SEO Fight Club Q&A
SEO Fight Club / By
“Google’s Black Friday Gift: A Pleasant Surprise?”
– I recently participated in an SEO Fight Club Q&A where we discussed Black Friday predictions.
Clinton and Lee had different outlooks on what would happen, with Clinton predicting Google would pull the lever harder for small and medium businesses than it has been in recent years.
– However, so far my prediction that Google would not pull anything felt more accurate.
– Clint suggested to keep an eye out from the 29th of November until 9th of December
– though if we’re past that then perhaps Google was nicer this year!
– While I initially said both Clinton and Lee were wrong about their predictions, it appears overall that things are looking good for website owners, small businesses and medium businesses thus far. We won’t know with absolute certainty what happened until the 26th of December however!
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“Google’s Mobile First Complexities: Navigating The Transition”
– Google’s mobile first indexing migration has been happening over the last six years, which speaks to the complexity of making changes at Google.
– Making a fundamental change such as transitioning from desktop first to mobile first is difficult and time consuming.
– Recently, there were stories that commented on certain algorithms being retired or replaced by others.
– I’m curious to see how the SEO Community will interpret this news and if they’ll continue believing these updates are being implemented.
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“A Tale Of Changing Search Algorithms”
– Google recently released a list of retired systems and factors, specifically mentioning page speed and exact match domains.
– Historically I have talked about the importance of page speed but my testing has not indicated that this is still the case at present.
– Going over the list it seems as if Panda & Penguin may no longer be in place which could mean they negatively impacted quality of search results in the past.
– Kevin Indig went over this information in his presentation, acknowledging he had given bad advice regarding exact match domains in the past.
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“Unlocking The Secret To Successful SEO”
• I have noticed that exact match is playing a big part when looking at search results, despite the fact that Google has said it is not a ranking factor.
• According to my tracking of Googlebot activity and coverage updates during Black Friday, there seems to be some slowness built into the system, likely due to an attempt by Google to prevent last minute assaults on the index which could come from short-lived black hat tactics.
• To rank a medium competition affiliate niche site, it can usually be done in under a month with building one website/getting links & optimizing content correctly.
• It’s important to continuously review your methods and challenge your beliefs if certain strategies are not working; there may be something in your belief system blocking you from learning what works.
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“Ranking Quickly: Mastering The Metrics”
– Quality content is not always the leading factor in Google’s ranking algorithms.
– It is possible to outperform quality content with plain text.
– People often mistakenly believe that one metric, such as site speed, will be a dominant ranking factor and others are afraid of anchor texts and exact match keywords.
– To rank quickly for medium terms keywords it is important to focus on keyword density, have relevant entities and get a press release while checking top seofactors.com for lists of factors currently ranked by Google.
– Anchor texts can be used but should be done carefully when linking the money page from the press release
– make sure it is real announcement that people find interesting or useful.
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“Reaching New Heights With Ecommerce SEO Strategy”
– When optimizing an ecommerce product page, you should target one keyword and use related terms to draw in broad match organic traffic.
– Ranking well for one targeted keyword is the cost of entry into the SEO game that benefits ecommerce.
– To increase reach for your pages, it’s beneficial to mention closely related keywords on the page to capture targeted traffic from search.
– For local /near me keywords with a new GMB account, be sure to ask detailed questions as this will result in more relevant answers that can actually help you succeed.
