I started Niche Desire with the aim of sharing my success stories, ongoing projects as case studies so that my readers could follow along and create their own successful niche sites.
Today I am back with an interesting case study on how I ranked a brand new niche site for an 11 Million monthly search volume term in just a couple of months.
I’m sure many of you might be wondering is it even possible to rank a new site so quickly for such a huge volume term?
Believe me, it is possible.
And you need not worry. I will be sharing the exact step by step process I followed in ranking this site and how you can do it too.
Some Details Of My Niche Site
Before we jump into the exact process, let me give you some details of the niche site.
I won’t be sharing the URL or the niche for obvious reasons but I won’t hold back anything else. I would even mention the sources from where I outsource my link building and other tasks.
So, this site is in the App downloads niche and has huge monthly search volume. As you can see in the above image, the primary keyword gets a monthly search volume of over 11 million while the secondary keywords also receive around seven hundred thousand monthly searches.
The CPC for this keyword was a bit on the lower side but the mammoth search volume made up for that.
Although, upon ranking, I’m receiving an average CPC of $0.15 which is way better than what was mentioned by the tools.
In this post, I will be basically sharing the off page strategies I used to rank this site. If you would like to know more about how I do on-page SEO for my niche sites, Backlinko has an awesome guide.
Before we jump in, I would like to debunk a few myths that are being circulated in the SEO world.
I am sure everyone and their dogs has read numerous times that EMDs and PMDs don’t work anymore.
How about I tell you that it’s a complete lie?
The niche site we are talking about is a PMD (Partial Match Domain) and it created NO issues in ranking. Absolutely none.
Income Bully has some interesting stuff to say on this topic.
Another very interesting myth Im sure everyone would have come across is that non-TLDs dont rank well.
Yet another lie.
This site has a .download extension.
Although, Google has recently clarified that they ignore the keywords in the TLD portion of domain names, having your keyword in the domain extension part still works (as you can see in my example).
Off Page SEO: Step By Step Guide
I have received tons of emails since I published my Adsense Niche Site Guide asking me how I build backlinks to my niche sites.
So, here is the exact method that I repeat for almost all of my niche sites. In fact, I follow the same order as well.
Step 1: Social Links
Social links are the very first links that I build to my niche site.
I get my VA to set up the Facebook page, Twitter handle, Pinterest and other social media profiles for my niche site as soon as the site is ready.
It makes a lot of sense if you think about it.
What is the first place a business owner would go to after creating his website? Social Media platforms, right?
So, it’s very NATURAL for a site to receive its first links from a social media platform rather than from any other source.
It doesn’t matter if the social links are Nofollow or Dofollow (generally Dofollow. We are building them only to get some trust in the eyes of Google and not for link juice.
Makes sense?
Step 2: Get a Press Release
Once I have the social links built, I go ahead and order a press release.
Press releases are good because of two reasons.
First, they help in mimicking a hype that the site has gone viral. This fake hype helps in reducing the sandbox length of your niche site.
Second, they help in creating a well-diversified link profile.
The main issue with press releases is that they are hard to index. I have tried several Press release services and the majority of them failed to index more than 30% links.
However, the index rate of the press release I am currently using is better than the other ones. About 50-60% of the links get indexed in Google automatically without me trying to index them.
Step 3: Send Some Social Signals
Once the press release is done, I start sending some social signals to the site.
Social signals help in justifying a number of links the site has suddenly received through a press release.
I usually order the 300 signals package from PBNButler and select 10-15 days drip feed option.
Step 4: Niche Relevant Blog Comments, Forum links
The next thing I do is I build some niche relevant blog comments and forum links.
But I make sure these links are not spammed ones. In fact, I prefer only Nofollow links when it comes to blog comments and forum links.
What these links do is they help in establishing a topical relevance of the niche site in Googles eyes.
Step 5: The Good Old PBN Links
Now that the site is ready and has the base links built up, its time to send the real link juice and rank it.
Before anyone of you asks, let me tell you PBNs still work. And they work amazingly provided your PBNs are of high quality and not spammed ones.
In the initial weeks, I send like a couple of pbn links a week. Then after a few weeks, I speed things up to 5-6 pbn links per week.
One very important thing to note here is that you must mix up the anchor text while linking from your PBNs in order to be safe. I usually start with branded and naked links and then gradually move towards target anchors.
Having your own PBN Network is good only if you have lots of money sites. If you only have a handful of sites, then instead of setting up your PBNs and spending a lot of money on managing it, I would recommend you to buy one off links from high-quality PBN Networks.
Step 6: Guest Posts
Guest posts are a really good way to secure high-quality links on real blogs. Not only they provide link juice, they drive lots of referral traffic as well.
However, it is easier said than done.
Securing links from high authority sites through guest posting isn’t a child’s play. It requires serious efforts, awesome content, and a lot of PATIENCE.
Also, securing guest post links is even more difficult when the niche is a bit absurd like mine. Running a guest post campaign for a site based in downloads niche is pretty difficult and that’s why I decided to stay clear of them for this project.
Summing Up
So, these were the exact steps that I took to rank a brand new niche site for an eleven million monthly search volume term in less than a couple of months.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section below. I would love to answer them. 🙂