Wave Issue 93

First...

Another week, another Google Update. This time it's the July 2022 Product Reviews Update.

Looking at the various SERP sensors, there's not much volatility like a regular core update. Not much "My site got crushed!!" noise either.

I feel the lack of noise is because many people creating niche sites now are creating informational content sites and not affiliate-focused sites.

Affiliate sites are much better ROI than info sites, but there is a higher risk due to regular Google updates. If you're able to diversify your traffic streams and not rely on 90% Google traffic, you'll have one successful affiliate site.

Take a look at where your traffic is coming from. How exposed are you to Google traffic and getting hit by an update?

Look for more ways to drive traffic to your site and diversify your revenue streams where you can.

Don't forget to look at Google's guide to writing product reviews if you haven't already.

Niche Creators

Niche Creators - Q&A Interviews

This week's two Niche Creators - Jamie I.F. and Matt Campbell - are very active in sharing their knowledge on Twitter. Both share great tips and positive messages.

Check out their interviews:

SEO

Google Says Impressions Do Not Equal Search Volume

Someone asked John Mueller on Twitter:

"I have a keyword/query (Suppose “Buy Shoes”) in the Search Console that is ranking on 1st position and getting 1000 impressions in one month so the search volume should be 1000 too?”

Mueller replied:

“Not necessarily. Just because you’re ranking 1st in some cases, doesn’t mean the page is always shown.”

So that means the actual search volume could be higher than the impressions you see in Google Search Console.

The key takeaway here is that impressions are not a reliable indicator of search volume. But it's a start and a metric that you can see that's relevant to your site.

Google search quality rater guidelines update: What has changed

Lily Ray writes about the Search Quality Rater Guideline updates that Google recently made. Significant changes were made in the YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) definition and how E-A-T matters.

The new version of the Quality Rater Guidelines now defines YMYL by its potential to cause harm. Google also provided a new table establishing clear examples of what it means for content to be YMYL or not.

In the newest update to the guidelines, Google also explained that for highly YMYL content – E-A-T is crucial above all other factors. Google also explained that it’s possible to have low-quality content on otherwise trustworthy and authoritative sites.

Deep SERP Analysis: 8 SEO Strategies Based on Search Results

Today, more things show up in more search engine results pages (SERPs) than ever before. They’re known as Google SERP features and the seven most common are the related questions, ads, the knowledge panel, local 3-packs, star reviews, videos and images.

Andy Crestodina goes beyond basic SERP analysis and covers different situations and strategies:

If videos are in the SERP
If big publishers are in the SERP
If reviews (and stars) are in the SERP
If user generated content (UGC) sites are in the SERP
If directories are in the SERP
If associations are in the SERP
If videos are in the SERP for the person’s name
If you’re already in the SERP

Tools and Resources

v2 Search Console Explorer Studio (Google Data Studio)

This a free, cool tool called v2 Search Console Explorer Studio from Hannah Rampton. It gives you a great way to visualize your GSC data in Google Data Studio.

Great Tools for Niche Site Owners and Content Creators

Brand Overflow - Noted that Brand Overflow relaunched last week and has a Lifetime Deal available.

This week, they released a nice tool where you can enter a domain and BO will give you up to 1000 keywords that the domain ranks for. It will also give you 100 competitors and how many keywords they have ranking # 1, # 2-10, # 11-50.

Their current LTD is $79 for 1 code and that gives you 6000 keyword credits monthly. This tool is 2x credits, so for the 1000 keywords, it will use 2000 credits. That means you can only run it 3 times a month with 1 code.

Seems like a good way to get a domain's ranked keywords compared to Ahrefs/Semrush and other tools that charge $100+ per month. I haven't found any other tools that could be comparable to Ahrefs/Semrush/Ubersuggest when it comes to finding keywords a site is ranking for.

If you want to see what the data looks like, I attached 2 CSV outputs of "ahrefs.com" in the Discord group in the #tools-resources channel.

If you want to get Brand Overflow, be sure to also use the "BRANDOVERFLOW10" code to get 10% off.

Content

How to Optimize for Featured Snippets and Position Zero | BrightEdge

The addition of featured snippets to Google results pages represents one of the most significant developments in the evolution of search.

Position zero results—snippets that appear before the main organic listings—have become increasingly prominent. And optimizing for “position zero” can have significant positive effects on your site’s traffic. Both search engine experts and marketers should build pages with featured snippets in mind.

Simple tweaks to your keyword research and content strategies will likely lead to greater brand exposure and more clicks.

9 SEO Writing Tips for Optimizing Your Content

Bryce Emley at Siege Media covers what SEO writing means. I see content writing services out there that say they write SEO-optimized content, but what does that really mean?

Here's a great start to getting good content that will rank. Do your content providers and writers do this?

Know Your Audience
Apply Long-Tail Keyword Research to Audience Research
Start at the Start
Use Keywords Wisely
Be Better
Check the SERP Before You Write
Write Like a Reader
Keep It Scannable
Link Up

8 steps to a successful entity-first strategy for SEO and content

Benu Aggarwal discusses an Entity-First Strategy for a competitive advantage in organic search visibility and inclusions in rich results. The 8 steps to this strategy are:

Identified schema vocabulary
Determined the schema gaps
Mapping schema
Market opportunity and potential sizing
Map topic gaps
Identify Content Opportunities
Content enhancement
Create better than the best website page

5 Ways to use Natural Language Generation for SEO

Good overview article on what NLG is and how it can be used. Kelsey Jones discusses using NLG for:

Meta Descriptions
Blog Post Title Ideas
Content Outlines
Competitor Analysis
Content Repurposing

Link Building

7 Outside-the-Box Ways to QUADRUPLE your SEO Link Building - YouTube

This is NOT your typical list of SEO link-building techniques. Matt Diggity shares 7 outside-the-box link-building methods that can get you the best links possible to your website.

Kickstarter
Partner Outreach
Answering Your Inbox
Legendary Personas
Skyscraper, But Not
2-for-1 Guest Posting
Digital PR

23 Million Internal Links - A Google SEO Case Study

Cyrus Shepard at Zyppy discusses the power of internal links and how effective and non-effective they can be. He uses data from 23 million internal links across 520,000 URLs and 1,800 websites. The recap here:

More internal links are associated with higher traffic, but only to a point.
Sitewide/navigation links seem to have a powerful effect mostly on larger, high-authority sites. The effectiveness is less clear on small, lower-authority sites.
Anchor text variety is highly correlated with higher search traffic.
Naked URL anchors don’t seem to hurt, and in fact, are associated with more traffic.
At least some exact match anchors are associated with significantly higher traffic.

Education

15 Easy (And Free) Ways to Promote Your Website in 2022

15 free, easy, and effective ways to promote your site and brand. Good list of ideas to get your site out there more. Many will also get you backlinks as well.

Prioritize easy keywords for SEO
Do SEO for your existing pages
Create a free resource
Partner up for a joint course or webinar
Repurpose your content for other marketing channels
Find guest blogging opportunities
Syndicate your content
Engage with your audience on social media
Start a community of your own
Build an email list, start a newsletter

How To Perform A SEO SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a common term that's used in business and is an important part of building a successful business.

SWOT = Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

This is a good look at how to look at your site from a SWOT perspective.

Business Ideas

75 Successful Niche Ideas for 2022

Income School gives their thoughts on 75 different niche ideas in their latest YouTube video. They received submissions on 36 niche ideas and 39 real website niches.

This is a good video to get some niche ideas if you're looking to start a new site.

News

Google releases July 2022 product reviews update

Google released the July 2022 product reviews update for English-language product reviews. The rollout will take 2-3 weeks to complete.

Expanding testing for the Privacy Sandbox for the Web

By Q3 2023, we expect the Privacy Sandbox APIs to be launched and generally available in Chrome. As developers adopt these APIs, we now intend to begin phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome in the second half of 2024. As always, you can find up-to-date timelines and milestones on the Privacy Sandbox website.

Yep, not a surprise. I don't believe they'll sunset anything until they're confident they have a replacement tracker.

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Have questions? Reply or email me at [email protected]. I’d love to know what you think and if you have any ideas.

I’d also appreciate it if you shared it with fellow niche surfers.

Have a great week taking your niche sites to another level!