Last Week in Marketing Club – Clubhouse (Sep 14, 2021)

In last week’s Marketing Club Session our experts continued to answer questions from the members

These are the questions asked during the session:

1) Do you think that backlinks are not working anymore?

2) What would be the reason for a sudden drop in my traffic?

3) How can I create a solid SEO strategy if I’m not an SEO expert? When hiring an SEO Agency or Freelancer, what things do I need to be careful about?

4) What is the difference between “Dofollow links” and” Nofollow links”?

5) How do I increase backlinks to my website? (The ranking of guest’s pages dropped down) Do you have any suggestions?

6) How often should we check our rankings on Google? Monthly, weekly or daily?

Club House info

Question 1: Do you think that backlinks are not working anymore?

Backlinks are still important. They cite the validity of the subject matter, just like how quoting and citing a scientific research paper works. There are too many parameters for a successful SEO, but that does not mean that backlinks are unnecessary. Google’s or any other search engine’s algorithms are based on backlinks as a proxy for verification.

Moreover, Social Media is becoming more critical than ever for backlinking strategies. When you have good quality content that is sharable by social media, you can generate traffic to your website easily. As a result, your Google rankings will get higher.

We can say that SEO and social media are correlated with each other. However, the links must be coming naturally. The content you’ve shared must be relevant, topical, and consistent. Once these conditions are fulfilled, you’ll have an authority website that’s sustainable for many years.

If you want to learn more about authority websites and Google E-A-T. Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (Announced as Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines in 2015), please check out these articles:

How to Build an Authority Website for the Longterm

Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines

Google E-A-T SEO: How to Create Content Google Wants

Question 2: What would be the reason for a sudden drop in my traffic?

1) Knowing your key performance indicators (KPIs) and monitoring them with Google Search Console or Google Analytics is a good practice. This way, you’ll be aware of your KPI’s especially your CTR (Click Through Rate)
2) Check out to see your visibility. Is there a drop in your social media following, or is there a change at other websites that are linking back to you?
3) How about the seasonal impacts? Is your brand susceptible to seasonal cycles? Is there any change in demand?
4) Is there any major shift in the type of content that you are delivering?
5) How is your organic customer acquisition? At which part of the customer’s journey are you losing traffic?
For more information, you can click here

Question 3: How can I create a solid SEO strategy if I’m not an SEO expert? When hiring an SEO Agency or Freelancer, what things do I need to be careful about?

1) Our Moderators Bob Clark and Itamar Blauer wanted our guests to follow them. Both Bob and Itamar would like to share helpful information with our guests.
2) Before setting an SEO Strategy, it is essential to start with your SEO fundamentals.
3) Focus on On-Page SEO (Check out Rob Bertholf’s Definitive SEO Guide )
4) Get to know and network with people who are experts and pick their brains.
5) SEO is a part of a broad spectrum, and it’s an advanced strategy. Therefore, understanding your audience and creating content matching their needs is a priority. Once you’ve created content, share that content on appropriate social media channels. Not every social media has the right audience for your products or services.

When you want to hire an SEO agency, look at the following qualifications:

1) Ask about their references and previous work.
2) Ask for transparency. Don’t fall to those shiny technical terms and jargon. Request them to explain their point in a language that you can understand.
3) Keep coming up for this room. (Every Tuesday at 8:00 am Pacific Time)

Question 4: What is the difference between “Dofollow links” and” Nofollow links”?

1) Dofollow links increase the odds of getting higher rankings at Google, whereas Nofollow links don’t help rankings. Here is how Google explains:

“Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links. Essentially, using nofollow causes us to drop the target links from our overall graph of the web.”

This means that link juice (a value or equity transferred from one page or site to another) does not pass to Nofollow pages or sites.
Thus, generating good quality content by focusing on relevancy, topical authority, local authority, or general authority is essential for SEO success. Once you have created your authority, you’ll start receiving backlinks from high-quality pages or websites that will pass their link juice to yours.

When you want to have an anchor text, it’s helpful to create links from the relevant pages on your website. Try to do it very carefully and always check whether the anchor text and the content that you’re going to link are relevant to each other or not. It must be as natural as possible. Get more helpful information on Google E-A-T.

Question 5: How do I increase backlinks to my website? (The ranking of guest’s pages dropped down) Do you have any suggestions?

First, these questions need to be addressed:
1) What is the user intent behind consuming your content? Are they looking for information or purchasing a product or services?
2) Audit your website’s content. See whether any pages have a lot of similarities. Sometimes Google cannot decide which content to show when there are multiple pages with similar content. They are cannibalizing each other.
3) Monitor your competitors and look at whether they have fluctuations too.

The ranking is not a static condition. Google decides to use Carousels, rich snippets, Maps, or Stories depending on the query and the topic’s relevancy to the search results.

If your ranking is dropping sharply, Google Search Console is the address to go. Besides, for any detailed analysis, always begin with working on your Google Search Console.

Question 6: How often should we check our rankings on Google? Monthly, weekly or daily?

If you are looking for head terms (vital phrases or topic pillars), checking them weekly makes sense. If you have a big client, then definitely check them daily. However, checking your rankings on an hourly basis or quite often gives you the wrong picture.

Also, depending on which industry you’re operating, there might be seasonal factors. Google Trends will help you to discover these types of seasonal attributes.

To learn more on Google Page Rank visit
Google’s PageRank Algorithm: Explained and Tested

Everything You Need to Know About Google PageRank (Why It Still Matters)

The Modern, Inside Scoop on Google PageRank in 2021

Also, you need to separate category keywords from branded keywords because these two groups denote diverse choices on competition, visibility, cost, and conversions. So, they have different dynamics when it comes to monitoring.

In a nutshell, this is a summary of last week. We’ll have our Marketing Club Sessions every Tuesday at 8 am Pacific Time on Clubhouse.
We would be more than happy to see you and answer any questions you have! (We believe that every question needs an answer regardless of simple or sophisticated)

Come and Join Us!!!!!

Clubhouse Information
Marketing Club – Clubhouse

Marketing Club: The largest Marketing Club in ClubHouse

Every Tuesday at 8 am Pacific Time

https://www.clubhouse.com/event/PQ48lGnw

Date: Sep 14, 2021

Theme: SEO Fundamentals

Next Chat: Every Tuesday at 8 am PST

Moderators:

Rob Bertholf https://rob.bertholf.com/

Tonya Burge: https://www.yourmarketinglady.com/

Itamar Blauer: https://www.curemedia.com/