SEO Troubleshooting? Not ranking in Top 50 for "easy" keyword

[cbutler22293]

Hi there,

First of all, thank you in advance to whoever steps in to help me with this issue!

So, I have a new site (launched December 2016) in the investing space and have been able to get page 1 rankings on some of my pages.

One of my best ranking pages is for the phrase "what is xiv". The Keyword Explorer has this phrase at a 21 difficulty. My page for this keyword is https://www.projectoption.com/what-is-xiv/. The post reached the first page almost immediately after being published, though I know I shouldn't expect this for other keywords of similar difficulty.

Here is my problem: I just wrote a comprehensive guide (8,000+ words) on a different keyword phrase: "vertical spreads." The Keyword Explorer has this phrase at a 25 difficulty. My page for this topic: https://www.projectoption.com/vertical-spreads-explained/.

However, the page is nowhere to be found in organic Google rankings (not in top 50), and the page has been live for a few weeks now.

I've done my best at optimizing the post, but something leads me to believe there are some issues that are beyond my SEO knowledge. For example, maybe the post is too long, and Google can't figure out what the page is about.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your time!

-Chris

[Roman-Delcarmen]

Even if you have an easy keyword that does not mean that everything is done

• did you submit your site to google?
• did you create some backlinks using the keywords ?
• did you check your search console to check if there is an error on your site?

[Roman-Delcarmen]

In fact I made an audit to your site

https://www.projectoption.com/
and guess what ?
you are in the position 03 for Google USA for the keyword "what is xiv"
you are in the position 80 for Google USA for the keyword "xiv trading strategy"
you are in the position 25 for Google USA for the keyword "how the vix works"

So maybe your should check your search console and see what happen.

[Roman-Delcarmen]

By the way, you have no backlinks so, you should to start to build someones if you dont want to lose your rank

[cbutler22293]

Thank you for the reply.

To answer your questions:

1 & 3) Yes. The first thing I do after publishing new content is submitting the page to Google and index request.

2. I have not yet received backlinks to this page. I understand that this is key to achieving the highest rankings, but it is a work in progress. Still, I would expect to at least reach the 2nd or 3rd page for this keyword without having any backlinks (since the pages/sites in those positions do not have many links and/or the content is not great).

[Roman-Delcarmen]

Maybe you should make a double check,please check the attached file I made it with semrush and your site looks very well. Or maybe it needs to redefine the problem

Please Check it out and let me know

W7FxspM rWhpdsZ

[cbutler22293]

Thanks so much for doing this.

To clarify, the keyword I'm having an issue ranking for is "vertical spread"

I used the "what is xiv" keyword to compare difficulties. The point is that I'm ranking very well for "what is xiv" but I'm not ranking at all for "vertical spread" when the difficulty is similar.

Page I'm trying to rank: https://www.projectoption.com/vertical-spreads-explained/

Targeted Keyword: Vertical Spread

[davebuts]

Hi Chris,

I quickly ran your site through Screaming Frog and found that this new page is not linking from your site anywhere - it's what's known as an "orphan page".

By not linking from the site, it is not receiving any "authority" from your domain and you will have a hard time getting it to rank for anything.

The first thing I would do is to make sure it's linking from your site and check how it's going in a few weeks.

Cheers,

David

[davebuts]

"create some backlinks using the keywords" sounds super dodgy!!

You shouldn't be the one creating links to your site.

You have really good content and I don't think you'll have much trouble getting links to your site with a bit of outreach and relationship building with other quality sites in your niche.

Don't ruin your awesome content by link building like it's 2010.

Cheers,

David

[cbutler22293]

David,

This seems like the most logical explanation and makes complete sense. Thank you!

I can confirm that I haven't linked to this page from my other website pages as I haven't quite figured out where the link fits best. However, I'll figure that out now and see how it goes in the next few weeks.

Thanks so much for your help, and nice last name!

-Chris