New website SEO:
How to rank a new website on Google Avoiding Sandbox – Updated [2023]
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New Website SEO: How to Rank a new website on Google?
Ranking a new website in Google is not an easy task. There is a saying by some SEO’s that until a new website reaches a certain age, it can not be ranked by Google. This effect is commonly known as the sandbox effect.
Google sandbox
The Google sandbox theory is existing in the market for almost the past 15 years. At some point, SEO specialists noticed that ranking a new website using Bing or Yahoo search engines is much easier compared with Google search engines. So thereafter SEO specialists concluded that there exists a secret theory for Google which afterward they named Google sandbox.
The Google sandbox theory is existing in the market for almost the past 15 years. At some point, SEO specialists noticed that ranking a new website using Bing or Yahoo search engines is much easier compared with Google search engines. So thereafter SEO specialists concluded that there exists a secret theory for Google which afterward they named Google sandbox.
Some also raise a question: does Google sandbox exist? Google representatives repeatedly denied the existence of the sandbox theory.
But in some instances, Google representatives admit that new websites may indeed experience some filtering phases. These filtering phases may not be regarding the young age of the website but due to the lack of trust-building concepts. A new website might be of little and non-valuable content, or with pages of duplicate content. In such cases, it is difficult to rank those websites for Google. So to decide the credibility of websites Google uses some sort of algorithm for ranking pages on search.
So yes, it is difficult for new websites to be ranked immediately on Google search engines, but Google does not have any predetermined probation period for ranking pages. If a new website gains good trust and Quality signals from users, that website may reach the top of search results as soon as possible.
New Website SEO: How to avoid the sandbox effect to rank a website
If you want to avoid the sandbox effect quickly on your website, you should concentrate more and work hard on creating quality content and building good links between your website and the rest of the web as soon as the website launches.
Improving the content on the existing website and doing a content audit.
There are a few techniques to avoid the sandbox effect and to reach a good ranking for new websites which is called New Website SEO
1. Run a Post-launch audit
Before launching a website on the Google search engine you should perform a Post-launch website audit to see if the website is user and search-friendly and make sure that there are no technical barriers.
Check for indexing issues
To check for indexing issues you should launch a website auditor using your domain name and make sure that the search engine can access all the pages you have imported into the webpage. Launching this tool will perform an audit of your website and provide a complete report on all technical issues. Crawl the report thoroughly to check all the pages of your website will appear or not.
A website audit is an examination performed on a website before launching it. SEO and content checking are the main reasons to perform a website audit. The SEO audit’s purpose is to discover the weak points of a website’s SEO score and to rebuild it. Content audit helps to analyze what changes are to be made to the content to increase the website’s performance.
A website audit checks the performance on
Site health
Website performance
User experience
User Engagement
Traffic etc,
Conducting an audit for a website is just not for discovering errors. It can also offer a lot more.
A website audit can be divided into
Site health audit: It identifies the potential gaps in content formation, and technical gaps and also checks for website speed
Website security audit: A security audit performed on sensitive information of a business or its visitors
Social media presence audit: This audit analyze which content channels perform best which also includes tools like blogs, videos, infographics, and social media
Conversion rate optimization audit: This audit was performed to insight into how to increase leads and how to convert web traffic
.Negative SEO audit: This audit identifies and solves any harmful practices on a website if present.
Competitor website audit: This audit discovers the insights and opportunities to implement on your website.
Penalty and recovery audit: This audit uncovers the manual and algorithmic penalties if any. These penalties have a direct negative effect on ranking your website.
Duplicate content audit: This audit is performed to discover any duplicate content present on your website. Which can result in algorithmic penalization.
Check for UX issues
After finishing the audit for the website, it is a must to check for the UX metrics. Google most preferably considers the better user experience for a better ranking of a website. Make sure to check on content that is accessible easily and quickly. For a quick check of the user experience standards on Google, use your Google search console account. It will help to check how fast the elements load and how soon a user can interact with the page of your website. It also checks for the mobile accessibility of your page by examining the mobile layout, font and button sizes, and content width, etc.
Google automatically discovers any problem with your webpage, and also provides a list of offending pages and their related issues and even some advice on how to fix them.
2. Join business directories which helps to rank your website
Try to be listed in relevant business directories which can increase the chances of ranking your page by helping your website in interacting with the rest of the web.
Claim your GMB profile
To prove the existence of your website on Google, the best way is to create a listing in Google’s directory Google My Business (GMB). In GMB, create a page where you can tell Google about your business and also verify your ownership.
Once the verification is done, you can access your GMB dashboard where you can fill out your profile with complete details. It is always recommended to provide more details to take advantage of GMB features and to become entitled in the Google database. Creating a GMB profile will also make your website eligible for local search results:
- Local pack in search results
- A pin in google maps
Google reported that most of the searches have local intent. Even knowing this fact, most of the websites fail to take advantage of the Google My Business platform which is completely free to use. There are several benefits of getting set up on Google My Business.
Shows up in Google Maps searches
A customer searches for a service or information and generally, looks for the nearest to their location. Creating a Google My Business profile will let your website be located in Google search Maps which helps the customer to identify you.
Shows up in Google’s local 3-pack
Google limited its search results to maps while doing an organic search. Google shows a Map with only 3 locations, this is a local 3-pack. Having a profile in Google My Business will boost your profile to be present in the local 3-pack.
Earn trust from customers
Once your website is displayed in Google maps it automatically attracts the attention of visitors and influences the trust factor.
Star ratings boost your appeal
Once a customer visits your profile, it is your responsibility to provide the best service which helps the customer to make a review on your website. The star rate boosting will automatically attract more visitors to your website.
Increase traffic and sales
The more customers visit your page the more traffic you can gain. Google My Business helps to improve the traffic of your website by improving positive user behavior.
Learn more about your business
Navigating to the insight section, Google My Business helps you to analyze how visible your brand is to the customer and how to improve the brand value.
Rank higher in results
By supplying quality and accurate content you can build trust towards Google which will help to rank your website higher in its search and map results.
Increase engagement
Google My Business profile increases the opportunities for the engagement of customers to your website. A customer can call, reserve a table, or book an appointment with just a click or a tap.
Find popular local directories
Not up to the extent of GMB, but local directories also contribute a lot to your online visibility. Find out a few local business directories that your potential customer uses and try to list those. It could be justdial, sulekha, or something much more local.
3.Create content in clusters
Google always ranks pages that come from niche websites, which means a specialized segment for a particular kind of product. You should try to create lots of quality content on that particular topic and demonstrate yourself as an expert in that niche. It should be done by focusing on one topic and covering it from as many angles as possible instead of jumping from topic to topic. You should try to create the content as a bunch of related topics but not as isolated topics.
4. Display positive user behavior which helps Google to rank your website
Although Google denies using behavior signals in ranking pages, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. It is believed that the user’s visits, interactions, long sessions, comments, reviews, and social shares may help Google while ranking a website.
Source some initial visitors
It is always a challenge for new websites to attract visitors and improve positive user behavior. You can publish an announcement via local media, interest groups, and your social media accounts while launching your website to grab initial visitors.
Keep your visitors engaged
Just attracting visitors to your website is not enough. Try to create a good first impression for the user to scroll down the page. The page should be designed in a way that the user can stay for a longer period. The content should be segmented, with easy navigation, plenty of high-quality visuals, and no annoying pop-ups.
Make a simple recommendation system to navigate other pages of your website based on the currently viewed content to make the user engaged with your website. This is where cluster content comes into use.
5. Grow a backlink profile to improve your website ranking
Being backlinked by other websites, preferably better-established ones can send a strong signal to Google about your new website. The more websites you link to and the quality of those websites may increase the trust of your website.
But the biggest challenge here is to find those websites which are willing to accept your website to backlink. There are more SEO’s competing for these backlinks. The trick here is to find a few of your competitors who are already backlinked by other popular websites. These websites are interested in your business niche, which naturally increase the chances of your success. These websites are generally linked to more than one of your competitors, which means they are open to more partnerships.
Launch SEO SpyGlass, and start finding the websites that are backlinks to your competitors. SEO SpyGlass also helps to keep track of your progress, once you start building a backlink profile. It will help you further if you lost some of your important links, and avoid bad links.
6. Reference quality sources
Try to connect your website to the rest of the web by using quality resources. Whenever you create content, find a way to quote a recognized expert or link to a Wikipedia article. This strategy can implement at no cost and with little effort. This strategy is not limited to blog posts, it can also be implemented for product pages by adding external reviews.
Following all these above steps will make your website rank in google avoiding the sandbox effect which is called New Website SEO.
To get more traffic for your website. Not just new website SEO, you can also improve your website’s rankings of old websites by content pruning. Here is a detailed article on Content Pruning SEO