How To Get Ranked On Google In 7 Days With A Brand New Site

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So I have been working on a huge project.

For about the last year I have building out a new tool called SEOJet.

It is the answer to a couple of problems that I kept encountering while doing link building.

First, any time I went out and got a link I was always more or less guessing on what the anchor text should be.

Back in the olden days this was fine because I could be wrong and get away with it.

Nowadays you have to be very careful on what your anchor text is, otherwise you could hurt your rankings.

So I just launched SEOJet and have been giving demos to SEO companies mainly.

But I also wanted to be able to reach the masses so I wrote the backstory of SEOJet and how I ended up creating the software and posted it on this post: How To Build Backlinks – A Link Strategy From 5,734 Anchor Texts.

The post itself is about 5000 words long and is awesome. It goes into the in-depth backlink research I did to come to a conclusion on what a number one backlink profile should look like.

I also include a pretty jaw-dropping case study from Guest Post Tracker where I show the results of using SEOJet’s link maps to do my link building and how I was able to get top 3 rankings with about 8 links.

It’s pretty awesome.

So to promote that blog post I got another blogger to link to that post, and then the only other thing I did was I submitted it to GrowthHackers.com and then submitted it to Inbound.org.

My strategy here was simply to leverage the popularity of those two sites and hopefully get some views and interaction from their readers.

Note: I did promote the post with a Facebook ad to people interested in SEO to get shares.

For me SEO was a long term play and I didn’t expect to start showing in the search engines for at least a month or two.

What I didn’t expect was this:

In just about 7 days I was showing up in the top 30 for one of my main phrases on a brand new site with an even newer blog post.

Just by getting one link and submitting to those two sites? Crazy.

I think the biggest key here is the content.

Content on it’s own is not worth very much in terms of SEO (for the most part).

But amazing, beefy content with some really good (read: high relevance / authority) links pointing to it make all the difference.

Ironically, this is how I built SEOJet to work. You build out awesome content pieces (I call them SEO power pages) and then start building links to those pages based on the link map SEOJet gives you.

The reason you use the link map is because it helps you always make sure you are building a backlink profile that matches what Google typically will rank #1.

That was as you build a lot of links to the power pages, the link profile always looks natural.

As part of the SEO strategy I will also build backlinks to the home page and other smaller pages but the power pages pass a ton of SEO value to the rest of the site so I send a lot of links their way.

Now obviously for this blog post there is still a lot of work to do to get to the top 3 of Google for the key phrases I am targeting on this page, but to see things happen so quickly with a brand new website is extremely encouraging.

Buy A Website or Start One From Scratch?

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A couple of years ago Google hit websites really hard that had done a lot of SEO. This caused many websites in almost every industry to drop from the rankings and websites that hadn’t done a lot of SEO to rise to the top of the rankings.

This created an interesting paradox in the SEO world. Should you try to work to recover the rankings you worked so hard to get and now have lost? Or should you give up on a site and start a new one where you can control exactly how much SEO has been done on a site?

I was recently looking at one of the website marketplaces at a site that was ranking #1 for a phrase that was the biggest phrase in this website’s niche. I was impressed at the ranking because the website seemed pretty simple. As I looked at the details of the site I realized the site was only 4 months old.

4 months old? So what Google is telling us is you can start a brand new website and within a few months get to #1 for a top tier key phrase?

Now before you go out and start 10 new websites I have a word of warning. We have no idea what this website owner did to get that site to #1. They may be employing some serious black hat technique that will get them banned. But it may be worth a test to start a new website and see what kind of dent you can make in the rankings in the first few months.

It could be that since so many sites were penalized you just don’t have a lot of competition in the different niches.

I still prefer to buy a website than to build one from scratch but I probably will build one soon to see how it goes.

Exact Match Domain Names For SEO – What You Should Know

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If you hadn’t heard Google came out recently with a new update to their algorithm (they seem to be doing this once a week) that affected exact match domain names.

I have always been a strong advocate for exact match domains because up until this last update, Google gave undue advantage to them in the search results.

All you had to do is have a domain name that matched a phrase people would search on google and you would rank for that phrase.

With their most recent update Google decided to remove this advantage. So what does it mean for you?

The reason having an exact match domain was so powerful is because Google was trying to make sure that if a person was searching for a specific company (ie Amazon.com) that company’s website would be the first result. So I would go to Google and search “Amazon” and amazon.com would show up as the top result.

The problem has always been that they have been unable to differentiate between company names and random domain names. So if I owned www.realestate.com and someone searched “real estate” Google would assume they were searching for my website and that it must be my company name.

This is how exact match domains came to be so popular. People would buy up the .com, .net, .org, .biz, .co and .info of key phrases that are highly searched and they would be ranked quickly in the search engines.

Now Google has taken away that advantage. They really scrutinize a website just like they do non-exact match domains and don’t automatically have them show in the rankings. They want to see good natural links and good content on the site to be considered to show on page 1.

So it seems that it is much like the way they treat all other domains. The playing field has been leveled…or has it?

Google still gives extra weight to an exact match domain. They still can’t differentiate between the name of a business and a keyphrase rich domain. They want to provide the best results to their users so what they are doing is assuming that if someone is searching for a business, the business website will have plenty of content and good links pointing to their site that include their business name as the anchor text.

So if you own an exact match domain, the way you make it still rank high in the search engines is to point links to it that have your exact match phrase as the anchor. Do a ton of those. Google won’t penalize you if your links are all simply the name of your website, just like they wouldn’t punish Nike.com for getting a ton of links that have “Nike” as the anchor text.

When you seek out an exact match domain one thing that I always do is I will go and search that key phrase and see if there is already an exact match domain at the top of Google. If there is it will most likely be very difficult for you to get to the top 5 for that phrase. Google has already given authority status to the other exact match domain.

If you don’t see nother domain there that matches then you are good to go. I recently took a brand new exact match domain (it is a .biz) and got it to #1 for its phrase in less than 4 months. Here is the kicker, the site only has 4 or 5 pages with minimal content and I haven’t added any content since the original design. All I have done is get links to the site. It does still work, even with a .biz.

Latest Google Update – Exact Match Penalty

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Some of you might have noticed a severe drop in traffic over the weekend to one or more of your websites. You are not alone. Google as they have been so eager to do lately has decided to implement yet another major update to their algorithm.

This one seems to have targeted exact match domains. In other words if you own a website where the domain is the exact match of a phrase that gets searched often in Google.

For example, if you own the website motorcycleinsurance.com that would be an exact match for the phrase motorcycle insurance and up until last weekend you would have an immediate advantage in the search results for that phrase. It became much easier for you to rank on page one of Google

It looks like what they have done is really penalized exact match domain websites that don’t have a ton of content or links. In other words, the automatic bonus you got from just being an exact match domain is now gone.

I still think there is an advantage to having an exact match domain and you will rank highly and quickly if you do the rest of your SEO the right way.

So what is the real net effect of this update? If you do SEO the right way regardless of what your domain name is, you will have success. Sounds ground breaking right?

How Penguin and Panda Impacted Website Values

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Guest Post

Website ValuePlacing an accurate value on a website is a truly tricky proposition. Most website valuation companies follow a loose set of guidelines, but the Internet is an ever-changing landscape that causes any fixed rules to fall by the wayside in a matter of weeks.

Case-in-point: Flash back to 2009. Websites optimized with hundreds of thousands of low-quality backlinks and monetized with AdSense were dominating the SERPs and making countless webmasters boatloads of cash. With the right set of tools, any SEO worth his salt could crank out niche sites, get them ranked, and start seeing profits within a month or two – some were even making fulltime careers of it.

Then, by late 2011, Google leveled the playing field with a series of algorithm changes that shook the SEO community to the bone and changed the game entirely. The same tired old tactics simply didn’t work anymore. Link farms? Gone. Blog networks? Dead in the water. Backlink blasts, comment spam, and forum links? Practically useless.

Today, people are scared. People are concerned. They wonder what value their sites have after Panda and Penguin. They want to know if websites will continue to be assets in the future. But the concern is unfounded unless the webmasters in question are guilty of engaging in any of the blackhat tactics that Google is outlawing left and right.

Penguin and Panda – So What Happened?

Before we can understand how website values changed after the updates, we need to know exactly what it was that happened. Here’s a little refresher course:

There’s an easy way to distinguish between the Panda and Penguin updates. Panda is an update that targets on-page issues, and Penguin tackles backlink problems.

When Panda originally hit, it penalized sites that had issues such as duplicate content or too many ads plastered above the fold. According to Neil Patel, SEO legend and founder of Quicksprout.com, Panda ushered in penalties for these main website issues:

Then, a year later, Google followed Panda’s changes by unleashing Penguin. This update dealt with backlinks in a major way. Sites with thousands of spammy links pointing to them were hit hard, and webmasters scrambled to clean up their backlinks in a hurry after they watched their rankings plummet overnight.

According to Search Engine Watch, Penguin examined three key areas of a website’s backlink profile:

This wiped some of the spammier sites off the map. Even legit sites run by webmasters who used backlinking services, linkblasting software, or who sold paid links were hit. This is because the referring sites themselves are now a ranking factor – you should have a natural-looking backlink profile with a variety of anchor text, and it should be comprised of well-respected sites in your niche (or sites that are at least related in some way).

Website Values Post-Panda/Penguin

So, how can you figure out what your website is truly worth after all the algo updates? The best way is to employ a website valuation company in order to determine a value. If you use a simple auction site or attempt to place a value on the site yourself, then you risk grossly mispricing your greatest online asset.

To determine the true value of a website, a legitimate valuation company will calculate your website’s revenue for the past twelve months. A multiplier is then applied to assign the website a grade of A to F, and the multiplier generally depends on three important factors:

  • Macro Impact

This external factor is based on macro-level issues such as economic conditions and algorithm changes. For example, people don’t trust Google as a singular traffic source now that such dramatic changes roll out every few months. The search environment is unstable at best, which is the reason that websites relying exclusively on Google for their traffic have lost value so rapidly.

  • Buyer Mood

Buyer mood is an extension of economic factors, and it’s similar to stock market conditions. Buyer mood affects pricing because, quite simply, there’s no way to sell an asset if no one is buying. If the Web experiences major upheaval, trends in certain types of websites ebb and flow based on the changes. Hence, buyer mood will majorly impact the possible sale of your site contingent upon what type of site you own.

 

  • Micro Impact

These are the factors that impact the sale of your site based on the site’s stats itself. For instance, the lifespan of the site, its potential for future growth, stability, and its presence in the industry are all key factors that majorly influence the price of your site.

How to Increase Your Website’s Value

If you’ve bought a website and you want to increase its worth in this new search landscape of ours, don’t fret. Building out a site still involves the one-two punch of beefing up content and building backlinks. However, an extra piece of the puzzle after Panda and Penguin is community building. This is the missing link going forward– you must strive to nurture and grow your website’s community above all else.

How? Network with others in your niche. If relationships already existed between them and the previous site owner, extend an olive branch and pick up where he or she left off. Comment on related websites and blogs. Guest post. Link to authorities in your niche.

You’re not doing this for links. You’re doing it for exposure and networking.

Eventually, people will link to you – and your backlink profile will have truly organic links that you didn’t lift a finger to build. You’ll also gain shares, conversations, Likes, great discussions, and plenty to write about because you’ll be part of a real community – an integral piece of an ongoing dialogue.

To determine which areas of your website need work, try performing a traditional SWAT analysis. Figure out the areas where your website shines and identify the parts that need work. Then, determine which opportunities are out there for your site, and decide what external factors threaten your site as well.

Another way to increase the value of your website and future-proof it against new changes is to ensure you keep clean records at all times. Don’t mix your website data with information from other business ventures or websites. Keep detailed, independent accounting and maintenance records so when the time comes to sell, you’ll have all the info you need at hand.

Assigning a value to a website is a complicated matter. The number can fluctuate wildly as external factors change the landscape of the Internet. That’s why using a website valuation service is a good way to determine the true value of your website before you decide to sell.

 

Quiet Light Brokerage is a website valuation company that provides free online valuation services as well as a full spectrum of services to help webmasters prepare their online businesses for sale.