Brand new sites are freakin’ crazy.
Seriously.
There’s no telling how Google will treat them.
I’ve seen some go bonkers with traffic within 3 months and some do nothing until a year goes by.
So when I took on this project to rank a brand new site in 6 months, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
We set our initial goal at 150 organic sessions per month on average by the end of the project.
But apparently that was wayyyyy too conservative for this author/speaker’s site…
Because his new site went bonkers.
And I’m gonna give you a sneak peak into the strategies I used to build his traffic.
The Details…
This client is an author and speaker in the education industry.
He wanted to start a brand new site (previously only had a blogspot site) and start pursuing SEO.
He already had a passionate following on Twitter, some industry influence, and a ton of old, non-optimized blog posts on his blogspot domain.
The 4 Things I Did to Help Him Hit ~1,000 Organic Visitors per Month (in 6 Months)
1. Utilized His Existing Network
Since this author already had so many connections, the first thing I did was reach out to every person he knew with an education-related website.
I asked if they’d be open to:
- Adding a link to his blog
- Hosting him on their blog
- Collaborating on content
And within the first few weeks, we built 5-10 high-quality backlinks to his new site.
2. Launched a Guest Posting Campaign
Next, I turned my focus to guest posting.
I know guest posting has a bad rap…
I know Matt Cutts once said guest posting doesn’t work anymore and a bunch of publications have gotten slammed by Google for accepting money for posts…
But when done right, it works.
Like really well.
It not only gets you high-quality links, but it also increases your authority and sends you referral traffic (and even clients/customers).
The key is only guest posting on highly relevant websites with great Domain Authority. Then you want to place some links to your best resources in the post—not your bio.
Using this strategy, I landed him 5 incredible guest posts within 60 days that gave his new site a massive bump in authority.
3. Created 4 Pieces of SEO Content
As we built his authority through his network and guest posting, we worked together to create 4 pieces of highly-quality SEO content.
This client had tons of old blog posts that weren’t generating traffic and had no backlinks.
So, we removed them and used the old content to fuel the new SEO-focused content.
These new content pieces were created to:
- Rank for keywords his target customers search in Google
- Provide incredible answers and solutions to those searchers’ questions and problems
- Capture email addresses by offering a highly targeted lead magnet
It’s vital to note that this kind of content is much different than what most people think when they hear “blog posts”.
It’s not written for your existing audience…
And it’s not written on any topic that happens to be in your head that day…
It’s super in-depth, highly valuable content targeting a specific group of keywords.
Its goal is being the best resource on the internet (or at least one of the most unique and valuable) for a particular keyword search.
This is a paradigm-shifting concept for many bloggers and business owners, but it’s powerful enough to sabotage your organic traffic if you ignore it.
If you’re interested in hearing specifics on how I create this content, click here.
4. Built High-Quality Backlinks to That SEO Content
Once these SEO assets were created, I ran link building campaigns to get high-quality links to each of them.
In the SEO world, high-quality backlinks = relevant, high domain authority, natural links.
So, I only went after link opportunities from sites that were related to or talked about teaching / education and also had a Domain Rating in the 30+ range.
This means I had to convince other bloggers in his niche to link to him.
I won’t lie..it wasn’t easy, and it took a long time.
But it was worth it and we ended up gaining 14 high-quality links.
And those URL-specific links lead to this…
The Results…
After 6 months, this client went from 0 organic sessions per month to ~1,000 per month on average.
He hit the first page (and for some the top 3) for each of the 4 keywords we targeted.
You might be thinking to yourself…
“Dude, I already knew all of these things were important for SEO. Tell me something I don’t know.”
That’s fair.
I didn’t reinvent the wheel here. I implemented a strategy backed by widely known SEO best practices.
And that’s why this case study is so exciting.
It’s another piece of proof that the principles behind SEO (great content, authority, and a technically sound website) are still standing strong.
If you can perfect those principles with your site, you’ll get organic traffic. And probably lots of it.
Want Us to Do This for You? Get a FREE Website Analysis
Grab a spot on my calendar below to schedule your FREE 30-minute website analysis where we’ll jump on a call and show you:
- The biggest low-hanging fruit opportunities we see for increasing your traffic and leads within as little as 30 days
- How we recommend implementing the strategies discussed in the training for your specific situation
- And answer your questions about ranking and growing your blog as a marketing channel (we usually charge for this!)