Here's How to Rank with few links Backlinks!

[eivan]

[align=center]The MOST Important Factors to Successfully Ranking Without Backlinks Are:

Keyword Choice
Content and Search Snippet
Users Experience and Behavior


Why are those the MOST Important Factors?

Why Keyword Choice is Imporant:
The first step in ranking is always choosing a keyword to write about... So if you screw up the first step by choosing a keyword too competitive then Backlinks will become necessary and your goal to rank without backlinks is lost, so it's imperative that you choose the right keywords to accomplish your goal of ranking without backlinks.....

More Competitive Keywords = More Backlinks Required to Rank (by competitive I mean, the more sites writing about that keyword AND how authoritative those sites are).....

However, if you wisely choose Keywords that have S***** sites ranking for it, sites with terrible content and functionality, and sites that have little to no backlinks, then you can easily rank for those keywords based on high quality content, proper on-page seo, an enticing and relevant snippet to the query, and great site design + functionality...

I'll explain exactly what Terrible Content and Terrible Sites are later on in this post and also what Great ones are like...

Keyword Choice Examples:
The Keyword "Best Golf Balls" has mostly huge authority sites with DA's between 40 - 90 and High PA's too...

Average amount of Backlinks to each individual page ranking for that keyword is 63!

Top 3 results have on average, 163 Backlinks...

PLUS, there are 9,750 Pages Indexed with that exact keyword in their title...

And 5,790 Pages Indexed with that exact keyword in the url...

So there are a lot of competitors and the 1st page has a lot of authority sites with a lot of backlinks to those pages...

It's a pretty competitive keyword, the KD from Cognitive's Keyword Tool is 51.

Could you rank for that? Of course but you'll need as good or better content as the pages ranking for that and high quality backlinks... OUR GOAL HOWEVER, is to rank Without Backlinks...

HERE is the Wiser Keyword Choice that anyone reading can rank for without Backlinks, IF, the have great content, a great snippet, a great website, and proper on-page seo....

"best golf balls for high handicappers"

Only 180 Pages Indexed with that Keyword in their Title. (allintitle:best golf balls for high handicappers)

Only 186 Pages Indexed with that Keyword in their URL. (allinurl:best golf balls for high handicappers)

Average Backlinks of Pages Ranking 1st Page for Keyword: 11 Backlinks

Only 6 Pages have the Entire Keyword in their Snippet (In Other Words, Only the First 6 Results are 100% Relevant to the Keyword)

The KD for this Keyword is 23 (Much Lower than the Original Broad Keyword)

This is a much easier keyword that you could rank for without backlinks... But to do that, you must also execute the next steps correctly (Snippet, Content, User Experience and Behavior). Our Keyword Research is completed!

I'll summarize How to Qualify Keywords as being "easy" to rank for (easy meaning being able to rank without backlinks)

How to Qualify Keywords as being "easy" to Rank For:
KD of 25 or Lower (The Lower the Better)
Longtail Keywords Are Almost Always Easy to Rank For
Less Than 500 Results for an allintitle: Search
Less than 500 Results for an allinurl: Search
1st Page Results have Little to No Backlinks
8/10 First Page Results are Less than 100% Relevant to the Chosen Keyword
How to Find Keywords:
There are 4 Methods I use to find my keywords then after I find some, I evaluate them using the qualifiers I just talked about above...

Here's the 4 Methods:

ABC Method
Niche Site Recon Method ("Scoping" as I prefer to call it)
Keyword Suggestion Tools (like the Chrome Extension "Keywords Everywhere" or "KWFinder" or Ahrefs too)
Thought Trail
Now I'll briefly explain what each method is and how to use them...

ABC Method:
This method is quite simple but also can be tedious... Basically you use googles auto suggest and just type in something like "Best Aca" and see what google auto-suggests and eventually you'll find a decent keyword, and from there you try to find longertail versions of that keyword if its too broad...

And once you find one good keyword, you can plug it into a keyword suggestion tool or download "Keywords Everywhere" and you'll see tons of more keywords that are related to that one... These are typically referred to as LSI Keywords or Variations of your Target Keyword....

So I'll do a quick example for you all cause it might be easier to understand via implementation:

(NOTE: found a really good niche right now as I was doing this lol, and NO, not gonna reveal it... It's a fuckin gold mine, I'll reveal the next keywords/niche I find using this method)

Okay so after about 30 mins, I found a gold mine niche I won't reveal... PLUS I found an example for you guys

I started with "best f" then typed "best fl" then "best floo" then saw the auto-suggestion "best floor jack" so I clicked it and it was a tad bit too broad for me so I looked at what the Keywords Everywhere Tool Suggest on the side of my screen and I saw "best floor jack for lifted trucks" but I went a step further and put "best floor jack for lifted trucks" into KWFinder and then it showed me keyword suggestions...

NEXT, I clicked on the "KD" tab twice so it'd sort the easiest keywords to the top... and... BOOM... "lifted truck jacks" (8 KD on KWFinder) Easy Keyword to Rank for! (Unfortunately though, KWFinders been screwing up for me lately, I don't know if its just me or if everyones experiencing it... but I still managed to get that one to work)

So that's how that one works basically... You don't have to go one letter at a time though, you can type in a whole word if you wanted, such as "Best Ways" then you'll see auto-suggestions... or "Best Product For", etc.

NeXt....

Scoping (Niche Site Recon)
This ones simple too, basically you type in site:(then a url of a competitor in our niche)... For example site:mycarneedsthis.com then look at the results... It'll show every indexed page and post they have and you can just get the topics and keywords they already spent time finding... Doing this allows you to find tons of potential keywords to write about in your niche!

nExT.....

Keyword Suggestion Tools
Self-Explanatory. Just use Keyword Suggestion Tools... My Favorites are KWFinder and Keywords Everywhere. KWFinder I LOVE cause it also shows you Keyword Difficulty and Other Metrics for the Suggested Keywords... Keywords Everywhere is amazing cause it shows up when you make google searches so it's a quick and convenient way to see a bunch of related keywords and lsi keywords...

Thought Trail
This method uses your mind... Basically what you do is Imagine something people in your niche want, need, or want to learn about, and search for that...

So if you were in the First Time Dog Owners Niche, maybe something people would want to know is... "How to Get a Dog to Like You?" then test the keyword using the qualifiers I mentioned above and if it passes at least 2 of the qualifiers (especially the KD qualifier) then it'd probably be easy to rank for...

(This method is the last resort, and I don't use it very often... Sometimes I get an Aha moment from a certain thought and I type in the keyword that was sparked by that Aha moment and it turns out to be a good keyword... but that doesn't happen too often)

Now onto the Next Step, Crafting the PERFECT Snippet based on your Users Intent and the Keyword they Typed In (The Keyword you're trying to rank for)...

Why Your Search Snippet is EXTREMELY Important for Ranking:
Here's the reason it's important..

Google thinks a Result that gets more clicks is more relevant so the more clicks you get, the more relevant google thinks your content is and the more relevant your result/content is, the more valuable it'll be to the searchers...

This is why CTR (Click Through Rate) on Snippets are SO Important as a Ranking Factor, and to get a High CTR you must understand How to Write a Great Snippet....

How to Craft the Perfect Snippet that Searchers and Google alike will Love:
If you write an article for the keyword "best golf balls for high handicappers" and your title in your search snippet is really bland and boring like "Best golf balls for a high handicapper" then you'll be competing with tons of other bland and boring titles that were created by someone who has no creativity or emotion....

Searchers are REAL PEOPLE with REAL INTENT and People's Intentions are virtually ALWAYS Inspired by How they Feel... So PLEASE for the Love of God, if you want success ranking without backlinks, Pack your Snippets FULL of Emotion...

But be Wise about it... Don't Write a Title like this "BEST GOLF BALLS FOR HANDICAPPERS IN 2019" <- that's so obnoxious and spammy looking, it easily turns a searcher off and repulses them from clicking your result and the goal is to get as many clicks as possible so google thinks your result is more relevant than other results....

Instead do something like this ---> "Best Golf Balls That High Handicappers Will Love (2019)..." (I always try to get the exact keyword in the title but sometimes you can't quite get it, don't compromise emotion for the exact match phrase, Emotion and Snippets that will entice people to click or that they'll connect with are more important than the exact match phrase but try to get all or most of the exact keyword in the title, url, and description)

And feel free to experiment sometimes (if you want too), such as, "Best Golf Balls in the Eyes of High Handicappers!", "These Golf Balls are the Best According to High Handicappers"...

Tips for your Titles:

Make them Emotional, Interesting, or Personal Somehow
Make them as Relevant to your Target Keyword as Possible
Don't make them too long, (If you use Wordpress, Download Yoast SEO and Keep the Title in the Green Area cause that means you're title is just the right length)
Make them as "Clickable" as Possible... Start asking yourself when you search for stuff on google "Why did I click the result I clicked?" that'll help you get an idea of how to craft good titles. It's a learning process...
In the end... If your Snippet satisfies the Users Intentions, Desires, and Intrigues them the Most than You're Most Likely of all the other results to get a click and if you get the most clicks, you'll rise in rankings because what searchers are clicking the most, google assumes that result is fulfilling the searchers intent the most...

For Example, I had a page ranking on the 3rd page once and I went back to it and looked at my search snippet then looked at the top search snippets on the 1st page and realized mine was being misunderstood...

So I changed the Snippet to be as easy to understand and relevant as possible to the search query and the searchers intent...

Then slowly but surely it went from the 3rd page to the 1st position on google and I saved my hard work writing that article... If I hadn't of made the changes it probably would've never even got to the 2nd page...

Remember to Craft Great Snippets that Satisfy the Users Intent, Is Relevant to the Target Keyword, and that's Enticing and Emotional or Personal...

Time for the Star of the Show... Content.

How to Write Great Content:
I said I'd explain the difference between great content and terrible content... After writing all this, I'm getting tired, had a long day, so instead, I'll give examples of both and let you study them first hand!



(NOTE: lol, while trying to find two good examples of great and bad content (and sites) i found a 10Beasts.com copycat... It's LITERALLY the exact same look, feel, design, etc. as 10Beasts... Here it is > https://www.yourbestpicks.com/ just something you guys might find interesting. Copy Cats are all over... Even worse is, this 10Beasts copycat is ranking for "best large air fryer" and is probably ranking really well for other keywords, which means, he's probably making a lot of money... dunno for sure though..)

Here is an Example of Great Content and a Great Niche Site:

https://www.gearhungry.com/best-screwdriver-set/

Here is an Example of Bad Content and a Bad Niche Site for the Same Keyword I found the Good One On:

https://xlraceparts.com/6-best-screwdriver-sets/

What's the difference?

One is Detailed, In-Depth, Trying to Actually Help the Reader find the Best Screwdriver Set for Them rather than making a quick buck, more multi-media, proper on-page seo, accurate information, structured well, had pro's and con's, etc.

The others just short, and S*****... It's easy to see that site xlrraceparts is a thin affiliate site and not valuable to google searchers at all... at least not that screwdriver set review!

Great Content Has:

Easy to Read Fonts
Text that's Sized to an Easy-to-Read Size
Formatted Well
Structured Well
Good Grammar
Space Sentences
Multi-Media
Sources (High Quality Outbound Links) (Not always but should be done if it'll help the user or is relevant)
Accurate, Well-Researched Information
and Great Content Is:

Detailed
Helpful to it's Users (Answers or Satisfies their Intent)
Brian Dean from Backlinko has tons of helpful guides and resources about Content, Proper On-Page SEO, and all this stuff I'm covering right now... AND, In fact, His website and content is Incredible... Perfect Example of "Great Content" and a "Great Site".

Here's some more examples of really good Content and Sites:

https://www.soundguys.com/noise-cancelli...-100-7142/ (This is a really cool designed niche site... they even used wordpress to do it, pretty good site)

I F****** LOVE CNET's Review Design.. It's so cool... https://www.cnet.com/topics/headphones/b...canceling/ and it ranks well cause users watch the review videos of quite a few products and then click over to buy... So they get a High Avg. Time on Page and Low Bounce Rate... I'd bet everything I own on that! CNET has great reviews...

https://petlifetoday.com/best-automatic-cat-feeders/ Kinda slow loading for me but overally, a pretty good niche site and good review content!

okay i give up, after finding random keywords to try and find good niche sites and content to give as examples for you guys, I realized how many S***** affiliate niche sites there actually are out there... So many sites were slow, not 100% functional, horrible design, horrible review structure, horrible on-page seo, spammy, etc.

The last factor to ranking without backlinks is User Experience and Behavior... When you look at your Google Analytics Statistics and Data... That tells you what your users experience and behavior is like. If your bounce rate is at 90% or higher, then you got problems... serious F****** problems... if your avg. session duration is below 30 seconds then you also have problems, avg. time on page below 3 minutes? kill your affiliate marketing career immediately (only kidding... I think.)

Averages tend to be about:

5 Min Avg. Time on Page
50 Seconds - 1 Minute + Avg. Session Duration
1.20 - 1.40 Pages/Session
65% - 85% Bounce Rate
So try to get yours to around those numbers or try to exceed them and you should do good!

Gonna end it here, Couldve went a lot more in-depth in the Content and User Experience Sections but I might make a separate post about those...

[giadina]

thanks for this! I appreciated.
Do more, please!! Max reps

[kirstie]

Thanks for sharing eivan - reps added :)

[jet123]

Thanks for taking the time to create this post. Max reps.

[jackanderson]

Link authority is more important than link popularity. Some High DR related link is better than excessive unrelated link.

[kimmer551]

Thanks for sharing,this will help me a lot.

[vwillis]

Excellent post, very informative and I think you are spot on with this.

[NithyaLife]

Awesome, will definitely test when I get some time. Thanks.

[R- Type]

great post about onpage, very helpful insights. repps added.

[Dushaynt]

Thanks for sharing
Great content