Click on the video above to watch Episode 97 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.
Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.
The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.
Announcement
Adam: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts. This is episode number 97. Today is the 14th of September until midnight and we got almost full crew here today so let’s go down the list and say hello. Hernan, starting with you. How’s it going, man?
Hernan: Hello, Adam. Hey, everybody. It’s really, really good to be here 97 episodes.
Adam: Why no webcam? I got to ask. Because when we talk, I see you got your cool clothes on and got a nice background so why not today?
Hernan: Well, I’m kind of shy.
Adam: I’m not buying that.
Hernan: [I got it in play 00:00:36]. I’ll plug it and show my face in a bit.
Adam: Got you. All right, cool. Hey, Marco. What’s going on, man?
Marco: Hey, man. What’s up? No camera here either, man. I can’t show you guys how beautiful Costa Rica is.
Adam: You’d like Marco’s weather webcam feed.
Marco: You have to come and see it for yourself or I might just do my own [rant 00:00:57] mastery over there by the pool, take a few minutes everyday and just say, “Hey, this is Costa Rica man.”
Adam: Outstanding, outstanding. I bet. Bradley, how’s it going?
Bradley: Good man, happy to be here. Kind of excited about … Well, Hump Day Hangouts as always but the 104th episode that’s coming up, I know you’re going to mention something about that and then also, we got the IFTTT v2 update webinar for the month of September. It’s immediately following this webinar, Hump Day Hangouts, today and we’re going to go through a ton of really cool updates guys. Don’t miss it if you’re in the Academy. If you’re not, well, go join and it’s not too late.
Adam: Yeah, definitely. If you are in IFTTT SEO Academy v2, you can go into the Facebook group, either one. New world, I know we’re doing the transition and you can find the link there for the update webinar and so, I just want to say too tomorrow, if you’re not in IFTTT SEO or you’re not in the MasterClass of MasterMind, tomorrow we’re going to have a webinar at 3:30 for people who are interested, who maybe have heard us talking about IFTTT and are interested about what it can do for your SEO, for your marketing, for content syndication. We’re going to put the link in here so you can sign up for that. It’s going to be a short webinar tomorrow. We’ve had request from people overtime and I think it’s [crosstalk 00:02:10].
Bradley: In an hour.
Adam: Yeah, in an hour. To let you know more about it and what this is all about, what it can do, all that stuff. On top of that, like Bradley said, episode 104 is approaching so for us, that’s the big one. 100 is awesome, we’re not going to ignore that but for us, 52 weeks in a year so two years would be up so episode 104. We’re definitely going to have some special stuff going on then so stay tuned, we’ll announce that but that’s a few … What do we have? I think this is 97 so we got about seven weeks. Let’s see, other than that, what else did you guys have? I think we had some other announcements unless I’m mistaken but I wasn’t sure exactly what they were.
Bradley: Well, that’s because we didn’t have enough pre-planning time.
Adam: Yeah.
Bradley: I don’t have any other announcements so …
Adam: Okay, cool.
Bradley: Anybody else?
Hernan: I think we’re good.
Bradley: Okay. Yeah, I think that’ll be mentioned in the update webinar Adam.
Adam: Outstanding.
Bradley: For you, okay. All right, guys. I’m going to grab the screen, lock it on. Make sure that we’re good on the events page. It looks like we are and I’ll try to blow it up guys, it should be locked on my screen now and … See, why is that not? A wrong button that’s why. All right, that should be there. All right, we’re going to start at the bottom. Not too many questions as of yet but we know stragglers like to come in. Let’s see, the first one is from an unpronounceable name and … At least, for us dumb Americans.
RSS Syndication For PBNs With Different Themes
It says, “Hi, I’m running 20 PBNs. All of theme different … ” Okay, maybe all in the same theme or all themed likely maybe, I’m not sure. “Hi, I’m running 20 PBNs of all theme in all aspects, no footprints. I would like to know if RSS syndication for those PBNs is possible.” Yeah, of course. I mean, if you got PBNs, you should have no footprints. I mean, you should strive to have no footprints anyways but there’s no reason you can’t. Even if you have footprints, you can still syndicate.
I mean, my point is is that yeah, you can syndicate for PBNs because you just use the RSS as the trigger if it has a feed. If it doesn’t have a feed, then not really. You’d have to install WordPress on a subdomain or something like that in order for it to work but yes, absolutely. Every time you make a post, it can syndicate out to a branded network for that PBN which is what I recommend that you guys do if you’re building PBNs is to … A brand can be a persona, a persona can be a brand is what I’m saying.
Either way, even if you have PBNs that are pseudo companies like fake businesses so to speak or fake blogs, they could be fake company blogs or fake persona blogs, it doesn’t matter. What you want to do is just build an IFTTT ring around that’s branded for that site whether it’s a blog, a persona or a company website, it doesn’t matter. Yes, a tier one branded network is perfect for PBNs. It’s very, very powerful. It also gives Google a lot of the signals. Well, it injects a lot of the signals that it’s looking for into the PBN to make it look more legitimate guys.
Remember, it’s not just about the links and the social signals either. It’s about validating the entity or the profile, the persona, all of the above. Having those social rings about it … I mean, again, think about it. If you guys go out and purchase an expired domain and then, you rebuild content on it and put a couple of articles on it with an outbound link pointing to your money sites and then you have never touch the damn thing again and there’s no connection to that site to anything else on the web other than its outbound links, then it’s kind of suspicious looking.
I mean, all of you that are on this webinar right now or smart enough to be able to detect a PBN when you see it if it’s built poorly which most of them are so having an IFTTT ring around it, by itself, isn’t going to just make it safe but if you set it up properly and you put an IFTTT ring around it and you publish content to it regularly or consistently, then it’s going to kind of hide the fact that it’s a PBN somewhat, as long as it’s built correctly as well if that makes sense. Because you’re kind of validating the site through the semantic properties, the social properties that we connect to it but that was a good question.
Tool That Checks Top Ranking Keywords Of A Domain
Dean says, “Hey guys, a quick one. I’m looking for a rank checking tool that I type a domain into and have it tell me everything the domain ranks for with positions, etc. without me having to put keywords into it to see where they rank. Does a tool like this exist? Don’t mind paying if it does.” Yeah, SEMRush does that, Dean. You can do that with SEMRush.
Adam: Don’t forget too, does SpyFu still provides some of that too?
Bradley: I never used SpyFu for that.
Adam: While I know they did paid but I think … Anyway, it’s worth checking out. I know it did at one point.
Bradley: Yeah. SpyFu was more of an AdWords tool, wasn’t it? I think it’s more of an AdWords tool.
Adam: Yeah, but they did have some organic stuff. Anyway, it’s just something to check out.
Bradley: Definitely, SEMRush does that so that’s what I would recommend that you do. There’s another one that … What’s the guy from SEOPressor? Daniel Tan, I think. The guy behind SEOPressor, the plugin, Daniel Tan. I think he’s got a Cloud-based service that does that. It’s got a monthly-based fee or whatever but all I think that he does is tie into the SEMRush API and so, it’s just basically a different interface but it’s the same data. I don’t remember the name of that program.
No, not yet Jay. It’s going to be several more weeks. I’ve got a VA that is in training but he was actually working for me doing something else and I had to [inaudible 00:08:00] that operation down or that project down so he’s still in training and it’s going to be several weeks before we have the systems and the processes in place. If you were on the first webinar, I mentioned that I was going to have it to where it was … Basically, a completely outsourced process to using video marketing blitz and I don’t want to rush the webinar and give you guys incomplete information.
Minimize Keyword Density Of A Curated Content
If you have to wait a little bit longer, I think it’ll be worth the wait. Greg says, “Hi, when using curated content and post. The curated parts have high keyword density.” Okay. “Keywords appear in quoted section title four to five times in the content, one time in the attribution link and again, in the URL image credit. Using three pieces of curated post ends up with a keyword density of 25 and 900 words. Is there any solution to this?” Yeah, Greg. Stop using over optimized content. I mean, maybe I’m not understanding the question but where are you pulling content in that’s stuffed like that?
Remember, if you’re curating content, you’re pulling content in from other sources so if you’re pulling content from sources that is stuffed with keywords like that, they’re probably not good sources to pull content from. That’s all I can say. I mean, I don’t understand where that level of density is coming from. Let’s see, keyword appears in quoted section title four to five times in the content. Yeah, that doesn’t seemed right to me Greg. I’m not sure how you’re coming across content that that’s stuffed. One time in attribution link and again, in the URL image credit.
Why? I’m not sure if you are creating the attribution link to credit the image, don’t you have control over that so why put the keyword in it? I’m saying whatever you have control over, Greg, if you’ve got that many occurrences with the keywords, you certainly want to edit it and reduce that. Remember, with curated content guys, you can truncate what you curate. Does that make sense? You don’t want to copy a whole article and paste it in as a curated post, that’s against the DMCA. You don’t want to do that, what you want to do is just grab a snippet.
If you read the DMCA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it says there are certain parameters that are allowable. You don’t want to grab like three or four paragraphs out of an article and curate that, you want to grab like essentially one paragraph or a few sentences and maybe two paragraphs if they’re short paragraphs or just a few sentences out of a paragraph if it’s a long one if that makes sense. All it is is just to reinforce whatever point it is that you’re trying to make.
That’s where your commentary comes in and then, you reinforce your commentary, your opinion or the statement that you’ve made in your commentary with the curated article or the piece of content from the article that you’re curating that reinforces that point. That’s all you need so you could use the title and then just one sentence out of the curated article and that’s all you need. If it makes sense to your post to include more than just one or two sentences then that’s fine but you got to think about it logically and you don’t want to use too much content.
The reason I’m saying this is because if you’re using content that is way over optimized which I don’t know why you’d be using that content anyways but if you were, then I would suggest just selecting one key sentence to make your point and use that only, that way you’re not editing the curated content because you don’t want to do that either. If that makes sense. You’re just grabbing one sentence or a couple of sentences and it’s going to be less likely to be stuffed if it’s only one or two sentences versus a paragraph or two.Again, anything you have control over like your attribution links, image credits, anything like that, you control that so just don’t optimize them then.
All right, “Post or syndicating entire post at OneNote as one large block of text and it drops all credit links to the curated content. Will this be a problem? Do we need to add those links back in to the notes in OneNote? Thanks.” No, if it requires you to log back in to OneNote and add links to every single piece of content that gets added to OneNote by IFTTT, then there’s no automation there whatsoever so absolutely not but if you’re using the OneNote, you should be using the recipe for OneNote that creates a page from a link and it all does is take a screenshot of the actual note.
I mean, at least that’s the way I think I had it setup. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in there. Let me just go take a look at that real quick because I have the … Here we go, the account template. There’s a couple of recipes for OneNote so let’s look at them. Okay, OneNote. This is [Youtube DualNote 00:12:49] and then, RSS to OneNote page from link. That’s what you should be using is the page from link and what happens from the page from link is it should be like a screenshot image of the post and it’s just a link that links over to the actual post.
It’s like the whole file is just a link that links over to your actual post that got syndicated because the post itself doesn’t get syndicated, it should just be … At least, if I remember correctly, it should just be like a screenshot of the blog post of like the whole webpage. Anyways, trust me. If you had to go in to OneNote and actually add in the links after every blog post, it wouldn’t even be an IFTTT SEO Academy because that’s not how I do things. Not sure where the issue is, you might have an earlier version. We used to have a different OneNote recipe, excuse me, that would actually syndicate the blog post but I remove that specifically from the second version of IFTTT SEO Academy because this was the better method.
I don’t know, maybe double-check your recipe Greg, maybe that’s the problem and if not and if you can clarify, we could take a look at it maybe.
Track Results Of PPC Campaigns For Lead Gen Business
Jenia Sirotin says, “Bradley, in a previous Hump Day Hangout, you mentioned that you started using PPC for your lead gen business.” Yes. “Can you talk about how you track results? If I already have tracking number, would it be beneficial to get another Google provided number to track if PPC is working? Any tips or things to avoid? Content Kingpin rocks by the way, would recommend it IFTTT SEO to my mother if she had any clients.” That’s awesome.
Marco: I’ll +1’ed it.
Bradley: Yeah, that’s awesome. I just +1’ed it. Okay yeah, absolutely. I’m doing a lot of PPC stuff and that’s what the whole local Kingpin training, that launches next month, is about and I’m actually having really good results with it. Yeah but the way that I track results is I use conversion tracking on the landing pages so that if anybody submits the web form like the contact request form from the landing page and then they get redirected to the thank you page, I got the conversion, that counts as a conversion.
Then also, I’m tracking phone calls though the tracking phone number if they land on the landing page because on the landing page is the tracking phone number and I just use CallFire and all my calls get routed into a call center. I use AnswerConnect, AnswerConnect.com is my call center so all my calls route into a call center and then, they get dispatched out to the proper contractor. I end up having a record of it in CallFire as well as a record of it from the AnswerConnect service, the answering service.
Also, what I’m doing is I’m using ad extensions and I’m using the call extension in AdWords and that will allow a phone number to show up in the actual ad especially for mobile devices and it’s tap to call. With that, I choose to use a Google Voice number … Google just arbitrarily assigns a Google Voice number that forwards to whatever number you tell it to. In this case, my CallFire tracking number, and that’s just in the event that a mobile searcher searches and taps the tap to call button from the ad itself without actually going to the landing page.
Because if they go to the landing page, they’re going to call the number on the landing page which is the CallFire number. If they call directly from the search results by using the tap to call button from the call extension, then it will track as a conversion in Google AdWords. Now, there are some call tracking and conversion tracking software for calling or for phones that integrate with Google AdWords. One of them is, I think, what’s it called? CallRail.com? I think it’s CallRail.com, let’s see. No, that’s not it. Oops, I typed [CailRail 00:16:51] that’s why. Let me try that again.
Yeah, this is one of them. There are several of these, basically, phone conversion tracking systems that integrate with AdWords and that’s probably the better way to go. As I scale my lead gen business using AdWords … Remember, I just recently got in to doing this but as I scale it up, I’ll probably end up investing in one of these services as well but for the time being, I’m just using CallFire, my answering service … Well, everything just gets routed to there anyways.
Then, if anybody does the top to call from the actual search results, it’s typically only going to be on mobile that that happens and then it registers the conversion because I’m using the Google Voice number that AdWords will assign for that. If you’re using call extensions, it’s an ad extension. Hopefully, that makes sense. I don’t want that to confuse anybody but let’s see. “If I already have a tracking number, would it be beneficial to get another Google provided number to track if PPC is working?” Yeah, if you have it setup the way that I do.
Again, if somebody lands on your landing page and they call your number that’s already a tracking number, whether it’s CallFire, Twilio, it doesn’t matter, then you’re going to track that anyways although it won’t register as a conversion inside of AdWords because AdWords has no way of knowing if somebody picked up the phone and called. Now, I know that you can use these types of programs like CallRail which will have like dynamic inserted … Yeah, dynamic number insertion.
You can actually have different phone numbers for different ads or all the different kinds of things. This is the advance way to track and as I get better with AdWords, I’m sure I’ll be integrating something like this. It doesn’t have to be this particular service, it’s just the one that I remembered. You might want to look into that if you’re going to be scaling up your business, excuse me.
Marco: Yeah, I like CallRail because it actually records the call [crosstalk 00:18:49] I don’t know about CallFire, I haven’t used that in a long time. If I like to know what conversation took place, this way when I go for my check and the person can’t say, “No, that wasn’t the conversion,” or “That was sales call or whatever, that was spam,” because it’s actually recorded. They can’t get around it.
RSS Feed From A Linkwheel Property With Syndwire To Automate Another Level Of Link Building
Bradley: Yeah, CallFire does that. Okay, so the next one is Jamie. Jamie says, “Hey guys, I have some link wheels setup and running and was wondering if it would be wise or problematic to automate T1 links to the link wheels. In other words, could I use the RSS feed from each of the link of properties with Syndwire to automate another level of link coding or should I make a blended RSS to automate via Syndwire?” Yeah, you can. Absolutely, Jamie because that’s essentially what you’re doing is building second tier links.
The second tier links to your target URL, whatever you’re trying to rank but in this case, they would be first tier links to your IFTTT properties but yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s the concept behind tiered networks. You’re asking about using Syndwire. Sure, if you got Syndwire, that’s where I would use Syndwire as a second tire link system or a second tier link builder because I don’t use Syndwire to link directly to my money sites. For Youtube videos, it’s not bad, that’s fine but I don’t use Syndwire to link to money sites. I just don’t do it.
With that, you could absolutely use Syndwire to build links to your first tier properties. That’s a good strategy for that and if you have it, then yeah, you can absolutely do that and each one of your IFTTT properties, tier one properties that have an RSS feed and output feed, that would work. You could essentially setup a different campaign for each one of those, each one of the ones that have an RSS feed. Some of them though, like Delicious and Diigo, those are just bookmark feeds so there’s really no content there.
You could do it, I’m just saying that just be aware that you don’t want to spam your web tools and Syndwire with a bunch of just like bookmark links and that’s it because you can get your accounts terminated that way. Just keep that in mind.
Ivan says, “Google My Business page and map questions.” By the way, I wanted to mention, we’re going to talk about this in the IFTTT update webinar that’s immediately following Hump Day Hangouts for you guys that are Academy members but I did want to mention that right now, third party log-ins has disappeared.
The ability to create a third party log-in for Google Plus pages and Youtube channels is, at least as of today, is missing. It’s coming and going. It comes and then it goes and the process has changed from what was in the IFTTT SEO Academy training. We’re going to cover that today but currently it’s temporarily, at least I hope it’s temporary, it’s disappeared. It’s not available and so, we’re going to talk about that a little bit today, guys. I’m hoping it comes back soon. I’m pretty sure it has to do with the Google Plus interface changing and like they’re about ready to force everybody to the new version. I think that’s what’s kind of causing the problem.
Google Maps Results
All right, so to get back to Ivan. Sorry, Ivan. “Is it possible to have a map that I created to show in place of the one provided by Google on the map’s result for my business? If yes, what do I have to do to implement this?” To have a map that I created to show in place of the one provided by Google on the map’s results for my business, no Ivan, I don’t think so buddy. The most that you can do for that is go to Google Map Maker and in Map Maker, you can edit the Google Maps or suggest edits.
They’re going to be moderated but if you have some stuff that you want to update, like using Google My Maps. It’s a map that you create. You will not be able to replace the Google local search results with your map, it won’t work but you can edit or suggest edits to the Google local maps by going to Google Map Maker. I mentioned this before on Hump Day Hangouts but let’s just go through it real quick. Go to Google Map Maker, guys. Everyone of you should create or log-in through your main profile. Anybody doing local, you should log-in as your main profile.
Connect it to your main primary Google account and start suggesting edits around your own town. If you do any sort of local stuff for clients or for lead gen, you should start building up your Map Maker profile and the way you do that is by contributing, by suggesting edits, that kind of stuff. Be helpful. Find map markers for businesses that are misplaced and then re-position them and suggest that as an edit, suggest NAP updates for businesses that have outdated information, that kind of stuff.
As you start to build up a reputation in Map Maker as providing valuable edits and valuable suggestions, then you can end up being able to force changes very, very quickly inside of Maps and I’ve been able to, over the years, been able to fix some pretty heinous Maps issues fairly quickly, within just a matter of … Well now, it’s within 24 to 72 hours, my edits usually are approved and that’s great because if there is NAP issues or Maps issues, sometimes that are really tricky, this is the only way to get it fixed.
The more you have built up a reputation as providing valuable suggestions, then the quicker your edits will get approved, will moderated if that makes sense. I highly recommend that you guys do it and just do it on your main profile. You don’t want to hide anything, you don’t want to do this under personas because you’d have to build up multiple personas. Just do it on your main profile.
Placing Google Map Embed Codes
All right, “Where in my website should I embed the Google Map? Main page, sidebar, contact page?” That’s a good question.
I usually just put the map … It depends on the theme that I’m using but if I have like a footer widget area then I’ll oftentimes will put a map in the footer widget. Sidebar is fine as well. There are some times I think it clutters up the sidebar. Just depends on like how narrow your sidebar is, that kind of stuff but almost always I put it on the contact page. If I didn’t have it in a footer or a sidebar, then I would definitely put it on the contact page. Any suggestions on that Marco, Hernan, anybody?
Marco: No, that’s exactly what I would do.
Hernan: I was muted. Yeah, the contact page usually works. I like to [inaudible 00:25:39] anyway, something like if you have a kind of widget rotator. I can’t remember the … Let me look for the plug-in for the widget rotator which will give you exactly which kind of CTR is tighter, conversion is tighter on that end. I’ll try to find it out and post it on the events page.
Submitting Manual Review To Google
Bradley: Okay, cool. Thank you. Paul says, “Hey guys, I have a client that is just out of the Maps, [pack 4 00:26:10].” Don’t you hate that, Paul? I hate that. It’s like pussyfooting around with the 3-pack. “His competition is then the number one and two spot of the map pack. He obviously has someone doing SEO because they have him on two different GMB pages and the only difference is they reversed the name, first name, last name, last name, first.” Okay. “Everything else is exactly the same. I want to knock them off naturally with me doing the RYS but with the new Google change to the 2-pack, is there a way to get Google to do a manual review on this guy’s listing? Just trying to take care of my client. Thanks.”
Paul, there is and it’s funny that you say that because Wayne Clayton … I’ll be damned and look, I didn’t even know that he posted on this page. Wayne’s in our Mastermind as well. He just said something very similar, I saw it in the Master Class Facebook group and it’s kind of funny. You guys have pretty much the same question here. That’s funny, are you guys working for the same client? Because it’s pretty much the same damn question. To be honest with you, I have never reported anybody to Google. Honest to God, I’ve never done it and the reason why is I’ve just always felt like karma is a bitch and she’ll catch up to me if I do.
I’ve been known to spam some stuff myself, you know what I mean? Because of that, I have just never, ever, ever done it. I know that you can, you can submit that kind of stuff to Google and they will do a review on it because I’ve had it done to me by tree service businesses but I’ve always ended up circumventing it and getting my listing back anyway even if I had to build a whole new one but I’ve never done it myself. I know there is a way to do it, I just can’t point you to it. I’m sure if you do some Google searches, you’ll be able to find out how to submit a spam complaint to Google.
I just personally don’t do that, guys. Like I said, it’s just, to me, I’ve never done a negative SEO in my life. I’ve never done a spam complaint. I know you’re just trying to take care of your client, I get that Paul but I would still … Personally, I’m not knocking you for submitting a spam complaint either. That’s not what I’m saying. It’s up to you guys to decide what you want to do but personally, I would just try to take them out doing positive SEO stuff for … Not that submitting a spam complaint is negative SEO, I’m not saying that but I would still just try to outrank them. Personally, that’s how I would do it but yeah, I know you can report it. I just don’t know how to do it. I don’t know the process, guys, sorry.
Marco: Yeah, I don’t know the process either because I’ve never done it. I always go after them. They just piss me off enough so I just take them down. That’s how you got to do it, man. You just have to do enough to take … You have everything in your arsenal, Paul, that you need to take this guy down a spot or two. I mean, whether it’s citations, whether it’s link building or some press releases or whatever else you have to do. Another RYS stack won’t hurt when you invert the business name like they did and push relevancy up to them. You know how to do it, man. Just reach to us and we’ll take care of it, man.
Bradley: In fact, I think I misread. I just assumed because I saw the 2-pack in Wayne’s comment here. This is not the same questions as what Wayne posted in via MasterClass so I apologize Wayne, I didn’t read that.
Hernan: [crosstalk 00:29:29] 2-pack, yeah.
Bradley: Yeah, yeah because this is what Wayne said, he had asked if I knew about how to knock out spammer competitors in the niche by doing spam reporting to Google and I said actually I’ve never done that, not even once. I was always worried that bitch karma would catch up to me if I did and he says, “Well, it’s not like you’re doing something wrong.” No, I totally understand and I just want to clarify that that’s not what Wayne was posting here, that was my mistake because I didn’t actually read the question but just as a point, some reference, point of reference that this is what I was talking about, was this thread here.
Wayne, just for your sake. I know, it’s not that you’re doing something wrong for reporting spam, I just don’t do it because I feel like I have spammed the web plenty. I don’t want people reporting me so I just don’t do it. That’s all, that’s all I’m saying. Again, to each their own. I’m not knocking anybody that wants to do it, I’m just telling you what my stance is on it. Now, we can get to Wayne’s question properly.
IFTTT & RYS Academy To Rank A Business In Google Maps Three Packs
“I have a client that was in 2-pack with two businesses, two different names and phone numbers but same address. Since the recent G Algo changes to 3-pack, they were in for their city disappeared. The minor business of the two now seems to show up in the single pack listing called The Knowledge Panel. It shows only one business played to the right side versus a 3-pack.” Yes, I’ve seen that recently too a lot Wayne. It’s probably not going to remain that way. It’s probably temporary just so you know because I’ve seen that as well and then, the 3-pack will come back. I’ve seen a lot of shifting like that especially in the last couple of weeks.
“The main business now does not show in any 3-packs even for other surrounding cities but the major business listing does show in the other organic listings, just not the 3-pack. Question is what should we do for them using IFTTT? We actually had accomplished this without the IFTTT and was just starting IFTTT strategy when this happened or should we do an IFTTT first and then do RYS? My concern is showing too much activity in drawing attention. Sorry for the long worded question, appreciate the input.”
It’s funny, it says show less like he typed it in. All right, so first of all, I highly recommend starting off … This is going probably shock some people but since you have RYS, Wayne and you know about the process … Even people that don’t have RYS Academy which would be a good time for you to drop a link, Adam, if anybody wants to go through, we have a webinar series that’s free, guys, that you can register for that goes through a lot of the stuff that RYS Academy, we teach inside of RYS Academy.
If Adam drops the link you guys, I highly recommend you go register. It’s just a webinar series. You can register for it and just go through the webinars, they’re all free. Of course, there is an offer at the end but you can go through the webinars and you’ll learn some stuff. Since Wayne has that, I would recommend doing RYS for any sort of local stuff when you’re trying to rank maps. RYS just crushes it. I would suggest starting with that but if you have an IFTTT network, I would still connect the local pages, both of them, to the IFTTT set of networks for syndication points and start blogging. The activity on those pages often helps those local listings to rank.
Now, keep in mind though what I’m saying, Wayne, is I’ve seen … Even for some of my own clients in some of my own lead gen stuff right now, a lot of shifting in the maps. Seeing what you’re seeing. I’m seeing the 3-packs disappear and it just shows one knowledge graph listing on the right side which sucks, that really sucks and I’m also seeing my maps listings disappear from the 3-pack and then when you click the show more listings or show more whatever at the bottom of the 3-pack, it’s not even showing in what’s available. What I’m saying is I’ve got stuff that’s been ranked in any one of the three positions in the 3-pack, A, B, or C that all of a sudden disappear and then, they don’t even show up in the show more results.
What’s interesting is the show more results where sometimes it used to have three different pages, now only have one page with only partial results. In other words, like the three pages might have had 34 listings and now, it only shows seven listings in the show more results part and there’s no option to go to another page and my listing … I’ve seen it recently and I’m pretty sure that this has to do with the changes that Google is making to both Google Plus which affects Maps but also because they’re going to be implementing, they’re rolling it out already as we speak, paid maps listings. It’s pay-per-click for maps listings. That’s, in part, I think why we’re seeing so much volatility in the whole Maps algorithm.
First of all, the Google Plus changes which is quite significant to the whole search engine, the whole search algorithm as a whole. Google Plus was ingrained so deeply into the Google Search and it looks like they’re pulling it back out to some degree so that is having a big effect on it. Then also, I know for a fact that Google is rolling out paid search listings in Maps and in the 3-pack and because of that, I think, that’s also causing a lot of weird stuff to happen to the maps listings right now.
Really, what I’ve told my clients is that they’re just going to have to be patient. This is the problem with relying so heavily on one source of traffic, you know what I mean? That’s part of the reason why I’m suggesting to all my clients to AdWords now and AdWords for video and eventually, I’ll get them to doing Facebook Ads maybe or I’ll just hire Hernan to do it. My point is relying on just that one source of traffic, and I’m not saying you are right now, I’m just saying that that’s what I’m telling my clients is that basically, you’re just going to have to be patient. Until Google is done with the roll outs, there’s not a whole lot that we can do. Go ahead.
Marco: I’d like to just respond to his drawing Google’s attention comment. When you do an RYS, you want to draw Google’s attention. You don’t want to draw Google’s attention by triggering a Panda, Penguin and by triggering the sandbox during the Google [inaudible 00:35:52]. With RYS, you do want to trigger Google seeing you, seeing that seat side or seat set that you’ve created inside RYS Academy. That’s the whole purpose of that. The Google tickle, Wayne. You know the Google tickle, man.
Bradley: He knows.
Marco: That’s the point, you go and you trigger that, you do everything that you’re supposed to do so that you draw attention to your listing the right way instead of drawing attention of the [inaudible 00:36:21] that you don’t want any part of but it’s entirely okay to draw Google’s attention the right way.
Bradley: You got to tickle the G-spot, the Google spot. That’s how it works.
Adam: [crosstalk 00:36:33].
Bradley: That’s how you get results, guys. Ticket that G-spot. Google loves it. All right, “Through the IFTTT training, I was able to rank a live stream video from OBS to Youtube and rank number eight in the world for a big keyword with about 2,500 searches per month,” +1 that. “I just built out a Youtube channel, completely added five networks and blasted a few videos and of course, titled everything correctly. Thanks, guys.” Great results, Greg. Thank you for sharing, appreciate that man. Congratulations by the way.
Linking PBN Links With RYS Stack
It really doesn’t matter if you have everything Spider’ed anyways. I’ll let Marco comment on it but I mean, really if you have everything internally linked properly, it’s really not going to matter although I know we’ve tested running links directly to the My Maps, it’s pretty powerful but the same thing goes with even with presentations. Like I’ve had really good success using Google presentations and ranking those but also using them to embed links within the presentations slides and then just blasting the hell out of those. I don’t think it really matters but Marco, can you comment on that?
Marco: No, it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen people have success with all of the above with trying different things but yeah, my map is special, we all know that. I’m not going to get too deep into that but since we do all of the things that we do to it, then it’s really special, so is the spreadsheet by the way, if you want to spread the love because everything will be in your spreadsheet. If you push juice into that, it’s just going to push out everywhere that connected within that spreadsheet. Really, it’s a spider web silo. That’s the way to think about it so you’ll be spreading the love everywhere anyway.
Changes in Rankings For Sites Snack Pack
Bradley: Yeah. As far as the Goo.gl or the full naked URL, again, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a redirect and since it’s all Google properties, I doubt there’s much loss if any because it’s all under the Google umbrella so it really doesn’t matter. We just switch up the links for diversity’s sake. That’s all. Dean says, “Don’t answer this if you’ve got no time because I’ve already posted a question. In sites, Snack Pack was third and then second after geo tagging images on a Snack Pack page and adding content, then did some embeds. It seems there was a Google update first week in September shown by [Mastertools 00:39:19]. Now, Snack Pack is fourth or fifth and gone for certain keywords. Any activity in this area with you guys? Thanks, peeps.”
Yeah, Dean. Refer to my answer to Wayne that I just gave to Wayne because that’s what I’m seeing guys. A lot of volatility maps right now and I’ve been doing this long enough to know there’s really not a whole lot we can do right now until the dust settles and that’s just the nature of Google’s algorithm. I mean, you can start … Dean, I’m not picking on you. I’m just saying for everybody else here that when this kind of stuff happens, you can jump through hoops trying to figure out what it is that’s going on and trying to fix it but a lot of the times, it’s just the algo. It’s like freaking out and it’s like a ripple effect, like when you drop a rock in a little pond, it creates ripples. Well, they make a change and it’s just this ripple effect that’s going through.
Until everything kind of settles and calms down, there’s not a whole lot that we can do. I usually give it a few weeks because a lot of the times, there’s collateral damage that Google didn’t intend in almost every time they make an algo changes. Any sort of significant update, this happens and then what happens is they allow it to cause all this collateral damage for a few weeks until they fine tune it and then, they kind of dial it back a little bit and things will start to come back, like a lot of the times, listings if they were optimized properly which so far, our methods have consistently always come back.
We always try to do what we think is going to provide longevity, not short-term loophole ranking fixes. I mean we use those too, don’t get me wrong but for the most part, we try to protect our money sites. You guys know the way we always talk about using IFTTT as SEO firewall and all that kind of stuff, we always try to do things to make sure that our properties will survive the updates although you will see some dancing and movement during algo updates. Pretty much 90% of the time whenever the algo update has settled and the dust settles, everything calms down, our listings come back to the same location that they were or even stronger. That’s why I don’t even sweat it anymore.
Like I get clients who call me and complain and I’m just telling them, “Guys, this is the nature of Google. Sometimes, we just got to wait ’till the dust settles, see what happens. If there’s significant drop even after everything is kind of settled down or calmed down, then I’ll go in and figure out what it is and we’ll fix it but until then, there’s not really a whole lot you can do because you could literally be chasing your own tail running around in circles, trying to fix something that really you have no control over.” That will send up that red flag that Marco talks about and you can actually sandbox your site.
Marco: Yeah, this is a really good example because he says it was third then second and then, he went and geo tagged images on the Snack Pack page and added content and then, he did some embeds and then, wham. It might not have been the update, it might have been that you triggered the Google dance and that you dropped to see what you were going to do next. If you did anything while it was dancing, then you sandbox yourself. You could be sandboxed up to 70 days or permanently depending on how you did while it was dancing. The best thing to do when this happens, especially when it went to third to second, is leave it alone. Especially when it went to fourth and fifth, leave it alone. You leave it alone for 21 days and see what happens. After 21 days, you take a look and see where it is, then you can do something but if you hit it while it’s moving up, down, left, back, whatever, you’re in trouble. Go read my blog post, The Google Dance Explained. It’s really simple to figure out because Google tells you exactly what happens.
Keeping Test Accounts Alive In Video Marketing Blitz
Bradley: Yeah. Okay, Jays says, “Hi, just a follow question regarding Video Marketing Blitz. What is the best practice in your opinion to keep the testing accounts alive. I had 10 accounts and only tested 50 keywords, five videos in each account, once and seven of them got suspended. All accounts had individual private proxies and Firefox profiles, Google Plus accounts and some natural activity and I made sure WebRTC was disabled.”Well Jay, I can tell you that there was a footprint left somewhere.
I don’t know if you’ve created accounts or if you had purchased them but there was a footprint left somewhere for that to have happened with only five videos for each account and you had seven out of 10 deleted. The reason I know that is because I’ve had issues with some phone verified account providers where they deliver my accounts and I go in and setup … Like for example, specifically with Video Marketing Blitz, the provider that was posted inside of the Video Marketing Blitz software.
There was a provider for buying phone verified Youtube accounts and there was also an option to purchase them with the API credentials and I purchased them and I purchased 50 of them and 37 of them got terminated within 24 hours. The guy, he and I have argued back and forth because he got … Long story short is I’ll never buy another damn thing from that dude ever and I can’t recommend him to anybody either. What I’m saying is then I went to the guy that I recommended, MetroBiz or whatever and I purchased 100 phone verified Youtube accounts without API credentials and then I had my VA create the API credentials and we had 60 dedicated proxies.
We only setup 60 of the accounts and all of those accounts are still alive and well. Some of the accounts that I setup that I’ve done heavy testing on … For example, I’ve got 10 test accounts and if you remember the first VMB bonus webinar that we did, I showed some results and I had been doing testing and I was loading as many as 15 videos per account per day which I don’t recommend guys but I was trying to get enough data for that first … I was under a time crunch for that first webinar. I was trying to generate enough data for that first webinar so I even broke my own rule and started spamming the hell out of those test accounts and they are all still alive. I did like 800 and some odd videos over the course of seven days to those accounts.
It’s ridiculous and all of those accounts are still alive. There is a footprint left somewhere, Jay. I’m not sure where it was. It could have been from the provider. If it was MetroBiz, I can’t imagine that’s the case because I’ve never had an issue with his accounts but maybe it was somewhere in your process of setting it up. Guys, I can’t recommend this enough. This is where Browseo comes in. Browseo is specifically developed to solve these footprint issues and when you’re dealing with multiple accounts, multiple proxies, I’m telling that Simon and Browseo has … They’ve basically hacked the browsers to make sure there’s no footprints whatsoever. They’re custom Firefox and Chrome browsers inside of Browseo. It’s just incredibly powerful, guys.
It’s the Swiss Army Knife of SEO tools and you should absolutely be using it if you’re going to be doing a whole bunch of stuff like this. I would highly recommend that you go check out the Browseo webinar that we did with Simon if you’re going to be doing a lot of this because that’s going to solve some problems there. Everything that we’ve setup for Video Marketing Blitz has been through the Browseo browsers and we haven’t had any of our accounts terminated yet except for the batch that I bought from the provider recommended inside of Video Marketing Blitz and that was a footprint issue on his part. Anyway, we only got time for about another one or two questions guys because Adam’s already on at me in Slack.
Let’s see, SpyFu does do that. Okay, cool Glenn. Thank you. SpyFu … Okay and SEMRush, that’s a +1. What else? Everyone should sign up as … “Bradley, everyone should sign up as a Google Local Guide.” Yes, Wayne is correct guys. You’ll see the Google Local Guide come up on your mobile device where Google will ask you to review locations whenever you go places and stuff like that, Google will prompt you to answer questions about the location and all that kind of stuff. It’s kind of fun actually. I look forward to that when it shows up.
Yeah, you should absolutely do that and try to work on … Even when you go to places and Google doesn’t prompt you, just go to Maps on your phone, Google Maps and then hit the location button and it will pull up, it will prompt you then especially if you’re signed up as a local guide and it will start asking you questions about the location. That’s certainly going to help that along with Map Maker. It’s very, very powerful indeed because you can build up your profile to be a trusted Google editor essentially.
Adam: Yeah, it’s fun too seeing some of the insane impression some of that stuff gets. Like I add pictures and stuff and I was like, “Picture of sub shop.” It’s got 50,000 impressions. That’s pretty awesome.
Bradley: I took a picture of my daughter eating a big stack of pancakes at Bob Evans when we were traveling earlier this summer and that thing got something like 30,000 something views. It was ridiculous. Like I don’t even know how Bob Evans is so popular that they’d get that many views. All right. Let’s see, video seemed to be taking a backseat with search. What is your take on this water damage niche? Got hit hard.” Yeah [Pete 00:48:54], it just depends man. I mean, there are certain keywords that … Especially broader type keywords that just are almost damn near impossible to write videos for. That’s why I’ll typically go for several longer tail keywords instead.
I know sometimes clients don’t like that but it is what it is. I understand that there are just some keywords that are just an absolute beast to try to rank for with videos. They’re just not worth it and there’s not really a whole lot you can do. All you can do is test. Each keyword is different. You can test but what I do is if I’ve spent 30 days working on trying to rank a video to page one and I don’t get it to page one in 30 days? I typically abandon like that particular keyword and I will start working on other keywords. Most of the time before I ever start, I’ve already got an idea of which keywords I’m going actually go for because they’re going to be easier to rank for anyway.
It’s like I usually always do a poke test on a batch of keywords first and then determine which ones I know are going to be easier to rank and then those are the ones that will be my fall backs if the primary keyword I’m unable to rank in 30 days. I usually don’t spend more than 30 days trying to rank a video, guys. If it doesn’t rank in 30 days, then I give up and move on to something else. It’s not because it’s too hard and I don’t want to put up the work but to be honest with you, it’s not worth it. What is it, the risk versus reward type thing? It’s not worth it like to spend that much time and energy to rank one video. Like it’s just not worth it for me.
I’d rather go ahead and rank three or four videos for the same price for somebody else with [inaudible 00:50:25]. Some people would absolutely deny that. They’ll say, “Unacceptable. I want this keyword and this keyword.” “Okay Mr. Customer, I can’t help you then,” or I’ll say stuff like, “Let’s setup some PPC campaigns.” That’s my fall back now really is just going straight to AdWords stuff, man, because there’s just so much … It’s traffic on demand. Okay let’s see, for your recommended provider, sure, I’ll be happy to. This guys loves it when I do this too by the way because he…
Adam: Real quick while you’re doing that, I want to say anybody who’s trying to get into the Facebook groups and who is a member of IFTTT SEO Academy v2, please log-in to the training area and there’s instructions on how to do that there. You can’t just go to the Facebook group and request access, you won’t get approved. Make sure you go into the training area, follow those instructions, Hernan recorded a video for you and I typed out like step-by-step, it’ll take you two minutes. Just make sure you do that.
Bradley: This dude loves it when I … It was funny because I didn’t even know this guy, guys. This guy, I didn’t even know him, I just found it in Google and posted it inside the IFTTT SEO Academy and I even said in the training videos, “I haven’t used this guy yet but I’m going to.” Anyways, I just want to let you guys know it’s funny because I ended up getting contacted on Skype by this dude and he was just like, “Holy crap! We’ve had so many orders come through,” and apparently, they’re all coming from IFTTT SEO Academy. “What made you select me?” and I was just like, “Luck of the draw, buddy.” He ended up being a very good provider. He’s the one I use for all our phone verified accounts now. All right, guys, that’s it. We’re going to wrap it up.
Marco: I just wanted to mention Rico Suave, his testimonial, finally got his lead gen site up and following our advice. He’s number one in G Maps in one day.
Bradley: Nice.
Adam: That’s pretty cool.
Bradley: “Hi, guys. Finally I had my lead gen site operational and it’s setup with all of the advices from you guys, IFTTT silo. Wish me good luck. Already number one on G Maps in one day.” Fantastic. Awesome.
Hernan: Nice.
Bradley: Kick ass dude. All right, guys. We’ll see those of you that are in IFTTT SEO Academy, the update webinar starts in about five minutes. Everyone else, we’ll see you guys next week. Thanks for being here.
Adam: See you everybody.
Marco: Bye, everyone.
Bradley: Bye.