The "Ben March is a Ninja" Competition

Just to give a little background as to why I'm trying to get my site ranked in the top 100 google results when searched by the keyword ninja...

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the practice of getting a website ranked highly on the search engine results page (SERP) for a keyword. This is an art more than a science. Websites strive to get ranked highly for keywords that are relative to their content, especially when they are an eCommerce site. If my website specializes in selling business cards then I want my site to show up first when someone searches for sites relating to business cards. The higher a webpage is in the SERP the more likely they are to convert a search into a sale.

To test my skill in this area, I initially tried getting benmarch.com ranked #1 on google when searched by "ben march". This wasn't as hard as I thought it would be since there aren't that many Ben March's with websites. As a second test of my SEO skill, I'm going to attempt to get benmarch.com ranked in the top 100 search results on google when searched by the keyword "ninja". Ninja being a random keyword I thought up (and also much cooler than something like toast).

This is a competition I am having with a coworker (and anyone else that would like to play along). This is intended to be a fun competition to test our knowledge and understanding of SEO.

I have created a webpage to journal what steps I am taking to try to get my site ranked for the keyword ninja.  I'll compare my strategy with the strategy of my friends in the competition and hopefully it will provide us with valuable insight.  View my ninja seo journal at the page I am calling Ben March is a Ninja
These might be the best ninja costumes site I've seen in a long time. Very seriously considering getting myself a ninja costume from here so I can fight crime from the shadows. This also happens to be a site from the place that I work!
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