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snkpolls · 7 years ago

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SnK Chapter 111 Poll Results

RATE THE CHAPTER 1,677 Responses

While still a highly rated chapter, satisfaction was down slightly over last month (4.33 for 111; 4.49 for 110). Many people expressed surprise that Isayama was able to pull off such an emotional chapter despite the predictable setup. Now that the Braus dinner has reached its conclusion, most are eager to get back to the main cast.

I loved the mood whiplash Isayama was doing. A happy moment already ruined by a tragic one that escalated higher. The main course was supposed to be delicious, but everything the Blouses and the SC tasted was treason and deception. Pure evil.

Glad to see further development for the characters of Falco & Gabi as well as the beginnings of preparation for war against Marley. (Albeit very slight) Hopefully in the next chapter we will get to see what the warriors & Marley have been up to while this revolution has been happening.

Good chapter, nice way to start a volume

I get why this chapter needed to happen, but I feel there were ways to advance these plot threads without killing the momentum we had last chapter.

I'm glad the Blouses are teaching Gabi that war is bad. Now let's get back to the damn war! Also, is Historia ok?! She wasn't looking good last we saw her, and now the Yaegerists are targeting her, and I'm worried.

not enough floch and no funeral/memorial for zackly and shitmachine, disappointed :'( good chapter though

I would like to file a petition for Isayama to stop repeatedly stabbing the already open wound he caused in to my chest pls?

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE CHAPTER? 1,678 Responses

With so many options it was difficult to choose but “Wine Mystery Revealed” edged out “All of the Above” with almost 20% of respondents. “Mr. Braus’ speech” and “Mikasa, savior of children” also had strong showings.

I honestly wanted to choose more than one which was Mikasa protecting Gabi, Mr Braus's speech and Gabi asking if they didn't hate her but I can't pick more because of the question type so ;-;

Favorite moment? Nicolo christening the Falbi ship. Yeah.

Mikasa saving Gabi was an incredible scene!

The way Nicolo insulted Jean to protect him was so cute, but if I were Jean I'd feel offended too lol.

Jean's new hair is awesome :D

OMG MIKASA IS PERFECT. MARRY ME!

Sasha eating pizza was sooo cute and i don't know if my heart can take it anymore because all this cuteness turns into angst because of what happened to her :(

PAPA BRAUS, BEST DAD IN SNK, OR BEST DAD OF ALL TIME? 1,673 Responses

On a scale of 1 out of 10, Mr. Braus scores an 8.6. Although we haven’t asked you guys to rate other dads in the SnK universe, we’re confident he takes the number one spot of best father, and probably best parent as well.

Mr. Braus is the best parent in this entire universe (not that the bar was set very high, but still). I nearly cried during his speech.

Mr Braus showing this act of compassion - an act of letting go of revenge to stop the cycle of hatred and oppression is probably the most valuable experience Gabi could've learnt from (more valuable than any words spoken to her).

Step aside Eren, papa and mama Braus are the real Humanity's Last Hope! Their kindness and empathy are the only things that can stop the cycle of violence that this series is depicting on the most intimate and personal level. My appreciation for Sasha as well has grown exponentially through Nicolo, Kaya and the Braus parents.

Mr. Braus is like the only person in all that fucked up world that actually understands the root of the problem. Keeping people "into the forest" in a perpetual fight for survival between "preys and predators". I do believe that his words are everything we need to understand the moral of the story and may be hinting to what Eren and Zeke are trying to achieve (though from extremely different mindsets).

Sasha's dad's speech is so touching. Almost gave me hope that the series will end in a good way--people will find a way to deal with this unforgiving forest that is our world.

With all the allusions to World War II and the Holocaust, Mr. Braus' speech might have been the single most realistic depiction of the entire series. There are echoes of Oskar Schindler here. This is the same compassion that some Germans showed when hiding Jews in their basements, barns, etc. and saved lives. I was absolutely floored by this chapter, especially because my grandparents were Holocaust survivors themselves.

AFTER SEEING GABI'S EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO THE BRAUS FAMILY'S GRIEF, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HER? 1,668 Responses

Believe it or not, but compared to previous polls it seems more and more people are warming up to Gabi (or at least don’t hate her as much as they used to). 46.4% are glad she finally got some character development. Nearly 30% of the fandom are starting to like her or have always loved her. However, 17.9% of all respondents would rather not deal with Gabi at all.

Between warming up and loving her

Always loved her. Just keep loving her more and more. It was NEVER her fault.

Doesn’t put me up nor down

Feed her to titan falco

Finally some character development, but I still don't like her. She just grates on my nerves.

Gabi's scenes this chapter gives me hope for the story's message. Gabi's heartfelt question juxtaposed with Kaya's instant reversal was the most powerful scene in the recent chapters.

Great character development, but sorry she'll remain the one whom I hated.

I can't decide I just need a bit more time

I have always felt the hatred towards Gabi was unjustified so i'm glad that people are starting to like her character more

In that "Do you really not hate me?" there is everything Gabi is and represents as a character. Can't wait to see how she will further develop now.

This shows that regardless of the environment she has been raised in, Gabi is still just a confused child and a human being with feelings. I approve.

My hopes for her are very very low, but it's nice finally seeing a human and not radical, violent, aggressive reaction for once. hopefully she'll start seeing walldians as repressed ppl like the ghetto dudes

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE TERM “YEAGERIST”? 1,676 Responses

The fan translation gave us “The Jaeger Faction” which over half of respondents preferred over Kodansha’s official translation of “Yeagerists.” 14% like the term, while 10% are not fans of it.

"Yeagerist" sounds like a name of some crazy group of fan girls. I prefer "Jaeger Faction" - sounds more serious.

I hope to become a member. better because it could mean both yeagers, not just eren

Could've come up with something better.

I like the name, and hereby identify as a Yeagerist.

The abs empire

It's more respectful than "Idiots" I guess

Silly as fuck and hilarious. Jaeger Faction is superior.

I chuckled. It’s fine.

I like the term! It sounds perfect for an extremist faction!

The name doesn't matter. It just had to be called a sect, so it's fine.

DO YOU THINK ANY OF THE SOLDIERS AWARE OF ZEKE’S AND/OR HISTORIA’S LOCATION COULD BE A “YEAGERIST?” 1,672 Responses

63% of respondents suspect that at least one of the 30+ soldiers aware of Zeke and/or Historia’s location are loyal to the Yeager brothers. 28% aren’t sure, and a small percentage are certain that these soldiers are all to be trusted.

LET’S TALK ABOUT COMMANDER PIXIS SURRENDERING TO EREN. WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING DO YOU MOST AGREE WITH? 1,672 Responses

Very few of us took Pixis’ word at face value. 47.3% believe he was at least partially putting on a show. 41.6% have no idea, but trust him regardless.

I don't know how this negotiation is going to work but I'm glad someone finally has some plan which doesn't involve fighting or doing nothing. I think he's a wise man and he knows what he's doing. I'm going he's in charge now.

Pixis is smart and has a strategy that aims to save lives. Momentary surrender is a necessary step to take back control of the situation as a whole. That's called leadership.

Loved it, he’s playing chess. Sacrificing his bishop for another move

Why has Pixis become my hero these past two chapters? He is smart and brave enough to not only recognise the military's mistakes, but also humble and determined enough to take corrective steps to bring the lost sheep back into the flock for the higher, long-term good. I love how there's one adult in the room who is above petty bickering and suspicion at a critical moment like this. Pixis is an Erwin-level class act and I'm so grateful we still have a character like that in the series ;--; (RIP Erwin)

He trusts Hange enough to let her lead the secret mission of screwing the Jaegers' plans, and he will do something important in the right moment. Of course, he can't say it directly because there are still traitors that want to put bombs here and there.

Pixis has no idea what he's doing, dawg, he just wants to get vored by a pretty lady and this is harshing his buzz

HE'S A YEAGERIST...

WHO MASTERMINDED THE SPIKED WINE PLOT? 1,657 Responses

At 71.8%, the overwhelming consensus is that Zeke masterminded the spiked wine. 9.4% gave Yelena the credit, and 8% attributed it to the Yaegerists.

Onyankopon seemed real suspicious with Nicolo this chap…

Zeke masterminded it, but he's too slippery to ever take responsibility for it. Yelena would probably go to the ends of the earth to claim it was her plan.

Both Jaegerists and Volunteers

Probably Gordon Ramsey, who's mad that his potential customer Sasha was ripped away from him.

I think it was Zeke's plan but Eren doesn't know about it, or the bomb. I think Zeke has more interests than meets the eye and will betray Eren.

DO YOU THINK EREN IS AWARE OF THE SPIKED WINE? 1,667 Responses

With a relatively close split, nearly 40% believe that Eren isn’t aware of the spiked wine. 32% don’t want to say either way, and 27% are certain he’s in on it.

I think Eren has been shown too evil to be true, i really think that in reality he has a plan that for some reason he couldn't share with his friends, and he is trying to save as many people as possible.

EXPLAIN WHAT EREN'S UP TO ALREADY

I never trusted Zeke for one second and I’m glad ta starting to pay off. I do still believe Eren isn’t really working with Zeke as closely as Military believes.He doesn’t want any of his loved ones to turn into Titans and I’m certain the hidden spinal fluid is Zeke’s intent because I believe nothing the disciples are doing is without his knowledge.

WHY DO YOU THINK THE WINE WAS SPIKED WITH ZEKE’S SPINAL FLUID? 1,648 Responses

58% of respondents believe that the wine is spiked as an insurance for Zeke in case Paradis turns on him. 18% believe it’s a way to hold leverage over Eren specifically, and 14% feel that the intent is to have pure titans available in case Paradis is attacked.

A way to easily get rid of pesky opposition

I’m not quite sure but none of these strike me as correct.

There are so many possibilities here: i mostly believe it’s some kind of insurance in case eren or paradis go against him, but there’s also the possibility that zeke was never actually on the eldian’s side in the first place

He will use it when he wants to eliminate Paradise if Eren refuses his true plan

Bargaining tool to gain control over everyone, like a threat/hostage

I'm hesitating between it being a conspiracy, and Zeke trying to do a coup d'état, by replacing all the higher up by people he somewhat trusts

I’m not so sure it’s just insurance... I think zeke might just be straight up planning on turning the higher ups into titans either way. I think he ultimately is not allied with Paradis and wants to be able to overthrow their military command structure at the drop of a hat.

It's Zeke's trump card and bargaining chip all rolled into one

Since they only used the wine on the military police members, it could be a protection toward Historia

I knew Zeke was going to stab them in the back, I was just wrong about how.

WHO DO YOU THINK DRANK THE SPIKED WINE? 1,655 Responses

36.3% believe the wine was limited to high ranking MPs. 63.7% of us worry that the wine has reached beyond that narrow scope.

A FUCKTON OF PEOPLE

Anyone in the high ranks of each branch, and possibly the entire MP (since their overall living environment is much fancier than the other two branches, they probably were also served by Marleyans)

I think just the MPs, but dear god I hope Nile didn't drink it. He was the only one from his training days' friends group that made it it out of the depressive cycle of violence and managed to have a family. He deserves better. Marie deserves better.

Wouldn't be surprised if Jean starts racing for the alcohol rack again after this chapter. Everyone is mentally and emotionally exhausted already and the storm hasn't even began. Time to get some wine fellas.

PLEASE NOT HANGE AND DOUBLE PLEASE NOT FALCO

WHAT IS YOUR THEORY REGARDING FALCO’S FUTURE? 1,654 Responses

Nearly ⅔ of all respondents think Reiner will pass on the Armored Titan to Falco. Another 11.5% think he will turn into a mindless titan, and not gain any shifter powers. The least popular choice was Porco or Pieck giving their powers to Falco. We also received quite a few write-ins:

He is going to die at the venerable age of 128 surrounded by friends and family

He will become the next Beast Titan

He won't transform at all and continue living the source of all pureness (fingers-crossed)

he will become flying titan

I love the fact that Falco in a way has already managed to fulfill his mission. He wanted to save Gabi from the horrors of becoming a Titan - and he just did that. By pushing her out of the way of the wine, he shortened his own lifespan, but managed to save her from dying a potentially early death.

He's going to have to save Gabi at least 2 or 3 more times.

It's going to be tragic and I'm very sad already!! He'll either end up as mindless titan killing people or he'll inherit Reiner's titan, meaning he'll be the one who kills him and inherit his memories. And of course his life will be shortened!! Either way I hate it!! He doesn't deserve any of that!!

SAVE BEST BOY

WHY DID NICOLO CONFESS AT THE END? 1,664 Responses

With a fairly even 3 way split, slightly more people felt that Nicolo confessed because of his friendship with the SL. Following that at 26.6% and 26.4%, Nicolo may have confessed because he was already caught red-handed, and that Mr. Braus’ speech moved him to come clean.

!All of the above!

He knew that it was almost time for Zeke’s plan to go in full swing, so he told them after it became too late.

Honestly, for me it's a toss. He was very emotional in this entire chapter, and he let it get the better of him. Why he confessed is beyond me. Maybe it has something to do with him wanting to seek vengeance against the Yeagers and Marley for both indirectly contributing to Sasha's death?

He felt guilty because Falco is innocent and he regrets that he took the hit and had wine in his mouth as a result (but he doesn't regret attacking Gabi)

It was probably quite a big burden of knowledge to carry. I imagine it was all those things at once.

He broke down under the enormous emotional pressure, as simple as that.

He participated in serving the spiked wine, maybe willingly at first. But at some point, maybe because of his relationship with sasha, he become uncomfortable and was compelled by the volunteers to continue against his will. After his arc, he know he's going to be arrested, and just confesses to unburden himself.

He felt guilty about using the spinal fluid on Falco at all - he was trying to use a normal wine bottle

HOW DO YOU VIEW NICOLO AND SASHA'S RELATIONSHIP? 1,666 Responses

Wow. Two thirds of the fandom believe Nicolo and Sasha were a couple. 23.3% believe it was a one-sided love affair, or as one comment put it, “Friendzone with food benefits. ”

I HOPE they were dating but the chapter made it to where there’s not really solid evidence that they were…

Nicolo loved Sasha in the conventional way. Sasha loved Nicolo the only way she could, alimentarily.

I'm a huge Springles shipper, so I'm kinda of sad about the whole thing with Nikolo, to be honest. Springles is really what helped me through a lot of dark times, so the fact that Nikolo and Sasha may have been dating really kind of hurts XD

The way Nicolo confessed his feelings toward Sasha in front of everyone especially Sasha's parents made me emotional.

I want to care about her “relationship” with Nikolo because I like the Romeo and Juliet setup but it also got zero development so.......how am I supposed to believe Nikolo was THAT upset about her when I never really saw them together in the first place?

If it turns out they really were together, I won't have a problem with it. But until Isayama confirms it in a more direct manner, I don't buy any notion of romantic relationship in Attack On Titan, especially with someone like Sasha, who seems to only be interested in food.

Sasha was a food-digger

SOME HAVE SUGGESTED THAT ONYANKOPON IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED AND WAS PERHAPS SENDING A MESSAGE TO NICOLO. WHAT DO YOU THINK? WHOSE SIDE IS ONYANKOPON ON? 1,653 Responses

Nearly half of us are in the dark about where Onyankopon’s loyalty stands, though 31% think that his allegiance lies with his own faction of volunteers.

¡Que lástima! As much as I like him I no longer trust him because of the wine reveal. Compared to everyone else, the look on his face makes me believe he knew exactly what was going on.

Eren, Zeke, Yelena, Floch... Literally everyone is a double agent. Can't we have a single person who is not a traitor?

He's not with Marley and not with Yelena, but does this mean we can 100% trust him i'm not sure

He's in relationship with Kiyomi. Not his fault Kiyomi's hot.

Liar liar paths on fire

I don't believe that he's totally innocent, totally 100% devoted to Paradis and Eldians. But I do believe that Yelena's acting separately from him.

I think Onyankopon probably knows more than he's letting on which is disappointing because I'd like at least one fucking person to not be shady as fuck. It's overkill.

If best boi onyankopon betrays hange I’m rioting

WILD CARD BITCHES!!

KIYOMI WAS PROMINENTLY FEATURED DURING THE WAR COUNCIL. WHAT BEST MATCHES YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT HER BEING THERE? 1,641 Responses

35.8% of responders think the military knows something is shady about Kiyomi and are trying to set her up, followed by 31.7% think the military made a mistake allowing her to hear their argument. Only 10.2% believe Kiyomi is actually being sincere about her plans and Mikasa.

Her motive is clearly not pure but I think she is (for now) on the right side. At the moment it's a game of maneuver between her, Mikasa, and Paradis.

She's aware of Zeke's spinal fluid plan, as it's extra insurance to insure her access to resources.

Paradisian incompetence continues on full display. To let an outsider in on the unfolding crisis situtation is amateur hour to say the least.

Kiyomi wants to screw everyone over for their money and resources and she's pressing the flesh aggressively

Kiyomi had something to do with Zackley's assassination...

Kiyomi is no threat to Paradis as long as their relationship benefits her and Azumabito. I can see she that if she perceives instability and civil war she will cut her losses and side with Marley / the world. Also Hizuru does not seem to condone what the Azumabito clan is doing. If the pressure is great enough from multiplicative forces, she will budge. I can also see her running back to Marley, figuratively and/or literally, and be basically disposed of as an example or due to sheer brutality. It's an archetype I feel Isayama would use - it's consistent with this arc's themes of political intrigue and moral ambiguity. Yams will definitely still make it his own in some way if this does happen though.

She's a shady Bitch and I wouldn't trust her with my car insurance let alone anything to do with this series.

WILD CARD BITCHES!!

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON NICOLO’S ATTACK ON GABI AND FALCO? 1,664 Responses

With ⅔ of all votes, most people could understand Nicolo’s anger, but do not condone his actions. A good chunk (28.2%) of people would have rather he’d hit Gabi with the wine bottle instead of Falco. A mere 3% want to see him swinging from a tree for what he did.

It was good but felt a bit forced. Kaya’s reaction was strange and Nicolo was genuinely unhinged. It’s alright to an extent as people tend to do absurd things in terrible situations.

Falco in his hero complex brought himself to trouble. I understand Nikolo.

Gabi is very bratty, stubborn, close minded and rude - she definitely doesn't deserve all love and protection. I was happy to see Nicolo kicking her ass.

I understood and I actually did not care if Gaby dies. I would be glad actually, It would be sad for Falco though.

I can maybe understand the bottle and punch but him treating a 12 year old like a sacrificial lamb was insanity.

It doesnt sit well with me at all tbh but i dont hate him

Nicolo comes from a place where it’s heavily socialised that Eldians are sub human. So while I disagree completely with him hurting children, I can see how he did it so easily.

Nicolo's actions were horrible, yet very human. It's clear he felt something towards Sasha, and he doesn't view Gabi or Falco as children in this scenario--he sees them as soldiers(or warriors), which is why he had no hesitation attacking a child.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT MIKASA’S DISPLAY OF COMPASSION? 1,661 Responses

Nearly half of respondents were just pleased to see Mikasa get attention on anything that doesn’t involve Eren. 28% were simply just excited. A few agreed it was a good show of Mikasa having room in her heart to spare and a few wished she wouldn’t have interfered.

A great example that she cares for others and hates to see death especially from children. She does not want to let them have the same future as herself.

Loving Mikasa in this arc, it really feels like she's matured in those 4 years.

Extremely important. She's stopping Kaya from "stepping into the forest".

Honestly the most powerful scene in the chapter, along with Papa Braus putting down the knife.

I don't know how to feel. She didn't have the right.

Considering none of Sasha's friends attacked Gabi or Falco on the airship and Mikasa's always been like this I don't see what the big deal is. It could've easily be anyone else imo but I guess it's nice she's getting to do something other than wanting to get to Eren asap. I just wish she was given more to do when I still cared about her. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I never really liked Mikasa, but I adored this scene. It shows a part of her that we don't often get to see so plainly in my opinion. She prevented a very bad situation from unfurling by being a bit more merciful, even if only for Kaya's sake.

Mikasa used to be one of my favorites. Not anymore. Not after this.

it's nice i decided to not take a drink each time mikasa shows concern for someone other than eren and ppl react by saying "finally! she shows concern for someone other than eren!" i'd be a chronic alcoholic by then.

We don't all have a Mikasa to craddle us in her strong arms so i hope Gabi appreciates this eventually. She seems shook already.

HAS THERE BEEN TOO MUCH ATTENTION ON SASHA’S DEATH? 1,657 Responses

Maybe it’s fate that this pie chart looks like a peace sign since fandom discussion on this topic is surprisingly civil. Very few people resent the attention Sasha has gotten. Only 11.9% are unhappy with it.

I appreciate how Sasha’s death this way is much more impactful than if she died how Isayama had originally planned.

I think there’s so much emphasis on Sasha’s death because 1. she made it so far with the group that they never thought they could lose her and 2. It’s peaceful enough on Paradis that they finally have time to mourn their dead (when before they had to figure out how to get back wall Maria and take out the titans).

I understand why people are frustrated that so much time has been spent on Sasha after her death, but I think there's a difference between spending time on her to mourn her death versus spending time on her death to advance the plot—revealing the wine scheme, yikes Falco+titan juice, Gabi's struggle with her indoctrination, discovering that even an integrated Marleyan like Nicolo isn't actually on Paradis's side. I think no other death in the series had as much potential to move the plot because because before now, the enemy was almost always a titan. A death at the hands of a human—moreover, a pseudo-protagonist and a child—in international warfare has a lot more to unpack in terms of what-happens-next than a death from a monstrous natural disaster.

WILL KODANSHA EVER RELEASE A CHAPTER WITHOUT TYPOS? 1,646 Responses

We were so close to having “No but in red” end with 66.6% of the votes earlier last week! Nonetheless, we are all in agreement that Kodansha’s translations will never improve. Not even for the tankobon.

ChildEREN Of The Sun... maybe Kodansha are sending us a message

WHAT ARE YOU MOST HOPING TO SEE NEXT CHAPTER? 1,665 Responses

With over 50% of the votes each, most of the fandom want so see the Yaegerbros reunite and catch a glimpse of the queen. In third place are the warriors (including their disguises, hopefully). Next on the list is a flashback to Eren’s time in Marley, while more Gabi and Falco ended in fifth place. Only 3 out of 10 people want to watch Monsterbowl.

Abs of anyone but Jeagers.

All of the above, and a pizza too, thanks.

What happened the to EMA conversation?

Historia's baby goes fetus deletus

Hange NOT turning into a titan.

This chapter has made me eager to see how Falco and Gabi would interact with the Warriors now that they are wiser. Also Zeke's plot has really thickened. Also, really appreciate the use of Sasha's death as more than just a GoT-esque stunt.

ANNIEEEEE

Eren and his horde. Zeke and Levi. The Warrior infiltration. Revelations on any other plots/schemes/conspiracies taking place on the island. Historia and her role in all of this. The arc is just beginning, but it's building up to something big. I can't wait for all this to finally blow up! Soon!

How widely the spiked wine was disseminated and drunk.

Floch, naked, in a stream with Eren, also naked, washing his back.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 1,600 Responses

Tumblr? Are you ok? We had more Facebook entries than yours.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHAPTER?

Attack on Titan universe is 100% worth living in now that we know it has pizza.

Best birthday gift my dream comes true so many feels EEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKK

Best boy Jean looked so hurt when Nikolo used a racial slur against him (to save him - you could tell Nikolo didn’t want to call him that) : (

Clean af. And it didn’t even touch the more exciting plot lines: Yeager bros, Annie, Warriors, Historia.

FALCO PLEASE BE OKAY MY BABY

Gabi's actions are revealed, Nicola's actions are revealed, Zeke's potential plans are revealed, Pixis' possible plan is revealed, the Volunteers' plans are slowly unravelling, now we just need to move onto Zeke, Eren, Levi, and Reiner.

Haven't enjoyed a chapter this much in months.

I think this is the first time in more than a year and a half that people are gonna understand what I've been saying about Gabi all along. If people don't change their opinions on her from this chapter they just have their hate blinders on.

Honestly I think it was pretty boring compared to the past like 10 chapters, but also because the bar has been set really high. I'm expecting each chapter to be amazing, when in reality, I should be looking at the overarching story. That's what's amazing.

I thought I would hate this chapter as much as the one where pregnant Historia was revealed but I hate it a little less because Gabi is getting the character arc she deserves. I'm super worried for Falco BBY tho. And Nicolo is a dick.

I thought it was really great in displaying the manga's most important message: Stopping the cycle of hatred. Mr. Braus had all the reason to direct his hatred towards Gabi, but realised the world is cruel. It's eat or be eaten, just like in the forest. Gabi was a victim of propaganda and was indoctrinated into her beliefs.

I was initially disappointed this chapter didn't stick/continue with the chaos of last chapter, but was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

It was a great chapter! However, if it had at least one panel of Eren, it would have been even better. I cannot wait for more!

Last Christmas chapter was crazy, here's hoping the next one will be as well! As for this chapter, I enjoyed it as usual but was a little frustrated that we still didn't get more information about Historia. I mean, her last real apperance was back in July! I really hope we'll get to see her before the new year but I've got a feeling we may not. Also Annie. Please let 2019 be our lucky year, she's been gone long enough…

NicoSasha is so cute...!!! I'm glad to finally see the most anticipated scene. Mr. Braus's speech was really emotional. Never felt so much better after reading a chapter. But felt bad for Falco. He doesn't deserve this.

Not a huge fan of how melodramatic the nicolo part was (I understand why he snapped, but no mater how angry/upset he was would someone in that situation jump straight to murder? Really?) but overall I enjoyed the chapter. Now I’m just eager to see what happens when eren shows up to the zevi picnic!

oh Nic, the things you do for love. Sasha -saved- 2 people now, Kaya from the 2m titan and Nicole from the hatred the war caused. I really, really miss her

Really really emotional and fantastic chapter..... I'm sort of sad at the discourse that this has sparked in the fandom, but that's nothing new honestly. If anything, it's a sign of fantastic writing that everyone always has such strong opinions in any direction. At this point I would be concerned if a chapter DIDN'T spark such strong opinons and controversy. I am moved by the amount of human compasion showed in every single corner of every single faction, and shocked by how attached I am to every sect. I'm nervous for the future but ready to start seeing some outcomes.

The character development in this series is absolutely incredible. Its way beyond the simple gorey/edgy battle shonen reputation that it received way back from season 1. The themes, the characters, the plot, the attention to detail have evolved so much that this series truly is one of my favorites of all time. Its reached the complexity and "realness" of Monster for me. This was one of the best chapters to date, I loved it!!

Yeah, I loved Sasha but I'm salty she gets so much focus after her death considering she wasn't that important in the overall story. Meanwhile Erwin got nothing despite the fact 90% of the events of the story would have happened very differently or not at all if he hadn't been there (no Levi in the SC, Eren shipped off to the MP, no Uprising... etc.). I get she's the catalyst to Gabi's characater development but... wait, why does Gabi gets more screen time than most MCs in this story anyway? That's how many chapters with the main focus on her? Is she a MC now? Isayama changes MCs like he changes his undies I swear.

Nicolo was tempting the Braus family with a violent solution that promised quick satisfaction, while Kaya just lost her cool long enough to go with what had been offered to her on a silver platter. However, in return, the sight of the Braus parents and Kaya's raw sadness in the aftermath of the confrontation and what he almost made Kaya do returned Nicolo back to his own senses as well. They are all such wholesome characters despite the moments of weakness.

Gabi’s character arc seems very predictable, which is not a bad thing really, but i kinda want it to be done so that the story moved on to more interesting things and characters

I want to know what the warriors are doing. No one strong enough is watching over Annie right now so Pieck, Reiner and Porko might try to get her back in the next chapter.

I would have killed for just one panel of Historia or Eren.

Isayama handled the gabi-sasha-nicolo plot line well.

More questions , less answers ... every time Isayama does his thing.

#snk chapter 111 #snk 111 #snk polls #snk poll results

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weight-in-coal · 6 years ago

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I have decided to write a (rather dark) story for a philosophy project. We were given a list of philosophical concepts and had to use one as a sort of basis for this story. I decided to use game theory, which I will briefly explain.

Game theory is actually sort of a mathematical concept which is why I gravitated towards it. It analyzes our decisions when it’s codependent on other people’s decisions. Games that apply this include poker, chess and checkers. We try to estimate our opponent’s moves and our strategy is based on the other’s response to our moves.

The aspect of game theory that I decided to apply in my story is actually based on a type of auction, where both the highest and second highest bidder’s money is taken away but only the highest bidder is given the object. Bidders will turn their attention away from the value of the object and instead, pay attention to getting the object, often causing the bidder to get ripped off. If anyone watched crazy rich asians, it’s summarized through the phrase, “ playing to not lose as opposed to playing to win”. The bidders try not to lose to each other, instead of winning, which is in this case, getting their money’s worth.

So my story is basically an extended metaphor of that auction. I am posting it here because it would mean the world to me if you guys could read through it and give me constructive criticism.

Sorry for the long explanation/rant. Story’s below if anyone’s still interested.

Until I Reach the Light

It's impossible.

That’s what I was told by the dejected, old man sitting in the corner of the cell. At least, that’s all he ever said. The rest of us can only assume that he’s referring to escape.

We still tried though. We had to. Some of us missed our family, others just wanted fresh air. Either way, we all knew that we didn’t want to rot away in this cell. Of course, we had to plan our escape. Necessary information was slowly gained through painfully long interrogations with the old man.

This is everything we managed to get him to reveal:

We have to fight each other to the death.

This wasn’t a problem. I simply woke up in this room with my new roommates. We couldn’t figure out our similarities and even though we tried to be civil with each other, we never became friends so there was never a sense of loyalty. I was sure I was not the strongest, smartest or luckiest, but there weren’t any rules so I was sure there were ways to work through my weaknesses.

2. We have to fight the solitary guard at the door of this prison and it’s impossible to win against him in one on one combat.

Our collective thought was there’s only one? What kind of monster- But we were desperate so we convinced ourselves that the old man had probably gone mad and that the prowess of this guard was probably overestimated. After all, there was more than one of us in this cell. We believed we could beat him.

3. Only one of us is getting out.

We repressed this information. We didn’t think it was important. More importantly, we thought it didn’t make sense. There was definitely another way.

Once we couldn’t get anymore information from the old man, we headed out. It was comically easy. Some higher entity simply knew we were ready and a wall opened.

The new room which appeared to us looked more like a grave than an arena. Roughly 10m long and wide, it was completely empty safe the writing on the wall: “The door opens when the ground is covered in blood.”

“Let’s not fight”. A voice came from the left of me. We all turned to face them. “Let’s just … cut ourselves with some small wounds and try to cover the ground. Blood’s liquid, there’s a lot of us, we can do it”. So we got to work.

…

It was not enough, far from enough. When the realization hit us in our light-headed state, a voice appeared in the back of our mind. Fight it said and it kept getting louder and louder and louder- then one of us punched another and it all broke down into chaos. Hands flew, blood spilled and the chanting kept getting louder and louder until it was not just in our mind anymore. At some point, the words morphed into kill, kill, kill, kill and we could not help but obey. Blood was everywhere, it covered the groundーwait, it covered the ground. The realization rung cold and clear as the chanting suddenly stopped and the surviving few backed away from the pile of bodies.

There were three of us. One was so weak, they tripped over another body, fell to the ground and an echoing crack was heard.

Now there was two. Another wall opened behind me and natural light streamed down from a hole at the top. There was no guard in sight. We both walked closer and we peered up at the sole source of natural light. It was about 3 metres up and it became clear what the old man meant by only one person getting out. One person had to use the other to get out, leaving the one at the bottom trapped in the dungeon. Of course, maybe the person that made it out can find civilization, or rope, and free the trapped person, assuming-

I didn’t get an opportunity to finish my thoughts. Instead, the person beside me lunged at my throat and I got tackled to the ground.

“Stop, stop-” I tried to halt their assault so we could discuss the logistics of both of us leaving but they clamped a hand over my mouth and pressed down on my throat. I’m not going to die, not like this I decided before a surge of adrenaline raced through me and I kicked them off. As they rolled off me, I noticed just how much they were bleeding. They fell on their back, eyes glazed over and never got up.

…

I tried to pile up the corpses so I could climb up to get out but there weren’t enough bodies to form a high enough hill. All I could do was sit at the base and ponder at what could have been my escape.

Thoughts ran through me at the speed of light. Where’s the guard? Technically, if more than two of us made it into the last room, wouldn’t more than 1 person be able to escape? What’s the point of making us fight?Who put us through all this?

At the same speed, answers flooded in. If more than one of us made it into the last room, we would’ve came to the same conclusion that one person wouldn’t have made it out. We would’ve fought to not be that person except that every person who died fighting would be one less person who can stand at the bottom. There would’ve been only one left anyways.

As for the guard, at first I thought that it must have found us so weak and impulsive that it let us duel it out amongst ourselves instead of getting involved. I realized a moment later that maybe the guard wasn’t a physical thing at all. Maybe the one thing that was guarding us from making it out was just human impulsiveness . We would’ve fought until there was no more chance of survival instead of letting at least one person see their family again. Maybe, they could’ve even saved the other eventually. At the very least, they could’ve told the other family their farewells. If there was just one of us left, well, there would’ve been no impulse to act upon, but there would’ve been no chance of escaping.

As I stared at the top corpse, the one of the second last survivor, I concluded that I would’ve been the bottom person if they just allowed me to speak. Alas, they didn’t give me that chance and I might not have felt as merciful at that particular moment. Plus, all these what-ifs and would-haves are futile now.

And the mastermind behind all this? Well, was it important? Wasn’t the bigger problem that we didn’t realize that it was us, the prisoners, verses that mastermind and not us against each other?

The old man’s corpse was at the bottom of the pile; I don’t know when he died. His words ring in my ears: It’s impossible. Was escaping actually impossible or was this just his conclusion from past experience? Was he the one survivor from the last time?

Anyways, I have until the end of my time to reflect.

#writing #writeblr #philsophy #game theory #plzz help #im a desperate grade 12 student #short story

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di-sss-learning-engineering · 6 years ago

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HomeBrainpower & SkillsHow to study, learn & master things faster than people with the highest IQ How to study, learn & master things faster than people with the highest IQ Blaz Kos Brainpower & Skills, Free Guides I’ve always been an extremely curious person. Industry, competence and knowledge are some of my top values and things I appreciate in life. I love reading, I love talking to smart people and I’d like to know everything. If I could somehow upload Google into my head, I’d be the happiest person alive.

But I’ve always been an extremely bad learner. I never really knew how to study efficiently; with a big exception in primary school, when my grandma was consistently tutoring me and making sure that I was really learning and mastering the study material. But when I became a rebellious teenager and entered high school, I unfortunately ditched all the good learning habits.

In high school and college, I was a typical bad student. I always studied at the last minute, if I even studied at all. I never took my own notes or did any self-testing, and cramming was the way I learned. I also always preferred to read a few paragraphs of theory over and over again rather than to do any kind of exercises, think about what I was learning, try to recall key facts or apply the theory into practice.

I always loved reading books, but I was a very passive and unfocused learner. Ironically, the older I was, the more passive learner I became, even if the rebellious teenage years ended long ago. At some point, I even went from passively reading books to only skimming hundreds of articles in my RSS reader (Feedly) every day – remembering and learning nothing. What an awful learning strategy.

Not to mention that my lifestyle was terrible for any kind of real learning and studying – from not getting enough sleep to being involved in too many projects and submitting to all different types of distractions (TV, mobile phone, social networks, meetings etc.) that were more interesting than taking focused time to learn and study.

For years, I was doing the opposite of what good learning habits are (as we’ll see in this blog post). Well, I don’t want to be completely unfair to myself. I still learned a lot in the past decade and always appreciated knowledge and deep debates.

I learned many things from various smart people, I invested enough time to learn complex and demanding topics, like term-sheets used in VC investing, intellectual property rights management, lean startup practices, and so on. But that’s very far from what I could’ve mastered by today if I were a more proactive learner and if I knew the good learning practices.

IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO STUDY AND LEARN, YOU WON’T GET ANYWHERE IN LIFE There’s no doubt anymore that today, lifelong learning is mandatory if you want to achieve anything worthwhile in your professional life. In the creative society, creativity, knowledge and information are what matters most when it comes to working and creating value.

Not to mention all the benefits that knowledge has in your personal life – being a more interesting person, better communicator, managing your brain better, and so on. It’s sad that we all go to school for somewhere between 8 and 15 years and the one thing we do learn is to hate studying, tests and reading books. And in the end, we don’t even remember most of the things we were learning for all those years. But that doesn’t matter.

Informal education is becoming as important as formal education. Real learning in today’s times begins after you finish formal education. If you want to be successful today, you have to know how to study and how to use your brain properly, especially after you finish school; because real learning and studying never end.

That doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from knowing good learning practices if you are still a student. Knowing all these “how to study” gems can really help you become an A student while spending less time studying. It’s always about hard work and smart work. Student or not, keep reading.

Since I became aware of the importance of lifelong learning and that there is a big difference between being a smart student following good learning practices and an average poor learner who only skims articles online, it was time to make a big change in my life. Therefore, I decided somewhere at the end of the previous year, to do a big turnaround regarding my learning and studying habits.

I decided to get myself back to where I was in primary school – being a smart proactive learner, who consistently learned new chunks of knowledge every day with the goal of slowly and persistently mastering the selected topic; first by understanding the basics and then by going into detail and considering different possible applications of new knowledge.

I made a strong commitment to myself to become the best at mastering “how to study” and “how the brain works”, and then shine as an efficient student for a lifetime. As the tipping point of the learning turnaround (going from a poor learner to a smart lifelong learner), I decided to write a blog post on proactive and efficient learning, outlining everything I learned until now about the best approaches to learning and studying.

The reason for that is very simple. I want to help you with the best tips, tricks and recommendations on how to study and learn efficiently; so you can grow fond of learning again and shine as bright as possible in life.

I could say that this blog post is a collection of all the best learning practices and basic rules that I follow today when it comes to learning. I have no doubt that this blog post will help you become a better learner too – an outstanding learner. One thing I realized is that when you get fond of learning and you know how to study efficiently, a whole new world opens to you and with it access to a completely new level of power.

Power comes from possessing new competences (including knowledge) and thus having an opportunity to become a better version of yourself and create real value for other people who then greatly appreciate your work. And in the end, studying and learning is a very fun thing to do, especially when you apply knowledge into practice and you can see the fruits of your hard studying labor in improvements of all different life areas.

Let’s study efficiently and shine bright together.

HOW TO STUDY AND LEARN – TABLE OF CONTENTS These are all the topics that this long blog post covers:

Having a strong why and building yourself a geek environment Timeboxing distributed practice with zero distractions Spaced repetition and distributed practice Taking regular breaks Mixing different learning styles Using two ways of thinking to become a superlearner Being a proactive learner and learning formulas The SQ3R and OK4R TLR – The learning formula How not to get bored The semantic tree and structuring a learning plan Creating mind maps The chunking strategy Processing chunks and connecting them with existing knowledge Elaborative interrogation Self-explanation Mnemonics and analogies Imagery for text learning Practice until challenge turns to boredom Three types of memory Recall – the mother of learning Self-testing Flashcards Summaries and notetaking Interleaved practice Forming a knowledge mastermind group Validated learning – the grandmother of learning Learning transfer – the best way to innovate Following a healthy lifestyle for better learning Action steps, commitments and the best resources Too long to read? DOWNLOAD THE FREE EBOOK VERSION 1. UNPLUG YOURSELF, HAVE A STRONG WHY AND BUILD YOURSELF A GEEK ENVIRONMENT For almost a year now, I’ve been living without a mobile phone, without a car and with very limited social connections (and social networks use). These were the three big changes that helped me unplug myself from the crazy world of constant distractions and make room in my life for real learning. After dozens of meetings, checking your mobile phone 100 times and messaging all day, you are left with zero energy for learning. That’s the cold hard fact.

Now you don’t have to make such radical moves, but you do have to somehow make more room in your life so that you have an hour or two every day to learn while your brain is still fresh. By following good time management practices, you can easily achieve that.

But if you don’t unplug yourself at least a little bit from the crazy world of constant distractions, you have zero chance of learning anything that’s more demanding than skimming superficial internet articles. Which doesn’t count as learning.

There is only one way to gather the motivation and discipline necessary to unplug yourself. You must have a strong why. Without a strong and powerful answer to why do you want to learn, you will never make the required changes in your schedule. The best why is having a thirst for a specific subject, something you wanted to master since you were young. Something you always dreamed to master.

Nevertheless, there are all kinds of other motives that can drive you to study, from making more money to being smarter or studying together with your kids to help them. If you can’t find any other reason, study to teach others and make the world a better place. That can also give you a motive to learn the right way. Before you do anything else, find yourself a strong and powerful why and write it down.

The next step is to build yourself a motivational environment. Nobody can succeed alone. Nobody can succeed in a shitty environment. So build yourself a really geeky environment that will encourage you to study regularly.

Here are a few ideas how to build yourself geeky environment:

Put books of the selected topic you want to study everywhere – on your night shelf, in the toilet, on your working desk, on the kitchen counter. Install new apps on your phone related to the subject and delete others. Hang some motivational posters. Put new shortcuts on your desktop. Add reminders to your calendar that it’s time to study. Go to meetups and meet new geek friends you can learn from.

2. TIMEBOXING DISTRIBUTED PRACTICE WITH ZERO DISTRACTIONS No matter how many tips and tricks you master regarding learning, there is one hard unavoidable truth – it takes effort and time to learn any difficult topics. The road to real learning is consistency.

Learning small chunks of knowledge day by day and regularly revising, recalling and practicing them in new ways. That’s how you add new chunks to your current knowledge. You create new neural brain synapses by repetition and repeated use.

That means only one thing. You have to schedule regular time for studying and learning, and when you are learning you have to be focused without any distractions. You have to make sure there are zero distractions. The method that can help you with that is called timeboxing.

Timeboxing means that you preschedule time in your calendar for a specific activity. When the time comes, you just start doing what you planed. In our case studying. You don’t think about it, you don’t procrastinate or go check for food in the fridge, you sit down and start doing the planned task.

Every day, timebox time in your schedule for studying and deliberate practice. Timebox time for going out of your mental comfort zone and for learning and practicing things that are beyond your current abilities. To keep consistency with studying, you have to fall into a specific learning schedule, into a new rhythm.

Timeboxing will help you start a new habit, but then it will soon become a routine, something you can’t live without. There are many ways how and when you can schedule learning time:

Right after you wake up One hour before you start working (and you can study in peace in the office) When you come home from work Before sleep, on weekends etc.

The perfect learning schedule

2.1. SPACED REPETITION AND DISTRIBUTED PRACTICE Cramming is one of the worst ways to learn. Cramming means that you learn for a long period of time usually at the last moment (one day before an exam) and then you never study the same material again (if you pass the test).

If you study something for a longer period of time, and then take a longer break or even never revise the study material again, you forget much more than if you space the learning time throughout a few days.

The formula for successful learning is to study, take a short break, study again, take a short break, and so on. It’s called spaced repetition or distributed practice and it’s the opposite of cramming.

It’s better to study 1 hour for 5 days in a row than 5 hours in one day.

It’s true that when you study for a larger block of time you can go through a lot of material at once, and it may seem like you get yourself to a high level of knowledge and understanding, but your comprehension quickly deteriorates after that. Spaced repetition is the way to store new knowledge chunks in your long-term memory.

So the question is: how much should you space out the practice? If you space your repetitions too soon you waste time and if you do it too late you have to relearn everything. There are two answers to that question. The first one is to space out repetitions a little bit more than you want to.

The second one is to space learning at least 20 % of the time you want to remember something. If you want to remember something for a week, you need to repeat it in 12 – 24 hour learning blocks apart, if you want to remember something for a year, you have to space repetitions on a monthly basis.

Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

2.2. TAKING REGULAR BREAKS There is no efficient studying without taking regular breaks. Your attention span gets to about 30 % after 45 minutes of studying. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it gets 90 % refreshed after a short break, even one of 5 – 10 minutes. That means it makes sense to study for an hour or so, and then take a break and come back to studying afterwards.

Using the Pomodoro technique to properly mix study time and breaks might be one good approach to employ. Pomodoro is a 25-minute interval when you work focused without distractions. You write down what you want to learn, start the timer and focus exclusively on learning. Then you take a 3 – 5 minute break and go back to a new interval study. After four pomodoros, you take a longer 15 – 30minute break.

Doing some easy exercises (a few yoga poses, stretches, a short walk, a few squats) before you start studying or during breaks can help a lot in refreshing your brain and restarting your attention span. It’s also important to reward yourself with a small treat after every successfully completed studying block. Additionally, there are many different exercises you can do to train your attention span.

Last but not least, it also makes sense to mind the general biological clock and your individual biological rhythm for when to timebox the study time. The general biological clock states that you are most actively prepared to study at 10 A.M., but you have to also consider your personal internal clock – the circadian rhythm.

3. MIXING DIFFERENT LEARNING STYLES There are several different learning styles with strategies and theories behind them. Most learning styles are highly criticized by psychologists and have little scientific proof, but it’s still good to know them and be aware of them, with the goal of applying them into your personal learning strategy.

It’s completely okay to have a preferred learning style based on what works best for you (some people may have one dominating learning style and others don’t), nevertheless you want to mix learning styles at least a little bit.

You don’t want to keep your learning monotonous. But what you absolutely don’t want to do is to use learning styles as an excuse for not learning at all; for example, if you are a kinesthetic learner and you can’t find the material that would support that kind of learning for a specific topic, you decide to not go for any other source.

The learning styles we know are:

Active / Reflective Concrete Experience / Abstract Conceptualization Sensing / Intuitive Sequential / Global Visual / Auditory / Read-Write / Kinesthetic

3.1. ACTIVE AND REFLECTIVE LEARNERS If you are an active learner, you tend to understand new information best by doing something with it actively, like getting engaged in a discussion, explaining it to others or applying knowledge into practice. Active learners usually prefer to study and learn in groups rather than in isolation. As an interesting fact, that means we also know social and solitary learning styles.

There are two types of active learners, the ones who like to have “hands-on” experience in practical doing (physical therapists) or “hands-on” experience with applying theory (engineers). Learners who want to have “hands-on” experience in practical doing and prefer using their body, hands and senses are also called physical or kinesthetic learners. Kinesthetic learners are good with gestures, body movements, object manipulation and positioning.

Reflective learners tend to think about the material first and process it internally, before doing anything else with their new knowledge. They think it through in their mind and especially learn by analysis. Everyone is sometimes an active and sometimes a reflective learner, depending on the situation, but striving for the balance between both learning strategies is the best combination.

Much like there are two types of active learners, there are also two types of reflective learners – the ones who are strong in practical use of knowledge, like in discussions (social workers), and the ones who like to reflect on abstract conceptualizations to create theories (philosophers).

Active Reflective Practice Physical Therapist (kinesthetic) Engineer Theory Social worker Philosopher 3.2. SENSING AND INTUITIVE LEARNERS Sensing learners are oriented more on facts, memorization and using familiar concepts. They pay attention to detail, have no issues with memorizing facts and following known steps to solve a known set of problems. They are more practical learners.

Intuitive learners are more focused on discovering new possibilities, relationships among ideas, new creative applications and understanding, but they often don’t pay attention to detail and can make small mistakes quickly. They are more creative learners. Again, you have to learn to use both learning ways and balance them properly.

3.3. SEQUENTIAL AND GLOBAL LEARNERS Sequential learners need a straight learning path, where they acquire knowledge step by step and where each knowledge chunk is a logical successor to the previous one. When sequential learners are solving a problem, they usually follow logical steps to find the solution.

Global learners, on the other hand, learn best by learning randomly without having the big picture. They just somehow “get it”, but often can’t explain the details. That enables them to solve more complex problems quickly and connect pieces of knowledge in novel ways.

3.4. VISUAL AND VERBAL LEARNERS Visual learners learn best based on visual materials like pictures, diagrams, flow charts, presentations, films and demonstrations. They rely most on their visual perception and visual memory; they learn through seeing.

Verbal learners learn best from written and spoken words. Verbal learners learn the most by listening to lectures, discussions, reading etc. Verbal learners search for explanations with words.

Learners who prefer the spoken word, sound and music are called auditory types and learners who prefer the written word are called reading & writing types.

As mentioned, learning styles have not been scientifically proven and are heavily criticized. But one thing that has been proven as beneficial is to mix different learning styles and with experimenting build a strategy that works for you as an individual. A good learning practice is mixing different learning styles. A few obvious and logical examples are:

Understand the theory, connect it to your current knowledge, but also think about practical applications. With your own practical experience, try to build new theories and abstractions, even if it’s only a mental exercise. Act and reflect on the new knowledge. Have a very strict learning plan, understand the semantic tree, do chunking, but then also do interleaved practicing. Mix the sequential and global learning principle. Go to the best sources, and use different types of learning material (text, audio, video, discussion etc.). Try to engage as many senses as possible in your learning. Use the focused (sensing – recall, revision etc.) and diffused (intuitive – take a break, connect things in a new way etc.) mode of thinking to unlock your full learning, thinking and creative potential. But note that you can’t use both types of thinking at once. Well, that’s exactly our next subject. 4. USING TWO WAYS OF THINKING AND LEARNING TO BECOME A SUPERLEARNER We know two ways of thinking, divergent (lateral) and converged. That means we also know two ways of learning – the focused and diffused way.

The focused mode of learning is when you are concentrating hard on memorizing something, and the diffuse mode is happening behind the scenes.

The diffuse mode helps you think broadly, keep the big picture in mind and go from one new idea to another, without getting stuck in the old knowledge and way of thinking. When you take a break, your brain still works on connecting things, solving problems and building a context. That’s when you also get creative ideas.

The most important fact about the two ways of thinking is that you can’t use both of them at the same time. For effective learning, you have to constantly switch between focused mode and diffused mode. You have to learn to use both types of thinking to be an effective learner. You have to learn very focused for a period of time, and then take a break (remember the Pomodoro technique).

The first step in efficient learning is to timebox time for focused learning, deliberate practice, repetition and recall. Then you need to take a break and change your focus to something new. In the background, your brain still works and processes what you’ve learned in the focused session. It uses the diffused mode to process knowledge that leads to better conceptual understanding.

You can also use both ways of thinking when you’re solving problems. Focused thinking can be used for sequential reasoning, where you try to find a solution with deliberate small steps. The second way based on diffused thinking is a holistic intuitive approach, where you try to creatively connect unseen patterns.

Remember the sensing and intuitive learning style? Yes, those are also two ways of solving problems. For complex and demanding processes, the holistic approach often works better, because you are trying to connect things that haven’t yet been connected, you’re producing new unfamiliar ideas.

In practice, that means you have to deliberately practice and learn without any distractions for a certain period of time, and then stop and do something completely new (take a walk, cook yourself a meal etc.). I get into the diffusion way of thinking by doing physical exercise.

That’s why I do intervals of deliberate practice and physical exercise. You can find many examples of how people get new creative ideas or do quantum leaps in understanding subjects while the diffuse mode is active during rest time. It can be after a walk, a short nap or cooking a meal.

5. BEING A PROACTIVE READER AND LEARNING FORMULAS Reading is one of the most popular methods of learning. That’s why we must absolutely discuss how to read when you’re learning new things. You want to be a proactive learner and you want to be a proactive reader.

Being a proactive reader doesn’t only mean that you consciously decide on when, what and how to study and learn (instead of clicking on random articles on social networks), but also that you are actively present and focused when you are learning and you “torture” your brain to understand and memorize things.

You have to comprehend what you’re learning and you have to practice recall after you read something. (Pro)active reading is about interacting with the text. You think while you read, you ask yourself questions, do elaborative interrogation and use techniques like self-explanation (later in this blog post, it’s described what these techniques are and why they’re important).

Adjusting reading speeds to the complexity of the study material, studying in perfect peace without distractions and being in a good mood and fully alert all help with reading comprehension. There are two formulas that can be extremely helpful when discussing what being a proactive reader means – the SQ3R, TLR and OK4R formulas.

Mix learning styles and types of learning sources as much as possible

5.1. THE SQ3R AND OK4R READING FORMULAS Let’s first look at the SQ3R or SQRRR formula of active reading. Here are the steps how to read properly:

Survey – Skim the text, analyze the structure of the text (table of contents), look at graphs and grasp the general ideas of what the author considers important. Questions – Note all the different questions that are addressed in the study material, especially in titles, subtitles, and emphasized text. Read – Read the study material and keep the corresponding questions in mind, so you’ll be really focused on the material. Recite – Recall, recite and answer the questions with your own words. Quiz yourself and test yourself to see which parts of the material you’ve mastered and which not yet. Review – Review the material for the questions you struggled with. Recite everything once more. Timebox spaced repetitions for reviews. And the OK4R acronym stands for the following reading process (quite similar to the one above):

Overview – Get an overview of the semantic structure, go through the introduction, table of contents, headings, subheadings, summaries and diagrams. Get a general idea of what the study material is about. Key Ideas – Go through the key ideas of the study material. They are most often in the beginning of each paragraph or emphasized in any other way – like bolded text, bullet points, pictures and graphs. Outline the key ideas of the text. Read – Read the study material while keeping the key ideas in mind. Recall – Close the study material and try to recall as much as possible, especially the main points of the text. Write down all the key points that you remember. Reflect – Reflect on the new learned knowledge by thinking of practical examples, how the new knowledge is connected to what you already know, new creative applications etc. Review – Review the study material sometime in the nearby future to refresh your memory. Do spaced repetitions and study harder the parts you have forgotten. 5.2. TLR – THE LEARNING FORMULA The learning formula (TLR) is a very general process of how you learn and acquire knowledge. It has three steps that start with learning something new, then actively processing the knowledge and finally applying it as soon as possible. The learning updates in your brain are done based on the following formula:

Learning = Download + Process + Apply (Knowledge chunks)

Downloading knowledge means getting new information about something – how things can be done in a better way, how something works or functions, how to operate a machine etc. You get a new piece of information that you didn’t have before or is different from your current knowledge.

Processing knowledge means reflecting on new information, connecting it to what you already know, analyzing and deciding what you’ll start doing and stop doing based on the new information, talking to other people and engaging in discussions, sleeping it over, and so on. If you have the big picture in mind, the semantic tree, you can more easily process knowledge and connect new chunks to the old ones.

Applying knowledge means putting it to use. It means starting to interact differently with your environment. Becoming a better version of yourself, in action. Practically, it means that you put a new skill you’ve acquired to use, you stop procrastinating, undertake a new adventure, make better decisions, deepen your relationships, and so on.

Here are a few examples of how you can “download” knowledge:

Listening to lectures Reading Listening to audio books or podcasts Watching educational videos Watching demonstrations Observing Here are a few examples of how you can “process” knowledge:

Doing self-reflection Talking about a new piece of information with other people and your mentors Doing research Planning and doing scenario-based thinking or a cost-benefit analysis Group discussions Teaching others Doing a mind-map, summarizing, structuring etc. And a few examples of how you can “apply” knowledge into practice:

Having real-life experience Changing your behavior and how you do things Being in the search mode – trying, experimenting, gathering feedback from your environment Teaching others after getting real‑life experience – for example, by starting to write a blog The best way to learn new things is to combine different methods listed above and to go through the whole learning process. First you download knowledge in one way or another, then you process it, which means you think about it, internalize it, think of possible applications, add your own ideas and prepare a plan and, of course, then you apply it by doing something new or doing things differently in your life.

You really learn only when you’re doing something new or in a new way. In the rest of the blog post, we will talk especially about how to recall, process and apply new knowledge.

5.3. MIXING ALL THE DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO NOT GET BORED If you are bored while you’re learning, it means that you’re doing something wrong. The best thing that can help with boredom is to study the topic from different sources and mixing knowledge acquirement in different ways.

You can use textbooks, online courses, practical exercises, talking to smart people etc. Nevertheless, I learned a few important facts when gathering learning resources and using different materials to learn from:

Absolutely mix different learning styles as we’ve talked about. It makes learning fun. Go straight to the best resources. Otherwise you’ll drown in information. Mix different types of the best resources of knowledge. I read, do online courses and do exercises. Strictly limit the number of resources so you don’t feel overwhelmed. Select the few core ones you really go through deeply, and only quickly skim the other ones to see if there’s something interesting to add. Watch out that you don’t revise the same simple stuff along many different resources. That’s what often prevented me from progressing. Deliberate practice is the key, you have to go a little bit outside the comfort zone and not practice the same things you already know. 6. THE SEMANTIC TREE AND STRUCTURING A LEARNING PLAN Here is a quote from Elon Musk on how he learns: “It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang onto.”

A semantic tree can help you see the big picture and provides the main branches onto which you can stick the knowledge chunks.

The semantic tree enables you to:

See the bigger picture, the structure of a specific body of knowledge Easily see the most important elements of the topic Sense the relation among the elements Prioritize learning elements Prepare a solid learning plan, which also includes interleaving (more about that soon) If you want to understand advanced ideas and techniques, you first have to master the basics. You first need the context, the whole picture, then you have to make sure that you master basic chunks of knowledge on which you can build mastery level skills. Nevertheless, keep in mind that you have to practice a little bit out of the comfort zone and you have to mix different types of exercises.

Based on the big picture and the semantic tree, you can also build yourself a learning roadmap that you follow. One of the best ways to build semantic trees are mind maps. As you probably know, mind maps are diagrams that visually structure, present, organize and connect key concepts and ideas. Mind maps are also a great tool for brainstorming. So let’s look at a few core principles of mind-mapping.

6.1. CREATING MIND MAPS Mind maps were developed by Tony Buzan and are an easy technique to use for building semantic trees and remembering key facts more easily. Mind maps help you not only to learn the dots (or chunks as we’ll learn), but to connect the dots in the right way.

On a well prepared mind map you can quickly grasp the key concepts and see the connection between them, you see the big picture and individual chunks of information and you can easily break topics down into smaller chunks to connect them in new ways or prepare a step-by-step learning plan for yourself.

The most popular mind-mapping software applications (among 40+ options that you have) are:

Mindjet MindManager (that’s the one I use) XMind Coggle Bubbl.us Freemind iMindMap SuperScribe MindNode (iOS) There are many already created mind maps that can help you see the semantic tree of different topics. The most popular sites with collections of mind maps are:

MindMeister Biggerplate Mappio Maps for That Google MindMapping Community TopicScape Mind maps Directory 7. THE CHUNKING STRATEGY Learning about chunks was one big epiphany for me. Chunks are small units of knowledge that go logically together and that you can easily practice, revise and remember. You break something complex into units or chunks, and then memorize it. A chunk becomes chunked into your memory as new brain structure.

By chunking you break larger pieces of knowledge that you want to learn into small chunks and then follow a process of learning to make them a permanent part of your brain structure (repetition, recall etc.). Scientifically, a chunk represents a network of neurons that fires together when you think a specific thought.

For learning a new chunk, you use the focused way of thinking (not the diffused one). There must be no distractions and interruptions. You need to focus your undivided attention to the new chunk. While you do that, you first try to understand the key ideas that the knowledge chunk consists of.

Then comes the context: you try to understand the context. With context you try to integrate related and unrelated problems, challenges and uses of knowledge. If understanding the key ideas is about the how, the context is about when to use the new acquired knowledge in practice.

When you understand the key ideas together with the context really well, it means that you can do it yourself – apply it, solve a test or a problem or do an exercise. Repetition and practice help form new neural networks that lead to understanding the key ideas and being able to recall something, and the context helps fit the chunk into the bigger picture. Everything we’ve talked about.

The idea of chunking is to:

Slice and dice a big topic into manageable pieces Keep the whole picture in mind (context) with a semantic tree, while you learn chunk by chunk Connect a new acquired chunk to all previously learned chunks Practice a chunk of knowledge with different types of exercises Join small chunks together into bigger chunks Build fundamentals and then upgrade knowledge base step by step Think immediately how each chunk can be applied to practice Mix and connect knowledge chunks in new ways New knowledge of chunks need to be properly managed. There are several ways how to do that.

Technique Utility Elaborative interrogation Moderate Self-explanation Moderate Summarization Low Highlighting Low The keyword mnemonic Low Imagery use for text learning Low Rereading Low Practice testing and recall High Distributed practice High Interleaved practice Moderate Source: Psychological Science in the Public Interest

8. PROCESSING CHUNKS AND CONNECTING THEM WITH EXISTING KNOWLEDGE Now let’s talk more about processing a new chunk of knowledge. You always link information based on what you already know. You have to connect new chunks with existing chunks. You have to somehow explain to yourself how a new chunk is related to your existing knowledge.

You can do that most easily by making associations, thinking of synonyms, building mental images, using imagination in different ways, finding examples, and building direct connections between chunks. While doing these things, you can also recall knowledge more easily. Let’s say a word or two about each of these techniques.

8.1. DO ELABORATIVE INTERROGATION – EXPLAIN WHY With elaborative interrogation, you try to state the facts with your own words, saying why a new piece of information is true, why x equals y. The method pushes you to directly apply your current knowledge to better process new information. You drive your brain into connecting the dots.

This technique might have limitations if you are new to the subject, but it does help a lot with comprehension, processing a knowledge chunk and even memorization when you pass the basics. And when you progress in knowledge, you can quickly find this technique extremely useful.

8.2. USE SELF-EXPLANATION – HOW IS THE NEW RELATED TO THE KNOWN With this technique you simply ask yourself how a new knowledge chunk relates to whatever you already know. In the next step, you try to use your own words to describe why a specific problem is solved as it is and what are the steps for coming to the solution. With self‑explanation you explain (to yourself) how you process new information during learning.

A good similar exercise is trying to explain the new thing that you’ve learned to somebody who doesn’t know the subject, as if you tried to teach them. Of course you have to use your own words, examples and style etc.

When you’re explaining the new knowledge chunk to yourself or others, you can help yourself with questions like:

How do I understand it and why do I understand it like that? What is the main idea? What is this knowledge about? Why would somebody be interested in that topic? What did the person who came up with the knowledge try to achieve? Where is this theory applied? How would I explain a new knowledge chunk to a 7-year‑old kid?

8.3. MNEMONICS AND ANALOGIES Your brain works based on associations. Your brain loves to see and make new patterns and connections. So associations may help you with learning. It’s called mnemonics and using analogies.

Mnemonics and analogies are ways to see two things similarly in your unique mind. You link a new piece of information through associations with something already familiar to you that usually stands out (keywords, analogies, stories, imagery).

More visual representation usually helps to retain more easily and then recall better. It also helps with comprehension and understanding why something is as it is (oh, I see, it’s used the same way as it is at …). Stories and models can be used in the same way. Nevertheless, many studies have shown that mnemonic techniques help mostly with short-term recall. Thus you have to test it for yourself to see if they’re giving you any long-term results.

Different types of mnemonics:

Music mnemonics Name and word mnemonics – Acronyms and acrostics Image mnemonics – Diagrams and different images Rhymes Colored note organization An example of a popular mnemonic technique is the peg system, where you link numbers to nouns. If there is a rhyme involved in the link, the technique works even better. There are three different types of peg-word systems: the rhyming one, the major one and the PAO (person-action-object) system.

8.4. VISUALIZING LEARNING MATERIAL (IMAGERY FOR TEXT LEARNING) One learning technique you can employ is to imagine images as you read through the text or when you listen to a lecture. Imagery representation can help you remember things more easily, but you can also better understand how things work by having a visual practical example in mind.

This technique is less effective with longer texts, and it can also be hard to visualize while you read the text. Although you should try these technique, especially if you’re a visual learner.

A very popular visualization technique is the method of loci or the mind palace technique, which is a system of visualizing key information as specific points and places in a known physical location.

9. PRACTICE UNTIL CHALLENGE TURNS TO BOREDOM In test-driven development, there is a rule of thumb to “test code until fear turns to boredom”. You can use the same exact principle when you’re learning a new block of knowledge – practice until fear turns to boredom. Practice a new skill or block of knowledge until fear turns to the first sign of boredom.

When there isn’t a single drop of fear anymore that you might make a mistake, and when every exercise and revision turn into boredom, then you can be sure that you’re mastering the knowledge. Then it’s time to move to the next knowledge chunk. No fear and boredom, these are the signals that you’re a master at something.

But don’t waste time practicing what you already know. The first mini sign that you’re bored means it’s time to move on. Remember, boredom is a sign that you’re doing something wrong, it may be that you are practicing something that isn’t a challenge anymore. If we want to underline why practice is so important, we have to say a few words about how our memory works.

9.1. THREE TYPES OF MEMORY We know three types of memories – sensory memory, long-term memory, and short-term memory or working memory. Sensory memory is based on your five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch). It lasts only for a few seconds and you can store around 12 bits of information at once. Sensory memory and short-term memory are connected by attention.

You concentrate only on a few elements in your environment, and exclude all the other elements. What you pay attention to gets transferred from sensory memory into working memory. You can store around 4 bits of information in the short-term memory (some sources claim 7 bits).

Things from your working memory fade in about 30 – 60 seconds or even less. You have to make a learning effort to transfer things from your working memory into the long-term memory (revision, repetition, practicing recall).

You free your working memory by being relaxed, having no distractions and avoiding multi-tasking. And luckily your long-term memory is like a big warehouse where you can store almost everything you want if you put the effort in.

Only with repetition and recall do you get things from short-term memory into long-term memory. If you want to store a chunk into the long-term memory, you have to deeply process it through focused and meaningful learning and thinking (connecting new chunks with existing ones as we’ve talked about).

When a knowledge chunk is in the long-term memory, you can recall it when you need it (if you refresh your knowledge often enough). Practice and repetition create a new neural pattern. The basic idea of learning is to get a knowledge chunk into the long-term memory.

Sensory memory: What you pay attention to (learning without distractions is paying attention to what you’re trying to learn, for example) Working memory: Everything you’re thinking at the moment Long-term memory: Limitless capacity and almost permanent (revision is needed from time to time) Here’s some very good news. When you bring something from the long-term memory into the working memory (by bringing something to mind), it occupies less working memory slots than it did initially when you were trying to memorize it. It gets kind of compact and that enables you to play with more ideas at once and connect knowledge in new ways. The more you know, the more creative and smart you can be.

Smooth physical repetition creates muscle memory, and smooth mental repetition creates knowledge chunks so you don’t have to relearn or re-explain pieces of information to yourself. You just know it and can intuitively do it; you know it from memory.

One more thing regarding your working memory. You want to free your working memory (mental bandwidth) of trivial things, to have space for real learning. You can use to-do lists, reminders and checklists for that. Mark Zuckerberg wears the same design of clothes every day, so as to not use any working memory for those kinds of decisions. He uses all the memory he has to grow his business.

9.2. RECALL – THE MOTHER OF LEARNING The poor learning strategy is to read the material again and again, hoping that you will remember something. The superior learning strategy is to make recall your best friend. The best way to build new neural connections is by reading something and then trying to recall it.

The recall strategy means that you look away from what you’re reading or watching, and recall or repeat the main ideas in your head or aloud. After you read or listen to study material, you close the source, look away and try to squeeze as much as possible from your brain.

What is the last thing you remember? What is the most interesting thing that you remember? What is the best example of use for the new knowledge chunk? Is there anything that you remember? How are things connected? When you repeat an idea and it comes from within you, you remember it much better. It’s been scientifically proven that recall works much more effectively than rereading. It’s harder to do that than to just reread the text, but that’s also probably why it works.

It’s also beneficial to try to recall chunks of knowledge in different places. Using standard places can create subtle and unconscious connections with what you’re learning and is helping you with recall. Then when you change a place it’s harder to recall the material.

9.3. SELF-TESTING – RETRIEVAL OF KEY CONCEPTS AND A CLEAR SIGN WHAT TO PRACTICE MORE I know we all hate tests. School taught us all to hate tests. All the stress and fear connected with them. Well, I decided to unlearn test hating and start to love tests. Especially self-testing, because there is no pressure and you can always cheat a little bit. Just kidding. But self-testing is extremely important in learning.

It’s scientifically proven that you are boosting your long-term memory with self-testing. Solving a test really is one of the most efficient methods of practicing and seeing how much you’ve learned. There are many ways how you can test yourself.

You can prepare a creative test for yourself, you can find and solve a pre-prepared test, you can also ask somebody else to put your knowledge to the test. One of the best ways to test yourself is by using flashcards.

9.4. USE FLASHCARDS Flashcards are one of the best techniques for self-testing and revision. They are visual clues on cards with short summaries. They help you focus on the key point of the study material. You can very easily prepare flashcards for yourself that you constantly go through.

I think you know how to use flashcards. On one side of a card you write a question, on the other the answer, you prepare several such cards, mix them, pick one and answer the question out of your head. Then you compare your answer to the answer on the back of the flashcard.

You can make physical cards or you can use Anki or Memrise, which are two great applications that can help you prepare digital Flashcards. Memrise also offers pre-collections of flashcards on different topics made by other people.

9.5. SUMMARIES, TAKING NOTES AND REWRITING THINGS IN YOUR OWN WORDS Let’s start with the bad news. Highlighting, rereading and summarization are considered less effective learning techniques. Highlighting usually gives a fake feeling of progress and learning. As we’ve discussed, it’s been scientifically proven that recall puts rereading to shame when it comes to learning.

And if you want to learn effectively by paraphrasing and writing summaries, you have to know how to do it correctly, otherwise the technique is not so efficient.

Therefore, here are the general directions for how to take notes and write summaries of learning material, since this is still one of the most popular ways to learn:

Don’t transcribe notes, write them in your own words. Writing by hand creates new brain synapses faster than typing. Before you go through your notes, take a blank piece of paper and try to recall as much as possible. Try to do a few exercises or write down all the facts you remember, before you revise your notes. I think you got the message: Recall first, recall first and recall first. Review your notes as soon as you make them, do it the same day and then on a regular basis. Connect your notes with previously acquired knowledge. You can make your notes as outlines, charts, sentence summaries or mind maps. One of the very popular note taking methodologies is the Cornell Note Taking System. As I mentioned, the best way to take notes is by hand, but you can also use many software tools like Evernote, OneNote, or Google Keep.

10. INTERLEAVED PRACTICE – DOING DIFFERENT TYPES OF LEARNING IN THE SAME SESSION Repetition and revision are the keys to memorizing things. But if you practice the same thing over and over again in the exact same way, you are overlearning or starting to only mimic what you did the last time, and you don’t really learn. Repeating something that you already know and have mastered well is not really learning new things.

Learning something in the same way again and again is also not an efficient learning strategy.

That’s where interleaving comes into play. Interleaving your learning means that you practice and use knowledge chunks with different concepts, approaches and techniques in the same learning session. If interleaving is done correctly, you also often switch between different parts of the subject.

Rather than building chunks into structured blocks, subjects and themes, it’s better to add variety to the learning and spend small learning blocks of time on a variety of subjects and learning problems. That might seem very counterintuitive, but it works much better when it comes to learning.

Blocked practice – you practice one thing over and over again Interleaved practice – you mix your practice A good example is practicing sports. In badminton, there are three types of strokes you can do. Blocked practice would mean practicing one stroke over the training period. Interleaved practice would mean mixing the practice of all three strokes in one session. Taking the same number of trials into repetition, interleaved practice gives better long-term learning results.

Interleaving builds flexibility and creativity, it teaches you when to use specific knowledge chunks and encourages you to apply acquired chunks in new ways. That’s why you have to use acquired knowledge to solve different types of problems or test yourself in different ways. But don’t go too far with interleaving and make your studying a messy and unfocused exercise.

Test yourself in different ways – quizzes, open questions, flashcards, random exercises etc. Upgrade your knowledge – solve a harder exercise, solve a problem a little bit differently etc. Mix different learning styles – global and sequential, for example Brainstorm your own ideas – think about how you could come up with a different solution Learning transfer – Think about where and how you could apply knowledge outside the domain It’s not that different in the gym. To build muscle you have to consistently train every day. By doing one more repetition than you can barely do, you go out of the comfort zone. But to progress faster you also have to mix exercises a little bit after a few weeks. Consistency, tree, chunks, recall, interleaving.

11. FORMING A KNOWLEDGE MASTERMIND GROUP You can never succeed alone in life, you need a strong support team and people who believe in you. You do need your peace, quiet and alone time in order to be focused and study and recall new chunks, but there is a point where having a support group becomes very beneficial. I call this forming a knowledge mastermind group.

For whatever subject you want to master, it’s extremely helpful to be part of a community that wants to learn the same thing as you or that already mastered what you want to master. It can be an online or offline community or study group. The main benefits of forming a teaching mastermind group are:

Discussing, finding arguments and counterarguments, brainstorming, explaining and teaching. These are all great ways to process knowledge and some of the best ways to learn besides recall and revision. Others can more easily see blind spots in your knowledge and give you feedback on what to practice more. They can also direct you to the best resources. You can always learn so much from people who are better than you. One talk with an expert can save you weeks of learning and hard work on your own. If you spend time with ambitious people you will be more motivated. An alternative to forming a mastermind group is getting a mentor or a tutor who already mastered what you want to master.

Validated learning cycle

12. VALIDATED LEARNING – THE GRANDMOTHER OF LEARNING Validated learning is a concept that comes from the lean startup theory and is often used in business. Nevertheless, it can be an extremely useful concept when it comes to learning. Validated learning in personal life is a process of acquiring a new chunk of knowledge, immediately putting it into practice and then measuring the results to validate the effects – if there is any value for you or not.

The idea is to put knowledge into practice immediately to see what kind of real benefits it can provide for you. It’s not only about seeing if you can or know how to do something, but to measure if there are any benefits to knowing it. You don’t want to waste your working and long-term memory.

Repetition is the mother of learning. Experience is its grandmother.

The process or the personal validated learning loop consists of three steps:

Acquiring knowledge chunks Immediate implementation Validated learning based on metrics As we’ve said, chunks are small units of knowledge that logically go together and that you can easily practice, revise and remember. You break larger pieces of knowledge you want to learn into small chunks. When you acquire a new chuck of knowledge, you want to put it to the test as quickly as possible. You do that with immediate implementation by conducting experiments.

It’s not as complicated as it may sound, but you put new knowledge to the test by conducting controllable experiments. You try a new behavior, a way to look at things or you put knowledge into practice and then observe and measure the results. You gather internal and external feedback – from your boss, coworkers, friends, your body or mind. You see how the new upgraded you functions in the environment.

In the last step, you have to measure whether applying knowledge makes sense and if it works for you as a unique individual. The point is: if you want to do validated learning, you have to measure where applying new knowledge is leading you. Based on that, you decide whether to pivot or not.

You measure your feedback based on different metrics. If metrics lead you into the right direction, knowledge has value for you, if not, it’s nothing but a waste. That means you have to focus your attention and learning onto something new.

13. LEARNING TRANSFER – THE BEST WAY TO INNOVATE You want to make the most out of your learning. On the one hand, that means applying the most efficient learning techniques we talked about, and on the other you also want to capture as much value as possible out of your new knowledge. That means putting knowledge into practice, brainstorming new ideas, and connecting knowledge chunks in new yet unseen ways.

Learning transfer is one of the best ways how you can squeeze additional value out of your new knowledge. Learning transfer is taking what you learn in one context and applying it to another. It can be taking a kernel of what you read in a book and applying it in practice in a new way or it can also be taking what you learn in one industry and applying it to another.

While you learn you should constantly ask yourself: Where else could I use this knowledge, what are other possible applications?

We know near transfer, in which knowledge is used in a similar situation, and far transfer, where knowledge is used in a completely new way or industry. Achieving far transfer is harder, but it has much bigger potential if successful. You should always brainstorm potential near and far transfers of your new knowledge chunks.

A lack of confidence is one of the most frequent reasons why people don’t think about new ideas and knowledge transfer. Don’t be one of those people. Use the search mode as a conscious decision to experiment with crazy new ideas, even if they fail and you’re completely wrong. Experiment, build prototypes, play, and have fun with new knowledge and ideas.

14. FOLLOWING A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE FOR BETTER LEARNING The point of learning is to bring your brain to its full potential. Besides learning there are a few other ways and ideas how to do that. Here are the main ones:

Constantly try new things, regularly challenge yourself, travel, talk to new people, never get bored. Do a creative task every day – make art, brainstorm ideas, write and play with new concepts, prototype. You can also do brain teasers, games and different puzzles. Hell, from time to time, play a challenging video game. With good time management, make sure you work in the creative flow as much as possible every day. But as a basis for all these things, the strong foundation on which you can play, learn and create is following a healthy lifestyle. Healthy brain can only reside in a healthy body. So the last thing you can do to become a superlearner is to take good care of your health.

Let’s look at a few crucial things you can do to keep your brain healthy and working well.

14.1. GET ENOUGH SLEEP The most important advice when it comes to learning and a healthy lifestyle is getting enough sleep. Not only are brain toxins washed away during sleep, your brain also rehearses more complex knowledge chunks to make neural connections stronger.

Going through material right before sleep or before you take a nap increases the chances of dreaming about it and consequently increases the ability to understand what you’ve learned throughout the day. Sleep helps you consolidate learning and get new knowledge into the long-term memory.

In the first two hours of sleep, you consolidate new information in the short-term memory, then from the second to around the sixth hour of sleep your brain moves memories from the short-term memory into the long-term memory, and in the last two hours the brain actively rehearses materials. That’s why you need to get eight hours of sleep.

After the sixth hour of sleep, the learning magic in your brain happens.

14.2. PROPERLY MAINTAIN YOUR BRAIN Exercise and a healthy diet is one of the best things you can do for your brain. Exercise helps brain neurons to survive. Here are a few basic rules to follow when it comes to properly maintaining your brain:

Regularly exercise Drink plenty of water, which will properly refresh your brain. A healthy diet means a healthier brain – eat a lot of veggies (especially green ones), have moderate fruit consumption, and eat complex carbs, a high amount of healthy fats, low amounts of sugar and low amounts of unhealthy fats and alcohol. Add brain foods to your diet – EFAs, blueberries, broccoli, seeds, nuts, avocado etc. Protect your brain at all cost – wear a helmet etc. 14.3. YOU CAN’T STUDY UNDER SEVERE NEGATIVE EMOTIONS When you’re in a severe negative emotional state or under severe pressure and stress, your brain isn’t functioning as it should. It somehow loses the ability to make new neural connections and grasp new concepts and ideas.

Keep your margins high enough, take regular breaks and stretch during the breaks. Reduce the amount of stress and anxiety you face in life.

15. THE ACTION STEPS AND THE BEST RESOURCES TO GO TO IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE I hope you found many ideas in this blog post on how to study and improve your learning abilities.

To summarize, you must be clear on why you want to learn something, you gain the knowledge best through spaced repetition and recall, you have to minimize stress, avoid distractions and interruptions, preserve health, get enough sleep, and unplug yourself from the fast-food society.

The number one resource to go to if you want to learn more is the free online course Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects. I completed this course and it was also a great resource for this blog post.

Now come the action steps. Remember, you’ve learned nothing if you don’t apply knowledge into practice. Here are my commitments for improving my learning habits:

This site will not only be my blog, but also a centralized learning tool, where I publish different summaries, notes and interesting things I learn. I also put together resources in terms of blog posts I can always return to. This will be more for me, won’t be proofread, but I’m sure many people can benefit from it. I built myself a big semantic tree-map of what I want to learn in the next three years. I prepared a learning queue for myself, a learning plan with the best mixed type of resources. I limited the number of resources & learning-in-progress not to feel overwhelmed with learning. I scheduled two 1-hour sprints for learning every working day (one after I finish my morning kick-off routine and writing and one in the late afternoon after the exercise). The chunking strategy is now the core of my learning. I have chunks of knowledge defined on my semantic tree and I will learn chunk by chunk with elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, mnemonics, visualization, recall, self-testing and interleaved practice. I tried flashcards, but I don’t like them. Notes, summaries, blog posts and practical applications are my thing. I will try to use the diffuse mode more during walks, exercise and sleep. I will give instructions to my brain what to work on while I focus on other stuff. I will create more mind maps – for brainstorming, building semantic trees and memorizing new things I want to learn. But I will focus more on summaries and notes, because that’s what I like the most. Homework These are my steps. Now take a blank piece of paper, go through the text again, write down the key points of different learning strategies and concepts, and decide what you will apply into your life. Make a commitment and a new agreement with yourself for how you will study from now on and how you will become a superlearner.

Investments in yourself always pay the greatest dividends. Knowing how to study and then becoming a lifelong learner is absolutely the best type of investment. Knowledge and applying it is power. Now you know how to become more powerful in life. You just have to do the first step. Take a piece of paper, start writing down your commitments and then follow through.

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Learning is useless, validated learning is everything About The Author

Blaz Kos Blaz Kos writes about data-driven personal development at AgileLeanLife.com. Blaz Kos helps people shape superior life strategies by: (1) employing the best business practices in personal life management, (2) teaching established psychological techniques to better manage mind and emotions, and (3) setting goals based on understanding market paradigms, the quantified self, and following cold hardcore metrics that prevent any fake feeling of progress. He is obsessively passionate about hi-tech, mass media, personal development and making the world a better place.

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officialthiamlibrary · 7 years ago

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Welcome to another profile on Behind the Screens, giving you personal insight on who your favorite creators are and what they do when they aren’t wowing you with their creative ability.

Happy Tuesday friends! Today, we have the delightful pleasure in getting to know one of your most requested authors, @formerprincess. Rena, our aforementioned guest, is the writer of numerous works, most notably A Tale of Claws and Fangs, Overslept, and Finding My Way To You. As you’ll come to find out, she’s also so much more, so let’s not wait a second more to dive in.

Rena! To get us started, share something about yourself! And for the twist: the word could should be around the number of letters of the characters in you’re favorite TW rarepair ship.

Erica Reyes + Stiles Stilinski = 25

Shy but it you know me I can be pretty weird. Huge book lover. Disney Fangirl. Big heart. Need writing like air. Wrestling fan.

Woah, really?! A wrestling fan? What got you into it?

I get this question so often haha. Because I appear so shy and innocent, people are always like: What? Wrestling? You? It’s fun.

My dad watched it for a while and sometimes I watched it with him, nothing too invested. But then I learned about Nikki and Brie Bella over tumblr rp and I got really curious about them so I researched online. I love them both, especially Brie, love that they stand for strong women and through them I started to actively watch Wrestling and over time gathered some other wrestlers, male and female, I love to see in the ring. It’s fun to watch them and what they do in the ring is impressive.

From wrestling to Teen Wolf, I dig it! And, how you find your way to the Thiam fandom? What about the two grabbed a hold on you?

That’s kind of a long story. I started watching Teen Wolf because I saw gifs and pictures of it on tumblr. I got curious and wanted to see this show but it wasn’t broadcasted on TV in my country, so I kind of searched online for a way and I watched until the point where Liam was introduced in the series but then stopped because I lost interest and with work I was too busy to even think of Teen Wolf. And then I was on tumblr and I saw a gifset of the scene where Liam and Theo almost fistbumped and I was like ‘Oh hey, these two are cute together.’ I don’t even know why, I just liked the chemistry they had in the scene, Theo’s soft smile, and all. I grew curious who they were because I recognized Liam but I had no idea who Theo was. Quick online search. Aha, those two are Theo and Liam, Thiam for short. Interesting. The Thiam fandom was so very small at this point, there like five fanfics or whatever, so I didn’t really get much from my little expedition into the Thiam fandom.

I kind of forgot about them again because life and other stuff and all and then I saw something about Theo being evil months after my little encounter with the Thiam fandom and I was all ‘Wait a minute! What? But he and Liam…What the hell is going on?’. I was totally confused and stayed confused until was finally able to watch Teen Wolf again (I watched because I heard about the series ending and felt nostalgic so I gave it another shot). I watched season 4, 5, and season 6A and I was hooked!! And so ready for more screen time of Theo and Liam together, so ready to see what would happen to my boys.Tumblr came in handy again and damn had the fandom grown. I saw what everybody had to offer and the ship itself gave me so much inspiration that I wanted to contribute and put in my own two cents on them. The fandom was so welcoming and friendly, it felt like a family from the start and thus I decided to stay. I met many great people because of Thiam already, it’s really awesome.

What drew me in about them? The unspoken chemistry between them, not only romantically but also platonically. Even when I saw gifsets from them without any context, the looks they shared showed such a connection for me, I was astonished and delighted. And when I saw the whole scenes with them, every episode, I liked how different they acted around each other. I always felt like they got each other to a point no other was possible. That doesn’t mean I don’t like the relationship they have with other characters but I always felt they had this special level of a connection. As if they found their ideal counterpart with each other because they both have this fire inside them and don’t shy away from unleashing it.

Oooh, that last bit is so poetic!

Thank you. It came to my mind while I laid in bed and couldn’t fall asleep. When I thought of this, I sat up and almost yelled “That it! That’s Thiam!” Thank god I didn’t or I would have scared the neighbours probably haha.

Haha, most definitely. What’s another thing you’re passionate about beside Thiam and wrestling?

Being creative in general, not only writing. I mean, yes, writing is the biggest thing I am passionate about. I view writing as a way to deal with the stress of daily life and I would go crazy if I couldn’t write. I also write poetry sometimes.

But not only writing, sometimes I like to create some picture collage or maybe an outfit on Polyvore. Or I simply create things in my head, characters, storylines, worlds, whatever I can think of at those moments. Sometimes I take my thoughts and try to realize them in my Sims game, it’s fun.

LOL, fellow Sims lover! This is one of my fav things to do! What’s been your favorite characters/scenario to conceptualize in the game? How did the game turn out? Any entertaining stories?

Hey, that’s great haha! I love to do this and I’m currently building some houses I could use as inspiration for my stories. I usually play with original Sims, see them starting a family and see how many generations I can have until it starts to get old or until I’m running out of ideas but I once created Stiles, Lydia, Erica and Derek in the game and the Stiles Sims immediately took a shining to the Derek Sims. It was hilarious to watch because even when I was not telling him to, he was interacting with Derek, followed him around. It was adorable. He tried to make Derek laugh^^. It ended with them falling in love and Lydia and Erica being the bridesmaids.

Aww, natural shipping, sigh. That’s the best. Let’s say you could put Thiam in a similar situation, but with characters of another show. Which would you choose? How’d you think the interaction would go?

I’d chose Shadowhunters tv series and to me, this would be hilarious and awesome at the same time. Theo and Jace would so have this little competition who’s better at basically everything; Izzy would be like an older sister to Liam but without actually treating him like a baby. She would admire his determination and will to protect those he loves, they have this in common. I imagine Liam and Jace siding when it comes to fighting because they are all like: Act first and think later but really just want to protect their family and friends. Alec would roll his eyes and ask himself what he has done to deserve this but come around in the end because is actually someone able to not like Theo and Liam?

Magnus would be totally amused by the whole thing, especially if Liam and Theo are not a thing yet but he has eyes and he can basically taste the sexual tension okay? And Luke, Liam would not stop asking Luke questions about how he leads his pack and everything because another Alpha, how cool is that??? Also Maia and Liam? Dreamteam! Both struggle with control sometimes and they so would get each other. Imagine Luke and Scott running after their Betas to save them from trouble XD. Theo and Clary, because I love the headcanon about Theo being an artist, would bond over that and probably have a tentative friendship going on.

Before we chat about your works, one more silly question. If you could build the ultimate paintball/laser tag team from any five characters AND one villain on Teen Wolf, who would they be and why?

Liam, Kira, Allison, Theo, Erica, and Kate Argent

Liam because he is very athletic and competitive.

Kira because it surely would fun to have her around and she is just an awesome badass cutie. Also, she has fast reflexes.

Allison because she has an amazing aim and also girl power!

Theo because he is like a mastermind and can come up with the best strategy.

Erica because she is my queen and she would lure the other team out so we can shoot them. She and Theo would be great at making a cunning plan.

And Kate because she is ruthless and would destroy the other team.

Perfect. I still say Theo and Allison would’ve been a sight to behold together–for better or worse. Alright, so we have wrestling, sims, shadowhunters, outfit planning. And on top of all those, writing! If your creative process was a person, what type would they be? What would they do? Wear? Listen to? How do they handle conflict?

They would be a very chaotic type, all over the place. Somebody you see and wonder how they get any work done because they seem to not be organized at all. They would be that type of person that oversleeps and then bolds into work with their bag hanging off one shoulder, their jacket almost slipping down the other shoulder, travel mug filled with coffee clutched in their grip, and clutching a notepad with lots of notes hanging out from it to their chest. They would not be the one that steps into the spotlight at all but rather satisfies with the result of their work.

Their clothing would be a mix from different styles, Boho but also athletic, sometimes chic. Everything they want to wear, they wear it.

Their taste in music is mixed. They mostly listen to Pop but they also have some rocks songs they are addicted to, some Hip Hop. Whenever they hear something with a good beat, good lyrics, that’s what they like and listen to. Their favorite band would probably be Little Mix.

Handle conflict? That’s a tough one. Hm. They would try to see it from the other’s perspective while at the same time telling themselves they should not explode and yell. They are mostly quiet but if they are peeved, they can lash out. If somebody yells at them they would shy away and close themselves off.

Does your creative process also extend to other fandoms? Pairings? Novels or stories with original characters?

I started to lay down the basics for my own original novel and I can’t wait to start. I wanted to write it for years and now I finally got the right motivation and the right mindset.

Aside from Thiam, I have written some fanfictions for Charmed since that’s one of my favorite tv shows. And I have some Stucky fanfictions started as well as the base for a Malec fanfiction that lingers in the back of my mind. But Thiam is definitively the ship that inspires me the most and I wrote the most about.

An original novel, that’s awesome! What genre are you setting it in? Also supernatural?

It is a novel playing in this day and age but it’s all about the supernatural world mixed with the normal world of the humans. Think Charmed or Shadowhunters. You have the innocent humans living without actually knowing that demon witches, vampires and such live among them. The supernatural society is still in the focus of the novel.

That sounds awesome. Would you say there’s one trope or situation that somehow always wrangles itself in your stories?

I try my best to use different tropes and situations to challenge myself as a writer but one thing that happens for sure is character A watching character B and marveling around how gorgeous they look and how stunning they are. Just some good old-fashioned swooning. I just like to imagine one person being so completely enamored by another person that they have to stop and stare for a while because they sight is breathtaking. And the other person is either completely oblivious and continues with what they do, or knows exactly what they are doing, smirk at person A and preen at the attention.

And yes, friends to lovers, I’m a sucker for this.

Who isn’t really?! What’s the best friends to lovers story you’ve ever read, either fanfiction or novel? (Or one of the best, since they’re probably so many to choose from)

I guess it’s one of the greatest tropes out there haha. Puh, I read so many great stories and novels about that trope, it’s hard to tell. I remember a novel I once read (I can’t remember the title or the character names though) where this was one of the main story lines but it really took the whole novel for them to finally become a couple and yet while reading you saw their relationship growing and evolving. That’s what I always try to achieve with my stories.

I also read a Malec fanfic once where both were human but Magnus was a tattoo artist and Alec a florist. They got to know each other and it was simply perfect, Magnus helped Alec with some things and it was just adorable and awesome and amazing. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the title of this one either. I will search for it and maybe give it a shout out later when I found it again because it was really good

Oh, I’ve read that Malec fic, so good! There’s a fantastic MM novel called Switched—I think—by N.R. Walker that’s friends to lovers and I read it in one night. It’s just something about two people, who know one another in and out, coming together, more sighs.

I’d love to jump into your Thiam works. First, the Raeken Twins and your story, Finding My Way To You. Do you have any twins headcanons/imagines which helped you bring Mike Raeken to life?

I got this awesome ask one day about Theo and Mike from PPL being twins and my mind began to rattle. I thought about Theo, his personality, and began to develop someone who would be Theo’s complete opposite. Pretty Little Liars helped a lot because Mike was a sweetheart there, at least until the point where I stopped watching the show. I absolutely loved the idea of Theo having someone to take care of and protect, being a big brother.

I had a vague scene in my mind where Theo berates Mike for being too trusting and Mike just rolls his eyes and tells his big brother to relax. That was the base on where I developed the Raeken Twins. I wanted somebody who was the opposite of Theo but I didn’t want to go completely black and white and so I carved out Mike’s character more, gave him some rough edges as well.

It is fun to play around with the aspect of Theo having his counterpart who at the same time gets him to a T and has someone he always aimed to protect. He may act like he doesn’t care but it had always been my headcanon that he would do anything for Mike and Mike is that one person who knows everything about Theo and who also knows Theo does in fact care

So, if Mike Raeken was part of the Pack and the TW universe, how would he handle these few scenarios:

a: Who would be his pack allies, the pack members he’d bond with? Who would be his pack friend-enemies?

Mike, just like his brother, would become a member of the puppy pack because Mike’s a puppy too. He’d probably bond the most with Nolan and Corey because they share the most character traits with them being kind of cute and sometimes awkward. Brett would be his crush for sure. But he would also be good friends with Liam and totally root for Thiam.

Friendenemies? Good question. He’s not as harsh as Theo so he probably would not really have problems with the people around. Unless you come for his brother, then he will end you.

b: In a Supernatural crisis, how would he respond?

That clearly depends on the situation. When it comes to facing an enemy and taking them down, Mike’s a fighter and goes into the full experience. He is fast, he is agile, he is ruthless. But if it comes to protecting the people he cares about, he gets very defensive and worries more about them and bringing them to safety than taking part in the fight itself. He’s not even afraid to charge in and drag the person out of the fight (especially his brother). Mike is pretty level-headed and can stay calm even if times get rough. He checks a situation, makes his own theories about it, but he mostly stays in the background, lets the others talk and discuss, and only interferes when he feels like it’s not going anywhere. But most of the times he is fine with just watching and striking when it’s the right time.

c: One hilarious scenario you think would occur between him, Theo, and other member of the pack?

They would pull a Switch-A-Raeken so often to confuse the pack and get their laughs out of this. Liam is probably the only one who can tell them apart because he pays so close attention to them (mostly Theo though) but the others always get totally confused and the twins love to switch even during a conversation to completely confuse everyone.

One situation I find absolutely hilarious and I will write one day would involve the Sheriff, probably to introduce them as twins. One twin gets arrested, the other shows up to bail him out. Stilinski is in his office when suddenly one of the deputies knocks at the door. He calls them in and they open the door, slightly nervous. “We…uhm…have a situation here with the boy we arrested. You might want to check? He said you surely would love that.” The sheriff narrows his eyes and gets up from his chair. He walks out of his office and there they are. Two identical smirks on their faces and casually leaned against the backrest of the bench in front of his office. “Hey, Sheriff!” One of them says. Stilinski is baffled, moments pass by. He finally finds his voice again. “There are two of them? Because one Raeken wasn’t enough???” He yells, voice cracking at the end. He scratches his neck and grimaces. The twins’ smirks intensify. The deputy ducks away and hides behind the computer screen.

Rofl, I hope you do write it! Are you planning to continue Finding My Way To You too? Any spoilers you can slip us?

I am definitely planning to but I have more prominent ideas for A tale written with fangs and claws and other stories at the moment. I do have written some part of the next chapter still. I love this story and the feedback I received was wonderful. Raeken Twins are a fun thing to write about, so expect more to come.

For a spoiler, I will tell you we will have some drama, much love and yes also smut. There will be a slightly different take on the Dread Doctors spin because I am dissecting the storyline a bit to make it more fitting for Finding My Way To You. There will be a shift in the relationship between the twins as well. For everything else, you need to stay tuned ;D

Well, I suppose we must now haha. Until then, we have all of a Tale of Fangs and Claws to keep ourselves busy. Speaking of….a Tale of Fangs and Claws Time!! (I held out for this long; I’m proud of myself.) For anyone unfamiliar, could you give us a quick synopsis? What inspired the idea?

Whooo!! The story is about Liam becoming an Alpha when he least expects it. He and Theo are living in Seattle, are roommates in college, and totally in love with each other but they both feel the other might not return their feelings in the beginning. Theo still joins Liam’s pack and together they return to Seattle. The story follows Liam’s journey in his new role, especially when other werewolves appear and Liam and Theo soon have a pack of their own to take care of. They become a family, face many battles and they all learn more about each other and their strengths and weaknesses, help to find their place in the world.

My inspiration for this came from the sole wish to see Liam as Alpha. I think he would be a great Alpha and would have loved to see it happen at the end of the show as some kind of next-generation thing with the older pack members leaving Beacon Hills and him taking over from Scott. The more I thought about this, the bigger the need for Alpha!Liam became and I started to imagine his pack, created their characters a little bit and searched for faceclaims. It took me a while until I finally started to write the story; until I had a decent enough base to actually imagine turning this into a multi-chapter fic and upload it. Add me playing around with my basic photoshop program and create some Liam as Alpha manips and the inspiration was there. It came to the point where I could no longer hold back and thus I uploaded the prologue. I never imagined the success it would have and I am still amazed by this.

Wow, and it’s almost 300,000 words long! First, huge congrats on being the longest Thiam fic thus far! Is this the longest story you’ve ever written? Did you originally plan all the chapters or has it reshaped itself? Would you say you have a secret to writing longer fics while also keeping your personal interest high?

It’s crazy! Thank you so much!! I have to say I never expected this to turn out so huge, I still can’t believe it. Every time I check the chapter numbers, it still feels so unreal. When I started, I had no idea how long this would be. I had basic elements and certain points I wanted to have happen but everything else was non-existent in the beginning. It still is nowadays because that’s how I write. I don’t have everything planned out and so my own story keeps surprising me but I love this. I’m writing a chapter and some things are coming to my mind while I’m writing and I take a break to consider, bring this in a vague timeline, and then continue writing.

I admire people whohave every little detail plannedout but I’m so not like this and I had it happen to me that I wrote a chapter completely different than I intended to. Because my thoughts didn’t work as good as the thing I had been actually writing, if that makes sense. Sure, I have some scenes I have in mind for a long time and while I have not every word planned out, I have a pretty solid image of the scenes. Theo’s development for example. I knew how I want to have the big moments to happen and I am even more excited than usual when it is time to write it.

The story is indeed the longest I have ever written until now. Who knows what the future has in store? :D

I wouldn’t exactly call it a secret. Thiam itself inspires me so much and receiving so much feedback from so many people is also a very good source of motivation, not gonna lie. This story, the reactions I got from people, has made me feel better about my talent as a writer and that fueled my passion. I associate so many great things with this story and I got attached to every single character that writing a new chapter feels like coming home. I see them as part of my family, my babies if you want, and I am curious to see how they develop further. That’s what keeps me inspired to make this story longer and longer. I’d say the secret, in general, is creating something you truly love, no matter how cliche this sounds. Create this word that is truly you that brings yourself joy and I’m sure you won’t lose interest.

Yes, I so agree! When I was writing my main Stacksonstory, I fell so in love with the characters and the progress of the story! And then to be able to talk about them with so many people, it definitely kept the thoughts coming, even long after I finished it!

Exactly what happened to me with A tale written with fangs and claws! It is wonderful to have such great response and it’s a great source of motivation. I get so many ideas for this story just by reading comments or talking with people. That’s the beauty of fanfiction I think.

Most definitely! Would you then say any of your original characters are based on people you know personally?

Actually no. I was more inspired by fictional characters, took some things from them, and created my own individual character. If there are any resemblances I haven’t noticed them yet but hey, maybe I will someday^^

Maybe, who knows what might happen. Not us, certainly. Thinking forward, is there one thing you’re dying to add in the story but you have to write a few more chapter before it comes up?

Liam’s and Theo’s wedding! I am dying to write this since a few chapters and everyone who read the last chapter knows I’m toying around with this thing a bit but I really, really can’t wait to write their wedding. It will happen one day and I am excited about it but it will take some more (a lot more) chapters until we can get there.

Yessssss, we’ll be patiently waiting until then! Before we wind down, I’d love to give you a time to impart some wisdom onto us. Any life hacks or creative wisdom on your mind lately?

It is important to figure out what works best for you and never let anybody butt in, writing-wise and in life too. I had to learn this myself but there will be people telling you how you should do a certain thing and then you need to figure out if this is really the best for you. I’m not saying you should not take advice, you definitely should, but it is okay to change this advice, maybe combine it with the advice you got from someone else and create your own special way to get things done. There might be people who are very critical of how you work, how you handle things, and sometimes it can really get to you and be a bummer but it is important to remember that as long as it good for you, as long as it helps you get something done the way you want it to, it’s the right way for you. Your own opinion and your own wellbeing are more important than what some might think are the right thing for you. Your way is the right thing and great things will come from this, just stay true to yourself even when it’s hard sometimes

Also: Allow yourself to change. What was on your mind a year ago, what you wrote a year ago, doesn’t become less valid just because you changed your perspective. You are ever-changing and there will be moments where you realize that your old mindset doesn’t apply to the situation anymore, not to the person you became anymore. That’s okay. It doesn’t take anything away from the progress you made before, doesn’t take anything away from what you created back then. It simply shows your development as a writer, as a person, and that’s a fascinating progress.

Thank you so much for your honesty and depth. Aww, well, we reached the end of our time, Rena! Luckily, we’ve learned so much about you in our short time together. To end us out, what’s next for you? Any big plans?

I have several projects planned. In terms of fanfiction, I’m planning a sequel to A tale written with fangs and claws if I finish the story, I’m planning on continuing my Mated series, Finding My Way To You will be continued as well, and there are several other fanfictions on the line. I’m also planning on finally writing my first original novel, something I’m very excited about. Those are the things I have planned, who knows what else is gonna happen? Life is full of surprises.

Good luck with your novel! And all the other bundles of surprises and happiness that are whirling your way. Is there anything else you’d like to share? The mic’s in your hands.

It’s okay to struggle. I sometimes feel like the standards expect everyone to be perfect at anything they do and it can be really frustrating when you feel like you’re not reaching these standards. You feel like a failure and it’s a horrible thing to feel. I had so many moments where I felt like I would never reach the standard for that thing to be considered good or even great and it took me a long time to learn not to always compare myself to others and be proud of who I am, my talents, what I create. I still feel like I’m not good enough sometimes but every time I struggle, I learn new things about myself and that’s what made me realize it is okay to struggle. You learn next to nothing when you don’t struggle and ease everything perfectly on the first try.

Sure, it’s great to have a lift first time you do something, it’s even important to be a natural in some things, but I also know that struggling causes doubts and insecurities because you feel like anybody else doesn’t seem to struggle at all. What I’m trying to say is embrace your struggles as part of your development process on becoming the best version of yourself that you can be. And remember: Nobody has the same story to tell as you. The world needs to hear yours, don’t let the doubts take this away from you. It’s a long and difficult way to go but it’s worth it in the end.

Thanks so much Rena! It was a freaking blast getting to know you and your life, inspirations, and quirky interests haha!

Thankfully, the conversation doesn’t have to end here. To chat with her about her works, Thiam, Teen Wolf, even Wrestling, you can find Rena at these three places:

AO3: Former_Princess

Tumblr: formerprincess

Ask Box: formerprincessask

In her words, “It’s more than okay! I love getting asks, messages. I’d even love to get a carrier pigeon. I am a shy noodle myself but I absolutely love to interact with people and have them interact with me. Ask as many questions as you want, send in as many things as you want, you will never bother me and in fact make me very happy. Also - on a non fandom related note - myaskbox is always open for anybody who needs somebody to listen to them.”

She’s also currently accepting prompts, though it might take her a while to get to them–you know busy lives and what not. So, feel free to “send in things, share your thoughts, headcanons, and everything else,” with her. (Also, her words!)

Thanks so much for reading. We will see you next week as we get to know about fandomtrashwhore, aka Marie, our resident Thiam Social Media expert. Until then!

Have a Thiam Creator you fan over? Send us their names. Likewise, if you as the creator, would like to be a part of the Behind the Screens series, give us a shout too! We’d love to get to know you, as well.

#officialthiamlibrary #behind the screens #thiam #teen wolf #formerprincess #mod: minna

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localwebmgmt · 4 years ago

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Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 331

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Click on the video above to watch Episode 331 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Hey everybody. Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts. This is Episode 330. It is the 17th of March 2021. We got almost the full game here today. We’re going to go around and say some hellos. probably talk about the weather. Maybe I’ll ask her about something, maybe assert, see if he’s got a Semantic Mastery shirt or something else on today. And then finally, then we will get to your very important questions we will answer as best we can. So for now, and as promised, I’m gonna start with you What? What’s your you wanted to?

Have a nice looking good? Yeah, the Oh, gee, good, man. It’s good. I’m excited to be here. I’m excited to be at the Hangout said to be one more episode. We’re doing this thing. So it’s good. Out Danny. And next, we got Chris, how are you doing today? Good. Glad to be here. Can’t wait. I’ve been recording a couple of videos. So yes. Pretty exciting stuff coming up here soon. Yeah, what is it, guys? What is there something coming down the pipeline? should people be excited or expecting something heard on Bradley?

Maybe that was important. I know you guys talked about it last week, we’re looking forward to sharing some more we’ve had. I don’t want to spill all the beans right now. But next week, the big update to syndication Academy is dropping, that is going to go live. And there’s a lot of good stuff coming with that. So if you are watching this, there’s a high likelihood that you’re an email subscriber, whether you just get the newsletters or whether you’re paying members of one of the groups. If you’re not, if you’re watching this on YouTube, if you’re checking it on the hump day hangout page, I would highly suggest going either to the websites Manning mastery comm or if you’re watching this live head down, up on the email list, you definitely don’t want to hear about this. And there’s going to be a very special offer for people who are subscribers. So with that out of the way, Bradley, how you doing today, good, busy as all hell. But things are, things are really good. I’ve been working on all kinds of crazy stuff for my new agency, and I’ve got a meeting with one of my three guys tonight. shares, we get down with Hump Day hangouts actually to have him start beta testing this app that I developed for my contractors. So it’s kind of cool. This is the first time I’ve ever dealt with trying to sell like an app before or software as a service. And so this is new to me, and I kind of going to have to go kind of squash bugs and beta test it and I’ve got a meeting with him tonight. And then I’ve got a potential meeting with another tree contractor next week. So I’ll have two beta testers in there, which will be kind of cool. But I’ll share more about that when it’s more appropriate. But it’s, it’s pretty cool, it’s a great way to generate nice streams of income for you know, some, it’s not a whole lot of money, but it’s a, it’s just an additional service that you can tack on to, for clients that, you know, once they enter, once they start using the SAS app like that, it’s hard for them to get away from using it. So it’s almost like even if they want to stop you’re paying for marketing services. If they’re in the app that they’re using is an integral part of their lead management or workflow, then they’re likely to keep that even if they suspend marketing services if that makes sense. So it’s just a way to keep recurring income from even past clients. Pretty cool, but I’ll share more about that when it’s more appropriate. That’s that I just also want to expand on very briefly Syndication Academy guys, this is completely being been redone, I mean, from front to back. So it’s 100% updated for 2021 with all of you know, changes and everything else in the way that we use it, it’s still we still use our syndication networks, but they’re used in there, they’re more, they’re powerful in a different way than they used to be. And all of that is covered extensively in the new training, we’ve got a list of over 300 sites that are going to be added. You know, like we’re going to go through those in the update webinars that are going to be doing probably once every two weeks, you know, another two or three properties will be covered to help expand the entity footprint is just it’s this has been long overdue. So we’re really really proud of what’s coming out. So make sure you guys are on the notifications list for that next week.

Most certainly, and if you’re new to semantic mastery you’re new to MGYB you’re not sure where to start. Like I said first thing hop on the email list so you can stay up to date or head over to YouTube subscribes to the YouTube channel. But then we highly recommend going to the SEO shield the word the SEO shield comm find out how to shield your site not to worry about algorithm updates, you’ll find out what this SEO shield is that you probably hear us talking about all the time and syndication networks and the syndication Academy is a big part of that. So that’s free training go and check that out. If you’re looking for more step by step processes involving kind of the big picture for SEO you can grab the battle plan at battle plan dot semantic mastery comm if you’re an agency owner, or maybe you’re a consultant like myself, you want to get more clients you want to grow your revenue you want to scale your team. If you want to don’t worry about that, go check out to x your agency and that’s a 2xyouragency.com And then if you’re ready to really grow, then you probably want to join an experienced community. You would want faster access to real-world info and you know, be able to get in contact with people like Bradley, me Marco, Hernan, Chris, as well as your peers. And you can do that in the mastermind and find out more about that at mastermind dot semantic mastery.com. And at the beginning of this, I mentioned MGYB, which’s where you can get all of your done services. Things like embedded link building press releases, the SEO shield done for you, syndication networks, all sorts of good stuff. If you haven’t go check it out mg y b dot c o. And last but not least, I mentioned this last week, I believe, or the week before.

We have decided that POFU Live is going to be virtual again this year, just with everything going on in the world, we’re not sure where we would be able to hold it when we can do it exactly. So we want to be able to draw a line in the sand. Let everyone know when that date is going to be and start planning around that. So 2020 was virtual, it was great. The feedback was just as good if not better than the years before. So we’re going to aim to do that again. Take it up a notch, get some more great speakers who have already been in touch with the guys. We had Jordan Fowler, Brian Caddo, we’re looking at a couple of others to bring on just amazing content and some great presentations not only from them but from us as well. So looking forward to sharing that with you all. And as soon as we get this up, and we get a date decided we will share more info and you can pre-order tickets. So as usual, we offer a great discount for people who buy those upfront and say, hey, yeah, I’m in 100%. Let’s get this going. So we do a limited-time kind of an early access deal. And so we’ll let everyone know about that. So besides that, guys, is there anything else we need to let people know about before we dive in?

Not that I can think of. Let’s do it. Alright, let’s do it. Whoa.

Hold on. Sorry. I’m typing a note in the slack for you guys. Kidding. Not question time.

Okay, remind me to bring to dimension what I dropped a note in slack about we can chat about that. Just remind me about it. Somebody will do all right. Let me grab the screen. Got a lot of questions already. So

okay, everybody sees my screen? Correct? Yes. Okay. I don’t know cuz I’m looking, guy. I’m not on the zoom screen up there, man.

Is It A Good Idea To Upload Short Videos Targeting Different Keywords In One YouTube Channel?

Mike says, Hello, everyone. Is it a good idea to upload a YouTube channel to upload to a YouTube channel many different short videos, I’m talking about those simple, stupid short videos, videos that don’t give me any value but only target different keywords in niche slides with text and animation, like the tools they sell on Jvzoo market?

Should I upload around 100 short videos targeting different keywords? Thanks. You know, that’s, that’s actually a really good strategy for what’s called poking. If you have I mean, that’s, that’s a term that’s been around for years, but I can’t remember who came up with that idea first. But there’s been a bunch of tools developed for poking, which was like, and YouTube’s great for that if you’re doing a lot of video SEO stuff.

You know, I mean, here’s the thing. Okay, so yes, that’s a good idea if you’re trying to figure out which keywords are easiest to rank, if that makes sense with four videos, okay? Because remember, you’re talking about YouTube. So obviously, Google likes YouTube, because it’s its own properties don’t asset so it will rank YouTube videos, however, I’ve noticed, at least for local stuff, which is pretty much all I do. It videos don’t rank, like for locally based buyer intent keywords like they used to. So I stopped trying to do video SEO for I mean, sometimes they still rank but I don’t, I don’t purposely try to get videos to rank anymore because I use Google ads for it for that. So I’m going to preface I’m just saying that as a disclaimer for full transparency because I’m going to share with you why poking was good when I used to do a lot of it. And I’m assuming that that’s still a valid tactic. But I don’t do that anymore. So that said when it came to poking videos like video marketing Blitz was a good product for that Peter Drew’s got a bunch of products Love Live rank sniper was one of them hanging out millionaire was another one. So there’s you know, there’s a ton of Jvzoo products, like you said, essentially just create these, like a live rank sniper. By the Way, Peter Drew’s live rank sniper was really good for that because he didn’t even need a video. He would the tool would go out and create scheduled live events or live streams from YouTube, which will index and you don’t even need a video because they’re scheduled so YouTube will assign a YouTube URL to the scheduled live event and it will index even before there’s even a video so you didn’t even need a video with a live rank sniper you could

Just set up your keyword list and then hit live rank sniper. And it will go out and just create multiple live scheduled live streams. And then you can and then it had a tool on it that would go determined, you know is like a rank checker essentially to tell you which indexed schedule with live rank, live scheduled live streams, excuse me, which ones were they were ranking and I think it would only check on the first page or maybe the first two pages. So I can’t remember because like I said, it’s been a while since I used it, but it would go back and determine which ones ranked and so any of them, and if I remember correctly, I used to set a filter on it that would say only return the results that are on the top 10. So like if I set up a campaign to run a test or to poke 100 100 keywords, you know, you might end up with, you know, 18 2025 whatever, however many keywords that would show is ranking on page one, well, those would be the ones that then I would start to target with an actual video. So and what was cool about that is it would tell you which keywords would likely rank easily with a real video. And then you could actually focus your video content around those keywords so that they would be even better. And then just it’s kind of a way to shortcut like the process because you can start getting traction from those videos at rank easier, a lot faster, and then use those to kind of like leapfrog some of the other keywords that would be more difficult. So for example, if you’re not if you’re familiar with using playlists for silos if you’re not if you don’t know what I’m talking about going to YouTube or I think it’s is it YouTubesiilo.academy. I’m pulling it up right now why T dot silo dot Academy? Yeah, I thought it was why t because we’ve got to now. So anyway, so YouTube silo Academy, if you look it up, you’ll find it. That’s a product that I put together like, I don’t know, long, long time ago, six, seven years ago now. But it’s still valid. So what I’m saying is if you can set up silos using playlists, and you target the keywords at the top of the silo that is already ranking, and then you can start stacking your other keywords in that silo, it can help. That makes sense. So yes, those tools can be good, at least when I used to use them. I haven’t really focused on any sort of video SEO now for probably two years, maybe even a little longer, because I use YouTube ads to drive traffic to videos now. But in the past, that was a great strategy that I used often. And again, I think I used video marketing Blitz, which was ABS ABS rev GS tool, which was good, it had a pretty steep learning curve, though. There’s a great tool at the time. I don’t know if that still works, though. But live rank sniper was Peter Drew’s tool. And that that worked great, because like I said, You didn’t even need a video. And I know he keeps his tools updated. So you might want to check on that one if you don’t already have one. So anybody wants to comment on that?

No, I think Yeah, you definitely covered it, you know, depends on that would probably the best way to go about it. I was just getting stuck on the content production side of this, like, how should I do it? And I think that you know, if you do what Bradley says, that’s a great way to see what you can do. But then beyond that, you know, I wouldn’t invest. And this is just me. So take this with a grain of salt, but I wouldn’t invest a ton of time putting out the short videos unless you’re doing it as a test. Because otherwise, like, what’s the conversion going to be on that stuff, you know, for anything, you know, I’d rather put out one video a week that is at least worthwhile to somebody. And that is going to draw a conversion instead of putting out 100 videos this week. But long term, they’re basically gonna flop. So there you go. And he’s got a 10% discount. So you get it for about $60 a month for a live rank sniper. And that’s Peter Drew’s tool like I said, and that that’s and he says, updated 2021 edition. So I’m sure that this is, again, I’m sure you can probably find other tools. I just know that his tools are always updated. Peter. Drew’s a sharp guy. He’s been a friend of Semantic Mastery for a long time. And yeah, see, he even talks about poking right here. It’s a great tool. It really is. It’s a great tool. I don’t use it much anymore, because I don’t really do video SEO. But when I did, this was one of my favorite tools for sure.

Okay, moving on.

What Is Domain Authority Stacking?

Randy says, Hey, everyone in the last Hump Day Hangouts, Bradley mentioned something called domain authority stacking. Can you please elaborate on this a little bit more? How does it differ from RYS drive stacks? Well, it was an older tactic that worked like crazy years, years ago. I’m talking like, 2013 2014 timeframe. So we’re, I mean, you know, we’re talking seven, eight years ago now. But domain authority, which obviously is a Moz metric, it’s you know, proprietary metric. This is right after they took the PageRank scoring away, where Google stopped displaying PageRank and sharing that information. And so, at the time, domain authority and page authority, were probably you know, the most

Accurate type of metrics to determine like the rank ability or you know, if, if you could boost domain authority past a certain threshold, you could rank easily.

And that was I mean, that’s not the case anymore. Just so you know, I mean, there may be some obvious, there might be some exception to all that, but we don’t, we have Semantic Mastery stopped focusing on third-party proprietary metrics. Long ago, like four years ago, at least we stopped worrying about all those metrics, I don’t care whether it’s a trap or majestic or Moz, or any of those, because we just don’t care we work on, you know, semantic-based SEO, which is based on entities and it’s based about relevancy. And what Marco says is art activity, relevance, trust, and authority. And so we’re able to do that without focusing on metrics. And we’re able to get results without focusing on metrics because those are third-party metrics. So and again, so I’m just prefacing all of this so that you’re aware that domain authority stalking stopped working like it, as it did several years ago, and we kind of got away from doing anything, where we would try to manipulate third party metrics, because they’re just that they’re third party metrics, which I know they have their algorithms and such, and all that that is, you know, they’re, they’re smart algorithms that determine the power and authority and all that kind of stuff. And they can be good indicators. But again, we’ve been able to achieve results with like, not focusing on those metrics at all. So that all said domain authority stacking was away, again, back seven, eight years ago, where if you could boost the domain authority for a domain, past a certain threshold, anything above 40 would start to rank quite well. And if you could get above 60, forget about it was easy to rank, like even new pages on the site. And so what we used to do is would manipulate domain authority a number of different ways, I’m not going to get into all of them, because there were a number of ways we did it. But um, and again, as I said, I don’t think it necessarily works that much anymore, although I’m sure there are some people out there that are still probably doing some similar tactics and getting results, we got away from that. But one of the ways that we used to do it was was amazing was, we would find, like, for example, old, like go to.

I think it was expired domains, dot net, or something like that. And we would find dropped domains. So these were domains that were expired, that somebody had expired, that had been used at one time, but then they went through the whole auction process, and then nobody purchased them. So you could buy them as close-out domains for like five bucks, no shit, you could register them for like five bucks. And some of these were like, Chinese domains that had 1000s, sometimes 10s of 1000s. And even in a few cases, hundreds of 1000s of subdomains. And since the domain wasn’t live anymore, like if when you did a search on it, you’d see that there were, you know, hundreds of 1000s, sometimes millions of backlinks built to these Chinese domains that had like all these subdomains that were no longer exists. So we would buy the domain for like five bucks, six bucks, whatever it was. And then we would set up a, what’s called a wildcard subdomain redirect in us so we would point the domain to a server a host, then using ht access file, we’d set up a wildcard redirect to redirect all of the non-existent subdomains to the root. And it would power up that root like it was crazy because all those backlinks and everything would all of a sudden, like consolidate to the root. And it would boost the root domain to like in seriously in a week’s time, remember, does Moz domain authority metrics there, they would refresh I think about every two weeks, it might have been three weeks at the time. And so you would have to wait two or three weeks for the next Moz refresh to see what kind of an effect the domain authority like how much you boosted it. And it was crazy, because, you know, by doing a subdomain redirect method, you could go from a zero to like above 40. And up and in one mas cycle, one refresh cycle.

Otherwise, we would do what was just set up a subdomain on a new domain, and then just give it to our link builder, Daddy of the same guy who builds links for us at mg y b now and just have him do you know, huge, you know, hundreds of 1000s of spam links to the subdomain. And we just graze the domain authority to where when we would build on the root domain pages would index in rank almost immediately. Or at least it would give an unfair advantage. So that was a lot of stuff that we would do. So those are just a couple of the methods. But again, we got away from doing that because it started to stop like it stopped working as well as it used to. We started to see a diminishing return from that. And that was about around the time that we stopped using metrics is when we really when we started seeing Google adopting Semantic Web Search technology so that you know, so essentially we were realizing that it would take

We’re going towards entity-based SEO at that time. And so we got away from all of that and started working on activity, relevance, trust, and authority. So again, that’s why I don’t recommend domain authority stalking anymore. I’m sure there, there are some people out there that are still getting away with doing some probably really cool things that work. We got away from that. So I can’t really speak on how to do that now.

It probably would still work as far as boosting domain authority. But I don’t know how valuable that is now is what I’m saying. Drive stacks, as Marco always says, you know, the reason why we got away from doing all that other stuff is that we, in 2015, is when Rob excuse me, Marco, and at the time was Dr. Gary developed the drive stack. And our Why is the original RYS Academy or rank your shit Academy, which was using Google’s own properties to basically create the kind of authority that we did with domain authority stacking before but only using Google properties. Now, as Mark always says, about being in the belly of the beast, right, so we go into the belly of the beast, which is Google, and we manipulate Google assets and Google properties knowing that Google is not going to punish or it’s not going to punish or penalize itself. So, therefore, that’s why we call it the SEO shield. Because we use all of Google’s own properties to shield our money site from any potential negativity that happens from external SEO or off-page SEO. And we do all of the off-page SEO to the SEO shield. And you allow the high authority Google properties in some of the other properties, but mainly Google properties, kind of filter or link launder like link laundering, right? We link launder the links, essentially, that is flowing through the Google assets back to the money site. So that we are basically stripping any negativity from that put for many potential penalties that link building can cause if that makes sense. So anyway, hopefully, that makes sense. Does anybody want to comment on that? I know we used to do a shit ton of that way back in the day.

I’m good.

Is It Possible To Load Any Schema or MetaData Tweaks Or Code From A Txt File On Another Server?

Pretty good. Edward says, Hey, awesome channel, these Hump Day Hangouts. been following for a while. Okay, thanks, Edward. He says a question regarding on pages if possible to load any tweaks or code schema meta h1 from external sources. Regarding on-page, is it possible to load tweaks or code, ie from a text file on another server URL? Or would this present a security issue reason why is to be able to control the client’s on-page optimizations, restore to default without accessing the WordPress logins? Thanks. I don’t know about doing anything with a text file. Because I don’t I don’t really understand what it is you’re trying to do with that. But you can load code and schema, for example, using Google Tag Manager, because that’s what Tag Manager is the right tag. If you go to Google Tag Manager, and by the way, if you guys ever want to learn anything about Google Tag Manager, go lookup. You can go to measureschool.com. This guy’s name is Julian, I think I always say that this guy right here, young guy, he’s, well, maybe not so young anymore. But younger than me. He’s got amazing training on Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager, this guy’s a total data nerd. And it shows but he’s really good at explaining stuff. He’s got a ton of really good training, a lot of it’s free, if you go to his YouTube channel, by the way, measure school youtube.com, I think slash measure school, he’s got a ton of free videos and playlists for like, you know, Google Tag Manager and playlists for analytics and all that. So you can go in there and probably get all the training that you need.

That’s where I learned how to do most of the stuff I do with Tag Manager was right through here through this guy. Okay.

Anyway, so with Tag Manager, yeah, so Tag Manager gives you a container code that you install in the header of your site. And there’s a body container too. But anyways, you install the container code to a site, right? So you add it to a site. And then you can add, you can update, add scripts, JSON LD, so structured data, you can add remarketing pixels, you know, all kinds of stuff through Tag Manager. So you log into Tag Manager and you’re able to, you know, add and subtract code and scripts and things like that to the site remotely. Because basically, the container code is there. And whatever you add in Google Tag Manager will render through that container. So yes, you can do it. I don’t know about a txt file, though. I don’t know what you’re trying to do with that. And I’m not sure how that would work.

But as far as scripts and schema and stuff like that you can adding like content into a page. I don’t know how you would do that. Because these are like scripts and things that run in the background not visible, right. So like, for example, you’re talking about adding code to the HTML header of a page and not like, you know, in the content body of a page, if that makes sense. So you can add scripts and things but as far as adding remote-like content to a site and all that kind of stuff. I don’t know how that’s if that’s possible, and if so, I’m not sure how to do it. Does anybody here have any ideas on that?

Okay, that’s a no.

Can You Register A New Domain And Use It To Point The SEO Shield, PRs, & Other Backlinks To The Client?

Next question. Regarding 301 redirects, can I register a new domain and use it to point all off-page work instead of to the client, ie SEO shield or any other backlinks such as prs, and then 301, redirect to the client? Yes, you can absolutely do that. I used to do that all the time. In fact, what I used to do with new clients, and I don’t do this anymore, but I used to,

I would build their site, and then I would clone their site, and I would buy a domain that was very similar to their domain, a lot of times just a different extension. And I would, I would install the clone site onto the new, the other the secondary domain that I purchased that I owned. And then what I would do is I would do a one-to-one ratio, page by page redirect from all the pages on the site, my site, the domain that I purchased through the cloned site was on the domain that I purchased. And I would do a one-to-one redirect from all the eggs, you know, the pages of the cloud site to the new site. And then I would, you know, just use the sitemap to extract all the URLs from the new site. And then I will use all of those as link building targets for link building so that in the event that a client would decide that they wanted to, you know, cancel services with me, all I would have to do is go in and remove the redirects. And all of the link building that I did would benefit the site that I created. And not there’s obviously I would have to go in and change like logos and things like that and change the text on the site slightly so that it wasn’t an exact duplicate of their site, which I would do in the event that we had to if that makes sense. But it was a way that like, Yeah, because there was a lot of not a lot, but there were a few times where, you know, I was able to take a site that a client decided that they didn’t need my services for anymore, remove the redirects, rebrand the existing site, the one that I, you know, had set up as a clone, I would rebrand it, change the content slightly and everything and then it would become a lead gen asset that then I could turn around and rent to another contractor in that same area, or I could sell leads. And I did that a few times. The only thing is there’s, you know, there’s a little bit of event.

First of all, it adds a lot of additional work, I understand it is a way to protect your time investment, and all the work that you’ve done, I get that. But it’s it does add a lot of additional work initially, but then also, as you continue to do more work for your client, there’s going to be a lot of times where it’s just not really feasible to point like links from the content that you’re producing for them to like your own domain that then redirects to theirs because they’re paying you for that kind of content. And what I mean that what I mean by that is like, for example, if you were to set up a press release account or order press releases for your client, the press releases should be linking directly to the client.

Clients website, in my opinion, you know, branded assets, for example, you wouldn’t want to put your redirect domain in branded assets for them, because, again, in the event that they decided they don’t need you anymore. Now you’ve got your domain URLs or your URLs in their profiles, and they that could cause even potential legal issues, right. So there’s, there are times where that’s inappropriate altogether, in my opinion. And so I kind of got away from doing and here’s the other thing like for blog posts, if you’re doing blogging as part of your content marketing and SEO strategy, which is what I do for all of my clients, hence the syndication Academy, and we do content marketing on the regular, at least, at least two posts a week, but oftentimes more.

If you’re blogging, think about that, when you post publish a blog on there, or publish a post on their blog, and it syndicates to their networks, and all that how you think about all the additional work it would take to go in and every time you publish, you would go to publish a blog post on there’s you’d have to redirect all the URLs that were in there and all that it just becomes a nightmare. It’s too much work.

And so again, there were times where like over time, especially if I had a client for many, many months, it got to a point where the work that was the link building and things that were done directly to their property through content marketing and press releases. And that kind of stuff would end up overpowering what was initially done to the clone site that I had made a copy site that I had built the links to and everything else. So there was like a diminishing return. And the work was the workload was higher. So again, I got away from doing that. So getting back to what we’re doing with the SEO shield again, guys, if you have, you know, control over the SEO shield, you can do very similar then without having to worry about all the redirects, right, because if you’re doing all of your external link building to the SEO shield, and then the customer or the client decides they don’t need you anymore, can’t you just, you know if you decided that that’s what you wanted to do now.

I’m encouraging anybody to do this, but you could always go in and eliminate the drive step or set it to nonpublic if that makes sense. And you basically would kill all that juice that was flowing from that drive stack to the customer site or the client site with that single switch of permission settings in Google Drive or through deleting it. Does that make sense? So, you know, again, I don’t, I don’t recommend going through all that trouble of doing redirects, because, over time, it becomes more and more cumbersome and harder to manage. And there are just times where it’s just inappropriate to do that in my opinion. So there’s a great question though. Is anybody else want to comment on that?

Okay.

Are PBN Links Good To Power Up The SEO Shield?

Um, next to the last question from Edward. It looks like he says also never talked much about it here. PBNs and PBN links, do you use them like them? If so why wouldn’t they be good for powering up the show? Sure. They would be. I wouldn’t use PBN links to direct to the money site. But they will absolutely work for powering up entity assets. So hitting the SEO shield properties, for example.

But we don’t, I don’t use PBN links anymore, because I got tired of building PBNs after having, you know, many of them deindexed over the years. And just it just, it’s so much harder to build PB ends. Now if you’re buying links from a PBN. Remember, be careful with that. But as long as you’re not pointing them directly to your money site, yes, you can get away with that. I don’t recommend anybody. I mean, some people are really good at it. But the way that to build PBN now to where they’re basically undetectable is difficult. And it requires a lot of work. And you have to build sites that generate their own traffic and rank well themselves for the links to be valid or valuable anymore. So we got away from doing that because we don’t need to because we point all our links to our SEO shield property. So we can just get away with spam links, which is what our link-building service does. It’s just it’s cheaper. It’s inexpensive. It’s it works. It works well. But yes, PBN, links can be good for powering up entity assets, but I would never point them directly to your money site. I don’t use PBN links, however, I do use on occasion, guest post links, then those can be rather expensive too, but they can be rather powerful. And I’ll use guest post links strategically to power up specific points of my SEO shield. And occasionally, with very specific testing, I will point a guest post link out up, you know, at a particular page or post on a money site. But that’s usually only very rare and it’s usually only from testing for some point where I’m trying to get something to budge that was unable to through other methods. So But yeah, I don’t recommend PBN links unless you’re just using the power-up entity assets.

What Schema Do You Recommend For City And Location Pages?

Okay, Austin Don’s up, he says on city location pages, which schema? Do you recommend it? Or should I use local business throughout? Awesome, Don? It’s a great question. Yeah, you should, for location pages for individual locations, use local business schema. And then for the organization or the company, right, you would want to put organization schema, at least on the homepage, I don’t recommend doing it sitewide I used to or years ago, but if you understand structured, connected schema or connected data, a nested schema is another way to call it then if you understand how to connect those schema types properly, then you can have organization schema on the homepage, and then for each location page, you put local business schema, and it will reference the organization in the structured data schema. So it will pull that structured data in anyways.

You know, this is this, I can’t show you guys how to do that. There’s some really good training at schema AP comm for a lot of that, they encourage you, they teach you how to use their tool, and they want you to subscribe to their tool. And I think it’s like 30 bucks a month for their lowest plan.

It’s a great tool, it does have a learning curve, but they’ve got some good training on how to do those kinds of things with their tool. So if it’s something you’re really interested in learning about, I would recommend you go check out some of the training that they have. If you feel like using the tool would help you. I do use the tool I’m not, you know, just to be 100% transparent, just because schema can get so complex. And if you miss a comment somewhere or a quote or a squiggly bracket or something, then it screws up the whole it invalidates the whole thing. So I try to use I use that app specifically because

I just don’t have the patience to learn how to code schema by hand.

So I use that tool, just total transparency. But yeah, organization schema is best on the homepage. And then for individual locations. You put structured data, excuse me local business structured data on those pages. Okay.

Good question.

Do You Test Titles For Higher CTR?

All right, moving on. The next one is baby what’s up. BB wonder where you were he says, Hey guys, you started very early today. Oh, no time changes. And BB way and this is, this is the US and we’re stupid over in the US we got to mess with our clocks twice a year and change the time, twice a year we change the time it moves forward. And then six months later it moves an hour back. So you just got caught up in our stupid time changes in America, which I think is absolutely ridiculous. Anyways, moving on. He says one I’m sorry, do you test titles for a higher click-through rate? And how to test without how to test the title without giving up rankings in with increasing the CTR?

Yeah, I mean, go back to the beginning of today’s webinar where we talked about poking. That was one way you could test titles. Granted, they were YouTube videos, and obviously, Google ranks YouTube videos differently than it does, you know, standard web pages. But that’s how we would do it. Like when I used to do that a lot I would do. Like, again, live rank sniper Peter Drew’s tool, I would take the titles that I wanted to test and create scheduled live streams with live rank sniper didn’t live rank sniper, you didn’t even need a video. And then I would run the tool. determine which ones rank which titles rank the highest and that’s what I would use to optimize my titles with but remember, you know, is that is it apples and oranges? Right? Are you comparing apples to oranges? if you’re you’re testing with a YouTube video, but you’re trying to rank standard, like text-based content. Unless it’s on a Google property, I don’t know that that’s really still a valid way to do that I used to do that years ago, but I don’t know that still a valid way to do it. So how do you test titles?

I honestly don’t know. Besides that, I mean, you could always just create a few pages with different titles and very minimal text on them and just let them index and see which ones work rank the highest even not saying that it would rank on page one that you wouldn’t even consider that but just, you know, take however many titles you want to test, publish them to a domain with minimal content on each. And then just see which ones were the ones they index, see which ones write the best. And then you could use that as your title for your actual content on your money site. If that makes sense. That might be another way to do it.

Okay, we’re almost out of questions. While we might be wrapping it up early today, guys.

And that’s all B’s fault for not posting 18,000 questions.

How Do You Get In A Niche Where It Seems Like Everything Is Written And There’s No Room For Improvement Anymore?

So anyway, maybe get to post some questions there. We’re gonna wrap it up early. He says, How do you get in a niche that everything is written? And that it seems nothing to improve there? Now that’s not true. Like, you know, everything. Not there is anything new like is that there’s always angles that you can squeeze into. You can I mean, it’s kind of hard to pull something out of my ass to give you as an example. But there’s always ways that you can kind of wiggle your way into space.

You have to get creative, I guess. But there’s there is there’s certainly ways there’s no way that there’s a particular niche that is just everything has been written about it. And there’s no way that there’s anything that could be newly written about, I mean, you could just reward shit, and it’s new. Right? So anybody has any comments on that? How can we give him some advice?

Okay, nobody else was just kind of thinking about this, it depends on this kind of BB that in question. I was thinking again, content, like, if you’re looking at a niche, and that’s, you know, I’m thinking like affiliate site kind of mindset where like, everything has been written, you have great articles, you know, really in-depth. And, you know, that may be part of like research like, well, then maybe you don’t attack that niche, if like, there’s really strong players, or if there are multiple, you know, angles, and they’re all really well done, then maybe that’s part of your criteria to say, hey, my odds are pretty low here, it’s gonna take a long time. But otherwise, like, I agree with Bradley, like, there’s generally always an angle, something you can do. But that’s kind of up to you. There’s no like, metric where it’s like, Okay, if they wrote this way, or this long or from this angle, then don’t attack it. You know, that’s where your experience comes into play. And you just either have to make the choice to do it and maybe set a tripwire for like, I’m gonna work on this project for six months. Here’s what I expect to happen. If I don’t hit this metric, then I’m going to, you know, do something else, or here’s what I’m going to do to push further. So thank you. That was good. And yeah, I mean, like some of the tools that I know even Adams, he turned me on the conversion.ai. I don’t know that that would help but there are other tools like phrase.io, for example, on some of the others that you could plug some of that content in that you say is well written and can’t be improved upon probably find ways to improve upon it is what I’m saying. Yeah, that’s been the single best way I’ve used phrases like one is coming up with contemporary for other writers, but then taking the stuff I write and I’m like, Oh, this is pretty good. And just be like, nope, stop that. Don’t get in that rut. Take it over there. See what it says? That it’s searching, you know, the top 1020 results, whereas I won’t do that. I might look at the top three superficially, and it’s amazing what that uncover so yeah, highly recommend that.

How To Avoid The Overlap And Competition Of Two Owned GMBs That Are In Close Proximity With Each Other?

Okay, cool. So the next question is from this guy. He says, Hey, guys, I got my first all I asked RYS stack this week. Very impressed. My question is my main GMB is kind of on the outskirts, somewhat rural. I created a second GMB and my main city, it’s only about eight to 10 miles as the crow flies from my first location. I’ve thrown a ton at the second GMB and it’s just never done well. Is it possible to both competing with each other? Yes, it is very possible? Should I remove one or set them both up as GMBs and just have surface area businesses and just have the areas not overlap? Yes, you can do that. That’s one of the thinking. It’s likely that that’s what you’re seeing is what you’ve got if they’re especially if they’re the same brand name.

If you have to GMBs with the same brand name, especially for service area businesses, if their storefront businesses, you know, where customers come to the business location, then it’s that doesn’t happen as often not nearly as often because you could have literally a Starbucks three blocks away from you know, in some cases on every block, right, and they’ll still show up in search.

But with service area businesses, yes. And I’ve experienced that many times myself. In fact, I think it was three years ago now when we developed a training called local lease Pro, and it was about identity like going out and just securing a disk was at the time where you can secure GMB is like like nothing, it was crazy easy. And so we developed training specifically about how to go out and just secure a bunch of GMBs in a particular area. And what I experienced through that was, besides, we got a shit ton of GMBs and learned, you know how to develop processes for optimizing all of them really well, which was great. But what I learned was that if they were too close together, that they just wouldn’t perform well, as they would kind of compete against each other. Or sometimes one would like Trump, some of the others that were around it, and that one would appear, but the other ones wouldn’t like in their locations. And so it would vary. Either they would all suck, or some of them would be filtered out while others would still remain. So yes, it can cause problems that way. So that is one way to remedy it is if you if it’s a service area business, you should have your service areas set anyways. But if you had one in the rural outskirts, like you said, which was your original, and then you have a newer one that’s more in the, you know, more metropolitan area or the city or whatever, the more populated area, then yeah, make sure that you’re not overlapping service areas there. So, you know, like I do Tree Service stuff. So typically we will, we’ll add in for service areas, a county, or if there’s more than one location in a particular county, then we’ll do it on a city level and even a zip code. I don’t think they stopped allowing zip codes, though. I’m not 100% sure it’s been a while because I’ve been trying to stay out of GMBs newer ones anyway. But I think they stopped being able to add zip codes, I may be wrong about that. But what you want to do is just make sure that you segregate the two to where there’s no overlap. And then after that, you just give it a little bit of time something else is the one that’s in the more populated area.

Do some geo posts about that like in other words, you can schedule or produce content, you can just use Google posts for that GMB posts for that, but you can go out and find areas within the service area that you’re going to set for that GMB and just look at like neighborhoods or districts or areas, parks, even things like that, that are well known, like landmarks within Google. And a lot of times you can just go to Google Maps and look like at your location. And you’ll see, you can just change the zoom level. And you’ll see different landmarks or points of interest that have been labeled on Google Maps. And so you can use those as like location relevancy items, like in other words, you can create GMB posts where you’re targeting your keywords your you know your products or services and the location like the city name, but you also add you know, a few sentences or blurb about the landmark.

You know that you did you found as well because what happens is if you do that consistently, you can start to influence Google too.

You know, tell Google like that. Yes, you indeed are working in those areas and you’ve got content on your GMB to prove it right through posts. So that’s another good way to do it. It doesn’t it doesn’t happen overnight. But if you do that consistently and also go check out local GMB pro if you haven’t, if you haven’t already, because we talk about how to do all kinds of really ninja things in local GMB pro that will help you to overcome some of those issues as well.

And comments on that guys.

Aside From The SEO Shield, What Should You Order In MGYB To Provide Solid Results Within 12 Weeks?

No, sir. Okay, Nigel, What’s up, buddy? He says good day. gents. Appreciate is appreciative as always got an interesting opportunity presented to me recently, and we have about 12 weeks to work on a project to improve value beyond the SEO shield. What else do I need to order in terms of like press releases, links, packages, wiki, etc? Just package? Just package to order for solid results? Maybe not in 12 weeks, but just as good. An mg Y v dot CEO order plan more specifically, you’re often land realty assets, what would I need from mg y b to get something similar? hope that makes sense. Yeah, with alpha land Realty. You know, that wasn’t a super competitive term anyways. So that’s in part why I was able to get such amazing results so quickly from that.

And what was crazy about that is I really got crazy SEO results from that with, with literally no SEO work other than driving traffic to my landing page through traditional marketing methods like direct mail. And that’s where I learned how valuable brand searches truly are like so navigational search queries, which is, you know, where somebody does a search for a brand name. And then when it comes up in Google, they click through either the knowledge panel or the, you know, to the GMB if it has one or two, the money site that those searches. So somebody searches for a brand name, and then clicks through that is a huge, huge SEO signal. Because it means that somebody went to Google and searched for that brand. And then they’re clicking through, which is it’s satisfying that search query. It’s a great signal. And I was able to rank without it like I wasn’t even trying to rank out for land realty I was doing I because I built the alpha land realty page on a Click Funnels, it was a landing page only. And I was using Google ads. And I was driving traffic to it through direct mail, because I’ve been targeting property owners in specific areas and send them direct mail and say, Hey, I mean, if you’re interested in getting receiving an offer for your vacant land, you can either call my call center, and I give them the phone number or you can go to and I gave him the landing page URL. And a lot of people what they would do is because I had my logo on the letter that I sent them, instead of them like going to Google and typing in, you know, alpha land Realty, they would go search alpha land Realty, and then click through to the landing page. And within three weeks of me starting direct mail campaigns, and I had Google ads running to I was ranking for my top keywords, which was so land fast, Virginia at the time, that was what I thought was the best keyword. And I was ranking for that. And it was purely on activity metrics. And because it wasn’t very competitive, SEO-wise, but that’s when I realized just how powerful that really I mean, I knew it was powerful before, but I saw I saw it firsthand. So getting back to your question, Nigel, that’s not really I mean, if you’re in an industry that has any sort of competition level of competition, I wouldn’t expect that kind of results. What you’ve got listed here is what I would suggest, you know, the SEO show, because that’s not going to, you know, 12 weeks is good, that’s a good amount of time. But I found, for the most part, drive stacks tend to take a while before they really start to push power. And you have to continue to power them up. So yeah, press releases, you know, if you have a good budget, more press releases are better. Like if you can do one press release per week or something like that. That’s fantastic. I do a lot of heavies I do a lot of link building with press releases.

So press releases are good link-building embeds, you know, everything that you can do to power up the SEO shield, content marketing with proper linking, right. So if you understand silos and all that stuff, if you understand how to link properly, you know, content marketing is important. Use the GMB if you’ve got a GMB for it use it and if you don’t have a GMB for it but if you could get away with getting a GMB for that project, use it because it does help to have a GMB even if it’s not for a purely local project if that makes sense. So if you have like a big budget or something and you’re looking for some more guidance, because you’re trying to be really aggressive, Nigel, then, you know,

I would suggest maybe posting in one of the groups where we can give you a little bit more of a detailed schedule of services, or at least, like you know, an example schedule of services, but something where we can type it out. And he would have something to reference as opposed to just me talking about it, if that makes sense. So just use one of our groups and post in there, whatever groups you’re in.

And we can come in and kind of give you an example like, you know, services schedule for how I would change things together. That makes sense. All right.

What Do You Think Of ClickFunnels Method?

Okay, looks like I’ve got two more from BB. And then we’re gonna wrap it up. What do you think of the Click Funnels method? No SEO, just email opt-ins and sending emails for conversions?

Well, it depends on what you’re trying to do, baby. I know, I see Adam struck because he probably got a good opinion on this. But, you know, it depends on what you’re trying to do.

You know, depends on what you’re trying to do. That might be a great method. As I just said, it worked really well for me to send direct mail to people to end up working for SEO, and I didn’t even that was unintended. So that was really cool. But

yeah, what do you think? Yeah, I think Bradley hit the nail on the head there is, you know, it depends, right? You need traffic. So you use a website, you use a website to build a funnel, you use Click Funnels to build a funnel, it’s all just a platform where traffic is coming to. So if you’re going really strong on the SEO route, then Click Funnels doesn’t really make sense if that’s going to be your main route. Because the limitations are, but that doesn’t mean that click funnels have no utility. You know, like Bradley was saying he’s using direct mail, other people are using PPC, other people are using existing businesses like I’ve worked with e-commerce businesses a lot. And you know, they’ll already have 1000s or 10s of 1000s of people on their email list. And so they can go and get click funnels. And they’re not even worried about running traffic to it. Sometimes in terms of PPC, they just use their internal list as kind of like a quick testing platform, because it is easy to build stuff real quick. And so then they’ll just send emails to people and drive their own traffic from social media and their email lists. Those are just like two or three examples of you know, there’s a myriad of ways you can do this. So it’s not that your questions wrong, it’s just you’re not asking the right question. So it’s kind of like it works. It’s just what’s the plan? Or what are you thinking about? Yeah.

Okay, um, this is basically just putting no value or a little value and making money from that. Does that exist? Does it exist these days? I’m not sure what that means.

Maybe follow up said monetizing affiliate stuff. Yeah, totally. It just depends. Like, let me just give you an example. Like, let’s say, so like something I do is like mind mapping. Now, if hopefully, you’re familiar with this, just the idea of visually mapping stuff out, there are tons of software tools, I’ve been using one for like eight years. Now. I’m an affiliate for it. And I’ve made several $1,000 being an affiliate, just promoting it in like, Hey, here are videos of how I use it. Here’s, you know, the details, how you use it, stuff like that, mostly through YouTube, but what I could do is say, hey, I’ve gathered all my videos, all my training, if you want to learn how to use this, and not spend money, figuring it out for yourself for three months, you know, opt-in here, and you know, or use my discount link, whatever, you know, the program offers, and then I’ll give you all of my training organized in one spot like that’s something you could do. But then again, it goes back to where’s the traffic coming from? If it’s SEO probably wouldn’t start with click funnels. I would start with YouTube, I would start with a website based on WordPress, something like that. So yeah, I agree.

All right. Well, it looks like we can wrap it up a little bit early because I don’t see any more questions and that’s okay, cuz I gotta go meet with my tree contractor to test my beta app. So awesome. Time to go for a run on my end. So I’ll see everybody later had a go for a run. I’ll be in the mountains but I’ve been going for a run. It’s kind of cloudy today. Just get out and hit the hills.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 331 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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daynamartinez22 · 4 years ago

Text

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 331

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 331 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Not that I can think of. Let’s do it. Alright, let’s do it. Whoa.

Hold on. Sorry. I’m typing a note in the slack for you guys. Kidding. Not question time.

okay, everybody sees my screen? Correct? Yes. Okay. I don’t know cuz I’m looking, guy. I’m not on the zoom screen up there, man.

Is It A Good Idea To Upload Short Videos Targeting Different Keywords In One YouTube Channel?

Okay, moving on.

What Is Domain Authority Stacking?

Accurate type of metrics to determine like the rank ability or you know, if, if you could boost domain authority past a certain threshold, you could rank easily.

I’m good.

Is It Possible To Load Any Schema or MetaData Tweaks Or Code From A Txt File On Another Server?

That’s where I learned how to do most of the stuff I do with Tag Manager was right through here through this guy. Okay.

Okay, that’s a no.

Can You Register A New Domain And Use It To Point The SEO Shield, PRs, & Other Backlinks To The Client?

Okay.

Are PBN Links Good To Power Up The SEO Shield?

What Schema Do You Recommend For City And Location Pages?

I just don’t have the patience to learn how to code schema by hand.

Good question.

Do You Test Titles For Higher CTR?

Okay, we’re almost out of questions. While we might be wrapping it up early today, guys.

And that’s all B’s fault for not posting 18,000 questions.

How Do You Get In A Niche Where It Seems Like Everything Is Written And There’s No Room For Improvement Anymore?

How To Avoid The Overlap And Competition Of Two Owned GMBs That Are In Close Proximity With Each Other?

You know that you did you found as well because what happens is if you do that consistently, you can start to influence Google too.

And comments on that guys.

Aside From The SEO Shield, What Should You Order In MGYB To Provide Solid Results Within 12 Weeks?

And we can come in and kind of give you an example like, you know, services schedule for how I would change things together. That makes sense. All right.

What Do You Think Of ClickFunnels Method?

Okay, looks like I’ve got two more from BB. And then we’re gonna wrap it up. What do you think of the Click Funnels method? No SEO, just email opt-ins and sending emails for conversions?

Well, it depends on what you’re trying to do, baby. I know, I see Adam struck because he probably got a good opinion on this. But, you know, it depends on what you’re trying to do.

Okay, um, this is basically just putting no value or a little value and making money from that. Does that exist? Does it exist these days? I’m not sure what that means.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 331 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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drabbletrashcan · 4 years ago

Text

Payday Crossover (unfinished)

“…it seems the notorious criminal gang known as ‘Payday’ has made its return…’

Rey’s eyes widened, almost dropping the glass cup she was holding. In front of her, Claude sighed deeply as he turned the TV down, throwing the remote carelessly on the couch.

“All you ever hear about are scandals and problems. Media only care about the stuff that gets them more publicity, I guess.”

“…yeah…guess so…” Rey slowly put the cup down, heading towards the door. Claude turned towards her, raising an eyebrow.

“Babe? Where you going?”

“I, uh, forgot my laptop in the office. I’ll be right back, love.”

She closed the door behind her, leaning against the wall to support herself. Back when she was living in Romania, back when she was part of Payday, she had been caught by the authorities. But it seemed like some divine being was watching over her. She had been offered the chance to work with the police force to capture the rest of the members. It was either that or death, and honestly, she would rather live.

Unfortunately, they had managed to capture only two other members, even with her help. For some reason though, Payday had suddenly disappeared. After five years, she decided it was time to settle down and live a normal life. She always wanted a small apartment just to herself. So, she was allowed to leave. A few years later she met Claude. Rey had put her former ways behind her, blocking out the memories of her criminal days. Neither Claude nor anyone else would have to know about it. But now, she had a feeling she would be forced to revisit her past.

Rey’s suspicions had been proven right a few weeks later. Flanelia was terrorized after a recent attack at the one and only First World Bank, located about 45 minutes away from the castle. It seems the gang had moved to Flanelia. Claude had been stressing all day trying to figure out a solution to this problem. Currently, he was talking to the head of the police force, trying to come up with a plan.

It was already late when Rey decided she had had enough. Slowly entering the room where Claude and Simon Verundi had talked all day, both men stopped and turned towards her.

“I can help you figure this out,” Rey said slowly, picking her words.

Claude furrowed his brow while Simon simply stared at her.

“…and how exactly could you help up, Your Majesty?” Simon asked.

“I can help you figure out where they’ll strike next and what exact moves they’ll make…” she paused and looked at Claude with a steel glance, “because I used to be a Payday member.”

Silence settled over them. Claude’s face morphed from shock to confusion to anger before looking down. Simon simply stared at her, frozen. Rey shifted uncomfortably, playing with her hands. Right now, she wished she could simply disappear. The expression on Claude’s face was enough to bring her to the brink of tears. But this was one of the few ways the situation could be handled, and it was the easiest and quickest way as well. Many lives depended on her move.

It seemed like hours before Simon finally sent her a nod, gathering his things.

“Um…thank you, Your Majesty. I wish to see you tomorrow at the station, preferably I the morning. We must…um…discuss our strategies…” he looked from her to Claude, scurrying to the door. “I’ll, uh, see myself out. Good evening.”

The door slammed shut, and immediately Rey felt that she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t dare look at her husband, suddenly becoming very interested in the rug’s design. Had it always been so intricate?

Claude threw the pen he was holding to the floor, combing through his blond hair. His eyes finally snapped to Rey and he stepped towards her, his usually warm cerulean eyes had become icy cold.

“Rey.”

“…yes?” she finally squeaked out.

“Rey, fucking look at me.”

It took every ounce of strength to gaze up at the love of her life staring down at her with such a hard glare. She crossed her arms and turned to the window.

“How long were you planning on keeping this a secret, Rey?” Claude inquired, standing still.

Rey scoffed and whirled to face him, tears threatening to spill. “Um, forever? Why would I tell you, Claude? What for? Tell me, what fucking good would it have made if I had told you?! Please, explain.”

“I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me this! Don’t you trust me? You can’t keep something like this hidden away!”

“Oh, really?! Because last I checked, either I’m crazy, or I kept this shit away for the past few years! Fascinating, isn’t it, how that’s possible.” Rey turned back to the window, furiously wiping her tears. “I-I just…I just wanted to live a normal life. I wanted to put all of this bullshit behind me and start over. I never wanted to bring it up again. Funny, how the world just decides to say ‘fuck off’ and screw you over.”

Silence swept over them again. She sighed in exasperation and made for the door. Claude wrapped his hand around her wrist, pulling her to him.

“…look, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot, I know. I just…was extremely shocked by the fact that…you…look, you’re right, you didn’t have to tell me. It’s a different lifetime. But…please don’t get involved in this. Please.”

Rey offered him a sad smile, bringing his large hand to her lips, placing them on his knuckles. “I’m afraid I have to. No one knows these people better than I do. The lives of your—our people depend on it.”

Claude stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her. She was wearing a uniform similar to the SWAT uniform, her hair tied up, out of the way. She was reloading a gun and speaking to Simon, going over the plan. It had been a bit over a month after Payday’s last attack and finally, they struck again. This time they had broken in one of the most renowned companies in Flanelia, even the world. Most definitely they were after the huge vault full of jewels and more money than any member could think of. The mastermind behind this: Brett, a man with so much influence and power in the crime society that it was a bit scary and an honor to work under him. Even though she had quit, Rey never ceased holding a bit of admiration for the man.

She turned, her lilac eyes meeting Claude’s gaze. She sent him a half smile, dismissing Simon and approaching her worried husband. The blond hesitantly reached for her gloved hand, placing a chaste kiss on the palm of her hand before circling her waist and capturing her lips. She cupped his face, basking in the feeling. Both of them refused to admit it, but this could very well be the last time they would see each other.

Claude pulled away and leaned his forehead against hers, staring into her eyes lovingly. “Please, for the love of all that is holy, be careful and come back safe. I will even switch tea duty for the rest of my life, please just be careful.”

“Woah there, cowboy, that’s a very important tradition you’re talking about. How could you possibly survive without me making you tea every morning?”

Claude stuck his tongue out at her, giggling.

“I swear to God, I’ll do it.”

“I’m so holding you up to that when I get back, you know.”

They slowly let go, last words of encouragement leaving Claude’s lips as Rey stepped onto the military helicopter waiting. She sent him one last kiss before putting her helmet on and slamming the doors shut.

Claude ran back to observatory room, filled with screens and radios. He could see and hear what every soldier, including Rey could, and could communicate with them. He took deep breaths, trying to calm down and not disturb the staff.

Rey eyed the building down below, her heart thundering in her chest. They were preparing to rappel down onto the rooftop and go from there. She had briefed her teammates before on what to expect and what to look for. Finally, they were in position. She took in a deep breath, stepping near the edge of the helicopter next to the other soldiers.

Jump.

Quickly unhooking the rope, she pulled out her gun, aiming in front of her. She kicked down the door and bolted down the stairs. The rest of the soldiers followed close by. The building was huge, with exactly 104 floors. It towered high above Flanelia. The vault was on the last floor. As she and the soldiers infiltrated the building, she scanned her surroundings. Far below her she could hear gunshots. They still hadn’t arrived. There were no guards around her, probably left to fight against the gang. Simon’s voice rang in her earpiece.

“Your Majesty, we managed to hack into one of their communications systems. I’ll link you right now.” There was silence for a few moments before static filled her ear. Then she heard that oh so familiar voice.

“—better tread carefully. Rey, a former Payday member, is actually queen of Flanelia. She was captured a few years ago by the authorities and somehow became one of them. Damn good heister as well. Her aim was as accu—“

“Ok, Brett, we get it. Get to the fucking point.”

“What about her, Brett?”

“Well, just be careful. It’s possible she could have spilled the beans and joined an assault team. I’m telling you just in case, so be on your toes. By the way, you’re approaching the top floor. It looks like there’s a SWAT team up there already.”

Rey and her team had reached the vault by then, searching for any movement.

“They’ll be here very soon,” she said to her team. “I want to unload on them. Shields, make sure they don’t even come close to you. Dozers, lay back until I tell you to move in.”

This was the point of no return.

She could hear faint footsteps approaching from the dim hallway leading to the vault. The team of shields created a barrier between them and the gang, leaving small spaces where one could shoot through. Taking in a deep breath, she aimed at the empty hallway, her finger on the trigger. Soon enough, her former gang rounded the corner. They still wore the ridiculous, almost mocking masks.

“Fire! Everything you’ve got!”

“Shit! Take cover guys!”

“Is that Rey?”

“Yes, so if we’re not careful, we’re fucked.”

“Damn, she that good?”

“One of the best.”

Rey smirked, continuing to fire at the wall. They had taken cover behind the concrete corner, firing blindly. Rey gave the order to advance slowly, keeping up the barrage of bullets.

“They’re moving in. Hoxton!”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

A smoke bomb landed right in front of Rey. Before she could even warn the rest, her vision was blinded by smoke. She coughed heavily, choking.

0 notes

localwebmgmt · 5 years ago

Text

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 311

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Click on the video above to watch Episode 311 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Everybody, welcome to Hump Day Hangouts. This is the pre Halloween Hump Day Hangouts. Also, this is the week before. It is our six year anniversary. So pretty awesome. It’s been going strong. I think, Bradley, I don’t think I know Bradley has by far the most appearances here on Hump Day Hangouts. I think he’s only taken a couple Christmases off, and maybe one or two others. But anyways, really happy about that. We may be having some special stuff for the six year anniversary. So stay tuned for that. If you’re watching whether you’re watching live at humped, sorry, Semantic mastery.com slash HD questions, or if you’re checking it out on YouTube and watching the replay, jump on to the email list. Not only do we send specials do we send news and updates. But also if there is going to be something special with the six year anniversary is going to be to our email subscribers. So you can go to semantic mastery comm or if you’re again watching live, you can just scroll down the bottom of the page, pop in your name there, and you will be good to go. So when we got a couple of us here today, we’re going to say hello and do a quick chat and check in and then we’re going to get into the questions. just scrolling around on the page. Looks like we got several so I’ll start at the top of my screen. Here we got Mr. Chris, how you doing today? Good. It’s interestingly warm here at the moment. So not sure what’s up is the better but like seems a little good. Have a nice sunny day. Was it Danube river? And yeah, a bit of a relaxing

while we still can do it. Fair enough. Fair enough. And her not How about yourself How you doing? I’m doing great man. I’m seeing Miami flying back on Friday back to one Osiris. So looking forward for some for some spraying down there. Everything is everything’s good. Everything’s good. Cool. And Bradley is all the tech stuff taken care of. done for now.

All right, well, other than that, how are you doing? I’m good. How are you guys? I’m happy to be here. I’ve got a ton of stuff going on. Like I’m overwhelmed with work right now, which is a good thing. But I don’t know if you guys are the same way. Whenever I’m like, you know, neck deep and work. The days fly by like out like a blink of an eye and the whole workday is gone. And I’m like shit at evening What the hell happened? You know? And it’s crazy. Because it’s like, time just flies when you’re busy. You know what I mean? So it’s been really crazy. last couple of weeks. Yeah, that reminds me, I know, I brought it up. And I’m not at all Sam Bradley’s for your ex. I know, you’re, like you said real deep and a bunch of projects. But I’ve been going back over some stuff and doing some more reading kind of about that like cutting out more and getting more efficient. And looking back over, hey, what am I really spending my time doing? I’ve been real busy last three or four months. And I think my like personal I do 90 day goals. I think most of you guys do too. And I know one of mine for this next 90 days is going to be clearing out about 20 or 25% of my time. And just saying, you know, hey, I want to have time, both just to myself. But also I find that I’m at the best. And I I’m able to come up with the best ideas and put the best results out when I have some breathing room. I mean, everything is cyclical, right, we work on projects, we get busy. But if I stay up there too long, the results just drop because then I just turn into a zombie, I’m doing stuff. And then I don’t have that time to kind of integrate and think things over and synthesize. And that’s part of the reason I go on frequent a weekend riding trips in camp for a weekend. And you know, and try to go at least once a quarter now for several days throughout the week to like take off a few days during the week and just unplug and when I go to the mountains to go ATV riding, I literally put my phone in the truck and I don’t touch it for days. Like and that’s like truly unplugging, which is hard to do. But once once I you know, I always come back refreshed and renewed and unable to work with more concentration, less distraction, everything else more productive, essentially. So I think that’s important to do that to take time away and recharge. Definitely Well, this is a little bit of mindset intro but something else I’m sure a lot of other people have had, this isn’t some secret and by any means, but kind of planning out what your ideal day is. And just, this is one I have fun with every once in a while and just kind of stretching and saying, you know, a huge couple of years ago, I think I said like, Oh, I’d like to, you know, work in the mornings. Like go for a run and then take the afternoons off. And for me that was the real stretch. And now it’s like okay, well, wait, I’ve actually been doing that a lot. Now what, like, what do I want to do? And it’s really fun to like, sit down and actually write it out. And like if I had my perfect day, in the sense that I could live it every day. What would that look like? Now? Have you guys ever done anything like that?

Occasionally, it’s hard to define that. Yeah, I mean, that’s part of the fun, right? You’ll find the The answer is in asking yourself the question right because you’ll never hit that ideal but it’s like, Oh yeah, I forgot. I can ask myself what is it that I want to do? And actually think that through so Hernan you’re shaking your head? Have you done this a few times? Yeah, I’ve done a few times the ideal ideal day type of type of approach and yeah, like it’s it’s funny because it’s been getting closer and under Yeah, but he’s been getting close to it’s pretty similar to what you’re saying it’s like, do a lot of high level strategy work in the morning, you know, managing the team and then taking the afternoons to do some lighter that board you know, so I do really working the four hour workweek, you know, doesn’t work with me, but the four hour or six hour work day would be pretty cool. So anyways, yeah, that’s that’s where I’m at. But yeah, it’s an exercise that you need you to pretty much with, with everything, right? What does your ideal work day looks like? What does your ideal we can look like? What does your ideal work week or month looks like all of that. So it’s crazy once you start putting it together, how closer you get to it without even noticing? So? Yeah, yeah. And I find this stuff to be cyclical to where I’ve got to come back to it, everyone smokes, things will kind of get away from me. And then, you know, say, hey, am I really doing what I want to do? quick check in and, you know, make some changes. So how about you, Chris, do you have a different way of doing this or something similar? Yeah, like I’ve done the perfectly exercise multiple times. And also like in the US and stuff, how we do it, the 10 three, one. So you map out 10 years, what the ideal case would be then go backwards to three years, and one years, and then you break it down to like, days, one days, etc. Like keepsakes pretty much the same as like this self journal or us system like we do for our company as well.

Standing I was just flipping through a while you’re finishing up there, Chris, I see Marco is with us in not in person today. But he is on the page. Mark has been posting some pictures and stuff. So far. He’s taking some Well,

what’s that? is in our heart? Yeah. And then gifts on the page. So awesome. Well, we got just a few quick announcements, and then we’ll get into it. You know, if you’re new to semantic mastery, first of all, thanks for watching, whether you’re again, you’re watching live or checking the replay. You know, the best place for you to start it, which is something we get asked a lot is, you know, there’s a couple different places, which we’re going to consolidate down over time. But one of the best things you can do right now is to find out how to shield your site and never worry about algorithm updates, again with the free SEO shield training. So you can find that at the SEOshield.com.

And if you’re an agency owner or a consultant, right, then if so I think all of us fall into some category in there. And if you would like to get more clients, if you want to grow your revenue, do you want to scale a team? So you can consider these questions like we were just talking about, about how you can work less, be more effective earn more, then go check out to x your agency.com that’s literally the number two than an X your agency.com. And then following on from the SEO shield, if you’re looking for something a little bit beyond that, you can check out the battle plan. All right, step by step processes for getting step sorry, step by step processes for getting SEO results. And then last, but certainly not least, we’re really happy to welcome several new members into our mastermind last week. But if you’re ready to grow your digital marketing business, then this is the community you want to be a part of, you know, it’s faster access not only to ourselves, but to the community of individuals who are growing their consulting, who are growing their businesses who are growing their digital agencies. And getting that that community and network I can tell you personally is invaluable. So find out more about that at mastermind dot semantic mastery.com and also we’ve mentioned it before but head over to mgyb.co if you want your done for you services, whether it’s syndication networks, whether it’s an SEO shield, whether it’s link building any of that sort of good stuff and we’ve got more on the way but you know we always say it you know if you’re not going to be building the stuff yourself you know as a business then you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. You know, get it built, white label it you can sell it to clients, you can use it for your own projects, but your time is generally better spent elsewhere. So head over to mgyb.co.

alright with that said guys, is there any other announcements before we hop into things, remember to drop the links for the POFU live recordings case anybody wants to check those out. And also, I want to also remind people that the lead simplify offer is still available. And it’s a fantastic application very inexpensive guys. I mean, it’s it’s silly, inexpensive, to be honest with you, like 3999 per month, right $39 and 99 cents per month. And it’s a fantastic app for any of you that are doing lead gen work, I highly recommend that you get it. Also if you’re doing a lot of client work with like contractors especially then it’s also really good for just managing leads for contractors and jobs and things like that. So just go check out the replay, take a look at it and see if it’s something that would, you know, be a value for your business, I can tell you for me it’s it’s, it’s actually really improved my lead gen business which I’ve been running since, essentially 2010. So for 10 years, I’ve had systems in place that have been working. But then I saw the lead simplified model and the webinars that Mike Martin did. And I saw, I saw a lot of value there. So I purchased it for my own business. And then after I integrated it into my business and realize how much it improved my lead generation business, that’s when I asked Mike to come do a webinar for our audience. So again, it’s something I think is incredibly valuable. And for the price, it’s just a no brainer. It’s stupid, inexpensive, so, so go check it out. If you haven’t already and pick it up. I think it’s totally worth it for sure. Awesome. Just put that on the page, too. If anyone’s interested, we got the replay available. You can just head over check it out after Hump Day Hangouts. Very cool. Anything else? Guys before I grab the screen?

All right, let’s do it.

I’m going to try to answer all these questions today without Marco, but some SEO questions are like above my head at this point. So so if I can’t answer them, guys, then I apologize. We’ll we’ll get to them again next week if needed. All right, everybody, you can see my screen correct.

What Are The Features Of MGYB’s GMB Verification Service?

Okay, yeah, well, good. Good to go. Alright, so first question is for this service GMB verification mgyb.co. Okay, does this mean I could buy a GMB listing for say a made up construction company in any city I want? Yes, that’s what that means. They’re slow to be delivered right now. GMB is back on a rampage again. Uh, you know, it goes in cycles. And for a long period of time last year, we couldn’t really do anything with GM B’s because they just like if you touch the GMB, it would get suspended. Then it kind of ease back or Google rolled back on that, you know, that itchy trigger finger so to speak, right? They kind of rolled that back a bit and you were able to go in and we were able to get new GMB listings set up. Without a lot of issue. All you were able to make edits to existing listings without any issue, at least I didn’t experience any for and I’ve got dozens and dozens of them.

But all of a sudden, within just last few weeks, again, they’re they’re back to being really really sensitive in that if you make any changes to them, they will likely get suspended. So just keep that in mind. Yes, you can. As far as I know, you can order them right now. I don’t want to eat my words that have to go on the page to see if it says sold out when you go to purchase. It means that we can’t we can’t deliver those right now. And it might be because, again, Google is on a rampage again. So you know if it’s available, then yeah, go ahead and purchase it. It might be a few weeks or even, you know, a couple of months before it gets delivered. It’s just the nature of GM B’s right now, guys. But yes, that is essentially the case. If If you can, you know you can submit an order and if we can fulfill it, we will and that means that you have a GMB and the location for whatever company name you you want. And then yeah, you can you can use that for lead gen or for client stuff, that kind of thing. Okay.

Do we know if that’s available right now, guys?

Okay, not sure? Not sure.

Okay, uh, would there be a way to get reviews to that GMB? Not really, I mean, you can buy spam reviews from people but you got to be real careful about that. You also have to be aware of your law, the laws in your state or the state where you have the GMB set up. Because fake reviews can be illegal. So you have to be very, very careful, I’m not going to tell you one way or the other, that’s not my job, that’s your job to determine whether you can buy reviews or not.

There are some software programs out there that will also do that. You know, again, I just caution everybody to become aware of the laws in your state and also think about, you know, think about long term and all that other kind of stuff. You know, I I used to cede some of my lead gen assets with reviews just to get them started. Then once I started, you know, getting calls and sending leads to the service provider, the lead buyer that was buying leads from me, then we would solicit reviews underneath the lead gen brand. You know, so we start getting real reviews, but honestly, even with new new GMB stuff or new lead gen assets that I set up I don’t like doing any sort of fake review stuff now guys, it’s just it’s become really kind of a tricky area and I just don’t like to take any chances. So again, yes, you can do that. But I would caution you to be very, very careful about it.

All right.

Let’s see. Can I can I still ranking the local pack?

Wait a minute. There’s 18 questions in this guys, we say this all the time, but this might be the first time you’ve heard it. So I’m going to say it again, guys try to be more fat, try to be more, you know better about posting questions so that we don’t have like 18 questions posted into one post, because then it ends up taking up way too much time. And it’s not fair to others. Okay, so just keep that in mind post one or two questions, and then allow other peoples to post questions, and then you can post additional questions. All right, I just need to make sure that that’s clear, because some of you guys come here and post multiple questions at once every single week. And we have to remind people that every week and sometimes you guys just ignore that. So I’ll continue on.

What I need a physical address for that just city and state, no, you don’t need an address if you order from us, because though, you know, they basically spam an address, you just say which city and state you want, you add the phone number, web address, if you have one already set up or that you’re going to use for that location, and you provide the company name and also the service area of the service area business. That’s it, the address will be, you know, created at the time that they create the listing. All right.

In that case could I still ranking the local pack without an actual address location? Well, it has an address when it gets set up. Okay, if it’s a service area business, then you’re supposed to, you need an address in order to create a listing, right. And so if you if you order a GMB verification service from us or elsewhere, they’re going to create an address it has to there has to be a physical location. Okay, if it’s a service area business as per Google’s Terms of Service, then once the listing has been verified, you’re supposed to clear the address so that it no longer shows or as published in Google Maps, the the street address, the city state zip will still be published, but the street address will not and again, that’s that’s as per Google’s Terms of Service. Also, I never recommend using a spammed GMB listing if it’s a point of sale or storefront business. What that means is, if customers come to the business location that’s considered a storefront business, or what a point of sale business one, you can call it either one. But that would be dumb. In my opinion, I’ve never understood anybody creating a spam, GMB listing for a point of sale or storefront business because that would be very misleading to customers looking for that sort of business. And then, you know, clicking and seeing the address and perhaps going to the business without calling ahead and realizing that there’s no actual business there. So I’ve never done that. And I’ve always thought that was really stupid. In my opinion, the only time you should ever use like spam, GMB listings is if it’s a service area business where the business serves the customer at the customer’s location. Okay, so again, you don’t need a physical location, except for to verify it originally. And then if it’s a service area business, which is the only way that I will set up a lead gen, or spam listing is if it’s for service area businesses. And in that case, as per Google’s Terms of Service, you need to clear the street address so that it’s no longer published.

And just set your service area instead. Okay.

Okay, that would be crazy. If I could rank that and just get a phone number action into those searches. Wow, how high is the risk to lose the GMB properties from Google shutting them down? Well, in my experience, they they tend to stick as long as you don’t go in and edit them The only time I’ve had Well, I’m not going to say the only time I think out of the dozens and dozens and dozens of GM B’s legions that I’d set up over the years, I’ve only had, like literally two of them set suspended. That wasn’t from making an edit. Like in other words, I’ve had two of them suspended where just one day I went to go look at the account, it was gone. Or it says it’s suspended for, you know, suspicious activities or whatever, whatever the warning is. But I’ve had many that were suspended when I’ve gone in to make some sort of edit to the Info tab. Right. So that means changing the service area or changing the phone number or changing the web address or and sometimes it’s dumb shit, like even swap like changing a photo, like, you know, seriously like deleting one photo and uploading a new one and that’s caused a suspension. So like I said, if you don’t have if you can help it try not to edit the listing, which is difficult because especially if you buy a listing, typically it’s only going to be the very bare minimum details added like the phone number, web address if you have that ahead of time service area and that’s it like the business name and hours of operation if you can specify that too. But other than that, like you won’t have the business description filled out you won’t have the GMB website set up and so I you know, again, it’s very difficult right now I would highly recommend just keeping away from GMB or making any sort of edits to it, you can set it up, that’s fine. But don’t make any edits to it because it will likely get suspended. I just had one happened last week as my point from our own service that I ordered from it was delivered. And I went in and went to go make an edit to just clear the street address because it was a service area business and add my service areas. And as soon as I cleared the street address and click save, it automatically suspended it. So again, that’s why I say I’m just not even going to touch anything right now until I know that they’re clear. And that’s what I recommend you do as well.

Also have some connections to the towing and auto repair industries. And I’m open to other niches of some GMB niches are safer than others. Yeah, I think towing is rather spammed. So it’s probably even more sensitive. I don’t know that to be the case, because I’m not in towing niche, maybe somebody else is, but I’m pretty sure that that’s a fairly, you know, monitored a highly monitored niche because it’s been known to be spammy. So but that’s, that’s just, I’m not 100% sure, because I’m not in the towing industry.

Okay, he says long term, so I can safely invest in ranking them and setting up the buyers, let me know. Yeah, I mean, again, I’ve got tons of them, but I try not to edit them if possible.

So I also found it better to still verify guys from let’s see if I can find this real quick. Just give me one second.

Yeah, it’s right here.

Okay, nevermind. It used to be right there, there’s a street address option that you can use PO boxes at your, your local post office or wherever you want to set the lead gen business up. Obviously, it’s easier if it’s somewhat local to you, because you can go do it, you can reserve you can go to the USPS calm, which is United States Postal Service, right. So go to usps.com, you can reserve a p o box online, you can pay for everything. But then you have to go to that post office box, the post office that you reserved the box at and fill out the paperwork.

Actually, you can fill the paperwork out at home, but you have to bring it to the post office with your photo ID and something else like a car registration or some vehicle registration card or something like that, that show it’s it’s another like a, so it’s another form of ID essentially. But you have to have two forms of ID, and then you you know, fill out, sign the paperwork in front of them or whatever, and you submit it and then they’ll issue the P o box at which point you can use the street address of the post office box and then you get a box number. So whatever your P O, let’s say your P o box number is 101. Then you can use, you know the street address, let’s say it’s 123 Main Street number 101. Right. And so you can do that and still verify listings on your own. And those tend to stick a lot longer than some of the other methods that I’ve seen, because I’ve got a lot of those. So that’s that’s still works. And it doesn’t cost anything extra to use the street address option. It’s just one additional form that you fill out, used to have a link for a PDF that you could download for that that additional form. But not all post offices even know that they that you can do that. So sometimes you have to try to educate the idiot behind the counter at the post office because they don’t know about it. And and I’ve had many arguments with post office people about the ability, you know whether or not I can do that some post offices say no, we don’t we don’t offer that bullshit. It’s the United States Postal Service, which means it’s a federal agency, which means if it works at one, it should work at all of them across the entire United States. So just keep that in mind. Sometimes they’re ignorant, they just don’t know.

How Do You Successfully Integrate Lead Simplify Forms On The GMB Site?

Alright, that was a lot. And then there’s a follow up to that from that same person. Bradley Benner having GMB’s in this way seems to tie in the clients first lead selling and some things you are doing with selling leads and putting the lead simplify forms on the GMB site. Please share what you can. Okay, no, you can’t put the lead simplify form on the GMB site. You can put it on Google Sites but not the GMB website. The GMB website is very limited in what you can do. However, you can do outbound links from the GMB website. So you could put a bold call to action on the GMB website in text with a hyperlink that hyperlinks to a Google or excuse me a lead simplify form. Right, you can absolutely do that. But as I’ve said before you I prefer to set up GMB assets. And also always put the SEO shield around everything that I do. And that comes with a Google site right a G site. And so with the Google site, you don’t need a self hosted website. I still prefer to use self hosted websites but you don’t need one. You can use the Google site from an SEO shield as your primary website for that location. In which case you can absolutely embed a lead simplify form. But you can like I said from the GMB website because all you can add as text and links to the GMB website. That’s it. No forms no pages. You can add GMB posts but you can add pages. So on that you could put a call to action, you could bold, it can’t really make it any bigger or anything else, but you can bold it and then put a hyperlink over to a lead simplify form. But again, I would recommend that you use a Google Site included or as part of that lead gen asset, make that the primary website for that location. And then you can embed a lead simplify form directly into the new Google site. Okay.

Is It Safe To Run URLs Already Indexed Through An Indexer?

All right, moving on. Next is Micah Micah says, Hey, guys looking to get myself a subscription to an indexing service? Is it safe to run URLs already indexed through an indexer? Yes, it won’t hurt anything. I have spreadsheets created months ago with links I manually built to money site and I pinged all the URLs back then some index naturally, but the others have it? Would it be safe to run all those links through the indexer? Or could I risk deindexing them? Completely? No, no, that won’t, it won’t cause any problems. I’ve not experienced that ever. It won’t hurt anything. If something’s already indexed, and you send it through an indexed or it doesn’t, it just gets to get it gets the that link recrawl to grant again, but it’s a it shouldn’t shouldn’t have any problem on that. These are quality links to the money site, not tiered web twos. Yeah, so I would just run it through there. I’m the one that I’m using currently, you know, we have an indexing service in MGYB. That is really, really good. But there’s some limitations, unfortunately, where you can only submit 300 URLs at a time. So if you’ve got thousands and thousands of links, like from spam tools, then you’re you’re not going to be able to let’s see, I need to do what I need to do actually back out of that for a minute. If you’ve got a bunch of links you from using like link building, you know, kind of spam tools, then that’s not going to be feasible for you to use the indexing service and MGYB. Because you have you can only submit 300 at a time, you know, and if you’ve got 7000 links that you’re adding, you know, I would never recommend for somebody to sit there for hours and submit 300 links at a time until all 7000 were submitted. That’s just ridiculous. So don’t do it. But there is a really high indexing rate through MGYB.co because what our link builder that he does is he puts whatever you submit through our indexing service and MGYB CEO, he puts through several indexers. So they go through multiple indexing services to get indexed. That’s why it works so well. But again, there’s a limitation to that. So even for my own projects, what I’m using because I don’t, I don’t have the ability, either inside of MGYB to submit more than 300. As I’m using index inject, I think it’s dot com. Yes, injectindex.com. This is what I’m using. And again, this was based upon the recommendation from dedhia or link builder, I asked him if there was one indexing service that you could recommend to index a lot of links, what would it be? And he said, this one, there’s another one called a mega indexer, but it is super expensive. So I would not recommend that one. So for this one indexing deck, that’s what I’m using for my own links. You know, when I get link building campaigns back from MGYB, I go and take the tier one links only, and and submit them to index inject for indexing. Because again, if you start submitting tier two links as well, then you’re gonna burn through your indexing credits very, very quickly. Okay.

All right. Moving on.

Do You Run A Press Releases Stack To The New Site When You Get The RYS Expansion?

That’s what’s up. fitzy says good agents. Marco, can you please drop the link to your charity? Unfortunately, Mark is not here. If somebody else has the link and they want to drop it. Feel free. The need of those I have somewhere I’ll drop it in. tool. Thank you are not in need of these wonderful kids are ongoing. And I hope if you generous people contribute a little because it will mean a lot to these great kids. Yeah. Especially around starting to be the holiday season. So my question this week is when you get an RBS expansion delivered? Do you want a press release stack to that new site? and not the first one that came with the original ROI? airshield Thank you. Okay, well, I think you’re what you might be confusing, or conflating two different terms fits. And now the reason I say that is because let’s go to the store real quick, and I’ll show you what I mean.

Standby.

Okay, so if you do the RYS expansion, then what this is doing, as you get it’s building. It’s adding to an existing g site, and an existing folder, right Drive folder that was set up for your original, you know, entity or brand for that project. So a Google Drive expansion sack stack and Google Sites setup is, is essentially it’s it’s building on to an existing stack and an existing g site. It’s not an additional g site, or an additional stack. Right. If you wanted to then you would let me back up for a minute, that wouldn’t be an expansion, that would be a location shield. So if you go down to the SEO shield down here, and you look at learn more, look at the different options there, you’ll see that there are three different shield types, the SEO starter shield, the SEO location shield, the SEO power shield, the location shield would be if you wanted to add separate g sites for, say, additional location, let’s say it’s a multi location business, say it’s a coffee shop and they’ve got three different locations, then you would want if you wanted to have like a different g site, a different ID page, and a different, you know, essentially drive stack for each location, then that’s what you would do with the location shield. But for an RYS expansion, it’s going to build inside of an existing drive stack and an existing g site. Personally, that’s how I prefer to do it all. I do everything using the RBS expansion stack instead of the location shields, because again, I wind up getting, and what I do is I just either order another idx page or clone an existing idx page, and then just swap out the details and and upload it to s3. And I’ve got a unique ID page for each additional location. Even for multi location businesses, I use the Google expansion stack, because what I do is I set up the SEO power shield for the for the brand initially. And then I go in order and our nris expansion stack for each location that’s underneath that brand, right. And so essentially, I’ll have a new page on the G site as well as a new folder inside the original drive stack folder, that will be optimized for that specific location, right. So you can put the NAP details in there, but it’s all under the same g site.

My point is this, guys, if you start with even a location shield, right, which creates a new drive stack a new g site, then you have to basically, you have to start powering all those up from scratch. Whereas if you start with if you have an existing SEO power shield that you have built for a particular project and entity, it’s branded. Now if you’re you know, you’re you’re likely already powering that up with additional links and everything else that you’re doing to it press releases all that other stuff. So if you build into that, right, so like a sub folder inside the main drive stack folder and a page on the G site, then it’s going to benefit instantly from the authority that you’ve been building to the original stack anyways, and G site. Right? Does that make sense? So I prefer to use expansion stacks for everything. And that’s just my preference, because I again, you benefit from the instant authority that it will receive from the work that you’ve previously been doing to the original main entity stack. Okay?

Do you run press releases stack to that new, and not the first one that came now? No. And again, so that’s that’s my whole point, as I’m always building the the original stack and G site up, right, constantly powering that up. And so every time I add a new expansion to it, right, and guys, remember you can do in the way that we teach us and again, go to seoshield.com. And you can get training on all of this for free. Okay. But the idea with the SEO power shield is to set it up for whatever your primary keyword is. And some businesses say, well, I’ve got you know, three main services, we’ll pick one, pick one and make that your primary keyword. And what we do with the SEO power shield is we optimize it or set it up for one keyword plus brand, right, and if it’s local could be keyword plus location plus brand, right. And so we optimize that, and that became becomes the primary branded stack. That’s what we start with. But then let’s say that you’ve got, you know, for me, let’s say, for tree services, stuff, it’s going to be set up for Tree Service plus city, then whatever the brand name is for that particular project, then what I’ll do is, let’s say I’ve got two topical categories or silos on the site. Let’s say one is for tree removal, and one is for tree trimming. Well, then I’m going to order in our last expansion stat for what optimized for one for tree trimming, and one for tree removal, right. So essentially, I’m going to have our iOS expansions built out for each one of my primary service categories on the site. Then I’m going to go out if I’ve got multiple locations, I’m going to let’s say I’ve got three locations for that project, then I’m going to also order an RYS expansion for each individual location. Does that make sense? So then, you know, let’s say, you know, call pepper, Warrington Fredericksburg, I would have a separate RYS expansion for each one of those three cities that would have the NA P of each location. So then now I’ve got my original branded power SEO power shield, original, you know in the G site and everything. Then I’m going to have a page for each of the topical categories, service categories, essentially right one for tree trimming, one for tree removal, then I’m going to have a separate page, or I rfis expansion for each one of the locations. And if there was three locations, there’d be three of those as well. And now you just power the shit up, you power that by just hammering the shit out of it. And every single one of those, right, each one of those drive stack folders, the files contained within each folder, the G site page, all of that mirrored on your money site, if you have that. That’s the whole point. Right? So you benefit from anything that you add to the original stack in the drive g site by just making it like an internal page and a sub folder within the main drive stack folder.

Is It Still Good To Order Another SEO Shield Inspite Of IFTTT’s New Updates?

Alright, hopefully that cleared some things up and is up next he says any update on IFTTT syndication networks. Thanks to the Have we ever made a

Adam maybe you would know and if not, maybe we need to make a note of this to get April to set up a an FAQ for this.

The IFTTT changes because we get this question almost every week and we’ve been answering it for months. Yeah, I mean, we could just if you want to answer it, or if you can point me in the right one, we could just create a URL for like IFTTT update or something. Okay. And that’s no problem. I’ll answer it again. It’s just uh, I think going forward, it’d be easier just to do an apt reply. Go here because we’ve answered this, you know, yeah, almost every week for several for weeks and weeks and weeks now. So anyway, sorry, I’m not picking on you. It’s just this question comes up almost every single week. Any update on IFTTT syndication networks thanks to the functionality limits. If I were to another shield, is this process setup still good?

I’m not sure what you mean by that. What I’m not sure what that has to do with IFTTT. Is there an alternative die IFTTT? What’s the good word Jones? Thank you. Okay, guys, I’ve talked about this a lot. I’ll talk about it again guys. You can create you can only create three applets and IFTTT on a free account. But you can enable as many applets as you want. You just got to go to the Explore tab so login to IFTTT, the top right corner, look at the for the Explore button, click that and then just go search for the applets as they were titled right so like RSS to a WordPress RSS to blogger RSS to Tumblr RSS to Diigo you know, look for those applets they’re there in the library and IFTTT Steven R. Reynolds look at where it says by and it says who they were, you’ll see big bamboo mobile in there which is applets that I’ve created Stephen r Reynolds, they’re applets I created Vernon he doesn’t like from the first two versions syndication Academy version one and version two, I set up all those applets or they used to be called recipes, but now they’re called applets. And I use Stephen r Reynolds is the persona for the first version of syndication Academy for the second one was Vernon he done, so you can find those applets that were already created in IFTTT and you can enable them and they’re they’re set up with the same specifications that we had always set them up for because I created them. So yes, you can just go to the Explore tab search for them. If it’s for YouTube, look for YouTube to blogger YouTube to Tumblr, or search for y t to Tumblr, which was a you know, just short version for YouTube. And you’ll find them in there, it’s a little bit of a pain in the acid, you got to go look for the applets I understand that but it is what it is. Or else you could pay for a pro account and go create up your create your own. And I think pro accounts are like 299 a month or something like that. So it’s very, very inexpensive. But certainly understand if you’ve got you know, 15 syndication networks, you know, you might not want to spend $2 a month on every syndication network that makes that you know, that and I completely understand that. So if for the inconvenience of just a few minutes to go in and go to the Explore tab, locate the applet that you want and turn it on, and then add your RSS feed or connected you know, to your YouTube channel or whatever, then that’s it. That’s how you get around that. Okay. We actually set up a pro account for us so that we could publish applets or create applets but so far, it’s still not letting us publish them. I was told by I had a phone call or a zoom call with a an IFTTT rep specifically about this so that we could publish applets again and be able to share them with you guys. Unfortunately, the that he said that it was going to be available under the pro account to be able to do that it’s it’s yet I spent a couple hours in there about two weeks ago and it’s still not available yet. So if it’s not available in a few more weeks, I’ll probably just you know, follow back up with them a rapid IFTTT again to find out but in the meantime, like I said, it’s just a slight inconvenience or to go find the app. Let’s enable them. Add your your, you know, whatever the trigger mechanism is, whether it’s RSS or YouTube or whatever, and then and that’s it just that’s all it takes. Okay? It’s a little bit have an engineer’s, like I said, otherwise you can pay for three, you know, three bucks a month or whatever it is.

Alright,

moving on.

Do You Know A New Strategy For The Indexation Of Individual Pages?

That’s funny. I saw the gift. Scott, what’s up Scott? He says Google Search Console is not allowing us to request individual page indexing. This will supposedly last several weeks while Google updates infrastructure. Is there any new strategy for indexation for individual pages? I will use the MGYB. SEO for multiple pages. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. So that there’s a few things that you can do. I’m going to talk about all of them right now. That’s a good question. This came up in our mastermind recently, too. And, and I did some research, there’s a few tricks. Number one, let’s go back to MGYB.

Guys, because it’s very inexpensive. I was just talking about the indexing service, it works really, really well. So if you come down here and look at backlink indexing right there,

okay. It’s very inexpensive, you can buy credits. So 2500 credits, indexing credits is 10 bucks, right? 50,000 indexing credits is 80 bucks. If you’re trying to like index money site pages, you can use this service because it works really, really well. to just go in there and paste you know, you can do one at a time, it’s fine. You buy credits, and then the credits are available. When you log into the dashboard of MGYB. You go to link indexing, and it tells you right in the dashboard, how many credits you have available, and then you can just paste in your URLs and do that that’s one way to do it. Okay. Another way to do it would be to resubmit your sitemap to Google Search Console. You can also do a GMB post. If you if you have if it’s for local, you can do a GMB post and use the CTA button the call to action button in a GMB post like the Learn More button, for example, and link to the page that you want to index then publish the GMB post that will tend to get it to index rather quickly to also you can if you have a Twitter account that has real followers, you know, real activity, you can always tweak the URL that will oftentimes get indexed rather quickly or do a Twitter moment, create a Twitter moment with the URL that will also get it to index Not only that, but Twitter moments are pretty powerful. They’re pretty powerful. So you can also create a Twitter moment with the link to the page that you want to index, then take the tweet the Twitter moment URL. And you can use that to hammer that with backlinks because Twitter will clean that link or link laundering is what we call it right? We’ll launder that link. But it will help push through Twitter push authority through Twitter into that particular page. Okay, so that’s another thing you can do.

And lastly this. I’m going to put this on the page. This is a WordPress plugin by rankmath. They have a full SEO plugin, but that you can you can install just this, which is called the instant Indexing API plugin that connects to Google, you have to go to Google Developers. So developers google.com, you have to make sure that you have billing details, like a billing like a credit card enabled for the developer console, you have to have billing enabled, and you know, a credit card added to the account or billing source added the account. It can be a a it can be a direct bank, debit, like so can debit from your bank account, or you can add a credit card. But you have to have a billing, billing setup inside of it. And then you can connect via and there’s help files in here to tell you how to do it. But you then connect directly to the Google Indexing API. there’s a there’s a there’s a warning that even the plugin developers mentioned that Google states that you’re only supposed to be directly submitting links to the Indexing API, if it’s for live stream sites, or something else, I think news sites or something like that, but they tell you, you know, they even help files, they say, you know, so use at your own risk. But I’ve got this on several sites right now, guys, I’m not kidding, because of the very reason that Scott just brought up that the URL inspection and in request indexing in Search Console, when you go to request indexing, it’s kind of grayed out and it says it’s been disabled for likely weeks while some upgrades are being done, and who knows, they might not ever re enable that again. So instead go directly to their API. And and it’s it’s instant, like, what’s cool about this is when you set this plugin up on a WordPress site, there’s there’s two ways to do it, right. One is, once it’s connected to the API, and everything, whenever you go to publish a post or a page, or update a page or a post, it can automatically send it to the API for indexing. So even if it’s already indexed, but you make a change, when you click the Update button, it will automatically send it or ping Google to come recrawl and reindex it But what’s also cool about it is if you go to the plugin settings on the left, you know the left sidebar, you click on the instant indexer or Instant indexing or whatever it’s called in the WordPress dashboard, when you click on that, and then the settings panel, there’s actually a window where you can paste URLs in there, and then click Submit, and it will submit all those URLs to the indexer. All at once. So that’s something else that you can do is try that. Okay. And I’ve got, like I said, I’ve got this installed on multiple sites right now, ever since the Search Console. Request indexing was disabled, right. So let me put this on here.

And it only takes I don’t know about about 10 minutes to set it up. And once you set it up, once, it’s um, you know, you’ll be more familiar with it. And you can do it on more, you can, by the way, you can use the same API, like the same developers account for multiple sites. I’ve mentioned this, somebody else was asking a question about G Suite the other day, for almost every project that I set up, I set up a G Suite account now. So every single project that I have now has its own Google account, its own billing details, you know, it’s because it’s a G Suite account. So I usually go in and I do a one to one ratio. So unless, like if it’s if it’s a brand that has multiple websites, then every website under that brand, will will share the same API. So the same developers account, essentially. But if you know, for everything else, I do a one to one ratio. So you know, if it’s a client, for example, I set up G Suite for them, but you know, they pay for it. And then I go in and set up the API, Google Indexing API, on their account. If it’s projects for me, I do a separate G Suite account for each, like lead gen brand, for example. And each one of them has their own API, their own billing details and all of that. Okay.

There you go.

Try it out. It’s good.

There’s Marco must be watching. There’s his donation like, so he must be watching. That’s kind of interesting, right?

How Does Google Find Pinged Pages To Sites?

BB’s up What’s up, bb? Uh, he says, How does Google find pinged pages? How does Google find pinged pages to sites? Don’t the page somehow need to be discovered? Is there any chance that ping will never be indexed to some sites? Okay, pinging is a really old, you know, way to get the spiders to come crawl a page. I don’t know how valid that still is. I mean, I still do it. Like in other words, here’s an example. Let me show you. What I mean by that there are pinging services that you can go to, but say, I’ve got this saved on my desktop or on my computer somewhere. But right here, this says 2020. So let’s take a look at this.

See if they have a text file with this right here. Okay. So guys, just go to search, Google search and look for ping list. It’s all I did. Okay. You can click through, they probably all are very similar. I’m sure they are. This hasn’t changed since like, I’m not kidding, since like 2010.

And I could probably even look at the date on my. I saved the ping list many years ago to a notepad file. And it’s, it’s probably changed over the years. But what I’m saying is, there’s a bunch of these pings, services are probably still valid. In fact, let me pause the screen for a minute log into one of my blogs that I can share. And let me show you where you add this. Because you can copy that painless, guys, I know my screen is paused. Just give me one moment. I’m trying to log in somewhere, which you can copy that ping list and add it to

Let’s take a look. I think it’s under writing. Yes, it is. Okay.

So here’s a site that I’ve not added them to this is my alpha land realty blog, which I don’t ever do any blogging on. But if you log into your WordPress site, guys, and you go to settings, writing, okay, you’ll see right here where it says update services painless right here. So all you do is come over here and you copy. All right, so I’m just going to go through whoops, looks like there’s 56 pinging services in this list, you might be able to find more, it doesn’t really matter. Anyways, I’m going to come over here, and I’m just going to paste that in. Right there. Okay, you can expand it, you’ll see all the ping lists there and click Save Changes. Now every time you update a post, publish a post, publish a page, whatever. It essentially goes out and pings all these pings services. And it basically tells them to come crawl, send send spiders to this page. Does that make sense? I don’t know how well that really works anymore. years ago. That’s what you did. But I don’t know how well that works anymore. Um, you know, that’s why I use indexing services as instead of pingers. So that’s what I would recommend that you do. Okay.

And I just shared some indexing services that you can use as well as this plugin, which goes directly to the Google Indexing API. So this is probably your best bet right here. Okay.

So I’m not sure about the other question, part of that question, because I didn’t really understand it, maybe, but I wouldn’t waste my time with pinging stuff other than perhaps on your WordPress site, adding that ping list, right. There are one of them that you find from this list here. Okay.

Okay, new. Let’s see. That’s Adam. So moving on, we’re almost done. Hey, look at that.

Should You Choose Simple Or Complex Silo On A National Site For Pest Care?

Jason Johnson says, yep, lead, simplify Brad Bradley regarding a recent Webby. You did with Mike Martin on a national site for say, pest care, would you go with a simple or complex silo? Ooh, that’s a really good question. I would still Jason, I would have to think about that. But I would still probably try to go with not probably, I would go with a simple silo, only because a pest control company only I as you know, so many types of services, maybe they you do it by, like rodent control. For example.

I’ve got an outdoor pest control company that I’ve been working with since 2013. So they do mosquito control, tick control. And then they do what’s called.

But I do rodent control. But they What do they call it integrated pest management, perimeter, road perimeter, rodent control, something like that. Anyways, I would still likely go with a simple comp, simple silo, because complex silos are complicated, hence the name. They’re a bitch. They’re really hard. They’re a pain in the ass. It creates a whole bunch. And you know this, Jason, we’ve talked about this in a mastermind a lot and creates a lot of issues.

And it’s difficult, you really have to plan out a complex silo site to be done right, especially on a national scale like that. And since I use tags for location silos now, and I’ve talked about that many times in the mastermind, especially, but also I talk about on a conceptual level. If you go to semantic mastery, comm slash process, guys, I’ll put this in a notepad file and blow it up again, we can also put it on the page, standby.

See semanticmastery.com/process. Okay. If you go to that, there is training on a conceptual level. Jason, you’re in the mastermind. So if you want to go into more detail on so I’m certainly happy to do that in a mastermind webinar. We can do it. I’ve got we’ve got my next mastermind webinar is tomorrow. So I can cover it again tomorrow or more in depth tomorrow, if you’d like. But there’s also on a conceptual level for those of you that are not in the mastermind, which I recommend you join us. But if you don’t, you can go to that URL right there. It’ll redirect to this process, St. template or, yeah, I don’t know what that is. But if you go to website training right there, simple versus complex silos. There’s video about that, why I use you know, why I use simple silos, I prefer that over complex silos because it’s just much easier to manage simple silo structures. Specifically, I talked about that complex silo structures there. I also talked about the difference between physical and virtual silos, which really, there’s no difference in ranking ability. It’s just a difference. It’s really a difference in preference, if you want a physical silo shows the silo structure in the URL of virtual silo has the same silo structure, but it just, it only shows post name and the permalink. Right, so it’s, you know, domain.com, slash post name, permalink structure versus category slash post name, okay. And then if we come down here, I talk about tag silos. I use tag silos for locations. And so what I would suggest for you, Jason is on a pest national pest control company, that you set it up with your topical or service based silos, right, which would be categories, corresponding pages, and then you can post underneath those, but then you set up your location based silos using tags and you can set up a hierarchy that same way, like for example, I would do state based tags is the top location based tag or location silo tag, right? So it’d be like, let’s just say, let’s just say rodent control is a topical silo, then I would have rodent control Virginia would be a top level state based silo location tag, and then I would have perhaps for every single county, right let’s I don’t know how many counties there are in Virginia 30 something I think, or whatever, who knows. But I would have you know, free like I’m in Culpepper County, so I would have, you know, rodent control Virginia as a tag and in rodent control Culpepper County, for example. And those both of those tags would be added to a post about rodent control in Cole pepper, right. And let’s say in this there’s cities inside of call pepper County, right. So like, Jefferson, let’s pull something outward, right output is a town in Colorado.

So then I would have that if it was a post about rodent control and Elkwood Virginia, then that would contain all three tags, right? rodent control, Virginia, rodent control, Culpper county and rodent control elk, elk, which is a town inside of Culpepper County. So there’s a hierarchy there. Does that make sense? And I talked about that in this, this video is 40 minutes long, because it’s difficult to explain this.

So I explain it very thoroughly in this video. But and I even have a diagram here that kind of shows you what I’m talking about. But if if you want more, kind of in depth training on that, that’s what the mastermind is for. And I’ve covered it multiple times, you can even go to my webinar archives and the membership site, you can see where I talked about tag, tag location silos or tag silos for locations. You can see that right in the lesson header, so you can go back and watch that. Okay. But to answer your question, I would go with simple silos. As much as possible. I don’t like to use complex silos anymore at all. And I try to avoid them.

When Is The Break Point Of Long Form Content?

bb’s question number three, baby, you did good this time, buddy. Look at that. He had one two up here and and three way down here. So BB is coming around? He says when is the breakpoint of long form content? Meaning which scenarios would we silo? And when do we do long form content? Which answers and touches on all the subjects on the same topic? Okay, that’s a great question. For right after what Jason asked, and this is a great question. Perfect timing, baby.

And here’s why I like that. Because in the past, I would do complex silos. Because if, for example, Jason, you know, rodent control, let’s say there’s, you know, mouse control or mouse extermination or whatever, maybe rats would be different. Maybe squirrels would be different. I don’t know if the scroll railroad? I don’t know. But whatever, voles are moles, right? Those are also different types of rodents. So if you think about a complex silo structure, if you were to do pest control, let’s say rodent control would be your top level category. But then you could have subcategories for mouse control, rat control, mole control, right? Let’s just I don’t do all this kind of pest control stuff. But let’s say you did that. So you’d have subcategories for each one of them. In that case, I might have a shorter form content on the top level silo page, which would be rodent control, General rodent control. And then I would have separate pages for each one of the sub silos or subcategories. That would be the landing pages for specifically mouse control, rat control, mole control, right? And then so that would be longer form content, but specific about each one of those types of services. Why would the way that I do it now, which will answer your question BB, as I create one long form page about rodent control that covers all of those, instead of creating sub categories for mouse control, rat control motor control, I would have headings on that long form content that would cover each one of them. By the way, I like to use a table of contents plugin for long form content so that there’s a table of contents that automatically creates jump links to those section headers, because those now become additional target link building targets for content marketing targets, that you can get very specific. So instead of having subcategories, you can link directly to the section on the long form content page on a simple silo structure setup. That makes sense. So I would use long form content with Table of Contents at the top that will create jump links to the section headers on the page that cover each of the what would be sub categories, if you did a complex silo, I would keep on the one long form content page for rodent control. And then where I would, you know, then you can, you can add supporting content as posts. And you can link back like so again, let’s say that mow control was the last service mentioned on the long form page four on a simple silo structure set up for rodent control, then, let’s say four, instead of having a subcategory for more control, you would for supporting articles, you would post publish posts about motor control plus city, you know, let’s say you’ve got three different cities that you’re targeting. So you’d have mo control plus city one, Mo control plus city two, whatever those names are. And with the internal link from the post would be the jump link to that section on the page on the long form content on the landing page for road and controls. That makes sense. So essentially, you’re still siloing it but you’re doing it in a simple solid structure setup. And you’re doing it with long form content. And that’s the way that I do it. So and again, by the way, you could also you could even take the content if you don’t want to 2500 word article, because that might scare people away, which I don’t, I don’t care. But you know, if you have like a 25 word article for rodent control, for example, that could be a really long scroll right? But that’s why you put a table of contents plugin at the top because it’ll jump directly to that section number one.

But number two, you could just put the make the first paragraph visible under each each section header, and then add it to the rest of the content for that particular section as like an accordion, right? So you click a plus button or whatever and all of a sudden, it expands and shows the rest of the content. That’s fine, too. As long as the contents visible to the user, even if that click a button to see it. It’s still there. Does that make sense?

So hopefully that makes sense. answer your question, guys. We’re almost out of time.

Scott says, Sorry, I didn’t realize you would be backtracking to my previous question. I didn’t. I didn’t know I did. Scott, did I? I’m sorry. If I did.

Oh, no, don’t worry about it. Man, you couldn’t have known that. You could. So no worries at all. In fact, like I said, I got to show this plugin. I think it’s pretty cool. It’s free. By the way, guys, you have to pay Google if use a, it’s like you get $300 in credits through developers console for free, like you have to have billing details added. But you get $300 in spend for I think the first 12 months or something. And then after that, but I mean, unless you’re in Dec trying to index like spam links through the indexing index, the indexing plugin, which I would never recommend, then I don’t think you ever have to you’ll ever reach that limit. Again, don’t quote me on that. I don’t know what you’re doing. But, but I don’t think that’s a problem.

Okay, I think we’re done guys. I figured simple plus tagging. Jason says I figured so simple plus tagging. I think that’s what I’m going to do. fill you in more than I’ll fill you in more in the group. Okay, sweet. All right, guys. Thanks, everybody, for being here. Thanks for sticking around, guys. We’ll see you all next week. Whoo. Yeah, Ron. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I’ve got mastermind webinar tomorrow, guys. So we’ll see you there.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 311 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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daynamartinez22 · 5 years ago

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Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 311

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 311 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

All right, let’s do it.

What Are The Features Of MGYB’s GMB Verification Service?

Do we know if that’s available right now, guys?

Okay, not sure? Not sure.

All right.

Let’s see. Can I can I still ranking the local pack?

And just set your service area instead. Okay.

Okay, he says long term, so I can safely invest in ranking them and setting up the buyers, let me know. Yeah, I mean, again, I’ve got tons of them, but I try not to edit them if possible.

So I also found it better to still verify guys from let’s see if I can find this real quick. Just give me one second.

Yeah, it’s right here.

How Do You Successfully Integrate Lead Simplify Forms On The GMB Site?

Is It Safe To Run URLs Already Indexed Through An Indexer?

All right. Moving on.

Do You Run A Press Releases Stack To The New Site When You Get The RYS Expansion?

Standby.

Is It Still Good To Order Another SEO Shield Inspite Of IFTTT’s New Updates?

Alright, hopefully that cleared some things up and is up next he says any update on IFTTT syndication networks. Thanks to the Have we ever made a

Adam maybe you would know and if not, maybe we need to make a note of this to get April to set up a an FAQ for this.

Alright,

moving on.

Do You Know A New Strategy For The Indexation Of Individual Pages?

Guys, because it’s very inexpensive. I was just talking about the indexing service, it works really, really well. So if you come down here and look at backlink indexing right there,

There you go.

Try it out. It’s good.

There’s Marco must be watching. There’s his donation like, so he must be watching. That’s kind of interesting, right?

How Does Google Find Pinged Pages To Sites?

Let’s take a look. I think it’s under writing. Yes, it is. Okay.

And I just shared some indexing services that you can use as well as this plugin, which goes directly to the Google Indexing API. So this is probably your best bet right here. Okay.

Okay, new. Let’s see. That’s Adam. So moving on, we’re almost done. Hey, look at that.

Should You Choose Simple Or Complex Silo On A National Site For Pest Care?

I’ve got an outdoor pest control company that I’ve been working with since 2013. So they do mosquito control, tick control. And then they do what’s called.

When Is The Break Point Of Long Form Content?

So hopefully that makes sense. answer your question, guys. We’re almost out of time.

Scott says, Sorry, I didn’t realize you would be backtracking to my previous question. I didn’t. I didn’t know I did. Scott, did I? I’m sorry. If I did.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 311 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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