An established website has a distinct competitive advantage over a new website because of the age of the domain, the amount of time it’s had to attract a variety of backlinks plus develop lots of unique content. Google rewards websites that have been around for a long period of time.
On the other hand a new website with a newly registered domain has little or no traffic because it hasn’t had time to build backlinks and therefore doesn’t rank well in Google.
So what strategy should a new website owner use to compete with established sites?
1. Target long tail keywords
General keywords contain too much competition so it would be almost impossible to compete for these types of keywords. Instead target less popular keywords that your competitors may not have thought about. Even though you may only receive a trickle of traffic it’s much easier to achieve high rankings for multiple long tail keywords.
2. Build separate pages for each keyword phrase
It’s easier to gain high rankings for a specific keyword phrase if you have a page dedicated to it. Write several paragraphs of content that include your phrase. Also include it in the title and description meta tags. Create a new page for each phrase you are targeting.
Watch this video:
How A New Website Can Compete With An Established Website
3. Build links to your pages
Just creating content pages won’t guarantee high rankings. You must get links pointing to your pages so Google recognizes it as unique content which will then be indexed and ranked in their search engine.
It’s also important to get a variety of backlinks from different web properties so it doesn’t look like you are receiving them all from one source.
Here are some methods for building a variety of backlinks:
* Submit content to online directories related to your niche
Enter keyword phrase+directory to find specialized directories to submit to.
* Write a guest post and submit to a popular blog in your niche
Enter keyword phrase+blogs to find specialized blogs for publishing your guest post.
* Re-purpose your content
- Convert your content into video and submit it to video sharing websites (ie YouTube)
- Convert your content into a PDF and submit it document sharing websites
- Convert your content into a podcast and submit it to podcast directories (ie iTunes)
* Publish your content in related ezines
Many ezines owners are looking for unique content to share with their subscribers. If they have a large list of subscribers you may receive lots of traffic and new backlinks. Use the directory of ezines (DOE) to find the ezines related to your niche.
4. Share content on social media sites
Social signals contribute to high rankings so be sure to announce your new content on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Encourage others to share it with their friends.
Example
Say you’re a web designer in the State of Maryland. Instead of just targeting Maryland target small towns in Maryland ie “small town Maryland”. Create a separate page for each town you are targeting then build backlinks to each of those pages. Share the content on social media sites.
You’ll get much higher conversion rates with long tail keyword phrases compared to general keywords because they are more highly targeted. Only after you’ve targeted all the long tail phrases proceed to more competitive ones.
The cummulative traffic from dozens of long tail keyword phrases that don’t have much competition can easily equal or surpass the traffic of one popular keyword phrase plus it’s much easier to attain.
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