Is It Safe To Throw Kitchen Sink Spam Links To Tier 1 Assets With Your Own GSA Tool?

In the 300th episode of Semantic Mastery’s weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one participant asked if it is safe to throw kitchen sink spam links to tier 1 assets with your own GSA tool.

The exact question was:

Hi, I was thinking about deleting my SEnuke/GSA licences as I tough I would never have to use it anymore, but now I am thinking of running it once again. I will order contextual for the Tier 1 assets – g site, drive stack, syndication properties from you, however do you think it is safe to throw any as you say kitchen spam links – pings, trackbacks, redirects, comments etc on these tier 1 assets with my own GSA tool or should I do these even worse than the contextual spam links at tier 2 for safer approach?

Is It Safe To Throw Kitchen Sink Spam Links To Tier 1 Assets With Your Own GSA Tool? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

What Training Do You Offer In The MasterMind That You Can’t Get In The Syndication Academy?

In the 299th episode of Semantic Mastery’s weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one participant asked what training does the team offer in the Mastermind that you can’t get in the Syndication Academy.

The exact question was:

I am currently in the Syndication Academy 20 and I was wanting to know all of the different features/benefits in the MasterMind that you don’t get in Academy. Is this all of the different training you offer in the MasterMind? If I join the masterMind can get a discount for the cost of the Academy for the first month. I watching my budget but I think I could really benefit from the MasterMind group.

What Training Do You Offer In The MasterMind That You Can’t Get In The Syndication Academy? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

Page Authority 2.0: An Update on Testing and Timing

Posted by rjonesx.

One of the most difficult decisions to make in any field is to consciously choose to miss a deadline. Over the last several months, a team of some of the brightest engineers, data scientists, project managers, editors, and marketers have worked towards a release date of the new Page Authority (PA) on September 30, 2020. The new model is exceptional in nearly every way to the current PA, but our last quality control measure revealed an anomaly that we could not ignore.

As a result, we’ve made the tough decision to delay the launch of Page Authority 2.0. So, let me take a moment to retrace our steps as to how we got here, where that leaves us, and how we intend to proceed.

Seeing an old problem with fresh eyes

Historically, Moz has used the same method over and over again to build a Page Authority model (as well as Domain Authority). This model's advantage was its simplicity, but it left much to be desired.

Previous Page Authority models trained against SERPs, trying to predict whether one URL would rank over another, based on a set of link metrics calculated from the Link Explorer backlink index. A key issue with this type of model was that it couldn’t meaningfully address the maximum strength of a particular set of link metrics.

For example, imagine the most powerful URLs on the Internet in terms of links: the homepages of Google, Youtube, Facebook, or the share URLs of followed social network buttons. There are no SERPs that pit these URLs against one another. Instead, these extremely powerful URLs often rank #1 followed by pages with dramatically lower metrics. Imagine if Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James each scrimaged one-on-one against high school players. Each would win every time. But we would have great difficulty extrapolating from those results whether Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, or Lebron James would win in one-on-one contests against each other.

When tasked with revisiting Domain Authority, we ultimately chose a model with which we had a great deal of experience: the original SERPs training method (although with a number of tweaks). With Page Authority, we decided to go with a different training method altogether by predicting which page would have more total organic traffic. This model presented several promising qualities like being able to compare URLs that don’t occur on the same SERP, but also presented other difficulties, like a page having high link equity but simply being in an infrequently-searched topic area. We addressed many of these concerns, such as enhancing the training set, to account for competitiveness using a non-link metric.

Measuring the quality of the new Page Authority

The results were — and are — very promising.

First, the new model obviously predicted the likelihood that one page would have more valuable organic traffic than another. This was expected, because the new model was directed at this particular goal, while the current Page Authority merely attempted to predict whether one page would rank over another.

Second, we found that the new model predicted whether one page would rank over another better than the previous Page Authority. This was especially pleasing, as it laid to rest many of our concerns that the new model would underperform on old quality controls due to the new training model.

How much better is the new model at predicting SERPs than the current PA? At every interval — all the way down to position 4 vs 5 — the new model tied or out-performs the current model. It never lost.

Everything was looking great. We then started analyzing outliers. I like to call this the “does anything look stupid?” test. Machine learning makes mistakes, just as humans can, but humans tend to make mistakes in a very particular manner. When a human makes a mistake, we often understand exactly why the mistake was made. This isn’t the case for ML, especially Neural Nets; we pulled URLs with high Page Authorities under the new model that happened to have zero organic traffic, and included them in the training set to learn for those errors. We quickly saw bizarre 90+ PAs drop down to much more reasonable 60s and 70s… another win.

We were down to one last test.

The problem with branded search

Some of the most popular keywords on the web are navigational. People search Google for Facebook, Youtube, and even Google itself. These keywords are searched an astronomical number of times relative to other keywords. Subsequently, a handful of highly powerful brands can have an enormous impact on a model that looks at total search volume as part of its core training target.

The last test involves comparing the current Page Authority to the new Page Authority, in order to determine if there are any bizarre outliers (where PA shifted dramatically and without obvious reason). First, let’s look at a simple comparison of the LOG of Linking Root Domains compared to the Page Authority.

Not too shabby. We see a generally positive correlation between Linking Root Domains and Page Authority. But can you spot the oddities? Go ahead and take a minute…

There are two anomalies that stand out in this chart:

1. There is a curious gap separating the main distribution of URLs and the outliers above and below.
2. The largest variance for a single score is at PA 99. There are an awful lot of PA 99s with a wide range of Linking Root Domains.

Here is a visualization that will help draw out these anomalies:



The gray spaces between the green and red represent this odd gap between the bulk of the distribution and the outliers. The outliers (in red) tend to clump together, especially above the main distribution. And, of course, we can see the poor distribution at the top of PA 99s.

Bear in mind that these issues are not sufficient to make the new Page Authority model less accurate than the current model. However, upon further examination, we found that the errors the model did produce were significant enough that they could adversely influence the decisions of our customers. It’s better to have a model that is off by a little everywhere (because the adjustments SEOs make are not incredibly fine-tuned) than it is to have a model that is right mostly everywhere but bizarrely wrong in a limited number of cases.

Luckily, we’re fairly confident as to what the problem is. It seems that homepage PAs are disproportionately inflated, and that the likely culprit is the training set. We can’t be certain this is the cause until we complete retraining, but it is a strong lead.

The good news and the bad news

We are in good shape insofar as we have multiple candidate models that outperform the existing Page Authority. We’re at the point of bug squashing, not model building. However, we are not going to ship a new score until we are confident that it will steer our customers in the right direction. We are highly conscientious of the decisions our customers make based on our metrics, not just whether the metrics meet some statistical criteria.

Given all of this, we have decided to delay the launch of Page Authority 2.0. This will give us the necessary time to address these primary concerns and produce a stellar metric. Frustrating? Yes, but also necessary.

As always, we thank you for your patience, and we look forward to producing the best Page Authority metric we have ever released.

Visit the PA Resource Center

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Do You Need To Embed The Press Release Before Sending Backlinks To It?

In episode 300 of Semantic Mastery’s weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one viewer asked if one needs to embed the press release before sending backlinks to it.

The exact question was:

Good Day Gents thanks for this forum to get real world actionable answers. Marco if you dont mind please drop the link for your charity so we can do some good while doing well. My question today is do you send backlinks to the press releases first or do you embed first then backlinks to the embeds of the press releases? Thank you

Do You Need To Embed The Press Release Before Sending Backlinks To It? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

How To Generate Quality Content For A Niche Blog If You Don’t Like Writing?

In episode 299 of Semantic Mastery’s weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one viewer asked how to generate quality content for a niche blog if you don’t like writing.

The exact question was:

Hi Guys, I want to set up a niche blog but don’t like writing. How can I generate the quality content myself for my niche blog? Will the generated content be good enough for niche blogging? Thanks..

How To Generate Quality Content For A Niche Blog If You Don’t Like Writing? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

My 8 Best Local SEO Tips for the 2020 Holidays

Posted by MiriamEllis



Image credit: DoSchu

“No place like home for the holidays.” This will be the refrain for the majority of your customers as we reach 2020’s peak shopping season. I can’t think of another year in which it’s been more important for local businesses to plan and implement a seasonal marketing strategy extra early, to connect up with customers who will be traveling less and seeking ways to celebrate at home.

Recently, it’s become trendy in multiple countries to try to capture the old Danish spirit of hygge, which the OED defines as: A quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.

While this sometimes-elusive state of being isn’t something you can buy direct from a store, and while some shoppers are still unfamiliar with hygge by name, many will be trying to create it at home this year. Denmark buys more candles than any other nation, and across Scandinavia, fondness for flowers, warming foods, cozy drinks, and time with loved ones characterizes the work of weaving a gentle web of happiness into even the darkest of winters.

Whatever your business can offer to support local shoppers’ aspirations for a safe, comfortable, happy holiday season at home is commendable at the end of a very challenging 2020. I hope these eight local search marketing tips will help you make good connections that serve your customers — and your business — well into the new year.

1) Survey customers now and provide what they want

Reasonably-priced survey software is worth every penny in 2020. For as little as $20/month, your local business can understand exactly how much your customers’ needs have changed this past year by surveying:

• Which products locals are having trouble locating
• Which products/services they most want for the holidays
• Which method of shopping/delivery would be most convenient for them
• Which hours of operation would be most helpful
• Which safety measures are must-haves for them to transact with a business
• Which payment methods are current top choices

Doubtless, you can think of many questions like these to help you glean the most possible insight into local needs. Poll your customer email/text database and keep your surveys on the short side to avoid abandonment.

Don’t have the necessary tools to poll people at-the-ready? Check out Zapier’s roundup of the 10 Best Online Survey Apps in 2020 and craft a concise survey geared to deliver insights into customers’ wishes.

2) Put your company’s whole heart into affinity

If I could gift every local business owner with a mantra to carry them through not just the 2020 holiday shopping season, but into 2021, it would be this:

It’s not enough to have customers discover my brand — I need them to like my brand.

Chances are, you can call to mind some brands of which you’re highly aware but would never shop with because they don’t meet your personal or business standards in some way. You’ve discovered these brands, but you don’t like them. In 2020, you may even have silently or overtly boycotted them.

On the opposite side of this scenario are the local brands you love. I can wax poetic about my local independent grocery store, stocking its shelves with sustainable products from local farmers, flying its Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ+ flags with pride from its storefront, and treating every customer like a cherished neighbor.

For many years, our SEO industry has put great effort into and emphasis on the discovery phase of the consumer journey, but my little country-town grocer has gone leaps and bounds beyond this by demonstrating affinity with the things my household cares about. The owners can consider us lifetime loyal customers for the ways they are going above-and-beyond in terms of empathy, diversity, and care for our community.

I vigorously encourage your business to put customer-brand affinity at the heart of its holiday strategy. Brainstorm how you can make meaningful changes that declare your company’s commitment to being part of the work of positive social change.

3) Be as accessible and communicative as possible

Once you’ve accomplished the above two goals, open the lines of communication about what your brand offers and the people-friendly aspects of how you operate across as many of the following as possible:

• Website
• Local business listings
• Email
• Social channels
• Forms
• Texts/Messaging
• Phone on-hold marketing
• Storefront and in-store signage
• Local news, radio, and TV media

In my 17 years as a local SEO, I can confidently say that local business listings have never been a greater potential asset than they will be this holiday season. Google My Business listings, in particular, are an interface that can answer almost any customer who-what-where-when-why — if your business is managing these properly, whether manually or via software like Moz Local.

Anywhere a customer might be looking for what you offer, be there with accurate and abundant information about identity, location, hours of operation, policies, culture, and offerings. From setting special hours for each of your locations, to embracing Google Posts to microblog holiday content, to ensuring your website and social profiles are publicizing your USP, make your biggest communications effort ever this year.

At the same time, be sure you’re meeting Google’s mobile-friendly standards, and that your website is ADA-compliant so that no customer is left out. Provide a fast, intuitive, and inclusive experience to keep customers engaged.

With the pandemic necessitating social distancing, make the Internet your workhorse for connecting up with and provisioning your community as much as you can.

4) Embrace local e-commerce and product listings

Digital Commerce 360 has done a good job charting the 30%+ rise in online sales in the first half or 2020, largely resulting from the pandemic. The same publication summarizes the collective 19% leap in traffic to North America’s largest retailers. At the local business level, implementing even basic e-commerce function in advance of the holiday season could make a major difference, if you can find the most-desired methods of delivery. These could include:

• Buy-online, pick up in-store (BOPIS)
• Buy-online, pick up curbside
• Buy online for postal delivery
• Buy online for direct home delivery by in-house or third-party drivers

Here’s an extensive comparison of popular e-commerce solutions, including which ones have free trials, and the e-commerce column of the Moz blog is a free library of expert advice on optimizing digital sales.

Put your products everywhere you can. Don’t forget that this past April, Google surprised everybody by offering free product listings, and that they also recently acquired the Pointy device, which lets you transform scanned barcodes into online inventory pages.

Additionally, in mid-September, Google took their next big product-related step by adding a “nearby” filter to Google Shopping, taking us closer and closer to the search engine becoming a source for real-time local inventory, as I’ve been predicting here in my column for several years.

Implement the public safety protocols that review research from GatherUp shows consumers are demanding, get your inventory onto the web, identify the most convenient ways to get purchases from your storefront into the customer’s hands, and your efforts could pave the way for increased Q4 profits.

5) Reinvent window shopping with QR codes

“How can I do what I want to do?” asked Jennifer Bolin, owner of Clover Toys in Seattle.

What she wanted to do was use her storefront window to sell merchandise to patrons who were no longer able to walk into her store. When a staff member mentioned that you could use a QR code generator like this one to load inventory onto pedestrians’ cell phones, she decided to give it a try.

Just a generation or two ago, many Americans cherished the tradition of going to town or heading downtown to enjoy the lavish holiday window displays crafted by local retailers. The mercantile goal of this form of entertainment was to entice passersby indoors for a shopping spree. It’s time to bring this back in 2020, with the twist of labeling products with QR codes and pairing them with desirable methods of delivery, whether through a drive-up window, curbside, or delivery.

“We’ve even gotten late night sales,” Bolin told me when I spoke with her after my colleague Rob Ousbey pointed out this charming and smart independent retail shop to me.

If your business locations are in good areas for foot traffic, think of how a 24/7 asset like an actionable, goodie-packed window display could boost your sales.

6) Tie in with DIY, and consider kits

With so many customers housebound, anything your business can do to support activities and deliver supplies for domestic merrymaking is worth considering. Can your business tie in with decorating, baking, cooking, crafting, handmade gift-giving, home entertainment, or related themes? If so, create video tutorials, blog posts, GMB posts, social media tips, or other content to engage a local audience.

One complaint I am encountering frequently is that shoppers are feeling tired trying to piecemeal together components from the internet for something they want to make or do. Unsurprisingly, many people are longing for the days when they could leisurely browse local businesses in-person, taking inspiration from their hands-on interaction with merchandise. I think kits could offer a stopgap solution in some cases. If relevant to your business, consider bundling items that could provide everything a household needs to:

• Prepare a special holiday meal
• Bake treats
• Outfit a yard for winter play
• Trim a tree or decorate a home
• Build a fire
• Create a night of fun for children of various age groups
• Dress appropriately for warmth and safety, based on region
• Create a handmade gift, craft, or garment
• Winter prep a home or vehicle
• Create a complete home spa/health/beauty experience
• Plant a spring garden

Kits could be a welcome all-in-one resource for many shoppers. Determine whether your brand has the components to offer one.

7) Manage reviews meticulously

Free, near-real-time quality control data from your holiday efforts can most easily be found in your review profiles. Use software like Moz Local to keep a running tally of your incoming new reviews, or assign a staff member at each location of your business to monitor your local business profiles daily for any complaints or questions.

If you can quickly solve problems people cite in their reviews, your chances are good of retaining the customer and demonstrating responsiveness to all your profiles’ visitors. You may even find that reviews turn up additional, unmet local needs your formal survey missed. Acting quickly to fulfill these requests could win you additional business in Q4 and beyond.

8) Highly publicize one extra reason to shop local this year

“72% of respondents...are likely or very likely to continue to shop at independent stores, either locally or online, above larger retailers such as Amazon.” — Bazaarvoice

I highly recommend reading the entire survey of 12,000 global respondents by Bazaarvoice, quantifying how substantially shopping behaviors have changed in 2020. It’s very good news for local business owners that so many customers want to keep transacting with nearby independents, but the Amazon dilemma remains.

Above, we discussed the fatigue that can result from trying to cobble together a bunch of different resources to check everything off a shopping list. This can drive people to online “everything stores”, in the same way that department stores, supermarkets, and malls have historically drawn in shoppers with the promise of convenience.

A question every local brand should do their best to ask and answer in the runup to the holidays is: What’s to prevent my community from simply taking their whole holiday shopping list to Amazon, or Walmart, or Target this year?

Whatever your business can offer to support local shoppers’ aspirations for a safe, comfortable, happy holiday season at home is commendable at the end of a very challenging 2020. I hope these eight local search marketing tips will help you make good connections that serve your customers — and your business — well into the new year.

My completely personal answer to this question is that I want my town’s local business district, with its local flavor and diversity of shops, to still be there after a vaccine is hopefully developed for COVID-19. But that’s just me. Inspiring your customers’ allegiance to keeping your business going might be best supported by publicizing some of the following:

• The economic, societal, and mental health benefits proven to stem from the presence of small, local businesses in a community.
• Your philanthropic tie-ins, such as generating a percentage of sales to worthy local causes — there are so many ways to contribute this year.
• The historic role your business has played in making your community a good place to live, particularly if your brand is an older, well-established one. I hear nostalgia is a strong influencer in 2020, and old images of your community and company through the years could be engaging content.
• Any recent improvements you’ve made to ensure fast home delivery, whether by postal mail or via local drivers who can get gifts right to people’s doors.
• Uplifting content that simply makes the day a bit brighter for a shopper. We’re all looking for a little extra support these days to keep our spirits bright.

Be intentional about maximizing local publicity of your “extra reason” to shop with you. Your local newspaper is doubtless running a stream of commentary about the economic picture in your city, and if your special efforts are newsworthy, a few mentions could do you a lot of good.

Don’t underestimate just how reliant people have become on the recommendations of friends, family, and online platforms for sourcing even the basics of life these days. In my own circle, everyone is now regularly telling everyone else where to find items from hand sanitizer to decent potatoes. Networking will be happening around gifts, too, so anything you get noticed for could support extensive word-of-mouth information sharing.

I want to close by thanking you for being in or marketing businesses that will help us all celebrate the many upcoming holidays in our own ways. Your efforts are appreciated, and I’m wishing you a peaceful, profitable, and hyggelig finish to 2020.

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What WordPress Theme Can You Recommend For Lead Gen Sites?

In episode 300 of our weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one participant asked what WordPress theme the team recommends for lead gen sites.

The exact question was:

Is there a wordpress theme you recommend or have an affiliate code for? Building lead gen sites and need different sidebars for each page. I believe you recommended genesis framework from studio press in the past. Gracias.

What WordPress Theme Can You Recommend For Lead Gen Sites? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

What Phone Number To Use When Setting Up The GMB For A Local Lead Gen Site?

In episode 299 of our weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one participant asked what phone number to use when setting up the GMB for a local lead gen site.

The exact question was:

Setting up a local lead gen site. Have'nt got a phone number for it yet, would you wait until after you have the number to set up the GMB? Also which of the following do you use for lead gen? A1800 number, 1300 number, mobile or local land line with a redirect?

What Phone Number To Use When Setting Up The GMB For A Local Lead Gen Site? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

How to Detect and Improve Underperforming Content: A Guide to Optimization

Posted by SamuelMangialavori

Content, content, and more content! That’s what SEO is all about nowadays, right? Compared to when I started working in SEO (2014), today, content is consistently one of the most popular topics covered at digital marketing conferences, there are way more tools that focus on content analysis and optimization, and overall it seems to dominate most of SEO news.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a nice Google Trends graph that may change your mind:

Google Trends screenshot for “content marketing” as a topic, set for worldwide interest.

But why is it that content is now dominating the SEO scene? How vital is content for your SEO strategy, actually? And most importantly: how can you be content with your site’s content? Puns aside, this post aims to help you figure out potential causes of your underperforming content and how to improve it.

Why content is key in SEO in 2020

Content is one of the most important factors in SEO. Just by paying close attention to what Google has been communicating to webmasters in the last few years, it’s clear that they’ve put a strong emphasis on “content” as a decisive ranking factor.

For instance, let’s have a look at this post, from August 2019, which talks about Google’s regular updates and what webmasters should focus on:

“Focus on content: pages that drop after a core update don’t have anything wrong to fix. We suggest focusing on ensuring you’re offering the best content you can. That’s what our algorithms seek to reward.”

The article goes on, listing a series of questions that may help webmasters when self-assessing their own content (I strongly recommend reading the entire post).

That said, content alone cannot and should not be enough for a website to rank well, but it is a pretty great starting point!

Underperforming content: theory first

What is underperforming content?

When I say “underperforming content”, I’m referring to content, either on transactional/commercial pages or editorial ones, that does not perform up to its potential. This could be content that either used to attract a good level of organic traffic and now doesn’t, or content that never did generate any organic traffic despite the efforts you might have put in.

Over 90% of content gets no traffic from Google. Ninety bloody percent! This means that nine pages out of 10 are likely not to receive any organic traffic at all — food for thought.

What are the causes of underperforming content?

There could be many reasons why your content is not doing well, but the brutal truth is often simple: in most cases, your content is simply not good enough and does not deserve to rank in the top organic positions.

Having said that, here are the most common reasons why your content may be underperforming: they are in no particular order and I will highlight the most important, in my opinion.

Your content does not match the user intent

Based on my experience, this is a very important thing that even experienced marketers still get wrong. It may be the case that your content is good and relevant to your users, but does not match the intent that Google is showcasing in the SERP for the keywords of focus.

As SEOs, our aim should be to match user intent, which means we first need to understand the what and the who before defining the how. Whose intent we are targeting and what is represented in the SERP will define the strategy we use to get there.

Example: webmasters who hope to rank for a “navigational or informational” keyword with a transactional, page or vice versa.

Your content isn’t in the ideal format Google is prioritizing

Google may be favoring a certain type of format which your content doesn’t conform to, hence it isn’t receiving the expected visibility.

Example: you hope to rank with a text-heavy blog post for a “how to” keyword where Google is prioritizing video content.

Your content is way too “thin” compared to what is ranking

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a matter of content length (there is no proven content length formula out there, trust me) but more relevance and comprehensiveness. It may be the case that your content is simply not as compelling as other sites out there, hence Google prioritizing those over you.

Example: you hope to rank for heavily competitive informational keywords with a 200-words blog post.

Your content isn’t as up-to-date

If your content is very topical, and such a topic heavily depends on information which may change with time, then Google will reward sites that put effort into keeping the content fresh and up-to-date. Apart from search engines themselves, users really care about fresh content — no one wants to read an “SEO guide to improve underperforming content” that was created in 2015!

Example: certain subjects/verticals tend to be more prone to this issue, but generally anything related to regulations/laws/guidelines which tend to change often.

Your content is heavily seasonal or tied to a past event/experience

Self-explanatory: if your content is about something that occurred in the past, generally the interest for that particular subject will gradually decrease over time. There are exceptions, of course (god save the 90s and my fav Netflix show “The Last Dance”), but you get the gist.

Example: topics such as dated events or experiences (Olympics 2016, past editions of Black Friday, and so on) or newsworthy content (2016 US election, Kanye running for president — no wait that is still happening...).

Your tech directives have changed the page’s indexation status

If something happens to your page that makes it fall out of Google’s index. The most common issues could be: unexpected no-index tag, canonical tag, incorrect hreflang tags, page status changes, page removed with Google Search Console’s remove tool, and so on.

Example: after some SEO recommendations, your devs mistakenly put a no-index tag on your page without you realizing.

Your page is victim of duplication or cannibalization

If you happen to cover the same or similar keyword topic with multiple pages, this may trigger duplication and/or cannibalization, which ultimately will result in a loss of organic visibility.

Example: you launch a new service page alongside your current offerings, but the on-page focus (metadata, content, linking structure) isn’t different or unique enough and it ends up cannibalizing your existing visibility.

Your page has been subject to JavaScript changes that make the content hard to index for Google

Let’s not go into a JavaScript (JS) rabbit hole and keep it simple: if some JS stuff is happening on your page and it’s dynamically changing some on-page SEO elements, this may impact how Google indexes your content.

Example: fictitious case where your site goes through a redesign, heavy JS is now happening on your browser and changing a key part of your content that now Google cannot render easily — that is a problem!

Your page has lost visibility following drastic SERP changes

The SERP has changed extensively in the last few years, which means many more new features that are now present weren’t there before. This may cause disruption to previous rankings (hence to your previous CTR), or make your pages fall out of Google’s precious page one.

Also, don’t forget to consider that the competition might have gotten stronger with time, so that could be another reason why you lose significant visibility.

Example: some verticals have been impacted more than others (jobs, flights, and hotels, for instance) where Google’s own snippets and tools are now getting the top of the SERP. If you are as obsessed with SERP chances, and in particular PAA, as I am and want more details, have a read here.

Your content doesn’t have any backlinks

Without going into too much detail on this point — it could be a separate blog post — for very competitive commercial terms, not having any/too few backlinks (and what backlinks represent for your site in Google’s eyes) can hold you back, even if your page content is compelling on its own. This is particularly true for new websites operating in a competitive environment.

Example: for a challenging vertical like fashion, for instance, it is extremely difficult to rank for key head terms without a good amount of quality (and naturally gained) backlinks to support your transactional pages.

How to find the issues affecting your content

We’ve covered the why above, let’s now address the how: how to determine what issue affects your page/content. This part is especially dedicated to a not-too savvy SEO audience (skip this part and go straight to next if you are after the how-to recommendations).

I’ll go through a list of checks that can help you detect the issues listed above.

Technical checks

Google Search Console

Use the URL inspection tool to analyze the status of the page: it can help you answer questions such as:

• Has my page been crawled? Are we even allowing Google to crawl the page?
• Has my page been indexed? Are we even allowing Google to index the page?

By assessing the Coverage feature, Google will share information about the crawlability and indexability of the page.

Pay particular attention to the Indexing section, where they mention user-declared canonical vs google-selected canonical. If the two differ, it’s definitely worth investigating the reason, as this means Google isn’t respecting the canonical directives placed on the page — check official resources to learn more about this.

Chrome extensions

I love Chrome extensions and I objectively have way too many on my browser…

Some Chrome extensions can give you lots of info on the indexability status of the page with a simple click, checking things like canonical tags and meta robots tags.

My favorite extensions for this matter are:

• Portent's SEO Page Review
• SEO minion
• SEO META in 1 CLICK

JavaScript check

I’ll keep it simple: JavaScript is key in today’s environment as it adds interactivity to a page. By doing so, it may alter some key HTML elements that are very important for SEO. You can easily check how a page would look without JS by using this convenient tool by Onley: WWJD.

Realistically speaking, you need only one of the following tools in order to check whether JavaScript might be a problem for your on-page SEO:

• Mobile friendly test
• Rich snippet results
• URL Inspection tool

All the above tools are very useful for any type of troubleshooting as they are showcasing the rendered-DOM resources in real-time (different from what the “view-source” of a page looks like).

Once you’ve run the test, click to see the rendered HTML and try and do the following checks:

• Is the core part of my content visible?
  • Quick way to do so: find a sentence in your content, use the search function or click CTRL + F with that sentence to see if it’s present in the rendered version of the page.
• Are internal links visible to Google?
  • Quick way to do so: find an internal link on the page, use the search function or click CTRL + F with that sentence to see if it’s present in the rendered version of the page.
• Can Google access other key elements of the page?
  • Check for things such as headers (example below with a Brainlabs article), products, pagination, reviews, comments, etc.

Intent and SERP analysis

By analyzing the SERP for key terms of focus, you’ll be able to identify a series of questions that relate to your content in relation to intent, competition, and relevance. All major SEO tools nowadays provide you with tons of great information about what the SERP looks like for whatever keyword you’re analyzing.

For the sake of our example, let’s use Ahrefs and the sample keyword below is “evergreen content”:

Based on this example, these are a few things I can notice:

• This keyword triggers a lot of interesting SERP features (Featured Snippet, Top Stories, People also ask)
• The top organic spots are owned by very established and authoritative sources (Ahrefs blog, Hubspot, Wordstream etc), which makes this keyword quite difficult to compete for

Here are quick suggestions on what types of checks I recommend:

• Understand and classify the keyword of analysis, based on the type of results Google is showing in the SERP: any ads showing, or organic snippets? Are the competing pages mainly transactional or informational?
• Check the quality of the sites that are ranking in page one: indicative metrics that can help you gather insights on the quality of each domain (DA/DR) are helpful, the number of keywords those pages are visible for, the estimated traffic per page, and so on.
• Do a quick crawl of these pages to bulk check the comprehensiveness of their content and metadata, or manually check some if you prefer that way.

By doing most of these checks, you’ll be able to see if your content is underperforming for any of the reasons previously mentioned:

• Content not compelling enough compared to what is ranking on page one
• Content in the wrong format compared to what Google is prioritizing
• Content is timely or seasonal
• Content is being overshadowed by SERP features

Duplication and cannibalization issues

Check out my 2019 post on this subject, which goes into a lot more detail. The quick version of the post is below.

Use compelling SEO tools to understand the following:

• whether, for tracked keywords of interest, two or more ranking URLs have been flip-flopping. That is a clear sign that search engines are confused and cannot “easily decide” on what URL to rank for a certain keyword.
• whether, for tracked keywords of interest, two or more ranking URLs are appearing at the same time (not necessarily on page one of the SERP). That is a clear signal of duplication/cannibalization.
• check your SEO visibility by landing page: if different URLs that rank for very similar keyword permutations, chances are there is a risk there.
• last but not least: do a simple site search for keywords of interest in order to get an initial idea of how many pages (that cover a certain topic) have been indexed by Google. This is an insightful preliminary exercise and also useful to validate your worries.

How to fix underperforming content

We’ve covered the most common cases of underperforming content and how to detect such issues — now let’s talk about ways to fix them.

Below is a list of suggested actions to take when improving your underperforming content, with some very valuable links to other resources (mostly from Moz or Google) that can help you expand on individual concepts.

Make sure your page can be crawled and indexed “properly”

• Ensure that your page does not fall under any path of blocked resources in Robots.txt
• Ensure your page is not provided with a no-index meta robots tag or a canonical tag pointing elsewhere (a self-referencing canonical tag is something you may want to consider but not compulsory at all).
• Check whether other pages have a canonical tag pointing to your URL of focus. Irrelevant or poorly-done canonical tags tend to get ignored by Google — you can check if that is the case in the URL Inspection tool.
• Ensure your site (not just your page) is free from any non-SEO friendly JavaScript that can alter key on-page elements (such as headers, body content, internal links, etc.).
• Ensure your page is linked internally on the site and present in your XML sitemap.

Understand search intent

• Search intent is a fascinating topic in and of itself, and there are a lot of great resources on the subject if you want to delve deeper into it.
• Put simply, you should always research what the SERP looks like for the topic of interest: by analyzing the SERP and all its features (organic and non), you can get a much better understanding of what search engines are looking for in order to match intent.
• By auditing the SERP, you should be able to answer the following questions:
  • What type of content is Google favoring here: transactional, navigational, informational?
  • How competitive are the keywords of focus and how authoritative are those competitors ranking highly for them?
  • What content format is Google showcasing in the SERP?
  • How comprehensive should my content be to get a chance to rank in page one?
  • What keywords are used in the competitor’s metadata?
  • What organic features should I consider addressing with my content (things like featured snippets, people also ask, top images, etc.)?
• Hopefully all the questions above will also give you a realistic view of your chances of ranking on Google’s first page. Don’t be afraid to switch your focus to PPC for some very competitive keywords where your real possibility of organic rankings are slim.

Map your pages against the right keywords

• This is a necessary step to make sure you have a clear understanding of not only what keywords you want to rank for, but also what keywords you are eligible to rank for.
• Don’t overdo it and be realistic about your ranking possibilities: mapping your page against several keywords variations, all of which show very different SERPs and intents, is not realistic.
• My suggestion is to pick two or three primary keyword variations and focus on getting your content as relevant as possible to those terms.

Write great metadata

• Title tags are still an incredibly important on-page ranking factor, so dedicate the right time when writing unique and keyword-rich titles.
• Meta descriptions are not a ranking factor anymore, but they still play a part in enticing the user to click on a search result. So from a CTR perspective, they still matter.
• SEO keyword research is the obvious choice to write compelling metadata, but don’t forget about PPC ad copies — check what PPC ad copies work best for your site and take learnings from them.
• Don’t change metadata too often, though: make sure you do your homework and give enough time to properly test new metadata, once implemented.

Make the right content amends

• Based on the intent audit and keyword mapping insights, you’re now ready to work on your actual page content.
• By now, you’ve done your homework, so you just need to focus on writing great content for the user (and not for Google).
• Readability is a very important part of a page. Tricks that I’ve learned from colleagues over the years are the following:
  • Read the content out loud and try to objectively assess how interesting it is for your target audience.
  • Make sure to use enough spacing between lines and paragraphs. People’s attention span these days is very short, and chances are people will skim through your content rather than dedicating 100% of their attention to it (I’m sure some of YOU readers are doing it right now!).
  • Make sure your tone of voice and language match your target audience (if you can write things in plain English vs. highly technical jargon, do so and don’t over-complicate your life).
• Make sure you’ve thought about all internal linking possibilities across the site. Not only for the same type of page (transactional page to transactional page, for instance) but also across different types (transactional page to video/blog post, if that helps people make a decision, for example).
• Optional step: once everything is ready, request indexing of your page in Google Search Console with the URL inspection tool.

Final thoughts

Underperforming content is a very common issue and should not take you by surprise, especially considering that content is considered among (if not the) most important ranking factors in 2020. With the right tools and process in place, solving this issue is something everyone can learn: SEO is not black magic, the answer tends to be logical.

First, understand the cause(s) for your underperforming content. Once you’re certain you’re compliant with Google’s technical guidelines, move on to determining what intent you’re trying to satisfy. Your research on intent should be comprehensive: this is what’s going to decide what changes you’ll need to make to your content. At that point, you’ll be ready to make the necessary SEO and content changes to best match your findings.

I hope this article is useful! Feel free to chat about any questions you may have in the comments or via Twitter or LinkedIn.

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Should You Direct The Links Of Your Money Site Blog Post To One Silo?

In Semantic Mastery’s weekly Hump Day Hangouts episode 298, one viewer asked if you should direct the links of your money site blog post to one silo.

The exact question was:

2) When I’m doing a blog post on money site the links from the post should be directed to 1 silo?

Should You Direct The Links Of Your Money Site Blog Post To One Silo? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

Which URL Do You Want To Power From The Drive Stack If Your Client Offers Conference Services To Multiple Cities?

In Semantic Mastery’s weekly Hump Day Hangouts episode 297, one viewer asked what URL to power from the drive stack if your client offers conference services to multiple cities.

The exact question was:

I ordered the SEO Shield and have some questions about what to fill out. I ordered keyword research so I’ll upload that when I get it. But the client we have is a Conference and they move every now and then. For the next few years they are going to be in Vegas. They have roughly 20k people go to the conference every year from all around the World. One of the things it ask for is “”Which URL do you want to power from the Drive stack to go to?”” Does that mean the money site?

Which URL Do You Want To Power From The Drive Stack If Your Client Offers Conference Services To Multiple Cities? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

Should I iFrame All City Pages To Gsite And Order Link Building To Push Power To The Money Site?

In Hump Day Hangouts episode 298, one participant asked if you should iframe all city pages to the Gsite and order link building to push power to the money site.

The exact question was:

Hi Guys! Thank for all you are doing. I have a couple questions. 1) I need to push power to money site city pages. Better to iframe all post to G-site and them order a link building to G-site or build links to some other properties? My goal is to cover all city pages on the money site.

Should I iFrame All City Pages To Gsite And Order Link Building To Push Power To The Money Site? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

What Do You Mean By Pinging Websites For Backlinks And Backlink Indexing?

In Hump Day Hangouts episode 297, one participant asked about pinging websites for backlinks and backlink indexing.

The exact question was:

4) another question is: 4) The meaning of pinging websites for backlinks and pinging for backlink indexing. How do they find the ping command to make it happen in each case. and also is pinging relevant even for today?

What Do You Mean By Pinging Websites For Backlinks And Backlink Indexing? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

What Is The New Wiki Link Package About?

In episode 298 of our weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one viewer asked about the new Wiki link package in MGYB.

The exact question was:

1) What is the new package “”Wiki Link”” about? Is it single link only? Is creating a wiki link more harder than building a IFTTT branded network? (costs the same that’s why I’m asking) 2) How much effect there is for that link?

What Is The New Wiki Link Package About? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

How Do You Make Google Tag Manager Understand That A Conversion Was Made?

In episode 297 of our weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one viewer asked how to make Google Tag Manager understand that a conversion was made.

The exact question was:

question 2 is about Conversion. making google understand conversion was made.

How Do You Make Google Tag Manager Understand That A Conversion Was Made? posted first on your-t1-blog-url

Accessible Machine Learning for SEOs — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by BritneyMuller

Machine learning — a branch of artificial intelligence that studies the automatic improvement of computer algorithms — might seem far outside the scope of your SEO work. MozCon speaker (and all-around SEO genius) Britney Muller is here with a special edition of Whiteboard Friday to tell you why that's not true, and to go through a few steps to get you started. 

To see more on machine learning from Britney and our other MozCon 2020 speakers, check out this year's video bundle. 

Get my MozCon 2020 video bundle

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to this special edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today we are taking a sneak peek at what I spoke about at MozCon 2020, where I made machine learning accessible to SEOs everywhere.

This is so, so exciting because it is readily at your fingertips today, and I'm going to show you exactly how to get started. 

So to kick things off, I learned about this weird concept called brood parasites this summer, and it's fascinating. It's basically where one animal tricks another animal of the same species to raise its young.

It's fascinating, and the more I learned about it, the more I realized: oh my gosh, I'm sort of like a brood parasite when it comes to programming and machine learning! I latch on and find these great models that do all the work — all of the raising — and I put in my data and my ideas, and it does things for me.

So we are going to use this concept to our advantage. In fact, I have been able to teach my dad most of these models that, again, are readily available to you today within a tool called Colab. Let me just walk you through what that looks like. 

Models to get you started

So to get started, if you want to start warming up right now, just start practicing clicking "Shift" and then click "Enter".

Just start practicing that right now. It's half the battle. You're about to be firing up some really cool models. 



All right. What are some examples of that? What does that look like? So some of the models you can play with today are things like DeOldify, which is where you repair and colorize old photos. It's really, really fun. 

Another one is a text generator. I created one with GTP-2 — super silly, it's this excuse generator. You can manipulate it and make it do different things for you. 

There's also a really, really great forecasting model, where you basically put in a chunk of time series data and it predicts what the future might have in store. It's really, really powerful and fun.

You can summarize text, which is really valuable. Think about meta descriptions, all that good stuff. 

You can also automate keyword research grouping, which I'll show you here in a second. 

You can do really powerful internal link analysis, set up a notebook for that.

Perhaps one of the most powerful things is you can extract entities and categories as Google perceives them. It's one of my favorite APIs. It's through Google's NLP API. I pull it into a notebook, and you basically put the URLs you want to extract this information from and you can compare how your URL compares to competitors.

It's really, really valuable, fun stuff. So most importantly, you cannot break any of this. Do not be intimidated by any of the code whatsoever. Lots of seasoned developers don't know what's happening in some of those code blocks. It's okay.

Using Colab

We get to play in this environment. It's hosted in Google Drive, and so there's no fear of this breaking anything on your computer or with your data or anything. So just get ready to dive in with me. Please, it's going to be so much fun. Okay, so like I said, this is through a free tool called Colab. So you know how Google basically took Excel and made Google Sheets?

They did the same thing with what's known as Jupyter Notebooks. So these were locally on computers. It's one of the most popular notebook environments. But it requires some setup, and it can be somewhat clunky. It gets confused with different versions and yada, yada. Google put that into the cloud and is now calling it Colab. It's unbelievably powerful.

So, again, it's free. It's available to you right now if you want to open it up in a new tab. There is zero setup. Google also gives you access to free GPU and TPU computing, which is great. It has a 12-hour runtime. 

Some cons is that you can hit limits. So I hit the limits, and now I'm paying $9.99 a month for the Pro version and I've had no problems.

Again, I'm not affiliated with this whatsoever. I'm just super passionate about it, and the fact that they offer you a free version is so exciting. I've already seen a lot of people get started in this. It's also something to note that it's probably not as secure or robust as Google's Enterprise solution. So if you're doing this for a large company or you're getting really serious about this, you should probably check out some other options. But if you're just kind of dabbling and want to explore and have fun, let's keep this party going. 

Using pandas

All right. So again, this is basically a cloud hosted notebook environment. So one thing that I want to really focus on here, because I think it's the most valuable for SEOs, is this library known as "pandas".

Pandas is a data frame library, where you basically run one — or two — lines of code. You can choose your file from your local computer, so I usually just upload CSVs. This silly example is one that I really did run with Google Search Console data.

So you run this in a notebook. Again, I'm sharing this entire notebook with you today. So if you just go to it and you do this, it brings you through the cells. It's not as intimidating as it looks. So if you just click into that first cell, even if it's just that text cell, "Shift + Enter", it will bring you through the notebook. 

So once you get past and once you fire up this chunk of code right here, upload your CSV. Then once you upload it, you are going to name your data frame. 

So these are the only two cells you need to really change or do anything with if you want. Well, you need to. 

So we are uploading your file, and then we are grabbing that file name. In this case, mine was just "gsc-example.csv". Again, once you upload it, you will see the name in that output here. So you just put that within this code block, run this, and then you can do some really easy lines of code to check to make sure that your data is in there.

So one of the first ones that most people do is "df". This is your data frame that you named with your file right here. So you just do "df.head()". This shows you the first five rows of your data frame. You can also do "df.tail()", and it shows you the last five rows of your data frame.

You can even put in a number in here to modify how many rows you want to explore. So maybe you do "df.head(30)", and then you see the first 30 rows. It's that easy just to get it in there and to see it. Now comes the really fun stuff, and this is just tip of the iceberg.

So you can run this really, really cool code cell here to create a filterable table. What's powerful about this, especially with your Google Search Console data, is you can easily extract and explore keywords that have high click-through rate and a low ranking in search. It's one of my favorite ways to explore keyword opportunities for clients, and it couldn't be easier.

So check that out. This is kind of the money part right here. 

If you're doing keyword research, which can take a lot, right, you're trying to bucket keywords, you're trying to organize topics and all that good stuff, you can instantly create a new column with pandas with branded keyword terms.

So just to walk you through this, we're going "df["Branded"]". This is the name of the new column we're going to create. We have this query string "contains," and this is just regex, ("moz|rand|ose"). So any keywords that contain one of those words gets in the "Branded" column a "True".

So now that makes filtering and exploring that so much faster. You can even do this in ways where you can create an entirely different data frame table. So sometimes if you have lots and lots of data, you can use the other cell in that example. All of these examples will be in the notebook.

You can use that and export your keywords into buckets like that, and there's no stall time. Things don't freeze up like Excel. You can account for misspellings and all sorts of good stuff so, so easily with regular expressions. So super, super cool.

Conclusion

Again, this is just tip of the iceberg, my friends. I am most excited to sort of plant this seed within all of you so that you guys can come back and teach me what you've been able to accomplish. I think we have so much more to explore in this space. It is going to be so much fun. If you get a kick out of this and you want to continue exploring different models, different programs within Colab, I highly suggest you download the Colab Chrome extension.

It just makes opening up the notebook so much easier. You can save a copy to your drive and play with it all you want. It's so much fun. I hope this kind of sparked some inspiration in some of you, and I am so excited to hear what all of you think and create. I really appreciate you watching.

So thank you so much. I will see you all next time. Bye.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 306

Click on the video above to watch Episode 306 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Hey everybody, we are now live. Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts. This is Episode 306. Today is the 23rd of September 2020. And this is the last Hump Day Hangout before we live 2020. So if you have not got your ticket yet, head over to cope with live.com, we still got some open seats left, the VIP tickets are gone, there is one VIP plus ticket left. And we got again, some extras for the main tickets where you can still get access to all of the presentations to the case studies. And then you can pick up the executive summaries and you’ll get access to the recordings. So again, if you haven’t yet and you didn’t see the emails that we keep stacking some pretty good bonuses and then this last one, I don’t want to give it away if you’re not on the email list, you need to hop on the list first. That’s the only way you’re gonna get it but we’ve got a free consultation going with one of the presenters who’s doing work as a digital marketing and SEO agency with fortune 500 companies so Enough said that’s just a little teaser because everyone on the email list is getting a shot at that. So before we dive into questions and talk some more about POFU Live and what I was going to they’re gonna say hi to everyone real quick so start at the bottom and work my way up. We got her on Hernan wearing a nice sweater today you look kind of nice.

Ah Oh, man. I’m excited about POFU, man makes black buffalo is coming bro Where the fuck is your ticket? Go to pofulive.com and get your ticket.

All right, I’m not sure whether to be scared or excited but either way, I get what Hernan is throwing down. So I think what are you trying to say that people should come to join us? That should go to footballlab.com I went live on the Facebook group. I think today talking about my topic for Saturday is gonna be pretty awesome. So I’m excited about I’m excited to see what you guys have to share. But I’m excited about what I have to share as well. So it’s gonna be pretty cool. Definitely. I am looking forward to all of them. So let’s, let’s move up here Marco, how are you doing today?

Got you looking a little different. You kind of look dressed up to you got a call? You know, it’s Look, I had to break up my vintage search shirts. somebody commented on it from a previous something. Someone said, Hey, man, nice shirt, like your shirt, whatever. So I said, Hey, you know, I got other vintage shirts. Let me stop breaking them out. And I got a place that I order from also where they have like a whole stack of shirts men from I don’t know, Hawaiian and all these different shirts. So there you go. And

Need I say more. Yeah, POFU. It’s Groundhog Day, man. But this is my POFU, right? We define it as doing what you want to do, instead of what you have to do in whatever it is right.

And even when you have to do something, it’s because it’s what you want to be doing. Think about that. It sounds like an oxymoron having to do something that you want to do or want to do something that you have to do. But it is how we do it is going to be shared on Saturday. Well, this week, not that this Friday, but Friday is going to be a drink off Bradley against anybody who comes up. So there you go. I’m putting my money on the breath.

That is awesome. Yeah, I think we just had one of the VIP attendees ought to go and check if he posted his picture yet. He said he got his beer delivered. It’s in the fridge and ready to go. So looking forward to that on Friday. I am not gonna challenge, Bradley. I’ve learned my lessons and meeting up with you guys that we all trying to say is good. I’m not. I’m just saying I feel it after we get together. Man. We have a good time. But I got a detox after we meet up so it’s not just you, man. It’s not just you, man.

All right, well, Marco is going to be kicking off Sunday at POFU Live so he has got the first talk after we get things going on Sunday. So looking forward to hearing what you’re going to be throwing down Marco. Yeah, I shared see but my mini mastermind gets most of my stuff man mo I’m not gonna say all because I got to keep one in the chamber man just in case. People can turn on your you got to be able to pop them off. So just in case, I keep on back, but they get most of it. So they got a little taste of what I’ll be doing during my presentation. And you know how I toggle my presentation, right? Like, last year? Of course, it was it’s all in your fucking head. And that’s what I went with now this year is going to find out on Sunday.

Outstanding Well, speaking of Sunday, discussions, and presentations Chris, how are you doing today? Doing super well here. I’m still somewhat here surprisingly. So yeah.

And I still have a little bit of work to do for my presentation. So like a bit of fine-tuning. But what I got so far, super exciting, so be excited as well. Cool. Cool. All right. And we were just everyone who’s watching before we right before we went live, I think Bradley, you said you’re, you’re doing a bunch of work on what you’re going to be talking about. Right? You said you were just cranking out some lead gen prospecting stuff. Yeah, I’m still working on the prospecting machine that I’ve set up. It’s, it’s working really well, I just started, I had done it before with some different applications and such, and I’m using a new app. Now that kind of combined everything all into one. And it’s working really, really well. I’ve been prospecting pretty heavy this week. And I’ve got several appointments for lead buyers for Tree Service guys to buy leads from my own assets. But yeah, it’s working really well. And I keep adding to the prospecting machine to make additional automation. So like, even more, follow-ups get added to it all the time. So it’s a work in progress, even what I’m going to be teaching about is that this weekend for POFU Live, but it’s not done, it’s not complete in that I keep adding to it. So over the course of the next couple of months, POFU Live attendees, we have a membership area. And so I’m going to continue to add to that, just like we did last year and the year before so that we can add, you know, I can, I can continue to refine it, make it better, and provide that to the post live attendees. And once it’s finalized, to where I’ve got it to where it’s not a whole lot of tweaking left to do, then that’s when I’ll end up sharing it through in the mastermind as well. So that’s usually within you know, six, eight weeks after the live event, I usually end up sharing what I shared a few live in the mastermind, you know, bits and pieces of it anyways. So I think it’s gonna be pretty valuable. It’s working really well for me. And I just hope that other people can put it to use for them as well. Outstanding. All right, and just before we got on here, I just updated the POFU Live page. We’ve been going back and forth with our last potential speaker, as well as he’s going to be presenting a case study. So I’m really happy about this Jeremy Gottesman and owner of press advantage is going to be joining us so on Sunday afternoon, he’s got a case study lined up going to drive about driving traffic with mass content syndication. He also might be pulling back the what I call it, the pulling back the curtains on a project he’s working on so we’ll see about that but really excited to have Jeremy join us. Of course, we’re going to have Jordan Fowler, Jeffrey Smith, Brian Caddo, and all of us you’re seeing here are all going to be giving presentations on top of that. Rob Beal alright guy running MGYB dedhia. If you have ever been on a PO foo live, you probably heard one of us mentioned dedhia is going to be there talking about the link building wizardry given some insights there for that everyone can put to use. So like I said, head over to POFU Live.com. We are going to shut down ticket sales at midnight on Friday so that everyone has a chance to get the info they need and be there sharp and early at 9am this Saturday, and you’re going to get to look at Hernan dancing in a sunglasses the whole week. No, just kidding. If you want we’ll make him not do that. So anyway, regardless, we’re looking forward to seeing you there. If you have any questions, either leave them on the page here or just shoot an email to support at Semantic mastery.com and we will get you sorted out as quickly as we can. One more thing that I need to comment on because you mentioned Jordan, like people you are presenters, like our rock stars, Jeffrey always brings the heat beyond all of our people. But Jordan, his presentation is what is going to focus on content, how to get your content razor-sharp, and we talk about this is our mini mastermind, this is what takes place we talked about how to get that content razor-sharp for the AI right for the artificial intelligence so that you focus right on the body presenting your entity the right way correctly. So he’s showing how content how you can focus your content to activate this bot so you can tell the bot exactly what your website is about because if you leave the bot to guess I don’t give a shit how good that AI is. It’s going to screw it all up now on top of that he’s going to show us fortunate enough to attend how to monetize it. So you’re gonna make your money back, you know how many times like how can you put a price on someone teaching you how to monetize the content that is razor sharp already to produce results. So think about this so and the guy’s a master you guys know what he’s doing out in his neck of the woods in a what roughly 20 million people metropolitan area Metroplex. So, you know, he’s killing it. He’s killing it. Brian is out there, in his neck of the woods doing the thing he does people in my mini mastermind with somebody who’s going to be lucky enough to be able to join my mastermind. So you get access to all of this. And they’re just like if you’re not hyper-focused on getting to pole for how to get the pole.

How to get in razor-sharp for that process, then we’ll help you along the way. I mean, it doesn’t get any better than that. And I don’t know what that’s worth, I can’t tell you to let my guys tell you what it’s worth being that mini mastermind. That’s awesome. Yeah, I should have definitely talked about those a little bit more. But I’m glad you brought that up Marco because that is going to be some powerful stuff. So I know a little bit about what Jordans been doing some of the success he’s had. So that’s just, I mean, I’m looking forward to all of these, but that’s another one I’m looking forward to it, I can see some great opportunities where I can put it to use for not only myself but potential clients not even do SEO for clients anymore. But there’s some great stuff here that you know, could be their add on services, or again, doing it for my own projects or ourselves. So really looking forward to that. Thanks for adding that.

Alright guys, anything else before we dive into questions?

Nope. All right, Bradley. Let’s do it. Grab the screen.

Firstly, make sure I’ve got all my sensitive tabs. Closed or hidden week. Yeah.

Call it what you want.

Alright, let’s do this.

You got to see my screen correct.

out now we can. Okay.

All right. So let’s see. Where do we start? Also, how about this man when it rains, It pours. We have got the questions today. Geez. Oh, man. Yeah, see that? Yeah.

What WordPress Plugin Do You Recommend For Adding Schema To A Blog?

That’s awesome. Thanks, everybody. For all the questions. Yeah. Let’s, uh, I guess let’s dive into this.

Uh, okay, cool. Let’s start here. Three days of cats are from seven days ago, I believe this was right at the end of the webinar or the hump day hanging out last time, but we’ll answer now Is there a WordPress plugin for adding schema to a blog that you recommend? The only one that I use for adding schema that has like schema? Like a schema generator in it is Seo ultimate pro?

There are other plugins out there that do it. But I don’t know. I’ve not used any of them. So I the only one that I recommend is Seo Ultimate Pro. Do we have a link for that guys? Or no? Yeah, let me grab that. Anybody else has a comment on that? SEO Ultimate Pro, absolutely. The header inserter. Hmm. The way you can insert custom code, as I’ll go and I because I like doing my own coding my own schema. But the inserter code allows me to control it, where it goes by post, by page. What goes where so I really like that function, man. Because you can get down into the nitty-gritty. I’ve also coded my own plugin, which if you’re, of course, one of our paying members, I’ll probably give you access to that where you can dynamically insert schema. This is especially for e-commerce is I’ve been doing some e-commerce lately. So if you need to insert schema, custom schema, and there are things that change, because you have products, then I’ve developed a plugin that will dynamically insert that schema. So it’s pretty good. It works pretty well. Yeah, to be clear.

If you already have schema code that you just want to add to different pages, there’s a number of plugins that will do that, like so go add header, the footer is one of them, there’s a number of plugins that you can do for that. But if you’re looking for a plugin that will generate schema code or structured data, that’s why I mentioned SEO Ultimate Pro, because it actually has both of those functionalities in it. One is on every page or post, it has a schema code generator at the bottom so that you can mark up that the content or the elements of that page or post. But then also there’s the code inserter module and the code inserter plus module and SEO Ultimate Pro, so that you can add code to different pages or posts or, you know, media files or whatever it is that you want to do, you can add to those as well. So it actually does both of those things that will generate structured data, as well as it will allow you to insert code via the code inserter module into you know, various pages and posts and get very granular. So there’s a lot of control available in that plugin suite.

Does Any of Network Empire’s Old WebRing Videos Still And Can It Be Used Together With Semantic Mastery’s Drive Stacking?

Okay, moving on. The next one is Olga says hi SM. I watched your recent Hump Day hangout video and Bradley mentioned he followed the Network Empire when he got started. Yes, I did. Are there any old webring videos? Is any of their old webring videos still relevant? If so, can it be used together with drive stacks as taught by Semantic Mastery? Thanks. Yeah, there’s no doubt though, they’re still relevant. So you know, it’s interesting but the syndication networks that I built I was building before I even knew about network Empire, excuse me network Empire. I didn’t get introduced to Network Empire think until 2013 I believe. When I went to Nashville for what was it OMG live in Nashville. That’s when I got introduced to Network Empire. So I was already doing what network Empire considers what they call webring one right. So are ones which is building branded properties syndicating content to what a republishing to those, but I was doing that already with syndication networks and IFTTT, and so. But yes, when I went, that’s why I was so attracted to Network Empire because when I got introduced to them at the OMG live event in 2013, they started talking about w r1. And web 2.0s and all this stuff. And I was just like, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing with syndication networks and I, at that time, I didn’t fully understand why syndication networks worked so well. But that’s where Network Empire came in is they really took that idea that I was already using, and kind of expanded on that for me, so that I got much more knowledge as to why that worked. And again, that was really the beginning of the Semantic Web. And that’s why when we formed our company, we caught it semantic mastery is because it was about developing those semantic relationships between all those properties, increasing your brand footprint online. All of that is still absolutely relevant today. Some of the methods may have changed slightly, but as far as the the the theory behind it, it absolutely is, is applicable to even projects today. So there’s a wealth of information that you can get from them as well. There’s no question about it. I’ve got nothing bad to say about Network Empire at all. So anybody wants to comment on that?

No, I don’t know enough about what they’re doing now, to be able to comment. I mean, what they were doing? Yes, a lot of it, I would say it’s isn’t even necessarily going out any further than tier one. The way that we do it is through link building. And I guess you could call them kind of, like rings kind of like, but it’s different the way that our approach is a little bit different now. But yeah, totally their branded ring, and they’re what they call their golden frame. And all that’s still relevant, how they do it and where they do it. Like I can’t say, I can’t say I can only comment about what we’re doing now and how we approach the Semantic Web.

So see, the follow-up question on that was if so can it be used together with drive stacking is taught by Semantic Mastery? Absolutely. That’s what I mean. Again, that’s kind of what Marco was just saying was, you know, the way that they teach building out, they teach something similar in that the WR ones and WR twos are almost like SEO shields, right, which is what we do with drive stacks, except we just use Google properties to create that SEO shield and why because Marco always calls it or says it’s where, you know, we’re in the belly of the beast. And we’re basically using Google’s own narcissism against itself to benefit our own properties. So but yes, again, Network Empire training, works very well in conjunction with our training. And even today, I know that they still use you know, drive stacks and such a lot of their members actually buy drive stacks from us. So I don’t know why you buy them anywhere else to be honest with you.

What Do You Mean By Jumplinks In The Drive Stack Strategy?

Alon is up next she says, I guys, just wondering why you use the Google slash URL question mark q equals in front of your web 2.0 and links in your G stack properties. Marco, do you want to? Do you want to reveal why we do that?

No, it’s not something that out that I’ll get into in a free group. We get into the why in heavy hitter club, we get into the why. And always Academy reloaded them the Semantic Mastery mastermind otherwise, not something I’ll talk about. Yeah. So yeah. And that’s why I asked Marco because there’s a specific reason why we do that. But it is something that we talked about in the paid group. So I didn’t want to reveal that here. Unfortunately, Alona let’s just say it’s beneficial to do it that way. So that’s why we do that. But far beyond that. The next question is, and by the way, if you know if the heavy hitter or excuse me, if semantic mastery mastermind is too much for you, as far as a monthly commitment, or, you know, several grand on RYS Academy is too much for you then join heavy hitter club, right. And that’s technical SEO stuff where so a lot of the stuff that’s covered in heavy hitter club is also covered in the mastermind, but the mastermind also covers about business building management, outsourcing prospecting client, you know, getting all that kind of stuff. So there are different levels for reasons, right if you just need technical SEO advice, heavy hitter clubs, your best bet.

So I would encourage you to go check that out.

Is this what you mean by jump links are a type of redirect. Well, that’s a redirect that’s a type of redirect specific to Google, but it’s not a jump link and jump link is when you have an anchor link. And I don’t mean anchor text link, I mean, an anchor link. So you can just go to Google and search what is an anchor link, right. And if you’ll look probably w three schools will come up and you can read about what an anchor link is. But that’s essentially like a table of contents on a page. Do you know what I’m saying? So like, for example, if if you can create a link, like an in-page link so that when you click on that link, it jumps to a specific spot on that page. It’s very easy to set up again, go to W three

Or just go to Google and search anchor links, create anchor links, what is an anchor link, and you’ll read about it. And it’s a very, very simple code to create anchor links. And those are very, very powerful, because you can link to specific parts of a page doesn’t have to just be an in-page link, what I’m saying is, you create the anchor link, but you can link to that specific part of a page or post, externally, right, so you can, you can use the link directly to that. So that’s what a jump link is. They’re very, very powerful. Use them very strategically. And you can get really good results from that. Does anybody want to comment on that? All of this, as you said, is readily available if you search Google, and you’ll know what a redirect is, and what a jump link is, how we use them. And how we strategically place these to get the maximum effect is, again, something that we only deal with, in the paid groups. And if I see you, as a matter of fact, commenting about my shit, and other groups, especially in the free groups, I get very upset. And I’ll call you out on it because I don’t want that.

This is what’s ridiculous to me, man. So you pay a whole lot of money to come in and learn from us to come and get a strategic advantage over everyone else. Then you go to a free group and try to look good. By thinking that you’re looking like like, like a pro, like an expert, Ninja fucked or whatever the fuck it is that you’re trying to look like. And you’re giving away the shit that you’re paying for? It is that come on there. Come on, I think I see. And I see you. I see when you go and do it. You think that I don’t know, someone will come and say, Hey, Marco, someone’s sharing your shit. And then sure enough, there I go. And then I’ll reach out to you privately and you’re not gonna like that. Just so you know. So to clarify, or to be clear was that wasn’t directed at olana? Was it? Not something that cuz he’s not one of our members. Okay. That’s a general comment. I’m just saying in general, coming to people who are paying us and then going and sharing. Now, I only share the good stuff in the paid groups, or once it’s become general knowledge as to why and how, but the why and how to keep that unfair advantage to yourself. So Ilana, if you go and you invest your time, your hard-earned money and time into learning all these things? Would you then go and give it away? Absolutely not cheap, your advantage, your time that you spend coming to here and asking us questions, and going into Google and researching cost you money. So don’t give that away. Go go and go in and apply the shit that you learn. And like totally rock here, your providers will or the sorry that that person do that you’re doing SEO for rock his world rock her world? And then trash more money, but don’t go give it away? Because then what value do you have to offer that somebody else can’t, and they’ll undercut you? They’ll find out who you’re who it is that you’re doing work for.

And they’ll come in at a lower price with the shit that you gave away? Yeah, it’s on you.

When Would You Start Using Paid Traffic To Give Google A Heads Up About Your Business?

Okay, so she’s got a few more questions here. A while we got a lot to go through today, so I’ll try to run through this very quickly. Few paid traffic questions. You’ve mentioned using paid traffic at the start of your SEO campaign to give Google a heads up about you. When would you start using it straight away? Or once you have all your stack citations and everything set up? Um, you know, it just depends. Typically, it depends on what the project is, for me, I’m generally I will run inexpensive traffic, which can be achieved through YouTube, but more likely for clicks directly to web assets, whether it’s a money site or Google properties, display ads work really, really well for that, because the thing about YouTube which might answer the default.

The next question, YouTube ads are more about views to the video, right? Don’t get me wrong, if it’s a good video, if there’s a compelling offer, then you will receive some clicks from the video to whatever destination or target that you want to drive the traffic to. But YouTube is more about I use YouTube ads or Google ads for video, specifically more for helping the video to rank or also for branding purposes, right. So I use YouTube ads to help the video rank if I’m trying to have a video rank. But I really don’t care about a video ranking so much anymore. I really just don’t oftentimes it will rank because of relevant traffic coming to it. But the engagement signals that you’re buying from Google, but I honestly don’t really care much about ranking videos anymore, because I get all the traffic I want from using Google ads and it’s inexpensive, so there’s really no reason for me to go through the trouble ranking videos. a byproduct of relevant engagement relevant views to a video is that it will often rank if the video is optimized to rank. So besides that, use YouTube ads to create branding more or less branding campaigns to constantly expose the brand to potential customers, right. So it’s not so much about driving traffic from the video to the destination. Although I always put a call to action, right, there’s always a call to action to click. But it’s, I don’t get a whole lot of clicks from that I do get clicks, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t get a whole lot of them. It’s more about views. So that said, Display Network ads through Google Display Network ads, when somebody clicks one of those ads, it goes directly to the destination. Right. So it’s not the same as watching a video. It’s remembering what the YouTube badge it’s it’s a two-step process. The first is to get the video seen. The second is to get somebody to click from within the video to the destination, which is where you want them to go. But with a display network ad, it’s the click, it’s a one-step process, that click goes directly to your destination. So I like to use Google Display Network ads for the kind of activating SEO work that I’ve done. And for that, I’ll drive it directly to usually the money site sometimes, if it’s a local project, to the GMB website, or to the Google Map, because both of those are good signals as well. Um, but so usually, I just wait until the money site is ready to for some traffic, and I have the GMB set up the Google My Business profile set up, I don’t usually have to wait, I don’t Excuse me, I don’t usually wait until like I have all this syndication network and drive stack and everything else done because I don’t typically drive traffic to any of those properties you can. But I just usually drive clicks to the money site, the GMB website, or the GMB map. And those are the three things that I typically drive to traffic to. And with that, again, as I said, it’s most of the time I use Google Display Network ads because they’re very, very inexpensive, you can get really, really granular with your audience targeting. So it’s a relevant audience, your geographic targeting, you can get granular with that as well. So you can get highly relevant clicks from specific geographic areas, especially if it’s for local, from known audiences that are in the market or are, you know, interested in by Google knows that they’re in the market or highly likely to be interested in whatever the product or service it is that I’m promoting? Does that make sense? So hopefully, that was clear cleared that up.

You mentioned using YouTube to drive traffic, are you creating videos around your niche? Sorry, sorry to interrupt you. Um, I was, I want to say that. This also applies if you want to do some Facebook traffic or Facebook ads, I’ve started working with a client that, you know, they had, like, I don’t know, three years worth of content, but their SEO wasn’t as good. So I started working with them and the SEO side of things. And what happened is that I started running some Facebook ads for their, you know, for the sad demographic, and also for relevant, you know, locations and whatnot. And that started moving the needle without doing anything else. Because I think that that also comes from you know, you have a digital persona, and you have a digital footprint. So of course, Google Drive, it would be better, but, you know, Facebook traffic, especially traffic to a blog post that they had actually started pushing the blog posts a little bit up better, just because of the fact that we were getting real traffic, real interaction, real signals, you know, people were staying in the side, they were visiting several websites and whatnot. So I think that could be also an alternative. And it’s also cheap traffic, you know, so that’s also uncertainty. So if you drop like Facebook traffic on the zip codes that your potential customer or client wants to, you know, serve, I think that that could help as well. Kickstarting your SEO for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. We call it the art of art, right? activity, relevance, trust, and authority, how you get the activity in there is essential. I mean, you don’t have the three pillars unless you can achieve that.

Adds for branding, especially are crucial. We’re in the Semantic Web, we have to make our entity clear, we have to make everything about our entity clear. And they’re calling it things, not strings, but it’s still keywords. I don’t care what they call it still work. And it’s still a sequence of numbers. At the end of the day. It’s all math, right. But we have to still present that to Google in such a way that it makes a difference from any other visitor who’s not really interacting with your website. I mean, think of the billions of people who access the web. And how many of those people will come to your website and actually interact with whatever it is that you’re presenting really makes a difference. And so sometimes we achieve that without any paid traffic. Yes, using paid traffic. I mean, we can and I often do, but using paid traffic strategically to reinforce the brand and to get people to notice the brand and to give people signals about the brand because they’ll often go and search more about the brand. So while you can’t see this from the ad, necessarily, or they’ll tell someone about the website that they saw all of these things coming together, total that activity, then that there’s a relevant cinched in there. And then there’s the trust and authority coming in. Because Google sees that people are giving you the information that you’re looking for they taking the action that you’re looking for on the website, all of this coming together is what we call the art of art. You can’t have it without one of the three pillars missing. So if you’re looking at your project, and you’re trying to determine what’s wrong, it’s generally one of those three things. And the process, our process takes care of all three. If it’s sick in one way, we know exactly what part of our process takes care of the activity, the relevance, and the trust and authority.

Do You Create Videos On A Specific Niche And Run Ads To Them?

There you go.

So the next say, you mentioned using YouTube to drive traffic, you creating videos around your niche and running traffic to them, or buying ad space on audiences you want to target. Yeah, I mean, again, it’s about I like to try to use in-market audiences or life event audiences, which are predefined audiences, however, you can create custom audiences. There used to be custom intent audiences. And then there was what’s called affinity audiences to which was already defined audiences. Custom intent is where you submit the criteria to Google ads to define an audience. And I’ve talked about that extensively in some of our training again, Adam, I know I asked this all the time. But do we have a link to the YouTube ads for local? Course? I don’t, yeah, let me grab that. Okay, because that’s a course that will help you out a lot. It’s a YouTube ad for local, you can apply that even if it’s not for local, you can still apply the same strategies to a national campaign or whatever. But I go on very specifically on how to create custom intent audiences. And now they’re called custom audiences Google over just like the past week or so has actually merged affinity audiences and custom intent audiences. But the point that I’m trying to make is I always try to buy traffic from relevant audiences both topically, right, which would be like an in-market audience or life event audience or custom audience, that I define what the criteria or the parameters are. And also geographic if it’s for local, which everything I do is for local. So if it’s for geographic, or local projects, I always said geographic targeting as well. So yes, I’m specifically buying engagement signals from a specific audience, right. Last is if you do produce videos, say you have a local roofer, what sort of content would you produce q&a type of stuff, no, I don’t produce videos at all I stopped doing that years ago, other than the stuff that I do for semantic mastery. And a lot of client videos like in other words, like, you know, videos, for prospecting, and that kind of stuff, I don’t produce, like lead gen videos and things, I just don’t do it anymore. I go to Fiverr. And I buy him there. And I’ve got some providers in Fiverr that I use regularly to create commercial like type videos, right? I provide maybe some images or perhaps some images with some short video clips that then they incorporate into the video that they make. And then I add, usually, I provide a script and they either provide the voiceover or I will either record the voiceover myself and submit the voiceover to be added to the video when they render the video. or hire a voiceover from Fiverr voiceover talent to record the voiceover. A lot of times I just record the voiceover myself because I write the script. So I just record the audio file and then send that one I ordered the gig from Fiverr and they produce the video and there are some pretty good providers in there for you know, 50 bucks, you can get a really nice video created with a voiceover track background music and everything, you know, 30 to 62nd video for around 50 bucks, some are more expensive, but you can find decent providers on Fiverr that’s what I do. You know, again, it’s more about the branding for YouTube ads than it is about providing producing traffic although you will get some relevant traffic if you’ve got your targeting right.

Okay.

Have You Used Reddit Ads For Local Campaigns?

Have I used Reddit for ads for local? No, I’ve never been a fan of Reddit. I’ve always hated Reddit, just because I just always hated it. So no, I’ve never done anything with Reddit whatsoever. And anytime I years ago, when I tried to do any SEO stuff in Reddit, my reddits would always get deleted or my accounts would get suspended. So I just I don’t do anything in Reddit at all. Does anybody want to comment on Reddit? No, I can’t comment on it because it’s on Reddit because it’s a foreign beast and I yeah, I don’t understand it. I don’t understand people in Reddit because the same people in Reddit will have one opinion there. And another opinion like in Twitter or in Facebook so well What just happened? You were just disagreeing you’re … we lost your mic.

Still nothing.

How about now. Don’t think Yeah, I don’t know what happened. It just got a hold your head just right, apparently.

All right. Next is uh, yeah, by the way, Reddit, those people in there are brutal. Right now let’s hear from someone who actually uses Reddit. So I think it’s interesting. The only thing I actually have to add to this is just to check and see if they can do local target localized targeting. I’m sure that they can. But the one time I tried it was years ago, and I don’t think they had a very sophisticated targeting system. I think that’s changed now that they’ve taken on investors. So I’m sure that they have, but just make sure before you spend a lot of time looking into this that they can do actually what you want to do in terms of our Yeah, yeah. Remember, I remember Adam, when you, you attempted that for us for Semantic Mastery. And that was right after Reddit opened up their advertising platform. Yeah. Yeah. So that was, it had to be pretty crude at that point, I’m sure.

What Do You Recommend For Video Syndication Software Similar To Tubemogul?

Okay, next is Chris says, Hey, guys, wondering if you have any recommendations for video syndication software back in the day I used tubemogul. I used tubemogul too. I remember that. Before I got bought by Adobe, is there anything good you guys use like that is like IFTTT, but to help spread videos across different websites? No, but you know, I looked at some of them, I don’t know, six months a year ago, somewhere around there, all I would do is just go look for like video distribution software or something like that. And just go search and start doing some,

you know, look at some of the different types of potential district video distribution, the software’s out there, maybe try different keywords, video syndication applications, you know, something like that, do a couple of Google searches and just start researching what you find is different products and find something that looks like it will fit for you. I know there’s some out there I because I’d actually looked at doing that a few months. I don’t know, six months a year ago, I just never never never pulled the trigger on it. But I do understand the point. So take a look at it. Does anybody want to comment on that?

Well, okay, moving. I didn’t know if maybe Adam or Hernan had any ideas?

Do You Suggest Copying And Pasting The Schema Markup From The SEO Shield ID Page To The Money Site?

Okay, next is Ed says, do you suggest copying and pasting the schema markup from the ID page to my SEO shield? Or the ID page of my SEO shield on to my money site to mirror best for implementation? Good idea, bad idea. Any better ideas? Or should the ID page stay standalone? Don’t want to F the money? Don’t want to eff up the money site. Thanks, ed. Yeah, I mean, that the structured data code on your ID page should be the same as what’s on your money site. Except for perhaps, at least the way that I do it except for perhaps the URL for it from the schema code. So for example, the schema code that goes on the money site, the URL field points to the money site, right, and then there’s the ad ID page and all that other stuff. And that all points to where it’s supposed to point to. But then on the ID page, I always put the URL is the ID page. And then the ad ID page is also the same. But it’s the same code essentially. And the difference is the same as in the same as schema, I always put the sameas attribute in the on the money site points to, even though there’s an ID an ad ID designation. I also point the same as to the ID page, like I put a sameas attribute to the ID page. And then likewise, on the idx page, I have the same as attribute the points to the money site. Marco, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s, I don’t think the structured data should be any different on either one of them really, besides No, no, because you’re mirroring your entity, except for the fact that of that URL change, it’s the same as changes, because now the schema page is the same as the money site, but the money site would then have the schema page.

Same as, right, so you need to flip those. And that’s the only difference that you should have. Because it’s basically the same thing, your distribute, it’s an entity stack. It’s your entity stuck. That’s all it is. And so everywhere that you can replicate the entity, the information should go there.

Yeah, and it should be the same because you don’t want to be the same. Yeah, you don’t want to have different entity info on different assets. Because again, that can start causing ambiguation or confusion to Google’s algorithm. So definitely keep it the same that goes to the press advantage page to your organization page. The same thing, I do the same thing there. It’s the same schema code. It goes into if you have an account, you can add your own structured data to the organization page, do the same thing there, the URL points to the organization page. And then the same and the same as attributes it points to the money site and as well to the ID page, and all of that. So it’s the same code and all three locations, the only thing you do is swap out those couple targets to make it appropriate for the asset that it resides on if that makes sense.

How Do You Get The PUblic URL Of The Amazon S3 Folder Where Uploaded Press Release PDFs Are Located?

Mr. Nashville, Tennessee. All right, he says, When creating PR stacks and uploading the press release PDFs to Amazon s3. How do we get the URL for the folder to build links to I created a public folder and loaded it up with PDFs, the PDFs can be accessed publicly. But when I go back a level to the folder, it just tries to download a zero bytes file without showing anything. You know, I don’t know, because I’ve never done that. Mark might be able to answer that I’ve never tried to power up an entire folder. I’ve only powered up individual file URLs within s3. So I don’t know if you can do that or not Marco, do you know, can you make a folder public in s3, you should be able to but I’ve never tried. That’s what I use it for.

And so I can’t help with this. Unless I go look, if you’re in the heavy hitter club, by all means, come in, and we’ll check it out for you. But I can’t say anything about it without testing.

Yeah, and I’m just wondering, Yeah, that’d be something interesting to test because even if you’ve got a folder, the folder URL, but when you visit the folder URL, it’s prompting a download. I understand that. But what I’m saying is, could you still pass juice to that URL? Even if it’s not like a destination that will render in a browser? In other words, if it’s, it might prompt it as long as they’re public? But yeah, can you still push juice link equity into that folder? to that URL, regardless is what I’m saying? I would say absolutely. As long as it’s public. Yeah, that’s what I would think as well but I haven’t tested it so that’s interesting. Now that would be an interesting test put that on your list for heavy-hitter club Marco.

 

Do You Know A Good Banner Widget For WordPress?

The list just keeps growing and growing. Yeah. George’s up says hi guys started this off-topic was wondering if you knew of a good banner widget for WordPress?

No, unfortunately, I don’t I would just google the best banner widget for WordPress or best banner plugin for WordPress and then just go again just go start looking through them and try to try to find one that meets your criteria and your price range and all that kind of stuff. There are probably some free ones out there Honest to God that I’m rarely using other than some basic free plugins almost every time I have the opportunity to purchase the pro version of a plugin I do because they’re usually rather inexpensive and you get a lot more functionality out of them and usually better support if needed and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, just I don’t I can’t help you with that. Unfortunately. There’s one that I used but it wasn’t based on location like the one he wants, but it was like banner rotator It was like yeah, banner rotator I think that’s the one that’s how he was called it was banner rotator. So we rotated banners. And we’ll tell you the best-performing ones in terms of CTR something along those lines. So binary rotator plugin, I think it was pretty clear for us, but you know, like, yeah, there you go. But advertising that I think that was the one advocate, but I’m not entirely sure if that Well, yeah, that was the one advertised. But I’m not entirely sure if that will do what he wants, which is, um, you know, show different banners based on location and stuff that that one should still rotate back, I guess his ad rotate professional. Mike Lee has that. That’s what I was talking about, guys. Yeah, maybe, you know, a lot of the times the pro versions of a plugin will have so much more functionality that will I don’t know, I haven’t researched this. But that looks like that might be one also the fact that it was updated just three days ago. Excuse me, right there. It says three days ago. That’s really important, too. That’s also part of the reason why I like to go with plugins that have a paid upgrade version, because those plugins, typically, even the free versions of them, as long as they have a paid upgrade version of them are supported and constantly updated. If you go with strictly free plugins, a lot of times, that’s not always the case. But what I’m saying is a lot of times those plugins don’t get updated as often. Because they don’t have the revenue to support it. That makes sense. So anyway, check out that that might be one that works for you. Otherwise, just do some Google searching. Use Winter logic isn’t updated. But you can get widgets to control these other plugins that will control widgets so that you can display the banners where you want. Yeah, another one I use is a widget context. I like to use that one a lot. I’ve got that in multiple sites right now, actually. All right. Well, this one did logic isn’t updated, but it still works. Yeah. Um, okay. So why use? I read through this, and I appreciate you pointing. I’m not going to read this out loud, because it’s really just kind of an opinion that you have not necessarily questioned. And I appreciate that anybody that’s watching this webinar can read through this if they’d like.

As far as basically saying, using Microsoft, OneDrive, as opposed to just strictly Google Drive. And the end he points out several reasons why he says that might be wise. And that’s cool, and I appreciate that. Those are all good points. And I do like how you thought that out with the new Windows installation, Windows 10s installations, and force, you know, or by default, it’s using the Microsoft Edge browser and all that kind of stuff. So there are some really valid points that you make in your comments here. And I appreciate that. And I’m sure I have no doubt in my mind that Marco and Rob, who are resident SEO testers, and you know, godfathers of SEO as Marco is called, I’m sure they’ll test this if it gets to that point where we need to. So I appreciate that. Yeah, I would just add that it’s the 8020 rule, where most of my traffic coming from if I can get the bulk of my traffic, I don’t want to learn another, although it’s like, we basically know the algorithm because we know algorithms. It’s just, yeah, I read the comments also, and I appreciate it. And we have a time said, it depends on your niche. Because if you if you’re targeting older people, then, of course, it makes sense to go to Bing. But if you know your audience, and you know that most of your audience is coming from Google, why would you go anywhere else? Yeah, that doesn’t and doesn’t make sense. I always tell people, how much time are you going to spend on it? How much is it going to cost? And is that going than to make sense? How much are you going then going to have to charge your client? And is that going to make sense to the client? All of these things have to come together? Yeah, I understand perfectly. It’s older people. I’ve said that before, that it is older people in business, but in AOL, especially how much financial sense doesn’t make to dedicate that much time to target those people in Bing, when you’ve got your client maxed out, like when you can’t do anything else for that client, in Google, by all means, go elsewhere. Until then, there’s just so much money to be made manipulating Google, that I don’t need to go anywhere else.

Yeah, and that’s kind of like I do a lot of Google Ad stuff. For tree services now. And you know, I’m doing a lot of Google Ad stuff, and I could, I could run Bing Ads, too. But there’s such a small percentage of traffic there. It’s not worth my time to do it. So like Marco said, 8020 to 80% of my traffic comes from, you know, Google alone, like, why would I bother with the other 20%? Which would be big, you know? So again, I’m not saying you can’t, I’m just saying I don’t do that. Just because again, it’s you know, I get a lot more bang for my buck, so to speak, by just working directly within Google.

Does It Matter If You Have A Backlink From HTTP Rather HTTPS?

Okay. Yep. I’m sorry. Go ahead. No, no. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. 100. All right. Here’s BB. What’s up, baby, we wondered where you are. I did anyway, hi, guys, doesn’t matter if you have a backlink from HTTP rather, rather than HTTPS site? No, it shouldn’t matter. As far as I know, it doesn’t matter at all. Marco, does it?

It doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the activity, trust, and authority of the site activity relevant just authority of the website that’s linking to you. Not HTTP or HTTPS, so it shouldn’t matter. Yeah, as far as I know, it doesn’t matter. I could be wrong about that. But, you know, Marco says it as well. I agree. I’ve never really cared about that. Never, never looked into it much either, though. So anyway, why is the mgyb.co? What’s the RDS? I d? str? I don’t know if the domain score domain rank, I think, but okay. Which, which is a third party metric. Yeah, but which one? I can’t keep track. I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s Ahref or I don’t know. That might be SEMRush, it doesn’t matter, BB makes no difference Dr. Ds or whatever the fuck relevance is what matters, activity, relevance, trust, and authority. The relevance especially has to be there. Unless the trust and authority are such that it makes no difference that the link is it has no relevance. And there are those websites where if you can get a link from Google, no matter where you can get it, it’s good.

The next question is why is the mgyb.co more powerful than the raw URL as anchor straight to the money site back? Like, I’m not sure I fully understand that question. Except, do you know, okay, um, yeah, I’m not sure what you’re asking there. Maybe. If you don’t want to clarify number two, I’ll try to answer it later if we have time, which I don’t think we will today.

Is It Better To Create Multiple Articles With One Link To The Money Site Instead Of 2-3 Backlinks In It?

But number three, you say the power of a backlink gets divided between multiple backlinks from the same article created for backlink purposes, such as a press release. So is it better to create multiple articles with which have one link to the money site instead of an article that has two to three backlinks to the money site? And how does it fall within PR stacking? Yes, I mean, so here’s the thing, you know, you have a certain amount of PageRank or link equity, whatever you want to call it flowing into a page, right? So let’s say a press release, for example. Then if you’ve got one link within the content of that press release, then all of that PageRank is going to flow through that one link, or there’s some slight loss through the asset itself, the page itself, but it’s small, it’s nominal. But if you have three links, then it’s going to be split by three. So each link gets 33%. Does that make sense? So yes, if you want to focus more, then you can do that with one link. I typically, like I’ve said through like our PR stacking webinar, and everything else, the way that I typically do it is I do three links. Usually, it’s going to be one link to a blog post. If that’s what I’m highlighting, which is primarily the method that we that I use, then there’s going to be a link to a previous press release within that same PR stack, that silo stack, right, press release silo stack. And then there was usually a third link that goes to one of the branded assets, tier-one assets. But it doesn’t always have to be that way. If you’re trying to push on a specific keyword or to push more power to a specific destination, then you could just do one link to that destination that you want to push to just keep in mind that if you want to keep that kind of daisy chain linking of the silos using press the press release silo, then you’re going to want to link back to the previous press release in that same silo. So there would be two links with that. But so what I’m saying is, if you’re wanting to use PR silo stacking, then you would limit and you want to push more power to your target URL, um, you know, other than the previous press release in that same silo, then just you’d have two links in that press release. I typically, as I said, I just do three links, I do one to the dark target URL that I’m trying to push relevancy to, one to the previous press release in the same silo, and in one to one of the tier one entity assets for that brand. That’s just, that’s just the way that I develop my processes. And that’s how my VA is or my bloggers or to the press releases. So but you can, you can change it up. Remember guys, we give you guidelines or like kind of best practices, but we encourage you to test other things as well. Okay, any comments on that?

Yeah, I only use to target the initial, the initial press release gets one link to the target page, and then one link elsewhere it usually GMB to start it off, then as you know, we linked we daisy chain, those press releases, and then one other link will go elsewhere. But I’m pushing all of that juice from one press release to the other. And that final press release is going to the page. And then I do some other shit that I won’t share here that has some fantastic. So let me get ridiculous to clarify because I’m, I’m confused a little bit. So every subsequent press release and your pre our silos only link to the previous press release not to and then one other and then one other, like okay, tier one property. So two links per property. Never any more than that, too. Right?

kay, so tu tu tu tu, one of those will be two up to a previous press release, of course, in that in that same stack, yeah. And then wherever I want to push additional power, that will still end up and I’m giving away too much. But it all goes and works really well and flows really well. And right about Presley’s four or five, sometimes three, you’re going to start seeing that power push and it pushes more than when you build links into that when it’s all set up. And you’re pushing the team into your GMB and that set up correctly. And you’re pushing into the drive stack and G site and that’s put together correctly and that’s pushing over to that page. That’s when the magic happens man.

How Do You Deal With IFTTT’s Paid Service In Order For The Networks To Work?

Okay, we’re almost out of time. I’d like to run through at least three or four more really quickly, guys. So let’s go through like a lightning round if possible question from Paul F. He actually reached out to me via email with this question, and I said I’d address it today on Hump Day Hangouts. This question has come up multiple times. Guys, please understand that IFTTT has is going to pay but read what they say about the different plan levels, right, there’s the free account and it says you’re only allowed to create three applets you can turn on as many applets in your account as you as your heart desires, but you can only create three applets then you can go to a pro-level, which you can pay like 299 a month or whatever the hell it is. It’s very inexpensive. And there you can create applets um, you can create unlimited applets So my point is the free IFTTT accounts, you can still have all of the syndication applets in that account, and you can turn them all on you can only create three applets within a free account. Okay, the paid account will allow you to create as many applets as you want. That’s the only difference. So the point is if you buy networks from us, you’re still to get the network the IFTTT account set up with all the applets in there that we need for our syndication networks to work, okay, you just can’t go in and create any more than three. And if you already have applets in that account that are all turned on, then I don’t know, you might be able to create them in there if you if you’re not created, the ones that we provide. So my point is just read what it says very carefully. And it specifically states that you can turn on as many as you want. With the free account, you can only create three and a free account though you have to go to a paid account before you can create additional applets. Comment. Nope, perfect.

How Do You Prepare For The Time When Google Turns Off The Old GSites?

Oh laughs next, how do we get prepared for Google turning off the old g sites? Do we know if the links will be redirected, go into Google your old g site, log into that the sites google.com click to the classic sites, when you pull up and when you go to Edit whatever sites are in there, right? So click the site, it’ll prompt you to switch it or convert it to the new site. And then it went through that prompt process. It’ll ask you to if you want to keep the same URL or the old URL, check to keep the same URL otherwise all of the old link building and everything else, I don’t know if an automatic redirect is set up or not. Because I’ve just always said keep the same URL and convert to the new sites. But at some point, Google is going to convert the old sites to the new sites on its own if you didn’t go in and initiate that ahead of time before that deadline, comments.

How Do You Use The Excel Report in MGYB’s Keyword Research Service?

Now, moving on. Jason Gerald says I have purchased the keyword research but would like a better understanding of how to use the Excel report. Do you have a video or something that can review this with me?

I can’t remember if we did a video, but it tells you right in right in the legend. When you get the spreadsheet delivered there, there’s a legend on there that tells you exactly what the H H tab is and what it’s for. If you need more information than that, then like I’m not sure that we don’t have enough time here. But I think we did a keyword research video. I’ve done it before where I’ve explained the link building game and what to do because the three categories that you get are free, it’s all suggestions for you to follow, but you know your niche better than we do, and how those keywords that we give you in that niche apply to whatever it is that you’re doing all we can give you suggested keywords, questions, answers, everything that we found relevant in your niche sometimes we do provide you some irrelevant results but I mean that that’s a small percentage of the overall thousands and thousands sometimes hundreds of thousands of keywords that you get use the categories that we that suggested categories, use them as silos, start your silos there and then use the supporting keywords that we give.

Should You Use Full Text Or Summary Of The Feed In The Syndication Network?

Or you go man is a lot of good questions. I wish I had more time guys I’d stay and answer some more. I’m sorry, I’m not gonna be able to get to all these. Uh, next is called purchases syndication network wanted to know if feeds need to be full text or if summary will do also any advice for optimizing the efficiency of syndication networks. Okay, I always prefer full text. The reason why is because summaries when you go into WordPress settings reading, then you can select whether your RSS feed shows a summary or full text of the posts in the feed. I like to select Full Text because first of all summary posts will look kind of spammy on the blog accounts within the syndication network. So word blogger, Tumblr, WordPress, they can look rather spammy because they’re just short snippets as opposed to the full-text post is not full context there. Also, I like the fact that when you have the full text, they in any internal links from your post body with that you publish to your blog, right with an internal link to the pages that you want to rank, silo architecture, internal linking strategy, all of that those links will be present in the post that gets published on the blog accounts especially but also in like the drive, Google Docs. So like the Drive folder, and all that all of that full text means full text, including the links will be included in wherever it gets syndicated to where the full text is published some of those like bookmarking sites, it won’t do that. But for the blogs and like WordPress and one or excuse me, a drive and one OneDrive and all of that. It will post create those links as well. Okay, so I prefer that.

What Form Creator Do You Recommend For GSites?

The last question is five o'clock we probably need to go really quick fit says drop the link to the charity Marco, would you ever do? Okay. I’ve also dropped some links to YouTube videos that we have on syndication networks that we did April of last year and then the webinar that we did for mgyb.co for syndication networks also for the one who was wondering about syndication. Yeah. Um, he asked me

Do I recommend a good form creator that would work for G sites? Well, I’m using an app called lead simplify for lead generation. It helps to distribute leads to buyers and that kind of stuff. And it, I’ve got a form creator in there. That’s awesome. And I use that in G sites. But I think any sort of like Form Builder plugin for WordPress, it a lot of the times if you upgrade to a paid version like I know, there’s alike, I think one that I just recently tried was formidable, is what is called, but a lot of those form plugins. WordPress form plugins will have a pro version I just talked about that earlier, which will give you the ability to create, like embed codes out of the forms, and that kind of stuff. So I would recommend that anybody here have any comments on that? No, no, same as you Yeah, just find one that works and make sure it can embed. Okay, and the last, the last part of this and then I’ve got to wrap it up, guys is uh, he asks, If you’re running a link building gig, and instead of the hundred links that have asked for you only run to five or six is that good strategy? Yeah, fits, you don’t have to submit 100 target URLs, we just say that’s the maximum that you can submit. So yeah, if you’ve got, you know, if you’ve got very specific targets that you’re trying to power up, then you don’t need to submit any more than just those specific URLs. That’s just we just provide that as a maximum so that when somebody gets like their syndication, their SEO shield back, and they’ve got their syndication, network properties, all their drive stack files and folders, and all of that, you can put those all in one link building gig, up to 100, your target URLs, and then submit all of that so that everything starts to get powered up. But I all the time. There’s a lot of times I’ll buy a link building gig, specifically to just one URL, like So literally, like even a Nitro kit link building gig to go to one page on the G site if I’m really trying to push power to that one page for some reason. So yeah, it’s just a guideline. Okay. Okay. Well, thanks, everybody for being here. Don’t forget POFU Live this weekend again. Got your ticket yet go to pofulive.com. We’ll see you guys there. Thanks, everybody. Bye, everyone, everyone.

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 306 posted first on your-t1-blog-url