Assuming your technical SEO is on point, here’s how I’ve gotten unstuck in the past: https://diggitymarketing.com/how-to-get-unstuck-by-establishing-topic-relevance/

I got backlinks from high authority websites too and noticed that my top-ranked competitors have fewer backlinks but they have more content/posts on their website.

I am trying to rank “garage door repair Roseville CA” and “garage door repair” on the home page but the main focus with the location keyword. What would you recommend for, like what type of supportive content I publish on my blog or any other recommendation?

Highly appreciated your responses to every individual.

Because I don’t know the full story regarding your website, firstly I’d check the rest of your backlink profile first before looking at getting forum links. What is your anchor text ratio like? How does your ratio of links to the homepage vs inner pages compare? Get them sorted first.

If those ratios on point my next question would be, what type of forums are they? Are they highly niche relevant forums? Or are they local forums? If they are highly niche forums, maybe look to get some guest posts on highly niche websites first. If they are local forums, what are some local linking opportunities (local blogs, news outlets, directories) are there? Go for those types of links first.

I suggest this course of action first, because there are more powerful link opportunities out there than forum links (which can be easily spammed). Sometimes a small amount of targeted powerful links can outdo a large amount of average links.

Sure. No issues there.

Hey Matt,

thanks for this stuff.
If I notice that my internal linking is bad. Is it then advisable to delete these and create better or rather add more new ones?

Actually not using press releases these days.

When using press releases, do you link to just the pages you want to rank, or just the home page, or would you ever link to the supporting pages mentioned in your other article? And how many links can have an effect on a press release?

Best regards,
Joe

Totally varies with onsite SEO. Anywhere between a week and a few months. :/

How long does it take to see results from your experience?

Do you mean all 4 articles on the same website and then the last article links out to the money site?

1) Kind of depends on the exact topic you’re trying to rank. Something simple like “how to cut your fingernails” might not need much supporting content. But obviously something like “what you need to know when you get cancer” might need tons.
2) Start here. We get more into detail on getting unstuck in The Affiliate Lab.

Thanks for the article. Great stuff.

Two questions if you don’t mind:

1. I’m the health affiliate niche. For supporting articles, how many articles and how many words per article would be a good start?

2. I got a few pages stuck on page 3 and not moving much, any tips on how to get them ranking higher?

Thanks in advance.

The black sheep effect is referring to direct external links to your money page, in comparison to your competitors.

Always love reading your posts. I will try this for sure. I am trying to rank for “Best gaming mouse” but even after sending 30+ PBN links I am nowhere. Now I think I will try your tactics.

If I made to 2nd or 3rd page it will be a big win for me.

Anyways, carry on your works!

Sachin

I wouldn’t do the 301. You’re already making great progress and your domain is old anyways.

Great read first of all!

I’ve got a new site I built for a client on a new domain also. After I checked whois and archive.org it turned out it was dropped and was first registered 14 years ago. The client told me they had the domain a few years ago also. Still used it as it’s was very clean as it’s their brand name and main keyword. No one burnt it in the past.

I’ve got them to page 2 in 90 days so it’s been quite fast and a nice result so far. Local service client and 1,300 searches just on their main keyword. Maybe some of that age is helping as it’s seems to fast for the minimal work done. IDK…

I’m up against sites that have been around for a long time so would you go and pick up a domain with some nice age and redirect it? And does the niche matter? Or just get something clean with branded anchors mainly so it does not mess with the ranks?

Yes? Or no as the old domain goes back 14 years and once it’s been around for a while Google credits that old age again, just not right away? IDK, making an assumption there based on what I’ve seen so far.

Cheers!
Dom

“Should” be. We’re making a lot of assumptions here about the anchor profile.

But if it’s not the case then it should be fine?

If IloveFruits.com is trying to rank for “green apples” than maybe.

Here’s what I mean, if the old domain is called greenapples.com, and the new site is called ilovefruits.com (which has very little links since it’s new). Would redirecting greenapples.com to ilovefruits.com cause over optimization? Since all of the branded anchors from greenapples.com now points to ilovefruits.com?

I wish SEO were so simple as to be able to just hear a couple facts about a website and be able to diagnose an SEO plan. 🙁

It’s great article with useful information. I have issue as below:

– My site build more 1 year with only tactic from guest post, skyscraper. I also build many link for brand site to my homepage. However, my keyword can’t rank top. All is at 8,9,10 .. 14 position.

– Could you advice me some suggestion to increase ranking?

Thank,

Then you’ve written the wrong article, send the wrong anchors, or both. 🙂

Sorry bro. I really don’t do anything with the goal of boosting stats.

I’ve done a single press release campaign 2 months ago for my site and it indeed increased my DA.

However, it is still quite low compared to my money pages’ PA. Is it safe to run another press release campaign?

On the same note, is it safe to run Domain authority stacking campaigns once every few months?

If you have direct SENuke links pointing to your money site, I’m surprised you’re not already penalized. Def disavow.

I shot myself in the foot with senuke and more, and now I have 100x the links of the top 10, and anchor text optimization that is beyond any pillowing. I have been on top of page 2 for over an year, which is like being on page 100. My legit links are actually at par with those on the top.

Should I start disavowing links? Problem is, I don’t know which ones are actually holding me up and which ones are dragging me down.

What would you look at? OBL? Any other factors?

I wouldn’t know. I’ve never averaged all niches. 🙂

Well in average for all the niches? I am not looking for something very specific like days or weeks. Maybe something like range because i cannot find information of it anywhere.

Depends on the niche.

I’ve never tested them, so I can’t comment.

One question tho – I seem to be suffering from the domain age black sheep effect. Everyone else is 4Y+, I’m at 1Y currently.

Now, you recommended TB Solutions. That’s all nice and dandy, however their domains cost more than what my grandmother gave me for the week, jk.

Could I just take something from expireddomains.net as I don’t care about the backlinks, all I need is the age and that they’re spam free.

Thank you in advance,
G

Could help with traffic.

Literally 100s of reasons. Try this.

Thanks for creating such a great blog, your aims are perfect.

One of my clients is stuck on the 2nd page since a year and most of the competitors are new & having least to no backlinks. Whereas, my client is a well-established Dental SEO firm. Still, competitors are ranking higher.

The client website ranks only for the intended pages and is good in terms of content (medium sized).

What could be the possible reasons behind this?

Removing them is better than disavowing.

so instead of reverse siloing do you think it makes sense to simply disavow some links?

Thanks for your reply!

I never mess with competitors.

Other circumstance example might be needing to create a viral aspect, to justify a huge influx of link juice.

Good stuff. Thank you!

Questions about press release: you mention above that you use now for only certain circumstances, such as this. What are other? Also you mention also using a high quality press release service now. Which one do you recommend?

Thanks again!

Amongst (many) other things.

If i want to rank my home page so is reverse silo means i have to create some home page related post and link back to home page?

If you’re stuck, that could definitely be part of the reason why.

Most of page 1 are authority sites with high DA and low PA

Only one way to find out!

Perhaps you remember CeasarSEO from the Warrior Forum, he applied this method a lot, eg setup relatively weak PBN’s for his customers and then he posted 4 articles in a broken loop, all with exact/partial match anchors. So article 4 links to article 3, article 3 links to article 2 etc. (no sidebar so juice couldn’t flow anywhere else).

Back in the days it must have worked like a charm for him as I think he was the most successful seller at that place with tons of glowing reviews. Might still work!

It really could be soooo many things. It might be as simple as just needing more links, but in case you’re stuck for another reason, this is a good place to start: click here.

So basically I am hitting a keyword with nearly 3 million searches every month.
All my competitors using spam techniques to rank higher. I do know they use blog comments, blog posts, sape and such type of webs to buy 100s of links. In-fact all my top 5 competitors are above 300 to 400 referral domains.

From last couple of YEARS I am stuck on page 1. Even with low backlinks under 100, I have managed to rank on page 1 and that can be due to my on-page optimizations. Now I am slowly building authority links to change the position. In-fact I was on 8th position and with only few more links now I am at 6th position.

3 of my competitors are not aged. I do not know what’s holding back. To me it’s fairly due to quantity of links I guess. Few new competitors came with same technique to buy many backlinks RANKED and then gone away due to penalty. But of-course they stayed for couple of months. I am not gone anywhere so yes Google like my web MAYBE.

Any suggestions?

I don’t know if you could say that this is what’s holding you back. Being page 1 for something before and dropping to page 4 sounds like algorithmic penality. Unfortunately I can’t diagnose it over a blog comment.

Ok. 🙂

Play at your own risk. They don’t always work, but when they do, they’re awesome.

You can keep press releases indexed if you try. Otherwise perhaps a high quality Web 2.0 gig.

I’ve never heard of that service so I can’t comment on it. As for your release getting syndicated, this is a normal thing. Just make sure you use a high quality syndication service.

I still dabble around in press releases in special situations (like this one) but I’m going high quality.

That’s why we take an average.

Hey Matt,

you say “And how do you know they didn’t disavow?” and you are right, but how can I check for the best anchor text diversity, if I don’t know which links my competitors have disavowed?

Thanks!

Very broad question that I don’t have enough details to answer.

Pure gold here.

Sreejan, to back up what Matt said, there are countless examples of sites that are “getting away” with tactics that are just plain “wrong” and run counter to best practices. In many cases, these are sites that seem to have hit a window during a certain period of time where the methods employed did work (such as spamming). And for whatever reason when the hole closed on spamming domains, these sites didn’t lose their rankings. Google does seem to put a lot of trust in ranking longevity which is to say, the momentum of a site with strong rankings for 3 or 4 years, regardless of how they got there, will be difficult to run down.

But make no mistake, if you apply a spamming technique today, you will absolutely fail. It is frustrating to see a site performing so well when you know the ranking engine behind it is pure junk. But, you can’t change that, so control what you are able to and employ the methods that Google likes. Who knows, a new algo could wipe out the guys you are envious of while your site takes over their position?

Yes you are correct. But seeing all the top 3 having same kind of link profile, I assume they have not disavowed. But then again – who knows? Thanks for your reply btw 🙂

They’re ranking “in spite” of spam. Not “because” of spam. And how do you know they didn’t disavow?

Site size is a definite ranking factor.

I usually get one per site. Branded anchors only.

Pretty much.

When you say reverse silo, is it that you create a post that is related to your money page with a link to the homepage. So that the juice can flow from the homepage to the related post down to your money pages?

Nice post!

Delete links. The page isn’t dead.

Thanks for the heads up, now I understand. Just one more question, if you dont mind.
Whats your play If you have already built a lot more backlinks for your ranking page than the competitors? Like 10x more (I was impatient with my rankings). Drop the page and start a new one, or delete backlinks, or something else?

Since a few years now, and even confirmed last year by Google themselves, rankings happen on a per-page basis. We’re not talking about the domain here, we’re talking about the page’s URL. Sorry for being so shady.

Possibly no, because (depending on the country) competition is weak in foreign countries. They’ll be doing so many other things wrong that age wont be enough to save them.

Google doesn’t penalize dupe content from category pages.

Sure, but ranking happens (for the most part) on a page-per-page basis.

So, at a first moment, i think would be better to make some locally citations to the homepage… right? After that, if needed, make some more few citations to the inner pages… what do you think? Thanks!

Thanks, Tim. Happy having you stop by. 🙂

To be honest, without being able to take a look at your exact scenario, I wouldn’t be doing your case justice by trying to guess your solution.

Sure. Or tier 2.

Use citations to inner pages sparingly. They’re not the norm.

Sounds quite surprising to me: if you try to rank for it, you won’t rank for it. If this is true, then I would just funnel link juice through silo’d pages to your optimized page. But I’m skepitcal about the first statement.

True story.