I started my blog November 6th, 2022.
I began posting weekly January 9th, 2022.
8 months and 30 blog posts later, let’s review my top-ranked posts and what I’ve learned so far.
Top Ranked Posts
These posts rank on the first page of Google (at the time of writing this post).
Meaning they land somewhere between position 1 and 10 on the first page of Google.
| Post Title | Google Position |
| Hadron Epoch Planner Review | 2 |
| 5 Reasons Why It’s Important to Track Your Spending | 8 |
| Capital One VentureOne vs. Discover It Miles | 9 |
| How Much Does Whole30 Really Cost | 10 |
4 isn’t a lot, but it isn’t nothing.
A first page ranking tells me these posts have been indexed by Google and satisfy SEO metrics that measure searcher intent. While this list isn’t long, it is affirming that some of the tactics I’m using are working.
To learn exactly how long it took to get my first posts indexed in Google, keep reading.
Google Indexing
The first step to getting a post to land on the first page of Google, or really any page of Google, is something called indexing.
While I had heard about indexing in some of my SEO deep-dives, I didn’t quite learn about what it was exactly until December 2021.
After publishing a couple of posts, I found that none of my posts were appearing in Google when I would search for the exact long-tail keywords I was targeting. No matter how far I would scroll, they weren’t there.
This is where indexing comes in. Registering your website with Google Search Console and setting up an account is the first step to being able to tell the Google “Spiders” to crawl your website.
It turns out, playing the SEO game well is what helps the digital spiders quickly know what your page is about, what your website is about, and how to index a page of your website in Google.
Timing is Everything
Or rather, time is everything. When I learned about indexing indirectly from reading about SEO, I learned that most new websites take 6 months to get indexed.
Indexing is like signing up for the race.
Once your page is indexed, it can compete with other pages for reaching your target audience.
Setting up your Google Search Console account and getting your site verified sooner rather than later should be your first step.
Ahrefs has an excellent article with 10 tips on how to do this.
Another thought I’ve had about this race to clock time is that I should start the other blog domains that I own now vs. waiting to develop the sites later.
Same goes for plans to flip websites. A sell to the highest bidder scenario is always benefited by clocking in the time being indexed on Google.
That of course depends on the time available to work on developing two sites, but it could be worth it and may be worth it to put in the extra hours now so that my other sites have a heads start.
How Long Did It Take My New Blog to Get Indexed?
4 months.
It took 4 months until I started seeing my posts ranked in Search Console.
My average Google position was extremely low, but at least I was signed up for the race.
I didn’t get my first win, until the end of May 2022.
After not checking Search Console for a couple of months, July 19th, 2022, I found that my impressions had jumped to 4.1K on my Console performance page.
It means my posts were starting to rank and be seen by people surfing the web.
Most of the impressions were due to my number one post, which had also brought in 11 unique organic clicks.
Getting clicks is the ultimate win.
This win mainly speaks to the title and post content answering the searcher intent.
Google has moved away from simply awarding posts that use the searched for keyword the most, to rewarding posts that actually answer searcher intent.
Average Post Position Metrics
The Google Position ranking of my posts is based on two things.
- The Average Position ranking in my Google Console performance report
- The position of my posts when I search for my keyword in Google
The reason I didn’t just go by the Google Console Performance report, is that according to Console, my most clicked post has an average position of 64.
When I looked closer into how my impressions had jumped from 0 to 4,100, I found that it was mostly due to that one post. When I search for the post keyword ‘Capital One VentureOne vs. Discover It Miles’, it is ranked at position 9 and has gotten 11 click-throughs from organic Google traffic as a result.
Best Performing Post Stats
The best performing post is my Capital One VentureOne vs. Discover It Miles 2022.
Here’s a screenshot of my Google Search Console for that post.
As you can see, it currently has 11 total clicks since it was posted in April 2022.
The impressions jumped from 1-8 impressions a day in April – May 2022, to 18 – 75 a day in June 2022 – August 2022.
Google Search Console Average Position Ranking
There have been some discrepancies with my average position ranking data that I have yet to figure out.
My highest-ranking post has an average position ranking of 62.8 based on the graph.
This is confusing because of how many impressions this post is getting.
To cross check this position metric, I searched for this post’s keyword in Google and found that my post appears in position 9 on Google as shown in the screenshot below.
This discrepancy is still a little confusing, but I’ve read that Google Console can sometimes pull faulty data when it comes to position ranking.
There may be some different items that I need to adjust within my website to get this to update correctly, but it may just be a glitch.
Stay tuned for a solution.
What I have Learned
Overall, I have learned that I need to read the Google Search Console documentation out there to learn my tools better.
The more I can learn about the administrative and reporting tools at my disposal, the more I can gear my posts and site development towards ranking higher and better answering the intent of my target audience.
And on that note, I learned that I need to understand my target audience a little better as well.
I’m mainly writing here based on things I’m interested in. It may be better to start filter my post idea through what a target audience may want to read as well.
I’ve learned that writing about the same thing from multiple different angles is what helps me to write more SEO optimized posts. It forces me to write shorter formed posts that are to-the-point and actually helpful.
My highest ranking post was written after about 8-10 other credit card hacking posts.
At that time, I had reached a level of authority in my writing on the subject and I knew the highlights to hit and what the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ were.
Key take away here is writing detailed posts about the same topic over and over again helps.
Big shocker. Practice makes better.
Earth shaking, I know.
So, while this post was different for me to write, it was also encouraging to reflect on seeing some of my efforts ranking and actually getting some clicks, small the number might be.
