I don't think it will work, and that your site will only reach pages 2-3 of google for the main keywords. After that, you will need backlinks...
But if it works I'll eat my words
Regardless, good luck with this interesting case study. I'm following it...
You may be right. I am not making any guess either way, just want to see what happens.
Anecdotal story:
I have a website in the technology niche.
I started with about 50 articles. The top rankings were the end of page 2. Medium quality articles on low competition keywords.
On the same website, after 4 months, I added around 600 A.I. / paraphrased / rewrite /something-in-between articles.
It pushed about 20 of those first articles on page 1, without any internal links.
I assume it was because of some small topical authority.
Two months later, to this day, I have about 400 keywords on the first page, with about 30 ranking in Top 3.
No backlinks built. A few automated websites picked it up but those are trash anyway.
My observations
As time increases, so will the ranking.
As I have no PERSONAL proof of this, I will point out to a perfect example in the tech niche, techwalla website.
They rank #1 for a lot of GREAT keywords, with articles FROM 2010.
Yes, they have a lot of backlinks, but I do personally feel it's the age in the index that matters a great deal as well.
Good luck with your case study.
You've done a similar one before with that one article getting 800 hits/month which was a great read.
From the way you're presenting this, I assume you'll invest days worth of research.
It's great, but how would you manage this at scale? Assuming you're just starting with blogging and want to make a living.
Won't the speed affect your (potential) earnings?
Thats an interesting read thanks. Regarding the content yes, I am planning to invest lots of time into it in terms of researching, setting up some case studies to use as material for the article itself and so on.
You could definitely scale it but I suppose it would require a lot of investment in terms of either time or writers to put content together. I suppose this would be the strategy for a long-term authority site rather than a niche site.
In this particular case, it is content for a SAAS product website, its a long term project and if I can drive relevant traffic to it over 12-24 months I would be very happy. So there is no rush in this case. But none the less you are right, what I am doing isn't immediately scalable - in fact I struggle writing this type of content myself!!
This right here.
People are so hung up on links, they think it's still 2015. While links are still a very large part of SEO, they are not everything.
Topical Authority kills it, regardless of links.
Site age + content age plays a big factor.
Relevance will help you overtake bigger websites. Relevance in terms of 'Topical Authority' but also in terms of the level of granularity in the keywords you target. e.g. If you google 'best laptops for nursing' and you see NYTimes because they are targeting 'best laptops', if you target 'best laptops for nursing' and build topical authority with several articles on laptops, your DR10 site is going to eventually overtake NYTimes for 'best laptops for nursing'. This is how all of the SERPs have been working for a while.
You will see a ton of sites ranking for high SV keywords that have a shit backlink profile but good content (sometimes even below average content), but what they have is a lot of content targeting keywords within a niche which is what is giving them this boost.
Summary:
- Pick good keywords.
- Write good content
- Load your site with lots of content on one topic and create topical relevance.
Laugh all the way to the bank while everyone else is ONLY relying on links.
-----> Broaden your horizons if Links are the only tool in your toolbox
Definitely agree. My case study here is about ranking purely with content, but I am not suggesting that is the best approach at all - in reality like you said, keyword research, good content and links are all very important but I just think putting a lot more weight from links over to content would be beneficial, rather than cracking out the content and then firing tonnes of links at it.
Very informative journey and some nice comments on topical authority. Awaiting your updates at least once a month would be nice
I will try to do monthly update if anyone notices the thread going quiet, just give me a reminder.
IMO you have to do proper KW research first. Check who your competitors are.
But it will be nice to follow this Journey; just don't quit it
GL
Yes, definitely agree with this. My general process will be as follows -
- Pick a random phrase that sort of describes what I am aiming to write about.
- Look at the top 5 results and put those URLS into ahrefs.
- Find all keywords each page is ranking for and then look for relevant keywords/sub-topics.
- Re-build new list of target keywords / sub-topics based on above research.
- Read top 5 articles based on above research and make notes on what is good about them, what they cover, etc.
- Look for areas that are not being covered well / look for things to add value to whats already out there.
- Research and write up article.
However, I am concentrating more on the content and not trying to write an article targeting any specific keyword as such, but rather the broader topic - with the aim of ranking for 100s of keywords, lots of longtails etc. rather than a handful of keywords with the most search volume.
I think it would work but you'll definitely get better results with the necessary backlinks.
Well, regardless of the outcome of this case study, a second case study relating to the building of backlinks will be a nice follow-on study from this one
