Some oes tsetnoc contestants are hitting the video marketing outlet with the following oes tsetnoc videos.

There is one more, but I decided not to include it because it really has nothing to do with the contest. It is a photo slideshow with oes tsetnoc in the title and video description. While it is a sneaky way to get the keywords in the video, I like the fact that these other two Youtubers made a video that was actually about oes tsetnoc.

Last week, I received a good reminder from a blogging friend of mine who runs a mens clothing website about the need to earn income from blogging.

Why do I say need? Because even if you are a blogger who does it just for the fun of blogging, unless you are running a free blog from WordPress or Blogger, you are probably spending money on your website. And even free sites have a bit of cost in terms of time spent in not only content creation, but also marketing and optimization. So, unless you are already independently wealthy, it is a good idea to consider some revenue generation on any site that you own, if for no other reason than to recover the basic costs of running your website between the domain purchase, hosting and time spent.

So I decided, why not add some revenue generating items into my oes tsetnoc entry along with my other sites. While it has not been extremely significant, I have already gained back my domain price purchase and the first month’s hosting cost – considering I am hosting it with several other sites on one plan, that is a pretty good deal.

Your Revenue

For other bloggers, especially ones participating in the oes tsetnoc contest… are you using your site to generate revenue?

Although I didn’t do anything aside from the statistics comparison, the main domain for oes tsetnoc went from 175 to 16 overnight. Granted, I broke my rule of not checking the stats too obsessively, but it was well worth it in this case.

Also, I want to answer a few questions about my statistics post yesterday.

First off, I included indented items when counting the positioning for all of the websites. So some who are listed as 5 are really in position 2 and so forth. I was going with the official oes tsetnoc search for the contest, and since it included the indented posts in the 1 – 100, I did as well when I was going through counting. I apologize for any confusion that may have caused.

When it comes to the social bookmarking analysis, I went with the stats that I was able to get. I was able to include total Diggs and total Delicious bookmarks throughout each site thanks to Quarkbase. For the Stumble reviews, Reddit and Mixx votes, I used a Firefox extension which only shows the votes or reviews for the page it is on, as opposed to throughout the site. Hence, I only checked Homepage Reddits, Mixxes, etc.

I am a numbers person. So naturally, when my oes tsetnoc entry plummeted in the SERP’s after getting indexed and ranked in the #2 position in five days, I decided to do a little analysis. Of course, what initially started as a simple look at numbers turned into a relatively in-depth analysis.

Statistics as of September 21, 2009

The chart above includes oes tsetnoc sites that are similar to mine, in the sense that they are new domains (created after September 10th for this contest) and they are blogs.

This analysis looks at:

• Yahoo backlinks – total number of incoming links
• Yahoo .edu backlinks – number of incoming links from .edu sites
• Alexa Rank – determined by traffic (the lower the number, the more traffic)
• Google Indexed – number of pages indexed by Google
• Sitemap
• Google SERP – position in search results for oes tsetnoc
• Keyword Density – percent of keywords vs. number of words on homepage
• Blog Posts – total number of blog posts
• Blog Comments – total number of blog comments and pingbacks/trackbacks
• Home Stumbles – number of reviews on StumbleUpon for main homepage
• Home Reddits – number of Reddit votes for main homepage
• Home Mixx – number of Mixx votes for main homepage
• Technorati – number of blog reactions on Technorati
• Total Diggs – total number of Digg votes for both homepage and individual posts
• Total Delicious – total number of Delicious bookmarks for both homepage and individual posts

So what does this information tell me? Aside from missing the main goal of being ranked highest in Google SERP’s, this site seems to be doing really good. I have the highest Alexa ranking (therefore the highest traffic), the most blog comments, and most social mentions (with exception to Twitter). My keyword density is not the highest or lowest. My backlinks aren’t too few or many, but are a far cry from the top ranked site in this contest.

Oddly enough, I was actually worried that building too many backlinks too quickly would possibly get the site penalized, so I started slowly. But considering how my site is doing on all other counts in comparison to the SERP, it seems that may have happened anyway – especially since it made the jump from #2 to #175 in 6 days. Of course, if this site were penalized, it seems like my article from this site, What is Oes Tsetnoc, wouldn’t be #47. So maybe it is just the weakness of the .us domain in comparison to newer entries?

Here are some other statistics for this site for September 10th – September 20th, collected by Google Analytics.

And finally, here are some other rankings for items I have created related to oes tsetnoc.

• oestsetnoc on Twitter ranks #10.
• Oes Tsetnoc on BlogCatalog ranks #14.
• Fetching Friday on Kikolani mentioning Oes Tsetnoc ranks #15.
• Oes Tsetnoc group on Facebook ranks #64.
• Oes Tsetnoc on Google Profiles ranks #147.
• Oes Tsetnoc on Squidoo ranks #157.

Resources

The following free tools were used for the chart analysis. I think that any webmaster, blog owner, and of course, contestant in the oes tsetnoc contest should find these useful.

• Alexa - simply add yourdomain.com to the end of http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ to see your current Alexa rank (ie. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/oestsetnoc.us).
• Quarkbase - simply add yourdomain.com to the end of http://www.quarkbase.com/ to see a variety of statistics, including total number of Diggs & Delicious bookmarks pointing to your site (ie. http://www.quarkbase.com/oestsetnoc.us) – also may help with quicker site indexing.
• Keyword Density – compare the keyword density between two websites. Includes breakdown of usage of keywords in title tags, meta description and more. Very useful in looking at how a competitor uses keywords for optimization.
• Social Media for Firefox – this Firefox extension allows you to see the number of social bookmarks / votes for the page you are viewing. Includes Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Mixx, Sphinn & Bit.ly.
• SEO Firefox Extensions – SEO Quake and SEO for Firefox will show you a variety of useful information about the website you are currently viewing, including the number of Yahoo backlinks, pages indexed by Google, Google PageRank and more. SEO Quake will even show you these numbers for search results. I suggest using the Load Parameters on Request option for SEO Quake – too many queries to the search engines may get you banned for a while. (Usually it only lasts for a day – you’ll know it’s starting when Google captchas you for a regular search or Yahoo locks you out of Site Explorer).

Your Thoughts

SEO experts, Oes Tsetnoc contestants and webmasters – what are your thoughts on my Google SERP compared to the other statistics?

Oes Tsetnoc now has a Ning network. This network was created for participants in the SEO contest and any of those who are following it.

Creating a profile on the Oes Tsetnoc Ning Network will give you a dofollow link back to your website. You can also create groups to discuss certain aspects of the contest (optimization, social media, problems, etc), watch videos on SEO and find some useful SEO resources.

So if you haven’t already, come join the network and interact with other contestants and continue learning new techniques to help get websites indexed and ranked in Google.

Does anyone else feel like checking your ranking for a particular keyword (like oes tsetnoc while being in this contest) could be a bad thing? The more you check, the more variance you see in a short time period, the more unnecessary stress you bring upon yourself, and the more defeated you may start to feel?

Yesterday, I started the day off on a positive note that the site had been indexed and was in the #2 position on Google. But then, I checked later and found that I had been moved down to #9 thanks to some recent new entries. And now, I’ve been blasted off the map it seems.

Although I’m not defeated, and I know what to do to get things moving in the right direction again, it seems like the kind of thing that happens when you’re dieting, and you get a little obsessed with the scale. You start out the day feeling like you’re moving in the right direction, then you have lunch and it all goes to heck, especially with a digital scale that shows the .5 fluctuations. Then you feel like your day is lost and you eat something crappy for dinner, which means the next day you have to fight your way back to your goal again.

So I’ve decided I’m going to do what I do for optimization , but at the same time not over do it (as I want this to look natural and not accidentally get myself penalized or banned), and check my progress weekly instead of daily. Because daily (or several times per day) could drive me batty!

What do you think? Do you check your keyword rankings often or occasionally? Do you think it helps or hurts?

The first milestone of getting to the top of search engine results has been achieved… oes tsetnoc is indexed, and ranked #2 in Google results – in less than 5 days!

Although Google is the only search engine that is relevant to the contest, I found it interesting that neither Yahoo or Bing have picked up either this domain or the .com version. I guess this proves their site indexing is much slower than Google’s.

Now the next question – what must a .us site do to outrank a .com site? Can it be done? Or does .com hold the weight / power over other domain extensions?

Stay tuned for the answer as this contest and blog continues.

Oes Tsetnoc is the keyword phrase that is the focus of the PromoJunkie SEO contest.  Webmasters are competing to rank #1 on Google for this phrase by December 15, 2009.  Sites must be started on or after September 10, 2009.

This contest will be a great opportunity to experiment with and learn the best techniques to quickly index and optimize a site, and I will share those tips and techniques here.   Some may consider it sharing secrets of the trade, but I feel that if everyone shares helpful information, we will all benefit in the end.  

So what is the best reason to participate (or at least follow the entries) in this contest? Whether you win or lose, you will likely know much more in the world of search engine optimization by the December 15th deadline.

Read more about the rules for this SEO contest, and how to join in.  Also remember – white hat SEO techniques only!