Google stops letting sites like Forbes rule search for “Best CBD Gummies“

Under the strength of Forbes’ long-existing and well-linked site, Forbes Marketplace/Advisor has dominated the search term “best cbd gummies” for “an eternity,” according to SEO analyst Lily Ray. Forbes has similarly dominated “best pet insurance,” and long came up as the second result for “how to get rid of roaches,” as detailed in a blog post by Lars Lofgren. If people click on this high-ranking result, and then click on a link to buy a product or request a roach removal consultation, Forbes typically gets a cut.

Forbes Marketplace had seemingly also provided SEO-minded review services to CNN and USA Today, as detailed by Lofgren. Lofgren’s term for this business, “Parasite SEO,” took hold in corners critical of the trend. Ars has contacted Forbes for comment and will update this post with response.

“The unfair, exploitative nature” of “parasite SEO”

Google writes that it had reviewed “situations where there might be varying degrees of first-party involvement” (most publishers’ review sites indicate some kind of oversight or editorial standards linked to the primary site). But however arranged, “no amount of first-party involvement alters the fundamental third-party nature of the content or the unfair, exploitative nature of attempting to take advantage of the host sites’ ranking signals.”

As such, using third-party content in such a way as to take advantage of a high search quality ranking, outside the site’s primary focus, is considered spam. That delivers a major hit to a site’s Google ranking, and the impact is already being felt.

The SEO reordering does not affect more established kinds of third-party content, like wire service reports, syndication, or well-marked sponsored content, as detailed in Google’s spam policy section about site reputation abuse. As seen on the SEO subreddit, and on social media, Google has given sites running afoul of its updated policy a “Manual Action” rather than relying only on its algorithm to catch the often opaque arrangements.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/11/google-cracks-down-on-parasite-seo-punishing-established-publishers/

7 Link-Building Tactics You Need to Know to Skyrocket Your Website’s Rankings

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Climbing the Search Engine Results Page ranking requires sophisticated SEO practices, including link building — the process of acquiring inbound links or attracting other websites to link to your content. If done right, it is a powerful growth strategy that can propel web pages’ visibility and authority.

When sites link to your content, they direct traffic your way, which is, of course, essential for discoverability and exposure, especially if a site is newly made. Perhaps even more importantly, backlinks’ quality and quantity are among Google’s most important ranking factors, as well as determinants of a site’s domain authority. Put simply, a site will never perform well SEO-wise unless its’ managers strive for successful link-building.

Here are some effective techniques that will juice that vital task.

1. Pitch to relevant and authoritative websites

Outreach, or requesting website owners (in your niche or industry) to link to your website, is one of the foremost link-building tactics. To be effective, it’s important to craft a compelling and convincing pitch, one that includes how useful, in-depth and unique your content is—both relevant and informative, and not something that can be easily produced by a novice blog writer.

As much as possible, make your outreach personalized yet professional, and avoid using templates. This helps to effectively convey a desire to improve not only your link profile but also the value you’re providing to site visitors.

Email is usually the go-to outreach channel for link building, but you can also consider social media platforms, especially if the recipient is active on these channels.

2. Broken link building

Many websites have external “broken” or “dead” links that direct users to inaccessible or non-existent pages. Such links can harm a site’s UX and SEO performance, and website owners are typically on the lookout for ways of addressing them.

Via broken link building, you can reach out to websites in the hope that they will consider your content as a “replacement” for their dead links. This is similar to the above outreach technique (except that your request centers on providing an alternative external link), so the same tips apply — including highlighting new content’s originality, accuracy and helpfulness.

3. Produce ‘link-worthy’ content

An organic way to boost your inbound links is to create quality content. When other websites deem yours helpful, factual and original, they are more likely to link to associated pages, even without you reaching out to them. So, what makes content link-worthy? Value. If writers, bloggers and journalists see worthwhile information or opinions in content, they’ll likely include its’ links in their work.

Examples of such content:

• Step-by-step guides: In-depth instructional primers (with illustrations or videos) that solve problems with specific and valuable takeaways.

• Professional interviews: Acquired opinions from industry leaders can provide credible material worth referencing.

• Data analysis: Extracting insights from data using statistical tools—potentially valuable for other content creators.

• Polls: In-the-moment analysis: a finger on the public pulse regarding an issue.

• Case studies: Accounts of real experiences—whether from individuals or organizations—which can provide a nuanced analysis of various problems/situations.

• Research studies: This can be an original experimental or descriptive research that aims to generate new findings about a subject.

• Visual content: Including graphs, charts, infographics and images.

• Online resources and tools: Digital tools that people can use to more easily perform tasks. For example, a website’s tax calculator can be used as an inbound link by content that discusses tax preparations.

4. Benchmarking competitors’ links

To see how you can improve your link profile, compare it to others in your sector. Check out their pages, see which ones generate the most backlinks, then make a guess as to why. (For example, a competitor might perform well because of well-structured how-to guides or data-driven insight posts.)

Moreover, “glimpsing” at competitors’ link profiles will likely present potential link sources relevant to your content. You might discover websites, blogs or directories interested in linking to content like yours, and you can then approach them.

5. Guest blogging

This process involves sharing content for other websites in the hope of getting links back to your site and offers a number of benefits. First, guest blogging reliably results in both audience and traffic growth. Second, it’s a cost-effective link-building solution. As you write guest blogs, include links within the copy that point to your own content — easy and without any monetary cost.

Be strategic, however, when choosing sites to approach; they must be credible and have high domain authority to ensure that your site will actually benefit.

6. Look for unlinked mentions

Other websites might mention your website or digital business without linking to it. While this potentially improves your exposure, it’s additionally beneficial to request actual backlinks from site owners.

7. Apply the “skyscraper technique”

This term and strategy refer to outperforming widely linked competitor content by producing a more comprehensive and valuable alternative. Once you have published your improved version, approach websites that link to your competitor’s content and request that they link to your enhanced version instead.

Managed effectively, the result will be not just new inbound links but also nabbing traffic from competitors as you climb the search results. To make this technique work, however, it’s important to thoroughly assess how to noticeably surpass the quality of a competitor’s content—perhaps by having a more authoritative author, updating facts and data, adding new viewpoints or insights, incorporating visual elements and/or making the entirety simply easier to read.

Successful link-building involves smart outreach to relevant websites, production of link-magnet content, assessing competitors’ link profiles and other tactics. All will fuel the objective of improving website user experience and offering real value to readers. Once achieved, you’ll have a robust link profile that propels SEO success.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/starting-a-business/7-techniques-for-successful-website-link-building/470502

Fake AI law firms are sending fake DMCA threats to generate fake SEO gains

Face composed of many pixellated squares, joining together — Enlarge / A person made of many parts, similar to the attorney who handles both severe criminal law and copyright takedowns for an Arizona law firm.

Getty Images

If you run a personal or hobby website, getting a copyright notice from a law firm about an image on your site can trigger some fast-acting panic. As someone who has paid to settle a news service-licensing issue before, I can empathize with anybody who wants to make this kind of thing go away.

Which is why a new kind of angle-on-an-angle scheme can seem both obvious to spot and likely effective. Ernie Smith, the prolific, ever-curious writer behind the newsletter Tedium, received a “DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice” in late March from “Commonwealth Legal,” representing the “Intellectual Property division” of Tech4Gods.

The issue was with a photo of a keyfob from legitimate photo service Unsplash used in service of a post about a strange Uber ride Smith once took. As Smith detailed in a Mastodon thread, the purported firm needed him to “add a credit to our client immediately” through a link to Tech4Gods, and said it should be “addressed in the next five business days.” Removing the image “does not conclude the matter,” and should Smith not have taken action, the putative firm would have to “activate” its case, relying on DMCA 512(c) (which, in many readings, actually does grant relief should a website owner, unaware of infringing material, “act expeditiously to remove” said material). The email unhelpfully points to the main page of the Internet Archive so that Smith might review “past usage records.”

A slice of the website for Commonwealth Legal Services, with every word of that phrase, including "for," called into question. — A slice of the website for Commonwealth Legal Services, with every word of that phrase, including “for,” called into question.

Commonwealth Legal Services

There are quite a few issues with Commonwealth Legal’s request, as detailed by Smith and 404 Media. Chief among them is that Commonwealth Legal, a firm theoretically based in Arizona (which is not a commonwealth), almost certainly does not exist. Despite the 2018 copyright displayed on the site, the firm’s website domain was seemingly registered on March 1, 2024, with a Canadian IP location. The address on the firm’s site leads to a location that, to say the least, does not match the “fourth floor” indicated on the website.

While the law firm’s website is stuffed full of stock images, so are many websites for professional services. The real tell is the site’s list of attorneys, most of which, as 404 Media puts it, have “vacant, thousand-yard stares” common to AI-generated faces. AI detection firm Reality Defender told 404 Media that his service spotted AI generation in every attorneys’ image, “most likely by a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) model.”

Then there are the attorneys’ bios, which offer surface-level competence underpinned by bizarre setups. Five of the 12 supposedly come from acclaimed law schools at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and University of Chicago. The other seven seem to have graduated from the top five results you might get for “Arizona Law School.” Sarah Walker has a practice based on “Copyright Violation and Judicial Criminal Proceedings,” a quite uncommon pairing. Sometimes she is “upholding the rights of artists,” but she can also “handle high-stakes criminal cases.” Walker, it seems, couldn’t pick just one track at Yale Law School.

Why would someone go to the trouble of making a law firm out of NameCheap, stock art, and AI images (and seemingly copy) to send quasi-legal demands to site owners? Backlinks, that’s why. Backlinks are links from a site that Google (or others, but almost always Google) holds in high esteem to a site trying to rank up. Whether spammed, traded, generated, or demanded through a fake firm, backlinks power the search engine optimization (SEO) gray, to very dark gray, market. For all their touted algorithmic (and now AI) prowess, search engines have always had a hard time gauging backlink quality and context, so some site owners still buy backlinks.

The owner of Tech4Gods told 404 Media’s Jason Koebler that he did buy backlinks for his gadget review site (with “AI writing assistants”). He disclaimed owning the disputed image or any images and made vague suggestions that a disgruntled former contractor may be trying to poison his ranking with spam links.

Asked by Ars if he had heard back from “Commonwealth Legal” now that five business days were up, Ernie Smith tells Ars: “No, alas.”

This post was updated at 4:50 p.m. Eastern to include Ernie Smith’s response.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=2014933

Ever Wonder Why Certain Websites Rank Higher Than Yours? This SEO Expert Reveals The Secret to Dominating Search Results

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Have you ever wondered why some businesses consistently top search engine results? It’s often the smart use of SEO, now supercharged with AI, particularly in keyword optimization.

As a technical SEO expert with over two decades of experience in website development and digital marketing, I’ve seen firsthand how AI is revolutionizing the SEO landscape, making it more efficient and targeted.

AI in SEO is like a super-sleuth assistant, effortlessly analyzing mountains of data to uncover trends and insights, leading to smarter, more impactful SEO strategies.

Transforming keyword research

Gone are the days of manually sifting through keywords. AI transforms this process, delving deep into data to reveal not just popular keywords but also niche phrases and emerging trends. It goes beyond just picking keywords — it’s like getting into your audience’s heads and really understanding their needs and wants.

Making AI work for you in keyword optimization

Ever wonder how AI can work wonders for your SEO? It all starts with choosing the right AI tool—think of it as finding a savvy partner in your SEO journey.

Choosing the right tool

You need an AI-driven keyword tool that matches your business’s unique needs and brings a set of skills that can truly make a difference. Think of it as finding a tool that speaks your language and understands your goals.

Look for a comprehensive data analysis tool. It should dive deep into the sea of data and surface with valuable insights. Consider SEO tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush, which are like the seasoned guides of the SEO world.

They can predict trends and provide insights into what your audience is actually searching for. It’s not just about having a lot of data; it’s about having the right data that can tell you about user intent and future search trends.

This way, you’re not just shooting arrows in the dark but strategically aiming based on informed predictions.

Understand user intent

Diving into the world of user intent is a bit like being a mind reader. It’s all about understanding why someone typed a query into a search engine.

Is it to buy something? To learn? To find a specific website? Or to have a question answered? AI tools are here to help you crack this code. For example, when you use a tool like MarketMuse or Clearscope, it’s like having a conversation with your audience without them saying a word. These tools analyze search queries and give you insights into what your audience really wants from their search.

Now, imagine you run an online gardening store. AI might reveal that a significant portion of your audience searches for “how to care for indoor plants.” This is a clear signal to focus on informational content, perhaps a blog post or a how-to guide, rather than just pushing product pages. Conversely, if you notice a high volume of searches like “buy indoor plant fertilizer,” that’s a transactional intent where your product pages should take center stage. But here’s a twist: not all traffic is beneficial.

Suppose your AI tool shows a surge in queries like “free indoor plants.” This traffic might not be valuable if your goal is to boost sales, as these users are likely looking for giveaways or contests, not to make a purchase. In this scenario, understanding user intent helps you refine your SEO strategy to attract the right kind of traffic — the kind that aligns with your business goals and converts.

Stay agile

Embracing AI in your SEO strategy is a bit like surfing. You need to stay agile and ready to ride the waves of change as they come. AI tools are fantastic at providing real-time data, offering a snapshot of what’s happening right now. It’s like having a weather forecast for your SEO strategy. Just as a surfer would check the weather and wave conditions, using AI tools allows you to monitor current trends, search patterns and changes in user behavior.

Let’s say you run a fitness website and notice a sudden spike in searches for “home workout routines” due to an unexpected event, like a lockdown. This real-time data is your cue to quickly pivot and focus on creating content that matches this emerging interest. Perhaps you could introduce a new blog series or video content around home workouts. But here’s where agility really counts: not every trend or surge in searches is worth pursuing.

It’s about discerning which waves are worth riding. If a trending topic doesn’t align with your brand or offers little potential for conversion, it may not be beneficial to chase it. The agility afforded by AI isn’t just about quick reactions; it’s also about making smart, strategic decisions based on real-time insights.

Merge AI insights with your content strategy

Incorporating AI insights into your content strategy is like having a seasoned chef in your kitchen — one who knows exactly what your guests crave. It’s about blending the science of data with the art of content creation.

AI tools do more than gather data; they offer insights that can shape your content strategy, ensuring it’s not only rich with the right keywords but also resonates deeply with your audience. For instance, imagine you’re running a travel blog. AI might reveal that your audience is increasingly searching for “sustainable travel tips.” This insight is a goldmine.

It guides you to create content focused on eco-friendly travel, perhaps a series of articles or an in-depth guide on the topic. This targeted approach ensures your content is not just relevant but also highly engaging and likely to attract the right kind of traffic — people genuinely interested in sustainable travel.

However, it’s important to remember that AI is a tool, not a magic wand. It provides the map, but you need to embark on the journey. While AI can suggest topics and keywords based on trends and user intent, the creativity in how you present this content — the unique voice, the compelling storytelling is up to you. This is where your understanding of your audience’s preferences, combined with your brand’s unique perspective, comes into play.

Merging AI insights with your content strategy enables you to create content that’s not only optimized for search engines but also genuinely valuable and engaging for your audience. It’s about striking that perfect balance between data-driven precision and creative flair.

Conclusion

Integrating AI into your SEO strategy, particularly for keyword optimization, isn’t just a nice to have; it’s becoming essential in a digital world where staying ahead of the curve means understanding and leveraging the latest technologies. By embracing AI, you’re not just optimizing your SEO efforts — you’re setting your business up for smarter, more successful online engagement.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/ever-wonder-why-certain-websites-rank-higher-than-yours/467390

2 Things You Need to Convince Google You’re an Expert In Your Niche And Drive Traffic

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

When others link to your website, Google wants to learn what value you can provide to users — the very reason someone gave you a backlink. That’s where digital public relations (digital PR) comes in.

Compared to manual link building, digital PR focuses on teaching a search engine about your expertise, which is reaffirmed by other publications linking to your content.

Let’s take a deeper look at how search engines like Google have evolved, how digital PR works and why using it together with manual link-building efforts is considered best to keep your website relevant.

Google has grown smart

Google is traditionally all about links — the more links inserted, the better. However, it has grown into a smart semantic search engine. Instead of simply looking at the links, it tries to understand the context, including the site’s information, what it offers and similar details.

Google’s focus is shifting to value sites that provide helpful content and strong Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) signals. In other words, link quality will matter more than quantity.

For example, websites with limited authority, despite their high traffic, are focusing on establishing topical relevance. They’re basically convincing Google that they are experts in a particular topic or niche. And this is one of the defining factors between digital PR and manual link building.

Understanding digital PR

Digital PR is very much like traditional public relations, except that it’s focused on the digital space. It’s the use of online channels to manage your brand’s reputation and build positive relationships with your target audience.

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), digital PR helps in:

Attracting visitors to your website.
Getting other websites to link back to yours, which improves your website’s authority and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

There’s no single way to perform digital PR outreach. However, a common but effective strategy involves content creation efforts. In other words, you need to create valuable assets, including reports, infographics, white papers, statistics, and other content that is good enough for other publications to link to your work organically.

Digital PR makes for quality backlinks but takes time

Organic backlinks — voluntary links to your content — are considered higher-quality links than those you manually build (either by guest posting or affiliate linking). Digital PR is a powerful tool for acquiring such high-quality backlinks. However, it’s a long shot that requires effort and patience to yield good results. Here’s why.

Building relationships

You must demonstrate your brand’s value and expertise consistently before your target audience members become willing to recommend or link to your content.

Creating valuable content

Researching topics, providing commentary or launching campaigns are not done in one sitting. You need to invest a significant amount of time and resources.

Earning organic coverage

Journalists get pitched constantly, so your content needs to be truly newsworthy and relevant to their audience to stand out and secure coverage. Sometimes, you must also have a strategic outreach plan to pitch your content to the right journalists and publications.

Manual link-building remains an effective SEO strategy

While digital PR is a great way to boost authority, manual link-building remains effective in maintaining your website’s visibility and relevance. The only difference is that you’re proactively getting the backlinks to your website rather than letting journalists voluntarily do the linking.

Still, given the change in the current landscape, you should focus your link-building efforts on earning juicy links rather than spamming them. Here are a few manual link-building strategies that might still provide good results:

Guest posting

Write high-quality articles for other relevant websites in your niche. Then, make sure that you include a link back to your own website within the content.

Broken link building

Find broken links on relevant websites and reach out to the website owners, suggesting your content as a replacement.

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) pitching

There are certain platforms where journalists post their queries on topics that might be too niche. Respond to their questions with great answers, you might potentially earn a backlink in the published article.

Networking and relationship-building

Connecting with influences and leaders in your niche always remains a good tactic. As you build relationships for your business, you may also find natural link opportunities.

Manual link-building risks penalties

Manual link building is seen as a method to replicate digital PR link earning (which can take a long time). While it can be faster, it also carries the risk of getting your website penalized when done incorrectly. Here are some cases where this might happen:

Unnatural link profile

Search engines like Google analyze link patterns to identify websites engaging in manipulative link building. An example of this is when your website has a sudden surge of links that seem unnatural, including those from low-quality websites, identical anchor texts, or links to private blog networks.

Manipulative link-building techniques

Engaging in specific practices can be directly flagged as manipulative and lead to penalties. Examples include link buying, excessive link exchanges and comment spam.

A two-pronged approach to link building is the best

Truthfully speaking, search engines tend to rely more on topic relevance than human-driven linking efforts today. In other words, digital PR is becoming the trend — and you should hop on to it, too.

However, combining both approaches can help your business build a more effective strategy for building high-quality links. In particular, digital PR will help you get natural and authoritative links from reputable sources. Meanwhile, manual link building allows you to target and control link quality.

Digital PR can be resource-intensive, as compared with manual link building. If your team is not yet ready to focus on high-quality content creation, manual link building remains a great avenue to take.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/how-to-convince-google-youre-an-expert-in-your-niche/470503

Enhance Your Website’s Visibility and Dominate Your Competition With These Powerful Techniques

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Have you ever found that despite putting hours of effort into your content and link-building initiatives, you still need help to rank for your targeted keywords? It may be time to revisit the topic of search intent.

Search intent is one of the most important aspects to consider whenever you’re trying to optimize your on-page content, carry out effective link-building, or do anything else related to SEO.

Let’s take a closer look at search intent’s role in SEO and how you can use it for more effective link-building strategies.

Types of search intent

Google has dominated the search market over the years because it’s the best at serving its users the content they’re looking for. It’s essential to ensure the content you publish is not only related to the keywords you’re targeting but also offers a highly relevant solution to the problems searchers are facing. To give you a better idea of how this works in an SEO campaign, let’s take a look at the four main types of keyword intent:

Informational intent

One of the most commonly-targeted types of keyword intent, informational search intent, covers keywords used by people looking to answer a question or find a particular piece of information.

Keywords with informational intent are often keywords starting with “how,” “why,” “what,” etc. For example, the keyword “how to start a YouTube channel” will indicate that the user wants to learn about the process involved in starting a YouTube channel and possibly find some supporting advice on optimizing it for success.

Navigational Intent

Navigational search intent is used by people who want to go from Google to a specific page on a specific site. An example of a keyword with navigational intent would be “Entrepreneur login,” which shows that the searcher wants to log in to their Entrepreneur account.

Transactional intent

Transactional intent covers keywords that show a user intends to convert with a given business. An example of a transactional intent keyword might include “buy Acer laptop” or “Spotify Premium subscription.”

These can be highly competitive, and performing for these kinds of keywords often requires organic and paid advertising.

Commercial Intent

Commercial intent keywords fall somewhere between informational and transactional intent keywords. They’re generally searched by users who want to learn more about a particular product or service but aren’t 100% sure they want to commit to a purchase, as they might be with transactional intent keywords.

Commercial intent search terms are often used to find reviews or detailed information about a specific product or to compare different purchase options within a certain category. Common commercial intent keywords can include “iPhone vs Samsung” or “best Smart TVs”.

Using search intent in link-building

Aligning content on your site with keyword intent is pretty straightforward, but what about when it comes to planning and executing your link building? Here are a few scenarios where you can use search intent to bolster your link-building efforts.

Highly-targeted outreach

Understanding the informational intent behind given keywords can help you target your outreach for link-building more effectively. This can improve the chances that pitched articles will be accepted by your intended referring site and that the content’s relevance to your site will make for a more powerful backlink.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re running an e-commerce site specializing in eco-friendly products. If you are looking for linking opportunities relevant to your target audience, you can search for informational-intent keywords such as “eco-friendly home products” or “sustainable living tips” and then craft a content pitch around these.

With the basic framework of the pitch in place, you can look for potential referring blogs with an audience who will exhibit the same searcher intent and pitch them a highly relevant content idea, for example, “10 Easy Ways to Make Your Lifestyle More Sustainable.” Aligning your outreach with a specific search intent will help the chances of your pitch being accepted and make it easier to include a natural, relevant link to your campaign’s target page.

Building linkable assets

Keyword research can give you a great starting point to build highly linkable content, such as written guides, infographics and online tools, which can be tailored to your audience’s needs.

If, for example, you’re offering digital marketing services through your website, you can research informational or commercial intent keywords such as “improve online traffic” or “digital marketing tools.”

From there, you can create highly linkable assets tailored to meet your keywords’ intent. These can include written content like ultimate guides, valuable infographics, or, if you’re feeling more ambitious, an interactive tool that helps solve an issue alluded to in your target keywords.

Once you have a linkable asset that meets the intent of a keyword directly, it will become much easier to craft a compelling pitch aimed at building quality links to your website and assure referring page webmasters that your content will be helpful to their users.

Resource page link-building

Resource pages can be a great source of backlinks if you often produce quality, authoritative content that provides specific pieces of information or solutions to specific problems. Researching keyword intent can help you build content tailored to certain resource pages and maximize the chances that you can earn a link from them.

If, for example, you’re running a website dedicated to financial planning, you can collate a list of financial advice websites that feature resource pages. From there, you can research keywords with informational intent such as “guide to financial planning”, develop content relevant to this term, and reach out to the resource sites you’ve listed to offer your content as a valuable resource for them to link to.

With content aligned to search intent related to a given resource page, you’ll encounter less resistance in your pitches and be able to accumulate links in a shorter space of time.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/enhance-your-websites-visibility-and-dominate-your/467866

Ultimate SEO Guide On How to Get 100,000 Visits Per Month From Google

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Most noteworthy businesses and websites are capable of hitting the magic 100,000 visitors per month. Countless high-potential companies lose the battle for page views simply because they don’t know how. There are, however, some factors you need to consider before embarking on this quest for more clicks.

For starters, there is no one-size-fit solution that works for every niche website. The work involved in generating 100,000 organic visits per month varies depending primarily on the following:

The competitiveness of your niche.
The quality of your content.
Your website’s domain’s authority and backlink profile.

SEO can feel overwhelming as you learn about the different factors and metrics that drive 100,000 organic visitors. Mainly, however, you need to focus on these three factors:

Keywords and competitor research.
Content organization — pillar pages and content clusters.
Deploying your SEO content machine.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these variables!

Keyword research

The first step is to dig into your competitors’ keywords and filter them down to the keywords you can rank for. Use a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to find the total volume for keywords directly.

If your organic visibility is relatively weak compared to your competitors, we recommend staying away from high-volume, high-demand keywords and instead focusing on “medium-tail” and “long-tail” keywords. These keywords are more specific and less competitive, offering an opportunity to tailor content to specific search intent and achieve higher rankings across several terms.

Content organization

Now that you have your target keywords, the next step is to create pillar pages linking out to content clusters for the topics you want to target. This means using the keywords throughout your content naturally and ensuring your content is relevant to your target audience.

The beauty of creating pillar pages and content clusters is not only all the internal linking going on and the topical authority that can be created but also the various terms, volume, and difficulty levels that will help you get more keywords ranking.

So, what are pillar pages and content clusters?

Pillar pages

Pillar pages are the key pages that build topical authority on your website. These pages are typically long-form, detailed articles covering a given topic in detail. Pillar pages are linked to clusters of other content (blogs and articles on the same or related topics), helping them rank higher in search results due to their semantic relevance.

A look into the most authoritative websites will explain how these pages look. Investopedia’s “Stock” page is a great example of this: this pillar page holds the “cluster” of everything that is “Stock” related.

When planning and building content, it’s essential to:

Choose the right topics for your pillar pages: Focus on the relevant topics for your target readers, prioritizing high search volume without neglecting low volume. You can use keyword tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to find topics showing decent traffic potential with a high keyword volume but with low enough competition that you’ll be able to rank.

Create high-quality content: Pillar pages will act as the first resource pages for your readers. These articles should be informative, authoritative and up-to-date with a variety of media forms like images and videos. Google favors content that’s authoritative and trustworthy. With this in mind, you should try to write content that will be hard for competitors to replicate and give your audience some practical value based on their search intent.

Optimize your pillar pages for SEO: Optimize your pillar pages by placing the right keywords in the headings and bodies and pass backlink equity to your other pages with internal links. Ensure the navigation is user-friendly and organized in a logical way. You should also include a call to action on each pillar page to direct visitors towards conversion.

Content clusters

Pillar pages and content clusters are a powerful SEO strategy for generating organic traffic from Google. Creating content clusters linked to pillar content allows you to create a network of interconnected pages all centered around a specific topic, where you can create valuable resources for your audience and improve your chances of ranking in search results.

Tips to write pillar and cluster pages for niche websites:

Start with a strong pillar page as a foundation for your content cluster, covering your topic in-depth and using relevant keywords throughout the page. Now that you have a strong pillar page, you can start to identify the more specific topics within the pillar focus for your cluster content.

Each content cluster should focus on a single topic, with each piece linking back to the pillar page.

When setting up internal links, remember to:

Use relevant keywords in your anchor text.
Place links in prominent locations. One common practice is to place them at the beginning or at the end of the content clusters contextually.

Developing your SEO content machine

Most websites with 100,000 visits per month have a consistent content output that keeps the site fresh and relevant. Make sure you’re outsourcing or delegating to reliable content experts and tracking your content output with tools like Airtable.

There are many ways you can approach content production, but generally, you’ll need a team of at least one SEO editor and one writer to reach a consistently high-quality output.

You should plan to equip these team members with an editorial calendar for planning content in advance and set formats for briefs and content templates for keeping your content production consistent. You can simplify the process of creating templates and SEO Briefs for your writers using tools like swiftbrief.com, Keywords Insights, or ChatGPT.

Ranking on Google means producing well-written, authoritative and useful content that holds tangible value in the eyes of your target audience.

Creating the right content is a major task involving several sub-tasks, such as tracking internal links for the right anchors, ensuring the topics are covered with proper optimization, and others.

Are you ready to get to 100K/visits per month?

https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/ultimate-seo-guide-on-how-to-get-100000-visits-per-month/465813

3 quick SEO wins to kick-start growth next year

The best SEO tactics aren’t high-level, complex theories, but simple, actionable insights.

All the pivot tables in the world won’t save your bacon if you fail to drive results. And results come from outputs, from action, not analysis. So close out those multi-tab spreadsheets and roll up your sleeves.

This short, simple article will help get you back to basics right in time to kick-start growth for next year.

How to drive SEO results in the next six months

SEO is a long-term game. That’s why your results next year will often come from what you’re doing this year. But what if that’s not soon enough, not fast enough or just not enough in general?

If that’s the case, you need to adjust your payback period and the strategies or tactics you pick as a result. With SEO, you front-load an investment over the first few years to create an asset with a defensible moat that appreciates in value over time.

Could you set your sights high, then? Should you dominate the top commercial, money-making term in your space?

Definitely!

There’s only one problem: you’re probably looking at years and millions to make it happen. That won’t help you today, next week or next month.

Instead, try shifting your attention from what you don’t have and don’t rank for, to what you do have and are already ranking for.

Here’s how.

1. Update and re-optimize content ranking outside the top five

The vast majority of ranking content doesn’t get seen, read or clicked.

Only about the top five results on a SERP get roughly 80% of the love. (See nearly every SERP CTR study ever.)

That means two things:

SERPs (and SEO by extension) are a zero-sum game. To win, others must lose.
This means you need to win at all costs – prioritizing top five rankings ASAP.

Contrary to popular belief, new content won’t help you much here because will take weeks-to-months-to-years to go from non-indexed to top five.

Instead, start by looking at all existing content ranking in positions five to 15. Throw in a minimum volume floor to focus on the biggest bang for your buck. Then, set a keyword difficulty ceiling to prioritize the “lowest-of-low” hanging fruit.

Voila.

Dog and cat keywords in positions 5 to 15

Now you’ve found some easy content pieces to update. More importantly, you’ve identified a few different scalable content ideas where you’re already showing some topical authority to help increase the time to rank new content when you’re ready to triple down on new output.

2. Update and re-optimize content showing keyword cannibalization

You’re already ranking for some keywords. That’s great! But here are the common problems:

You’re picking up rankings you shouldn’t – where you’re optimizing for one topic and sort of ranking for another, which means…
You’ll likely never crack into the top five with that piece of content for that keyword because the competition outranking you is properly optimized for said query, which also means…
You probably already have content you want to rank for that keyword, except it’s ranking potential is being cannibalized by that other existing page on your site.

Here’s an example:

The page in green (“/cat-health-insurance/”) is ranking for “pet insurance for cats.” That’s good! Hence, the green. But look at the terms in yellow. There are four keywords and two pages. That’s not a great sign unless you can prove significant SERP overlap.

The first keyword is branded and blurred. (We can’t share all our secrets.) Yet it’s the homepage (“/”) ranking for a branded keyword, which is fine. However, the same homepage also ranks for top unbranded or non-branded keywords (like “pet insurance” or “dog pet insurance”). That’s bad!

Unless those SERPs are already filled with homepages, which they aren’t, then you have keyword cannibalization screwing with the pages you actually want to show up here.

Right on queue, look at the last one in yellow, the “/dog-health-insurance/” – which is being cannibalized by the homepage. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

If this is happening in a case like this, it’s almost certainly happening across many other areas of your site, too. No worries! Here’s all you have to do:

This is a super easy, five-step process that can quickly (in about zero to six months) pay dividends.

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3. Update and re-optimize content that used to rank well but has lost rankings in the last 1 to 2 years

SERPs are living, breathing things. They’re not static. They always evolve as searchers become more nuanced and information changes over time.

Your competition for these SERPs is also evolving at the same time, upping their game and throwing more money plus talent at the same rankings you used to covet so dearly.

The result?

After a year or so of good rankings, you get complacent. Your attention shifts to other areas. You very quickly will start to slide backward into SERP obscurity.

This is extremely common, so expect and embrace reality.
It’s happening all the time, literally, as we speak.
And it’s also easy to spot and fix!

Once again, look up your existing keyword rankings. This time, add a date filter to capture the historical rankings from the last year or two. Then, filter by the keywords and/or pages with the biggest drops during that time period.

Exhibit C:

The fact that you used to rank well for this keyword is another positive underlying sign. It hints at some level of topical authority and popularity around these relevant terms.

And once again, updating and re-optimizing these pages – before worrying about publishing any brand new content – will likely yield a better ROI over the next three to six months than virtually anything else you could be prioritizing at the moment.

To get faster results, take action now

SEO is an art and science. It can be technically challenging and confusing at times. The trick is not to lose the forest through the trees. All the thinking in the world doesn’t make up for inaction.

Resist the tunnel-vision urge, pouring endless hours into analyzing, strategizing and talking yourself in circles. Instead, if you need to drive results ASAP, get back to the basics.

Adjust your keyword research, content creation and link building efforts to fit a more appropriate short-term payback period. Double down on what you’ve already got or used to have, and let that help you drive results over the next few months.

Today’s work will also have the added bonus of buying you time to shift your attention back to more ambitious, commercial and lucrative projects that might not pay off for at least a year.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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How to evolve an SEO strategy: Key elements to review

An effective SEO strategy must evolve over time to account for changes within your company and the broader digital landscape. An annual review is key to keeping your approach up to date and results-driven.

This article outlines critical internal and external elements you need to assess when refreshing your SEO plan, from website changes to competitive shifts to algorithm updates.

You can evolve your SEO strategy with continuous shifts of priorities and changes that are reflected in a dynamic SEO roadmap, or you can develop a more defined annual or semi-annual process.

For this article, we’ll work under the assumption this is an annual review to determine if priorities have changed in the last year (i.e., waterfall, rather than agile, for those who think that way).

Internal elements to review

A year is a long time, and things can change internally, whether they are processes or priorities.

Before we shift our SEO strategy based on an external factor, we want to make sure the brand and the company can support it – and that it matters to the business.

Your SEO strategy implementation

Start by auditing what has successfully been implemented or what projects have been approved – from the first iteration of the SEO strategy translated into tactics through an SEO roadmap – and what has struggled.

If possible, you’ll also want to see what impact that resulted from those changes. This will allow you to start mapping out the particular elements that impact your website and potentially your industry.

Your website

As one of the key elements of your SEO strategy, you must understand any changes on your website’s backend.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be familiar with this anyway, because you’ll either be embedded as a part of the development team or across their workflow and on good terms with the product or program owners.

You also need to understand what’s changed on your website from a content perspective. A number of enterprise-level SEO tools have change records as a part of their software, or you could use tools like:

Visual Ping
Hexomatic
Sken.io

Otherwise, you may be able to use the “Last modified” or “Last edited” history within your CMS if those fields are recorded.

Your products/offering

Your product and your company go through changes as well. Maybe this year, there was a fundamental shift from focusing on product A to launching and supporting product B.

Or maybe the goals, targets and mission of the business have shifted, and it’s less focused on gaining new customers, but about retaining existing business.

That fundamentally could shift both the content strategy and the technical focus of the website and should inform an evolution of your SEO strategy as well.

Your processes

Maybe a process has been improved and unblocked a lot of work you couldn’t get done in the last year, or potentially the reverse.

While not exhaustive, these are good places to start understanding how things within your control have changed in the last 12 months and how they’re likely to change in the next 12.

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External elements

Understanding external changes involves assessing factors beyond your control. Determine whether immediate action is needed or if it’s better to address the issue before it becomes critical.

This may lead to a broader business discussion requiring leadership’s approval, so be prepared for a potentially time-consuming process.

Google algorithm updates or feature changes

This is an obvious one, but it’s worth stating: SEO strategies, to a certain extent, will always be reactive.

While a good SEO strategy will be near-impervious to shifts in Google’s algorithms, the evolution comes in anticipating and acting toward future changes in how people search. It’s seeing things that may be a small consideration now, but you see the threads becoming bigger, like the “Experience” in E-E-A-T or Google’s SGE.

What your competitors are doing

While I’m a follower of the infinite game in business, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to what happens in your market. Instead, it means not measuring your success by it.

If you find that most of your market has shifted to writing long-form, thought-leadership content, that’s at least worth tucking away in the corner of your mind. But whether you evolve your SEO strategy to address it depends on your wider goals.

Understanding the market landscape is different from reacting to it, and any evolution of your SEO strategy needs to be informed by an accurate, timely understanding of the market where you operate.

Chaos

One recommendation that has always stuck with me from Ian Lurie’s various strategy documents is to consider the chaos.

What would happen if a new channel came in and disrupted the market?
What if there was a global pandemic?
What if you get fantastic media coverage?
What if the iPhone had a split launch?
What if Samsung had to recall its phones?

This thought exercise stretches your strategic muscles. It also helps you understand the edge cases and assess how resilient your processes and tactics are. Note how these edge cases would require you to shift or entirely change your strategy.

Look to the future

The evolution of the SEO strategy should include:

Updating SEO goals and targets.
Shifting any strategic pillars that are either internal or external reactions.
Adding new strategic pillars based on the market landscape.

Armed with this up-to-date information, you’re well-positioned to evolve your SEO strategy and future-proof it by keeping the document live and loved.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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Google Search now supports discussion forum and profile page structured data

Google Search supports discussion forum and profile page structured data. This functionality allows Google to show “first-person perspectives from social media platforms, forums, and other communities” within the search results.

In addition, Google added new Search Console reports to support those who added structured data to their pages, the company announced.

Profile page structured data. The new profile page structured data and markup is for any site where creators, either people or organizations, share first-hand perspectives. This markup will help Google highlight the creator’s name or social handle, profile photo, follower count, or the popularity of their content in the Google search results.

This information is also available in the Perspectives and Discussions and Forums search result features.

Here is what it may look like:

Discussion forum structured data. The new discussion forum structured data and markup is for any forum-style site where people collectively share first-hand perspectives. “When forum sites add this markup, Google Search can better identify online discussions across the web and make use of this markup in features such as Discussions and Forums and Perspectives,” Google explained.

Here is what it looks like:

Changes to Q&A markup. Google also updated its Q&A markup to say if you are already using Q&A markup for your question and answer user forums. The company is updating the Q&A structured data documentation to be more in line with the richness of the new discussion forum guidelines. You don’t need to use both types of structured data on the same page. You should instead use the one that’s best suited to your use case:

Q&A forums: If your forum is structured by a question that’s followed by answers, use Q&A markup.
For general forums: If your forum structure is more general and isn’t strictly question and answer content, use DiscussionForumPosting.

Search Console reports. Google added new Search Console reports, which maybe why the tool went down earlier today, to help site owners monitor discussion threads and profile page markup issues. These reports show you valid items related to your marked-up pages. The company also updated the Rich Results Test to help you test and validate your markup.

Here are screenshots of those reports:

Why we care. With the rise of the new personalized search features, including how Google is promoting creators more in search through perspectives and other areas, it may make sense to implement these new structured data types. Google probably won’t support these elements forever but you may get a higher click-through rate if you add these to your pages.

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