In episode 118 of Semantic Mastery’s weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one participant asked how switchbox SEO works.
The exact question was:
Hey, guys. I believe you mentioned that with client SEO you have to ensure you have the ability to turn off your client’s rankings when they stop paying you or when the contract period ends. Can you elaborate on how to do that and how you would do this and why?
Posted by Whitespark
Have you noticed that a lot of local pack results don’t seem to make sense these days? Almost every time I search Google for a local search term, the pack results leave me wondering, “Why are these businesses ranking?”
For example, take a look at the results I get for “plumbers”:
(Searched in an incognito Chrome browser on PC in Edmonton)
Here’s a quick summary of the basic local ranking factors for the businesses in this local pack:
Notice that:
Surely, Google, there are more prominent businesses in Edmonton that deserve to rank for this term?
Here’s the data table again with one additional point added: proximity to the searcher.
These business are all so close to me that I could walk to them in about 8 to 15 minutes. Here’s a map of Edmonton with pins for my location and these 3 businesses. Just look at how close they are to my location:
After analyzing dozens of queries that my colleagues and I searched for, I am going to make a bold statement:
For most local searches these days, proximity appears to be weighted more than links, website content, citations, and reviews in the local pack rankings. Google doesn’t seem to value the traditional local search ranking factors when determining which businesses to rank in the local pack. The main consideration seems to be: “Which businesses are closest to the searcher?” I have been noticing this trend for at least the last 8 months or so, and it seems to have intensified since the Possum update.
Whitespark has team members that are scattered throughout Edmonton, so four of us ran a series of searches from our home offices to see how the results differ across the city.
Here is a map showing where we are physically located in Edmonton:
On desktop, Google doesn’t actually know exactly where we are. It guesstimates it based on IP, WiFi, and mobile data. You can figure out where Google thinks you’re located by doing the following:
In order to give you directions, Maps will drop a circle on the spot that it thinks you’re located at.
Here’s where Google thinks I am located:
As a team, at approximately the same time of day, all four of us searched the same 9 local queries in incognito browser windows and saved screenshots of our results.
The search terms:
Non-geo-modified terms (keyword):
plumbers
lawyers
coffee shops
Geo-modified terms (keyword + city):
plumbers edmonton
edmonton plumbers
edmonton lawyers
lawyers edmonton
coffee shops edmonton
edmonton coffee shops
Below are the mapped results for 9 local queries that we each searched in incognito browsers. Rather than dumping 24 maps on the page, here they are in a Slideshare that you can click through:
Proximity is the New Top Local Search Ranking Factor from Darren Shaw
As you click through, you'll see that each of us get completely different results, and that these results are generally clustered around our location.
You can also see that proximity impacted non-geo-modified terms (“plumbers”) more than the results for geo-modified terms (“edmonton plumbers”). The differences we’re seeing are likely due to relevancy for the geo-modified term. So for instance, the websites may have more anchor text targeting the term "Edmonton plumbers," or the overall content on the site has more references to Edmonton plumbers.
Localized organic results are the blue links that list businesses, directories, etc, under the local pack. We’re seeing some very minor differences in the results, but relatively consistent local organic rankings across the city.
Generally, localized organic results are consistent no matter where you're located in a city — which is a strong indication of traditional ranking signals (links, reviews, citations, content, etc) that outweigh proximity when it comes to local organic results.
Here are screenshots of the local organic results:
Proximity is the New Top Local Search Ranking Factor from Darren Shaw
Why is Google giving so much ranking strength to proximity and reducing the impact of traditional local search ranking factors?
To sell more ads, of course.
I can think of three ways that this will increase ad revenue for Google:
Though I don’t think it’s only for the additional ad revenue. I think they truly believe that returning closer businesses is a better user experience, and they have been working on improving their technology around this for quite some time.
Way back in 2012, Whitespark’s Director of Local Search, Nyagoslav Zhekov, noted in the 2012 Local Search Ranking Factors survey that proximity of business location to the point of the searcher was his top local ranking factor. He says:
“What really matters, is where the searcher is physically located and how close the potentially relevant search results are. This ranking factor is getting further boost by the importance of local-mobile search, where it is undoubtedly #1. For desktop search the factor might not be as important (or not have any significance) if searcher's location and the location for which the search is intended differ.”
It is interesting to note that in today’s results, as we can see in the examples in this post, proximity is now a huge ranking factor on desktop as well. Google has been going “mobile-first” for years, and I’m starting to think that there is no difference in how they process mobile and desktop local results. You just see different results because Google can get a more precise location on mobile.
Furthermore, Bill Slawski just published a post about a recently approved Google patent for determining the quality of locations based on travel time investment. The patent talks about using quality measures like reviews (both user and professional) AND travel time and distance from the searcher (time investment) to rank local businesses in search results.
One excerpt from the patent:
“The present disclosure is directed to methods and apparatus for determining the quality measure of a given location. In some implementations, the quality measure of a given location may be determined based on the time investment a user is willing to make to visit the given location. For example, the time investment for a given location may be based on comparison of one or more actual distance values to reach the given location to one or more anticipated distance values to reach the given location. The actual distance values are indicative of actual time of one or more users to reach the given location and the anticipated distance values are indicative of anticipated time to reach the given location.”
The patent was filed in May 2013, so we can assume that Google may have been experimenting with this and incorporating it into local search for at least the past 3 to 4 years. In the past year, the dial seems to have been cranked up on this factor as Google gets more distance and travel data from Android users and from users of the Google Maps app on other mobile platforms.
It seems to me that in most business categories, putting so much emphasis on proximity is a pretty poor way to rank results. I don’t care if a lawyer is close to me. I am looking to hire a lawyer that’s reputable, prominent in my city, and does good work. I’m perfectly happy to drive an extra 20 minutes to go to the office of a good lawyer. I’m also looking for the best pizza in town, not the cardboard they serve at the place down the street. The same applies for every business category I can think of, outside of maybe gas stations, emergency plumbers, or emergency locksmiths.
In my opinion, this emphasis on proximity by Google seriously downgrades the quality of their local results. People are looking for the best businesses, not the closest businesses. If this is the new normal in Google’s local results, I expect that people will start turning to sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Avvo, Angie's List, etc. when searching for businesses. I already have.
Most local rank trackers set the location to the city, which is the equivalent of setting it to the centroid. It is very likely that the local pack and local finder results reported in your rank tracker will be different from what the business or client sees when they search. To get more accurate results, you should use a rank tracker that lets you set the location by zip/postal code (hint hint, Whitespark’s Local Rank Tracker).
You should also realize that you’re never going to get local rank tracking reports that perfectly match with what the person sitting in the city sees. There are just too many variables to control for. The precise proximity to the searcher is one thing a rank tracker can’t exactly match, but you’ll also see differences based on device used, browser version, personalization, and even time of day as results can and do change by the hour.
Use your rank tracking reports as a measure of general increases and decreases in local visibility, not as an exact match with what you would see if you were searching from within city.
Local SEO is not dead. Far from it. It’s just more competitive now. The reach your business can have in local results is smaller than it used to be, which means you need to step up your local organic and optimization efforts.
The tighter radius might mean less local search pie for the more dominant businesses in the city, but don’t despair. This opens up opportunities for more businesses to attract local search business from their local neighborhood, and there is still plenty of business to drive through local search if you step up your game.
Have you also noticed hyper-localized local pack results? I would love to hear about your examples and thoughts in the comments.
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In episode 118 of our weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one viewer asked about the team’s thoughts on reciprocal linking when it comes to siloing a website.
The exact question was:
In terms of on page SEO internal linking, what are your thoughts on reciprocal linking? I.E. if article A linked to article B with a targeted anchor, could you also link article B back to the section of article A with a different targeted anchor assuming they’re both in the same silo?
Posted by purna_v
Here’s a question for you:
Do you think a brand can influence your behavior outside of purchase preference? Put another way, will seeing the North Face logo make you want to take up hiking in the snow?
A few years ago, researchers at Duke University conducted an experiment with 341 students. Their goal? Studying what makes a brand powerful and how we’re influenced by brands. As part of this study, the students were asked to complete what they were told was a visual acuity test.
During this test, either an Apple logo or IBM logo flashed on the screen for a second, so quickly that the students were unaware they had been exposed to the logo. The participants then completed a task designed to evaluate how creative they were, listing all the uses they could think of for a brick.
Are you surprised that students exposed to the Apple logo came up with not just more uses, but more creative uses? The experiment was also done using the Disney Channel logo and the E! logo – and the students were tested on their degree of honesty and dishonesty. Which logo exposure led to more honesty? If you thought Disney, you’re right.
This is evidence that subliminal brand exposure can cause people to act in specific ways. Branding matters.
For those of us who work in paid search, this whole “branding” thing, with its unintuitive KPIs, can seem nebulous and not something for us to worry about. We PPC-ers have specific goals and KPIs, and it’s easy for us to be seen as only a bottom-funnel channel. But we’re far more powerful than that.
Here’s the truth: Brand advertising via PPC does impact the bottom line.
I’ll share three key ways to build a framework for branding:
Chances are you’re taking some of these steps already, which is fantastic. This framework can guide you to ensure you’re covering all the steps of the funnel. Let’s break down how PPC can support all three of these key points.
Top brands understand their audiences really well. And what’s true of pretty much every audience right now is that we’re all looking for the fast fix. So if a brand can make it easy for us to find what we need, to get something done – that brand is going to win our hearts.
Which is why getting your ad messaging right is critical.
Something I notice repeatedly is that we’re so focused on that next advanced tactic or the newest feature that we neglect the simple basics. And that is how we get cracks in our foundation.
Most accounts I look at perform brilliantly with the complex, but routinely make avoidable errors with the basics.
Ads are one of those places where the cracks aren’t just visible, they’re also costly. Let’s look at a few examples of ads with sitelink extensions.
What do you think of this ad?
It’s a decent ad. It’s just not great. What’s hurting the ad is that the sitelinks are a broad – even random – mix of different paths and actions a person can take. We have a mix of product, social media, and spokesperson content. This is not likely to make anyone’s life easier.
Even if I had been interested in the makeup, I might be distracted by the opportunity to meet Carrie Underwood, reducing the odds of a conversion. In trying to please too many different audiences, this ad doesn’t do a particularly strong job of pleasing anyone.
Why not organize your sitelinks according to your customer’s stage of interest instead, like Clinique did here? This is brilliant.
Clinique is acknowledging that some shoppers are here just to buy the makeup they always order – so “Shop Makeup” is the first sitelink offered. But other visitors have come to see what’s new, or to do research on the quality of Clinique skincare, and probably everyone is looking for that discount.
Organizing sitelinks by your customer’s stage of interest also boosts brand by showing your customer that you care. We’ll talk more about that piece later.
Here’s something smart: Organizing sitelinks according to what you already know your customers need.
Harley Davidson knows that a potential customer coming to their website wants more than pretty pictures of the bike. They’re ready to schedule a test ride or even estimate payments, so these options are right at the top.
They also understand that Harley Davidson is an aspirational product. I may want to estimate a payment or find information about my local dealer even before I know how to ride a bike. It’s part of the dream of joining the Harley lifestyle. They know this and make their customers’ lives easier by sharing links to learn-to-ride classes.
For brands targeting by geography and who have a local presence, including call extensions and location extensions is a must.
As searches move from desktop to mobile, we know that local searches take the lead – and conversions on a local search happen within five hours of the search (source: Microsoft Internal research). Including call and location extensions helps shorten that conversion cycle.
What I especially love about this ad is that they give you two different buying options. You can visit the store at the physical address, or if that is deemed out-of-the-way by the searcher, the ad entices them to shop Sephora with a discount code for an online purchase. This increases the odds that the shopper will choose Sephora as opposed to visiting a more conveniently located competitor.
When people are looking for your service but not necessarily your brand, you can still make their lives easier by sharing answers to questions they may have.
Of course, you’re already showing up for branded searches or searches directly asking for your product. But what about being helpful to your customers by answering their questions with helpful information? Bidding on these keywords is good for your brand.
For example, Neutrogena is doing a great job at showing up for longer-tail keywords, and they’re also working to build the association between gentle makeup removers for sensitive skin and their brand.
And here, Crest is doing a fantastic job in using their ad copy to make themselves stand out as experts. If anyone has questions about teeth whitening, they’re showing that they’re ready to answer them:
This also helps you show up for long-tail queries, which are another increasingly critical aspect of voice search.
If you can anticipate issues and show up when your customers are venting, you win.
Professor Andrew Ehrenberg of South Bank Business School says that people trust strong brands more. They forgive your mistakes more easily. They believe you will put things right.
And what better way to show your customers you care than by anticipating their issues?
Where’s the first place you go when you want to look something up? Most likely a search engine. Showing up well in the SERPs can make a big difference.
Let’s look at an example. I did a search for complaints related to Disney, a brand with a strong positive sentiment.
Surprisingly, the SERPs were filled with complaint sites. What could have helped Disney here would be if they ran ads on these keywords, with the message that they were keen to make things right, and here’s the best number to call and chat.
Wouldn’t that diffuse the situation? Best of all, keywords like this would be very low-cost to bid on.
What about showing up when potential customers are complaining about the competition? You could consider running ads for keywords related to complaints about your competition.
I’d advise you to be careful with this approach since you want to come across as being helpful, not gloating. This strategy also may not lead to very many conversions – since the searcher is looking to complain and not to find alternative businesses – but given the low cost, it may be worth testing.
As PPCs, we’re more powerful than even we give ourselves credit for. Our work can greatly help the PR and SEO teams. Here’s how.
As noted earlier, the search engine is the first place we go when we want to look up something.
This is so very impactful that, as reported in the New York Times, Microsoft scientists were able to analyze large samples of search engine queries that could in some cases identify Internet users who were suffering from pancreatic cancer, even before they have received a diagnosis of the disease.
This all goes to show the power of search. We can also harness that power for reputation management.
Broad-match bidding can help PR with brand protection. Looking through broad-match search term reports, a.k.a search query reports (SQRs), can help to spot trends like recalls or a rise in negative sentiment.
PPCs can send the PR folks a branded SQR on a regular basis for them to scrub through to spot any concerning trends. This can help PPC stand out as a channel that protects and monitors brand sentiment.
Content marketing is a key way for brands to build loyalty, and PPC is an excellent way to get the content to the audience. Serving ads on key terms that support the content you have allows you to give your audience the info they really want.
For example, if your SEO teams built a mortgage calculator as value-add content, then you could serve ads for queries such as “How much house can I afford?”:
Taking this concept a step further, you can use high-value content to show up with ads that match the research stage of the customer’s interest. As PPCs, we’re often keen to simply show an ad that gets people to convert. But what if they’re not ready? Why should we either ignore them or show up with something that doesn’t match their goal?
Take a look at these ads that show up for a research-stage query:
The first ad from Sears – while very compelling – seems mismatched to the search query.
Now look at the third ad in the list, offering 50 kitchen idea photos. This is a much better match to the query. If it were me searching, this is the ad I would have chosen to click on.
What happens to the conversion?
Well, the landing page of the “50 ideas” ad could feature some type of offer, say like what the Sears ad has to offer, and here it would be much more welcome. In this way, we could use higher-funnel ads as lead gen, with KPIs such as content impressions, lead form fills, and micro-conversions.
This is such a win-win-win strategy:
Boss move.
Want more ideas? Wil Reynolds has some fantastic tips on how SEOs can use PPC to hit their goals.
Growing customer lifetime value is one of the most worthwhile things a brand can do. There are two clever ways to do this.
You liked us enough to buy once – how would you like to buy again? Show your customers more of what they like over time and they’ll be more attuned to choosing your brand, provided you’ve served them well.
What about remarketing based on how long it’s been since the purchase of a product?
This tactic can be seen as helpful as opposed to overtly sales-y, building brand loyalty. Think of how Amazon does it with their emails suggesting other products or deals we may be interested in. As a result, we just keep going back to Amazon. Even if they don’t have the lowest price.
For example, what if a sports nutrition company knew that most customers took three months to finish their box of protein shake powder? Then around the middle of month two, the company could run an ad like this to their list of buyers. It features an offer and shows up just at the right time.
The customer will probably think they’ve lucked out to find a special offer just at the right time. We know that it’s not luck, it’s just smarter remarketing.
Want more ideas? Check out Sam Noble’s Whiteboard Friday on how paid media can help drive loyalty and advocacy.
Remember when the iPhone 6s launched? Samsung ran very clever PPC ads during the launch of the iPhone 6s, and again when Apple was in the news about the phones bending.
Samsung used humor – which, importantly, wasn’t mean-spirited – and got a lot of attention and goodwill, not to mention a ton of PR and social media attention. Great for their brand at the time!
You can use the same tactic to run ads on competitors’ brand names with ads that showcase your USP. This works especially well for remarketing in paid search (or RLSA) campaigns.
Here, Chevy capitalized on the Tesla Model 3 announcement-related search volume spike. They ran ads that reminded users that their cars were available in late 2016, with the unstated message that it’s much sooner than when the Tesla Model 3 cars are expected to arrive.
Engaging with the customer is the best way to make it easy for them to be loyal to your brand. Enhance that by showing them you care about what they care about for added impact.
Here’s one way to give back to your customer, and this particular effort is also a huge branding opportunity.
I love how L’Oréal is associating themselves with empowering women – and most of their customers will like this as well. They’re giving back to their customers by honoring the women they care about. To create loyal customers, the best brands give back in meaningful ways.
One of my favorite Seth Godin quotes is, “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories that you tell.”
PPC is a wonderful channel to shape and create stories that will engage and delight your customers.
And now we come full circle, to that place where we started, wondering how in the world PPC can impact brand. Your paid search campaigns are a chapter in your brand’s story, and you have an unlimited number of ways to write that chapter, and to contribute to the brand.
Branding isn’t just for the birds. Have you found a way to use PPC to help grow your brand? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.
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Click on the video above to watch Episode 119 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://ift.tt/1NZu6N2.
Adam: Now, we’re live. All right everybody. Welcome Hump Day hangouts, today is the 15th of February 2017. This is Hump Day Hangouts 119. We got almost the whole Brady Bunch crew, here, today. I’ll go as I see it. This unfortunate, I think you guys all see a different thing, but for me, over here is Bradley, so how’s it going Bradley?
Bradley: You are like down like in the corner, for me. Down there. I’m sure nobody else is seeing it that, but I am. Anyways, I’m good. High.
Adam: Good deal. Hernan, how are you doing?
Hernan: Hey, guys. What’s up? It’s really, really good to be here. Yeah. I see Bradley down here, your Marco. Hey, Marco. What’s up?
Adam: Hey, good you got Marco, so how’s it going, man?
Marco: What’s up man? Doing good. Really excited about all this stuff that’s coming down the pipeline for Semantic Mastery. I don’t want to get a head of myself, but I’m just, man, I cannot wait. I look forward to Saturdays, now to work. That’s where I’m at, right now. My mindset is totally just shoving stuff down Google’s throat.
Adam: Awesome. I’m going to jump right in to it. We’ve got a lot of questions, today, so I’m going to go over some quick announcements. Hopefully, you guys have seen the email. We’re going to have some really cool stuff coming out with Video Powerhouse. Hernan, has recorded some great videos right now. We’ve got some additional training, too. There’s been some stuff done by Bradley. Like I said, Hernan’s got some stuff coming out, I don’t want to say too much, because I want you to sign up and check it out, it’s some really cool videos put together, and just talking, and showing how big video is right now, and what it’s going to look like into the future.
Then, as well one of the videos Hernan is showing you kind of the inside way to deal with some of this stuff. I just sat down and watched that video, today, since I have access. It was pretty cool. I’ll put that link up. Get in there and sign up, it’s a free video series we put together and then Video Powerhouse is going to be launching shortly after. By all means you want to be involved in that even if you’re remotely interested, I highly suggest you sign up. There’s going to be some really cool stuff going on with that. Then, Hernan, I think you’ve got a couple things you were going to mention. Right?
Hernan: Yeah. Basically, what we are trying to put together over the next couple of months, it’s a service that we can provide either a students, or people that are not entirely based, or they’re not our students, yet, but they want to get traffic. Basically, if any of you guys watching need some sort of traffic like PPC, they can be Facebook advertising in any way, shape, or form, like for lead gen, for info products, for physical products, whatever you have in mind, talk to us then we can also do YouTube advertising, as well.
That’s going to be Bradley’s turf, but basically what we’re trying to do is just start offering services, so since we haven’t actually launched that there’s some window of opportunity right now for you to join us to get traffic at a cost, or a really, really low budget, if you would, or investment. Maybe give us a testimonial and those kinds of things, which come with a window of opportunity, right now. We’re going to be launching on the upcoming weeks, that’s going to be a full blown service from Semantic Mastery, so just a heads up. If you’re interested in getting traffic, PPC Facebook, or YouTube traffic, YouTube PPC, it’s just contact tests, support at semanticmastery.com, we’ll do something special for you.
Bradley: Yeah. In other words guys, we’re kind of looking for some beta testers while we get this agency up off the ground and running. There is an opportunity, right now to get in for almost cost, basically, for us, so they can kind of iron out some details and that kind of stuff. If anybody’s interested, right now, we’re going to start off with Facebook and YouTube traffic. We’ll do some PPC, like Google Search pay per click stuff at a later date. I’ve got to get some people trained with those, and that’s going to take some time, but YouTube and Facebook stuff we can get set up fairly quickly, so just contact us via support.
Bradley: All right.
Adam: Yeah. I think that’s it. You guys got anything else?
Bradley: No. I’m good, man. I’ve got a lot of questions, already, so [crosstalk 00:04:38].
Adam: Let’s do this.
Bradley: All right. I’m going to take the whole …
Adam: All right. We’ve got your whole screen.
Bradley: Okay. Cool. First, I want to make sure that I recognize this photo before, this meme before we scroll down, because we might not get to it. I can plus one that way. All right. Cool. Let’s get on to it. We got a lot. “Hi, all. Can you point me to the place that shows all the networks that I can syndicate posts or pictures through RSS to them, like Blogger, Tumblr, 500px, and I have the training for the academy and there are no new networks to post my RSS post or pictures to for a while.” Well, that’s not true, because we, you have to check the update videos. We are always adding new, or excuse me, the update webinars, check that. Check the update section of the training area, because all the update webinars for the last, I’d say five months, at least, we’ve been adding new properties every single time.
Now, they’re not necessarily IFTTT dependent, meaning that some of the properties that we add don’t actually integrate with IFTTT, but that’s not the point. The point is to create additional, to put, to have a presence on more properties online, in other words. Some of the properties that we’ve been adding on a monthly basis, they act like live stream sites, where they’ll pull content in from RSS feeds or you can connect via [inaudible 00:06:08] and it will pull in social feeds, or whatever. You just have to check the update webinars, that’s what the update webinars are for, and we add new properties every single month. Okay?
“If I can point you to five that I’ve worked with plug in post into them,” I’m not sure what that means. The ones that are covered inside, like the core training, those are the core syndication properties that we’ve been using for years, but the newer sites we’ve been adding, again, they’re added in during the update webinars, and we’ve go an update webinar scheduled for today at five p.m. immediately following Hump Day Hangouts, and we’ve got another three properties that we’re adding to the networks, today. Okay. Let’s see. “Besides ProRank Tracker, okay, who are the best besides them?” Okay.
Marco: Right.
Bradley: Cool. All right Carson’s up next. He says, “Hey, guys. Awesome content. Loving it. In regards to getting clients, it was mentioned in a YouTube video about sending video email. Would love to touch more on specifics of that. Sales process followup, closing, and client, et cetera. Cannot wait for the webinar.” Carson, I would recommend that you go sign up for, well, let me ask first, well go sign up for Video Powerhouse, anyways, or SERP Space, go create a free account at SERP Space. Adam, is the vmail training, that’s only for Video Powerhouse subscribers, now, correct?
Adam: Correct. There is some older shorter stuff, but the complete stuff is going to be offered to Video Powerhouse people.
Bradley: Yeah.
Adam: There may be some additional options down the road, but yeah that’s how it’s going to roll, for now.
Adam: Not true, but it will be much cheaper.
Bradley: The vmail training?
Adam: Yeah. That’s going to be kind of a side product, because it doesn’t really fall inline with exactly what’s-
Bradley: Okay.
Adam: It’s going to be [crosstalk 00:09:03] discount.
Bradley: My bad.
Adam: No worries. I’m going to put a link up here, if you’re really into it, you can buy it, now, but you’ll get a discount if you buy it when you, if you buy it with Video Powerhouse, so just putting that out there.
(great vmail training: http://ift.tt/2lyZGLh)
Bradley: Yeah. Again, I just updated it earlier this week, so that’s the new version of it. It’s much more in depth. “Hi, guys. Thanks for the great answer last week. Awesome.” This is from Ben, “I have been wondering about sape links ever since I watched the link building video in the IFTTT SEO training. A few questions. Are they still buyable links to use for YouTube?” Yes, Ben. Absolutely. Absolutely, they are. “Where’s the best place to get them?” Well, the best place to get them is to do it yourself.
It’s to go join the SAPE Network, yourself. It’s a pain in the ass. I didn’t like doing it. I did it by myself a few times, but it is just time consuming. I know Hernan got really good at that, so he was able to sniff out really good back links very quickly in SAPE, because he played into it a lot more than I did, I just didn’t like it. I would always go to a bulk, sape link provider and just purchase them in bulk. I was spending a lot of money on sape links for quite some time. Not, so much anymore. Yeah. I mean, you can go to the SAPE Network, and do it yourself. There used to be a product, it was like kind of like a desktop software that would run and it made it a lot easier, it was called, [inaudible 00:10:24], I think it was called [inaudible 00:10:25].
Hernan: Yeah. [inaudible 00:10:27] something like that. Yeah.
Bradley: Something like that. [inaudible 00:10:29] that made it a lot easier still a bit weird. One of the easiest ways is the way that I preferred before I started buying them in bulk, was just to go to a Blackhat forum and find a provider, but, Hernan, if you want to mention the best, you always have really good providers for that, too.
Hernan: Yeah. Basically there is, you can go to the source, and [inaudible 00:10:54] not the only network out there, it’s just who you know guys. There’s a bunch of others. [inaudible 00:10:59] is the biggest one, basically what you’re buying is a placement of links that can be either hacked, or real links. There’s a bunch of actual people offering their links that are not all hacked. [inaudible 00:11:14] really just one of them and you can go directly to the source, or you can have a vendor, like Bradley was saying, like [inaudible 00:11:21] for example, or [inaudible 00:11:24] which is a guy that will get you really, really good domains.
I really like [inaudible 00:11:29], because within the Mastermind, we have a process, I laid out the entire process that I use, which can take, I don’t know, maybe 10 minutes initially, and then it gets so much easier. It includes ScrapeBox and Majestic. ScrapeBox and Majestic to kind of sift through them. I don’t know [inaudible 00:11:53] or something crazy like that for a couple of cents for monthly cents, dollar cents, or whatever. That’s the way that I do it, but if you want to again go through a source or a dealer, I can put some links on the event, too so that you can check them out. It would be more expensive, though. It can really add up. If you’re doing a lot of sape links, if you’re doing it on your own it doesn’t add up that quickly, but if you use vendors it can add up, because you end up paying maybe 10, 15, 20 bucks a month per link. If you’re doing it on your own you can pay one buck or maybe 50 cents of dollar per links.
Bradley: Yeah.
Hernan: Because it all works on, well I don’t remember the currency of Russia, right now, but that’s-
Bradley: Ruble.
Hernan: Yeah. Rubles.
Bradley: Right now, especially if you’re in the US, the ruble compared to the dollar, the currency exchange is so, like there’s such a big difference that you can buy a lot of rubles with a dollar in other words.
Hernan: Yeah.
Bradley: Yeah. I just want to point out that when I was buying, before I started buying them in bulk just for efficiency purposes. When I was buying them myself, I would get Trust Flow 50 plus sometimes, links for $2.00 per month, which was huge. Especially for YouTube stuff. I mean, like huge for YouTube stuff. I would, the next part of this is I assume the best use of them would be very last resort, after the videos and channel has be optimized every which way you finally want to save like a video just for raw ranking power. Is that the case? Yes. That’s usually the case. Like I would do everything that I would teach.
I would syndicate a video, live stream it whatever, but it would go out across my network, then I’d set up a crowd search campaign and do all the stuff that I already have first, and if I wasn’t able to rank it, if it was one of those stubborn videos that was like dancing at the bottom of page one, top of page two, that kind of stuff, or just stuck on page two, period, that’s when I would get out and find a sape link, and for YouTube, it didn’t matter, at least it didn’t, I haven’t done it in about a year, but it didn’t matter so much really what the niche of the link was it was just the raw ranking power of the link, it would push it over the edge.
If you can niche it down or get topical relevancy out of the link as well, or at least somewhat ballpark, same neighborhood. If that makes sense. Then, I would certainly do that, but all I’m saying is just a raw like hardcore, high metrics link. Not something that I would want to point at a money site, but at a YouTube video, yeah, it will work. Okay. Yeah. You can point it directly to the video, I recommend that you’re using YouTube silos, using playlists in other words, because if you point it at a properly interlinked video within a silo, then it can actually power up the whole silo. One link can do that. One really good link can do that if your internal linking within the silo is done correctly. We teach you how to do that inside of YouTube Silo Academy. All right.
Test different points that you, places that you point the link to. Right? Directly to the video, maybe to an embed property, maybe to the playlist URL, try it with different things, so that you can figure out what seems to be working best, because it changes. I did a lot of [inaudible 00:15:33] about a year ago, it’s been a year since I’ve done it, so I don’t know what’s the best strategy, right now. I’m assuming that not much has changed when it comes to YouTube, though. Again, I would recommend that you just test some of that stuff. But, that’s a great strategy guys, if you need just some raw ranking power for YouTube, Sapelinks are a good place to get them for inexpensive price.
“Can you use Sapelinks with [inaudible 00:15:55] network in any way, or are they only for videos?” Well, you can. You can point them to IFTTT network properties, I don’t recommend doing it, though. I recommend going through, like if you were going to be doing that, that you be pointing them at a tier two, instead of tier one.
Hernan: Right.
Bradley: Right. You guys have any comment on that?
Hernan: I would use, if anything Ben, you can use the detachable link juice. That’s something that I use, because once you place the order, it’s hard to change the link, so just point it to a 301 and maybe do some Switchbox SEO, Saper are great for Switchbox and this also applies for videos, too. If you have a video that’s ranking well, you can 301 the juice to another video that’s not ranking that well, but anyways I’ve seen that site as a means of maybe powering up a tier one link, as a tier two, you know? Powering up an internal page for tier one works really well.
For example, if you make a post about a page that you want to rank, and then you syndicate it out and then you pick the WordPress.com URL for that post and then you point it to Sapelinks that usually makes a lot of damage. Usually with tweets, too, if you tweet a post and then you point to Sapelink. You can go crazy with this, but the main point, I think it should be some kind of, you need to start using Switchbox, because it’s super important.
Bradley: Yeah. All that means is use one of your own domains that you can set up 301 redirects. You can just use a plugin, it’s out of WordPress site to do that, and then point all your Sfelinks to 301 redirect URLs. Then, point to wherever you’re ultimately going to point that link at. In other words, you want to set up a redirect first, and then when you order the Sapelink have it point to the redirect. That way if something happens, like some sort of negative effect, or anything like that, you can just remove the redirect and it will free up your final property, the destination property from potential damage from that link.
Remember guys, with the Sapelinks, there’s always potential harm. Right? There always is. I know that, and I don’t know it could be coincidence, but I suspect that there was some, it was a sape related, but I had several sites hacked that had Sapelinks pointed at them, so I don’t know if that’s an invitation for hacking or what, but just be aware of that. That’s why I don’t typically point direct to money sites. I’ll do sape stuff to YouTube, for example, or to buffer sites. Typically, out of tier two or beyond, so that I don’t put harm to any of my branded properties. If that makes sense?
Hernan: Point Sapelink at a drive stack and watch what happens.
Bradley: You can do that, too. Yeah. You can do that, too. Chris is up, “Hello. I signed up for IFTTT, so I can understand the process and workings, but then I got lost in the labyrinth of different programs and services within the Semantic Mastery arsenal. I have no desire to form any of the fulfillment, IE, building my own networks, and I’m very keen on using the done for you services. I want to start by having my own lead gen sites for my chosen niches, which of the done for you services are most appropriate for link building content syndication and link generation? Actually, I think I may have found it, is this it? I want to budget networks for you.” Yeah. That’s correct, Chris you can go to serpspace.com as well, that’s our marketplace, now, so serpspace.com you can go there and order networks there. In order to drive stacks, we have a separate URL for that. Right? You might want to drop that on the page somebody, and tag Chris on it.
Adam: Yeah.
Bradley: For the drive stacks.
Hernan: Yes. I’ll do that.
Bradley: Do we have, I don’t think we do, yet, I think we’re going to wait until after the Video Powerhouse launch, but you guys correct me if I’m wrong, we don’t have the affiliate and done for you sites, yet, do we?
Hernan: No. Not yet. Initially, I think that we’ll do the same and we’ll do externally, initially, because the guys at SERP Space are fully committed.
Bradley: Bogged down.
Hernan: Yeah. They’re fully committed to get Video Powerhouses awesome as it could be. I think that we’ll manage it like that, initially, but we will have another service that we want to do is to set up complete done for you affiliate and-
Bradley: Local sites.
Hernan: Yeah. Local sites. [inaudible 00:20:21] sites. Completely done for you with IFTTT attached to them. Drive stacks, if you want them. Powered up, the whole shebang.
Bradley: Yeah. We’re really working, guys, to get these done for you services, just like what Chris just said, we get this kind of crap, and excuse me, I say crap, we get these kind of comments in SERP, excuse me, in support all the time, saying, “Man, your trainings great, but it’s a lot of work. I don’t want to do it. Where can I get you guys to do it for me? How can I get you guys to do it for me?” We get that a lot, so because of that we’re going to hopefully be, not hopefully we will be launching that service soon, where it will be complete done for you site builds, affiliate sites, lead gen sites with IFTTT networks like the whole nine yards drive stacks, link building, citations, all that stuff can be done. We’re working on that.
Jay’s up next, “Hi, guys. I may have found my first SEO client,” we’ll plus one that, “I put a proposal together for SEO with content marketing, he has on WordPress, I purchased Content Kingpin. I’m thinking of building a IFTTT ring for the website. I use Content Kingpin to curate to posts per week. Client to provide one additional original post per week.” That’s great. That’s great, Jay. “Confused with SERP Space and ordering the most powerful network setup for websites, should I just order one IFTTT network and power with back link package to first tier, or multiple tier network?” Jay, for blog syndication, I recommend just starting off with one tier one network to start with. Okay.
Then, you can always go into having some more advance stuff like multi tiered networks and things like that, I don’t recommend that right out of the gate, though. Especially, since this is your first client. Stick, keep it simple, for now. You can add some complexity to it at a later date, if you desire, but you might be able to get the results just using a tier one network that’s been powered up with proper content marketing, anyways. It sounds like, guys, one of the biggest factors on the results that you’re going to get from the networks is frequency of publishing. The number of times that you post to your blog. Frequency and consistency. Right? That’s really, really important.
That’s why I recommend go start off with just a tier one branded network, obviously powered up with links, that’s going to help everything, but then just focus on creating content and publishing regularly, consistently. Okay? Because then after a few weeks, you got to allow time, you got to be patient, and I know that’s tough in our industry, especially it’s tough to be patient, you got to be, because it will start to build its own authority and keyword relevancy like the theming the topical relevancy will become more and more apparent to Google, and it will make it a more authoritative property. Google will start giving the site more weight, in other words. Okay. That’s what I recommend is just doing what you’re doing, Jay, that’s a great strategy. I would not worry about two tier networks for now, just stick with branded tier one. Okay?
“From SERP Space you give advice on the strongest setup for website?” Yes, that is what I would recommend just order tier one and then send it over to the link building team, or I think you can actually, yeah, you can add that as an add on when you order the network, so that’s what I would do. That way it’s all done, like your network will go from the builders directly over to the link building team. The building team will set up your campaign immediately and you’ll get it back in a short order. Okay? “Also, what other monthly link building methods can you advise I do? Medium competition keywords. Non local.” I don’t know, do you guys have any link building services that you use? I don’t, anymore.
Marco: [crosstalk 00:24:32]. The way I do it, the drive stack and then hit that with link building, because you can order a drive stack with link building [inaudible 00:24:43] what to do. You get the power of the link building into the drive stack, but then the spiderweb silo takes care of pushing the link juice wherever you want it to flow and places where you didn’t think it would flow it will just go because you have a link in there. That’s another way that you can do the link building.
Hernan: Yeah. I agree with Marcus, Jay. What I would do, because either A, I would hire anything with Semantic Mastery right now, in fact, the marketplace, the stuff that we were using, that we were outsourcing. That’s the main point of the marketplace, so we were outsourcing link building, so we decided to put it there, so more people can take advantage of that. What you could do, Jay, is to have the drive stack, or have the main IFTTT, the tier one network, powered up and wait for it a little bit. Let the dust settle. Then, if you did more link juice you should just order another round of link building within subspace. At the moment, I don’t think we have the monthly gig ready, but that will be a good add on. Maybe we will need to talk to Danny about, that would be a good add on. The thing is that you can purchase a monthly package of links, but-
Bradley: It’s usually not necessary.
Hernan: Yeah. That’s the point, just if you need it, Jay. I mean, if you’re going to, that’s one of the reasons why I think we don’t have one there, because we didn’t have the need to go out there and purchase monthly links, so we should just blast a link, blast with links and let it sit.
Hernan: Yeah. Then, if we need more power, we will do it again until that website ranked, then if you notice it is dropping down you can do it again, so do it on demand. That would be the idea.
Bradley: Yeah. Again, that’s the point of it, part of the reason that we don’t have the monthly service, is because like what he just said, most the time it’s because we order, like I’ll send my network over to the link building team, they build the links to it, and then it’s just about publishing content, which I’ve already talked about, consistently. Then, you give it some time. Give it four to six weeks and check to see, by then you should start gaining some pretty damn good traction, but if you need, feel like you need an additional boost, then you order another link building package, then. The idea has to continue publishing content on a regular basis, because that’s really what’s going to help. Right?
Okay. Next. Lillian. “Hey, Bradley and the entire SM team. I have a few questions, two for now, but I guess a few more will come tomorrow.” Okay. “I saw you mentioning Power Suggest Pro multiple times in these hangouts, I’m curious how it’s better than the Scrapebox, just keyword scraper.” I honestly, I know this is going to sound like SEO blasphemy, but I was never a Scrapebox user. I purchased it, I just never learned how to use it. It may be comparable, I know Scrapebox is like an SEO, or excuse me a Swiss Army knife of SEO tools, but it’s just one of the tools that I never learned how to use. I had no desire to. I don’t know. If somebody else has used this keyword scraper, can you comment on the different [crosstalk 00:27:52].
Adam: It’s been a long time. I just like it because Power Suggest Pro does what it does, it does it very well. It’s very simple. You don’t have to think about it.
Bradley: [crosstalk 00:28:01].
Adam: I’ve used both. It’s been a while since I used Scrapebox, but I used Scrapebox for a lot of different things, and I would still have both. It’s just so awesome. With Scrapebox, unless they’ve updated it to the point where, a lot of times you had to load in things either reading text files or keep a notepad handy, what things to copy and paste in, it’s not that it takes that much time, but when you want to just do something real quick Power Suggest Pro is just so easy.
Bradley: Yeah.
Hernan: I think that’s the main point. [inaudible 00:28:32] I think, that’s the main point. You can still use Scrapebox maybe you are running it on a VPS, those kinds of things add up, but if you’re using it on a daily basis, go ahead. I mean, the thing with Power Suggest Pro is that, I mean I use Scrapebox, I used to use it a lot more, but I use it still, because its handy, even if you’re not spamming its handy. It’s a handy tool to have. If you’re using it on a daily basis, go ahead with it. I would like to compare, though, the results from one and the results for the other, but that’s for another episode, maybe.
Bradley: Okay. Next. “Not sure if you’ve seen the latest [inaudible 00:29:10] some of the Google updates, beginning February 7th, February 8th wasn’t one of them Possum? That’s their recent update, right? Google Possum. Anyways, “Especially down ranking sites that are mostly powered by PBN’s or at least evaluating those links, hence the ranking drops. I know you don’t use the typical PBN’s much, but any similar ranking drops to the IFTTT power sites?” I haven’t seen any. In fact, it’s interesting, but I have one client in particular that we had focused for the last several years, mainly on organic, organic SEO because he covers a large area, large region, a large geographical area in the northern Virginia area as a roofing company, and we’ve been focusing on organic, mainly, because we didn’t have locations, obviously, physical locations in all the cites that he covered in all the areas. Right?
However, within the last several months, now, I’ve been focusing on really trying to get his maps listing, which he has one location to rank for multiple cities. I’ve been doing that with just using the IFTTT networks, blogging with the content marketing like we were just talking about with Jay, here. Also, building a lot of additional citations. It’s interesting, but that one site has actually surged within the last, probably, week or so into multiple maps, three pack positions in multiple cities, like locations that are kind of adjacent to the main city where he actually has a physical location. This is the first time I’ve seen that in years with this client, no kidding.
I’m hoping that, so my point in answering this is, no, because I didn’t use PBN’s on this client site, at least I haven’t for about two years, maybe, two and a half years. That was an older strategy that I used to use, but I’ve gotten away from that, and I don’t really use PBN’s at all, anymore. Very rarely. I still do, sometimes, but very rarely. No. I haven’t seen anything and interestingly I’d have to go back and look at the data more to see if there’s a direct correlation between these updates and the ranking increases that I’ve seen with that one particular site.
I haven’t noticed any drops on any of the lead gen sites, or client sites that I manage. In fact, like I said, I’ve seen a few of them with some recent positive changes. Maybe, if it has something to do with the PBN’s, I didn’t dig into this update much, because it’s not something that has effected any of my own assets, because I got away from using PBN’s about two years ago, maybe, two and a half, now. I don’t really have much to say on that, at the moment. What about you guys? Have you seen anything different?
They’re publishing content. Pictures. Videos. They’re doing everything that they’re supposed to be doing. It just protects us. We don’t, guys, excuse the language, we don’t give a shit about Google Updates. Why? Because we’re not doing anything that would negatively trigger the algorithm. Everything that we do targets the things that we’re supposed to target, which is the distance graphics, this freshness, which is everything that Google wants, that’s what we push. At tier one, we do it one way, we do it the way we’re supposed to do it, according to the terms of service. Then, at tier two, all bets are off. We just shove everything down Google’s throat, again, but everything is protected. Whereas, with a traditional PBN you’re out there, your nowhere you spammed the PBN to death to get it to where it had some juice. It’s not linked to anything that could be considered trusted or authoritative, and therefore it cannot pass on anything, any type of trust or authority to the destination, whatever that might be.
Whatever your online project is. That’s what it needs, now, it’s based on trust and authority. If it’s not trusted, if it’s not authoritative and it’s not connected to something that’s trusted and authoritative you’re in trouble. We’re teaching you guys, man, we’ve been telling you, what is it about a year and a half, almost, away from the post that I did, and we were talking about his even before I did the blog post. I did the blog post, because we were talking so much about seed sites, and seed sets, and that the way the trust rank algorithm was going to come in and the distance graph. For you guys, I suggest go and read the distance graph, the death of the PBN, the post is called.
Bradley: Yeah.
Marco: People should pay more attention to the stuff we have to say. Is what I would recommend. I mean, it’s that simple.
Bradley: Awesome. Thanks, Marco. Paul is up. He says, “Hey, guys. I just wanted to share the update on my attorney near me site. I’ve been doing video campaigns through Megarray for the site and after only four or five campaigns, 50 cities each, the site is now on page four of the first page for attorney near me.” Wow. That’s incredible. “I went into search console and it shows 357 back links from YouTube. Other than the branded social media network links there are no other back links. I have done nothing else, yet, not RYS, press releases, citations, or back links. I do plan on doing them, just haven’t yet. This is not a fluke. I have other near me sites that are only weeks old and I’m having the same results. I owe all of this success to Semantic Mastery and all of your training and tools. I cannot thank you guys enough.” I plus one’d it already. I’d do it again if it let me.
Hernan: Great, stuff.
Bradley: By the way Marco, you told me a while back that I was working too cheap. He says the same thing to me, Paul. “I just raised my monthly consultant fee to 3,000 per month. I’m tired of dealing with people who want shit for free and have no gratification for your hard work and success.” That’s the majority of client work, Paul. That’s why it’s better to have your own assets. Thanks, and keep up the great work, which you’re building. All these near me sites are your own assets. That’s beautiful, because you don’t have the whole client relationship thing that you’ve got to deal with.
Marco: Yeah. I think that Paul is onto something, here. This is the beginning of something that could be really, really good, because once you start building your own assets you stop depending on clients as you were currently saying, that’s a beginning of something greater, in my opinion.
Bradley: Yeah.
Hernan: It’s like a really amazing journey, when you start putting up your own stuff and ranking your own stuff.
Bradley: It’s liberating.
Hernan: Yeah. It’s liberating. It’s challenging, but it’s liberating. Congratulations, Paul.
Marco: If I can add. Paul. Paul is awesome, because all he does is get done for you services from us. He was in construction forever until housing to a crapper, right? It just left them flat out nothing. He gets into SEO, he finds us, he starts using our done for you services, he uses by the way done for you RYS a lot, he orders IFTTT network, he orders back linking, so the other guy, I cannot remember the name of the guy who wanted to know how to do it. Paul is a great example of a guy who, let me get all this stuff from you guys, I don’t want to do it, I’ll just go find clients, and you guys help me rank.
Bradley: Sure.
Marco: This is just an awesome story.
Bradley: Earl is up. He says, “Google is rolling out an ad on the top of the now four pack in the Minneapolis area, it looks identical to the normal three pack listing except for a green ad label. My client would like to be advertising there, but I have not been able to find out how to do it, on how to buy the ad. Can anyone add some light?” You know, Earl, I would like a definitive answer on this, as well. I can give you some experience, like I can share some experience that I’ve had with that without any direct way to purchase that ad. For example, in Local Kingpin the case study that I had set up, my ad ended up in first place position for all the other advertisers.
That’s just because I focused on, I raised my bid, first of all, but then I started focusing on raising my quality score and I got to position one with my ad and it stayed there and once I got to position one, and it was there for a few days, then what happened was the ad started to show in the maps pack, excuse me, when you would click on the more results, so at the bottom of the maps three pack you’d click on it, it would open up the expanded map page in a new tab and then my ad would be in the number one position, at the top. I wasn’t able to get in the three pack, because I know that’s being rolled out in select areas, first, but I’m assuming, because I didn’t, there was no option for me to pay to be listed in the maps, expanded maps page.
There wasn’t an option in AdWords for that, but because my ad was in position number one, it was automatically placed there, and there was only one ad in the maps, expanded maps page and it was my ad. I’m assuming because I was number one, top bidder and highest quality score, whatever, or a combination of those two, for those keywords that I was ranked for, or that I had been put in position number one in the ad section for. I’m assuming that it’s probably just going to go to the highest bidder, or the highest placement, so the ads that are in the highest placement doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the highest bidder, because if your quality score is higher than somebody might have a lower quality score that’s actually paying more, but doing a subordinate position. Right?
Marco: Right.
Hernan: Right. You know that Earl just updated his question and he’s saying that, he got in touch with Google and they told him that he needed to set up a device that can phone only, that can only get phone calls.
Bradley: [crosstalk 00:39:58], call only ad?
Hernan: Yeah. Call only ad with the advice that can only get, yeah, something like that.
Bradley: That’s easy to do. If it’s a call only ad thing, or something else you could do would be to have an ad that, use an ad extension, the call extension, because that way it will show, and remember call only ads, guys, will only show up on mobile devices, or devices that you could make a phone call from, so typically it’s going to mobile devices. Like, you won’t see a call only ad on the desktop and you won’t usually see a call only ad on a tablet, either, but on a mobile device, a smart phone, you will.
What I recommend doing is setting up an actual regular ad, but use ad extensions and use the call extension, because then it adds that call option to the ad, so that it shows on the desktop as well as mobile devices. If you can call from the device then there’s a tap to call button directly in the ad. Okay. That’s what I would recommend, but that’s actually really cool, Earl, I’m going to test that, because I’m not seeing any ads in the actual three pack, yet, in my area, at least in the areas that I’ve got funnel set up or AdWords campaigns setup for. I am seeing them in the expanded maps page. I’ll be anxious to test on that one when I start seeing it in my area.
All right. Ben’s up again. He says, “A question about content curation. If I am creating content for a money site, do you go to the trouble of creating silos and create the content to be relevant to the silos or just have a blog subdirector and create the content to be generally relevant to the money niche site?” Well, I kind of do both. Typically, what we’ll do is, and this in the curation course, Curation Kingpin, or Content Kingpin course, Ben, but my curators they’ll keep like Feedly, for example, a feed reader, or even just a spreadsheet with feeds that are niche related. Right? Then, they’ll go in typically using a RSS feed reader, a feed reader, is the best because it makes it easy and you get to see all the posts that are new in like a magazine style, or a list view, or whatever.
So, Feedly is usually what we use. That is what I teach how to use. Anyways, don’t just go in for the day when it’s their day to publish a post, they’ll go in and they’ll just scan headlines. Right? They’ll find something that pops out, that catches their attention and they’ll note that or open it in another tab, and they’ll go through and look for supporting other pieces of content that can help support the overall idea that they got for the other one. That’s typically what they’ll do is just go through and they’ll find something that catches their attention and then try to find additional content to support that. When they publish it to the actual blog, if there’s a silo, a category on the site already that it will support, then it will obviously be placed in that category. Right?
The internal linking will be such that it’s linking up to a page or another post within that same silo, so it’s going to benefit that silo. If it’s a topic that is just related, whether topically related or geographically related, but then there might not be an actual category or a silo on the site yet, doesn’t mean they’re going to go build one. It just means that they’re going to create a category and place that post within that category, and if at a later date we find that there’s enough traffic potential in that particular category that had just been added for the blog post purpose, then we can go back and setup a proper silo with the silo landing page for the category and all that kind of stuff. Okay. Does that make sense? It’s a matter of just doing, if content fits within a silo structure that’s already present, then absolutely you want to add it to that silo, but if it doesn’t that’s okay to just put it in a more general blog for that site as long as it is relevant in some shape or fashion. Right? Either topically or geographically. If that makes sense? Okay.
“I just told you how we use it. Second, which would you prefer for creating leads and sales?” Honestly, the blogging itself, I don’t ever really try to rank the blog posts, occasionally they rank and they’ll generate traffic, but the majority of the time I’m using the blog post for ranking the pages on the site, that are set up to generate leads. I use the blog post to target long tail keywords to kind of reinforce an overall silo structure so that I can hopefully rank the short tail, or the very broad versions of the keyword where the majority of the traffic is going to come from anyways. A lot of the times as far as for creating leads and sales, I haven’t tested one versus the other because my point in generating leads and sales is to get the pages to rank, and I use the blog post to do that. All right. It doesn’t mean that you cannot optimize a post, guys, to rank. You certainly can. That’s just not usually the strategy that I do.
All right. Ed’s up. “Hey, guys. I just wanted to know what Bradley found out from last week about the YouTube like recipe problem and errors that I’ve been getting since the middle of January. Thanks.” Ed, I’ve got the solution for you. I told you that I was going to have it for you this week, I’m not going to reveal it, here, on Hump Day Hangouts, that’s the IFTTT SEO Academy update number nine, which starts in 15 minutes. I’ve got you covered, buddy. Make sure you login and watch the webinar in about 15 minutes, or just catch the replay it will be inside the member’s area by Friday at the latest. Okay. I got you covered, though. They’re all working beautifully. It took me a few minutes to figure it out, but I got it. I’ll share that with you in a few minutes and everybody else in IFTTT SEO Academy.
Deans, up. “In a situation where one is using a spider domains built to look like business, and some with IFTTT ranks to point to money sites. Does it matter about the effect of this on the DA?” No, Dean. “As I’m seeing a pattern in the MOZ, DA on expired domains is sometimes one despite trust being 15 to 30 plus in Majestic and even if MOZ, DA is 10 to 15, I’ve seen expired domains do a drop in as little as one to two months to single digits on a money sites DA, it went from 30 to 25 in the last MOZ update using this tactic.” Dean, we talked about this before. Stop worrying so much about metrics, especially domain authority. Honestly, just stop worrying about it, man. I don’t see, I don’t care about any of those metrics at all. I don’t even look at them anymore, honestly. I don’t. I don’t care. I still look at Majestic metrics and it’s more or less because of old habits die hard. It’s kind of like just a curiosity thing for me, what are the metrics of this thing that I’m looking at. It doesn’t really have any influence on what I’m going to do with it, anymore.
Hernan: [crosstalk 00:46:40]. I agree with you, Bradley, because the reality is that and one of the reasons why we keep using Trust Flow and topical Trust Flow as a reference we never fully trust those metrics, but we use them as a metric and we have really clear that those are third party metrics. They’re not related to Google at all. One of the reasons why we use that is that it gets updated every day. Sometimes in real time. If you check in the morning you will have one Trust Flow check in the afternoon you pull in some links and provided them in Majestic, crawl those links you will get another result. The problem that I see with DA and every MOZ metrics is that they have a database that they update, publicly, like Google used to do with Page Rank, remember?
Bradley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Hernan: You will have a page rank, I don’t know, a page rank number two and maybe the next update it will be a page rank number four, and vice versa, so that’s a problem that I find with DA, that it’s not updated and sometimes they will update once a month and then sometimes they will update it, I don’t know, once every three months, whatever. Sometimes they will push back. It’s a picture, so you’re taking a picture, instead of recording a movie, you’re taking a picture and that picture the other day it’s obsolete, because you have blogs, back links [inaudible 00:48:14] as well as a bunch of other things. That’s why I don’t pay that much attention to DA, number one. Number two, it’s because simply with spam you can really manipulate DA, we’ve done it with sub domains, we’ve done it with spam, thousands of back links. We have done it. You can easily manipulate DA, so with having those two things in mind, I don’t think that domain authority pays authority and the new spam score, or whatever that’s called, I don’t think that’s trustworthy. Just because the fact that it’s not being updated fast enough and number two we have manipulated it real easily with spam.
Marco: If I may, the problem is that only MOZ knows it’s algorithm. Only [inaudible 00:48:58] knows it’s algorithm. Majestic what have you. Nobody knows Googles algorithm, so they’re all just guessing. It makes no difference. Absolutely no difference in what we’re trying to do, because what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to target Googles algorithm, now from our tests, we know how to go into Googles algorithm and make it do basically whatever we want it to do. Why would we take third party metrics if we know that just by being consistent, for example, just by staying themed and relevant, all of these other things. We know if we do that we’re going to trigger the right sections of the algorithm. Why would we bother with third party metrics, anymore? We know how it is, that we want to influence the algorithm in a positive way.
Bradley: That’s right. All right. We’ve got five minutes. I want to get through the four that I can see right here. I’m not going to scroll up anymore. Let’s go through like a speed round, very quickly. Michael’s question is, “Please, can someone shed some light on scrapping product prices from the HTML on an eCommerce site for a feed to update prices on Google shopping ads. As in when they change. The site has about 7,000 products, currently the company charges for the service, but we want to do it ourselves. Many thanks. SMT.”
What I would suggest, Michael, I’ll let the other guys comment, but guys please keep your comments quick, because we’re going to try to get through these other ones as well. What I would suggest is hiring somebody from Upwork to code out a simple program that would do that for you, so that you don’t have to keep paying for it, you pay it once to get it coded and sure that can be done very quickly and for inexpensive. Then you can run that script over and over again whenever you needed to. It could probably even be done somehow within Google Sheets or something like that, but I’ll let Marco comment on that, since that’s more you wheelhouse. Marco?
Marco: Sorry. I was muted.
Bradley: Okay.
Marco: I’m not sure.
Bradley: [crosstalk 00:50:59]. Something could be coded that could scrape parse data from an HTML.
Marco: Yeah. I mean, of course, but I would have to talk, you know what I’d do I’d talk to Cesar.
Bradley: Yeah.
Marco: Can we do this? When Cesar says, yeah, we can do it this way, and then we go and do it.
Bradley: Yeah. Of course.
Adam: Yeah. Wayne just recommended imacro. Yeah. There’s a bunch of programs. If it’s really simple you can do it in a spreadsheet. If it’s more you could get someone to code this up in a day.
Bradley: Yeah. That’s what I would do. I would poke around on Upwork and find somebody. Post a job. Ask a few people to take a look at your job and quote you a price. You could probably find something very, very cheap that could be a script that could run, or a simple app or something they could run for you and you wouldn’t have to pay on a monthly basis for that.
Marco: For an imacro you can even go into Fiver.
Bradley: Yeah. Possibly. I’ve got a imacro guy on Upwork that’s fabulous. If you want his information, Michael, just let me know and I can get you his name. His name is Marion Begic, B-E-G-I-C, M-A-R-I-O-N, Marion Begic. He’s awesome. Imacro guy. All right.
“Thank you for the info, being taught on IFTTT SEO, I believe it was one of my best decisions. Plus one. I’m also in the midst of deciding to get RYS Academy as well. My question is how do I rank my client in the three pack?” That’s a very broad question. We cannot really answer it in three minutes, but this very webinar we talked a lot about how to do it.
Set up the site. Set up the IFTTT network, which it looks like you’re going to be doing anyways, and then start populating the blog with content, which we’ll syndicate and use that as starting point. Build citations. RYS drive stack. If you’re going to buy the course, you can build it yourself, very time consuming. You can also hire us to build it for you, while you’re going through the course. That would actually give you a completed drive stack to look at, once you are done with the course. In my opinion, that’s the way to go, because then you actually get to see one done correctly that you can dissect and take apart, whatever, as you’re building your own. That’s what I would recommend.
Marco: He can also teach his own VA how to do it from that drive stack.
Bradley: From the training, that’s correct.
Marco: Yeah.
Bradley: Toby, says, “Can you rank and rent a Google site? My sites been out, sent to Siberia and the Google site is now in the first page with one article.” That’s the power of Google’s narcissism, Toby. Absolutely you can rank and rent a Google site.
Marco: Yes.
Bradley: No, remember, absolutely you can, you don’t own the Google site, Google’s letting you use it, but you can control it and the thing I wouldn’t sell a Google site to a client, but I would rank it as my own digital asset and then rent it out. I’d definitely do that. Last, this is the last thing and we’ve got to wrap it up, guys. Greg [inaudible 00:53:44] says, “What are the most common things to check for when you get the error message blog URL is not a valid WordPress URL when adding to an RSS app with an IFTTT?” Most likely, check the blog title, first to make sure that there is a title in the blog. Go to settings, general, and make sure that there is a title for the blog, so inside of WordPress go to settings, general, and make sure there’s a title, that’s number one.
Number two, check to make sure that there is content in the blog, if that feed is empty it will say not a valid feed, so you have to have one publish post, even if it’s the hello world post, it doesn’t matter. It has to have one published post in the feed. Number three, check plugin compatibility issues. If you’re using like a Bot Blocker plugin like Spider Spanker or something like that, sometimes they will block IFTTT from accessing the RSS feed, so you need to disable plugins if you’ve tried the other two things I’ve mentioned, disable all plugins and check the feed again, if it’s valid at that point then start enabling one plugin at a time and checking it after you’ve enabled each plugin.
Eventually you’ll be able to identify which plugin is causing the error message or the incompatibility issue. Okay. Lastly, if you cannot get RSS feed, if all other things have been checked and they’re correct then go burn a feed burner feed from your RSS feed and then use the feed burner feed in IFTTT and it will work. All right. I always do that as the last resort. Okay, guys. Wrapping it up. IFTTT SEO webinar update webinar number nine is next. By the way I just very, very quickly Adam mentioned-
Adam: What’s up?
Bradley: The back link indexing thing. In the IFTTT update webinar we have a method now, since back link commando is no longer working to automate pulling your post URLs from your web two feeds and submitting, I mean, we have a way to automate extracting the URLs now, let’s put it that way. That’s going to be covered in the update webinar here in about four minutes. See you all over there. Thanks, guys.
Marco: Bye, everybody. Later.
