Click on the video above to watch Episode 141 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.
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The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.
Announcement
Bradley: Okay, we’re live. Hey everybody. This is Bradley Banner with Semantic Mastery. Today is Hump Day Hangouts Episode 141. Wow. And it’s July 19, 4 PM Eastern. And we’ve got a rack of people with us today. I’m gonna go down the line as I see them. And … well, first my partners and then we’ve got some guests as well today, guys. So, we’ll get into that in just a moment. Chris? How you doing, buddy?
Chris: Doing good, happy to be here. How are you, Bradley?
Bradley: I’m good. I’m good. It’s hot as hell, here in Virginia right now, though. I’ll tell you that. So, it’s even hot up here in my upstairs office. Hernan, you’re up next. You look cold. (laughs)
Hernan: Yeah. It is. It is cold. Hey. Hey guys. What’s up? It’s really, really good to be here. For you guys watching this live, you’re in for a treat because we have a hell of guests today. So, it’s really good to be here.
Bradley: That’s right. That’s right. So, anticipation builds. Marco, what’s up, buddy?
Marco: Hey. What’s up, man? It’s hella hot in Costa Rica. It’s 80 in here.
Bradley: Yeah? [inaudible 00:01:02] (laughs)
Marco: (laughs)
Bradley: That’s awesome. And then we’ve got Roman on, who’s been on with us recently for the last few weeks. What’s up, Roman?
Roman: Not much. How’re you doing?
Bradley: Good, man. I’m good. And, next, we’ve got Mike Pierce, the one and only. He’s a legend in the SEO crowd, if you haven’t heard of him, you’ve been living under a rock. So, what’s up, Mike?
Mike Pierce: Hey guys. It’s good to be here. Sorry I brought Brad along, but he tags along.
Bradley: Well, I’m gonna let you introduce Brad since I’m not really familiar with Brad at the moment. So …
Mike Pierce: Brad is my secret weapon. No. Brad is my partner-in-crime, essentially. And we like to test and break things together.
Bradley: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Partner-in-crime. I hear that. So, guys, we’re pretty honored to have Mike on, he’s … Mike and his partner, Brad, as well … he’s been kind of one of our go to people. Marco’s been talking with him for years, now. And he has some real ninja stuff that … It’s amazing. So, it’s really awesome to have you guys on. We really appreciate you being here today.
Mike Pierce: Yeah. My pleasure, man.
Bradley: Alright, so just a couple of announcements before we get into some questions and stuff. And … Let’s see the first one … That’s the wrong .txt file. Gimme one second. Okay. So, yeah. Tomorrow we have a webinar with Lisa Allen talking about RSS, using RSS for authority and creating code citation. Many of you may have been introduced to her platform or application that she created well over a year ago now called Rank Feeder. It’s very, very powerful. I’ve actually just started testing it again, recently. I kinda got away from doing that for a while, while I was learning, doing a lot of ad work stuff, but, now, that I’ve been starting to getting back into doing more SEO again, I started playing with it.
And I’m getting some crazy results using two different strategies. One, being press releases for local, by the way. This is … I’m getting really good results for local stuff with this. Using press releases is my sole off-page strategy. I’ve been testing that and really just crushing it, recently, with that. And also using just this RSS trigger stuff with the combination of IFTTT and, now Rank Feeder. I’m mixing that into it and I’m actually seeing really good results with that.
So, tomorrow we have a webinar for that. It’s at 3:30 PM. I’m gonna drop the link onto the page here in just a moment. If you guys want to sign up for that, I encourage you to come check it out. It’s a powerful application. Alright. Okay.
And, then, let me get into the next one, as well. Okay.
Marco: Ah. Yes, I will. You know how we’ve been talking about entities and all about entities and it’s going to be moving forward and the way that we’ve been saying it is that you have to validate. Right? You set it up. And then, you have to validate your entities in some kind of way. Well, there’s a third step that’s now in that you have to solidify your entities. It’s not just a two-step and you leave it alone. Your entity, actually, has to be alive, is what I call. And, so, what we’re moving towards with RYS Reloaded is not only is it still [inaudible 00:04:22] just go … just rank your shit in whatever you want.
But when you want to go after some really hardcore shit, you can use it as long as you’re using it in the way that we’re going to teach it. Right? Which is going after that entity, creating that entity, verifying the entity, and, then, what we’re calling, solidifying the entity. Which is making it alive and it has to be a living thing within, for lack of a better word, a living thing within the semantic web of things. If it’s just another thing, it’s just sitting there and it’s nothing.
Bradley: Yeah. So, we’re pretty excited about this and we have the actual date for that, yet. I know it’s tentatively gonna be for the end of August, correct?
Marco: End of August, beginning of September, or somewhere around there.
Bradley: So, you know, that, guys, that’s gonna be pretty amazing. The last one that we did … Shit, it’s almost been two … It’s been two years, isn’t it.
Marco: Yeah. It would be the two-year anniversary. That’s where we’re doing it.
Mike Pierce: Yeah. What Marco’s talking about with the solidification and everything, if you guys, after just thinking about it, it’s all just common sense. You just look at life cycle, other real website. This exactly what Marco was talking about. It’s two years old, but, now, it’s reloaded and that means it’s been working for two years and it’s even stronger. So, pretty, freaking cool.
Bradley: That’s amazing because that means, other than … The core training is really unchanged. The core principles is unchanged and it’s still crushing it. It’s just amazing. So …
So, it’s not like we’re doing any sorta like formal training. Of course, we’ll be talking about business stuff. There’s no doubt, but it’s not gonna be like formal training. It’s more of just a get-together and a meet-up. So, we’re not charging tuition and all that. The only thing we ask for is a small deposit to secure your spot, so that we can get kind of a head count prior to actually reserving a room, so we know what size of a room to get. But that’s all it is. It’s just kind of a small deposit. So, go check it out and if you’re anywhere in that vicinity or that side of the country or whatever and you want to come out and meet with us, as well as many other people in our audience or our group, our members, followers, whatever you want to call them. We encourage you to come do so because I think it’ll be fun. So …
Mike Pierce: Is Marco going?
Bradley: I don’t think Marco’s going. I think he’s the only one who can’t make it. He’s been grounded by the [crosstalk 00:07:30], right?
Marco: I have to go to Argentina.
Bradley: Okay.
Marco: For follow-up treatment. Then, I have to go back again in December, January.
Bradley: So, if anybody wants to go to Argentina for a one-on-one meet-up with Marco, feel free to do so. (laughs)
Marco: There you go.
Mike Pierce: I want to go for the treatments, man. I’m feeling a little jealous, now, Marco’s back with the treatments he’s getting because mine’s not getting any better at this point.
Hernan: Yeah. He’s getting the top treatment. And, also, this is kind of an experiment. It’s like the first meet-up of many that we have prepared, right? So, if this goes well, we intend to do this at least frequently as time permits. So, the main idea is that we can get together. We can share because this virtual space is great, it’s amazing, but in-person meetings, they have a lot to give us to all of us. So, we can meet and network, etc., etc. So, if this goes well. We can keep on doing them. So …
Brad: Yeah. Yeah. Mike was actually telling me, the other day, about this event a few years ago, where he met the most badass SEO that’s he’s ever met on the face of the planet. And they made a ton of money together since. So, it’s pretty cool.
Mike Pierce: (laughs)
Hernan: So, there we go.
Bradley: Yeah, and that’s what Hernan said. If this goes well, guys, we’ll probably do at least a couple, maybe. As many as quarterly in various port locations around the country, so that it’ll make it more accessible to people that live in different areas. So …
Brad: Come to North Carolina. I’ll go.
Bradley: I’d love to, man.
Brad: You’re in Virginia, right? Yeah, there you go.
Bradley: I’m just in Virginia. So …
Brad: Yeah. There we go. Do Virginia, I’ll make it a day trip.
Bradley: Absolutely.
Mike Pierce: We’ll have to get him out there in October, Brad. You know?
Brad:There we go. Yeah.
Bradley: Yeah, when it’s pretty.
Bradley: (laughs) We got the leaves turn really colorful in October, September, October time. So …
Brad:That’s it.
Bradley: Alright, guys. We’re gonna get in some questions. We’ve got several already. So, let’s go ahead and jump into them, if everyone’s cool with that.
Hernan: Let’s do it.
Mike Pierce: Yup. Let’s go.
Bradley: Okay. Y'all should be seeing my entire screen. I’ve got it zoomed in a little bit. How’s it look?
Hernan: Yeah. That’s good.
Bradley: Okay. Cool.
Is It Appropriate To Contact Local Dentists On Their Policies, Insurance Coverage & Services First Before Answering To Customer Calls From Lead Gen Campaigns?
Alright, so the first one is from Neil. Neil is a newer local kingpin buyer and he’s got some questions here. First thing, I’m not gonna read the whole question. It’s very long. But what I would mention, Neil, is that these questions should be answered in the training. So, I don’t know if you’ve gone through the training entirely, yet. But maybe go through it first. But, basically, the question you’re asking about is for setting up Lead Gen Funnels and the problem you’re having is not having a client when you set up the Lead Gen Funnel first and what do you do with the leads.
And so, I understand these are all what-ifs that you’re asking me here and it’s understandable to kind of have what-ifs ahead of time, but what-ifs are what stop people dead in their tracks from making progress. Right? My suggestion to you is get the funnel set up. Get the ad campaign set up. Start generating leads. And then, I’m gonna give you some pointers right now. But start generating leads and then worry about what to do with the leads after you’ve got them. Because when you go into it with the “what do I do with them once I get them”-type mindset, a lot of times you won’t even get started.
That said. As far as leads type stuff … Now, I’ve never worked with dentists or any sort of physician of any kind, guys. So, I don’t know if there’s any sort of other legality issues and I’m sure some of you on this [crosstalk 00:11:45]
Mike Pierce: There … Yeah, I will say there are some things in certain states that suits you when it comes to working with doctors and various … I don’t know about dentists, in particular. [inaudible 00:11:54] might know more, but I know that there have been doctors, in the past, that straight up just told me, “Sorry, I can’t legally advertise. I can’t legally do this.” So, if it’s a new market to you and you don’t know the market and it is a medical market, look into those questions first.
Bradley: Right.
Mike Pierce: [crosstalk 00:12:11]And make sure …
Brad:You should always know your market, regardless.
Mike Pierce: What’s that, Brad?
Brad:You should always know your market, regardless.
Mike Pierce: Right.
Brad:Engulf yourself in whatever market you’re in.
Mike Pierce: Exactly.
Bradley: I totally agree with that. So, if you have access to any dentists that you could talk to about that … like find the local dentists, if you’re gonna be working in your state, for example. You could ask some questions. In fact, that would even be a great conversation starter for potential service providers or people, you know, dentists that would buy leads from you. Is to call around and just ask some questions because, then, you’re not calling as a salesman. You’re not calling as a marketing guy. You’re calling to ask their expertise about a particular issue, about marketing for dentists, like if that makes sense.
Mike Pierce: You might actually find some pay points when you’re approaching them that way that you might not know about ahead of time. [inaudible 00:13:00] You might stumble in on a gold mine. So …
Bradley: And at the same time, like I said, that’s also a conversation starter from an angle, a non-sales angle, that can get you in the door for potential lead buyers. So, as far as when it comes to contractors, which is primarily what I deal with … What I’ve always done is I set up a generic Lead Gen Funnel and I send all the leads … By the way, I can tell from your question that you’re planning on fielding phone calls from your Lead Gen Funnels. Please don’t do that. Send it to voicemail. I don’t care what you do. Just don’t be answering the phone for Lead Gen Funnels. There’s really no reason for you to. The whole idea is just to prove you can generate leads. That’s it. Once you’ve proven you can generate two or three leads or, you know, five, or whatever for that particular niche, whatever your niche may be, then you can contact service providers and show proof and say this is what I have available.
So what? The point is that you can prove the phone call, you can prove the click, the phone call, the web form submission, whatever. That’s a lead. Once you’ve proven that you can do a few leads, now you can show data to potential service providers. That’s how I’ve always done it. And that’s what I suggest doing.
Anybody else have any other insight on that?
Hernan: No. I second your opinion of taking action first and figuring out later, right? And this applies for Lead Gen for AdWords, and this also applies for Lead Gen for SEO websites, or organic websites, or whatever you’re trying to do, pretty much. You cannot expect everything to be laid out neatly for you. Otherwise, you can never take an action. So, yeah. I think that this applies to pretty much anything that we’re doing.
Mike Pierce: And you want to get good at research. So go out there and do some research and see if there might not be a solution for you. They might be able to fill those calls for you, while you’re kind of getting your feet wet. And, actually, kind of group that into some data for yourself. So, go look around what services are out there around call space and you might find something interesting.
Bradley: Yup. I agree with that.
Chris: My [inaudible 00:15:40]. First, talk to a dentist in person. [inaudible 00:15:45] they’ll know somebody. There’s also the American Dentist Association where you can hit potential clients up. And as everybody else said, good ol’ Art Williams, “Just do it.”
Bradley: Just do it. Yup.
And so, again, that’s just the way I like to do it. I like to have … You know, I’ve got a call center set up for all my Lead Gen stuff. So, I always would just … Obviously, I know my markets very well. So, I can set up a generic script for the call center so that they can literally screen the leads when they come in, even if I don’t have a service provider in place. Typically, I do now. But even if were not to, I would still have a warm body answering the phone. They have a specific script so they ask the caller. So, essentially, it qualifies the lead. And, now, I have the lead data that I can submit via text and/or e-mail to any contractor that I want or any service provider that I want.
Should You Create Separate Gmail Account For Businesses With Multiple Locations?
Next, we’re gonna move on. Keith Mallinson. What’s up, Keith? He says, “I have three questions with reference to building a Google business listings. If a client has multiple locations, should I create a Gmail account for each GMB location or just use one Gmail account and register all the locations on that one account?
If it’s a bonafide business, not something your like setting up for lead gen, then it’s fine to set up all the GMB location pages under the primary account. That’s perfectly fine.
Where I talk about using separate personas for each GMB is like if you’re setting up lead gen locations and you’re using stuff like USPS Post Office boxes as your physical location and that kinda stuff, then you can flag an account that way, if you try to register more than one PO box under an account. It doesn’t always happen, but it’s been happening more recently. So, that’s why I recommend for like lead gen stuff that you set up a separate persona account as the owner of the GMB profile. So, they’re like the owner of the Google My Business page. And then set yourself up as the manager across all of them, so that you can easily manage those from your Google My Business dashboard, or your agency’s dashboard, or however you have it set up.
But my point is, for that, that’s just a way to mitigate risk, to reduce risk in case your lead gen assets get smacked by Google because they determine it’s not a valid business or whatever. If that’s the case, your only one at a time is really susceptible to being terminated as opposed to, if you have them all underneath one Google My Business profile account … excuse me, one Google profile … If all locations are owned under there and someone wanted them to get in trouble, it’s likely it could affect all of them. Does that make sense?
Anybody want to comment on that?
Mike Pierce: Yeah, definitely if it is a real business. Having it in one account and strengthening that account is a great idea. So, I second everything that was said.
Brad:Yeah. Themes out the entire account, if you build them all on the same.
Brad:Piggy back off of [crosstalk 00:19:11].
Bradley: [crosstalk 00:19:12]… a thriving business too, so it’s powerful.
Is It Okay To Create Separate Website Or Use One Domain With Separate Pages For Each Location?
Again, that’s come … that’s gonna really depend on you. For a legitimate business, I would recommend using separate location pages on one domain. For lead gen stuff, I prefer to do subdomain, individual subdomain sites for each location. And, again, that’s all for mitigating risk. If one of those sites is to get slapped, it should be localized or affecting only that one site, not the entire domain.
Whereas, if you had location pages on a root domain or … It doesn’t matter. If you have location pages so they’re all hosted under one site and one of those locations gets smacked by Google, then it could affect the entire domain. And so, then, you could lose all of them. And so, again, it’s all about mitigating risk.
If it’s a genuine business, a client that you’re doing for, for ease of management, I would recommend doing it all underneath location pages under one domain. But if you’re doing separate stuff or lead gen stuff, then I like to use subdomains, but that’s just to manage risk.
Any comments?
Mike Pierce: No. We tend to use individual domains for certain parts of it. And then go into single domains for other portions of the campaigns, but yeah.
Brad:[crosstalk 00:20:31] But if it’s a …
Mike Pierce: Break them apart.
Brad:If it’s a client, it’s all gonna be on their site if I’m doing it, you know, is PPL offer, something like that. It’s gonna be separate sites like Mike says. So, exactly what you said, too.
Bradley: Yeah.
Is It Okay To Use One Drive Account With Separate Folders When Building RYS Stacks For Business With Multiple Locations?
Marco: Let me see. You should style up, for lack of a better word, inside the same drive stack. Put them all in there. Now, having multiple folders does not cause issues. We actually use multiple folders and each folder will have a script that will post on auto to the G-site. I mean that … The only thing that would cause the issue is how often you run the script. This is why we say, “Slow it down every 8 hours. Every 12 hours use that script to strip down the website and build it again.” I mean that’s what it actually does and it takes up a lot of resources and if you take up too much, your mooch and coo will get rid of you. But if you pay enough extra space, I mean, it’s something that could possibly mitigate them from coming and saying, “Well, we have a credit card in this account. It’s real. And so, let’s leave them alone.” I mean I’ve seen that happen time after time.
And by the way, we are working on the script. It’s being fixed as we speak. And it should be ready for our way as we load it. So, be on the lookout for that.
Bradley: Cool. Any other comments?
Alright.
Have You Noticed That Location Has Taken Over As The Most Significant Factor In Local Map Pack Rankings?
Smitch says, “For local map pack rankings, have you noticed that location has taken over as the most significant factor?”
Yeah. Right now, Mick, I’ve been seeing that, actually, quite a bit. You mean proximity. So, proximity to city center. And I’m pretty sure that has to do with the local algorithm turning more mobile than anything. And so, it’s about proximity to the actual user itself and the location of the business.
So, when you’re looking from desktop, it’s likely you’re getting results based upon proximity to city center, whatever determines the city center. But when you’re looking on mobile, it’s gonna use your IP location, your GPS, basically, to determine which are the closest business to where you’re located.
Bradley: That’s right.
So, one thing I can tell, Mick, is that if you go into the Google AdWords keyword “ad preview and diagnosis tool”, you can set … and it gives you just kind of like an indication. It’s still not 100% accurate, but it’ll … you can set like your location and where you’re supposed to be searching from and it’ll only show you first page results and it won’t allow you to click any of the links on the first page results because really it’s just supposed to just show ads. But it shows the full search for the query that you enter, based upon a location that you set. So, that’s something I’ve troubleshot some maps ranking issues that are difficult to troubleshoot without being localized in that … having a local IP in that area that you’re searching from. And so, I’ve had to use that sometimes to be able to kind of like pinpoint specific ranking anomalies, whatever based upon IP location. So, that’s something you can take a look at, but if you’re not in the three-pack, you won’t be able to expand the maps pack to see where you are based upon those IPs, either … based upon that location, either. It’s literally like a frozen screenshot.
Mike Pierce: Yeah. It’s a screen grab, essentially, but I’m in that thing constantly. It’s a wonderful tool.
Bradley: Yup.
Azusa, for example, [crosstalk 00:24:48] if there are any bit … Sorry, did somebody want to jump in?
Hernan: Yeah. If I can interject because he’s talking about local map rankings and, yes, geolocation or proximity to the service that’s being looked at is becoming the major factor. Alright? How close you are to whatever business it is that you’re looking for. Whatever’s closest is going to the map. But there are ways to influence this part of the algorithm. There’s always ways. It’s a fucking machine. Sorry.
Mike Pierce: You can know the centroid, [crosstalk 00:25:25] I mean, yes there’s ways …
Hernan: Yes. Yes. Guys, it’s math. I keep telling you. It’s all math. If you know the math or if you can kinda figure out what it is that Google wants, then you can go into the Google My Business listing and give Google ways to bring you up in the rankings even if you’re not the closest one to the … or the one that’s closest [crosstalk 00:25:54]
Mike Pierce: You can tell them where to make the centroid, essentially.
Hernan: That’s more technical than I would want to get.
Mike Pierce: Yeah, I know. It’s just like you said. It’s math and you can do things that you want. You can make them do things that you want them to do.
Hernan: Right.
We’re gonna be covering part of this in the Syndication Academy Update Webinar that immediately follows after Hangouts. So, if you’re in Syndication Academy, make sure you’re on the webinar today because we’re gonna be covering this and some IFTTT recipes that will automate this for you. And it’s pretty amazing to be able to start republishing local news stuff that can be triggered in various ways to your Google+ page, which will help to rank the maps listing. So, that’s something else you might want to look into.
Well, the first part of that question, I recommend, is to stick with a home builder, personally, and start scaling outwards as far as going into other locations and targeting other builders. The reason I say that is because you don’t need to do all the research again, Mohammed. If you’ve already done it once for this campaign that you’re working for this revenue share partner that you have, then why do the research all over again?
My point is every time you switch industries, you gotta start from scratch as far as the research, and the keywords, and the paying points, and the sales, and the type of ad copy gets the highest click through rate, and what type of pages convert visitors to leads, all that kind of stuff. Once you start dialing that in, which sounds like you’re in the midst of right now for your home builder campaign. Why not just duplicate what you’ve already done. And that way, now you’ve got, in the same industry just in multiple cities. So, now you’re gonna start amassing even more and more data about that particular industry and you can get really, really good at that industry. And that’s how you scale, man.
Trying to start providing the same service to multiple industries, meaning you’ll have to do the research all over, it’s a long learning curve. And you’ll never really be a big fish because you’ll be a small fish in a great, big pond as opposed to a big fish in a small pond, if that makes sense.
Any comments, guys?
Brad:From a momentum standpoint, too, once you get that first bit of money coming in, you’re gonna get jacked about that and just want to dig into it deeper. Now, I agree 100%. Stay within a certain amount of niches as well. I try and stay in some of the most competitive niches because I know there’s always money there and I can monetize whatever I have. I still limit that. I don’t hop around, unless something comes around where it’s like, yeah, that makes sense and they’re gonna pay me a shit ton of money. To get into that industry, I’ll learn it. So …
Bradley: And from what you’re saying, right? That makes sense because, here’s the thing, you know you can achieve results in any industry that you go into by duplicating the processes that you’ve set up. But for somebody that is just learning the process, don’t even have the processes in place, yet, don’t start trying to scale into other industries because you need to get the process down, first, where it’s duplicatable. Then, you can start to look into other industries or niches to get into, if you want. Although, I still recommend your quickest way to scale is stick within one particular industry and maybe some subsets of that industry.
Mike Pierce: Absolutely. And one thing I will say. Another thing about jumping around to different business owners is that I really don’t like seeing people put in that type of work and put in the keyword research until somebody else has money in the game. So, keeping it with one person until that’s monetized, you’re not jumping in and spending all these hours doing keyword research off different industries for different business owners than have them put money in the game with you, yet. I mean if they put money in the game with you, it’s one thing. But this is another factor to look at. Just make sure there’s money there for the work you’ve already put in before start putting more work in.
Bradley: Yup.
Hernan: Sorry, Bradley. If I can add something like … I totally agree with what Mike and Brad are saying here because we have had these students who are people coming to the Hangout saying, “I’m coming from … I want to do National Dentist …” Whatever, you know? Directory, or a website, or a lead gen that’s going national. And while we do applaud that you’re thinking big, I do agree with the guys in terms of go first to an area. Make money. Monetize that and use that to reinvest back into your project. You know what I mean? So, that’s basically what we are … There’s absolutely …
That’s how we approach it because I’ve had big projects like that in the past and, unless you have a big wallet or big VC funnel, or whatever that is, to buff you up for the next 3 or 4 years or 5 years that’s gonna take you monetize that big project, then you need to take it slowly and by chunks. Divide it by chunks and go from there. That would be basically my input and I totally agree with you guys.
Mike Pierce: Yeah. We’re in an industry where you can stay as mean as you want to stay and [inaudible 00:33:22] about rolling it back in and growing that way is perfect. You also want to get that first win and have that confidence in yourself. And I remember the first time I made money on mine. I worked my ass off after that. And so, definitely get there. Stay there and get that first freaking’ win for yourself so that you are like, “Hell, I did this. I could do this. And now … ” Like Bradley said, “Scale, but scale in the same space without doing the work again.” Just what you have, cap that space out, and then move on, if you need to move on.
Brad:Yeah. Proof of concept is huge in the beginning. And then, expand vertically. [crosstalk 00:34:01] Horizontally, if needed. But yeah.
What Should You Do If There Are No Conversions In The Alpha Campaign?
Yes. And the reason why, Mohammed, I tell you that is because if you identify … The conversions, that’s a whole ‘nother area that you can work on separately. But the click-through rate, if you’re getting 8 out of 31 clicks in whatever a short time span that are an exact match keyword, that’s a good indication that should be an alpha campaign.
You break that out. So, it’s called the “peel-and-stick” method. You peel it out of that campaign, add it to an alpha campaign into single keyword AdWords group. And, now, you have an exact match, which means your cost per click should go down. So, in other words, if you leave it running in the beta campaign right now, even though it’s been identified as an alpha keyword, then you’re gonna pay more for one of those clicks while you optimize for conversions. But why not, instead, pull that out, peel and stick it into its own alpha campaign as an exact match keyword. Now, you’ll get a cheaper cost per click so while you’re working on optimizing for conversions. Okay?
So, that’s what I recommend doing as soon as you’ve been able to identify. And, again, like what I mentioned two weeks ago while I was here, because I know you asked a question similarly, don’t rush the alpha, beta. Don’t rush trying to decide what your alpha keywords are. Give it a little bit of time. 8 out of 31 is not bad. I don’t know how much of a time span that was, but that shows a pretty good pattern, right? That that’s likely going to be an alpha keyword.
So, again, pull that out. And what’s interesting is once you pull an alpha keyword out of a beta campaign and you create the alpha keyword out of it … or the alpha campaign, excuse me … then, because that’s no longer going to be available in that beta campaign, the beta campaign will start to reveal other variations of keywords that you may not have seen before because the alpha, the exact match keyword was getting the clicks. So that was running through your budget. Does that make sense? So, once you remove that alpha keyword from the beta campaign, you’ll start to identify additional alpha keywords from that same modified broad match string. If that makes sense? Okay?
Anyone else before I move on? [crosstalk 00:36:21] Sorry. Go ahead.
How Can You Improve A PPC Landing Page?
For me, Mohammed, for PPC, I don’t spend a lot of time on the landing pages as far as trying to make them super pretty and all that. I just want, basically, the conversions to be decent or better. Again, for my local lead stuff, guys, I don’t spend a ton of time optimizing for conversions. I get it to where it’s just good enough, to where I’ve got a profitable ad campaign. And that’s it. I leave it at that because I go work on another funnel at that point.
I’m not saying if you’ve only got one campaign to work on, go ahead start on improving for conversions. Dial it in. You can never stop dialing it in. So, it’s up to you. It depends on you, where you’re gonna put your priority. As far as what I’ve done was I found the one template that you guys saw in Local Kingpin. I use that template for contractor type leads, lead gen funnels, because it works, it’s consistent, and it’s simple. And all I’ve gotta do is duplicate that template over and over again.
And, like I mentioned in the training, with AdWords landing pages, as long as you have certain elements there and the keyword is easily identifiable to Google and it matches the ad copy and the keyword that you’re targeting, then that’s really all that matters as far as the landing page quality score. There’s not really …
Like I’ve tested and I’ve experimented with adding more copy, and adding multimedia elements, and all different kinds of things. And, really, it comes down to hammering Google. Remember, AdWords is complete the opposite of SEO. And, in that, with landing pages, it’s okay to hammer Google over the head with what the keyword. Like, what you wouldn’t do that with SEO, but with AdWords, you can.
So, again, in the training, I put the exact match keyword in the SEO title. So the page title it’s in the alt-text of the images. It’s on the page once or twice somewhere. And that you wouldn’t … especially when there’s only 150 words on the page, you certainly wouldn’t do that with SEO. But with AdWords, it really makes no difference as long as there’s the elements that they’re looking for.
Marco: I would add that … This is actually what he should ask. Does he want to improve the landing page aesthetically? Which could be a waste of time. Or does he want to improve his conversion rate? Which, by all means. I mean I always look to improve conversion rate. If it’s converting, who cares? If it isn’t converting, then, of course, you’re gonna want to improve your landing page. So, it all depends on what you mean, Mohammed, by improve the landing page.
Mike Pierce: Bradley made a good point. If you’re knocking them out, you’re moving into different funnels, you’re moving into different funnels, getting profitable and keep going. But, again, if you are just working on a single freaking’ funnel, like Marco said, get that conversion rate up as high as you freaking’ can.
Bradley: Yeah, guys. Remember you have to spend your time resource wisely. Again, if you’re working on one, like Mohammed, it sounds like you are at the moment, it’s just the one, then, absolutely. Work on conversions because … conversion optimization. But once you’ve gotten that profitable … I know people that spend all their time working on conversions when they … And that may work for some businesses, but, for me, I’d rather get the funnel profitable to where I’m making a positive return on investment for any of my ad spend. And as soon as I get it there, then I have just some benchmark numbers that I try to hit as far as conversion ratio and that kind of stuff. And then, once I hit that number, then I’m off to the next one. Just for me, I’d rather set up more funnels and have volume because they’re all multiple streams of income. They’re all their own little stream of income versus having all of my time invested in the one. There’s nothing wrong with that.
What You Should Do With A Duplicate Google Branded Pages?
That’s what I would do. Because I would rather have the G+ page that was associated with the Google My Business page. For me, that’s a more powerful association. So, I would just delete the old one and then the … just the page, not the channel, if you’re using the channel like you said. Just dissociate that channel. You can change ownership of the channel. That’s something you do on YouTube advanced settings. And I think all that’s been covered in, I think, even Syndication Academy, to be honest. And if not, it might even be in our knowledge base stuff. I think you know how to do that.
Anybody want to comment on it before I move to part 2?
Mike Pierce: I’m looking at it right now. It’s pretty much how I start, depending on what the campaign’s gonna be, though, honestly.
Bradley: Yeah, I mean like if he had the older page, the Google+ page itself had a ton of posts on it that were helping somewhere, whether your money side or your YouTube channel. It wasn’t associated with the Google My Business listing, so it wasn’t helping maps ranking. But Google+, in my opinion … I mean there are benefits to using it now. But it’s that the page itself really doesn’t have a lot of value, unless, like I said, for at least the way that I use them now, the value I get from a Google+ page now is if it’s associated with a Google My Business Maps page, essentially. Because I can manipulate the maps ranking, at least influence the maps ranking based upon the posting being done on the Google+ page. But if it’s not associated with the maps, like honestly, I’m just not using it as much. I mean I’ll still create an associated Google+ page to go with a YouTube channel, if it’s a YouTube channel only because it still does help. But, like I said, with an older page like that. I’d just do what you said in option number 1 … or, excuse me, question number 1.
What Is The Proper Sequence In Registering New Google Branded Accounts For IFTTT?
So, number 2 says, “With all these recent changes in Google+, YouTube, etc. should the proper sequence of events for registering new Google IFTTT branded accounts be as follows: start with Gmail, then Google+ profile … ” So, A and B is normally correct. “Then GMB listing, which yields the G+ branded page.” Yes, if it’s gonna be for a local business. Then, I would agree. I think what was covered in the training, and that might be something …
I might make a note of actually to do an update on for next time. I’m actually writing on a white board. Gimme a second. This is update for G+, the new terms.
Alright. I’ll make a note of that, Jeff, so next month, on the next Update Webinar, I’ll cover that more in depth. But yeah, totally. If you’re going for a business with a maps listing, then, yes, I would agree that’s the way to go. Also … and I did already cover … So, the only difference between the updates I’ve already put into the training, in which you got listed here is you’re adding a Google My Business listing into it because the process has been already updated to do the Google+ profile first and now create the branded Google My Business page first, before setting up the YouTube account. Okay? And then you associate them once the YouTube account is set up.
How Can You Maintain Control To A Curated Content You Provide For A Client?
Columbia. She has been crushing it and coming here every single week and asking great questions. She’s building a video marketing agency and she says, “If I am providing curating content for a client, how do I best set it up for owning a property and/or keeping the most control? How do I maintain control if they already have a blog and really want me to find content for the blog?”
Columbia, it’s a great question. Please don’t confuse what we talk about. We’re trying to build up your own assets as much as possible with doing client work. Client work, the vast majority of it, you’re just gonna have to do it on their asset. Period. That’s what they’re paying for. So, when it comes to content marketing, the content marketing services that I provide, which are essentially curated blog posts, or my agency provides, they’re always done on the client’s blog directly. And there’s really no other way to do that. Because remember they’re paying you for that content marketing. That’s gonna be posted to their blog. It’s gonna be syndicated to their social media properties, their syndication network, because I know you sold them one of those already. Right?
So, my point is all that is … And just like citation building. If you’re doing maps SEO for them, if you’re gonna be building citations and such, you’re not gonna be building citations to your own redirected domain. You’re gonna build citations directly to their NAP, right? So, it’s gonna go into their business directly. But that’s what they’re paying you for. Okay?
I mean there’s certain things, like any sort of off-page SEO link building that you’re doing, like inbound link building outside of syndications, syndication network and content marketing, you could do all that through your own domains. Right? Your own redirects, which is what I recommend doing. But if you’re doing stuff that’s content marketing, or citations, press releases, and, even then, you can get away with redirects and press releases, for the most part. But there’s certain things that you’re just gonna want to link directly to the client’s properties. There’s not really any way around it and, in my opinion, there’s certain things they pay you for that are tangible deliverables. And that would be one of them.
Any comments on that, guys?
Marco: Yeah. If I can just add, the more control they want, the more they have to pay.
Mike Pierce: I mean there are ways to do content marketing like that, especially with curation and maintain control, but you need software to do it. And it’s getting deeper into different systems and things like that. But, for the most part, in a content marketing campaign, they’re buying pulps from you directly and they’re not renting them.
Mike Pierce: I mean I’ve seen it both ways, done it both ways, but, in the general industry, it’s gonna be an instant, like Bradley said, it’s a deliverable.
Do You Place The Money Site Link In The Body Of A Page When Syndicating It To Your Tier 1 IFTTT Network?
Bradley: Yup. Okay, Mark’s up next. He says, “When syndicating for your money site to your tier 1 IFTTT network, are you placing links in the body that point to your money site with specific anchor texts or just leaving the attribution links in the end which point to your money site in blog post via the RSS plug-in? If so, what types of anchor texts using the results with granting exact LSI, etc.?”
That’s a great question, Mark. I believe in the advanced module of the Syndication Academy Training we cover. Link building and best practices. And we talk about that. I’m happy to talk about it here again briefly. I’m just pointing that out for any of you that are watching that may have that same question. We can go back and get more in-depth tutorial or training inside Syndication Academy, okay?
That said … Yeah, so, if you’re just using … Now, remember, the whole principle or the method that I’ve been using for years now that has been working really well is to use internal links from within the blog post to link up to the pages on the site that you’re trying to rank. Right? And, again, in the case of local, which is primarily what I do, we’re typically using the blog to build links to the pages on the site that we want to rank in Google that would generate the leads, the click-throughs and the leads.
And so, usually the blog itself will use contextual and it varies. Depending on, first of all, how many tiers you have in your networks for blog syndication and that kinda stuff. I always recommend sticking with one syndication, branded syndication network, blog syndication, specifically, because you can get into trouble, unless you know what you’re doing with having tiered networks.
So, if you were just using a branded, single-tier network, then it’s okay to use keywords. Just don’t hammer the same keywords in your anchor text over and over and over again in every post because that can cause issues. But if you’re just using a branded syndication, you know, tier-1 syndication network, then, really, you’re only gonna have 3 to 5 blog sites that are gonna republish the post. Right? The syndicated post that will contain the keyword anchor text links, or the links period because a lot of them are just gonna be bookmarks or whatever that point to the post URL. Right? So, there is no additional syndication of those internal links. The contextual links between the post body because the post body doesn’t get republished on most of the platforms. It’s typically just the link back to the post-URL, which is fine because now you’re funneling link juice through the post-URL to any of the internal links, or any of the links, period, in the post, which, then, will eventually, if you follow the best practices, you will have a link within the post that links up to your page.
So, it’s up to you. But if you’re gonna be doing a lot. Like, if you only have, let’s say for example, two pages on your site that you’re trying to rank and you’re gonna be doing content marketing consistently and syndication stuff, then switch it up. Use all of the above. What kind of anchors are you seeing results with? All of those. Right? You want to go with brand terms or brand anchors? You want to go with naked URLs with a call to action? You can also have a call to action with the keyword in close proximity to a naked URL that’s gonna associate that keyword with that URL anyways. Right? You can do generics, LSIs, all of the above is my point.
Anybody want to jump on that?
Roman: I typically always recommend people on this one. If you don’t know what your doing and you haven’t played around with it, yet, stick with shortened RSS posts to prevent these kind of problems from coming up to begin with. And then you can test it out with your full posts, with your links inside of it, and play with it. But it’s always best to treat it safely, similar to what you would do with like a press release and things like that. You’re not gonna put an exact match keyword in a press release as your anchor.
Brad:You don’t?
Bradley: Alright. We’ve only got a couple more minutes, guys. We’re gonna have to wrap it up, so we’re not gonna get to all of them. Sorry.
Well, you really didn’t other than Cloud Flare, like on Lead Gadget sites, which are what you’re talking about. But you can do that. You can use various third party DNS services, Cloud Flare, Amazon Root 53 is another one. You can do those kinda things to mask IPs, but I don’t recommend.
Personally, shared hosting, even for lead gen sites … Guys, remember lead gen sites are money producing sites. They’re assets. If you go on get a bunch cheap, shared hosting accounts, click … I’m just gonna call you Click … then the problem with that is that sites go down or they load really slow and so, if they’re lead gen sites, you’re gonna lose leads because of that. I know because of my own business and trying to save on hosting.
So, now, for lead gen stuff, I typically don’t really care for having multiple lead gen sites if they’re in various cities on the same IP or I’ll use third-party DNS services. But try to go with better hosting is what I recommend.
Mike Pierce: Dedication is a really good thing.
Brad:And, really, being on the same IP doesn’t affect you much, I mean, until it comes to linking.
Bradley: Linking.
Brad:Yeah. So, if you’re linking all from one IP to one IP and all these sites are set up on one IP you’re linking to from the same IP over here, that’s when you’re gonna get hit. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter.
Bradley: Yeah. Because, I mean, I’ve got hosting accounts that I’ve got 15, 20 lead gen sites on but they’re a higher quality host, like Liquid Web or, what I’m using, WPX Hosting now, which is Terry Kyle’s hosting solution. It’s a good solution as well. So, I’m using various good, better hosts. And, again, just like he said, IP uniqueness is really only comes into play when you’re back blinking to your site.
Roman: Yup. One of the other things I would say also is when you select whatever you’re gonna do for your hosting solution, check and see what’s also on those same IPs. See what you have around it. That’s gonna tell you whether or not you should stay there or not. If you see a bunch of low quality PVNs set up on there, you might want to go somewhere else.
Brad:Yeah. Whenever I see Roman sites up there, I just go out.
Mike Pierce: [crosstalk 00:54:38] I could say the same thing about you, Brad.
Brad:(laughs) You don’t want to be on the server with me.
Mike Pierce: (laughs)
Marco: I might actually … [crosstalk 00:54:44]
Brad:It is being abused.
Marco: I’m getting really good results with Amazon VPS instances.
Mike Pierce: Yep.
Brad:Yeah. EC2s are good.
Marco: Oh yeah.
Bradley: Yeah, there you go. That’s also a possibility as well. I mean, again, if you say you’re starting with five different niches, which is fine, then I recommend you start with one, but, you know … and scale that one just like we mentioned earlier on this webinar. But, if you want, I mean if that’s … if you’ve already decided you’re gonna go after five different niches, so be it. Do it. My point is, I would just invest in a good host and just host all of your sites on that one host. Like Roman said, check the neighborhood. So, you want to make sure that you’re not associate or consorting with other shitty sites. But just go with a good host and then start building out. You shouldn’t have any problem.
Mike Pierce: The other homework for you is do a search for reverse proxy.
Brad:Yup.
Bradley: Alright, guys. We got … I’m gonna answer these next two. We got Syndication Academy Webinar in four minutes, so we gotta make this quick. I just don’t want to pass these up.
Jason McGill says, “You may remember I asked a question a few weeks ago about getting usernames and passwords to a client’s site that was built by a different web designer SEO business.”
Yeah, and I told you I never had any success with using the request transfership own thing inside of Google. I’ve never gotten a response out of that. Needless to say, they were a bag of dicks.
Brad:(laughs) They could eat themselves, then.
Thoughts On Bridge Page
Alright, well, here’s the problem that I’ve had in the past was Google My Business listing that was ranked, that I had no access and the client had no access, too. Because that’s where the problem occurs. If it’s not ranked, then just go report as permanently closed, or whatever, or use the Google Help form, or the help option to try to report it as closed and explain why, or something like that. You don’t want … You gotta be real careful about it.
What I’ve been able to do in the past, and I haven’t done it in about two years, I was able to delete the page and then set up a new one. Even though it’s the same location, I was able to actually delete the page and then set up a new one because it wasn’t … It comes up as a duplicate page when you first set it up. But if you can get it to stick, then you can go into the map maker or, at least … Map Maker’s still available, right? Or is it switched over to Google Local Guides now, entirely.
I think it’s under … Let’s see …
Anyways, under Google Map Maker, you used to be able to go in and report this is a duplicate for this reason. We have no access to it. We created a new one. And in that commentary section, a manual reviewer will come in and they’ll make the decision whether it’s true or not. Sometimes, it will require verification from the actual business owner. I’ve had that happen. But I don’t know. See, now, it says, “Map maker has closed.” It’s all under Google Local Guides, now I think. It is.
So, join as a Local Google Guide, if you haven’t already. And then you can start to contribute or make changes and edits to maps as a local guide. This is something you want to do. You can see I’m at level … I just … I’m at level 5 or just a few points away from level 5 or whatever. But that’s a pretty powerful way to get it. That’s the only way I’ve been able to do it in the past.
Anybody got a comment on that?
Marco: [crosstalk 00:58:32] Google Map Maker closed. But My Maps is a fucking playground. Go play.
Bradley: And local guides. Right?
Okay. Cool.
“Does it make sense to purchase a keyword relevant URL?” Yeah, I mean, I guess you could do all that, but I would try to fix that issue with a Google My Business page, first. I mean that would be my primary thing to do. And if they’re already ranking, though, then, you’d have to explain to them that you’re gonna basically tank that three-pack ranking until you got it resolved and I don’t know if that’s something that they’d be willing to do. You have to approach them with it. Okay?
Last thing I just want to say. Ricardo, he asked what this icon means on a YouTube channel. I think that just means you don’t have a profile picture. (laughs) That’s under the new YouTube layout. I don’t know for sure. But it looks to me like you just don’t have a profile picture.
Anybody got a comment on that?
Mike Pierce: That’s what it looks like to me from here.
Brad:I just don’t worry about crap like that, to be honest.
Mike Pierce: [inaudible 00:59:27] (laughs)
Bradley: As far as I know, I mean that looks like the new YouTube layout, in which I’d just seen that yesterday. Sometimes it shows. Sometimes it doesn’t for me. And I’m just assuming that’s no profile photo.
Okay, guys. We have to run. Oh, look at that. Beautiful.
Mike Pierce: Real quick. We got a relevancy webinar that’s just up on blog, if people are interested in looking up what our view of relevancy is at https://nfgseo.com. No lead cap or anything. It’s just sitting there for you. You want to figure out who me and Brad are and how we act when we are together.
Brad:How we roll.
Roman: Yeah. It’s very debaucherous.
Marco: Give me the link in Skype and I’ll post it. [crosstalk 01:00:08]
Brad:It’s nfgseo, no fucks given SEO.
Hernan: There you go. That’s pretty cool.
Bradley: Awesome. Yeah. We’ll drop that on the event page. So, that’s awesome.
Thanks, guys, for being here. We appreciate y'all coming along as guests.
Brad:No problem. Any time.
Mike Pierce: [crosstalk 01:00:26] No, absolutely. I appreciate it. Had a good webinar.
Bradley: Cool. Alright, man. 141 episodes now.
Mike Pierce: That’s awesome, dude.
Bradley: Yeah. Long time. Almost three years. So … yeah.
Alright, fellas. We will see you all later. And remember, guys, Syndication Academy Webinar starts momentarily, so we’ll see you over there. Thanks, guys.
Roman: Later, everyone.
Brad:Later.
Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 141 posted first on your-t1-blog-url
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