This guide goes in depth on how to write articles that rank on a brand new website. Yes, it’s doable, and we will cover how to look for low competition keywords and how to keep the content relevant in order to rank.
Before we get started, let’s be clear on what a brand new website is:
Definition Of A Brand New Website
Here at Articlewritingtool.com, a brand new website means the domain is day 1 old with:
- 0 domain authority
- 0 backlinks
- 0 referring domains
- 0 keyword ranking
It’s fresh off the boat literally no one knows it exist. A brand new website can definitely rank for keywords without getting stuck in the search engine sandbox, as long as it’s going to super low competition keywords.
As the site builds relevance by proper interlinks, backlinks and social mentions, the site will gradually rank for more keywords to get more internet search traffic.
Steps To Rank A Brand New Website
The process we are going to follow is extremely simple if the strategy is correct, and we have some examples to show:
Step 1. Find A Domain
If you’re start a brand new domain, it’s important to understand what these means:
Exact match domain – Keyword is in the domain, increases topical relevance and the search engine sees it too (Highly recommended for niche specific websites)
Brand name domain – Great for branding and a huge domain flip later
Subdirectory domain – Not recommended
Finding a good domain has something to do with the keyword you’re going after.
Click here to read about how to find your niche keyword using the trigger word method.
Step 2. Correctly Setup The Website
All you need is adding SSL, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Sitemap and a simple theme to the site.
You do not need fancy templates or plugins to expect the site to rank.
It won’t!
SSL is a security requirement by Google to index your site. Without it, it may not even be indexed.
Step 3. Only Go After Low Competition Keywords
The best way to find low competition keywords is to use Ahrefs. It offers the best keyword data to help you get started.
When a brand new website shows up in front of the search engine, it has no reputation at all. So the strategy is to go after super low competition keywords, as low as KD (Keyword Difficulty) 0 – 5 (Based on Ahrefs data).
Here are top 3 ways to research low competition keywords
Use A Paid Keyword Tool To Filter Out Low Competition Keywords
The best way to scout for low competition keywords is to start with a low domain authority website around 1 – 10, and reverse research their keyword ranking to see what they are ranking for.
Identify A Seed Keyword, Then Find All Relevant Keywords
Input a seed keyword and find all relevant keywords, then filter the list down by keyword difficulty.
Ahrefs data – stick KD below 5 – 7
Semrush – Stick KD below 10
Reverse Research Popular Sites
Reverse research the organic keywords sites like Amazon, Facebook, Quora, Forums, Medium…etc are ranking, then filter out the keywords related to your website, then zeroing in on the ones that is low competition and are ranking on these sites.
People generally like to visit a dedicated site for content than user generated content on a forum.
Step 4 – Create The Content
Create the content by focusing on only ONE keyword. Do not branch off to other topics.
Creating valuable content is the key.
For a new website, it’s a good idea to publish a minimal viable content first, and see what it ranks for before committing time and energy to optimize the article.
Once the keyword ranking data is present, then return to the post to make necessary optimizations.
Tips To Get Traffic To A Brand New Site
Leverage Domain Authority Of Others
Maybe your website is too new to rank for anything, but you can leverage the domain authority of the top ranking site to host your content, and then flow the traffic back to you.
These strategies have been done for years by leveraging sites like YouTube, Facebook, Medium, PRweb and many others.
Buy Ads
Advertisement clicks are expensive, but there are ways to find low competition keywords with extremely cheap click cost. The idea is to buy traffic to target keywords that others consider as junk traffic, and then flip them to something that pays more using internal links on the site.
This works extremely well for something like mortgage calculator (~$0.5 / click), and lead the visitor to refinance (that pays $53 / click).
Build Internal Links
Internal links are extremely important for the search engine spider to crawl through the site. The more internal links help push the link juice to the linked page through anchor text.
Whatever anchor text is being hyperlinked to is the metrics that determines topical relevancy.
Click here to learn about internal links to boost SEO performance
Build Backlinks As Referral Traffic, Not Always About SEO
The search engine puts backlinks at a very high priority. Links from other high domain authority sites help boost your website’s search engine ranking as if these websites vouch for you.
The correct way to build backlinks isn’t really about boosting up your own ranking, but it’s about flowing the visitors back to your content from them via hyperlinks.
The ultimate goal is to get traffic to your website through referrals. When you get the referral traffic, you make sales.