AMA: SEO

[lludwig]

I already did one on affiliate marketing, let's try one on SEO.

AMA: SEO.

My Background: I've been developing websites for 25 years+, and had an affiliate blog for 10 years which 80% of the traffic was from SEO. Starting from zero, I had over 300,000 unique visitors per month. I sold my affiliate blog 2018 for $6M.

 

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[lludwig]

Bounce rate. Time on site. Pageviews per user. Etc.

You still have to go out and get backlinks, but the order of operations has changed.

If I'm understanding this correctly...

Before you could execute in the following order:
1. On-site SEO/KW
2. Backlinks
3. User experience

Rather, now you should...
1. On-Site/KW
2. User experience
3. Backlinks

The best way I've heard it was, "Take care of Google's visitors, and Google will take care of you."

Unless you're local and niched, you still have to do the backlinking yourself.

Overall this is a good answer.

The other is matching keyword intent of what the user is expected on the page.

Keep in mind SEO is just another sales funnel.

An example I always use is "what is a mortgage" is a much different keyword intent, then "what's the best mortgage rate".

For "what is a mortgage" they are at a much higher level of the sales funnel. Pushing them with mortgage rate tables isn't the best experience. They are expecting to learn more about mortgages than to find a bank with the best mortgage rate. You can have content that's too transactional when the visitor is expecting more informational.

Lastly, unlike paid ads in which you can get very transactional, organic SEO even the most transactional keywords need value-add. Going back to my "best mortgage rate" keyword, you can't just have a rate table of various banks and expect to rank for it. It will never happen. You need content where the reader not only can perform the transaction but also learn something in the process.

 

[lludwig]

What would you do to go from 0 to 300k - 1 mi. visitors per month today?

It depends upon the niche. SEO is a long game. You need to spend 6-12 months if just starting out to start seeing any results. If you want instant results to look at paid traffic instead. It's very rare today to go from 0 to say 100,000k/month of traffic in under a year.

 

[lludwig]

Hi Larry,
What are some common basic principles most people get wrong about SEO?

That SEO is all about backlinks. If anything in recent years it is much more about user experience. Backlinks are still important but you have less control over them. Focus first on what you can control, which is your content, user experience, on-site links, etc.

 

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[ApparentHorizon]

That SEO is all about backlinks. If anything in recent years it is much more about user experience. Backlinks are still important but you have less control over them. Focus first on what you can control, which is your content, user experience, on-site links, etc.

How is this measured by the search engines? How does this affect SEO?

Or do you mean by creating a good UX you would be rewarded with backlinks etc.

Bounce rate. Time on site. Pageviews per user. Etc.

You still have to go out and get backlinks, but the order of operations has changed.

If I'm understanding this correctly...

Before you could execute in the following order:
1. On-site SEO/KW
2. Backlinks
3. User experience

Rather, now you should...
1. On-Site/KW
2. User experience
3. Backlinks

The best way I've heard it was, "Take care of Google's visitors, and Google will take care of you."

Unless you're local and niched, you still have to do the backlinking yourself.

 

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[lludwig]

- How often should someone publish content on a blog?
According to Hubspot it's around 2-3 articles per week for smaller blogs. Do you agree or have you made other experiences?

- Did you create the content all by yourself or did you hire a freelancer for content creation?
If so, what qualities should I look for when hiring a freelacer and how much pay would be fair for high quality content?

Thanks for creating this thread and giving us all your insights!

2-3 articles a week yourself? Hell no! You’ll burn yourself out.

Hiring writers it depends asks for samples and a plus is they can talk about your domain
In personal finance I found many knew about investing but were horrible writers.

 

[lludwig]

If you had to give a percentage how would you weight "on page SEO" vs "off page SEO" in this day and age?

It depends upon the volume of the keyword and how competitive it is.

For low volume keywords but overall a great domain authority, it's possible to rank for something with NO backlinks. For a difficult keyword, you may need over 30-50 backlinks related to that domain.

To put it another way, I would focus more on on-page since you have more control over it first. Get your house in order before doing backlinks.

Are there any tools that you could recommend that an SEO should have in their toolbox?

Ahrefs without question.

How about for the SEO shop vs just a business owner trying to do the best they can but aren't running an SEO shop?

IMHO at the lower end, you are better learning SEO yourself. I think many give outdated, or worse just bad advice.

Either reading a lot and/or taking a course is your better option.

On the high-end (say $5-10k/mo retainer) there are some good companies.

How do you algo proof your web based assets?

SEO is a moving target, though I would stay away from "black hat" SEO techniques. If anything maybe do "grey hat". In the end, Google wants to see good content rank, so that should be your first order of importance.

 

[Pat D. Rick]

- How often should someone publish content on a blog?
According to Hubspot it's around 2-3 articles per week for smaller blogs. Do you agree or have you made other experiences?

- Did you create the content all by yourself or did you hire a freelancer for content creation?
If so, what qualities should I look for when hiring a freelacer and how much pay would be fair for high quality content?

Thanks for creating this thread and giving us all your insights!

 

[lludwig]

If you were to hire a Freelancer to do an SEO analysis and improvement of your site, what specific skills would you be looking for? What questions would you ask them as part of the hiring process? What would you make sure to include in a project brief for them?

- Ask them to explain how they think SEO works
- Ask them what is their process
- Ask them of case studies or examples of successful work and referrals
- For you: What goals are you trying to achieve by hiring someone? Be specific with them. Obviously expecting to "ranked #1 for a specific keyword" is not realistic goal for an SEO person. You can't be specific when hiring someone with SEO since in the end they cannot control Google.

Instead I would shoot for overall specific goals, like "increase of traffic 10% in the next six months", "increase in overall keywords in the next six months." Trends that go in the reverse clearly mean the person you hired isn't a good fit and not working (obviously they are some exceptions like you paid for backlinks previously and they are expected to fix your mess).

 

[johnp]

Wow thanks for doing this.

Here's my question:

SEO for a new B2B SaaS Tool. What are the top 3-5 things that you would recommend doing to kickstart things?

- Website < 1 year old
- 0 Backlinks
- Very little content

I have my own B2B SaaS tool. It's sort of a multi-step form/lead gen tool that you can add to your site without coding. All sales come from paid traffic, but I see pockets of SEO opportunity around low volume/high intent, keywords that are related to my tool. For example, one of my top paid keywords is "multi-step forms"

I feel like I should start investing into SEO now, but I'm kind of stuck about how to jump start things on the SEO side of a brand new site.

As a side note - I've done some SEO work for a SaaS company before and saw success. But that company had a website that was 10 years old, content, and a ton of backlinks - I was just kind of thrown into it.

Initially, I was thinking that the process might look something like this:

sticking with the concept of multi-step lead capture forms here.

- Optimize core pages and get the SEO backbone of the site established
- Build content around around low competition, long-tail keywords around a topic. (i.e, if the topic is Multi-step forms then I might write content around multi-step forms for Unbounce if that's a keyword since I think there's a better chance that I could rank for that vs the short tail version.
- Build internal links as I start writing content

- I'm missing backlinks here... but I'm not an expert in link building, and I don't have a ton of time. So being realistic this is going to be hard for me to do right now.

But I'm not an SEO expert and I keep getting stuck when I realize that I have zero backlinks and no credibility in Google's eyes.

Thanks!

 

[lludwig]

Wow thanks for doing this.

Here's my question:

SEO for a new B2B SaaS Tool. What are the top 3-5 things that you would recommend doing to kickstart things?

- Website < 1 year old
- 0 Backlinks
- Very little content

I have my own B2B SaaS tool. It's sort of a multi-step form/lead gen tool that you can add to your site without coding. All sales come from paid traffic, but I see pockets of SEO opportunity around low volume/high intent, keywords that are related to my tool. For example, one of my top paid keywords is "multi-step forms"

I feel like I should start investing into SEO now, but I'm kind of stuck about how to jump start things on the SEO side of a brand new site.

As a side note - I've done some SEO work for a SaaS company before and saw success. But that company had a website that was 10 years old, content, and a ton of backlinks - I was just kind of thrown into it.

Initially, I was thinking that the process might look something like this:

sticking with the concept of multi-step lead capture forms here.

- Optimize core pages and get the SEO backbone of the site established
- Build content around around low competition, long-tail keywords around a topic. (i.e, if the topic is Multi-step forms then I might write content around multi-step forms for Unbounce if that's a keyword since I think there's a better chance that I could rank for that vs the short tail version.
- Build internal links as I start writing content

- I'm missing backlinks here... but I'm not an expert in link building, and I don't have a ton of time. So being realistic this is going to be hard for me to do right now.

But I'm not an SEO expert and I keep getting stuck when I realize that I have zero backlinks and no credibility in Google's eyes.

Thanks!

I would create blog posts around the SaaS. Some are going to be more direct sales and others are higher up in the sales funnel.

Depending upon the SaaS and cost I may only have an optin-form to warm them up then direct sale.

Backlinks is a whole other topic and some of it depends upon your niche.

With my new personal brand, I'm going out and doing podcasting as a backlink strategy. Since I'm an expert, having me on a podcast makes the most sense and easily can discuss the topic in detail. Investor Junkie (my previous blog) was a brand unto itself and did things differently.

The question, of course, is which comes first the backlinks or the content. To me it's always creating good content first and then figure out how to promote and get backlinks second.

 

[schazz]

ahrefs.com has some good content.
detailed.com
SEO Signals Lab

The last is more filled with SEO professionals though.

Glen Allsopp from detailed.com also has a great SEO course that came out this fall and I bought. I've done SEO for years and still learned a number of things. It's called SEO Blueprint. It's not open to buy right now but you can get on a waiting list. It's good stuff.

 

[lludwig]

Glen Allsopp from detailed.com also has a great SEO course that came out this fall and I bought. I've done SEO for years and still learned a number of things. It's called SEO Blueprint. It's not open to buy right now but you can get on a waiting list. It's good stuff.

Yes Glen’s stuff is good.

 

[lludwig]

How to you outrank directories (yelp, yellowpages etc) for local searches like Service + city ?

Most of that type of content is automated and light in content. I would suggest making the content better in answering the intent of the question searched.

 

[lludwig]

thanks again!

One other question; do you have an opinion or view on growing audiences first with social, and how a website and social presence can work together?

I come from this background and have seen it work quite well for larger social publishers and ecommerce companies.

I'm of the opinion for social you have to pay to play to get any decent results for most posts. Though there are always some that go viral organically.

I look at social as another channel. I found from my data that people wanted to subscribe via multiple channels. Which at first, took me by surprise. I expected people to want to subscribe via one channel (email, social, push, etc.) but instead, they didn't want to miss any content.

So IMHO with the various channels, I would stagger your publication of content on those channels and not do it all at the same time. What might be missed on one channel can be seen on another.

 

[EdKirby]

I already did one on affiliate marketing, let's try one on SEO.

AMA: SEO.

My Background: I've been developing websites for 25 years+, and had an affiliate blog for 10 years which 80% of the traffic was from SEO. Starting from zero, I had over 300,000 unique visitors per month. I sold my affiliate blog 2018 for $6M.

Thanks for doing this! I used to do SEO/Web dev way back in the day but I haven't done anything in years so I'm sure a lot has changed. I have a few questions...

If you had to give a percentage how would you weight "on page SEO" vs "off page SEO" in this day and age?

Are there any tools that you could recommend that an SEO should have in their toolbox? How about for the SEO shop vs just a business owner trying to do the best they can but aren't running an SEO shop?

How do you algo proof your web based assets?

Cheers!

 

[100k]

What would you do to go from 0 to 300k - 1 mi. visitors per month today?

 

[ApparentHorizon]

Hi Larry,
What are some common basic principles most people get wrong about SEO?

 

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[lludwig]

Good point! This is an important distinction.

When designing a website, depending on that the goal is, what are some of the best practices for today's search engine environment?

I remember the concept of "silos" used to be big. What's are some of the architectures used today?

silos? Explain.

You should try to develop ways to keep the user engaged and on your site. So that may mean:

• More content
• links to other internal content
• on-site apps

IMHO I believe the last item is the biggest key point to focus on today. Develop site functionality that is unique. For example on my site Investor Junkie, developed a comparison tool that was a widget on reviews.

 

[Ben10bil]

What is your process to get onto the 3 pack for Google Maps?

I see businesses that have terrible organic SEO (they're on page 2-3), but somehow made it onto the maps. It seems like a whole different process.

What I've gathered for ranking on google maps is:

- verified location
- on page seo
- photos
- questions map listings
- posts on map listings
- reviews
- local citations

Is there some other recipe I might be missing here?

Thanks for making this AMA

 

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[lludwig]

What is your process to get onto the 3 pack for Google Maps?

I see businesses that have terrible organic SEO (they're on page 2-3), but somehow made it onto the maps. It seems like a whole different process.

What I've gathered for ranking on google maps is:

- verified location
- on page seo
- photos
- questions map listings
- posts on map listings
- reviews
- local citations

Is there some other recipe I might be missing here?

Thanks for making this AMA

I didn't do local SEO, so I'm not an expert on this. But what I can say is get your info on Google My Business.

Google Business Profile - Get Listed on Google

List your business on Google with a free Business Profile (formerly Google my Business). Turn people who find you on Search & Maps into new customers.

www.google.com

I'm assuming you have done this already?

Second, you want to establish E-A-T in this case locally. You need to get in sites that review your local business like Yelp, BBB and alike. If you can allow customers to review your content. I recommend Shopper Approved. This can be used for SEM so you can have star ratings in your ads.

Are you using Schema markup on your site? If not, also do that as well.

Local Business (LocalBusiness) Structured Data | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers

Local business structured data can help pages appear in a unique Google Search result. Learn more about local business schema and review examples.

developers.google.com

This one especially.

Lastly, IMHO local search sometimes it's just easier and cheaper (less time/effort) just to pay for that traffic using Google Ads.

 

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[Guest24480]

Thanks for the AMA.

Do you have any suggestions or tips for brainstorming seed keywords for a new site in a particular niche that I can plug into a keyword research tool to start gathering a list of long-tail keywords to target?

 

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[EdKirby]

silos? Explain.

I found this on Bruce Clay's site and it explains it pretty well. "The term siloing originated as a way to identify the concept of grouping related information into distinct sections within a website. Much like a chapter in a book, a silo represents a group of themed or subject-specific content on your site. "

 

[lludwig]

I found this on Bruce Clay's site and it explains it pretty well. "The term siloing originated as a way to identify the concept of grouping related information into distinct sections within a website. Much like a chapter in a book, a silo represents a group of themed or subject-specific content on your site. "

Oh ok yes then. I have what's called the "bathtub theory" meaning you have topics you can talk about and if you go off that topic you stand no chance of ranking for it. My previous site did use silos quite a bit.

 

[Prakhar Verma]

Thanks for doing this!

How often do I need to write new blog posts on my blog? Is there a bare minimum or an optimal frequency?

 

[lludwig]

Thanks for doing this!

How often do I need to write new blog posts on my blog? Is there a bare minimum or an optimal frequency?

If you are just starting out, I would recommend one post a week. Though in our case it we grew to a point where we were updating many older posts, then creating new content. There are only so many ways to discuss a topic. If you think you can improve on it, you should.

 

[lludwig]

@lludwig
Other than sheer time and valuable content, what do you recommend to outrank a brick and mortar business (in a different country) with the same name as your site? One with Google business info displayed on the right panel.

My website in question does not have a physical location, per se. When I created the site months ago, I had search engine indexing blocked, and forgot to remove the block once I launched (oops!). I found I wasn't anywhere in the results last month, and tracked down the issue to that block. I removed it and submitted a sitemap on Google Console.

Now the site is on the second page, for the exact name. Which is still no good.
I know with time, and more content it'll rise, but is there anything else I can do to have my site prioritized for that term? It's an abstract term, so low competition.

I have another 7 year old site which gets over a million pageviews/month. About 50% comes from Google, but the keywords I dominated weren't competitive at the time. I believed they would get popular, so it was a gamble that paid off. While I have some success with that, it wasn't as strategic as what I'm trying to do now.

Thanks!

A bigger issue, I would make sure you don't run into copyright issues in your country with that brand. So that other business doesn't do any business in your country? Do they have backlinks in your country? I would look at that if they do then you will have more of a time getting Google to get your brand to rank #1 for your country. I would also get in Google My Business and other local business listings to give markers to let Google know you are a business in your home country.

I would pay for your brand to get ranked #1 for that keyword (Google Ads). I had to do this when i started my personal brand and still do for "Larry Ludwig".

You should always buy your brand name in Google Ads. I assume most of our traffic doesn't come from searching for your domain anyways, but you do want to make sure they visit your site if they are typing it in.

 

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[Silver shadow]

I already did one on affiliate marketing, let's try one on SEO.

AMA: SEO.

Thanks for this great thread.

What can I do to stay ahead of competitors with better domain authority? I run a single microniche business and depend 99% on organic traffic. This traffic comes from a single blog article explaining procedures for this service and then offering the service.

For a long time I ranked 1 or 2 and even enjoyed the vantage Google knowledgegraph position. But a couple of new competitors (plus algo changes) came on board and knocked me off, and now I'm struggling to stay in the first page.

1. Is there a way to boost my own website's domain authority to regain top spot?

2. If boosting my own website's domain authority is difficult how best can I piggyback on a high domain authority site to get my blog post back in number 1 or 2? (I tried Quora and Medium, but still isn't getting the coveted top spot).

 

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[lludwig]

Is it bad to reuse sections on multiple pages?

I made this landing page called "Livestock Transportation Services" (Link)

I was going to duplicate the page and swap out "livestock" for certain types of livestock, therefore creating several pages with similar content, but different keywords.

For example:

• Goat transportation services
• Cattle transportation services
• etc.

I'd copy sections such as "Types of Stock Trailers Available" and "How to Choose the Best Livestock Hauler".

Do I reuse the content and swap out the keywords, creating multiple pages? Or expand this single landing page to a long, extensive page with lots of information? What's the best way to approach this situation?

Well I looked in ahrefs and 'Livestock Transportation Services' 20/mo keyword with no keyword difficulty.

• Goat transportation services - zero
• Cattle transportation services - 10/mo and no keyword difficulty.

They all have no search volume and no competition. I looked up 'livestock transportation services' and got similar low traffic. Based upon that alone it sounds like you are looking at keywords that while you could rank for them will yield no searches.

I don't know what the exact keywords would be but these are definitely not it. So IMHO you are wasting time.

If you are to go through with it based upon the volume and competing sites you are best to put them all on one page. If the content is good and have an overall high domain authority this page should rank pretty easy. But again, for what? It doesn't yield any traffic.

If you are so inclined to go this route, pay for the traffic instead and see what happens first before spending any time on trying to get it to rank.

 

[lludwig]

What is your strategy for content creation ?
Most of the times I do keyword and competitor research I feel like I cant add any value to the content that already is written besides a more clear design and a more structured text.
Think topics like „what do I have to do after a car crash where I did not have any fault“ where the answar is the same always.

What about functionality? Everone seems to think SEO in terms of content, but can you add value via other means? Like a comparison tool, a calculator, present information in an easier to understand format, etc.