Ranking Websites - Without Building A Single Link.

Hey,

I'm new here, but not new to SEO. I thought I'd share my current technique of ranking websites, without building a single link - it's simple, but hard work

1) Find a long list expired domain available for hand registry. Do this by running Xenu link slueth on a authoritative website, looking for a no such host response code.

2)Run the site's into opensiteexplorer.com to find the inbound links and ascertain the DA - above 25 and it'd probably worth buying, unless the BL profile is spammy. Buy and host the domain if of a good quality, and install Wordpress.

3)Install "404 Redirection" plugin - redirects all 404s to root domain. This means you harvest all link equity pointing to any subfolders

4) Look at the link profile and see what niche the websites linking to the domain are in - what anchor text do the inbound links have.

5) Do keyword research around these terms and look for low-medium competition terms - use Long Tail Pro if possible, real time saver.

6) Optimise the Page around a niche term. 2-3% keyword density, with the url, page title, meta description containing keyword. Optimise images - file names, alts and description with exact match terms.

7)Submit sitemap to Google and sit back. If you've done it right, you'll see yourself shooting the rankings - AVOID including affiliate links, until you're already ranking.

Any thoughts on this technique? Love to hear some opinion or improvements from any bigdogs.

 

Yes, a good way to get up and running quickly, but as you said avoid ones with spammy link profiles (evaluate the backlinks against the advice in Google Webmaster Guidelines, if you don't understand what a spammy link profile is).

I would recommend (for Wordpress) 404 Redirected instead. It has a great set of options, including automatic redirects, and easy to go through and do some manual redirects. For example, if there's a 404 with strong backlinks and getting a lot of traffic, make a page (quality content) for the keywords people are arriving on (i.e. a page to replace the one last), then add a redirect to point to the new page (if the name isn't exactly the same).

Really a critical part of step #2, assessing whether the backlink profile is spammy.

I wouldn't recommend focusing on keyword density, but instead write naturally. If you try to meet x% then it can start sounding weird. Write for humans and not search engines. This is a good blog post about on-page factors. Old, but still relevant.

The bit about affiliate links - they are OK to include, but to be on the safe side nofollow them. Google has mentioned a couple of times not to worry about them as they usually know when a link is an affiliate one and ignore it, but if in doubt nofollow (which I personally feel is the best thing to do). One thing to be careful of with ads and affiliate links though is the Page Layout Update. Place them right and it won't hurt your rankings.

 

The point I'm making about keyword density is that it doesn't have to be high - as long as it's in the first paragraph, NATURALLY, and featured a few more times. 2-3% is a guidance - as I come from a 100% whitehat background, I'm used to writing quality stuff.

TBH though, I usually use placeholder content, and then spend more time on it once it's ranking, more reference, relevant OBL and maybe adding a video where relevant. But that's just personal preference.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - links out to relevant authority sites, or non-direct competitors, are an essential part of my formula. I don't build a nche site without doing this first

 

I guess writing styles vary. Last time I checked my keyword density it was about 0.8-1.3% per 500 words (the 500 words minimum is a myth, in case anyone is wondering).

That's an important thing to consider - how much is enough words? When does it become thin content?

Well, look at BBC News, The Register, GSM Arena and some other popular (quality) sites. They don't work to a rule about content length. They just write stories for humans. So, if it ends up being 100 words, then it doesn't matter. All that matters is it's well-written, not full of filler words and interesting to the reader. Just get your other on-page factors right (such as title) and any internal links with the correct anchor text the first time.

 

I totally agree.

It's nothing to do with word count - Google doesn't count words. Once you're ranking, it looks at the usage metrics it has available - bounce rate and TOS. That's it.

If these metrics are worse then the results around you in the SERPS, Google penalises you. They just want to serve the best results - a 1000 article isn't better than a 100 word article by default!

 

Too right, mate. Such a long article can be a bore-the-shit-out-of-you-article. I often get bored writing content, but (even more) I can't stand outsourcing it as there are usually too many dumb words put in just for the sake of it.

 

I didnt get the 404 redirection thing. What do you acheive by that?

 

You redirect the juice acquired by any subfolders to the homeapge - to be redistributed as you see fit