Microsoft determines SEO as the most essential and hard skill for marketers in 2023.

Understanding the search engine ranking position (SERP) algorithm and ranking a competitive in a shorter time is a million-dollar skill.

On average, it takes 2 – 6 months to rank on the Google top 10 positions after performing complete SEO functions.

However, here I am going to give you a proven SEO and content production tactics that helped us rank on the first page of Google in just 35 days.

Here is the proof 🙌🏽

As you can see above, on the 10th of August the article was published and was not even in 100 rankings. In just 35 days (15th of September), it was ranking in the 10th position for the main keyword.

In this post, I will describe the entire process that we followed to achieve this feat.

  • Follow The Skyscraper Technique 💯
  • Perform Keyword Research 📈
  • Prepare Your Content Structure 🧐
  • One Page SEO 👈🏽
  • Precise URL 👏🏼
  • Use Lite Images 🖼
  • Provide Information In The First Fold 🤔
  • Optimize Title, Add Alt-Text, And Optimize Meta Description 😎
  • Internal Linking ⛓
  • Outreach For Link Building 👏🏼
  • Find Out Top Competitor's Backlinks 👈🏽
  • Find The Relevant Emails 📧
  • Outreach For Guest Posting 🗒
  • Outreach For Contextual Backlink Email 👨🏾‍💻
  • Wrapping Up 😎
  • Let's begin with the Content Creation Process.

    Important disclosure: we're proud affiliates of some tools mentioned in this guide. If you click an affiliate link and subsequently make a purchase, we will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you (you pay nothing extra).

    Follow The Skyscraper Technique 💯

    Quite a few SEO experts recommend following the skyscraper technique for accessible link building off-page activities.

    As the name suggests, the skyscraper technique is aimed at creating better and bigger content than your competitors. To create skyscraper content you need to analyze top SERP competitors' content with the most backlinks then produce more detailed content.

    It is not about adding more words but adding more value to your readers.

    For example, if the top content is about "Best 15 social media marketing tips," then the skyscraper content must be talking about 30 or 50 tips. However, most skyscraper content just ends up being a wordy blog post rather than providing any additional value to the reader.

    There is a thin line between content being fluff and valuable. The writer needs to analyze it while completing the content piece.

    Perform Keyword Research 📈

    Most newbie SEO writers focus on the main keyword, leaving behind other keywords with great potential that can help to boost the conversion.

    I prefer using Ahrefs to generate maximum Keyword ideas for the detailed content post.

    Ahrefs keyword ideas

    Answer The Public is another source to great maximum keyword ideas for your blog post. You can begin by brainstorming and gathering all the associated keywords in a notepad and figuring out how to add them naturally to your content structure.

    Prepare Your Content Structure 🧐

    Keep the user intent in mind when creating the content structure, then address the reader's queries step-by-step.

    My primary technique for writing an article for SERP's purpose begins by analyzing the top 10 search results and watching 10 YouTube videos to create a detailed content structure. This way, I collect more ideas that can provide additional value to the readers.

    One Page SEO 👈🏽

    After completing the content, every writer should follow some compulsory on-page SEO activities to help the content rank on small keywords quickly.

    Precise URL 👏🏼

    Lengthy and unclear URLs can hurt your SEO efforts, and it's never a good idea to change the URL after publishing the content. Try to integrate the main keyword in your URL and keep it short.

    According to the study of Ahrefs, the URL between 15-17 characters has higher chances to rank in the first position of Google.

    If 'mobile user acquisition' is the main keyword, then make sure to create a URL like this: /mobile-user-acquisition/.

    Use Lite Images 🖼

    The website speed is also a significant search engine ranking factor, and heavy images are the primary source of increased website loading times.

    A detailed article over 2000+ words usually has at least 15-20 images that could increase the loading time of the page, which could increase the bounce rate and eventually affect the search engine ranking.

    https://nodehead.com/assets/images/tinypng-1.png
    Source: Tinypng

    Use tinypng to compress image size.

    Provide Information In The First Fold 🤔

    The first fold is the visible content to the visitor when the webpage is loaded without scrolling down. It is the first thing the visitors see after landing on the page.

    55% of the visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a webpage. It is a tiny portion to grab the attention of the visitor and entice them to scroll down.

    Just look at this homepage of Backlinko.

    Source: Backlinko

    The visitors easily understand what the page is about.

    This is the homepage example of tools, but how can you provide precise information for a lengthy blog post?

    For that, I prefer mentioning the table of contents right after a precise introduction. This practice could also help you to rank on featured snippets.

    Featured snippet example

    Do not try to be so philosophical at the start of a blog post and get to the point fast.

    Optimize Title, Add Alt-Text, And Optimize Meta Description 😎

    These are some basic on-page SEO practices that every writer must follow.

    Add different variations of keywords in sub-headings and add alt-text in all images to describe the purpose of the picture.

    Currently, Google itself picks the relevant content piece from the post and shows it as a meta description. Therefore, you need to optimize the article's initial paragraphs that you want to pick up as meta descriptions.

    Internal Linking ⛓

    It makes sense for all SEOs and content writers to make internal linking a part of SOP. It is a quite useful practice that gives the initial boost to the website at the search engine.

    Internal linking is all about integrating the new article into the existing articles of the website.

    Try to integrate your article with a contextual link within the top-performing content pieces with maximum backlinks as they are the ones that get indexed first by Google. Therefore, the new content will index much faster if linked with the website's top-performing content piece.

    For internal contextual linking, use the following query on Google to find out content pieces for natural integration.

    Site: www. (Your Website).com "keyword"

    For example, if you write a guide on email marketing, then you should use "email marketing" as your keyword, then all the posts on your website having email marketing keywords in the content will appear on Google.

    So, these are all the steps I complete before I do any outreach activities.

    Now comes the exciting part that is acquiring backlinks from high domain authorities.

    Outreach For Link Building 👏🏼

    Link building is the most crucial step to ranking on Google faster. For those who have no idea about what is link building, here is a brief definition;

    Basically, link building means being mentioned on other websites via hyperlinks. Many SEO considers link-building activities as the most significant and most challenging part of their jobs.

    What is the point of Link Building for SERP? 🤔

    The search engine considers link building as a significant factor in analyzing how high a page should rank.

    In other words, link building works like word of mouth for Google. The backlink is like a suggestion. Whenever a website mentions some other website, it means it has trust in that webpage.

    Whenever a high authority website (80+ DR) mentions your webpage, it increases the chances of ranking higher on search engines. This is something important to keep in mind.

    Here is the process that I follow that helps me rank on the first page in just 35 days.

    Find Out Top Competitor's Backlinks 👈🏽

    Suggested tool: Ahrefs

    Competitors are the most significant source to provide backlink ideas. Many SEOs make the mistake of sending out cold emails to irrelevant websites ending up wasting time and energy on the wrong strategy.

    First, check out the website that gives backlinks to your competitors, which means those websites are already accepting a similar kind of content.

    Ahrefs is the best tool to find the competitor's backlinks.

    Write the primary keyword in the keyword explorer and scroll down to the SERP position.

    Check out the backlinks of each competitor individually.

    Tip: Click on "one link per domain" to avoid repeated websites.

    Once you find out all the websites to approach, copy the URLs in the spreadsheet to start outreach activity.

    Find The Relevant Emails 📧

    Suggested tool: Hunter.io & Mail Track

    Now you have a website/blog to approach, but not the necessary email addresses. What do you do next?

    I use Hunter.io to scratch out email addresses from any website. Just go to the website and click on its extension to get the emails.

    Its free version allows 50 monthly website searches.

    Who should I reach out to?

    Try to find the emails of Editor in Chief and Managing Editor. If you're unable to find the editor's email, try to approach the email with the highest number of sources.

    Mail Track is a free tool that lets the sender know the status of the email.

    Email Tracker for Gmail - Mailtrack

    This way you can track how many of your emails are opened and not opened so you can prepare your follow-up email template for different purposes.

    Outreach For Guest Posting 🗒

    Guest posting is one of the most conventional and easiest ways to generate backlinks. Many websites allow contributors to post valuable content to their website. In exchange, there's usually a do-follow link in the content or sometimes in the author's bio.

    After gathering the emails/contacts, pitch them to contribute to their websites/blogs.

    Many websites offer a write for us page where the guest post writer needs to add suggested topics and wait for the approval.

    However, I prefer to email the page's editor either way and send them the suggested topics.

    Before approaching, do some prerequisites for a better response rate.

    • Check out the website theme to know what kind of topic they cover.
    • Suggest at least five relevant topics that match the website theme.
    • Topics should not be already covered on the website.

    Guest Post Email

    • Introduce yourself briefly. (Mention your expertise, e.g., digital marketing expert)
    • Pick a compelling topic and include an outline.
    • Your outline must have an intro and awareness on the topic, mention of the problems or risks, solutions and tips to avoid it, and a conclusion or your opinion.
    • Always ask for feedback.
    • List down your significant publications at the end as your writing samples.

    This free guest posting strategy helped us acquire backlinks from relevant websites quickly, and soon we get from 101+ to the top 30.

    However, what gave us a real push in the ranking was acquiring a contextual backlink from a 90+ DR website.

    Outreach For Contextual Backlink Email 👨🏾‍💻

    Remember I told you to prepare content based on the skyscraper technique? Well, here's how that works.

    Getting a backlink from a high authority website is totally up to the quality of your content. Producing a skyscraper content piece means no one has written the post better than you have.

    Outreaching for contextual backlinks requires both patience and creativity. Most of the websites/blogs prefer not to respond to these kinds of emails, so you need to follow some prerequisites before asking for a backlink.

    • Use a professional email address, not Gmail.
    • Use creative yet relevant email subjects to increase the open rate.
    • Offer something in return to the website.
    • Make them know how it will benefit their post.

    I know that's a lot to ask, but I am just mentioning what works for me 🙋🏻‍♂️

    Here is the email template my SEO expert used when asking for a backlink;

    Apparently, this email template looks informal, but it helped with getting a backlink from the 90+ DR website.

    Do you know what the best part was? We get a backlink by removing the existing backlink. That is the power of the skyscraper content piece and email content.

    Just after this acquiring a backlink, my article took a jump of 28 positions in just a single day.

    C:\Users\muhammad.bilal\Downloads\one day_censored.jpg

    In just one day, it went from 38th position to 10th position. FYI: Now, it is ranking on the featured snippet.

    The results were uncanny and unprecedented. After this success, I truly understand the power of backlinks from significant websites.

    This technique does not need any technical SEO expertise, just the right approach. If you are running a blog or niche affiliate site, you can make a hell of a lot of money from home.

    Wrapping Up 😎

    Before signing off, let's revise the whole process one more time.

    💬 Conduct full-fledged keyword research and prepare a content structure around the primary keyword of your topic.

    💬 Check out the top 10 Google search results and 10 YouTube videos to cover every possible aspect of the primary topic.

    💬 Produce a skyscraper content piece, which means the best content in the industry on a particular topic.

    💬 Identify competitors and hunt down their backlinking websites to target.

    💬 Target the websites with a creative email template for guest posting.

    💬 Perform email outreach to get a contextual backlink from high-authority websites.

    So, that's the whole procedure of how you can rank higher on Google much faster. I hope this post would help you produce a killer content piece and perform top-notch SEO functions.