Should I be discouraged?

11 replies
My site is 6 weeks old and i've created 200 backlinks from various sources (blogs, directories, social bookmarking, articles and press releases) with varied anchor texts.

The first keyword i'm targeting receives 480 searches a month (according to Google KW tool) yet for this keyword my site is sitting at position 125.

The onsite SEO looks good and is tailored to fit the keyword

Should I be worried?
#discouraged
  • Profile picture of the author Andy Crofford
    You've only created 200 backlinks. Keep building backlinks and working on your site. It would be nice to see instant results but that is rare. So keep doing what you are doing and you will be rewarded for it with a great ranking in the future.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3416512].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author clorets01
    This is a long term process, you're site is only 6 weeks old! Then 480 searches a month is really nothing. Perphaps you should focus on a more popular one.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3416543].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author matt5409
    i think you need to investigate this further. 200 backlinks SHOULD be enough to at least be in the top 5 pages. how much content do you have? is there an excessive amount of affiliate links on the site? I'm noticing some of my sites being dropped because their content MIGHT be on the thin side, which I am actively correcting right now.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3416555].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author cssitkt
      Yes I would have thought 200 backlinks for a keyword that is not highly competitive should be higher than position 125 but than again, 6 weeks is not that long and i've only really been doing the link building for the last four weeks.

      I've added a more content over the last 2 weeks - now up to 20 pages so maybe this will help.

      Interestingly the SERP position has been fixed at 125 for about 2 weeks while the backlinks (many of which have good PR) have been increasing steadily day by day, which seems odd?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3416607].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by cssitkt View Post

    i’ve created 200 backlinks from various sources (blogs, directories, social bookmarking, articles and press releases) with varied anchor texts.
    In any meaningful sense, backlinks are not measured in quantity.

    One context-relevant, high-quality backlink can be worth literally tens of thousands of "directory backlinks", which are typically non-context-relevant, PR-0 pages of almost negligible value.

    What quality your backlinks are outweighs in importance how many there are by an absolutely huge factor. (I know people promoting backlinking services don't usually admit that, but that doesn't stop it from being true).
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3416716].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author cssitkt
      Thanks for the all the advice, it's really helpful.

      I've checked on Traffic Travis and the first 10 sites, competing for the Keyword, have around 7000 backlinks. From positions 10-20 the backlinks for the competing sites drop dramatically to generally just a few hundred.

      Someone asked earlier - are there lots of affiliate links on the pages. No

      Although the anchor texts are varied they mostly contain the Keyword(s)

      I'll try to make the backlinks higher quality and see what happens.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3416883].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by cssitkt View Post

        I've checked on Traffic Travis and the first 10 sites, competing for the Keyword, have around 7000 backlinks.
        Again, what matters is their SEO quality.

        If they have around 7,000 backlinks from article directories and forum profiles, you can typically overtake them quickly. Probably some will be mostly like that and others not, but you need to investigate this before deciding whether to compete with them, and how - especially for apparently such low volume of traffic.

        Sites with 100+ backlinks from high-PR, context-relevant authority sites can't typically be overtaken with lesser-quality backlinks, not even when there are tens of thousands of them.

        There are sites top-ranked on Google, including for some pretty competitive keywords, which have well under 100 backlinks.

        It'll help you a lot to try to think far less in terms of "quantity".
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3417142].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author clint48
        You are doing your job so you don't have anything to worry about. I sometimes feel like I have done enough work to be on the first page of Google, but I don't get to decide that Google does.

        I don't know what Google's thinking is, but since I know that most people give up and start on something else I would wait and see if your site was still getting backlinks and new content before I would put it on the first page.

        It could be that Google thinks the same way, so if you stick with your site it should make it eventually.

        Clint
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3417206].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Mike Hlatky
        Originally Posted by cssitkt View Post

        Thanks for the all the advice, it's really helpful.

        I've checked on Traffic Travis and the first 10 sites, competing for the Keyword, have around 7000 backlinks. From positions 10-20 the backlinks for the competing sites drop dramatically to generally just a few hundred.

        Someone asked earlier - are there lots of affiliate links on the pages. No

        Although the anchor texts are varied they mostly contain the Keyword(s)

        I'll try to make the backlinks higher quality and see what happens.

        480 monthly searches and the top sites have around 7000 backlinks?!?!?!

        Unless the keyword is "buy million dollar ring" or something that pays $50+ per click, I would get a new keyword - IMMEDIATELY.

        Even if your site is #1, you are only going to be receving about 10 visitors per day.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3417220].message }}

Trending Topics