so that you don’t worry about your boss when playing with SEO. Of course, I am taking the risk of running into Google Panda and ending up sacrificing an Adsense income of ~ $100 a month.   Here is the Pic, now Guess FAST~~~~~~~~~