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
-
Sub-domain with spammy content and links: Any impact on main website rankings?
Hi all, One of our sub-domains is forums. Our users will be discussing about our product and many related things. But some of the users in forum are adding a lot of spammy content everyday. I just wonder whether this scenario is ruining our ranking efforts of main website? A sub domain with spammy content really kills the ranking of main website? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
What's the correct format when you Disavow a single page? with or without www.?
Hi Y'all. Can't seem to find an article on disavowing a single page. Do i use A, B, or submit both A and B? Example: A. http://disavowexample.com B. http://www.disavowexample.com Which one does Google prefer? I know for some I just find the canonical url of the page (which show www,) but wanted your expert advice! Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | Shawn1240 -
Does this mean my pages are ranking better?
In GWT impressions are down 17%, clicks are up 57%. Is it safe to assume that pages are ranking better for my site? We have earned a couple great links in the past month.. 5lDZEUJ
Algorithm Updates | | Theskimonster0 -
301'ing away from an exact match domain.
Hi Moz Community! My website gets just over 50% of its traffic from ranking in the top 3 in over 10 countries for my exact match keyword domain. 80% + from keywords related to the exact match domain. We are now looking at doing a to 301 re-direct to a new domain to start a fresh branding to the site to increase scope and expand. This would involve removing the keyword from the homepage and domain entirely . However. Considering all competitors ranking for our main keyword, have the keyword in their domain as either a subdomain to or in their root domain and in their homepage content, would this make ranking without the keyword in domain & content hard? I have found a very similar example that has done so, so I guess the answer to that question is no its not. about 65-70% of our anchor text on our backlinks is for our domain keyword. Can anyone advise how best to go about maintaining rankings after 301ing or how best to go about 301ing to make sure that we can maintain the rankings for our main keyword! Any advise at all would be greatly appreciated, Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | howiex10 -
Local Vs National SEO Rankings
Hi Guys, I just had a quick question, is it truly possible to rank number one worldwide/nationally for a keyword phrase these days such as, Computer repair services. I'm not too concerned with the local serps that come up above the fold. I'm just more concerned, if Google is looking to serve more local results into the regular serps listing? I hope that makes sense thanks. Best, Peter
Algorithm Updates | | PeterRota0 -
Which website? It's hard to get enough resources to develop both
I started my Whitby cottage website for years ago www.endeavourcottages.co.uk not knowing anything about SEO, but I now have very good rankings for the keywords on Google. I'm ranking quite well for Whitby holiday cottages on Google and I now list to other cottages in the area for my friends. The point is that I'm now starting a small letting agency and hoping to expand it now so I bought the domain http://www.whitby-holiday-cottages.co.uk/ and set up a WordPress site but it's not ranking are getting anywhere near the same amount of traffic. This domain name and website structure would be much more applicable now that there are more than one cottage to let. Whenever I get some free time I spend it doing SEO on my first website to improve its rankings and so which is the best strategy from here on. One try and develop the new cottages letting website at the expense of my main website, or forget about the new website are together and continue with my first website which was designed initially for just one cottage. It's hard to have enough resources to get both websites ranking high. Thank you very useful tips Alan Davidson
Algorithm Updates | | thepersuader0 -
To use the same content just changing the keywords could be seen as duplicate content?
I want to offer the same service or product in many different cities, so instead of creating a new content for each city what I want to do it to copy the content already created for the product and service of a city and then change the name of the city and create a new url inside my website for each city. for example let say I sell handmade rings in the USA, but I want o target each principal city in the USA, so I have want to have a unque url for ecxh city so for example for Miami I want to have www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami and for LA the url would be www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la Can I have the same content talking about the handmade rings and just change the keywords and key phrases? or this will count as a duplicate content? content: TITLE: Miami Handmade Rings URL :www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami Shop Now handmade rings in Miami in our online store and get a special discount in Miami purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on Miami Local address... See what our Miami handmade rings clients say about our products.... TITLE: LA Handmade Rings URL: www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la Shop Now handmade rings in LA in our online store and get a special discount in LA purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on LA Local address... See what our LA handmade rings clients say about our products.... There are more than 100 location in the country I want to do this, so that is why I want to copy paste and replace.. Thanks in advance, David Orion
Algorithm Updates | | sellonline1230 -
(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