Strategies to compete with a new domain/site
-
Hi all,
What would be ( highlights ) your strategy in order to rank and compete with a new domain against competitors that have an average of 50% domain authority and around 2000 root domain linking to them, if you would start with a completely new website/domain?
How long would you estimate the new site to be competitive?
In the retail area.
Working on it a month full time
I would go with
- On page SEO off course, detailling each products and building the internal link structure
- Get back links, backlinks, backlinks and... backlinks...
- Build the social media network
- feed a blog
Thanks for your input
Considering working on the site for a month full time, I would estimate a ranking after a month or 2 although the competitions very high. Your thoughts ?
-
Hi Derek,
Sorry for reviving a very old thread but I was wondering how did it go with this project?
Thanks
Ricardo
-
Ok thanks
-
If you look at the wikipedia article for Philadelphia you will find something very similar to what we produce. (but ours would look a lot better)
-
Nice. Would you mind showing me one live article that you produced.
-
Right, our goal is to beat their content and then use it as a weapon to beat their links.
-
Ok thanks for the clarification. Those would effectively be best-on-the-web articles.
-
In a couple of months (two people working) we would produce perhaps six to eight articles, each with a few thousand words, many photos, data tables, references, graphs/art and more.
We are not going for "high quality". We are going for "best-on-the-web" for their topic. That is what you need to get the links to YOUR article.
-
Thanks for the input EGOL. Question: How many content are you looking at to say "couple of month or more" ? I mean that's a lot of content.
I have a good feeling that a kick start with around 50 high quality 1000 words articles all well optimized, each one targeting one specific keyword and interlinked would be a good starter for the content. And forward on the link building afterward.
-
I like to attack with high quality content that will pull natural links continuously over time.
So, for a retail site I would be looking to produce great content in the same topic niche as the products. That content has to be useful to your visitors and be high enough in quality to attract natural links. The goal would be to have best-on-the-web content for those topics. For a niche retail site like you describe producing this content could take a couple months or more of full time work. Then you need to get a few links to get the ball rolling. At first this would contribute very little to the strength of your site but if you have done a great job on selecting the right content and preparing it superbly the strength of your site will grow steadily over time. And, most important, the growth rate of the strength will accelerate over time as your rankings climb and your traffic increases.
-
Thanks for this input. I going in the same path as your first phrase. Making all the page perfect for the choosing keyword. In fact, pretty much of the competition are ranking due to
- Domain Authority
- High number of links ( internal, external, etc )
Most of the description for the "product" are short and more on a "specifications" style. I think that several good article/spec pages ( like 50 to begins with ) all very well optimise would give an edge putting some "content" up.
"Find the keywords that provide the best traffic (your competitors will be using them) and focus on the best 2-3 word phrases" -> yes, I prefer since a long time now to work with 2-3 and 4 word phrase even more.
Thanks for the input again.
-
Thanks for your input Gordon
-
I would look at getting all the on page perfect for the chosen keywords.
Making sure the urls target those keywords and all the canonical tags are set up to avoid losing juice to upper/lower case issues.
Having good human appreciated headings but still using keywords without overuse.
Get the links and blogs rolling with good anchor text.
See where you competitors are making errors in these areas and just do it better.
Find the keywords that provide the best traffic (your competitors will be using them) and focus on the best 2-3 word phrases.
Most of all keep it white-hat, or the hard work will be short lived.
Our business www.oznappies.com is ranking on page 1 & 2 for the main keywords within 2 months using that strategy and following reports and tools on SEOMoz. We have an SEO doing the links and blogs and I am doing the on-page work.
-
Hello,
As you probably know with a brand new site it is difficult to rank for competitive keywords within the first few months. I suggest create 2 lists of keywords - one keyword list that should contain keywords that are competitive and should be seen as longer term goals. The other keyword list should be less competitive keywords(possibly longer tail), that you can rank for in the short term.
Regards,
Gordon
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
-
Planning to transition to a new website domain - should I press pause on SEO initiatives?
Hello - my company is planning to transition to a new website domain sometime this year, probably about six months from now. Our current website does not currently get much organic traffic from unbranded search terms. I would really like to fix that by publishing lots of new blog posts and trying to get more backlinks. But with the website transition on the horizon, I'm wondering if I should hold off on posting new pages and getting backlinks for the time being. Then once the new website is live, I can start to ramp things up. What would you do in this situation? Also, does anyone know of any thorough guides or walk-throughs that cover all of the best practices (re: SEO) when migrating to a new website domain?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | collinburkewg0 -
Old content with trailing `/` - What should be my new approach?
Dear team Moz, I'm investigating SEO issues for the site that dropped rankings over a period of 4-6 months; after conversion from old platform (xenForo) to new custom developed platform. The old version of the site was a simple xenForo based forum; with threads having standard url structure as like www.domain.com/threads/thread-title.{thread_id}/. Notice the trailing slash. We chose to keep the URLs intact during conversion to new platform; however the site still lost rankings. I'm sure there could be multiple reasons for it - but I wish to know if I should adjust the URLs - 1. By 301 redirecting all the URLs with trailing / to the URLs without /. 2. Leave the URLs as they were. I must also mention that the new site has several new sections; and the old forum is just one part of it. The rest of the site follows URLs without trailing / - as it's the recommended URL structure by Google. I'd really appreciate your suggestions on this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KaustubhKatdare0 -
Subdomains vs. Subfolders vs. New Site
Hello geniuses!!! Here's my Friday puzzle: We have a plastic surgery client who already has a website that's performing fairly well and is driving in leads. She is going to be offering a highly specialized skincare program for cancer patients, and wants a new logo, new website and new promo materials all for this new skincare program. So here's the thing - my gut reaction says NO NEW WEBSITE! NO SUBDOMAIN! because of everything I've read about moving things on and off subdomains, etc (I just studied this: http://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday). And, why wouldn't we want to use the authority of her current site, right? While she doesn't necessarily have a high authority domain - we're not talking WebMD, here - she does have some authority that we've built over time. But, because this is a pretty separate product from her general plastic surgery practice, what would you guys do? Since we'll be creating a logo and skincare "look and feel" for this product, and there will likely be a lot of information involved with it, I don't think we'll be able to just create one page. Is it smart to: a) build a separate site in a subfolder of her current site? (plasticsurgerypractice.com/skincare) b) build a subdomain? (skincare.plasticsurgerypractice.com) c) build her a new site (plasticsurgeryskincare.com)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RachelEm0 -
New Site Structure and 301s
We're moving towards a new site with new site structure. The old site has numerous backlinks to past events that won't be published on the new site. The new site will have about 60 future events that are currently active on the old site as well. I was wondering the best way to move forward with the 301 redirect plan. I was considering redirecting the old site structure to an "archive.ourdomain.co.uk" subdomain and redirecting the 60 or so active events to their equivalents on the new site. Would this be a sensible plan? Also for the active events, is there any difference between: _redirecting the old page to the archive page and then forwarding to the equivalent on the new page _ and redirecting the old page directly to the new page
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chanm790 -
Redirection strategy for mobile site
Hello folks! I am just about to launch a mobile specific version of our website. We were not able to make the main site responsive so have decided to make a seperate copy on an m dot subdomain. I have kept the url structure identical between both sites and added a canonical url on the mobile pages pointing to the desktop site. I will detect and redirect all mobile devices and googlebot mobile crawler to the m dot site. The questions i have are as follows... Is that the best approach if you use a mobile specific site on a seperate subdomain? What type of redirects should i use to send mobile users (and googlebot mobile) to the mobile site? My mobile site does not have all the pages the desktop site has. What happens if i redirect a mobile user from a page on the desktop site to a page on the mobile site that does not exist? (will give 404 currently). I guess i could maintain a list of valid mobile urls but this would be a pain (and a bit of an overhead) Your help is most appreciated Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobertHill0 -
Creating a new site for each department of your business. Thoughts?
What is everyone's thoughts on creating several websites for your business for each department. For example.. say you owned a car dealership. You create a different site for: New cars for sale Used cars for sale Service department -mechanical repairs Parts & accessories department Financing department Positives: Having separate sites for each department would probably make it easier to rank on the specific search terms. Since a whole site on one topic Ie. Used cars would rank over just a page with the same information on a dealership website. Negatives: You would have to maintain 5 sites Link building Social Media Analytics ETC. Since they are all new domains & sites it will take longer for each site to rank. Google will see them as small lower authority sites since they are only a few pages & not larger sites. What is everyone's thoughts on this? Would you create several small sites? Or would you continue working on one big main authority site & continue link earning to the specific department pages, blogging on the topics etc. Thanks for any help & opinions!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DCochrane0 -
URGENT - How to Present New Site Architecture to Development team for implementation
Guys I am not technically savvy. I just want to know how to present the website architecture I want to be implemented on my website... how do I present my suggestions to the development team. For example.... Should I say. Page Level 1 - HOME Page (URL) Page Level 2 - About Us Page Page Level 2 - Feedback Page Page Level 2 - Our Services Page Level 2 - Contact Us Page Page Level 2 - Accounting jobs Page Level 3 - Audting jobs Page level 3 - Junior accouting jobs Page Level 2 - Engineering jobs Page level 3 - architecture jobs Page level 3 - Motor engineering jobs Page Level 2 - IT Jobs Page level 3 - Hardware Jobs Page level 4 - Job Post 1 Page level 4 - Job Post 2 Page level 4 - Job Post 3 Please guide me my fellow MOZZERS.... I really need an answer/guidance at the very earliest. Iwill be truly obliged Regards, Talha
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MTalhaImtiaz0 -
On-Site Optimization Tips for Job site?
I am working on a job site that only ranks well for the homepage with very low ranking internal pages. My job pages do not rank what so ever and are database driven and often times turn to 404 pages after the job has been filled. The job pages have to no content either. Anybody have any technical on-site recommendations for a job site I am working on especially regarding my internal pages? (Cross Country Allied.com) Any help would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0