How long you've seen it take to rank in small niche
-
Hello,
How long do you see small niche sites taking to rank where they should be for their strength?
Our last site took at least 6 months. Our current site's home page for our main term is stuck at around the 40th page and not moving. It's an exact match domain so it should be on at least page 2.
We have one site in the industry already that carries similar products but it is much bigger with a much wider scope of products. It took a while to rank too.
Our only backlinks I'm working on are Google & Youtube (and DMOZ), we have a facebook fan page. Our site is nicer than the site in position #1. Working on making as many pages as possible 10X content.
Thank You,
Bob
-
This is just wildassguessing... When you metrics are overwhelming, and your content is greatly superior by formal industry standards... but these little cottage industry sites with informal content and a tribe of visitors are beating you.... your best prayer of getting to the top is to be patient and allow Google to observe that your visitor metrics put enough weight on the scale to make your site more credible.
Google will believe rubbish for a while but strong truth can still prevail.
-
Wow, I think that's exactly what is happening. There's a ton of spam being searched for. Really good insight EGOL, thanks a lot!
-
I've had some keywords that I thought my site would shoot right to the top upon publishing a new page. Why? The competition was sleepy little sites that didn't use formal language, had lots of inaccurate and pseudo-information. I thought that my site would roll right over them. However, my site didn't make the top 50. Six months later, still not in the top 50. So, I take a close look and my bet was that the presence of informal, inaccurate, pseudocrap was probably what the masses of people were searching for. I refused to put that stuff on my site - even in criticism - and now, after well over a year, some of my pages in this niche are starting to break into the top 10 and pull a little traffic.
So, you can have weak competitors, even BS competitors, but if they got the language of the niche and a tribe of searchers and visitors behind them, you might have trouble winning even if your metrics are overwhelming.
-
I found a checkbox in our cart today that rel-cononicals www, non-www, index.html, etc. They were separate. Do you guys think this could have caused it?
We also have a lot of these products on another site, this is a smaller, specific niche.
-
Hey Bob,
Organic SEO isn't really my area, but if that niche is really niche, being stuck on page 40 after several months of work raises a red flag for me. Have you dug into Google Search Console to be sure there isn't a problem with a site?
-
It depends on the niche, competition, Quality and frequency of content and also the language. I have been able to rank a site as less as 4 weeks. But Again I could not do scalably across languages and niches.
Unique Quality of content and frequency of publishing goes long way
-
Hi Bob,
You might know that it depends on the niche's difficulty.
In my experience, it ever took less than 6 weeks to rank in the 20s.Also, I presume that you understand that having great content and a great site doesn't neccesarly mean you'll rank higher fast.
As you say the only backlinks you have are just a few, you might need a few more links to go higher. But, just links aren't the ticket to 1st page.
Usually on page optimization plays an important role in the rankings.
Are you sure that your more important pages are correctly optimized for the desired search terms? And just to role out the obvious, are you sure that google is seing your site? Are you getting the correct visibility from Google? What about other search engines?I gave you more questions than answers, it may be that there's something that you've overlooked and missed. Or just that the niche is competitive enough so you wont rank better faster as you think.
Hope I've helped.
GR.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Rank brain and User stats
We have a company that has very good link metrics (much better than competitors), great content, conversions and generates 3x the amount of turnover the other companies do. The issue is we are being challenged on our number one keywords by this competitor selling lower value items to get to 70% of the same amount of customers as us and I feel we can put this down to Rank brain and us having a strong sales force and due to this very few make it back to the websites (30% are new and 70% are repeat and for repeat we have a strong sales force unlike that competitor which catch the reorder before the make it back to the site again) so we lose the ctr, brand etc from the repeat not returning (the competitor only sells though the website so all return) In effect they have 500 customers and we have 200 so Ctr, brand, back to serp would be stronger could this effect the rankings? If you look at it like this Two companies with 500 customers (200 new and 300 repeat) 500 customers to the first all have to order online so 500 customers going back to serps, CTR up due to them searching to get the site up etc 500 customers for the second but 300 (the repeat) go though the sales lines and find the number on the email or agents call them when predicted to order again so never have to go back to the site = 40% less CTR and staying on the site customers
Algorithm Updates | | BobAnderson0 -
Can 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?
E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
Looking for Search Engine Ranking Factors more recent than 2013
The 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors study is a very useful study. However, it was completed more than two years ago, and a lot of algorthim updates have been made since then. Is there a more recent study of this than the one produced in 2013? Any and all information would be valuable. I am also trying to understand the importance of site speed as a ranking factor. Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | JorgeUmana0 -
How important is Social Media for building domain authority / Google rankings? Are there any cases?
I really would like to know if someone tested the importance of Social Media for Google rankings.
Algorithm Updates | | Seeders
Are there some sites who build authority only by doing good social media?
Ofcourse, I know it is all about the mix (content, linkbuilding, social media, etc.) but how important is it?
I know many sites who rank good without any form of social media, but I do not know any sites who do only social media and rank high. I hope there are some good cases which give good insight. ps. I know it becomes more and more important...0 -
Number of Items As a Google Ranking Factor??
If I search for "hiking boots" and scan down the SERPs I see the following... Google reports "483 items" for the Zappos.com page. Google reports "Results 1 - 36 of 85" for the Shoebuy.com page (and that does not appear in their code). So, Google is obviously paying attention to the depth of your information or the number of items that you are showing. If they think that is important enough to count and report in the SERPs, might they also be using that information as a ranking factor?? PRACTICAL APPLICATION FOR SEO: If google is using this information, perhaps people should list all of their color, size, etc variants on a single page. For example if you sell widgets in five colors, instead of making one page for each color, list all five on the same page.
Algorithm Updates | | EGOL1 -
When did Google include display results per page into their ranking algorithm?
It looks like the change took place approx. 1-2 weeks ago. Example: A search for "business credit cards" with search settings at "never show instant results" and "50 results per page", the SERP has a total of 5 different domains in the top 10 (4 domains have multiple results). With the slider set at "10 results per page", there are 9 different domains with only 1 having multiple results. I haven't seen any mention of this change, did I just miss it? Are they becoming that blatant about forcing as many page views as possible for the sake of serving more ads?
Algorithm Updates | | BrianCC0 -
Will signing up for Google Places affect my national rankings
OK, Here is a question which I can't find but think people have thought about. I would like to know others opinion. I have had a site that ranks well under generic national keyword terms. (not geographically specific) Its a small website, only 10 pages. We get 85% of our business from online applications. These applications come from all over the united states.Our SERP rankings generate 70% of all our traffic. My question is this: we operate in a state where we don't do business. We are a virtual business. Should I sign up for google places? Will It hurt my national SERP rankings?
Algorithm Updates | | FidelityOne0 -
(Ireland & USA) Speilling 'Z' v's 'S'
Hi, My site is called ExampleVirtualisation.ie it's only new but when I type Example Virtualistion (the S in the word) into Google.ie The suggestive spelling for Example virtualiztion (with the Z) keeps coming up. When I click the Suggestion Spelling with Example Virtualiztion (Z) another website arrives in position 1. My site is not being reconised for the Z type spelling. How can I get found? I was thinking of purchasing the ExampleVirtualiztion.ie (Z) as well & redirecting to my S spelling site. Also optimising my title & des tags with both S & Z spellings. I've only recently submitted my sitemap.xml in Google -hopefully this will help my site to be found. Apologies if the Questions sounds a bit tricky, Your advise is welcome thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | GlenBOB0
