Blogging test overview

Fifteen days past since this blogging test has started. We have waited for a few days to check for some changes and now it is time for an overview.

We have tested:

• blog posting consistency and how it reflects on blog traffic
• keyword variations and SERP ranking positions for targeted keywords
• Backlink building methods (the easiest few)
• SEO stats

Before starting this 15 days blogging test in average we have more or less:

• 7 visitors a day with 14 views total
• DA (Domain Authority) was 10, PA (Page Authority) of 15, TB (Total Backlinks): 44
• according to AHREFS: DR (Domain Rating): 8; Backlinks: 100 (69% dofollow); Linking websites: 28
• 27 published blog posts

In the 15 days of testing the blog consistency we had published 9 new posts. Tried to write more but unsuccessfully.

Seems that there is no direct connection between blog posting frequency and traffic

Or in total:

• Visits: 108
• Views: 302
• Searches: 4

Non the less posting more frequently can be beneficial in getting traffic if using marketing strategy. We don’t this time as the subject of testing were organic results only. When we accidentally shared a post once, on one social media only there was an instant traffic spike and increase of some 350% more visitors and views. Search traffic constantly stays the same for the whole period of blog testing somewhat between 0 and 1 visit per day.

Social media can bring a lot of website traffic

Traffic seems doesn’t corelate with number of backlinks. This may be true but suppose it depends of type of backlinks and their number. If have more backlinks/in-links you may get more incoming traffic but it is yet to be tested and confirmed.

Quality of backlinks matters more then the number of backlinks you have

This doesn’t mean you stop when you reach a certain number of backlinks. Have to build backlinks constantly as you’ll loose some of them over time and have to get new ones.

For this blog test we’ve went with some white hat free methods of link building. While these methods may cost you no money at all, time spent on  building backlinks with these techniques actually will cost as much as you bought them right away. That would be against the rules and SEO guidance so we’ve stayed on the ethical side (this and most of the time).

• Comments: 112
• Website directories: 25
• Article directory: 1
• Classifieds: 3
• Other: 2
• Total backlink leads: 143

In 15 days of this blogging test we have managed to acquire 143 total leads and successfully add a link back to our blog only 14 according to MOZ or 22 according to AHREFS. That is roughly 1/10 backlink acquisition. This ratio will probably get better in time as most directories need weeks and even months to get your link/post approved and visible for some time. Comment are approved much faster in couple of days or even instantly if using a 3rd party comment system. Other tactics we used were ping and search engine submissions that give almost instant results (and a backlink). We used these only once each of them.

We’ve been building backlinks that lead to our homepage and also to certain posts relevant to the subject of the places where we’ve managed to place our links. As an anchor we used our blog title, author name eg. NonCon Team or something else yet still relevant.

To be certain and measure our backlinking efforts we’ve visit and count the backlinks we’ve managed to get and:

AHREFS linking websites stats seems more accurate then MOZ total backlinks number

Another difference noticed was that AHREFS updates stats more frequently then MOZ.

We’ve also tested on other SEO tools like SEMRUSH, Majestic and more and number of backlinks (and rankings) they show in their result pages was not very different to those above. Some of other tools have their own metrics we don’t want to go in details this time.

Checking the SEO stats

In this blogging test we’ve decided to test our blog against most widely used SEO metrics by 2 of the most relevant authorities: Moz & Ahrefs.

Each of them have different criteria that ranks websites in more or less similar manner.

MOZ has:

• DA – Domain Authority (1-100)
• PA – Page Authority (1-100)
• TB – Total backlinks (from 0 – infinity)

Starting from Domain Authority rank 10, after 12 days, 7 new posts, 76 – 93 leads, or about 12-13 new backlinks our blog DA has gone one point up. 3 days later it went another point up, reaching DA: 12 with only 2 new posts and 2 more new backlinks acquired.

Page Authority (PA) is similar metric but instead of the domain, it is more related to a content and backlinks to individual posts and pages. Once new backlinks were acquired PA goes up immediately reaching rank 19 with only 2 backlinks more and 2 new blog posts.

AHREFS has:

• DR – Domain Rating (1-100)
• Backlinks – links from other sites that link back to your (starting from zero)
• Linking websites e.g. domains

Domain Rating (DR) is AHREFS main SEO metrics you can check for free. Quite similar to MOZ Domain Authority.

Needed only 3 new backlinks from 3 different websites to jump one point up. Had to wait the backlinks to be affirmed first and that happened after the sixth day of this blogging test.

Till then, still waiting to go one point up even 8 new backlinks from 3 more domains were acquired meantime and still working on backlink building with same pace, some 5 to 10 acquisitions daily.

SEO metrics seems to have no effect on traffic, but traffic may have effect on SEO metrics

Keywords and SERP

In this blogging test we have selected few certain keywords. The keyword research was done on the go. No need to be thorough every time. As this was a blogging test, our keywords are quite obvious. But then we spread a bit and check for related variations and came with few more following the criteria:

• testing blogging consistency – used in 5 posts
• testing posting consistency – used on day 4 post
• blog posting consistency – used in one post
• blogging consistency test – used once
• blog testing – shorter only 2 words but much more competitive

Not using any analytic tools at all, we have manually typed in our keywords in google search and locate our place rankings. If this seems hard, know it isn’t. In the search results there is a small website icon – favicon of the website listed and we certainly have ours. This helps in locating our blog in the SERP (search results pages) fast.

Some 2-3 days after we posted a new blog we have checked if Google has indexed and listing our new post. Usually this happens in a day or even faster, but it is safe assumption to:

Check the search rankings after 2 days to be certain your blog post is there

After 15 day we did a thorough check and this is where our keywords appear (for the moment of writing):

“testing blogging consistency” – page 2 place 13 and one more result on the same page

“blogging consistency test” – 1st page on 7th place + another related search on page 2, place 19

“testing posting consistency“- One on page 2, on 18th place

“test blogging consistency” – page 2 position 13 and another result on page 4

Same for “blog posting consistency“. But if you search for this particular phrase (put it in quotation marks) it will appear 3rd on first page among the first results 🙂

“blogging consistency” was there on page 18 and others like “posting consistency” even further away

“blog testing” – not even appear at all in the 38 page results

These are the things we had tested for our 15 days blogging test.

We’ve tested our blog performance and speed too. The results are almost perfect although there is a little room for further improvements.

What we didn’t test was the onsite SEO, which was previously checked several and was great even we had changed a theme and loose some points doing it. A fix is quite simple and needs installing a caching plugin that minifies scripts and CSS, add few more ALT tags on images where missing or just get rid off of a widget used in the sidebar. Another simple trick we are using that is not so often spoken of is that:

Inner links structure and interlinking relevant posts will increase overall SEO

Nonconfirmed yet, but inner links can impacts SEO big time. Every link counts and you must have them as much as you can. Page speed and onsite SEO are also very important but they depend mostly on your content, images, theme and how well coded it is, together with some plugins you’re using or not.

Test, analyze the results and find ways to improve your blog

There is always place for improvements as we keep with this blogging test and post updates when there will be some changes.