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It’s an unfortunate fact – no matter how good your search engine
optimization company or in-house talent is, brand new websites have a
more difficult time achieving search engine success for competitive
phrases than their older counterparts, particularly on Google. However,
the worst thing that a new site owner can possibly do is presume that
they are “too late to the game” and decide not to pursue this marketing
channel at all. A good search engine optimization company should be
able to effectively work with a new website; setting the foundation for
a remarkable success story while still achieving steadily increasing
short-term benefit.

The Issues

There are many reasons why new websites face an uphill battle. What follows are only a few of the major stumbling blocks:

The Google Sandbox

There is much debate as to what exactly the Google Sandbox is, and even
debate as to whether it actually exists. However, recent patent filings
on behalf of Google would seem to confirm that one of the factors that
Google will take into consideration when deciding how websites should
rank is the age of the domain name. More than one search engine
optimization company has noted that there seems to be a penalty
assessed to new websites, especially those that seem to gain too many
inbound links, too fast. This is all conjecture, but this would make
sense. Inbound links factor largely in Google rankings, and therefore
many sites that were already popular in Google began selling links from
their sites based upon that popularity (a practice that goes against
Google’s terms of service). However, text link buying is very hard to
police. The Sandbox makes sense in this scenario, because Google seems
to be saying “we may not be able to stop people from buying text links,
but they are going to pay a pretty penny for them before we’ll give
them any ranking boost because of them.” This is more conjecture, of
course, but it is a popular theory in numerous search engine
optimization forums.

Lack of Links

Unfortunately, here, a new website is faced with
the opposite problem. Links to new websites are called into question,
but without incoming links, a new website has a slim chance of
performing well on Google. This Catch-22 is obviously a sore spot for
many owners of new websites.

Trustworthiness

For many years, a common search engine
optimization company strategy was to set up numerous new websites all
for one company, each geared toward targeting a different search term.
This was largely due to the fact that search engines used to place a
much higher importance on the home page of a website, rather than
interior pages. Over time, search engines caught on to this trick, and
as a result new domains are now looked at more skeptically. The
prevailing wisdom seems to be that while it is relatively easy and
inexpensive to set up a new website that targets a certain term, a
website that has been around for much longer and has a breadth of
content has much more to lose and is less likely to attempt to “game
the system”.

The Solutions

Does this mean that you shouldn’t hire a search
engine optimization company to work on your new website? Not at all. In
fact, it is in the very beginning of your website planning that a
long-term strategy should be put into motion – a strategy that still
offers positive results in the short term.

Before You Build

It is important to get your search engine
optimization company involved as early as possible before you build
your new website. Not only are there many technical issues that you
should be aware of before you begin design (such as linking
architecture, types of text to use, and balancing your SEO efforts with
your brand), but there are also strategies that can be set in motion at
the outset that will counteract some of the stumbling blocks listed
above. If you involve your search engine optimization company after you
have built your new website, much of the work you have done will likely
need to be redone with a long term strategy in mind.

Targeting Appropriate Phrases

A good search engine optimization company will
tell you that targeting highly competitive phrases with a brand new
website can be an exercise in futility. However, this does not mean
that you cannot achieve initial success on search engines. The trick is
to target less competitive phrases at the outset, and to begin tackling
the more competitive phrases later. For instance, let’s assume that
your company makes custom widgets, and that “custom widgets” is a very
competitive search phrase. A search engine optimization company working
on your new site might recommend that you instead target less
competitive variations of the term, such as “custom made widgets” or
“custom widget manufacturing.” Since these terms are less competitive,
you will be more likely to obtain high rankings for them with your new
website. You can thus enjoy highly targeted traffic in the beginning of
your campaign and eventually target more competitive and popular
phrases as your site gains traction, quality inbound links, and a
reputation for usefulness.

Make Your Site a Resource

A quality search engine optimization company
will encourage you to turn your new site into an industry resource. You
can do this by providing educational content about your industry in the
form of articles, whitepapers, and other forms of non-biased content.
There are many benefits to this approach, one of the primary being that
such content attracts inbound links without any effort on your behalf.
In addition, such a resource area builds your credibility in the eyes
of your potential customers and serves to educate them in all stages of
the buying cycle, so that when they are ready to make a purchase, you
will likely be first in mind.

Build Links

While making your new site a useful resource is a
great way to attract inbound links, this does not mean that you
shouldn’t also be seeking them out. Your search engine optimization
company should get your site included in many general directories (such
as the Yahoo directory and Business.com) but, even more importantly, in
directories that are specific to your industry. Not only do these links
help to boost your search engine rankings over time, but they are also
a quality source of targeted traffic.

Keep Your Content Fresh

A search engine spider will revisit your site
frequently if your content continues to increase and evolve frequently.
A site that has been optimized for three years with no changes to its
content will usually not fare as well as a site that has content which
is consistently updated. It’s as if the search engine is saying “Well,
this old stuff still looks good, but it certainly isn’t the newest
stuff out there about this topic.” This so-called “freshness factor”
can have a large impact on rankings, particularly with new websites.

Although it may seem that achieving search
engine success with a brand new website can be a daunting prospect, it
needn’t be if done properly. Hiring a skilled search engine
optimization company is a good first step. There’s little use in
lamenting the difficulty before you, or feeling that you have already
fallen too far behind to begin. As an old Chinese proverb reminds us,
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time
is today.”