[Advice] New Site - Not Ranking

[DFWi Reaper]

So I created a new website in attempt to create an "authority" site. To get a jump start with content I purchased one of the services on this site that provides site setup, onpage SEO, KW research and 100 articles. I created a new domain as for my first true site I wanted to avoid stumbling upon a blacklisted domain, and to get an idea of how a new domain ranks.

Fast Forward 2 months, and my site only ranks for 3 KWs (every now and then), only indexed for 49 pages (currently have 112 articles), and I am getting 0-3 visitors a day. There has been some backlinking done, web2.0 linking to main site with other links pointing to those. I thought by now there should be some activity on the site, or does it take longer for a brand new domain?

Checklist:
- Onpage SEO seems to be in shape
- Articles well written, very low %s with KW density, good content, very related to the KW's, no over-optimization
- Related Articles on each post
- Offpage SEO is in recent effect (last week or two)
- 112 articles posted
- Using AllinOne SEO for titles, descriptions, no-indexing, etc

One thing I did read today said that "by having recent posts/comments in the sidebar can cause over optimization". I removed those today to see if that makes a difference.
Been checking Moz for DA/PA every now and then, and 2 days ago is the first time it showed up on there, still doesn't show up with data in SEMrush.

Now I'm not asking for a handout for success, just looking for some advice as to what I may need or may be doing incorrectly.
I figured with good onpage SEO, good quality content, low-comp KWs + LTKW, and some backlinking that this site should be ranking better?

It is in the Health & Fitness Niche, but the KW are very low competition, does that make a difference?

Thanks for any advice,
Reaper

 

[neverquitting]

What are you using to determine KW competitiveness?

 

[dejanlesi]

Did you submit your sitemap? Because your low indexed page count could be due to incomplete crawling..

Do you have social profiles up and running? Those also tend to get your posts indexed fast.

Honestly in the near past we have been seeing that new domains need from 3-6 months to start to really see any progress in rankings.. If I were you I would keep on adding content and getting good high authority links to your posts, not your homepage..

 

[DFWi Reaper]

Was Using google keyword planner, but now using that and SEMrush as a comparison as I have noticed there is a difference.

The first 100 were done by a service on here, the results I saw from them were from GKwP

Is there another program that is better for this?

 

[neverquitting]

I'm not sure why people get so thrown off by GKP. It's good for researching what keywords people are searching for, but it's not meant for determining SEO competition. For that, you have to look at the SERPs yourself, and/or use something like Market Samurai, Traffic Travis, KeywordRevealer, SEMRush, etc. Those will all give you a sense of how competitive it is to *rank* for that KW, GKP just tells you how many advertisers are *bidding* on that KW (presumably you're trying to SEO your way to the top, not just use AdWords).

 

[DFWi Reaper]

Did you submit your sitemap? Because your low indexed page count could be due to incomplete crawling..

Do you have social profiles up and running? Those also tend to get your posts indexed fast.

Honestly in the near past we have been seeing that new domains need from 3-6 months to start to really see any progress in rankings.. If I were you I would keep on adding content and getting good high authority links to your posts, not your homepage..

Yes the sitemap was initially setup by the service, but I resubmitted it just now as when testing with Google webtools it came back with errors.

I do not have social profiles setup, so I guess I will do that today.

Okay, I was curious about that, so I will just keep adding content and continue the backlinking. I am BLing to posts not homepage btw

I'm not sure why people get so thrown off by GKP. It's good for researching what keywords people are searching for, but it's not meant for determining SEO competition. For that, you have to look at the SERPs yourself, and/or use something like Market Samurai, Traffic Travis, KeywordRevealer, SEMRush, etc. Those will all give you a sense of how competitive it is to *rank* for that KW, GKP just tells you how many advertisers are *bidding* on that KW (presumably you're trying to SEO your way to the top, not just use AdWords).

Okay, well I have been using SEMrush for my own KW research so I should be fine yes?

And I know competition is for "bidding" I just used it to find KW with a range of searches and seeing what the CPC was.

 

[DFWi Reaper]

Double Posting, how to delete?

 

[Nut-Nights]

Ranking takes time and Google also take time to update results. Just wait and see.

 

[DFWi Reaper]

Did you submit your sitemap? Because your low indexed page count could be due to incomplete crawling..

Wonder if this was the error, after deleting the sitemap setup for me, and using the one I made Webtools shows 117 URLs submitted.

So things changed today:
- Removed recent posts/comments from sidebar
- resubmitted Sitemap

Ranking takes time and Google also take time to update results. Just wait and see.

That's what I am hoping for, I just see different threads where people are seeing results faster so just making sure I am not doing something wrong!
And I feel the sitemap was improperly setup which would damper my results

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

Wonder if this was the error, after deleting the sitemap setup for me, and using the one I made Webtools shows 117 URLs submitted.

So things changed today:
- Removed recent posts/comments from sidebar
- resubmitted Sitemap



That's what I am hoping for, I just see different threads where people are seeing results faster so just making sure I am not doing something wrong!
And I feel the sitemap was improperly setup which would affect things I feel.

You can always use the google fetch inside GWT feature if your urls are not indexing. 117 pages would take about 20 - 30 minutes or so to get done if you did it all manually.

 

[cryptons]

Mostly the services you are talking about provide basic seo you need to do proper seo for that! It also depends on your keywords!

 

[KHer0]

You need to take it one step at a time to control this mess

1 - Did google index all your articles or not?

How to Know ? Just google Site:yourdomain.com ---> It should come with your 111 posts as results. You will also see if crawlers can get to your wp-admin.....etc from the results.

If they are indexed, then congratulation, it's just a ranking problem

If they are not indexed, then it's a content problem. Duplicate, Over Optimizing, Uncrawlable. So, forget about off-seo as you don't need it to index your articles.


Now, If they are indexed but no traffic this because you aren't strong enough to rank..

This is a result from either Competitive Keywords ( which in 99% is the case ) or SEO ( On page and Off-page ). So you will need to check your keywords ( LTP ) is probably the fastest way and then you will need to work on your SEO strategy

However, this is all useless if your content having problem getting indexed

 

[sttiger]

You need to take it one step at a time to control this mess

1 - Did google index all your articles or not?

How to Know ? Just google Site:yourdomain.com ---> It should come with your 111 posts as results. You will also see if crawlers can get to your wp-admin.....etc from the results.

If they are indexed, then congratulation, it's just a ranking problem

If they are not indexed, then it's a content problem. Duplicate, Over Optimizing, Uncrawlable. So, forget about off-seo as you don't need it to index your articles.


Now, If they are indexed but no traffic this because you aren't strong enough to rank..

This is a result from either Competitive Keywords ( which in 99% is the case ) or SEO ( On page and Off-page ). So you will need to check your keywords ( LTP ) is probably the fastest way and then you will need to work on your SEO strategy

However, this is all useless if your content having problem getting indexed

Sorry if I am interfering but what if the post is indexed but not ranking for a keyword even if its a phrase match? I am having this issue and my home page is being displayed for the phrase match keyword instead of my inner page.

 

[DFWi Reaper]

You can always use the google fetch inside GWT feature if your urls are not indexing. 117 pages would take about 20 - 30 minutes or so to get done if you did it all manually.

I did the fetch with GWT

You need to take it one step at a time to control this mess

1 - Did google index all your articles or not?

How to Know ? Just google Site:yourdomain.com ---> It should come with your 111 posts as results. You will also see if crawlers can get to your wp-admin.....etc from the results.

If they are indexed, then congratulation, it's just a ranking problem

If they are not indexed, then it's a content problem. Duplicate, Over Optimizing, Uncrawlable. So, forget about off-seo as you don't need it to index your articles.


Now, If they are indexed but no traffic this because you aren't strong enough to rank..

This is a result from either Competitive Keywords ( which in 99% is the case ) or SEO ( On page and Off-page ). So you will need to check your keywords ( LTP ) is probably the fastest way and then you will need to work on your SEO strategy

However, this is all useless if your content having problem getting indexed

Pages were not indexing properly, fixed that just now so will see how they index. Any guess on how long that usually takes?
When doing "site:mydomain" it wouldn't show all of them, but my sitemap was also errored when checking in GWT but I fixed that.

When doing my KW research I try and find low competition KWs so I don't think that is my issue.
Onpage SEO is good, but had recent posts/comments in the sidebar which I read can lead to overoptimization so I removed them

 

[DFWi Reaper]

Sorry if I am interfering but what if the post is indexed but not ranking for a keyword even if its a phrase match? I am having this issue and my home page is being displayed for the phrase match keyword instead of my inner page.

I would assume this would be to
- high competition
- KW overoptimization
- poor content

From what I've learned.

 

[MagicMike]

I think you need to give it a MINIMUM of 90 days to begin ranking. A new domain takes time in today's SEO environment. Certainly, the more difficult the keywords, the longer it take as well, but 90 days, in general, is what you need to wait. Remember, "competition" can be a tricky thing. Just because a keyword may not have tons of search volume, does not necessarily make it "low competition"; it may still be a fairly difficult keyword to rank.

Over the past few years, Google has simply slowed down the process of ranking a new domain (which is smart of them). The aim was to knock out many of the SEO'ers who were just in it for fast rankings and instant results, and it worked.

There are "tricks" to help speed up the process that people can use, but, in general, if there is nothing else wrong with your site, its going to take a little more time.

 

[sttiger]

I would assume this would be to
- high competition
- KW overoptimization
- poor content

From what I've learned.

It is a low competition keyword and I am quite certain my article provides valuable information to the user. Keyword density is 1% and used very carefully in the article.

What's bothering me is that the inner pages are indexed but just not ranking for the keywords anywhere in Google -- not even by using phrase match. Instead of the inner page, my home page is being displayed for the keywords that I am trying to rank for.

 

[DFWi Reaper]

I think you need to give it a MINIMUM of 90 days to begin ranking. A new domain takes time in today's SEO environment. Certainly, the more difficult the keywords, the longer it take as well, but 90 days, in general, is what you need to wait. Remember, "competition" can be a tricky thing. Just because a keyword may not have tons of search volume, does not necessarily make it "low competition"; it may still be a fairly difficult keyword to rank.

Over the past few years, Google has simply slowed down the process of ranking a new domain (which is smart of them). The aim was to knock out many of the SEO'ers who were just in it for fast rankings and instant results, and it worked.

There are "tricks" to help speed up the process that people can use, but, in general, if there is nothing else wrong with your site, its going to take a little more time.

I am not quite at the 90 days, bout another month. My next question is does that change with an expired domain?
I will be using SEMrush + manual research from now on with KW research

It is a low competition keyword and I am quite certain my article provides valuable information to the user. Keyword density is 1% and used very carefully in the article.

What's bothering me is that the inner pages are indexed but just not ranking for the keywords anywhere in Google -- not even by using phrase match.

I have 112 articles, most of them low competition, good info, and 1-3%.
Only 3 have ever ranked, and none ranking today.

Make sure onpage seo is good, your sitemap is setup properly (my issue I think), and just give it time. If it is indexed at least.
That's what I am seeing as the "guage"

 

[sttiger]

I have 112 articles, most of them low competition, good info, and 1-3%.
Only 3 have ever ranked, and none ranking today.

Make sure onpage seo is good, your sitemap is setup properly (my issue I think), and just give it time. If it is indexed at least.
That's what I am seeing as the "guage"

my site is fairly new, although the domain is 7 years old without any PA or DA. Will have to wait for a few weeks and slowly start building backlinks to see if the inner pages rank for the keywords or not. Indexing isn't an issue for me at the moment -- published 3 unique articles and all of them were indexed within 48 hours.

 

[DFWi Reaper]

Then it may be that your site doesn't have any authority at the moment? That's what I would think at least.