Wave Issue 41

First...

Published a lot of content this week. It's been a few months since I've published that many articles. Feels good to get in a nice groove like that again.

One thing that's really helped with getting content out is the latest Frase AI updates. It's a great AI content generator that use's Frase's own Natural Language Generator (NLG) and not GPT-3 that most others use (e.g., Jarvis AI).

I've cancelled my Jarvis AI subscription, because Frase has been delivering. My content creation workflow is now all in Frase, from outline to writing to optimizing. AI Content Dojo has a good video showing how he used Frase from start to finish on an article. Frase will be introducing a plagiarism checker soon as well into its feature set (whispers are Copyscape).

It definitely helps to have content generation all on one platform, so I don't need to jump around to different platforms and worry about formatting issues when copying/pasting.

Give Frase a go with their Free Trial.

Now onto this week's articles...

Income Reports

Income Reports for July 2021

Here are the July 2021 income reports that I saw out there:

Bonus: Chris from Niche Safari and Emilia Gardner go head-to-head for 15 months in their Niche Site Cage Fight starting July 1, 2021. Chris put out a short video of the rules, so you can follow their battle.

I haven't written up one of my own monthly income reports in a while, but I will try to write one up soon to capture the last few months. I've been focusing on other things, especially getting new content up on sites.

SEO

These 3 SEO Mistakes will CRIPPLE your Traffic

Matt Diggity gives you 3 mistakes people make with their affiliate sites that hurts the potential of getting traffic:

Not optimizing content - Optimize with SurferSEO and Frase.
Getting low quality links - Get links with Niche Website Builders with special Niche Surfer coupons.
Don't ignore Technical SEO - Increase website speed with WP Rocket or Ezoic's Leap Tool.

Google rel=nofollow vs sponsored

Two of Google's top search dogs Gary Illyes and John Mueller confirmed again that using "nofollow" is totally fine.

They say they'd appreciate "sponsored" on new sites, but they won't be penalizing you.

Tools and Resources

Great Tools for Niche Site and Content Creators

Use this link for $10 Off with your first purchase on AppSumo. You can also start a new account with a new email address if you've purchased before.

TopicMojo - Many people last week were really interested in this, so sharing it again here. This is an AnswerThePublic competitor to find keywords and questions. These tools are also a part of BrandOverflow's toolset (Keyword Generator and Question Explorer), so if you have BrandOverflow, these are the same.

Crello Pro - Great Canva alternative to create graphic designs for you affiliate sites. Includes the premium images, so you don't have to pay extra to use them. Deal Ending in 3 days.

SerpWatch - Rank tracker lifetime deal that's ending in ~10 days. The monthly limits are by keyword checks, so 4,500 means you can track 150 keywords daily for 30 days (4500 / 30 days = 150). You can check keyword rankings weekly, which would mean you can track 1125 keywords (4500 / 4 weeks = 1125).

Radaar - Great way to manage your social media accounts and schedule posts. This also includes a social media inbox to manage messages and comments.

wpDataTables - Create advanced tables on WordPress, including the ability to sync a WordPress Table with a Google Sheet.

SearchResponse.IO Tool in Beta

Currently has a free tool that gives you People Also Ask (PAA) questions from Google's SERPs.

You can search by keyword, domain, and URL. The domain and URL options will give you the PAA questions that show up in Google SERPs for the domain or URL. Very handy!

Find the relevant questions people are asking ranked by popularity.

Content

Google Discover: 10 Characteristics of Top-Performing Content [Study]

Lily Ray writes an article for Search Engine Journal with 10 takeaways after analyzing 7200+ URLs that rank well in Google Discover. Here are some of the attributes:

Emotionally Charged Headlines
Posing Questions in Headlines (with the Answer in the Content)
Ranking for COVID Content in Discover, but Not Search
Recency is Good, But Some Evergreen Topics Sustain Discover Performance
Content That Performs Well in Discover May Not Perform Well in Search (and Vice Versa)

To learn more about Discover and how it's different from Search, check out Google Search Central's documentation.

How to write good articles that rank - my 21-point checklist - YouTube

Jon Dykstra at Fat Stacks shares a video that steps through the 21 considerations for producing good niche website and blog content.

7 Ways to Write Blog Introductions Your Readers & Google Will Love

Discover how to write blog introductions that engage readers, support your SEO, and help Google better understand the topic of the page for indexing. They give you 7 ways to captivate readers and boost SEO:

Start with an Interesting Statistic
Ask the Reader a Direct Question About the Problem the Post is Addressing
Tell Readers How You’ve Solved the Problem
Paint a Picture in the Reader’s Mind
Confront Their Mistakes
State the Topic of the Post
List All the Questions a Reader Might Have About the Problem

Investors, Aggregators, and Content Sites: The Upcoming Gold Rush

Across the board, online business models are rising in value as investable digital assets. Some business models, like Amazon fulfilled by Amazon (FBA), have risen sharply and created a buying spree within the online business mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market.

That means content site multiples are increasing, because they're popular assets to be acquired by FBA businesses. Most FBA businesses lack content, so they have trouble building an audience for their brand.

By acquiring a content site, these brands can skip the build-up period and expand their audience quickly.

How to Carry Out Content Audits — Yes, Plural

A content audit done once to highlight current website issues will have a short shelf-life of usefulness. However, a content audit that is continuously updated offers multiple uses for analyzing and reporting on strategies. This article goes into:

Why are content audits useful?
How to start a content audit
How to conduct the initial audit
How to carry out monthly content audits
How to do annual content audits
How to use your content audits for SEO

Education

What Are Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) Webpages?

Your money or your life (YMYL) is how Google describes “types of pages or topics that could potentially impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.”

Understanding what is YMYL content and meeting Google’s quality standards are essential for website publishers and SEO professionals. Bruce gets into these key topics:

What Are Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) Webpages?
Why Is YMYL Important to SEO?
How Do You Optimize for YMYL?

Copyright (a holistic view) | Sustainable Monetized Websites - YouTube

Aurora Morales and her two co-hosts: Organic(a) and Monetized take a look at copyright from a holistic point of view. They explore what copyright looks like from the content creator perspective as well as from the side of a publisher who receives a copyright infringement notification. The video covers:

Copyright protection
DMCA - Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Copyright removal
What to do if you believe your copyright is being infringed upon
What happens if you receive a copyright infringement notification
Google's role in copyright disputes

How Many WordPress Plugins Are Too Many?

Plugins are a huge part of the WordPress experience, but how many WordPress plugins are too many?

When it comes to WordPress plugins, there’s no specific number that is too many. Instead of focusing on the numbers, it’s more important to look at the quality of the plugins you’re installing on your website.

GigaPress has 3 key tips on how to use plugins safely:

Resaerch Potential Plugins Carefully
Keep Your Plugins Up to Date
Delete Unnecessary Plugins

76 Digital PR & Content tips from Brighton SEO 2021

The Impression Digital PR team share 76 top takeaways from this year's Brighton SEO and Online PR Show, from ideation to outreach and everything inbetween!

Some great tips on keyword research, content, and acquiring backlinks.

News

WPX WordPress Hosting Outage

WPX Managed WordPress Hosting suffered an outage that may have taken down thousands of websites. The outage has lasted for hours. Many customers are complaining about a lack of communication from WPX.

WPX released an official statement on their blog about the downtime. For their monthly prices, I would've expected redundancies that weren't on the same network that went down.

If you were affected, the video in their statement says to contact their support for possible compensation. But their written statement said they'd update it on their blog post (which hasn't happened yet).

If you're interested in moving your site to VPS hosting, you can see a step-by-step process on my blog post - How To Migrate WordPress Site To VPS Hosting