Hey hey!
I have seven sites in my portfolio now, and as any serial new site starter knows, the new ones are often the most exciting, right?
My new site is a couple of months old and it’s shocked me because it’s growing faster than any of my others did.
It used to be the case that it would take around four months before the first trickle of visitors would arrive at the site via Google Search.
People referred to this as the ‘Google sandbox’ – meaning that Google wouldn’t let new sites rank for at least 6 months.
There was always some argument about whether the sandbox existed or not, but I’ve never seen new sites get more than a handful of clicks.
I tweeted about this back in 2022…
(In the rest of the thread I basically said that it’s normal not to get traffic for 6 months and, and don’t worry)
Yet somehow, this new site is growing right away.
It’s not even two months old and look at the Search Console graph… 🚀
With each of the six websites I’ve launched (plus one that I bought), I’ve gotten better at this.
So, let’s talk about 5 things I did differently to make this new site a winner from day one…
1. I outsourced everything.
I’m a bit of a control freak by nature, so I used to try to do everything myself.
That was an error.
With this site, I handed the whole project over to Web Asset Builders.
They did the keyword research, site build, content production and publishing.
All I did was choose the niche and domain name (although that’s included in the service if you want it)
They did a fantastic job, I’m thrilled with the service.
Hands off = much more chilled.
Hiring an agency works out much cheaper than hiring SEOs, web devs, writers, editors and VAs individually
Plus, I don’t need to manage anyone, I just deal with one person.
Win-win.
2. I published more content.
Because I didn’t have to do anything myself, the new content went on the site really quickly.
We have 70 posts within 2 months – that would have usually taken me about a year to do, even with writers and VAs.
3. I targeted a sub-niche first
With this site, we’re working on one category at a time.
So the first 50 posts are all about one sub-niche.
This means we have greater topical authority in that area, compared to if we’d try to pick the easiest ones first.
4. I partnered with a niche expert.
Previously, I’ve tried to be the expert myself.
And you can’t be the expert of everything, particularly if you’re not mega into the niche.
So this time, I partnered with an expert on a revenue share basis.
They proof-read and edited the articles, added some unique photos and put their name and face on the site.
5. I added a second traffic source.
With this site, I’m not relying on Google.
Check out my traffic sources…
I’m ignoring direct because I expect that a lot of that was people working on the site and I didn’t block anyone’s IPs from Google Analytics.
But look at that lovely organic social traffic!
The Facebook page only has around 500 followers so far, but we’ve been posting every day using the methods I’ve explained in my previous emails.
The organic social traffic will no doubt be helping with the organic search traffic – as it seems that Google wants to rank multi-channel brands ahead of sites built for organic search only.
My thoughts
I’m really pleased with how this new website is going.
Both Web Asset Builders and my business partner who’s name and face is on the front page have done outstanding jobs with it.
The next step is to build some links to give it a boost – and of course, I’ll be outsourcing that as well – so watch this space for updates.
– NSL