niche surfer - Wave Issue 142

Smarter-Me; GA4 is Here; Parasite SEO; Blog Post Formats; SGE vs Bing Chat; Keyword Analysis; and Much More!

Author

Yoyao
July 01, 2023 • Est. Learning Time: 15 minutes

FIRST …

This week’s intro is about taking SEO knowledge into your own hands.

I get a lot of questions about SEO, building niche sites, topical authority, and of course - building topical maps. A lot of these queries circle back to the fundamentals of what makes a good website and how to establish E-E-A-T in the eyes of Google.

The answers to these questions are often buried within Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, a 176-page behemoth of a PDF that provides guidance for their Search Quality Raters to assess the quality and trustworthiness of websites.

I don’t have a photographic memory and I’m guess most of you don’t either. Knowing this guide inside-out is almost impossible.

BUT don’t worry, we have an ace up our sleeve - AI. For a mere $20 a month, we have access to a Smarter-Me, our digital alter-ego with a photographic memory.

How do we get Smarter-Me’s help, it’s simple -

  1. Get ChatGPT Plus for the plugins.

  2. Select and Activate the GPT-4 Plugins Beta model.

  3. Add and Activate the ChatWithPDF plugin.

  4. Start your first prompt with this: 

Read this PDF and then answer questions and respond based on the information in the PDF:

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

[ENTER QUESTION]

Then just start asking ChatGPT questions about E-E-A-T and anything else you want to know! Here are a couple examples: 

What are the top E-E-A-T factors?
What are some of the things I can do to index webpages and sites?

If you can’t sign up for ChatGPT Plus or don’t want to part with $20, you do have options.

The alternative to paying for ChatGPT Plus is to have an OpenAI account with at least gpt-3.5 API access.

You can then utilize a platform ChatABC.ai (ChatGPT-like UI) or Chatbase (chatbot) to upload PDFs and ask questions.

The only downside is I haven’t found any alternatives that are as good at digesting and responding about the information in the PDF. ChatABC comes in 2nd and Chatbase in 3rd.

Even though these alternatives work on a pay-per-use basis, they tend to be cheaper than ChatGPT because you only pay for what you use, and you can opt to use the less expensive gpt-3.5 model.

Using this process, you can create all sorts of Smarter-You’s who specialize in all sorts of different topics. All you need is a PDF and you’re off!

PDF + ChatGPT = Smarter-Me!

TOP NEWS - GA4 is Here!

By the time you’re reading this, GA4 is now 100% in our lives - whether you like it or not!

To learn more about about GA4, you can go straight to the source at this Google Analytics hub page and learn more about GA4. There are a number of articles, videos, and a Discord group.

Here are a couple of resources and tools that can help ease the transition:

Semrush Academy’s Free Course on a straightforward approach to GA4 so you can confidently use this tool to improve marketing strategies and experience business growth. Get to know GA4 so you can improve the customer journey and accelerate your business growth.

Not finding the data you need from GA4 or finding it hard to understand? Kristi Hines shares how to use the Avian plugin to extract and understand analytics and advertising data via ChatGPT.

SEO

Glenn Gabe decodes a recently granted Google patent on generating query variants for features like 'People Also Search For' and 'People Also Ask.' Very interesting insights into what search might look like in the near future.

  • Google could use a trained generative model to create variations of search queries, even for queries it hasn't encountered yet, a huge boost for new or long-tail searches.

  • Past user queries are used to train the model, along with query pairs that lead to clicks on the same documents, which proves user engagement plays a crucial role.

  • The model is multi-task capable, allowing it to generate multiple types of query variants, which includes but not limited to language translation and follow-up queries.

Scott Moses breaks down parasite SEO with real-world examples. Parasite SEO involves publishing high-quality content on authoritative sites, exploiting their high traffic to increase your visibility in search results.

It's proven effective; even high-ranking sites like Healthline and Amazon have been outranked by skilled Parasite SEO practitioners. Implementing Parasite SEO requires finding high-authority sites open to your content, often necessitating sponsored posts.

While this article covers a lot, if you want to learn more about parasite SEO, you may want to check out Charles Floate’s brand new course that’s mentioned in the next section, with a $200 discount.

Olga Zarr answers the question and more on this very popular topic. The tl;dr answer:

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this, unfortunately. The timeline for Google to index a new website can range from a few days to a couple of weeks – it varies widely and truly, “it depends.”

Olga Zarr

SEO Ripples

TOOLS AND RESOURCES

Dustin Hyle recently helped me diagnose and fix an issue with one of my sites’ dashboard being really slow and high CPU resources being run. The front end didn’t have issues and it was just a backend issue.

If you have multiple sites and/or one large money site, it may be worth having Dustin and his team manage your sites and servers so they don’t go down.

Charles Floate’s Parasite SEO Secrets is the only full course I know of on how parasite SEO works that comes with live case studies and databases of sites to use.

Niche Creator Zak Kann is officially launching his rank tracker - PeakSERP!

If you’re missing SerpRobot’s $5/month plans for 150 keywords (their price increased 2x - $10 for 150 keywords), then Zak is now filling that hole for you. PeakSERP costs only $5 for 150 keywords.

Onboarding is easy too with a free feature to transfer SerpRobot’s keywords and historical tracking data(!) to PeakSERP. If you weren’t using SerpRobot, you can also import keywords from your sitemap directly.

CONTENT

Chris Haines dives into the key strategies for formatting blog posts for maximum engagement and SEO success.

From creating scannable content with well-structured headings to tailoring the format to the dominant content type (like list posts or guides), these tips will help you grab your reader's attention and rank higher in search results. Key takeaways include:

  • The importance of a concise and audience-tailored introduction, using the Problem-Solution-Proof (PSP) formula.

  • Making your content scannable with proper heading tags to enhance reader engagement and SEO.

  • Researching and matching the dominant content format already ranking for your target keywords.

  • Ensuring your article is succinct and uses text formatting like bold or italic for emphasis.

  • The use of a table of contents, internal and external linking, and high-quality images to enrich your content.

Azeem Ahmad shares his wisdom about enhancing your content strategy by really understanding what your audience wants and how they want it. He focuses on these top tips:

  • Understand Your Metrics

  • Upgrade Your Content Strategy

  • Use Data to Inform Strategy

  • Analyze Scroll and Video Engagement

  • Diversify Content Types

Content Ripples

AI

Lily Ray compares Google SGE and Bing Chat’s features and responses. She shared he findings in a presentation at SEOnthebeach 2023 in Spain and the article has the presentation slides.

She prefers Bing Chat, for its 'self-awareness' and link-rich answers that are largely accurate.

She says SGE has some kinks, often pulling data directly from websites without clear attribution, and offering results redundant with existing SERP features. There’s a slide of Bard advice on “how to create backlinks” with multiple tips that are against Google’s guidelines hah!

AI Ripples

EDUCATION

From Backlinko, a guide on conducting keyword analysis for SEO. The post delves into why keyword analysis is the pivotal next step after keyword research, guiding you to choose profitable and relevant terms for your SEO strategy. Here are the top takeaways:

  • Keyword analysis can help prioritize keywords based on their difficulty, search volume, search intent, and conversion potential.

  • Understanding keyword intent is critical to align your content with users' needs and search queries, enhancing your relevance.

  • Keyword analysis aids in budgeting your resources wisely, managing time effectively, and gradually building your domain authority.

CASE STUDY

SearchPilot shared a neat case study where they added the word 'Compare' to the H1 of a care industry client's webpage and watched the metrics. The goal? To see if this tweak could improve the page's ranking for related search terms. Results were inconclusive, but did have a slight upward trend.

Matt Diggity shares a guide on how to revive a 'dead' website and boost its visibility on Google, resulting in a traffic increase by 61%. He covers how to improve E-E-A-T, content optimization, link building, migration, and optimizing product pages.

There’s a written article if you prefer that format.

Worried about redirecting your aged domain that cost a few thousand dollars and if it’s going to work out? This month, Complex.com redirected SoleCollector, a sneaker news site with 1.3M visitors per month, to a /sneakers subdirectory.

Glen Allsopp digs into the redirect and how this could affect their SERO and traffic, while also considering the public status of the BuzzFeed parent company.

NEWS

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

  • Refer 5: Get featured in an issue

  • Refer 10: Get One Ask Me Anything Question

  • Refer 50: Get 50% Off the Topical Maps Unlocked Course

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

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

SURF WITH OTHERS

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