Competing with a 5yr Old Site?

I am building a niche site based around a certain type of animal that people keep as pets, the only competition is a site that is 5yrs old, which is poorly designed, but has 60k backlinks, and ranks #1 in google/yahoo.

What would you suggest to start competing with this site? Besides the typical marketing strategies, what can I do to rank 2nd within the first 6-12 months?

The design I am making has much more functionality, better designed, more relevant information, and is basically better all around, but they have the better URL (www.keyword.com, while mine is www.keywordguide.com).

 

How many .edu and .gov backlinks do they have? They may have a lot of backlinks, but do you know how many of those are QUALITY backlinks?

 

You can use some tools to see what PR the backlinks are from. I use Market Samurai but there are other free tools. If all there links are PR0 for example, or the anchor text not relevant to your main keyword, then you can get a march on them with some good PR, edu and gov links. Not all links are equal

 

There aren't many edu or gov links that relate to my site though, how would I do the backlinks? I doubt I can do 50k by myself either.

 

You have to do a lot of research on how to do SEO. Nobody can answer that for you in one post.
Also... there is nothing wrong with being spot #2

What is the site that is beating you out. (If it's a site like Wikipedia you'll never beat it out)

 

If you have only one competition, i guess the best SEO technique is learning from him. Coz for whatever the keyword, he will be 1st and you will be 2nd. Signup with Google analytics, Google webmaster tools, and try to optimize your pages using there free tools...

 

Do better content and use the PAD technique to get killer content/links from high authority sites in your niche.

Get 200 spun articles done and sign up for 3-5 content distribution services (blog networks). Distribute to on topic sites.

 

You may need to work too hard for link building and content creation of the websites! moreover this technique should also applied consistently on regular basis to obtain better results

 

With good onsite seo and a little off you should have no problems competing

 

If you can afford it, find a good outsourcer to build the backlinks for you. For about $20-30, you can get 50 backlinks built. Stress quality, and make sure you have the outsourcer(s) show you the exact links that they built, so you know you're getting what you pay for.

Mike

 

Depending on the keyword, a top three position isn't that bad. The quality of the other sites backlinks are going to play a big role in their ranking, if its low quality, even if theres a lot of them won't stand up to good high pr quality links from auth sites in the niche. BTW there are plenty of sites 5+ years old that doesn't mean they're great sites or an authority, it just helps them with the search engines

 

Get linked to on PR 3-6 sites and you will rise in ranking.
But as others stated, there's nothing wrong with being #2 or #3.
Remember too, that you can go both "long and short tail" and local.
Ex: Make lots of pages for wherever you are.
"Piitsburgh lizard supplies"
"Houston hamster cages"

You get the idea.
Kill your competition with laser targeting.

 

If there's only one competitor, you'll easily make it to the first page of Google and you can work it from there. Don't be put off by competition -- let it inspire you! Good luck!

 

If their site has 60K backlinks, sounds like you're really competing with the sites at #2 and #3. What kind of backlinks do they have?

 

Your number one competitor might always wipe the floor with you for the most obvious keyword. If they own 'guinea pig', then you have to own guinea pig guide, guinea pig forum, guinea pig breeding, guineau pig feeding, gui...

I am sure you get the point. Find keywords that they don't have tied down with their 60k BL fingerprints and you work on claiming those keywords and making them your own.

 

I totally agree with e10. Look for less competitive keywords in that niche and build up your site. Once you have it on top for those keywords, then you can target the big guys. Eventually you will get there but it takes time. If you are looking for overnight results, then find another keyword.

 

If there is only one site to fight with getting to the second slot should not be all that hard. Check out the backlinks they have and see if you can follow suit! It should not be all that hard...

Buy a few sig links on related forums... or start your own account on related (pet?) forums and get your own sig working in your favor.
Buying sig links? Read this first!

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