Click on the video above to watch Episode 164 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 https://semanticmastery.com/humpday.
Announcement
Adam: [crosstalk 00:00:00]
Bradley: We're live, by the way.
Adam: Hey, all right. It's good to know [inaudible 00:00:08]. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts. This is episode 164. It is two days past Christmas, and we are going strong. I got my beanie on. I'm trying not to freeze to death, but I also wanted to model the new Semantic Mastery shirts that literally just came in. I think we're going to have a little giveaway cooked up here in a minute for you, but we'll get back to that after we say hi to everybody real quick. Starting on the left, well he just disappeared, so we're not going to say hi to Chris. We're going to go to Hernan. How's it going, man?
Hernan: Hey guys. Hey everyone. I hope you had a really good Christmas. Happy holidays, and really excited to be here.
Adam: Awesome. Marco, how you doing?
Marco: What's up man? Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. For those who don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a wonderful time anyway, or just as well how everyone take it, I mean it in the best way. By the way, it's warm and sunny in Costa Rica, and I'm loving the weather.
Adam: Outstanding. I'll have to post a picture, I just came back from the mountains. We got like four feet of snow in the last 48 hours. It was nuts, but lots of fun. Bradley, how you doing?
Bradley: I'm good, man, happy to be here. I had a quiet Christmas because my daughter's with her mother this year. We alternate holidays. It's not a big deal, I had her last Christmas and I'll have her for New Years, but it was rather quiet. I ended up working. I worked on Christmas Eve for like five or six hours, and I worked on Christmas Day for like four hours. Got caught up on some stuff, though, but not near as much as I hoped to. This week is uber crazy for me, trying to get a shit ton of stuff done. Preparing for 2018, we got a lot coming up in 2018, especially for the master … Well, for just all our companies, to be honest with you, but Mastermind especially. That's really what I'm trying to do is a race to get prepared to start all that stuff.
Glad to be here. We got only an hour today, instead of the two-hour marathon we had last week. Looking forward to answering some questions.
Adam: Cool. Good deal. Chris hopped back on. Chris, how are you doing?
Chris: Yeah. Doing good, glad to be here as well, like everybody else. I'm back in Vietnam for like two weeks. Then it's back to the slopes.
Adam: Awesome, sounds good. Real quick, I wanted to say too, if you waited to try out the Mastermind, the one dollar trial we had going on, there was a one dollar, seven day trial, and on top of that you get to talk to one of the co-founders of Semantic Mastery, have a 30 minute consulting session. That is gone. Sorry about that if you didn't make it, but that was up for almost a week, so we ran out. All the spots have been filled. We might do it again in the future. This was just something we wanted to do over the holidays and see how it works out for people and give you some one on one time. I guess stay tuned is the best we can say for now. Then we're looking forward to working with the new Mastermind members, like Bradley said, with all the stuff coming up in 2018.
Hernan: Yeah, if I may add, I just wanted to thank you guys for the amazing response that we had. It was amazing. We have been having for the past week, with Christmas and everything in between and with the upcoming new year, but we have been managing to have amazing conversations with people. I'm really looking forward to working with all of you guys on the Mastermind. I think that was one of the best … I think we had a great response, honestly, and we had to cut it short because otherwise we would be overflown with calls and what not. I think that we have been having amazing conversations. I, personally, have been and I know Bradley too, and it just proves the point of the quality of people that's getting into the Mastermind, which is mind-blowing. They're super talented people, people that are moving forward super quick. I am really pumped, actually, for what's coming on 2018 for the Mastermind.
Adam: Awesome.
Bradley: I'm sorry, real quick, Adam. However, some of you guys I've reached out to on multiple occasions now to schedule your 30-minute call and have not received a reply. After I've sent out two or three emails, I'm done. I don't do it anymore. Either check your email box if you signed up for the Mastermind trial, check your email because I have been emailing people trying to get set up. I've had multiple calls that have been really good. I just got off one literally 15 minutes ago with Kelly, which by the way, Kelly, if you're watching, it was a great call. I really appreciated your time today.
That said, I've had some really good calls. As Hernan said, it's interesting to hear some of the very unique business models that some of you guys have. I'm anxious to hear how you apply what we teach if you stay in the Mastermind to your own businesses, and whether it was effective or not, and if so, how? You know what I mean? I think that's really interesting. It can make us better as teachers, as instructors, or whatever, mentors I guess you can call us. If we know how to apply our methods to all different types business models instead of just the standard or typical business models that we are normally exposed to in this industry.
Adam: Yeah, no worries. I just wanted to say before I hand things over to Marco, he's got some information we definitely want to share with people. We talked about it last week. I know we got new people watching every week. I just want to say if you're new to Semantic Mastery, check out the battle plan, the SEO blueprint. I'm going to pop a link on the page. We've got a coupon code for you, so you can grab that dirt cheap, some killer information in there. If you haven't yet, go to searchbase.com, and sign up. Get your free account there for [inaudible 00:05:48] services, got some free tools as well.
Then, the support.semanticmastery.com is a very important place where we put questions we get asked a lot. We love it if you ask questions on here, even if it's a repeat that's fine. We're going to answer it. If you don't want to wait, and you're not sure if maybe it's been asked before, you can go to support.semanticmastery.com, check it out, and we got a database full of answers that we pop in there that are maybe lengthy or that come up a lot, and we have charts and diagrams, things like that, to help you.
Marco, if you want to fill people in a little bit, I know we posted about what we're doing and what you've been working, setting up, and we talked about it, but do you want to fill people in again just in case they haven't heard?
Marco: Yeah. I posted on Facebook. If you go to my page Marco [Benevetiz 00:06:35] unfiltered, the post is there and the link is there. Basically, it's just simply our initiative. We were calling it subs, and it's supplies, uniforms, and books for kids. For every $50 that's donated, one kid gets to go to school for the entire 2018 school year with full supplies, books, uniforms, and everything that they need. We're not asking everyone to donate 100 bucks. We're asking you to donate whatever you can. I know Semantic Mastery has pledged $1,000. One of our partners has already donated $1,000. I'm matching the $1,000 donation.
Our goal is 10K. I'm hoping we beat the 10K, so that we can send the 100 kids. If we go over $1,000, whatever it needs to take us to 15, I will make it up. If we exceed 15, whatever it needs to take it up to 20, I will make up the difference. I don't mind. I love giving to these causes. I'm going to pop in the link so that people can go and watch the video and decide whether they want to donate. It's a great cause. We're making sure that over 90 cents of every dollar go to the children. Of course, we have to pay fees and a whole bunch of other things, but anything that's left after fees or whatever, which is over 90 cents of every dollar, it goes to kids. It doesn't go to anybody else because we have a ton of volunteers that are doing the work. They're doing it for free. They're just giving their time. Go, watch the video because it explains it in more detail what it's all about and why we decided to do it. I'm going to pop in the link at the top for people who want to go.
By the way, anyone donating $1,000 will get … I changed it. I was going to give them an hour of my time. I'm going to give them two hours of my time. Anybody that donates $1,000, that matches Semantic Mastery, what we're pledging, will get two hours of my time, and we can discuss whatever it is that you want, whatever problems you're having. You're going to get my consultation call for your donation.
Should you decide to donate $5,000, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to give you 10 hours of my time. We're going to take one of your projects from start to finish. We're going to rank it. We're going to get everything going, so that you can go ahead and whether it's a client that you just need to rank and you haven't been able to, or some project it is that you've been meaning to get off the ground but haven't been able to, whatever it is, I will give you 10 hours of my time. We'll schedule it. Anyone who has done a consultation with me will tell you whether it's worth it or not. If any of you guys listening who have gotten a consultation from me, please chime in and let everyone know whether it's worth it or not.
It all goes to charity, so I don't mind giving my time if you guys are willing to give to this cause. There you go.
Adam: Awesome. That's awesome, Marco.
Bradley: Sweet.
Adam: Yeah. Nothing to say on top of that. That's a hell of a deal [crosstalk 00:10:10]
Bradley: How do you follow that?
Adam: Yeah. The only thing I would say if you're giving, if you want to give, or you know someone, please help us. If you can share it, pop it on Facebook or Twitter, or whatever your preferred method is. Like Marco said, this is truly something where the vast majority, this is going directly to the kids. There's not a lot of overhead. We'd like to really generate as much revenue for the charity as we can to really get this going. Please, share the word if you can.
Marco: Just so you know, the page, I removed all the cookies, all tracking, no one's being tracked, no one's going to get chased all over the web with the page. No, no. Everything's taken out. You go there, you watch the video, and you're not going to get followed throughout the web. Make sure that if you decide to share it, that everyone knows what's going on. Please spread the word, get people to donate, and these kids need it, man, they need it. I can't tell you anything more than that. They need it.
Bradley: Last thing. Go to bradleybenner.com and subscribe. I haven't done any videos in like two weeks, but I've got like five videos for the YouTube channel for the Mindset Mastery series that I need to record. I've got multiple topics that I'm want to record videos on, I just haven't had the time. I have been doing my daily emails every day, guys. The email list, I think I've got 32 emails in there, Monday through Friday, except on holidays, obviously, but I've been writing a new email every day. It's just stuff that I have been studying and learning. It's a way to really … It's like journaling. I'm journaling but in email format, so it can benefit others besides just me. Some of you may not find it beneficial at all, but some of you may. I've gotten some really, really good comments from some people. In fact, since the last week when we did the Hump Day Hangout, I had like 30 new subscribers, which is pretty good, because again, the only place that this is being presented is on basically Hump Day Hangouts when I announce it here, guys. I'm not driving traffic to an offer or anything like that.
Anyways, I would encourage you to go check it out. I'm putting a lot of work into it, guys. It's just something I'm doing, it's free, it's not going to cost you anything. It's just because I want to do it, and it's helping me. I hope that it can help some of you. Go check it out, bradleybenner.com, subscribe. If you don't like the emails, just unsubscribe. That's it.
All right, with that said, I'm going to grab the screen guys, and we'll get right into it.
Adam: Sounds good.
Bradley: All right. Marco, yeah, there's the link by the way. I think you posted it again, right?
Marco: Yup.
Bradley: We got it on here twice. Okay, cool.
Marco: I also [inaudible 00:13:02] posted it at the beginning.
Is It Better To Create Subdomains Instead Of Individual Domains When Managing A Huge SEO Project?
Bradley: All right. [Shivga 00:13:10], I'm so sorry, dude. One of these days I'm going to have to talk to you so you can help me learn how to pronounce your name. Hey guys, [crosstalk 00:13:18]-
Hernan: Sorry, we had a really good conversation with Shivga the other day, last week. Yeah. We've had a really, really good conversation about it, so I appreciate it.
Bradley: Awesome. Hey guys, I've potentially come across my first big, big account. Sweet. I'm going to plus one that. A prospect wants SEO for approximately 25 websites, which he wants to rank in the three pack for various cities, 155 mile radius around him. I sat down with a guy this morning, and getting addresses for mail verifications is not a problem for him. The options I presented to him are one, large website with 25 sub-domains, or two, separate word press websites.
No, I would absolutely go with sub-domains. I would so that specifically because, look, I don't work for Google. None of us do. We really can't predict the future. For Google to come in and penalize … See, if you got your root domain penalized, it would absolutely affect the 25 sub-domains. If you got an individual sub-domain penalized, then it wouldn't affect the others.
The problem with 25 separate websites is, in my opinion, is, none of them are going to benefit from each other. Does that make sense? I mean, there are some ways you can hack into some benefits. I know I've got several Lead Gen stuff that I've got some of them with roughly 15 locations. I know you're not supposed to do this, but I've done it and it works. That's to link at random from one location site to another. I just use in footer links. I know people say don't use site links and footer links and that kind of stuff, but I've done it and it works. At least, it's worked on some of the projects that I've done. I always do them on sub-domains.
You can accomplish the same thing with doing separate word press websites, but the benefit of using sub-domains is that you are building the overall authority of the root domain with each subsequent sub-domain that you add. Each additional sub-domain or location that you add, you're going to end up building … You don't necessarily need a separate syndication network for each, but you are going to have separate citations for each. You are going to have separate Google my business verified listings for each. You are going to have potentially separate Google Drive stacks, or at least specific folders for each location. Likely, you're going to be doing separate press releases for each location.
My point is, that by doing all that work to each individual location/sub-domain site, you're going to end up building the overall authority of the rooted domain, which means that each new location that you add, is going to instantly be given a boost because it's basically benefiting from all the authority of the root domain, and you're going to get better results a lot quicker. The more that you add, the more authority that accumulates. Its accumulative effect that really starts to occur.
I found that to be the case with a lot of the Lead Gen stuff I've done where I've got multiple locations. The more and more sites I add, the easier it is to add the sites. Again, I would recommend that you go with the sub-domain route. The idea here is to keep your root domain incredibly clean, so don't use your root domain for anything spammy at all. You could use the root for the blog, and just make sure that you're doing the best practices that we teach, which would be a branded syndication network for the root. You can do all of your blogging from the root domain, and actually blog to your 25 sub-domains from the root. That's something else I would recommend doing. When you have multiple locations like that all under one brand if you have separate sub-domains, I don't recommend doing separate blogs and separate syndication networks for each location, unless it's required. What I mean by that is, what I try to do is do all my blogging from the root. Even if I got 10 sub-domain sites, I don't care. I try to do all of my blogging from the root domain and use the root domain RSS feed as my trigger point for the branded syndication network. It's just one syndication network.
Then what I do is, over the course of a few months as I am continuously publishing content to the blog, I start tracking the results of the individual location sites. Some sites are going to respond really well to the blog. Other sites, obviously in more competitive areas, or where the competition is higher, they're not going to respond quite as well from using the blog on the root like that.
In those cases, then it makes sense to create a branded location-specific network for that specific site. Then blogging directly from that location site to that location-specific syndication network. Then you get a little bit of the benefit from the root domain blogging about that location, as well as its own individual or specific location syndication network so that you end up with basically you can power it up from two different locations. That seems to be really, really effective.
Just keep that in mind, guys. One of the things that you can do, [Shidga 00:18:23], I'm sorry that's difficult for me to pronounce, is on your root domain is you create categories for each one of your location sites, so that when you're blogging from your root domain, you just place the posts in the appropriate category, which is essentially the location category. You can build up a ton of relevance that way and it makes your root domain incredibly strong so whenever you add a new sub-domain or new location, it's going to instantly benefit from all of that accumulative authority.
That's my take on it. I'd like to hear the opinions of some of you guys. What do you think?
Chris:Yeah. He's in RYS Academy, excuse me. RYS Reloaded, and he's a really active member. Just post in there because I have something that really kills for something like this. Especially you're going to have the 25 sub-domains and you're going to have separate maps for each one, or excuse me, separate GMBs. You could totally just crush this and your competition won't even know what happened. I mean, just three pack, and organic, organic and three pack, just whatever. It's going to be a mix and it's going to be a big, happy ranking party. Contact me in RYS Reloaded. If you don't want to give away your niche or URL, you can just give me a private message. All my guys in RYS Reloaded, they get a half hour with me whenever they feel that they're ready for it. This would be the perfect time for you to take advantage of your half hour, Shivga.
Bradley: Yup.
Adam: Real quick too. I forgot one thing. When we were doing announcements, best question today is going to get a free T-shirt. That's the thing today. Last chance to get a T-shirt in 2017. We'll ship one of these for you for free. Marco, can you pick the best question today and we'll announce it at the end?
Marco: Sounds good.
Adam: All right. Cool.
How Do You Determine Which Press Release (PR) Will Be Purged In 180 Days By Serp Space?
Bradley: Cool. Great question, by the way. Andy's up. He says BB and team, a question on press release stack technique. You mentioned in your video that to identify the PR that will not be purged after 180 days. Can you explain a bit in detail how we can determine which PR will not be purged?
I talk about this a lot, but one of the distribution points in our Serp Space press release service is NBC 12, which NBC 12 is the Richmond, Virginia NBC affiliate. Richmond is the capital of the state of Virginia. The vast majority of my clients and my lead gen properties are all based in Virginia. When I do press releases submitted through our standard press release service, not the press release plus service but the standard press release service, NBC 12 being one of the distribution points, that ends up ranking really, really well because again, it makes sense because it's the Richmond, Virginia NBC affiliate and that's the capital of Virginia. It makes sense that those PRs rank really, really well.
Now, as far as purging, I know what I said. It's going to vary depending on site, Andy. It's not always 180 days. In fact, that NBC 12 site I was just talking about is more like 60 days, which sucks, because it's a great pickup and it works really well to rank, especially for Virginia terms, but within 60 days it's purged. I found out the hard way.
In fact, I mentioned this, I think, I don't know if I talked about it on Hump Day Hangouts or what, but the press release method, now that I've been doing that for five or six months and I've tested it across multiple properties, several different industries, and I've been able to achieve results damn near every time using the same method.
What happened was recently, within the last three or four weeks, I've noticed a lot of the stuff that I had started doing this method with had started to slip in the maps pack, their maps ranking started to slip. I started going back and researching, and that's exactly what happened is a lot of these PRs now that were originally published, that were all part of a stack, have now been purged.
The short answer is I don't know. Each platform is going to be different. NBC12 is, I think, 60 days. Digital Journal, I think that stays published, but I'm not 100% sure. Here's the workaround. Without having to go try to figure all that stuff out, which would be an enormous amount of work, number one. Number two, it would require you to have to go back in as part of the PR stacks and swap out target URLs. I talked about using a redirect in your press releases when you're doing a stack. When you're linking from one press release to another, use a redirect URL in the press release. Instead of linking directly to the press release that you're trying to boost, use a redirect URL, a domain that you have control over, just use the pretty links plugin, guys, or any sort of 301 redirect plugin. It doesn't matter. Create a redirect. That way, if the original PR that you're trying to boost ends up being purged, you can just swap the destination out in the PR number two, or any of them further down in the stack, further downline in the stack, if that makes sense, so that you can still recapture that juice, that link equity that's flowing through that PR. That's number one, one way to do it.
Keep in mind, that's still an enormous amount of work because you still have to go, especially if you're doing five, six PRs in a row, you've got to try to keep track of all that stuff. That's what I was doing, and I found that as become to cumbersome. If you're just doing it for one or two projects, it's fine. When you start to do this across multiple projects, then you end up … It becomes a management nightmare. I found that to be the case over the last several, since I've been doing so much of this over the last few months.
The work around, Andy, this is what I found to be the best. For instance, one of the sites that we … I'm going to be honest. Our distribution network for our press release service is Press Advantage. We use the Press Advantage distribution network as part of Serp Space. I love it. It's great. It only syndicates to between 200 to 250 sites. It's on the lower end of a number of pickups. However, the Press Advantage domain is really, really strong, and the press releases that get published, when it gets pushed through that distribution network, you get one of them is published on the Press Advantage domain. That domain is a powerful domain. Those don't purge, and the press releases are formatted really, really nice. They look nice, as opposed to most of the other news affiliate sites, the press releases look like garbage. They look shitty. There's a ton of ads on them. The pages load slow plus all that other crap. They purge, which sucks, because you end up doing work that you lose a few weeks, or excuse me, a few months down the road.
My point is, what I've been doing, and it's funny but one of our … Muhammad, who's got a question coming up here. He's been active every single week. I had a phone chat with him because he took us up on the one dollar trial. Anyways, in the Facebook group, he asked about that specifically. We just had a nice long thread about it. I recommended to him the same thing. For what I'm doing, Andy, for all of my first PRs, the tier one press release that is the start of the stack, the stack heading so to speak, I'm using the Press Advantage distribution network for that. Then I go get the press release published on that domain, and use that as my target URL as the stack. Does that make sense?
It's very, very powerful. It doesn't purge, and it looks nice, which means visitors are more likely to convert from that page than they are from one of those crappy looking press releases on the news affiliates sites. I know that was a long-winded answer, but it's a great question. It's something, like I said you guys, I've been real transparent about this is a method that I've been testing and developing over the last several months. It's just an experiment, just like everything we do, we experiment and then try to share the results.
I found that although effective doing the stack method, unless you know which PRs don't purge, and you use those as your stack points, then you end up creating a lot of additional work down the road. I don't like rework, guys. I like to try to be efficient. I like to try to set shit up one time and benefit from it for months or years to come. Does that make sense?
The short answer, after giving you that real long answer is, I recommend that you identify some of the distribution sites that don't purge, particularly ones that look good, like I mentioned, the Serp Space. Not the press release plus service, but the first one press releases. We use the Press Advantage distribution network. It's very powerful for exactly the reasons that I just mentioned. Then what I'll do is start using the press release plus service, which syndicates to 450 sites, has the maps embeds and video embeds. I use that as part of the stack, so down line. Then I'm also using Press Cable. I'm using Press Cable, quite a bit, to be honest with you.
All of those are really good distribution services, but you just got to select which ones you're going to use as your stack points, so that you don't create a shit ton of work down the road. Great question, though, Andy. I'm going to plus one that.
Then I think I'm going to probably do the press release course, have that available sometime in February. Just keep that in mind, guys. I appreciate you guys. Andy, you got going out and trying to figure all this stuff out on your own, that's awesome. I love the initiative. You're ambitious. That's great. Keep it up, man. That's how we learn how to do shit, exactly what you're doing, just testing. Okay?
How Do You Rectify A Press Release That Has Already Been Submitted To Serp Space?
Next question from Andy again. He said just received notification from Service Space that my PR went live. Went to check and realized that the email and brand name has some typo. Yeah, you need to check on that when you submit the data. That's really critical. What can I do to rectify this? Should I order a new PR to cover the typo? Yeah, I mean unfortunately what's already been distributed, you can't do anything about. You can publish a new press release, but you have done … Let's see. The brand name has a typo. Yeah, see that's basically an NAP error now. Right? That can actually cause a little bit of issues, but there's not really anything you can do about it now that it's been distributed, unfortunately.
That's one of the problems with press releases. It's not really a problem, you just have to be aware of that ahead of time. You have to check, double check and triple check before approving a press release, or when you go to submit your data via the order form, just always double check and triple check before hitting the submission button to make sure everything's spelled correctly. You don't have any punctuation or spelling errors, or anything like that, because that can effect NAP. All right?
Okay. Also, checked with Google News and cannot find any of the PR. That's okay. Don't worry about it. For example, I just went through that diatribe about Press Advantage, it's not a Google News site. In other words, that domain does not get indexed in Google News. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. I still use that as the starting point for stacks now because it remains published, and it's a powerful domain, and it ends up ranking really well too. Even though it's not in Google News, don't worry about it.
I mean, remember, for my use of press releases, I'm not really looking to target people that are searching Google News. I'm looking to target people that are searching universal Google search, just standard Google.com search. I don't really care whether it's in … I know originally when I started this method one of the things I mentioned always started the stack with one that is in Google News, but I've since changed that. My opinion has changed. That's not necessary. Okay? Another good question, though, Andy.
Is There Any Reasons An Optimized (Branded) Remodeling Contractor Video Wouldn't Lead To High SERPs?
David's up. He says, I may not make it to Hump Day Hangouts, but hopefully you'll answer the following. Are there indications that Google search doesn't or won't return page one results for certain keyword niches, in particular … Well, there's always a page one result for certain keywords. I mean, it doesn't start on page two, so I'm not sure what you mean.
If the company's brand name, the company name, is a keyword, which happens, guys. I mean, when I first started doing lead gen stuff years ago, I would create all my pseudo, my pseudo businesses, and I'm doing air quotes, as the most obvious name period, like I would just say Colepepper Tree Service. I'll say that. I live in Colepepper. I would call it, or Colepepper Plumbers. You know what I mean? Think about that.
If that's the brand name, then yeah, because basically, your brand name is a keyword search, that means it's likely going to be difficult to rank, especially in major metropolitan areas. Broad type keywords are difficult to rank videos for where there's a lot of competition.
Now, a brand name search, if you're optimizing the video for the brand name of the company, and it's not some generic keyword brand name, then it should rank well. Again, it should rank well. You're talking about a YouTube video, so as far as, I found that when you optimize for the brand name of a company, you can typically rank for that, unless of course if your brand name is essentially a keyword, in which case then you're going to have trouble. Does that make sense? I'm not sure if … Does anybody else have another explanation for that?
Chris:No, it makes perfect sense. Google filters certain niches. We did a test for payday loan, and we ranked the video on the first page, and it disappeared within 30 seconds. That's how quick the filter is on that, the algorithm. That's how quickly it gets removed from searches. Although it got to the first page, it immediately disappeared. It was filtered out. There are some niches that you cannot get a video rank period.
Bradley: Yeah. We talked about, again, one of our members, I'm not going to mention who it is, but one of our members was talking about doing realtor marketing stuff, real estate marketing. I did that for, I don't know, six months or so, for … I targeted a bunch of realtors here in Virginia and I started doing marketing for them. I found that to be incredibly difficult to rank videos for keywords like real estate videos. That's what I started with was trying to rank videos. I eventually switched to doing more traditional websites and stuff because the videos, no matter … I would basically nuke it with everything we had, and I would be able to get the video to rank on page one for the keyword, for my desired keyword, it would last like a day or two, and it would always bounce back to page two. It's like Google was just … As soon as it got to page one, it might last 24 hours, and then it would always push back to position 11 or 12. It was always going back to page two.
That's when I realized that there are keywords out there that Google just won't show video for. I think it was Derrick Pierce that did a training a long time ago about this. It made a lot of sense. I don't know if this is valid, but I trust him, so I think that it probably is. If you do a search query, let's just say plumber Colepepper. You guys see my full screen, correct?
Adam: Yeah.
I haven't confirmed whether that's 100% of the time, like that's a law, or if that's just something that's been more coincidental, but I've noticed that a lot. That's something I do. When I'm looking to see if I can rank a video for a particular keyword, obviously I use a ton of testing tools now like Live Rank Sniper, or something like that, but one of the things I always do is take a look, just do a quick manual search and just look. If it has video tab up here, then I think there's a greater chance. Again, I don't have any data to back it up other than just from what I've experienced. Does that make sense?
Do You Charge Additional Payment For A Client To Get Local Exclusivity?
Anyways, good question again, David. Muhammad's up. What's up buddy? I enjoyed our call last week. Hey guys, do you charge more for a client to get local exclusivity? Yes. Well, I don't charge more except that … I mean, in other words, I don't sell leads to more than one contractor, period. Yes, I charge more if I was to sell leads to multiple … Like the same lead to three different contractors, then I would absolutely charge less. Part of my pitch is that I provide exclusivity of leads. Does that make sense? I don't ever resell the same lead.
We do tangent market stuff. I've got a roofing client that I set up all his lead gen stuff for him. I should have never done that. I should have kept it for myself. He gets a shit ton of leads, by the way. Whenever he gets roofing leads, roof repair leads, that's what he's a roof repair contractor … What the hell was that?
Hernan: Sorry. That was my doorbell.
Bradley: Whenever he gets roof repair leads, he ends up taking that lead and sells it to a drywall and painting contractors, he sells it to carpet cleaners, and he sells it to water damage restoration companies, and so he ends up taking the lead that he gets for roof repair, which is what he does, and he ends up monetizing that lead to tangent markets, which are markets that are related but aren't in direct competition with him. It makes total sense because if someone's roof leaks, it's going to ruin their ceiling. It's going to ruin their floor, and they're probably going to have water damage that has to be repaired.
It's just a great way to make a lot of money from additional, but again it's exclusivity of leads. I don't charge more for that, but that's only because I don't sell leads to more than one contractor, if that makes sense.
Marco: Right.
Hernan: Looking at that from-
Marco: Sorry about that.
Hernan: Go ahead, Marco.
Marco: Looking at that just from another point of view, if you're going to rank someone, say on Maps, and you take three clients, there's only one number one spot on the map. Now you're in an ethical bind because whom do you choose to rank number one? I mean, if you're that good, who goes number two and who goes number three? Who are you going to … It puts you in a place where you have to compete against yourself, and you have to have them compete against one another, and they're all paying you for the same thing. To me, that's totally unethical.
Hernan: Yeah. I definitely agree with Marco. I love the vertical approach that you mentioned, Bradley. I think that's genius. That's actually how you grew a six figure to a seven figure to an eight figure business. That's how you actually do it, by developing additional verticals. Now with that said, I think that exclusivity needs to be paid. Right? For example, if you're charging more per lead, let's say that you own these parts, you're not ranking clients, but you're actually doing lead gen, I would say that you want these leads exclusively for you, you need to pay a little bit more because they're exclusive otherwise, or you can say I'll sell them to three other contractors, it's first come first serve. You know what I'm saying?
I think that exclusivity needs to be, even if you're not doing that, needs to be something that it's part of the pitching. It's part of the unique selling proposition that you're pitching.
What Tool Do You Use When Checking Website Speed?
Bradley: That's funny, Wayne. Sorry, Hernan, I was listening, but that's just funny. Cool. Thanks, guys. What do you use to check site speed? Is Google's tool okay? Apparently Clint Butler, he's a Mastermind Member and he does a ton of website speed stuff, and apparently their Google tool's worthless. I never used it much anyways. I use GT Metrics when I did a lot of website speed stuff. I still occasionally will go … I just go in and test stuff occasionally now, but there's another one called Pingdom, I think Ping Dom, D-O-M dot com, I think is another one that you can check site speed with. Any of you guys have any specific recommendations?
Hernan: I use those too, as well, Pingdom and GT Metrics.
Bradley: Yeah. I did some training, I think in 2013, it's on my YouTube channel on how to improve site speed. Then there was a followup video to that on how to use Amazon Cloud Front as your CDN content delivery network. It's using the W3 total cash plugin. It's a combination of the W3 total cash plugin, the settings for that as well as Amazon Cloud Front. That works amazingly well. It's geeky to set up, that's why I had to do a video on it and step by step working procedure, or standard operating procedure of how to do it. All that stuff is on my channel. You can do a search for it, YouTube.com/bradleybenner and search my channel, you'd probably be able to find it. If not, you could probably search Google and find it.
However, I haven't updated that training since 2013, so some of the stuff for like Amazon Cloud Front may have changed. I'm not planning on going and updating it anytime soon. That, I've been able to take sites that were getting in the 30s, like what you're talking about, and boost them all the way up into the 90 plus range, as far as the scores from GT Metrics, just by doing exactly what I show in that video. It works amazingly well.
Again, it's a big geeky to set up. It's up to you, Muhammad, if it's something you want to tackle. I would recommend you maybe just find somebody that can do that for you that's really proficient in it, because it's something that it's going to take a while to learn how to do, to do it properly, unless somebody knows of some cheats or hacks. I know Clint Butler, again, he's always got some really good information on how to speed sites up. You're in the Mastermind right now, Muhammad, I would definitely get with him. Do a search on the Facebook posts. You might be able to find some info there that you can lean to.
Marco: I would recommend Doctor Gary, also. Either Clint or Doctor Gary Kerwin.
Bradley: There you go.
Marco: They're both really good at pace speed, and as far as Pingdom goes, there's a problem usually with one of the servers, I forget which one it is. I prefer GT Metrics over Pingdom.
Is There Any Limit To How Many Questions One Can Ask When In A Free Trial Of MasterMind?
Bradley: Okay. Muhammad, last statement really, or question is, I took the free trial of Mastermind and it's cool, so I think I'm going to stay. I just want to make sure, is there any limit to how many questions I can ask? No, Muhammad, there's not, either in the webinars or the group. I don't want to seem spammy, if that makes sense. I appreciate that, but no, that's part of the point with the Mastermind is to have direct access to us and also to all the other members. We welcome the questions, okay? Feel free.
Is It Okay To Use Google My Maps Or Should We Stick To GMB Embeds?
Marco: Absolutely. Just don't go crazy. Just don't go crazy. Slow and easy and if you need more, you can always do more. You can't take away if you bomb it and it starts dancing like crazy for months, there's nothing that you can do but wait. If you take it nice and easy, you do some embeds, see how it reacts, you do some more if it needs more, then yeah, absolutely, both.
Bradley: Yup. Just so you know, I think we talked about this last week or something, but with maps embeds, I usually do something really small, like what Marco just mentioned. I start off with maybe 25 or 30 embeds. Then I wait, and I wait for a few weeks, like literally two or three weeks to … I put them on drip too, so it's usually dripped out over two weeks. Then I wait an additional week or two beyond the time that … Usually it's three or four weeks from the date that I order, that I order the maps embeds, that I'll go monitor the results and say okay, I need some more embeds. I do it very, very slowly. It's not like a video … Even videos, guys, I do the embeds stuff, I drip it out. I just don't hammer it with … I don't throw everything that we have at it right out of the gate, because to me, that's ridiculous. It's overkill a lot of the times.
Is It Okay To Use Spun Content For Tier 2 Or Tier 3 Links On A Google Site?
RL Sanders is up. I know it's been mentioned that we don't need unique content as part of a Google site. Can we use … Well, it depends, RL. Before I get on the rest of the question, it really depends, like if you were going to be trying to rank a Google site for like a money site, like a property to generate leads and things like that, I would recommend that you set up the site so that it will convert. Which means, don't use shitty content. Make sure it's good content, the layout looks nice, that kind of stuff. My SEO Virginia example, that was never set up really to generate leads. I do get leads from that, but it's really an atrocious looking site. I haven't ever wanted to go back in and update the site to make it look pretty and all that stuff because I'm afraid it's going to effect it's ranking, to be honest with you. I don't know if it will or not, I just don't want to mess with it. It was an experiment that's been holding strong since May of 2015. I didn't want to mess with it.
My point is, if I was going to use that same strategy to rank sites for leads for another industry or whatever, I would make sure that the site was built really well and set up for conversions. It would look nice. It would have good content. The new Google sites you can actually make look incredibly good. The old ones, you could only do so much with. That said, I would say if you're using Google sites as link building, like a public link network instead of a private blogging network because they're public, if you're going to be using them for link building, then I would say yes, you can get away with using pretty much any kind of content you want. Okay?
Can we use spun content for tier two links? Well, you can but it depends. I would recommend it depends on what your target URL's going to be on tier one. Your tier two links are building links to tier one properties. What are your tier one properties that you're linking to? If it's another Google site or something like that, yeah sure, it's fine. Drive stack, that's fine. There's some things that I would want to link to, like do follow links directly from a tier one property to my money site if I'm using spammy content and stuff like that, you just got to be careful. You got to know …
I know, Marco, I don't know how far out you saw, but Google is looking beyond two hops away from the money site now, correct?
Marco: Yeah, absolutely because we use IFrames. Google tunnels right through the IFrame. It goes each hop. It's able to determine each hop, however far out that IFrame resides.
Bradley: Yeah. Okay. That said, I would just recommend that if you're going to be using crappy spun content on Google sites as link building tools, then just make sure you're selecting properties on tier one that you're going to be linking to that are really, really powerful properties that can handle that sort of spam, like Yelp or Facebook or something like that. Does that make sense?
Marco: All of those documents and everything that you do in drive images and whatever, and the G site, they'll rank. Why put crappy content? The more quality you add, the better it is for your overall rankings and the better it'll convert. Hire someone, spend a little bit more time on CTAs. Place the phone number, if there's a phone number involved, or wherever it is that you want them to go. Make it look good so when it does rank and people see it, they'll click on it.
Bradley: Yeah. Are there any problems getting this content to index? No, except that sometimes Google sites are weird in that they index and then they fall out, then they come back. You just got to be patient with Google sites. I'm not sure why that is, but they do that a lot. Don't sweat it. What I would do is just once you've got content on there, go send them through an indexer. We've got an indexer in Serp Space where we guarantee, what 60% indexing rate. It's a guaranteed indexing rate, which is crazy. We've got an indexer there. There's so many indexing services. You can submit them manually using the URL submitter. I wouldn't do a whole bunch of them in one day, but you can do that as well.
Then just keep in mind, be patient with Google sites. A lot of the times they bounce in and out. I'm not sure why, but then eventually they come back and they pretty much stick after that. Good question, though.
Will Serp Space Be Offering A Traffic Program Similar To Crowdsearch Any Time Soon?
Scott says, will Serp Space be offering a traffic program similar to Crowd Search anytime soon? Yes, I'm not going to say when though because we've run into a lot of bugs with it. It's been an enormous amount of development, and that's why it has not been released sooner, Scott, to the Mastermind members. We're still working out bugs. It is certainly still in development.
By the way, there was a bunch of people I spoke with about this at the SEO Rockstars event. I haven't even reached out to them yet, only because it's not ready yet. It's not ready to bring testers in because we've identified issues that need to be resolved. That's what we're working on. Stand by, Scott. I know it sucks. We were hoping to have this out months ago. The reason why it's not out yet is because it's not to where we want it to be yet. When we do launch it, it's going to be the best out there, or we just won't launch it at all. That's what we're trying to figure out now. Okay, Scott? Appreciate you being patient, though.
Can You Achieve Similar Effect If You Create Top-Level Silo Pages And Redirect Them To Category Pages Instead Of Using A Post's Permalink Structure?
What's up, Sam? He was also in Portland, so Scott and Sam both were. Hey guys, happy New Year and thanks for the help in 2017. I have a site that's using post names for permalink structures, so I can't quite do the silo structure you teach. Yeah, you can, Sam. Yeah you can, because you can still create silos, do all of your category. You can do parent pages, child pages, top level categories, child categories, or subcategories I guess they're called, and posts. You can do all of that even though it doesn't show in the URL, doesn't matter.
You're talking about the category/post name permalink structure in Word Press. That's just so that you can see the silo structure in the URL. You can still build out a silo using just the post name permalink structure, and that's called a virtual silo, because all the internal linking is what actually creates the silo, and the way you stack pages, categories, and posts, makes the silo. It doesn't have to show in the URL. In fact, there's a case to be made in not showing it in the URL. You know what I mean? It makes the URLs cleaner and shorter.
Again, we've tested. I haven't done a specific test on this in over two years now, but I have done it in the past. As far as I know from other members and stuff, it's still absolutely valid. A virtual silo will rank just as well as a physical silo. The only reason why I've always used the physical silo where possible, is because I liked how logical the URLs looked when you can see the hierarchy in the actual URL itself. It's not necessary. You can still gain the same SEO benefit using just the post name permalink structure without it showing in the URL. Okay?
Bruceclay.com/SEO/silo, this one is an article that talks about how to do virtual silos and such. This is basically where I learned how to silo from, was this article here. I just implemented what I learned in this article and started testing, and it's a great article, great post. It's several years old now. I wonder if it has a date on here. Anyways, it's an old, old post. It's been around since, I think, 2012, or maybe even before that. I think I was introduced to it around 2012.
Marco: We also have two videos in our YouTube channel. [crosstalk 00:53:57]
Bradley: I think that's what Sam's talking about, Marco, because I show to use the category post name structure. I think that's where, Sam, you might be getting caught up. You can still do it without showing it in URL, is what I'm saying.
How Can You Tell If A Site Has Been Penalized By Google?
All right, guys, we're almost out of time. I'd like to get a couple more questions. Thanks, Wayne. Wayne, you can I can chat anytime you want, buddy. You don't need to take the one dollar trial for that. Ralph says, hey guys, how can I tell if a site has been penalized by Google?
Do a search. Do a search. Well, you should be able to know if it's indexed or not, because you can do info:, and then type … Say your domain is domain.com. You would do info:domain.com. Go to Google.com, and do info:domain.com. The home page should show as indexed. If it doesn't, then you're de-indexed. Also, if your site is connected search consol, formally webmaster tools, you should be able to see under manual actions if there was a manual action taken. Doesn't mean that you can't be penalized without a manual action, because that can happen too, if it's algorithmic.
Something else you can do is just do a search without the info: operator, do a search on just the domain name. Go to Google.com, search the domain name, not the full URL, but just the domain name. It should be the first listing that shows up in the search results if it's not penalized. If you search for a domain name, and it's got a website on it, it should be the first things that shows in the search results, because you're searching specifically for that domain name. If there are other things between it, like in other words if there's other domains, other listings, above that domain when you search specifically for that domain, it means that there is an algorithmic penalty applied to it. Does that make sense? That's one way to check it.
First check that it's indexed. Once you verify that it's indexed, search the domain name. If it's not the first listing that comes up, it means that it has been penalized algorithmically, it could be manual too. Again, check search consol, it'll let you know. Anybody have a comment on that?
Marco: No, I think that those options are pretty much what's there.
Do You Think That Embedding Google Doc Via Goo.gl To Around 1000 Web 2.0 With Spammy Content Can Lead To Suspension Of Google Account?
Bradley: All right. Last question guys, then we're going to wrap it up. Yeah, Daniel says Bruce Clay has been advocating strict silo structure since the late 1990s. Yeah, Daniel, that article could even be that old. I don't even know. I just know when I first got introduced to it, I think it was 2012. That's still valid today, that article. Thank you for that. Man, we got all the damn questions. Last one then.
Vitali says, do you think that embedding Google doc via the Google short URL to around 1,000 web 2.0s spammy content can lead to suspension of a Google account? It happened and I'm trying to figure the reason. Did not do anything else with that account.
Yeah, that maybe it, Vitali. Marco, what's your thoughts on that?
Marco: Yeah, he didn't embed the Google Doc. He submitted the Google shortened URL to 1,000 web 2.0s. If he had just IFramed the document with the Google link, I don't think he would have had a problem, because we never had a problem. We've done some real garbage with this stuff. I'm thinking he's getting names mixed up. You don't embed the Google shortened URL. You can't. You can only submit. You can put it in those spammy web 2.0's, but if you had just IFramed the Google doc, I don't think he would have had any issues.
Bradley: Yeah, and here's the thing, real quick. I've used my Google short URLs for video SEO stuff where I've taken a YouTube URL and shortened it with Google, the Google shortener, and then went and bought a re-tweet gig, I'm sorry, then tweeted that Google short URL, which ends up showing the embed, the video embed in the tweet. Then you get re-tweet gig, like SEO clerks or fiver or something like that, and get like 25,000 re-tweet gig. Every single time that tweet is re-tweeted, it counts as a hit on that Google short URL.
If you create a Google short URL through your account, or through any profile account, you can go look at analytics for that short URL and see clicks, devices, locations, all that kind of stuff. I don't know if you guys knew that, but that's part of the reason why Google short URLs, Google URL shortener can be used very strategically because it basically injects Google analytics into any link stream that you shorten with it. If that makes sense.
What's interesting is if you go do that, shorten a YouTube URL, tweet it, it doesn't have to be YouTube, you can shorten any URL, but go tweet that URL, and then do a shit ton of re-tweets, you'll see that those all count as hits, just the re-tweet itself. Whether it was clicked on or not, it's the posting of that URL that counts as a hit. I used to do that a lot for video SEO stuff, haven't done it in quite some time, but I did an entire video about that very specifically. It should be on our Semantic Mastery channel if you'd like to take a look at it. I think it's social referral traffic, video SEO with social referral traffic, or something like that. If you search that on our channel, you guys should be able to see a video I did with Jason Johnson that was like an hour long about specifically that method. It should still be valid today. I haven't tested it in probably well over a year now, but it used to work really well.
All right, guys. Thanks. Sorry John. John, he just joined our … By the way, John, I just emailed you today to set up our Mastermind call. Please check your email and reply to me so we can get that scheduled. Okay?
Guys, we don't have any more time for other questions. I really apologize, John, but since you're in the Mastermind, at least temporarily, unless you decide to stay, which we certainly hope you do, you can post this question in there and we'll get it. [crosstalk 01:00:22]
Marco: The T-shirt, Andy T.
Bradley: Andy T.
Marco: The second question, yeah.
Adam: Let me scroll down here. All right, cool. That was about the PR stacking technique. Andy, if you want the free T-shirt like I was showing earlier, just send an email to support, send a screenshot of the question you asked so we know it's you, and obviously we'll be able to weed out other people who send in screenshots. Contact us at support@semanticmastery.com, and I'll get you a T-shirt shipped out later this week.
Bradley: Sweet. That's awesome.
Adam: Cool.
Bradley: Well, guys, Mastermind webinar tomorrow. Everybody else, we'll see you next year.
Marco: See you next year, everybody. Whoo.
Bradley: Thanks guys. 2017 was awesome for us. We're looking to make 2018 even better, but again, we certainly appreciate you guys that attend Hump Day Hangouts and participate every week. It's a labor of love for me. I know I speak for my partners as well, we really, truly enjoy Hump Day Hangouts. That's why we've been doing it for over three years. We plan to do it for many more years to come. Please continue to join us and engage with us, guys. We'll be happy to be here every week. Thanks, guys, appreciate your help today.
Adam: Bye, everyone.
Hernan: Thanks, see you.
Marco: Bye, everyone.
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