Detailed Case Study - Lets learn how to rank for top positions

Hi Everyone!

In this thread, I'd like to discuss with you all on one of my projects, an authority website that I've decided to publish new content on, and why It didn't rank for the top positions as of yet (4 days since I published it).
I've been playing with SEO for a few months, so I would like to share as much data as I can, so we could all learn from it.
if any of you have any Idea on why I haven't secured the top 3 positions yet, (other than links, which I will use in the next following days ) let me know.

1) My Website Analysis -

My Website's metrics according to SEMRush are -


They miss by a lot, actual traffic is closer to 140K page views per month

Ahrefs -



Moz (my homepage) - PA 48 | DA 48 | Links 1435

2) Article Analysis -

I have posted this article 4 days ago, it has 2600 words in it.

* current position - 27th (average) \ 05.12.2021
* Word count - 2,600.
* Researched the subject? - Yes.
* Meta Tag optimized - Yes.
* The second highest content score according to Surfer SEO.
* 4 pictures, with alt text optimized.
* 1 GIF, with alt.
* 5 internal links to the article.
* 4 external links from the article to good sources of information.

Surfer SEO

Moz (article page) - PA 35 | DA 48 | 1 Link

*** My thoughts, maybe a bit overkill with the word count, Surfer SEO suggested to remove about 1000 words to be inline with the competition.
If I wont rank after I added the backlinks to the article, I would remove words to about 1700 words total.


3) Keyword analysis -

So again, Lets dive right in, these are the metrics of our keyword -

Ahrefs -


And according to SEMRush, some extra data of the keyword -



To summarize, around 2.5K traffic, fairly easy Keyword difficulty, informational type article. should be easy with my website.


4) SERP Analysis -

Now, when I go and search for the keyword, these are our SERP competitors (I'm using Moz add on for you newbis):

1) Website number 1 - snippet
Moz PA 48 | DA 91 | 6 Links

2) People also ask (Google questions)

3) Videos (From Youtube)

4) Website number 2 - exact match as my Keyword
Moz PA 22 | DA 21 | 1 Link


5) Website number 3 - Wikihow
Moz PA 56 | DA 93 | 191 Links

6) Website number 4
Moz PA 24 | DA 21 | 9 Links




Summary & conclusions -

* I would add a few backlinks (about 10 with an average DA & PA of 50+ | with at least 10,000 page views & 100 RD's) in the next couple of days and update the thread, I don't want it to look fishy so that's why I'll do it in drip feed.
* I'll consider shortening the length of the article according to your suggestions maybe and the performance of the article, it is still relatively new, but currently rank in the 27th spot, which is not good at all.


I'll update you guys on any change in the positions, and if I'll do anything with backlinks.
That's about it, thank you for reading all the way!

L1ckMyDorr1to said:

Hi Everyone!

In this thread, I'd like to discuss with you all on one of my projects, an authority website that I've decided to publish new content on, and why It didn't rank for the top positions as of yet (4 days since I published it).
I've been playing with SEO for a few months, so I would like to share as much data as I can, so we could all learn from it.
if any of you have any Idea on why I haven't secured the top 3 positions yet, (other than links, which I will use in the next following days ) let me know.

1) My Website Analysis -

My Website's metrics according to SEMRush are -

View attachment 194178
They miss by a lot, actual traffic is closer to 140K page views per month

Ahrefs -

View attachment 194174

Moz (my homepage) - PA 48 | DA 48 | Links 1435

2) Article Analysis -

I have posted this article 4 days ago, it has 2600 words in it.

* current position - 27th (average) \ 05.12.2021
* Word count - 2,600.
* Researched the subject? - Yes.
* Meta Tag optimized - Yes.
* The second highest content score according to Surfer SEO.
* 4 pictures, with alt text optimized.
* 1 GIF, with alt.
* 5 internal links to the article.
* 4 external links from the article to good sources of information.

Surfer SEO

View attachment 194192

View attachment 194188

View attachment 194189

Moz (article page) - PA 35 | DA 48 | 1 Link

*** My thoughts, maybe a bit overkill with the word count, Surfer SEO suggested to remove about 1000 words to be inline with the competition.
If I wont rank after I added the backlinks to the article, I would remove words to about 1700 words total.


3) Keyword analysis -

So again, Lets dive right in, these are the metrics of our keyword -

Ahrefs -
View attachment 194145

And according to SEMRush, some extra data of the keyword -
View attachment 194146


To summarize, around 2.5K traffic, fairly easy Keyword difficulty, informational type article. should be easy with my website.


4) SERP Analysis -

Now, when I go and search for the keyword, these are our SERP competitors (I'm using Moz add on for you newbis):

1) Website number 1 - snippet
Moz PA 48 | DA 91 | 6 Links

2) People also ask (Google questions)

3) Videos (From Youtube)

4) Website number 2 - exact match as my Keyword
Moz PA 22 | DA 21 | 1 Link


5) Website number 3 - Wikihow
Moz PA 56 | DA 93 | 191 Links

6) Website number 4
Moz PA 24 | DA 21 | 9 Links




Summary & conclusions -

* I would add a few backlinks (about 10 with an average DA & PA of 50+ | with at least 10,000 page views & 100 RD's) in the next couple of days and update the thread, I don't want it to look fishy so that's why I'll do it in drip feed.
* I'll consider shortening the length of the article according to your suggestions maybe and the performance of the article, it is still relatively new, but currently rank in the 27th spot, which is not good at all.


I'll update you guys on any change in the positions, and if I'll do anything with backlinks.
That's about it, thank you for reading all the way!

Click to expand...

Good read, thanks for sharing op.

For the 10 backlinks of DA PA 50+ ull be getting - are these paid or free? care to expand on the source?

love this type of posts. Good luck with the rankings

(eagerly following)

This was a great read - thanks for sharing OP!

Two things I would to share:
1. SEMRush, I'm trying it now as they have backlink checker for free till the end of the year... and it's the worst tool I've ever used... the historical data is very inaccurate. Used semrush before and now I recall why I was swearing about it.
2. Not so long ago, I had the same problem... I thought that my article was going to easily rank in top 3 (after publishing it, it was around #20)... took some tweaks to get it to page 1.

Good luck

So any info on how the links were secured? how much of them are paid.

zionbar said:

Good read, thanks for sharing op.

For the 10 backlinks of DA PA 50+ ull be getting - are these paid or free? care to expand on the source?

Click to expand...

You're very welcome I want it to be a learning experience for all of us.

As for the 10 backlinks, I would like them to be as natural as possible, so link insertions / guest posts (some paid, some submitted by me) / blog comments ( do follow + no follow) for starters.
I wont buy any PBN or something black hat that could risk the website, since it's already making a good amount of $.

I'll buy all of the links from BHW Market place, I'll @ the sellers once I buy them.

I think of also buying some social signals for it to be natural looking.

and yea that's about it.

BuildMoreLinks said:

So any info on how the links were secured? how much of them are paid.

Click to expand...

I think of about 6-7 paid links (probably would be blog comments (do follow + no follow), I would also use Rytr . me to create a 700 guest post that I would spin and submit to different guest posting websites. I have found a good few of them through @jamie3000 's tool ( rocket guest posting . c o m)

praetserge said:

Two things I would to share:
1. SEMRush, I'm trying it now as they have backlink checker for free till the end of the year... and it's the worst tool I've ever used... the historical data is very inaccurate. Used semrush before and now I recall why I was swearing about it.
2. Not so long ago, I had the same problem... I thought that my article was going to easily rank in top 3 (after publishing it, it was around #20)... took some tweaks to get it to page 1.

Click to expand...

I feel you, I'm very much a numbers man as you can see, and I have found that none of the tools today provide an accurate data 100% of the times, that's why I like to use a lot of them simultaneously to try and see the average between them, and the picture as a whole.

The best tool though in my opinion is Similar Web, but unfortunately if your not a fortune 500 company, it is unattainable

This was a great read -very interesting. Thanks for the info OP!

L1ckMyDorr1to said:

Hi Everyone!

In this thread, I'd like to discuss with you all on one of my projects, an authority website that I've decided to publish new content on, and why It didn't rank for the top positions as of yet (4 days since I published it).
I've been playing with SEO for a few months, so I would like to share as much data as I can, so we could all learn from it.
if any of you have any Idea on why I haven't secured the top 3 positions yet, (other than links, which I will use in the next following days ) let me know.

1) My Website Analysis -

My Website's metrics according to SEMRush are -

View attachment 194178
They miss by a lot, actual traffic is closer to 140K page views per month

Ahrefs -

View attachment 194174

Moz (my homepage) - PA 48 | DA 48 | Links 1435

2) Article Analysis -

I have posted this article 4 days ago, it has 2600 words in it.

* current position - 27th (average) \ 05.12.2021
* Word count - 2,600.
* Researched the subject? - Yes.
* Meta Tag optimized - Yes.
* The second highest content score according to Surfer SEO.
* 4 pictures, with alt text optimized.
* 1 GIF, with alt.
* 5 internal links to the article.
* 4 external links from the article to good sources of information.

Surfer SEO

View attachment 194192

View attachment 194188

View attachment 194189

Moz (article page) - PA 35 | DA 48 | 1 Link

*** My thoughts, maybe a bit overkill with the word count, Surfer SEO suggested to remove about 1000 words to be inline with the competition.
If I wont rank after I added the backlinks to the article, I would remove words to about 1700 words total.


3) Keyword analysis -

So again, Lets dive right in, these are the metrics of our keyword -

Ahrefs -
View attachment 194145

And according to SEMRush, some extra data of the keyword -
View attachment 194146


To summarize, around 2.5K traffic, fairly easy Keyword difficulty, informational type article. should be easy with my website.


4) SERP Analysis -

Now, when I go and search for the keyword, these are our SERP competitors (I'm using Moz add on for you newbis):

1) Website number 1 - snippet
Moz PA 48 | DA 91 | 6 Links

2) People also ask (Google questions)

3) Videos (From Youtube)

4) Website number 2 - exact match as my Keyword
Moz PA 22 | DA 21 | 1 Link


5) Website number 3 - Wikihow
Moz PA 56 | DA 93 | 191 Links

6) Website number 4
Moz PA 24 | DA 21 | 9 Links




Summary & conclusions -

* I would add a few backlinks (about 10 with an average DA & PA of 50+ | with at least 10,000 page views & 100 RD's) in the next couple of days and update the thread, I don't want it to look fishy so that's why I'll do it in drip feed.
* I'll consider shortening the length of the article according to your suggestions maybe and the performance of the article, it is still relatively new, but currently rank in the 27th spot, which is not good at all.


I'll update you guys on any change in the positions, and if I'll do anything with backlinks.
That's about it, thank you for reading all the way!

Click to expand...

commendable, good luck with your ranking and keep sharing such info.

TX OP! I will follow and see your success. Keep sharing

Hi All!


Just a quick update while waiting for the links.

I have improved the article by removing a paragraph and changing some keywords to the keywords they suggested to me, and also some did some <b> to some words. I did that on the 6th of december.

Surfer SEO



So it's still shit, but slightly better. I think it'll do

Surfer SEO



Now, regarding the position of the post, we started at 73.9 according to GSC, now we have improved steadily to 34.4, and that's before any of the links I plan to buy have actually linked to the page.

I'll update when there is something more to update!

GSC