Member Avatar for silveraden

Please evaluate my SERP.

My blog is just a month old. It's about SEO so I am focusing much on seo-related keyword.

Today, I tried to check google and I found out that some of my pages/posts are ranked faster than the keywords that I am targeting. I understand that the keywords/key phrases I am targeting are very competitive so it may difficult for me to get my site on top in a short period of time.

As mentioned, I am targeting SE-related keywords but the following keyphrases put my blog on higher google position when I checked today.

"moneymaking forums lists", "moneymaking forum lists", "money-making forum lists", and "money making forum lists" - 1st place on 1st page.
"money-making forums" - 10th on 1st page
"moneymaking forums' - 8th on 1st page
"top social bookmarking sites" - 7th on the first page.
"Lists of SEO Blogs" - 3rd on first page


What do you think?
Do you think my ranking is improving? The age of my site is 6 weeks, and the above keyphrases are not my target... I'm far away from my target keywords.
_________________

  • 2 Contributors
  • 1 Reply
  • 109 Views
  • 1 Week Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by Dani

Dani AI

Generated

Nice early wins, — getting first‑page visibility for list-style and long‑tail queries within weeks is a useful signal. New sites often pick up traction on low-competition, specific queries before they move on harder, broader targets. That volatility is normal; the goal is to turn those serendipitous rankings into steady, deliberate gains toward your primary keywords.

Quick, practical checks to run now:

  • Verify the rankings from multiple clean locations (incognito, different ISPs or a simple rank-tracking tool) to rule out personalization or local variance.
  • Inspect the pages that rank: title tag, URL slug, H1, first paragraph, and any external anchor text. Those on‑page signals often explain unexpected rank wins.
  • Look in Google Search Console (Queries/Performance) for impressions and clicks to see which exact queries drive traffic and whether CTR is good.
  • Check backlinks to the winning pages — a few early links or bookmarks can lift a new page quickly.

How to leverage the wins and move toward your target keywords:

  • Create a small content cluster: a pillar page for your main target keyword and 3–5 supporting posts that target those long‑tail variations. Link them with descriptive internal anchors to pass relevance and link equity.
  • Tune title/meta for high‑performing pages to improve CTR without keyword stuffing; use the winning long tail as a doorway to related, targeted content.
  • Build natural links to pillar pages (resource pages, relevant forums, guest posts), but avoid over‑optimized anchor text.
  • Track trends over weeks, not days. Focus on traffic, engagement, and conversions rather than hourly rank changes.

Agree with : keep producing genuinely useful content. Combine that quality with tidy on‑page work and internal linking, and those early first‑page placements can become reliable sources of targeted traffic.

Member Avatar for Dani

I think that's really awesome for such a new site in such a competitive industry. You must be doing something right. However, you should stop investing so much time into ranking for particular keywords and instead let your stories speak for themselves. Write good content that people will naturally want to link to, and don't pay too much attention to keyword density and all that. Over time, your individual articles will rank for a whole array of keywords (even some you never could have come up with if you tried that still drive traffic), and you'll have awesome linkbait.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.