niche surfer - Wave Issue 141

Adapt to Succeed; Parasite SEO; Plagiarism Engine; Why Site is Not Indexed; Google Perspectives is Live; SEO Ranking Factor Tiers; and Much More!

Author

Yoyao
June 23, 2023 • Est. Learning Time: 16 minutes

FIRST …

Last issue, we emphasized on the essence of building greatness hour by hour.

Put in the foundational work if you want to become an overnight success.

This week, we're discussing the power of adaptability in the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing and SEO.

Change is inevitable. If there's anything I've learned from being knee-deep in the SEO and digital marketing space, it's that staying still is like taking steps backward. You lose relevance and fail to tap into new opportunities.

Whether it's an algorithm update from Google, a new marketing trend, a shift in consumer behavior, or AI disrupting everything - we're constantly forced to reevaluate our strategies and make adjustments.

To thrive in this dynamic environment, having a solid foundation of knowledge is paramount as it allows you to adapt more effortlessly. Without this base foundation, trying to adapt is like swimming in choppy waters.

❝

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

Charles Darwin

The joke about SEOs is if you ask them any question, their response will always be “It depends.”

This is because the best SEOs understand that numerous variables factor into how search engines rank sites. They use their foundation to assess the whole situation and adjust based on what they know - which needs to be continually updated.

I'm not saying we need to reinvent the wheel with every new trend or update. But we do need to keep an eye on the changing landscape, be willing to let go of outdated methods, and have the courage to try new strategies.

If you wanted to set a solid topical authority foundation, you’d take a look at Topical Maps Unlocked - you’d be joining an incredible private community of students navigating the ever-changing SEO landscape together.

So this week, think about what you know and what you’re doing:

  • Assess: Look at your current strategies and assess what's working and what's not.

  • Learn: Identify your knowledge gaps and seek out resources to fill in those gaps.

  • Adapt: Apply what you learned and make necessary adjustments.

  • Monitor: Continually monitor the results and adapt as necessary.

The ability to adapt, combined with an endless thirst for knowledge, is what will set us apart in this ocean of SEOs, niche site builders, and digital marketers.

Surfing isn’t just about having and riding a wave. You also need to learn how to read the waves to find the best rides.

And as the waves change, so does our industry.

Embrace Change, Adapt and Grow.

SEO

FATJOE covers Parasite SEO, a clever strategy that involves creating content on third-party platforms to rank well for specific keywords.

By leveraging the authority and trust of these established websites, usually newspaper-type sites, you can hitchhike your way to better rankings and increase your visibility in search engines.

In the latest episode of Search Off the Record, Martin, John, and Gary from the Google Search team discuss the issue of sites or pages not being indexed. They dive into the difference between indexation and ranking, highlighting the importance of understanding whether it's an indexing or ranking problem.

Here are the key takeaways from the episode:

  1. Use Search Console: It's recommended to check Search Console for insights into your site's indexing status. The URL Inspection tool is particularly useful for checking individual pages.

  2. Focus on the homepage: If your brand new site's homepage isn't indexed, it could indicate a technical problem that needs to be addressed.

  3. Technical issues: Problems like server accessibility, robots.txt misconfigurations, or incorrect canonicalization can prevent pages from being indexed.

  4. Individual page inspection: Looking at individual pages in the URL Inspection tool provides a clearer understanding of whether a specific page is indexed, rather than relying solely on site-level data.

  5. Submitting for removal: Submitting your entire site for removal can lead to none of the pages being indexed, so avoid this approach if you want your content to appear in search results.

Remember, it's essential to distinguish between indexing and ranking issues to accurately diagnose and address problems with your site or pages.

This is also a good time to remind every what Google says helpful, people-first content is and how to create it.

Read more about it in their blog post if you missed it from May 2023.

SEO Ripples

TOOLS AND RESOURCES

Detailed SEO Chrome Extension Update - One of my favorite extensions is Glenn Allsopp’s Detailed and it just got a big update to give you the ability to extract PAAs. He also discusses asking SEO Minion’s founder for permission to implement PAA into the Detailed extension.

CONTENT

Lesley Vos from Content Marketing Institute shares some valuable SEO content and design tips that go beyond keywords and meta tags to optimize your content for higher search engine rankings. Key takeaways:

  1. Use snippets: Add content blocks using elements with ID attributes that match user search intent, increasing the chances of your content being featured as a snippet.

  2. Employ APP or PPB introductions: APP intros agree, promise, and preview, while PPB intros preview, offer proof, and bridge to the next paragraph.

  3. Optimize custom images: Craft original and informative images, such as infographics, charts, and screenshots, to enhance your content's appeal.

  4. Create 10x content assets: Write content that is at least 10 times better than the top-ranking results for your topic and keyword.

  5. Pay attention to formatting: Structure your content for easy consumption by using short paragraphs, simple text hierarchy (up to H3 headers), conversational language, appropriate typography, and visual elements.

Erin Jones shares valuable insights on how to boost your business's visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) and increase trust among customers with location-specific authority content. Here are the key takeaways:

  1. Understand the value of local content

  2. Create outstanding location pages

  3. Craft compelling blog posts

  4. Optimize existing content

  5. Stay in touch with your audience

She adds AI tools can assist in content creation, but they should be used cautiously. Always verify information and remove inaccuracies to provide valuable and reliable content to your audience.

Content Ripples

AI

Avram Pitch, Tom’s Hardware’s editor-in-chief, talks about how Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) uses an AI Plagiarism engine that grabs facts and snippets of text from a variety of sites, cobbles them together, and passes off the work as its creation.

He shares a number of examples of how SGE affects the results for their portfolio of sites and for users as well with low-quality and incorrect information. Colorectal cancer screenings should start at age 45 and not at 50 according to SGE’s answer.

Kristi Hines shares ChatGPT plugins that are search tools to make your lives easier. The plugins are used for academic search, general search, domain name search, image search, job search, social media

AI Ripples

LINK BUILDING

Ahrefs video discussing how internal linking can be an effective strategy to boost organic rankings in Google with three key ingredients that make this strategy work:

  1. Backlinks to the linking page which contribute to a page's authority, also known as PageRank.

  2. Matching searcher intent: it's important to align your page's content with the intent of searchers.

  3. Competing against manageable competitors: choose competitors that are realistically within reach and share a similar level of authority.

MARKETING

Gael Breton at Authority Hackers shares how blogging can drive traffic to your website, build brand awareness, and other benefits.

Other benefits include: promote products/services, convert more leads, increase credibility with valuable content tailored to audience, generate backlinks, partner with other businesses, and get feedback for long time results.

Lindsay Kolowich Cox at Hubspot discusses writing strong email copy for effective marketing campaigns. Email marketing remains a crucial strategy for boosting conversions and audience retention, but it's important to know how to craft compelling emails that actually get opened and read. Here are 5 of the 10 key takeaways from the article:

  1. Use actionable language in your subject lines: Incorporate verbs and language that clearly communicate what readers can do in the email.

  2. Personalize your subject lines: Highly segmented emails with personalized subject lines tend to perform better and provide relevant content to recipients.

  3. Prioritize clarity over catchiness: While it's great to make your subject lines catchy, always ensure they are clear and communicate the value for the recipient.

  4. Write in the second-person: Use "you" and "your" pronouns to orient the copy towards the reader and keep the focus on them.

  5. Talk about benefits, not just features: Explain the value and benefits of your email content rather than solely focusing on the features.

EDUCATION

Matt Diggity shares his tier list of ranking factors that can take your website to the top of search results. Some of the key takeaways from the video:

  1. NLP (Natural Language Processing): Write your content in a way that's easy for Google to understand by echoing the main search query and providing a clear answer. NLP is an A-tier ranking factor and has shown positive results in featured snippets, rankings, and traffic.

  2. Proof of Ownership/Expertise: In product review content, showing proof of ownership through visuals, audio, or other evidence is important. However, it is not a significant ranking factor (D-tier) and doesn't have a direct impact on search rankings.

  3. Reading Level: While readability scores are not a direct ranking factor, it's important to consider your readers. Aim for content that is easy to understand to keep users engaged and prevent them from leaving your page (C-tier).

  4. Subtopic Coverage: To create comprehensive content, analyze top-ranking pages on Google for your target keyword and include subtopics that they cover. This strategy has proven to be effective (A-tier) and can help you provide additional value to your readers.

  5. Topical Authority: Instead of focusing on a single topic, cover various aspects related to your main topic to establish authority. Topical authority has shown game-changing results (S-tier) and can significantly increase your website's traffic.

  6. Duplicate Content, Content Length, Search Intent, Fresh Content, and Outbound Links are also discussed.

Remember, even if the factors above aren’t in a high tier (S-tier, A-tier) for rankings, they’re still important for user experience, which can affect rankings.

If you’re looking for more information on topical maps, topical authority, and topical coverage, check out Topical Maps Unlocked.

Taylor Kimball talks to Kyle Roof about the latest on EEAT and what needs to be focused on by SEOs and sites.

Taylor asks some good questions to get lots of great information in here from a top SEO, including what types of links are beneficial (spoiler: citations) and when you can say that you’re recovering after getting hit (another spoiler: sustained growth for a month or more in GSC).

CASE STUDY

MakeMyTrip's SEO strategy revolves around their search tool, which allows users to select different categories like hotels, flights, trains, and buses.

Implementing a programmatic SEO approach, MakeMyTrip uses buckets (subfolders) and matches user inputs with their extensive database of hotels, flights, and more. Their strategy revolves around creating unique URLs that target specific long-tail keywords.

By utilizing a search tool with various filters, MakeMyTrip provides users with highly relevant and customized search results.

NEWS

DPReview announced they were acquired by Gear Patrol just two months after they announced they were not updating DPReview any longer. While many were thinking that it was getting shut down, I said they were going to look for a sale - and here it is.

SURF WITH OTHERS

Shout out this week to Alton Lex from Content Curator for sharing the niche surfer newsletter! He's also always sharing great information on data analytics, along with lots of code for you to use for free.

His Data Analytics for SEO course is very straightforward and shows you how to do everything over-the-shoulder, so you can follow along easily. He’s created a number of handy tools at Content Curator:

Content Curator

Content optimization tools to help you curate the most sought after content.

contentcurator.com

REFER NICHE SURFER AND GET REWARDS

If you’re enjoying niche surfer, I’d love it if you would share it with your friends! I’ve put together some rewards as well:

  • Refer 3: Get a Twitter Shout-out

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  • Refer 100: Get a Free copy of Topical Maps Unlocked

  • Refer 150: Get a 1 hour SEO 1-1 Coaching session with Yoyao

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