In The Beginning – Sites #1-13

When I first started off doing xfactor sites 4 weeks ago, I was trying to stick as close to Xfactor’s (John’s) advice in his ebook as far as the monthly searches you should be looking for and then additional keywords for building the other pages.

Now when I say I was trying what that really means is, I wasn’t doing it exactly. I was doing exactly as is suggested in xfactor’s book as far as back linking but it was the initial research that I was not following exactly. I was only able to find keywords that were getting a monthly search of about 1,300-1,500 and then I would just make sure my additional keywords had decent monthly searches of near the 1,000 mark. Now, before I would commit to the domain I only had a few requirements: Micro Niche Finder had to show a “green light” for the SOC and I would check the CPC for the keywords to make sure I would get decent click payouts.

Since then I have had to tighten up the reigns. After talking with Mike some more about why my sites are struggling to get onto page 1 even after 2-3 weeks of time has passed he told me something that really made me be honest with myself. He said “You need to refine your research skills. If your site isn’t landing on page 1 as soon as it is indexed, your research is the problem.” To be honest, up to this point I had 13 sites up and indexed and only 4 of them were on page 1. The rest are struggling anywhere from page 2-20+. Thankfully none of my sites have been de-indexed. So because only 4 sites are even on page 1, I am only earning about $2-3 a day total.

3 Valuable Things I Learned From My Xfactor Sites So Far and How It Can Help You

1.) Do not settle for low monthly searches. We need these sites to get traffic and lots of it, in order to earn anything more than just $.25 here or there. I now will only commit to a keyword if it is showing 3k+ monthly searches. Do not be discouraged if you are unable to find them. Just keep refining your searches with Micro Niche Finder and you will surprise yourself and hit a gold mine. They do exist and there are tons out there for the taking.

2.) Get the exact keywords in the domain. This was a hard lesson to learn. I had found 2 keywords that showed the “greenlight” in MNF and had a monthly search of 5,400. Absolute gold! Unfortunately the domain was not available for either. I figured, meh, I will do as John says in his book and I will add a word in the domain. This is garbage (sorry John) and will not help you rank for your keywords quickly enough. It’s possible to rank for it but you are going to need a crap load of back links. If you are up for the challenge, then go ahead but I have spoken with several people that have all reported the same thing, their sites that have an added word are no where near ranking for the keyword.

3.) Stop nursing your previous sites. This is perhaps the hardest lesson to actually follow through with. I was talking with Mike about this very thing a few days ago (ok I lie, I was actually WHINING to Mike). In the same conversation I had with Mike over why my other 9 sites were failing at ranking I had mentioned how once I hit 20 sites I was planning on going back and adding more content to all of them. Mike’s response was “Sure, you can do that if you are patient enough to earn money months later. Or you can forget about them for now and just continue building new sites. If you want to earn more money at a faster rate then just build more sites”. Make a commitment to stop obsessing over the rankings of your sites once they launch. if you really feel its necessary to check your rankings designate certain days to only do it, like Saturdays and stick to your plan. Otherwise you will waste valuable time in which you could have wrote new content for a new site, researched new niches or completed a round of the details you use to get a site indexed (article marketing, social bookmarking, pinging.)

Xfactor Site #14 Update

It finally got indexed after 6 days. It only has links from Hubpages and Goarticles at the moment. I followed Peter’s advice and didn’t place adsense on it until it was indexed today. It’s sitting at position #7 on page 1. We shall see how soon it starts earning and whether or not it does much google dancing. Peter has found his sites to dance less when adsense is added after it is indexed so we shall see!