Competition weak but I can't get on page 1 on Google

[Ramsweb]

Hi guys

I am trying to rank an ezine article for a long tailed keyword that gets more than 20k searches a month. The competition is pretty weak as there are only 135,000 results or so.

I had used market samurai to size up the competition and the number 1 spot had just 72 backlinks. His backlinks are not of great quality. He just has less than 10 backlinks that come from a page rank 1-2. The rest are all from PR0. None of them are really related either. My ezine according to market samurai is stronger than the number 1 spot in terms of domain age, links out from domain etc...

My ezine has over 600 indexed backlinks although it is mostly from comment spamming. Some of these pages with my comments have decent page rank. All in all, about 26 of my links come from between PR2-4.

With all this, I am in position 18. Market samurai says that the Google cache age for my ezine is 30 days. Does that mean that my ranking will adjust only after google reindexes the page.

Please advice. I am not sure if I should continue to build links or focus on other projects and just wait for google to place me when they reindex.

Please share your thoughts.

 

[workingwhileworking]

1. factor in domain age (no just cache age) of your competition.

2. Not all links are created equal.

 

[brchcar1445]

I didn't read your whole post sorry.

 

[fujing]

get some backlinks from other sources, not just comment spam. quality trusted links with low OBL's will be much more beneficial than plain comment spam...

 

[scb335]

One way I use to rank articles better and longer because articles tend to slip down the SERPs faster than other pages to me, is to find some related longer-tail keywords and write short (250 to 300 words) articles for them, then submit to GoArticles, other article directories and even Web 2.0 sites (like Squidoo) and have them all link back to your main article at eZine.

Because you're picking really long-tail keywords for these articles, you can easily make them rank quick with just a handful of profile or blog comments backlinks, and then they'll give a collective boost to your main article.

The key to this is to focus on longer-tail keywords that have almost no SERPs competition at all. Like under 1000 for exact match search. And also to write 100% unique articles for these keywords. Traffic doesn't matter, I'll use keywords that get 5 searches per month if the competition is low enough, because these are strictly for creating quality backlinks to your main article, not traffic.

This takes longer than commenting on blogs or creating profile links, but the value is much higher and worth it in my experience.

 

[blackhat-dudette]

Sometimes patience is the key - sucks I know.
Keep building your links (from various sources, using different KW as anchor text) and just ensure the site is optimised as much as possible.

Also, sometimes a Google hub page, or a press release on Google news will help.

 

[thinkinghat]

how you checked the domain age for top 10 websites. if these are authority sites they dont need many backlinks to rank for long tail kw's.
link age also matters.
i would say,keep building links and keep patience.

 

[Ramsweb]

Thanks scb335, I will definitely try out the article submission method. I think you have made a very good point about using long tailed keywords. I had previously used fastsubmitarticle . com to submit my main article to various directories but I had used very competitive keywords. The result was that most of the articles never got indexed and thus no backlinks.

I am going to get started on your method right away. Once again, many thanks for your detailed post.

One way I use to rank articles better and longer because articles tend to slip down the SERPs faster than other pages to me, is to find some related longer-tail keywords and write short (250 to 300 words) articles for them, then submit to GoArticles, other article directories and even Web 2.0 sites (like Squidoo) and have them all link back to your main article at eZine.

Because you're picking really long-tail keywords for these articles, you can easily make them rank quick with just a handful of profile or blog comments backlinks, and then they'll give a collective boost to your main article.

The key to this is to focus on longer-tail keywords that have almost no SERPs competition at all. Like under 1000 for exact match search. And also to write 100% unique articles for these keywords. Traffic doesn't matter, I'll use keywords that get 5 searches per month if the competition is low enough, because these are strictly for creating quality backlinks to your main article, not traffic.

This takes longer than commenting on blogs or creating profile links, but the value is much higher and worth it in my experience.

 

[Ramsweb]

The domain age for the sites in the top 10 are nothing impressive. There are no authority sites. They are all mostly one or two page sites. That is why I was surprised about how long it is taking to get into the top 10.

But I will definitely keep your point about links age and domain age in mind.

Thanks again.

 

[bucksgen]

Maybe your onpage seo?
Fill the <h1> , meta desc with your keyword

 

[Ramsweb]

It is not a website that I own and am trying to rank. I am trying to rank my ezine. I am under the assumption that there is not much I can do in terms of on page optimization for my ezine other than title and keyword which I think I have got right...

Maybe your onpage seo?
Fill the <h1> , meta desc with your keyword

 

[Ramsweb]

scb335 - Can you provide me with a few more details about how you rank your ezine?

How many articles would I need to write to generate backlinks and start seeing some effects?
Do the articles with the backlinks need to rank high or just show up somewhere in Google rankings?
Will the link juice from these articles also pass through to the link in my ezine article.

I have already written about 7 different articles as per your suggestions and would be willing to write a lot more. I just thought I will ask you the above questions so I can pace out my efforts.

Thanks
Ramsweb

One way I use to rank articles better and longer because articles tend to slip down the SERPs faster than other pages to me, is to find some related longer-tail keywords and write short (250 to 300 words) articles for them, then submit to GoArticles, other article directories and even Web 2.0 sites (like Squidoo) and have them all link back to your main article at eZine.

Because you're picking really long-tail keywords for these articles, you can easily make them rank quick with just a handful of profile or blog comments backlinks, and then they'll give a collective boost to your main article.

The key to this is to focus on longer-tail keywords that have almost no SERPs competition at all. Like under 1000 for exact match search. And also to write 100% unique articles for these keywords. Traffic doesn't matter, I'll use keywords that get 5 searches per month if the competition is low enough, because these are strictly for creating quality backlinks to your main article, not traffic.

This takes longer than commenting on blogs or creating profile links, but the value is much higher and worth it in my experience.

 

[scb335]

@Ramsweb, how many articles and how long it will take are variables that depend on the competition strength for your primary article keyword, and how fast search engines pick up your new articles.

I don't have or use any sort of step-by-step for this, but basically I'll do about a half dozen articles per week until the main article I'm trying to boost rises up the SERPs for me.

The thing to remember is to focus on very long-tail keywords with your new articles, and publish them to search engine respected sites (i.e. GoArticles, Squidoo, Weebly and etc.) so they can rank high easy.

Once you publish each new article (that links back to your primary article at eZine) get it indexed fast by social bookmarking it, pinging the RSS feed, for example GoArticles provides an author's RSS feed, so once you publish something there grab the RSS feed for the author you published as and ping it--your Squidoo lens will have an RSS feed, ping that and so on. Also, your social bookmarking accounts will have RSS feeds, ping those to. You basically just want to ping everything you can to get the bots to your new articles. The point is to just get your new articles picked up and indexed as quickly as you can.

You may see your primary article move up after the first wave of new articles are done, or you may need to do a second or third wave or more in additional weeks depending on how stiff the competition for your primary article keyword really is.

This is a lot more work for less backlinks than just doing profile creations and blog commenting for links, but the links you get from creating new content (articles) are better. I've outranked pages for the same keyword that had hundreds of profile backlinks (the Paul and Angela backlink types) with just a handful of very-long-tail article backlinks using this method, so the links are stronger and worth the efforts.

 

[Ramsweb]

@scb335 - Great advice from you again. I wish I had the rep thing so I can give some to you but I don't have the power to do that yet. Please accept my thanks instead.

Also, I have already submitted a few go articles and weeblys. Squidoo for some reason is banned in my geographic area. Can you suggest more authority sites so I can get a diverse set of backlinks.

My niche is related to men's issues and social bookmarking and rss feeds have very low accpetance rates as the content usually gets flagged as adult although it is not. So, instead of social bookmarking and rss feeds, I plan to use some comment spamming for the backlink articles. I have scrapebox and a pretty decent list of 1000 urls that I can readily post to in about 1 hour. I am hoping that this should be a good enough substitute for social bookmarking.

Thanks again for your great advice. I cannot wait to start implementing it and see some results.

@Ramsweb, how many articles and how long it will take are variables that depend on the competition strength for your primary article keyword, and how fast search engines pick up your new articles.

I don't have or use any sort of step-by-step for this, but basically I'll do about a half dozen articles per week until the main article I'm trying to boost rises up the SERPs for me.

The thing to remember is to focus on very long-tail keywords with your new articles, and publish them to search engine respected sites (i.e. GoArticles, Squidoo, Weebly and etc.) so they can rank high easy.

Once you publish each new article (that links back to your primary article at eZine) get it indexed fast by social bookmarking it, pinging the RSS feed, for example GoArticles provides an author's RSS feed, so once you publish something there grab the RSS feed for the author you published as and ping it--your Squidoo lens will have an RSS feed, ping that and so on. Also, your social bookmarking accounts will have RSS feeds, ping those to. You basically just want to ping everything you can to get the bots to your new articles. The point is to just get your new articles picked up and indexed as quickly as you can.

You may see your primary article move up after the first wave of new articles are done, or you may need to do a second or third wave or more in additional weeks depending on how stiff the competition for your primary article keyword really is.

This is a lot more work for less backlinks than just doing profile creations and blog commenting for links, but the links you get from creating new content (articles) are better. I've outranked pages for the same keyword that had hundreds of profile backlinks (the Paul and Angela backlink types) with just a handful of very-long-tail article backlinks using this method, so the links are stronger and worth the efforts.

 

[bleach]

dont u think if your comment spamming is nofollow link?
have u tried edu backlink?

 

[Ramsweb]

Most of my comments are **************** but they have already been spammed to death. I think I get very little link juice from them.

dont u think if your comment spamming is nofollow link?
have u tried edu backlink?

 

[BrentH]

With all this, I am in position 18. Market samurai says that the Google cache age for my ezine is 30 days. Does that mean that my ranking will adjust only after google reindexes the page.

No, not necessarily. This is just how long it's taking Google to revisit the page (which doesn't necessarily impact your rankings).

How cache age can be valuable is pages that Google likes, they'll revisit more frequently.