u/mnsnly

I am still learning SEO so I had some questions:

I have a new SAAS site with only a few backlinks to my home page, gets 60 clicks in a mo and DR is like 7 (Ahrefs). The site currently only has the home page and 5 feature pages.

I am starting a new blog section. I have identified a few low KD keywords to go after that are relevant to my niche.

What should I do next after publishing pages targeting each of those keywords?

1. I have identified some other relevant sites and will be reaching out to get backlinks from them. Should I point these backlinks to the new pages I will be publishing? Like 1 backlink for each page?

2. Should I feature these pages on the home page so that they get authority from the home page through internal links?

3. Should I also be linking these blogs with each other? How do I do internal linking? When do I do internal linking?

4. Once all of this is done, assuming these are to be done, what should I keep an eye on in GSC? and how do I use that data?

Looking for advice from experienced SEOs. Appreciate your help!

Hi all,

I am sort of new to SEO. Learning it by myself.

Posts and comments here have been very, very helpful. But I haven't been able to wrap my head around how to build towards ranking for high vol, high competition KWs.

My website is in the leadership coaching niche. It's new. No backlinks yet.

As far as I understand, ranking is a function of authority and relevance.

As per the posts I have read, authority is a function of backlinks and organic traffic mainly. Relevance is basically about writing the content in a way that you have your target keyword in the right places in the page.

But for a new website like mine, given it's a low authority website, how do I rank for high volume, high competition target keywords eventually?

1. Where should I start? I know a lot of people suggest low competition, long tail keywords, but which ones should I go after if I have to ultimately rank for, say, 'leadership coaching'. Should I start with a long tail variant of leadership coaching or can I start with any long tail keyword which doesn't even have 'leadership coaching' term in it, but is sort of related to leadership coaching kw, e.g. executive management development for first-time founders, mentor & coach for tech founders?

2. I have also heard that I should get backlinks as soon as possible. But what about the pace at which backlinks are to be acquired? And what about the anchor text mix? I have heard if I get a lot of backlinks with exact match keywords as anchor text too quickly, that can cause a penalty. I know backlinks aren't easy to get but is that true? I have read that initially, for a new website, it's safer to get backlinks with naked URL, generic text and branded text as anchor texts, with all backlinks pointed to the home page. Is that the right practice? Where do you point the backlinks you get to - your target page directly? Even on a new site?

3. How do I structure the internal links? Most articles I have read talk about hub and spoke model. But here I've read that internal links are sort of emergent, basis which pages are ranking and which CAN rank given their proximity to page 1 of search results. Which one works?

4. How worried should I be about keyword cannibalization at this stage? How do I do keyword research to avoid it?

I am still learning. So any help would be appreciated if you could address these points specifically. And of course, open to learning beyond these too. :)