Wave Issue 46

First...

Turn the image 90°, so it's vertical, and you have one of the early mind map drafts that I create when planning out new sites. This image is from a broader niche, so it has many nodes that I was researching.

I recently created the largest mind map yet for a site that someone hired me for. I worked on site planning and keyword research for him. It was a good niche and lots of material there to grow into. It got me thinking that I don't think I've talked about how I plan sites out.

When it comes to niche sites, I always like to do one of these sitemaps and plan out at least 50 articles before publishing any article on the site. This helps me see that there's a future for the site and I won't get cornered into a small niche site.

It's the same reason I get broader domain names now that can cover a spectrum of sub-niches.

These site maps help me to envision the future potential of niches and the depth. It's also my way of planning how my interlinking will work.

Creating these maps take a good amount of time, but it's helped me out a number of times when planning out URL structure and topic silos. I like to use hard silos with the URL because it's easier for me to manage internal links, but I think it's also easier for users to understand where they are on a site.

A few weeks ago, I shared one of Matt Diggity's videos on SEO Silos and interlinking. You can see his maps for silos and interlinking are similar to the maps I create.

I find using mind map software to be much faster than using PowerPoint or something else to organize. Mindnode is what I use, and it has a free plan too. There's no need for the paid plan, at least I haven't had a reason yet.

I think it's important to have your silos and interlinking set up well when starting new sites. It helps Google and your visitors navigate your site, so I always put the time in to plan out the site's structure.

How do you plan your niche sites?

Income Reports

August 2021 Income Reports

These are the August 2021 income reports I've come across:

Growth Scouter (image above) - Crazy results with number of posts and revenues
Jasper Pieterse - English and Dutch sites.
Passive Income Unlocked
Carl Broadbent
Chris, Niche Safari
Alex Cooper, WP Eagle - Site 1, Site 2, he made 2 separate videos.
Shaun Marrs
Tortoise Cash Flow

SEO

Google Says If You Want To Rank For More Queries Don't Syndicate Or Republish Content

Google's John Mueller said sometimes syndicating or republishing content makes sense, but it never makes sense if you want to rank for the queries that those pieces of content aim to rank for. He said:

"If you're republishing, then it is duplicate content. If you goal is to reach a broader audience, go for it. If your goal is that only your site ranks for those queries, then syndicating / republishing is a bad idea. Pick your goals & select the work that helps you reach them."

Example Technical SEO Issues & How To Fix Them

Olga Zarzeczna lists out 15 technical SEO issues with tips on how to fix them. She'll cover technical issues like:

Core Web Vitals not passed in the field but passed in the lab
Robots.txt disallows website resources
XML sitemap contains incorrect entries
Incorrect, malformed, or/and conflicting canonical URLs
Conflicting nofollow and/or noindex directives in HTML and/or the HTTP header
Nofollowed and/or disallowed internal links
Low-value internal followed links
No outgoing and/or incoming internal links.
Internal or/and external redirects with issues
Internal links to redirected URLs

Tools and Resources

Great Tools for Niche Site Owners and Content Creators

Ranktracker - Yep, it tracks rankings. Looks like a clean UI/UX and not as complicated as Nozzle. Also has keyword research tools that are helpful.

Nozzle - Rank tracking data on steroids. Goes into a lot more detail than just rank positions.

Link Whisper - The 1-year deal for $49 for 1 site is now live on AppSumo. It's the cheapest I've seen for 1 site. Unfortunately, there are no other deals for more sites. If you have multiple sites, it's cheaper to buy on Link Whisper's site and use my code "YOYAO" for $15 off for their 3 and 10 site licenses.

Outranking - Content optimizer along the lines of Frase and SurferSEO. Also has AI content generation that uses GPT-3 and NLP. Ends in 6 days.

EWWW Image Optimizer - Image compressor to optimize site speed for a better user experience and to help with ranking. Ends in 3 days.

Content

The Three Bosses of SEO

In SEO, there are three main “bosses” with different needs:

Your Business
Searchers
Search Engines

This article covers their needs and how to provide for their needs. All 3 are tied together and equally important.

Link Building

Link Building For A New Website: How To Rank Your Site In Less Than A Month

Matt Diggity gives his link building blueprint for a new website. It's a good blueprint and I've been doing some of this myself for my sites. I don't buy any links to start out with, but I do the social signals for sure.

The social signals help Google to see that each new site I'm building is an actual "business" or "person" that I'm writing articles as.

If your persona is a blogger, that person would have social media accounts with the URL in the account profile.

If the site is a 'business,' then that business would have social media accounts with the URL in the account profile.

These are the basic foundational things that should be done on all sites. It's not make or break for any niche site, but it's one of the building blocks that I use on my sites.

How to Pitch a Journalist and Get Coverage in 6 Easy Steps

If you do a lot of HARO link building, you're constantly pitching journalists. This article isn't directly related to using HARO, but you can use some of the tips here when emailing the journalists:

Find at least two topically relevant articles (one must be recent)
No “we, we” syndrome
Comment on something that can only exist within their post
Compliment, don’t judge
Don’t leave a statement blank
Remove why your company is great, who the founders are and anything not relevant to what the editor writes about

Best Place to Buy Backlinks

FatRank's top places to buy backlinks from. Remember to do your research on the places of where to buy backlinks from.

Best Guest Post Link Provider – Searcharoo
Best Link Building Package Provider – High Rise Links
Best Citations Link Provider – SEO Butler
Best Tier Two Link Provider – Rank Club
Best RSOS Link Provider – Get Me Links
Best Outreach Link Provider – ABC Plus
Best Press Release Provider – PR Editorial Release
Best Wikipedia Link Provider – Wiki Wookiee

Remember that buying backlinks is technically against Google's policies. So if you're going to buy links, make sure they have a good reputation. When it comes to guest posts, be sure to also check that they'll show you what the sites are before the links are confirmed.

I haven't heard of some of the providers, so I can't endorse them all. I'd recommend Niche Website Builders for link building as I had a good experience with them.

Education

How to SETUP EZOIC ADS and EZOIC LEAP (Over the shoulder tutorial) - YouTube

Good video from Alex on how to set up Ezoic ads and their speed optimizer Leap.

I'm actually trying out a beta Ezoic plugin that automates the ad placeholders, instead of using the Chrome extension. It's working pretty decent and a couple clicks got placeholders all set up.

I imagine that Ezoic will be pushing out the auto-generated ad placeholders soon enough, so you don't need to manually set it up.

If you don't have Ezoic yet, be sure to sign up for an Ezoic account. They removed their 10,000 visitor requirement, so new sites are able to join.

Ezoic's also got their Customer Appreciation Week starting in a couple of days, so be on the lookout for prizes and news during that time.

How to Calculate Your SEO ROI Using Google Analytics

"Measuring ROI for your SEO efforts involves two factors: KPIs and the cost of your current SEO campaigns. With GA, you can pinpoint where your audience is coming from, set goals to stay on track, and incorporate the most attractive keywords to rank better in search engines."

For me, I like to calculate a simple ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) by taking the total revenue divided by the number of visitors. Gives me an idea of how much revenue I can make if I can increase traffic.

News

WordPress 5.8.1 Released to Fix Multiple Vulnerabilities

WordPress has updated and they recommend updating immediately for its security vulnerabilities. WordPress 5.8.1 fixes three vulnerabilities:

A data exposure vulnerability within the REST API
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Gutenberg block editor
Multiple critical to high severity vulnerabilities in the Lodash JavaScript Library

3 Ways Publishers Can Score Big With Our Recent $12.4 Million Customer Investment - Ezoic

We dropped some major news yesterday. In case you missed it, we announced a $12.4 million investment in our customers. You probably have questions, like how