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Announcement
Adam: Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 76 of Hump Day Hangouts. Hopefully some of you are actually here. We had some technical difficulties and we’re fixing it, so if you’re seeing this delayed, know that we are in fact still here, and we are doing it, but moving right along, today is the 20th of April, 2016, and we’ve got the full crew here. I’m not sure if Hernan’s going to be able to talk, but we’ll give him a second here, so we’ll start with Chris. How is it going, Chris?
Chris: Excellent. How are you doing?
Adam: Not too bad, actually. This is like springtime for me is actually starting. It’s sunny … I can’t compare to Marco, but I’ll wait for him, so Hernan, if you-
Chris: [There is 00:00:35] no more snow.
Adam: Yeah, no more snow. Well, it’s not over yet. It can snow in May here, so we’ll see. Hernan, are you there? One, two, three… No.
Chris: [Out for 00:00:49]-
Adam: Okay. Moving right along, Marco, how’s it going?
Marco: What’s up, man? It looks like it’s about to rain today. I can’t promise it, though. After three and a half months, it might rain; but it’s [also 00:01:01] warm, though, so it’s not-
Adam: What’s the temperature, though? That’s what I always want to know, what’s the temperature like?
Marco: It’s same as always, about 85, 70 at night.
Adam: That’s, yeah, [good 00:01:11] stuff…
Marco: Boring.
Adam: Bradley, how about you, man? How’s it going?
Bradley: Good, man. It’s beautiful and sunny today, it’s 70 degrees.
Adam: Nice.
Bradley: That’s almost Costa Rica-like.
Marco: Well, it’s chilly here.
Adam: Yeah.
Marco: Yes.
Adam: Nighttime in Costa Rica, but hey, make do. All right, well, just a couple quick announcements, and we’ll roll into it. We were able to get the questions due to Marco. Thankfully, he was able to save the questions, so if you’re watching this later, or you’re watching on the page and don’t see it, don’t worry, we’re going to get to your questions, but if you haven’t yet, please go over to SERP Space, sign up for your free account. Obviously, if you don’t know, that’s where we do our syndication networks, it’s where you can get Video Powerhouse, Network Management, a lot of stuff going on over there; and then also, I want to touch base in our Mastermind. There’s a group working with Bradley and Zane doing Mastery PR, and so …
We’d like to touch base every once in a while, because a lot of people don’t know about this, because it’s something we just started as kind of a subset of the Mastermind, so only Mastermind members do it, but it’s something we want to tell people about because it’s a neat … No, maybe side-project is the word for, our Mastermind members, it’s something that’s kind of been created internally, so Bradley, if you just want to share, kind of, what’s going on there?
Bradley: Yeah, for those of you that don’t know, Mastery PR is the division that we’re building, that I’m building for Semantic Mastery, that’s essentially like our affiliate division. We’re going to use it specifically for building an affiliate business, and it’s for various reasons, but … That’s not something that we have a whole lot of experience with, other than some launch jacking, so it’s something that I really took an interest in that I really wanted to build, was this affiliate division, because I want more experience in that, and so Zane and I partnered up to kind of create Mastery PR, which is just another division. It might end up being another company eventually, but … We decided to invite some of our Mastermind members to come join us, that were interested in affiliate marketing, and we’ve shared a ton of information in there, but now him and I are working on, we’re developing a product underneath that brand name.
It’s going to be the Mastery PR brand name that’s going to be, it’s a product we’re going to launch on June 28th, about outsourcing; so that’s something that we’re working on now, and that’s kind of taken up most of my energy for that, for now, but we’re still going to be checking into the Mastery PR group about once a week, or maybe once every two weeks, just to share the progress of what’s going on, and to help people out that have questions about the specific training that we’ve already got in there, and there are literally, I mean, there’s, Zane dumps so much training into Mastery PR, it’s ridiculous, so there’s a ton of really good information in there about how to start an affiliate business. Mainly driving traffic with just YouTube, and that’s, I mean, there’s certainly some other traffic sources that we could work into there, which we will eventually, but for right now, it’s mainly just, like, YouTube traffic.
Adam: Cool, cool.
Bradley: It’s been pretty exciting.
Adam: Yeah, no, it’s cool stuff, and I like mentioning this, because some people, I don’t think, understand exactly. Obviously, if you’re not a part of Mastermind, that’s fine if you’re not. Some people just may not realize what [all is 00:04:19] going inside there, and it’s, I think, cool to tell people about this, because it is something that just kind of started building inside of the Mastermind, and the members have access to it as just a part of being a part of Mastermind.
Bradley: Yeah.
Adam: All right, well, who else? We got any more announcements, or are we going to get into this? Marco, Chris?
Chris: Let’s do this.
Marco: Let’s do it.
Chris: Yeah.
Adam: All right.
Bradley: All right, so I’m going to go ahead and grab the screen, and the first thing I’m going to have to do is open up the screenshot that Marco had actually grabbed, because somebody deleted our stupid Hump Day Hangouts event, so we’re going to have to have a chat with one of our VAs about that. All right, so we’re going to start with the questions that were already posted prior to us having to start a new event; so these are what we had. Starting with James Reeves, you guys are seeing my screen, correct?
Adam: Yes, sir.
Bradley: Okay.
Adam: Yeah, we’re seeing the whole thing, just so you know.
Expired Tumblr Domains with No PA, TF and Backlinks
Bradley: Okay. James says, “Are expired, aged Tumblrs without any metrics, PA, TF, Backlinks, etc., useful for anything? These accounts, I’m finding, are related to my niche, are about 2-3 years old, but have no backlinks of any kind. Any benefit to using them versus just creating brand new Tumblr accounts? Also, will any of the Wayback Machine rebuild software work for Tumblr?” Okay, as far as I know, there’s probably not much benefit to using them if they have zero metrics, except the fact that they’re aged a bit. I would have to test that, James, to be able to give you a definitive answer; so I would just recommend, since you, apparently, if you have access to some of those, put up a test: Create two Tumblr accounts, one using an aged account, and one with a brand new account, put the same piece of content on it, or very similar content, and force both of them to index and see which one ranks better, right? I mean, really, that’s … If the aged account ranks better, there’s your answer.
If you wanted, you could test it across two or three different times, just to confirm your results, because usually one test isn’t enough to give you a definitive answer, it’s just … It can give you an indication, but you need to perform the test across a few different controls or whatever to see if you can repeat the same results. That’s something you could do, is just, like I said, throw up a piece of content, use a very, very low-competition keyword, or something that is made up so that you’re not competing with others, really, or the competition is very light if you’re doing it, and then just slap up a piece of content on both accounts, one aged, one new, and see which one works better, ranks better, based on no off-page SEO signals at all, it’s strictly on-page, and that should give you an indication. It’s what I would do. Anybody else want to comment on that? Marco, do you know?
Marco: No, I really don’t know, but I think that that would be the best way. Just try it and see how it behaves.
Wayback Machine to Rebuild Tumblr Sites
Bradley: That’s right. Okay, Darren says, “How would you explain … ” Oh, I’m sorry, the last part of that question, James says, ” … will any of the Wayback Machine rebuild software work for Tumblr?” I don’t think so, because you download an HTML file from Wayback, so I mean, yeah, I guess you could, you could download the HTML pages and then kind of like copy the body text out and paste it in, and all that. I mean, I suppose you could do that. You could probably force it to work somehow, with some manual effort, but I don’t think you could … I don’t know of any way that you could upload an HTML version to [Tuplr 00:07:53], or to Tumblr, an HTML site to Tumblr, you know what I mean? I don’t think you can do that.
Adam: Yeah, you’d be like reposting [stuff 00:07:59], I mean, by creating the post.
Communicating SEO Strategies to Apprehensive Webmasters
Bradley: Darren says, “How would you explain to a webmaster who is not an SEO that a full text RSS post will not be classified as duplicate content? I heard you say that you get the client to tell the webmaster to just do it because some webmasters are apprehensive about doing it. How would you explain this to a client? Thanks.” Well, I would explain it to the client, just like I said before, when somebody takes a piece of content that they’ve written for … This is 100% normal and natural for people to write content, post a blog post, or whatever, and then go copy the URL and share it across all their social media channels. Right? I mean, that’s just normal for people to do that, that they go share it in Facebook and Google+, if they use Google+, and LinkedIn, and they tweet the link, and all that.
What is the difference between somebody doing that and what we’re doing using IFTTT to automate it? You know what I mean? To be honest with you, I tell the client, when they’re … When he catches [resistant 00:08:59], when a client comes to me and says that their webmaster told them that that can cause SEO issues, I tell him, “Hey, did you hire your webmaster to do SEO, or did you hire a webmaster to build you a website, and what the hell did you hire me for? Because I thought you hired me as an SEO consultant; so it’s either you want to listen to your webmaster about SEO stuff, or you want to listen to me.” Literally, I stop pissing around with clients about stuff like that.
Because they come to me, they pay me as the SEO expert, so I’m not going to argue with them or their webmasters about what the best SEO practices are, because if their webmaster was such a damn good SEO, what the hell did they hire me for to begin with? Does that make sense? I get quite annoyed when people … That’s like having a, I know you guys probably have clients, and this is why I always complain about clients, because when you get a client that thinks they know about SEO, or they go read something on Search Engine Journal, and then send you a four-paragraph email about what they just learned on Search Engine Journal and why we’re not doing that, that’s when I want to basically fire them and say, “You know what? Then just go hire the writer of that blog post from Search Engine Journal to do your SEO, because I’m certainly not capable of doing it.”
You know what I mean? Just because it drives me nuts; so personally, I would tell them, I would say that, I would say, “Look, we’re sharing your content in an automated fashion to extensions of your brand. There is no duplicate content issue, because all you’re doing is republishing your own content to your own branded web properties. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s encouraged, in fact, to do that; so if your webmaster is going to give you a hard time about it, then why don’t you ask your webmaster to do all the SEO work for you,” and that’s seriously how I would do it.
Marco: Yeah, but a lot of people don’t have that experience or self-confidence to stand up to a client like that.
Bradley: Okay.
Marco: Another great way to explain this is, just ask the client the question, “How does content go viral?”
Bradley: [Good 00:11:00] question.
Marco: Content goes viral when it gets shared across the web. If there were a duplicate content penalty, then anywhere that content was shared would be penalized, and as would the source site for having all of [that 00:11:14], but that usually carries proper attribution just like IFTTT does. As long as you have proper attribution, then you have no worries. That’s if you can’t stand up to the client and say, “That’s not what you hired me for.”
Bradley: Yeah. Well, and I mean, you don’t certainly come out of the gates swinging like that, but quickly, I know from personal, from experience with clients, and with pain-in-the-ass clients, or with pain-in-the-ass webmasters, sometimes it’s not even the client that’s a pain in the ass, it’s the webmaster. In fact, you’ll catch that, you’ll see that happens a lot, actually, but … I try to be as diplomatic as possible up front, but then I reach a point where I’m wasting my time, you know what I’m saying? To be honest with you, my time is too valuable to waste arguing with somebody that’s a non-SEO about best SEO practices. You know what I mean? What Marco said is exactly right. I mean, you could talk about that, you could talk about press releases.
Press releases, they get picked up by hundreds and hundreds of syndication outlets and republished, and those don’t cause duplicate content issues, so why is it any different when we do what we do, right? It’s not. It’s no different. Okay, well, hopefully, that answers Darren. Sometimes, like I said, you got to, once you get to, and sometimes, guys, you hear about “Fake it until you make it,” sometimes you just need to have that air of confidence about you in order to get people to take you serious, you know what I mean?
Because otherwise, and again, I know this from personal experience, guys, from, in my earlier days of my business, I would let clients take advantage of me because they would call me and ask me to do stuff, and I was always in such fear of losing them as a client, and I needed every penny that I got, that I would bend over backwards to make him happy; but what happens is, when you do that is, you set a precedent, and they will, you give somebody an inch, and they’ll take a yard. They’ll just keep asking for extras, and freebies, and they’ll call you after hours to do stuff for you, and I remember I used to answer the phone after hours. I used to reply to emails at 11:00 at night and things like that. I don’t do that anymore, and at some point, you got to get to that point, or else your clients will eat you alive, and it sucks.
Having A Network Around Each Subdomain Be For A Medical Lead Gen Site
All right, Greg says, “Hey, Bradley … ” It’s another really long question. I get these every week. “IFTTT v2 rocks … ” Well, thanks Greg, I’d +1 it, but this is just a screenshot. “Awesome job. I have a lead gen site that has 4 city subdomains. In a webinar, you recommended using only one network on the entire root domain, then only build an additional network around any competitive subdomain. My plan is for 10 subdomains, and 1 network would certainly be easier than 10, but I care more about effectiveness. I’m wondering how much more effective would having a network around each subdomain be for a medical lead gen site?” Greg, as I said, every single time, when somebody asks the same question: Start off with just one, and start posting content from your root domain to your branded network, and see how well it works.
If you start, if you’re able to rank your subdomain, individual subdomains, with only posting to one branded network, then why build … Why go through the trouble of everything else? My point is that you should … I recommend always trying to do the least amount of [effort 00:14:33], the least amount of work required to produce results, because you’re more efficient with your time, number one, it’s not a waste of resources, and also, it leaves so much more available for you to do down the road when and if you need to. In other words, if you are able to produce results with just one IFTTT network that you’re posting content to, and you’re building links to all of your subdomain sites through that one IFTTT network, then why would you go through the trouble of creating 10 IFTTT networks, right? That’s a lot of work, front-end work, plus a lot of maintenance, and a lot of keeping track of all those networks, and so …
That’s my point, is I would start off with the one and see if you’re able to produce results, and then … Because my guess is, out of 10 subdomains, with one branded IFTTT network that you’re posting content to regularly from your root domain, which would, where your blog would be, right. Really, you could put a blog on every one of your subdomain sites, but again, that … Now you’ve got 10 blogs to maintain as opposed to 1. I’m trying to keep it simple, guys. We as SEOs or marketers, online marketers always want to overcomplicate shit. Don’t. Try to keep it as simple as possible. Keep It Simple, Stupid, right, the KISS method; and so, my point is, if you got 10 subdomains, and you’re constantly blogging from 1 blog, you only got to maintain 1 blog, and you’ve got 1 branded network, and you’re blogging and building links to all of your subdomain sites through your blog posts, and let’s say 4 of them end up ranking well without any additional IFTTT networks.
Well, now, you know that you only need, at most, 6 additional IFTTT networks instead of 10, which you would have built if you just decided to go right up, right from the start with 10. Does that make sense? My point is, you can probably produce results. That’s how I do it. When I build lead gen sites, I do the same thing: I build a root domain, which is the brand, and then I build city subdomains, and I get, I build city-specific sites for each different city, but I do the blogging from one root domain, one from the root domain, and then, what I’ll do is, if I find that some of the sites need additional push, that they’re just not getting the movement that I want them to from having one IFTTT network, then I’ll build a specific network for that one, for each subdomain that needs the extra push. Okay? It just eliminates additional work, is my point.
All right. “I have one network already built around one city subdomain that is branded with the city URL, and already has posts, feeds submitted to directories, etc. I also have a second new network that was accidentally built around the root domain, and it has not been used at all yet. Should I use this new network for subdomains 2, 3, 4, and all later subdomains, and continue to use the existing network for subdomain number 1?” Sure, Greg. That’s fine. If you’ve got one that was specific to a subdomain already, just use that for that one site, but for everything else going forward, you’ve got another network that you can start to populate. Then, like I said, if you need additional push on any of the subsequent subdomains, then you can always build a subdomain-specific network then, okay?
“If only using one network, do the subdomains lack a silo structure due to no posts on the subdomains?” Only using one, do the subdomains lack … Yeah, but … No, I mean, because you can create a silo structure with pages, right? It really makes no difference. Not having post, a silo structure is not defined, silo architecture is not defined by whether a site has posts or not. Silo structure is how you stack the pages, it’s the hierarchy, the way that you structure the pages on the site, pages and/or posts. It’s the way that you assemble content. It has nothing to do with whether there’s posts or not, because you can have a silo structure with purely pages and no posts at all, okay? That doesn’t make any difference.
“What happens to the Google+ pages and Local pages for each subdomain? They are not included in the network so nothing syndicates out to them.” You could, though, right? You could. I mean, essentially, you could take every single Google+ page, and if you have a Google+ Local page, guys, for every single subdomain site, which is how I do it, then you can have the main blog content be syndicating to every single one of the Google+ pages. What difference does it make? It’s all from the same brand. What do you think the big national brands do? Like the big national brands that have a national blog, but then they have, like, franchisees all over the place. Do you think the franchisees, each … Some franchisees will do their own blogging, but a lot of them would just republish from the main, the corporate blog posts, because that’s, as part of the franchise model, most of the time, the franchise companies end up producing the content, and they’re real strict about you producing your own content, because they have a brand to protect.
Right, so there’s like, a lot of times, there’s rules against posting your own content, so you have to use the national blog content. If that makes sense; so anyways, yeah, all I’m saying is, you can set up the, you can take the same RSS feed from your money site, your root domain, and set up a different IFTTT account for each subdomain, and then connect Buffer to your Google+ page, and then connect Buffer to IFTTT and syndicate the same content from your root domain to all of your city subdomain and Google+ pages. There’s nothing wrong with that, okay, because it’s all coming from the same brand.
Okay, last one. “It does not seem as though having one network reduces the total number of blog posts needed per month. Is that correct?” I don’t know what you mean by that. If-
Marco: I think he’s referring to frequency of posts, right?
Bradley: Yeah.
Marco: The frequency that’s needed.
Bradley: Yeah, the only thing-
Marco: I mean, [when 00:20:21] it doesn’t increase or reduce …
Bradley: Yeah.
Marco: … the total. You establish the frequency of publish. It has nothing to do with the total number of blog posts needed per month. Like, I mean, going back to the network, right?
Bradley: Yeah, well, and that, I mean, the thing is, if you got one network, and you’re using that one network to build links to ten subdomains, you’re going to be doing a hell of a lot of publishing from the one [blog 00:20:51] … If you’re using that model, which would be having the blog on your root domain, but you’re using that one blog in the one network to build links to all ten sub domains, your frequency of publishing’s going to be quite high, because you’re going to be publishing a lot. Let’s say that you did one post per subdomain site per week. Then you’d have ten posts per week, or two posts per day, five days per week, right? Your IFTTT network, that’s why I like having just one network, guys, because think about how … That’s themed content that you’re publishing to twice a day, five days a week, so ten posts per week that are going to this network. That network in itself becomes very, very powerful because of that.
The frequency of publishing, and the themed content, and the consistent and regular updating becomes very, very powerful, right? If you think about that, at the end of a month, at the end of four weeks, you’ve got forty posts on that, from that, across your branded IFTTT network. Now, on the flip side, if you were to build a single IFTTT ring per subdomain, and you were doing one post per week per subdomain site, at the end of a month, that ring would only, that syndication network would only have four posts, as opposed to forty posts if you used one. Which do you think is more powerful, has more relevancy, is more of an authority on the subject, is given more weight by Google? Which one do you think? Right? That’s why I like using one network as much as possible.
Marco: Yeah, I think he’d just benefit way more from just properly siloing the root domain, since it’s all lead … It’s all medical, and health-related … Yeah, he said it’s medical lead gen, so if it’s all related, just theme it, silo it, and establish the frequency of publish, and if and when he does that, and he finds out that certain things are sticking, maybe there’s one silo that’s sticking, he can move that to the subdomain and just keep adding to it. I mean, that’s how I would do it. Yeah.
Duplicate Content Issue for Syndicated Content for Web 2.0 and Social Sites
Bradley: Jeney says, “Afternoon, Bradley. Thanks again for all your work. You guys are the best out there.” I’d +1 it, but I can’t. “I’m concerned about duplicate content if I implement the IFTTT SEO Academy plan. Is it safe, and do web 2.0 and social sites like the content? Will my web 2.0 and social sites get taken down if they see duplicate content?” Great question, Jeney. No. Because again, like what Marco said earlier, which was a great answer, is: What happens when content goes viral? People take a link and they share that link, and it goes through hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, hundreds of thousands of people share the same link. Is that duplicate content? No, it’s not, so there’s no difference from what it is that we’re doing.
The important thing is if, that you must do, would be to have the attribution link. You got to cite the source, right, and as long as you’re citing the source, it’s not duplicate content, because it’s your way of saying, “Here’s where the credit is deserved. This is just being republished from here,” and it’s the same thing, like I said, with press releases. If there were problems with the duplicate content issue, then press releases wouldn’t be effective at all, they would be just a ticking time bomb, right? When a press release gets picked up and republished by three hundred and fifty different news or media sites, and they usually always link back, they’re supposed to link back to the original press cable, the original place where it was published; and that’s how you get away with not having duplicate content issues. Right?
Marco: If-
Bradley: To be honest … Hold on, Marco. To be honest, what, Google tells us that that’s okay to do, especially if we use what they call a canonical. However, we’re unable to set canonicals inside web 2.0s and social media sites, and in fact, in social media sites, it’s not required, because you’re just, usually, sharing a link; but when you’re republishing content, like copying and pasting content would be one way to do it, you can actually use a canonical to, or what’s called a cross-domain canonical to point to the original source, but since we can’t do that on web 2s, the next best thing is to set an attribution link, and saying, “The post was originally published over here.” Okay, go ahead, Marco. I’m sorry.
Marco: Yeah. What I always tell people is, think back when you were, for those of us who went to college, hopefully it’s most of you, but we had either rhetoric 101 or English 101, and we were taught how to properly cite sources when we were writing a paper.
Bradley: Yeah.
Marco: Same thing, except you’re doing it online rather than on a paper that you’re going to hand in so that you don’t get slapped down by your teacher because you copied it from somewhere.
Bradley: Now you’re just trying not to get slapped down by Google.
Marco: There you go.
2-Tier IFTTT Network Pack Concern
Bradley: That’s a good question. It’s just like, like I said, guys, it’s not duplicate content when you’re citing the source, you’re just republishing and you’re giving credit to where the credit is due. Okay? Steven says, “I’m curious about the ‘2-Tier’ network I bought, because really, it’s a tier 1 network, since all the posts link directly back to my T1 site with the exact same content. Also, do you have any ideas about getting non-syndicated content into the tier 2 sites, so that they’re not only populated with curated content which seems footprinty?” Well, Steven, if you’ve been through our training, you know that specifically, tier 2 networks aren’t recommended for blog syndication, and I’ve been hammering away at that for months. On Hump Day Hangouts, I hammered away at it, in IFTTT v2, and I’m going to hammer away at it right now: I don’t recommend using tier 2 networks for blog syndication.
You can do it, however, if you populate the tier 2 triggers with related content feeds, and again, that is covered over, and over, and over again in the new training, because this question comes up every single week, and every single week, I give the same answer. I’m going to give it again, and that’s: At the tier 2 trigger point, you add in related content feeds, so that, you’re right, it doesn’t create a footprint, and that has been specifically addressed in the training. It was addressed in the first version of IFTTT SEO Academy released in January 2015; so this has been a year and a half now in the making, and it’s the same. Nothing’s changed.
If you’re going to use 2-tier networks, put related content feeds as tier 2 triggers. We talk about how to do that in the training, okay? As far as the tier 1 networks, ” … since all links point directly back to my T1 site with the exact same content.” Well, that’s true, but if you use the attribution links the way that we share with you in the training, if you’re doing a 2-tier network, it’s a different attribution link, because all it does is point back to the original post source, which, by the way, if somebody posts a site …
If somebody takes an article and republishes it on their blog, and gives attribution to the original source, but then somebody else comes along and takes that content from that, the person that reshared it the first time and shares it, and they’re linking to the place where they got it, then both places should end up getting an attribution link, right? Because they, somebody republished it from the person that shared it the first time, but the person that shared it the first time linked back to the original source, so the person that shared the second time would be sharing the content from the second, the first one with the attribution link to the original source.
Does that make sense? That’s why we do it, and then, also, if you know through the recipes that we’ve set up, or through the tier 2 training we talk about in this, when you set up the tier 2 recipes that you want to code in attribution back to the original source, like the Blogger blog, or the Tumblr blog, or the WordPress blog, whatever you’re using as your tier 2 triggers from your tier 1 blog properties, which would be Tumblr, excuse me, Blogger, Tumblr, or WordPress, we code in attribution to point links back to that source, so we end up with the two attribution links: Where their content was originally published from, which would be your money site in this case, and then also where it was reshared from onto your 2, which would be your tier 1 blog. Does that makes sense? I know that’s probably clear as mud, but hopefully that clears it up a little bit.
Image Size For Schema Markup For an Article Image and For Publisher
Houston Junk Car Buyer, he says, “What size image should you use for schema markup for an article image, and for a publisher, can you use a brand name or does it have to be an actual person? Thanks, you guys rock.” It doesn’t really matter … What size image should you use for schema markup? I have no idea what that means. You can use any size you want, as far as I know. I’m not sure what you mean by that. You’re in The Mastermind, though, so if you want, and also Masterclass. If you want to jump on and ask the question then, be a little bit more descriptive, so what it is you’re actually asking, I’ll be happy to answer it. The publisher can be a brand name or a person, it can be either one.
SERP Shaker For Creating Silo Structure Categories in a Website
Datis says, “I have a question for you with regards to SERPShaker.” Okay. If it’s a SERPShaker-specific question, I’m just curious why this isn’t being posted in the SERPShaker group. I’m not the SERPShaker developer, so I guess I’ll read the question. If it’s not really appropriate, I’m going to skip it, though. “I have 20+ location-specific pages that are accessible from our master locations page on our website.” Okay. “Each page currently has a link to two separate generic service pages and one unique page. Each service page has five different generic sub pages for service categories.” I’m getting an ice cream headache. I would like to bring … I’m almost going to need a graph here for this, like a diagram.
Adam: I see a Snagit drawing coming on.
Bradley: Yeah, and we don’t have time for that. “I would like to brand these generic pages by location. On each service page category page, I’d like the header image to correspond to the location they … ” Yeah, this is way too complex of a question. To be honest with you, is it right to create the [falling for 20 00:30:55]?
Marco: This also involves SERPShaker, so-
Bradley: Yeah, this isn’t … We’re not, we didn’t develop SERPShaker, man. We have endorsed it, there’s no question, but this sounds like a question that would be perfect for Andre and his group, because he’s the developer; so yeah, this is a little bit too … First of all, our audience probably doesn’t even know what the hell we’re talking about right now, so I’m going to have to skip this one, Datis. Not because I don’t want to answer it, but it’s just too complicated and it’s going to confuse a lot of people. I would recommend that you post that in the SERPShaker Facebook group, because there are lots of people in there that use SERPShaker a lot that can help you with that question.
Marco: He’s also welcome to join our Masterclass and Mastermind, where we would go in-depth with this question.
Bradley: Yeah, I mean, that’s true. The thing is, I just, I don’t use SERPShaker anymore, not because it’s a bad thing, it’s just because I use the ATM, which is part, it’s Lead Gadget, and so, to be honest with you, I haven’t been in SERPShaker in close to a year, because I’ve been with Lead Gadget since February of last year, so I just … I really don’t know. I know there’s been a ton of changes to SERPShaker, but I just don’t use it anymore, and it’s not because … Again, I just got the ATM, I use the ATM, so …
Problem Getting Facebook Page Link Using FBRSSS.com
Kris says, “In the Advanced RSS Feeds part of IFTTT, I was unable to get feeds for any other business Facebook pages to work. I tried clicking the pages and I’ve liked as suggested and using fbrss.com. Did Facebook change this, or did I just do it wrong?” I don’t know, Kris. Hernan’s not here, because he was-
Hernan: Hey, all.
Bradley: Oh, you are here.
Hernan: Yeah, I was lurking. Hangout was taking a dump on me. Hey, guys. Hey, everyone from Morocco, how [have 00:32:37] you guys been?
Bradley: Can you answer this question?
Hernan: Yeah, we will have to actually take a look, because last time we checked, it was working fine, the FB-RSS. Maybe they changed something. If they did, we will need to update it a little bit, so …
Bradley: I clicked the wrong button. All right, well, thanks, Hernan.
Hernan: No problem. Yeah.
Bradley: Mute you, or mute … Yeah, there you go. Thank you, because it was giving an echo. All right, so, by the way, guys, our first update webinar is next Wednesday, immediately following Hump Day Hangouts, and it’s actually going to be a combination of the first update webinar, as well as the monetization methods webinar. Actually, it’s next … I’m sorry, I said it was next Wednesday, I lied to you, it’s next Thursday. Yeah, it’s next Thursday, from 3:30pm to 5pm Eastern Time, okay? Just so you know, so anybody that has, is in IFTTT v2, make sure that you register for that. I posted the notification in the IFTTT v2 Facebook group; so we’ll take a look at that, Kris, that’s why I said that. It’s because we’ll take a look at that, and hopefully have an answer for you by next Thursday when we do the update webinar. There’s a few things we’re going to be updating next week, so …
Adding More Links in Citation Pages
“In a post that we add to our main blog website, is it okay to add a few links out to our citations?” Yeah, sure, of course. “When the post is syndicated, the IFTTT properties would, this would add a dozen links from our properties to our citations. Is this a good thing, or is it too aggressive?” No, that’s fine, Kris. You absolutely could be doing that. You’re interlinking between your branded properties and your citation [property 00:34:20], the business directories. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, that’s a good strategy. “I’m wondering if it is safe to add links to all the IFTTT network properties in the sidebar of blogs like Weebly. Thank you.” Yeah, of course you can. Yeah, that’s … I mean, that’s what we teach in the training is, if you’ve been through the new training, Kris, I walk through setting up Weebly and everything, too. We do the same thing, we can add the links into the sidebar. Wherever you can, you want to cross link to your other properties, okay?
Tool to Determine Keywords a Domain/Subdomain Has Ranked For
Jason Quinlan says, “Bradley, I know I’m late to the party, but I have a question on what would be the best way to find out what terms our domains and subdomains are ranking for. If you remember the question, cool. If not, I’ll see you in the Mastermind tomorrow anyways.” Jason, the only place that I know of that does that is SEMRush. You can use like a keyword, you can paste the URL in of any website, and it will come back and show you the keyword phrases that it’s ranking for in which pages, in which position. Really, really cool feature of SEMRush. However, I don’t even have a subscription [to 00:35:30] SEMRush.
That is one of the things, and Adam, get ready to drop this link, but one of the great things about using Bluechip Backlinks, Terry Kyle’s tool, which, for finding 100% topically relevant domains, expired domains, that you can purchase for building link networks or for building money sites on or whatever, I freaking love that tool, but that same function that you’re asking about, Jason, is available inside of Bluechip Backlinks, and it doesn’t require any additional subscription fees, so if you’re already using Bluechip Backlinks, you can use that feature. It’s basically connected to SEMRush via API, and you can do that. Just so I can show this really quickly and encourage you guys to check out, let’s see … Semanticmastery.com/bluechip.
I just want to show you guys very quickly where that is, because if you’re not using this tool, you’re nuts. I freaking love this tool. This is one of the best tools ever invented, in my opinion. It saved me a ton of money, because I stopped having to purchase links from other places. Instead, I just use, build my own link networks. I’m not talking about building private PBNs, guys, or private blog networks … SEMRush Ideas, there it is. I’m talking about building private link networks. PBNs are a pain in the ass to build. Private link network sites are easy to build, because it’s literally uploading an HTML file to a server, and you’re pretty much done. It’s very, very simple.
Anyways, SEMRush Ideas, this is the good one. If you drop a URL in here, and then click “search,” it’ll take a few minutes, but it will come back and it will give you the keywords that it’s ranked for. Let’s just use … Let’s use Majestic SEO as an example. Majestic SEO … Drop this in here and click “search,” and you’ll see it comes back right here, and it’ll show you the URL of the … It’ll show you the page, it’ll show you the keywords that it’s ranked for, and the position, right, and it gives you all this data very, very quickly, by just pasting the URL in, and it’s an awesome tool. Like I said, that’s available inside of Bluechip Backlinks, or you can just have a subscription for SEMRush. However, my suggestion is, you get this tool. If you’re doing SEO work and you’re not using this tool, you’re nuts.
Frequency of Assigning 301 Redirect of Pages from One Domain to Another
Okay, let’s see, are there any other … Yeah, there’s two more. Michael says, “I’m doing a 301 redirect to a new domain with a simple silo structure and an IFTTT network. I would like some of the pages to be redirected over as posts. Can these pages be redirected to the new site over a period of a few weeks, rather than all at once, so they syndicate to the network over time?” I’m not following … 301 to a new domain, simple silo structure … Some of the pages to be redirected over as posts. I don’t know what you mean, Michael. I’m sorry, I’m not following.
Marco: I think I do.
Bradley: Okay.
Marco: I think he’s going to take the content from the page, create a post on another page, and then create the redirect so that the post can syndicate on the new website or on the new domain with the same content, so it’s redirected, there is no duplicate content or anything. There wouldn’t be, anyway, [if 00:38:58] there were attribution, but yeah. To push power, I guess, whatever power the pages have over to the posts, so if I’m reading this correctly.
Bradley: Okay.
Marco: Should he do this over time, I mean, that’s the question. Can he? Yeah, of course they can be redirected over time, as long you don’t redirect [you know, on 00:39:16] 301 from the other website, if you just do it, whatever, .htaccess, use a plugin if it’s WordPress, and just do it one at a time instead of redirecting the entire domain. I would be careful if it was penalized. Right? If this is penalized, you’re just passing the penalty, which, then, that’s something that you definitely don’t want to do.
Bradley: Yeah. All right, so the second part of the question, because I’ll stand with Marco on his response because I’m still not 100% clear on that, but I think that was what … I think that was a pretty good interpretation of it. The second part is, “I have a question on how Google handles anchor text in a redirect situation. The existing site is an EMD and has a lot of brand and URL anchor text links, so there will be dozens of links with duplicate anchors that will be top keywords. I’m concerned if all these will be considered exact match anchor text on the new site, or does Google recognize that these are redirected URL anchors and not penalize the new site? Thanks.” I don’t know, Michael. I can tell you that if you had an EMD that you’d used a bunch of naked URL as anchors, those count as keyword anchors, because it’s an exact match domain. That’s why we don’t like using EMDs, right, anymore. If you’re doing a redirect from the new … The old URL, which was an EMD to a new one, then I would just …
I honestly don’t know what Google considers that. I don’t work for Google, so I don’t know. My assumption would be that, yeah, you would have to be concerned with the EMD anchors that are out there. The existing backlinks that are out there that were pointing to the EMD, which is now redirected to a new site, would be considered basically keyword anchors. There’s a way to fix that, though, right? Number one would be to potentially not redirect specific pages, ones that are maybe really heavy with inbound links or something like that. However, if you’ve got juice that you’re trying to push for the ranking benefit, then obviously that might not be the best option. The other option would be to, once you’ve got the new site up, build links directly to the new site using the new site name and the new site URL, which most likely is not an EMD, right, so that you’re essentially pillowing it. You’re diluting the anchor text profile of the new site, right? Because you have redirected links with exact match anchors, naked URLs, but they were exact match, nonetheless.
Right, so the only thing you could do, other than just not redirect that original domain or certain specific pages, right, so the only other option would be to dilute that anchor text with new brand anchors, right, from the new domain. New naked URL and brand anchors. That’s what I would do. I mean, if you’re not experiencing any negative, like from the EMD itself, if that particular site wasn’t experiencing any over-optimization penalties, then go ahead and redirect to the new domain, but I would proactively go out and start diluting that anchor text so that it doesn’t cause issues going forward, as Google continues to get stricter and stricter about that. Okay?
Checking an Overlayed Domain
Daryl says, “When a site has been overlaid over a particular domain, is there a way to tell what content is on the ‘real’ domain page, and if so how, outside of possibly a Wayback archive? Thanks.” That’s a good question for Marco.
Marco: Okay, so is there a way to tell what content on the real domain …
Bradley: The page, it’s underneath the iframe.
Marco: Yeah. I mean, that’s how you get caught by Google.
Bradley: Yeah.
Marco: Because the bot can still read not only the overlay. It’s just, guys, overlay is just another word for cloak.
Bradley: Cloaking, yeah.
Marco: Don’t get tricked into it. Okay? Overlay, what you’re saying is: If I cloak, [overlay 00:43:07], over a particular domain, is there a way to tell what content is on the real domain page? The answer is “yes.” The bot certainly can, and if it does, then you are going to get penalized, no questions asked: You will be deindexed.
Bradley: Yes. You will be deindexed. You will get a manual penalty, so … Marco’s absolutely right, guys. That’s why, look, I use [overlayer 00:43:32] plugins too, but I never overlay money sites onto any other site. What I’ll do is, even if I’m doing it for client work, whatever, what I’ll do is, I will create a landing page on a throwaway domain, like a disposable domain, a domain that I could care less about, get an XYZ domain, because they’re 88 cents a name, cheap. I don’t care. Just get a cheap domain, or you can put it on a subdomain of something if you want, and build landing pages, okay, and then use the landing page as the overlay. The landing page can be a bridge page that can have a big freaking button on it with one call to action and says, “Looking for blank, click here,” if you want, and it can click over to your final destination, your target URL, which would be your money site. You can do that if you’d like. However, that extra click is going to lower your conversion rate.
That’s why I’d rather just build the landing page to be set up for optimizations, whatever action you want the visitor to take. Right? Whether that’s complete an opt-in form, fill out a contact request form, make a phone call, whatever it is, I make the landing page set, try to set up the landing page for conversions to perform that one specific action that I want them to take, and I use that landing page as the overlay, and if you’re doing this for client sites, same thing. You just got to … You can build a landing page to model, to look like the client’s homepage or the website, if you want. Typically, the homepages of the sites aren’t set up for … They’re not optimized for conversions anyway, so I would still add some traditional landing page elements to the page, but you can do that.
You can put the client’s branding and everything on the landing page, their phone number, all that stuff, right, but that way you’re not overlaying a money site URL onto something else, which will absolutely get your site deindexed, if Google catches it, and there’s always that chance, guys, so just be aware of that. As far as looking at the content underneath, can’t you just view page source and see it, when you’re looking at the iframe?
Marco: It’s in the page source, of course that is.
Bradley: Yeah. Yeah, I thought so. All right. That’s it for those. Let’s see, where are we at now? Wow, we still got a lot of questions. Guys, we only got about 8 to 10 minutes.
Adam: Yeah. Well, we need to wrap it up in like 4 or 5, so …
Paid Ads Plus Map Packs
Bradley: Yeah. “I’m seeing paid ads in the map packs today.” This is what Skye says, “Is this something new?” I haven’t seen this yet, Skye, but he says, “This sucks. No, this really sucks. Anyways, what would be your first action or the biggest bang for the buck to get the quickest results for a map pack client?” Well, the quickest results for a map pack client, hands down right now, is RYS Academy stuff. That’s what I’m seeing almost the quickest results. He’s using RYS Academy stuff, and then all the stuff that we’ve already been teaching, which is make sure that your Google+ local page is connected to your syndication network and you’re blogging regularly. That’s going to make a big difference. Using schema.org on the money site and connect … Making sure your structured data is correct is very important help you to rank in the maps pack, but I just want to take a different approach to this paid maps … Paid ads in the maps pack today.
I haven’t seen this, guys. I’m not … Skye, I believe you and say that maybe that is, but I don’t agree when you said, “This sucks. No, this really sucks,” because guys, if you got, if it forces you to learn how to do paid ads, because now they’re going to start putting them in the maps pack, then so be it. Learn it, because that’s still a service that you can provide. You can still make money from paid ads, guys, and honestly, it gives you another service that you can sell, and what’s great about paid ads, guys, is they’re so scalable. SEO work, like people say that SEO provides free traffic. Bullshit. It’s not free traffic. How much effort do you put into doing SEO work? Is your time worth nothing? Right?
SEO is not free traffic at all. There is still a cost involved, and so my point is, with paid traffic, what’s good about paid traffic takes some dialing in, but once you get it dialed in, man, if you got … It’s just a matter of scaling. You can dump more money into it, you can get better results, you can optimize your … Get better results, make your ads perform better, so you lower your cost per click, and increase your conversion rate, and all that kind of stuff, so I disagree. I used to be against paid traffic for the longest time, as an SEO. I was like, just, “I’m not doing paid traffic bullshit.” Well, now I use it to supplement my SEO work. Right? My point is, is there’s an opportunity there. Think of that as an opportunity and not as a … Something that sucks.
Marco: My 2 cents, and I know that there’s tons of people who will tell you different, if you pay Google for ads, whether it’s YouTube ads or AdWords, you’re going to rank better anyway.
Male: [Okay 00:48:22].
Marco: Both for paid and non-paid.
Bradley: Good point.
Marco: They’ll tell you “no.” Google will tell you “no.” There’s tons of other people who will tell you “no,” but it does, it influences how you rank, so pay Google. It also provides a shield. They come, and I always tell people: The IP and the user, everything else, Google will have that in file, but it’s tied to a credit card or a bank account or both, and it just provides a bigger shield for all the stuff that you’re doing, so you can get away with a whole lot more than you otherwise would.
Bradley: Yeah. I agree with that, and that’s a good point, because I’ve experienced that firsthand, especially with video ads, like when I run a video ad, and I’ve used that specifically for like videos that I’ve been trying to rank and that I’ve had, hit a hurdle or whatever, like a stopping point, where it plateaued and I just couldn’t get it to budge anymore, and then I’ve gone into YouTube, or AdWords for video, and I’ve gone and set up a couple ads, and just spent like literally a dollar a day on the ad, and within 7 days my videos jumped to page one, oftentimes within the first … The top 3 positions, just from having paid traffic going to it.
Now, is it because I’m paying Google, or is it because the ads are actually generating traffic, which is an engagement signal? I don’t really know. I don’t care. All I know is, it works. You know what I mean? Like is it because I’m actually giving Google money, or is it because people are clicking and viewing the video, which is an engagement signal, which is absolutely part of the ranking algorithm for videos? Does that make sense? I really don’t know which one causes the effect, but it doesn’t matter, because it works. I just do it. All right, so Adams, just crack the whip. You said this is the last question, so …
Adam: Last questions.
Bradley: “Okay, when you’re doing schema, what’s the … ” We already answered this. “When putting in the author, can you just use the brand?” Yes, you can. I answered that, so I answer one for Dean.
IFTTT Network Strategy for Semanticmastery.com
“Hello guys, IFTTT networks, do you use them for your Semantic Mastery website?” Yes, of course we do, Dean. We use them for everything. “Is Semantic Mastery your main business domain?” Yeah. Are you writing a book? I’m just curious. It seems like an odd question, but yeah, it is.
Adam: No, I mean, that’s good. I think he’s probably asking, “Hey, do you drink your own Kool-Aid?”
Male: Yeah.
Adam: Yeah. We got it.
Marco: Not only Semantic Mastery, but everything else that we do on the web, I always crack a joke that if my dog sits still long enough, he’s getting an IFTTT ring.
Bradley: That’s good. Yeah, everything I got does, too. I’ve literally got … I’ve probably got over 1000 IFTTT networks now.
Male: [Yeah 00:51:01].
Bradley: It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. All right, guys, well, that’s it. Masterclass starts in about 9 minutes.
Adam: 8 minutes, yeah.
Bradley: We’re going to get ready for that. Thanks for everybody being here. Sorry for the confusion with the event page being deleted. We’re going to have to smack somebody around for that, so … All right, guys. Thanks for the-
Adam: We’re going to attach an IFTTT network to [on the 00:51:18] network.
Bradley: We’ll see you next time.
Adam: I’m sorry. I think Hernan was getting ready to talk. Go ahead.
Hernan: Oh, yeah. Bye bye, guys.
Male: Bye, everyone.
Bradley: All right, guys, see you.
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