Timescale For Ranking High Volume Keyword

[Colin HodgsonMember]

From your experience, how long did it take to rank a 100K+ search volume keyword from not ranking at all to page 1? What was your methodology?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Are you planning a contest on that?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

No, just comparing notes.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

It also allows me to gauge how many are in that space.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

100K+? I’m just a simple SERP farmer tending his low-volume keywords.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Max I get is about 2k search volume. Haha

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

43 years and counting.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Haven’t cracked page 1 for a 100k term yet, the closest was #7 for “contact google” with 33k searches per month. It took about 11 months but we only promoted it with a press release and nothing else since it’s not really a “money” term more of a vanity term.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Pretty close at 95k with “download facebook videos”

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Strategy was really simple: Wrote an in depth article addressing all the related keywords in the content. Wrote paragraphs to bait snippets. The only link building was a press release many months ago.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

What strategy do you use to bait snippet?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Ask questions with your H2 and answer questions very explicitly with your body content.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

This example is a 1 to 1 article, this article is trying to rank for exactly 1 snippet and it uses the H1 for this. https://www.logicinbound.com/is-shopify-safe/

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

“How to” questions tend to prefer lists

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

In most cases: figure out the exact character length that would fit into the type of snippet you want to target, and write about that much content after an H2.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Great article there man… May I know the plugin you used for Link Jump?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

If you’re asking about the table of contents it’s the “Table of Contents Plus” plugin — warning though it hasn’t been updated in 3 years so I would suggest looking for alternatives.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Just basic SEO… But helps if you’re on a site with DA 70+.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Increasing our DA/DR made a huge impact on our ability to rank quickly. Specifically it came from a link from inside a moz.com article that was widely read.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

100%. Existing site wide signal and it’s overall standing with Google helps.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

11 months for an 84K affiliate kw, on-page and my own network of PBN’s (for position #1).

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

How many links was the PBN providing?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

84K PBNs

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

21 links but i built them slowly, probably could have ranked in 3-6 months if i was more aggressive with it.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Ranked a site for the word “sex” in the middle of page one. Used a heavy QDD Strategy. Took about 3-4 months.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

QDD?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Query deserves diversity

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

So what would a heavy QDD strategy look like?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Multiple times for 100K+ monthly search KWs in competitive niches… usual time to rank on SERP 1 60 days on average extending out to 90 days sometimes. Requires optimisation of URLs, page titles, navigation naming, H1s, content and internal linking tactics… no inbound linking used.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

From no rankings? or some existing rankings? It makes a huge difference.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Great point of clarification. The majority were ranking but beyond position 60 on average. Some were not ranking at all. Some were traditionally longer- or “mid-tail”, some were actually core KWs.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

And the majority were in ecom for large retailers with a lot of competition.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

For the group, here is my process that accomplished this multiple times:

1. Do deep KW and competitor research (usually would develop a full KW list of up to 10,000 KWs in the niche).

2. Narrow down to the largest volume KWs (regardless of competition)

3. Sort by competition (low to high)

4. Immediately update all on-page elements for CORE and the buying intent longer tail biggest volume KWs (update any and all elements)

5. Increase presence of the exact longer-tail buying intent KW in on-page content, NAV NAMES !!!, H1s and page titles.

6. Add several on-site internal cross link tactics.

Sometimes you have to add new additional pages or split nav sections into pieces (like changing “Tanks and Tops” to 2 pages: Tank Tops and T-Shirts for one apparel etailer).

7. Add content on the category page AND on the PDP with exact match for the target KW phrase AND the closest permutations for LSI.

8. Update ALL meta descriptions to match (not for SEO but for clicks)

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

You’re a monster. Beast mode.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Beast mode is often the only mode larger clients accept… so I wait until the moon is full, and then I strike!

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

PDP? Sorry, I sometimes struggle with certain acronyms used in the community…

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Product Detail Pages – usually the page where one buys the product:

Main category page (Men’s Clothing) leads to sub-category page (Men’s Sweaters) shows all Mens sweaters, and when you click on one you get to the PDP which shows THAT sweater and you add to cart from there.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Sorry for dumb question, what is CORE.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

So you don’t do any inbound link building at all?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Actually very little if any… I find that the majority of organic ranking sluggishness is due first and foremost to poor internal on-site technicals. When these are fixed, and I apply some unusual internal cross-linking tactics, I almost always see major upticks in organic position and clicks.

Then, add in conversion optimisation, and revenues go up.

Inbound linking is not the first thing I would do, and would do it very carefully.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Interesting. I like that method. I have a few local clients who’s niches are dominated by PBN’s and the like, and on page has only gotten me so far.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Further, I am NOT saying inbound links are bad, or you shouldn’t do them, just to be very careful about how, timing, sources, anchor texts, etc. My first concentration is always on the main on-site technicals and content and internal cross-linking. Of course that is over-simplifying it, there’s a lot to that.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Remember, just because something HAS not worked, does not mean it DOESN’T work. Could be it was done wrong, or not to best practices, or the way everyone else does it. I tend to do things rather differently.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Most of my links are naked or brand URL, so I keep them safe. Also make sure fresh content is placed on site before any link is built.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Unusual internal cross linking tactics? Is this siloing or a different tactic?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

A different set of tactics. One is mostly applicable to larger ecom sites, or sites with multiple categories and lots of products, the other works for almost any site where there are large numbers of KW variations and longer tail buying-intent search terms. I do KWs a bit differently I think, in that my KW lists for ecom clients are usually in the range of 10,000 KWs, then refined down based on search volume, competition and relevance to some 100 to 200 usually. I find when these are combined the results are more substantive. Don’t mean to be intentionally coy, but usually don’t post the details of these publicly.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Of course that is over-simplifying it, there’s a lot to that.

Can you please elaborate a bit further without giving away your trade secrets and if not asking too much.. Thanks.

I am interested specifically about high volume eCommerce kW.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

It takes some 30-70 Days (I got rank in 35-37 days, volume: 220k)!

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Guide please.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

From zero rankings? and How much traffic did the site already have before you started the campaign?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

And for how long? A week? A month? Or does it still rank after a year?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Tell!

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

TBH actually I bought the domain name as the keyword name and I didn’t create any posts inside the website it is single page which is the whole website. Post has some 1160 words with full SEO optimisation and you won’t believe my website has only 10 RF even competitor has 60 RF.

That’s it!

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

The best and easy way is to rank 1st page quick:

Keyword with low difficulty (under the 15KD) keywords rank quick and at the 1st page.

Optimise content with on page Technique’s

Boost your traffic through SERP using Review SCHEMA.

Make your website faster than other’s (AMP recommend)

Last thing create some do follow back-links with proper anchor

Now give some time to website, Just do it, probably you will be on 1st page of Google.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

That’s the new website as I said. Domain name is my target keyword!

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

About 1 month, not a new website but one where anyone can create a page, methodology: exact match anchors, around 200 links, all sent at once.

I know it sounds like 2008 SEO, but it was last month.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

It sounds like you’re using a site like medium.com or another domain where I hear people say they can “tolerate” more spammy links than a standalone domain.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Yep, using sites with lots of previous links and can get away with basically spammy anchors. Although the same tactic works for aged websites.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Parasite, eh. I believe you.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Better than making a full website.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Do you mean parasites or expired domain as the homepage?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Taking a scientific look at the serp, the sites, the links and the topics audience. I can’t say just 1 factor gets you on page 1 it’s a mix of tactics. Staying there is the second part of the journey as these terms usually have another SEO working to bump you off.

Online Chess.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

I haven’t done one from a truly dead zero position. 3-6 months would be the average (It is a question of financing of course) to see results in the Anaytic tools, but you’ll see them appearing sooner. I do a lot of social work plus the usual rank stuff.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

9 months for a couple 500k+ top of page 2, all white hat.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Someone pick a term and let’s have a contest.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

First to get to page one and maintain it for 14 days straight takes all. $1k each for entry.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Google says social signals don’t count but I noticed if a page has hundreds of real social shares the page will rank very quickly, perhaps because Google thinks its the most accurate search result based on user interaction.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

I’ve seen social signals help, but they don’t scale like links do in my experience. It’s more “does this URL have social signals or not” vs “who has the most social signals”

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

I have one article with over 4600 natural FB likes, this one post is for over 5 years on page 1 in google.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Links are definitely a given. Nothing moves without good strong links, but with all else being equal I’ve noticed real social signals make a difference. EMDs still work pretty well too.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

If it’s in any niche then the list goes on.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Have not had success with this yet! Most mine are smaller, local clients.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

For new domains (with zero history/backlinks), it takes us around 2-3 years to rank searches with 1M+. For 100k I would assume around 1-2 years.

We are all SEO professional here, so we know this can vary a lot, specially due to the competition, but what I found is that Google is way more strict about ranking new domains for terms with large volume of searches.

For websites with good history and back link profile, you can say it’s half or even 1/3rd of the time.

This is my personal measurements running own websites, probably ahrefs can give that information with much more assertiveness.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

Takes 13 months to rank first page for 100k+ in anything competitive. Google will take you to around the 21th position after 1-2 months but general sandbox a new site for 13 months.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

I had my site with a coming soon page during the development that was around 7 months. So that should count as sandbox time then?

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

I haven’t tested that so I am not sure.

[Peter WoottonKeymaster]

I would be aiming 18 months ahead with a new domain. I am actually thinking of scraping the top 100 to buy rather than build to save some time.

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