In the meantime...

Whilst waiting for my new site to gain some PageRank, I have been idly checking my 'old' sites to see if there has been any improvement in PR - sadly not, by best site has only a PR of 2! I am hoping for something a bit better for my new site, but I have not really established many back-links yet.
For those who don't know.... Search Engine Rank Position can be achieved entirely using 'on page optimisation', PageRank requires quality back-links which are a lot harder to get...
Check your PR here if you are so inclined...

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Traffic is building well...

Traffic is coming from somewhere..
I am happy to report that traffic is arriving at my new site, but I accidentally removed my Google Analytics tracking code so I will have to wait to see where it is coming from. It's easy to do - I had inserted the code into my template so that all the pages will have it, then because I was updating the site from two different computers, I had accidentally made a change to an old template (without the code) and then applied it across the site removing the tracking code from each page in one swoop. A reminder to me to make sure I download the entire site before making any changes (not too much of a task as I am just running on 9 pages at the moment).
I have not had many adsense clicks as yet, but have earned my first bit of commission from the eBay partnership. Sadly though I was turned down for fixed ads for violation of rules - the only thing I can think of which may have offended them was the duplication of information from other sites. I have some technical specs for items on there which have been copied from elsewhere, so I am guessing that it might be those that has denied me the chance to use this site for fixed ads - either that or they didn't like the affiliate ads that I have on there at the moment.
Now I have the tracking code back in the site, I will be able to find out where my traffic is coming from, but I will need more traffic if I am going to successfully monetise this thing...

New Project developments

Brief Update
I have yet to work out a strategy to bring in a lot of traffic, but so far I have been pleased with the steady trickle of traffic I have been getting to the new site. I even switched off my free 'Bidvertiser' PPC campaign to see if I was getting 'organic' traffic and I am pleased to report that Google is sending me visitors and my SERP seems stable at No.6 on page one.
This has spurred me on to try and get a more 'finished' look to the site and add some more specific content that should attract very specific search results.
To add to my traffic, I have had Adsense clicks in the last two days running which is encouraging, however the payouts were small so I am hoping to be able to generate a lot more clicks to boost overall Adsense revenue.
I am suspending the PPC campaign for a while until I have tidied up the site and given it a bit more well-deserved attention... at least I have something to show for the effort although I will need considerably more to break even.

Success with new project

First results...
For what it's worth (and it's not worth anything just yet...) I have managed to get ranked for my keyword at No.7 on the first page google.com SERP, and No.6 for a UK search. I am pleased with this result after what is relatively little effort, I have two hopes for the future when it comes to the SERP results:
1) That I can improve the position to the top three
2) That I have correctly identified a keyword that will be useful in terms or traffic and ultimately monetisation.
I will do some more investigation into related keywords to see how well I rank for those too. I usually simply type keywords into google, but there is a tool which will do this search for you called 'SERPsFINDER' - it's a free app that simply searches Google, Yahoo and LiveSearch - it returns SERP for your chosen keyword on your chosen domain - it may deliver different results from your own searching and in this case, it returned a result of postion 17 in google.com for my primary keyword. Doing this type of testing also gives you the chance to run an eye over the sites that rank above your own, giving you a opportunity to get some ideas that you may be able to incorporate into your own site.

I noted that with the hosting package that I bought, I was offered £50 free PPC advertising with bidvertiser which I took in order to generate some initial traffic. The keyword is relatively rare (between 260,000 and 2.3m results in google depending on how the search is phrased), and I am not a huge fan of bidvertiser (except when it is free...) so I am not expecting much traffic from this quarter, but at this stage I am looking for traffic from anywhere... If I were to be actually paying for a PPC campaign, then I would need to have my site a bit nearer to completion stage currently it is really just getting towards the end of the initial build stage.
I have printed out my pages so I can run a critical eye over them - currently five pages are live, there is one that needs editing - this will be like a FAQ or glossary page - these can be very useful for picking up keyword-linked traffic. I find having the pages printed in front of me allows me to see where I can improve the way the site links together, and helps to prevent duplication of content.
These initial results may not be long-term as I have seen freak SERP results from time time with new pages - hopefully I will be back in a few weeks time with a higher search position to crow about and some more content to help keep that position. So far, these results have come purely from on-site optimisation, I have yet to think out an off-page strategy, and quite honestly I am wondering if I can get away without it at the moment.