Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller, provided excellent and often overlooked SEO strategy advice on getting a new website quickly picked up by Google.
How to scale new domain traffic in six months
Search Engine Journal writer Roger Montii picked up on a Reddit conversation in which a person who recently registered a new domain asked what three things they should consider when launching their website.
The Redditor said the niche, business, and adding the domain to Google Search didn’t matter. They sought information on what high-priority SEO strategies they should implement to help scale traffic in the first six months.
Here’s the question:
- “Let’s say you have a brand new domain, and you’ve been given a task to build traffic in the next 6 months. The niche, business does not matter, and the basics like ‘adding domain to Google search console’ don’t matter. Tell me what are the first 3 high-priority things you’ll implement.”
Best answer on the thread
The most upvoted answer was what Roger Montii described as “the most obvious suggestions.”
IronBanana21 gave this advice to their fellow Redditor:
- “Create landing pages/content for your lowest funnel keyword opportunities and work the way up.”
- “Claim brand on top social medias.”
- “Build easiest citations and directories that I know get indexed. Plus niche relevant ones.”
- “Start reactive digital PR as main initial link building campaign.”
Other Redditors agreed with those tactics.
The first reply was:
- “Best answer on this thread, and the only one that is real world advice.”
Another backed that up:
- “Ya agree, those points are solid. I’d also recommend to start writing blog and focus on those long-tail keywords to start ranking and index those pages properly.”
What Roger Montii said about the answers being “the most obvious suggestions” is correct.
But as Daniel Libeskind said, “Life is not just a series of calculations and a sum total of statistics; it’s about experience, it’s about participation, it is something more complex and more interesting than what is obvious.”
That’s where Mueller’s answer, born from his experience on the subject, avoids the obvious.
Mueller’s advice on DNS and holding pages
Mueller’s participation in the thread came soon after the “obvious answer” and highlighted an often overlooked technical issue when encouraging Google to pick up on a new site.
Mueller’s reply:
- “Just throwing this out there–if you don’t have a site ready, either keep DNS disabled or put up a custom holding page. Don’t use a generic server / CMS holding page. It generally takes longer for a site that’s known to be parked / duplicate to get recognized as a normal site than it does for a site to be initially picked up.”
What it means
John Mueller’s advice provided an invaluable insight on how Google picks up on new sites faster by avoiding a single common mistake. John’s advice, “keep DNS disabled or put up a custom holding page,” means using a generic server / CMS holding page (the common mistake) may slow Google’s discovery of your new website.
When he is not writing content, Terry can be found on his boat in Italy or chilling in his villa in Spain.
- Google Goes Nuclear To Power AI Data Centers - October 15, 2024
- SEO Weekly News Roundup [October 7 to 11, 2024] - October 14, 2024
- Google Local Service Ads Update On The Way - October 11, 2024
