Newbie Question(s) so dumb, you're afraid to even ask!

[bernard]

Yes, linking to related content is always good, and make sure the links are actually visible.

I use the typical "-> Also Read " in big font and colors, because I want the visitor to actually click.

 

[LongPipe]

Here are a few questions;

1.) Should I really drive myself going all green with yoast premium? I have heard and seen in many cases where poor content outranks better content on backlinks. Should I spend countless hours writing HQ content that passes Grammarly, has all the right transition words, reading score, passive voice below whatever % they say etc. Or should I just write some cool content that reads easily do all the other technical stuff and focus on off page?

2.) What is the right way to gauge how many backlinks you need to rank for a keyword? I understand domain authority has a lot to do with keyword positioning also. But, if I am using a domain relatively comparable to the top domains in my keyword? Should I just aim for more backlinks than everyone else competing for the term? Should I focus on only doing high DA niche relevant guest posting etc?

3.) Why is there such a discrepancy between SEO tools when it comes to domain keyword difficulty?

Here is an example of a few keywords I ran through KWfinder, Aherfs, SEMrush, MOZ and keyword planner.

Should I not pay so much attention to these tools? Have you guys found a tool or way of using one of these tools to yield better results when it comes to actual statistics of the KD and search volume?

4.) 301-redirects to matching or similar content. Does this still work to rank "money grab ideas"? I understand this type of ranking may not stick and should only be used for certain situations?


Thanks for taking the time to read my post see you guy's around.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'll take a stab at these!

Or should I just write some cool content that reads easily do all the other technical stuff and focus on off page?

Yes. There's certain Yoast green lights that are better than others. I wouldn't worry about Grammarly that much, if at all. Maybe just as a spell checker. Worrying about grammar and syntax and all that will slow you way down. You should write simply so that googlebot and all of your users can comprehend it. If you're doing that, you shouldn't need Grammarly.

I'd be worrying more about meeting the intent of the SERP than being technically correct in terms of grammar. Be informative, be entertaining, format in a way that keeps people scrolling.

You have to be careful with Yoast, too. They'll tell you to keyword stuff your content, they don't measure the use of the keyword in some custom blocks or in image alt text, etc. Some of their stuff is quick and easy and it makes for a fast way to check you're ticking off certain boxes. Other stuff can mislead you.

Should I just aim for more backlinks than everyone else competing for the term? Should I focus on only doing high DA niche relevant guest posting etc?

It depends on the SERP and your domain authority and interlinking. The number of links itself doesn't say much without also taking into account the domain authority and page authority of those links, quality of the content, the on-page optimization, site speed, etc. I'll talk more about this below. But yes, contextual links on powerful sites are the best links you can get. Even better if they're directly relevant to your post.

Why is there such a discrepancy between SEO tools when it comes to domain keyword difficulty?

Because they all have access to different data and have written different algorithms to gauge difficulty. It's also hard to take the power of each individual link into account, especially backlinks aimed at backlinks, etc. Then there's age, indexation count, indexation quality, SERP intent, and everything else that goes into this game. More on that below, too.

Should I not pay so much attention to these tools?

All of the above "more on that" is pointing here. The way to use these tools is to pick one (probably Ahrefs or SEMRush) when it comes to backlink data. The point isn't to compare them and find out which is more accurate. None of them are extremely accurate.

The point is that they are consistent among themselves. This allows you to compare pages and SERPs against each other, and even if the metrics aren't perfectly accurate, they're consistently accurate. You can trust that they measure the same things on multiple pages, keywords, whatever.

This allows you to use the data to take shortcuts, especially with bulk work. You might miss 20% of opportunities but you're finding 80% of them and moving a lot faster in bulk. These are enterprise solutions for people working at scale.

If you're using them to get down to the nitty gritty, they should be used in combination with your own eyes, looking at the SERPs themselves and each individual URL's content and backlinks. And even then you're probably pissing into the wind, especially on medium and high competition stuff.

301-redirects to matching or similar content. Does this still work to rank "money grab ideas"? I understand this type of ranking may not stick and should only be used for certain situations?

Google is wise to this method. You should use them the way real businesses use them in mergers and acquisitions if you want it to last. Use it to raise the tide of your domain so all of your boats (pages) benefit, rather than sniping out one single page. That's pretty obvious.

 

[MuffinS]

Hi All,

Here is a dumb question I'm afraid to ask.

In 2016, AHREF's was the best!
Fast forward to now, what is the community using now?

Is it MOZ? Still AHREFS? Or appears to be Majestic?
The use case would be for domaining and competitor analysis.

Thanks heaps

Second question.

When I did active PBN building, I would "never" use Chrome, GMAIL or Google Spreadsheets (for fear of leaving a footprint and my PBN being wiped out). Do the hard core SEO's here use Chrome? Or are you using a different Browser (like Firefox) to prevent tracking?

Thanks

Third Question.
I'm organising my hosting and PBN and I don't want to put it in Google sheets.
Back in the day, I used Zoho as my online spreadsheet tool (not scrapable by Google).
Wondering what you guys are using now to manage your details?
The solution needs to be accessiable by other team members (collaborative).
Thanks

 

[JamaicanMoose]

Hi All,

Here is a dumb question I'm afraid to ask.

In 2016, AHREF's was the best!
Fast forward to now, what is the community using now?

Is it MOZ? Still AHREFS? Or appears to be Majestic?
The use case would be for domaining and competitor analysis.

Thanks heaps

AHrefs

Second question.

When I did active PBN building, I would "never" use Chrome, GMAIL or Google Spreadsheets (for fear of leaving a footprint and my PBN being wiped out). Do the hard core SEO's here use Chrome? Or are you using a different Browser (like Firefox) to prevent tracking?

Thanks

I use Chrome, GMail, and Google sheets with my PBNs. Google isn't going to give a fuck about that.

Third Question.
I'm organising my hosting and PBN and I don't want to put it in Google sheets.
Back in the day, I used Zoho as my online spreadsheet tool (not scrapable by Google).
Wondering what you guys are using now to manage your details?
The solution needs to be accessiable by other team members (collaborative).
Thanks

Google Sheets or Excel. Alternatively, a managed PBN service, like Easy Blog Networks, always worked great for me.

 

[CaptainHustle]

Here is my dumb question of the day.

I wrote an article a few weeks ago which was ranking for a lot of keywords. I identified a promising keyword that the article was not optimized for and went ahead and wrote a different article optimized for that keyword because I believe these keywords have different search intents. These articles are interlinked and are currently ranking for both the keywords. Unfortunately, the initial article has dropped in rankings for its optimized keyword after I posted the newer article.

Long story short, I want to resolve this keyword cannibalization. Here are the options before me.

1) Should I create a new page that combines both these pages and 301 both of them there (I'm unsure if I should be using 301s so lightly)?

2) Merge the newer one into the older one and deindex or delete the newer one?

3) Edit the older article to de-optimize it for the kw I want to rank the newer one for and keep everything as is?

Thanks a lot.

 

[Ryuzaki]

@CaptainHustle, based on the information you've given, I think I'd go for option #3.

I would de-optimize the original article for the keyword that you want the newer post to rank for. I'd also be careful about making sure the new article is not optimized for the terms in the first article.

If they're truly different intents and the keywords reflect that, then I wouldn't start doing 301's and merging. That's what I'd do if they were similar though. You can search the SERPs themselves to determine that.

 

[CaptainHustle]

@CaptainHustle, based on the information you've given, I think I'd go for option #3.

I would de-optimize the original article for the keyword that you want the newer post to rank for. I'd also be careful about making sure the new article is not optimized for the terms in the first article.

If they're truly different intents and the keywords reflect that, then I wouldn't start doing 301's and merging. That's what I'd do if they were similar though. You can search the SERPs themselves to determine that.

The content is similar, but it pursues a different angle but provides the same solution because it applies to both. So I guess there is some logic in both articles ranking for it. In that case, would you suggest I merge or 301?

 

[bopeep]

I am fond of short brandable domains

So, in terms branding perspective, would a prefer a slightly odd sounding four letter .net or .org vs a 5 letter com

I m using the first 2 letters as an abbreviation of my target keyword. It is also a popular keyword anyway, bit the abbreviation and the keyword.

So I have something jkvg dot net jkbn.org vs jkhub.com

I don't know why i love short domains. even looking at some dot to etc with 3 letters haha

I am planning to flip the site in a couple years

 

[JamaicanMoose]

5 letters is short

 

[Terry Power]

Nice to know there's a place for newbie to ask questions, or for others to help those newbies. While I know there ARE stupid questions, no one should be afraid to ask. It's how you learn.

 

[bopeep]

WHat is the deal with Asian SPAM sites? Is it that it is easier to rank on Asian SERPs with spam, or they operate at a different scale. Every expired domain with some authority links that are available are spammed by Asians. Tow of my old sites that I sold was left to expire by the new owners after they can't survive a few google updates (one ran the site for 3 years and made their money and much more, another also made thier money and site was still ranking I guess they forgot to renew the domain) and it is sad to see that both the sites totally unrelated Asian site now..

 

[Mahjong]

Any good call forwarding service? Other than Avoxi...

 

[CaptainHustle]

So I reached out to a company to enter into an affiliate partnership. They do not have an affiliate program but they are interested. What is the best way to set this up?

Should I direct them to some affiliate platform? Or is there a simpler way of tracking the traffic I drive and the sales made through that traffic?

To summarise, the objective is to achieve three things and three things only.

1.Tracking clicks.
2. Setting up a cookie.
3. Tracking sales.

 

[alwicz]

So I reached out to a company to enter into an affiliate partnership. They do not have an affiliate program but they are interested. What is the best way to set this up?

Should I direct them to some affiliate platform? Or is there a simpler way of tracking the traffic I drive and the sales made through that traffic?

To summarise, the objective is to achieve three things and three things only.

1.Tracking clicks.
2. Setting up a cookie.
3. Tracking sales.

Hey CaptainHustle,

I would probably avoid affiliate platforms. It's kind of overkill for what you are trying to do. Also, it's way more complicated to set up everything for the company you want to promote. They have to sign all those contracts, and the affiliate platform will also take a cut from the commissions so that you will end up with lower money.

If they set up it only for you, you have no competition and exclusive offer to promote.

I found this article to be very helpful: https://optinmonster.com/start-an-affiliate-program/

Take a look. Those are WordPress plugins that set up their affiliate tracking, etc. The company is entirely in charge of that.

I hope it helps!
Alex

 

[CCarter]

So I reached out to a company to enter into an affiliate partnership. They do not have an affiliate program but they are interested. What is the best way to set this up?


Should I direct them to some affiliate platform? Or is there a simpler way of tracking the traffic I drive and the sales made through that traffic?


To summarise, the objective is to achieve three things and three things only.


1.Tracking clicks.

2. Setting up a cookie.

3. Tracking sales.

It really depends on how motivated they are. The fastest way is through an affiliate platform since they've got all the technical know how with instructions and setup.

To get them to do it on their own, that's an uphill battle since you didn't mention what platform they are on. The biggest problem is the technical know-how to set all this up with some pre-made affiliate software that integrates with their eCommerce platform.

I assume if they had the technical know-how they would have already done it.

It's not difficult if they have web developers within the company, just a bit of a hassle. Remember the bigger the corporation the harder it is to get new initiatives going cause they have to go through committees and a bunch of red tape.

If it's a small operation and you can aid in finding the right developer it could be a 20 to 40 hour project.

The easiest method is to use a platform like Commission Junction. The next method is to use software and get their developers to implement it. Perhaps ZenDesk.com is the most rounded industry software available for this.

Within my operation I coded the whole process from scratch - took about 30 hours. Is the company willing to shell out 20-40 hours worth of developer work to implement and then learn and be reminded - If you can successfully sell the benefits of having a ton of people selling their product for them - yes.

 

[CaptainHustle]

I would probably avoid affiliate platforms. It's kind of overkill for what you are trying to do. Also, it's way more complicated to set up everything for the company you want to promote. They have to sign all those contracts, and the affiliate platform will also take a cut from the commissions so that you will end up with lower money.

This was exactly my logic. I am not interested in getting them to start an affiliate program or get on a platform where other people go after my juicy keywords that I cannot protect with links. So we have been looking for a smaller, workable solution. It needn't have a proper dashboard just a way to track sales in real-time. One thing I have been thinking about is getting them to give me a discount code for like a dollar or something. This way the people from my blog can apply the code and that will track itself for free.

Thank you for the link, I will try to implement that.

Within my operation I coded the whole process from scratch - took about 30 hours. Is the company willing to shell out 20-40 hours worth of developer work to implement and then learn and be reminded - If you can successfully sell the benefits of having a ton of people selling their product for them - yes.

Hey CCarter,

Thank you for the thorough reply.

I am actually not very keen on them starting an affiliate program or getting on an affiliate platform. I just wanted better commissions than amazon.

I actually proposed a 10% commission per sale but it seemed like they could have offered a lot more. The average product price is around $35. It is a pretty small company. They even said they will give me a better commission rate if they see that it has traction.

For now, I will just try a workaround solution that tracks sales accurately and has a cookie (i sense this will be more difficult?) I can't code for shit.

 

[CCarter]

I actually proposed a 10% commission per sale but it seemed like they could have offered a lot more. The average product price is around $35. It is a pretty small company. They even said they will give me a better commission rate if they see that it has traction.

If you think about the moment after next, let say you drive in 100 sales a month - you get $350 right. You don't think they are going to say "Hmmm... can't we get other people to do this as well?"

They'd have to be pretty stupid not to. Once you open Pandora's box it ain't closing.

 

[bopeep]

On expireddomain dot net there is LE, BL and DP as the first three column after the star. DP is the domain pop referring domains, but I can't figure out how to use it as a filter. The is a Majestic Domain Pop option on filter but it is not the same as the DP in the default result. It would then be pretty easy to filter out the spam domains.

 

[Ryuzaki]

@bopeep, if you sign up (free) you get a lot more filters. There's four tabs of filters. One of them is Adwords & SEO, and it includes SEOkicks Domain Pop:

​

This is what the basic DP metric is using.

 

[bernard]

I am actually not very keen on them starting an affiliate program or getting on an affiliate platform. I just wanted better commissions than amazon.

I actually proposed a 10% commission per sale but it seemed like they could have offered a lot more. The average product price is around $35. It is a pretty small company. They even said they will give me a better commission rate if they see that it has traction.

For now, I will just try a workaround solution that tracks sales accurately and has a cookie (i sense this will be more difficult?) I can't code for shit.

Depending on how good they are at Analytics, they could set up some kind of ecommerce funnel for you. I assume it is pretty easy to see which sales have your site as a direct channel, but of course there is often more to it than that, which is why affiliate programs set cookies to track the entire funnel. I believe that Google Analytics do have various attribution models though, such as first click, last click and various other stuff.

 

[bopeep]

Stock Images question. I always wondered, how do companies enforce stock images. This is just a question. If I am using stock images on my websites, how do the stockimage company know if they are paid for stolen? Do they randomly send webmasters and ask to see memberships?

I am not planning to stiff photgrphers, I have more credits on many stock images than I can use. But I am not able to understand. I saw someone asking for group buy for stock images and how does it work? I mean, are there digital signatures on stock images, in the meta data, that tell the stock image company that it is paid for?

 

[CaptainHustle]

Is the GDPR cookie consent disclaimer important or necessary if 98% of your visitors are from the US? I am on shared hosting and I would rather use as few plugins as I possibly can. Not to mention, the disclaimer itself is a huge pain for the UX.

 

[CCarter]

Is the GDPR cookie consent disclaimer important or necessary if 98% of your visitors are from the US?

You do not have to show it to USA users. In fact you do not have to show it at all if you are not setting tracking cookies. People showing that popup are using the laziest way of consent.

Most people didn’t bother reading the document and just read summaries from bloggers who took the lazy route. Just like the SEO industry does, listen to gurus without double checking.