Just Launched New Site - First Steps to Get it to Rank?
-
Good Morning Mozzers...
We just recently launched a brand new site and now the fun part begins: trying to get it to appear in the SERPS.
I'm wondering if you guys can share your best and most proven secrets/tricks to get brand new sites to rank in Google.... For example, what are the first directories you add the site to? What are some links you try and aquire first?
Looking for some tips and ideas for a brand new site.
Thanks in advance.
-
Thanks for your advice --- very very helpful -- greatly appreciated.
-
Hi Prime,
On the presumption that your onsite SEO is complete and your content is indeed excellent I would do the following.My no1 tip on getting your site index'd would simply to be to simply fetch as google and submit the main page. Set up your analytics and then focus on your local SEO. Do all your local listings, and basically everything moz recommends about local SEO. This should be plenty for you to be index'd.
Then I would stop thinking about "Link Building" in the traditional sense.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking
links = ranks = clicks = visitorsinstead try to think of it as
publicity = visitors = natural links = ranks = more visitorsTake some of your excellent content and begin marketing it. Get social media happy, g twitter, facebook, google+ and every other platform you can think of active. Social media activity is a good ranking factor, use it. Get active on niche forums, other niche websites and begin spreading your brand. By this I don't mean spamming forums with links to your website I mean offering excellent advice and relevant links where appropriate. Ensure profiles are complete with links to your website so when you have helped someone and they check you out they find their way back. If you have a marketing budget get some PPC to begin driving traffic, and look at other forms of advertising. If your content really is excellent odd links will begin to sprout up.
This achieves 2 things. It spreads your brand and builds relationships and reputations within your niche.
I would do this from anywhere from 2 to 6 months. Asking for links as a new website even if your content is top notch is hard and has a very low success rate. Asking for a link from a website you have spent 2-6 months supporting and having a presence on is a lot easier. Especially if you can design a piece of content you know that site needs. Is a certain question being asked a lot on a website? Make something providing the answer then approach them with the content.
Alternatively make the first move. Found another website that cracking in your niche but not directly competitive? Review them, award them, and tell them about it. Websites like to brag when they receive a 5* award or review and will often link back to it.
Don't act to receive a link, act to advertise your brand.
I apologise if this isn't a direct answer to "how to link build". But i wanted to stress the difficulty of link building, even more so for new sites. I would rather spend 6 months of time on social media, building relationships and working myself into a position into the niche to ask for a high authority link with some success rather than spend 6 months of NO responses from link requests.
-
Link building for any site is a huge subject - certainly not something you can cover here.
However, your best links are going to come from amazing content / linkable assets. If you have something that your niche are going to enjoy reading, then you will find links will happen.
If you are happy performing outreach, you can speed this process up and let key influencers know what you have, but tread carefully... If you just started to Tweet someone you have never spoken to before and asked for links, it can be taken badly and you can ruin your chances for the future.
Here are a few resources to read:
-- MOZ beginners guide to link building -- Backlinkto -- Point Blank SEO -- Post Penguin Link Building (Disclaimer... This is my site)
Hopefully you will get some good pointers from there.
-Andy
-
ok - great advice on the blogging outreach attempts, will definitely try that.
Any other tips/suggestions?
I'll report back on how all of the tips and suggestions worked out.
Thanks
-
I don't know what market your website is in but maybe there are a few blogs/news websites that would write a small article about how your website is new and launching, maybe you have something unique that people will be happy to share with their readers?
It might be worth trying to come up with an outreach strategy and target website owners directly about how your new website is so amazing, and new, and useful etc.
Local directories are good to start with but I don't think its as easy as there being a specific set of link building tips that people run through when they first launch (although if I'm wrong I would love to know them!!).
-
Hey Andy,
I agree with everything that you just said, but after all on page optimization is complete, and we are confident that our content is excellent (we are constantly adding new, high quality content), where do you begin in the link building world?
Got to start somewhere, niche directories may not help for link purposes, but at least they will drive targeted traffic ...
But I'm looking for ideas on how to get started with link building for new websites.
Thanks again
-
Hi,
...what are the first directories you add the site to? What are some links you try and aquire first?
I wouldn't be starting here. Directories for the most part are pretty useless, unless you are adding yourself to a niche / local one that might help with specifics.
Follow all best practices with your site. Ensure that you have thoughtful and well phrased page titles that describe the page. Make sure your content is amazing (average isn't going to cut the mustard). Spend additional time to ensure this happens. Don't fall into the trap of overusing keywords and make sure your site is well configured to avoid duplicate pages.
There is so much to cover here, that I would suggest you spend some time reading over the MOZ Beginners Guide. This will give you a good grounding into what you should be doing.
-Andy
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
-
Can anyone tell me why some of the top referrers to my site are porn site?
We noticed today that 4 of the top referring sites are actually porn sites. Does anyone know what that is all about? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | thinkcreativegroup1 -
Keyword rankings for new website good in Yahoo and Bing but no movement in Google?
Hello, This past September I launched a new redesigned website for a client. His old website was a static html site that was many years old and the new website was created using WordPress. With the new design we made sure to use all the proper techniques for SEO. (h1 tages, image names, quality links, page titles, etc.) Plus, all the content is new content written for this site. I've actually launched new sites many times and after a few months usually start seeing keyword ranking improvements from the major search engines. With this particular website I'm seeing improvements in Yahoo and Bing but no movement in Google. I've used Google Webmaster Tools and made sure my sitemap is being submitted, etc. It all seems good, but I can't understand why Yahoo and Bing are working but nothing from Google. My page grades are all A's and B's and Moz isn't showing any big issues. Maybe I need to give it more time? This client is a lawyer and has many websites out there so maybe he's being penalized somewhere I don't know? As I mentioned, I've been doing SEO for about 8 years and have never had this much trouble with Google. I was wondering if you can look at the site and see if there are any glaring issues I'm missing. Website: http://www.arizonamedicalmalpractice.info/ The keyword phrases were are looking at are "Phoenix Medical Malpractice Lawyer", "Phoenix Medical Malpractice Attorney:, "Arizona Medical Malpractice Lawyer & Attorney", etc. I appreciate anyone who takes the time and does a quick look over. Thanks very much, Bill
Technical SEO | | Bill_K0 -
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect? If this scenario requires a 301 redirect no matter what, I might as well update the URL to be a little more keyword rich for the page while I'm at it. However, since these pages are ranking well I'd rather not lose any authority in the process and keep the URL just stripped of the ".html" (if that's possible). Thanks for you help! [edited for formatting]
Technical SEO | | Booj0 -
Moving to New Domain - Ranking impact
I understand that when migrating to a new site, even if done perfectly (page level 301s etc) that rankings will drop in the short term and each site will be impacted differently. I picked up the following comment and was wanting to get a few experts thoughts on whether I can quote this to my client: "In our experience, even when 301's are correctly executed, we see a short term fall back (7-30) days and then about a 90% carry through after that period for about 90 days and then back to full strength. "
Technical SEO | | steermoz80 -
What do you think about my new site?
Hi everyone, I'm looking for a review for my new site www.interlive.it Could you please let me know what do you think about the work that I did for my site. I'll be very happy to receive your suggestions. Regards, Mike
Technical SEO | | salvyy0 -
Site not ranking in Google but comes up #1 in Yahoo and Bing
Hi everyone, I've been working on SEO for this site for about 2 years and for some reason the site has just tanked in google. However it shows up #1 in yahoo and bing for the same search. http://www.nfsmn.com Phrase: "commercial foundation repair mn" If anyone can shed some light on the issue I would really appreciate it. They do have a sister-site: american-waterworks.com that may be causing issues as they link a lot of content to amww but not the other way around. Thanks Eric
Technical SEO | | reynoldsdesign0 -
Local Keywords Not Ranking Well in a Geographic Location (but Rank Very Well Outside of Geographic Location)
Has anyone experienced, in the last few months, an issue where a website that once ranked well for 'local' terms in Google stopped ranking well for those terms (but saw a ranking decrease only within the geographic location contained within those keywords)? For example only, some 'root' keywords could be: Chicago dentist Chicago dentists dentist Chicago dentists Chicago What happens is that when a searcher searches from within the geographic area of Chicago, IL, the target website no longer ranks on the 1st page for these types of keyword phrases, but they used to rank in the top 3 perhaps. However, if someone was to search for the same keyword phrases from another city outside of Chicago or set a custom location (such as Illinois or even Milwaukee, WI perhaps) in their Google search, the target website appears to have normal (high) 1st page rankings for these types of terms. My own theory: At first I thought it was a Penguin related issue but the client's rankings overall haven't appeared to have been affected on the date(s) of Penguin updates. Authority Labs and Raven Tools (which uses Authority Labs data) did not detect any ranking decrease and still reports all the local keyword rankings as high on the 1st page of Google. However, when the client themselves goes to check their own rankings (as they are within that affected geographic area), they are no where to be found on the 1st page. :S After some digging I found that (one of) the company's Google Places listings (the main office listing) became an 'unsupported' status in Google Maps. So now I am thinking that this phenomenon is due to the fact that other listings are now appearing in search results for the same location. For example, in this case, an individual dentist's Google Places listing (who works within the dental office) is being displayed instead of the actual dental office's listing. Also, the dentist's name on the Google Places listing is being swapped out by Google with the name of the dental office, but if you click through to the Google Places listing, it shows the name of the individual Dentist. Anyone encounter a similar issue or have any other theories besides the Google Places issue?
Technical SEO | | OrionGroup0 -
New project old domain should I 301 redirect while new sites built
I just took on a larger scale e-commerce project and came across a tricky road block that I need some advise on. Ok I'm building the site from scratch and due to it's complexity it may take 3-4 months before I have it designed and coded. The client has a domain name that has some decent page/domain authority and I would hate to loose that while the sites being built. Currently I have nothing to display as his previous site got hacked and it was deleted by the previous web admin. Being that a blog has already been approved as part of the project I already installed wordpress to keep the domain fresh however here's the issue, I installed wordpress in a folder called blog and debating if I should 301 redirect or 302 redirect his index here? The blog will always reside in the blog folder even after launch. Will performing a 301 redirect pull all the juice away from my index page? I'm assuming yes. IF so what would occur once the project is complete and I make the ecommerce site live in the index page? Thanks in Advance! Mike
Technical SEO | | MikeDelaCruz770