New websites are often penalised when Google spiders first discover them. Known as the Google Sandbox, new sites can struggle to the get the ranking their optimisation effects would otherwise deserve. A site may remain in the Sandbox for anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months, depending on several factors. While it’s impossible to completely legislate for this penalty there are steps you can take in order to minimize the effects on your early traffic levels and Google rankings.
Rank For Less Competitive Keywords
It will prove most challenging to rank highly for your most competitive keywords. However, you may still be able to reach top spots for your less competitive SEO keywords. Ensure that you use the most highly targeted keywords during In the early stages of your site;soptimisation, you can still rank well for these. Continue to optimise for the more popular keywords at the same time
but remember that the more targeted a keyword, the more targeted and responsive the resulting visitors will be.
Use Aged Domains
Buying an existing domain can help you bypass some of the Sandbox effect .Consider buying domains that are 12 months or older. They may cost more but by using
an aged domain, the search engines should have already indexed the main site.
You may not be able to completely avoid the Sandbox but it will help to reduce the time spent there to some degree. There are other potential SEO benefits
to buying aged domains as well.
Be Active In Creating Content And Building Links
Good SEO for competitive keywords requires patience. Even for sites that have not been stuck in the Sandbox, you can expect it to take weeks or months before
you start to realise traffic from these competitive search terms. Build good quality content and start building long term, trusted links to your pages.
Once your site comes out of the Sandbox these early SEO efforts will begin to take effect and provide additional traffic levels.
Google Isn’t The Only Search Engine
Bing Live, Yahoo, and ASK may only have comparatively market share but they can still provide a good source of qualified SEO traffic. Google is the most
likely to apply a penalty to juvenile websites while Yahoo and Live, at least, are not believed to include a similar aspect in their own algorithms and calculations.
Good SEO should help drive traffic from all the major search engines.
SEO Isn’t The Only Source Of Traffic
SEO may be a source of the most inexpensive but highly targeted traffic but it isn’t the only way to drive traffic to a website. Affiliate marketing, email
marketing, banner advertising, and PPC may also prove beneficial for the new website. By using a mix of marketing techniques, which includes SEO, you can
ensure a constant stream of traffic to your website regardless of whether any circumstances change. PPC, or Pay Per Click, marketing can prove a very beneficial
and immediate source of traffic that is perfect for the early days of your website.
