[Journey] Learning To Build A Site That Ranks

Hey guys, I've been reading up on SEO for a few weeks now but I am still a complete newbie when it comes to actually doing it. In this journey I've decided to set a decent goal of just ranking a site and getting organic traffic.

The site

This goal isn't really about money for me at the moment, I just want to learn the mechanics behind ranking a site. So I picked a topic that I know well. So I can write about the various keywords I dig up myself to save some cash. So far I've found 8 keywords with 1600-8500 monthly searches. I'll throw adsense on there once I start ranking, the CPC is $2-8. The plan is to make a small blog with around 12 articles, one for each of those keywords and a few articles that aren't optimized for anything to practice writing. The keywords were found on kwFinder and the difficulty was 30-40 for all of them.

What I'm currently Trying

Currently my plan is to build an effective PBN to boost my site up. At the moment I'm just trying to get this site indexed. Only my about me page is indexing and that's not SEO optimized for anything. I don't want to send any links to the site until the crawlers have found at least some of the main pages. To remedy this I've thrown a link from the about me into one of the articles. The site is semi-siloed where the articles link to each other, so if something follows this about me link, it'll find most of my site.

On site SEO, all my keyword articles have around 0.5% density for their keyword, but there's a lot of related keywords getting thrown around organically due to the needs of a good article. I'm trying to write articles that are useful for traffic yet optimized for Big G. Here I realized that I'm not amazing at writing content, even stuff I know about, so when I do a real monetized site I will probably get content writers to do articles for me. It's definitely passable for Money sites, but I think I'll just stick to writing content for my T2 PBN to keep it clean.

As for my PBN, I'm building it from scratch. My plan is to buy expired domains and build a home page blog on them with "real articles" written by me, with media and no-follow links to other relevant sites, with do-follow links to my "money site". I've registered a PBN domain with TF=CF=22 and a PA of 25. I haven't gotten hosting for it yet. I'm a little strapped for cash at the moment. I work full time and can throw about $700 a mo in investment usually, but I'm going on a trip to Vegas soon. This guy will come live mid December.

In the mean time I've paid to have a permanent post in a TF25+ PBN for my site. I bought it before I found my domain, otherwise I'd be building it instead of getting the post. Oh well.

Currently I'm waiting to index.

Questions I have

-How hard is it to rank on a 30-40 difficulty on kwFinder? Would it be pretty simple, could I do it just with my first PBN or would I need more? None of the competition has exact match in URL or meta data on the front page, in content or URL. My articles have a relevant main URL with an exact match subdomain and are optimized via Yoast.

-How do you get a wordpress site indexed on google? I'm having so much trouble. I tried to submit site maps and use the meta tag, but it's having difficulty indexing between the HTTPS and HTTP version of my site or something. Half the time it says it's not indexed and the other half it says it is. All that got indexed was my About me page which I didn't even know I had.

-How effective is outsourcing writing for keyword articles? Realizing how crappy I am at writing demotivated me a bit. I'm focused on SEO but I want the traffic to get the most out of the content so it actually helps them find the information they want. With this in mind how much would an 800 word article cost? What kind of information do the writers need to create an article in a field they don't really know? Do they just research it if the buyer doesn't know anything about the keyword? Would the just rewrite other sites?

Hey man, sounds like you are doing well, glad to hear you're focusing on a niche you're personally interested in.

I'm a total scrub so I don't have any groundbreaking advice unfortunately, however I personally recommend trying out meatheads methods if you're strapped for cash.

Also what you can do is target lower search keywords with lower competition to build your site a rep and then really push for the main keywords later with your PBN.

As for the indexing, not a clue, I haven't even written more than one article for my site so far haha.

Hope it goes well, all the best!

Oh and for articles it's like $3 per 500 words but if you check out the marketplace their are tons of sellers and each will have the information you need. I'd say it's definitely worth doing unless you have A) No money at all or B) Prefer writing yourself and/or have a knack for it anyway.

Try these two things:

1.) Update your robots.txt file via wordpress plugin. Just search it on your plugins page and it should be the first option.
2.) Check your wp_options column in your wordpress database, and check to see if the main site url is right.

I think that should resolve any internal errors.

Good luck!

Good luck mate

Good luck mate.

So no-follow everyone else, except your own sites? Not worried about a footprint? Hell, just link out to yourself.

Good luck.

Update: My site is still bouncing around in which pages are indexed. It's really weird, I'm a total newbie to even getting sites on google. I assumed once it was up - it was up, I used wordpress yoasts google notification. The About me page is back to being de-indexed but the main page is up now. This is with searching "site:url"

I'm trying to learn how to outreach to other sites in my niche for a "legit" backlink. So I started researching and finding blogs, blog rolls, link lists, resource pages etc that would be leads for contact. I've found a few possibilities. But I'm starting to note an issue. There's no blog community for this niche. It's just companies selling products and affiliate review sites. There's no lifestyle blogs, which I was hoping to network with. So I'm having a bit of a niche existential crisis. After 3 hours of searching I found maybe 10 relevant backlink leads, and most are DA 10-14 and to be honest don't even look maintained. My competitors have non-relevant links from old 1997 DA 70 anglefire blogs lol.

Sure I could pay a guy $60 and get a few PBN links, but I feel it's really shaky ground when every backlink would be irrelevant. Any tips for new ground niche websites gaining authority?

Have you considered trying Amazon affiliate? Might be a way to find something else you're interested in. Either way you definitely want a niche that has some sort of online discussion that allows you to network your site to other communities.

Good luck mate

Alright so some big adjustments. I've decided on a few changes to my site idea. Originally it was going to be a sniper site set up on a few keywords to see if I can get traffic. I've adjusted my aim to an authority site. The niche I begin with will just be the start. I intend to grow out to new sub-niches after I build up some DA. I also have plans that will create a backlink community as well. Done through outreach allowing businesses without blogs (But high site metrics) to guest post in exchange for relevant backlinks. In order to pave the way I've picked up a new domain. I got a fresh one so I can build the TF,DA,PA's up myself and see the effects. The site will have blog posts and review posts for adsense and amazon affiliate as well as case study reviews from relevant businesses.

Current plans are:
-Put some real effort into site design for a large authority site
-Set up some extremely high quality articles for the main niche keywords
-Pump out some dinky articles for long tail coverage
-Build up a link structure that spreads authority throughout

Next few weeks:
-Get new site indexed right.
-FInd some low hanging backlinks like paid/free directories and broken link guide sites.
-Look into viability of a buying a few high quality PBN backlinks to start the ball rolling.
-Set up amazon affiliate.

mechleader said:

-How do you get a wordpress site indexed on google? I'm having so much trouble. I tried to submit site maps and use the meta tag, but it's having difficulty indexing between the HTTPS and HTTP version of my site or something. Half the time it says it's not indexed and the other half it says it is. All that got indexed was my About me page which I didn't even know I had.

Click to expand...

- I never have a problem. Just add your site into google webmaster tool. Select the version you want (http or https). If you're using https, use a wordpress plugin that forces the site to use https (so if anyone goes to http it brings them to https).
Good luck to you.

Update!

Alright so website is all set up, nice theme, got the plugins I want. Got it set up so it looks amazing on mobile, tablet and desktop. It's starting to index on google. So now all the site needs is content.

I'm opting for an authority site over a small sniper site. I took to the drawing board to rebuild my site and figure out proper link flow. I actually have a degree in my niche, so I took some time and wrote a really high quality 2700 word article on one of the larger keyword bunches. SEO optimized for the biggest of course. Made it look super fancy with formatting and media. My goal is to use this one for linkbuilding then spread that juicy juice down to the other articles through contextual links.

Tomorrow I have a day off so I'm going to pound out 5 small articles 500-1000 words. Looking for long tails and generally popular posts and to build that link silo. Also create a contact me and an about me page. Once these pages start getting indexed, I'm going to start building links. I'll hit up easy directories and start looking for high quality PBNs to buy links on.

The site is going to be monetised by adsense initially. After I build up some generic info content (20 posts) I'll move into some professional amazon affiliation reviews.

Some Questions:
-My adsense ads are there but they're just blocks the same color as the background. What's up with that? I created the ad unit today. Is that the issue?
-PM me if you know any good PBN permanent link sellers that have high quality networks. Looking for good metrics, manual content, no footprint, preferably niche focused sites (PBN site with only home posts for example). I'm willing to pay well and write content for good relevant backlinks

Sniper site, eh?

I had a few of those in 2010. Good times.

Alright so I've had an extremely busy week at work. So not a lot of free time for working on my site. I've moved to an almost exclusive Amazon Affiliate article writing (though have a few sites I can use for affiliate links (All around 6-8% commission). Instead of doing some natural link building I've gone for some market services on this site. Drip feeding some PBN backlinks over the next month. I think I'm just going to move to full on review articles for a while because it's easier to come up with info content from common themes in the industry. After doing three review articles I've gotten two ideas on guide that help make informed purchasing decisions to help silo my site better and make it more than just a flat review site. They'll probably be 3k word info articles.

I've got a two week vacation now, but my first week is pretty busy with family. I'm writing 3 review articles concurrently, they're pretty high quality. Just trying to learn how to write good articles that convert. I run through the questions asked by people and answers, high reviews and low reviews. As well as add my own technical understanding. But I"m playing with formats to see what looks the best for a review.

The site is indexing but still not ranking for keywords, hoping the drip fed PBN posts will start ranking it over the next month. I'm playing the slow burn so I don't mind right now. I have to contact some sites about affiliate membership though so that's on the horizon for when I get real internet connections set up.

Have a good journey

All right a little update! Put two new articles up on my site today. I'm on holiday in vegas so I'm slightly distracted, but I have a lot of free time. I have a youtube adsense account which I found out is actually not valid for my site, so I'm trying to "apply" with my site to post ads but I've literally waited 10 business days when they say 3 and have received no information. I have to set up an Amazon account and I might lose out on Adsense for my info content. Which is why I moved to writing educated (bachelor degree) reviews for products.

BUT I FINALLY GOT A PAGE TO RANK
...on Page 7 on google lol

I know it's silly but it's something I've never done before. Semrush has me ranking for a keyword I didn't SEO for... MIND BLOWN. There's no backlinks or anything yet. It's also on info content which means I can't adsense monetize without google moving things forward.

Pounding out Articles, siloing and waiting on backlinks!

Alright alright,

I'm starting to rank for chosen keywords. I did some blog/forum comment services and am pretty happy, they're not spammy and the anchor text is acceptable. I just wanted to get noticed by BiggieG. On majestic my site went from TF=CF=0 to TF17 CF20. Definitely not relevant link juice though but it seems to be setting things in motion. I'm definitely ranking for longtails I haven't searched for and that aren't on this image. For the most part these keywords are about 800-1k Monthlies. The rank 77, 8th page keyword is a sexy 50k, but it'll take a lot to beat the competition in there.

In the near future I have some PBN posts I purchased getting drip fed over a month. I have 20-40 coming up. All the while still trying to rank. Adsense is annoying, thinking of starting a new account with them, it's just too difficult waiting in the dark with my hosted youtube account not being upgraded. Going to start tracking traffic stats soon too.

Gl mate, let's see how the pnb posts work for you