Different SEO tactics for new sites than for established!

It has to be said that there is a huge difference of opinion in this and other forums on what is the best way to improve your position in the serps. Would it be fair to say that depending on your sites age and authority that different approaches have to be considered?

For example, my newest site was receiving zero traffic from google and the other search engines. At this point I decided to spend a week submitting it to directories,publishing articles,commenting on blogs etc etc. All the things that are considered by some to be a waste of time. 4-6 weeks later I started seeing traffic and this continued to increase. At this point I decided to change my approach due to the fact that my site was being seen.

I spent the next 3 months concentrating sole on developing and adding great unique content. I paid for a set of videos to be made and a couple of web applications to act as link bait.


I have since found that people are finding the site and linking to it and now I am starting to climb (all be it slowly) in the serps for my more competitive terms.

My point is that what you have to do to even get a new site on googles radar is very different to what you have to do when your site is starting to compete. In the beginning if I had spent all my time on content then it wouldn't of had a great impact as no one would have seen it to link to it. Equally If I continued listing on free directories and blogs I would never be able to compete for the more competitive keywords.

I would love to hear what you all think on this subject.

Kinda figures that a new site has no links so of course you have to put some effort in link building

Also stands to reason that an established site with stale content will soon start losing it's appeal to the search engine bots so refresshing conntent would be appropriate at that stage

Agree with you that there is a certain intensity of work involved in geting a site established and once establish then activities tend to change to site maintainance work

Doesn't mean it came from those links you got... I only put one link to a new site so it's found and indexed, then forget about the link crap, don't even do the xml sitemap thing, and it works just fine... content will get the links on their own.

but how if your site isnt being seen?

In Google, the older your site is, the easier to be listed and ranked. But on the other search engines like Yahoo & MSN, they don't practice this. The important thing they have in common is quality backlinks and good content - this is really matters.

Let's assume you did this "first"... and instead of submitting to directories that don't give a rats *** about your content... did a little SBM and emails a few influential bloggers... you may find that instead of 4-6 weeks later you achieve the same in 1-2 weeks, and by week 6 you are 3 times more exposed than the other method...

The point to take away... "if linkbait" works at week 6 it is reasonable to assume it work equally well at day 1.

I agree... If your content is ready for showtime on day one... why wait till week or month N to let the major market segments know about it?

Really.... I would think this is the thing we all mostly agree on. LINKS, LINKS, LINKS and more LINKS.....

The only disagreement is realy over the relative merit/value of different links and different link building methods that give the best ROI... IMO....

developing junk links into an domain with no content is a waste of the time needed to develop them

It does for a while... they call it "the new site credit" and last long enough to get you links... it took much more than that for my poker suff... but it's easier to grab lesser words with much less work.

I think again the buzzword of the day is 'community'.

Link directories and ezines are not active communties with real people visiting and searching. SMB are active communities and if you find a user who has no life but SMB and likes your glow in the dark worms video then you could reap some cool benefits.

One is a tactic from yesteryear, the other is how people search and find neat stuff, and link, today.

I believe you did the very right thing, announcing your site, getting those links through your applications(link bait), article directories, and then add more content.. It's the best way and what I hear from the google webmaster chat, is the right way ..

Good Luck