Something for data nerds
Yep, that's a deliberately boring title. :-)
Hopefully it'll be ignored by people who want a story about a really funny cat, motivational nonsense or hopelessly outdated, cut and paste articles which are posted by ambassadors so receive loads of fawning comments.
What we've got here is data that is telling you what to expect in the coming year, assuming you write a blog post today.
And that's quite important and useful to know.
The data is from https://ahrefs.com - which if you don't know who they are & what they do, then you should find out.
They just put this on their private FB group - but it's worth sharing. I'd keep an eye on their site as they'll have an in-depth blog post about it soon.
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The charts below are based on tracking 2 million random webpages pages from when they first appeared in SERPs in August 2015 until August 2016.
What they show is proof of two things that are taught at WA:
1) You should go after the low hanging fruit ( long tail ) keywords
2) You shouldn't expect anything much from your first 6 - 9 months of slaving away writing blog posts.
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It also shows that even when you target low volume keywords, there's only a 1:5 chance that the average post will get into the Top 100 after a year and 1:20 chance of being in the Top 10.
On the face of it, that's rather depressing.
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On the face of it over 90% of those 2 million posts will probably never be seen by anyone other than the writer and a handful of others. ( Unless they're shared on social media or have ads pointing towards them. )
But remember these are 2 million random web pages and not all pages are created equally.
Of these the vast majority will be thrown up by people who aren't dong the same amount of planning as ( hopefully ) WA members are i.e: writing good quality, lengthy content - that' solves a problem or provides value in some way, getting social engagement / comments and has good on page SEO
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And for those small percentage of posts reaching the Top 10. This is how long they take on average to get there.
Conclusion:
So follow the training, read up about on-page SEO and write decent content . . .and be very patient & persistent.
Recent Comments
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Good data. It takes awhile to find and fully implement long tailed keywords in the market for sure!
I love the practical information even though they are unpopular. I don't like the motivational nonsense. But I know something. If something isn't easy to achieve, then I will succeed. :)
So thank you for your enlightening content.
I liked you article data... I would consider myself a data nerd.
The content you shared is very enlightening. I'll need to check out the link to the data provider and get on their facebook group.
Thanks For Sharing...
The road ahead is rough!
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I really enjoy your information as it is very helpful. With your yoast hacks page, the links that show on there are thoes the ones that will automatically show up on our site or do I have to add thoes links on my pages as well?
What a reality check. Probably, those are the links that show up automatically. As the author suggests you have to refine on page SEO and continue to write keyword rich quality content. Sometime within a year, the SERP will give you recognition and loads of free traffic.