How to rank my new website for a keyword an age old website is already ranking for?

When there are more new websites sprouting up everyday, at one point or other (soon after the launch frenzy mostly), this question is asked.

You launch the best products, the best website with the most modern technology and th best content etc, and one fine day you find that there’s this old website, which has been ranking for your targeted keyword for years together on Google. They don’t have a web2.0 website, probably a bunch of HTML pages but they’ve been there for years and you know that Google loves it. Can’t think of one good reason, why you should rank better than the old guy.

Well, let’s explore some possibilities.

Let’s take this example. Great Wraps Sandwich Franchise, is a food chain that sells American wraps (not the normal sandwiches). Now, they are in an interesting situation. Food franchise industry is big in the US and let’s assume that Greatwraps wants to rank for keywords top keywords that the old websites are already ranking for (for years). What does it do to rank higher?

Strategy 1
Adding more fresh content on the site
Yes, that means a blog. As you can see, the site is built mostly on flash and has very little text to support it. And Google loves fresh text and new pages, so this is a great opportunity GreatWraps can embrace, making sure that new and fresh content is dished out daily targeting a series of keywords around the primary keyword.

Strategy 2
Tweaking the most important pages and targeting them for the primary keywords
Along with the numerous fresh content being dished out, it’d also be a good idea to re-work on the available text on the most important pages, and tweak them to leverage on the primary keywords. This would involve adding more textual content with the SEO metrics in place, also reducing the flash content and it’s positioning.

Strategy 3
Targeted link building
Apart from the onsite optimization, it’d also be nice if it’s possible to source some very relevant, high authority, very very targeted links. One or two and that’s about it. No directories no link farms, may be some .edu’s if possible.

Strategy 4
Competition digger and finding the alternate way
I like this and is one of my personal favorites. Analyse your competition and it’s very much possible that they’d be still sticking on to the highly concentrated and saturated keywords. Older websites though ranks high for the core keywords fails to diversify their reach. This is an opportunity. Being a new site and possessing the latest tools, what you should focus on is the long tail keywords and the primary keyword variations. And I think it’s very effective because, suppose the older website gets 1000 visitors and is rank no.1 for “main keyword”, forget that and focus on five variations “main keywords” “main keyword place” “main keyword also” and the like. And you’ll make 500 visitors on each keyword making it 25,000, which is clearly above the old guy.

Strategy 5
Use the social media and make friends everyday
Now, with all that fresh text, link building and alternate ways opened up, use the social media to get some fresh burst of traffic consistently. And you know that Google loves sites with more traffic. And while they find that you have more traffic, and has the basic stuff in place, then it’s a cakewalk and only a matter of waiting to see your site on the top.

So essentially, getting a new site to rank better than an age old site is pretty much possible provided you know what to do and what not to do. Again, SEO is not about formulas but about alternate strategies.