Ethan Smith’s Post

I think the idea of Topical Authority needs to be discussed more! But I understand how obtuse it can be. An idea I've always toyed around with is using the "advanced search operator" to understand how much "topical authority" a site has built. It's a rather loose concept but something like this: * [site:clearscope.io keyword research] alludes to the idea that we have only created 191 content pieces around "Keyword Research" * [site:ahrefs.com keyword research] alludes to the idea that they've created 16,200 content pieces that talk about "keyword research" * moz.com ~19k * backlinko.com ~650 And who do we see in the top spots? Ahrefs, semrush, wordstream, backlinko. Thus indicating that maybe we need an additional 400 articles talking about keyword research to build enough Topical Authority for this? Does this way of thinking about Topical Authority resonate? I would suspect the other factor is how well each of these pages are performing. Backlinko likely does well because it gets high user engagement signal to each post. So the further analysis might look like Backlinko: 650 pages capturing 60,000 visits = 100 : 1 ratio (VERY GOOD) Ahrefs: ~16k pages capturing 100,000 visits = 6 : 1 ratio (DECENT) Backlinko wins? cc'ing Ethan Smith, Nigel Stevens, Benji Hyam

This is why you should pay attention to your topical authority when creating content

Why SEO's love blogs. It's an effective way to increase topical authority. Writing about Top of funnel topics increases your change of ranking for related Bottom of funnel keywords.

Search Generative Experience (SGE) Update: In a small study of 1,000 commercial keywords, over 86% of queries resulted in an SGE snippet in the SERP. Why does this matter? As Gen AI Search is fully rolled out across Google, fewer organic listings will appear above the fold in favor of the SGE-featured snippets. This has the potential to significantly alter your website's organic visibility for longer-tailed and more intentful queries but also provides a unique opportunity for authoritative sites to claim the SGE trusted source listing at the top of the SGE-featured snippet. Read more on the study below. https://lnkd.in/eNjtdmEd

Technology news outlet CNET has deleted thousands of older articles from its site, telling staff the deletions will improve its Google Search ranking, according to an internal memo. The news was first reported by Gizmodo. Gizmodo reports that, since July, thousands of articles have been removed from CNET. In the memo, CNET says that so-called content pruning “sends a signal to Google that says CNET is fresh, relevant and worthy of being placed higher than our competitors in search results.” Stories slated to be “deprecated” are archived using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, and authors are alerted at least 10 days in advance, according to the memo. “Removing content from the site is not a decision we take lightly. Our teams analyze many data points to determine whether there are pages on CNET that are not currently serving a meaningful audience. These metrics include page views, backlink profiles and the amount of time that has passed since the last update,” the memo reads. A comparison between Wayback Machine archives from 2021 and CNET’s own on-site article counter shows that hundreds — and in some cases, thousands — of stories have disappeared from each year stretching back to the mid-1990s. Data for 2022 and 2023 wasn’t available. Red Ventures, a private equity-backed marketing firm that owns CNET, didn’t immediately respond to questions about the exact number of stories that have been removed. Red Ventures has applied a ruthless SEO strategy to its slate of outlets, which also includes The Points Guy, Healthline, and Bankrate. In January, Futurism reported that CNET had been quietly using artificial intelligence tools to produce articles — part of an expansive AI-driven SEO maneuver in which generative AI tools were used to create content that could carry affiliate ads. In the wake of that revelation and resulting errors on AI-generated stories, Red Ventures temporarily paused the content and overhauled its AI policy. CNET staff unionized in May, citing the need for more control over how generative AI tools are used and how the site monetizes its work. (Disclosure: The Verge’s editorial staff is also unionized with the Writers Guild of America, East.) Red Ventures and CNET justify the content pruning by pointing to Google Search’s ranking algorithm, saying the process will “improve SEO rankings and drive more meaningful user engagement.” As Gizmodo points out, removing a chunk of your archives is not inherently a good SEO strategy — Google has said its guidance doesn’t encourage the practice, though SEO experts told Gizmodo that it can be beneficial for sites if done carefully. Red Ventures appears to be undeterred. According to the memo, CNET will be subject to regular “content pruning” going forward, at least once a year. Source link

SEO Points to Keep In Mind (pin these, write these down, keep them with you) 👉 Search results nearly always contain "outliers" which rank for no apparent reason 👉 Search results will have ranking factors change by position 👉 Copying competitors is often ineffective 👉 2 sites deployed with the same strategy - one will benefit where the other does not 👉 Content length is not a ranking factor but is a great indicator of SERP intent - look at content length by position 👉 YMYL / MEDIC and niches where incorrect or misleading information could lead to user harm - if 20% of your content is non compliant it can impact conntent that IS compliant because of user propensity to sub navigate 👉 E-E-A-T and Helpful content factors go hand in hand 👉 When writing content create an INFORMATION PRIORITISATION framework - prioritise order of content to offer the best potential user experience 👉 NLP and topical coverage is IMPORTANT for rank but potential to satisfy end user needs can outweigh this 👉 Writing TOO much content in many cases can lead to DILUTION which CAN weaken your pages relevance to a query - this presents itself in search console with a wider gap between query relevance 👉 Less is more - don't be fooled by content gurus pushing HUGE CONTENT outflow as beneficial, in many cases it's quickly met by decline / indexing drop out (supplemental effect) - content at scale requires a pruning, maintenance and compliance framework to stop content falling foul of changes to E-E-A-T/YMYL/HC etc 👉 There's no such thing as toxic links 👉 Crap links are bad because they can be temporarily beneficial until that equity is taken away (it can mimic the effect of algo impact - when in reality it's a loss of trust you should of never had) 👉 Core web vitals have FAR too much emphasis in SEO - the ranking value of CWVs is neglible and generally a last mile ranking factor (although make sure your site is quick and doesn't load like a bag of nails i.e. CLS) 👉 Your rankings aren't just down to your efforts - SERP changes and algo based displacement can drive rankings up or down irrespective of your efforts 👉 SEO retainers do NOT generally need TECH SEO every month - in many cases tech should be periodic - an upfront audit SHOULD be used to correct most issues in one sweep - there are exceptions to clients on a tech stack migration etc. 👉 Domain migrations are high risk 👉 One of the most overlooked checks is "Can Google render a page on your website" and does Google show a proper cache? - SEOs should regularly inspect URLS in search console to evaluate the output as well as cache checks and output HTML checks 👉 Huge chunks of guest post links are SHIT and a complete waste of money - avoid getting links from sites that have large indexes and low traffic estimations 👉 Links (internal and external) will remain of high value (but aren;'t as essential in informational searches for non YMYL/MEDIC/Complex niches) #seo #seotips #seo2023

Love this list - from the real SEO “dig in and figure it out” experience. I completely agree ~ understanding these tips/lessons will save time, money, and effort. So many start to learn SEO and focus on tasks that are worthless or provide minimal value. This leads to the mistake of expecting magic from tricks or the latest trend. Focus on the user-experience and write good, quality code and content!

Google Search🔎 Core Update: 3 weeks after the last update. Has anything changed?🤔 If you haven’t noticed any changes in traffic and search rankings of your pages, then congrats🥳. You’re all fine. If that happened, then it’s a sad story😔. Let’s just see what might have caused it and what you have to know about the last Google Search’s core update. I don’t want to scare you with numbers, but due to one research, over 800 websites have been completely deindexed from Google’s search results📉. To be more precise, 837 websites were removed entirely from Google’s search index. Can you imagine?😱 (I’ll add the link to the source with these numbers, so check the first comment) But why? What was wrong with these websites? How to prevent your website from this?🔻 👋🏻First and foremost, I think we all remember the importance of sticking to the E-E-A-T rule when writing & posting blog posts✍️. ❗️And yes, this rule is still a must.❗️ And as the last Google Core Update was aimed at reducing low-quality, unoriginal results, if your content didn’t meet the E-E-A-T criteria, you might have experienced how traffic dropped after the update which was on March 5. AI & content🤖 Still using AI for writing content? It’s fine, nobody says “Don’t use AI, Never. Ever.” AI can be a great helper🤝 for polishing your content, but... keep in mind that AI can’t add your first-hand experience, as well as only you know which reports and trustworthy data to refer to. So don’t overuse and don’t overestimate AI❌ in terms of content writing (at least, if you want it to rank high and drive traffic and leads, of course). Is that it? Not really🔻 ▪️Scaled content abuse ▪️Site reputation abuse ▪️Expired domain abuse These are the other main points the last update was focused on✅ In a a nutshell, make sure you don’t produce low-quality, unhelpful fluffy content just for the quantity, not quality. Quality matters. A lot👍🏻 And to dive deeper into this topic and check other important details regarding the last Google Search update, I added a few important links👇🏻. They are in the first comment. Check them out! Have an awesome Friday, everyone… and rank high📈 #marketing #marketer #marketerslife

Is it what Google is trying to tell us? 1. Listen up, folks! You gotta write stuff that people actually wanna read. None of that boring keyword nonsense. Just let our almighty algorithm figure out what your content is yakkin' about. After all, it's practically a content psychic! 2. Your content should hit that sweet spot – not too much info, not too little. Forget about those pesky FAQs, unless you want us to think you're a search engine manipulator! Ironic, we know, since we use them ourselves. But hey, rules are rules...for you, at least. 3. Original content only, folks! We've decided we're the only ones allowed to publish unoriginal stuff, courtesy of our fancy AI generator. Don't hate the player, hate the game! 4. Publish a healthy amount of content, but not too much. You gotta be an authority without seeming like you're trying too hard. It's a delicate balance, really. One wrong move, and poof! You're deindexed. Consider that a subtle hint. 5. Think you can sneak in some AI-generated content? Think again! Our algorithm is a content connoisseur. It can smell machine-written drivel from a mile away. Remember, we invented AI, so we know it better than anyone. Probably even better than the folks who actually created it! 6. Niche sites? Overreaching? There's a Goldilocks zone in there somewhere. Just don't ask us where, because we haven't the foggiest idea! 7. User-friendly is key, but no tables of contents allowed! Sure, they help people find stuff, but that's just too darn helpful. Can't have that, now, can we? 8. Keep your content fresh, but don't you dare update those dates! Figure out some mystical way to show it's updated without actually updating it. Should be a piece of cake, right? 9. Ads on your site? How dare you! That's just unpleasant for your dear visitors. If you need money, just hope they're feeling generous enough to donate. Ignore our own ad-filled pages, by the way. We're special like that. 10. Don't go comparing your site to others. Our algorithm treats every site like a beautiful, unique snowflake. Even if they're pretty much the same thing. 11. Getting your site on Google is a privilege, not a right! We're curating the internet now, deciding what the whole world should see. If we remove you, well, tough luck! That reconsideration request is just for show. 12. Above all, be helpful! Simple, right? Well, not really, given all the other contradictory rules we just listed. But hey, you'll figure it out...or you won't. Your choice!