Matthew Shockey

Content pruning can be one of the most helpful tactics for SEO when done right

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This could be the single best breakdown of why link building costs so dang much. If you want better backlinks, you have to have the budget for it. And no, it's not $300 to $500 per link.

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Wanted to share out another tool I've been tinkering with this week; I created an XML sitemap extractor to quickly grab URLs and categorize them based on subfolder. Check it out! https://lnkd.in/gW2zEZr4

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💅 Do you see how my scheduled content gets posted? Very demure, very mindful. I don’t have Meta sending me “failure to publish” notifications. I don’t just post to post, I’m very modest. I do a little trending audio, I add little hashtags for SEO. Very demure. That post you just stole from another account? Not very demure. 📸 Screenshots/trend inspiration from @Joolieannie on Tiktok #trending #socialmedia #corporatehumor #marketing

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Big article about #Google came out this week (https://lnkd.in/gCD3Zx9N). Key finding by Rand Fishkin, one of the godfathers of #SEO: "If you care strategically about the value of organic search traffic, but don’t have much use for the technical details of how Google works, this section’s for you. It’s my attempt to sum up much of Google’s evolution from the period this leak covers: 2005 – 2023, and I won’t limit myself exclusively to confirmed elements of the leak. 1. Brand matters more than anything else Google has numerous ways to identify entities, sort, rank, filter, and employ them. Entities include brands (brand names, their official websites, associated social accounts, etc.), and as we’ve seen in our clickstream research with Datos, they’ve been on an inexorable path toward exclusively ranking and sending traffic to big, powerful brands that dominate the web > small, independent sites and businesses. If there was one universal piece of advice I had for marketers seeking to broadly improve their organic search rankings and traffic, it would be: “Build a notable, popular, well-recognized brand in your space, outside of Google search.”"

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Has your SEO tanked after a relaunch? Here's 4 good tips from Search Engine Land to remember to mitigate issues with Google in the process. I always harp about 301 redirects. But, they are important. https://lnkd.in/e-CyYQ3y

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I wrote one article and rank #1 in Google results for standard #SERP and #SGE. This is the new SEO hat trick in 2024! https://lnkd.in/gA8qjvmW

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I just got this nice email trying to sell me backlinks! John Mueller would you like a honeypot of sites selling backlinks? I'll put the google sheet links in the comments for you to see the hundreds of sites selling guest posts. Oh and there is the contact information for the kind fellow that is making SEO look like garbage. These slimy link slingers are the antithesis of what a law firm (or any business) needs. And the more charlatans there are like this pushing their backlinks as a (falsly) legitimate way of growing your SEO presence, the more people will believe this is actually the right way to grow. Don't believe the hype. Build real backlinks through organic outreach and the creation of really helpful content. At Consumer Attorney Marketing Group, Inc. (CAMG) we write educational and helpful content, then have a team of over 40 outreach specialists that handle your digital PR to share the content with relevant websites. This is a simple but highly resource-intensive undertaking. But it is how you can legitimately grow your brand and search visibility. If your SEO team/agency is buying backlinks from Riddi Lahari or the countless other scammers pushing guest posts, you're doing it wrong.

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Reputation is everything... If you want to learn SEO at this level, I'm doing a live training Sept 12 and 13, both virtual and in-person (in Utah). I've been successfully running an SEO Agency for 17 years. In that nearly two decades I've worked with Russell Brunson, Utah Jazz retail division, Dan Kennedy's Magnetic Marketing, Rockwell watches, & Shark Tank featured businesses, and recently signed Tony Robbins. But my favorite stories are mom and pop businesses growing from their kitchen table or garage to giant warehouses; many now with more success in a month than they used to have in a year. WHAT TO EXPECT I'll cover in deep detail how to launch an SEO campaign from start to finish: 👉🏻 Keyword research to find your ideal buyers. Stop guessing. Instead, get in front of existing search volume and demand. 👉🏻 Mapping out a content calendar around high value keywords How to focus topics towards attracting pre-qualified buyer intent. 👉🏻 On-page optimization Dial in your website's structure so search engines see you as an authority. 👉🏻 Pros and cons of a variety of off-page optimization techniques. Yes, not only will I show you the good stuff, but also outdated, bad SEO advice to avoid. WHO THIS IS NOT FOR ❌ Lazy or stubborn people I will share all of my processes used within my agency that businesses pay thousands of dollars per month for. You have to implement them though. ❌ Impatient people SEO takes time to drive a return. If you're not willing to put in the time implementing, save your time and money. ❌ Drama I like to spend my time with cool people. Other people are paying good money to hang out with other cool people, too. ❌ Broke people My time is valuable. This is not a charity. See above about lazy people. People pay thousands of dollars per month to access this. WHO THIS IS FOR ✅ Entrepreneurs and business owners wanting to increase their visibility on search engines. ✅ Agencies wanting to offer SEO or expand their knowledge to improve their SEO processes. ✅ 9-to-5 employees wanting to advance their SEO skills for potential advancements or opportunities. Register now and save $500 AND also bring a +1 for free, or split the cost. (Prices go up from $1000 to $1500, and no more +1 invites after August 15) In-person I originally planned on inviting only a dozen, but I've already sold seven seats. Let me know if you want the info. 👇

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The December 2024 spam update highlights Google’s ongoing efforts to enhance search quality by addressing violations of its spam policies. While most compliant sites may not experience significant changes, those seeing ranking drops should review and align with Google’s spam guidelines. As SpamBrain evolves, adhering to ethical SEO practices is key to maintaining stable and sustainable rankings. With the holidays approaching, monitoring site performance during this rollout is essential for webmasters and SEO professionals. #SEO #GoogleUpdate #SpamUpdate #SearchRankings #DigitalMarketing #SpamBrain #GoogleAlgorithm #HolidaySEO #SEOCompliance #SearchEngineOptimization

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In Google Ads (#googleads, #advertising), you can target phones vs. desktops vs. tablets, but in the "new interface," they have really buried where you configure this setting. It's under "Insights & Reports" > When and where ads showed > Devices > Bid Adj. Here's a screenshot.

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If you are responsible for local SEO strategy, check out this video about the recent Google algorithm leak https://lnkd.in/g5S2geNY

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If your agency’s looking to connect with the right prospects… Enlisting the help of list-scraping tools can seem like a quick fix. Tools like D7 Lead Finder and Google Maps scrapers are particularly popular these days. And that’s because they automate the process of collecting data. But the question is: Are such tools really helping you connect with the right prospects? Well, list-scraping tools can provide a starting point for research, for sure. But there’s a catch. See, most of the time, the data you get is far from ideal. You’ll likely end up with general email addresses like [email protected] or [email protected]. Of course, those aren’t direct lines to decision-makers. Without accurate contact information, your outreach will be far less effective. To Scrape or Not to Scrape? You can send dozens of emails or make multiple calls… But if they’re not reaching the right people, your efforts won’t deliver the results you need. To be clear, that’s not to say scraping tools are entirely useless. They can give you a rough overview of businesses in a specific niche or region. But they should be seen as a first step, not the final solution. What do I mean? After gathering an initial list, it’s essential to enrich the data by adding direct contact details. Stuff like the business owner’s personal email, phone number, or social media profiles. You can find this out through 2 ways: Manual research Using a high-quality data provider to fill in the gaps Remember this: At the end of the day, quality trumps quantity. Relying solely on scraping tools can leave you chasing bad leads. And this, in turn, will waste your time and make your agency miss out on real opportunities. Needless to say, the most successful prospecting for your agency… It comes from using tools that help you reach the right people with the right message. Now, if you’re looking to improve your agency’s prospecting approach… I’d love to talk more about combining smart tools with reliable data for better results. Let’s chat!

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Some challenges with SEO consulting in the age of HCU and SGE: 1. While we'd love Google to be more transparent about how it works, they are likely not going to be; or at best, they are not going to be specific-enough to give us much that is actionable. 2. While a lot of us SEO types help Google by helping site owners make it easier for Google to find the good stuff & reduce the bad stuff, I am guessing this is not a KPI Google prioritizes; or at least not one it prioritizes above KPIs like "make money" or "increase Google usage." 3. We get paid to figure out how Google works well enough for our knowledge to positively impact a client's business. When we don't know how it works well enough for us to do so - often the best we can do is read the tea leaves & provide evergreen advice (cut the page bloat, improve the content, etc.), which may benefit our clients in the long run. Understandably, this is not helpful to clients with short-term KPIs, but it's the game we are playing. I can't tell you how many sites we have worked on that tanked, did nothing for 6 months, then came back stronger than ever. 4. There are plenty of short-term ways to get around sites that have been hit by HCU, or at least sites that appear to have been. One of our more enterprising clients that lost about 90% of their organic traffic, relaunched their site on a new domain sans a lot of the issues we pointed out were likely hurting them (au revoir Vignette ads and ai-generated descriptions). They haven't recovered all the lost traffic, but organic traffic to the new domain is growing rapidly. I am going to guess this won't last, but hey, beats standing around waiting for a new algo to come around. I know SEOs who are seeing some kind of recovery (may be hit by HCU or not - probably not) by playing around with backlinks and such, but are not publicizing it for obvious reasons. 5. I am relatively confident site owners hit by HCU who can hold their breath will see some relief (perhaps as early as the day after Reddit's first earnings call), but there will be plenty who suffocate before then. Most SEOs I know emphasize to clients SEO cannot be your only/main customer acquisition channel. But times like these underscore just how much a successful SEO program subsidizes the cost of other channels. Reminds me of that quote about how when the tide goes out you can see who's naked... 6. Maybe this is a good thing as it will shift site owners' perspectives to longer-term thinking? Case in point, a site we told like six years ago that they need to reduce the millions of low-value URLs is actually going to start doing so after getting slammed by HCU. They made a lot of bank by not doing so and holding their breath during previous algo rollercoasters, but they don't want to make that bet again. TLDR - big shout out to all the white hats, black hats, grey hats, & no-hats who have been sharing SEO knowledge. It takes an SEO village...

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Let's talk about a subdomain vs subdirectory structure for your company's blog. (try not to get too excited ;) While it might not be the most riveting SEO topic, site structure and hierarchy is uber important when it comes to discoverability and indexing. There is no "right" way but there are pros and cons to each. tldr: we like a nice subdirectory structure. Fuller deep dive below. https://lnkd.in/et_zzNK3

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A powerful, yet easy tool to improve your local search rankings exists!

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While on-page SEO work (fixing page code and such) and link-building are sound practices, what we have found is that writing good content with preplanned custom urls gets you on page 1 even faster. We've seen it happen in 2-4 weeks. I know people say that "people don't read" but in a business context, I find that they do, as long as you give them something they can use and that is easy to read. To this day, I see people with long blocky blog posts and am perplexed they go that route for B2B content...

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