I Ranked a 2-Week Old Website for a Big Keyword in < 14 Days
I can hardly believe it myself
If you’ve read my other articles, then you know that I love to run ranking experiments.
So far, I’ve been able to rank #1 for a keyword in less than 12 hours. I’ve also ranked a YouTube video at the top of Google Search in five minutes.
But the results of this latest experiment still blew me away.
I hope that background information doesn’t come across as bragging — my intention is to show that I might know what I’m talking about (at least when it comes to Google ranking).
Here is how I ranked a brand-new website for a big keyword in less than 14 days.
Update: Right as I was about to finish this article, I decided to check the other handful of articles on my site. 99% of them show up in Google in the top 20 searches. I’ve never seen anything like it on a new website.
It Started With an Embarrassing Lurch Onto the Internet
After building four other websites in the last two years, I figured I knew how to start a website.
Wrong.
My first attempt at creating this new site was an embarrassment. Like I’ve done with several other sites, I bought hosting through Bluehost. It’s a cheap platform with everything you need.
Lots of other bloggers run into problems using Bluehost.
But I’ve never had much of an issue. Signing up proved easy, as did auto-generating a WordPress.org site on my hosting plan.
My first mistake was choosing a different theme. I remembered saying somewhere that I wanted to try the Generate Press theme. I still do but the last-minute decision under a time crunch turned into a time-sapping failure.
Since I’m running four other websites mostly on my own, I don’t have time to figure out the mechanics of an unfamiliar theme.
After 30 minutes of curse-filled frustration, I switch my theme to Astra.
Being much more familiar with this free theme, it took me no time to set up the website how I like it, including five minutes to design my logo with Canva.
Then I made a second mistake.
Actually, I Made Two More Big Blunders
The second thing I did wrong is prematurely adding my site to Google Search Console.
My intention was good: I wanted Google to know my site existed.
The faster I submit my sitemap, the faster Google would index my site. That was my thought process.
Unfortunately, my site was still in temporary “unpublished” mode. Still under construction. I quickly finished putting together my site, published it, and resubmitted it to Google.
There were still multiple versions of my site floating around the internet.
So, I hired tech help to fix my self-made multiverse mess, then realized that I had no idea what I was going to publish on this site.
Yeah, don’t do that.
I knew I wanted to run some new experiments. That’s about it.
I’m telling you all of my mistakes to let you know that you can rank fast even if you don’t launch your site perfectly.
Setting up my website with a fast theme, a decent host, the right pages, a good domain name, and a simple design all helped me rank it in less than 14 days.
But what I did next helped the most.
This Is How I Ranked a 2-Week Old Website High On Google
The simple version is that I used a new keyword search method.
It’s not new as in “nobody else knows about it.” Like many other things in life, the process is simple and probably obvious to lots of other people.
How I usually conduct keyword research looks like this:
- Type niche-related words and phrases into Google search to see what Google auto-suggests
- Use free tools like Google Keyword Planner, Keyword Sheeter, and DeapMarket
- Pay for tools like Ahrefs, Shine Ranker, and Lowfruits.io
These still work very well for me. I still do them but for this new website, I did something slightly different.
And it resulted in my site ranking for a keyword with an estimated 6.3k thousand searches per month.
Here is the keyword process I used to rank my new website:
- Log into Ahrefs (a super useful but expensive tool). You can use KeywordSheeter, SemRush, SearchResponse.io, or H-Supertools for free or cheaper keyword tools.
- In Ahrefs, go to Keyword Explorer.
- Type in a generic word like “Who”.
- Run the search (and get millions of results most of which I can’t go for — too much competition).
- Filter the results by Keyword Difficulty (I almost always choose 0 since that’s the easiest way to organically rank new and old websites).
- Get a much smaller but still relatively big list of zero-competition keywords.
- Read through endless pages of keywords for topics that I don’t want to write about, get distracted by stupid rabbit-hole curiosity, refocus, and keep searching (keep in mind that I still don’t know what my website will really be about).
- Stop at a keyword that gets my attention (I’ll only say that it is animal related — hence the neon dog sign in the picture of this post. It’s a funny, silly, kinda ridiculous keyword).
- Look deeper into the keyword search results to check the competition (There is actually a few other short articles written about this exact topic. Typically, I would move on but, for some reason, I didn’t).
- Think about the odds of ranking for this keyword.
- Decide I could write a longer, better, and more valuable article than any that currently existed on the topic.
How I Wrote The Article That Ranked in < 14 Days
I didn’t do much for this article that I don’t do for all of my other articles across my portfolio of sites.
To save you from hunting down my other articles, I start with a short and direct introduction. Zero fluff is my go-to rule. I answer the question or offer the solution as soon as possible, then expand to cover all the related details.
I include subheadings from the People Also Ask and People Also Search sections of Google.
I study the top articles for the keyword and make sure I include what they include — then add a bit more.
My article stats:
- 1,262 words
- 2 images
- 1 video
- 1 H1 header
- 6 H2 headers
- 5 H3 headers
- 2 high-domain external links
I should also mention that this article is not ranking #1 for this keyword yet. It can take weeks and usually months for an article to reach its full rank on Google.
And that’s especially true for a brand new website.
But I’m very hopeful (reluctantly confident) that the article will eventually hit the first page of Googe for the keyword, if not the top spot.
Where is my article ranking now?
Page 3, number 24 out of 189,000 results. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Why I Think I Ranked So Quickly
In all honesty, I didn’t think it would rank this quickly.
When I set out to create this website, I had ranking quickly in mind. I wanted to get this site on Google as soon as possible and then eventually, onto the first page and into one of those featured snippets.
That brings in tons of traffic and helps build trust with your website instantly.
Here’s how I think it happened.
First, I set my site up correctly. This included choosing a great theme and limiting plugins to help my website load quickly and look good on all devices.
Secondly, I chose a very low-competition keyword. This is key! If you try to rank for a keyword that has too much competition, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle from the start.
Finally, and most importantly, I wrote a high-quality article.
This article was well researched with high-quality sources and included everything that someone searching for this topic would want to know. It also included custom graphics that perfectly illustrated the points I was making in the article.
Typically, I only add one image (the featured image). Something told me to add two custom images this time, plus a hyper-related video.
All in all, I think it’s a better resource than anything out there.
The essential ingredients:
- Good site (WordPress.org, all the required pages, short domain name, few plugins, easy access to all my content from the homepage)
- Good theme (I usually go with Astra since it’s fast and free)
- Good keyword research (new method)
- Good competition analysis (always manually check the top articles)
- Good article with good media (images and video)
Final Thoughts
I don’t think I mentioned yet that this article that ranked is also the very first article on my new website.
That means it ranked without any domain or topical authority.
I hope this article inspires you and helps you get your own rankings more quickly.
Thanks for reading!
Related posts:
- 3 Low-Effort SEO Tips for Better Rankings on Google
- How I Ranked a YouTube Video in 30 Minutes
- I Ranked #1 On Google in 2 Hours — New Personal Record
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