[SEO TIP] How I ranked #1 for a keyword that was stuck at #5 for a year

godknowseverything · May 15, 2019

( Above are Buyer intent keywords like "best xxx")

I created this Amazon affiliate site back in 2017 on a fresh domain. Keywords were pretty easy when I started, but I didn't focus on it apart from adding content.

In August 2018, I built 20-25 PBNs using brand and naked anchors. I saw improvement on this keyword, but it was stuck at #9-#5, and It never ranked higher though my site has better content and links compared with competitors sites.

2019 May, I read a post on Medium.com about ON-PAGE SEO update in 2019.
Here's what I did:

1. Added 5-8 interlinks per post (It should be relevant to your post).

2. Optimized the keyword density.

3. Optimized the site's speed (Moved from Shared hosting to Digitalocean VPS).

3. a) Optimized the image sizes to load faster. (This is very important)

Before: Site speed was 2 seconds.

Now: Site speed is less than 600ms.

4. Improved the user navigation on the site and tweaked the site's structure.

That's all; I re-fetched the site on Google Search console and keyword ranked at #1 after 2 days.
According to me, On-page is very important which most people ignore and focus only on PBNs.

I feel I could've saved a lot of money spent on PBN links! You can rank easy keywords without any links just by making these on-page changes.

Speed is the second most ranking factor after links. So make sure your site loads under 1 second or no matter whatever shit you do, it doesn't rank!

P.S. There was a lot of things that were mentioned in the Medium.com post I followed, but I made only above changes on my site. Keywords are settled at #1 now!

MisterF · May 15, 2019

"On-page is very important which most people ignore and focus only on PBNs."

Without a doubt, your onpage has to be excellent before you even consider off page.

Nice write up, thanks.

TheVigilante · May 15, 2019

Simple and to the point love it!

kontentdruid · May 15, 2019

yea i agree with this - site speed is usually ignored

mobile friendly is another forgotten aspect/metric

brabox · May 15, 2019

What did you do in regards keyword density?

DEFINE · May 15, 2019

Ranking without any links... ahhhh. So many people using powerful PBNs and building great links, you can't really outrank them without building links yourself. But OK, proper on-page definitely helps.

sonic172 · May 15, 2019

Awesome stuff. I've been focusing loads on my on-page optimization atm and I feel it is helping.

thetoothfairy · May 15, 2019

do you use WP for the site? which plugin do you use to improve image size

Rowdy Devil · May 15, 2019

Looks like I have to work my on page now

Mops · May 15, 2019

godknowseverything said:
You can rank easy keywords without any links just by making these on-page changes.

Unfortunately, that's not true.

legion85 · May 15, 2019

godknowseverything said:
That's all; I re-fetched the site on Google Search console

How does one re-fetch the site? Just re-add the sitemap or is there some other trick?

Greasedonkey · May 15, 2019

How much are you paying for VPS from digital Ocean?

jani · May 15, 2019

Yes mate I do agree with you one off my client site has been attacked and the rankings fall down where as we have removed malware and done on page optimization.

For this the ranking come up to 2 pages now focus is on off page to boost a little hope for the best

Greasedonkey · May 15, 2019

godknowseverything said:
(Moved from Shared hosting to Digitalocean VPS).

What specs droplet are you using? How's it configured?

Dreams411 · May 15, 2019

Onpage is very important. Yes, I agree with you. But you may be wrong when you dogmatically said, "you can rank easy keywords without any link just by making these changes." I totally disagree with that, at least not in 2019. These days no matter how easy your keywords are, you'll still need some links for them to rank well. Onpage without backlink is like rice without stew. If you still think otherwise, then remove your PBNs let's see what happens next.

Dr_And · May 15, 2019

Which vps package did you choose ?
Btw nice share

theqavish · May 16, 2019

One page was the last thing in my list as far as SEO was concerned, as I am done with the offpage seo, now on page is first in my list.

terrycody · May 16, 2019

Nice case study, though I don't think speed is your reason to rank No.1, I guess interlinking and the density are the thing.

Google (John muller and other fellows) said many times, speed is a very very tiny ranking factor, even near none exist, that means, except your sites won't open in 10s++, you will never meet real problems to rank your site to No.1, and there are a ton of No.1 ranking with their speed is much inferior than later results. (Yes if u interested, u can find the original quotes on the web)

IMO, speed factor is too much overrated, because each Google said so, people don't even believe. But hell yeah I agree if your website is wayyyyy tooooo slow like, more than 6s++ to open, you will definitely lose a small portion of users.

But u said your previous time is 2S, that's already cool enough! (that means IMO, no issue to rank No.1, thus I give conclusion its your other factors)

michealcay · May 16, 2019

IMO, the things that help you improve rankings are keyword density and internal links, not the website's speed.

RobbieBeeZ · May 16, 2019

godknowseverything said:
( Above are Buyer intent keywords like "best xxx")

I created this Amazon affiliate site back in 2017 on a fresh domain. Keywords were pretty easy when I started, but I didn't focus on it apart from adding content.

In August 2018, I built 20-25 PBNs using brand and naked anchors. I saw improvement on this keyword, but it was stuck at #9-#5, and It never ranked higher though my site has better content and links compared with competitors sites.

2019 May, I read a post on Medium.com about ON-PAGE SEO update in 2019.
Here's what I did:

1. Added 5-8 interlinks per post (It should be relevant to your post).

2. Optimized the keyword density.

3. Optimized the site's speed (Moved from Shared hosting to Digitalocean VPS).

3. a) Optimized the image sizes to load faster. (This is very important)

Before: Site speed was 2 seconds.

Now: Site speed is less than 600ms.

4. Improved the user navigation on the site and tweaked the site's structure.

That's all; I re-fetched the site on Google Search console and keyword ranked at #1 after 2 days.
According to me, On-page is very important which most people ignore and focus only on PBNs.

I feel I could've saved a lot of money spent on PBN links! You can rank easy keywords without any links just by making these on-page changes.

Speed is the second most ranking factor after links. So make sure your site loads under 1 second or no matter whatever shit you do, it doesn't rank!

P.S. There was a lot of things that were mentioned in the Medium.com post I followed, but I made only above changes on my site. Keywords are settled at #1 now!

Do you have a link to the medium post, I would like to read it.

[SEO TIP] How I ranked #1 for a keyword that was stuck at #5 for a year

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