Click on the video above to watch Episode 151 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.
Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.
The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.
Announcement
Bradley: Be like, cheers.
Adam: We are now live. Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts, this is episode 151, the one where Adam talks loudly because he doesn't know how loud it's actually coming through. So, if this is weird, just type in there and be like, “Adam, take it down a notch.” Also, cheers, welcome to Hump Day Hangouts Live, so cheers.
Hernan: Yay.
Bradley: Cheers.
Adam: Ah, good beer. Alright. So, we're at a McMenamins, if you're from the northwest, you know what it is. If you're not from the northwest, it means nothing, so we'll just keep going with that. How's the weather is what I usually ask people, so, how's the weather?
Hernan: It's really nice here, actually, in Portland. It's pretty cool. We had a nice walk here, so, yeah, it's been behaving, misting.
Adam: Yeah, so I'll have to flip over here and see if Marco's going to join us.
Bradley: No, I don't think.
Adam: No, still having dinner. He might be on later, but we'll ask him how the weather is in there. But anyways, we've got a few people joining us [inaudible 00:01:00], got Sam, we got [inaudible 00:01:03] and other than that I think we're just going to jump into it, right?
Bradley: I think so. Actually, I'm going to be trying to navigate from afar, so, bear with me guys. I'll grab the screen. Let's see.
Adam: Oh, we don't [inaudible 00:01:16] on the Facebooks too, so.
Hernan: Facebooks, we're live if you want to say hi.
Bradley: We're live on the Facebooks.
Hernan: The Facebooks.
Bradley: Alright.
Adam: Hey, Facebooks.
That's fine.
Bradley: I think we're good to go, guys.
Hernan: Let's get it started.
Bradley: Make sure everybody is good. Hey, guys, if we're not coming through loud enough or whatever, just let us know on the event page, please, and we'll try to fix it somehow.
Hernan: You're watching comments there?
Bradley: Yeah.
Hernan: Okay.
Adam: Okay, so, Kevin says, thanks for last week, me answering his question about answering lead gen issues. That was a question about branding being different on the lead gen site when a contractor comes out. You're welcome, Kevin.
Do You Always Create A Syndication Network For SEO Clients Even If It's Not Content Marketing?
So, next question is from Mohammad, he says, “Hey guys, do you always create a syndication network for SEO clients, even when they won't be content marketing? I have this guy who's ranking pretty highly for auto-detailing and he wants me to help solidify that. I'm planning to make a Drive Stack, but I remember BB saying he always starts with a network.” That is correct, Mohammad, because it helps to validate the entity, [inaudible 00:02:19] you syndicate content or not, it's still valuable to have. Because once again, it validates the entity, it helps to claim that brand [inaudible 00:02:28] trying to do with the syndication network.
So, again, it's really important. If you can … If you're going to be content marketing, it's great to have it because then it's obviously going to help with SEO as well [silence 00:02:39 – 00:02:51]. Than just creating a syndication. And remember, that's something that you should … You can charge for as part of a branding package for the client as well> And so, you should, you should tell them that they should want to also their [inaudible 00:03:06]. So, there's a lot of different reasons why you should encourage that.
How Do You Guys Know When You're Dealing With A Bad Potential Client?
So, number two is, “How do you guys know when you're dealing with a bad potential client?” Number one is trust your gut. [silence 00:03:24 – 00:03:36]
Hernan: You know, like …
Bradley: So, he's asking about, how do you know when a client's going to be a shitty client? One, I mean, that's really … Because if you are having trouble … If you're catching resistance, or you've got a bad feeling about a client that you're pitching when you're giving them a proposal, like, kind of a stage where you're courting them, right? You're giving them a proposal or analyzing their web properties, their current marketing campaigns, that kind of stuff, and you're just [inaudible 00:04:13]. You feel like they're … Then I would run.
I mean, and honestly, there's been many times in my [inaudible 00:04:22] because I knew that their money, if I could get that [inaudible 00:04:25] across the finish line, so to speak, that I would [inaudible 00:04:30]. I had a bad feeling about a [inaudible 00:04:32] … Every single, I've ever done that anyways and chased the money instead of just trusting my gut and walking away [inaudible 00:04:40] costing more time and effort than [inaudible 00:04:45]. To be honest.
[silence 00:04:48 – 00:06:17]
Hernan: Yeah, and then, the client, you can actually go up to the client and see and measure it and see where the conversations. Because it's just, I don't take any clients that [inaudible 00:06:26].
Bradley: Well, it's just rude for us to [inaudible 00:06:38].
Asking too many questions about too much information about how you're doing your SEO and that kind of stuff. Do you go [inaudible 00:06:54] to explain how they fix a roof? You know what I mean? Because it's like, you hired me to be the professional to do this and as long as I can produce results, that's all that matters. So, my point is, when it comes to a client, if you think that there's any sort of bad feeling, I would trust your gut and walk away even if you need the money, because a lot of the time the money's not worth the additional headache, so.
Adam: One last thing I'd say on this, too, is we see this question and so I think we can probably put together something, I think, moving forward that would be like, “Hey, here's some cues or here's somethings.” But part of it's getting out there and getting clients. Like, you're not going to know who you're nightmare client is until you deal with them. And hopefully you can see it coming. And if not, then, you know, it's [inaudible 00:07:34]. Find it coming, but that bad experience is going to be very informative for you, so.
Hernan: And also, most of the guys, you're all doing client SEO? Not yet? Oh, okay. So, this actually is valuable, probably. So you know which clients to run away from. Okay, cool.
How Do You Rank A Google Site?
Bradley: Okay, so, the next one's from Brian. He says, “I have implemented the G sites builder from Peter Drew [inaudible 00:07:58] is anyone else having similar issues?” Brian, maybe so, but [inaudible 00:08:02] use just the G sites builder in the way [inaudible 00:08:07] it primarily is as a link builder, so that we can [inaudible 00:08:12] and stick. If they do, that's great. But that's not the intended … That's not the original link, right?
[inaudible 00:08:20] because they're Google properties as link building tools. So, in other words, we build [inaudible 00:08:27] keyword registered on Google domains and we use those to actually link to the properties that we're looking to rank. So, it could be to a money site, to YouTube videos, you could use, obviously, RYS tactics and Drive, Google Drive and Drive files. So, there's a lot of things that you can end up doing with those Google sites to help you to push the rankings of other properties and that's typically how we use them.
And here's the reason why, because, obviously with the Google sites builder, it's an automated way to build a bunch of different Google properties that you can target different keywords to help push relevancy into whatever property you want. So, for example, your own money site. Second of all, because it is on Google domains, you can use those as buffer sites so that you can basically spam the ever-living hell out of those Google sites and it takes it because it's a Google domain.
So, it basically will clean the juice so that you can do some pretty nasty stuff with Google sites. Again, sometimes the Google sites themselves will rank, but that's never what I … I never intend on setting up to rank the Google sites. If it happens, that's great, that's icing on the cake. But I use those as actual link building tools and then boost the hell out of those Google sites with additional link building, like from GSA and RankerX and link building packages from server space, in other words.
So, that's what you should be doing with it, as well. If you're trying to rank the Google sites, you're going to have a difficulty. With the Google sites, it's odd how they react. Like, for example, with the Virginia SEO site that I have ranked, that wasn't something that I intentionally set out to rank, it kind of just happened. But at the same time, it took a couple of months before it really ranked and it's been there ever since. Since, what, May of 2015, I guess it was. But it wasn't something that I had originally set out to do. So, like I said, if it happens, then it's great.
You're using it intentionally for another purpose and it services that purpose, then it's been a successful campaign regardless of whether the actual site ranks or not. Makes sense?
How Do You Know If The RSS (Formerly Yahoo Pipes) Is Working?
Okay. “Also, how can you tell if RSS, formerly AudioPipes is working.” It's not. They shut it down, Brian.
Hernan: Oh, yeah [inaudible 00:10:38].
Adam: Brian, if you mean something else, because I'm not sure if you meant [inaudible 00:10:44]-
Bradley: They shut that down like, two years ago.
Adam: VRSS, I mean, if there's something else we're missing here … If you're talking about Yahoo RSS, it's done. On the blog, you can just search the Man of Mastery, Yahoo Pipes and you'll see it with some alternatives.
Bradley: Yeah, the best thing right now for pipes alternative would be Rank Feeder. Lisa Allen's Rank Feeder.
Hernan: That sucks, though. I used to use a lot of stuff on [inaudible 00:11:09].
Bradley: Lisa Allen's Rank Feeders are great SEO tool for RSS [inaudible 00:11:15]. Splice feeds, you can create sticky items within the feed. So, there's a bunch of really cool stuff that you can do with Rank Feeder that is … She did a really good job and she built that specifically to replace Yahoo Pipes.
How Do You Get More Traffic To A Video Targetted To A Local Service Business?
Well, if you want to figure out, Avi, I think the best way, in my opinion, to determine which keywords are going to produce actual traffic or leads, which is really what you're looking for, is to set up an AdWords campaign. Even if you've only got … Use two or three hundred dollars as a budget and use that as what I call a keyword discovery budget. And if you go and you set up an AdWords campaign for the keywords that you think that customers are using …
In fact, if you use what's called the Alpha Beta campaign structure, and you can do a search in Google for that. Look up The Alpha Beta AdWords Campaign Structure and you'll find by, I think it's called Q3 digital. It's a PDF that describes what the Alpha Beta campaign structure in AdWords is, but I would recommend using that, because then you would us a very broad keyword [inaudible 00:12:38] Keywords, right? So, keywords that are very, very narrow … Service you're in. You're not specifying that in your comment, so I can't tell you which one it is, but bullseye keyword's going to be very, very specific narrow type of key word with buyer intent, with commercial intent.
And typically, a modified broad match is how you're going to set up a beta campaign and that campaign is going to be used specifically to identify what are the actual search queries that people are using for that particular industry. And it's very simple to do, I mean, it's real easy. AdWords doesn't have to be complicated and the Alpha Beta campaign structure, especially a beta campaign structure is going to identify to you which actual search queries are typing. And the ones that are generating the click through from your ads.
And even if you don't ever intend on running that AdWords campaign long term, if SEO is your thing, that's great, but you can use AdWords to determine … Again, I don't know your industry, but in any industry that I go in to that's new, for local stuff, I'll set up an AdWords campaign and run a couple hundred dollars worth of clicks through that campaign and then from that, I take that data and I build my SEO campaign around the keywords that have been proven to me by actual search behavior. Not using the Google AdWords keyword planner, not using any of these other eight million different kinds of keyword tools out there that are going to give you search metrics and all this other bullshit, I'm going to use actual user data which is generated from AdWords itself. Okay? And that's why I do that, because it gives me the exact keywords that I should be optimizing for or putting my effort into, as far as an SEO campaign.
Hernan: Yeah, if I can add real quick to that and Bradley, I think that Bradley makes a great point because we … I used to make this mistake, too, to spending several weeks or even months trying to work on a project, on trying to rank a website, whether it's an affiliate website, a lead gen website, whatever that is. And the reality is that you can get rankings, that's the first step, then you need the visits. Convert those visits into actual clients, and the reality is that some keywords, they have a huge volume but they don't have any buyer intention, right?
Bradley: They don't convert into leads or sales, right.
Hernan: Exactly. They don't convert. So, I had this client once, that he used to sell these cameras and whatnot and he was getting a lot of traffic from Google, but he was getting a lot of traffic from one specific keyword, which was hidden cameras. You know what I'm saying? And it has nothing to do … Like, it had a lot of hits from Google, but all of the wrong traffic, because people will not end up buying his stuff. So, the point here is that Bradley, it's really [inaudible 00:15:48] with what he's saying, because you're buying data.
Bradley: Sure.
Hernan: Just can see that those 200, 300 bucks that you're spending as buying data. You're buying data [inaudible 00:15:58] you need that data to tell you which keywords are going to work the best, so that you're well on your way to actually ranking those keywords and getting better results faster, so.
Bradley: You don't even need to set up a typical landing page for an AdWords … Like, for just a … It's a click-through test is what you're doing, a CTR test with AdWords, is you can set up a Google doc. So, you can like, literally, turn the Google Doc to public and create a landing page out of a Google doc and use that just to test to get some keyword click through, some search query data, to figure out what people are actually searching for.
And if you want to go through the trouble of setting up an actual landing page to convert leads and stuff, by all means, do that, you may already have that somewhat with a website or if you've got lead gen stuff set up. But I'm just saying, if you don't want to go through the trouble of having to set up an AdWords-complaint landing page, you can do it with just a Google doc.
Hernan: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Is There Another Plugin Or Software Like Google Site Builder That We Can Use To Generate Multiple Pages Or Websites Without Risk?
Bradley: Okay, so Avi's up, I guess … The next question, he says, is “After posting my question to you, I saw Brian has posted a question about the Google site builder. I, too, tried using that software and did not see results after using it for about six weeks. The sites would show up and then not return. Is there another plugin or software that we can use to generate multiple pages or websites without risk?”
I mean, again, it's not about the sites themselves ranking, Avi. It's about using that tool to build sites as a link-building tool, right? And-
Speaker 4:We just use it to funnel the juice …
Speaker 4:Funnel the juice to your site.
Bradley: Yeah, basically. And then as far as generating multiple pages or websites without risk, that's a good way to do it, because it's a Google site. I mean, there's other, some mass page builder sites and things like that, but there's nothing that you're going to do … Any sort of mass page builder or site builder is risky, is inherently risky, because you're scamming Google and that's against Google's terms of service.
Even with Google site builder, if you're spamming Google, it's against their terms of service. So, when you say without risk, there's not really any way to do it. If you're building a bunch of pages, mass generating multiple pages or websites … Google. So, that's not … Yeah, that's not really kosher. We do it anyways, but …
Do I Need To Create A GMB Listing When Promoting Affiliate Offers With No Physical Address?
Okay, Brandon's up. He says, “If I'm promoting affiliate offers and I have no physical address for my online business, do I still need to create a Google My Business listing?” Well, no, but … You can, but you don't have to, Brandon. It's up to you. If you want to validate the entity, there's certainly benefit for that. If you have an online … Like, if you've got your own [inaudible 00:18:37] affiliate business, you should still have a company, right?
You should still have a legal entity because it gives you all kinds of tax benefits and it protects you from liability and all different kinds of … There's a number of different reasons you should have an LLC or an S corporation or something like that, Brandon. So, what I would recommend is if you have that anyways, then you should set up an actual business address, which you can do using just a PO box at your local post office and use the street address option. Because then you can still validate your LLC or your S corporation or whatever the entity structure is that you've set up for your business. You can still validate that as an actual bona fide business for Google, and so you can get a Google My Business listing.
There's no reason why you shouldn't do that. It's going to add authority and credibility to your business. Does that make sense?
Hernan: Yep, that makes sense.
Bradley: Good. “And so, what should I use for my address? Do I use the address of the company I'm promoting?” No, you would use your own address, Brandon. As an affiliate marketer, you wouldn't use the address of the products you're promoting because you're not associated with that … All you're doing is driving traffic and sales to that company. So, you would use your own business brand name as well as your own address, which, again, I would recommend that you just get a PO box from your post office and use the street address option and then you can register a Google My Business listing under that.
Hernan: I'm sorry, Bradley, what do you usually …
Speaker 4:[inaudible 00:20:04].
Hernan: Lines up.
Bradley: Alright. [inaudible 00:20:11].
Adam: How to set up the PO box-
Bradley: Just do a Google search [inaudible 00:20:18] form that you fill out. When you go [inaudible 00:20:20] PO box, it's the same for any post office in America, right? You go set up a PO box, you're going to have to give them your ID, rent it for three months, six months or a year. An extra form that you fill out, it doesn't cost you anything else, it's just an extra form that you fill out that allows you to use the street address option. And you can actually Google that and download that ahead of time and print it out.
Hernan: Why were you asking, [inaudible 00:20:43], for that?
Adam: No, but we have the link and we've shared it several times.
Bradley: I don't have my Chromebook, but I'd rather just share it now, but [inaudible 00:20:51] …
Hernan: Okay.
Speaker 4:Well, that means international clients, they might be able to use the USPS PO box, or some other ways …
Adam: Well, you said USPS and you're international, how do you do it?
Speaker 4:Well, because I'm in the US and we've got it.
[inaudible 00:21:10]
Bradley: James is up.
Speaker 4:You can just register online, and they'll handle the whole thing for you.
How Do You Use Broad Match Modifier For City Specific Keyword In Google Adwords?
Bradley: James says, “When setting up local PC AdWords campaigns using broad match modifier for the city of Los Angeles, which is correct? Los Angeles or plus Los plus Angeles?” The second version, James. For every [inaudible 00:21:29] in a search phrase, you're going to want to have the plus sign preceding the actual word. That's what makes it actual broad match modifier. If you have, like you have it written out the first way, plus Los and then Angeles without the plus sign, then Angeles would be broad matched. Now, in that particular situation, I think Google's smart enough to not really swap out various keywords for Angeles, but just to be safe, it's supposed to be … The plus sign should precede every keyword within the query.
Hernan: And sorry, Bradley, but we have a bunch of people on Facebook, on the Facebooks.
Bradley: On the Facebooks.
Hernan: If you guys are watching live on the Facebooks, you might want to go to SemanticMastery.com/HDQuestions and drop your questions there so we can answer them.
Bradley: Yeah, if you're live on the Facebooks.
Hernan: On the Facebooks.
Speaker 4:Get a couple of them [inaudible 00:22:18].
Adam: Take the series of tubes to Google that's …
Bradley: We've got one of those, today. Alright, we'll do that one in a minute. A good four part question, or three part question. Take ten minutes to read.
Should You Be Worried If A Maps Listing Dropped Entirely When Changed From Zip Codes To Radius Targetting Even If It Still Ranks For A Brand Name Search?
Interesting. I'm not sure why you would pare it down from a radius to just specific ZIP codes unless there … I mean, I'm sure there was a reason for it, Jay, but I wouldn't sweat it yet. But if you wait a couple of weeks and it doesn't look like it's coming back, then I might be a little bit worried and switch it back. Because if that's all that was changed was actually the service area from a radius to just specific ZIP codes, I can't imagine why it would be dropping as drastically.
I mean, anytime you make a change it can dance, but I can't … I mean, to me that doesn't seem like something that could cause a whole lot of negative movement.
Bradley: So, I would give it a few more days and then see … Because I don't know how long it's been since you've done that, Jay, but I would give it a little bit of time to try to settle in. Usually you've got to wait about three weeks when you do something like that. But if it's not coming back, then you're right, I would worry and maybe switch it back to a radius, unless there was a specific reason why you switched it to just the ZIP codes.
Hernan: You know, I don't know if this specifically hit the maps but I think it was this … No, last weekend there was a big shift in the algorithm. Like, it was a big … Like, if you go to AlgoGuru or Google Grunt Meter, there was a big dance. So, I don't know when this happened specifically, Jay, and I don't know if that's related for the maps, but I know that some people that were doing local felt it. You know what I'm saying? So, maybe that's it. So, I would definitely do what Bradley's saying, which is give it a few days.
Bradley: Yeah. And then also, Jay, I don't know how much … If you're part of Syndication Academy, we covered the press release strategy for local last week, during the update webinar #15 for Syndication Academy. We covered that quite a bit. So, go back and watch that if you have access to that. If you don't, though, you probably should join because what I would suggest doing is probably publishing a press release or two for the company specifically. You've got to find some reason … You can make up news about the company, as far as something that's news worthy or announcement worthy, in which case you could publish a press release and then link both to the money site itself as well as to the Google Plus listing … I say Google Plus, but I meant Google Maps listing, because that … We've been seeing some incredible results with local stuff, with just using press releases.
And so, if you do something with a listing that was ranked in maps and it starts to dance, hit it with a press release is what I'm saying, because a lot the times, that will force it back in to the three pack.
Hernan: You obviously still write the press releases, don't use any [crosstalk 00:25:48].
Bradley: Well, yeah, you don't want to … It's got to be done right.
Adam: Yeah, of course.
Hernan: Please don't do that.
Bradley: I just assume that you understand that, so.
Hernan: Yeah, please don't do that. Let me switch this a little … You can keep going.
Should I Find A Fake Address And Phone Number To Use When Creating The Google Properties In Drive Stack?
Bradley: Okay, Andy T's up with the big multi-part question, so we'll try to break this down one at a time. “Hi team, good day all, just wanted to add on to the Brandon Carter question. I'm also promoting affiliate offers through my blog. I, too, do not have a physical address or phone number, also I'm implementing IFTTT strategy and it works great, double thumbs up Semantic Mastery team.” Okay I'll plus one that, thanks Andy.
So, here's the question, “When the Drive Stack, should I find a fake address and phone number to use when creating the Google properties?” I don't like to ever do that, Andy, personally.
Hernan: [inaudible 00:26:37]
Bradley: Yeah, I don't see why you would do that. “Or can I just point everything to the money site URL, since I do not have a real physical address and phone number to use?” No, that's fine. You don't have to have an NAP for a Drive Stack. If you're doing stuff where you have an NAP, like if it's for a local business, for local SEO type stuff, you want to list that in the Drive Stack. But not having one doesn't mean that you should create one or fabricate one. Does that make sense, Andy? So, no. Don't do that. If you're trying to promote just a website or an affiliate offer and you don't need a physical address, then don't do it. For Drives, don't create a fake one, is what I'm saying.
If you have one … Like what I was saying to the other question was, build an affiliate business. You should be doing it under an actual business entity anyways, in which case you should register your own business entity and get an actual address, I mean, that's just validation. But what I'm saying is, if you're just using a Drive Stack to promote a specific affiliate offer and affiliate website … An affiliate page or website that you've created to promote an affiliate offer, you don't need to fake an NAP. There's no reason for it. You just want to push juice to the actual website itself, you don't need to mention any sort of name, address or phone number. It's not important. Okay?
How Does The Google Drive Stack Help The Syndication Network In Improving The Rankings Of A Website?
Okay, so that answered number one. Number two, “As I mentioned, IFTTT is working great for me. Many of my pages have been ranking well. Can you tell me how the Drive Stacks can further help me, since I am not running a local service? It sounds like RYS Reloaded is more suitable for business and not for affiliate websites.”
No, that's not true. I mean, I typically, because I do pretty much 90% of everything I do is local based, that's the only reason why I talk about it applying to locals so much, but we've got members in Semantic Mastery or Mastermind, for example, Jason Quinlan, he does a ton of affiliate stuff and he uses RYS as his primary method for ranking for affiliate offers. So, it just depends on what your overall business strategy is, Andy. If you're doing local, use it for local. If you're doing affiliate, you can use it for affiliate, okay? It's really beneficial in either case.
Should You Build Drive Stacks For Each Of The Pages Or Just 1 Drive Stack And Point To All The Pages?
Number three, “One of my sites has about 100 pages of content, should I build Drive Stacks for each of the pages?” Wow.
Speaker 4:Shit. [crosstalk 00:28:52]
Adam: Well, yes, but only if you find that there's a [inaudible 00:28:56].
So, in other words, if you have a website that has a silo structure to it, so, it's got categories, it may have top level … And so, parent and child categories and things like that, you can create a Drive Stack with folders that … The structure of the Stack itself can model the architecture of the site, to where you would have folder that are basically the silos or the categories. Then, you have, all the files inside are optimized for that particular silo or that category, if that makes sense. But you really only need one Stack for that, you don't need multiple stacks. Does that make sense?
Hernan: Yeah, I would say that you might need to test, Andy. I don't know how big the project is and if you have a hundred pages of content, I don't know how big the competition is, but you can test … You can start with one Drive Stack, I think that that would be the best thing.
Bradley: Yeah, always start with the least amount of work.
Hernan: Yeah, one and probably that will take you up to the top pool, maybe not and you need to do one per category, for example. You've got like, five categories and within those pages you have got like, 20 pages of content each category, you just go ahead with one Drive Stack per category. But that's up to you, and then you need to test, so.
Bradley: Yep. Okay, well, that was [inaudible 00:30:58] four.
Hernan: Yeah, that wasn't too bad.
Speaker 4:[inaudible 00:31:00] Andy.
Bradley: Scott, since he's sitting behind us …
Scott:Now I have to remember the question.
Did You Use The New Google Sites Embed Url Feature To Embed Web Pages?
Bradley: He says, Scott says, is anyone using the new Google Sites embed URL feature to embed webpages. It's now live and I've tried it today. The feature's not available in Google Sites classic version. So, what Scott was telling us earlier was that in the new Google Sites you can actually embed a very simple function inside the [inaudible 00:31:26], correct?
Scott:Absolutely.
Hernan: That's pretty cool, that's pretty neat.
Adam: Hey Rob, if you're watching this.
Bradley: So, you could embed your own money site into a new site page.
Scott:Yes, that's exactly right.
Bradley: And then hammer the hell out of it with links.
Hernan: That would be pretty cool. We were talking about funds, [inaudible 00:31:44].
Bradley: Cool. Alright.
Hernan: I shouldn't say that? Sorry, sorry.
Crowd Searching Recommendations
Bradley: Nick says, “Who do you guys use for crowd searching? I saw [inaudible 00:31:54] has this new feature. Any thoughts?” We're building our own right now, SJ. It'll be in server space, so, right now we're not using anybody else's. We used CrowdSearch.me forever and ever until it started going in the shitter as far as the quality of the … It just stopped working and it's just been … I think the IPs have been burned out, too. Like, traffic bots are using the same type of pool of IPs and so, a lot of those … That click through spam traffic, as we call it, is becoming less and less effective. It's being filtered out or just ignored altogether and I think it's because there's like, limited about of IP ranges that are being used for that kind of stuff.
So, we're developing our own that actually won't fall victim to the same sort of circumstances as the other ones. But it's still in development, we're probably not going to be ready to launch that until the first part of next year.
Adam: Yeah, early in 2018.
Bradley: In the mean time, SJ, I've actually set up … We a CT spam tool showdown, is what I called it, test where we tested several different type of click through spam tools and services and applications and none of them are really producing that good of results right now. The best thing you can do, as far as like … If you want to set up your own micro task worker gigs, for that kind of stuff, it's a little bit more manual but it works really, really well and that still works like crazy. Something else you can do is use AdWords to send traffic places. That's kind of a backwards way to do it, but you can do that as well. That can be quite a bit expensive, though, unless … If you're using YouTube traffic, it's not as bad, but if you're trying to use Google Search traffic, it's pretty much …
But if you set up tasks where you hire micro task workers, MicroTaskWorkers.com is one of the places you can do it. Mechanical Turk is another place you can do it. That's where you can actually go post a gig and say, “Okay, I'll pay 10 or 12 cents for somebody to go Google for this particular keyword then find this particular link in the listings, wherever it shows up in the search results pages, click on it and then dwell on the page for 30 seconds or whatever.” And each micro task site will have different ways that you can describe how you want the gig performed, but there's … And there's ways that they prove it, like they can copy text from part of the site and paste it into a text box so that you know that they actually visited the page and then you pay them.
And again, it's kind of a pain in the ass to set those up but that still works like crazy because those are actual, real people searching from real IPs, just like bought traffic, which are, again, it's just like you bought traffic. And that stuff's just not working like it used to. It used to work really well, but I think Google has gotten wise to that and so it's not working nearly as well as it used to. Okay?
Adam: Cool.
Bradley: Okay, cool.
Adam: Yeah, I was going to say, if anybody's got any questions or we got some things we want to cut … Well, it looked like there was one more, or did just answer [crosstalk 00:35:03].
Bradley: Yeah, no no, I saw one come up, but …
Adam: What's this other one?
Hernan: And there's this …
Bradley: Who's this Jenny girl?
Hernan: Yeah, she's spamming the …
Adam: She's just posting URLs, what's going on?
Hernan: Do you want to ban her?
Adam: Jenny's having a hard time internetting, so. It's all good.
Hernan: [inaudible 00:35:22].
Adam: Well, let's do this other, [Vasrick 00:35:24]? Or did you do that …
Interlinking PBNS And Rankings
Hernan: A month ago …
Bradley: A month ago I started interlinking …
Adam: And then at the exact same time, posted …
Bradley: Yeah, I mean, I can tell you … I'm not sure what you started interlinking, other than your own syndication network, that's the only thing I can think of.
Hernan: Yeah, I think he started interlinking his own website. At the same time, he posted a PBN to his money site. So, at the same time he was working on this interlinking and getting [inaudible 00:36:19] from PBNs, that make sense?
Bradley: Yeah.
Hernan: That's the way I see it.
Bradley: Well, if that's the case, if it's just that you were doing interlinking on page, any time you start doing massive on-page changes, you're going to see dancing. And if you start to do on page changes as well as off page at the same time, you could actually sandbox your site. Because Google's looking for that kind of stuff. That's why a lot of times, we'll do small changes or changes in batches, but then leave it alone for three weeks at a time before making other changes, so that it will kind of settle in.
Hernan: Yeah and then he's saying, “I couldn't tell which one it was, so I undone both.”
Bradley: Undone both, and that's a bad sign. That … Because what happens-
Speaker 4:You made it much worse.
Bradley: When you make changes [inaudible 00:37:02] start to go through that dance, then you go back and undo the changes that did, Google has cached and cached your site, right? And so, when you go in and start making changes and Google comes and crawls your pages, that's when it starts to do the dancing because it says, “Okay, it used to be this and now it's this. It's going to bounce around in the index until we determine where it really belongs.” And so, if you go back in during that time where it's doing the Google dance and you freak out and you start undoing the changes that you made and swapping it back, then the bot comes back and crawls it again and says, “Oh, shit. Now it's back to the way it was. The guy must be trying to manipulate.” Does that make sense?
So, it's like you threw a red flag up and that can really cause some problems because, essentially, when you start a change like that, you're on a probationary period. And that's why we always talk about making a small set of changes or a batch of changes that are all similar around the same type of thing and then leaving it alone for, up to three weeks, really, because then you get past that probationary or sandbox period, and then once you settle in you can go in and make some additional changes.
So, unfortunately I don't really know what to tell you as far as how to recover that.
Adam: I mean, just in terms of testing, I mean, anything this could apply to engineering problems, anything. I would wait, now that you've undone it and give it-
Bradley: I would, yeah, I would at least wait three weeks>
Adam: Three to four weeks, see what happens and then either come back or see what you want to do. Do one thing at a time after that.
Bradley: Yeah, so as far as like … I would give it a little bit of time and then I would start with your internal linking stuff and make changes there and then let it sit and settle back in before we start doing off-page stuff. Because you should always start with your on page changes first and allow your site to settle in before making off-page changes. Because if you get your on-page right, then your off-page work will be so much more effective. Like, your site will respond quicker or better to any off-page work if the on-page is done correctly. Does that make sense?
Hernan: Yeah, 100%. 100%.
Hernan: In fact, it's like the 80 20 rule that we keep talking about, right? Usually, 20% of the stuff that you're doing will bring you 80% of rankings. Meaning, if you work on the on-site, if you work on the on-site SEO, your off-site SEO will be much easier and you will need less links to rank, right? So, there's actually a pattern that we went through with Marco, I think it was through one of the kind of hangouts or RYS Academy webinars, I don't remember. Maybe it was one of those webinars that we did with Marco, when he actually deconstructed … Said it's exactly that.
You make a change, Google start dancing, and then if you freak out and go undo that change, you will get a hit. So, it's like Google [inaudible 00:39:58] banding their caravan, saying, “Hey, you know, you're actually getting the exact opposite results that you were supposed to be getting with a new PBN, for example.” Right?
Bradley: Yeah.
Hernan: Leave it alone, don't touch it. SEO's more a patience game and a strategy game more than anything else, so you need to have that in mind. I wouldn't touch it at all anymore for the next two, three weeks and see where it goes, because, again, that has to do with making several changes all at once and don't know when you can [inaudible 00:40:29]. Does that make sense?
What Services Do You Recommend To Further Improve Ranking When Combined With Drive Stacks?
Bradley: Alright, Robert's up. He says, “Was just looking at your Drive Stacks, just like to know how much your service will help when trying to improve ranking. What other services of yours would you recommend with the Drive Stacks, as I'm an agency trying to rank my personal site. Thanks.”
Okay, Robert, well, that's … It's a very difficult question for us to say, “Oh, it's going to improve your rankings three spots.” We can't do that, there's really no way for us to tell you that. I can tell you that Drive Stacks are incredibly powerful but sometimes they work faster than others. There's so many different variables that have to be taken into consideration.
For example, if somebody happens to build a Drive Stack for a property and less than three weeks later, they say that they haven't seen any results, it must not work, I want a refund, that kind of stuff, then there's … It could be that they didn't wait long enough, there's also a million other variables that have to be taken into consideration. It can't just be the Drive Stack alone. I mean, like, what is your website? Is it optimized properly, does it have the proper categories? Is the on-page done correctly? There's so many different variables that have to be taken into consideration.
All we can say is that if your on-page is done correctly and the Drive Stack … Your keyword selection is correct, your Drive Stack's built correct, then you should see some result from it, but I can't tell you how much because the level of competition is going to make … Is going to determine that as well. But also, we have seen … Sometimes Drive Stacks alone will be enough to make significant jumps with your target properties. Other times, you need to do additional things like, not only once the Drive Stack's been built but you can build links to the Drive Stack, you can send traffic through the Stack properties themselves. There's a lot of other things that you can do to improve the effectiveness of a Stack.
But we always recommend starting with the Stack alone and then waiting a good three, four weeks before worrying and seeing what kind of a result it has. Because, again, if you build a Stack for something and within two weeks you don't see results, that's too early to tell. For example, with the Virginia SEO, the stuff that I use as an example all the time, I built that Google site and that Drive Stack, and I let it sit for probably two months before … And it didn't really respond at anything. It would fall in and out of the index, sometimes it was in the index, sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes it would be on page three, sometimes you wouldn't find it in the top ten pages. And then all of a sudden, two months later, it went straight to number one and it's been number one ever since. And we're talking, what, almost two and a half years now?
So, my point is is you never really know. And I never did anything to that Drive Stack or that G site other than one PBN link blast, which was like, 13 PBN links from a really shitty PBN and that was it. And so, my point is, you never really know with a Drive Stack except build it, give it two or three weeks or a month. I'd say a good 30 days and see what kind of results happen after about 30 days. And if you haven't seen any results at that point, then you can start link boating to the Drive Stack, send traffic into it, there's a whole bunch of other things that you can do. But again, like we just mentioned with the previous question, it's about being patient and allowing some time for it to settle in and actually take effect.
Because, again, if you build a Drive Stack and in three weeks you don't see results and you say, “Oh, well, this shit must not work, I want a refund, you guys suck,” then it's probably just that you were a little bit too impatient.
Adam: Alright, so, I'm not going to lie, I was chatting with [Rob Beale 00:44:04], who's one of the guys, the guys. One of the geniuses behind RYS Reloaded. So, I didn't see if, maybe … Did we touch on the other stuff here, what other services of yours would you recommend with the Drive Stacks? Because that's the other part of his question.
Bradley: Link building.
Adam: If you guys already did, I had my face in … I was text messaging Rob.
Hernan: No, I would suggest that, Robert, if you haven't, get the Battle Plan. Get the Semantic Mastery Battle Plan, that is super cheap. I think we have a coupon code somewhere that we can give you super cheap and it will tell you exactly what to do for local websites, for aged websites, for new websites, and it's a step by step process, right?
So, sometimes it's even like, you have to do stuff before having a Drive Stack, you know? You have to have your on-page right, you have to have your internal linking right, before … And sometimes, you don't even need a Drive Stack. Actually, we used the Drive Stack, sometimes immediately, sometimes down the road, depending. It depends, right? So if you want to get the Battle Plan, that would be like … I think it's 20 bucks or something. And you can get it and you can apply what's in there.
Bradley: Okay, next one. You're welcome Vasrick. I hope I'm saying that right, but you're welcome, man. He said that helped.
Speaker 4:First customer.
Bradley: I'm not kidding. It just … It crushes it, man. Like, to me there's no reason why you just shouldn't be pumping out PR after PR after PR, as long as you have the budget for it. If it's making you money, why not?
Hernan: And Dan is asking if … He wants to come, going to be here for a little bit, right?
Bradley: Yeah, Dan. Come on down, where are we? We're at the …
Adam: I don't, yeah, is somebody going to come by and like …
Bradley: Fucking eh, yeah, come on Dan.
Adam: Bradley wants to drink beer with you, so, yeah, I'll post the location on the event page here in a second.
Bradley: You've got to buy me a beer, Dan. No, I'm kidding.
Adam: Bring five bucks and then we're going to give you like, $25 worth of [inaudible 00:46:20].
Hernan: That's nice, that's nice, that's nice. Yeah, how we do it.
Bradley: So, alright, well, listen, since we've got a little bit of extra time, how about our guest … Thank you, I was hoping somebody would handle it.
Hernan: Let me see how fast …
Bradley: You guys have any questions or anything you want to chat about, since we're here? Don, I don't want to put you on the spot, either.
Speaker 6:I have a question. Google, like, a Google Site that you make through the RYS Stack, if you want to … So, I made one and I think I want to change some of the content, the call to action and everything, I assume that's something you'd wait until you see it ranking where you're hoping it …
Bradley: No, I-
Speaker 6:You'd change it any time?
Bradley: I would change it … With a Google site … I wouldn't be changing my money site content a lot. I might add additional pages and stuff. It depends on how new the site is. Let me explain. For a Google site, what you're talking about is part of the Stack. I would just go in and change it. If you've got to make edits to it or whatever or add pages to it to target the different keywords, that kind of stuff, I would do that. But like, for a money [inaudible 00:47:22], personally, if I get a site built and then I want … I'm always worried about that sandbox period that we're talking about, the probationary period, with my own site. But a Google site, because it's a Google domain, it's different. You see what I'm saying?
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah.
Bradley: So you can go ahead and make changes to that and not have to worry about it being penalized because it's a Google site. Does that make sense?
Speaker 6:Yeah, that makes sense.
Bradley: Anybody else?
Hernan: No, we're probably done early, that's pretty cool.
Bradley: Yeah, I just got a new beer for it, too.
Adam: No, we're good, I want to say something, too. Part of what we've been doing here, we're obviously, we're together, this is rare for us. It's been once a year, so it's been ten months since we were last together and so we've been obviously going over the stuff that we want to plan out, things we want to do, things we want to implement, and I'm really happy that we have people come down and join us. It's good to meet, we talk about Masterminds, we talk about networking. It is really important, it's something that I personally avoided in my life for a long time because I was like, I don't want to talk to people.
Speaker 4:[inaudible 00:48:22]
Adam: Yeah, and so, I mean, our Mastermind, I'm part of our Mastermind, but it's not the only one I'm a part of. I know Hernan's part of a couple others, you guys are, too. So, I just want to stress that importance. And then also, of course, I'm going to talk about ours and we do have a lot of really good stuff coming up.
Bradley: Yeah.
Adam: Part of what we did was planning it out. We've talked to Mastermind members. I don't know if any of you are watching and you want to help corroborate my story, like, post, let them know that you've heard from me, because I've talked to probably 20 or 30 of our Mastermind members on Skype or [inaudible 00:48:55] asking for information and just getting feedback. “Hey, what can we do to make this …” How can we make it more either interactive or how can we provide better information? And that's really the path we're going with it, is to make it better and more complete for people, so.
Hernan: Yeah, yeah. That's actually a pretty good point. And another thing that I figure, because you brought me the Mastery journal and … One of the greatest things that you could do and this is more talking about entrepreneurship and Mindset, which is one of the things that we're starting doing, Bradley's started doing the Mindset series every Monday for a while and then we're going with that most likely into the Mastermind is that, we are here learning from each other.
[inaudible 00:49:43] something that you want to do, you want to keep doing. You want to keep sharpening the ax, you want to keep getting better than what you are, you want to keep staying on top of things. SEO and marketing in general is a really plastic and dynamic industry and you want to stay on top of your craft, so, that's why we do this. That's why the Hump Day Hangouts and we are always out there in the trenches. That's something that I invite you guys to do too, so.
Bradley: And as far as the Mastermind, something that we're really focusing our efforts going forward on just improving that and creating a curriculum for a 12 month plan to take people through various levels of building an actual business and I think that's something that we're going to be rolling that out over the next couple of months while we start putting this content together and restructuring everything.
Adam: Yeah, I was going to say, in the meantime, if it's not for you, that's great. Not everybody's a perfect fit, it's not a Mastermind for every single person in the world. If it's not for you, either whether it's you don't have the money, you don't have the business yet, that's fine. Keep coming to the Hump Day Hangouts. We love it, I mean, we're happy to have people here and online. So, like Bradley said, just keep coming.
Bradley: Yep. So.
Speaker 4:Alright, that was pretty cool.
Bradley: Let's see if we have any more questions. If not, we'll wrap it up.
Speaker 7:Cheers, everyone.
Speaker 6:When's the next hangout going to be?
Adam: Yeah, the live one? That's a good question. We were talking about that.
Speaker 6:Two years?
Adam: It's going to be like, a year.
Speaker 6:I'll be here.
Adam: Okay.
Bradley: So, Greg's got a question. Greg, where the hell are you, man? I thought you were coming tonight, man.
Adam: Yeah, he said he couldn't on the Facebook page, I was like awww.
Bradley: Aww, damn it.
Adam: Free beer!
SEO Value Benefits & Strategies For Multi-Language Pages On The Website
Bradley: Damn it, Greg. He says, “Can you share any experiences in SEO value benefits and strategy adding multi-language pages to your websites? Thanks guys.” You know, I've done that with just a couple of my tree service sites, I've added, there's a plugin … Shit, I can't remember the name of it, I'd have to look it up. But there's a plugin that will actually create and translate pages from English to whatever other languages you want.
Hernan: Is that the WPML? Is that the one?
Bradley: I don't remember.
Speaker 4:[inaudible 00:52:17]
Bradley: I don't remember which one it is, but anyways, there's a plugin that will do that and so it'll create, like, at the end of the URL, slash ES for Spanish, you know, for example. And I've used that on a couple of my tree service sites and I haven't noticed any difference, but I can't imagine it hurting. I don't know, I don't have any exact hard data on that, Greg.
Speaker 4:Right, so, I've used it quite a lot, so it's pretty much the same thing if you were ranking a dedicated site for a specific keyword in another language and plugins pretty much just help you to make it a more user-friendly version of the whole site, so it can actually browse the whole site in one language. For who, it doesn't matter, as long as you're targeting the keyword and Google actually sees it's that site.
[crosstalk 00:53:01]
Speaker 6:There's a Google Translate button that you can actually put on the website.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you can do that, but it's pretty shit quality.
Bradley: Jason says, “LOL, PR buys incoming, man.” No problem, Jason. And by the way, Jason, just so you know, we use … I use multiple press release distribution services guys. I try to be transparent about that, because people just think that I'm always going to suggest that you just buy them from your server space. No, that's, I highly recommend that you use that as well because we do have a good distribution service, but I also use several other versions.
In fact, we've got a new one that we're going to be doing some promotions for and Jason, I'm sure you're already aware of that one, I talked about in the Mastermind, but Peter is a really good dude. So, we'll talk more about that maybe next week. Okay?
Hernan: Next week.
Bradley: Let's see. And we got a couple comments from Rob and Jason about the Mastermind, so, thanks guys.
Hernan: Thank you, guys.
Bradley: We owe you a beer next time we see you, apparently. So.
Adam: Alright.
Bradley: Alright, guys, we're going to wrap it up and drink with our friends now, so., great. Alright, we'll see you all, thanks for being here.
Adam: Cheers.
Bradley: Bye.
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