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Search engine optimization is something of a moving target, and it’s a good thing to keep one’s finger on the pulse of what’s happening. Gert Mellak of SEOLeverage.com has built his whole business on SEO, and returns to share effective SEO strategies you can implement now to improve your SEO results.
Among other things, Gert and James will look at the impact of consistently simple brand description on SEO ranking.
They’ll talk about the kind of SEO content you want at the top section of web pages.
And they’ll discuss why internal linking is one of the most overlooked but crucial SEO optimization strategies you can adopt.
Table of contents
1. An update on James’s SEO
2. What else can we do?
3. Tactic 1 – Consistent simplicity is key
4. The machine that reads it all
5. Where cleaning up beats new stuff
6. Tactic 2 – What’s at the top of your site?
7. Do hooks help with page rank?
8. Tactic 3 – Things have to relate to each other
9. How to go about interlinking content
10. Giving certain pages authority
11. Where do sitemaps come in?
12. Tactic 4 – Presentation counts
13. Tactic 5 – Where very long articles come into play
14. How long is long?
15. Recap and closing
An update on James’s SEO
Just recently, a previous podcast guest contacted James. He’d noticed his episode had been removed from James’s website. James explained that the episode was still accessible on YouTube and via the Blubrry RSS feed. Their focus, he said, has shifted towards enhancing their YouTube channel’s visibility.
It was Gert who recommended James prune some of the content from his site, where over a thousand pages were deleted to streamline the site’s focus on more popular and relevant content. And James is happy to report they are starting to rank quite well for the topics that remained.
The removed content was not significantly impacting viewership. And the strategy, says James, aligns with his broader philosophy of achieving more by working less, as detailed in his book “Work Less, Make More.”
What else can we do?
Are there other things one can do to improve SEO, James wants to know?
Absolutely, says Gert. In fact, this latest podcast episode will be particularly valuable for listeners interested in actionable SEO strategies, as Gert will be sharing five tactics of just that nature.
Gert notes that Google remains a dominant force in online traffic, responsible for two-thirds of all internet traffic according to a SparkToro statistic. This underscores the importance of optimizing for Google, even as platforms like YouTube gain prominence.
James can vouch for the effectiveness of Gert’s approaches. He’s seen the tangible benefits in Gert’s case studies, including not just improved rankings but also increased lead generation and sales. These results highlight the practical impacts of effective SEO, like attracting more customers to service-based businesses or boosting product sales in e-commerce. In short, achieving real business results through strategic SEO enhancements.
Tactic 1 – Consistent simplicity is key
First of all, says Gert, it’s important to use simple, consistent language to describe one’s brand across various platforms to improve SEO. He explains that search engines utilize semantic analysis to understand webpage content, which can be hindered by overly complex or flowery language.
Straightforward descriptions, Gert says, make it easier for search engines, which are machines, not humans, to grasp the essence of a brand. He further stresses the need to maintain this simplicity and consistency not only on a brand’s primary website but also across all digital presence, including social media profiles and YouTube channel descriptions.
Inconsistency in brand description across different platforms can confuse search engines, says Gert, leading them to perceive them as separate entities, which can adversely affect the attribution of SEO benefits across channels.
James relates. He know of one other person names James Schramko, someone in the US who likes Toyotas. He can see the potential confusion that could arise from inconsistent branding. Even while diversifying content across platforms, maintaining a clear and consistent brand description, such as “business coach,” can be beneficial for SEO and overall brand recognition.
The machine that reads it all
Gert explains the concept of “the machine” as the various programs and algorithms employed by search engines like Google to scan, or “crawl,” websites. This process involves reading and interpreting the content on websites to understand and index the information.
Search engines use this data to build a knowledge graph, a complex database that connects different pieces of information such as personal details, professional activities, and social media profiles. Gert underscores again the importance of having consistent brand definitions across different platforms to ensure accurate connections within the knowledge graph.
Do these crawling mechanisms extend to social media profiles, asks James? And how do they contribute to the overall mapping of an individual’s online presence?
Gert confirms this. Search engines aim to link related content to build a comprehensive profile that accurately represents an individual or a brand across the web. He’s encountered his own challenge of being recognized as the same individual across different professional roles due to differing ways he is presented online – a writer on one hand, an SEO expert on the other – which can confuse the search engine algorithms.
To resolve such issues and enhance SEO, Gert advises everyone to define their brand clearly and succinctly on key website pages, like the homepage and about page. He highlights the significance of ensuring that all digital presences convey a unified message about who you are and what you do. This strategy helps search engines better understand and connect various aspects of one’s online identity, improving the accuracy of their knowledge graph and, consequently, SEO performance.
Where cleaning up beats new stuff
James discusses the value of cleaning up and organizing existing content to ensure clarity and relevance in how one’s brand is perceived online. He reflects on his own diverse background, spanning various expertise areas from affiliate marketing to authoring a book – these multiple facets of his career call for coherent representation.
The approach of curating existing content, says James, might be even more critical than producing new material, as it helps clarify and solidify one’s brand identity.
Gert suggests actively managing one’s online presence by searching for oneself on Google to see what appears, saying that these results reflect what Google deems most relevant about a person or brand. If outdated or irrelevant information appears, Gert recommends updating it or requesting updates where your content is hosted on external platforms.
While historical data enriches a brand’s depth, Gert says consistency remains crucial for Google to accurately represent an entity online.
Removing a third of his content, says James, helped clarify his brand’s focus. He notes too that adjustments like changing link texts have been beneficial, as evidenced by requests from other professionals to update links pointing to their sites.
Gert ties this back to how Google constructs its knowledge panels, which consolidate verified and consistent information to create a trustworthy profile of a person or brand.
Gert explains the strategic importance of managing how a brand appears in search results, particularly through reputation management and strategic SEO practices. He speaks of his new book, “Fix Your Online Reputation,” which offers strategies for improving how brands are perceived online. This is particularly vital for correcting or optimizing the information available about a brand, ensuring that search results reflect the most accurate and favorable image.
Tactic 2 – What’s at the top of your site?
The second tactic to improve SEO says Gert, emphasizes the importance of the top section of a website. He encourages website owners to consider their own behavior as users—specifically how quickly they decide whether a website meets their needs based on the initial content presented.
Gert recalls a conversation with designer Greg Merrilees, about the critical milliseconds in which a visitor determines the relevancy of a website, where both design and immediate content visibility play pivotal roles.
Gert suggests key takeaways and a table of contents should be placed prominently at the top of a page, especially in long articles. This not only enhances user engagement by quickly showing what the page offers but also facilitates navigation to relevant sections, thereby increasing the likelihood of retaining visitors who are seeking specific information.
James relates this concept to the structure of their podcast episode, where a clear introductory promise acts as a “hook” to keep listeners engaged.
Do hooks help with page rank?
Do tactics such as hooks, which improve user engagement and time spent on a page, also contribute to better page rankings, James wonders?
The impact of engagement on page ranking, says Gert, is still a topic of debate among SEO professionals.
User engagement, such as time spent on a page, plays a nuanced role, says Gert, in influencing Google’s ranking algorithms. He hypothesizes that Google differentiates the importance of user engagement based on the type of query.
For simple factual inquiries, such as the height of the Eiffel Tower, user engagement is less relevant since users obtain the needed information directly from the search results without needing to click through to a website.
In contrast, for queries requiring more in-depth information, like marketing tips or email marketing subject lines, Gert believes that Google likely considers user engagement more seriously.
Here, if users spend more time on a page, it may indicate to Google that the content is valuable and relevant, thus potentially enhancing the page’s ranking in search results.
Tactic 3 – Things have to relate to each other
Next Gert looks at the importance of internal linking within websites, a critical but often neglected aspect of SEO strategy.
Many website owners realize they lack a systematic approach to internal linking, leading Gert to provide them with standard operating procedures to improve. He emphasizes that effective internal linking not only connects various content pieces on a site but also helps search engines like Google understand the context and relationships between different topics, which is crucial for improving the site’s SEO.
Gert further explains that by strategically linking related content, such as articles on email marketing and opening rates, each piece begins to rank for more specific and combined keywords. This practice enhances the visibility of the content under more relevant search queries, ultimately increasing the quality of traffic to the site.
Gert highlights that while generating traffic might be straightforward, attracting high-quality traffic requires thoughtful and strategic internal linking to properly contextualize content in a way that search engines can recognize and reward.
How to go about interlinking content
James recalls a past strategy of using custom software to automate interlinking across a vast network of blogs, which effectively boosted keyword rankings through controlled anchor texts.
There are current tools, James knows, that offer similar functionalities for WordPress, and he wonders about their efficacy and availability today.
Gert confirms such plugins still exist and are improving, but he suggests caution. Preferring a more controlled and conservative SEO approach, Gert highlights potential downsides of automated interlinking, such as over-saturation of links in content, which can negatively impact both user experience and conversion rates.
Gert suggests a more measured strategy, recommending manual insertion of links to ensure quality and relevance, thus maintaining a balance between automation and editorial control.
Detailing a practical approach to interlinking, Gert shares how he advises clients to selectively enhance articles with internal links to boost their authority and context within the site. He has worked directly with client teams, providing specific instructions and even prepared spreadsheets with suggested anchor texts to streamline the process.
This hands-on method not only ensures strategic link placement but also aims to boost the targeted content’s performance in search rankings. One of Gert’s clients, in fact, achieved first-page ranking due to these efforts.
Giving certain pages authority
Gert delves into the strategic aspect of internal linking in terms of distributing authority across a website, which he equates with the concepts formerly known as page rank and link juice. He explains that internal linking can effectively allocate this “authority” derived from external links to enhance the significance of various pages within the site.
This is particularly useful for pages that might not naturally attract many external links but are crucial to the website’s content hierarchy or SEO strategy.
Gert further illustrates how highly authoritative pages, such as those receiving substantial attention from news outlets or external blogs, can serve as sources to bolster other parts of the site. He suggests using these high-authority pages to internally link to less prominent sections that could benefit from a boost in visibility and relevance.
This method not only maximizes the utility of the existing authority but also enhances the overall structure and SEO performance of the website.
Where do sitemaps come in?
James brings up the topic of sitemaps and their role in SEO, particularly questioning the relevance of sitemaps that are typically linked in website footers. He contrasts this with the robots.txt sitemap – what exactly are their functions and differences?
While footer-linked sitemaps were common in the past, says Gert, modern SEO practices don’t necessarily prioritize them due to advanced methods that search engines like Google use to discover and index pages.
Gert details the importance of the XML sitemap, which is commonly generated automatically by tools like Yoast for WordPress sites. This type of sitemap is crucial for informing Google about all the pages on a website, including the last modification date of each page, facilitating more efficient crawling and indexing.
Gert recommends submitting this sitemap through Google Search Console to monitor for errors and ensure optimal site indexing, highlighting its utility in managing and correcting site indexing issues.
Additionally, Gert notes that XML sitemaps are also valuable for website audits, as they can reveal hidden pages or unintentionally exposed content, such as private courses or thank-you pages. This function of sitemaps extends beyond simple SEO, providing insights into potential security or privacy issues by showing all accessible URLs on a website, making them a critical tool for both SEO specialists and website administrators.
Tactic 4 – Presentation counts
Gert introduces the fourth tactic for improving SEO: ensuring that content presentation aligns with what Google wants to rank based on search intent. He illustrates this concept with examples where the format of the content must match the searcher’s intent. Queries to buy a surfboard or a bicycle, for instance, will be of no use to a blog on the merits of bike-riding.
Gert stresses that Google has predetermined preferences for certain types of content in response to specific queries. Aligning with these preferences is crucial for ranking success.
James shares a related experience involving a client who misunderstood the purpose of research in SEO. The client aimed for unique positioning, which risked deviating too far from what Google is proven to favor. James advises that the goal of research should be to understand what Google expects to see and then create content that fits this mold. This approach minimizes risks and sets a solid foundation for the content’s performance in search results.
Gert agrees with James, advising that the initial step in SEO should be to conform to the existing successful content types as recognized by Google. Once this conformity is established, one can seek to differentiate, leveraging unique selling points or creative angles.
This strategy ensures that the content first meets Google’s criteria for relevancy and quality, after which it can stand out from the competition, potentially capturing more traffic and engagement.
Tactic 5 – Where very long articles come into play
Gert introduces the fifth SEO tactic, which focuses on leveraging existing data to create very long articles. He explains that while such articles might not perfectly match specific search queries, they are ideal for broad, top-of-funnel questions that require comprehensive coverage.
This approach helps to significantly boost a brand’s visibility, as these extensive articles can rank for thousands of keywords, providing a broad but detailed exposure to various aspects of a topic.
The goal here is to use the extensive reach of long articles to lay a foundation for understanding the brand’s domain authority and topical relevance as perceived by Google.
James relates this strategy to his experience with podcast transcriptions, which used to capture verbatim discussions on various topics. Although these transcriptions provided rich content, their length and variety could sometimes dilute the clarity of the website’s focus.
Gert adds that the benefit of such comprehensive content is that it shows potential areas for focus. For instance, a detailed article about SEO, or podcast discussions that briefly cover ranking drops, can initially place in lower search rankings but still indicate a certain level of relevance to Google, suggesting potential for optimization.
Gert further discusses the iterative process of using the data from these long articles to refine and target more specific keywords that could have better ranking potential. He suggests using the insights gained from broad content to identify and optimize for mid to bottom-of-funnel queries that are more directly related to the user’s intent and questions.
This strategic approach involves analyzing keywords for which the content is already ranking, even if poorly, and then creating focused content that can achieve higher rankings. This method not only capitalizes on the initial broad reach but also fine-tunes the content strategy based on actual user search patterns and questions, leading to more effective SEO outcomes.
How long is long?
James reflects on his experience of publishing a large volume of podcasts and later pruning those that didn’t align with the strategic goals or draw sufficient traffic, comparing it to Gert’s advice on producing one very long article.
Gert suggests that a long article, potentially ranging from 3,000 to 8,000 words, can be a substantial piece that introduces readers to a specific industry. He emphasizes the feasibility of creating such content with AI assistance, which can convert a 10-minute spoken explanation into a comprehensive article.
This approach uses existing knowledge and content as a base for producing an in-depth exploration of various topics within an industry.
Gert further explains the strategic advantage of long articles: they serve as a tool for organic market research by exposing which terms and topics a site is already ranking for. This data can then inform more targeted SEO efforts, allowing for optimization based on actual performance rather than assumptions. He contrasts direct data-driven strategies with conventional keyword research, which often relies solely on fresh data from tools without considering the existing content’s potential and relevance.
This approach not only identifies current ranking positions but also highlights realistic opportunities for improvement based on actual search performance.
Recap and closing
In summary, the five key SEO tactics covered are: 1) simplifying and standardizing brand descriptions, 2) focusing on the top section of web pages, 3) optimizing internal linking, particularly from the homepage, 4) aligning content with search intent, and 5) using long articles for organic market research.
These tactics, which can be approached as individual mini-projects, are intended to improve various aspects of a website’s SEO.
James expresses his appreciation for Gert’s expertise and the tangible SEO improvements experienced by his team under Gert’s guidance.
At SEOLeverage.com, Gert and his team offer both ongoing retainer services and one-off projects tailored to specific SEO needs. This flexible approach allows clients to either focus on particular SEO challenges or engage in comprehensive, continuous optimization.
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