@build_in_public

This is a great list for getting backlinks to a personal website. Take a screenshot of the eight sites in this video. Submit your personal website to them. The more quality backlinks you have, the more SEO traffic you get, the more you appear in AI. Getting backlinks to a personal site can also get you a knowledge panel. If you want to get a knowledge panel, I just put up this podcast, How to Get a Google Knowledge Panel in 3 Months, episode 1,149 of The Edward Show Podcast. And shout out to Nick Gray for the list. #backlinks #linkbuilding #searchengineoptimization #seo

This is a great list for getting backlinks to a personal website. Take a screenshot of these 8 sites, submit your personal website to them. The more quality backlinks you have, the more SEO traffic you get, the more you appear in AI. Getting backlinks to a personal site can also get you a knowledge panel. If you want to get a knowledge panel, I just put up this podcast how to get a Google Knowledge Panel in 3 Months episode 1,149 of the Edward Show Podcast. And shout out to Nick Gray for the list.

If you hover over a link in Google Search, you now see this goto redirect right here. Previously, the way it worked is you just got the exact link. This makes it so much harder for AI tools, for SEO tools to crawl Google's results. All crawlers have to follow this goto redirect now. They can't just get the URL like they used to be able to get. These are server-side redirects. Which means they give Google another place to apply CAPTCHAs, tokens, IP reputation, session checks. Google can tell the session clicked 80 of these goto links in two seconds with no mouse jitter - looks like a bot. There are theories that AI companies like OpenAI are trying to build their own index. They would likely model a lot of it on Google. This will make it a lot harder to do so. This just makes it harder to get results from Google. “This is huge. This already broke the tracking tools I use. Just take a look at Ahrefs. [Ahrefs is one of the biggest SEO tools.] They lost the URL path.” Previously, Google removed the num=100 parameter. This parameter allowed Google to return 100 results on one page instead of 10, but the parameter was abused by AI platforms. It also had a crazy effect on SEO tracking tools. 77% of sites lost keyword visibility after Google removed num=100. This tiny little change can have crazy, crazy effects on digital marketing. #searchengineoptimization #seo #generativeengineoptimization #digitalmarketing

Absolutely insane that Google is doing this. If you hover over a link in Google search, you see this go to redirect right here. Previously the way it worked is you just got the exact link. This makes it so much harder for AI tools for SEO tools to crawl Google's results. All crawlers have to follow this go to redirect. Now they can't just get the URL like they used to be able to get. These are server side redirects, which means they give Google another place to apply captchas tokens. IP reputation, session checks. Google can tell the session clicked. 80 of these go to links in two seconds with no mouse jitter. Looks like a bot. There are theories that AI companies like Open AI are trying to build their own index. They would likely model a lot of it on Google. This will make it a lot harder to do so. This just makes it harder to get results from Google. This is huge. This already broke the tracking tools I use. Just take a look at hrefs. Hrefs is one of the biggest SEO tools. They lost the URL path. Previously Google removed the num equals 100 parameter. This parameter allowed Google to return 100 results on one page instead of 10, but the parameter was abused by AI platforms. It also had a crazy effect on SEO tracking tools. 77% of sites lost keyword visibility after Google removed num equals 100. This tiny little Change can have crazy, crazy effects on digital marketing.

Google might be cracking down hard on all AI text despite what their public documentation says. John Mueller is basically the face of Google Search. He just liked this LinkedIn post: “Google is going to come out with an AI content-killing algorithm sometime in the next six to eight months. These recent spam updates are testing it. Regurgitated AI content destroys Google's models. Right now, the internet is fifty to sixty percent AI slop. Google's public statement that they ‘Don't care how you create content’ is completely untrue. I wish they would stop saying this because they have said that all AI content out of the box is considered low quality. That means they do care.” This is in response to an article about how Google's recent August spam update took out a lot of SEO AI content. Hridoy Reh got hit by the update. All posts were one hundred percent AI-generated content. Things were going fine until the update, then boom, just lost everything. It is crazy that the face of Google Search is liking this post. If it is true, it will shake up the entire internet. All the major LLMs are adopting variations of Google's SynthID, which they developed to spot AI content. Should you worry? Well, this is still just a prediction based on the recent August spam update. The victims of the update were 100% AI. A lot of them were scaled content. And again, it's only a prediction. #searchengineoptimization #seo #aiseo #digitalmarketing

Google might be cracking down hard on all AI text, despite what their public documentation says. This is John Mueller. He's basically the face of Google Search. He just liked this LinkedIn post. Google is going to come out with an AI content killing algorithm sometime in the next 6 to 8 months. These recent spam updates are testing it. Regurgitated AI content destroys Google's models. Right now the internet is 50 to 60% AI slop. Google's public statement that they don't care how you create content is completely untrue. I wish they would stop saying this. Because they have said that all AI content out of the box is considered low quality. That means they do care. This is in response to an article about how Google's recent August spam update took out a lot of SEO AI content. This person got hit by the update. All posts were 100% AI generated content. Things were going fine until the update and boom, just lost everything. It is crazy that the face of Google search is liking this post. If it is true, it will shake up the entire internet. All the major LLMs are adopting variations of Google's Synth ID, which they developed to spot AI content. Should you worry? Well, this is still just a prediction based on the recent August spam update. The victims of the update were 100% AI. A lot of them were scaled content. And again, it's only a prediction.

Doing good things for people is one of the GOAT link-building tactics nobody talks about. A roofer in South Florida donated a free roof through a local Habitat for Humanity last year. The charity posted about it on their website with a full backlink to this person's business. A local news station picked it up. His Facebook got shared over 200 times. This one act of goodwill built more authority in Google's eyes than months buying backlinks from some random vendor on Fiverr. This works with nonprofits, youth sports leagues, school fundraisers, church community projects. Every single one of these organizations has a website. Most will happily link to the businesses that support them. These donations happen all the time. Asking for the link is the part nobody does. Most contractors sponsor the team, get a photo caption with their name in plain text, and never think to ask for the link. Two-minute email, entire value. This tactic works in all niches. People don't realize that a little bit of goodwill goes a long way. #searchengineoptimization #seo #backlinks #linkbuilding

Doing good things for people is one of the GOAT link building tactics nobody talks about. A roofer in South Florida donated a free roof through a local habitat for humanity last year. The charity posted about it on their website with a full backlink to this person's business. A local news station picked it up. His Facebook got shared over 200 times. This one act of goodwill built more authority in Google's eyes than months buying backlinks from some random vendor on Fiverr. This works with nonprofits, youth sports leagues, school school fundraisers, church, community projects. Every single one of these organizations has a website. Most will happily link to the businesses that support them. These donations happen all the time. Asking for the link is the part nobody does. Most contractors sponsor the team. Get a photo caption with their name in plain text. Never think to ask to two minute email entire value. This tactic works in all niches. People don't realize that a little bit of goodwill goes a long way.

check it out in my site footer, i loveee this new feature from google ➡️ edwardsturm.com to see how i implemented it the feature is preferred sources, which lets people choose which websites they want to see more in google platforms everybody is sleeping on it add a preferred sources badge to your website so visitors can choose to see your site in ai overviews, ai mode, top stories, and google discover setup is extremely easy take googles documentation, paste it into your favorite ai, and it will tell you exactly what to add to your site: ➡️ Google Search Central - Help your readers find your site through preferred sources in Google Search i did set mine up in five minutes, you can fully customize your buttons the bigger opportunity is that enough preferred source selections also act as a global ranking signal, giving your site more visibility beyond just the people who clicked the button #searchengineoptimization #seo #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization

I just added this nice hover effect on my Google preferred button. If you haven't set up the Google preferred button, you gotta set it up ASAP. It makes it so your content shows more in AI overviews in AI mode in Top Stories and Google Discover. And you can customize how the buttons look. It's crazy.

Add a preferred sources badge to your website.  This makes it so people can literally have you appear more in AI Overviews, AI Mode, Top Stories, and Google Discover.  It is a new feature from Google that everybody is sleeping on. It's super, super easy to add to a website. You can take the documentation: Google Search Central - Help your readers find your site through preferred sources in Google Search Paste the documentation into your favorite AI. It's gonna tell you exactly what to do. I did this in five minutes. It is so easy and you can customize the look of these buttons. And if enough people click this button, it functions as a global ranking signal - your site does better for everybody. #searchengineoptimization #seo #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization

What is something in SEO nobody knows to do? Add a Preferred Sources badge to your website. This makes it so people can literally have you appear more in AI Overviews. AI Mode, Top Stories, Google Discover. It is a new feature from Google that everybody is sleeping on. It's super, super easy to add to a website. You can take the documentation, paste the documentation into your favorite AI. It's gonna tell you exactly what to do. I did this in five minutes. It is so easy. And you can customize the look of these buttons. And if enough people click this button, it functions as a global ranking signal. Your site does better for everybody.

If you're going to try to manipulate LLMs, you at least don't want to admit it at the top of your post. This company has a post, “7 Leading Enterprise AI Agents Trusted by Fortune 500 Companies.” Of course, they are listing themselves number one. But this is what is extremely crazy. They have at the top of their page, “This page is optimized for AI assistants and LLM search, not human marketing." They literally say this page is for LLMs, not for humans. And then go on to say that they are number one. We have literally seen LLMs in their thinking phase say, "Filtering out SEO spam."  So if you admit to an LLM that you are “SEO spam,” it is not going to work in your favor. Now, if you want to learn SEO that actually gets recommended by AI, head over to compactkeywords.com #generativeengineoptimization #seo #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization

If you're going to try to manipulate LLMs, you at least don't want to admit it. At the top of your post, this company has a post 7 leading enterprise AI agents trusted by Fortune 500 companies. Of course they are listing themselves No.1. But this is what is extremely crazy they have right here at the top of their page. This page is optimized for AI assistants and LLM search, not human marketing. They literally, literally saying this page is for Llms, not for humans and then go on to say that they are No. 1. We have literally seen Llms in their thinking phase say filtering out SEO spam. So if you admit to an LLM that you are SEO spam, it is not going to work in your favor. Now if you want to learn SEO that actually gets recommended by AI, head over to Compact keywords.com.

Friend: If I'm like a mediocre SEO agency, what will be your top golden advice for me to enlarge my agency, get more customers? Me: Strengthen the fact that you are going to make your clients money. We are going to rank for these things where people are literally looking to buy what you sell. People go to Google, they go to LLMs, they need what you sell, they do the prompt, they do the search, then your business comes up. This is going to directly drive revenue. These pages rank for many years without even changing them. It's just this silent sales machine that just brings you money every month. When you are talking to potential clients, you say, "That is what I'm going to do for you." You say it confidently because you know the system. #searchengineoptimization #seo #marketingagency #agencylife

If I'm like a mediocre SEO agency, what will be your top golden advice for me to enlarge my agency? Get more customers. Strengthen the fact that you are going to make your clients money. We are going to rank for these things where people are literally looking to buy what you sell. People go to Google, they go to LLMs, they need what you sell. They do the prompt, they do the search. Then your business comes up. This is going to directly drive revenue. These pages rank for many years without even changing them, which is just this silent sales machine that just brings you money every month. When you are talking to potential clients, you say, that is what I'm going to do for you. You say it confidently because you know the system.

Google now gives you a button to make you show an AI more. The preferred source button. Anybody can put them into their site. “Google's preferred sources is now a global SEO signal.” - Search Engine Journal. If somebody selects you as a preferred source, your content shows more in AI Mode, in AI Overviews, in Top Stories, in Google Discover. Pretty much every website can become a preferred source. Copy everything on this page from Google: “Help your readers find your site through preferred sources in Google Search” Paste it to an LLM. Tell the LLM the CMS you have, the page builder you have. The LLM will tell you how to implement preferred sources. It's super easy. When somebody clicks the preferred source button, it doesn't even take you off the site. It just opens in a pop-up. You can add it into multiple places on your site. I have it in my blog and in my footer. Preferred sources is a crazy update from Google that most webmasters will sleep on for the foreseeable future. #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #ecommerce

Google now gives you a button to make you show an AI more. This is a custom preferred source button. Anybody can put these into their site. Google's preferred sources is now a global SEO signal. If somebody selects you as a preferred source, your content shows more in AI mode. In AI overviews in Top Stories in Google will discover pretty much every website can become a preferred source. Go to this URL, put in your website to see if you are eligible. You probably will be. Then copy everything on this page from Google. Give it to an LLM. Tell the LLM the CMS you have, the age builder you have. The LLM will tell you how to implement it. It's super easy. When somebody clicks it, it looks like this. It doesn't even take you off the site, it just opens in a pop up. You can add it into multiple places on your site. I also put it in my footer. Preferred sources is a crazy update from Google that most webmasters will sleep on for the foreseeable future.

Friend: What was the toughest point for you of building your successful SEO brand online? Edward Sturm: Learning what works and what doesn't work. It took a lot of trial and error, a lot of actually putting up all of these articles to show up on Google for things like "how to," "what is," "how do you do this." Those things don't convert. All these years of conversions that I could have had, of money that could have been made. I didn't know to target people who are looking for what I sold right now. I was putting up these posts for people who weren't looking to buy, who weren't looking to convert. Then once I actually figured out, "Okay, I need to target people who are literally looking to become a user of something, or looking to become a customer of something, or looking to make a call," then I had to learn what is the best type of content to convert them. Friend: They actually have intention behind their search? They have intention behind their search, but I was putting up low-converting blog posts for these people. I remember learning SEO, learning from people who didn't know what they were talking about, people in person, people online who are telling you, "Yeah, write 4,000-word articles for SEO." That's so stupid. Those articles don't convert. They require so much effort, so much time, so many resources. Instead, you can make a 400-word SEO landing page for somebody who knows that they want to buy from you and who is searching that. In every niche, people are doing this. I didn't know that when I was starting SEO. I wasted so much time on things that don't matter for making money. #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #bottomoffunnelseo

What was the toughest point for you of building your successful SEO brand online? Learning what works and what doesn't work. It took a lot of trial and error. A lot of actually putting up all of these articles to show up on Google for things like how to, what is, how do you do this? Those things. All these years of conversions that I could have had, of money that could have been made. I didn't know to target people who are looking for what I sold right now. I was putting up these posts or people who weren't looking to buy, who weren't looking to convert. Then once I actually figured out, okay, I need to target people who are literally looking to become a user of something or looking to become a customer of something, or looking to make a call, then I had to learn what is the best type of content to convert them. They actually have intention behind their search. They have intention behind their search, but I didn't know. I was putting up blog posts trying to convert. I remember learning SEO, learning from people who didn't know what they were talking about. People in person, people online who are telling you, yeah, write 4,000 word articles for SEO. That's so stupid. Those articles don't convert. They require so much effort, so much time, so many resources. Instead, you can make a 400 word SEO landing page. It's for somebody who knows that They want to buy from you. And who were searching that? In every niche people are doing this. I didn't know that when I was starting SEO. And I wasted so much time on things that don't matter for making money.

Have a spreadsheet. Look at the most popular videos from competitors. Have a column for hook, so you write down the hooks that are working for your competitors, where their videos are going viral. Write down the topic. If you can, write down what your competitors or the people in your niche are saying that is making them go viral, so you can learn what is working. Put in the URL to the piece of content that is going viral so you can refer back to it. Have a column for benefits named. Videos where you say the benefits, where you actually explicitly name the benefits will do better than videos where you don't. This system for writing down the hooks, the topics, the benefits named - this will train your brain to understand what content is working in your niche. Then you will have a huge repository of different topics to make content on and you will have a much clearer understanding of what people care about, so you go viral a lot more. #socialmediamarketing #instagrammarketing #youtubemarketing #tiktokmarketing

You are telling me that you are gonna go look at what your competitors are posting on social media so you can see what works and what doesn't. Exactly. Alright, do this. Have a spreadsheet. Look at the most popular videos from competitors. Have a column for hook. So you write down the hooks that are working for your competitors are their videos are going viral. Write down the topic, if you can. Write down what your competitors or the people in your niche are saying that is making them go viral so you can learn what is working. Put in the URL to the piece of content that is going viral so you can refer back to it. Videos where you say the benefits, where you actually explicitly name the benefits, will do better than videos where you don't. This system for writing down the hooks, the topics, the benefits named. This will train your brain to understand what content is working in your niche. And you will have a huge repository of different topics to make content on. You will have a much clearer understanding of what people care about. So you go viral a lot more. Are you gonna do it? Yeah, sure. Let's go. Let's go.

Every AI platform is watermarking all their text. People think this is going to be the end of using AI for SEO. Here's why this is actually a nothing burger. Google doesn't have the key to detect Claude's AI writing. Most, if not all platforms will not get this secret key. Google is okay with AI content. They have an entire blog post about when it's allowed and when it's not. AI content is already ranking in the highest positions of Google. 5.3% of top-ranking pages are 100% AI-generated. Every position, including number one, has 8 to 12% of pages at 80% AI-generated content. 40% of high-AI pages get indexed. Lastly, AI writing detectors were possible years ago before this. Google was already able to detect AI writing many years ago through its own proprietary technology. Claude's watermarking announcement is due to compliance with Article 50 of the EU AI Act. But they said this is global and every model is being retrofitted to comply. It applies everywhere Claude runs, including the API, Claude Code, access through AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Foundry. Again, this is worldwide, not only in the EU. My cynical view is AI companies know they can't make text that passes AI detectors for long so this is a good excuse to hide that while appearing altruistic. Here's ChatGPT in 2024 saying they're considering watermarking text. “AI companies like Anthropic have trillion-dollar business models. The idea they would devalue their own content seems ridiculous.” In other words, this is a marketing move. Nothing is going to change. If you want to save years learning SEO that gets paying customers, users, warm leads calling you up… once you understand my method in my SEO course, there's a lot you can automate with AI. Just try not to put out slop. Learn the method at compactkeywords.com #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #aiseo

Claude is watermarking everything it writes. Every major AI platform is copying them. People think this is going to be the end of using AI for SEO. Here's why this is actually a nothing burger. Google doesn't have the key to detect Claude's AI writing. Most, if not all platforms will not get this secret key. Google is okay with AI content. They have an entire blog post about when it's allowed and when it's not. AI content is already ranking in the highest positions of Google. 5.3% of top ranking pages are 100% AI generated. Every position, including No. 1 has 8 to 12% of pages. At 80% I generated content, 40% of high AI pages get indexed. Lastly, AI writing detectors were possible years ago. Before this. Google was already able to detect AI writing many years ago through its own proprietary technology. Claude's watermarking announcement is due to compliance with Article 50 of the EU AI Act. But they said this is global and every model is being retrofitted to comply. It applies everywhere Claude runs, including the API Cloud code access through AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Foundry. Again, this is worldwide, not only in the EU. My cynical view is AI companies know they can't make text that passes AI detectors for long, so this is a good excuse to hide that while appearing altruistic. Here's Chat GPT in 2024 saying they're considering watermarking text. AI companies like anthropic have trillion dollar business models. The idea They would devalue their own content? Seems ridiculous. In other words, this is a marketing move. Nothing is going to change. If you want to save years learning SEO, they gets paying customers, users, warm leads calling you up. Once you understand my method in my SEO course. There's a lot you can automate with AI. Just try not to put out slop. Learn the method at Compact Keywords com.

Reddit has gone from 15% of ChatGPT citations  down to 0%. Capterra, G2, Trustpilot has gone from 7% of ChatGPT citations also down to 0%. Help centers and documentation have surged in ChatGPT citations to 32%. This is from the co-founder of Promptwatch, Promptwatch detected the collapse of Reddit citations, “This change once again proves the importance of on-site SEO, not being solely reliant on parasite/social.” Please do not stop investing in your website. #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo

Reddit has gone from 15% of ChatGPT citations down to zero. Capterra G2 Trustpilot has gone from 7% of ChatGPT citations also down to zero. Help centers and documentation has surged in ChatGPT citations 32%. This is from the co founder of Promptwatch. Promptwatch detected the collapse of Reddit citations. This change once again proves the importance of on site SEO not being solely reliant on parasite slash social. Please do not stop investing in your website.

Interesting that this happens the day after Reddit is included in the S&P 500. ChatGPT has once again dropped its level of citations for Reddit. This time now it is below 5%. ChatGPT all but stopped citing Reddit on August 14th. We saw this happen back in October. It was a big wake-up call for anyone whose AI search strategy was just post on Reddit. Not to mention Reddit is harder than ever to spam. Reddit has cracked down so much on manipulation for the purpose of LLMs. Don't neglect your website. Don't neglect building a real brand with YouTube, with Instagram, with TikTok, with X. It used to be Yahoo Answers, then Quora, now Reddit. This stuff comes and goes. The best thing you can do is invest in the marketing properties you own. #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #aiseo

Interesting that this happens the day after Reddit is included in the S P. 500. ChatGPT has once again dropped its level of citations for Reddit. This time now it is below 5%. ChatGPT all but stopped citing Reddit on August 14th. We saw this happen back in October. It was a big wake up call for anyone whose AI search strategy was just post on Reddit. Not to mention Reddit is harder than ever to spam. Reddit has cracked down so much on manipulation for the purpose of LLMs. Don't neglect your website. Don't neglect building a real brand. With YouTube, with Instagram, with TikTok, with X. It used to be Yahoo answers, then Quora, now Reddit. This stuff comes and goes. The best thing you can do is invest in the marketing properties you own.

If you want to make sure your influencer marketing campaigns have the greatest effect, do this one little thing. For the influencer you're considering, copy their description. Paste it into Google. You want to see that their posts are showing up. All social media descriptions influence LLMs. Even the AI Overview is triggering for random Instagram descriptions. Make sure your target influencer's posts are showing up in Google's index, then see how far back they show up. You want ones that last for a long time. Then when you hire the influencer, give them a target keyword to use at the beginning of their descriptions. This will make it so their posts show for the things people search that are meaningful to you. #influencermarketing #searchengineoptimization #socialmediamarketing #generativeengineoptimization

If you want to make sure your influencer marketing campaigns have the greatest effect, do this one little thing for the influencer you're considering. Copy their description, paste it into Google. You want to see that their posts are showing up. All social media descriptions influence LLMs. Even the AI overview is triggering for this random Instagram description. Make sure your target influencer's posts are showing up in Google's index. Then see how far back they show up. You want ones that last for a long time. Then when you hire the influencer, give them a target keyword to use at the beginning of their descriptions. This will make it so their posts show for the things people search that are meaningful to you.

This silly experiment was one of the most important things that ever happened in SEO. In 2014, this guy had a hunch, "If more people click on my page in Google, will that make it rank better?" This guy is Rand Fishkin, and he's a legendary SEO. He said to his big audience on Twitter. "Could you search for ‘IMEC Lab’ in Google and click on the link from my blog?" Three hours and 228 clicks later, this page had gone from number seven on Google to number one. Then two months later, he tested this again. Through a Google Form, he told followers to search the “buzzy pain distraction,” then click his result. Eureka! The same exact thing happened. Just like last time, in three hours, with 375 clicks, his page moved from number 10 to number one. Many SEOs tested this after, and it became clear that click-through rate was and continues to be an important ranking factor within Google. But for the longest time, Google denied this. Google publicly said, "CTR, whatever Fishkin's new theory is, it's made-up crap." This continued to be denied until 2023 when in a DOJ testimony, Google went on the record saying CTR is a ranking factor. Then in May 2024, Google's biggest leak of all time happened. The leak was dropped into Rand Fishkin's lap. And it was revealed click-through rate is so important for SEO, Google literally made the Chrome browser to track it. #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #growthhacking

This silly experiment was one of the most important things that ever happened in SEO. In 2,014, this guy had a hunch if more people click on my page in Google, will that make it rank better? This guy is Rand Fishkin and he's a legendary SEO. He said to his big audience on Twitter, could you search for IMEC lab in Google and click on the link from my blog? Three hours and 228 clicks later, this page had gone from No. 7 on Google Google to No. 1. Then two months later, he tested this again through a Google form. He told followers to search the buzzy pain distraction, then click. His result Eureka! The same exact thing happened just like last time. In three hours, with 375 clicks, his page moved from No. 10 to No. 1. Many SEOs tested this after, and it became clear that click through rate was and continues to be an important ranking factor within Google. But for the longest time, Google denied this. Google publicly said CTR. Whatever Fishkin's new theory is, it's made up crap. This continued to be denied until 2023, when in a DOJ testimony, Google went on the record saying CTR is a ranking factor. Then in May 2024, Google's biggest leak of all time happened. A leak was dropped into Rand Fishkin's lap and it was revealed click through rate is so important for SEO, Google literally made the Chrome browser to track it.

If you want to see one of the biggest marketing collapses of all time, look no further than HubSpot's SEO. From March 2022 to February 2023, HubSpot was riding high. 24 million clicks a month from Google. Then they got hit by Google algorithm update after Google algorithm update. They went down to 16 million clicks a month. Then they went to 6 million clicks a month. They got to their lowest at 3.7 million clicks a month. Now they're doing something right, I'll tell you in a moment - they're making a slight rebound. The most widely cited cause of their traffic drop? They published content on topics that had nothing to do with their core business. “HubSpot's blog ranked for high-volume keywords like famous quotes, shrug emoji, resignation letter templates, cover letter templates, small business ideas, what is your greatest weakness, and flush DNS. These topics generated millions of visits. The problem was not that the content was poorly written. Much of it was competent, well-structured, and professionally produced. The problem was that it was published by a CRM and marketing automation company. When a user searches for ‘resignation letter template,’ Google can choose between HubSpot, Indeed, Monster, and specialized career sites.” Google doubled down its algorithm around topical authority. The specialized sites started beating HubSpot. HubSpot didn't JUST go after the top of the funnel. It went after the top of the funnel outside its core business. This is some of the least converting content somebody could make. This is why HubSpot has started to rebound: At a conference a couple of months ago, HubSpot said they are going to put an increased focus on content at the bottom of the funnel. Not only is the bottom of the funnel where conversions happen it's also most likely to be relevant to the core business. This is where HubSpot has topical authority. This is where they can win in organic traffic, especially organic traffic that makes them money. Do not chase high-volume, low-intent keywords outside your domain of expertise. Go after the keywords that will make you money. If you want to learn how to do SEO that goes after these keywords, keywords that get paying customers, users, warm leads calling you up, I have an SEO course on this at compactkeywords.com #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #searchmarketing

If you want to see one of the biggest marketing collapses of all time, look no further than Hubspot's SEO. From March 2022 to February 2023, Hubspot was riding high. 24 million clicks a month from Google. Then they got hit by Google algorithm update. After Google algorithm update, they went down to 16 million clicks a month. Then they went to 6 million clicks a month. They got to the lowest at four 4 million clicks a month. Now they're doing something right. I'll tell you in a moment. They're making a slight rebound. The most widely cited cause of their traffic drop. They publish content on topics that had nothing to do with their core business. Hubspot's blog ranked for high volume keywords like famous quotes, shrug, emoji, resignation letter templates, cover letter templates, small business ideas, what is your greatest weakness, and flush DNS. These topics generated millions of visits. The problem was not that the content was poorly written. Much of it was competent, well structured, professionally produced. The problem was that it was published by a CRM and marketing automation company. When a user searches for resignation letter template, Google can choose between Hubspot and Deed Monster and specialized career sites. Google doubled down its algorithm around topical authority. The specialized sites started beating Hubspot out. Hubspot didn't just go after the top of the funnel. It went after the top of funnel outside its core business. This is some of the least converting content somebody could make. This is why Hubspot has started to rebound. At a conference a couple of months ago, Hubspot said they are going to put an increased focus on content at the bottom of the funnel. Not only is the bottom of the funnel where conversions happen, it's also most likely to be relevant to the core business. This is where Hubspot has topical authority. This is where they can win an organic traffic, especially organic traffic that makes the money. Do not chase high volume, low intent keywords outside your domain of expertise. Go after the keywords that will make you money. If you want to learn how to do SEO that goes after these keywords. Keywords that get paying customers users warm leads calling you up. I have an SEO course on it at Compact keywords.com.

This was a study of over 1.4 million prompts to see why ChatGPT cites one page over another.  "Ultimately, the pages that get cited are the ones whose titles and content match the questions ChatGPT is asking behind the scenes."  -Ahrefs When you put in a prompt, ChatGPT will do a web search.  To see what it searched, right-click  Inspect.  Copy the part of the URL that comes after /c/  Go to Network.  Paste in what you just copied,  click Refresh.  Click the orange brackets with what you just copied.  Go to the Response tab.  Search this for the word "queries."  Now you can see the searches ChatGPT did.  Again, “Ultimately the pages that get cited are the ones whose titles and content match the questions ChatGPT is asking behind the scenes."  Behind the scenes being what I just showed you. If you want to know what not to do, this is a good example.: The page title for this is Google Algorithm Update & GEO Recovery Services. Number one, this is targeting two different keywords. It should pick just one.  Number two, the URL barely has anything descriptive in it. It's /services/recovery/ It should be /services/generative-engine-optimization-recovery/ or /google-algorithm-update-recovery/ You want your URL slug, and your page title,  and your H1,  and the beginning of your first sentence to be  very close to the language ChatGPT is using “behind the scenes.” And if you want to save years learning search engine optimization that gets  paying customers, users, warm leads calling you up,  gets recommended by AI... head over to compactkeywords.com #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #digitalmarketing

This was a study of over 1.4 million prompts to see why ChatGPT cites one page over another. Ultimately, the pages that get cited are the ones whose titles and content match the questions ChatGPT is asking behind the scenes. When you put in a prompt, ChatGPT will do a web search to see what it searched. Right click inspect, copy the part of the URL that comes after forward slash C. Go to Network, Paste in what you just copied. Click refresh. Click the orange brackets with what you just copied. Go to the response tab. Search this for the word queries. Now you can see the searches ChatGPT did again. Ultimately, the pages that get cited are the ones whose titles and content match the questions ChatGPT is asking behind the scenes. Behind the scenes being what I just showed you. If you want to know what not to do, this is a good example. The page title for this is Google Algorithm Update and Geo Recovery Services. No. 1 this is targeting two different keywords. It should pick just one. No. 2 the URL barely has anything descriptive in it. It's forward slash services forward slash recovery. It should be forward slash services, forward slash generative engine optimization recovery or forward slash Google algorithm update recovery. You want your URL slug and your page title and your H1 and the beginning of your first sentence to be very close to the language ChatGPT is using behind the scenes. And if you want to save years learning search engine optimization that gets paying customers users warm leads calling you up gets recommended by AI. Head over to compactkeywords com.

If you want to do a quick SEO diagnostics of your site, put your site into Screaming Frog. It's going to crawl your site starting with the page that you put in. Go to All, filter for just HTML. Filter for status code 200. Start by looking at the Title column. You want to make sure nothing is empty, everything is detailed. This is your page title. For all your SEO pages, make sure you have an H1. Make sure you're not accidentally telling Google not to index pages that you want indexed, this happens all the time. If you see Non-Indexable on a page that you actually want indexed, you gotta go fix it. Look at the crawl depth column. If most of your links are going to a specific page like your homepage, you want to make sure your key SEO pages aren't too far away from your homepage. Anything more than three clicks, it's going to be risky. Crawl depth just means how many clicks away it is from your starting page (including redirects). Look through all your pages, make sure you don't have a ton of junk pages that are indexed. You can make sure there aren't a lot of 404s, or you're not accidentally 301 redirecting the wrong pages. The absolute biggest thing that you can do is optimizing the page titles. If a page is relevant to a keyword, put that keyword in the page title. Also put it in the URL slug. Then, if you really want to go hard, click visualizations, click 3D force-directed directory tree diagram. You'll get a pretty cool visualization of your site. And save years learning SEO that gets paying customers, that gets you users, warm leads calling you up with the Compact Keywords SEO course. #searchengineoptimization #seo #webdevelopment #uiux

If you want to do a quick SEO diagnostics of your site, put your site into this tool. It's going to crawl your site starting with the page that you put in. Go to all. Filter for just HTML, filter for status code 200. Start by looking at this column, the title column. You want to make sure nothing is empty, everything is detailed. This is your page title. All your SEO pages. Make sure you have an H1. Make sure you're not accidentally telling Google not to index pages that you want indexed. This happens all the time. If you see this on a page that you actually want indexed, you gotta go fix it. Look at the crawl depth column. If most of your links are going to a specific page like your homepage, you want to make sure your key SEO pages aren't too far away from your homepage. Anything more than three clicks, it's going to be risky. Crawl depth just means how many clicks away it is from your starting page. Look through all your pages. Make sure you don't have a ton of junk pages that are indexed. You can make sure there aren't a lot of 4 o fours, or you're not accidentally 3 when redirecting the wrong pages. The absolute biggest thing that you can do is optimizing the page titles. If a page is relevant to a keyword, put that keyword in the page title. Also put it in the URL SLUG. Then if you really want to go hard, click visualizations. Click 3D force directed directory tree diagram. You'll get a pretty cool visualization of your site and save years learning SEO. That gets paying customers. That gets you users warm leads calling you up with the Compact Keywords. SEO course.

Creative out-of-the-box search engine optimization. People search for reviews of your brand. Large language models also search for reviews of your brand. Create a website: your brand name, then the word reviews, then .com Link to this site from your main site. Add all the reviews you want seen on it. If you have video reviews, put the videos with the full transcripts. People are doing this right now to have their best reviews show in LLMs, to show their best reviews to searchers who are searching for reviews. Here's another. Lots of searchers add the word "Reddit" to their searches. Large language models, they also add the word "Reddit" to their searches. The best way to get content from "Reddit" is to do site:reddit.com then what you want to find. Most people don't do that. Large language models also don't do that, they just add the word "Reddit" to the end of a search. Create pages on your site where "Reddit" is at the end of the page title, it's at the end of the URL slug. These pages show when people and large language models do searches with the word "Reddit". One more. The word “Cheap.” Add it to your page titles. Cheap, affordable, inexpensive, low-cost, budget. Brands don't want to describe themselves as cheap, so most brands don't do this. Searchers... searchers search cheap. Searchers want to click on cheap. You will rank higher than the best X for Y by doing the cheapest X for Y at a great value. More people click on cheap, which makes the pages that have “Cheap” in the page title rank above the pages that just say “Best” or “Top.” One of the biggest factors in SEO is click-through rate. If you win the CTR battle you're going to beat your competitors. And if you want to save years learning SEO that makes money, go to compactkeywords.com #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #growthhacking

People search for reviews of your brand. Large language models also search for reviews of your brand. Create a website, your brand name, then the word reviews then com link to this site from your main site. Add all the reviews you want seen on it. If you have video reviews, put the videos with the old transcripts. People are doing this right now to have their best reviews show in LLMs to show their best reviews to searchers who are searching for reviews. Here's another lots of searchers add the word Reddit to their searches. Large language models, they also add the word Reddit to their searches. The best way to get content from Reddit is to do site colon reddit com then what you want to find. Most people don't do that. Large language models also don't do that. They just add the word Reddit to the end of a search. Create pages on your site where Reddit is at the end of the page title. It's at the end of the URL slug. These pages show when people when large language models do searches. Then the word Reddit. One more the word cheap. Add it to your page titles. Cheap, affordable, inexpensive, low cost, budget. Brands don't want to describe themselves as cheap, so most brands don't do this. Searchers. Searchers search cheap. Searchers want to click on cheap. You will rank higher than the best X for y by doing the cheapest X for y at A great value. More people click on cheap, which makes the pages that have cheap in the page title rank above the pages that just say best or top. One of the biggest factors in SEO is click through rate. If you win the CTR battle, you're gonna beat your competitors. And if you want to save years learning SEO that makes money, go to Compact keywords.com.