{"id":2617,"date":"2024-07-18T12:31:09","date_gmt":"2024-07-18T12:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/how-to-get-search-traffic-without-ranking-for-anything\/"},"modified":"2024-07-18T12:31:09","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T12:31:09","slug":"how-to-get-search-traffic-without-ranking-for-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/how-to-get-search-traffic-without-ranking-for-anything\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Search Traffic Without Ranking for Anything"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<div class=\"intro-txt\">Getting to the top of Google <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/how-long-does-it-take-to-rank\/\">can be quite slow<\/a>. Especially so for small, new websites. And the competition can often be too strong, which makes it quite unlikely for you to outrank your rivals in the first\u00a0place.<\/div>\n<p>Well\u2026 if you can\u2019t win, change the\u00a0rules.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a very simple trick for getting search traffic for the keywords that you want to rank for\u2014without actually ranking for\u00a0them.<\/p>\n<p>Enter\u2026<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewbox=\"0 0 14 14\" style=\"\"><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\"\/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style=\"\"\/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"Second-hand search traffic\" data-section=\"second-hand-search-traffic\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-177311-_n4vxjpgdohwc\"\/>Second-hand search traffic<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>One of the most common pieces of marketing advice is to <em>\u201cgo fish where the fish are.\u201d<\/em> Whatever product or service you want to sell, you have to follow three simple steps:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Figure out <strong>who your ideal customers<\/strong> are.<\/li>\n<li>Find the places where those people are <strong>hanging out online<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Go to those places and find ways to <strong>promote your product<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Quick example: if you want to sell fitness gear, it would be good to figure out how to tap into the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/Fitness\/\">r\/Fitness<\/a> community on Reddit, which has over 12M members.<\/p>\n<p>What does it have to do with SEO though?<\/p>\n<p>Well, whatever search traffic you want to drive to your own website\u2026 someone is already getting it to theirs, right? And their website is not necessarily your direct competitor.<\/p>\n<p>If you own a bagel joint in Singapore, you definitely want your website to rank in Google for <em>\u201cbest bagels in Singapore.\u201d<\/em> But the pages that actually rank for this keyword are listicles, which give readers a bunch of different suggestions. So your job is to get featured in as many of those top-ranking listicles as possible.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1998\" height=\"1682\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-bagels-in-singapore.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-177326\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-bagels-in-singapore.jpg 1998w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-bagels-in-singapore-505x425.jpg 505w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-bagels-in-singapore-768x647.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-bagels-in-singapore-1536x1293.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1998px) 100vw, 1998px\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>Ranking for a keyword with your own website isn\u2019t the only way to get customers from Google. Getting featured on <em>other pages<\/em> that rank for this keyword is incredibly effective too.<\/p>\n<p>I call this tactic \u201c<strong>second-hand search traffic<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The underlying idea is not new though.<\/p>\n<p>You might have heard of the concept called <a href=\"https:\/\/moz.com\/blog\/barnacle-seo-whiteboard-friday\">\u201cBarnacle SEO,\u201d<\/a> shared by Rand Fishkin back in 2014. There\u2019s also a concept called <a href=\"https:\/\/beomniscient.com\/blog\/surround-sound-seo\/\">\u201cSurround Sound,\u201d<\/a> coined by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/iamalexbirkett\">Alex Birkett<\/a>. And another one called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ftf.co\/serp-monopoly-strategy\/\">SERP Monopoly strategy<\/a>\u201d by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/nick_eubanks\">Nick Eubanks<\/a>. There\u2019s also a reverse concept, called <a href=\"https:\/\/diggitymarketing.com\/rank-and-rent\/\">\u201cRank &amp;\u00a0Rent.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The idea behind all of these tactics is practically the same: if a page gets a lot of relevant search traffic from Google\u2014you have to try and get your business mentioned there.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1008\" height=\"548\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-177312\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-1.jpg 1008w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-1-680x370.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-1-768x418.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1008px) 100vw, 1008px\"\/><\/noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1008\" height=\"548\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-177312\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-1.jpg 1008w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-1-680x370.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-1-768x418.jpg 768w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 1008px) 100vw, 1008px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.hubspot.com\/marketing\/surround-sound-strategy-1\">Source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But that\u2019s easier said than done,\u00a0right?<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewbox=\"0 0 14 14\" style=\"\"><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\"\/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style=\"\"\/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"What\u2019s in it for them?\" data-section=\"whats-in-it-for-them\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-177311-_rnjr2woj7ohu\"\/>What\u2019s in it for\u00a0them?<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Why would anyone bother to feature your business on their website?<\/p>\n<p>Well, one simple answer is <strong>money<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>If a website owner can make money from mentioning your business on their page, there\u2019s a good chance they\u2019ll do it. This money could come in the form of an affiliate commission or a flat fee for an annual or permanent placement. Sometimes these things can also happen as part of a broader partnership deal.<\/p>\n<p>Getting listed for free is very, very hard. Especially so if you\u2019re not already a big and respected business that people naturally want to feature on their website.<\/p>\n<p>And yet\u2014it\u2019s not <em>completely<\/em> impossible to get listed for\u00a0free.<\/p>\n<p>Case in point, we just published our own \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/seo-conferences-roundup\/\">best SEO conferences<\/a>\u201d post, in order to rank for relevant search queries and promote our upcoming event, <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/events\/evolve2024-singapore\">Ahrefs Evolve Singapore<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And then we went ahead and reached out to all websites that rank for the \u201cbest SEO conferences\u201d keyword and asked them to add Ahrefs Evolve to their listicles. So far <strong>10 out of 17<\/strong> featured us on their pages, <em>without asking for any payment whatsoever<\/em>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"2113\" height=\"1568\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-177330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences.jpg 2113w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences-573x425.jpg 573w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences-768x570.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences-1536x1140.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences-2048x1520.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2113px) 100vw, 2113px\"\/><\/noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"2113\" height=\"1568\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-177330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences.jpg 2113w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences-573x425.jpg 573w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences-768x570.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences-1536x1140.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/best-seo-conferences-2048x1520.jpg 2048w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 2113px) 100vw, 2113px\"\/><\/figure>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewbox=\"0 0 14 14\" style=\"\"><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\"\/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style=\"\"\/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"How to find SHST opportunities with Ahrefs\" data-section=\"how-to-find-shst-opportunities\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-177311-_7ibgnge3rmjk\"\/>How to find SHST opportunities with Ahrefs<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The most straightforward way to execute this strategy is to compile a list of highly relevant keywords (with high <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/timsoulo_business-potential-an-often-overlooked-activity-6849197021061099521-TOv_\/\">business potential scores<\/a>), pull all the top-ranking pages for each of them into a spreadsheet, and start your <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/outreach\/\">outreach<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s one other fruitful source of pages to get second-hand search traffic from. These are pages that are linking to your competitors, while getting a decent amount of search traffic themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how to find these pages in 3 simple steps:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Put the website of your competitor in Ahrefs\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\"><strong>Site Explorer<\/strong><\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Navigate to the <strong>Backlinks<\/strong> report.<\/li>\n<li>Apply the \u201c<strong>Referring page &gt; Traffic<\/strong>\u201d filter.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"486\" height=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-177313\"\/><\/noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"486\" height=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-177313\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>Here\u2019s an example of a page I found while trying this out for the ConvertKit website:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1290\" height=\"334\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-177314\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-3.png 1290w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-3-680x176.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-3-768x199.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\"\/><\/noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1290\" height=\"334\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-177314\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-3.png 1290w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-3-680x176.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/word-image-177311-3-768x199.png 768w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>As you can see, this page is not about \u201cemail marketing\u201d (the primary topic you\u2019d go for, if you wanted to promote an email marketing tool). And yet, this page is receiving <em>2.6k visitors<\/em> per month from Google (as estimated by Ahrefs), and it recommends a bunch of email marketing tools to its readers.<\/p>\n<p>So if you own an email marketing tool\u2014like ConvertKit\u2014you definitely want to get mentioned on that page alongside your competitors.<\/p>\n<p>The moral of this story is that you should look <em>outside<\/em> of the topics that are immediately relevant to your business. Any page that gets traffic and mentions a competitor of yours should become your target.<\/p>\n<p> And Ahrefs makes it super easy to find such\u00a0pages.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n<p>I hope you found this tactic useful. Don\u2019t sleep on it, because there\u2019s a good chance that your competitors won\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/second-hand-search-traffic\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Getting to the top of Google can be quite slow. Especially so for small, new websites. And the competition can often be too strong, which makes it quite unlikely for you to outrank your rivals in the first\u00a0place. Well\u2026 if you can\u2019t win, change the\u00a0rules. There\u2019s a very simple trick for getting search traffic for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}