This is another ranking test.
The last one I did was yesterday, and strangely has not ranked.
The keyword phrase was a heavily duped phrase that has been scraped from Amazon by the affiliate addicts.
What is interesting is that the phrase “DuroStar DS4000S 4,000 Watt 7.0 HP OHV 4-Cycle Gas Powered Portable Generator”, has not been ranked at all. Not only that but the body text also has not ranking.
It also does not seem to be indexed. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for this as yet, further investigations needed.
The reason I want to make the headline above is that Olga Kurylenko and Tom Cruise are releasing a film this week and I want to see how topicality effects the ranking potential with relation to this blog. Obviously there are many variables at play here, but by conduction these little tests on an aged blog such as this builds knowledge about the subject.
I am not thinking that we will definitely be uncovering specific answers here to the whole ranking question, more that we want to make sure we are pointing in the right direction.
I also chose a unique headline. Nothing is coming up for an exact match search. And I want to make sure we at least rank for this, as I am wondering if the last ranking fail was to do with the fact it’s an Amazon product keyword string.
This is later, about 5 mins later
Bang! It’s already indexed and ranking for exact match “Olga Kurylenko and Tom Cruise Open Ice Cream Factory in Cornwall”
Also the broad match is ranking #1, Olga Kurylenko and Tom Cruise Open Ice Cream Factory in Cornwall.
I am using a clean browser to conduct these searches and am not logged in to G+ or searched for this term previously.
More Later (15 mins)
The page does not rank for “Olga Kurylenko and Tom Cruise”, but ranks on page three for “Olga Kurylenko and Tom Cruise open”
Which of course is interesting and gives us a little more insight into how you should be crafting headlines for the maximum effect in Google.
You must understand the power of your website in relation to its ability to rank unique terms. Adding the word “open” gets me on the third page, however that’s not going to bring any traffic as no one will search for that. However, if you added a term that is contextually correct to the narrative and may be searched for like “kissed”, affair”, “engaged etc. then this would increase the traffic,
If this blog was a celebrity blog I would pump out a few posts around this news event. Trying to find the most optimised headline which was attractive, had a worthwhile search quotient and was contextually correct.
We also learn that you don’t need to get external links to a post if on a blog that has enough link equity.
However, the previous test to this was interesting as it did not rank. Leading me to ask, what would get a keyword phrase like that to rank. Is it as simple as a few links, and who powerful should those links be?
This test raises more questions than it answers, and I invite of your thoughts on this.
Hold the boat!
I now rank at 14 for “DuroStar DS4000S 4,000 Watt 7.0 HP OHV 4-Cycle Gas Powered Portable Generator”.
Which is a very tasty bit of data.
It took 21 hours to rank.
Ranked 30 mins after this post was published, which contains a link to it.
Is this simply a ping issue and getting to the Googlebot to visit, probably. But there are a number of other factors at play which we do not know. What is the impact of a heavily duped headline, that is out of context to the blog?
Would there have been a different outcome if the headline had been contextual to the category that the blog operates in?
What is this post had also been a duped headline?
What effect has Twitter had on this outcome?
It’s impossible to know what has exactly caused these results, we can only guess based on the rather limited data. My suggestion is to do your own tests and share. The more data we get the more informed we are.
Also, using the Seomoz Google US (non-personalized), tool I rank on the 3rd page of Google.
Don’t worry, I haven’t been hacked.
This is an ranking test.
I want to see what will happen to the keyword string ” DuroStar DS4000S 4,000 Watt 7.0 HP OHV 4-Cycle Gas Powered Portable Generator” if I simply post it in the title tag and as an H1. It will also get linked to internally, by WP.
The product is an American one and this site mostly ranks in the UK.
Right now Amazon ranks for this petrol, or rather gas powered genny.
It’s a huge fit ranking for such long tail term as Amazon gets scrapped mopre than a 30 year old gorgonzola, You tend to think long tail is easy, but only if the long tail phrase is unique and gets search for enough times to make it worth while.
Of course outranking Amazon in an exact is pretty easy to do. But it’s always useful doing these tests as it gives you a fixed point of data.
Search for the phrase and see if this post turns up.
I miss those keyword contests we used to have back in the old days.
The first thing you need to do to make money out of blogging is to stop.
The second thing is to cancel all your subscriptions to the “Making money whilst blogging in your underpants” type membership sites. Then take all your ebooks and delete them, filling the hole left in your hard drive with Harlem Shake videos.
The third thing is to start doing something that is ancient, but online.
Why should you do something ancient, surely this is the new age where new, new, new is god. Where anything new is better than old.
That’s what they want you to think, because it’s easier to sell a book if what your selling is called something new.
But we know how to play that game don’t we?
Because we are all players, at least I hope to the High God of the Digerati you are.
I talked about this at my latest presentation in London at the online marketing conference called Linklove to about 300 SEO people. I tried to convince them that it was something ancient that they need to focus on instead of fannying around with Excel spreadsheets and setting up 200 domain networks on different IP numbers, filled with drecky articles.
And I think I failed at Link Love.
Because I think only a few got it.
Which is interesting.
It means that most of the seo community are on the same path, they are using the same techniques that worked 3 years ago. Which is great if you are a lumberjack. Lumberjacking has not changed in the last 3 years.
But are you that stupid to think seo has not changed?
Blogging is not dead. It’s just that it no longer gives a return on investment. And we are talking about blogging in the way that an SEO would describe it. as a means of ranking and implementing a mechanical solution.
The way to make money out of blogging is to stop blogging.
I know, it sounds nuts, but stay with me here.
Stop blogging, and start publishing.
Publisher is the new, new thing.
“Oh c’mon man, you mean I read all the way down to here and that’s it”, I hear you wail.
But that’s the thing, it really is that simple.
What do you think is happening in your brain if you tell yourself you are a publisher and not a blogger?
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of ideas, thoughts, concepts and information it is the activity of making such things available to the World. Sometimes you are the originator, sometimes others.
It sounds a lot like blogging doesn’t it.
But it’s not and in your mind there is the big difference between how you perceive a blogger and how you perceive a publisher.
You may say that you know lots of successful bloggers, what about Darren Rowse, Brian Clark, Chris Garret etc? Are not they successful bloggers?
No.
They are publishers in every definition of the word. They hire writers, produce courses, print books etc. Yes they started out as bloggers, but quickly morphed into something else. More akin to building a publishing empire.
But hardly the image of most of us have of the blogger which is someone sitting in their underpants eating a large back of chili Doritos. OK, we’ve all been there, we have all sucked the crack pipe of blogging. It worked great for a while, but that model is dead.
But if you are to make money out of blogging you need to stop thinking like a blogger and start thinking like a publisher.
And it’s the same for the seo crowd I spoke to at Link Love. Stop thinking like a content marketer and start thinking like a publisher.
Stop thinking like a link builder and start thinking like a publisher.
And I have to say this, even though it pains me. Stop thinking like a linkbaiter and start thinking like a publisher.
Very few people are teaching this right now.
I have been banging on about it for a while.
I tell clients, get a podcast out, get an iPad mag out, publish a Kindle book. They just look at me as if I am insane. “But they are not teaching that at the seo conferences I go to. And they are really expensive so they have to be good”.
Clients are frustrating.
I tell them, don’t just publish an infographic, turn it into a poster and give it away on a Facebook contest, turn it into a slide show, make it into a Youtube clip, have it printed out as a mini book.
Think like a publisher.
If you want to know how to do this, I have a coaching program you may be interested in. Linkbait Coaching is going into a new phase, the “Publishing” version. We still teach linkbait, but there is so much more you need to be doing and if you want to win. Sign up to the email notification on the page and get to know when it launches. I have not yet decided how many people to limit this one to, but if you sign up to the email list I can give you a shot at getting in early.
I talked about guest posting in the last post I wrote, it seems it’s still the fashionable term of the online marketing fish bowl I swim in.
However, it’s important to understand that what most people are talking about is something very specific. Even though asking people to host your content in exchange for a link back for seo purposes has existed for over a decade, the way the term is used now seems to be talking about something that is systemised and geared up to achieve the highest ROI possible.
This of course leads to a lessening of quality in the guest post requests that bloggers get as it becomes more about numbers and less about the quality of the writing or even the pitch.
In the past I have found guest posting a very useful way to connect to other bloggers and also to help with back links to clients. But I am finding it increasingly difficult, some bloggers now ask for cash to place a guest post, which would make it a sponsored post rather than a guest post. Not that I have that much against advertorials, as long as they are clearly stated as such.
But lets cut the bullshit.
Publications, both offline and online take money to publish paid for editorials. It’s the way of the world and naive not to expect otherwise. This is what you have to compete with.
However, lets look at this from the bloggers perspective. I have been talking to a few blogs who do guest posting, to ask them what they think about the hordes of mercenary seo types swarming around their blogs asking for a guest post with a link back.
Mitch from Top Finance Blog, said this.
The best way to ask for a guest posting opportunity is to actually visit the person’s blog first to see if they have a guest posting policy, and if so then following it. I get tons of requests to guest post and most of the letters are generic and immediately lying when they say “I have followed Top Finance Blog for a long time and enjoy its content”. If they liked it so much, they’d have commented at some point, and they’d already know what the guest posting policy was before I need to send them to read it. Help us decide you’re worthy; yes, we get a benefit from it as well but if you’re looking to place your content on someone else’s site, act like you want to without making it seem like you’re doing it for their benefit; that’s just insulting.
He went on to say he could easily write more about this subject.
I think the problem is when you dehumanise the process. Sure, still have tools to help you find a blog that will post your content, but you have to invest time, politeness and commonsense to connect with the blogger.
I confess I have on the occasion taken shortcuts in this regards and it has led to failed guest post campaigns. When you do a lot of link building it’s natural to try to make things as efficient as possible.
Trying too hard to squeeze links out of bloggers can lead you to take your eye off the ball.
I know I am not alone in this as I daily get guest post requests and press releases that seem to be geared to the short cut. I think only twice in the six years this blog has existed has there been requests that result in stuff happening.
Which is interesting.
Because, if you take the time, invest in the initial connection and develop relationships, rather than “guest posting” or that awful word “outreach”, you will probably have more success.
Most of us are uber busy and have hectic lives, my own has increased of late and I probably need to pay more attention to investing in real conversations than acting like a one legged, starving marmut with rabies out to get links whatever the cost.
Yes, this is part confessional, part do what I sway not what I do, but this is part of the process. You constantly have to relearn the basics. And it’s not the “20 ways to do guest posting”, type posts you really learn from. It’s the real experience of people out there in the trenches, working it.
In the meantime, if you want a guest post. You know where to find me and you should know by now how to ask me.
If I include “guest post” in a title, will I get lots of emails asking if they could get a guest post hosted and could they include a link back to their client who has a mobile toe clipping service?
I made my first guest post in 1999, it was image based and was a unique image grab of Julia Roberts. The movie Notting Hill was being made in my street and I had fun using a camcorder (remember those) to record the action. I sent the image to a Julia Roberts fansite for a link back. It’s always easy when you have unique content for a hungry crowd,
But, the landscape has changed. As agencies can no longer call up Guido to rustle up some mucus stained content that nobody will ever read and hawk it on article marketing sites, they have switched to guest posting. Blasting bloggers with barely interesting content for a link back. Some bloggers have now got savvy and started asking for money to place the posts and stupidly some agencies pay for it.
I say stupid because when that blog gets banned by Google for selling links, all the work gone into that relationship will be lost.
Some will use it to get competitors links knocked out, if a blog is linking to your competitor, buy a guest post link from them, link to a neutral party and then dob them in. Will it work? Who knows, but I am sure some will try.
If a site asks for money for a guest post I put them in a file “forget about it”. As their stability is questionable, and I only want to build links for clients that will stick around.
The truth is guest posting is one of those fads that come and go. It will work better when the sheep move on to the next easy win.
Any website should be doing a bit of this and a bit of that. Spread the tactics around, nothing is a ranking killer, but creating useful experiences is always going to be on top.
So if you want that guest post, absolutely. Bring it on, and no I am not going to tell you what the rules for getting accepted are. But donuts are invloved.
Lets be honest about “Content Marketing”, just for once.
“Content marketing”, was invented so online marketing agencies can sell more shit.
Yes I realise all my pals or now ex pals in my industry will tell me to STFU. But I have thing little aberration in my brain that sometimes inhibits me from bullshitting. Which is a real handicap at times.
The reason why the term “content marketing” is a bucket full of rotten, wanky frogs is this…..
There is already a term that adequately describes the act, and that is “publishing.” Some of you may be aware of it.
In the first 50 years after Gutenberg first cranked up his printing press (it was no longers Guttenbergs by the way as in was in debt to the investor and had to hand all the rights over, but that’s a story for another time.) around 12 million books were printed.
Do you think they understood the art of using publishing for marketing purposes using the cutting edge technology of their time.
To me, the term publishing has marketing at its foundation. After all, publishing is simply a collection of communication methods designed to communicate and cause reaction in an engaged consumer.
If you start to peel off the layers of what people are actually doing when they create an infographic, publish it on a blog and promote it using social media, you quickly understand that the fundamentals never change.
All content marketing describes, is a mechanised way of taking advantage of current publishing and promotional tools, it does not get deep into the fundamentals. It simply hasn’t been around long enough, whilst “publishing” as a term has.
This may seem like semantic drivel, but when agencies overuse the term “content marketing” to promote methods using new mechanisms, when the fundamentals are the same, it gets annoying.
My argument is that the client does not need to know the definition of such mechanistic terms as content marketing, that’s for the industry to sweat bricks over.
But the client absolutely has to get what “publishing” is, and the increased speed and power that the technology can now give us.
So I’m not that bothered about using the word, but do you have to use it so much.
And do you really think that a client needs to know such stuff to get it?
I Tweeted this week that social media is not about the conversation?
It had a few retweets and I thought I would post them here.
‘The C-Word’ RT @lyndoman: If anyone says “it’s about the conversation” at a social media conference, throw a sticky bun at them.
RT @lyndoman: If anyone says “it’s about the conversation” at a social media conference, throw a sticky bun at them.
RT @SceptreSocial: RT @lyndoman: If anyone says “it’s about the conversation” at a social media conference, throw a sticky bun at them.
RT @SceptreSocial: RT @lyndoman: If anyone says “it’s about the conversation” at a social media conference, throw a sticky bun at them.
RT @AutomotivePR: RT @SceptreSocial: RT @lyndoman: If anyone says “it’s about the conversation” at a social media conference, throw a sticky bun at them.
But am I not having a conversation right now and isn’t that a good thing?
Yes it is, but that is not what social media is about.
The “conversation” is a stepping stone, a communication tool that we use to get to our real objective.
I hear you say, “but the social media gurus say it’s all about the conversation.” Some do, but you will find that their real objective, the stuff that gets them out of bed an put on their Star Trek boxer shorts is selling their books, conference talks, advertising on their sites.
The conversation is simply the tool they power up to fund their collection of Sci Fi boxer shorts.
What social media is really about is persuasion, it’s about communicating a message that gets you to do stuff. The social media gurus are experts at getting you to do stuff and using the tool of conversation to promote that.
Nothing wrong with that, we all use various communication tools to persuade people to do what we want. You could say that a pair of very tight jeans is a communication tool design to persuade people to look at the wearer in a particular way.
Yes this is pushing the envelope a little. But communication is all around us, most of it designed to persuade. Even if it is to get you to press a button on a microwave when your Chunky Chile Chicken is done, just with a ping.
The ping on a microwave as a tool of persuasive communication?
Is that taking it too far?
I will be honest, my outreach is limited because I mostly implement linkbait and so the linkers come to me. But sometimes you want something else and need to have a campaign to reach out to website owners and bloggers.
You can do this with email, twitter, spreadsheets, text templates (modified to be personal of course) etc., but there are a number of tools these days that streamline the process and allow it to be scaled.
I asked the question on Twitter and got some very interesting replies.
@lyndoman I don’t use many, mainly Google (gives you everything you’ll ever need) @followerwonk @buzzstream & common sense :)
@lyndoman the scrape similar add on for chrome is also useful as in some industries bloggers tend to link heavily to one another through
@lyndoman Search operators, Twitter, ahrefs, OSE, Google Docs to record everything, and the best content I can write
We are testing out dashburst…its 50 dollars a month but could be useful. From @dannyashton
Links
socialcrawlytics.com
buzzstream.com
dashburst.com
Any more suggestions, you can either Tweet them @ me or pop them in the comments.
Thanks to all those who shared their tools.
Something beyond the hyperbole just happened in SEO.
But you knew that right.
Pushing SEO is like pushing a giant flaming marshmellow through a cage full of marmuts, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The focus is obviously on content, but it’s not.
The focus is on people, that’s why you do this stuff for anyway isn’t it.
People to buy your stuff.
Well isn’t it?
Too much talk about content and not enough about delivering emotional experiences.
I am guilty as anyone else, “content” is short hand, it’s lazy. And we all love to be lazy.
Even you.
I have realised this for a few years, but still help a toe in the seo pond, even though it is increasingly scumming over, now there are dead fish floating on the surface it may be time to move 100% to a publishing model.
Publishing what?
Publishing “content”, duh!
It’s really just publishing though isn’t it. The content bit is redundant.
Linkbaiting is now even more important. The type of links you need are the type of links real people need.
Cool.
So, time to leave SEO and head off into the sunset.
It’s much more useful if a companies Facebook page is about the benefits of customers using the service, than about what is happening at the company, for example, “We have just had the walls painted a very interesting magnolia colour here at Donotgetit Design ltd…..”
It may be very important for you to give out this information, but it’s incredibly boring for any reader or follower. This is the biggest mistake I see when a business is updating their Facebook page.
It’s as if the boss has decided that the Facebook Page should be used as some kind of corporate newsletter, detailing the minutiae of everything the company does.
People don’t care about you or your business, they only care about what you can do for them.