What's a reasonable time to start ranking for a niche site?

[AndrusPurde]

I launched a niche site to go through the whole process, for fun and profit. Started with keyword research (3-6 word long tail keywords), have done first 3 posts and done minimal amount of link building. Have gotten about a dozen visitors in the first 5 weeks and ranking on page 2. Is this ok or should I be more aggressive with link building (assuming my keyword research is done ok)?

[AndrusPurde]

Forgot to add it is a brand new domain with PR 0

[Chenzo]

My saying is - if it doesn't make sense - it will not rank in a post penguin/panda world.

How old is the URL ?

Best thing to do though is if you have jumped to 2nd page within the first 3 months - then:

CONTENT _ CONTENT _ CONTENT

Remember Google's job is to provide the searcher the BEST resource.

Are you that resource?

[AndrusPurde]

Thanks Chenso! The URL is 6 weeks old now. If I understand you correctly, you're saying is that it's to be expected that getting initial rankings takes a bit of time, and that I should focus on great content, not link building, right?

[cbielich]

I agree with Chenzo, post Panda and Penguin make sure your site shows that you are the man in the subject/service and convince others they should go to your site.

Making a site, adding keywords and SEO and sitting waiting for something to start happening doesn't work anymore

[polarking]

Is the sitemap submitted?

Like said early content is very important.

You may know this but don't get impatient and try and speed things up by doing anything blackhat.

I haven't launched a new site with a new domain so I can only say that it it me about 3 months to get back to normal after a redesigned site launch. Had to do some post launch clean up

[Chenzo]

Exactamente!

[nyanainc]

If you add also few contextual backlinks on the fresh content from other blogs(guest posts) on your niche will drive much more traffic, and much more natural links. Rand was having a post , how to track niche blogs with many rss subscribers. When you make your post, all this subscribers get notified and they come to your blog. If they like it they link it:) Free SEO:) Plus I dont think so that natural links can get punished:) Check for that post and will help you a lot. Or you can just buy the mozcon:) They have a module , how to get links :). Good luck my friend with your new site.

[AndrusPurde]

Thanks Nikele! Any chance you have a link to thay post? I couldn't find it by googling..