Content & Backlinks
William: What those algorithms are trying to figure out are the semantics of things. If I tell you “That beard looks great,” with three different intonations, one genuine, one suggestive, and one sarcastic, I’m saying three different things, and you know what I’m saying.
Google is still figuring those things out, and every day it’s getting better. That’s why we write content. We don’t write just specifically about our service or product. We get wide and write within our vertical.
If our vertical is beards or hair trimming, we’re writing all things hair trimming, all things hair products, all things within that vertical so Google can fix the semantics for when someone’s looking for the products we’re trying to sell. If they’re trying to learn about it or find some dirt on it, we want to pop up in the right SERP.
Dave: You say “SERP.” Let’s define that really quick.
William: SERP is simply “search engine results pages.” Google used to return thousands of results, but I think they’ve limited it down. I think you can probably go 10 or 20 pages back. Each page contains 10 organic results, so the top page you see right there on your computer, that’s what we’re going to call the fold.
Everything that’s on that page is above the fold. And they’re filling it more and more with ads. SEM, we’re always fighting against SEM, because they make money with those ads; those ads are right there in front of the searchers. When it says “ads” that’s SEM, and they’re going to have different rich snippets, whether it’s definitions or products for sale, these are rich snippets.
They get this info from our organic, our web build, the html we’ve built into the website. All of that in regard to Schema, helps us to get into those snippets. And the Google map is also a feature, now below the Google map (and you got to get into the Google map).
Dave: We covered that in episode one if you missed it, that’s how to do it right there.
William: People will often stop at that Google map. Being in the Google map can make you more money, but below that Google map is organic, and that’s everything defined by content and backlinks. The content, and the semantics of things, you got to write great content, and you got to write relevant content. Vertical specific content, and you got to write it consistently.
Dave: So, if I’m a car repair shop, I’m not writing content about the Grammys, or the Oscars. I’m writing content not just about my shop either, I’m writing it about everything in the auto repair industry.
William: You got it.
Dave: There’s a huge amount of options there for content. And it’s not junk content. Everybody knows that feeling. When you click on a Google search result, and it’s a garbage page. Nothing pisses me off more, that I just spent two seconds of my life going to this page that I thought I was getting something, and it’s just garbage with a bunch of adspace that’s been sold. And some guy’s making 2 cents on whatever click on the traffic that’s going to that site because someone sees that thing on Amazon or eBay they were thinking about buying, and say “Screw it, I’ll just click on that.”
William: So, some people might be thinking, “Yeah, but you were the top result.”
That’s the catch.
There’s a lot of bad SEOs out there that can write garbage content faster than you and I can get our writers to write high quality content. They can spin it so many different ways, and so much quicker when they’re just talking out of their…
And it’s just nonsense, over and over again, and the page is just full of garbage. They can get you to rank with that but Google is figuring it out. Google will always be figuring it out. They’ll always figure out what’s trash content vs. fantastic content. They can get you to boost in the short run, but it’s not a long-run strategy. You have to have high quality content. When Google does give you that, all of a sudden, you’re writing massive amounts of content. You’re tricking the equation, but they’ll catch up and find you out, because people will leave, and review you.
They’re not going to get down into your funnel and Google will start to drop you down for someone of value. That’s what you and I are looking for. We’re looking for valuable content.
Dave: Absolutely. You’ll hear that a lot on this show. You’ll hear us talking about the long game vs the short game.
William: Google is in the game of turning SERPs, that’s how they make their money.
Dave: That brings us to our action item of the day: content creation.
How do we get started? What do we do today to get content rolling for our website, for our business?
William: First thing’s first, I pray to God you have a website. If you don’t have a website, you got to call us or somebody. You cannot win in modern day, 2018, without a website. You just can’t. All models are changing, all industries are changing. You might think “Yeah but mine is pipe bending and all the buyers are six years old,” but those buyers are retiring. And their kids are millennials who use the internet. They’re buying off the internet. They’re not doing business as it’s always been done. You can’t get around without having an optimized website.
Dave: It might not look like it today, but again, it’s the long game. We’re not talking about today. We’re talking about next month. Four months. A year.
William: How do you go about it. First you got to be in a platform, a content management system, we call them CMSes, such as WordPress.
You want to build in WordPress. You can build in Wix, or FOURSQUARE, or one of these other CMSes, or get someone else to make it for you. Whatever you do, you need a page where you can create relevant content that allows Google to expand it’s understanding of you, what you’re trying to rank for, what you’re trying to be found for.
If you’re in the tire and auto repair industry, I’m going to be writing about oil, tire speeds, or TPMS relearn. Or what’s changed in the industry in regard to Michelin, Cooper, and BFGoodrich. I’m going to be writing about “What do I do to get my Car ready for the winter,” “How do I winterize my car.”
This content, there’s a million different things you can write about so you can continue to show Google we are the source. There’s so many different words. You look at optimized websites from the backend, you’re talking about 15,000. 25,000. 50,000 different ways people are looking your business up.
Dave: Alright, but I’m a business owner, I’m trying to keep this thing floating. I’m trying to keep my head above water; I got like 20 things, 100 things on my head. I don’t have time to sit down, I already wake up at the butt crack of dawn to start my day to make sure my business keeps going. I don’t have time to write content. What do I do?
William: There’s two things you can do. One is that you can hire an SEO. If you don’t want to hire someone like us, that’s, say, out of state, or you say “Oh, it’s advertising,” (it’s not) or “Oh, it’s marketing,” (it’s not) it’s optimization.
You can always find local talent and writers, and then you have to know if they’re a good writer, you have to know that they’re doing the right things, and then you got to teach them about H1s H2s H3s, descriptions, how to find articles. A good blogger is going to be working on their craft, and you can get some mediocre or decent writing from a local blogger or even someone that’s got a really successful blog or website. I see it all the time in small towns.
Dave: We’ll cover that in future episodes. We’ll go over how to shape those blog posts and make sure they’re done correctly and the right ways so you’re not wasting time. And that brings us to our resource of the day: bloggers and writers.
We need them, they’re worth the money. If we don’t know where to start, where are some good places we can find someone who can write for us? I don’t have a huge budget, I just spent a ton of money getting this website built. How do I get someone to write for me?
William: So, there are several ways. If you do it yourself with no money, if you’ve got a decent ability to write, write your own content. Then send us an email, and I’ll send you instructions on how to put a post on your WordPress website. You have to start that today. There’s more to it, there’s meta descriptions, there’s a little bit of technical, but it’s not super technical…
Dave: You can narrow it down as you go but the important thing is to take action.
William: If you are not a writer, and don’t know the English language, and you don’t know where to start, you can find a local blogger. Or you can use a resource like freelancer.com or fiverr.com. You can run into issues, sometimes they might cut and copy content, and you might deal with duplicate content, but that’s why you want to have a good eye on it. If you’re the quality control, you want to make sure you’re not being duped and sold duplicate content.
Dave: What if someone in my family is a talented writer?
William: The action is this: if you’ve got someone you know that’s a writer, do five searches, five different keywords in Google. How do I sell my product? Whatever your product or service is. Look what the top 10 results are. Find one that’s got exceptional content and give it to them to rewrite it.
So, if they say “10 things to Know about this,” have them write 5 major things to write about this, or 5 things not to do, or 5 things you thought were important. Another similar article that has value, or high-quality content, that we can possibly win. And you’re not going to do the old school way, you’re not going to have them write 300 words. You’re going to have them write 2000 words. You’re going to have them crush it out with 2000 words, look at one or two or three different resources at the same time, and have them write you a high-quality article about it. That’s going to help you if you just do that on the short run.