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- niche surfer - Wave Issue 151
niche surfer - Wave Issue 151
Googlebot Recognizes AI-Generated Content and Images; May The SEO Force Be With You; Best Word Counts; Google Uses Historical Data For Rankings; and Much More!
Yoyao
September 02, 2023
KICKOFF …
Fantasy football draft night is here! (American Football 🏈)
It’s an auction keeper league, so I’m forced to stay within a budget for the draft. At the beginning of every season, all my players are dropped back into the draft pool, except for 4 players that I decide to keep based on their salaries against the budget.
These fantasy football drafts feel eerily similar to managing my niche sites and businesses. Why? Well, it's all about playing within the confines of a budget—both money and time - for the best output.
Here's the thing: In round one of last season's fantasy draft, I splurged on a top-tier running back. He performed incredibly well for the first couple of games, but then was average and underwhelming the rest of the season - while taking a huge chunk of my budget.
Each week turned into a mental tug-of-war: should I start him, hoping he'd return to his early-season form, or bench him and admit my high-cost draft pick was a bust?"
Sound familiar? I've made the same mistake with a niche site that was draining both money and time, while other potential winners were neglected.
Balance, my friends, is what it's all about. You need a game plan for when to splurge and when to save, when to invest time and when to delegate.
The same principles apply whether you're drafting a lineup of football stars or managing a growing portfolio of niche sites and online ventures.
As you make decisions this week, be it picking that rookie who shows promise, a new tool to help you run your business, or investing in a new niche market, keep your eye on the endgame.
Nothing worth having comes easy, or by accident. It's all about making wise choices in how you allocate your time and resources.
So, are you spending your time where it matters most? Maybe it's time to draft that freelancer or virtual assistant to tackle the grunt work, freeing you up to focus on strategy.
Even if your site is only making $100 per month, consider this: that could cover a part-time VA to create images for you, or handle other time-consuming tasks.
You free up hours to produce quality content, which in turn drives more traffic and revenue. More revenue means more work you can delegate to your VA. It's a virtuous cycle.
Where are you spending most of your time and money? Are you allocating them wisely? Are there opportunities to put some money towards hiring someone that will result in more time and money for you?
Whether you're aiming for the league trophy or skyrocketing your niche sites and businesses to new heights, it's crucial to strategize and plan wisely.
So, huddle up, team. Let's make some winning moves this week! 🏆️
A TopicalMap.com client recently sent us a Google Search Console screenshot as a 6 month update after they start publishing content on a new domain. Amazing traffic with just 50 articles!
Learn how to create topical maps yourself with Topical Maps Unlocked!
NICHE SITE SUMMIT - October 24 & 25!
Jon Dykstra is brining together 21 TOP SEOs and niche site owners (and me 😁) to share their traffic and income boosting strategies.
SEO
In a webinar, Martin Splitt from Google recently weighed in on how Googlebot handles the increasing prevalence of AI-generated content. He explained that Google's quality control mechanisms remain unchanged, regardless of whether content is machine or human-generated.
Googlebot downloads HTML, images, CSS, and JavaScript files to render a webpage and then uses its existing quality detection algorithms to assess the content.
The quality detection process occurs at multiple stages and identifies low-quality content, whether it's human or machine-made.
In essence, Splitt suggests that the rise of AI-generated content hasn't significantly affected Googlebot's crawling and rendering processes. No special measures are being applied specifically to AI-generated content at the moment.
Google's new "Mentioned in" feature adds a carousel to search snippets. Users can click to reveal or slide through other sites where the search result is mentioned. It aims to boost user trust in Google's search results by showing where else the site is mentioned.
The feature is currently in testing, meaning it's not widely available yet.
Source: SearchEngineLand.com
Adam Riemer over at Search Engine Journal dives into an interesting SEO query: When should you create localized folders and pages for SEO?
He addresses a reader's question about whether topic cluster/pillar pages can be implemented locally and if a new website can start with this approach. The answer? Absolutely!
Your site's age doesn't determine its structure. The key is to focus on user experience and search engine optimization. Riemer suggests that industries with regional regulations should have localized pages.
Your website structure should assist both the user and search engine spiders in understanding your site's hierarchy.
James Allen discusses how navigating the SEO landscape can feel like walking a tightrope between competing priorities. On one hand, you have UX specialists streamlining designs, sometimes at the expense of organic traffic.
Meanwhile, SEOs face their own set of balancing acts, from grappling with keyword density to link-building strategies. Key Takeaways:
Volume of URLs: More isn’t always better. Be mindful of crawl efficiency and duplicate content. Opt for strategic URL architecture rather than blindly increasing the number of pages.
Links and Content: The game isn't just about quality or quantity; it's about a strategic blend of both. Especially in competitive spaces, you'll need a significant quantity of quality links and content.
Keyword Optimization: It's a fine line between sparse and spam. Target underperforming keywords carefully, and avoid over-optimization that could sink your rankings.
User Experience: Functionality and speed can co-exist, but it takes intelligent JavaScript deployment and server-side rendering (SSR) to get there.
Regional Deployment: Local vs. global isn't a one-size-fits-all decision. Start where you can make the most impact quickly, then scale from there.
SEO Ripples
The “best” link builders/sellers reach out to Google staff to help Google recognize link farms 😅
Google’s Gary Illyes says "HTTP 304 (not modified) is super useful to signal crawlers that the content they're accessing hasn't changed since it was last crawled, but it can also backfire spectacularly."
seoClarity's recent article dives into the concept of User Search Journeys to level up your SEO efforts. Understanding the user's entire search journey—from initial query to subsequent searches—enables you to predict your audience's future needs.
CONTENT
Ever pondered the ideal word count for SEO-optimized articles? Georgi Todorov's piece on LowFruits aims to answer just that, breaking down the question by keyword difficulty and competition. Key takeaways:
No Universal Word Count: There's no "one-size-fits-all" word count for SEO. Different keywords serve different intents.
Analyze SERPs: To gauge how many words you should be aiming for, analyze the SERPs to understand what's already ranking. The average word count for top results can guide you.
Quality Over Quantity: While word count is significant, the focus should be on satisfying user intent with quality information. Aim for depth over breadth.
Long-Form Perks: Long-form content tends to perform better not just because it's thorough, but it also captures more long-tail keywords and is more likely to attract backlinks.
Avoid Fluff: Don't pad your content to reach a specific word count. It's better to cover the topic fully and provide value than to dilute your content with unnecessary filler.
AI
DeepMind, in partnership with Google Cloud, has launched a beta version of SynthID. This is a new tool aimed at watermarking and identifying AI-generated images. It's initially rolling out to a limited number of Vertex AI customers using Imagen, a text-to-image model.
The technology embeds a digital watermark into the image pixels, invisible to the human eye but detectable for machine-based identification. The watermark remains detectable even after image modifications like adding filters or changing colors.
Can you spot the differences?
AI Ripples
Read Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai’s opening remarks as part of the keynote at Google Cloud Next, Google Cloud’s annual event for customers and partners. He discusses their on their “AI-first” approach.
Learn how to fine-tune GPT 3.5-Turbo this video (there’s also a written tutorial), the easiest to follow tutorial that I’ve seen so far if you want to train your own GPT 3.5-Turbo model. Still probably not for someone who doesn’t know any coding, but for someone who’s comfortable with copying/pasting code and understands the logic of how code works, this is good.
LINK BUILDING
Mark Webster from Authority Hacker discusses how to rank at the top for statistic-related keywords and then offering your unique data to journalists and writers. Why?
Writers often search for stats to back their points, and Google loves unique data. The tactic is to create your own data through industry surveys. This not only elevates your statistics page but also makes outreach a breeze.
MARKETING
Andy Crestodina unveils a quick and efficient solution: AI-generated marketing charts. Using OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus and its Advanced Data Analysis feature, you can easily convert any CSV data into actionable visual insights.
Whether you're analyzing competitive positioning through heatmaps or assessing which articles have the highest email sign-up conversion rate, there’s a chart for you.
Charts cover a range of areas including SEO, Email, Video, Competition, and Conversions. The best part? You can get your results in under 10 minutes.
EDUCATION
The Backlinko team tackles the pivotal role of user behavior in your site's SEO performance. By decoding user metrics, the guide helps you get under the skin of what your visitors really do on your site.
They cover Google's algorithms to how metrics like Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Bounce Rate affect your SEO score.
Pair this with Preeti Gupta’s GA4 Guide to leverage the power of custom reports.
JC Chouinard dives into how Google uses history data in ranking search results. He bases his insights on the patent "Document scoring based on query analysis," which lays the groundwork for understanding SEO ranking and other related metrics.
From tracking the inception date of a document to analyzing query-related factors, the History Component plays an indispensable role in Google's ranking algorithm:
Inception Date: Google uses the date when a document was created to score and potentially re-adjust its ranking.
Content Updates: Frequently updated content may score higher. The amount and frequency of updates can influence the ranking.
Query Analysis: Real-world trends and search queries can temporarily affect a document's ranking.
Spam Detection: The History Component helps in detecting spikes in link growth and other spam-related activities.
Dan Politz at Credo has put together an in-depth guide to help you optimize your website or app through a UX audit. From the initial setting of objectives to leveraging both quantitative and qualitative data, the guide offers a practical, step-by-step approach.
You'll also get insights into how agencies bring their collective expertise into the auditing process, promising more nuanced and actionable findings. Audits can lead to enhanced user satisfaction, increased conversion rates, and ultimately, a stronger competitive edge.
CASE STUDY
After analyzing over 1 million domains, Patrick Stox and Ahrefs uncovered the most common technical SEO pitfalls affecting websites.
Some highlights:
The most prevalent issue was 3XX redirects, found in 95.2% of sites, often causing redirect loops or chains that could confuse Google's crawlers.
HTTP to HTTPS redirects were next, present in 88% of domains, mostly positive but sometimes going the wrong way.
Missing alt attributes for images were found in 80.4% of sites, posing potential legal and accessibility concerns.
Surprisingly, 72.9% of sites had missing or empty meta descriptions, which, although not critical for rankings, can affect user experience.
Slow-loading pages were identified in 72.3% of sites, impacting both user experience and SEO.
NEWS
Data from the U.S. Ad Market Tracker shows that ad spending increased by 6.2% in July 2023, marking the biggest rise in a year. Digital media is the big winner, with its share of ad spend growing to 67% in July, compared to an even split with traditional media in January.
My Take: That's a good sign for our digital ad revenues!
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