Today marks 10 years since I started blogging about local SEO and related topics, and in my view it marks the real start of my business and all that’s brought – including 400+ posts, way more skill, great clients, a great living, some friendships, a better understanding of my place on this dustball, and a bit of fun along the way.

Therefore, as Klingon ritual dictates, I must offer up a few stray thoughts today, even if there is an 80% chance it’s all irrelevant to you and a complete waste of your time.  On the other hand, if you’re a business owner who’s interested in the blogging or “content” thing, or if you’re a longtime reader here, or if you’re a local SEO-er, there may be bits and pieces of interest to you.

As I alluded to in my post from 5 years ago, I had been in local search for a couple of years by June of 2011, but my business model was completely different (i.e. not workable), and I didn’t have a blog or any other good way to connect with the very few other people in local search at the time, with or most of the people who’d become my clients.  If I never started the blog, there never would have been a business that lasted this long, and the start date wouldn’t have meant anything to me.  So maybe June of 2008 is the anniversary of my career choice, and September of 2009 is the anniversary of the website.  But June 1, 2011 is the anniversary of the business.

Anyway, even though most of my comments are on other matters, there are a couple of drive-by points I’d like to make about local search in general on this auspicious day.

I’m amazed at what a friendly industry this still is. By that, I mean the vast majority of people who work full-time in local SEO are nice people. I still haven’t figured out exactly why that is.  I haven’t even figured out how that can be, given how many unethical agencies there are, how many questionable software “solutions” have come and gone, how much spam is on the map, Google’s ever-increasing shadiness, and of course the horrors of the last year-plus.  Despite all of that, there remains a Mayberry vibe, and I’m grateful for it.Local search doesn’t seem to change much. Google’s tweaks, updates, ad injections, and rebrands seem like a big deal at the time, but they rarely still seem like major events in hindsight. Non-Google entities – other search engines, directories, software, services – tend not to influence the basic activities that separate some businesses from others.  “Revolutions” are few and far-between.  Mobile was a big deal.  Voice search…apparently not so much.

Neither of those observations is new to me, and probably isn’t a “Eureka!” moment for you, either.  In a similar way, if I were to recap what I’ve learned in the last 10 years, at least half of it would be exactly what I remarked on 5 years ago.  I’d say all of that still holds true.  But since then a few more things have dawned on me.

So, below are some observations, recommendations, and other neural gas from my last 10 years of blogging.  I hope these are relevant to you if you’re either a business owner who has some interest in blogging or other “content,” or if you’re in the local search industry, or both.

Don’t write for a big splash on Monday; write a post that readers will find useful for years.  The post may address a problem they don’t even have yet, and those people’s first visit to your site may be many months away.  Delivering your solution to those people is tricky, but if you can do it even a few times, your blogging will be worth everyone’s time.  If there’s one thing I’ve come to appreciate in the last 10 years, and especially in the last 5, the “think in years” approach is it, and most of my other thoughts here today are about how to do it.  A blog post should be less like sushi and more like a Slim Jim.You need an additional line of communication immediately downstream of your blog posts.  Probably your best bet is your email newsletter and not a Twitter feed or Facebook page or similar medium that you don’t really control and can be booted from.  In any event, very few people will read your post and contact you with the intention of working with you.  Either there’s not a need yet, or they need to get to know you more.  Whatever you hope to get out of it, blogging should part of the system, rather than the whole system.  This is where my “seed audience” approach may help.You can’t just be a blogger; you still need to ply your trade.  Ever watch This Old House-type shows and wonder whether the hosts ever swing a hammer?  Skills rot, and then insights do.  If you become the “ideas person” then it’s a matter of time before you start writing about inconsequential stuff, because you’ve lost sight of your audience’s challenges and therefore any solutions.  You can’t keep growing plants in soil that never gets replenished.  Keep your focus on doing your craft, rather than on blogging.  That’s how you’ll keep growing the experience that makes blogging worth your time and your readers’ time.Customers / clients / patients are your single best source of ideas.  They never run out of questions, observations, or new challenges.  If you talk with them all the time and hear what they’re saying, you’ll never run out of “content” ideas.  This is a main reason I say you need to remain hands-on in your business.Link out often and err on the side of giving more credit rather than less.  It compels you to do a little more homework on whatever you’re writing about, it makes for a more-helpful read, it’s just good form, and you’ll make more friends.It’s OK to slow down the pace.  The “write every day” approach has benefits, but isn’t sustainable.  Even if you put up something new once a week, you’ll run out of good ideas faster than you can get your hands on them.  Then either you’ll be forced to slow down anyway, or you’ll produce mush.  The right pace is the one you can stick with.  Case in point: I don’t post as often as I used to.  My “5 Years of Local Search Blogging” post was #276.  This one today is #405, rather than #552.  In the first 5 years I’d average 4 posts a month.  In the last 5 years I’ve averaged 1-2 posts a month.  So I’m going at about half the pace.  Has it hurt business?  Quite the opposite.  The posts are just more consistently useful these days.Avoid sounding corporate, or like a bigger organization than you are.  Avoid pompous words (like “ideation”), avoid industry jargon when you can, and don’t say “we” when you can say “I.”  Whatever you write or share, make it sound more like how you talk in-person.  I know that’s easier said than done, and I’ll admit that a very useful but stuffy post does more good for you and the reader than a less-useful but fun post can.  All I’m saying is go for useful AND relatable whenever you can.Don’t imitate anyone else, or at least anyone else in your industry.  Cover topics nobody else has, and do it in whatever style works for you, without necessarily thinking too much about it.  There’s a practical layer to that, which is that you don’t want to be an also-ran.  A decent number of people and entities in local search have done, shall we say, adaptations of my posts – often years after I wrote about whatever topic.  (I’d rather not name names.)  Often even the titles of the posts are similar to my originals.  Can’t say it doesn’t irk me a little, but those posts tend to be written by newer people, who often don’t have a mental bibliography of what’s been covered over the years.  The other reason not to cover other singers’ songs is that what you produce will be more memorable and therefore more useful to your readers.  I can’t tell you the number of times I talk with business owners who tell me they approach SEO/marketing in a certain way because of something I wrote in a post 3 years ago.  This may sound odd, but the universe knows if you’re original.Figure out what kind of habit or habits your posts will reinforce.  The people you’re writing for don’t want “fresh content”; they want to form habits that have payoff and can help them with problems big and small.  There is a place in the world for “daily news,” but people also get maxed out on that.  Also, the bearer of news often is not or will not seem to be a go-to person anyone wants to hire.  If your whole blogging or other content strategy is “news,” you’ll get an audience that just wants the news…and nothing more from you.  Instead, what you want is for people to think of what you produce in terms like, “every time I’m done with his post I come away with an idea I want to try,” or “every time I read one of her posts I learn about a problem I didn’t know about, and can avoid before it becomes a problem for me.”  Your blog (or other content vehicle) should be a gym, and not a sample tray at the supermarket.  Do that by focusing on specific questions and concerns, rather than on what you think will get clicks.Show gratitude to your readers.  Never take them for granted, even if they never pay you a dime or help in a conspicuous way.  The best way to do that is not to waste their attention with info that isn’t useful.  The next-best way is to ask for their feedback whenever you can and along the way to thank them for reading.  You may have a rough idea of what their situation is today, but you never know what’s next.  Some readers may be squeaking by today but will become a big success tomorrow – possibly due in part to the info you share – and he or she will return the good karma when you least expect it.  Other readers may refer you to friends or family who become great and longtime clients.  Some readers will get hit by a bus tomorrow.  Most people will read your stuff and benefit from it quietly.  Your audience isn’t a blob; the people in it will change over time.  We’re all just passing through town.  The question is what you do in the interim.  Pay extra attention to people who read your stuff year after year.  Ask them questions from time to time, and get to know them on one level or another.

 

This is probably a good time to say, whether you’re a longtime reader or just tripped on a banana peel and landed here, thanks for reading!

I’d be interested to hear if you have an all-time favorite post, or a favorite recent one, and of course I’d love any suggestions or questions.  (As always, I hope you’ll leave a comment.)

I work with clients on all kinds of local-visibility-related challenges, but you would not believe how much time I spend on service pages: explaining, critiquing, troubleshooting, inventorying, creating, and refining them, and then doing it all over again.

By “service page” I mean any page that’s focused on a specific service you offer.  But everything I recommend here also applies to whatever you may offer: products you sell, medical treatments you perform, legal cases you handle, etc.

Service pages can help you in many ways, including in that they:

Turn more of your visitors into customers, no matter how good or bad your search engine visibility is.Can bring you most of the organic rankings you’ll get.Can pop you into the Google Maps results / local 3-pack.Can produce a “local one-box” result, for more-specialized search terms.Serve as landing pages for Google Ads, likely helping your conversion rate and Quality Score.Help you develop a better understanding of your customers’ problems and why they might want your solutions.

Service pages never get less important.  I spend about as much time on them for super-longtime clients as I do for newer clients.  They help businesses that are squeaking by and businesses that are breakin’ necks and cashin’ checks.  No matter where you are in the local SEO process, time you spend on service pages is time well-spent.

They’re also one of the most basic parts of local SEO (and non-local SEO).  Without them there’s usually not much on the site you CAN optimize, or much for would-be customers to see if they even make it to your site.  If you’re a business owner who can’t or won’t put in the time to get your service pages right, your local rankings will have a Denver boot on them until that changes.  If you’re a local SEO who doesn’t put much time into service pages, your clients are in trouble.  Service pages should be your fastball, your cover of “Yesterday,” your Hamlet.

On the one hand, if you won’t do crackerjack “service” pages, you might as well not bother with other types of pages and other aspects of local SEO (and marketing) that are much harder to do well.  On the other hand, in most cases you can get just about everything else wrong and still get at least some business if you can develop powerful service pages.

How do most competitors approach them?  As an afterthought, as something to try after gimmicks and hacks haven’t worked out, or not at all.  The relatively few businesses that produce strong service pages tend to do well in the search results and in terms of business.  That’s your opening.

 

So, how can you make service pages that haul some freight for you?  Below are the main principles I suggest you apply.  (I show examples where it makes sense, and I have a list of examples at the end.)

Principle 1: Start making service pages very early in your local SEO effort. Are they priority #1? Probably not, because you’ve probably got a few quicker wins at hand.  But right after taking care of the urgent stuff, start cranking out service pages.  It takes time to draft, build, optimize, and link to them.  It takes a while longer for Google to index your pages, and for them to start ranking for anything, for you to see what’s in the net and to make changes, and for those pages eventually to rank higher or for tougher terms (or both).  You’ll want to get a jump on it.

Principle 2: Figure out roughly how many service pages to aim for by sticking to a simple rule: if you want customers for it, create a page on it. There isn’t much to it beyond that, but I will throw in a few caveats:

You shouldn’t have multiple pages on exactly the same service; the services should be distinct.I don’t suggest creating city-service permutation pages.Even if you’ve got a page on each distinct service, you may have some opportunities to create good spin-off pages.

Principle 3: Don’t let your menu limit the number or types of pages you create. You don’t have to link all your pages in the main menu, and sometimes you may conclude it just doesn’t make sense to do so. That’s fine.  All that matters is you link to your service pages in multiple noticeable spots on the site.  On the other hand, if you’ve found the main menu has started to rip its pants but you want to keep adding pages to it, consider something like a mega menu.

Principle 4: Make it a page, not a post. If you also have a post about the service, fine. You can always consolidate later.  You can always make a complementary post later.  But at least get the page.

Principle 5: Know, produce, and use the types of content that are effective on service pages:

FAQs, especially from customers/clients/patients and from leads. If you have to pick just one type of service-page content to focus on, FAQs should probably be it.Reviews from people who got your service. If possible, link back to where the person wrote the review (like on Google Maps).Photos, especially before-and-after photos.Videos, preferably YouTube embeds, and preferably of you at work or speaking.Case studies or war stories (on specific projects, cases, procedures, etc.).Links to related pages on your site, particularly related service pages.“Steps in our process.” As you describe what goes into the sausage, you’ll probably use some of the other types of content (e.g. photos)Bio / profile info on specific people in your business who offer or specialize in that service.Synonyms and near-synonyms of the service. You may be able to rank for some o those, too, without too much sweating.

Here’s a great example.

Principle 6: Scavenge content from dud blog posts and low-performance pages and use it to better effect on your service pages. Do you have old service pages with 90% junk but 10% good info? Did you write some blog posts that not even the bug on your laptop screen read?  If they’ve got some content that describes your services pretty well, see what you can grab and use on a new services page or on an existing one.  If the old page or post had some decent rankings, traffics, or links, you’ll probably want to 301-redirect it to the current / new services page.

Principle 7: Avoid creating city-service permutation pages, as in a service page for each city where you offer. Occasionally there’s a good reason to have them, but in the final shootout they tend to disappoint.

Principle 8: Get the 1.0 version up quickly, but work on the page continually. You can and should develop and improve the page over the long haul, and you may want the 2.0 version to happen sooner rather than later. Always look for ways to show off recent work, address questions you get, and describe people’s problems and your solutions in more detail.

Principle 9: Make your target geography explicitly clear. Specify your exact service area, or the specific places where you get the most customers/clients/patients, or (if you’re a multi-location businesses) which locations offer the service. Good service pages don’t just describe what you do: They’re also about where you do it, where you’ve done it, or where people who have gotten it have come from.

Principle 10: Front-load your page: start off with brief description of what the service is and who needs it, then put a call-to-action (maybe even a contact form), then go into all kinds of detail on the service, and then put another call-to-action at the bottom. Most people flub their service pages in one of two ways: either they don’t describe the service at all and assume customers have enough info to take the next step, or they go into a PhD dissertation about the service before they tell customers what the next step is.

Principle 11: Go heavy on the internal links – both to your service pages and on your services pages. Don’t have just one trail of breadcrumbs to a service page. In general, I try to link to each high-priority service page on the homepage, in the main menu, in the footer, on the main “services” page, at the very least.  If possible, also link to them on your pages for related services , and on “bio” pages for specific people on your crew.  In general, how heavy you go on the internal linking should be proportionate to how important you consider this or that service.  Inbound links from relevant other sites to your service pages will be hard to come by, so it’s extra important to feed those pages the link juice from your other, perhaps more-linked-to pages.

Principle 12: Continually look for or create opportunities to add more internal links to any given service page. On other service pages, on relevant blog posts, etc. This is in addition to the initial batch of internal links you should have added right after you created the service page.  Over time the opportunities and the need to add more links to that service page will taper off, but you should always be on the prowl.  Especially once you more pages than fingers and toes, you’ll be surprised at how many good places there are to add relevant internal links.  By the way, I wouldn’t be too concerned about overdoing it.

 

Principle 13: Don’t burn yourself out by making niche pages way more detailed than they need to be. Or you won’t get all the pages you need or it’ll take you forever. The more niche or specialized the page is, the less detailed the page needs to be.  Also, the more niche the page is, the more likely it is to rank across a wider patch of geography.  Go extra long and detailed on services for which you have more or tougher competitors.  On more-specialized service pages, though, it probably won’t take as much effort to rank.

Principle 14: Create spin-off pages at every opportunity, and link to them on existing service pages at every opportunity.

Principle 15: Embed every half-decent video on your site. If you do nothing else with a video you put on your business’s YouTube channel, put it on at least one “service” page you care about. In my experience, the view count is a big factor in how visible a video is in YouTube and in turn in Google’s main search results.  Which creates a chicken-and-the-egg question: if your video doesn’t rank for anything, how do you rack up the views?  You do it by getting people who visit your site to watch videos relevant to the service(s) they’re interested in.  (Similar to the “seed audience” approach I suggest for your blog, if you blog.)  Also, if the video doesn’t suck, it can be persuasive and help you get more business out of however much (or little) visibility you’ve got.  This is the single highest-payoff thing you can do with your videos.  Don’t just keep them cloistered on YouTube.

Principle 16: Add a section your online/virtual offering, if applicable. See my 2020 post on the topic: Doable Examples of Online/Remote Services Offered by Local Businesses

Principle 17: Wheel out your best copywriting and other persuasive stuff. Like your homepage and contact page, a service page is a “money” page, where people can and often do decide whether to take the next step. In many cases it’s the first page visitors have seen, and you don’t want it to be the last you’ve seen of those visitors.  Your service pages can get customers in the chute even if the rest of your pages aren’t very persuasive yet, or if your USP still isn’t crispy enough.  That means now is the time to copy and paste reviews from customers who got that service, show relevant photos/videos, address every frequently asked question, say exactly who does NOT need your service, describe all the alternatives, and make it plain as day how your service differs from competitors’.  As my track coach used to say, “Leave it all on the track.”

Here’s one of my all-time favorites.

Principle 18: Add “refer a friend” offers, pro bono offers, and discounts for certain customers, if possible. It’s a small bit of relevant content, but more important is it’s a way to expand your customer base beyond the footprint of your current rankings. Even as your search engine visibility improves over time, you want to become less reliant on it.  Rustling up business is still the ultimate point of it all.  But even that feeds into your rankings, too, because each customer can also yield a review or testimonial, a case study, photos, a video, or even more – all of which can help your rankings.  At least in that odd respect, customers are your content.

Principle 19: Don’t be too concerned about duplicate content – either between different service pages or between service pages and other pages. If you avoid the misguided “city-service” page strategy, there’s not much risk of your making service pages that are too similar to each other. One page is about this service, and the other page is about that service.  There will be some overlap – some boilerplate – and that’s fine.  Google is used to seeing that, and I’ve never seen a “penalty” of any kind from Google.  Assuming you did an OK job on both of the pages (by following my other recommendations), the worst that happens is one page doesn’t rank so well and you need to take another chop at it.

Principle 20: Study your service pages early and often in Google Search Console. Look them up in “Performance” -> “Pages” and see what terms they rank for (and don’t rank for), how many impressions they get, how many clicks they get, what the months-long trend looks like, and which service pages are doing better than others. You’ll get a sense of whether you need to develop your page more, make it more enticing to click on in the search results, or blast more internal links to it.  Once you know how the page stacks up, the action items probably won’t take too much thinking.

Principle 21: Become a connoisseur of competitors’ and others’ service pages. Don’t just give them a sniff in the search results and move on. Go through the pages in search of good ideas you can adopt or adapt.

Principle 22: Don’t put all of your effort into service pages. I know that sounds strange, given how much I just talked about service pages. But those are only part of the rigging.  Your homepage, “areas served” page, maybe “city” pages, and other pages all can rank and convert, and require your effort.

Examples of local-business sites that use service pages effectively

Below are a few examples of sites with rock-solid service pages.  (I have more examples if you’d like them; just let me know what industry you’re looking for an example in.)

KapturePest.com

SpaciousMindCounselling.com

HoustonFaces.com

PHXInjuryLaw.com

PremoElectric.com

CentralMassAuctions.com

BestHandymanBoston.com

Hoyes.com

JohnThePlumber.ca

Relevant posts

Local Justifications Are a Big Deal and You Can Influence Them – Miriam Ellis

Title Tags for Local SEO: Increase Your Local Traffic and Click-Through Rate – Darren Shaw

How Does YouTube Count Views? We Break It Down – Kayla Carmichael

One-Time Work vs. Ongoing Work in Local SEO – me

Should You Make It a Page or a Post? – me

You Offer 10 Services and Serve 10 Cities, So You Create 100 City Pages? Why City-Page Proliferation Is Dumb – me

Spin-off Pages: a Bazooka for Your Local SEO – me

10 Bootstrap Ways to Grab More of Your Service Area in Local Search – me

How to Rank for “Near Me” Local Search Terms – me

Odd Relationships in Local Search – me

—

Any principles I forgot – SOPs that have worked well for your service pages?

Any examples of sites that are dialed-in on their service pages?

Leave a comment!

As I’ve observed and written for many years, your Google reviews are never completely safe – and never completely gone.  You can lose them in bulk or in a drip.  You can lose them because of Google’s filter, manual removal, a bug, or a reviewer’s change of heart.  You can also lose your Google reviews – all of them – in a puff of smoke when trying to move to a different Google account.

The specific scenario I’m thinking of is that you deleted a G Suite account or other Google account and thought your Google My Business page and reviews wouldn’t be affected, only to discover that both your GMB page and your pile of reviews are gone.

Oops.

If it makes you feel better, Google’s messaging often is unclear, such that routine steps sound scary and shooting yourself in the foot is easy.

That recently happened to a guy I sometimes do consulting with.  He wanted to move away from a G Suite account, in favor of a self-hosted email address used for Google properties.  Turned out that G Suite account was the only one he used to manage his Google My Business page.  In the process of deleting that G Suite account, his GMB page went poof – along with the 60 reviews he had earned over the last 7 years and the power that goes with them.  Gone without a trace.

He got in touch, told me what happened, I asked some questions, and we put together a plan.  A few days later, and without too much back-and-forth between me and him or him and Google, we got all 60 reviews back.

Now’s probably a good time to say that I do NOT want you to do the steps below if your GMB page is still up (as in accessible in Google Maps) and is missing only reviews.  If you didn’t accidentally nuke your page, but you’re shy some reviews, then something else is going on and the steps below are not the solution to your problem.

Below is what I suggest you do to recover your Google reviews if you lost your Google My Business page and its reviews because you pressed the wrong buttons.

1. Create and owner-verify a NEW Google My Business page, in whatever account you like.

Presumably it’s not the same one your page used to be in. For the love of Pete, at least make sure it’s an an account that you will keep around for the long haul and will want to use for years to come.  Use the same name, address, phone number, and landing page URL you had in the old GMB page.  The other details (e.g. description) don’t matter, but now is not the time to change the basic info you use on your page.

The reason you need a new page is simple: Google needs a place to transplant the reviews if and when they’re exhumed.  I’d guess a secondary reason is security: Google needs to know you’re the same person as the one who deleted the old page, and are still located where you say you are.  (That would make it harder for someone to hijack your GMB page.)  For that reason, I don’t suggest trying to get the old page back now, or back at all.  The goal is to get your reviews back, and that’s less likely to happen if you don’t have a GMB page and can’t or won’t create a new one.

2. Contact Google My Business support, and tell them the facts:

The name and location of both the vanished GMB page and of the new one (the one you just verified).What you were trying to do and what happened instead.How many reviews the old page had.The usernames / email addresses used for the old GMB page and for the new one (the one you want the reviews dug up and moved to).If possible, provide a link to the old Google My Business page. You may have that link handy if you sent a link to customers when asking them to review you.

3. Provide info the Google rep asks for, and follow up as needed.

It shouldn’t be a super-long process, but if all your reviews are gone it may seem like an eternity. You probably won’t need the patience of an oyster, but it’s good to have one anyway.  Whatever your opinions of Google as a company, the GMB support reps do try to help, and in general are helpful.

That’s it.  Of course, I can’t promise Google will do what you need, or do it soon.  But it’s your only move.  The main thing is to do step #1 quickly, rather than to flounder around in an attempt to get back your GMB page and the reviews in one motion.

 

I don’t like it any more than you do, mainly because I’m a bit of a purist, in that I don’t like solutions that involve relying on someone else’s discretion.  In any event, the above process worked in the situation I described, and should work for you if you’re in the same situation or a similar one.

Thanks to Lenny from Kammes Colorworks in Elburn, IL, for chronicling the whole shootin’ match.

Do you have – or have you had – a TARFU situation like that?  Leave a comment!

(By the way, though I haven’t seen anyone talk about this exact problem or solution, please tell me if you know of a blog post or other resource on the topic, so I can give the author his or her due credit.)

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.61seoservices.com/?p=238

You’ve been on many sites that have them.  Your stronger competitors probably have some.  You may even have a few on your site.  In any case, what I call “spin-off pages” aren’t a new thing, but SEOs and business owners tend not to think of them often or at all, and almost never do they treat spin-off pages as a major part of their on-page local SEO work.  That’s a tough break for them, but great news for you.

What is a spin-off page?  It’s a new page you create that’s all about a more-specific version of a service/product/treatment for which you’ve already got a page on your site.

In other words, you identify a page on your site about a service (or other offering) you consider a high priority, you think of ways to bust that page into smaller chunks, and you create a page on each chunk.  (And you keep the original, broader page, and maybe even build it out more.)

The pages will probably overlap somewhat, but they shouldn’t be clones of each other.  Either they’re on different variations of a service, or they’re on different brands, or they’re about commercial versions of residential services, or they’re about the same service for different kinds of customers/clients/patients.

Bring out your inner Bubba from Forrest Gump (not only an expert on shrimp, but also a formidable local SEO).

 

What are examples of spin-off pages?

Below are examples of spin-off pages I did for clients.  (In many of my other blog posts I wheel out examples by name, though I think in this post it’s more interesting at this level of detail.)

Pest control example: we created not just a page on bee extermination, but also a page on hornet control, wasp control, yellow jacket control, and carpenter bee control.

Plastic surgeon example: we created not just a page on rhinoplasty, but also a page on rhinoplasty for teenagers, a page on revision rhinoplasty, a page on “ethnic” rhinoplasty, and others.

Electrician example: we created not just a page on lighting installation, but also a page on dimmer installation, recessed lighting installation, chandelier installation, pool lighting, and others.

Divorce / family-law attorney example: we created not just a page on child-custody cases, but also a page on joint custody, sole custody, and modifications of custody.

Couples’ therapist example: we created not just a page on couples counseling, but also a page on marriage counseling, relationship counseling, and relationship counseling for individuals.

Plumber example: we created not just a page on toilet repair, but also a page on toilet replacement, toilet installation, valve repair, and “bathroom plumbing.”

Auctioneer example: we created not just a page on “historical memorabilia,” but also a page on WWII memorabilia, sports memorabilia, political memorabilia, rock-n’-roll memorabilia, historical photographs, and more.

Dentist example: we created a page on “no insurance dentist,” rather than another page designed to rank for the term “dentist.”  (Good at attracting out-of-pocket patients, by the way.)

And many more.  (Just let me know what kind of example you’re looking for, if your business isn’t anything like those I mentioned.)  You can do spin-off pages regardless of what you do for a living.

 

 

How do spin-off pages help you?

In at least one of three ways:

They can help you rank for more-specialized search terms. Some of those will be easier to rank for, often because you’ll have fewer local competitors on them, and you may even rank across a wider swath of geography. Also, in some cases those pages will be all you need to pop into the Google Maps 3-pack for certain terms, perhaps as the only search result in Maps.You’ll have more pages that may rank for the broader search terms you haven’t been able to rank for. They’re more lines in the water. Often the page you hope or expect to rank isn’t the page that does rank.  I’m a big fan of what I often call reverse-siloing.  (I touch on that approach here and here, for starters.)Conversion rate and persuasiveness: They’ll compel more searchers to conclude, “These people know my situation and exactly what I need, and it sounds like they have experience with it.” You’ll convert more people into new customers, clients, or patients.

How can you think of spin-off pages for your business?

I wish I had an easy-to-describe system – or any system at all.  It’s a totaly case-by-case thing.  Still, here are a few ways you can get some ideas into the hopper:

Check out competitors’ sites, and the sites of businesses in your same industry that are not in your area. Even if they’re doing the rest of their local SEO badly, sometimes they have great page ideas.Go through existing “services” pages on your site, look for bullet-point lists, and ask: “Can I make a page on each of these points?”Write down a one-sentence description of each job you’ve done in the past month (or year, or whatever duration). Think of how each job has differed, and do a page on that specific scenario, or twist on your service, or type of person, etc.Dig through the search terms report in Google Ads (if you run ads)Try my other keyword-research ideas.

That’s pretty much it.  You may have to do a little site surgery to get the spin-off pages into your main navigation (like with a mega menu) and to lay down internal links in strategic places, but you probably don’t need to think too much about your spin-off pages.  Partly that’s because you’re adding pages, rather than overhauling existing pages.  Don’t think too hard about this one.  Later on you can always refine the pages and how they’re incorporated into your site.

In the meantime, you can and should keep an eye on your new pages over the next few months, see what kind of data you see in Search Console (especially the number of impressions), and at the first signs of life do another one.

 

As with working on your homepage and on your title tags, working on spin-off pages is one of a small handful of on-page local SEO activities that can help your organic rankings, your Google Maps 3-pack rankings, and your ability to rustle up new business from the kinds of people you most want to work with. A strategic use of your time and effort.

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To what extent have you tried spin-off pages for your business?

Any examples of the strategy done very effectively – or badly?  (By the way, have you ever seen someone describe the same strategy in a different way.)

Do you want to use spin-off pages, but are stumped as to what kinds of spin-off pages you could make?

Leave a comment!

Even people who do a solid job of getting online reviews tend to make the process tougher than it needs to be, because they do the right steps in the wrong order.  That can mean unnecessary trial and error, frustration, wasted time, wasted money, and more bad reviews and fewer good reviews than you might have had otherwise.

Whether you’re the business owner, an employee, or a third party, you have a choice as to how you sequence your work.  Examples of good steps that can trip you up if you do them at the wrong time include offering customers a choice of multiple review sites, asking them to upload photos or go into detail, and using software or other tools to lighten your lift.  Good ideas?  Maybe, but the effectiveness depends on the timing.

What’s the least-bad order of steps?  Here are the stages that my clients have had the most success with, and so here is the basic 7-phase process I suggest you try if you want more and better reviews for your business:

1: Dissect what you’ve got

Where have people reviewed you so far? Is there a review site they seem to gravitate to?  How many of your reviewers (customers, clients, or patients) did you ask for a review, and how many wrote one spontaneously?  So far, who seems most inclined to write a review – the happy customers or the unhappy customers – or is it such a mixture of people that you just can’t tell?  Is there one service, product, treatment, or other offering of yours that seems to make people want to review you?  You get the idea.  Lots of ways of looking at what’s in the net.  You may want to spend 10 minutes scribbling down all your observations, big and small.

2: Shrink the goals and expand the efforts

It’s temporary, but whether you’re starting your push for reviews for the first time or this is Rocky II (or III or IV), the goal is the same: see what happens when you point everything you’ve got at getting your customers to complete the quickest, simplest review you can ask of them.

That means a few things.  One is that you designate a specific person to ask for reviews – preferably in-person and then with a follow-up email.  Another is that you put time into each email request, and tailor it to the person and to everything you know about his or her situation and what makes him or her tick.  Also, only ask for reviews on ONE site for now.  If it’s not Google Maps (which is usually what I suggest focusing on, at least at first), have it be Facebook or a site that’s big in your industry (where’s it’s usually easy to write reviews).  Send along instructions for how to write a review there, and a few days later send a friendly follow-up.

By the way, for a host of reasons I do not recommend you offer incentives for people to write reviews, but if you do insist on disregarding my advice, now’s the time to see what happens.  If nothing else, at least you’ll know that under certain circumstances some people will write you a review.

It’s OK if the reviews are terse at this stage.  Later on you can reviewers talking.

In general, now is the time to be as hands-on as you possibly can be, and to give people every single opportunity and reason to say yes.

3: Test big differences

It’s not yet time to fine-tune. Try something very different, even if what you’ve tried has worked out well so far.  Try having a different person ask for reviews.  Try sending people to different review sites.  Try a completely different email and subject line.  Try to follow up with a quick phone call / voicemail, instead of or in addition to the follow-up email.  Even try snail-mail.  Either you’ll discover something that works better than you expected, or you’ll find out what doesn’t work and that your original system was pretty solid after all.

4: Weave reviews into more of your marketing

Write friendly, thankful responses to them, for positive reinforcement (even if the reviews have developed a crust).

Send personalized thank-you notes/emails to people who reviewed you.

Stick certain reviews on your site.

Tell people on your site or in any ads (e.g. Google Ads) to check our your great reviews, 5-star reputation, etc.

Here you’ve got two basic goals: make sure just about everyone sees your reviews (at least the good ones!), and increase the likelihood that customers choose you because of your reviews, so that they’re predisposed to write you reviews later, when the time comes.

5: Expand your goals

If you’ve had some success in getting people to write reviews – even if those reviews are brief and only on one site – now’s the time find the edges. Get a little greedy.  Ask people who already reviewed you on one site (e.g. Google Maps) to review you somewhere else, too.  (They can just copy and paste their review.)  Ask reviewers to upload photos, if possible and appropriate.  Ask reviewers to go into detail – the more, the better.  If you’ve got repeat customers who reviewed you early on in your relationship, ask them to update their reviews to reflect everything you’ve helped them with since the 1.0 version.  Consider doing what little you can to scare up Yelp reviews.

This is when you want to find out what customers are willing to do and what’s a bridge too far.

6: Consider introducing some automation

This may have been your very first thought, and the first step you wanted to take: “I don’t have time to ask for reviews, so can’t I just use a reputation-management tool?”  Yes, now you can try.  Now that you’ve got a system that works at least OK, it’s fine to see if you can make it easier with software and still have it work at least OK.

But if you tried software right out of the chute, without knowing what works and what doesn’t, it’s likely that all you would have done is scale an ineffective system or automate failure.  And you’d have burned through your list of customers in the process.  Make it effective, then try to make it easy.  (If you’re at this stage, consider Whitespark’s Reputation Builder.)

7: Keep experimenting

It’s still worth repeating step #3 (the “test big differences” step) from time to time, but now is also a time to fine-tune your requests, try spacing out your requests differently, etc. To some extent you have no choice but to tweak, because the ecosystem of review sites change over time, the review sites themselves change over time, you get new customers, maybe you enter new markets, and you get curious (or inspired or greedy).  You’ll always need to stress-test your process.

 

In any event, you’ll never have it down pat, and you’ll never be 100% satisfied, and there will always be room to improve (which is either pretty frustrating or exciting, depending on your outlook). Word of the day: kaizen.

 

Relevant posts

How Should You Ask for Online Reviews? The Pros and Cons of Each Approach

The Ridiculous Hidden Power of Local Reviews: Umpteen Ways to Use Them to Get More Business

60+ Questions to Troubleshoot and Fix Your Local Reviews Strategy

Why Your Review-Encouragement Software Is a Meat Grinder

25 Hard Truths of Google Reviews

Is There Anything You Can DO to Get Yelp Reviews These Days – without a Public Shaming?

16 Reasons to Get Reviews on a Diversity of Sites

Why Send Good Customers to Crappy Review Sites?

The Perfect Stack of Online Reviews: How Does Your Local Business Measure up?

Who Should Ask for Reviews: Business Owner or Employee?

 

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What’s been your process?  How well has it worked?

Any tips for any of the steps, or any phases you’d add to those 7 phases?

Leave a comment!

Business owners, SEOs, and others refer to good local search rankings as high and bad rankings as low, but they don’t look at whether their rankings are thick or thin.  If you just turn your head to the side 90 degrees, you’ll see weaknesses and opportunities you probably missed before.  You’ll see ways to thicken up your local visibility, and that will be glorious for business.

What’s a “thin” ranking?  The short answer is it’s the same problem as when a baseball team doesn’t have a “deep bench,” and loses a game every time something goes even a little wrong.  You want visibility / rankings that can withstand a lot going wrong, because if you’re in business for long enough and if you depend on Google visibility enough, that’s exactly what will happen.

The longer answer is your business probably has thin rankings any time one or more of these describes your situation:

1. Only one page on your site ranks for anything, and the rest of your pages limp along.  In this case, the least-bad situation is if your homepage hauls in most of your rankings – as it often the case – because it’s most likely to rank for a range of terms.  But if a subpage brings you most of your rankings and/or traffic?  That’s thinner ice.

2. Only one location ranks well, if your business is multi-location.  There’s no reason to expect them all to perform the same, and some cities or towns or neighborhoods are easier than others.  But if there aren’t big differences in your local SEO strategy from one location to the next, then the one location that’s chugging along may be this close to squeaking along the way your other locations do.

3. You’re eligible for “practitioner” pages or “department” pages, but your Google My Business page for one of them or for the main office is the only one that ranks on the map.  Let’s say you’ve got a single-location dental practice with 3 dentists.  Each dentist is eligible for his or her own GMB page, and the practice can have one.  Would you believe that’s a total of 4 – 4! – GMB pages that might rank for this or that?

4. You rank only in Google Maps / the local pack, and not in the organic results.  In my experience, the Maps / 3-pack rankings are more volatile than the organic results are.  Keep in mind that many organic results are location-specific, and have been for many years.  (So I’m not saying you need to rank in the organic results across the country or in other countries.)

5. You rank only in the (localized) organic results, and not in Google Maps / the local pack.  Of course, the map is pretty visible, and you want to be there, preferably with some organic rankings, too.  By the way, as you may noticed, your organic SEO (i.e. on-page content / optimization and links) is a huge factor in how you do on the map.

6. You rank only for terms that are identical, similar to, or part of your business name.  Unless you perform only one service or sell only one widget, then you are the panda bear of the local search results – always one bad meal or extra-slow mating season away from extinction.  Especially if that “business name” is not your real business name at all, but rather a keyword-rich one that’s designed just to help your Google My Business page rank, then you’re vulnerable to a competitor’s editing out the keyword or term.  You’ll probably continue to rank for that term, even if it’s no longer part of your name, but in time you’ll probably drop.

7. You rank only for geographically explicit search terms, where the city name or other place name is in the query.  Most searchers won’t actually specify where they want to see results, because they know that Google knows where they’re located and will show nearby results by default.  Use Google’s Anonymous Ad Preview Tool to see how you hold up in various places for the same search term

8. You rank only for geographically broad search terms, which consist of a service or product (and maybe other modifiers, like “near me”) and no place name.  If these are your only rankings, your rankings are too location-sensitive, in that Google’s showing you in the search results mainly because the searcher is close to you and vice versa.  In that case, you need to grow the tentacles a little.

9. You rank only for local one-box terms.  In this case, either you’re gunning for terms that have very few competitors (smart), or Google has assumed that people who type in those terms are searching for a specific company when in fact they’re searching only for a specific thing and don’t care who offers it.

10. You rank only in a small geographical area or in one city.  This problem requires none of my color commentary.

11. A page – or a blog post – on your site that ranks well only ranks well for one solid search term or for a closely related family of search terms. In other words, your best-performing pages are one-hit wonders or maybe two-hit wonders.

12. Your only rankings of any kind are in Google.  Good thing not too many people begin their searches in Apple Maps, Yelp, Bing, and the thousand various directory sites, because you’re not even a chalk outline there.

You get the idea.  On one level, the problem is obvious: too many of your eggs are in too few baskets.  But the real problem is that having “thin” rankings means it’s very easy for you to drop off, or to get knocked off.  If you have some good rankings but you don’t have many rankings, you’re probably one algorithm update or one tough competitor or one determined spammer from uniformly bad rankings.  One way to read my quick-n’-dirty list is as an actuarial table that tells you the likelihood of a disastrous drop-off in Google.

There’s a psychological component to the problem, too.  If you rank well only for a few terms, especially if they’re high-priority search terms, you probably won’t want to change much or anything, because you probably don’t want to touch anything that messes up the gentle balance.  More likely than not, you just don’t want to bungle things.

It’s great if you have solid rankings for the terms you care most about.  That’s the 80/20 rule, and I’m a big fan of it.  But the point is you can probably bump yourself up for even more high-payoff local search terms, and you can hedge with some that are less competitive but still profitable.

How do I suggest you thicken up your thin rankings?  By working on these items, for starters:

Crank out service pages.  Both for major services/products and for for more-niche offerings.  These will help you expand not only your organic rankings, but also the range of terms you rank for on the map.Make spin-off pages whenever you can.  Be sure to add plenty of internal links to those pages.  Along the way, you may get yourself a few one-box results.Work your homepage more – way more.  Don’t just focus on one service, product, or city.Consider changing your GMB landing page URL(s).  If you’ve got a multi-location business and some locations are getting beat up on the Google map, point their landing page URLs to the homepage rather than to a “location” page.Use”practitioner” or “department” Google My Business pages (if applicable) to the fullest.  Pick a different GMB category for each (if possible), optimize each person’s or department’s page on your website for different specialties / search terms, and use that page as your landing page URL on the corresponding GMB page.  In other words, “divide and conquer.”Use Google Search Console to study which pages rank and for what specific terms.  In particular, look for pages that get lots of impressions or clicks for terms you care about, and add content to those pages that’s relevant to other terms – possibly similar terms – that you also care about.  Clearly, Google already digs the page in some ways, and possibly will dig it even more after you put in some additional work.Encourage reviewers to go into detail in their reviews, particularly in Google Maps reviews.  The hope is that they mention specific services or products, or certain qualities of them.

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How “thick” are your rankings?

What have you done that’s helped, and what have you tried that hasn’t worked?

Any first-hand experience with being too reliant on a few terms, and then dropping off for those terms?

Leave a comment!

30-second summary:

As the world starts to return to normalcy, the gaming and live streaming industry need SEO, social networking, and online marketing for continued growthI spoke with industry influencers Alinity, Matt Rehwoldt, and eUnited’s General Manager and VP, Matt Potthoff on the industry’s current scenario, the obstacle course for amplified audience engagement, and the budding need for innovation

Over the past five years, the boom of the live-streaming, esports, and gaming industries has been stealing headlines not only in the tech industry but also in mainstream media.

That boom only increased its radius during the pandemic, which saw astronomical highs in terms of viewership numbers for the Amazon-owned Twitch streaming platform, Google’s YouTube, and even Facebook Gaming, who jumped more aggressively into the marketplace with the acquisition of Microsoft’s Mixer platform during the summer of 2020.

Since then, much of the world has started getting back to more normalcy, which means that studios are back to work on big project games, esports teams are heading back to regular competitions, and the streaming landscape continues its evolution.

Despite the boom, the industry lacks some key ingredients

But despite the impressive numbers, the industry as a whole still lacks some key ingredients that can not only take the industry to the next level, but also improve the business landscape of content creators as well.

More often than not, the industry is splintered off into a number of sectors that, aside from annual conventions and events, don’t often regularly network efficiently.

Compounding the limitations of networking efficiency is the void in marketing practices such as search engine optimization (SEO) and traditional internet marketing that content creators and brands are leaving on the table.

Some of the core complaints among streamers and content creators, among others, is – the lack of discoverability provided by their platforms, and how their growth seems bottlenecked and capped due to the lack of visibility.

Furthermore, content creators and brands often find themselves in the cycle of social media posting, which can lean heavily into monotony and automation – two major factors that drive down engagement.

Sure, you can blame the platforms themselves and you would be partially right. Social media platforms are a wide net of interests and demos, so posts may not hit at high percentages consistently. Streaming platforms seem to be staying the course, which is smart business as it has proven to be profitable, even during the most challenging economic crisis in nearly a century.

That leaves content creators, esports teams, game studios, and the industry as a whole, at a crossroads. Where innovation has seemed to bypass the needs for more connected networking and growth potential, many are forced to double down on the work despite the lack of return just to stay afloat.

Natalia Mogollon, better known as Alinity, is one of the most popular streamers on the Twitch platform, boasting over one million followers to her channel and had leveraged the platform to build one of the more recognizable brands in the streaming industry.

Streaming and content creators

To get an objective perspective on the matter, I caught up with gaming content creator, Alinity and Matt Rehwoldt, former WWE wrestler and content creator.

“In regards to networking with other creators, I feel like most creators currently use Twitter for that”

“The problem is that I don’t know which creators are genuinely interested in networking and which just want interactions in order to increase their following. It’s probably 50-50.

“But again, I think the market for small to medium size creators is huge. People that are starting to grow and want to meet other creators”

And it’s the market that remains largely untapped or maximized.

Outside of the most famous streamers in the world, many streamers may be stuck under a ceiling or bottlenecked when it comes to growth, and that is where the streaming side of the industry needs to evolve.

A few years ago, professional wrestler and content creator Matt Rehwoldt was involved in the WrestleMania 34 United States Championship match between Randy Orton, Bobby Roode, Jinder Mahalm, and Rusev, performing in front of over 78,000 people in New Orleans, Lousiana.

And while Rehwoldt is back in the industry with promotions such as New Japan Pro Wrestling and rumored to be heading to Impact Wrestling, the ‘Drama King’ has carved out a home for his brand on both Twitch and YouTube.

Despite his name recognition and work on some of the biggest wrestling stages in the industry, the limitations that platforms present can still negatively impact his content.

“The biggest challenge facing content creators is always discoverability,”

“Twitch struggles with this the most and it’s been said to death by any “How To Grow On Twitch” video you see on YouTube – which is the very point. You need to bring people to Twitch from other sources as their search and discoverability is extremely limited.”

“Here I’ll refer your readers to Alpha Gaming’s Harris Heller. He makes some great points about Twitch’s weaknesses with the most glaring being its searchability.

The inclusion of things like highlights or clips is very cool, but why can’t I search “Crazy FRAG” and find a whole list of clips around those search terms? Then through watching things like that I find new creators.  So there needs to be more searchable content on Twitch where you don’t have to just go to the search bar and type the exact name of the stream you’re looking for.”

“Browsability is key,” he said.

But Rehwoldt also points out that YouTube may present better discoverability but also has its own setbacks.

“YouTube is better but there you’re competing in an even larger ecosystem against clickbait warriors and what feels like the whole world”

he points out.

Rehwoldt goes on to point out how SEO is not only impactful but a valuable resource to learn and utilize.

“That said, if you can take the time to teach yourself a little SEO and how to use titles and keywords properly, it’ll help you a lot. It’s something I still struggle with and am learning too.”

But like many streamers, Rehwoldt has been frustrated with the issues that hold back his content. He stresses the importance of understanding that it all comes down to patience and hard work.

“I’m still learning,”

Rehwoldt says.

“My channels are growing but not nearly as fast as I’d like them to.  So for me, it’s more about keeping my mind right. Do good work that I love and the growth seems to come. Not letting myself get discouraged because some video or stream didn’t “pop off” is key too.”

“Everyone points to people like Ludwig or other creators who blew up seemingly overnight and then get frustrated when they feel like they make similar quality content and the same doesn’t happen to them.”

Well there are two things to consider here: First, that often those creators didn’t blow up from “nowhere” and they’ve been working hard either behind the scenes or prior to launching their content and got seen by the right people at the right time. A classic case of preparation meets opportunity.

Secondly, life is also full of incredible exceptions.

People who explode into stardom because they went viral etc.  But never ever try to compare yourself to the exception. I’ve known and spoken to so many creators, those who make a living at it, and it takes years of trying and putting out content that you later look back on and shake your head. Trial and error everyone. Have patience with your work and yourself.”

Esports

While SEO is not prominent in sectors such as streaming, and the collective industry as a whole, it has trickled in with regards to the Esports industry.

Matt Potthoff is the general manager and Vice President of eUnited, and a former professional esports player who has won championships as a player, coach, and general manager.

“eUnited has blossomed into a staple esports organization in North America since its inception in 2016”,  Potthoff said.

“We have competed across many titles and have accumulated over $3 million dollars in prize winnings.

eUnited’s most notable championships are winning the 2018 Smite World Championship and the 2019 Call of Duty World Championship. We pride ourselves on growing amateur talent into championship contender players over numerous gaming communities.”

Part of their growth has been the incorporation of SEO and internet marketing through leveraging social media.

“eUnited does use elements such as SEO to increase visibility when selling merchandise or showcasing new sponsors. Additionally, we help players revise their stream titles and descriptions for better chances of obtaining new viewership when users are searching for different topics on Twitch”

Potthoff points out that the integration of internet marketing, SEO, and targeted social networking can provide results and those results can impact profitability.

“eUnited leverages streaming platforms to grow their players’ brands and sell ads to sponsors by utilizing their player’s streaming audience. Most sponsorship activations in esports that aren’t held in person are done over streaming platforms like Twitch”

Innovation and moving forward with solutions

Regardless of the sector of industry, it seems the problems remain the same, and some success can be rooted in the implementation of SEO and optimized networking.

But how does the industry innovate to address this?How do content creators address the areas of need?How do we implement better networking and more meaningful connectivity between these different sectors?

Many brands and content creators face hurdles with finding these solutions. They may not have the budget to consistently contract a quality Internet Marketing & SEO agency, and the SEO agency market certainly doesn’t hone in on these offerings.

So, what is the solution?

I considered all of this when I initially launched Gamactica in October 2018. I asked myself these same questions, and I saw the very issues pointed out in this article when I started streaming.

This is why the foundation of what we have been building with Gamactica is rooted in SEO, internet marketing, and intuitive social networking for the industry. Award-winning internet marketing company Elite Rank Media is the backbone of the internet marketing initiatives and processes. Since 2009, the company has been providing marketing services to brands around the world and has been recognized for its work in both Medical SEO and localized Miami SEO marketing, among others.

An industry where content creators, streamers, gamers, esports teams, esports players, game studios and developers, and cosplayers are spread out so distantly on the social space is one that needs the innovation of improved connectivity.

Our purpose is to provide a professional social network to streamline social networking, bring these sectors together more efficiently, and provides the tools and resources that empower these brands and content creators to reach new levels.

And these are the innovations that can help push through the ceilings, break through the bottlenecks, and clear the hurdles that everyone seems to face, regardless of the industry sector.

Gamactica is implementing those innovations.

“I think the idea is very interesting,”

Alinity says of Gamactica.

“Most current social media platforms focus on relationships with our followings, but a new focus towards networking is innovative. It almost makes me think of LinkedIn.

“I feel like it has a lot of potential for connecting brands and creators, I think there is a big need in that regard. It seems like some streamers are really well connected and get lots of sponsorships, whereas the new creators have no idea how to get these. I think there is a big untapped market within the creators with about 100-500 concurrents (viewers)”

she adds.

“They have more tight communities and often get overlooked but I think there is a huge potential for brand deals with high return on investment for brands, as they tend to be more connected with their viewers. This connection becomes difficult once you get over 1000 concurrent viewers”

she continued.

Alinity points out the vitality of the current market size, the need for better networking, and industry innovation.

“I think the market for small to medium size creators is huge. People that are starting to grow and want to meet other creators. I think the large “whale” streamers would be a good influence for smaller ones to join.”

During the journey of Gamactica, it has been key to stand out as a unique platform, and showcasing how it stands alone is vital to the continued growth.

“I love the idea of something like Gamatica”,

Rehwoldt said.

“But I will be blunt – I’ve seen many trying to compete in this niche space as well. I myself have been approached by several ‘gamer social media’ sites where you open an account, you can link all your streams, socials etc, and it involves you in a like-minded community with the idea that you can all discover each other.

“The key here will be offering something to truly stand apart! Think outside the box!”

And that outside the box thinking is structured in Gamactica’s platform, community, and directories. Streamlining popular social networking features and intuitively interweaving them with the marketing and branding impact that is needed on a larger scale.

“I do think a platform that offers a solution to increase visibility for players is needed,”

Potthoff said.

“My only problem is that a majority of the users are on platforms such as Discord, Twitch, and YouTube.”

“I feel anyone can be discovered in gaming,”

he added.

“It just takes the right moment and presence to take advantage of a situation. If another platform is increasing the odds for a player or company to be discovered, they should definitely sign up and take advantage of it.”

Pushing the needed innovations is at the core of Gamactica’s journey, and implementing the proper concepts while listening to the industry, as a whole, will shape its continued growth.

Not only is the focus on connectivity and marketing, but also helping structure the platform to help combat the harassment and toxicity issues that plague the industry, and also help empower female creators and brands that are operating in a male-dominated sector.

The future requires innovation to achieve growth and continued success, and that journey is what Gamactica is dedicated to continuing.

Stay tuned for more articles in this series.

Anthony DiMoro is CEO of Gamactica. He can be found on Twitter @AnthonyDiMoro.

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The post The future of gaming and streaming: a networking and SEO arsenal appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

30-second summary:

Your SEO proposal plays an instrumental role not just for your agency but also for your client’s businessForecasting needs to be a star element of your customer acquisition process – but how do you navigate these tricky waters?SEOmonitor dissects the entire thought process and action plan for youHere’s how to ensure realistic, practical, achievable, and mutually agreed milestones and budgets are set with your clients

Clients often ask for a forecast to estimate their ROI with this type of marketing investment. Agencies are caught between building a realistic business case and explaining that they’re all scenarios, not promises. Think about it like this – you both need to know where you’re going, or you won’t have a clue when you’re there. But it’s all about how you set expectations from the start. This is where your SEO proposal plays an instrumental role in customer acquisition and experience.

Let’s imagine the following scenario: a Client Service Director argues about the benefits of presenting a business case to a new lead to make the sell.

Yet, the agency’s CEO wants to make sure the initial internal evaluation is on point. After all, it makes sense to calibrate your model first and then show the opportunity.

With the right forecasting methodology in place, you can do both and prove your SEO services’ business value.

The big question is how to go about it.

Content created in partnership with SEOmonitor.

What does SEO success mean for your client’s business?

To invest in SEO, a client needs to understand how that strategy translates into sessions, conversions, and ultimately revenue. So, as an agency, you need to connect the business metrics with the non-brand organic traffic and keyword ranks – the data that you directly impact.

Keywords are influenced by many variables that you need to consider when designing a trustworthy methodology to create realistic SEO scenarios.

And even before that, the way you do your keyword research influences those scenarios:

What is the client’s industry trend like?What is their business trend? Are they in a growth phase, or are they plateauing?What is their market share in terms of organic real-estate (their visibility compared to their competitors)?

Understanding the opportunity for growth

The competitors’ keywords gap analysis

It’s common sense, but it can sometimes escape the client’s focus – showing them who their real online competitors are in terms of queries and search intent.

A perfume shop, for example, will be in tight competition with big retailers such as Amazon more than competing perfume shops, deciding to offer online services.

Exploring the client’s domain in connection with the competitor landscape will give you an overview of the overlapping and non-overlapping keywords, together with their key attributes (search volumes, seasonality, etc.). This is one significant way to understand which keywords are worth introducing into your SEO proposal and ulterior strategy so as not to get sidetracked by misleading keywords.

Continuing our perfume shop example, although the client might want to focus on a specific set of keywords, you’ll be able to make a compelling, data-based argument on why it’s important to improve non-overlapping keywords.

Let’s say you found out that a competitor to our perfume shop had dedicated pages for aroma-based perfumes, with listings that target “vetiver” or “white musk”. Replicating this won’t involve changing the client’s product line and will add new valuable keywords to the mix.

The client’s market share

Another way to evaluate the client’s business status quo is by using the Visibility metric as a market share indicator. Calculated as an impression share and weighted against search volumes, it shows you the growth potential compared to the client’s competitors and the total shares.

As it’s expressed as a percentage, you’ll know where to focus your attention.

For instance, if it’s a competitive market, and the main competitor has a Visibility of 70 percent, then improving the rankings for high-volume keywords in the top-three group will be a game-changer. You’ll also know which keywords to select for a winning SEO strategy.

Transparent calculations for a realistic timeframe

After thoroughly researching and selecting the targeted keywords at hand, modeling how the non-brand organic traffic might look if a particular performance is achieved in a timeframe of six or 12 months will help your agency set the right expectations.

To do so, you need to look at all the variables impacting your keyword list:

Search seasonality and the keywords’ year-over-year trendHow the inertial traffic influenced by seasonality only looks (as if the website’s rankings would stand still)The performance in time toward the SEO goal, calculated as linear or exponentialThe average CTR curve calculated for the top 10 positions for each mix of SERP features and device segmentation, showing you the actual clicks that manage to reach your clientThe long-tail keywords and their impact on forecasted traffic

With this model in mind, you get to estimate sessions and conversions instead of ranks. For instance, in SEOmonitor’s forecasting module, the estimation of the additional conversions is based on the estimated additional visits multiplied by the corresponding conversion rate of each keyword included in the calculation. You can verify each input and output at an individual keyword level and see what makes a realistic or too far-fetched scenario.

Thus, you transform the loaded notion of forecasting into a more tangible idea – various additional traffic scenarios which translate into possible business results, moving the conversation towards marketing added value.

To make a case for a certain scenario, you can highlight what their traffic would look like with and without the proposed SEO campaign, being transparent about what went into your calculations and what assumptions you’ve made.

Letting the client understand the overall opportunity and what’s in it for their business will help you set a common ground for success.

Is it the right budget for the client’s business now?

When your agency builds a business case, another important thing is to evaluate the direct connection between SEO performance and results, correlated to an objective benchmark that both, you and the client can easily gauge.

Compare the SEO budget and forecasted results to its equivalent in Google Ads, and you’ll have an external comparison showing the worth that SEO brings. For instance, if the estimated Google Ads Value for your realistic scenario is $55,000 for 12 months, then a $500 to $700 retainer seems more plausible than a $1,500 one.

In contrast, if the estimated Google Ads Value reaches $250,000+ for the same 12 months timeframe, it’s clear that we’re talking about international SEO on a highly competitive market and a $5,000 to $7,000 retainer at least.

Instead of guesstimations and the painful back and forth of establishing a budget benchmark, you’ll now have an overview of where the business is and how you can contribute in terms of revenue. So these calculations can help you set the right price for that client profile.

Even if you choose not to put that forecasting scenario in your proposal and instead negotiate KPIs after the SEO technical improvements are in place (the third or fourth month of collaboration), you’ll have an important internal calibration tool at your disposal.

The forecasting exercise helps assess if the new client’s objective is worth it and keeps your agency accountable for the SEO strategy you propose.

Is the campaign going in the right direction?

An initial business case with variable scenarios helps the agency define success for the new client. Then, it’s just as important to track the SEO campaign’s progress once it’s in place. After all, forecasting is just a way to estimate a possible future and set “a north star” for both of you. The rest depends on how the strategy evolves against the shifting context.

Here’s where re-forecasting plays a significant part.

Perhaps the agency decides to share KPIs for the first time in the third or fourth month of collaboration after implementing the audit requirements. Or it’s time for the quarterly review, and the initial SEO strategy and subsequent forecasting are scrutinized. Either way, it’s crucial to revise and adapt.

Maybe there are new keyword lists to add and model into a traffic scenario or a digital PR opportunity to add to the overall plan. Maybe the client has additional products or services that they want to optimize that weren’t included in the starting plan.

For instance, coming back to our perfume shop and its pandemic challenges, it’s important to touch base regularly to see what new opportunities are in store. They might be looking to branch out in the home fragrance industry but don’t know how much demand is in their target market. As their SEO agency, you can re-pitch an SEO campaign based on search data for “home perfumes” and design a creative digital PR campaign with that hook.

This step of the client relationship-building process is an added advantage in proving how you’ve created business value and what more you can do.

Summary

Effectively communicating your proposed SEO campaign’s value is crucial for potential clients to decide if – 

the price is right, the timeframe is right, the ROI is worth it.

It’s also a way to keep your agency honest and accountable.

A trustworthy forecasting methodology helps with all of the above, as you get to:

Establish a common definition of what success looks like – rankings achieved for relevant keywords, Visibility achieved against competitors, and other established factors which directly translates to additional traffic, conversions, revenueEstablish a realistic budget based on the client profile and its Google Ads equivalent valueKeep track of the SEO objective and re-forecast when it’s the case to adjust the strategy

SEOmonitor’s forecasting module supports SEO agencies to do all that with reliable data and all the necessary variables, taking into account seasonality, YoY trends, and more.

Plus, with the Google Slides integration, you get a Proposal Builder that automatically pulls the forecast data and transforms your business scenario into a pitch-ready presentation.

The forecasting module is just one of the solutions SEOmonitor develops for agencies to acquire, manage, and retain more relevant customers.

Join us in our quest to bring more transparency to the SEO industry!

The post How to show the business value of your SEO proposal appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

30-second summary:

Search engines are laser-focused on improving user experience and voice search plays an increasingly key roleWith 100+ global languages, people are prone to searching in their native languageHow do you optimize your website for multilingual search while keeping a natural and conversational tone?Atul Jindal accurately guides you through the process

Google is now recognizing119 different languages on voice search. Which is great for user experience. But it makes ranking a bit more challenging for website owners, especially those who host multi-linguistic traffic. Website owners must act to cater to these people who are taking a different linguistic approach to search. That’s where multilingual SEO comes in, done with voice search in mind.

But before we begin digging deeper into multilingual SEO for voice search, let us first introduce the search of the future aka multilingual voice search.

What is Multilingual Voice Search?

With the evolution of technology, search engines like Google, Bing, Yandex, and others work towards enhancing their user experience and making the search easier than ever.

Keeping up with these efforts, they now let people talk to them in their own language, understand it and yield the results they were searching for.

Moreover, more than 23 percent of American households use digital assistants, and nearly 27 percent of people conduct voice searches using smartphones. This number is expected to increase by more than nine percent in 2021 alone.

This means, more and more people will converse with Google in languages other than English. Like, a German native is likely to search for something by talking in German. A native Indian could use any of the 100+ languages spoken in India, and a US national may use English, Spanish, or some other language.

This increase in the popularity of voice assistants, multilingual voice search inadvertently leads to an increase in the demand for multilingual SEO for voice search.

But do you need to optimize your website for multilingual searches? Yes. How else will your website reach your target audience that searches in their native language?

Combining Multilingual SEO with voice search

So far, there are guides only for either multilingual SEO or for voice search. However, gauging the rising importance of this relatively new search, we present you with a guide that combines voice search and multilingual SEO.

What is Multilingual SEO?

Multilingual SEO is a practice that adapts your website to cater to your target audience that uses multi-linguistic search. It involves translating the web page, using the right keywords, and optimizing the web page accordingly. We will go into the details below.

Notice how Google yields Hindi results for a search conducted in Urdu/Hindi. That’s because these results were optimized for multilingual voice searches.

Voice search: The search of the future

Voice searches are hugely different from regular typing searches. When typing, you want to do minimum physical effort, that is typing, and get results. Anyway, when speaking, you are not doing any physical effort and just talking. Therefore, voice searches tend to be longer and have a more conversational style and tone.

Let’s take an example

A person looking for a Chinese restaurant will go about it in two different ways when using voice search and regular search.

When typing, this person will type something like “best Chinese restaurant near me.”

On the other hand, when using voice search, he or she will simply say “Hey Google, tell me about the best Chinese restaurants I can go to right now.”

Do you see the difference? To optimize for voice assistants, you have to adapt to this difference when doing SEO.

Adding the multilingual touch to this and you’ll have a multilingual voice search.

From the example above, I searched for the weather in my city.

If I were typing, I simply would’ve typed “[my city name] weather.”

However, when using voice, I used a complete phrase in my native language, and google yielded results in that language. These results showed that they were optimized for multilingual voice searches.

How to Do Multilingual SEO for Voice Searches?

Now, if you want to cater to a global audience and expand your reach. And you want your website to rank when your target audience searches for something you offer, in their own language, you need multilingual SEO.

Below we are discussing some steps to optimizing your website for multilingual searches:

Keyword Research

No SEO strategy can ever start without keyword research. Therefore, before you begin doing multilingual SEO for your website, you need to perform proper keyword research

When translating your website, you can’t just translate the keywords or phrases. Because a keyword that has high search volume in one language may not be that viable when translated in another language.

Let’s look at a case study from Ahrefs to understand this point.

Ahrefs looked at the search volume for the key phrase “last minute holidays.” They found out it received 117k searches from the UK in a month.

However, the same phrase translated into French “ Vacances dernière minute.” Had a total search volume of 8.4k.

The findings from this case study go to show the importance of independent keyword research for multilingual SEO. Because simply translating the keywords won’t yield good results.

So, what you can do is pick up the phrases from your original website, which we assume is in English and is optimized for voice search. Translate them. Brainstorm additional relevant keywords and plug them into any of the keyword research tools to see their search volume and competition.

Additionally, keywords for voice searches are different from regular keywords as you need to take an intuitive approach by getting to your target audience’s mind to see what they think and speak when searching. And how they do it. Then use these phrases to go ahead with your keyword search and make a list based on high search volume and low competition.

Translation

Once you have a list of keywords you want to optimize, the next step is to translate the content that’s already there on your website and optimize it with the keywords.

When translating a website, the best approach is to hire a human translator who is a native speaker of the target language.

You may be tempted to use Google Translate or some other automatic translation tools. But even though Google endorses its translators, it leaves a subtle recommendation on using human translators. Because robots are yet to come as far as competing and beating humans. At least when it comes to translations.

Additionally, make sure the translator aligns the content with the tone of your original website.  

Hreflang Annotation

Here comes the technical part. Did you really think you can get by multilingual SEO without getting involved in the technicalities?

Hreflang annotation is critical for websites that have different versions in different languages for various searches.

It enables Google to identify which web page to show to which visitor. For example, you don’t want your English visitors to land on the French version of your page. Using Hreflang will enable you to receive English visitors on the English page, and French-speaking people on the page in French.

Another important attribute that will go in your website’s code when doing multilingual SEO is the alternate attribute. It tells the search engine that a translated page is a different version, in an alternate language, of a pre-existing page and not a duplicate. Because Google cracks down on duplicate pages and can penalize your website if you haven’t used the alternate tag.

URL structure

You can’t discuss multilingual SEO, without talking about URL structure.

When doing multilingual SEO, you are often saving different versions of your website under the same domain. This means, you have to create a URL structure for each version, so the search engine can take the visitor to the right page.

When it comes to URLs for multilingual websites, you have many options, and each option has its pros and cons. You can check out how Google lists these pros and cons in the image below.

Source: Google Search Central

Confused about which URL structure to use?

You can choose any option as per your preferences. According to Google, no URL structure has a special impact on SEO except using parameters within URLs. I personally think using a sub-domain as Wikipedia or Sub-folder/directory as Apple, are the easiest options to create a multilingual site. But if you’re using WordPress then you can use a plugin like Polylang to multi-lingual.

Content style

The content writing style is quite important when optimizing your website for multilingual SEO. your content should be more focused on conversational style rather than academic or complex sentence structures. As said, voice-related queries are mostly in questions format, so faqs, short paragraphs with more emphasis on addressing questions will be better for voice-related search queries.

The importance of multilingual SEO for Voice Search

Now that you know how to set your website formultilingual SEO, you might be wondering whether it is worth all the hassle.

If your website sees a lot of multilingual traffic, you have no other choice than to go for multilingual SEO for voice search because,

Voice search is the future of search 51 percent of people already use it for product research before buying. Therefore, starting with multilingual voice search right now will prepare you to tackle the challenges of search and SEO that the future brings.Your business can’t grow all that much unless it personalizes its offerings to the visitor. In this case, speaking to them in their own language adds up to a good user experience.Multilingual SEO will expand your website’s reach by catering to multi-linguistic searchers. If your business is global or spread to multiple countries with different languages, and your website is restricted to only English, I bet you must be missing a big chunk of easy traffic. Which would be difficult with English keywords with higher competition globally and keywords difficulty.

Final thoughts

Multilingual SEO for voice search is something that you’ll see all website owners (who receive multilinguistic traffic) doing in the future. Therefore, it is better to start now and get ahead of your competitors.

The key takeaways for optimizing your website for multilingual voice searches are target language keyword search, human translation, hreflang tags, and the right URL structure.

With the right keyword research, a meaningful translation, thorough technical SEO, and by using the URL structure that fits best with your unique web requirements, you can enjoy riding the wave of multilingual voice search when it arrives, and it will arrive soon.

Atul Jindal is Sr. Web Engineer at Adobe Research.

The post Multilingual SEO for voice searches: Comprehensive guide appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

30-second summary:

Reddit is the seventh most popular website in the US while Quora has a DR of 91These factors make for great opportunities to build your brand’s online presence and enhance your E-A-T standingThis comprehensive guide helps you take advantage of Quora and Reddit marketing

Get ready to take advantage of the resources that two-third of marketers and SEO specialists miss out on. We’re talking about Quora and Reddit Marketing and you’re about to know how they can bring tons of value to your business.

Raising brand awareness, driving traffic, and diversifying your link profile with useful backlinks – all that is more than feasible with the right, out-of-the-box approach.

Let’s dive right in and take a look at the pros, cons, and everything in-between concerning the promotion of your website on Reddit and Quora.

Content created in partnership withCrowdo

What makes these two solid platforms for SEO and marketing?

According to Alexa, Reddit is the seventh most popular website in the US, surpassing even Wikipedia. It’s a community-based platform with 130K+ niche-based subreddits brimming with highly active users.

Although different from Reddit in terms of structure, Quora is equally worthy of marketers’ attention. It’s a Q&A platform with a DR of 91, making it a highly trustworthy resource, frequently shown in SERP.

Both platforms have strict moderation and high content standards, which means no spamming or self-promotion is allowed. Google is known to favor links from clean unspammed resources, which is why backlinks from either of these platforms will be useful for your backlink portfolio.

Apart from that, expanding your brand’s online presence is crucial for the EAT Google algorithm. This is aimed to provide users with relevant, and useful information.

This is where Quora answers and Reddit comments and posts come into play. Submitting helpful and informative answers can get you far in your promotion strategy, but let’s first start with some theory.

re backlinks from Reddit and Quora useful for SEO?

Many SEO specialists don’t consider Quora and Reddit viable sources for link-building because the backlinks coming from these platforms are nofollow.

Taking into account the myth about the uselessness of nofollow links – nofollow translates into no-good for them.

This misconception is easy to clear up:

Your backlink profile looks suspicious to Google and other search engines if it contains dofollow links exclusively. Diluting it with good nofollow links allows creating an organic-looking and diversified link profile.Google perceives nofollow links as “hints,” which means they still have a positive effect on your promotion. Even Google’s John Mueller confirmed it, just take a look at the tweet below.

How to get the most out of Quora: A step-by-step guide

1. Create a well-thought-out user profile

A thorough and properly formatted user profile is essential for Quora. Your profile should look trustworthy for your answers to be considered valuable and included in the feed. Here are some points you need to include:

Fill out the “About me” section with information about you and your occupation. Don’t shy away from going into details if it can truly benefit your credibility as an expert. But keep in mind that only 50-character-worth of text, including your name, will be shown above your answers. So make sure you make them count.List your fields of expertise by choosing them from the “Knows About” section. Expert replies are deemed more valuable by the Quora algorithm, which in turn increases the chance that your answers will get into the feed and won’t be collapsed.Link your social media accounts in the Settings section. Verified social media accounts add trustworthiness and make it easier to connect with you.Add credentials

You can either copy them from your LinkedIn profile or fill them out and add some more info. “Credentials” is the part of your profile where you can add links to your portfolio, info about previous companies you worked for, your educational background – anything that can make people believe that you are indeed an expert in your field.

Upload a clear and friendly photo of yourself

Profiles with a photo instill more trust and are more relatable for other users. Try to avoid funky pictures or graphics.

2. Find suitable, niche-related questions

Now that your profile is all set up and looks good, it’s time to get down to business and find relevant questions to showcase the expertise and skills you’ve mentioned.

Start with outlining some keywords, relevant to your niche. You can either do it yourself or you can use a keywords generator tool like SEMRush or Ahrefs.

You can either choose questions with the most views because they’re shown in the feed and get a lot of attention or go for unanswered questions and score a higher chance to get in the top spot.

3. Write informative, source-rich, helpful answers

Your answers on Quora should be informative and answer the question directly – include statistics, references, graphics, and other media that can help illustrate your points and give a better insight into the topic you’re covering.

The Quora algorithm filters out irrelevant answers and collapses them. The more expert and in-depth your answer is, the higher the chance that it gets shown in the feed and won’t get collapsed.

As for the length of the answer – short answers usually don’t look authoritative and insightful. The optimal length of your answer should be between 1500 – 2000 characters, at least that’s what we think at Crowdo.

4. Format your answers in an appealing way

Formatting your answer is essential for making it look professional and easy to understand. No matter how much effort you’ve poured into your answer and prior research – if you submit a wall of text, it won’t do.

Answers like these don’t get enough upvotes and are mostly ignored by the viewers. Use all formatting means necessary to make your answer as appealing as possible: bullet points, appropriate headings, quotes – all of it will help your text look clear, engaging, and comprehensible.

5. If you use someone else’s content – indicate the source

Plagiarism is a big no-no on Quora, and it might get you banned. If you use someone else’s content to emphasize/illustrate/prove your point – always indicate the source.

6. Link to your website naturally

Although Quora allows self-promotion, it doesn’t mean that you can blatantly abuse it. Clickbait titles are frowned upon on Quora, and the same goes for obvious begging for clicks, like “Check out my awesome website!”.

The link to your website must be organically inserted in the text and correspond to the context.

For instance, you can present it as something that provides additional in-depth information: “This detailed overview of best digital marketing practices might come in handy to you.”

7. Use authoritative sources to enrich and add authority to your answer

Answers with a single link to your website look suspiciously promotional and don’t instill trust. Try including other topic-related, helpful links from reputable and authoritative sources like Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube, or others.

It will add a professional touch to your answer and increase its value for the reader.

How to avoid collapsed answers?

Sometimes, even if you followed the Quora guidelines to the letter, your answer might get collapsed.

The reasons may vary, from an error in the algorithm that can be corrected by writing a support ticket to a mistake on your part. Let’s take a peek at the most common reasons why answers get collapsed:

Your user profile is lacking trustworthiness

If you haven’t indicated your field of expertise, skipped the credentials and bio description, the Quora algorithm may deem you unfit to answer certain questions due to the lack of trustworthiness of your profile.

Your answers aren’t helpful to the author of the question

Make sure you clearly state the answer to the question.

Posting long text walls containing no definitive answer and brimming with irrelevant links helps no one.

You’re overlinking

A common mistake among those who only start working with Quora is to write as many replies as possible and cram all the links they can think of in their answers.

You have to establish yourself as a trustworthy contributor first, show your expertise and only then strategically insert links into your replies. Start with writing 20+ helpful and informative answers without any links.

Your answers are lacking interaction from other users

If the Quora algorithm detects that your answers have no comments or upvotes, it may deem them unworthy of showing and collapse them.

The ideal way would be to try to benefit the readers as much as possible and get this social traction organically.

The rather “grey” way would be to use other Quora profiles to upvote your answer and increase the view count.

The approach you choose is completely up to you.

Product/service promotion on Reddit: All about Reddiquette and Karma

Being a community-based platform, Reddit pushes you to come to the audience and pour actual value into the content you generate and share. On Reddit, you must be a part of the community if you want to succeed.

Before submitting anything, you need to “get the feel” of what every community is about and tailor the content you contribute to be in line with the customs of each and every subreddit.

Reddiquette

An excellent way to start your marketing campaign on Reddit is to learn its basic rules, aka Reddiquette. Let’s take a quick look at the main ones:

Don’t rush to submit – Easy does it

Reddit algorithm and moderators take into account your profile’s age and authority, aka Karma (more on this later). If you rush to post right after you registered and haven’t even researched the subreddit you’d like to post on – it’s a sure bet that your post will be removed.

Never beg for upvotes

Upvotes and downvotes are used on Reddit to show appreciation or displeasure with posts or comments. Submissions with the highest upvote score rise to the top and may even reach the front page – the holy grail of Reddit. Begging for upvotes is rightfully considered to be a “big no”.

Don’t rely on reposting

Reposting is a common bane on Reddit and involves sharing the content of any type, pictures, gifs, videos previously shared by the original poster on another subreddit. In other words, it’s stealing to get upvotes.

In a few cases, the content is reposted to multiple subreddits if it’s extremely important for all, and the more people see it, the better. But in the vast majority of cases, it’s a dishonest way of obtaining Karma points.

Don’t spam with useless comments

Comments in threads are a perfect place to help the OP (original poster), give advice, joke around, provide some tips. Users share links and provide valuable insights here.

You can use the comment section to your advantage and write helpful answers with a link to your website.

However…sometimes people just share the link. Comments like these are immensely annoying and bring no value to the discussion. They are typically removed by moderators and will likely lead to a shadowban (more on that in a bit).

Karma

Karma is a Redditor’s score determined by the number of upvotes against downvotes their posts and comments received. In other words, Karma is essentially the reflection of the user’s reputation and a trustworthiness indicator.

Some subreddits don’t allow submitting content if one’s Karma score is low. That’s why it’s crucial to spend some time surfing the subreddits, understanding the rules, types of content welcomed in each of your target communities, and contributing helpful and interesting content.

It’s a common mistake among new users to rush into posting with no Karma and include links on top of that. If you do that, there’s a very high chance that your post won’t pass the moderation and will be deleted.

And here comes the shadowbanning that we mentioned earlier.  It implies that the posts you submit are visible only to you. Shadowban is used to filter out promotional posts and comments that are made solely for self-advertising purposes.

Marketing on Reddit: Some ground rules

Keep in mind that each subreddit is a close-knit community protective of its habits, rules, and culture. The one thing communities have in common is the absolute hatred towards those whose sole purpose is self-promotion.

Imagine it as a gathering of friends discussing things they like, and that one guy suddenly starts to preach about some irrelevant business and its benefits. It’ll obviously annoy everyone and get your profile banned.

Let’s take a look at how to approach marketing on Reddit the right way:

Grow your Karma by submitting useful content

Learn the ins and outs of every subreddit and contribute content people of the subreddit like to see. The more engaging, useful content you post, the more Karma you’ll generate.

The sure-bet subreddits to grow your Karma are r/aww – for cute pics of animals (no one downvotes these), r/AskReddit – where you can ask literally about anything and everything, or r/explainlikeimfive/ – a helpful and friendly community that rarely downvotes even the most absurd questions.

Remember that your submission history is visible to everyone, and some Redditors make it their point to go through the entire submission history of the person to see if there’s a hint of them being an advertiser.

Once again, don’t go crazy with placing links

It’s not a commonly known fact, but only one in ten of your submissions can contain a link to look natural and be accepted – the rest should be contributed without any links, be it posts or comments.

This ratio is directed at making you contribute more than you take, keeping the benefit of the community above all else. If you exceed this ratio, you’ll be immediately suspected of self-promotion and get a shadowban.

Long story short, be a friendly neighbor and not a salesperson.

Conclusion

Marketing on Quora and Reddit takes a lot of time and effort, but the benefits for SEO (in terms of increased traffic to your website and backlink portfolio diversification), brand awareness, and ultimately sales boost are equally impressive.

Given the extent of work, competence, and resources needed for successful marketing on these platforms, even experienced marketers leave this task to experienced professionals like Crowdo, who offer a standalone Quora and Reddit Promotion Service.

That being said, hopefully, you’ve just discovered two unexplored marketing channels and got a hint of how to approach them wisely!

The post Quora and Reddit: Powerhouses for SEO and marketing in 2021 appeared first on Search Engine Watch.