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Hi, welcome to part 4 of the $5 Formula Case Study. Before jumping into this part it’s a good idea to read the other parts:

$5 A Day Adsense Site: Case Study – Part 1

$5 A Day Adsense Site: Case Study – Part 2

$5 A Day Adsense Site: Case Study – Part 3

$5 A Day Adsense Site: Case Study – Part 4

This case study is based on the absolutely excellent $5 Mini Site Formula by Josh Spaulding and the $5 Formula Video adaptation by Mark Mason.

Before we get on with Part 4 of the $5 A Day Adsense Site Case Study…. I have to apologize for the huge delay in getting to this part. The case study was driving along nicely and I kind of jumped ship and let the thing crash into a wall! Well I am back to recover the pieces and get this show back on the road…

My lack of work on the site has affected the study a bit but I am confident that it can be brought back. So for this part lets look at the statistics and see what I can do to get things running smoothly again.

I only finished submitting the remaining articles to the top 50 directories that I had setup just yesterday. So any reflections in rankings are unlikely to have taken effect from that yet. However this does mean that I have completed the steps outlined in the $5 formula.

Keyword Rankings in Google (US).

Effective Acne Treatment Site:

1. effective acne treatment (8)
2. acne sulfur treatment (36)
3. acne product reviews (Not top 50)
4. best acne cream (20)
5. how to clear up acne (Not top 50)
6. how to prevent pimples (26)
7. surgery for acne (Not top 50)

Articles Keywords:

1. getting rid of acne scars (Not top 50)
2. cystic acne cure (Not top 50)
3. herbs for acne (Not top 50)
4. how to get rid of a pimple (Not top 50)
5. how to get rid of acne fast (Not top 50)
6. natural cure for acne (Not top 50)
7. how to remove pimple (Not top 50)
8. pimple home remedy (Not top 50)
9. home remedies for blackheads (Not top 50)
10. remedy for pimples (Not top 50)
11. diet and acne (Not top 50)
12. treatment for pimples (Not top 50)
13. get rid of zit (Not top 50)
14. blackheads home remedies (14 – Ezine Articles)
15. pop a zit (28 – Article Dashboard)
16. get rid of back acne (Not top 50)
17. how to get rid of zits (Not top 50)
18. zinc for acne (Not top 50)
19. home acne cure (16 – Article Sphere)
20. how to get rid of whiteheads (27 – Article Sphere)

Not too good, Why?

As you can see only 4 of 7 site keywords are ranking top 50. However the main keyword is top 10 which is a good start. As for the articles, many are not ranking top 50 at all. Many factors could be causing this including:

• The articles are not great and are not being linked too
• older articles from top directories exist
• keywords are not well placed in the article

Of course this is just speculation. I also think that the lack of me doing anything and only just submitting the last of the articles yesterday is a big factor.

Traffic to site and earnings:

August:

		Page Loads	Unique Visitors	First Time Visitors	Returning Visitors
Total		184	101	94	7
Average		6	3	3	0

September (until 5th)

		Page Loads	Unique Visitors	First Time Visitors	Returning Visitors
Total		18	13	13	0
Average		4	3	3	0

Earnings from Adsense – August: $1.52
Earnings from Adsense – September (until 5th): $3.26

As you can see the visits have been averaging around 3 a day but earnings are really low. September had a luckly few clicks so far but nothing special….. yet.

What am I going to do?

Obviously I have neglected this project and it is reflecting in earnings and traffic. Ideally I would like 20 visitors a day to the site and hopefully this would generate a few clicks a day. The good news is that the clicks that I am getting are proving profitable so it’s just a case of getting the people through the doors now.

My articles are not ranking well so although Josh recommends doing nothing to them and allowing natural ranking it’s time for me to take a small amount of initiative and find a way to get some backlinks to the search terms that are likely to generate the highest numbers.

For the site itself, it just needs a boost to serp positions, especially for it’s main term.

I think I am going to do some social bookmarking and find some other methods to get backlinks. I don’t plan to add any extra content to the site at this moment although that could also be an option.

I’m off to do some reading and have a brainstorm and I expect to be back next week with another part…. Your comments and suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Forest.