Compete Ranking and Site Analytics Review by the Rich Sage

For several months I have looked into the growth of traffic at the Rich Sage. All this time I had to use Alexa’s ranking system, which I was not completely confident about given that it is old and uses their proprietary tool bar ‘clicks’ for many of it’s conclusions.

Today I looked at that traffic using Complete, and here is what the site, with a free registration can do:

• Traffic analysis site that can compare several web sites with your own.
• Displays search analytics that show key words/phrases that are searched by visitors.
• Complete does all this using several data sources and their own tool bar.
• What I found interesting that a lot of advertising companies use the site for their own analysis of a sites advertising reach.
• Compete awards 5 free credits that can be used to get extended services such as deeper results from comparison sites.

The below chart shows Compete’s comparison of several blogs that I follow to compare my own success:

In the above image, I compared my stats with doshdosh.com, carlocab.com, shoemoney.com and johnchow.com –these are my leading competitors. All the sites are experiencing tremedous traffic growth. However, what I noted is that it is not necessarily due to key words/phrases like “make money online” –in deed, many of the above domains are listed in pages that are from 2 to 5 on Google results. What is interesting is that their BRANDS are getting searched.

If you look at the Compete “Search Analytics” results to the right, note that for the leading traffic sites, the leading catalyst is the brand -not the search term.

So, what is driving a major portion of the traffic growth?

Quality linking, organically –Simple put, each of the leading sites that are building their brands get a lot of traffic from articles and traditional press. Even my writing about it here generates traffic. Now imagine if 100,000 other people do the same? Then image, what if 50 or 100 publications write about it?

All this leads to tremendous “buzz” that lasts for a long time. That type of momentum and traffic growth is unstoppable!

My challenge now is to get from 1,000 to 5,000 “hit’s per day” threshold, which I hope will catapult me to ‘boot’ one of these competitors and accelerate my traffic growth.

Obviously, the other part of the this is the shear key word saturation. I only have 4 key words/phrases, while my competitors have between 37 and 643. (In comparison, Apple.com had nearly 25,000 key words linked). The first is that of Carl Ocab, who ranks #1 for “make money online”. That obviously has catapulted him to an outstanding overall industry buzz. Then there is shoemoney, that I spied on with Compete by using one of my free credits to look at all the key words that he’s getting traffic from –well, there are too many. I suppose from his 3 years of blog updates there are thousands of posts that are generating all the visitors. I must add that he also gets a lot of traditional press exposure. And obviously, a lot of people are linking to his Shoemoney site using all sorts of anchor key words.

Now my tasks are to reach a similar threshold for the next phase and from the reading and effectiveness testing, here is what I see in the “TO DO” area:

• Much more web2.0 registrations to drive traffic.
• Many more quality posts, for specific key words.
• Work on exposure to traditional media.
• Attend a few industry events and conventions, where a lot of bloggers get together.
• Working with staff, create a few sub-domains such as forums, contests, academy, marketplace, etc. that create more opportunities for interaction with readers and visitors.
• Keep publishing more and more great content. Of course, I say that every time when it comes to traffic building.
• Lastly, I should add that I still need to do more generating YouTube videos and publish several e-books that can do their part.

Getting back to some of the benefits of Complete, below I have run a report on RichSage.COM, which costs 1 Credit for basic analysis. Compete will give you 5 free credits when you get started. Basically, what I see from this report is that I simply don’t have the “key word depth” to generate the necessary buzz and traffic.

Below are the Complete results for Carl Ocab, and it shows in #1 position for “make money online”. My site has the same results but I am getting 1/1,000 of the visitors he is getting. The answer is simply more and more quality “make money online” content that readers will appreciate. I’ve done all the other parts using a WordPress SEO Plugin.

The conclusion of my strategy review and research using Compete is that:

• Having #1 position for a major key word phrase is nice, but it’s not the most essential element.
• Having a lot of depth and a mass of key words and phrases are better.
• Obviously, the long-term strength of major traffic growth is from the organic building of links from articles and even traditional print-media exposure.
• Setting up more interactive (user/reader participation areas) in the RichSage blog will lead to more visitors.
• Lastly, I need to complete several of my initial traffic generation ideas for success and evaluation purposes.

I have “kicked my expansion” into high-gear as momentum is clearly taking place, and I need to make sure that the accelerating trend continues. I have the opportunity this month to exceed 1,000 hits per day. And doing the above 5 tasks will greatly aide that process. I need to get back to doing just that.

Carpe Diem, Rich Sage