Click on the video above to watch Episode 196 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
Adam: Hey yo! Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts Episode 196. We are live on this awesome 8th of the August, at 4 p.m. Eastern. We got almost the whole crew here today. It looks like Chris is missing. It's pretty late right where he is, so cut him some slack. But we'll just go down and say hello to everybody real quick. Hernan, how are you doing today?
Hernan: Hey, what's up everybody? I'm really good. I'm kind of busy but excited to be here. I'm really excited for POFU Live 2018 as well. Things are coming up nicely, so I'm excited for that.
Adam: We'll be talking more about that in just a minute. Marco, how are you doing?
Marco: I'm working on POFU, man, each and every day. If you guys knew – I can't say, I'm sorry, I'm under NDA – what I was working on to just finally rid myself of this fucking bedbug that's Google, you'd probably, I mean, you'd line up to pay me. But let's just say we cracked the code and, well, I'm not gonna keep dropping F-bombs this early. Put the children away so I can go unfiltered. But having said that, man, POFU.
Bradley: ‘Nuff said.
Adam: Bradley, how about yourself, man?
Bradley: I'm good. I'm happy to be here. It's hot as hell in Virginia right now. They're like stupid hot. Fortunately, I'm in the air conditioning. It gets hot at my office because it's in the upstairs. I got the fan running and everything, but it's still hot.
Adam: Yeah. It just keeps getting hotter as the day goes on.
Bradley: Yeah, it sucks. But it's all right. I'm still happy to be here. So let's get to it.
Adam: Good deal. Well, real quick, if you're just joining us for the first time, thanks for showing up. You can always catch these live like right now, or, if you're watching this on YouTube, obviously, and catch the replay can ask questions and check it out later, whatever floats your boat. If you're looking for the place to start with Semantic Mastery, we highly recommend the Battle Plan. You can find the link either on the page, again if you're watching live or on YouTube.
Real quick, Hernan mentioned POFU Live. Hernan, what is this POFU Live bitch that you speak of?
Hernan: Well, POFU Live is gonna be an awesome event. The first event that we're doing for Semantic Mastery. It's gonna take place on October 19, 20, and 21st of October in Washington, DC. The entire Semantic Mastery crew is gonna be talking and we have some guest speakers as well. So we're really excited about that.
The main point of the event is that we'll help you guys reach in that POFU. Right? We talk about POFU, POFU, POFU, and whatnot. The entire theme of the event is how you reach that position where you can pretty much grow your business, get new clients, get your clients results faster, and how to scale the business that will put you in a POFU pretty, pretty fast.
Bradley: Yes. We're gonna try to create like a three-step process for everybody that attends. Anybody that joins or wants to attend, when you purchase a ticket, you're gonna get sent a survey, essentially, that you have to complete so that we can kind of tailor based on your specific business model, like what products and services you sell, what's your target market, that kind of stuff. So that we can help you apply our three-step process, which is find clients, make the sale, fulfill the service scale. I mean, that was, I guess, four, but some of those can be combined. So it's essentially prospecting, and selling, fulfilling a service, and then scaling.
That's really what we want to do. That's why, in part, why we're trying to keep the number of attendees very, very small. It's very limited to only 25 people because, obviously, we wouldn't be able to sit down and literally help develop a plan for your specific business model if we had 200 people in the room.
That's just part of the reason why we wanted to start our first one with a very small, limited audience, because we really wanna help everybody that comes walk away with the plan specific to their business and what their needs are, what their financial goals are, and what their needs are and all that.
Again, that's all going to be information that you're going to add to the survey before you come to the event so that we can have some time to look over and really custom tailor it for your business.
Adam: Definitely. Yeah. I just had a quick conversation this morning with Jeffrey Smith from SEO Design Solutions, from SEO Bootcamp, excuse me, also the SEO Ultimate Plugin, which we highly recommend. I had really good talk with him. I think you might be able to see it on our Facebook page, about a quick chat about what he's gonna be talking about as a guest speaker at the event and why he's excited to be there. I highly suggest heading over this Semantic Mastery Facebook page and checking that out.
Real quick too, speaking about the event, so we got some really cool tickets available for that. You can just come to the event if you want to, we got VIP tickets available for a little bit more where you can spend some time having fun goofing off with us, also networking, and enjoying it the day before we hop into things.
Then, there's a special too. If you're interested in joining the MasterMIND and taking things up a few notches, you can get a ticket to the event along with – I'm not gonna go to the details – a bunch of goodies, but also a year's worth of the MasterMIND. So it's a hell of a deal you're basically getting to come to the event for free if you check that out.
I'm gonna put the link, or the links are already up there for the live event. So check that out. If you have any questions, shoot us email to support@semanticmastery.com.
All right. I think that is about it. Does anybody else have anything? No?
Bradley: No.
Hernan: I'm good.
Adam: Let's get into it.
Adam: Yes.
Marco: Yep.
Clarifications On Josh Bachynski's Statement
Bradley: All right. First up is Paul Williams. Yeah. Okay. I've read this earlier a couple of days ago, actually, before it was posted, or at least I saw it a couple days ago. Yeah, last week … Oops, sorry guys. Last week or I don't know if it was last week, it might have been the week before, anyways, somebody had come on to the Hump Day Hangouts and posted a comment about something that they said Josh Bachynski said. I just wanna clarify that we commented on it and engaged with that comment without actually verifying the comment on our own. So, essentially, somebody came and posted and said, “Hey, this happened on somebody else's show, this is what they said.”
Well, that could be taken out of context, and we did comment on that comment without having verified the comment ourselves and seen it in full context and that was improper on our part. So I just wanna clear the air on that. Semantic Mastery and is by no means trying to pick a fight with anybody. That's not what we're about. I think that's juvenile and I think that reflects poorly on us.
So I want to kind of clarify that. There was no harm intended. I just wanna make sure everybody understands that. There's not gonna be any fighting in the SEO world between Semantic Mastery and anybody else. Marco has his own opinions and he's perfectly entitled to it; that's part of his charm. But I just wanna make it very clear that we were wrong for comment, or at least I feel like we should have at least verified the comment first and foremost and seen it in full context before we said anything at all. I just wanna clarify that.
I know Marco wants to say something about it. Marco, please feel free.
Marco: Yes. At no point did I take whatever was claimed that Josh said as a criticism of Semantic Mastery nor did it get under my skin. I didn't feel that that was aimed at Semantic Mastery or at anything that we do. If anyone thinks that all we do is drive stacks, then they don't know Semantic Mastery. There's no reason for anything to get under my skin. I went after a specific comment, which may or may not have been made. Some say it was said multiple times, whatever, it doesn't matter now.
I will tell you this: nobody's going to control my mouth and nobody's going to tell me what to say or how to say. I say it how it comes out. If it comes out unfiltered, well, fuck it. That's just the way it is. That's just the way it comes out. I don't try to control what I say. I just let it flow, man. If it comes out wrong, well, it just comes out wrong.
I was commenting on something that was said specific and I dealt with that. I'm going to leave it at that. Of course, it was my opinion, not the opinion of Semantic Mastery. It's what I said. I see at the bottom of that, that Josh said to invite us on the show, well, our email is support@semanticmastery.com, you're welcome to write to us, invite us, and I'll be happy to show and we can have a discussion.
But again, nobody is going to control my mouth. That's just the way it is. I'm unfiltered. That's how it goes.
Bradley: Amen. D Kard posted a reply, and I appreciate this, D, because he says that, “Essentially, this was just a misunderstanding created by an ignorant person who came on Hump Day Hangouts and didn't tell the full story, which made everyone angry at Semantic Mastery. The whole facade was due to an ignorant person who couldn't convey the whole story properly.”
I partially agree, but at the same time, it was also, I think we should have reserved any comment until we had seen the comment ourselves or verified the comment and also in its full context. Again, anything can be taken out of context guys and we reacted to something that could have very well been taken out of context. Again, I wanna apologize for that because that wasn't very professional, at least as a brand from what I think. Again, what Marco said about the specific comment, that's fine, but I'm just saying there was no attack there and I just wanted to clarify that.
What Are Your Thoughts On WP Gutenberg Editor?
I don't even know what this is. Is anybody else familiar with this?
Adam: No. I'm just checking it out myself. I'd heard of it, but it looks like it's the new editor. I'm sure Jordan could enlighten us and let us know if it's already live or something. But that's just the name of the new editor that's out there.
Bradley: Oh, okay. I saw it inside one of my WordPress sites today about a new editor coming soon.
Adam: Yeah. It looks like it's kind of going the way of the … I forget what it's called, but … God, I'm having a total brain fart. But anyways, where you have like content blocks instead of more of the text type editor.
Bradley: Yeah, like a modular page-
Adam: Digital composer. That was what I was trying to think of.
Bradley: Yeah. Visual builder.
Adam: Yeah.
Bradley: Yeah. Okay. I know I haven't used it yet. Unfortunately, Jordan, no. But I can imagine it's a … I don't know. I mean, it might break shit. I don't know. I can't imagine why it would though, because, for example, I use Thrive Themes. We just had to update our subscription to that again, which is freaking expensive. I use Thrive Themes for a lot of sites and that's a modular page builder, and it doesn't break anything – that I've noticed. Like the Syndication still work, the blog post still syndicate. I haven't seen anything buggy, but I don't know. We shall see, Jordan. I'm sure you will see reports in the Syndication Academy group if that happens. Okay.
Have You Tried Manipulating Q&A On A GMB And Saw A Difference In Map Rankings?
Brian says, “Anyone in here manipulate the Q&A on GMB and saw a difference in map rankings?” I have not. I haven't done much with that yet. In fact, I haven't done a whole lot with Google My Business other than just maintain client properties recently because I'm working on the prospecting and sales side of it to be added to the Local GMB Pro training once I've proven the method. First, I have to develop it, which is in progress now, but then I have to prove it, and then I'm gonna share that with Local GMB Pro.
I haven't done much in there but maybe Marco has. Marco, what do you say?
Marco: Yeah. I mean, it's one of the things that you have to try. Whether there's a difference or not, we share our findings inside our Facebook group. We try to keep everything in there as far as what we do inside GMB. Generally, yeah, you can manipulate Q&A and then you could see for yourself whether there's a difference in map rankings. It's not that difficult, right? What's that called? Answer The Public. Go to Answer The Public, get a ton of questions that you could then answer and see if there's a difference when you do that, see if there's a difference in map rankings.
When you're doing that, you're getting paid, man. We wanted to give people the ability to do that. Now, as a side effect, let's call it, of all of this that happens inside GMB, yeah, you will start ranking in the 3-Pack and you will start ranking in organic search.
Bradley: Okay. I locked it on you for a minute because I had to pause the screen because I want to show something. I know this is part of the case study inside Google My–, or excuse me, Local GMB Pro and I just want to point this out because of what Marco just mentioned. I don't mind showing this.
If we go to Insights here, this is the project that I used as the case study, which, by the way, I've got a second case study that I'm gonna be adding in the Local GMB Pro for a contractor, which is awesome because that's primarily my business, the type of industry that I target. So I'm actually looking forward to that.
This taxi service one was kind of boring for me because it's not an industry that I have much interest in. Right? But it just worked out that he was a new client right at the time we were launching the Local GMB Pro so I thought it would be a good case study.
But what I wanna point out here, and let me just zoom in very briefly guys, because this is what the point Marco was trying to make, is the fact that, just take a look at this. Look at some of the interactions. He got 16 interactions for the short single term phrase taxi and then 12 interactions in the last 30 days for cab.
Trust me, he's not ranking for those terms. If you go to Charlottesville, which is where this guy is, where this company is and you search for, or you set your rank tracker to Charlottesville, or any one of those zip codes within the Charlottesville proper or anything like that and use … Because I use BrightLocal and that's how you set local reports to track for maps, for mobile, and for desktop.
Anyways, you can set the actual search location. That's not perfect, but it's better than doing it without setting a specific location. My BrightLocal reports don't show him ranking anywhere near page two, page three, page four for some of these single phrase keywords. But yet this is absolute proof that in the last month people have been exposed to his business for these short phrases, if you see that.
Again, it has nothing to do with rankings, guys. If you don't understand what the Local GMB Pro service is or how it produces results, go back and watch one of our webinars where we've talked about it – like the launch webinar or whatever – because we go into great detail as to how this works or at least how we know it's working because it's producing results.
But it's not something that can be tracked by regular ranked trackers because it's pretty much all speaking to the mobile algorithm and to individualized personal search results based upon browsing history, where they're located, so geolocation and all of that.
But you can see I'm absolutely getting engagement from those, or this company is anyways. Okay. It's crazy. Because I, mean, look at this, guys, 81 actions within the last month alone, 29 visits to the website, 51 calls, and one text message chat from only 134 maps exposures. So, I mean, that's pretty incredible, right?
Marco, do you want to comment on that at all or should I move on?
Marco: No, no, man. We said we were gonna turn SEO on its ear. This is results driven SEO. It's no longer about ranking; we don't care. It's no longer about the 3-pack. We don't care. It's all about results. We produce results for clients, clients pay us. ‘Nuff said.
Bradley: Yeah. Again, it's independent of rankings, guys. Rankings are cool because we're SEOs. We'd like to see all that and a lot of clients have been conditioned to expect to see ranking in reports too. But I've had to re-educate my long-standing clients and my new clients, you know, people that are coming in new, I tell them right off the bat, “Forget about traditional rank trackers, that's old. Who cares whether you're ranking or not if nobody's seen it? Because it's all mobile algorithm now and it's mobile indexing first and because of that we should be focused in on mobile data, which Insights is primarily mobile data.
So my point is, if I can show … Remember, Insights is only showing the mobile activity, it's not showing desktop and laptop activity. So my point is what you're showing in Insights is actually only a portion of what the type of engagement signals that they should actually be receiving. Because, remember, GMB Insights does not track people that … It might track a click to the website, but if somebody picks up the phone, because they landed on your website and then calls from another phone, unless it's from their mobile device where it's a tap to call and Google can now attribute that call directly to either from the search results, from the mobile device directly from the search results, or from a post, a GMB post, or from the website that they can determine that.
But if somebody's looking on a laptop and they see the maps listings, see the phone number, and then they call from their mobile device that's not going to track as an engagement signal in GMB Insights if that makes sense.
So my point is the Insights shows so much engagement on mobile but that's only a portion of the overall engagement or exposure that that business is actually getting because of, like I said, the restrictions on laptop and desktop not being able to track some of the actions that that visitor is taking, if that makes sense. Okay?
Again, it's one of the most powerful things that I've seen. I think it's incredible how quickly you could generate leads from GMB stuff, guys. So in case you haven't joined it yet, do so.
Marco: One of the things that I'm constantly harping about in the Facebook group is that you need to be able to track everything just because of what you said. Because if you don't, then you're not going to be able to track some of the conversions. Some of them will take place on websites, some of them will take place by other means, but maybe they go and fill out a contact form or whatever. You need to be able to track everything so you can get paid for everything.
Do You See Value In Adding GSites To Keep A Site Active?
Bradley: This is cool. Steve. Okay. Steve says, “I know you have described the Google Plus as a wasteland before, so do you see value in this new addition to G sites to keep the site active possibly via IFTTT?” G sites and there's links here, guys. That's interesting because this was just published on July 30th, so literally nine days ago or 10 days ago.
That's crazy because Google Plus has been absolutely, Google has been pooling Google Plus's integration with all of their other products. They've been doing it over the last two years really. They've been pulling it out slowly but surely. For example, you don't see Google Plus as an option inside of GMB anymore, inside of Google My Business. It doesn't automatically create a brand page anymore. You actually kind of have to dig around to figure out how to create a brand page now. It's interesting.
They've taken it out of YouTube. They've taken it out of just pretty much everything. So it's interesting to see that just 10 days ago they're posting an article about adding G Plus streams as a new feature to Google sites.
I do think that's a great idea embedding … Look, I'm not gonna … Marco's our iFrame genius and we had a discussion in our MasterMIND community, actually the Facebook group specifically about iFrames and how freaking fabulously they're working. Marco was commenting on that just recently, the last couple days.
Again, that's because if you've got an embedded Google stream, Google Plus stream, then yeah, that's great because you're just creating this iFrame tunnel, like picture-in-picture type thing, that's just Google properties and it ends up creating a loop. As long as you close the loop with your G site iFrames and you can iFrame into it, like add ID pages, we talked about that kind of stuff in the Syndication Academy for the February update webinar. Everybody loves that. We call it the iFrame, local iFrame loop.
All those things are incredibly powerful and it's because they're utilizing iFrames. If you can utilize Google iFrames, you're gonna squeeze a lot of juice out of it.
Do you want to comment on that?
Marco: No, man, that's perfect.
Bradley: Okay. We're good. We're gonna keep moving. Steve, thanks for pointing that out because that's a pretty cool update. I'm gonna have to play around with that a little bit. Okay.
Armand's up. He says, “Not sure how I'm ignorant for wanting …” Oh, well, maybe that was Armand that posted that before. “I thought it was a bold claim by Josh to say he could have it shut down in a snap of a finger. I wasn't trying to make anyone angry, just thought that was interesting.”
Yeah. Armand, I appreciate that. If that was you that posted that last week or whatever, I get that. All I was saying was that I don't think we should have commented until we had verified the comment on our own. Not that I'm saying you're lying about it, but I'm saying, again, on our part, we should have verified the comment and listened to maybe the conversation in its entirety before replying. That's how I should have handled it and I didn't, and I apologize for that.
I'm not attacking anybody or you, Armand. Just so you know, guys. That's not how we are. That's not who we are. Hey, what did I say? Don't start none, won't be none. You know what I mean? But thank you. Yeah.
Really, again, Armand, I don't wanna get into debate about this. Armand came with a comment and we should have verified it before commenting. That's all there is to it. Okay.
What Are Your Thoughts On Google Loving HTML Sites Over WordPress Pages?
Honestly, you can rank either one. It doesn't matter. I think it's funny how things come full circle. It used to be HTML, then it became WordPress. The reason why WordPress has ranked so well is because it's been industry standard for so long. The problem with WordPress though is, especially now with mobile first indexing, is the fact that WordPress sites are typically a hell of a lot slower and there's a number of factors that affect that. Right? Hosting being one of the primary factors, but there's a number of factors that cause WordPress pages, even responsive WordPress themes to load slowly.
I haven't read anything about that. I don't know what the debate is about that specifically right now, because I don't follow that kind of stuff typically, but I imagine that is a very real debate. I can imagine that is going on right now. I can understand why HTML would probably rank better now because PageSpeed is supposedly a ranking factor, and especially more so now because of the mobile indexing first, mobile first index, excuse me.
Again, HTML sites load incredibly quick. I love HTML sites. I use them a lot for, again, for add Id pages and for a lot of one-off stuff. I just create an HTML page because I can edit it in Notepad++ and then just upload it to a server and it loads quickly. It's simple to maintain and I don't have to worry about WordPress updates and security issues and all the other shit that goes on with WordPress.
Anybody wanna comment on that?
Marco: Yeah. We have an AMP plugin and its in Facebook and I'm gonna go to the top and it's called, on our Facebook group it's called AMP Creators Mastermind. You can get the plug-in from there, the most up-to-date plug-in. There's also video that details how to use it and how you can do just some really neat tricks with Google. Google will actually give you ideas and advice on what you need to do with your AMP pages to manipulate Google. How good is that?
AMP Creators Mastermind, the plug-in is in there. It's free. We're not charging for it. Just ask to join the group and you'll get access to the plug-in.
Bradley: Yeah. Just to try and kind of finish up on this question, Gordon, you asked, so what should we be using? Honestly, what's gonna be easier for you? Right? I mean, here's the thing. WordPress, the nice thing about WordPress and probably why it has become industry standard for so long, is because there's so much functionality, between the plugins and all that other stuff.
There's so much functionality that you can add without having to understand coding, or HTML coding, anyways. So, excuse me. That's probably why it had become industry standard.
Personally, I can't do HTML sites other than a simple one pager site. Because I don't know how to add CSS files and all that, I just don't know how to do all that. I just know basic HTML. So I always just download an HTML template and then just edit it with the content that I need and upload it for single page stuff. And I do a lot of one page stuff with HTML sites, but I don't know how to build a full-on website out of HTML and I don't really care to ever learn how to do that either.
Really, Gordon, it's what should you be using, whatever is easiest for you and your most efficient with. Because WordPress sites can absolutely be sped up to PageSpeed isn't the issue. Right? I mean, you might have to be a PageSpeed nerd or expert, happen to be able to do that, but there's lots of those out there. We've got several of them in our Mastermind.
Should You Make All Page Updates And Changes At Once Or Should You Do It As Soon As You're Done With A Page?
That's a great question though, by the way. All right. Next one is Greg. Greg. What's up, Greg? He says, “Hey guys. Over the next few weeks, I will do a significant rewriting and editing of all pages on my site enough so that the rankings will dance all over the place. Do you recommend keeping all updates in draft mode as I write and then posting all the changes on the same day? Or post each page's edits as they are done over a period of the next few weeks which could keep the site dancing much longer? Thanks.”
That's a good one. I've never tested that, Greg. I can tell you how I've done that in the past and that was to just publish the updates as they were completed. Because if it's a site that's gonna take a few weeks, because of the amount of content that it's gonna be updated and it's gonna take a few weeks, I typically just do all the updates or publish the updates as they occur, as I complete them.
Here's my logic behind that. Although, guys, I have not tested this, and I'm curious to see what the other guys say, but my logic behind doing it, dripping it out as the changes are completed is that Google's algorithm, if it's tuned to identify or to notice that changes are being made in sites, which it is, we know that for sure, but it's being done slowly over time, it's logical to me that Google would understand that that site is being updated. There's a lot of content so it's gonna take time.
As opposed to doing all the changes in draft mode and then making all the updates at once, that seems more like an activity that an SEO would do. At least, that's my opinion. But again, guys, this is completely conjectured on my opinion at this point, because I have not tested it. I've just always done it in a dripped out fashion because of how I feel it to be a logical reason to do that, if that makes sense.
Again, it's not tested. That's just my assumption. Anybody here wanna take a different approach or different angle?
Marco: Yeah. I do it all at once as if it were redesigned. That's how I take it. I'm redesigning the website, maybe I'm doing the silo architecture, or whatever, and so it just goes live all at once.
Bradley: Okay. As far as dancing, have you tested one against the other to see if-?
Marco: No, because I always do it all at once. I don't like going back or setting it. You have to set the calendar for each one of those to go out or maybe once it's done, you have to publish it. Instead, you just have everything ready and then you publish all at once. I think it's a preference. He may be right, he could set his website dancing time after time after time after time. I haven't tested that.
Bradley: That's interesting. That'd be an interesting test, Greg. I mean, I don't know how I would do. It's funny because Marco does it one way, I've done it the other. So I guess to make a choice. We don't really know which one's going … Because we haven't tested it, I don't wanna give you a false answer as to which has more of a dancing effect or a prolonged dancing effect versus the other. I can't tell you honestly. But that would be an interesting test at some point.
Marco: I think Hernan was about to chime in.
Bradley: Were you?
Hernan: Yeah. I was about to say that I agree with you guys. I agree with Bradley in that regard. I was just going to say that I agree.
Does Your Subscription Level In Newswire Influence The Local SEO Power Of A Press Release?
But as far as I know, if you're talking about newswire.net, then the subscription levels only adjust, it's the same distribution network, but they just – and again, I hope I have this right – but I think the different subscription levels, it's all the same distribution network, it's just the number of press releases that can be submitted within a given month is what is determined by the subscription level, not the number of distribution sites, if that makes sense.
So, if that's the case, then no. This wouldn't make any difference at all because you just get the same distribution level as somebody that might have an agency or a journalist, or whatever the different levels are that they say. Right? It's the same distribution level or network so the same number of sites that it gets republished to. But somebody with a higher subscription level can submit more press releases within a given timeframe if that makes sense. Now again, if you look at the different pricing options and higher subscription levels have more distribution, then yes, it would make a difference. Okay. So really think about it that way. All right.
Is It Safe To Use Newswire For Repeated Weekly Submissions?
“Also, is it safe to use newswire repeatedly for weekly submissions?” Yeah, it is. The only reason why we talked about mixing up PR providers is because, especially if you're doing PR stacking, well, even if you're just doing direct press releases to money sites, for example, as your target URLs, like money sites or maps listings and stuff like that, is if you repeatedly hit it over and over again to the same distribution network, there comes a point where there's diminishing returns.
I don't know what that point is, when that threshold occurs or what it takes to cross that threshold. But I do know that I've experienced through, especially when I was testing all the stuff that we did for Local PR Pro, which is our training on how to do press release stacking and how to use press releases for ranking and the maps pack really, really quickly. Anyways, when I was doing all my testing for that I found that, when I started to vary the distribution networks, so essentially Newswire.net was one of them, PressCable, which was Chris Munch's, we also have two press release services in Serp Space that we used. So I have two distribution networks there, plus, you know …
So my point is, I've used as many as four different distribution networks for a PR stack for one business. So if I'm going to do four press releases, I might use four different distribution networks and then I get a much more diverse backlink profile. Right? There are a number of sites that are gonna be present on almost every distribution network. They're common because their press cables that are popular and they're easy access. But every single distribution network are gonna have some of their own unique distribution partners that the others do not.
That's why I said that's the only reason why I would recommend that you have, if PRs or press releases is one of your main services that you provide for your business, then I would recommend that you get some subscriptions in some other press release distribution networks so that you have that diversity available. Right?
Guys, I love press release. I think they're absolutely amazing. I freaking love them. For SEO purposes, I use press releases like they're going out of style. It's one of my primary methods for getting results now, is just using press releases. I mean, in addition to the other SM stuff, like Semantic Mastery stuff that we do – drive stacks, syndication networks, now Local GMB Pro. But press releases are my go-to thing, guys, when I need quick movement, when I need backlinks, when I need citations. It's just super, super powerful. So I use a number of different services, distribution networks, and I recommend that you do as well. Okay.
Marco: One of the things that works really well for me, and I only do this for stuff that really, really matters, is I'll set up a press release stack the way that we teach in Local PR Pro, and then somewhere along that stack, sometimes the very last one, I'll hit it with something like PR web. Now guys, before you go, it's expensive, right? If you choose, I think, the top level is something like 400 bucks, the next one down is nearly 300 bucks, I always choose the next one down from the top. But you get so much exposure and distribution that it'll help push everything that you've done with the PR stack.
Bradley: Yeah. Awesome. But yeah, Kay Dee, a great service. I'm telling you. Actually, yeah, this gives me an opportunity real quick to point something out. So I'm developing prospecting funnel. I've been working on it for fucking months, man. No kidding, months and months and months. It's taken so much longer than I planned. But I'm glad though because, it is difficult to set up through trial and error to get it to work, but because of that not many others out there are willing to do it, which means we're gonna have a unique product that works incredibly well.
I'm teaching everybody in MasterMIND how to do it, how to build these prospecting funnels. The ultimate goal is, once I have it down and, like the prospecting funnel is absolutely working incredibly well, our sales process still sucks for selling, well, it's still in development, but the prospecting funnel is working incredibly well.
The reason I bring this up is because, actually my outreach campaign, the cold prospecting emails, because we're using cold outreach emails right now as our primary prospecting method and it's working like crazy. I'm gonna show you my pipe drive account here in just a moment for the agency that I've been testing all this stuff on, which is my own agency, Big Bamboo Marketing. I've been targeting specifically tree service contractors.
But the outreach sequence that I'm using, the cold email sequence that I'm using is a modified sequence that I got from PressCable. I've just mentioned that I used Chris Munch's PressCable as one of my distribution networks for press releases and I have a White Label reseller agency account with them. One of the things that they have inside there is … By the way, we should probably get with Chris Munch at some point and do a promo for his PressCable, because I do use it so much, guys. If somebody wants to make a note of that.
Anyways, it's a good service. He's got this White Label agency, like email campaign thing in there, that don't do all the emailing from their servers. I don't recommend it, though. Here's why: because, first of all, it's templated content. Guys, templated content, if it gets used by too many people, well, Google's servers and mail filters, it will filter it out. It will send it to spam or send it directly to promotional. Because Google has a machine learning, guys. Google will recognize the same message being sent by dozens and dozens of emails, or even hundreds, or even thousands of emails sending from domains and such. So Google will actually start filtering and automatically classifying certain emails as spam.
So inside PressCable, if you use, and I'm not speaking bad about it, I think it's good, but what I'm saying is, the templates, the email templates are, I guarantee you that most people don't go in and edit them considerably, which is what you should do. Right? Anytime somebody gives you an email template, a sequence that's been templated, you should go in and edit it, customize it specific for your business and change the messaging so that it's specific for your messaging. Because again, then it becomes unique and it won't get caught up in the spam filters if too many people use it. So that's number one.
Here, let me show you, just to prove to you, guys. This is from three weeks of mailing. Take a look at this. I know it's small on your end, but this is from three weeks of consistent mailing as of yesterday. We only mail Monday through Friday. You can see I've got 36 active leads in my pipeline right now. All tree services, because I mentioned that I'm targeting specifically tree service companies.
The reason I'm telling you all this is because I'm using the PressCable sequence that's a modified version of it, specific to my business, where we're pitching PR services on the front-end. That's what's actually filling this pipeline right now. Again, this is from, we started on Tuesday, three weeks ago, we've been mailing five days a week for three weeks. We've got 36 inbound leads, which is crazy. Right?
This has been, by far, the most successful prospecting method I've used. PRs are a great front-end product especially because you can get really quick wins. So that's kind of what our pitch is on the front-end right now, is using PR or press releases to kind of get their attention. Okay. Anyways, great that you're doing that. I like to see it when other people are running with something that works and I know that they work. Okay.
This is Dan, right?
Marco: Yeah, it's Dan.
Bradley: Okay. “Switched everything to liquidweb.” Cool. That's awesome, Dan. Remember that conversation we had about hosting and Dan was like, “You got an affiliate link?” I think this was last week or maybe two weeks ago, but yeah, that's awesome. “How can I get the VIP option?” Just reach out at Support. “Along with the VIP ticket, you're good to go.” That's right. Okay, cool. Anyways, Adam got you, Dan. We'll get you squared.
Yeah, that's what I saw. Okay. I didn't realize it was called Gutenberg. Thanks, Jordan. Yeah. Let us know what happens.
Dan, that comes up. The GMB keywords will come up. It's been rolling out. Not all of my GMB listings show that. Most of them do now, but not all of them. So just be patient. You should start seeing that soon. It's rolling out I think to all GMB Insights reporting. It's just, like I said, some of my listings don't have it, but almost all of them do. So just be patient though, you'll see that soon.
Yeah. Google Plus has had the world's longest funeral. Yeah. You know what's funny about that, guys? You could go back to when we first started Hump Day Hangouts, which I think was in 2013. Maybe '14? I guess it was '14. Anyways, whenever it was that we started it, and there was people back then, ever since Google Plus, creation there's been those people out there, the haters, that said Google Plus is dead. I'm not kidding. You can search probably Google right now, Google Plus is dead, and find articles that were posted like in 2012 that says: Google Plus is dead, it's a ghost town, it's going by the wayside.
Why do you think syndication networks work so well? Because it's very similar to what Google Plus was trying to do by making all of its products integrate with a singular profile, a Google Plus profile. It was a way to validate an identity of person and tie all of those products to that individual person. Right? That's part of the reason that they did it.
It's funny because I remember back in 2012 and '13 and '14 when these articles were coming about Google Plus being dead and Google's killing it off and all that, I was saying, “No, Google's not gonna kill it off. It's so much a part of its semantic algorithm now that there's no way they're gonna kill it off.” Well, here we are many years later and I see its death, like Wayne said, it's a very long and slow funeral, or very long and slow death really. It's not the funeral yet because it's not completely dead. But it's like they've been on this terminal illness for the last two years.
I remember years ago, and the reason I brought up the Hump Day Hangouts was because I remember debating that on Hump Day Hangouts and me saying, “I don't think it'll ever be taken away. Or if it is, it's gonna be a long time in the future because it's been so integrated into how Google identifies or validates an identity and ties all of their products together to one specific person.”
But here we are several years later and they have actually started winding it down, but like Wayne mentioned, it's been at least two years now that they've been pulling this stuff out of products and it's still in progress, if that makes sense. So it's interesting to see all these years later the prediction that I made, that it wasn't gonna be removed entirely, or if it did it was going to take a long time, it's kind of coming to be true. And all those other people that were like, “Oh, it's dead,” five, six years ago, they were proven wrong. You know what I mean?
Marco: Who was it? It was Steve Cato that gave us that Google blog and the embed Google stream. Because I just got an idea for a webinar on how we can just totally maximize the use of this with everything that we do, not only in RYS Reloaded, but in Google My Business. Steve, if you're not in either one, I'm going to invite you to the webinar anyway because you gave me the idea. Guys, if you are in, I'm just gonna give you some monster stuff on how you can manipulate this to death.
Bradley: And that's in GMB Pro?
Bradley: We'll talk about it, but invite the MasterMIND too then.
Marco: Steve, if you're not in any of our groups or whatever, if you're not in Facebook, you should at least be in our free group in Facebook, just reach out to me in Messenger and just give me your email address so I can send you an invitation to the webinar. It'll take me about two, three, four weeks to set it all up, but once it's done, I'll make sure you get invited.
Bradley: Sweet. That's pretty cool. So you guys you get rewarded for educating us, right?
Greg says, “This looked like a fair comparison.” Thanks, Greg. Actually, I've got it open over here. I'm gonna scroll through here and take a look. “Reason to choose HTML, my preference.” Yeah. That's what I was saying. I mean, if I knew how to do, like build whole HTML websites, honestly, I shouldn't be building websites anymore anyways, I should be outsourcing that. But there are times that I still do build a lot of single HTML pages because I do a lot of SEO stuff with those, so I do a lot of that on my own. Again, I just added it with Notepad++, it's very simple to do.
But I don't know how to build full-on websites with HTML. I don't think I should be, anyways. I just don't know how to do that. So if I need to build a whole website, then I just select WordPress. But then I do a few PageSpeed optimizations to cut down on load time. But I agree. I think HTML is a better route to go, but it causes a lot of other issues to not have the functionality that WordPress does.
Anyways, thanks, Greg. I appreciate that. Dominic says, he just had a birthday this week. Happy birthday, Dominic. He says, “Thrive Themes is expensive. I thinking I'm dropping them and moving to Divi 3.0 220 a year for an agency, unlimited sites. That sounds great, because I think we paid almost 600 bucks for our agency license, that we just renewed it this week. “Great drag and drop builder. Any thoughts?”
No. I don't have any thoughts about it, just because I haven't used Divi. I'm one of the types of people that I hate testing new WordPress themes or developers because they all have their own unique way of doing things and there's such a learning curve. I don't know, I'm not a web designer. So for me, there's always such a learning curve every time I have to learn how to edit a different WordPress developers theme.
I've learned over the years, like I've used InkThemes, I-N-K Themes, which aren't even great themes, to be honest with you, but I used them for years. That was my own. If a client wanted me to build them a website, all I would do was send them to the InkThemes marketplace to choose the template that they wanted, the design that they wanted. If they sent back an email saying, “I don't really like these. Here are some others that I like,” and they pointed out other developers, I would tell them flat out, “Well, that's fine, but now the web design cost is going up $1,000. Because I'm gonna have to hire somebody else to do the build instead of me because I don't know how to do those themes and there's gonna be a huge learning curve, or I would hire somebody else,”
That's typically what I would do. If somebody had an existing website on a different theme that they wanted to keep or if they had a specific theme that was built by a developer that I didn't know, or that I had no experience with, which was pretty much everybody else out there besides InkThemes, then I would either charge them to learn how to work on that theme. Or I would go to Upwork and find somebody that was proficient in that specific developer's theme and then I would hire them to do it. But I would always add in a premium to that web design service specifically for that reason.
Marco: It's all I'm using now and of course Semantic Mastery has a scissor for all that stuff that we need for anything that needs to be coded or whatever else. But yeah, Divi is what I've been using for quite a while now.
Bradley: Yeah. Cool. Check it out, I think we're done with the questions, guys. Yeah. Dan says he's in Canada, so maybe next year. Yeah. I don't know, maybe it's gonna roll out slower in Canada, if you're talking about the Insights keywords, Dan.
Anyways, guys, all right, I'm gonna wrap it up. Thanks everybody for being here. We'll see everybody … Oh, we got MasterMIND webinar tomorrow, guys, so be there or be square.
Adam: Outstanding. Just a quick reminder, I wanted to say something before we wrap up, if you saw the emails Leads Recon from Ted Chen, he gave us a heck of a deal for subscribers, I'm gonna put the link on there, but price is going up. I mean, it's been out for a while and he's been working on it, it's like doubling or something, the price tonight at midnight. So last chance to hop in on that if you want. I think between us, we own several licenses already, so I highly recommend this tool for you, if you're interested in it.
Bradley: Offer leads recon?
Adam: Yeah.
Bradley: Did you drop the link again?
Adam: I'm gonna do that right now. I need to make sure I get the right one.
Bradley: Also, just for people that might not be on the event page, what is it, if you have the slug, at semanticmastery.com/ what? Or is it leadsrecon.com/semanticmastery or something?
Adam: You know what? I am logged in. Give me a 10 seconds here. If everyone can hold on, this is worth it to the people who want to grab it. I'll make sure we get this right. It is Semantic Mastery-
Bradley: I did a walkthrough webinar of how I use the tool. So if you're curious about how the tool works and everything, please watch the webinar. It's a great tool and it's a lifetime license for $297. I think it's 297. It's like 300 bucks.
Adam: Correct. Yeah. It's going to a yearly and it's gonna be something like double or triple that.
Bradley: Yeah. I think he said he was going like 697 for a lifetime option, but it'll be 297 yearly. The lifetime option for 697, I think, is gonna go away soon. Anyways, my point is, if you're interested in it at all, you can watch the webinar, you'll see exactly how I use it. It's great for getting lead data very, very quickly.
I use another tool, I use Lead Kahuna for most scraping. But I hired a VA to do it because Lead Kahuna pulls so much freaking data. It takes a long time to run and it pulls a ton of data. Most of the data we don't use, but it does pull in a lot of additional data. Whereas Leads Recon is more about getting results very quickly and it doesn't give you a whole shit ton of unnecessary data. So it runs real quick, it's efficient, and it's a good tool. I highly recommend that you check it out. Okay.
Adam: That's good.
Bradley: All right, guys. We'll see y'all next week. Thanks.
Adam: Bye everyone.
Marco: Bye.
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