This is the first in a series of guest posts from Ron Cripps @AffiliateXFiles about the status of a huge SEO contest I first announced here early this year. I asked Ron for an update on how the contest is going for him and any tips he might be willing to share.
Who will be crowned the MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings Shiree Odiz SEO Idol?
For those who are not aware, there has been an SEO competition running throughout 2011 for an online diamond jewelry business called ShireeOdiz.
ShireeOdiz is an online jewelery store specializing in diamond engagement rings, pendants, earrings and even loose diamonds.
This competition was open to anyone who wished to accept the SEO challenge with the only requirements of the competition being that you had to rank as number one in Google on the 1st of January 2012 for the competition keyword to be declared the winner of the competition.
The keyword you needed to rank for is “MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings” as well as having one “DoFollow” link back to the ShireeOdiz webite using the keyword “Engagement Rings”. This is what you need to be approved as an entrant into the SEO Idol competition.
MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings Contest Concept
Many are simply looking at the prize money involved; however, let’s take a closer look at the method behind the madness. When this competition first started many were saying how expensive this competition was going to be for ShireeOdiz, but that could not be further from the truth.
You need to be thinking in terms of SEO costs to a company that wants to get as many one way back-links that are going to be branding their online jewelry business as they can using a keyword that will sell their online diamond engagement rings.
To start the competition ShireeOdiz did initially reach into their own pockets to start the prize money pool at $5000.00 but have only added to the prize pool at 10% when a sale has been made.
ShireeOdiz has created a concept that not only generates
additional sales and builds one way back-links – they are branding
their online jewelry business with the keyword “Engagement Rings”.
How much would this have cost in terms of employing an SEO company to do this? Who knows. Personally I believe that they have built a very strong web presence with 1000’s of sites now giving them “Dofollow” links with their branded keyword “Engagement Rings” from all over the world.
When the SEO Idol competition first started their site was PR3
Now they are a PR5 site with a constant traffic flow of very targeted
traffic every day that is specific to diamond engagement rings.
All this was achieved by simply listing a competition on their site and then getting others to promote their site for 12 months; you need to remember here that currently this competition has not cost ShireeOdiz a dime.
Who Is Going To Have The Number One Listing For “MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings” on Jan 1, 2012?
Well we would like to say our site will, however the competition is really starting to heat up and the Google listings are moving on a daily basis.
With current prize money for the winner at $12,372.11 and growing each day it would be fantastic to win that is for sure.
This is the first in a series of articles that I look forward to posting on Growmap that will step you through the process I have personally used to get my entry into the competition and hopefully take out first place.
My strategy is not just about winning the competition, but building a long term business where the site has authority and will be able to sell a variety of diamond jewelry online as an affiliate.
I will show you how I have optimized my pages to generating traffic –
which currently is averaging 200 unique visitors a day – to using
some of the social networks to continuously promote the site.
Even though this site is just on one year old I only started the actual process of trying to win this competition at the end of October 2011. All the tactics I have used are white hat and are specifically targeting the main keyword in the SEO Contest “MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings”.
NOTE FROM GAIL at GROWMAP: If you would like more information on this SEO Contest see the original SEO Idol contest announcement. I am personally asking my friends and collaborators to support Ron’s efforts to prove that focusing on quality content and ETHICAL white hat SEO can work against the black hat methods of the spammers.
Look for retweets on JustRetweet to make sharing on Twitter easy and consider sharing this post and especially his diamond site on your preferred social networks. Incoming links to Ron’s site for the anchor text makeityourring diamond engagement rings will be highly appreciated (and you know us – heavily rewarded because you took the time to care about someone else)!
I guess too late already entering MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings SEO contest. Is there more contests to enter?
White sapphire would love you to read ..Cubic Zirconia vs Diamond, The Differences
No, they haven’t done anymore contests and this was pretty much a one-time, unusual event.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..ERP Tips and Tricks: A Beginner’s Guide
This sounds like a good approach to emulate. It’s a lot of work though. Still, with that kind of targeted traffic coming in, I’m sure it’s worth it.
The hardest part about online marketing is that there are so many facets to it – and so many different ways to make money. I’ve been involved with it for over 5 years now, had some great highs and terrible lows. I’ve tried wearing all the different colored “hats”, been slammed and pampered by Google and customers alike, and through it all I learned some very interesting things:
Jan would love you to read ..Reebok Crossfit Nano U-Form Shoes
Hi Ron. You’ve a nice article here. Even your site is not within the top 10, I believe you’re not concern it much. In this SEO idol, most of contestant including myself as well found various tricks to get better rank in SERP. I realized that Google will rank a site based on the auhority level and also ip address where the domain name hosted. More exciting experiences have been learnt in this SEO contest. Hope there will be another contest in 2012
Nice information… Thanks for sharing this….
This is a fantastic way to not only get ranking for their chosen keyword, but do it in a no money up front right away.
My only concern is, what if it’s a short term win, and the site get’s penalized a week later?
Hi Jeff
The way this is structured is that the competitors in the competition are all affiliates as well, meaning all the links will stay on the sites.
There is also no penalty that I am aware of from one way links to a site and especially if they are coming from many different IP addresses. Might be different if all the links were coming from the same site and even then you don’t get penalized the links simply are not counted.
What Just like to also wish everyone a “Happy Christmas” and i will have another post for you all very soon.
Ron would love you to read ..Judge Your Book by Its Cover: Supercharge Your Conversion Rate Early In the Sales Process
Ron – Thank you for clarifying this about the linking staying on the affiliates sites.
Per the penalty, I am referring to link velocity. Even if the links are coming from different IP addresses, but in an effort to WIN, then come in too fast and furious this could be an issue.
While in some cases the links can “simply not be counted”, sites can also get penalized if they are way too aggressive with low quality unrelated links , and high PR paid links in an obvious way.
Hi Jeff,
Penalized for what?
growmap would love you to read ..MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings: SEO Optimization, Domain Choice, Keyword Research
@Growmap – A large amount of links incoming too fast in too short a period of time.
Hi Jeff
That really can not happen, firstly because they are not reciprocal links and if they were I would agree with you.
Lets look at an example of this with some of the news sites. When a story is released on the news sites that is of interest world wide what happens is that article gets thousands of links in a very short period of time as well as social interaction through bookmarking tweets, likes and so on.
That article is never banned by the Serps in fact it will go viral in a very short period of time.
The best scenario for any online business is to be able to write content that is linked to 1000’s of times and is submitted to social sites giving it even more links.
As for the SEO Idol competition these links back to their site (ShireeOdiz) have been built over a period of twelve months from many different sites and many different IP addresses so there is no reason why they would be banned.
Ron would love you to read ..Judge Your Book by Its Cover: Supercharge Your Conversion Rate Early In the Sales Process
Fascinating. Creative SEO techniques are always interesting. In part because of the inevitable swarm of cheap imitations that pop up in their wake, if they are successful!
I have to say, this looks like a very smart system. Good luck to you, and good luck to ShireeOdiz.
I strongly think that it is an interesting contest. Great marketing method by the company and also a chance for SEO’s to earn something out of their skills. Will wait to see the name of the winner 🙂
John T. would love you to read ..Propiedades del alpiste.
Wow, definitely excited about the results. I’m sure a lot of people have made some impressive moves on this one. These contests sure is a nice way to get people checking in on your blog regularly, absolutely one of the most effective traffic methods nowadays.
The question is, who’s gonna win it? 🙂 Can’t wait to see it.
This is very exciting start in the SEO industry. I can say it as new SEO technique for 2012 SEO industry. I love to participate in the competition.
If you want to expend your business than nothing is better then this then you should follow SEO tactics which all are mentioned very well in this blog post. Beside this if you want to run your business for lifelong in online marketing then you need to follow only White Hat SEO tactics.
goa would love you to read ..Goa Carnival 2012
Couldnt agree more, Black hat SEO is the alternative which can seriously damage your sites google ranking. You could also completely loose your search engine ranking completely!
Michael would love you to read ..Simple ON-LINE Identification process – NO DOCS REQUIRED! In most cases
this is really a intelligent move of ShireeOdiz, the price they pay is nothing compare to what they get from this competition: high rank on Google for super competitive keyword, huge targeted traffic, which would cost them tons of money if they hire a SEO company!
That’s a really cool idea! I’m interested in seeing how you do it. 🙂
Hey!
Your blog is very interesting. Oh and sorry about that. My blog is maahum123.blogspot.com. Feel free to stop by and check it out! Can you please try to make my blog more known? Thank you. I hope people are interested in marine animals. Your blog is very interesting!!!!!
Hi Maahum
I have had a look at your site and it looks interesting, why have you gone with a free account on blogger?
If you follow along with all the information that will be posted here you will have all the tools and information you need to have a solid online business, or simply as your site looks and information hub.
Sites such as yours if presented properly and with accurate information can get links from .EDU and even .GOV sites which are very powerful when speaking about search engines and authority.
Ron would love you to read ..Judge Your Book by Its Cover: Supercharge Your Conversion Rate Early In the Sales Process
Hi Maahum (and Ron),
Ron, Maahum is a student and most likely her teacher started them all out on blogger. I asked him why and he said he likes blogger.
Maahum, Ron is a guest blogger. He wrote this post and I published it here for him. When we do that the author of the post will usually answer comments and the owner of the blog may answer as well.
Did you read the reply I made to your previous comment that explained how to use anchor text in your comments to build backlinks using KeywordLuv?
That is one way you can make your blog more known and commenting in CommentLuv blogs that allow you to share one of your posts will also. Some CommentLuv blogs allow keywords in the name field and that is a way to get more visitors from search engines and also to let people who see your comment know what you are most interested in.
Could you share with your instructor the posts about CommentLuv, KeywordLuv and anchor text so that he can teach those skills to his students?
growmap would love you to read ..CommentLuv Premium Plugin: Reviews, Benefits, Where to Get It and WHY You Want It
The first series of the posts will go live tomorrow with it all completely laid out from choosing the domain name and researching keywords and writing content.
Each post will be written so the beginner can follow along easily without to much tech speak. Make sure you ask questions as we go as I will be available to help anyone with any questions they might have regarding the information.
Ron would love you to read ..Judge Your Book by Its Cover: Supercharge Your Conversion Rate Early In the Sales Process