My client is a college that markets to military students. Because of the new GI Bill that went into effect August 1, 2009, there was a huge push in this industry to reach out to veterans who might be interested in getting a – - basically free – - education. My goal was to build the site around the keywords most applicable to the a) topic; and b) demographic.

On Monday,  I purchased the domain name.

On Tuesday, I installed a WordPress Blog and plugins and set up my Feedburner feed.

Components used were:

• Education Theme by StudioPress
• Akismet
• Add to Facebook
• Feedburner
• Google Analytics for WordPress
• Google XML Sitemap
• Khanh’s Quick Feeds (this allowed me to pull in a related RSS feed from Dept of Veterans Affairs)
• Mobile Press (for viewing on mobile phone)
• WP-Polls (which I may remove)
• StatPress

The rest of Tuesday I started building out categories and content

On Wednesday,  I added more content.  By late Wednesday Google had indexed the site.

On Thursday, I added more content, and by Thursday afternoon the site was on page #1 of Google for 3 of my main keywords and on page #2 for the other 2 keywords.

By Friday, analytics showed that I was already getting search-engine based traffic.

What’s the Magic?

There is none.  Are you disappointed? Don’t be, because if there is no magic, my success is duplicatable.

My thoughts about the quick success:

1. The site used WordPress, which we know gets indexed quickly by Google
2. The site has a laser focus
3. My target demographic was well-defined (meaning I knew exactly what information they were seeking)
4. My content was totally relevant to my focus and demographic

I believe the key to quick indexing was using the WordPress platform

and the keys to getting on page #1 for my keywords are:

• a laser-focused site
• knowing your demographic so well that you know exactly what information they need

Let me know what you think.

My colleague Rob Schultz has created the 90 Articles in 90 Days Article Traffic Challenge, and it’s open right now. Class starts on June 10, but Rob’s Early Bird Special (save 50 bucks) closes down at midnight Tuesday (May 26).   Although I’ve written articles professionally for more than 15 years, I decided to take Rob’s last 90 Day Article Challenge to personally experience the program.

I can unequivocally say that the benefits I received from this traffic-boosting course were worth far more than the cost of the course (and the course is very affordable).

Using what you learn in the course, in less than 3 months it can help you transform your hard earned experience into hordes of new prospects eager to discover what you offer . . . and eager to buy!

It leverages the viral, social nature of the web to multiply your efforts many times over. It provides a simple system you can use to attract prospects not only months but years into the future. And it supplies under-the-radar secrets that trigger a never-ending traffic torrent you could not turn off . . . even if you wanted to.

Yes, the course taught me tons of article template s, lessons on crafting great titles, and Rob’s “hidden secrets” for creating many products from a single article. Better yet, after a small business owner read one of my articles he e-mailed me to book my Kindle formatting service. Not a bad return from one articles.

If you’re serious about marketing your business or book, click the 90 Day Article Challenge link and watch Rob’s video. I think you’ll be just as impressed as I was.

Good luck with the course.

I talked to a web designer yesterday about a client we both share; unfortunately through her design time and my blog consulting time, we realized this client was going to fall into the “why aren’t I getting more traffic – my website has been up two weeks!” category.

That led, as many of these talks do, to a discussion of SEO content.

Like many website owners, our client didn’t want to invest any cash into even basic SEO tweaks, didn’t care about looking at site statistics (and even fought us on installing Google Analytics) . . . but worse (IMHO) was their inability to comprehend that they were writing “vitamin” content instead of “pain pill content”.

Huh?

Vitamin content is good stuff – but doesn’t solve a problem, and pain pill content serves up info that solves a problem.

For example:  If I were writing about flying a stunt kite, vitamin content would tell you the benefits of being outside, the fun of stunt kite flying, or the history of stunt kites.

Pain pill content would show you how to put a stunt together together without tearing out your hair, or how to do loop-de-loops without killing innocent bystanders with an out-of-control kite!

Simple concept, eh? But one we often forget because we get so wrapped up in the theory, not the “how to”.

Want more examples? Check out Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits blog – - notice how many “pain pills” he writes about, i.e. How to Make Gmail Your Ultimate Productivity Center. Since most of us use Gmail, and most of us have time challenges, Leo’s post had information that solved e-mail overload and time deficit – - pretty good post don’t you think?

Does this give you an idea for writing some of your own articles or blog posts? Comment below – what’s your best pain pill?

(And if this “pain pill” concept is yours please contact me – it’s great stuff, but I can’t remember where I first heard about it!)