#Also after this our prices are updated!! yay!! YEAH!!

[ebonytails]

Commission for @the-starship-system! ⚾️🧢

[sobdasha]

"I definitely updated my list of books I was reading on tumblr so it's all good" -me, a lying liar, right before spending several months finishing my reread of All The Discworld Books I Own But In Chronological Order For The First Time Ever Which In Fact Makes A Difference.

(and then I did it again after the libraries closed)

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin Hm, so. I definitely read this. At some point. It was not really for me, not bad, but not really for me. This particular edition had various notes before and after the text, all of which I read, which made it an experience I got more out of. It's important for me to know that the author is aware that the protagonist is a raging misogynist who's stupid, and yes this was on purpose so you'd realize how really incredibly stupid he is and thus maybe be tricked into changing your mind yourself. It is a legit tactic, but one I tend not to enjoy, so if I hadn't been forewarned I'd have been UUUUGGGGGHHHH MAKE HIM SHUT UP ALREADY and probably rage-quit. As it was, I was able to better appreciate what Le Guin was doing here, even if this book didn't win a place in my heart and I probably won't reread. I definitely preferred Ancillary Justice's take, with the feminine pronouns. For my brain, masculine pronouns = they might as well all be men = business as usual = I didn't really get any gender queering from it. I can't really remember much else now. Oh, it was also part "survival in the wilderness" story, which they're big on making you read in school (which I find very suspicious), and which I tolerated and read a few classic ones on my own until they kept assigning these kinds of stories for us to read and now I get nothing from them and mindlessly hate them. Anyway, as I said, not bad at all but not really for me.

Lavinia, Ursula K. Le Guin This one's a reread--I picked it up from the library during college because we were doing Titus Andronicus in class and it didn't occur to me that there might be more than one Lavinia???? But hey it worked out because later in college we did the Aeneid and then I had Background for rereading Lavinia. This is the book that is lyrical and beautiful and pulls me in and makes me care deeply about the world and the characters. This is the book of Le Guin's that makes me feel the way everyone else feels about Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness and etc. I would like to find more of Le Guin's work that makes me feel the same way, because as I've said you can really tell from her other stuff that she's a solid writer who knows her stuff. I just…don't enjoy any of the other things. Anyway I recommend. I always forget about this book, and then when I reread I'm like "wow why don't I read this more often?????"

How Long 'Til Black Future Month?, N. K. Jemisin I liked every story in this short story collection. I should just reread it and try writing this up again tbh but also tbh I'll probably do the rereading and then just not write anything up again. Just read Jemisin's stuff I love her writing so much okay. ETA: that’s exactly what I did, I reread this during my covid rereads and said “I should do a proper write-up this time” and lo and behold where is it

Tehanu, Ursula K. Le Guin Okay, this last Earthsea book treated me much better than the others. It's probably not for everyone else, which might be why it's for me. It's much more domestic, much less "plot" happening, full of introspection, and centered on women rather than men. This novel acknowledges and confronts the rampant internalized misogyny in the previous three books, engages it in a way that the misandrist in me finds satisfying even though it never comes to a good solution for the problem. This book is more like a reflection. Earthsea has never been about "light is always good, dark is always bad; be a hero, fight evil" etc. But this one I think shifts the tone a little farther; it's less about balance, and more...I guess I'd put it as, "actions have consequences." It's not concerned with right or wrong, it's concerned with people getting hurt. It's pretty somber and serious, without any humor to balance it out, tons of bad things happen to people, lots of PTSD...but this time I really cared about the characters, and I feel like it was all handled really well? In addition to critiquing internalized misogyny, it also critiqued victim blaming. Seemed like it handled disability pretty well too--was honest about how people are jerks about it in reality, while still being optimistic and treating Therru as valuable; made occasional mentions of considering work-arounds for having only one fully-functional hand, while mostly just having Therru go about living and doing chores and being capable and assuming she did find those work-arounds without having to draw attention to it; and Therru's terrible scars didn't get magically healed at the end, the whole book makes a point all the way through that her physical scars will always be with her the same way her emotional scars will be, and she's simply learned how to go on living with them. Tehanu: a book full of trauma happening to people, where what would normally be the plot in a fantasy novel ended up not even getting started to be resolved, but Le Guin's writing and handling of the subject matter helped heal my jaded soul.

Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee A quick summary of my experience: Chapter 1 - ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh what is going on what even Chapter 2 - no, no this is just, this is what sci fi is like, right? Just give it a few chapters and then by the end of the book everything will probably make sense. I'm sure that's how it works. Remember how even in Ancillary Justice I ended up with two separate Battles of Valskay, but now everything is fine??? It's. Fine. Chapter 4 - (ohhhhhhh I still don't know what's going on) Several Chapters Later - still no clue what's going on, but hit my stride with the terminology, my foreign language instinct kicked in where words stopped sounding weird and while I could not for the life of me define any terms for you, I had a vague comprehension of how the words operated In Context. Sort of. And by then I had, without realizing it, begun page-turning and binging, so I guess I liked the book lol! Another serious-but-not-funny one, but with an extra dose of War Memoir and all the gruesomeness that entails (but probably, like any good War Memoir, probably not actually gratuitous and actually in fact the necessary amount of gruesome). Jedao was turned into a woobie at the last minute and, well, damn, guy knows the way to my heart. The novel apparently gripped me enough that I don't even mind that it only came into play at the very end of the game. And hey, there's two more novels to deal with that revelation, which I have picked up from the library to read immediately! Yay! Current personal theory: based on the heavy math references that made me want to cry at the start, but the almost entire absence of actual numbers, and a reference to "there's no way actual physics works like that, it was obviously a calendrical effect" or something…I'm going to throw out a wild guess that the calendar stuff (and all the social structuring that goes with it) is so that they can break and reinvent math. So they can effect a universe where 2+2=5 and therefore a bunch of people standing in this exact position makes a force field or bullets of rose thorns or whatever and some other dude can make himself immortal. This sounded like a pretty terrible theory already and it sounds even worse now I've typed it up but oh well.

Raven Stratagems, Yoon Ha Lee Guess who didn't write this up back when she read it!!! Also, I returned Ninefox Gambit to the library right before the libraries shut down for covid. So, I had Raven and Revenant on hand for months but I didn't have Ninefox on hand to do an immediate reread to see if that made the sci fi make more sense. (It probably wouldn't have, but I would have liked to do a rereading while the ending was still fresh.) By this time there is a lesser degree of visceral viscera. Lee is brutal, however, about continuing to be honest about what war costs and whether war is worth that cost (which depends, really, on whose lives you think matter. Very relevant for these times. Very much prepared me to shut up and not whine about the inconveniences of protests and their fallout. There is no pretty and clean way to have a revolution, since it involves destroying a particular [terrible] way of life, so we're all just gonna have to sacrifice together). Also I think by this point all the character development from the first novel paid off in the form of character dynamics being hilarious now despite, y’know, the gruesome shadow of war.

Revenant Gun, Yoon Ha Lee Continues to discuss the honest price of war and the messiness of fallout. Shuos "The risks I took were calculated, but boy am I bad at math" Jedao. Oh I think this is also the one where every so often one of the characters thinks, "Okay so this person is a tyrannical murderous dictator but he is ensuring that there will never again be food shortages and no one in the space empire ever goes hungry." And then Lee turns around and is like, "Haha but don't forget this same person invented a form of vital infrastructural technology (and also immortality) that is optionally based off ritual human torture sacrifice. Like he didn't have to do that to make it work. He just decided to anyway. And that's always bad :) " (Also useful in our current climate of "Okay but we should consider the other person's circumstances and point of view" and also "Yeah but that doesn't apply if they're literally Nazis tho.")

Hexarchate Stories, Yoon Ha Lee A collection of short stories set in the universe of those three books. There's one story at the end that does satisfy the "But I wanted another sequel!!!" urge. And there's a bit of backstory for Jedao and Cheris. But by and large what you should be in the mood to read is flash fiction snippets that simply happen to be set in the same universe but have no bearing on the plot. Which is pretty cool and interesting if you are in the proper mindset! Even better, Lee includes author's notes at the end of each story to talk about the story, or the influences, or the context of his life at the time, etc etc. That is always my absolute favorite part of a short story collection. Also these notes told me everything I needed to know about why I liked certain things about his writing. "I wanted to write my own AUs," "If I get stuck I go on TV Tropes," "My only regret is that I had to cut the scene where Jedao goes to ~Halloween~ dressed as himself and trolls people" ahhhh that's also a regret I share.

Dragon Pearl, Yoon Ha Lee This one is YA! There is a lot less gore although I guess there was still genocide! Read this when you are in the mood for something that doesn't attempt to hide the fact that the plot is completely, conveniently contrived to give you fast-paced action and fun. Min sure has a lot of coincidental meetings that should stretch my disbelief but I don't care. Also, I am enjoying reading books with girls as protagonists that do what I'm tired of being told to love about boy protagonists--just keep barreling along with complete self-assurance that you are right and, if you run into trouble, you can egotistically figure your way out.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N. K. Jemisin Gods and mortal ruling family's messy soap opera sexcapades is not exactly my favorite genre, but luckily it is handled by Jemisin so it's all good. Lots of Souma Family Values. I'm really appreciating how Jemisin considers choice of narrator very carefully and uses it to brilliant effect in this trilogy. Stories are things told by a narrator to an audience; why should we rely on the artifice of an "impartial" "reliable" "omniscient" 3rd person narrator writing into the void? This trilogy was Jemisin's first, I believe, so it's a little awkward coming back to them now, only because Jemisin is such a powerful writer that the themes she's begun working with here have only gotten stronger with each successive work.

The Broken Kingdoms, N. K. Jemisin This one I rated as I read for Protagonist Is Blind based on the scale of a sighted person going "but some of my best friends are blind!" In that regard, I think the book does really well! Blindness doesn't define Oree's life and value; Oree doesn't get magical powers that make her a blind person who isn't really blind; Oree moves away from home and gets a job and lives on her own which seems very accurate to me based on my knowledge of one (1) person who is blind; instead of being ~cured~, Oree actually gets more blind at the end of the story and this is considered a Good Ending. Also personal bonus points are awarded for references to her stick being handy for hitting people with. Some stuff was stereotypical, but Jemisin's intent was not. A+, will read again, please support including way more characters who are blind in media. Anyway I enjoyed this one.

The Kingdom of Gods, N. K. Jemisin First off, Jemisin directly up front critiques the narration choices she made in the first two books and then pays it off like a boss at the end. Like holy crap. I admit by now I was getting a bit bored of the genre, but the book was still very engaging because Jemisin is a master. It may also have been affected by how much increasing pain I've been in lately.

The Awakened Kingdom, N. K. Jemisin I'm dead. This one was way more my speed and you need the other three books to understand this novella but ohhhh my god it's perfect. I read a lot of choice passages of this aloud to my roommate because how could you resist. It's still heavy but it's hilarious. Bless Shill.

[ladykf-writes]

Fanfic Writer Appreciation (and a little self love)

Sooooo, as talked about I wanted to do a little promo. I may not always be my favorite writer, but I try to be one of my cheerleaders. And well, if you’re here you obviously have some interest in what I’m up to.

SO! Here’s a list of my currently-published WIPs and some info about them, in the order that I’ve updated them, most recent to oldest. 

Feel free to ask questions about any of them!

Dog Whistle (Ao3 || FFN) - started off as a prompt from @snackarey​ when I reblogged some Soulmate AUs. This one was a prompt for soulmates (Zack/Kunsel) who felt what each other felt - like pain. Needless to say, this went into a canon divergent AU where Kunsel felt some of what Zack was going through when Hojo got a hold of him after Nibelheim. And saved him, setting off an ever-increasing list of revolutionary consequences. It’s nearly 58K, and though I’m a little stuck I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Dewprism: Journey to the [Relic] (Ao3 || FFN) - this actually has a lot more written than I’ve posted, I just got a little frustrated because well... the fandom is teeny tiny and there’s no real feedback. But! It’s an interesting piece. It’s a semi-novelization where I’m taking the old PS1 Classic from Squaresoft, Threads of Fate/Dewprism and merging the two storylines. Basically... you can’t play the game anymore unless you got it from the PSN for your PSP or... PS2, I think? Or emulate it, of course, you can do that. And I wanted to bring the experience to more people, because it’s got such a great story.

It’s Not a Game (Ao3 || FFN) - this is my Avengers/FF7 crossover, and funny story, it was actually born out of a comment back on my old Genesis RP blog about how Genesis would totally be Tony Stark’s favorite character if he played Crisis Core. It’s turned into a full blown fixit I have a type and I actually have like, 90% of the next chapter done, it just doesn’t feel quite right so I haven’t posted it. And am, of course, stuck. There’s a case of choice paralysis here; the premise is that, in the MCU, FF7 is a series like it is in our world, and Tony is a fan. So he goes to make a simulation to do a self-insert... only he somehow transports himself (and Bruce) to a dimension where it’s real. A “Stark-insert” someone called it; and it does use a lot of “Self-Insert” tropes, actually. There’s just so many ways it could go that I’m stuck on choosing exactly how to progress here.

Party of Five (Ao3 || FFN) - the MMO AU! This was actually originally a prompt @up-sideand-down​ got, that I got permission to take off with. It’s a modern AU AGSZC where they meet online playing this MMO I made up that’s based off of FF7 and modeled after a mashup of like, me studying WoW and my experiences playing SWTOR. I’ve actually got some ideas of where it’s going, I just got too caught up in technicalities and need to reroute it back to the relationships going on.

Welcome to FF7 (series link, Ao3) - this is me hashing out basically what I think went down pre-games. Most of it is headcanon, I cannot stress that enough. It’s based off of the little we know, of course, but there’s just so much we don’t that it’s mostly headcanon. Tons of OCs. It’s a whole series, and they overlap - different sections that follow different departments, mostly. The base story is Welcome to ShinRa (Ao3 || FFN) and that follows the man who will become President Shinra from back when they first discover mako energy. I’ve also got Welcome to the Science Department (Ao3 || FFN) which starts off with college students Gast and Grimoire and how they get drawn into the beginnings of what becomes ShinRa Electric.

And last but not least, honorable mention to Times of Change (Ao3) - this was actually a piece inspired by @deadcatwithaflamethrower‘s Re-Entry series. I desperately need to reread that before I can hope to continue this, but... one day. One day.... I don’t suggest reading it right now, my headcanons have changed and it needs an overhaul. But you’ll see eventually.

And now... the WIPs you haven’t seen. (Under a cut)

By fandom, just to keep things straight, but in no particular order otherwise.

Compilation of FF7

The Snowball Effect (Ao3 || FFN) ... sequel? continuation? - as one of the gift exchange presents I’ve just done this past month, it is definitely standalone as is, but if I ever figure out where I want to take it, I’ll continue that one. It was just far too much fun.

The Price of Freedom - the sequel to To Be Human, which... I’m looking forward to, but I really burnt myself out on TBH so it’s going to be longer than anticipated before I approach this one. TBH definitely stands on its own, but there were some loose ends left to tie up, so we’ll see how that goes. And when it goes, when I’m ready to approach that again. TBH needs some editing, too... lots of work there.

The Unnamed Pokemon/FF7 crossover that I’ve talked about for... a couple years now (yikes) but now actually have a plot for. It’s very interesting to me, putting Pokemon on Gaia, and seeing how that changes everything. Because like, they’d have presumably used Mew’s DNA since there’s no Jenova (I can’t see them using Deoxys, which would be the closer parallel) and since there’s no Chaos, Grimoire is still alive. Which means no extra Drama between Lucrecia and Vincent - and really, there shouldn’t be the stress between Vincent and Hojo over her being sick because Mew would theoretically be much more compatible with humans than Jenova was.

What I’m saying is Seph has three parents and at least one set of grandparents and a much more stable Sephiroth (and Genesis and Angeal, thanks to Lucrecia teaming up with Gillian) leads to some very interesting changes. Like deciding they don’t want to fight the Wutai war anymore. >_>

Hold My Flower - a timetravel fic featuring our one and only flowergirl, who has had enough of people messing up her planet and refuses to just... let it die. She is, unquestionably, a force of nature. No fragile flower to be found here, this is the gal you see in the OG who threatened a mob boss and meant it. Heaven help anyone who gets in her way. She’s going to save the world. Possibly in a Turk Suit, don’t look at me.

The Long Game - Reeve goes back in time, and holy crap this one is a monster I am truly intimidated by so it’s gonna take a while for me to get going on that. XD But basically, similar premise to the above - the world isn’t healing and someone has to do something, so Reeve is nominated due to his position in ShinRa and potential to... he’d say “influence” but let’s call a spade a spade - manipulate people and events to a more favorable outcome.

A third BIT fic is one that I started writing with my friend @askshivanulegacy back in... damn, somewhere between 2011-2013, before we switched to writing SWTOR fic together. It’s one where Zack is sent back in time, and the differences in him post-Hojo change things even before he can start deliberately changing anything. But I got permission to take and remake that, so I intend to, one day. It was Good Stuff. And you can never have too much timetravel.

Dragon Ball Z

So, this is an oooooold fandom of mine - the first fanfics I ever wrote (under a different name, no I’m not telling XD it was ten years ago) were for DBZ, and definitely the first ones I ever read, back in the days of dial up. And I read a couple interesting takes on Chichi/Vegeta fic... and I was talking with @vorpalgirl about it and said I’d love to try my hand at something with that one day. I think they have the potential to be a really great pair (don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the canon pairings but those two have a lot of potential) so... yeah someday I might dip my toes back into Z. It’s on the wishlist, as well as reviving and cleaning up an old unfinished work of mine. Someday~

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Seven Years Lost - this one I’ve been debating a long time, and even did a little on! It’s basically how I rationalize what happens when Link pulls the Master Sword out and - well, spoilers but it’s a really old game so - when he comes out as a teenager and is immediately able to handle a nearly-adult body. It involves a dreamscape scenario where he communicates with his past incarnations and learns from them, and from sharing dreams with Zelda due to their bond.

Sailor Moon (manga/Crystal based)

Second Chances - I read a lot of SM fanfic back in the day, and my favorite ones were... more real? Like, there were more consequences to these 14 year old kids out there fighting for their lives and sometimes losing them. I’d like to tell a story through Minako/Venus’ eyes primarily, covering what that’s like, and then I also just really want a happy ending for the senshi/shittenou? So... yay canon divergence, lol. You guys know the deal by now. XD

Star Wars: Legends Era

United We Stand - SWTOR fanfic, baby! Basically, I’m just dying to see the eight classes cross over each other, and I will bend canon to do it. For anyone that’s played the original class story lines, there is some cross over but believe me when I say there were huge opportunities that were let drop by nature of the game. Just with the two Jedi stories alone... but that’s #spoilers for a not-as-old game so I’ll leave that be and only elaborate if asked.

(And do feel free to ask about any of these! I’d love to hash them out more.)

[hazelinhouston]

26-290819 // update

SO HARD TO KEEP UP. And also last few days have been an absolute blur so this is me trying to remember. 

260819 

First day of school! I can’t remember what happened in the morning, but I got to school about 12.30 pm? And it is so difficult to find the classes - the classes are labeled (trying to write American spelling lol) by numbers. BUT it isn’t very sequential. Like one aisle is 2600s for example, and the next aisle is 2300s like why?? So I walked up and down the building to find the class. And it was hidden in this like computer lab place. First class was stats and welcome welcome HAHAH. But the prof spent like a good 1.5 hours just going thru the syllabus and she was really very thorough. 

Then I had my next two classes with Dr. Strait (one of the Sch Psych professors!) and he was really quite funny. And he found a lot of moments to inject like teachable moments through his jokes. 

By 8 pm, having had 7 hours back to back classes, man I was pooped. So back home and idk what I did. 

OH and I had to e-mail the international office because I remembered .. that based on visa terms, I should not be doing anything out of school for my first year. And some of my modules require me to engage in external voluntary stuff e.g. applying learning principles with a dog shelter (damn cool!) and mentoring program. 

270819 

Woke up to e-mails from the international office telling me that I need to go through processes and I started frantically e-mailing professors that I knew had volunteering stints in their modules to tell them about the processes. And then also scheduled for a meeting with the international office in case. Processes seemed smooth and dandy BUT then I realized oh no, my fellowship. I had totally forgotten to check about that and idk if they were adequately informed.

Hmm. This day tbh, I just recall mainly being at home trying to sort my life out. Oh Daryl woke up with bed bug bites from the Airbnb and we were like ooookay, got to start moving out. So we brought a ton of our stuff over from the Airbnb to the apartments (impetus to move!). And started washing whatever clothes that were left at the Airbnb, in case any bed bugs got to them. 

Idk what else I did this day. I think we went by to Best Buy to check out tv cables and possibly installing a reverse camera/dashboard camera - it is damn expensive. And this guy just kept recommending expensive shit to us. Like no, not Best Buy hello. Whereas this other girl was super helpful. We managed to get a wifi OH YES we got a modem HAHAHA (this is clearly just word vomit right now), and fixed up the wifi! And the Xfinity guy that came by to help us was super nice as well. We had to search in our house where the stupid coaxial cable was. And finally the Xfinity guy found it after unscrewing some wall plates thingum. So yes all the more - okay we can move in, we have wifi now! 

280819

Had arranged meetings with the international office and also one of my professors to sort the visa thing out. And apparently there was some mix up with the international office about my fellowship and they were not in the know (unlike what my professor had thought) because their director had left. SO... It became a rush to start the processes for it to ensure that I could start with the program next Friday. 

Then after all that, went back home and did some packing and a little nap (too much excitement from the whole day). Before going back to school at 3 ish pm to pass Daryl his lunch and then for my 4-10 pm classes. It started out with Learning Principles and then I had Biological Basis of Behavior. A lot more orientation and intro-ey stuff, but generally first week has been okay. ALTHOUGH we already have readings that are streaming in for next week, so ... yay. 

290819

Slept in this morning, lol woke up at 10 am when we told the maintenance people to come at 9 am oops. And they were supposed to install a brand new fridge (yay!) because our fridge was missing shelves and some parts broke etc. Had a missed call from the front desk and then contacted them to figure out what’s up. Maintenance people ended up coming at like 11 and saying they would bring the fridge right over. But I had to leave to meet another professor about the visa/volunteering issues so zoooom bye. I left Daryl to handle that and came back to a brand new fridge! 

Then went by the Airbnb to drop off laundry and we went by Best Buy/Home Depot to just check on carpet cleaner/vacuum cleaner prices. Not cheap at all... But we have to get them soon cause it kinduv feels like there might be some mites on the floor? So yeah we shall see. 

We then headed back to school because there was some welcome bash thing going on? Basically a fair full of free shit. We got tons of free drinks, brownies and chips which we all brought back to the apartment hehehe. Love this free stuff at school fairs culture. They even had a buffet table to make your own burger? And also a taco stand just randomly. Like sure why not. 

Daryl then went to class and dropped me back at the apartments. Went out with the neighbor to get bubble tea across the road. It was pretty ok, better than Gongcha here tbh. And then she was hungry so we went to get some Vietnamese food. She is allergic to a lot of stuff though. The Vietnamese food was pretty decent! I always like a nice comforting pho. The broth is just very soothing for some reason. Chatted for about 2 hours before heading back and popped in to see her apartment. There are 6 people squeezing in it at the moment - that is a lot and very overwhelming. 

And here I am, finally done (I think!). Fellowship starts tomorrow with orientation! Excited!!!

[antiziosadventureinokinawa]

A new year celebration in the beginning of December

So remember me saying that I was going to be part of a new year celebrations on television. So this is the story.

So Wednesday (6th December) I had some contact with the coordinator for the exchange program, so that evening he sent me a message if I wanted to come with and cheer for the vice president of our school when he preformed a traditional Okinawan song, the next day. So I accepted, because it seemed like an interesting thing to do, even if it was short notice.

So come Thursday with lessons the whole day and a test the last lessons, so luckily we got out a little earlier, so I had time to go back and change my clothes a bit. I don’t think those clothes were the best for the event, because it was so formal, but it was all I had. I wasn’t horribly out of place, but still. Also one of the other exchange students had ripped jeans so…but we were only 4 (Me, Sasha, Gil and Folksong(?)) exchange students, and the only students form the school who came to cheer for the vice president, probably because of the short notice so yeah.

But leaving the school, after having some trouble with the Folksong because of miscommunication, but we managed to be collected and ushered onto the bus, which is the same bus they picked us up in when I arrived in Okinawa. Anyway. The bust was like full off people who had come with us to cheer as well, but it was all staff. Also some of them did a small dance as part of the cheering.

Well arriving at the hotel it was so big and cool and pretty beautiful and sooooo many people inside and everybody was dressed up, some in also in different costumes, and at least 2 people in mascot costumes so yeah. We had to put on a shirt like thing on top of our clothes so with the name of ryudai and so we looked somewhat uniform and yeah. So we had 2 tables, and I think every company had like 2 tables so yeah. And since we were 3 we had to wait to eat until after the performance, but it was alright, but probably because they shouldn’t see plates on our table when we cheered.

So we had a repetition, and I wished I could have seen the dance properly because I was standing behind the table. So we listened to the songs by the contestants until the vice president was performing. Since we were cheering, with some of the staff dancing, and we exchange students saying good luck in our own language (Lycka till!). While the vice president performed, we stood there cheering, and I remember my face being itchy, because in that situations where you’re not allowed to to move you feel everything, and not allowing myself to move. But the vice president did a great job and I was so honored to be able to see it.

The food was so delicious and so beautiful, and we talked to some of the staff which was pretty funny because it was a mix of English and Japanese and alcohol. Mostly because out of the 4 of us, there was one who was really good at japanese, I’m just okay, and the 2 others are beginners and didn’t speak any Japanese like 2 months ago. But I tried some Awamori, something with Shikuwasa and then something like really strong whiskey. Which wasn’t that bad, just very strong. Feels like the sort of thing you should drink when having a sore throat. I even got to take a bottle with me home. So yay. Not that I know what to do with it now, cause I don’t drink that much alcohol, but I’m saving ti so my sister can try it. If anybody wants it after that just ask for it.

As dessert we had a like sweet thing, bakelse, can’t remember the English word atm. Update this in the future if you ever remember. You probably won’t though. Anyway. After that it was time to announce the winners so me and Sasha had to go to the stage to take the presents so the vice president wouldn’t be forced to hold it the whole time.

Also there is an interesting thing about the price ceremony that I won’t publish here, but if you wanna know, send me a private message, and I might tell you. Or I might have forgotten it by the time you ask so no can do. If I’m smart I’ll save a note somewhere about it. Its more like a thing you might be able to work out, but i hadn’t thought about the possibility before.

So the winner was announced, and we all danced the traditional new years “dance” up onto the stage, took some pictures, and then we were done. So it was back into the bus, this time only the exchange students and the coordinator. idk where everybody else disappeared. I felt kinda bad for the coordinator, since he had an hours drive home, we arrived at school pretty late, and he had to be up at 6:00 the next day for work. The other students also had class the next day, two of them at 8:00, except me, cause I don’t have any lessons on Fridays. So it was then time to get back home to the apartment, and sleep.

So that was the story of how I got on Japanese TV, or will get on it. Because it should be sent at new years. Because I’m writing this before the it’ll be sent but I’ll post it after it has been sent because I don’t want to spoil anything, even if I haven’t really.

[daveshevett]

Road Tripping with a Tesla Model 3 - Thoughts and Ruminations

New Post has been published on https://planet-geek.com/2019/10/14/ev-cars/road-tripping-with-a-tesla-model-3-thoughts-and-ruminations/

Road Tripping with a Tesla Model 3 - Thoughts and Ruminations

This past weekend I finally got to let TARS, my Tesla Model 3 Performance, stretch its legs a big and go for some long distance driving. Over 3 days, we covered almost 700 miles, from Boston, MA to Rochester, NY.

This drive is almost entirely interstate, with the absolutely mind numbing stretch of the NY Thruway between Syracuse and Rochester coming to mind as the most tedious part of the trip. I was looking forward to using Autopilot for that bit in particular, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Preparation

Fully charged, oh, and have a software update.

My Model 3 is normally set to charge to 90%, which gets me about 270 miles of range.  According to Tesla, this helps preserve the lifetime of the battery.  But for short term trips, it’s okay to go into ‘trip mode’ – charge the battery to 100%.  That brought my range up to about 307 miles.  Golden!

The next step was to plan the trip a bit.  With my battery topped up, the trip analyzer said that I could make it to the Utica, NY supercharger in one go.  That’s about 270 miles, and I in theory would have 35 miles left when I get there.  Now, I treat these estimators with a heavy dose of skepticism.  There’s a lot of factors that impact battery consumption – a static analysis would have resulted in a lot of ‘Yeah, but what about…’ questions.  However, this estimation was being done by the car, while I was driving it, with active traffic reports being reported in in realtime.  It should be pretty accurate, we’ll see!

Departure

We rolled out around 2pm on Friday and immediately ran into unexpected traffic (later we learned from some friends that it wasn’t just us – all the routes headed west were problematic).  TARS kept updating the route onto more and more secondary roads, to the point where I was expecting us to be routed through someone’s garage and down their garden paths.  Hopefully I could avoid any empty swimming pools.

Finally, we got past the traffic and on the open road.  The car settled into the traffic fine, and I was able to enable autopilot for a large part of the rest of the trip.  

Autopilot

There’s an awful lot of jawing going on about the Tesla Autopilot.  It’s not full self driving (FSD), no.  It’s also not ‘just adaptive cruise control’ (as I’ve heard others yammer).  It’s somewhere in between.  On an open highway, without much traffic, it’s dreamy.  Lane changes, slowing down / speeding up according to traffic changes, dealing with people merging in or passing, it works well. The car software is updated often – anywhere from once a week to every few weeks. And each time a new version comes down, the autopilot gets better, smoother, and less janky. 

Here’s a good example.  When I received my car in May, it was just after the ‘automatically change lanes’ function was enabled.  And it was sketchy AF.  Yes, it would signal, change lanes, and continue.  But the signal ranges were all goofy, and if there was someone anywhere near your blindspot, the car would sort of ‘stall’ – leaving the blinker on, waiting for the other car to move.  If they backed off to let you in (like all nice New England drivers do, right?), the autopilot wouldn’t pick up on the situation change fast enough, so would just sit there with the blinker on.  Naturally, the other driver would speed up thinking I wasn’t changing lanes, and then Autopilot would decide there was a threat, and ‘phantom brake’ or jog back into lane.  it was unnerving.

With the current version (v32.12.1 – one patch level beyond the v10 release), this process is FAR smoother.  I was comfortable letting the car decide when to change lanes to get around slower traffic, or move over to let other cars by.

Interstate changes and ramps were still a little off.  When the car does not have clear lines on the road on ramps (which tend to be wider than normal highway lanes), it tends to disconcertingly head toward the outside of the ramp until it’s close to a line, then sort of jog back.  It’s jarring and uncomfortable, but it will do it.  I let TARS make 2-3 highway changes for me, keeping my hands and brake-foot ready for a sudden takeover.

First Recharging Stop

Eventually we made it to Utica, and pulled into the charging station.  At this point, the display was showing we had about 20 miles of battery range left.  I had been watching the numbers the entire drive, and even with the traffic, rain, etc, the numbers really didn’t change much.  The computer had the advantage of having access to traffic, weather, temperature, and route information, as well as how my batteries were behaving.  It didn’t get it wrong.

We jacked into the supercharger and got the message “20 minutes until you can continue your trip” – Huh!  4+ hours of driving, and a recharge in 20 minutes?  I’m good with that.  Lets grab dinner.

So we walked to the local food joint and had a quick meal while the car recharged.  

Getting back in, we were at something like 240 miles of range, plenty of electrons to get us the last 2 hours to Rochester.  

We ended up going to our friends house first, then to the hotel, which left us with about 90 miles of range.  Plenty for the next day, but we should top it up at some point.

On Saturday, we topped up the car with a very fast stop at the local supercharger (20m on the charger), which got us back up to about 200 miles.  This is where I start having some questions.

It looks like not all superchargers are the same.  Some have very good high speed charging (500+ miles per hour charging speed), others are lower.  It’s not because there’s more cars at the charging station or anything, the level of power coming from each station just seems to vary.  This is disconcerting, because when you’re trip planning, some stations may be able to charge your car up to full trip-level charge in 40 minutes, others may take an hour and change.  Now, the charging ‘curve’ for a Tesla isn’t flat.  To go from 0-75% charge can take as long as it takes to go from 75% to 100%.  If you’re doing long distance driving, the time it takes to top up gets important.  The station near the hotel was not charging as fast as the one in Utica.  That was concerning, because we should be able to fill up before we drove home on Sunday.  Timing would be important.

Departure

At the end of weekend, we did the happy party trick of showing off Enhanced Summon in a crowded private parking lot (there were half a dozen cars in our friends driveway, and rock walls all around.  I walked a hundred feet away and did a “HOLD MY BEER” by summoning TARS to me.  It did it BEAUTIFULLY.  The summon feature has improved greatly in two or three weeks it’s been out.  Very smooth, and doing exactly what a human would have done to back up, move the car forward and back 2-3 times to line it up with the exit, then roll over to where I stood. 

It’s a great trick to impress your friends with.  I asked our host “So, getting a Tesla now?” and he, a normally very conservative skeptical person, answered “I hadn’t thought about it before, but now I’m seriously considering it.  I’m very impressed.”

Victory!

We headed out to the charging station I had used on Saturday, and had the same rate problem I saw before.  So it wasn’t load or anything, it was just that this station sucked.  We went for a walk in the local mall, and decided to head out.  The mapping system set our next recharge in Lee, MA, about 270 miles away.  We should arrive with 20-30 miles of charge left.  So off we went.

The drive back was uneventful, with autopilot doing it’s thing for most of the drive.  Oddly, my biggest issue was I rest my hand on the steering wheel giving it a little ‘tension’ to let the car know I’m there.  After 20 minutes of leaving my hand in one spot, it would get tired and sweaty, and I had to switch hands.  Talk about first world problems!  

Charging in Lee

We got to Lee and plugged in, and YAY!  Plenty of high speed charging!  What a relief.  We were able to top up the battery enough to get home in under 15 minutes, and we got home to a dog that was extremely happy to see us after such a long time away (Yes, we had people taking care of her, don’t be like that.  But she did miss us).

Conclusions

All in all, the road trip was everything I expected it to be.  Smooth, fast, comfortable, and best of all, 100% electric.  Assuming our chargers were getting elecricity from standard sources, we produced 1/3rd as much carbon as we would have in a normal gas car.  I personally buy my electricity from a wind farm, so at least 1/3 of the trip was from renewables, so that reduced our footprint even further.  

Someone asked me from a cost perspective, was it cheaper driving an all electric car? I found an article that summed it up like this:

The long-range version of the Model 3 has a 75 kWh battery pack with a 310 mile range. If we still assume the average national electric pricing of 13 cents per kWh and a charging efficiency of 85%, then a full charge will cost $11.47. This is $3.70 per 100 miles of mixed city and freeway driving, or 3.7 cents per mile. This is almost 80% less than the cost per mile to drive the most popular gas-powered cars, which is approximately 20 cents per mile.

This fits my back of the envelope fiddling. I looked at my bill, and the entire charging costs from Sunday’s drive (about 370 miles) was $11.47. So not only was it not putting out any CO2, it was far far less expensive to operate than a traditional car.

I can easily see a future where more and more of these trips are automated, and my input into operating the car will be needed less and less.  We’re not there yet, and we won’t be for I’m guessing another 3-5 years.  But the progress is absolutely there, and I welcome it.

[idontneedasymbol]

12x10 Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets

I like Steve Yockey’s titles; they’re quirky and quite SPN, and the random-character-name personal stamp is a cute trend (at least for now.)

I like Steve Yockey’s episodes so far, too. This was maybe the most Team Free Will ep of the entire show? Some great interactions on all three sides!

Must feel sorry for Sam, caught in the middle between Cas’s issues and Dean’s. (Sam and Cas really need to get into a fight sometimes, just to give Dean a taste of trying to play referee, as both Sam and Cas have had to take the role when Dean and Cas or Dean and Sam are having it out. There is a little moment in the church in this ep when Sam is arguing with Cas about reasoning with Lily that Dean steps in a bit, but want more!)

But do love that Dean’s issues didn’t stop him from helping out -- of course not, because the real issue is that he’s worried about Cas. And that was obvious all along, but he actually admits it in the end, and oh, Dean, you are getting so much better at this dealing with feelings thing. Still a long way to go, but he’s more open about acknowledging both his emotions (to himself and everyone else) and the behaviors they result in than ever before.

Lily Sunder was interesting and sympathetic (...even given her introduction, which, OH MY GOD Supernatural, if you air the last two eps back to back, that is TWO women of color stabbed to death in like 10 minutes, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?! And Benjamin (and his unnamed vessel) were actually a really intriguing character concept, and yeah, this is SPN, most of the cast is dead by the end, but just...the visuals. You’re better than this, show...you should be better than this.)

...Ahem. Anyway. I liked Lily, and I really liked her story, I didn’t see the twist coming -- like, it was pretty obvious there was something up with Isham, but that the girl wasn’t really a nephilim at all, that was fittingly horrible. So was Akobel not really Lily’s lover at all but just her bodyguard? I was a little *head tilt* about why she was going after the whole squadron, but figured it was mostly to get to Isham -- either to summon him, or to remove his line of defense. And also she was missing a good chunk of her soul by now.

Which I also liked -- it’s always great when introducing a power to give it a drawback, and soul-burning is a great reason why the boys should never do spells like that, for all the power they offer (it’s good that is the price, because I think it’s one of the few that Sam wouldn’t pay. And Sam otherwise is pretty damn willing to take terrible bargains if he thinks they balance out (Dean is less likely to calculate it so carefully...)) But I liked that Lily still had enough of her soul to still have a moral center -- that she wouldn’t hurt humans, even if they get in her way.

And love that she has to see the Winchesters for like five minutes to have their number, to know what to say to convince Sam (and totally right, too, she’d have quite a partner in vengeance if Dean had been killed...) Though she probably knew them already -- it doesn’t seem like they introduce themselves, so she probably knows the Winchesters by reputation through hunter/magic circles.

Plus she’s set up to return as either an ally or a villain, and I could enjoy her as either.

Yockey seems to really like the show’s mythos -- hunter society last time, exploring angels this time. Like Benjamin’s gender and his relationship with his vessel (though I wish we could’ve seen any of that, rather than just being told about it.)(also re: Benjamin, Sam’s expression when he says, “She’s his...friend,” like, on the one hand he is unusually qualified to understand how an angel and their vessel could love each other...and then it’s completely incomprehensible to him for the same reason.) Also the mention of nephilim grow up and “entire worlds die.” Which is completely different from how Metatron and Cas treated the last one, but the show’s mythos is loose enough anyway, sure, let’s go with what’s cool. And the idea of angels possibly knowing what happens on other worlds/acting on other worlds. Which has been mentioned before -- by Death, I think by Zachariah (so are there humans on these other worlds, to mate with angels to make nephilim? Are these other planets or other universes they’re talking about?)

Points observed upon rewatch:

It seems like Dean is the one keeping in touch with Mary? Sam keeps asking him for updates. Is Sam reluctant to reach out, or is Dean just reaching out more, or what? Whenever Mary and Sam are together they seem fine...or is that why, that Mary and Dean are still a little awkward, and find it easier with long-distance?

Mary is presumably on a BriMoL-requested hunt, to not want backup?

Don’t know if was the direction or what but Dean looked way young for most of this ep -- more like Jensen (who’s looked younger than Dean for a few years now, still haven’t figured that one out...)

Sam’s bitch-face through this entire episode is epic. There’s about three different points he looks like he is fighting so hard not to pop Dean one.

At the crime scene, weren’t there cops called first? How did they miss the big shiny angel blade???

The burned-wings around angel bodies are back -- when is the last time we saw those? It’s one of the shows more awesome signature effects; glad they’ve gone back to it.

Squeezing onto the bench, omg you dorks!

I am a little confused how Sam didn’t get blinded when Dean did, since they seem to flinch back from the light at the same time (or does Sam have +5 resistance to angelic magic?) But yay both to Dean grabbing at Sam and also asking about the plate, like, he’s just been blinded but he’s tracking what happened by sound.

Did Cas mention anything about his previous (female) vessel? I’d expected a reaction if so.

And his vessel was blue-eyed and dark haired, could plausibly be Jimmy’s relative, which is mildly in favor of angel-vessels-follow-bloodlines (which is a mythos I’m very partial to, so liked seeing it here.)

(Speaking bloodlines, so Isham’s vessel was Chrissie’s father’s ancestor?)

Akobel’s whole pro-human “how could anyone know them and not love them” speech implies that Lily told him all about Isham, no wonder he had to go...

And Akobel was a seraphim -- the second time the word’s been used; it’s also Cas’s...rank? class? apparently?

Sam tries to argue reasoning with Lily, and Cas replies, “that won’t work, she won’t quit -- think about it, would you?” which Sam has no counter because, yeah, everyone has your number, guys, that’s what happens when you keep sacrificing yourself for each other like this!

“Cas is our family,” AWWWWW.

Love Dean’s “we don’t want to kill you,” and Lily’s raised-eyebrow, “I don’t want to kill you...(idiots)”, haw.

Dean’s little “wait wat” finger wag, oh Dean.

And then whispering in the hall right in front of her, you dorks...

Why was Cas so weakened healing Isham? Was it because it was such a bad injury, inflicted by an angel blade? Or is healing other angels extra hard? Or is Cas lower powered? Or is this the Cosmic Consequences?

Dean going to his go-to angelic defense (with a bizarrely sexy palm-slash, unf him with a blade) and then refusing to use it for fear of hurting Cas!

Sam to the rescue, and the brothers tag-team fighting an angel!

And Cas stabs him...how many eps with Cas does he not stab someone? I think he needs a 12 step program...

Have we seen the external shot of the bunker at night before?

The end scene is very sweet, with both Sam & Dean worrying about Cas and reassuring him and trying to make him feel he belongs; and also discussing the nephilim and all the shades of gray there. Also interesting the way the Winchesters talking, because it sounds like they’re basically willing to back Cas’s play, but at the same time they know that as it is a baby, they’re not going to be able to take care of it themselves. (Sam miiiight, if he were really convinced of the danger; I don’t think Dean could no matter the circumstances...) While I’m still not a huge fan of the demon baby plot, there are some possibilities of making this interesting (...especially if someone other than Buckleming can writing it...)

[beyondvapepage]

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263

Click on the video above to watch Episode 263 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

Adam: Cool! Everybody welcome to Hump Day hangouts today is the 20th of November 2019. And we are staring down the craziness that is Black Friday and all that that entails. We’ve got some our own version of Black Friday fun, but it’s not going to involve buying anything but we’ll get to that in a minute. Real quick. Let’s say hi to everyone and then we got those announcements and some other good stuff. So start on my side here Bradley, what are you up to man?

Bradley: Good man. Happy to be here. It’s a week from Thanksgiving so kind of excited about that. It’s one of my favorite holidays.

Adam: Amen. Yeah, it’s definitely switched. I mean, you know, as a kid, not surprised. You know, Christmas was super fun. Like, yay, now it’s just like, Oh, God, I love Thanksgiving.

Bradley: So I want the food. Yeah.

Adam: Awesome. Uh, Hernan, I think you’re there somewhere. How’s it going, man?

Hernan: Hey, everybody. Oh, hey, guys, what’s up everybody? So look at this beauty. Look at this. So this is something that Dadea brought to us on POFU Live 2019 has been awesome. So thank you, thank you for that, you know, you know what day it is. So what’s everybody so really happy to be here excited for what’s coming. Excited for the stuff that we have in the pipeline. So overall excited to be back in Buenos Aires.

Adam: Outstanding good stuff, Chris, how about you?

Chris: doing good as usual. It’s a bit rainy here. But other than that the weather is good. Yeah, I’m not excited about Christmas either, like not sure what to say?

Adam: Well, maybe it just means like, what more snowy conditions so you can go snowboarding.

Chris: Yeah, like I’m actually planning to take like, a week off right before Christmas. And to resolve the internet and relax a bit without electronics.

Adam: So what do you do without the internet? What do you mean? Come to get like what are you supposed to do?

  Chris: There is life outside as well you don’t have to constantly be plugged into the whole thing was a cable. Like a simple snowboarding skiing, I don’t know to enjoy it in the spa or I don’t know like chase some girls will see

Adam: it sounds good. And you know we always talk about the weather before Marco. so, Marco, This is the natural lead and man what’s the weather like down in Costa Rica?

Marco: Life without the internet? Did somebody say that even? Nah man life’s good been having construction that just got done. I had to redo our master bathroom. That’s done. They were jackhammering all day yesterday. It was horrible. I couldn’t think I couldn’t go and mess with BERT yesterday. But I’ve been at it all morning. If you can’t remember that you cannot optimize for BERT. That’s what Google said. Remember those famous last words you cannot optimize? Because I got BERT by the balls, I got BERT.

Bradley: You’ve got BERT’s balls. You go.

Adam: So you know, maybe I’m out of a loop to is there or is there going to be an ERNIE e update of some sort? Because that would really just be the best thing ever if we had for an Ernie so

Marco: doesn’t there’s already an Elmo Damn it.

Bradley: I can see the next Semantic Mastery training product Bert by the balls.

Marco: Well, I actually I’m already coming up with the BERT Buster, balls fit somewhere in there.

Adam: Oh man. Well, Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here. If this is your first time watching, this is the Semantic Mastery and we’re here to answer your digital marketing questions and talk about some other stuff as well. So you’re in the right place. If you’re watching on YouTube, make sure you head over to semanticmastery.cm/hdquestions. That’s where you can actually ask your questions. We don’t actively monitor the chat for youtube so you need to be there and you can also ask your questions at Semantic Mastery com slash HT questions ahead of time and we will answer them and they can go back if you need to and check it out on YouTube. After that, the second most asked question we get is where should I start with Semantic Mastery and we ought The answer is always sorry for Hernan’s typing some funny stuff. We always tell people to go get the Battle Plan All right, I’m not gonna read it to you but go check it out battleplan.semanticmastery.com, repeatable process, stuff for age domains, new domains, YouTube channels, whatever it is, that’s your place to start. And then if you’ve already got clients and you’re wondering what’s next, how do I grow? What should I be doing? How do I grow my business? Where’s the network of people I can do this with then you belong in our mastermind, and head over to mastermind.semanticmastery.com and we will help you grow. And last but not least, if you want to save time and money, we recommend this not only to our members, to our subscribers, its services we use ourselves. It’s mgyb.co getting stuff done for yourself whether it’s syndication or getting done for yourself, getting things done. So you don’t have to things like syndication networks are we as drive stacks, press releases all that sort of good stuff. We got a couple more announcements or not, I believe there was something like a Facebook post about something that you did today.

Hernan: Yeah, there was a Facebook post about something. That is correct. So the deal is that our main man Bradley, putting together a branding course. And it’s going to be on YouTube and the Google Display Network. And why is important to brand yourself as not only as an agency but also as an agency owner. We talked a little bit about this in POFU Live 2019. And yes,

Bradley: and the training can be applied to setting up branding campaigns for clients. And it’s also for using Google Display Network and YouTube to drive traffic into the SEO assets that we set to kind of help fire up all the SEO work by delivering ART – activity, relevance, trust, and authority.

Hernan: So there you go. So there’s a lot of levels to this

Marco: and, and guess what the BERT update is about?

Bradley: exactly that.

Hernan: There you go. Alright. So as you can see, there’s a lot of levels to this. You can use it to their clients, you can use it to service your clients better upsell your clients into additional services, you can use it to rank your websites. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff. I mostly, you know, focus on getting more clients and get clients paying you more money. So that’s what’s exciting about the course is going to be recorded and it’s gonna be recorded live and it’s going to be for the time being over the next two to three days come to be only $97. Once that’s done, it’s going to be packaged and we sold for $300. So if you want to get if you want to pay like 30% of the price you want to get like a 70% discount. Do we have a link somewhere that we can push people to that we can show people?

Adam: definitely it is on the page. And you know, odds are if you’re watching the replay, it might not be available at that price. But you can always come to semanticmastery.com/hdquestions in the comments and you’ll find a link right there. There you go. Awesome. Good stuff. And last but not least, I wanted to mention to everyone, you know, I teased a little bit at the intro to the show. We are of course doing something for Black Friday. Keep your eyes peeled for some emails. We really did want to give you guys some good content. We’re putting out some previously unreleased training. And it’s just going to be you’ve got to answer one question. There’s no opt-in. We want to make sure that you want to get it though. All you have to do is watch out for the emails, look out for the Facebook posts and leading up to actual Black Friday. We’re just going to have that content there. We want to help you out you know there’s a lot of all stuff going on, there’s a lot of extra bs going on, you know, during the weeks leading up to Black Friday. So take a look at this stuff, learn and then act on that, right. And we’re going to have a big black Friday sale going on afterward, where you can get the additional training if you want it or need it so that you can act and get results from that. So that’s the big thing going on next week. Keep your eyes peeled again for emails and Facebook posts. It’s going to be super, super. So with that said, you guys anything last minute before we dive into questions.

Bradley: I don’t have anything.

Adam: All right, anybody else? Let’s get to it.

Bradley: Alright, cool. We’ve got just a few questions so far. So hopefully you guys will come in and post some more else. We can wrap it up early. I’ve got plenty of work to do. Anyways, let me grab the screen first. I can find it. Still not 100% comfortable using zoom yet. All right, you guys should you see my screen. By the way, I’ve just got to point this out. This is really cool because besides it is just a goofy photo that is nondead if you take a look in the background of this photo, you can see the backside of Hernan also flicking us off. And it’s kind of like a mirror and mirror because even further and there’s another picture of it. So it’s like one of those iframe loops that we do. It’s pretty. It’s pretty cool. Anyways,

How To Add Clickable CTAs To A YouTube Video?

alright, so to get to the first question, it looks like it came from Greg, Greg’s First up, he says, How exactly do you add clickable CTA is to a video on YouTube. So those are call to actions. Sorry for the beginner question but other than a link in the description, I have no idea. Are there cards or annotations are clickable buttons that can be added to a video. Yeah, that’s what cards are for.

Also, if you’re running ads, you can obviously run it, put click clickable links within the ad itself, but you’re just talking about for organic videos, you know, regularly, you know, for videos that people find on YouTube organically or in Google search, then it’s going to be using cards. He says, I will be using a video to link to my Amazon store, and I hope to add a couple of links during the middle part of the video. How do I use and do? How do I use? And how do I do that? Again, it’s just cards. So Greg, just goes to Google and search or, or YouTube and search for how to add YouTube cards. And you’ll see plenty of tutorials out there that will show you exactly how to do it, it’s easy to do. And you can place cards that very specific parts within the content within the video itself. So you can you know, put them at certain intervals or whatever. Keep in mind though, in order to be able to link to an external website, you have to have a site that you ca it’s called an associated website, you have to validate that you have ownership of that site or at least some sort of like webmaster control of that, so I don’t think you can link directly to Amazon. But what you could do is a link to like an Amazon product review site that you own.

Something typically the way that you would do it is you would add the site to Search Console, within the same Google account is your YouTube account. And if you do that, then you can add that let that your URL, the web page that you want to link out to as an associated website, and then you can link to it right. So you can do that by on a domain level, or even on a web page level. So but again, you have to have webmaster control, essentially, of the site, whether you’re the owner or you have access to it so that you can link those two accounts. You can’t just link externally from a YouTube video to like an Amazon store that I’m aware of, because you have to have access to that site as a webmaster or ownership of the site if that makes sense. Does anybody have any other is that is there anything to do to dispute what I just said?

Hernan: No, I think that’s the way it is because annotations are not a thing anymore. So So yeah, cards. So you have n cards and you have annotations, but yeah, basically that’s going to be the

Bradley: cards and end screens you can do within screens as well cards, or you can kind of space out at certain intervals, or, you know, just put, put them where you want them to show up. And that’s where it’ll kind of slide out from the top, there’ll be I little icon for information. And if you click on it, the card will slide out. And you can link to other videos to playlist your channel. You can link to an external website, like I said, as long as you verify it, so. Okay, just go to Google or YouTube and search for how to add External links with cards and you’ll see plenty of tutorials for that.

Adam: Yeah, freeze up. Sorry, somebody says something. Yeah, can you hear real quick, I just want to stay on that? Also, those have generally a pretty low click-through rate. So I would approach this kind of from a different point. Have you not just go into just link to Amazon from there, which might end up actually being a problem, but even if it’s not, I would create the videos potentially, you know, make a bridge page in between basically, like, you know, and using some sort of a lead magnet like even if it’s not an actual, like a PDF or something like that, but send people to a page to your site for a reason that they want to click through. And then from there, you know, they go to Amazon, where I would definitely do it that way instead of trying to send people directly.

Bradley: Yeah, and here’s the thing, if you send people to like a product review page, for example, you know, you could entice them to opt-in for something so that you can build an email list from that traffic, but you can also cookie them right. If you’ve got remarketing. I mean, you could set up a remarketing list on the video too, by the way, so don’t forget about that, Greg. It’s really important. remarketing super powerful. We’re going to be talking about that in the branding course and, you know, starting on Monday, but you can set up a remarketing list through Google ads for that specific YouTube video. So now you know that anybody watches those videos interested in that product and you can remark it to them via YouTube. But if you drive them to a product review page first where you could entice them to get onto an, you know, opt into some sort of list for some freebie or something now you can email market to them. But even if they don’t do that, you can still cookie them and build a remarketing list for Google Display Network ads to which are incredibly inexpensive. And you can kind of follow them around now that you know what products are interested in, you could actually market to that remarketing list with that same product as well as similarly related products if that makes sense. Because you know that they’ve already expressed an interest or they wouldn’t have a click through to your review page. So there’s a lot of things that you can do with that, why I would recommend not just using the cards and that’s it and you know, you can get better results is what I’m saying. Okay, it’s a good question though.

How Do You Create A Clip To An Upcoming Live Event Video?

 Jeffrey’s up he says, Hey, guys, I’m publishing a video in two weeks using live events, but I want a smaller version of the same content online right away for other traffic reasons. How can I do that?

Let’s see what needs to be different about the DVD as well. If it’s, if you’re creating a shorter version of it, then it is going to be different, right? So like, what I’m saying is if you already have the video created, and you’re just going to live stream it in two weeks, and you want to create a shorter version of it, you know, condense it down, then that’s going to be unique video anyways, not only that, but the same video live-streamed twice, is still a unique video, right? Because Google doesn’t detect or YouTube doesn’t detect. It’s when you try to upload the same file twice. Right? But if you’re live streaming or pre-recorded video, you could live stream that pre-recorded video to the same channel twice now I don’t recommend it because if you know manual review or at work to see it, they could consider that spammy and terminate your channel, right? So I don’t you know, I don’t recommend doing it. But the fact that you’re live-streaming a pre-recorded video makes the file 100% unique to YouTube, right. So

So just keep that in mind. Um, but yeah, if you’re going to condense the video like shorten it edited just cut out key parts make like the Reader’s Digest version of it so to speak, then yeah, you can just you can live stream that or upload that however you want to do it directly to the channel and then go live stream your pre-recorded video or just, you know, push a true live stream out at the time and two weeks, whatever you want to do it. Okay. And that’s all you need to do.

What MGYB Products Should I Use For A Bilingual GMB Page?

Okay, let’s see. The next one is Hey guys, I have a potential client that has a GSB profile and website and bilingual language the main domain automatically directs us to the French version. Wow, if we want to read an English version, I assume he’s using a subdomain for example. Okay, and Okay, well, that would be a subfolder the way that you have shown But either way, my question is I want to use you’re done for you services from MDYV store for the purpose to three map pack. Okay, guess for the purpose of getting into the map pack and Local SEO For French in English. Buying keywords, can you direct me to which projects you do strongly recommend as first priority? Well, we’ll do English, but we won’t do French correct me if I’m wrong, Marco?

Marco: That’s correct. Okay.

Bradley: He says can let’s see, I already bought your battle plan version three and also check your MGYB store several times, but I’m last looking at it. I have audited his GMB and around 74% French buying keywords resulting to his map three MGRGMB three map pack and his website on page one. Okay, cool. So he’s got he’s doing very well where your site the site that you’re managing is doing very well in, in in France, but you’re also looking to do it in the US I’m assuming or an English see in zero results for English buying keywords, I believe you’re done for your services also offer white label services. Well, yeah, I mean, we can do the keyword research in English unless you’ve already got that done.

Our deep keyword research will give you so many keywords. It’s ridiculous. But if you use those keywords along with, you know several of our other packages for example, the embed service is great for GMB. So I’m assuming it’s the same GMB but you’ve just got two versions of the site. Right. And you’d like the GMB to also rank for English search queries, right. So again, I’m just making this assumption because it’s not clear to me, if you don’t have an English business in the US also, you’re trying to rank the same GMB, I’m assuming in France for both English keywords and French keywords. And so hopefully I’m correct and what I’m assuming here, and if that’s the case, then yeah, what I would do. Go ahead

Marco: That’s a she, she she’s in Canada. Okay. So okay. Any French-speaking region of Canada will take the domain that was posted up as a .ca

Bradley: Ok. So for that, I would recommend you know that you would, you would also, like, for example, drive stack would work really good for that for the English buying keywords. And having the deep keyword research done would be all the keywords that would be included in the drive stack. And then from there, you could do embeds and backlinks and use the same keywords that were generated in the keyword report as part of the backlink campaign, all of that so that you can really start to push that relevancy. The other part of it would be you know, obviously, the Google site is part of the drive stack, which would all be done in English. That’s going to help to push that English keyword relevancy. What else would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, I’m kind of stuck on this question, because I’m not sure what it is that she’s looking to do. I said If so, if you getting 70% of French buying keywords, right, they result in the GMB three-pack and zero results for English keywords and you’re looking for everything in English to push up your English rankings. And if you even just link out to the French to relevance that will carry through from the drive stack and Angie site. So you can actually do a two for one and if you take the time to them translate the DR site that we give you the French can even get more power and I’m giving you game right free game that during Hump Day hangouts.

So relevance will carry through English to French French to English, but you can increase the relevance by translating everything that we give you. And that’s simple to do once everything is set up. I mean, I would just use Google Translate I know Hernan and I have done that in the past where we’ve gone and Google Translate and I think we managed to rank in Norway for some shit. I don’t speak Norwegian but yeah, it ranked and I ranked in French and I don’t speak a word of French but I did I don’t know what I was saying. And I don’t know if it was right but it ranked. So be I don’t see why there would be any problem. Just don’t order anything in France because we won’t do it. Don’t buy any keywords in French. We just won’t do it. But you can take whatever we give you. And you’re free to add a translation, which again, it adds relevance it there’s some trust and authority also in there you can do some canonical wizardry with the English and the French and with alternate languages and a whole bunch of other things that we would only teach you in the mastermind. So I would suggest if you’re really looking to take this to the next level, come join the mastermind

Hernan: I would say. sorry Bradley but I would say just to add to what Marco just said, which makes total sense. I was you said maybe like grab your your your main content and have that like grab your main gotten your main content should be able to, to, to rank and convert right that we did those steps back in the day with Marco we were translated some pages and we rank them, you know, was easy, then it was the fact that we had to switch the content for some that would make more sense because we want people at the end of the day we want people like buying our stuff. It was an affiliate website so we want to people you know opting in for the offers but you can do that and then when it comes to like blasting your links or blasting your stuff as a tier two or after you know everything that has to do directly related with your brand, you can go to town with the stuff that I’d seen and that it’s in MGYB.co if that makes sense because it doesn’t really matter if you have like the little backlinks and English pointing to a website in French at that point so

Bradley: cool.

What URL Should You Input To Get The Schema In TechnicalSEO.com If The PR Link Is Not Yet Published?

Bradley: Katie’s up says thanks for helping answer my question last week about PR specific schema I’m still stuck on what URL to enter in the generator on technicalSEO.com If I select article schema, then leave the URL property field blank the schema reports a warning when tested. Yeah, you don’t want to leave it blank says I’m worried about causing invigoration and the data so I so just don’t want to put the wrong info here, I read that for a schema.org thing like an article, the URL property should always point to the same URL, because everything has exactly one preferred or canonical URL. This makes it sound like the URL I enter into the generator should be the URL of the PR itself, which does not yet exist, which is correct, since press advantage has not yet published it. So do we publish the PR schema that contains the warning? Or do we enter a different URL into the generator? Thanks,

I would just publish with the organization page URL, right? Because that’s going to link it’s going to basically be pushing back to the Index page, the newsroom the media room, essentially that has all of the articles published on press advantage on your in your organization, right because you’re right, you don’t have the URL yet. Now maybe that’s something that we could find out from we could we could request from Jeremy the developer a press advantage is to display when you order a new PR like when you go to order a new another a new PR that it could display what the URL is going to be for that press release in the editing phase of it or whatever. Because here’s the thing, remember, the URL is determined by the title, right? There’s a, there’s the PR number after press advantage. com slash and it’s the actual press release number, I believe for that order. And then after that, it’s the slug from the title that’s generated from the title. So maybe, and I don’t know that this is possible, but you know, it could certainly be asked that that could be like a preview or it could be dynamically inserted after the press release has been initially written. Again, I don’t know that that’s going to happen. In the meantime, you could just link back unless Marco says that that’s wrong, would be to link back to the press advantage organization page. What do you think Marco?

Marco: That’s what I would do if the URL is not it is not existent at that point that you have to point to something else or you get that error and but you could always switch that up, can you? I think that

Bradley: Well, no, because once it’s published, you can add it to the schema that’s added appended to that particular.

Marco: Okay, so yeah, so so we’ll have to talk to Jeremy about this and see what we can do. He’s really good about fixing this.

Bradley: Yes, very much. So, really good. Very much. So and so here’s the news article. schema. Right. And by the way, we’re, besides the plugin that I teased last week, we’ve got another app potentially coming out soon to that will do all the schema you could ever need. It’s incredible. It’s really cool. So we’ll be talking about that and coming weeks as well. So this is just an interim tool. But if you see this is the URL she’s talking about is right here. And by putting in the organization page URL, it’s saying the main entity of page so that’s the scheme of this just so let me show you what I mean. If I cut this out of here, it’s the news article schema.org. But the moment that you put something in for the US field, it brings up this main entity of page type, right? So so that’s why I’m saying it says at the type web page and an @ID. Well, the ID can point back to the organization page, right? Because the organization page and this will break my browser because I’ve got my embedded iframe loop. But what does this ID page have on it? It’s got pretty much all the entity validation for that organization anyways, so that makes sense. It’s got the NAP, the Google Map, embedded websites, social media, perhaps an embedded iframe, if you’ve got that. So my point is, I think that that should absolutely work. Right. What do you think Marco?

Marco: I totally agree.

Bradley: So there you go. That should help you. With that. She says, Brian, actually, let me finish this question and it will jump back to Brian’s question. She says just add quickly, the schema markup generator is also asking for image URL. So far all the images embedded in my PR have been hosted by press advantage. So I’m not sure how the press advantage image URL would get added into the PR schema. Either since the hosted image URL does not yet exist, and schema code has been submitted to press advantage before they publish the PR IC press advantage just released a feature to allow external image URLs to be added. So is that the only way? That’s a good question? I would if you have, I know with the external image.

Yeah, you could do it that way. So if you have the image hosted somewhere else, and you give them the URL for that way, then you could use that same image there. Typically the way that my blogger does all the press releases for my clients, or for my own projects is we publish a blog post first, right and then we use the press event press advantage of press releases, to promote blog posts.

That gives us the and we also usually do a GMB post, for example, so we kind of create, you know, like co-citation between a press release or press releases, blog posts, which isn’t a deep link, right, and then in turn a deep internal link from the website as well as GMB post. And that’s what we link to. So the URL of the image can be pulled from the blog post, right? So like the hosted URL image from the blog post, we can use that for example. So that’s typically how we do it if you’re trying to use you know, you could also pull an image from Google Maps listing, for example, right? So for example, if you have if you’ve uploaded a photo like I’m just assuming that it’s if it’s for local, let’s just put it that way. You could upload a photo to Google Photos for the GMB right so in the GMB as a photo and then you could go pull the chair URL from that photo and use that right if it’s the same image that’s going to be in the press release. Anyways, one word of caution.

Don’t like if you’re going to provide the image to press advantage already hosted, make sure it’s sized properly. So in other words, if you if you’ve got a big image somewhere that you’ve uploaded to WordPress, or to Google Photos for the gym before GMB, for example, or even just flat out Google Photos, if it’s a large image, what happens is, and I know this, because I just tested this, the image will come out as large as whatever the original file size is when it gets published, as in the press release. So sometimes the image like bleeds way outside the actual content body of the press release because it’s so big. So just keep in mind that you want to resize those images to I typically don’t like them to be any wider than 600 pixels, maybe 650 pixels, so that it will fit nicely inside the PR it doesn’t get you to know, bleed outside of that. Do you see any problems with that Marco?

Marco: Not me. This is another question that has me a little confused because it like a PR doesn’t sit in a bubble. You’re getting, you’re going to syndicate information because as I said, you’re going to produce news or information about something else. Something else that that should have images that should have CTA, that should have video just whatever like like a post right, a GMB post. It has a URL, the image will have a URL, everything has a URL. And and so if the image URL that you can use is one of those, since it belongs to your entity anyway, it’s yours, Google will know that all of these little associations that you can make are, what cinch everything and it’s something that I’m testing right now that’s something really intricate, but it works really well once it’s set up then and then you just push go. I mean, it just does a great job of pushing everything into the three-pack and the way that that’s done is by creating you know, as you said, all of this co-occurrence and all of this, these co-citations. These are naked URLs and just URLs in the text without even getting LinkedIn, that’d be those account, believe it or not. And again, if it’s from a post then that post image has a URL, yeah, if it’s me, then that image should have a URL, or it should be uploaded to Google. So that you get the Google URL in there, or the Google Photos URL, whatever, if your Facebook, if you have an image on Facebook, you could use that because it’s yours. Anything and everything that you can do to promote your brand are what you should be doing.

Bradley: Right. And that’s what so so this is why I wanted to demonstrate this. So that’s the image URL here. Now, if you take a look, this is the press of publish press event or excuse me, press release. That has I used the self-hosted image, right. So in other words, I provided an image URL for the press for press advantage to us. Now here it looks fine. But when it’s republished on some of the other sites that you know, some of the other media sites, it’s a big image that bleeds over. And it might not be this press version, this might be one of the other ones, but it bleeds way outside of the actual, you know, text area. So that’s why I recommend that you resize it. But if you take a look, if I right-click on this and say copy image address, this is the image address right here. If you take a look, I know it’s probably small, but that’s my alpha land realty dot sales site, which is the site that I use for selling the properties that I have for sale. So this is a self-hosted image on my selling site, that I provided that URL press advantage to embed into the press release. Does that make sense? So I didn’t upload this image to press an advantage. I provided them with the already hosted image URL, which then they inserted into the press release. So that right there is the same URL that I could add right here. If I was going to be promoting that particular press release, excuse me, writing the news article schema for that particular press release. That makes sense. So and again, I like doing that because if now that image URL, it once again, it’s referencing another one of our entity assets. That makes sense. So that’s how you resolve those.

How Many Articles A Weekly Should You Post In A GMB Page?

Brian PA it is Brian friends. Okay, awesome. What’s up, Brian? He says, How many articles a week should you post to your GMB? Well, it depends. I think more equals better, but it really depends on you know what the competition’s doing. It also depends on the industry. I can only say that more equals better. So, you know, for a lot of clients we posting we’re posting daily. Some clients were posting twice daily, some clients were only posting two or three times per week. It just depends. You know, if nobody else in the industry and competitors are posting but or they’re posting very, very rarely. So infrequently which is what you will notice unless somebody is running. A lot of times you’ll see, especially in the contracting industries, you’ll see that they’ll post but it’ll only be, you know, haphazardly. It’s not a consistent schedule. So if as long as you are posting regularly, a lot of times, that’s all it will take to get better results. But I think more equals better, let’s say any of you.

Marco: I say you should post as many times as it takes. But if it takes once a week, then that’s all you need to rank it then. I mean, that’s fine. But again, as Bradley said, keep that consistency. If it takes five posts a day, then that’s what it takes. And then so you’ll be needing 25 posts, or it’ll be 35 posts per week or 25 to 35 posts per week. It just it as Bradley said it depends on a percentage basis, what the competition is doing. And you know what Google wants to be fed.

Yeah, so his next question is, how long should it be? Well, they should only hold 1500 characters. So if the article, the GMB posts themselves, how many words should these posts be? It’s not as I don’t care about how many words they are, I mean, you can have up to 1500 characters and a GMB post. So that’s the limit. So, typically what we do is we have what depends but if we’re if we’re publishing up, GMB post, it’s talking about a blog post, which is what we do a lot. We’ll just grab the first paragraph or a relevant paragraph from the blog post itself and use that in the GMB post but that we always include a call to action, a primary keyword that we’re trying to target, a location modifier of some sort and a call to action, which allows us to squeeze name, address or phone number usually it’s not the address because most of the clients I do we you know, I service or service area businesses, so it’s usually the name or the phone number. And then we always link back to either a previous post, if it’s a siloed, GMB posts, we link to the previous GMB post URL or an in with the button, we link to either the blog post, if that’s what we’re actually, you know, pointing to, or referencing, or will link to one of the entity assets. And a lot. And what I do with my VA is, is they’ll have my bloggers will just have on the spreadsheet, the client spreadsheet, there will be a target URLs list, which will have all of the Top Tier or Tier One branded entity assets that we want to link to and they’ll cycle through it. So in other words, you know, for example, if we’ve got a client that we’re posting Monday through Friday, once per day, then that client might only be getting one blog posts per week. So one of those GMB posts for the week will actually link back directly to that blog post and it will have a paragraph or so pulled out of that along with the call to action and such but then the rest of the post during the week.

My VA is really good because they’ve just, you know, they’ve been doing it for so long of just finding something to write about from the website, and then just kind of rewarding it and turning it into a call to action of some sort. And then linking back to, like I said, with the button URL back to one of those branded entity assets and them just kind of cycle through them. Top Level citations, press, you know, media room type pages, drive stack, specifically the G site, really the GMB map URL, the GMB website, money site, inner pages of the money site, all of those, they just get linked to kind of a rotation so that there’s constantly links going from GMB back to branded entity assets and it kind of help to just reinforce that whole footprint if that’s if that makes sense. Okay.

Is It Okay To Use The Content Of A Drive Folder To Others?

Austin Don says with stacks drive folders, let’s say I have one for service, Round Rock. Okay, would it be alright to copy that Drive folder and use for other cities service whatever Ville and just change the city modifier on the content or should new content be used for drive stacks, you can just change your city modifier is but also make sure you’re changing the target URLs that you’re linking from or linking to from within those files. Right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, there’s some editing that needs to be done. You can’t just change that. And then think that it’s all over. Again. There are some files in there that have some heavy links that have to go in and have to be modified, correct? Yeah, so I’m saying you want to change your target URLs. So the best idea would be to have you know, a page or post on your money site that is optimized for that particular location for that service and location or services and location, and then change. When you’re when you clone the file, the folders the folder and files for that, you know, for that business or that that project. Then you change all the keywords the location modifier is out to whatever new location you want to make sure that you’re editing those target URLs from within the files to point to that location-specific page or post. So it makes sense. So,

What Is The Ideal Number Of Keywords For A GMB Post Be?

uh, Brian says using only one keyword per post or should you try to get two keywords in it? Well, I always have my bloggers are trying to target one primary keyword, but there are usually variations they get worked into it anyways, does that make sense? Remember, if you’ve got things siloed correctly, you’re going to have related keywords anyways. From you know, within the silo on the website or from the GMB post because we siloed those together or both, right. So it usually there’s the primary keyword that we’re trying to target with each post, but there’s a there’s obviously going to be you know, variants clips, so closely related or LSA type keywords that also work, you know, in part of it, it’s just because it’s natural, and we don’t write for SEO anymore, right? I mean, yes, we still try to target one keyword or so as a primary keyword. But our, my writers don’t aren’t trained to write for SEO really, they’re just trained to, they know what like to link properly. But we don’t have to write for SEO so much anymore because of structured data. And because Google’s algorithm just understands natural language patterns so much more. So what would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, this is this is where siloed and the way that we do our posts comes in really handy, right, because you’ll have a set of keywords that you’re targeting, which are actually trying to push up the top-level category, which Jeffrey teaches in his SEO boot camp. So our ultimate goal is to push up or work from the top for that for the top-level category. And that’s the main keyword. So any keywords that are relevant to that main category, and any LSA or in any other keywords that Google deems relevant, need to be worked in there, somehow?

As long as you’re also thinking about the person that’s trying to read that post, and you’re trying to convert the person that’s reading the post, because that’s the ultimate goal, if you can get a person to click on it, the likelihood of them becoming a client or ending up paying either your client or you, it’s really high because these are, the people are hot, the hot buyers, they’re calling you for a reason. They’re filling out that form for a reason. They’re visiting your website for a reason. So that’s hot, and you need to keep that person hot. You don’t want them to go to whatever it is where you haven’t clicked and cooled off. So they have to be worked in so so that you’re talking to that pain, and you’re solving whatever that pain is, you have to work that in so so that so they find a solution to whatever problem that it is that they had that made them go look for you or your niche in the first place.

Bradley: So because we don’t have a lot of questions left, we’ll wrap it up a few minutes early guys, unless you post some questions. I’ll get another question in there. Okay, I was going to share some other stuff. But we

Hernan: just want to say real quick Bradley data, which is put together a short link, if you want, if you guys want to get access to the branding course of Brandon’s going to put it together, it’s semanticmastery.com/branding. So that is semanticmastery.com/branding. And you will be able to access that course for only 97 bucks instead of 300 bucks, which is going to be the end and you know, the final price for it. So semanticmastery.com/branding, which is put that together, boom.

How Often Should We Order Link Packages To The Drive Stacks/GSites?

Okay, Austin says how often should we order link packages to the drive stacks g sites? Well, that’s up to you how as often as you need, I recommend that you alternate between embeds and link building packages. And remember when you buy embeds, you can also build by as an upsell. Link Building packages or is like a second-tier two that were linked link building to the actual embeds that’s very powerful too. I like to do things in cycles or stages. So maybe I’ll have a link building package done to my entity assets, my SEO shield, so to speak, one month, and then the next month, it’ll be an embed gig. And then the next month, it’ll be, you know, another link building package to syndication network, for example, or something like that. It’s just a way to stagger it out. So I just kind of work that stuff into my monthly retainer for clients so that I know that that’s going to be stuff that’s ongoing, it gets done on a monthly, you know, monthly basis. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the same targets every month. You can kind of just cycle through that. Okay.

Marco: Yeah, so no, don’t hit the home page every month, right with a million links. That’s not going to help. So if if you gave you drip them out, like during the month, which Dadea is really good at drip, feeding, everything, dripping everything out the way that you should set it looks more natural and every month as Bradley said, You choose a different target so that you’re also targeting your tier one branded directly. Instead of just through the drive second Gsite, all of that, your posts your we’ve shared during Hump Day Hangouts, I don’t know how many different URL targets that you can use for your link building campaign. And it all filters through to the same place, which is your again, and you know, you’re going to get sick of me saying this, but the entity, it all filters out to what it is that you’re trying to build, which is that the final piece of the puzzle, which is that entity was really really matters.

Bradley: Yeah, that’s why I was getting ready to show. You know, when I talked about for GMB posts, for example, my bloggers have a list of target URLs that they just kind of cycle through that they including the button links Now, as I said, if it’s a GMB post that is specifically promoting a blog post on the site, then on from the money site, then that GMB post or a button URL ends up pointing back to that specific blog post. But for most of the general posts, then it will link back to just one of the branded assets, the entity assets. Right? So that would be a tier-one asset. So which one should you link to? Well, all of them, but if you want our link to just the ones that are deemed the most powerful or the most relevant for the brand, it’s very simple. Just go do a brand search if it’s for a company, like a local business that has a name that is ambiguously aided right, so a name that is maybe coming up like a lot. I know a lot of local contractors, for example, will have names that are very generic, like whatever service plus city or city whatever service so it’s very difficult to create a brand around that. Now it is so one of the ways that you can get and I’ve shown this before and maybe I’ll show it with what we’ll do another will do two examples real quick.

Alpha land realty has got a strong brand. Now I’ve been because I’ve been working on the entity for this for quite some time without doing a lot of SEO work. It’s just been mainly entity work. And you can take a look, this is my real estate business, you can see that if I just do search for alpha land Realty, all of the entire first pages is taken up by all of my by entity assets of mine, right, or press releases that mentioned the brand. But something by the way that just popped up recently, I thought this was very, very powerful. This is really cool. This is apollo.io, which is like a kind of like a sales contacting prospecting type service. I know because I saw I just saw this pop-up yesterday in my brand search. And I went and signed up for it because I thought I could go in and edit this profile. And you can’t, this was auto automatically generated by apollo.io. But it’s very powerful because it popped right up on page one, like out of the blue. I’ve never even heard of it. And so I did sign up for it to try to see if I could edit this stuff. But what it did was it pulled in all of these entity assets.

I didn’t create this page by the way like this, what I’m saying this just out of the blue popped up and it’s got my website URL, it’s got my name, it’s got a description that it’s pulled from somewhere. It’s got my Facebook page, Twitter Linkedin page, and it’s even got an alexa.com site info page. So somehow apollo.io is tied into Alexa, which I believe is an Amazon company. But it also pulls from Crunchbase which I think is also where got some of this information. So by the way, that’s one of the ones I want to point out Crunchbase calm guys is super, super powerful. It’s, it’s, it’s an entity database, right or a Semantic database. So you can go in and set up a Crunchbase profile and put in all kinds of like set up an organization and add a ton of information to it. And it’s very, very powerful. So I would highly recommend that you set up Crunchbase but from here, I could just go through and start pulling out from the top two or three pages, all the URLs that are branded entity at sets, right so, and put those into a target URL list that you would want to cycle through from GMB posts, you can use that for deep links for other stuff, guys, you can link to them from press releases, you can link to them from blog posts, all of that kind of stuff, right? So you can just go through here and for example, like here’s my Tumblr page for whatever reason is so powerful. This is from my syndication network and keeps showing up on page one and has been for four months, even though I really don’t even publish to it.

If we go back to page two will see that we’ve got, you know, USA Today, that’s a press release Twitter’s popping up even though I don’t really tweet. Another one is let’s see Crunchbase I was just talking about this one. And this is actually tech check this out. This is the Crunchbase you can add press releases to your Crunchbase Company Profile. And so if you take a look, this is just referencing alpha land realty launches website for Virginia property owners. It’s a press advantage. That’s the press advantage URL right there, right so you can actually add press releases to Crunchbase, which is very, very powerful, and then that Crunchbase URL will index in rank, even though it’s, it’s it’s pushing to, it’s crazy. all it’s doing is linking to a press release, but that Crunchbase URL will rank. Take a look at this Pocket. This hasn’t been posted to since it was set up. It’s just a Pocket profile. But it’s still ranking, right? It’s ranking on the top two pages is another one of my entity assets. So all of these things can just go into an actual target URL list. So it makes sense. And these are all things that could also be linked you could for the question that was just asked about how often should you order link building packages, all of these can become target URLs. Something else we’ve talked about is let’s just do a quick search will do.

Let’s do something I’m not in a city. I’m not in this a Tree Service, Richmond, VA. We use this as an example. Alright, so we’ll come down here we’ll look at let’s see true. I want to see a good Davy Davy in Richmond, Virginia. That’s a good one there. Let’s take a look at that. It’s also it looks like it’s showing up here in maps. So we’ll click through for maps. And we also kind of want to hold on lead back up for a minute. I also want to click through to Yelp. And I want to show you guys something. We’ve talked about this in the past, but I’ll, I’ll point this out again. Alright, so if we’re looking at, let’s actually grab the name.

Let’s do this. Back up for a minute. We might have been able to do it from there. Hold on a minute. Let’s try. Let’s try that real quick.

We click through to here to photos, okay, yeah, we can. Okay. So remember, you can also for your link building projects, you can also grab, obviously, we’re going to grab the map URL, remember not to use the share map URL, by the way, guys.

Let me back up for one more minute. And actually, we’ll just go. We’ll do this. I want to give you guys a couple of things real quick. So we’ll go to. Alright, so a couple of things here. There is a great website. It’s really simple and easy to use. Go to Google My Business. It’s called GMB dot reviews maker calm. I’ve talked about this in the past, go to this page right here, click the code place Id go grab the long, ugly maps URL for an entity for a brand, right? That’s a verified Google My Business has a verified Google My Business, excuse me, click through to the actual website that was photos. Let me back up for a minute. It’s not showing the map. Here we go. Click through to the actual map URL, see if we can do that.

And it’s not giving me the map URL that I wanted. But all you gotta do is grab the long map URL guys, the big ugly one for when you do a brand search and you click through from the knowledge panel on the little map icon, click through and then copy that big long, ugly URL. And you’ll paste it into there and decode it and give you a maps URL that is the best URL to use. It still needs to be edited slightly. I’ll show you the right way to do it. Let’s see, click through we just use alpha land realty is an example. So you see I click through to the actual map and this big, long, ugly URL right here, Copy that. Go over to the GMB maps, excuse me, GMB reviews maker calm, click the code place ID paste this in here, click the decode place ID button will take a second. Then scroll down and right here where it says your maps URL you want to copy that link address will put this in a notepad file. And then what you want to do is change that URL from this where it says maps is the subdomain change that to dub dub dub so www.google.com and input maps after the first forward slash before the question mark. Right now that right there is the best URL to build links to for your maps listing. Because it’s not a redirect, it’s a straight URL.

Okay, so that so that’s a really good URL to use. However, here are some other things that you can link build to. So we know that Davie Tree Service is one of the Richmond Tree Service, Richmond, VA, whatever that was the keyword I searched? Well, if we click through to the maps listing, like what you see here, look at all these different photos. All these photos have different URLs, guys if we click every photo is going to give you a different URL. So each one of those could also be used as additional link targets. Right? You could actually put those through one of your own shorteners, or use a shortener that’s a 301 redirect, so you can print them up. And then you can create a target URL list of all the different images within the Google My Business profile. Does that make sense? Something else you could do is you could click on the actual reviews. So these reviews share, if you can click through from the actual brand. So let’s go back to here for a minute. Let’s just pick another one because that one’s not it’s got multiple locations and it’s hard to pull up one specific one, we pull up, let’s say ridge line Tree Service. Let’s try that one.

And then I know we got to wrap it up in just a minute, guys. Okay, see how rich live Tree Service popped up. So if we click through to the map icon, this is going to take us to this specific map listing. Okay, then from here, right here, where it says reviews, the 11 reviews on this case, I could click on that. That’s a unique URL, right? So you can add that to your target URL list. Also, each one of these individual reviews, take a look at it has a share URL, you can click on that and use that share URL. However, if you take a look at that URL, it’s a redirect, but I don’t care. I’ll still build links to it. Does that make sense? So my point is, you can grab these, each one of these individuals share URLs and link to those also. So it makes sense. So each one of those photos can have its own URL. We talked about doing it with Yelp, if we were to find, see if we can find ridge line or we’re just talking about baby tree expert companies, let’s go into there, we click into their we’ve talked about this in the past guys, Yelp, grab that URL, put that in your list, click into photos, each one of these photos now has a different URL, grab all those photos, put those in. And those are all Yelp targets. Now, you can close out of that, you can also go down if they have reviews, and you can link to the reviews. See also share a review. So you can actually grab that URL and put that share, review share URL into your target list. One more thing, click rights, right-click view page source and scroll down. All of a sudden look at these guys, these are all can language canonical is essentially CL says link rel=canonical. And all of these other URLs are for the Yelp on all the different language versions of the Yelp site that all canonical eyes to this primary English version, right, which is the US version and each one of those URLs can go into a target list. So there’s no shortage of links that you can add to link building campaigns, as long as they’re not direct to your money site is what we suggest. You want to comment on that at all Marco.

Marco: No, that was perfect.

Bradley: Okay, cool. Alright, we’ve got about three minutes. I think we’ve just got a couple more that popped up.

What Video Should You Embed In A Press Release?

So Katie says thanks for the PR schema reply of something else I’m thinking about I’m a publishing press release about each blog post and want to incorporate video into the mix. Now that press advantage offers video embeds. Using the content of articles and press releases, I create a YouTube video of each post NPR from the videos created using my blog content I created a YouTube playlist that mirrors my blog siloed There you go, Katie, now you’re getting it and embedded these into the corresponding blog posts from the videos created by the way, why not embed the playlist? Right, embed the playlist into each blog post within the same silo so the playlist is a silo and you’ve got a silo on your blog.

Now you can embed the actual playlist with the specific video that matches with matches up or corresponds with that particular blog post as the top video in the playlist. Does that make sense? So instead of just embedding the specific video, you can embed the whole playlist. So now you’ve got a playlist silo embedded in a silo. So it makes sense. It’s very, very powerful to do that. So you’re onto something there. Very good. She says from the video is created using my PR content, I created a second YouTube playlist that mirrors my PR stack. She’s she, Katie must been following Semantic Mastery for a minute. Which videos best to embed in the press release the video from the blog post or the video about the press release itself that promotes the blog post? Or does it matter? It really shouldn’t matter? In fact, it’s probably a little bit of overkill to have two separate YouTube playlists. You know you could though I don’t I mean, I just honestly I think that’s probably a little bit more work than you need because you could probably accomplish everything within one siloed playlist that’s mirroring the same keywords that you’re targeting in both the blog post and the PR. That makes sense because you could reduce your workload a little bit, I think by just having one playlist that’s mirroring the same keywords that are mirrored from your blog post to your PRs. If that makes sense. And then I would for the, for the press releases, I would take you, I don’t think you can embed a playlist. But I know you can have the individual excuse me video URL for that specific that you know, that corresponds with that PR plus post, embed that into the plane, the press release, excuse me, but I would use the playlist embed code with the hack to where you can change the video ID to the video ID of that that corresponds with that post to be the top video in the playlist. And I would use the video and the playlist embed code in that in the blog post itself. That now you have a silo embedded in a silo if that makes sense. That’s pretty powerful stuff. So

Does The Battle Plan Provide Steps On How To Optimize A New Lead Gen Site?

last question and I gotta wrap it up. I just created another brand new lead gen site. Does the battle plan give me steps to optimize the SM way? Of course, it does. Nathan. That’s exactly what it was created for. Yeah, but it’s no different. New did not the steps are the same. It’s a couple of things that might be different.

Marco: But the steps that you need to take are practically the same. By the way, before we go. I’ll be starting my charity webinar series. The first week of December probably. And I can’t remember when you have your webinar. The next one for you. Do we have another one? Do we have another webinar coming up?

Bradley: Yeah, we’ve got on we’ve got Monday for the start of the branding course which will be about YouTube ads. And on December 9, Monday, December 9 is the display ads Google display ads.

Marco: So Monday the 25th or December’s ok so the 25th and then

Bradley: Monday, December 9, right?

Marco: Okay, so I’ll be starting mine, Monday, December 2 guys, everything about work, BERT entities, everything you want to know to rank into 2020 and well beyond. I told you in 2014 2015 what was going on and where this was going, and here we are, this is 2015 you should have been there. If you’re not, then come to these webinars because I’ll tell you from 2020 2025 MB on what’s happening and what you need to do. And all it’s going to take is a donation to the charity all the money goes to kids who need an education. So it’s for a good cause. That’s why I’m giving you raw business. It’s what’s going to happen and why.

There you go. Alright, thanks for everybody being here. We’ll see you guys next week. Hey guys, semanticmastery.com/branding and forget to awesome thanks, guys.

  Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263 posted first on http://beyondvapepage.blogspot.com

[angelagiles18]

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263

Click on the video above to watch Episode 263 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

Adam: Cool! Everybody welcome to Hump Day hangouts today is the 20th of November 2019. And we are staring down the craziness that is Black Friday and all that that entails. We’ve got some our own version of Black Friday fun, but it’s not going to involve buying anything but we’ll get to that in a minute. Real quick. Let’s say hi to everyone and then we got those announcements and some other good stuff. So start on my side here Bradley, what are you up to man?

Bradley: Good man. Happy to be here. It’s a week from Thanksgiving so kind of excited about that. It’s one of my favorite holidays.

Adam: Amen. Yeah, it’s definitely switched. I mean, you know, as a kid, not surprised. You know, Christmas was super fun. Like, yay, now it’s just like, Oh, God, I love Thanksgiving.

Bradley: So I want the food. Yeah.

Adam: Awesome. Uh, Hernan, I think you’re there somewhere. How’s it going, man?

Hernan: Hey, everybody. Oh, hey, guys, what’s up everybody? So look at this beauty. Look at this. So this is something that Dadea brought to us on POFU Live 2019 has been awesome. So thank you, thank you for that, you know, you know what day it is. So what’s everybody so really happy to be here excited for what’s coming. Excited for the stuff that we have in the pipeline. So overall excited to be back in Buenos Aires.

Adam: Outstanding good stuff, Chris, how about you?

Chris: doing good as usual. It’s a bit rainy here. But other than that the weather is good. Yeah, I’m not excited about Christmas either, like not sure what to say?

Adam: Well, maybe it just means like, what more snowy conditions so you can go snowboarding.

Chris: Yeah, like I’m actually planning to take like, a week off right before Christmas. And to resolve the internet and relax a bit without electronics.

Adam: So what do you do without the internet? What do you mean? Come to get like what are you supposed to do?

  Chris: There is life outside as well you don’t have to constantly be plugged into the whole thing was a cable. Like a simple snowboarding skiing, I don’t know to enjoy it in the spa or I don’t know like chase some girls will see

Adam: it sounds good. And you know we always talk about the weather before Marco. so, Marco, This is the natural lead and man what’s the weather like down in Costa Rica?

Marco: Life without the internet? Did somebody say that even? Nah man life’s good been having construction that just got done. I had to redo our master bathroom. That’s done. They were jackhammering all day yesterday. It was horrible. I couldn’t think I couldn’t go and mess with BERT yesterday. But I’ve been at it all morning. If you can’t remember that you cannot optimize for BERT. That’s what Google said. Remember those famous last words you cannot optimize? Because I got BERT by the balls, I got BERT.

Bradley: You’ve got BERT’s balls. You go.

Adam: So you know, maybe I’m out of a loop to is there or is there going to be an ERNIE e update of some sort? Because that would really just be the best thing ever if we had for an Ernie so

Marco: doesn’t there’s already an Elmo Damn it.

Bradley: I can see the next Semantic Mastery training product Bert by the balls.

Marco: Well, I actually I’m already coming up with the BERT Buster, balls fit somewhere in there.

Adam: Oh man. Well, Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here. If this is your first time watching, this is the Semantic Mastery and we’re here to answer your digital marketing questions and talk about some other stuff as well. So you’re in the right place. If you’re watching on YouTube, make sure you head over to semanticmastery.cm/hdquestions. That’s where you can actually ask your questions. We don’t actively monitor the chat for youtube so you need to be there and you can also ask your questions at Semantic Mastery com slash HT questions ahead of time and we will answer them and they can go back if you need to and check it out on YouTube. After that, the second most asked question we get is where should I start with Semantic Mastery and we ought The answer is always sorry for Hernan’s typing some funny stuff. We always tell people to go get the Battle Plan All right, I’m not gonna read it to you but go check it out battleplan.semanticmastery.com, repeatable process, stuff for age domains, new domains, YouTube channels, whatever it is, that’s your place to start. And then if you’ve already got clients and you’re wondering what’s next, how do I grow? What should I be doing? How do I grow my business? Where’s the network of people I can do this with then you belong in our mastermind, and head over to mastermind.semanticmastery.com and we will help you grow. And last but not least, if you want to save time and money, we recommend this not only to our members, to our subscribers, its services we use ourselves. It’s mgyb.co getting stuff done for yourself whether it’s syndication or getting done for yourself, getting things done. So you don’t have to things like syndication networks are we as drive stacks, press releases all that sort of good stuff. We got a couple more announcements or not, I believe there was something like a Facebook post about something that you did today.

Hernan: Yeah, there was a Facebook post about something. That is correct. So the deal is that our main man Bradley, putting together a branding course. And it’s going to be on YouTube and the Google Display Network. And why is important to brand yourself as not only as an agency but also as an agency owner. We talked a little bit about this in POFU Live 2019. And yes,

Bradley: and the training can be applied to setting up branding campaigns for clients. And it’s also for using Google Display Network and YouTube to drive traffic into the SEO assets that we set to kind of help fire up all the SEO work by delivering ART – activity, relevance, trust, and authority.

Hernan: So there you go. So there’s a lot of levels to this

Marco: and, and guess what the BERT update is about?

Bradley: exactly that.

Hernan: There you go. Alright. So as you can see, there’s a lot of levels to this. You can use it to their clients, you can use it to service your clients better upsell your clients into additional services, you can use it to rank your websites. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff. I mostly, you know, focus on getting more clients and get clients paying you more money. So that’s what’s exciting about the course is going to be recorded and it’s gonna be recorded live and it’s going to be for the time being over the next two to three days come to be only $97. Once that’s done, it’s going to be packaged and we sold for $300. So if you want to get if you want to pay like 30% of the price you want to get like a 70% discount. Do we have a link somewhere that we can push people to that we can show people?

Adam: definitely it is on the page. And you know, odds are if you’re watching the replay, it might not be available at that price. But you can always come to semanticmastery.com/hdquestions in the comments and you’ll find a link right there. There you go. Awesome. Good stuff. And last but not least, I wanted to mention to everyone, you know, I teased a little bit at the intro to the show. We are of course doing something for Black Friday. Keep your eyes peeled for some emails. We really did want to give you guys some good content. We’re putting out some previously unreleased training. And it’s just going to be you’ve got to answer one question. There’s no opt-in. We want to make sure that you want to get it though. All you have to do is watch out for the emails, look out for the Facebook posts and leading up to actual Black Friday. We’re just going to have that content there. We want to help you out you know there’s a lot of all stuff going on, there’s a lot of extra bs going on, you know, during the weeks leading up to Black Friday. So take a look at this stuff, learn and then act on that, right. And we’re going to have a big black Friday sale going on afterward, where you can get the additional training if you want it or need it so that you can act and get results from that. So that’s the big thing going on next week. Keep your eyes peeled again for emails and Facebook posts. It’s going to be super, super. So with that said, you guys anything last minute before we dive into questions.

Bradley: I don’t have anything.

Adam: All right, anybody else? Let’s get to it.

Bradley: Alright, cool. We’ve got just a few questions so far. So hopefully you guys will come in and post some more else. We can wrap it up early. I’ve got plenty of work to do. Anyways, let me grab the screen first. I can find it. Still not 100% comfortable using zoom yet. All right, you guys should you see my screen. By the way, I’ve just got to point this out. This is really cool because besides it is just a goofy photo that is nondead if you take a look in the background of this photo, you can see the backside of Hernan also flicking us off. And it’s kind of like a mirror and mirror because even further and there’s another picture of it. So it’s like one of those iframe loops that we do. It’s pretty. It’s pretty cool. Anyways,

How To Add Clickable CTAs To A YouTube Video?

alright, so to get to the first question, it looks like it came from Greg, Greg’s First up, he says, How exactly do you add clickable CTA is to a video on YouTube. So those are call to actions. Sorry for the beginner question but other than a link in the description, I have no idea. Are there cards or annotations are clickable buttons that can be added to a video. Yeah, that’s what cards are for.

Also, if you’re running ads, you can obviously run it, put click clickable links within the ad itself, but you’re just talking about for organic videos, you know, regularly, you know, for videos that people find on YouTube organically or in Google search, then it’s going to be using cards. He says, I will be using a video to link to my Amazon store, and I hope to add a couple of links during the middle part of the video. How do I use and do? How do I use? And how do I do that? Again, it’s just cards. So Greg, just goes to Google and search or, or YouTube and search for how to add YouTube cards. And you’ll see plenty of tutorials out there that will show you exactly how to do it, it’s easy to do. And you can place cards that very specific parts within the content within the video itself. So you can you know, put them at certain intervals or whatever. Keep in mind though, in order to be able to link to an external website, you have to have a site that you ca it’s called an associated website, you have to validate that you have ownership of that site or at least some sort of like webmaster control of that, so I don’t think you can link directly to Amazon. But what you could do is a link to like an Amazon product review site that you own.

Something typically the way that you would do it is you would add the site to Search Console, within the same Google account is your YouTube account. And if you do that, then you can add that let that your URL, the web page that you want to link out to as an associated website, and then you can link to it right. So you can do that by on a domain level, or even on a web page level. So but again, you have to have webmaster control, essentially, of the site, whether you’re the owner or you have access to it so that you can link those two accounts. You can’t just link externally from a YouTube video to like an Amazon store that I’m aware of, because you have to have access to that site as a webmaster or ownership of the site if that makes sense. Does anybody have any other is that is there anything to do to dispute what I just said?

Hernan: No, I think that’s the way it is because annotations are not a thing anymore. So So yeah, cards. So you have n cards and you have annotations, but yeah, basically that’s going to be the

Bradley: cards and end screens you can do within screens as well cards, or you can kind of space out at certain intervals, or, you know, just put, put them where you want them to show up. And that’s where it’ll kind of slide out from the top, there’ll be I little icon for information. And if you click on it, the card will slide out. And you can link to other videos to playlist your channel. You can link to an external website, like I said, as long as you verify it, so. Okay, just go to Google or YouTube and search for how to add External links with cards and you’ll see plenty of tutorials for that.

Adam: Yeah, freeze up. Sorry, somebody says something. Yeah, can you hear real quick, I just want to stay on that? Also, those have generally a pretty low click-through rate. So I would approach this kind of from a different point. Have you not just go into just link to Amazon from there, which might end up actually being a problem, but even if it’s not, I would create the videos potentially, you know, make a bridge page in between basically, like, you know, and using some sort of a lead magnet like even if it’s not an actual, like a PDF or something like that, but send people to a page to your site for a reason that they want to click through. And then from there, you know, they go to Amazon, where I would definitely do it that way instead of trying to send people directly.

Bradley: Yeah, and here’s the thing, if you send people to like a product review page, for example, you know, you could entice them to opt-in for something so that you can build an email list from that traffic, but you can also cookie them right. If you’ve got remarketing. I mean, you could set up a remarketing list on the video too, by the way, so don’t forget about that, Greg. It’s really important. remarketing super powerful. We’re going to be talking about that in the branding course and, you know, starting on Monday, but you can set up a remarketing list through Google ads for that specific YouTube video. So now you know that anybody watches those videos interested in that product and you can remark it to them via YouTube. But if you drive them to a product review page first where you could entice them to get onto an, you know, opt into some sort of list for some freebie or something now you can email market to them. But even if they don’t do that, you can still cookie them and build a remarketing list for Google Display Network ads to which are incredibly inexpensive. And you can kind of follow them around now that you know what products are interested in, you could actually market to that remarketing list with that same product as well as similarly related products if that makes sense. Because you know that they’ve already expressed an interest or they wouldn’t have a click through to your review page. So there’s a lot of things that you can do with that, why I would recommend not just using the cards and that’s it and you know, you can get better results is what I’m saying. Okay, it’s a good question though.

How Do You Create A Clip To An Upcoming Live Event Video?

  Jeffrey’s up he says, Hey, guys, I’m publishing a video in two weeks using live events, but I want a smaller version of the same content online right away for other traffic reasons. How can I do that?

Let’s see what needs to be different about the DVD as well. If it’s, if you’re creating a shorter version of it, then it is going to be different, right? So like, what I’m saying is if you already have the video created, and you’re just going to live stream it in two weeks, and you want to create a shorter version of it, you know, condense it down, then that’s going to be unique video anyways, not only that, but the same video live-streamed twice, is still a unique video, right? Because Google doesn’t detect or YouTube doesn’t detect. It’s when you try to upload the same file twice. Right? But if you’re live streaming or pre-recorded video, you could live stream that pre-recorded video to the same channel twice now I don’t recommend it because if you know manual review or at work to see it, they could consider that spammy and terminate your channel, right? So I don’t you know, I don’t recommend doing it. But the fact that you’re live-streaming a pre-recorded video makes the file 100% unique to YouTube, right. So

So just keep that in mind. Um, but yeah, if you’re going to condense the video like shorten it edited just cut out key parts make like the Reader’s Digest version of it so to speak, then yeah, you can just you can live stream that or upload that however you want to do it directly to the channel and then go live stream your pre-recorded video or just, you know, push a true live stream out at the time and two weeks, whatever you want to do it. Okay. And that’s all you need to do.

What MGYB Products Should I Use For A Bilingual GMB Page?

Okay, let’s see. The next one is Hey guys, I have a potential client that has a GSB profile and website and bilingual language the main domain automatically directs us to the French version. Wow, if we want to read an English version, I assume he’s using a subdomain for example. Okay, and Okay, well, that would be a subfolder the way that you have shown But either way, my question is I want to use you’re done for you services from MDYV store for the purpose to three map pack. Okay, guess for the purpose of getting into the map pack and Local SEO For French in English. Buying keywords, can you direct me to which projects you do strongly recommend as first priority? Well, we’ll do English, but we won’t do French correct me if I’m wrong, Marco?

Marco: That’s correct. Okay.

Bradley: He says can let’s see, I already bought your battle plan version three and also check your MGYB store several times, but I’m last looking at it. I have audited his GMB and around 74% French buying keywords resulting to his map three MGRGMB three map pack and his website on page one. Okay, cool. So he’s got he’s doing very well where your site the site that you’re managing is doing very well in, in in France, but you’re also looking to do it in the US I’m assuming or an English see in zero results for English buying keywords, I believe you’re done for your services also offer white label services. Well, yeah, I mean, we can do the keyword research in English unless you’ve already got that done.

Our deep keyword research will give you so many keywords. It’s ridiculous. But if you use those keywords along with, you know several of our other packages for example, the embed service is great for GMB. So I’m assuming it’s the same GMB but you’ve just got two versions of the site. Right. And you’d like the GMB to also rank for English search queries, right. So again, I’m just making this assumption because it’s not clear to me, if you don’t have an English business in the US also, you’re trying to rank the same GMB, I’m assuming in France for both English keywords and French keywords. And so hopefully I’m correct and what I’m assuming here, and if that’s the case, then yeah, what I would do. Go ahead

Marco: That’s a she, she she’s in Canada. Okay. So okay. Any French-speaking region of Canada will take the domain that was posted up as a .ca

Bradley: Ok. So for that, I would recommend you know that you would, you would also, like, for example, drive stack would work really good for that for the English buying keywords. And having the deep keyword research done would be all the keywords that would be included in the drive stack. And then from there, you could do embeds and backlinks and use the same keywords that were generated in the keyword report as part of the backlink campaign, all of that so that you can really start to push that relevancy. The other part of it would be you know, obviously, the Google site is part of the drive stack, which would all be done in English. That’s going to help to push that English keyword relevancy. What else would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, I’m kind of stuck on this question, because I’m not sure what it is that she’s looking to do. I said If so, if you getting 70% of French buying keywords, right, they result in the GMB three-pack and zero results for English keywords and you’re looking for everything in English to push up your English rankings. And if you even just link out to the French to relevance that will carry through from the drive stack and Angie site. So you can actually do a two for one and if you take the time to them translate the DR site that we give you the French can even get more power and I’m giving you game right free game that during Hump Day hangouts.

So relevance will carry through English to French French to English, but you can increase the relevance by translating everything that we give you. And that’s simple to do once everything is set up. I mean, I would just use Google Translate I know Hernan and I have done that in the past where we’ve gone and Google Translate and I think we managed to rank in Norway for some shit. I don’t speak Norwegian but yeah, it ranked and I ranked in French and I don’t speak a word of French but I did I don’t know what I was saying. And I don’t know if it was right but it ranked. So be I don’t see why there would be any problem. Just don’t order anything in France because we won’t do it. Don’t buy any keywords in French. We just won’t do it. But you can take whatever we give you. And you’re free to add a translation, which again, it adds relevance it there’s some trust and authority also in there you can do some canonical wizardry with the English and the French and with alternate languages and a whole bunch of other things that we would only teach you in the mastermind. So I would suggest if you’re really looking to take this to the next level, come join the mastermind

Hernan: I would say. sorry Bradley but I would say just to add to what Marco just said, which makes total sense. I was you said maybe like grab your your your main content and have that like grab your main gotten your main content should be able to, to, to rank and convert right that we did those steps back in the day with Marco we were translated some pages and we rank them, you know, was easy, then it was the fact that we had to switch the content for some that would make more sense because we want people at the end of the day we want people like buying our stuff. It was an affiliate website so we want to people you know opting in for the offers but you can do that and then when it comes to like blasting your links or blasting your stuff as a tier two or after you know everything that has to do directly related with your brand, you can go to town with the stuff that I’d seen and that it’s in MGYB.co if that makes sense because it doesn’t really matter if you have like the little backlinks and English pointing to a website in French at that point so

Bradley: cool.

What URL Should You Input To Get The Schema In TechnicalSEO.com If The PR Link Is Not Yet Published?

Bradley: Katie’s up says thanks for helping answer my question last week about PR specific schema I’m still stuck on what URL to enter in the generator on technicalSEO.com If I select article schema, then leave the URL property field blank the schema reports a warning when tested. Yeah, you don’t want to leave it blank says I’m worried about causing invigoration and the data so I so just don’t want to put the wrong info here, I read that for a schema.org thing like an article, the URL property should always point to the same URL, because everything has exactly one preferred or canonical URL. This makes it sound like the URL I enter into the generator should be the URL of the PR itself, which does not yet exist, which is correct, since press advantage has not yet published it. So do we publish the PR schema that contains the warning? Or do we enter a different URL into the generator? Thanks,

I would just publish with the organization page URL, right? Because that’s going to link it’s going to basically be pushing back to the Index page, the newsroom the media room, essentially that has all of the articles published on press advantage on your in your organization, right because you’re right, you don’t have the URL yet. Now maybe that’s something that we could find out from we could we could request from Jeremy the developer a press advantage is to display when you order a new PR like when you go to order a new another a new PR that it could display what the URL is going to be for that press release in the editing phase of it or whatever. Because here’s the thing, remember, the URL is determined by the title, right? There’s a, there’s the PR number after press advantage. com slash and it’s the actual press release number, I believe for that order. And then after that, it’s the slug from the title that’s generated from the title. So maybe, and I don’t know that this is possible, but you know, it could certainly be asked that that could be like a preview or it could be dynamically inserted after the press release has been initially written. Again, I don’t know that that’s going to happen. In the meantime, you could just link back unless Marco says that that’s wrong, would be to link back to the press advantage organization page. What do you think Marco?

Marco: That’s what I would do if the URL is not it is not existent at that point that you have to point to something else or you get that error and but you could always switch that up, can you? I think that

Bradley: Well, no, because once it’s published, you can add it to the schema that’s added appended to that particular.

Marco: Okay, so yeah, so so we’ll have to talk to Jeremy about this and see what we can do. He’s really good about fixing this.

Bradley: Yes, very much. So, really good. Very much. So and so here’s the news article. schema. Right. And by the way, we’re, besides the plugin that I teased last week, we’ve got another app potentially coming out soon to that will do all the schema you could ever need. It’s incredible. It’s really cool. So we’ll be talking about that and coming weeks as well. So this is just an interim tool. But if you see this is the URL she’s talking about is right here. And by putting in the organization page URL, it’s saying the main entity of page so that’s the scheme of this just so let me show you what I mean. If I cut this out of here, it’s the news article schema.org. But the moment that you put something in for the US field, it brings up this main entity of page type, right? So so that’s why I’m saying it says at the type web page and an @ID. Well, the ID can point back to the organization page, right? Because the organization page and this will break my browser because I’ve got my embedded iframe loop. But what does this ID page have on it? It’s got pretty much all the entity validation for that organization anyways, so that makes sense. It’s got the NAP, the Google Map, embedded websites, social media, perhaps an embedded iframe, if you’ve got that. So my point is, I think that that should absolutely work. Right. What do you think Marco?

Marco: I totally agree.

Bradley: So there you go. That should help you. With that. She says, Brian, actually, let me finish this question and it will jump back to Brian’s question. She says just add quickly, the schema markup generator is also asking for image URL. So far all the images embedded in my PR have been hosted by press advantage. So I’m not sure how the press advantage image URL would get added into the PR schema. Either since the hosted image URL does not yet exist, and schema code has been submitted to press advantage before they publish the PR IC press advantage just released a feature to allow external image URLs to be added. So is that the only way? That���s a good question? I would if you have, I know with the external image.

Yeah, you could do it that way. So if you have the image hosted somewhere else, and you give them the URL for that way, then you could use that same image there. Typically the way that my blogger does all the press releases for my clients, or for my own projects is we publish a blog post first, right and then we use the press event press advantage of press releases, to promote blog posts.

That gives us the and we also usually do a GMB post, for example, so we kind of create, you know, like co-citation between a press release or press releases, blog posts, which isn’t a deep link, right, and then in turn a deep internal link from the website as well as GMB post. And that’s what we link to. So the URL of the image can be pulled from the blog post, right? So like the hosted URL image from the blog post, we can use that for example. So that’s typically how we do it if you’re trying to use you know, you could also pull an image from Google Maps listing, for example, right? So for example, if you have if you’ve uploaded a photo like I’m just assuming that it’s if it’s for local, let’s just put it that way. You could upload a photo to Google Photos for the GMB right so in the GMB as a photo and then you could go pull the chair URL from that photo and use that right if it’s the same image that’s going to be in the press release. Anyways, one word of caution.

Don’t like if you’re going to provide the image to press advantage already hosted, make sure it’s sized properly. So in other words, if you if you’ve got a big image somewhere that you’ve uploaded to WordPress, or to Google Photos for the gym before GMB, for example, or even just flat out Google Photos, if it’s a large image, what happens is, and I know this, because I just tested this, the image will come out as large as whatever the original file size is when it gets published, as in the press release. So sometimes the image like bleeds way outside the actual content body of the press release because it’s so big. So just keep in mind that you want to resize those images to I typically don’t like them to be any wider than 600 pixels, maybe 650 pixels, so that it will fit nicely inside the PR it doesn’t get you to know, bleed outside of that. Do you see any problems with that Marco?

Marco: Not me. This is another question that has me a little confused because it like a PR doesn’t sit in a bubble. You’re getting, you’re going to syndicate information because as I said, you’re going to produce news or information about something else. Something else that that should have images that should have CTA, that should have video just whatever like like a post right, a GMB post. It has a URL, the image will have a URL, everything has a URL. And and so if the image URL that you can use is one of those, since it belongs to your entity anyway, it’s yours, Google will know that all of these little associations that you can make are, what cinch everything and it’s something that I’m testing right now that’s something really intricate, but it works really well once it’s set up then and then you just push go. I mean, it just does a great job of pushing everything into the three-pack and the way that that’s done is by creating you know, as you said, all of this co-occurrence and all of this, these co-citations. These are naked URLs and just URLs in the text without even getting LinkedIn, that’d be those account, believe it or not. And again, if it’s from a post then that post image has a URL, yeah, if it’s me, then that image should have a URL, or it should be uploaded to Google. So that you get the Google URL in there, or the Google Photos URL, whatever, if your Facebook, if you have an image on Facebook, you could use that because it’s yours. Anything and everything that you can do to promote your brand are what you should be doing.

Bradley: Right. And that’s what so so this is why I wanted to demonstrate this. So that’s the image URL here. Now, if you take a look, this is the press of publish press event or excuse me, press release. That has I used the self-hosted image, right. So in other words, I provided an image URL for the press for press advantage to us. Now here it looks fine. But when it’s republished on some of the other sites that you know, some of the other media sites, it’s a big image that bleeds over. And it might not be this press version, this might be one of the other ones, but it bleeds way outside of the actual, you know, text area. So that’s why I recommend that you resize it. But if you take a look, if I right-click on this and say copy image address, this is the image address right here. If you take a look, I know it’s probably small, but that’s my alpha land realty dot sales site, which is the site that I use for selling the properties that I have for sale. So this is a self-hosted image on my selling site, that I provided that URL press advantage to embed into the press release. Does that make sense? So I didn’t upload this image to press an advantage. I provided them with the already hosted image URL, which then they inserted into the press release. So that right there is the same URL that I could add right here. If I was going to be promoting that particular press release, excuse me, writing the news article schema for that particular press release. That makes sense. So and again, I like doing that because if now that image URL, it once again, it’s referencing another one of our entity assets. That makes sense. So that’s how you resolve those.

How Many Articles A Weekly Should You Post In A GMB Page?

Brian PA it is Brian friends. Okay, awesome. What’s up, Brian? He says, How many articles a week should you post to your GMB? Well, it depends. I think more equals better, but it really depends on you know what the competition’s doing. It also depends on the industry. I can only say that more equals better. So, you know, for a lot of clients we posting we’re posting daily. Some clients were posting twice daily, some clients were only posting two or three times per week. It just depends. You know, if nobody else in the industry and competitors are posting but or they’re posting very, very rarely. So infrequently which is what you will notice unless somebody is running. A lot of times you’ll see, especially in the contracting industries, you’ll see that they’ll post but it’ll only be, you know, haphazardly. It’s not a consistent schedule. So if as long as you are posting regularly, a lot of times, that’s all it will take to get better results. But I think more equals better, let’s say any of you.

Marco: I say you should post as many times as it takes. But if it takes once a week, then that’s all you need to rank it then. I mean, that’s fine. But again, as Bradley said, keep that consistency. If it takes five posts a day, then that’s what it takes. And then so you’ll be needing 25 posts, or it’ll be 35 posts per week or 25 to 35 posts per week. It just it as Bradley said it depends on a percentage basis, what the competition is doing. And you know what Google wants to be fed.

Yeah, so his next question is, how long should it be? Well, they should only hold 1500 characters. So if the article, the GMB posts themselves, how many words should these posts be? It’s not as I don’t care about how many words they are, I mean, you can have up to 1500 characters and a GMB post. So that’s the limit. So, typically what we do is we have what depends but if we’re if we’re publishing up, GMB post, it’s talking about a blog post, which is what we do a lot. We’ll just grab the first paragraph or a relevant paragraph from the blog post itself and use that in the GMB post but that we always include a call to action, a primary keyword that we’re trying to target, a location modifier of some sort and a call to action, which allows us to squeeze name, address or phone number usually it’s not the address because most of the clients I do we you know, I service or service area businesses, so it’s usually the name or the phone number. And then we always link back to either a previous post, if it’s a siloed, GMB posts, we link to the previous GMB post URL or an in with the button, we link to either the blog post, if that’s what we’re actually, you know, pointing to, or referencing, or will link to one of the entity assets. And a lot. And what I do with my VA is, is they’ll have my bloggers will just have on the spreadsheet, the client spreadsheet, there will be a target URLs list, which will have all of the Top Tier or Tier One branded entity assets that we want to link to and they’ll cycle through it. So in other words, you know, for example, if we’ve got a client that we’re posting Monday through Friday, once per day, then that client might only be getting one blog posts per week. So one of those GMB posts for the week will actually link back directly to that blog post and it will have a paragraph or so pulled out of that along with the call to action and such but then the rest of the post during the week.

My VA is really good because they’ve just, you know, they’ve been doing it for so long of just finding something to write about from the website, and then just kind of rewarding it and turning it into a call to action of some sort. And then linking back to, like I said, with the button URL back to one of those branded entity assets and them just kind of cycle through them. Top Level citations, press, you know, media room type pages, drive stack, specifically the G site, really the GMB map URL, the GMB website, money site, inner pages of the money site, all of those, they just get linked to kind of a rotation so that there’s constantly links going from GMB back to branded entity assets and it kind of help to just reinforce that whole footprint if that’s if that makes sense. Okay.

Is It Okay To Use The Content Of A Drive Folder To Others?

Austin Don says with stacks drive folders, let’s say I have one for service, Round Rock. Okay, would it be alright to copy that Drive folder and use for other cities service whatever Ville and just change the city modifier on the content or should new content be used for drive stacks, you can just change your city modifier is but also make sure you’re changing the target URLs that you’re linking from or linking to from within those files. Right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, there’s some editing that needs to be done. You can’t just change that. And then think that it’s all over. Again. There are some files in there that have some heavy links that have to go in and have to be modified, correct? Yeah, so I’m saying you want to change your target URLs. So the best idea would be to have you know, a page or post on your money site that is optimized for that particular location for that service and location or services and location, and then change. When you’re when you clone the file, the folders the folder and files for that, you know, for that business or that that project. Then you change all the keywords the location modifier is out to whatever new location you want to make sure that you’re editing those target URLs from within the files to point to that location-specific page or post. So it makes sense. So,

What Is The Ideal Number Of Keywords For A GMB Post Be?

uh, Brian says using only one keyword per post or should you try to get two keywords in it? Well, I always have my bloggers are trying to target one primary keyword, but there are usually variations they get worked into it anyways, does that make sense? Remember, if you’ve got things siloed correctly, you’re going to have related keywords anyways. From you know, within the silo on the website or from the GMB post because we siloed those together or both, right. So it usually there’s the primary keyword that we’re trying to target with each post, but there’s a there’s obviously going to be you know, variants clips, so closely related or LSA type keywords that also work, you know, in part of it, it’s just because it’s natural, and we don’t write for SEO anymore, right? I mean, yes, we still try to target one keyword or so as a primary keyword. But our, my writers don’t aren’t trained to write for SEO really, they’re just trained to, they know what like to link properly. But we don’t have to write for SEO so much anymore because of structured data. And because Google’s algorithm just understands natural language patterns so much more. So what would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, this is this is where siloed and the way that we do our posts comes in really handy, right, because you’ll have a set of keywords that you’re targeting, which are actually trying to push up the top-level category, which Jeffrey teaches in his SEO boot camp. So our ultimate goal is to push up or work from the top for that for the top-level category. And that’s the main keyword. So any keywords that are relevant to that main category, and any LSA or in any other keywords that Google deems relevant, need to be worked in there, somehow?

As long as you’re also thinking about the person that’s trying to read that post, and you’re trying to convert the person that’s reading the post, because that’s the ultimate goal, if you can get a person to click on it, the likelihood of them becoming a client or ending up paying either your client or you, it’s really high because these are, the people are hot, the hot buyers, they’re calling you for a reason. They’re filling out that form for a reason. They’re visiting your website for a reason. So that’s hot, and you need to keep that person hot. You don’t want them to go to whatever it is where you haven’t clicked and cooled off. So they have to be worked in so so that you’re talking to that pain, and you’re solving whatever that pain is, you have to work that in so so that so they find a solution to whatever problem that it is that they had that made them go look for you or your niche in the first place.

Bradley: So because we don’t have a lot of questions left, we’ll wrap it up a few minutes early guys, unless you post some questions. I’ll get another question in there. Okay, I was going to share some other stuff. But we

Hernan: just want to say real quick Bradley data, which is put together a short link, if you want, if you guys want to get access to the branding course of Brandon’s going to put it together, it’s semanticmastery.com/branding. So that is semanticmastery.com/branding. And you will be able to access that course for only 97 bucks instead of 300 bucks, which is going to be the end and you know, the final price for it. So semanticmastery.com/branding, which is put that together, boom.

How Often Should We Order Link Packages To The Drive Stacks/GSites?

Okay, Austin says how often should we order link packages to the drive stacks g sites? Well, that’s up to you how as often as you need, I recommend that you alternate between embeds and link building packages. And remember when you buy embeds, you can also build by as an upsell. Link Building packages or is like a second-tier two that were linked link building to the actual embeds that’s very powerful too. I like to do things in cycles or stages. So maybe I’ll have a link building package done to my entity assets, my SEO shield, so to speak, one month, and then the next month, it’ll be an embed gig. And then the next month, it’ll be, you know, another link building package to syndication network, for example, or something like that. It’s just a way to stagger it out. So I just kind of work that stuff into my monthly retainer for clients so that I know that that’s going to be stuff that’s ongoing, it gets done on a monthly, you know, monthly basis. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the same targets every month. You can kind of just cycle through that. Okay.

Marco: Yeah, so no, don’t hit the home page every month, right with a million links. That’s not going to help. So if if you gave you drip them out, like during the month, which Dadea is really good at drip, feeding, everything, dripping everything out the way that you should set it looks more natural and every month as Bradley said, You choose a different target so that you’re also targeting your tier one branded directly. Instead of just through the drive second Gsite, all of that, your posts your we’ve shared during Hump Day Hangouts, I don’t know how many different URL targets that you can use for your link building campaign. And it all filters through to the same place, which is your again, and you know, you’re going to get sick of me saying this, but the entity, it all filters out to what it is that you’re trying to build, which is that the final piece of the puzzle, which is that entity was really really matters.

Bradley: Yeah, that’s why I was getting ready to show. You know, when I talked about for GMB posts, for example, my bloggers have a list of target URLs that they just kind of cycle through that they including the button links Now, as I said, if it’s a GMB post that is specifically promoting a blog post on the site, then on from the money site, then that GMB post or a button URL ends up pointing back to that specific blog post. But for most of the general posts, then it will link back to just one of the branded assets, the entity assets. Right? So that would be a tier-one asset. So which one should you link to? Well, all of them, but if you want our link to just the ones that are deemed the most powerful or the most relevant for the brand, it’s very simple. Just go do a brand search if it’s for a company, like a local business that has a name that is ambiguously aided right, so a name that is maybe coming up like a lot. I know a lot of local contractors, for example, will have names that are very generic, like whatever service plus city or city whatever service so it’s very difficult to create a brand around that. Now it is so one of the ways that you can get and I’ve shown this before and maybe I’ll show it with what we’ll do another will do two examples real quick.

Alpha land realty has got a strong brand. Now I’ve been because I’ve been working on the entity for this for quite some time without doing a lot of SEO work. It’s just been mainly entity work. And you can take a look, this is my real estate business, you can see that if I just do search for alpha land Realty, all of the entire first pages is taken up by all of my by entity assets of mine, right, or press releases that mentioned the brand. But something by the way that just popped up recently, I thought this was very, very powerful. This is really cool. This is apollo.io, which is like a kind of like a sales contacting prospecting type service. I know because I saw I just saw this pop-up yesterday in my brand search. And I went and signed up for it because I thought I could go in and edit this profile. And you can’t, this was auto automatically generated by apollo.io. But it’s very powerful because it popped right up on page one, like out of the blue. I’ve never even heard of it. And so I did sign up for it to try to see if I could edit this stuff. But what it did was it pulled in all of these entity assets.

I didn’t create this page by the way like this, what I’m saying this just out of the blue popped up and it’s got my website URL, it’s got my name, it’s got a description that it’s pulled from somewhere. It’s got my Facebook page, Twitter Linkedin page, and it’s even got an alexa.com site info page. So somehow apollo.io is tied into Alexa, which I believe is an Amazon company. But it also pulls from Crunchbase which I think is also where got some of this information. So by the way, that’s one of the ones I want to point out Crunchbase calm guys is super, super powerful. It’s, it’s, it’s an entity database, right or a Semantic database. So you can go in and set up a Crunchbase profile and put in all kinds of like set up an organization and add a ton of information to it. And it’s very, very powerful. So I would highly recommend that you set up Crunchbase but from here, I could just go through and start pulling out from the top two or three pages, all the URLs that are branded entity at sets, right so, and put those into a target URL list that you would want to cycle through from GMB posts, you can use that for deep links for other stuff, guys, you can link to them from press releases, you can link to them from blog posts, all of that kind of stuff, right? So you can just go through here and for example, like here’s my Tumblr page for whatever reason is so powerful. This is from my syndication network and keeps showing up on page one and has been for four months, even though I really don’t even publish to it.

If we go back to page two will see that we’ve got, you know, USA Today, that’s a press release Twitter’s popping up even though I don’t really tweet. Another one is let’s see Crunchbase I was just talking about this one. And this is actually tech check this out. This is the Crunchbase you can add press releases to your Crunchbase Company Profile. And so if you take a look, this is just referencing alpha land realty launches website for Virginia property owners. It’s a press advantage. That’s the press advantage URL right there, right so you can actually add press releases to Crunchbase, which is very, very powerful, and then that Crunchbase URL will index in rank, even though it’s, it’s it’s pushing to, it’s crazy. all it’s doing is linking to a press release, but that Crunchbase URL will rank. Take a look at this Pocket. This hasn’t been posted to since it was set up. It’s just a Pocket profile. But it’s still ranking, right? It’s ranking on the top two pages is another one of my entity assets. So all of these things can just go into an actual target URL list. So it makes sense. And these are all things that could also be linked you could for the question that was just asked about how often should you order link building packages, all of these can become target URLs. Something else we’ve talked about is let’s just do a quick search will do.

Let’s do something I’m not in a city. I’m not in this a Tree Service, Richmond, VA. We use this as an example. Alright, so we’ll come down here we’ll look at let’s see true. I want to see a good Davy Davy in Richmond, Virginia. That’s a good one there. Let’s take a look at that. It’s also it looks like it’s showing up here in maps. So we’ll click through for maps. And we also kind of want to hold on lead back up for a minute. I also want to click through to Yelp. And I want to show you guys something. We’ve talked about this in the past, but I’ll, I’ll point this out again. Alright, so if we’re looking at, let’s actually grab the name.

Let’s do this. Back up for a minute. We might have been able to do it from there. Hold on a minute. Let’s try. Let’s try that real quick.

We click through to here to photos, okay, yeah, we can. Okay. So remember, you can also for your link building projects, you can also grab, obviously, we’re going to grab the map URL, remember not to use the share map URL, by the way, guys.

Let me back up for one more minute. And actually, we’ll just go. We’ll do this. I want to give you guys a couple of things real quick. So we’ll go to. Alright, so a couple of things here. There is a great website. It’s really simple and easy to use. Go to Google My Business. It’s called GMB dot reviews maker calm. I’ve talked about this in the past, go to this page right here, click the code place Id go grab the long, ugly maps URL for an entity for a brand, right? That’s a verified Google My Business has a verified Google My Business, excuse me, click through to the actual website that was photos. Let me back up for a minute. It’s not showing the map. Here we go. Click through to the actual map URL, see if we can do that.

And it’s not giving me the map URL that I wanted. But all you gotta do is grab the long map URL guys, the big ugly one for when you do a brand search and you click through from the knowledge panel on the little map icon, click through and then copy that big long, ugly URL. And you’ll paste it into there and decode it and give you a maps URL that is the best URL to use. It still needs to be edited slightly. I’ll show you the right way to do it. Let’s see, click through we just use alpha land realty is an example. So you see I click through to the actual map and this big, long, ugly URL right here, Copy that. Go over to the GMB maps, excuse me, GMB reviews maker calm, click the code place ID paste this in here, click the decode place ID button will take a second. Then scroll down and right here where it says your maps URL you want to copy that link address will put this in a notepad file. And then what you want to do is change that URL from this where it says maps is the subdomain change that to dub dub dub so www.google.com and input maps after the first forward slash before the question mark. Right now that right there is the best URL to build links to for your maps listing. Because it’s not a redirect, it’s a straight URL.

Okay, so that so that’s a really good URL to use. However, here are some other things that you can link build to. So we know that Davie Tree Service is one of the Richmond Tree Service, Richmond, VA, whatever that was the keyword I searched? Well, if we click through to the maps listing, like what you see here, look at all these different photos. All these photos have different URLs, guys if we click every photo is going to give you a different URL. So each one of those could also be used as additional link targets. Right? You could actually put those through one of your own shorteners, or use a shortener that’s a 301 redirect, so you can print them up. And then you can create a target URL list of all the different images within the Google My Business profile. Does that make sense? Something else you could do is you could click on the actual reviews. So these reviews share, if you can click through from the actual brand. So let’s go back to here for a minute. Let’s just pick another one because that one’s not it’s got multiple locations and it’s hard to pull up one specific one, we pull up, let’s say ridge line Tree Service. Let’s try that one.

And then I know we got to wrap it up in just a minute, guys. Okay, see how rich live Tree Service popped up. So if we click through to the map icon, this is going to take us to this specific map listing. Okay, then from here, right here, where it says reviews, the 11 reviews on this case, I could click on that. That’s a unique URL, right? So you can add that to your target URL list. Also, each one of these individual reviews, take a look at it has a share URL, you can click on that and use that share URL. However, if you take a look at that URL, it’s a redirect, but I don’t care. I’ll still build links to it. Does that make sense? So my point is, you can grab these, each one of these individuals share URLs and link to those also. So it makes sense. So each one of those photos can have its own URL. We talked about doing it with Yelp, if we were to find, see if we can find ridge line or we’re just talking about baby tree expert companies, let’s go into there, we click into their we’ve talked about this in the past guys, Yelp, grab that URL, put that in your list, click into photos, each one of these photos now has a different URL, grab all those photos, put those in. And those are all Yelp targets. Now, you can close out of that, you can also go down if they have reviews, and you can link to the reviews. See also share a review. So you can actually grab that URL and put that share, review share URL into your target list. One more thing, click rights, right-click view page source and scroll down. All of a sudden look at these guys, these are all can language canonical is essentially CL says link rel=canonical. And all of these other URLs are for the Yelp on all the different language versions of the Yelp site that all canonical eyes to this primary English version, right, which is the US version and each one of those URLs can go into a target list. So there’s no shortage of links that you can add to link building campaigns, as long as they’re not direct to your money site is what we suggest. You want to comment on that at all Marco.

Marco: No, that was perfect.

Bradley: Okay, cool. Alright, we’ve got about three minutes. I think we’ve just got a couple more that popped up.

What Video Should You Embed In A Press Release?

So Katie says thanks for the PR schema reply of something else I’m thinking about I’m a publishing press release about each blog post and want to incorporate video into the mix. Now that press advantage offers video embeds. Using the content of articles and press releases, I create a YouTube video of each post NPR from the videos created using my blog content I created a YouTube playlist that mirrors my blog siloed There you go, Katie, now you’re getting it and embedded these into the corresponding blog posts from the videos created by the way, why not embed the playlist? Right, embed the playlist into each blog post within the same silo so the playlist is a silo and you’ve got a silo on your blog.

Now you can embed the actual playlist with the specific video that matches with matches up or corresponds with that particular blog post as the top video in the playlist. Does that make sense? So instead of just embedding the specific video, you can embed the whole playlist. So now you’ve got a playlist silo embedded in a silo. So it makes sense. It’s very, very powerful to do that. So you’re onto something there. Very good. She says from the video is created using my PR content, I created a second YouTube playlist that mirrors my PR stack. She’s she, Katie must been following Semantic Mastery for a minute. Which videos best to embed in the press release the video from the blog post or the video about the press release itself that promotes the blog post? Or does it matter? It really shouldn’t matter? In fact, it’s probably a little bit of overkill to have two separate YouTube playlists. You know you could though I don’t I mean, I just honestly I think that’s probably a little bit more work than you need because you could probably accomplish everything within one siloed playlist that’s mirroring the same keywords that you’re targeting in both the blog post and the PR. That makes sense because you could reduce your workload a little bit, I think by just having one playlist that’s mirroring the same keywords that are mirrored from your blog post to your PRs. If that makes sense. And then I would for the, for the press releases, I would take you, I don’t think you can embed a playlist. But I know you can have the individual excuse me video URL for that specific that you know, that corresponds with that PR plus post, embed that into the plane, the press release, excuse me, but I would use the playlist embed code with the hack to where you can change the video ID to the video ID of that that corresponds with that post to be the top video in the playlist. And I would use the video and the playlist embed code in that in the blog post itself. That now you have a silo embedded in a silo if that makes sense. That’s pretty powerful stuff. So

Does The Battle Plan Provide Steps On How To Optimize A New Lead Gen Site?

last question and I gotta wrap it up. I just created another brand new lead gen site. Does the battle plan give me steps to optimize the SM way? Of course, it does. Nathan. That’s exactly what it was created for. Yeah, but it’s no different. New did not the steps are the same. It’s a couple of things that might be different.

Marco: But the steps that you need to take are practically the same. By the way, before we go. I’ll be starting my charity webinar series. The first week of December probably. And I can’t remember when you have your webinar. The next one for you. Do we have another one? Do we have another webinar coming up?

Bradley: Yeah, we’ve got on we’ve got Monday for the start of the branding course which will be about YouTube ads. And on December 9, Monday, December 9 is the display ads Google display ads.

Marco: So Monday the 25th or December’s ok so the 25th and then

Bradley: Monday, December 9, right?

Marco: Okay, so I’ll be starting mine, Monday, December 2 guys, everything about work, BERT entities, everything you want to know to rank into 2020 and well beyond. I told you in 2014 2015 what was going on and where this was going, and here we are, this is 2015 you should have been there. If you’re not, then come to these webinars because I’ll tell you from 2020 2025 MB on what’s happening and what you need to do. And all it’s going to take is a donation to the charity all the money goes to kids who need an education. So it’s for a good cause. That’s why I’m giving you raw business. It’s what’s going to happen and why.

There you go. Alright, thanks for everybody being here. We’ll see you guys next week. Hey guys, semanticmastery.com/branding and forget to awesome thanks, guys.

  Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263 published first on your-t1-blog-url https://ift.tt/1WMpNvB November 25, 2019 at 08:50PM Semantic Mastery https://ift.tt/2YeHIxM

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263

Click on the video above to watch Episode 263 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

Adam: Cool! Everybody welcome to Hump Day hangouts today is the 20th of November 2019. And we are staring down the craziness that is Black Friday and all that that entails. We’ve got some our own version of Black Friday fun, but it’s not going to involve buying anything but we’ll get to that in a minute. Real quick. Let’s say hi to everyone and then we got those announcements and some other good stuff. So start on my side here Bradley, what are you up to man?

Bradley: Good man. Happy to be here. It’s a week from Thanksgiving so kind of excited about that. It’s one of my favorite holidays.

Adam: Amen. Yeah, it’s definitely switched. I mean, you know, as a kid, not surprised. You know, Christmas was super fun. Like, yay, now it’s just like, Oh, God, I love Thanksgiving.

Bradley: So I want the food. Yeah.

Adam: Awesome. Uh, Hernan, I think you’re there somewhere. How’s it going, man?

Hernan: Hey, everybody. Oh, hey, guys, what’s up everybody? So look at this beauty. Look at this. So this is something that Dadea brought to us on POFU Live 2019 has been awesome. So thank you, thank you for that, you know, you know what day it is. So what’s everybody so really happy to be here excited for what’s coming. Excited for the stuff that we have in the pipeline. So overall excited to be back in Buenos Aires.

Adam: Outstanding good stuff, Chris, how about you?

Chris: doing good as usual. It’s a bit rainy here. But other than that the weather is good. Yeah, I’m not excited about Christmas either, like not sure what to say?

Adam: Well, maybe it just means like, what more snowy conditions so you can go snowboarding.

Chris: Yeah, like I’m actually planning to take like, a week off right before Christmas. And to resolve the internet and relax a bit without electronics.

Adam: So what do you do without the internet? What do you mean? Come to get like what are you supposed to do?

  Chris: There is life outside as well you don’t have to constantly be plugged into the whole thing was a cable. Like a simple snowboarding skiing, I don’t know to enjoy it in the spa or I don’t know like chase some girls will see

Adam: it sounds good. And you know we always talk about the weather before Marco. so, Marco, This is the natural lead and man what’s the weather like down in Costa Rica?

Marco: Life without the internet? Did somebody say that even? Nah man life’s good been having construction that just got done. I had to redo our master bathroom. That’s done. They were jackhammering all day yesterday. It was horrible. I couldn’t think I couldn’t go and mess with BERT yesterday. But I’ve been at it all morning. If you can’t remember that you cannot optimize for BERT. That’s what Google said. Remember those famous last words you cannot optimize? Because I got BERT by the balls, I got BERT.

Bradley: You’ve got BERT’s balls. You go.

Adam: So you know, maybe I’m out of a loop to is there or is there going to be an ERNIE e update of some sort? Because that would really just be the best thing ever if we had for an Ernie so

Marco: doesn’t there’s already an Elmo Damn it.

Bradley: I can see the next Semantic Mastery training product Bert by the balls.

Marco: Well, I actually I’m already coming up with the BERT Buster, balls fit somewhere in there.

Adam: Oh man. Well, Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here. If this is your first time watching, this is the Semantic Mastery and we’re here to answer your digital marketing questions and talk about some other stuff as well. So you’re in the right place. If you’re watching on YouTube, make sure you head over to semanticmastery.cm/hdquestions. That’s where you can actually ask your questions. We don’t actively monitor the chat for youtube so you need to be there and you can also ask your questions at Semantic Mastery com slash HT questions ahead of time and we will answer them and they can go back if you need to and check it out on YouTube. After that, the second most asked question we get is where should I start with Semantic Mastery and we ought The answer is always sorry for Hernan’s typing some funny stuff. We always tell people to go get the Battle Plan All right, I’m not gonna read it to you but go check it out battleplan.semanticmastery.com, repeatable process, stuff for age domains, new domains, YouTube channels, whatever it is, that’s your place to start. And then if you’ve already got clients and you’re wondering what’s next, how do I grow? What should I be doing? How do I grow my business? Where’s the network of people I can do this with then you belong in our mastermind, and head over to mastermind.semanticmastery.com and we will help you grow. And last but not least, if you want to save time and money, we recommend this not only to our members, to our subscribers, its services we use ourselves. It’s mgyb.co getting stuff done for yourself whether it’s syndication or getting done for yourself, getting things done. So you don’t have to things like syndication networks are we as drive stacks, press releases all that sort of good stuff. We got a couple more announcements or not, I believe there was something like a Facebook post about something that you did today.

Hernan: Yeah, there was a Facebook post about something. That is correct. So the deal is that our main man Bradley, putting together a branding course. And it’s going to be on YouTube and the Google Display Network. And why is important to brand yourself as not only as an agency but also as an agency owner. We talked a little bit about this in POFU Live 2019. And yes,

Bradley: and the training can be applied to setting up branding campaigns for clients. And it’s also for using Google Display Network and YouTube to drive traffic into the SEO assets that we set to kind of help fire up all the SEO work by delivering ART – activity, relevance, trust, and authority.

Hernan: So there you go. So there’s a lot of levels to this

Marco: and, and guess what the BERT update is about?

Bradley: exactly that.

Hernan: There you go. Alright. So as you can see, there’s a lot of levels to this. You can use it to their clients, you can use it to service your clients better upsell your clients into additional services, you can use it to rank your websites. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff. I mostly, you know, focus on getting more clients and get clients paying you more money. So that’s what’s exciting about the course is going to be recorded and it’s gonna be recorded live and it’s going to be for the time being over the next two to three days come to be only $97. Once that’s done, it’s going to be packaged and we sold for $300. So if you want to get if you want to pay like 30% of the price you want to get like a 70% discount. Do we have a link somewhere that we can push people to that we can show people?

Adam: definitely it is on the page. And you know, odds are if you’re watching the replay, it might not be available at that price. But you can always come to semanticmastery.com/hdquestions in the comments and you’ll find a link right there. There you go. Awesome. Good stuff. And last but not least, I wanted to mention to everyone, you know, I teased a little bit at the intro to the show. We are of course doing something for Black Friday. Keep your eyes peeled for some emails. We really did want to give you guys some good content. We’re putting out some previously unreleased training. And it’s just going to be you’ve got to answer one question. There’s no opt-in. We want to make sure that you want to get it though. All you have to do is watch out for the emails, look out for the Facebook posts and leading up to actual Black Friday. We’re just going to have that content there. We want to help you out you know there’s a lot of all stuff going on, there’s a lot of extra bs going on, you know, during the weeks leading up to Black Friday. So take a look at this stuff, learn and then act on that, right. And we’re going to have a big black Friday sale going on afterward, where you can get the additional training if you want it or need it so that you can act and get results from that. So that’s the big thing going on next week. Keep your eyes peeled again for emails and Facebook posts. It’s going to be super, super. So with that said, you guys anything last minute before we dive into questions.

Bradley: I don’t have anything.

Adam: All right, anybody else? Let’s get to it.

Bradley: Alright, cool. We’ve got just a few questions so far. So hopefully you guys will come in and post some more else. We can wrap it up early. I’ve got plenty of work to do. Anyways, let me grab the screen first. I can find it. Still not 100% comfortable using zoom yet. All right, you guys should you see my screen. By the way, I’ve just got to point this out. This is really cool because besides it is just a goofy photo that is nondead if you take a look in the background of this photo, you can see the backside of Hernan also flicking us off. And it’s kind of like a mirror and mirror because even further and there’s another picture of it. So it’s like one of those iframe loops that we do. It’s pretty. It’s pretty cool. Anyways,

How To Add Clickable CTAs To A YouTube Video?

alright, so to get to the first question, it looks like it came from Greg, Greg’s First up, he says, How exactly do you add clickable CTA is to a video on YouTube. So those are call to actions. Sorry for the beginner question but other than a link in the description, I have no idea. Are there cards or annotations are clickable buttons that can be added to a video. Yeah, that’s what cards are for.

Also, if you’re running ads, you can obviously run it, put click clickable links within the ad itself, but you’re just talking about for organic videos, you know, regularly, you know, for videos that people find on YouTube organically or in Google search, then it’s going to be using cards. He says, I will be using a video to link to my Amazon store, and I hope to add a couple of links during the middle part of the video. How do I use and do? How do I use? And how do I do that? Again, it’s just cards. So Greg, just goes to Google and search or, or YouTube and search for how to add YouTube cards. And you’ll see plenty of tutorials out there that will show you exactly how to do it, it’s easy to do. And you can place cards that very specific parts within the content within the video itself. So you can you know, put them at certain intervals or whatever. Keep in mind though, in order to be able to link to an external website, you have to have a site that you ca it’s called an associated website, you have to validate that you have ownership of that site or at least some sort of like webmaster control of that, so I don’t think you can link directly to Amazon. But what you could do is a link to like an Amazon product review site that you own.

Something typically the way that you would do it is you would add the site to Search Console, within the same Google account is your YouTube account. And if you do that, then you can add that let that your URL, the web page that you want to link out to as an associated website, and then you can link to it right. So you can do that by on a domain level, or even on a web page level. So but again, you have to have webmaster control, essentially, of the site, whether you’re the owner or you have access to it so that you can link those two accounts. You can’t just link externally from a YouTube video to like an Amazon store that I’m aware of, because you have to have access to that site as a webmaster or ownership of the site if that makes sense. Does anybody have any other is that is there anything to do to dispute what I just said?

Hernan: No, I think that’s the way it is because annotations are not a thing anymore. So So yeah, cards. So you have n cards and you have annotations, but yeah, basically that’s going to be the

Bradley: cards and end screens you can do within screens as well cards, or you can kind of space out at certain intervals, or, you know, just put, put them where you want them to show up. And that’s where it’ll kind of slide out from the top, there’ll be I little icon for information. And if you click on it, the card will slide out. And you can link to other videos to playlist your channel. You can link to an external website, like I said, as long as you verify it, so. Okay, just go to Google or YouTube and search for how to add External links with cards and you’ll see plenty of tutorials for that.

Adam: Yeah, freeze up. Sorry, somebody says something. Yeah, can you hear real quick, I just want to stay on that? Also, those have generally a pretty low click-through rate. So I would approach this kind of from a different point. Have you not just go into just link to Amazon from there, which might end up actually being a problem, but even if it’s not, I would create the videos potentially, you know, make a bridge page in between basically, like, you know, and using some sort of a lead magnet like even if it’s not an actual, like a PDF or something like that, but send people to a page to your site for a reason that they want to click through. And then from there, you know, they go to Amazon, where I would definitely do it that way instead of trying to send people directly.

Bradley: Yeah, and here’s the thing, if you send people to like a product review page, for example, you know, you could entice them to opt-in for something so that you can build an email list from that traffic, but you can also cookie them right. If you’ve got remarketing. I mean, you could set up a remarketing list on the video too, by the way, so don’t forget about that, Greg. It’s really important. remarketing super powerful. We’re going to be talking about that in the branding course and, you know, starting on Monday, but you can set up a remarketing list through Google ads for that specific YouTube video. So now you know that anybody watches those videos interested in that product and you can remark it to them via YouTube. But if you drive them to a product review page first where you could entice them to get onto an, you know, opt into some sort of list for some freebie or something now you can email market to them. But even if they don’t do that, you can still cookie them and build a remarketing list for Google Display Network ads to which are incredibly inexpensive. And you can kind of follow them around now that you know what products are interested in, you could actually market to that remarketing list with that same product as well as similarly related products if that makes sense. Because you know that they’ve already expressed an interest or they wouldn’t have a click through to your review page. So there’s a lot of things that you can do with that, why I would recommend not just using the cards and that’s it and you know, you can get better results is what I’m saying. Okay, it’s a good question though.

How Do You Create A Clip To An Upcoming Live Event Video?

  Jeffrey’s up he says, Hey, guys, I’m publishing a video in two weeks using live events, but I want a smaller version of the same content online right away for other traffic reasons. How can I do that?

Let’s see what needs to be different about the DVD as well. If it’s, if you’re creating a shorter version of it, then it is going to be different, right? So like, what I’m saying is if you already have the video created, and you’re just going to live stream it in two weeks, and you want to create a shorter version of it, you know, condense it down, then that’s going to be unique video anyways, not only that, but the same video live-streamed twice, is still a unique video, right? Because Google doesn’t detect or YouTube doesn’t detect. It’s when you try to upload the same file twice. Right? But if you’re live streaming or pre-recorded video, you could live stream that pre-recorded video to the same channel twice now I don’t recommend it because if you know manual review or at work to see it, they could consider that spammy and terminate your channel, right? So I don’t you know, I don’t recommend doing it. But the fact that you’re live-streaming a pre-recorded video makes the file 100% unique to YouTube, right. So

So just keep that in mind. Um, but yeah, if you’re going to condense the video like shorten it edited just cut out key parts make like the Reader’s Digest version of it so to speak, then yeah, you can just you can live stream that or upload that however you want to do it directly to the channel and then go live stream your pre-recorded video or just, you know, push a true live stream out at the time and two weeks, whatever you want to do it. Okay. And that’s all you need to do.

What MGYB Products Should I Use For A Bilingual GMB Page?

Okay, let’s see. The next one is Hey guys, I have a potential client that has a GSB profile and website and bilingual language the main domain automatically directs us to the French version. Wow, if we want to read an English version, I assume he’s using a subdomain for example. Okay, and Okay, well, that would be a subfolder the way that you have shown But either way, my question is I want to use you’re done for you services from MDYV store for the purpose to three map pack. Okay, guess for the purpose of getting into the map pack and Local SEO For French in English. Buying keywords, can you direct me to which projects you do strongly recommend as first priority? Well, we’ll do English, but we won’t do French correct me if I’m wrong, Marco?

Marco: That’s correct. Okay.

Bradley: He says can let’s see, I already bought your battle plan version three and also check your MGYB store several times, but I’m last looking at it. I have audited his GMB and around 74% French buying keywords resulting to his map three MGRGMB three map pack and his website on page one. Okay, cool. So he’s got he’s doing very well where your site the site that you’re managing is doing very well in, in in France, but you’re also looking to do it in the US I’m assuming or an English see in zero results for English buying keywords, I believe you’re done for your services also offer white label services. Well, yeah, I mean, we can do the keyword research in English unless you’ve already got that done.

Our deep keyword research will give you so many keywords. It’s ridiculous. But if you use those keywords along with, you know several of our other packages for example, the embed service is great for GMB. So I’m assuming it’s the same GMB but you’ve just got two versions of the site. Right. And you’d like the GMB to also rank for English search queries, right. So again, I’m just making this assumption because it’s not clear to me, if you don’t have an English business in the US also, you’re trying to rank the same GMB, I’m assuming in France for both English keywords and French keywords. And so hopefully I’m correct and what I’m assuming here, and if that’s the case, then yeah, what I would do. Go ahead

Marco: That’s a she, she she’s in Canada. Okay. So okay. Any French-speaking region of Canada will take the domain that was posted up as a .ca

Bradley: Ok. So for that, I would recommend you know that you would, you would also, like, for example, drive stack would work really good for that for the English buying keywords. And having the deep keyword research done would be all the keywords that would be included in the drive stack. And then from there, you could do embeds and backlinks and use the same keywords that were generated in the keyword report as part of the backlink campaign, all of that so that you can really start to push that relevancy. The other part of it would be you know, obviously, the Google site is part of the drive stack, which would all be done in English. That’s going to help to push that English keyword relevancy. What else would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, I’m kind of stuck on this question, because I’m not sure what it is that she’s looking to do. I said If so, if you getting 70% of French buying keywords, right, they result in the GMB three-pack and zero results for English keywords and you’re looking for everything in English to push up your English rankings. And if you even just link out to the French to relevance that will carry through from the drive stack and Angie site. So you can actually do a two for one and if you take the time to them translate the DR site that we give you the French can even get more power and I’m giving you game right free game that during Hump Day hangouts.

So relevance will carry through English to French French to English, but you can increase the relevance by translating everything that we give you. And that’s simple to do once everything is set up. I mean, I would just use Google Translate I know Hernan and I have done that in the past where we’ve gone and Google Translate and I think we managed to rank in Norway for some shit. I don’t speak Norwegian but yeah, it ranked and I ranked in French and I don’t speak a word of French but I did I don’t know what I was saying. And I don’t know if it was right but it ranked. So be I don’t see why there would be any problem. Just don’t order anything in France because we won’t do it. Don’t buy any keywords in French. We just won’t do it. But you can take whatever we give you. And you’re free to add a translation, which again, it adds relevance it there’s some trust and authority also in there you can do some canonical wizardry with the English and the French and with alternate languages and a whole bunch of other things that we would only teach you in the mastermind. So I would suggest if you’re really looking to take this to the next level, come join the mastermind

Hernan: I would say. sorry Bradley but I would say just to add to what Marco just said, which makes total sense. I was you said maybe like grab your your your main content and have that like grab your main gotten your main content should be able to, to, to rank and convert right that we did those steps back in the day with Marco we were translated some pages and we rank them, you know, was easy, then it was the fact that we had to switch the content for some that would make more sense because we want people at the end of the day we want people like buying our stuff. It was an affiliate website so we want to people you know opting in for the offers but you can do that and then when it comes to like blasting your links or blasting your stuff as a tier two or after you know everything that has to do directly related with your brand, you can go to town with the stuff that I’d seen and that it’s in MGYB.co if that makes sense because it doesn’t really matter if you have like the little backlinks and English pointing to a website in French at that point so

Bradley: cool.

What URL Should You Input To Get The Schema In TechnicalSEO.com If The PR Link Is Not Yet Published?

Bradley: Katie’s up says thanks for helping answer my question last week about PR specific schema I’m still stuck on what URL to enter in the generator on technicalSEO.com If I select article schema, then leave the URL property field blank the schema reports a warning when tested. Yeah, you don’t want to leave it blank says I’m worried about causing invigoration and the data so I so just don’t want to put the wrong info here, I read that for a schema.org thing like an article, the URL property should always point to the same URL, because everything has exactly one preferred or canonical URL. This makes it sound like the URL I enter into the generator should be the URL of the PR itself, which does not yet exist, which is correct, since press advantage has not yet published it. So do we publish the PR schema that contains the warning? Or do we enter a different URL into the generator? Thanks,

I would just publish with the organization page URL, right? Because that’s going to link it’s going to basically be pushing back to the Index page, the newsroom the media room, essentially that has all of the articles published on press advantage on your in your organization, right because you’re right, you don’t have the URL yet. Now maybe that’s something that we could find out from we could we could request from Jeremy the developer a press advantage is to display when you order a new PR like when you go to order a new another a new PR that it could display what the URL is going to be for that press release in the editing phase of it or whatever. Because here’s the thing, remember, the URL is determined by the title, right? There’s a, there’s the PR number after press advantage. com slash and it’s the actual press release number, I believe for that order. And then after that, it’s the slug from the title that’s generated from the title. So maybe, and I don’t know that this is possible, but you know, it could certainly be asked that that could be like a preview or it could be dynamically inserted after the press release has been initially written. Again, I don’t know that that’s going to happen. In the meantime, you could just link back unless Marco says that that’s wrong, would be to link back to the press advantage organization page. What do you think Marco?

Marco: That’s what I would do if the URL is not it is not existent at that point that you have to point to something else or you get that error and but you could always switch that up, can you? I think that

Bradley: Well, no, because once it’s published, you can add it to the schema that’s added appended to that particular.

Marco: Okay, so yeah, so so we’ll have to talk to Jeremy about this and see what we can do. He’s really good about fixing this.

Bradley: Yes, very much. So, really good. Very much. So and so here’s the news article. schema. Right. And by the way, we’re, besides the plugin that I teased last week, we’ve got another app potentially coming out soon to that will do all the schema you could ever need. It’s incredible. It’s really cool. So we’ll be talking about that and coming weeks as well. So this is just an interim tool. But if you see this is the URL she’s talking about is right here. And by putting in the organization page URL, it’s saying the main entity of page so that’s the scheme of this just so let me show you what I mean. If I cut this out of here, it’s the news article schema.org. But the moment that you put something in for the US field, it brings up this main entity of page type, right? So so that’s why I’m saying it says at the type web page and an @ID. Well, the ID can point back to the organization page, right? Because the organization page and this will break my browser because I’ve got my embedded iframe loop. But what does this ID page have on it? It’s got pretty much all the entity validation for that organization anyways, so that makes sense. It’s got the NAP, the Google Map, embedded websites, social media, perhaps an embedded iframe, if you’ve got that. So my point is, I think that that should absolutely work. Right. What do you think Marco?

Marco: I totally agree.

Bradley: So there you go. That should help you. With that. She says, Brian, actually, let me finish this question and it will jump back to Brian’s question. She says just add quickly, the schema markup generator is also asking for image URL. So far all the images embedded in my PR have been hosted by press advantage. So I’m not sure how the press advantage image URL would get added into the PR schema. Either since the hosted image URL does not yet exist, and schema code has been submitted to press advantage before they publish the PR IC press advantage just released a feature to allow external image URLs to be added. So is that the only way? That’s a good question? I would if you have, I know with the external image.

Yeah, you could do it that way. So if you have the image hosted somewhere else, and you give them the URL for that way, then you could use that same image there. Typically the way that my blogger does all the press releases for my clients, or for my own projects is we publish a blog post first, right and then we use the press event press advantage of press releases, to promote blog posts.

That gives us the and we also usually do a GMB post, for example, so we kind of create, you know, like co-citation between a press release or press releases, blog posts, which isn’t a deep link, right, and then in turn a deep internal link from the website as well as GMB post. And that’s what we link to. So the URL of the image can be pulled from the blog post, right? So like the hosted URL image from the blog post, we can use that for example. So that’s typically how we do it if you’re trying to use you know, you could also pull an image from Google Maps listing, for example, right? So for example, if you have if you’ve uploaded a photo like I’m just assuming that it’s if it’s for local, let’s just put it that way. You could upload a photo to Google Photos for the GMB right so in the GMB as a photo and then you could go pull the chair URL from that photo and use that right if it’s the same image that’s going to be in the press release. Anyways, one word of caution.

Don’t like if you’re going to provide the image to press advantage already hosted, make sure it’s sized properly. So in other words, if you if you’ve got a big image somewhere that you’ve uploaded to WordPress, or to Google Photos for the gym before GMB, for example, or even just flat out Google Photos, if it’s a large image, what happens is, and I know this, because I just tested this, the image will come out as large as whatever the original file size is when it gets published, as in the press release. So sometimes the image like bleeds way outside the actual content body of the press release because it’s so big. So just keep in mind that you want to resize those images to I typically don’t like them to be any wider than 600 pixels, maybe 650 pixels, so that it will fit nicely inside the PR it doesn’t get you to know, bleed outside of that. Do you see any problems with that Marco?

Marco: Not me. This is another question that has me a little confused because it like a PR doesn’t sit in a bubble. You’re getting, you’re going to syndicate information because as I said, you’re going to produce news or information about something else. Something else that that should have images that should have CTA, that should have video just whatever like like a post right, a GMB post. It has a URL, the image will have a URL, everything has a URL. And and so if the image URL that you can use is one of those, since it belongs to your entity anyway, it’s yours, Google will know that all of these little associations that you can make are, what cinch everything and it’s something that I’m testing right now that’s something really intricate, but it works really well once it’s set up then and then you just push go. I mean, it just does a great job of pushing everything into the three-pack and the way that that’s done is by creating you know, as you said, all of this co-occurrence and all of this, these co-citations. These are naked URLs and just URLs in the text without even getting LinkedIn, that’d be those account, believe it or not. And again, if it’s from a post then that post image has a URL, yeah, if it’s me, then that image should have a URL, or it should be uploaded to Google. So that you get the Google URL in there, or the Google Photos URL, whatever, if your Facebook, if you have an image on Facebook, you could use that because it’s yours. Anything and everything that you can do to promote your brand are what you should be doing.

Bradley: Right. And that’s what so so this is why I wanted to demonstrate this. So that’s the image URL here. Now, if you take a look, this is the press of publish press event or excuse me, press release. That has I used the self-hosted image, right. So in other words, I provided an image URL for the press for press advantage to us. Now here it looks fine. But when it’s republished on some of the other sites that you know, some of the other media sites, it’s a big image that bleeds over. And it might not be this press version, this might be one of the other ones, but it bleeds way outside of the actual, you know, text area. So that’s why I recommend that you resize it. But if you take a look, if I right-click on this and say copy image address, this is the image address right here. If you take a look, I know it’s probably small, but that’s my alpha land realty dot sales site, which is the site that I use for selling the properties that I have for sale. So this is a self-hosted image on my selling site, that I provided that URL press advantage to embed into the press release. Does that make sense? So I didn’t upload this image to press an advantage. I provided them with the already hosted image URL, which then they inserted into the press release. So that right there is the same URL that I could add right here. If I was going to be promoting that particular press release, excuse me, writing the news article schema for that particular press release. That makes sense. So and again, I like doing that because if now that image URL, it once again, it’s referencing another one of our entity assets. That makes sense. So that’s how you resolve those.

How Many Articles A Weekly Should You Post In A GMB Page?

Brian PA it is Brian friends. Okay, awesome. What’s up, Brian? He says, How many articles a week should you post to your GMB? Well, it depends. I think more equals better, but it really depends on you know what the competition’s doing. It also depends on the industry. I can only say that more equals better. So, you know, for a lot of clients we posting we’re posting daily. Some clients were posting twice daily, some clients were only posting two or three times per week. It just depends. You know, if nobody else in the industry and competitors are posting but or they’re posting very, very rarely. So infrequently which is what you will notice unless somebody is running. A lot of times you’ll see, especially in the contracting industries, you’ll see that they’ll post but it’ll only be, you know, haphazardly. It’s not a consistent schedule. So if as long as you are posting regularly, a lot of times, that’s all it will take to get better results. But I think more equals better, let’s say any of you.

Marco: I say you should post as many times as it takes. But if it takes once a week, then that’s all you need to rank it then. I mean, that’s fine. But again, as Bradley said, keep that consistency. If it takes five posts a day, then that’s what it takes. And then so you’ll be needing 25 posts, or it’ll be 35 posts per week or 25 to 35 posts per week. It just it as Bradley said it depends on a percentage basis, what the competition is doing. And you know what Google wants to be fed.

Yeah, so his next question is, how long should it be? Well, they should only hold 1500 characters. So if the article, the GMB posts themselves, how many words should these posts be? It’s not as I don’t care about how many words they are, I mean, you can have up to 1500 characters and a GMB post. So that’s the limit. So, typically what we do is we have what depends but if we’re if we’re publishing up, GMB post, it’s talking about a blog post, which is what we do a lot. We’ll just grab the first paragraph or a relevant paragraph from the blog post itself and use that in the GMB post but that we always include a call to action, a primary keyword that we’re trying to target, a location modifier of some sort and a call to action, which allows us to squeeze name, address or phone number usually it’s not the address because most of the clients I do we you know, I service or service area businesses, so it’s usually the name or the phone number. And then we always link back to either a previous post, if it’s a siloed, GMB posts, we link to the previous GMB post URL or an in with the button, we link to either the blog post, if that’s what we’re actually, you know, pointing to, or referencing, or will link to one of the entity assets. And a lot. And what I do with my VA is, is they’ll have my bloggers will just have on the spreadsheet, the client spreadsheet, there will be a target URLs list, which will have all of the Top Tier or Tier One branded entity assets that we want to link to and they’ll cycle through it. So in other words, you know, for example, if we’ve got a client that we’re posting Monday through Friday, once per day, then that client might only be getting one blog posts per week. So one of those GMB posts for the week will actually link back directly to that blog post and it will have a paragraph or so pulled out of that along with the call to action and such but then the rest of the post during the week.

My VA is really good because they’ve just, you know, they’ve been doing it for so long of just finding something to write about from the website, and then just kind of rewarding it and turning it into a call to action of some sort. And then linking back to, like I said, with the button URL back to one of those branded entity assets and them just kind of cycle through them. Top Level citations, press, you know, media room type pages, drive stack, specifically the G site, really the GMB map URL, the GMB website, money site, inner pages of the money site, all of those, they just get linked to kind of a rotation so that there’s constantly links going from GMB back to branded entity assets and it kind of help to just reinforce that whole footprint if that’s if that makes sense. Okay.

Is It Okay To Use The Content Of A Drive Folder To Others?

Austin Don says with stacks drive folders, let’s say I have one for service, Round Rock. Okay, would it be alright to copy that Drive folder and use for other cities service whatever Ville and just change the city modifier on the content or should new content be used for drive stacks, you can just change your city modifier is but also make sure you’re changing the target URLs that you’re linking from or linking to from within those files. Right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, there’s some editing that needs to be done. You can’t just change that. And then think that it’s all over. Again. There are some files in there that have some heavy links that have to go in and have to be modified, correct? Yeah, so I’m saying you want to change your target URLs. So the best idea would be to have you know, a page or post on your money site that is optimized for that particular location for that service and location or services and location, and then change. When you’re when you clone the file, the folders the folder and files for that, you know, for that business or that that project. Then you change all the keywords the location modifier is out to whatever new location you want to make sure that you’re editing those target URLs from within the files to point to that location-specific page or post. So it makes sense. So,

What Is The Ideal Number Of Keywords For A GMB Post Be?

uh, Brian says using only one keyword per post or should you try to get two keywords in it? Well, I always have my bloggers are trying to target one primary keyword, but there are usually variations they get worked into it anyways, does that make sense? Remember, if you’ve got things siloed correctly, you’re going to have related keywords anyways. From you know, within the silo on the website or from the GMB post because we siloed those together or both, right. So it usually there’s the primary keyword that we’re trying to target with each post, but there’s a there’s obviously going to be you know, variants clips, so closely related or LSA type keywords that also work, you know, in part of it, it’s just because it’s natural, and we don’t write for SEO anymore, right? I mean, yes, we still try to target one keyword or so as a primary keyword. But our, my writers don’t aren’t trained to write for SEO really, they’re just trained to, they know what like to link properly. But we don’t have to write for SEO so much anymore because of structured data. And because Google’s algorithm just understands natural language patterns so much more. So what would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, this is this is where siloed and the way that we do our posts comes in really handy, right, because you’ll have a set of keywords that you’re targeting, which are actually trying to push up the top-level category, which Jeffrey teaches in his SEO boot camp. So our ultimate goal is to push up or work from the top for that for the top-level category. And that’s the main keyword. So any keywords that are relevant to that main category, and any LSA or in any other keywords that Google deems relevant, need to be worked in there, somehow?

As long as you’re also thinking about the person that’s trying to read that post, and you’re trying to convert the person that’s reading the post, because that’s the ultimate goal, if you can get a person to click on it, the likelihood of them becoming a client or ending up paying either your client or you, it’s really high because these are, the people are hot, the hot buyers, they’re calling you for a reason. They’re filling out that form for a reason. They’re visiting your website for a reason. So that’s hot, and you need to keep that person hot. You don’t want them to go to whatever it is where you haven’t clicked and cooled off. So they have to be worked in so so that you’re talking to that pain, and you’re solving whatever that pain is, you have to work that in so so that so they find a solution to whatever problem that it is that they had that made them go look for you or your niche in the first place.

Bradley: So because we don’t have a lot of questions left, we’ll wrap it up a few minutes early guys, unless you post some questions. I’ll get another question in there. Okay, I was going to share some other stuff. But we

Hernan: just want to say real quick Bradley data, which is put together a short link, if you want, if you guys want to get access to the branding course of Brandon’s going to put it together, it’s semanticmastery.com/branding. So that is semanticmastery.com/branding. And you will be able to access that course for only 97 bucks instead of 300 bucks, which is going to be the end and you know, the final price for it. So semanticmastery.com/branding, which is put that together, boom.

How Often Should We Order Link Packages To The Drive Stacks/GSites?

Okay, Austin says how often should we order link packages to the drive stacks g sites? Well, that’s up to you how as often as you need, I recommend that you alternate between embeds and link building packages. And remember when you buy embeds, you can also build by as an upsell. Link Building packages or is like a second-tier two that were linked link building to the actual embeds that’s very powerful too. I like to do things in cycles or stages. So maybe I’ll have a link building package done to my entity assets, my SEO shield, so to speak, one month, and then the next month, it’ll be an embed gig. And then the next month, it’ll be, you know, another link building package to syndication network, for example, or something like that. It’s just a way to stagger it out. So I just kind of work that stuff into my monthly retainer for clients so that I know that that’s going to be stuff that’s ongoing, it gets done on a monthly, you know, monthly basis. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the same targets every month. You can kind of just cycle through that. Okay.

Marco: Yeah, so no, don’t hit the home page every month, right with a million links. That’s not going to help. So if if you gave you drip them out, like during the month, which Dadea is really good at drip, feeding, everything, dripping everything out the way that you should set it looks more natural and every month as Bradley said, You choose a different target so that you’re also targeting your tier one branded directly. Instead of just through the drive second Gsite, all of that, your posts your we’ve shared during Hump Day Hangouts, I don’t know how many different URL targets that you can use for your link building campaign. And it all filters through to the same place, which is your again, and you know, you’re going to get sick of me saying this, but the entity, it all filters out to what it is that you’re trying to build, which is that the final piece of the puzzle, which is that entity was really really matters.

Bradley: Yeah, that’s why I was getting ready to show. You know, when I talked about for GMB posts, for example, my bloggers have a list of target URLs that they just kind of cycle through that they including the button links Now, as I said, if it’s a GMB post that is specifically promoting a blog post on the site, then on from the money site, then that GMB post or a button URL ends up pointing back to that specific blog post. But for most of the general posts, then it will link back to just one of the branded assets, the entity assets. Right? So that would be a tier-one asset. So which one should you link to? Well, all of them, but if you want our link to just the ones that are deemed the most powerful or the most relevant for the brand, it’s very simple. Just go do a brand search if it’s for a company, like a local business that has a name that is ambiguously aided right, so a name that is maybe coming up like a lot. I know a lot of local contractors, for example, will have names that are very generic, like whatever service plus city or city whatever service so it’s very difficult to create a brand around that. Now it is so one of the ways that you can get and I’ve shown this before and maybe I’ll show it with what we’ll do another will do two examples real quick.

Alpha land realty has got a strong brand. Now I’ve been because I’ve been working on the entity for this for quite some time without doing a lot of SEO work. It’s just been mainly entity work. And you can take a look, this is my real estate business, you can see that if I just do search for alpha land Realty, all of the entire first pages is taken up by all of my by entity assets of mine, right, or press releases that mentioned the brand. But something by the way that just popped up recently, I thought this was very, very powerful. This is really cool. This is apollo.io, which is like a kind of like a sales contacting prospecting type service. I know because I saw I just saw this pop-up yesterday in my brand search. And I went and signed up for it because I thought I could go in and edit this profile. And you can’t, this was auto automatically generated by apollo.io. But it’s very powerful because it popped right up on page one, like out of the blue. I’ve never even heard of it. And so I did sign up for it to try to see if I could edit this stuff. But what it did was it pulled in all of these entity assets.

I didn’t create this page by the way like this, what I’m saying this just out of the blue popped up and it’s got my website URL, it’s got my name, it’s got a description that it’s pulled from somewhere. It’s got my Facebook page, Twitter Linkedin page, and it’s even got an alexa.com site info page. So somehow apollo.io is tied into Alexa, which I believe is an Amazon company. But it also pulls from Crunchbase which I think is also where got some of this information. So by the way, that’s one of the ones I want to point out Crunchbase calm guys is super, super powerful. It’s, it’s, it’s an entity database, right or a Semantic database. So you can go in and set up a Crunchbase profile and put in all kinds of like set up an organization and add a ton of information to it. And it’s very, very powerful. So I would highly recommend that you set up Crunchbase but from here, I could just go through and start pulling out from the top two or three pages, all the URLs that are branded entity at sets, right so, and put those into a target URL list that you would want to cycle through from GMB posts, you can use that for deep links for other stuff, guys, you can link to them from press releases, you can link to them from blog posts, all of that kind of stuff, right? So you can just go through here and for example, like here’s my Tumblr page for whatever reason is so powerful. This is from my syndication network and keeps showing up on page one and has been for four months, even though I really don’t even publish to it.

If we go back to page two will see that we’ve got, you know, USA Today, that’s a press release Twitter’s popping up even though I don’t really tweet. Another one is let’s see Crunchbase I was just talking about this one. And this is actually tech check this out. This is the Crunchbase you can add press releases to your Crunchbase Company Profile. And so if you take a look, this is just referencing alpha land realty launches website for Virginia property owners. It’s a press advantage. That’s the press advantage URL right there, right so you can actually add press releases to Crunchbase, which is very, very powerful, and then that Crunchbase URL will index in rank, even though it’s, it’s it’s pushing to, it’s crazy. all it’s doing is linking to a press release, but that Crunchbase URL will rank. Take a look at this Pocket. This hasn’t been posted to since it was set up. It’s just a Pocket profile. But it’s still ranking, right? It’s ranking on the top two pages is another one of my entity assets. So all of these things can just go into an actual target URL list. So it makes sense. And these are all things that could also be linked you could for the question that was just asked about how often should you order link building packages, all of these can become target URLs. Something else we’ve talked about is let’s just do a quick search will do.

Let’s do something I’m not in a city. I’m not in this a Tree Service, Richmond, VA. We use this as an example. Alright, so we’ll come down here we’ll look at let’s see true. I want to see a good Davy Davy in Richmond, Virginia. That’s a good one there. Let’s take a look at that. It’s also it looks like it’s showing up here in maps. So we’ll click through for maps. And we also kind of want to hold on lead back up for a minute. I also want to click through to Yelp. And I want to show you guys something. We’ve talked about this in the past, but I’ll, I’ll point this out again. Alright, so if we’re looking at, let’s actually grab the name.

Let’s do this. Back up for a minute. We might have been able to do it from there. Hold on a minute. Let’s try. Let’s try that real quick.

We click through to here to photos, okay, yeah, we can. Okay. So remember, you can also for your link building projects, you can also grab, obviously, we’re going to grab the map URL, remember not to use the share map URL, by the way, guys.

Let me back up for one more minute. And actually, we’ll just go. We’ll do this. I want to give you guys a couple of things real quick. So we’ll go to. Alright, so a couple of things here. There is a great website. It’s really simple and easy to use. Go to Google My Business. It’s called GMB dot reviews maker calm. I’ve talked about this in the past, go to this page right here, click the code place Id go grab the long, ugly maps URL for an entity for a brand, right? That’s a verified Google My Business has a verified Google My Business, excuse me, click through to the actual website that was photos. Let me back up for a minute. It’s not showing the map. Here we go. Click through to the actual map URL, see if we can do that.

And it’s not giving me the map URL that I wanted. But all you gotta do is grab the long map URL guys, the big ugly one for when you do a brand search and you click through from the knowledge panel on the little map icon, click through and then copy that big long, ugly URL. And you’ll paste it into there and decode it and give you a maps URL that is the best URL to use. It still needs to be edited slightly. I’ll show you the right way to do it. Let’s see, click through we just use alpha land realty is an example. So you see I click through to the actual map and this big, long, ugly URL right here, Copy that. Go over to the GMB maps, excuse me, GMB reviews maker calm, click the code place ID paste this in here, click the decode place ID button will take a second. Then scroll down and right here where it says your maps URL you want to copy that link address will put this in a notepad file. And then what you want to do is change that URL from this where it says maps is the subdomain change that to dub dub dub so www.google.com and input maps after the first forward slash before the question mark. Right now that right there is the best URL to build links to for your maps listing. Because it’s not a redirect, it’s a straight URL.

Okay, so that so that’s a really good URL to use. However, here are some other things that you can link build to. So we know that Davie Tree Service is one of the Richmond Tree Service, Richmond, VA, whatever that was the keyword I searched? Well, if we click through to the maps listing, like what you see here, look at all these different photos. All these photos have different URLs, guys if we click every photo is going to give you a different URL. So each one of those could also be used as additional link targets. Right? You could actually put those through one of your own shorteners, or use a shortener that’s a 301 redirect, so you can print them up. And then you can create a target URL list of all the different images within the Google My Business profile. Does that make sense? Something else you could do is you could click on the actual reviews. So these reviews share, if you can click through from the actual brand. So let’s go back to here for a minute. Let’s just pick another one because that one’s not it’s got multiple locations and it’s hard to pull up one specific one, we pull up, let’s say ridge line Tree Service. Let’s try that one.

And then I know we got to wrap it up in just a minute, guys. Okay, see how rich live Tree Service popped up. So if we click through to the map icon, this is going to take us to this specific map listing. Okay, then from here, right here, where it says reviews, the 11 reviews on this case, I could click on that. That’s a unique URL, right? So you can add that to your target URL list. Also, each one of these individual reviews, take a look at it has a share URL, you can click on that and use that share URL. However, if you take a look at that URL, it’s a redirect, but I don’t care. I’ll still build links to it. Does that make sense? So my point is, you can grab these, each one of these individuals share URLs and link to those also. So it makes sense. So each one of those photos can have its own URL. We talked about doing it with Yelp, if we were to find, see if we can find ridge line or we’re just talking about baby tree expert companies, let’s go into there, we click into their we’ve talked about this in the past guys, Yelp, grab that URL, put that in your list, click into photos, each one of these photos now has a different URL, grab all those photos, put those in. And those are all Yelp targets. Now, you can close out of that, you can also go down if they have reviews, and you can link to the reviews. See also share a review. So you can actually grab that URL and put that share, review share URL into your target list. One more thing, click rights, right-click view page source and scroll down. All of a sudden look at these guys, these are all can language canonical is essentially CL says link rel=canonical. And all of these other URLs are for the Yelp on all the different language versions of the Yelp site that all canonical eyes to this primary English version, right, which is the US version and each one of those URLs can go into a target list. So there’s no shortage of links that you can add to link building campaigns, as long as they’re not direct to your money site is what we suggest. You want to comment on that at all Marco.

Marco: No, that was perfect.

Bradley: Okay, cool. Alright, we’ve got about three minutes. I think we’ve just got a couple more that popped up.

What Video Should You Embed In A Press Release?

So Katie says thanks for the PR schema reply of something else I’m thinking about I’m a publishing press release about each blog post and want to incorporate video into the mix. Now that press advantage offers video embeds. Using the content of articles and press releases, I create a YouTube video of each post NPR from the videos created using my blog content I created a YouTube playlist that mirrors my blog siloed There you go, Katie, now you’re getting it and embedded these into the corresponding blog posts from the videos created by the way, why not embed the playlist? Right, embed the playlist into each blog post within the same silo so the playlist is a silo and you’ve got a silo on your blog.

Now you can embed the actual playlist with the specific video that matches with matches up or corresponds with that particular blog post as the top video in the playlist. Does that make sense? So instead of just embedding the specific video, you can embed the whole playlist. So now you’ve got a playlist silo embedded in a silo. So it makes sense. It’s very, very powerful to do that. So you’re onto something there. Very good. She says from the video is created using my PR content, I created a second YouTube playlist that mirrors my PR stack. She’s she, Katie must been following Semantic Mastery for a minute. Which videos best to embed in the press release the video from the blog post or the video about the press release itself that promotes the blog post? Or does it matter? It really shouldn’t matter? In fact, it’s probably a little bit of overkill to have two separate YouTube playlists. You know you could though I don’t I mean, I just honestly I think that’s probably a little bit more work than you need because you could probably accomplish everything within one siloed playlist that’s mirroring the same keywords that you’re targeting in both the blog post and the PR. That makes sense because you could reduce your workload a little bit, I think by just having one playlist that’s mirroring the same keywords that are mirrored from your blog post to your PRs. If that makes sense. And then I would for the, for the press releases, I would take you, I don’t think you can embed a playlist. But I know you can have the individual excuse me video URL for that specific that you know, that corresponds with that PR plus post, embed that into the plane, the press release, excuse me, but I would use the playlist embed code with the hack to where you can change the video ID to the video ID of that that corresponds with that post to be the top video in the playlist. And I would use the video and the playlist embed code in that in the blog post itself. That now you have a silo embedded in a silo if that makes sense. That’s pretty powerful stuff. So

Does The Battle Plan Provide Steps On How To Optimize A New Lead Gen Site?

last question and I gotta wrap it up. I just created another brand new lead gen site. Does the battle plan give me steps to optimize the SM way? Of course, it does. Nathan. That’s exactly what it was created for. Yeah, but it’s no different. New did not the steps are the same. It’s a couple of things that might be different.

Marco: But the steps that you need to take are practically the same. By the way, before we go. I’ll be starting my charity webinar series. The first week of December probably. And I can’t remember when you have your webinar. The next one for you. Do we have another one? Do we have another webinar coming up?

Bradley: Yeah, we’ve got on we’ve got Monday for the start of the branding course which will be about YouTube ads. And on December 9, Monday, December 9 is the display ads Google display ads.

Marco: So Monday the 25th or December’s ok so the 25th and then

Bradley: Monday, December 9, right?

Marco: Okay, so I’ll be starting mine, Monday, December 2 guys, everything about work, BERT entities, everything you want to know to rank into 2020 and well beyond. I told you in 2014 2015 what was going on and where this was going, and here we are, this is 2015 you should have been there. If you’re not, then come to these webinars because I’ll tell you from 2020 2025 MB on what’s happening and what you need to do. And all it’s going to take is a donation to the charity all the money goes to kids who need an education. So it’s for a good cause. That’s why I’m giving you raw business. It’s what’s going to happen and why.

There you go. Alright, thanks for everybody being here. We’ll see you guys next week. Hey guys, semanticmastery.com/branding and forget to awesome thanks, guys.

  Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263

Click on the video above to watch Episode 263 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

Adam: Cool! Everybody welcome to Hump Day hangouts today is the 20th of November 2019. And we are staring down the craziness that is Black Friday and all that that entails. We’ve got some our own version of Black Friday fun, but it’s not going to involve buying anything but we’ll get to that in a minute. Real quick. Let’s say hi to everyone and then we got those announcements and some other good stuff. So start on my side here Bradley, what are you up to man?

Bradley: Good man. Happy to be here. It’s a week from Thanksgiving so kind of excited about that. It’s one of my favorite holidays.

Adam: Amen. Yeah, it’s definitely switched. I mean, you know, as a kid, not surprised. You know, Christmas was super fun. Like, yay, now it’s just like, Oh, God, I love Thanksgiving.

Bradley: So I want the food. Yeah.

Adam: Awesome. Uh, Hernan, I think you’re there somewhere. How’s it going, man?

Hernan: Hey, everybody. Oh, hey, guys, what’s up everybody? So look at this beauty. Look at this. So this is something that Dadea brought to us on POFU Live 2019 has been awesome. So thank you, thank you for that, you know, you know what day it is. So what’s everybody so really happy to be here excited for what’s coming. Excited for the stuff that we have in the pipeline. So overall excited to be back in Buenos Aires.

Adam: Outstanding good stuff, Chris, how about you?

Chris: doing good as usual. It’s a bit rainy here. But other than that the weather is good. Yeah, I’m not excited about Christmas either, like not sure what to say?

Adam: Well, maybe it just means like, what more snowy conditions so you can go snowboarding.

Chris: Yeah, like I’m actually planning to take like, a week off right before Christmas. And to resolve the internet and relax a bit without electronics.

Adam: So what do you do without the internet? What do you mean? Come to get like what are you supposed to do?

  Chris: There is life outside as well you don’t have to constantly be plugged into the whole thing was a cable. Like a simple snowboarding skiing, I don’t know to enjoy it in the spa or I don’t know like chase some girls will see

Adam: it sounds good. And you know we always talk about the weather before Marco. so, Marco, This is the natural lead and man what’s the weather like down in Costa Rica?

Marco: Life without the internet? Did somebody say that even? Nah man life’s good been having construction that just got done. I had to redo our master bathroom. That’s done. They were jackhammering all day yesterday. It was horrible. I couldn’t think I couldn’t go and mess with BERT yesterday. But I’ve been at it all morning. If you can’t remember that you cannot optimize for BERT. That’s what Google said. Remember those famous last words you cannot optimize? Because I got BERT by the balls, I got BERT.

Bradley: You’ve got BERT’s balls. You go.

Adam: So you know, maybe I’m out of a loop to is there or is there going to be an ERNIE e update of some sort? Because that would really just be the best thing ever if we had for an Ernie so

Marco: doesn’t there’s already an Elmo Damn it.

Bradley: I can see the next Semantic Mastery training product Bert by the balls.

Marco: Well, I actually I’m already coming up with the BERT Buster, balls fit somewhere in there.

Adam: Oh man. Well, Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here. If this is your first time watching, this is the Semantic Mastery and we’re here to answer your digital marketing questions and talk about some other stuff as well. So you’re in the right place. If you’re watching on YouTube, make sure you head over to semanticmastery.cm/hdquestions. That’s where you can actually ask your questions. We don’t actively monitor the chat for youtube so you need to be there and you can also ask your questions at Semantic Mastery com slash HT questions ahead of time and we will answer them and they can go back if you need to and check it out on YouTube. After that, the second most asked question we get is where should I start with Semantic Mastery and we ought The answer is always sorry for Hernan’s typing some funny stuff. We always tell people to go get the Battle Plan All right, I’m not gonna read it to you but go check it out battleplan.semanticmastery.com, repeatable process, stuff for age domains, new domains, YouTube channels, whatever it is, that’s your place to start. And then if you’ve already got clients and you’re wondering what’s next, how do I grow? What should I be doing? How do I grow my business? Where’s the network of people I can do this with then you belong in our mastermind, and head over to mastermind.semanticmastery.com and we will help you grow. And last but not least, if you want to save time and money, we recommend this not only to our members, to our subscribers, its services we use ourselves. It’s mgyb.co getting stuff done for yourself whether it’s syndication or getting done for yourself, getting things done. So you don’t have to things like syndication networks are we as drive stacks, press releases all that sort of good stuff. We got a couple more announcements or not, I believe there was something like a Facebook post about something that you did today.

Hernan: Yeah, there was a Facebook post about something. That is correct. So the deal is that our main man Bradley, putting together a branding course. And it’s going to be on YouTube and the Google Display Network. And why is important to brand yourself as not only as an agency but also as an agency owner. We talked a little bit about this in POFU Live 2019. And yes,

Bradley: and the training can be applied to setting up branding campaigns for clients. And it’s also for using Google Display Network and YouTube to drive traffic into the SEO assets that we set to kind of help fire up all the SEO work by delivering ART – activity, relevance, trust, and authority.

Hernan: So there you go. So there’s a lot of levels to this

Marco: and, and guess what the BERT update is about?

Bradley: exactly that.

Hernan: There you go. Alright. So as you can see, there’s a lot of levels to this. You can use it to their clients, you can use it to service your clients better upsell your clients into additional services, you can use it to rank your websites. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff. I mostly, you know, focus on getting more clients and get clients paying you more money. So that’s what’s exciting about the course is going to be recorded and it’s gonna be recorded live and it’s going to be for the time being over the next two to three days come to be only $97. Once that’s done, it’s going to be packaged and we sold for $300. So if you want to get if you want to pay like 30% of the price you want to get like a 70% discount. Do we have a link somewhere that we can push people to that we can show people?

Adam: definitely it is on the page. And you know, odds are if you’re watching the replay, it might not be available at that price. But you can always come to semanticmastery.com/hdquestions in the comments and you’ll find a link right there. There you go. Awesome. Good stuff. And last but not least, I wanted to mention to everyone, you know, I teased a little bit at the intro to the show. We are of course doing something for Black Friday. Keep your eyes peeled for some emails. We really did want to give you guys some good content. We’re putting out some previously unreleased training. And it’s just going to be you’ve got to answer one question. There’s no opt-in. We want to make sure that you want to get it though. All you have to do is watch out for the emails, look out for the Facebook posts and leading up to actual Black Friday. We’re just going to have that content there. We want to help you out you know there’s a lot of all stuff going on, there’s a lot of extra bs going on, you know, during the weeks leading up to Black Friday. So take a look at this stuff, learn and then act on that, right. And we’re going to have a big black Friday sale going on afterward, where you can get the additional training if you want it or need it so that you can act and get results from that. So that’s the big thing going on next week. Keep your eyes peeled again for emails and Facebook posts. It’s going to be super, super. So with that said, you guys anything last minute before we dive into questions.

Bradley: I don’t have anything.

Adam: All right, anybody else? Let’s get to it.

Bradley: Alright, cool. We’ve got just a few questions so far. So hopefully you guys will come in and post some more else. We can wrap it up early. I’ve got plenty of work to do. Anyways, let me grab the screen first. I can find it. Still not 100% comfortable using zoom yet. All right, you guys should you see my screen. By the way, I’ve just got to point this out. This is really cool because besides it is just a goofy photo that is nondead if you take a look in the background of this photo, you can see the backside of Hernan also flicking us off. And it’s kind of like a mirror and mirror because even further and there’s another picture of it. So it’s like one of those iframe loops that we do. It’s pretty. It’s pretty cool. Anyways,

How To Add Clickable CTAs To A YouTube Video?

alright, so to get to the first question, it looks like it came from Greg, Greg’s First up, he says, How exactly do you add clickable CTA is to a video on YouTube. So those are call to actions. Sorry for the beginner question but other than a link in the description, I have no idea. Are there cards or annotations are clickable buttons that can be added to a video. Yeah, that’s what cards are for.

Also, if you’re running ads, you can obviously run it, put click clickable links within the ad itself, but you’re just talking about for organic videos, you know, regularly, you know, for videos that people find on YouTube organically or in Google search, then it’s going to be using cards. He says, I will be using a video to link to my Amazon store, and I hope to add a couple of links during the middle part of the video. How do I use and do? How do I use? And how do I do that? Again, it’s just cards. So Greg, just goes to Google and search or, or YouTube and search for how to add YouTube cards. And you’ll see plenty of tutorials out there that will show you exactly how to do it, it’s easy to do. And you can place cards that very specific parts within the content within the video itself. So you can you know, put them at certain intervals or whatever. Keep in mind though, in order to be able to link to an external website, you have to have a site that you ca it’s called an associated website, you have to validate that you have ownership of that site or at least some sort of like webmaster control of that, so I don’t think you can link directly to Amazon. But what you could do is a link to like an Amazon product review site that you own.

Something typically the way that you would do it is you would add the site to Search Console, within the same Google account is your YouTube account. And if you do that, then you can add that let that your URL, the web page that you want to link out to as an associated website, and then you can link to it right. So you can do that by on a domain level, or even on a web page level. So but again, you have to have webmaster control, essentially, of the site, whether you’re the owner or you have access to it so that you can link those two accounts. You can’t just link externally from a YouTube video to like an Amazon store that I’m aware of, because you have to have access to that site as a webmaster or ownership of the site if that makes sense. Does anybody have any other is that is there anything to do to dispute what I just said?

Hernan: No, I think that’s the way it is because annotations are not a thing anymore. So So yeah, cards. So you have n cards and you have annotations, but yeah, basically that’s going to be the

Bradley: cards and end screens you can do within screens as well cards, or you can kind of space out at certain intervals, or, you know, just put, put them where you want them to show up. And that’s where it’ll kind of slide out from the top, there’ll be I little icon for information. And if you click on it, the card will slide out. And you can link to other videos to playlist your channel. You can link to an external website, like I said, as long as you verify it, so. Okay, just go to Google or YouTube and search for how to add External links with cards and you’ll see plenty of tutorials for that.

Adam: Yeah, freeze up. Sorry, somebody says something. Yeah, can you hear real quick, I just want to stay on that? Also, those have generally a pretty low click-through rate. So I would approach this kind of from a different point. Have you not just go into just link to Amazon from there, which might end up actually being a problem, but even if it’s not, I would create the videos potentially, you know, make a bridge page in between basically, like, you know, and using some sort of a lead magnet like even if it’s not an actual, like a PDF or something like that, but send people to a page to your site for a reason that they want to click through. And then from there, you know, they go to Amazon, where I would definitely do it that way instead of trying to send people directly.

Bradley: Yeah, and here’s the thing, if you send people to like a product review page, for example, you know, you could entice them to opt-in for something so that you can build an email list from that traffic, but you can also cookie them right. If you’ve got remarketing. I mean, you could set up a remarketing list on the video too, by the way, so don’t forget about that, Greg. It’s really important. remarketing super powerful. We’re going to be talking about that in the branding course and, you know, starting on Monday, but you can set up a remarketing list through Google ads for that specific YouTube video. So now you know that anybody watches those videos interested in that product and you can remark it to them via YouTube. But if you drive them to a product review page first where you could entice them to get onto an, you know, opt into some sort of list for some freebie or something now you can email market to them. But even if they don’t do that, you can still cookie them and build a remarketing list for Google Display Network ads to which are incredibly inexpensive. And you can kind of follow them around now that you know what products are interested in, you could actually market to that remarketing list with that same product as well as similarly related products if that makes sense. Because you know that they’ve already expressed an interest or they wouldn’t have a click through to your review page. So there’s a lot of things that you can do with that, why I would recommend not just using the cards and that’s it and you know, you can get better results is what I’m saying. Okay, it’s a good question though.

How Do You Create A Clip To An Upcoming Live Event Video?

  Jeffrey’s up he says, Hey, guys, I’m publishing a video in two weeks using live events, but I want a smaller version of the same content online right away for other traffic reasons. How can I do that?

Let’s see what needs to be different about the DVD as well. If it’s, if you’re creating a shorter version of it, then it is going to be different, right? So like, what I’m saying is if you already have the video created, and you’re just going to live stream it in two weeks, and you want to create a shorter version of it, you know, condense it down, then that’s going to be unique video anyways, not only that, but the same video live-streamed twice, is still a unique video, right? Because Google doesn’t detect or YouTube doesn’t detect. It’s when you try to upload the same file twice. Right? But if you’re live streaming or pre-recorded video, you could live stream that pre-recorded video to the same channel twice now I don’t recommend it because if you know manual review or at work to see it, they could consider that spammy and terminate your channel, right? So I don’t you know, I don’t recommend doing it. But the fact that you’re live-streaming a pre-recorded video makes the file 100% unique to YouTube, right. So

So just keep that in mind. Um, but yeah, if you’re going to condense the video like shorten it edited just cut out key parts make like the Reader’s Digest version of it so to speak, then yeah, you can just you can live stream that or upload that however you want to do it directly to the channel and then go live stream your pre-recorded video or just, you know, push a true live stream out at the time and two weeks, whatever you want to do it. Okay. And that’s all you need to do.

What MGYB Products Should I Use For A Bilingual GMB Page?

Okay, let’s see. The next one is Hey guys, I have a potential client that has a GSB profile and website and bilingual language the main domain automatically directs us to the French version. Wow, if we want to read an English version, I assume he’s using a subdomain for example. Okay, and Okay, well, that would be a subfolder the way that you have shown But either way, my question is I want to use you’re done for you services from MDYV store for the purpose to three map pack. Okay, guess for the purpose of getting into the map pack and Local SEO For French in English. Buying keywords, can you direct me to which projects you do strongly recommend as first priority? Well, we’ll do English, but we won’t do French correct me if I’m wrong, Marco?

Marco: That’s correct. Okay.

Bradley: He says can let’s see, I already bought your battle plan version three and also check your MGYB store several times, but I’m last looking at it. I have audited his GMB and around 74% French buying keywords resulting to his map three MGRGMB three map pack and his website on page one. Okay, cool. So he’s got he’s doing very well where your site the site that you’re managing is doing very well in, in in France, but you’re also looking to do it in the US I’m assuming or an English see in zero results for English buying keywords, I believe you’re done for your services also offer white label services. Well, yeah, I mean, we can do the keyword research in English unless you’ve already got that done.

Our deep keyword research will give you so many keywords. It’s ridiculous. But if you use those keywords along with, you know several of our other packages for example, the embed service is great for GMB. So I’m assuming it’s the same GMB but you’ve just got two versions of the site. Right. And you’d like the GMB to also rank for English search queries, right. So again, I’m just making this assumption because it’s not clear to me, if you don’t have an English business in the US also, you’re trying to rank the same GMB, I’m assuming in France for both English keywords and French keywords. And so hopefully I’m correct and what I’m assuming here, and if that’s the case, then yeah, what I would do. Go ahead

Marco: That’s a she, she she’s in Canada. Okay. So okay. Any French-speaking region of Canada will take the domain that was posted up as a .ca

Bradley: Ok. So for that, I would recommend you know that you would, you would also, like, for example, drive stack would work really good for that for the English buying keywords. And having the deep keyword research done would be all the keywords that would be included in the drive stack. And then from there, you could do embeds and backlinks and use the same keywords that were generated in the keyword report as part of the backlink campaign, all of that so that you can really start to push that relevancy. The other part of it would be you know, obviously, the Google site is part of the drive stack, which would all be done in English. That’s going to help to push that English keyword relevancy. What else would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, I’m kind of stuck on this question, because I’m not sure what it is that she’s looking to do. I said If so, if you getting 70% of French buying keywords, right, they result in the GMB three-pack and zero results for English keywords and you’re looking for everything in English to push up your English rankings. And if you even just link out to the French to relevance that will carry through from the drive stack and Angie site. So you can actually do a two for one and if you take the time to them translate the DR site that we give you the French can even get more power and I’m giving you game right free game that during Hump Day hangouts.

So relevance will carry through English to French French to English, but you can increase the relevance by translating everything that we give you. And that’s simple to do once everything is set up. I mean, I would just use Google Translate I know Hernan and I have done that in the past where we’ve gone and Google Translate and I think we managed to rank in Norway for some shit. I don’t speak Norwegian but yeah, it ranked and I ranked in French and I don’t speak a word of French but I did I don’t know what I was saying. And I don’t know if it was right but it ranked. So be I don’t see why there would be any problem. Just don’t order anything in France because we won’t do it. Don’t buy any keywords in French. We just won’t do it. But you can take whatever we give you. And you’re free to add a translation, which again, it adds relevance it there’s some trust and authority also in there you can do some canonical wizardry with the English and the French and with alternate languages and a whole bunch of other things that we would only teach you in the mastermind. So I would suggest if you’re really looking to take this to the next level, come join the mastermind

Hernan: I would say. sorry Bradley but I would say just to add to what Marco just said, which makes total sense. I was you said maybe like grab your your your main content and have that like grab your main gotten your main content should be able to, to, to rank and convert right that we did those steps back in the day with Marco we were translated some pages and we rank them, you know, was easy, then it was the fact that we had to switch the content for some that would make more sense because we want people at the end of the day we want people like buying our stuff. It was an affiliate website so we want to people you know opting in for the offers but you can do that and then when it comes to like blasting your links or blasting your stuff as a tier two or after you know everything that has to do directly related with your brand, you can go to town with the stuff that I’d seen and that it’s in MGYB.co if that makes sense because it doesn’t really matter if you have like the little backlinks and English pointing to a website in French at that point so

Bradley: cool.

What URL Should You Input To Get The Schema In TechnicalSEO.com If The PR Link Is Not Yet Published?

Bradley: Katie’s up says thanks for helping answer my question last week about PR specific schema I’m still stuck on what URL to enter in the generator on technicalSEO.com If I select article schema, then leave the URL property field blank the schema reports a warning when tested. Yeah, you don’t want to leave it blank says I’m worried about causing invigoration and the data so I so just don’t want to put the wrong info here, I read that for a schema.org thing like an article, the URL property should always point to the same URL, because everything has exactly one preferred or canonical URL. This makes it sound like the URL I enter into the generator should be the URL of the PR itself, which does not yet exist, which is correct, since press advantage has not yet published it. So do we publish the PR schema that contains the warning? Or do we enter a different URL into the generator? Thanks,

I would just publish with the organization page URL, right? Because that’s going to link it’s going to basically be pushing back to the Index page, the newsroom the media room, essentially that has all of the articles published on press advantage on your in your organization, right because you’re right, you don’t have the URL yet. Now maybe that’s something that we could find out from we could we could request from Jeremy the developer a press advantage is to display when you order a new PR like when you go to order a new another a new PR that it could display what the URL is going to be for that press release in the editing phase of it or whatever. Because here’s the thing, remember, the URL is determined by the title, right? There’s a, there’s the PR number after press advantage. com slash and it’s the actual press release number, I believe for that order. And then after that, it’s the slug from the title that’s generated from the title. So maybe, and I don’t know that this is possible, but you know, it could certainly be asked that that could be like a preview or it could be dynamically inserted after the press release has been initially written. Again, I don’t know that that’s going to happen. In the meantime, you could just link back unless Marco says that that’s wrong, would be to link back to the press advantage organization page. What do you think Marco?

Marco: That’s what I would do if the URL is not it is not existent at that point that you have to point to something else or you get that error and but you could always switch that up, can you? I think that

Bradley: Well, no, because once it’s published, you can add it to the schema that’s added appended to that particular.

Marco: Okay, so yeah, so so we’ll have to talk to Jeremy about this and see what we can do. He’s really good about fixing this.

Bradley: Yes, very much. So, really good. Very much. So and so here’s the news article. schema. Right. And by the way, we’re, besides the plugin that I teased last week, we’ve got another app potentially coming out soon to that will do all the schema you could ever need. It’s incredible. It’s really cool. So we’ll be talking about that and coming weeks as well. So this is just an interim tool. But if you see this is the URL she’s talking about is right here. And by putting in the organization page URL, it’s saying the main entity of page so that’s the scheme of this just so let me show you what I mean. If I cut this out of here, it’s the news article schema.org. But the moment that you put something in for the US field, it brings up this main entity of page type, right? So so that’s why I’m saying it says at the type web page and an @ID. Well, the ID can point back to the organization page, right? Because the organization page and this will break my browser because I’ve got my embedded iframe loop. But what does this ID page have on it? It’s got pretty much all the entity validation for that organization anyways, so that makes sense. It’s got the NAP, the Google Map, embedded websites, social media, perhaps an embedded iframe, if you’ve got that. So my point is, I think that that should absolutely work. Right. What do you think Marco?

Marco: I totally agree.

Bradley: So there you go. That should help you. With that. She says, Brian, actually, let me finish this question and it will jump back to Brian’s question. She says just add quickly, the schema markup generator is also asking for image URL. So far all the images embedded in my PR have been hosted by press advantage. So I’m not sure how the press advantage image URL would get added into the PR schema. Either since the hosted image URL does not yet exist, and schema code has been submitted to press advantage before they publish the PR IC press advantage just released a feature to allow external image URLs to be added. So is that the only way? That’s a good question? I would if you have, I know with the external image.

Yeah, you could do it that way. So if you have the image hosted somewhere else, and you give them the URL for that way, then you could use that same image there. Typically the way that my blogger does all the press releases for my clients, or for my own projects is we publish a blog post first, right and then we use the press event press advantage of press releases, to promote blog posts.

That gives us the and we also usually do a GMB post, for example, so we kind of create, you know, like co-citation between a press release or press releases, blog posts, which isn’t a deep link, right, and then in turn a deep internal link from the website as well as GMB post. And that’s what we link to. So the URL of the image can be pulled from the blog post, right? So like the hosted URL image from the blog post, we can use that for example. So that’s typically how we do it if you’re trying to use you know, you could also pull an image from Google Maps listing, for example, right? So for example, if you have if you’ve uploaded a photo like I’m just assuming that it’s if it’s for local, let’s just put it that way. You could upload a photo to Google Photos for the GMB right so in the GMB as a photo and then you could go pull the chair URL from that photo and use that right if it’s the same image that’s going to be in the press release. Anyways, one word of caution.

Don’t like if you’re going to provide the image to press advantage already hosted, make sure it’s sized properly. So in other words, if you if you’ve got a big image somewhere that you’ve uploaded to WordPress, or to Google Photos for the gym before GMB, for example, or even just flat out Google Photos, if it’s a large image, what happens is, and I know this, because I just tested this, the image will come out as large as whatever the original file size is when it gets published, as in the press release. So sometimes the image like bleeds way outside the actual content body of the press release because it’s so big. So just keep in mind that you want to resize those images to I typically don’t like them to be any wider than 600 pixels, maybe 650 pixels, so that it will fit nicely inside the PR it doesn’t get you to know, bleed outside of that. Do you see any problems with that Marco?

Marco: Not me. This is another question that has me a little confused because it like a PR doesn’t sit in a bubble. You’re getting, you’re going to syndicate information because as I said, you’re going to produce news or information about something else. Something else that that should have images that should have CTA, that should have video just whatever like like a post right, a GMB post. It has a URL, the image will have a URL, everything has a URL. And and so if the image URL that you can use is one of those, since it belongs to your entity anyway, it’s yours, Google will know that all of these little associations that you can make are, what cinch everything and it’s something that I’m testing right now that’s something really intricate, but it works really well once it’s set up then and then you just push go. I mean, it just does a great job of pushing everything into the three-pack and the way that that’s done is by creating you know, as you said, all of this co-occurrence and all of this, these co-citations. These are naked URLs and just URLs in the text without even getting LinkedIn, that’d be those account, believe it or not. And again, if it’s from a post then that post image has a URL, yeah, if it’s me, then that image should have a URL, or it should be uploaded to Google. So that you get the Google URL in there, or the Google Photos URL, whatever, if your Facebook, if you have an image on Facebook, you could use that because it’s yours. Anything and everything that you can do to promote your brand are what you should be doing.

Bradley: Right. And that’s what so so this is why I wanted to demonstrate this. So that’s the image URL here. Now, if you take a look, this is the press of publish press event or excuse me, press release. That has I used the self-hosted image, right. So in other words, I provided an image URL for the press for press advantage to us. Now here it looks fine. But when it’s republished on some of the other sites that you know, some of the other media sites, it’s a big image that bleeds over. And it might not be this press version, this might be one of the other ones, but it bleeds way outside of the actual, you know, text area. So that’s why I recommend that you resize it. But if you take a look, if I right-click on this and say copy image address, this is the image address right here. If you take a look, I know it’s probably small, but that’s my alpha land realty dot sales site, which is the site that I use for selling the properties that I have for sale. So this is a self-hosted image on my selling site, that I provided that URL press advantage to embed into the press release. Does that make sense? So I didn’t upload this image to press an advantage. I provided them with the already hosted image URL, which then they inserted into the press release. So that right there is the same URL that I could add right here. If I was going to be promoting that particular press release, excuse me, writing the news article schema for that particular press release. That makes sense. So and again, I like doing that because if now that image URL, it once again, it’s referencing another one of our entity assets. That makes sense. So that’s how you resolve those.

How Many Articles A Weekly Should You Post In A GMB Page?

Brian PA it is Brian friends. Okay, awesome. What’s up, Brian? He says, How many articles a week should you post to your GMB? Well, it depends. I think more equals better, but it really depends on you know what the competition’s doing. It also depends on the industry. I can only say that more equals better. So, you know, for a lot of clients we posting we’re posting daily. Some clients were posting twice daily, some clients were only posting two or three times per week. It just depends. You know, if nobody else in the industry and competitors are posting but or they’re posting very, very rarely. So infrequently which is what you will notice unless somebody is running. A lot of times you’ll see, especially in the contracting industries, you’ll see that they’ll post but it’ll only be, you know, haphazardly. It’s not a consistent schedule. So if as long as you are posting regularly, a lot of times, that’s all it will take to get better results. But I think more equals better, let’s say any of you.

Marco: I say you should post as many times as it takes. But if it takes once a week, then that’s all you need to rank it then. I mean, that’s fine. But again, as Bradley said, keep that consistency. If it takes five posts a day, then that’s what it takes. And then so you’ll be needing 25 posts, or it’ll be 35 posts per week or 25 to 35 posts per week. It just it as Bradley said it depends on a percentage basis, what the competition is doing. And you know what Google wants to be fed.

Yeah, so his next question is, how long should it be? Well, they should only hold 1500 characters. So if the article, the GMB posts themselves, how many words should these posts be? It’s not as I don’t care about how many words they are, I mean, you can have up to 1500 characters and a GMB post. So that’s the limit. So, typically what we do is we have what depends but if we’re if we’re publishing up, GMB post, it’s talking about a blog post, which is what we do a lot. We’ll just grab the first paragraph or a relevant paragraph from the blog post itself and use that in the GMB post but that we always include a call to action, a primary keyword that we’re trying to target, a location modifier of some sort and a call to action, which allows us to squeeze name, address or phone number usually it’s not the address because most of the clients I do we you know, I service or service area businesses, so it’s usually the name or the phone number. And then we always link back to either a previous post, if it’s a siloed, GMB posts, we link to the previous GMB post URL or an in with the button, we link to either the blog post, if that’s what we’re actually, you know, pointing to, or referencing, or will link to one of the entity assets. And a lot. And what I do with my VA is, is they’ll have my bloggers will just have on the spreadsheet, the client spreadsheet, there will be a target URLs list, which will have all of the Top Tier or Tier One branded entity assets that we want to link to and they’ll cycle through it. So in other words, you know, for example, if we’ve got a client that we’re posting Monday through Friday, once per day, then that client might only be getting one blog posts per week. So one of those GMB posts for the week will actually link back directly to that blog post and it will have a paragraph or so pulled out of that along with the call to action and such but then the rest of the post during the week.

My VA is really good because they’ve just, you know, they’ve been doing it for so long of just finding something to write about from the website, and then just kind of rewarding it and turning it into a call to action of some sort. And then linking back to, like I said, with the button URL back to one of those branded entity assets and them just kind of cycle through them. Top Level citations, press, you know, media room type pages, drive stack, specifically the G site, really the GMB map URL, the GMB website, money site, inner pages of the money site, all of those, they just get linked to kind of a rotation so that there’s constantly links going from GMB back to branded entity assets and it kind of help to just reinforce that whole footprint if that’s if that makes sense. Okay.

Is It Okay To Use The Content Of A Drive Folder To Others?

Austin Don says with stacks drive folders, let’s say I have one for service, Round Rock. Okay, would it be alright to copy that Drive folder and use for other cities service whatever Ville and just change the city modifier on the content or should new content be used for drive stacks, you can just change your city modifier is but also make sure you’re changing the target URLs that you’re linking from or linking to from within those files. Right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, there’s some editing that needs to be done. You can’t just change that. And then think that it’s all over. Again. There are some files in there that have some heavy links that have to go in and have to be modified, correct? Yeah, so I’m saying you want to change your target URLs. So the best idea would be to have you know, a page or post on your money site that is optimized for that particular location for that service and location or services and location, and then change. When you’re when you clone the file, the folders the folder and files for that, you know, for that business or that that project. Then you change all the keywords the location modifier is out to whatever new location you want to make sure that you’re editing those target URLs from within the files to point to that location-specific page or post. So it makes sense. So,

What Is The Ideal Number Of Keywords For A GMB Post Be?

uh, Brian says using only one keyword per post or should you try to get two keywords in it? Well, I always have my bloggers are trying to target one primary keyword, but there are usually variations they get worked into it anyways, does that make sense? Remember, if you’ve got things siloed correctly, you’re going to have related keywords anyways. From you know, within the silo on the website or from the GMB post because we siloed those together or both, right. So it usually there’s the primary keyword that we’re trying to target with each post, but there’s a there’s obviously going to be you know, variants clips, so closely related or LSA type keywords that also work, you know, in part of it, it’s just because it’s natural, and we don’t write for SEO anymore, right? I mean, yes, we still try to target one keyword or so as a primary keyword. But our, my writers don’t aren’t trained to write for SEO really, they’re just trained to, they know what like to link properly. But we don’t have to write for SEO so much anymore because of structured data. And because Google’s algorithm just understands natural language patterns so much more. So what would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, this is this is where siloed and the way that we do our posts comes in really handy, right, because you’ll have a set of keywords that you’re targeting, which are actually trying to push up the top-level category, which Jeffrey teaches in his SEO boot camp. So our ultimate goal is to push up or work from the top for that for the top-level category. And that’s the main keyword. So any keywords that are relevant to that main category, and any LSA or in any other keywords that Google deems relevant, need to be worked in there, somehow?

As long as you’re also thinking about the person that’s trying to read that post, and you’re trying to convert the person that’s reading the post, because that’s the ultimate goal, if you can get a person to click on it, the likelihood of them becoming a client or ending up paying either your client or you, it’s really high because these are, the people are hot, the hot buyers, they’re calling you for a reason. They’re filling out that form for a reason. They’re visiting your website for a reason. So that’s hot, and you need to keep that person hot. You don’t want them to go to whatever it is where you haven’t clicked and cooled off. So they have to be worked in so so that you’re talking to that pain, and you’re solving whatever that pain is, you have to work that in so so that so they find a solution to whatever problem that it is that they had that made them go look for you or your niche in the first place.

Bradley: So because we don’t have a lot of questions left, we’ll wrap it up a few minutes early guys, unless you post some questions. I’ll get another question in there. Okay, I was going to share some other stuff. But we

Hernan: just want to say real quick Bradley data, which is put together a short link, if you want, if you guys want to get access to the branding course of Brandon’s going to put it together, it’s semanticmastery.com/branding. So that is semanticmastery.com/branding. And you will be able to access that course for only 97 bucks instead of 300 bucks, which is going to be the end and you know, the final price for it. So semanticmastery.com/branding, which is put that together, boom.

How Often Should We Order Link Packages To The Drive Stacks/GSites?

Okay, Austin says how often should we order link packages to the drive stacks g sites? Well, that’s up to you how as often as you need, I recommend that you alternate between embeds and link building packages. And remember when you buy embeds, you can also build by as an upsell. Link Building packages or is like a second-tier two that were linked link building to the actual embeds that’s very powerful too. I like to do things in cycles or stages. So maybe I’ll have a link building package done to my entity assets, my SEO shield, so to speak, one month, and then the next month, it’ll be an embed gig. And then the next month, it’ll be, you know, another link building package to syndication network, for example, or something like that. It’s just a way to stagger it out. So I just kind of work that stuff into my monthly retainer for clients so that I know that that’s going to be stuff that’s ongoing, it gets done on a monthly, you know, monthly basis. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the same targets every month. You can kind of just cycle through that. Okay.

Marco: Yeah, so no, don’t hit the home page every month, right with a million links. That’s not going to help. So if if you gave you drip them out, like during the month, which Dadea is really good at drip, feeding, everything, dripping everything out the way that you should set it looks more natural and every month as Bradley said, You choose a different target so that you’re also targeting your tier one branded directly. Instead of just through the drive second Gsite, all of that, your posts your we’ve shared during Hump Day Hangouts, I don’t know how many different URL targets that you can use for your link building campaign. And it all filters through to the same place, which is your again, and you know, you’re going to get sick of me saying this, but the entity, it all filters out to what it is that you’re trying to build, which is that the final piece of the puzzle, which is that entity was really really matters.

Bradley: Yeah, that’s why I was getting ready to show. You know, when I talked about for GMB posts, for example, my bloggers have a list of target URLs that they just kind of cycle through that they including the button links Now, as I said, if it’s a GMB post that is specifically promoting a blog post on the site, then on from the money site, then that GMB post or a button URL ends up pointing back to that specific blog post. But for most of the general posts, then it will link back to just one of the branded assets, the entity assets. Right? So that would be a tier-one asset. So which one should you link to? Well, all of them, but if you want our link to just the ones that are deemed the most powerful or the most relevant for the brand, it’s very simple. Just go do a brand search if it’s for a company, like a local business that has a name that is ambiguously aided right, so a name that is maybe coming up like a lot. I know a lot of local contractors, for example, will have names that are very generic, like whatever service plus city or city whatever service so it’s very difficult to create a brand around that. Now it is so one of the ways that you can get and I’ve shown this before and maybe I’ll show it with what we’ll do another will do two examples real quick.

Alpha land realty has got a strong brand. Now I’ve been because I’ve been working on the entity for this for quite some time without doing a lot of SEO work. It’s just been mainly entity work. And you can take a look, this is my real estate business, you can see that if I just do search for alpha land Realty, all of the entire first pages is taken up by all of my by entity assets of mine, right, or press releases that mentioned the brand. But something by the way that just popped up recently, I thought this was very, very powerful. This is really cool. This is apollo.io, which is like a kind of like a sales contacting prospecting type service. I know because I saw I just saw this pop-up yesterday in my brand search. And I went and signed up for it because I thought I could go in and edit this profile. And you can’t, this was auto automatically generated by apollo.io. But it’s very powerful because it popped right up on page one, like out of the blue. I’ve never even heard of it. And so I did sign up for it to try to see if I could edit this stuff. But what it did was it pulled in all of these entity assets.

I didn’t create this page by the way like this, what I’m saying this just out of the blue popped up and it’s got my website URL, it’s got my name, it’s got a description that it’s pulled from somewhere. It’s got my Facebook page, Twitter Linkedin page, and it’s even got an alexa.com site info page. So somehow apollo.io is tied into Alexa, which I believe is an Amazon company. But it also pulls from Crunchbase which I think is also where got some of this information. So by the way, that’s one of the ones I want to point out Crunchbase calm guys is super, super powerful. It’s, it’s, it’s an entity database, right or a Semantic database. So you can go in and set up a Crunchbase profile and put in all kinds of like set up an organization and add a ton of information to it. And it’s very, very powerful. So I would highly recommend that you set up Crunchbase but from here, I could just go through and start pulling out from the top two or three pages, all the URLs that are branded entity at sets, right so, and put those into a target URL list that you would want to cycle through from GMB posts, you can use that for deep links for other stuff, guys, you can link to them from press releases, you can link to them from blog posts, all of that kind of stuff, right? So you can just go through here and for example, like here’s my Tumblr page for whatever reason is so powerful. This is from my syndication network and keeps showing up on page one and has been for four months, even though I really don’t even publish to it.

If we go back to page two will see that we’ve got, you know, USA Today, that’s a press release Twitter’s popping up even though I don’t really tweet. Another one is let’s see Crunchbase I was just talking about this one. And this is actually tech check this out. This is the Crunchbase you can add press releases to your Crunchbase Company Profile. And so if you take a look, this is just referencing alpha land realty launches website for Virginia property owners. It’s a press advantage. That’s the press advantage URL right there, right so you can actually add press releases to Crunchbase, which is very, very powerful, and then that Crunchbase URL will index in rank, even though it’s, it’s it’s pushing to, it’s crazy. all it’s doing is linking to a press release, but that Crunchbase URL will rank. Take a look at this Pocket. This hasn’t been posted to since it was set up. It’s just a Pocket profile. But it’s still ranking, right? It’s ranking on the top two pages is another one of my entity assets. So all of these things can just go into an actual target URL list. So it makes sense. And these are all things that could also be linked you could for the question that was just asked about how often should you order link building packages, all of these can become target URLs. Something else we’ve talked about is let’s just do a quick search will do.

Let’s do something I’m not in a city. I’m not in this a Tree Service, Richmond, VA. We use this as an example. Alright, so we’ll come down here we’ll look at let’s see true. I want to see a good Davy Davy in Richmond, Virginia. That’s a good one there. Let’s take a look at that. It’s also it looks like it’s showing up here in maps. So we’ll click through for maps. And we also kind of want to hold on lead back up for a minute. I also want to click through to Yelp. And I want to show you guys something. We’ve talked about this in the past, but I’ll, I’ll point this out again. Alright, so if we’re looking at, let’s actually grab the name.

Let’s do this. Back up for a minute. We might have been able to do it from there. Hold on a minute. Let’s try. Let’s try that real quick.

We click through to here to photos, okay, yeah, we can. Okay. So remember, you can also for your link building projects, you can also grab, obviously, we’re going to grab the map URL, remember not to use the share map URL, by the way, guys.

Let me back up for one more minute. And actually, we’ll just go. We’ll do this. I want to give you guys a couple of things real quick. So we’ll go to. Alright, so a couple of things here. There is a great website. It’s really simple and easy to use. Go to Google My Business. It’s called GMB dot reviews maker calm. I’ve talked about this in the past, go to this page right here, click the code place Id go grab the long, ugly maps URL for an entity for a brand, right? That’s a verified Google My Business has a verified Google My Business, excuse me, click through to the actual website that was photos. Let me back up for a minute. It’s not showing the map. Here we go. Click through to the actual map URL, see if we can do that.

And it’s not giving me the map URL that I wanted. But all you gotta do is grab the long map URL guys, the big ugly one for when you do a brand search and you click through from the knowledge panel on the little map icon, click through and then copy that big long, ugly URL. And you’ll paste it into there and decode it and give you a maps URL that is the best URL to use. It still needs to be edited slightly. I’ll show you the right way to do it. Let’s see, click through we just use alpha land realty is an example. So you see I click through to the actual map and this big, long, ugly URL right here, Copy that. Go over to the GMB maps, excuse me, GMB reviews maker calm, click the code place ID paste this in here, click the decode place ID button will take a second. Then scroll down and right here where it says your maps URL you want to copy that link address will put this in a notepad file. And then what you want to do is change that URL from this where it says maps is the subdomain change that to dub dub dub so www.google.com and input maps after the first forward slash before the question mark. Right now that right there is the best URL to build links to for your maps listing. Because it’s not a redirect, it’s a straight URL.

Okay, so that so that’s a really good URL to use. However, here are some other things that you can link build to. So we know that Davie Tree Service is one of the Richmond Tree Service, Richmond, VA, whatever that was the keyword I searched? Well, if we click through to the maps listing, like what you see here, look at all these different photos. All these photos have different URLs, guys if we click every photo is going to give you a different URL. So each one of those could also be used as additional link targets. Right? You could actually put those through one of your own shorteners, or use a shortener that’s a 301 redirect, so you can print them up. And then you can create a target URL list of all the different images within the Google My Business profile. Does that make sense? Something else you could do is you could click on the actual reviews. So these reviews share, if you can click through from the actual brand. So let’s go back to here for a minute. Let’s just pick another one because that one’s not it’s got multiple locations and it’s hard to pull up one specific one, we pull up, let’s say ridge line Tree Service. Let’s try that one.

And then I know we got to wrap it up in just a minute, guys. Okay, see how rich live Tree Service popped up. So if we click through to the map icon, this is going to take us to this specific map listing. Okay, then from here, right here, where it says reviews, the 11 reviews on this case, I could click on that. That’s a unique URL, right? So you can add that to your target URL list. Also, each one of these individual reviews, take a look at it has a share URL, you can click on that and use that share URL. However, if you take a look at that URL, it’s a redirect, but I don’t care. I’ll still build links to it. Does that make sense? So my point is, you can grab these, each one of these individuals share URLs and link to those also. So it makes sense. So each one of those photos can have its own URL. We talked about doing it with Yelp, if we were to find, see if we can find ridge line or we’re just talking about baby tree expert companies, let’s go into there, we click into their we’ve talked about this in the past guys, Yelp, grab that URL, put that in your list, click into photos, each one of these photos now has a different URL, grab all those photos, put those in. And those are all Yelp targets. Now, you can close out of that, you can also go down if they have reviews, and you can link to the reviews. See also share a review. So you can actually grab that URL and put that share, review share URL into your target list. One more thing, click rights, right-click view page source and scroll down. All of a sudden look at these guys, these are all can language canonical is essentially CL says link rel=canonical. And all of these other URLs are for the Yelp on all the different language versions of the Yelp site that all canonical eyes to this primary English version, right, which is the US version and each one of those URLs can go into a target list. So there’s no shortage of links that you can add to link building campaigns, as long as they’re not direct to your money site is what we suggest. You want to comment on that at all Marco.

Marco: No, that was perfect.

Bradley: Okay, cool. Alright, we’ve got about three minutes. I think we’ve just got a couple more that popped up.

What Video Should You Embed In A Press Release?

So Katie says thanks for the PR schema reply of something else I’m thinking about I’m a publishing press release about each blog post and want to incorporate video into the mix. Now that press advantage offers video embeds. Using the content of articles and press releases, I create a YouTube video of each post NPR from the videos created using my blog content I created a YouTube playlist that mirrors my blog siloed There you go, Katie, now you’re getting it and embedded these into the corresponding blog posts from the videos created by the way, why not embed the playlist? Right, embed the playlist into each blog post within the same silo so the playlist is a silo and you’ve got a silo on your blog.

Now you can embed the actual playlist with the specific video that matches with matches up or corresponds with that particular blog post as the top video in the playlist. Does that make sense? So instead of just embedding the specific video, you can embed the whole playlist. So now you’ve got a playlist silo embedded in a silo. So it makes sense. It’s very, very powerful to do that. So you’re onto something there. Very good. She says from the video is created using my PR content, I created a second YouTube playlist that mirrors my PR stack. She’s she, Katie must been following Semantic Mastery for a minute. Which videos best to embed in the press release the video from the blog post or the video about the press release itself that promotes the blog post? Or does it matter? It really shouldn’t matter? In fact, it’s probably a little bit of overkill to have two separate YouTube playlists. You know you could though I don’t I mean, I just honestly I think that’s probably a little bit more work than you need because you could probably accomplish everything within one siloed playlist that’s mirroring the same keywords that you’re targeting in both the blog post and the PR. That makes sense because you could reduce your workload a little bit, I think by just having one playlist that’s mirroring the same keywords that are mirrored from your blog post to your PRs. If that makes sense. And then I would for the, for the press releases, I would take you, I don’t think you can embed a playlist. But I know you can have the individual excuse me video URL for that specific that you know, that corresponds with that PR plus post, embed that into the plane, the press release, excuse me, but I would use the playlist embed code with the hack to where you can change the video ID to the video ID of that that corresponds with that post to be the top video in the playlist. And I would use the video and the playlist embed code in that in the blog post itself. That now you have a silo embedded in a silo if that makes sense. That’s pretty powerful stuff. So

Does The Battle Plan Provide Steps On How To Optimize A New Lead Gen Site?

last question and I gotta wrap it up. I just created another brand new lead gen site. Does the battle plan give me steps to optimize the SM way? Of course, it does. Nathan. That’s exactly what it was created for. Yeah, but it’s no different. New did not the steps are the same. It’s a couple of things that might be different.

Marco: But the steps that you need to take are practically the same. By the way, before we go. I’ll be starting my charity webinar series. The first week of December probably. And I can’t remember when you have your webinar. The next one for you. Do we have another one? Do we have another webinar coming up?

Bradley: Yeah, we’ve got on we’ve got Monday for the start of the branding course which will be about YouTube ads. And on December 9, Monday, December 9 is the display ads Google display ads.

Marco: So Monday the 25th or December’s ok so the 25th and then

Bradley: Monday, December 9, right?

Marco: Okay, so I’ll be starting mine, Monday, December 2 guys, everything about work, BERT entities, everything you want to know to rank into 2020 and well beyond. I told you in 2014 2015 what was going on and where this was going, and here we are, this is 2015 you should have been there. If you’re not, then come to these webinars because I’ll tell you from 2020 2025 MB on what’s happening and what you need to do. And all it’s going to take is a donation to the charity all the money goes to kids who need an education. So it’s for a good cause. That’s why I’m giving you raw business. It’s what’s going to happen and why.

There you go. Alright, thanks for everybody being here. We’ll see you guys next week. Hey guys, semanticmastery.com/branding and forget to awesome thanks, guys.

  Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263

Click on the video above to watch Episode 263 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

Adam: Cool! Everybody welcome to Hump Day hangouts today is the 20th of November 2019. And we are staring down the craziness that is Black Friday and all that that entails. We’ve got some our own version of Black Friday fun, but it’s not going to involve buying anything but we’ll get to that in a minute. Real quick. Let’s say hi to everyone and then we got those announcements and some other good stuff. So start on my side here Bradley, what are you up to man?

Bradley: Good man. Happy to be here. It’s a week from Thanksgiving so kind of excited about that. It’s one of my favorite holidays.

Adam: Amen. Yeah, it’s definitely switched. I mean, you know, as a kid, not surprised. You know, Christmas was super fun. Like, yay, now it’s just like, Oh, God, I love Thanksgiving.

Bradley: So I want the food. Yeah.

Adam: Awesome. Uh, Hernan, I think you’re there somewhere. How’s it going, man?

Hernan: Hey, everybody. Oh, hey, guys, what’s up everybody? So look at this beauty. Look at this. So this is something that Dadea brought to us on POFU Live 2019 has been awesome. So thank you, thank you for that, you know, you know what day it is. So what’s everybody so really happy to be here excited for what’s coming. Excited for the stuff that we have in the pipeline. So overall excited to be back in Buenos Aires.

Adam: Outstanding good stuff, Chris, how about you?

Chris: doing good as usual. It’s a bit rainy here. But other than that the weather is good. Yeah, I’m not excited about Christmas either, like not sure what to say?

Adam: Well, maybe it just means like, what more snowy conditions so you can go snowboarding.

Chris: Yeah, like I’m actually planning to take like, a week off right before Christmas. And to resolve the internet and relax a bit without electronics.

Adam: So what do you do without the internet? What do you mean? Come to get like what are you supposed to do?

  Chris: There is life outside as well you don’t have to constantly be plugged into the whole thing was a cable. Like a simple snowboarding skiing, I don’t know to enjoy it in the spa or I don’t know like chase some girls will see

Adam: it sounds good. And you know we always talk about the weather before Marco. so, Marco, This is the natural lead and man what’s the weather like down in Costa Rica?

Marco: Life without the internet? Did somebody say that even? Nah man life’s good been having construction that just got done. I had to redo our master bathroom. That’s done. They were jackhammering all day yesterday. It was horrible. I couldn’t think I couldn’t go and mess with BERT yesterday. But I’ve been at it all morning. If you can’t remember that you cannot optimize for BERT. That’s what Google said. Remember those famous last words you cannot optimize? Because I got BERT by the balls, I got BERT.

Bradley: You’ve got BERT’s balls. You go.

Adam: So you know, maybe I’m out of a loop to is there or is there going to be an ERNIE e update of some sort? Because that would really just be the best thing ever if we had for an Ernie so

Marco: doesn’t there’s already an Elmo Damn it.

Bradley: I can see the next Semantic Mastery training product Bert by the balls.

Marco: Well, I actually I’m already coming up with the BERT Buster, balls fit somewhere in there.

Adam: Oh man. Well, Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here. If this is your first time watching, this is the Semantic Mastery and we’re here to answer your digital marketing questions and talk about some other stuff as well. So you’re in the right place. If you’re watching on YouTube, make sure you head over to semanticmastery.cm/hdquestions. That’s where you can actually ask your questions. We don’t actively monitor the chat for youtube so you need to be there and you can also ask your questions at Semantic Mastery com slash HT questions ahead of time and we will answer them and they can go back if you need to and check it out on YouTube. After that, the second most asked question we get is where should I start with Semantic Mastery and we ought The answer is always sorry for Hernan’s typing some funny stuff. We always tell people to go get the Battle Plan All right, I’m not gonna read it to you but go check it out battleplan.semanticmastery.com, repeatable process, stuff for age domains, new domains, YouTube channels, whatever it is, that’s your place to start. And then if you’ve already got clients and you’re wondering what’s next, how do I grow? What should I be doing? How do I grow my business? Where’s the network of people I can do this with then you belong in our mastermind, and head over to mastermind.semanticmastery.com and we will help you grow. And last but not least, if you want to save time and money, we recommend this not only to our members, to our subscribers, its services we use ourselves. It’s mgyb.co getting stuff done for yourself whether it’s syndication or getting done for yourself, getting things done. So you don’t have to things like syndication networks are we as drive stacks, press releases all that sort of good stuff. We got a couple more announcements or not, I believe there was something like a Facebook post about something that you did today.

Hernan: Yeah, there was a Facebook post about something. That is correct. So the deal is that our main man Bradley, putting together a branding course. And it’s going to be on YouTube and the Google Display Network. And why is important to brand yourself as not only as an agency but also as an agency owner. We talked a little bit about this in POFU Live 2019. And yes,

Bradley: and the training can be applied to setting up branding campaigns for clients. And it’s also for using Google Display Network and YouTube to drive traffic into the SEO assets that we set to kind of help fire up all the SEO work by delivering ART – activity, relevance, trust, and authority.

Hernan: So there you go. So there’s a lot of levels to this

Marco: and, and guess what the BERT update is about?

Bradley: exactly that.

Hernan: There you go. Alright. So as you can see, there’s a lot of levels to this. You can use it to their clients, you can use it to service your clients better upsell your clients into additional services, you can use it to rank your websites. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff. I mostly, you know, focus on getting more clients and get clients paying you more money. So that’s what’s exciting about the course is going to be recorded and it’s gonna be recorded live and it’s going to be for the time being over the next two to three days come to be only $97. Once that’s done, it’s going to be packaged and we sold for $300. So if you want to get if you want to pay like 30% of the price you want to get like a 70% discount. Do we have a link somewhere that we can push people to that we can show people?

Adam: definitely it is on the page. And you know, odds are if you’re watching the replay, it might not be available at that price. But you can always come to semanticmastery.com/hdquestions in the comments and you’ll find a link right there. There you go. Awesome. Good stuff. And last but not least, I wanted to mention to everyone, you know, I teased a little bit at the intro to the show. We are of course doing something for Black Friday. Keep your eyes peeled for some emails. We really did want to give you guys some good content. We’re putting out some previously unreleased training. And it’s just going to be you’ve got to answer one question. There’s no opt-in. We want to make sure that you want to get it though. All you have to do is watch out for the emails, look out for the Facebook posts and leading up to actual Black Friday. We’re just going to have that content there. We want to help you out you know there’s a lot of all stuff going on, there’s a lot of extra bs going on, you know, during the weeks leading up to Black Friday. So take a look at this stuff, learn and then act on that, right. And we’re going to have a big black Friday sale going on afterward, where you can get the additional training if you want it or need it so that you can act and get results from that. So that’s the big thing going on next week. Keep your eyes peeled again for emails and Facebook posts. It’s going to be super, super. So with that said, you guys anything last minute before we dive into questions.

Bradley: I don’t have anything.

Adam: All right, anybody else? Let’s get to it.

Bradley: Alright, cool. We’ve got just a few questions so far. So hopefully you guys will come in and post some more else. We can wrap it up early. I’ve got plenty of work to do. Anyways, let me grab the screen first. I can find it. Still not 100% comfortable using zoom yet. All right, you guys should you see my screen. By the way, I’ve just got to point this out. This is really cool because besides it is just a goofy photo that is nondead if you take a look in the background of this photo, you can see the backside of Hernan also flicking us off. And it’s kind of like a mirror and mirror because even further and there’s another picture of it. So it’s like one of those iframe loops that we do. It’s pretty. It’s pretty cool. Anyways,

How To Add Clickable CTAs To A YouTube Video?

alright, so to get to the first question, it looks like it came from Greg, Greg’s First up, he says, How exactly do you add clickable CTA is to a video on YouTube. So those are call to actions. Sorry for the beginner question but other than a link in the description, I have no idea. Are there cards or annotations are clickable buttons that can be added to a video. Yeah, that’s what cards are for.

Also, if you’re running ads, you can obviously run it, put click clickable links within the ad itself, but you’re just talking about for organic videos, you know, regularly, you know, for videos that people find on YouTube organically or in Google search, then it’s going to be using cards. He says, I will be using a video to link to my Amazon store, and I hope to add a couple of links during the middle part of the video. How do I use and do? How do I use? And how do I do that? Again, it’s just cards. So Greg, just goes to Google and search or, or YouTube and search for how to add YouTube cards. And you’ll see plenty of tutorials out there that will show you exactly how to do it, it’s easy to do. And you can place cards that very specific parts within the content within the video itself. So you can you know, put them at certain intervals or whatever. Keep in mind though, in order to be able to link to an external website, you have to have a site that you ca it’s called an associated website, you have to validate that you have ownership of that site or at least some sort of like webmaster control of that, so I don’t think you can link directly to Amazon. But what you could do is a link to like an Amazon product review site that you own.

Something typically the way that you would do it is you would add the site to Search Console, within the same Google account is your YouTube account. And if you do that, then you can add that let that your URL, the web page that you want to link out to as an associated website, and then you can link to it right. So you can do that by on a domain level, or even on a web page level. So but again, you have to have webmaster control, essentially, of the site, whether you’re the owner or you have access to it so that you can link those two accounts. You can’t just link externally from a YouTube video to like an Amazon store that I’m aware of, because you have to have access to that site as a webmaster or ownership of the site if that makes sense. Does anybody have any other is that is there anything to do to dispute what I just said?

Hernan: No, I think that’s the way it is because annotations are not a thing anymore. So So yeah, cards. So you have n cards and you have annotations, but yeah, basically that’s going to be the

Bradley: cards and end screens you can do within screens as well cards, or you can kind of space out at certain intervals, or, you know, just put, put them where you want them to show up. And that’s where it’ll kind of slide out from the top, there’ll be I little icon for information. And if you click on it, the card will slide out. And you can link to other videos to playlist your channel. You can link to an external website, like I said, as long as you verify it, so. Okay, just go to Google or YouTube and search for how to add External links with cards and you’ll see plenty of tutorials for that.

Adam: Yeah, freeze up. Sorry, somebody says something. Yeah, can you hear real quick, I just want to stay on that? Also, those have generally a pretty low click-through rate. So I would approach this kind of from a different point. Have you not just go into just link to Amazon from there, which might end up actually being a problem, but even if it’s not, I would create the videos potentially, you know, make a bridge page in between basically, like, you know, and using some sort of a lead magnet like even if it’s not an actual, like a PDF or something like that, but send people to a page to your site for a reason that they want to click through. And then from there, you know, they go to Amazon, where I would definitely do it that way instead of trying to send people directly.

Bradley: Yeah, and here’s the thing, if you send people to like a product review page, for example, you know, you could entice them to opt-in for something so that you can build an email list from that traffic, but you can also cookie them right. If you’ve got remarketing. I mean, you could set up a remarketing list on the video too, by the way, so don’t forget about that, Greg. It’s really important. remarketing super powerful. We’re going to be talking about that in the branding course and, you know, starting on Monday, but you can set up a remarketing list through Google ads for that specific YouTube video. So now you know that anybody watches those videos interested in that product and you can remark it to them via YouTube. But if you drive them to a product review page first where you could entice them to get onto an, you know, opt into some sort of list for some freebie or something now you can email market to them. But even if they don’t do that, you can still cookie them and build a remarketing list for Google Display Network ads to which are incredibly inexpensive. And you can kind of follow them around now that you know what products are interested in, you could actually market to that remarketing list with that same product as well as similarly related products if that makes sense. Because you know that they’ve already expressed an interest or they wouldn’t have a click through to your review page. So there’s a lot of things that you can do with that, why I would recommend not just using the cards and that’s it and you know, you can get better results is what I’m saying. Okay, it’s a good question though.

How Do You Create A Clip To An Upcoming Live Event Video?

  Jeffrey’s up he says, Hey, guys, I’m publishing a video in two weeks using live events, but I want a smaller version of the same content online right away for other traffic reasons. How can I do that?

Let’s see what needs to be different about the DVD as well. If it’s, if you’re creating a shorter version of it, then it is going to be different, right? So like, what I’m saying is if you already have the video created, and you’re just going to live stream it in two weeks, and you want to create a shorter version of it, you know, condense it down, then that’s going to be unique video anyways, not only that, but the same video live-streamed twice, is still a unique video, right? Because Google doesn’t detect or YouTube doesn’t detect. It’s when you try to upload the same file twice. Right? But if you’re live streaming or pre-recorded video, you could live stream that pre-recorded video to the same channel twice now I don’t recommend it because if you know manual review or at work to see it, they could consider that spammy and terminate your channel, right? So I don’t you know, I don’t recommend doing it. But the fact that you’re live-streaming a pre-recorded video makes the file 100% unique to YouTube, right. So

So just keep that in mind. Um, but yeah, if you’re going to condense the video like shorten it edited just cut out key parts make like the Reader’s Digest version of it so to speak, then yeah, you can just you can live stream that or upload that however you want to do it directly to the channel and then go live stream your pre-recorded video or just, you know, push a true live stream out at the time and two weeks, whatever you want to do it. Okay. And that’s all you need to do.

What MGYB Products Should I Use For A Bilingual GMB Page?

Okay, let’s see. The next one is Hey guys, I have a potential client that has a GSB profile and website and bilingual language the main domain automatically directs us to the French version. Wow, if we want to read an English version, I assume he’s using a subdomain for example. Okay, and Okay, well, that would be a subfolder the way that you have shown But either way, my question is I want to use you’re done for you services from MDYV store for the purpose to three map pack. Okay, guess for the purpose of getting into the map pack and Local SEO For French in English. Buying keywords, can you direct me to which projects you do strongly recommend as first priority? Well, we’ll do English, but we won’t do French correct me if I’m wrong, Marco?

Marco: That’s correct. Okay.

Bradley: He says can let’s see, I already bought your battle plan version three and also check your MGYB store several times, but I’m last looking at it. I have audited his GMB and around 74% French buying keywords resulting to his map three MGRGMB three map pack and his website on page one. Okay, cool. So he’s got he’s doing very well where your site the site that you’re managing is doing very well in, in in France, but you’re also looking to do it in the US I’m assuming or an English see in zero results for English buying keywords, I believe you’re done for your services also offer white label services. Well, yeah, I mean, we can do the keyword research in English unless you’ve already got that done.

Our deep keyword research will give you so many keywords. It’s ridiculous. But if you use those keywords along with, you know several of our other packages for example, the embed service is great for GMB. So I’m assuming it’s the same GMB but you’ve just got two versions of the site. Right. And you’d like the GMB to also rank for English search queries, right. So again, I’m just making this assumption because it’s not clear to me, if you don’t have an English business in the US also, you’re trying to rank the same GMB, I’m assuming in France for both English keywords and French keywords. And so hopefully I’m correct and what I’m assuming here, and if that’s the case, then yeah, what I would do. Go ahead

Marco: That’s a she, she she’s in Canada. Okay. So okay. Any French-speaking region of Canada will take the domain that was posted up as a .ca

Bradley: Ok. So for that, I would recommend you know that you would, you would also, like, for example, drive stack would work really good for that for the English buying keywords. And having the deep keyword research done would be all the keywords that would be included in the drive stack. And then from there, you could do embeds and backlinks and use the same keywords that were generated in the keyword report as part of the backlink campaign, all of that so that you can really start to push that relevancy. The other part of it would be you know, obviously, the Google site is part of the drive stack, which would all be done in English. That’s going to help to push that English keyword relevancy. What else would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, I’m kind of stuck on this question, because I’m not sure what it is that she’s looking to do. I said If so, if you getting 70% of French buying keywords, right, they result in the GMB three-pack and zero results for English keywords and you’re looking for everything in English to push up your English rankings. And if you even just link out to the French to relevance that will carry through from the drive stack and Angie site. So you can actually do a two for one and if you take the time to them translate the DR site that we give you the French can even get more power and I’m giving you game right free game that during Hump Day hangouts.

So relevance will carry through English to French French to English, but you can increase the relevance by translating everything that we give you. And that’s simple to do once everything is set up. I mean, I would just use Google Translate I know Hernan and I have done that in the past where we’ve gone and Google Translate and I think we managed to rank in Norway for some shit. I don’t speak Norwegian but yeah, it ranked and I ranked in French and I don’t speak a word of French but I did I don’t know what I was saying. And I don’t know if it was right but it ranked. So be I don’t see why there would be any problem. Just don’t order anything in France because we won’t do it. Don’t buy any keywords in French. We just won’t do it. But you can take whatever we give you. And you’re free to add a translation, which again, it adds relevance it there’s some trust and authority also in there you can do some canonical wizardry with the English and the French and with alternate languages and a whole bunch of other things that we would only teach you in the mastermind. So I would suggest if you’re really looking to take this to the next level, come join the mastermind

Hernan: I would say. sorry Bradley but I would say just to add to what Marco just said, which makes total sense. I was you said maybe like grab your your your main content and have that like grab your main gotten your main content should be able to, to, to rank and convert right that we did those steps back in the day with Marco we were translated some pages and we rank them, you know, was easy, then it was the fact that we had to switch the content for some that would make more sense because we want people at the end of the day we want people like buying our stuff. It was an affiliate website so we want to people you know opting in for the offers but you can do that and then when it comes to like blasting your links or blasting your stuff as a tier two or after you know everything that has to do directly related with your brand, you can go to town with the stuff that I’d seen and that it’s in MGYB.co if that makes sense because it doesn’t really matter if you have like the little backlinks and English pointing to a website in French at that point so

Bradley: cool.

What URL Should You Input To Get The Schema In TechnicalSEO.com If The PR Link Is Not Yet Published?

Bradley: Katie’s up says thanks for helping answer my question last week about PR specific schema I’m still stuck on what URL to enter in the generator on technicalSEO.com If I select article schema, then leave the URL property field blank the schema reports a warning when tested. Yeah, you don’t want to leave it blank says I’m worried about causing invigoration and the data so I so just don’t want to put the wrong info here, I read that for a schema.org thing like an article, the URL property should always point to the same URL, because everything has exactly one preferred or canonical URL. This makes it sound like the URL I enter into the generator should be the URL of the PR itself, which does not yet exist, which is correct, since press advantage has not yet published it. So do we publish the PR schema that contains the warning? Or do we enter a different URL into the generator? Thanks,

I would just publish with the organization page URL, right? Because that’s going to link it’s going to basically be pushing back to the Index page, the newsroom the media room, essentially that has all of the articles published on press advantage on your in your organization, right because you’re right, you don’t have the URL yet. Now maybe that’s something that we could find out from we could we could request from Jeremy the developer a press advantage is to display when you order a new PR like when you go to order a new another a new PR that it could display what the URL is going to be for that press release in the editing phase of it or whatever. Because here’s the thing, remember, the URL is determined by the title, right? There’s a, there’s the PR number after press advantage. com slash and it’s the actual press release number, I believe for that order. And then after that, it’s the slug from the title that’s generated from the title. So maybe, and I don’t know that this is possible, but you know, it could certainly be asked that that could be like a preview or it could be dynamically inserted after the press release has been initially written. Again, I don’t know that that’s going to happen. In the meantime, you could just link back unless Marco says that that’s wrong, would be to link back to the press advantage organization page. What do you think Marco?

Marco: That’s what I would do if the URL is not it is not existent at that point that you have to point to something else or you get that error and but you could always switch that up, can you? I think that

Bradley: Well, no, because once it’s published, you can add it to the schema that’s added appended to that particular.

Marco: Okay, so yeah, so so we’ll have to talk to Jeremy about this and see what we can do. He’s really good about fixing this.

Bradley: Yes, very much. So, really good. Very much. So and so here’s the news article. schema. Right. And by the way, we’re, besides the plugin that I teased last week, we’ve got another app potentially coming out soon to that will do all the schema you could ever need. It’s incredible. It’s really cool. So we’ll be talking about that and coming weeks as well. So this is just an interim tool. But if you see this is the URL she’s talking about is right here. And by putting in the organization page URL, it’s saying the main entity of page so that’s the scheme of this just so let me show you what I mean. If I cut this out of here, it’s the news article schema.org. But the moment that you put something in for the US field, it brings up this main entity of page type, right? So so that’s why I’m saying it says at the type web page and an @ID. Well, the ID can point back to the organization page, right? Because the organization page and this will break my browser because I’ve got my embedded iframe loop. But what does this ID page have on it? It’s got pretty much all the entity validation for that organization anyways, so that makes sense. It’s got the NAP, the Google Map, embedded websites, social media, perhaps an embedded iframe, if you’ve got that. So my point is, I think that that should absolutely work. Right. What do you think Marco?

Marco: I totally agree.

Bradley: So there you go. That should help you. With that. She says, Brian, actually, let me finish this question and it will jump back to Brian’s question. She says just add quickly, the schema markup generator is also asking for image URL. So far all the images embedded in my PR have been hosted by press advantage. So I’m not sure how the press advantage image URL would get added into the PR schema. Either since the hosted image URL does not yet exist, and schema code has been submitted to press advantage before they publish the PR IC press advantage just released a feature to allow external image URLs to be added. So is that the only way? That’s a good question? I would if you have, I know with the external image.

Yeah, you could do it that way. So if you have the image hosted somewhere else, and you give them the URL for that way, then you could use that same image there. Typically the way that my blogger does all the press releases for my clients, or for my own projects is we publish a blog post first, right and then we use the press event press advantage of press releases, to promote blog posts.

That gives us the and we also usually do a GMB post, for example, so we kind of create, you know, like co-citation between a press release or press releases, blog posts, which isn’t a deep link, right, and then in turn a deep internal link from the website as well as GMB post. And that’s what we link to. So the URL of the image can be pulled from the blog post, right? So like the hosted URL image from the blog post, we can use that for example. So that’s typically how we do it if you’re trying to use you know, you could also pull an image from Google Maps listing, for example, right? So for example, if you have if you’ve uploaded a photo like I’m just assuming that it’s if it’s for local, let’s just put it that way. You could upload a photo to Google Photos for the GMB right so in the GMB as a photo and then you could go pull the chair URL from that photo and use that right if it’s the same image that’s going to be in the press release. Anyways, one word of caution.

Don’t like if you’re going to provide the image to press advantage already hosted, make sure it’s sized properly. So in other words, if you if you’ve got a big image somewhere that you’ve uploaded to WordPress, or to Google Photos for the gym before GMB, for example, or even just flat out Google Photos, if it’s a large image, what happens is, and I know this, because I just tested this, the image will come out as large as whatever the original file size is when it gets published, as in the press release. So sometimes the image like bleeds way outside the actual content body of the press release because it’s so big. So just keep in mind that you want to resize those images to I typically don’t like them to be any wider than 600 pixels, maybe 650 pixels, so that it will fit nicely inside the PR it doesn’t get you to know, bleed outside of that. Do you see any problems with that Marco?

Marco: Not me. This is another question that has me a little confused because it like a PR doesn’t sit in a bubble. You’re getting, you’re going to syndicate information because as I said, you’re going to produce news or information about something else. Something else that that should have images that should have CTA, that should have video just whatever like like a post right, a GMB post. It has a URL, the image will have a URL, everything has a URL. And and so if the image URL that you can use is one of those, since it belongs to your entity anyway, it’s yours, Google will know that all of these little associations that you can make are, what cinch everything and it’s something that I’m testing right now that’s something really intricate, but it works really well once it’s set up then and then you just push go. I mean, it just does a great job of pushing everything into the three-pack and the way that that’s done is by creating you know, as you said, all of this co-occurrence and all of this, these co-citations. These are naked URLs and just URLs in the text without even getting LinkedIn, that’d be those account, believe it or not. And again, if it’s from a post then that post image has a URL, yeah, if it’s me, then that image should have a URL, or it should be uploaded to Google. So that you get the Google URL in there, or the Google Photos URL, whatever, if your Facebook, if you have an image on Facebook, you could use that because it’s yours. Anything and everything that you can do to promote your brand are what you should be doing.

Bradley: Right. And that’s what so so this is why I wanted to demonstrate this. So that’s the image URL here. Now, if you take a look, this is the press of publish press event or excuse me, press release. That has I used the self-hosted image, right. So in other words, I provided an image URL for the press for press advantage to us. Now here it looks fine. But when it’s republished on some of the other sites that you know, some of the other media sites, it’s a big image that bleeds over. And it might not be this press version, this might be one of the other ones, but it bleeds way outside of the actual, you know, text area. So that’s why I recommend that you resize it. But if you take a look, if I right-click on this and say copy image address, this is the image address right here. If you take a look, I know it’s probably small, but that’s my alpha land realty dot sales site, which is the site that I use for selling the properties that I have for sale. So this is a self-hosted image on my selling site, that I provided that URL press advantage to embed into the press release. Does that make sense? So I didn’t upload this image to press an advantage. I provided them with the already hosted image URL, which then they inserted into the press release. So that right there is the same URL that I could add right here. If I was going to be promoting that particular press release, excuse me, writing the news article schema for that particular press release. That makes sense. So and again, I like doing that because if now that image URL, it once again, it’s referencing another one of our entity assets. That makes sense. So that’s how you resolve those.

How Many Articles A Weekly Should You Post In A GMB Page?

Brian PA it is Brian friends. Okay, awesome. What’s up, Brian? He says, How many articles a week should you post to your GMB? Well, it depends. I think more equals better, but it really depends on you know what the competition’s doing. It also depends on the industry. I can only say that more equals better. So, you know, for a lot of clients we posting we’re posting daily. Some clients were posting twice daily, some clients were only posting two or three times per week. It just depends. You know, if nobody else in the industry and competitors are posting but or they’re posting very, very rarely. So infrequently which is what you will notice unless somebody is running. A lot of times you’ll see, especially in the contracting industries, you’ll see that they’ll post but it’ll only be, you know, haphazardly. It’s not a consistent schedule. So if as long as you are posting regularly, a lot of times, that’s all it will take to get better results. But I think more equals better, let’s say any of you.

Marco: I say you should post as many times as it takes. But if it takes once a week, then that’s all you need to rank it then. I mean, that’s fine. But again, as Bradley said, keep that consistency. If it takes five posts a day, then that’s what it takes. And then so you’ll be needing 25 posts, or it’ll be 35 posts per week or 25 to 35 posts per week. It just it as Bradley said it depends on a percentage basis, what the competition is doing. And you know what Google wants to be fed.

Yeah, so his next question is, how long should it be? Well, they should only hold 1500 characters. So if the article, the GMB posts themselves, how many words should these posts be? It’s not as I don’t care about how many words they are, I mean, you can have up to 1500 characters and a GMB post. So that’s the limit. So, typically what we do is we have what depends but if we’re if we’re publishing up, GMB post, it’s talking about a blog post, which is what we do a lot. We’ll just grab the first paragraph or a relevant paragraph from the blog post itself and use that in the GMB post but that we always include a call to action, a primary keyword that we’re trying to target, a location modifier of some sort and a call to action, which allows us to squeeze name, address or phone number usually it’s not the address because most of the clients I do we you know, I service or service area businesses, so it’s usually the name or the phone number. And then we always link back to either a previous post, if it’s a siloed, GMB posts, we link to the previous GMB post URL or an in with the button, we link to either the blog post, if that’s what we’re actually, you know, pointing to, or referencing, or will link to one of the entity assets. And a lot. And what I do with my VA is, is they’ll have my bloggers will just have on the spreadsheet, the client spreadsheet, there will be a target URLs list, which will have all of the Top Tier or Tier One branded entity assets that we want to link to and they’ll cycle through it. So in other words, you know, for example, if we’ve got a client that we’re posting Monday through Friday, once per day, then that client might only be getting one blog posts per week. So one of those GMB posts for the week will actually link back directly to that blog post and it will have a paragraph or so pulled out of that along with the call to action and such but then the rest of the post during the week.

My VA is really good because they’ve just, you know, they’ve been doing it for so long of just finding something to write about from the website, and then just kind of rewarding it and turning it into a call to action of some sort. And then linking back to, like I said, with the button URL back to one of those branded entity assets and them just kind of cycle through them. Top Level citations, press, you know, media room type pages, drive stack, specifically the G site, really the GMB map URL, the GMB website, money site, inner pages of the money site, all of those, they just get linked to kind of a rotation so that there’s constantly links going from GMB back to branded entity assets and it kind of help to just reinforce that whole footprint if that’s if that makes sense. Okay.

Is It Okay To Use The Content Of A Drive Folder To Others?

Austin Don says with stacks drive folders, let’s say I have one for service, Round Rock. Okay, would it be alright to copy that Drive folder and use for other cities service whatever Ville and just change the city modifier on the content or should new content be used for drive stacks, you can just change your city modifier is but also make sure you’re changing the target URLs that you’re linking from or linking to from within those files. Right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, there’s some editing that needs to be done. You can’t just change that. And then think that it’s all over. Again. There are some files in there that have some heavy links that have to go in and have to be modified, correct? Yeah, so I’m saying you want to change your target URLs. So the best idea would be to have you know, a page or post on your money site that is optimized for that particular location for that service and location or services and location, and then change. When you’re when you clone the file, the folders the folder and files for that, you know, for that business or that that project. Then you change all the keywords the location modifier is out to whatever new location you want to make sure that you’re editing those target URLs from within the files to point to that location-specific page or post. So it makes sense. So,

What Is The Ideal Number Of Keywords For A GMB Post Be?

uh, Brian says using only one keyword per post or should you try to get two keywords in it? Well, I always have my bloggers are trying to target one primary keyword, but there are usually variations they get worked into it anyways, does that make sense? Remember, if you’ve got things siloed correctly, you’re going to have related keywords anyways. From you know, within the silo on the website or from the GMB post because we siloed those together or both, right. So it usually there’s the primary keyword that we’re trying to target with each post, but there’s a there’s obviously going to be you know, variants clips, so closely related or LSA type keywords that also work, you know, in part of it, it’s just because it’s natural, and we don’t write for SEO anymore, right? I mean, yes, we still try to target one keyword or so as a primary keyword. But our, my writers don’t aren’t trained to write for SEO really, they’re just trained to, they know what like to link properly. But we don’t have to write for SEO so much anymore because of structured data. And because Google’s algorithm just understands natural language patterns so much more. So what would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, this is this is where siloed and the way that we do our posts comes in really handy, right, because you’ll have a set of keywords that you’re targeting, which are actually trying to push up the top-level category, which Jeffrey teaches in his SEO boot camp. So our ultimate goal is to push up or work from the top for that for the top-level category. And that’s the main keyword. So any keywords that are relevant to that main category, and any LSA or in any other keywords that Google deems relevant, need to be worked in there, somehow?

As long as you’re also thinking about the person that’s trying to read that post, and you’re trying to convert the person that’s reading the post, because that’s the ultimate goal, if you can get a person to click on it, the likelihood of them becoming a client or ending up paying either your client or you, it’s really high because these are, the people are hot, the hot buyers, they’re calling you for a reason. They’re filling out that form for a reason. They’re visiting your website for a reason. So that’s hot, and you need to keep that person hot. You don’t want them to go to whatever it is where you haven’t clicked and cooled off. So they have to be worked in so so that you’re talking to that pain, and you’re solving whatever that pain is, you have to work that in so so that so they find a solution to whatever problem that it is that they had that made them go look for you or your niche in the first place.

Bradley: So because we don’t have a lot of questions left, we’ll wrap it up a few minutes early guys, unless you post some questions. I’ll get another question in there. Okay, I was going to share some other stuff. But we

Hernan: just want to say real quick Bradley data, which is put together a short link, if you want, if you guys want to get access to the branding course of Brandon’s going to put it together, it’s semanticmastery.com/branding. So that is semanticmastery.com/branding. And you will be able to access that course for only 97 bucks instead of 300 bucks, which is going to be the end and you know, the final price for it. So semanticmastery.com/branding, which is put that together, boom.

How Often Should We Order Link Packages To The Drive Stacks/GSites?

Okay, Austin says how often should we order link packages to the drive stacks g sites? Well, that’s up to you how as often as you need, I recommend that you alternate between embeds and link building packages. And remember when you buy embeds, you can also build by as an upsell. Link Building packages or is like a second-tier two that were linked link building to the actual embeds that’s very powerful too. I like to do things in cycles or stages. So maybe I’ll have a link building package done to my entity assets, my SEO shield, so to speak, one month, and then the next month, it’ll be an embed gig. And then the next month, it’ll be, you know, another link building package to syndication network, for example, or something like that. It’s just a way to stagger it out. So I just kind of work that stuff into my monthly retainer for clients so that I know that that’s going to be stuff that’s ongoing, it gets done on a monthly, you know, monthly basis. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the same targets every month. You can kind of just cycle through that. Okay.

Marco: Yeah, so no, don’t hit the home page every month, right with a million links. That’s not going to help. So if if you gave you drip them out, like during the month, which Dadea is really good at drip, feeding, everything, dripping everything out the way that you should set it looks more natural and every month as Bradley said, You choose a different target so that you’re also targeting your tier one branded directly. Instead of just through the drive second Gsite, all of that, your posts your we’ve shared during Hump Day Hangouts, I don’t know how many different URL targets that you can use for your link building campaign. And it all filters through to the same place, which is your again, and you know, you’re going to get sick of me saying this, but the entity, it all filters out to what it is that you’re trying to build, which is that the final piece of the puzzle, which is that entity was really really matters.

Bradley: Yeah, that’s why I was getting ready to show. You know, when I talked about for GMB posts, for example, my bloggers have a list of target URLs that they just kind of cycle through that they including the button links Now, as I said, if it’s a GMB post that is specifically promoting a blog post on the site, then on from the money site, then that GMB post or a button URL ends up pointing back to that specific blog post. But for most of the general posts, then it will link back to just one of the branded assets, the entity assets. Right? So that would be a tier-one asset. So which one should you link to? Well, all of them, but if you want our link to just the ones that are deemed the most powerful or the most relevant for the brand, it’s very simple. Just go do a brand search if it’s for a company, like a local business that has a name that is ambiguously aided right, so a name that is maybe coming up like a lot. I know a lot of local contractors, for example, will have names that are very generic, like whatever service plus city or city whatever service so it’s very difficult to create a brand around that. Now it is so one of the ways that you can get and I’ve shown this before and maybe I’ll show it with what we’ll do another will do two examples real quick.

Alpha land realty has got a strong brand. Now I’ve been because I’ve been working on the entity for this for quite some time without doing a lot of SEO work. It’s just been mainly entity work. And you can take a look, this is my real estate business, you can see that if I just do search for alpha land Realty, all of the entire first pages is taken up by all of my by entity assets of mine, right, or press releases that mentioned the brand. But something by the way that just popped up recently, I thought this was very, very powerful. This is really cool. This is apollo.io, which is like a kind of like a sales contacting prospecting type service. I know because I saw I just saw this pop-up yesterday in my brand search. And I went and signed up for it because I thought I could go in and edit this profile. And you can’t, this was auto automatically generated by apollo.io. But it’s very powerful because it popped right up on page one, like out of the blue. I’ve never even heard of it. And so I did sign up for it to try to see if I could edit this stuff. But what it did was it pulled in all of these entity assets.

I didn’t create this page by the way like this, what I’m saying this just out of the blue popped up and it’s got my website URL, it’s got my name, it’s got a description that it’s pulled from somewhere. It’s got my Facebook page, Twitter Linkedin page, and it’s even got an alexa.com site info page. So somehow apollo.io is tied into Alexa, which I believe is an Amazon company. But it also pulls from Crunchbase which I think is also where got some of this information. So by the way, that’s one of the ones I want to point out Crunchbase calm guys is super, super powerful. It’s, it’s, it’s an entity database, right or a Semantic database. So you can go in and set up a Crunchbase profile and put in all kinds of like set up an organization and add a ton of information to it. And it’s very, very powerful. So I would highly recommend that you set up Crunchbase but from here, I could just go through and start pulling out from the top two or three pages, all the URLs that are branded entity at sets, right so, and put those into a target URL list that you would want to cycle through from GMB posts, you can use that for deep links for other stuff, guys, you can link to them from press releases, you can link to them from blog posts, all of that kind of stuff, right? So you can just go through here and for example, like here’s my Tumblr page for whatever reason is so powerful. This is from my syndication network and keeps showing up on page one and has been for four months, even though I really don’t even publish to it.

If we go back to page two will see that we’ve got, you know, USA Today, that’s a press release Twitter’s popping up even though I don’t really tweet. Another one is let’s see Crunchbase I was just talking about this one. And this is actually tech check this out. This is the Crunchbase you can add press releases to your Crunchbase Company Profile. And so if you take a look, this is just referencing alpha land realty launches website for Virginia property owners. It’s a press advantage. That’s the press advantage URL right there, right so you can actually add press releases to Crunchbase, which is very, very powerful, and then that Crunchbase URL will index in rank, even though it’s, it’s it’s pushing to, it’s crazy. all it’s doing is linking to a press release, but that Crunchbase URL will rank. Take a look at this Pocket. This hasn’t been posted to since it was set up. It’s just a Pocket profile. But it’s still ranking, right? It’s ranking on the top two pages is another one of my entity assets. So all of these things can just go into an actual target URL list. So it makes sense. And these are all things that could also be linked you could for the question that was just asked about how often should you order link building packages, all of these can become target URLs. Something else we’ve talked about is let’s just do a quick search will do.

Let’s do something I’m not in a city. I’m not in this a Tree Service, Richmond, VA. We use this as an example. Alright, so we’ll come down here we’ll look at let’s see true. I want to see a good Davy Davy in Richmond, Virginia. That’s a good one there. Let’s take a look at that. It’s also it looks like it’s showing up here in maps. So we’ll click through for maps. And we also kind of want to hold on lead back up for a minute. I also want to click through to Yelp. And I want to show you guys something. We’ve talked about this in the past, but I’ll, I’ll point this out again. Alright, so if we’re looking at, let’s actually grab the name.

Let’s do this. Back up for a minute. We might have been able to do it from there. Hold on a minute. Let’s try. Let’s try that real quick.

We click through to here to photos, okay, yeah, we can. Okay. So remember, you can also for your link building projects, you can also grab, obviously, we’re going to grab the map URL, remember not to use the share map URL, by the way, guys.

Let me back up for one more minute. And actually, we’ll just go. We’ll do this. I want to give you guys a couple of things real quick. So we’ll go to. Alright, so a couple of things here. There is a great website. It’s really simple and easy to use. Go to Google My Business. It’s called GMB dot reviews maker calm. I’ve talked about this in the past, go to this page right here, click the code place Id go grab the long, ugly maps URL for an entity for a brand, right? That’s a verified Google My Business has a verified Google My Business, excuse me, click through to the actual website that was photos. Let me back up for a minute. It’s not showing the map. Here we go. Click through to the actual map URL, see if we can do that.

And it’s not giving me the map URL that I wanted. But all you gotta do is grab the long map URL guys, the big ugly one for when you do a brand search and you click through from the knowledge panel on the little map icon, click through and then copy that big long, ugly URL. And you’ll paste it into there and decode it and give you a maps URL that is the best URL to use. It still needs to be edited slightly. I’ll show you the right way to do it. Let’s see, click through we just use alpha land realty is an example. So you see I click through to the actual map and this big, long, ugly URL right here, Copy that. Go over to the GMB maps, excuse me, GMB reviews maker calm, click the code place ID paste this in here, click the decode place ID button will take a second. Then scroll down and right here where it says your maps URL you want to copy that link address will put this in a notepad file. And then what you want to do is change that URL from this where it says maps is the subdomain change that to dub dub dub so www.google.com and input maps after the first forward slash before the question mark. Right now that right there is the best URL to build links to for your maps listing. Because it’s not a redirect, it’s a straight URL.

Okay, so that so that’s a really good URL to use. However, here are some other things that you can link build to. So we know that Davie Tree Service is one of the Richmond Tree Service, Richmond, VA, whatever that was the keyword I searched? Well, if we click through to the maps listing, like what you see here, look at all these different photos. All these photos have different URLs, guys if we click every photo is going to give you a different URL. So each one of those could also be used as additional link targets. Right? You could actually put those through one of your own shorteners, or use a shortener that’s a 301 redirect, so you can print them up. And then you can create a target URL list of all the different images within the Google My Business profile. Does that make sense? Something else you could do is you could click on the actual reviews. So these reviews share, if you can click through from the actual brand. So let’s go back to here for a minute. Let’s just pick another one because that one’s not it’s got multiple locations and it’s hard to pull up one specific one, we pull up, let’s say ridge line Tree Service. Let’s try that one.

And then I know we got to wrap it up in just a minute, guys. Okay, see how rich live Tree Service popped up. So if we click through to the map icon, this is going to take us to this specific map listing. Okay, then from here, right here, where it says reviews, the 11 reviews on this case, I could click on that. That’s a unique URL, right? So you can add that to your target URL list. Also, each one of these individual reviews, take a look at it has a share URL, you can click on that and use that share URL. However, if you take a look at that URL, it’s a redirect, but I don’t care. I’ll still build links to it. Does that make sense? So my point is, you can grab these, each one of these individuals share URLs and link to those also. So it makes sense. So each one of those photos can have its own URL. We talked about doing it with Yelp, if we were to find, see if we can find ridge line or we’re just talking about baby tree expert companies, let’s go into there, we click into their we’ve talked about this in the past guys, Yelp, grab that URL, put that in your list, click into photos, each one of these photos now has a different URL, grab all those photos, put those in. And those are all Yelp targets. Now, you can close out of that, you can also go down if they have reviews, and you can link to the reviews. See also share a review. So you can actually grab that URL and put that share, review share URL into your target list. One more thing, click rights, right-click view page source and scroll down. All of a sudden look at these guys, these are all can language canonical is essentially CL says link rel=canonical. And all of these other URLs are for the Yelp on all the different language versions of the Yelp site that all canonical eyes to this primary English version, right, which is the US version and each one of those URLs can go into a target list. So there’s no shortage of links that you can add to link building campaigns, as long as they’re not direct to your money site is what we suggest. You want to comment on that at all Marco.

Marco: No, that was perfect.

Bradley: Okay, cool. Alright, we’ve got about three minutes. I think we’ve just got a couple more that popped up.

What Video Should You Embed In A Press Release?

So Katie says thanks for the PR schema reply of something else I’m thinking about I’m a publishing press release about each blog post and want to incorporate video into the mix. Now that press advantage offers video embeds. Using the content of articles and press releases, I create a YouTube video of each post NPR from the videos created using my blog content I created a YouTube playlist that mirrors my blog siloed There you go, Katie, now you’re getting it and embedded these into the corresponding blog posts from the videos created by the way, why not embed the playlist? Right, embed the playlist into each blog post within the same silo so the playlist is a silo and you’ve got a silo on your blog.

Now you can embed the actual playlist with the specific video that matches with matches up or corresponds with that particular blog post as the top video in the playlist. Does that make sense? So instead of just embedding the specific video, you can embed the whole playlist. So now you’ve got a playlist silo embedded in a silo. So it makes sense. It’s very, very powerful to do that. So you’re onto something there. Very good. She says from the video is created using my PR content, I created a second YouTube playlist that mirrors my PR stack. She’s she, Katie must been following Semantic Mastery for a minute. Which videos best to embed in the press release the video from the blog post or the video about the press release itself that promotes the blog post? Or does it matter? It really shouldn’t matter? In fact, it’s probably a little bit of overkill to have two separate YouTube playlists. You know you could though I don’t I mean, I just honestly I think that’s probably a little bit more work than you need because you could probably accomplish everything within one siloed playlist that’s mirroring the same keywords that you’re targeting in both the blog post and the PR. That makes sense because you could reduce your workload a little bit, I think by just having one playlist that’s mirroring the same keywords that are mirrored from your blog post to your PRs. If that makes sense. And then I would for the, for the press releases, I would take you, I don’t think you can embed a playlist. But I know you can have the individual excuse me video URL for that specific that you know, that corresponds with that PR plus post, embed that into the plane, the press release, excuse me, but I would use the playlist embed code with the hack to where you can change the video ID to the video ID of that that corresponds with that post to be the top video in the playlist. And I would use the video and the playlist embed code in that in the blog post itself. That now you have a silo embedded in a silo if that makes sense. That’s pretty powerful stuff. So

Does The Battle Plan Provide Steps On How To Optimize A New Lead Gen Site?

last question and I gotta wrap it up. I just created another brand new lead gen site. Does the battle plan give me steps to optimize the SM way? Of course, it does. Nathan. That’s exactly what it was created for. Yeah, but it’s no different. New did not the steps are the same. It’s a couple of things that might be different.

Marco: But the steps that you need to take are practically the same. By the way, before we go. I’ll be starting my charity webinar series. The first week of December probably. And I can’t remember when you have your webinar. The next one for you. Do we have another one? Do we have another webinar coming up?

Bradley: Yeah, we’ve got on we’ve got Monday for the start of the branding course which will be about YouTube ads. And on December 9, Monday, December 9 is the display ads Google display ads.

Marco: So Monday the 25th or December’s ok so the 25th and then

Bradley: Monday, December 9, right?

Marco: Okay, so I’ll be starting mine, Monday, December 2 guys, everything about work, BERT entities, everything you want to know to rank into 2020 and well beyond. I told you in 2014 2015 what was going on and where this was going, and here we are, this is 2015 you should have been there. If you’re not, then come to these webinars because I’ll tell you from 2020 2025 MB on what’s happening and what you need to do. And all it’s going to take is a donation to the charity all the money goes to kids who need an education. So it’s for a good cause. That’s why I’m giving you raw business. It’s what’s going to happen and why.

There you go. Alright, thanks for everybody being here. We’ll see you guys next week. Hey guys, semanticmastery.com/branding and forget to awesome thanks, guys.

  Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263

Click on the video above to watch Episode 263 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

Adam: Cool! Everybody welcome to Hump Day hangouts today is the 20th of November 2019. And we are staring down the craziness that is Black Friday and all that that entails. We've got some our own version of Black Friday fun, but it's not going to involve buying anything but we'll get to that in a minute. Real quick. Let's say hi to everyone and then we got those announcements and some other good stuff. So start on my side here Bradley, what are you up to man?

Bradley: Good man. Happy to be here. It's a week from Thanksgiving so kind of excited about that. It's one of my favorite holidays.

Adam: Amen. Yeah, it's definitely switched. I mean, you know, as a kid, not surprised. You know, Christmas was super fun. Like, yay, now it's just like, Oh, God, I love Thanksgiving.

Bradley: So I want the food. Yeah.

Adam: Awesome. Uh, Hernan, I think you're there somewhere. How's it going, man?

Hernan: Hey, everybody. Oh, hey, guys, what's up everybody? So look at this beauty. Look at this. So this is something that Dadea brought to us on POFU Live 2019 has been awesome. So thank you, thank you for that, you know, you know what day it is. So what's everybody so really happy to be here excited for what's coming. Excited for the stuff that we have in the pipeline. So overall excited to be back in Buenos Aires.

Adam: Outstanding good stuff, Chris, how about you?

Chris: doing good as usual. It's a bit rainy here. But other than that the weather is good. Yeah, I'm not excited about Christmas either, like not sure what to say?

Adam: Well, maybe it just means like, what more snowy conditions so you can go snowboarding.

Chris: Yeah, like I'm actually planning to take like, a week off right before Christmas. And to resolve the internet and relax a bit without electronics.

Adam: So what do you do without the internet? What do you mean? Come to get like what are you supposed to do?

  Chris: There is life outside as well you don't have to constantly be plugged into the whole thing was a cable. Like a simple snowboarding skiing, I don't know to enjoy it in the spa or I don't know like chase some girls will see

Adam: it sounds good. And you know we always talk about the weather before Marco. so, Marco, This is the natural lead and man what's the weather like down in Costa Rica?

Marco: Life without the internet? Did somebody say that even? Nah man life's good been having construction that just got done. I had to redo our master bathroom. That's done. They were jackhammering all day yesterday. It was horrible. I couldn't think I couldn't go and mess with BERT yesterday. But I've been at it all morning. If you can't remember that you cannot optimize for BERT. That's what Google said. Remember those famous last words you cannot optimize? Because I got BERT by the balls, I got BERT.

Bradley: You've got BERT's balls. You go.

Adam: So you know, maybe I'm out of a loop to is there or is there going to be an ERNIE e update of some sort? Because that would really just be the best thing ever if we had for an Ernie so

Marco: doesn't there's already an Elmo Damn it.

Bradley: I can see the next Semantic Mastery training product Bert by the balls.

Marco: Well, I actually I'm already coming up with the BERT Buster, balls fit somewhere in there.

Adam: Oh man. Well, Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here. If this is your first time watching, this is the Semantic Mastery and we're here to answer your digital marketing questions and talk about some other stuff as well. So you're in the right place. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you head over to semanticmastery.cm/hdquestions. That's where you can actually ask your questions. We don't actively monitor the chat for youtube so you need to be there and you can also ask your questions at Semantic Mastery com slash HT questions ahead of time and we will answer them and they can go back if you need to and check it out on YouTube. After that, the second most asked question we get is where should I start with Semantic Mastery and we ought The answer is always sorry for Hernan's typing some funny stuff. We always tell people to go get the Battle Plan All right, I'm not gonna read it to you but go check it out battleplan.semanticmastery.com, repeatable process, stuff for age domains, new domains, YouTube channels, whatever it is, that's your place to start. And then if you've already got clients and you're wondering what's next, how do I grow? What should I be doing? How do I grow my business? Where's the network of people I can do this with then you belong in our mastermind, and head over to mastermind.semanticmastery.com and we will help you grow. And last but not least, if you want to save time and money, we recommend this not only to our members, to our subscribers, its services we use ourselves. It's mgyb.co getting stuff done for yourself whether it's syndication or getting done for yourself, getting things done. So you don't have to things like syndication networks are we as drive stacks, press releases all that sort of good stuff. We got a couple more announcements or not, I believe there was something like a Facebook post about something that you did today.

Hernan: Yeah, there was a Facebook post about something. That is correct. So the deal is that our main man Bradley, putting together a branding course. And it's going to be on YouTube and the Google Display Network. And why is important to brand yourself as not only as an agency but also as an agency owner. We talked a little bit about this in POFU Live 2019. And yes,

Bradley: and the training can be applied to setting up branding campaigns for clients. And it's also for using Google Display Network and YouTube to drive traffic into the SEO assets that we set to kind of help fire up all the SEO work by delivering ART – activity, relevance, trust, and authority.

Hernan: So there you go. So there's a lot of levels to this

Marco: and, and guess what the BERT update is about?

Bradley: exactly that.

Hernan: There you go. Alright. So as you can see, there's a lot of levels to this. You can use it to their clients, you can use it to service your clients better upsell your clients into additional services, you can use it to rank your websites. I mean, there's a lot of stuff. I mostly, you know, focus on getting more clients and get clients paying you more money. So that's what's exciting about the course is going to be recorded and it's gonna be recorded live and it's going to be for the time being over the next two to three days come to be only $97. Once that's done, it's going to be packaged and we sold for $300. So if you want to get if you want to pay like 30% of the price you want to get like a 70% discount. Do we have a link somewhere that we can push people to that we can show people?

Adam: definitely it is on the page. And you know, odds are if you're watching the replay, it might not be available at that price. But you can always come to semanticmastery.com/hdquestions in the comments and you'll find a link right there. There you go. Awesome. Good stuff. And last but not least, I wanted to mention to everyone, you know, I teased a little bit at the intro to the show. We are of course doing something for Black Friday. Keep your eyes peeled for some emails. We really did want to give you guys some good content. We're putting out some previously unreleased training. And it's just going to be you've got to answer one question. There's no opt-in. We want to make sure that you want to get it though. All you have to do is watch out for the emails, look out for the Facebook posts and leading up to actual Black Friday. We're just going to have that content there. We want to help you out you know there's a lot of all stuff going on, there's a lot of extra bs going on, you know, during the weeks leading up to Black Friday. So take a look at this stuff, learn and then act on that, right. And we're going to have a big black Friday sale going on afterward, where you can get the additional training if you want it or need it so that you can act and get results from that. So that's the big thing going on next week. Keep your eyes peeled again for emails and Facebook posts. It's going to be super, super. So with that said, you guys anything last minute before we dive into questions.

Bradley: I don't have anything.

Adam: All right, anybody else? Let's get to it.

Bradley: Alright, cool. We've got just a few questions so far. So hopefully you guys will come in and post some more else. We can wrap it up early. I've got plenty of work to do. Anyways, let me grab the screen first. I can find it. Still not 100% comfortable using zoom yet. All right, you guys should you see my screen. By the way, I've just got to point this out. This is really cool because besides it is just a goofy photo that is nondead if you take a look in the background of this photo, you can see the backside of Hernan also flicking us off. And it's kind of like a mirror and mirror because even further and there's another picture of it. So it's like one of those iframe loops that we do. It's pretty. It's pretty cool. Anyways,

How To Add Clickable CTAs To A YouTube Video?

alright, so to get to the first question, it looks like it came from Greg, Greg's First up, he says, How exactly do you add clickable CTA is to a video on YouTube. So those are call to actions. Sorry for the beginner question but other than a link in the description, I have no idea. Are there cards or annotations are clickable buttons that can be added to a video. Yeah, that's what cards are for.

Also, if you're running ads, you can obviously run it, put click clickable links within the ad itself, but you're just talking about for organic videos, you know, regularly, you know, for videos that people find on YouTube organically or in Google search, then it's going to be using cards. He says, I will be using a video to link to my Amazon store, and I hope to add a couple of links during the middle part of the video. How do I use and do? How do I use? And how do I do that? Again, it's just cards. So Greg, just goes to Google and search or, or YouTube and search for how to add YouTube cards. And you'll see plenty of tutorials out there that will show you exactly how to do it, it's easy to do. And you can place cards that very specific parts within the content within the video itself. So you can you know, put them at certain intervals or whatever. Keep in mind though, in order to be able to link to an external website, you have to have a site that you ca it's called an associated website, you have to validate that you have ownership of that site or at least some sort of like webmaster control of that, so I don't think you can link directly to Amazon. But what you could do is a link to like an Amazon product review site that you own.

Something typically the way that you would do it is you would add the site to Search Console, within the same Google account is your YouTube account. And if you do that, then you can add that let that your URL, the web page that you want to link out to as an associated website, and then you can link to it right. So you can do that by on a domain level, or even on a web page level. So but again, you have to have webmaster control, essentially, of the site, whether you're the owner or you have access to it so that you can link those two accounts. You can't just link externally from a YouTube video to like an Amazon store that I'm aware of, because you have to have access to that site as a webmaster or ownership of the site if that makes sense. Does anybody have any other is that is there anything to do to dispute what I just said?

Hernan: No, I think that's the way it is because annotations are not a thing anymore. So So yeah, cards. So you have n cards and you have annotations, but yeah, basically that's going to be the

Bradley: cards and end screens you can do within screens as well cards, or you can kind of space out at certain intervals, or, you know, just put, put them where you want them to show up. And that's where it'll kind of slide out from the top, there'll be I little icon for information. And if you click on it, the card will slide out. And you can link to other videos to playlist your channel. You can link to an external website, like I said, as long as you verify it, so. Okay, just go to Google or YouTube and search for how to add External links with cards and you'll see plenty of tutorials for that.

Adam: Yeah, freeze up. Sorry, somebody says something. Yeah, can you hear real quick, I just want to stay on that? Also, those have generally a pretty low click-through rate. So I would approach this kind of from a different point. Have you not just go into just link to Amazon from there, which might end up actually being a problem, but even if it's not, I would create the videos potentially, you know, make a bridge page in between basically, like, you know, and using some sort of a lead magnet like even if it's not an actual, like a PDF or something like that, but send people to a page to your site for a reason that they want to click through. And then from there, you know, they go to Amazon, where I would definitely do it that way instead of trying to send people directly.

Bradley: Yeah, and here's the thing, if you send people to like a product review page, for example, you know, you could entice them to opt-in for something so that you can build an email list from that traffic, but you can also cookie them right. If you've got remarketing. I mean, you could set up a remarketing list on the video too, by the way, so don't forget about that, Greg. It's really important. remarketing super powerful. We're going to be talking about that in the branding course and, you know, starting on Monday, but you can set up a remarketing list through Google ads for that specific YouTube video. So now you know that anybody watches those videos interested in that product and you can remark it to them via YouTube. But if you drive them to a product review page first where you could entice them to get onto an, you know, opt into some sort of list for some freebie or something now you can email market to them. But even if they don't do that, you can still cookie them and build a remarketing list for Google Display Network ads to which are incredibly inexpensive. And you can kind of follow them around now that you know what products are interested in, you could actually market to that remarketing list with that same product as well as similarly related products if that makes sense. Because you know that they've already expressed an interest or they wouldn't have a click through to your review page. So there's a lot of things that you can do with that, why I would recommend not just using the cards and that's it and you know, you can get better results is what I'm saying. Okay, it's a good question though.

How Do You Create A Clip To An Upcoming Live Event Video?

  Jeffrey's up he says, Hey, guys, I'm publishing a video in two weeks using live events, but I want a smaller version of the same content online right away for other traffic reasons. How can I do that?

Let's see what needs to be different about the DVD as well. If it's, if you're creating a shorter version of it, then it is going to be different, right? So like, what I'm saying is if you already have the video created, and you're just going to live stream it in two weeks, and you want to create a shorter version of it, you know, condense it down, then that's going to be unique video anyways, not only that, but the same video live-streamed twice, is still a unique video, right? Because Google doesn't detect or YouTube doesn't detect. It's when you try to upload the same file twice. Right? But if you're live streaming or pre-recorded video, you could live stream that pre-recorded video to the same channel twice now I don't recommend it because if you know manual review or at work to see it, they could consider that spammy and terminate your channel, right? So I don't you know, I don't recommend doing it. But the fact that you're live-streaming a pre-recorded video makes the file 100% unique to YouTube, right. So

So just keep that in mind. Um, but yeah, if you're going to condense the video like shorten it edited just cut out key parts make like the Reader's Digest version of it so to speak, then yeah, you can just you can live stream that or upload that however you want to do it directly to the channel and then go live stream your pre-recorded video or just, you know, push a true live stream out at the time and two weeks, whatever you want to do it. Okay. And that's all you need to do.

What MGYB Products Should I Use For A Bilingual GMB Page?

Okay, let's see. The next one is Hey guys, I have a potential client that has a GSB profile and website and bilingual language the main domain automatically directs us to the French version. Wow, if we want to read an English version, I assume he's using a subdomain for example. Okay, and Okay, well, that would be a subfolder the way that you have shown But either way, my question is I want to use you're done for you services from MDYV store for the purpose to three map pack. Okay, guess for the purpose of getting into the map pack and Local SEO For French in English. Buying keywords, can you direct me to which projects you do strongly recommend as first priority? Well, we'll do English, but we won't do French correct me if I'm wrong, Marco?

Marco: That's correct. Okay.

Bradley: He says can let's see, I already bought your battle plan version three and also check your MGYB store several times, but I'm last looking at it. I have audited his GMB and around 74% French buying keywords resulting to his map three MGRGMB three map pack and his website on page one. Okay, cool. So he's got he's doing very well where your site the site that you're managing is doing very well in, in in France, but you're also looking to do it in the US I'm assuming or an English see in zero results for English buying keywords, I believe you're done for your services also offer white label services. Well, yeah, I mean, we can do the keyword research in English unless you've already got that done.

Our deep keyword research will give you so many keywords. It's ridiculous. But if you use those keywords along with, you know several of our other packages for example, the embed service is great for GMB. So I'm assuming it's the same GMB but you've just got two versions of the site. Right. And you'd like the GMB to also rank for English search queries, right. So again, I'm just making this assumption because it's not clear to me, if you don't have an English business in the US also, you're trying to rank the same GMB, I'm assuming in France for both English keywords and French keywords. And so hopefully I'm correct and what I'm assuming here, and if that's the case, then yeah, what I would do. Go ahead

Marco: That's a she, she she's in Canada. Okay. So okay. Any French-speaking region of Canada will take the domain that was posted up as a .ca

Bradley: Ok. So for that, I would recommend you know that you would, you would also, like, for example, drive stack would work really good for that for the English buying keywords. And having the deep keyword research done would be all the keywords that would be included in the drive stack. And then from there, you could do embeds and backlinks and use the same keywords that were generated in the keyword report as part of the backlink campaign, all of that so that you can really start to push that relevancy. The other part of it would be you know, obviously, the Google site is part of the drive stack, which would all be done in English. That's going to help to push that English keyword relevancy. What else would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, I'm kind of stuck on this question, because I'm not sure what it is that she's looking to do. I said If so, if you getting 70% of French buying keywords, right, they result in the GMB three-pack and zero results for English keywords and you're looking for everything in English to push up your English rankings. And if you even just link out to the French to relevance that will carry through from the drive stack and Angie site. So you can actually do a two for one and if you take the time to them translate the DR site that we give you the French can even get more power and I'm giving you game right free game that during Hump Day hangouts.

So relevance will carry through English to French French to English, but you can increase the relevance by translating everything that we give you. And that's simple to do once everything is set up. I mean, I would just use Google Translate I know Hernan and I have done that in the past where we've gone and Google Translate and I think we managed to rank in Norway for some shit. I don't speak Norwegian but yeah, it ranked and I ranked in French and I don't speak a word of French but I did I don't know what I was saying. And I don't know if it was right but it ranked. So be I don't see why there would be any problem. Just don't order anything in France because we won't do it. Don't buy any keywords in French. We just won't do it. But you can take whatever we give you. And you're free to add a translation, which again, it adds relevance it there's some trust and authority also in there you can do some canonical wizardry with the English and the French and with alternate languages and a whole bunch of other things that we would only teach you in the mastermind. So I would suggest if you're really looking to take this to the next level, come join the mastermind

Hernan: I would say. sorry Bradley but I would say just to add to what Marco just said, which makes total sense. I was you said maybe like grab your your your main content and have that like grab your main gotten your main content should be able to, to, to rank and convert right that we did those steps back in the day with Marco we were translated some pages and we rank them, you know, was easy, then it was the fact that we had to switch the content for some that would make more sense because we want people at the end of the day we want people like buying our stuff. It was an affiliate website so we want to people you know opting in for the offers but you can do that and then when it comes to like blasting your links or blasting your stuff as a tier two or after you know everything that has to do directly related with your brand, you can go to town with the stuff that I'd seen and that it's in MGYB.co if that makes sense because it doesn't really matter if you have like the little backlinks and English pointing to a website in French at that point so

Bradley: cool.

What URL Should You Input To Get The Schema In TechnicalSEO.com If The PR Link Is Not Yet Published?

Bradley: Katie's up says thanks for helping answer my question last week about PR specific schema I'm still stuck on what URL to enter in the generator on technicalSEO.com If I select article schema, then leave the URL property field blank the schema reports a warning when tested. Yeah, you don't want to leave it blank says I'm worried about causing invigoration and the data so I so just don't want to put the wrong info here, I read that for a schema.org thing like an article, the URL property should always point to the same URL, because everything has exactly one preferred or canonical URL. This makes it sound like the URL I enter into the generator should be the URL of the PR itself, which does not yet exist, which is correct, since press advantage has not yet published it. So do we publish the PR schema that contains the warning? Or do we enter a different URL into the generator? Thanks,

I would just publish with the organization page URL, right? Because that's going to link it's going to basically be pushing back to the Index page, the newsroom the media room, essentially that has all of the articles published on press advantage on your in your organization, right because you're right, you don't have the URL yet. Now maybe that's something that we could find out from we could we could request from Jeremy the developer a press advantage is to display when you order a new PR like when you go to order a new another a new PR that it could display what the URL is going to be for that press release in the editing phase of it or whatever. Because here's the thing, remember, the URL is determined by the title, right? There's a, there's the PR number after press advantage. com slash and it's the actual press release number, I believe for that order. And then after that, it's the slug from the title that's generated from the title. So maybe, and I don't know that this is possible, but you know, it could certainly be asked that that could be like a preview or it could be dynamically inserted after the press release has been initially written. Again, I don't know that that's going to happen. In the meantime, you could just link back unless Marco says that that's wrong, would be to link back to the press advantage organization page. What do you think Marco?

Marco: That's what I would do if the URL is not it is not existent at that point that you have to point to something else or you get that error and but you could always switch that up, can you? I think that

Bradley: Well, no, because once it's published, you can add it to the schema that's added appended to that particular.

Marco: Okay, so yeah, so so we'll have to talk to Jeremy about this and see what we can do. He's really good about fixing this.

Bradley: Yes, very much. So, really good. Very much. So and so here's the news article. schema. Right. And by the way, we're, besides the plugin that I teased last week, we've got another app potentially coming out soon to that will do all the schema you could ever need. It's incredible. It's really cool. So we'll be talking about that and coming weeks as well. So this is just an interim tool. But if you see this is the URL she's talking about is right here. And by putting in the organization page URL, it's saying the main entity of page so that's the scheme of this just so let me show you what I mean. If I cut this out of here, it's the news article schema.org. But the moment that you put something in for the US field, it brings up this main entity of page type, right? So so that's why I'm saying it says at the type web page and an @ID. Well, the ID can point back to the organization page, right? Because the organization page and this will break my browser because I've got my embedded iframe loop. But what does this ID page have on it? It's got pretty much all the entity validation for that organization anyways, so that makes sense. It's got the NAP, the Google Map, embedded websites, social media, perhaps an embedded iframe, if you've got that. So my point is, I think that that should absolutely work. Right. What do you think Marco?

Marco: I totally agree.

Bradley: So there you go. That should help you. With that. She says, Brian, actually, let me finish this question and it will jump back to Brian's question. She says just add quickly, the schema markup generator is also asking for image URL. So far all the images embedded in my PR have been hosted by press advantage. So I'm not sure how the press advantage image URL would get added into the PR schema. Either since the hosted image URL does not yet exist, and schema code has been submitted to press advantage before they publish the PR IC press advantage just released a feature to allow external image URLs to be added. So is that the only way? That's a good question? I would if you have, I know with the external image.

Yeah, you could do it that way. So if you have the image hosted somewhere else, and you give them the URL for that way, then you could use that same image there. Typically the way that my blogger does all the press releases for my clients, or for my own projects is we publish a blog post first, right and then we use the press event press advantage of press releases, to promote blog posts.

That gives us the and we also usually do a GMB post, for example, so we kind of create, you know, like co-citation between a press release or press releases, blog posts, which isn't a deep link, right, and then in turn a deep internal link from the website as well as GMB post. And that's what we link to. So the URL of the image can be pulled from the blog post, right? So like the hosted URL image from the blog post, we can use that for example. So that's typically how we do it if you're trying to use you know, you could also pull an image from Google Maps listing, for example, right? So for example, if you have if you've uploaded a photo like I'm just assuming that it's if it's for local, let's just put it that way. You could upload a photo to Google Photos for the GMB right so in the GMB as a photo and then you could go pull the chair URL from that photo and use that right if it's the same image that's going to be in the press release. Anyways, one word of caution.

Don't like if you're going to provide the image to press advantage already hosted, make sure it's sized properly. So in other words, if you if you've got a big image somewhere that you've uploaded to WordPress, or to Google Photos for the gym before GMB, for example, or even just flat out Google Photos, if it's a large image, what happens is, and I know this, because I just tested this, the image will come out as large as whatever the original file size is when it gets published, as in the press release. So sometimes the image like bleeds way outside the actual content body of the press release because it's so big. So just keep in mind that you want to resize those images to I typically don't like them to be any wider than 600 pixels, maybe 650 pixels, so that it will fit nicely inside the PR it doesn't get you to know, bleed outside of that. Do you see any problems with that Marco?

Marco: Not me. This is another question that has me a little confused because it like a PR doesn't sit in a bubble. You're getting, you're going to syndicate information because as I said, you're going to produce news or information about something else. Something else that that should have images that should have CTA, that should have video just whatever like like a post right, a GMB post. It has a URL, the image will have a URL, everything has a URL. And and so if the image URL that you can use is one of those, since it belongs to your entity anyway, it's yours, Google will know that all of these little associations that you can make are, what cinch everything and it's something that I'm testing right now that's something really intricate, but it works really well once it's set up then and then you just push go. I mean, it just does a great job of pushing everything into the three-pack and the way that that's done is by creating you know, as you said, all of this co-occurrence and all of this, these co-citations. These are naked URLs and just URLs in the text without even getting LinkedIn, that'd be those account, believe it or not. And again, if it's from a post then that post image has a URL, yeah, if it's me, then that image should have a URL, or it should be uploaded to Google. So that you get the Google URL in there, or the Google Photos URL, whatever, if your Facebook, if you have an image on Facebook, you could use that because it's yours. Anything and everything that you can do to promote your brand are what you should be doing.

Bradley: Right. And that's what so so this is why I wanted to demonstrate this. So that's the image URL here. Now, if you take a look, this is the press of publish press event or excuse me, press release. That has I used the self-hosted image, right. So in other words, I provided an image URL for the press for press advantage to us. Now here it looks fine. But when it's republished on some of the other sites that you know, some of the other media sites, it's a big image that bleeds over. And it might not be this press version, this might be one of the other ones, but it bleeds way outside of the actual, you know, text area. So that's why I recommend that you resize it. But if you take a look, if I right-click on this and say copy image address, this is the image address right here. If you take a look, I know it's probably small, but that's my alpha land realty dot sales site, which is the site that I use for selling the properties that I have for sale. So this is a self-hosted image on my selling site, that I provided that URL press advantage to embed into the press release. Does that make sense? So I didn't upload this image to press an advantage. I provided them with the already hosted image URL, which then they inserted into the press release. So that right there is the same URL that I could add right here. If I was going to be promoting that particular press release, excuse me, writing the news article schema for that particular press release. That makes sense. So and again, I like doing that because if now that image URL, it once again, it's referencing another one of our entity assets. That makes sense. So that's how you resolve those.

How Many Articles A Weekly Should You Post In A GMB Page?

Brian PA it is Brian friends. Okay, awesome. What's up, Brian? He says, How many articles a week should you post to your GMB? Well, it depends. I think more equals better, but it really depends on you know what the competition's doing. It also depends on the industry. I can only say that more equals better. So, you know, for a lot of clients we posting we're posting daily. Some clients were posting twice daily, some clients were only posting two or three times per week. It just depends. You know, if nobody else in the industry and competitors are posting but or they're posting very, very rarely. So infrequently which is what you will notice unless somebody is running. A lot of times you'll see, especially in the contracting industries, you'll see that they'll post but it'll only be, you know, haphazardly. It's not a consistent schedule. So if as long as you are posting regularly, a lot of times, that's all it will take to get better results. But I think more equals better, let's say any of you.

Marco: I say you should post as many times as it takes. But if it takes once a week, then that's all you need to rank it then. I mean, that's fine. But again, as Bradley said, keep that consistency. If it takes five posts a day, then that's what it takes. And then so you'll be needing 25 posts, or it'll be 35 posts per week or 25 to 35 posts per week. It just it as Bradley said it depends on a percentage basis, what the competition is doing. And you know what Google wants to be fed.

Yeah, so his next question is, how long should it be? Well, they should only hold 1500 characters. So if the article, the GMB posts themselves, how many words should these posts be? It's not as I don't care about how many words they are, I mean, you can have up to 1500 characters and a GMB post. So that's the limit. So, typically what we do is we have what depends but if we're if we're publishing up, GMB post, it's talking about a blog post, which is what we do a lot. We'll just grab the first paragraph or a relevant paragraph from the blog post itself and use that in the GMB post but that we always include a call to action, a primary keyword that we're trying to target, a location modifier of some sort and a call to action, which allows us to squeeze name, address or phone number usually it's not the address because most of the clients I do we you know, I service or service area businesses, so it's usually the name or the phone number. And then we always link back to either a previous post, if it's a siloed, GMB posts, we link to the previous GMB post URL or an in with the button, we link to either the blog post, if that's what we're actually, you know, pointing to, or referencing, or will link to one of the entity assets. And a lot. And what I do with my VA is, is they'll have my bloggers will just have on the spreadsheet, the client spreadsheet, there will be a target URLs list, which will have all of the Top Tier or Tier One branded entity assets that we want to link to and they'll cycle through it. So in other words, you know, for example, if we've got a client that we're posting Monday through Friday, once per day, then that client might only be getting one blog posts per week. So one of those GMB posts for the week will actually link back directly to that blog post and it will have a paragraph or so pulled out of that along with the call to action and such but then the rest of the post during the week.

My VA is really good because they've just, you know, they've been doing it for so long of just finding something to write about from the website, and then just kind of rewarding it and turning it into a call to action of some sort. And then linking back to, like I said, with the button URL back to one of those branded entity assets and them just kind of cycle through them. Top Level citations, press, you know, media room type pages, drive stack, specifically the G site, really the GMB map URL, the GMB website, money site, inner pages of the money site, all of those, they just get linked to kind of a rotation so that there's constantly links going from GMB back to branded entity assets and it kind of help to just reinforce that whole footprint if that's if that makes sense. Okay.

Is It Okay To Use The Content Of A Drive Folder To Others?

Austin Don says with stacks drive folders, let's say I have one for service, Round Rock. Okay, would it be alright to copy that Drive folder and use for other cities service whatever Ville and just change the city modifier on the content or should new content be used for drive stacks, you can just change your city modifier is but also make sure you're changing the target URLs that you're linking from or linking to from within those files. Right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, there's some editing that needs to be done. You can't just change that. And then think that it's all over. Again. There are some files in there that have some heavy links that have to go in and have to be modified, correct? Yeah, so I'm saying you want to change your target URLs. So the best idea would be to have you know, a page or post on your money site that is optimized for that particular location for that service and location or services and location, and then change. When you're when you clone the file, the folders the folder and files for that, you know, for that business or that that project. Then you change all the keywords the location modifier is out to whatever new location you want to make sure that you're editing those target URLs from within the files to point to that location-specific page or post. So it makes sense. So,

What Is The Ideal Number Of Keywords For A GMB Post Be?

uh, Brian says using only one keyword per post or should you try to get two keywords in it? Well, I always have my bloggers are trying to target one primary keyword, but there are usually variations they get worked into it anyways, does that make sense? Remember, if you've got things siloed correctly, you're going to have related keywords anyways. From you know, within the silo on the website or from the GMB post because we siloed those together or both, right. So it usually there's the primary keyword that we're trying to target with each post, but there's a there's obviously going to be you know, variants clips, so closely related or LSA type keywords that also work, you know, in part of it, it's just because it's natural, and we don't write for SEO anymore, right? I mean, yes, we still try to target one keyword or so as a primary keyword. But our, my writers don't aren't trained to write for SEO really, they're just trained to, they know what like to link properly. But we don't have to write for SEO so much anymore because of structured data. And because Google's algorithm just understands natural language patterns so much more. So what would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, this is this is where siloed and the way that we do our posts comes in really handy, right, because you'll have a set of keywords that you're targeting, which are actually trying to push up the top-level category, which Jeffrey teaches in his SEO boot camp. So our ultimate goal is to push up or work from the top for that for the top-level category. And that's the main keyword. So any keywords that are relevant to that main category, and any LSA or in any other keywords that Google deems relevant, need to be worked in there, somehow?

As long as you're also thinking about the person that's trying to read that post, and you're trying to convert the person that's reading the post, because that's the ultimate goal, if you can get a person to click on it, the likelihood of them becoming a client or ending up paying either your client or you, it's really high because these are, the people are hot, the hot buyers, they're calling you for a reason. They're filling out that form for a reason. They're visiting your website for a reason. So that's hot, and you need to keep that person hot. You don't want them to go to whatever it is where you haven't clicked and cooled off. So they have to be worked in so so that you're talking to that pain, and you're solving whatever that pain is, you have to work that in so so that so they find a solution to whatever problem that it is that they had that made them go look for you or your niche in the first place.

Bradley: So because we don't have a lot of questions left, we'll wrap it up a few minutes early guys, unless you post some questions. I'll get another question in there. Okay, I was going to share some other stuff. But we

Hernan: just want to say real quick Bradley data, which is put together a short link, if you want, if you guys want to get access to the branding course of Brandon's going to put it together, it's semanticmastery.com/branding. So that is semanticmastery.com/branding. And you will be able to access that course for only 97 bucks instead of 300 bucks, which is going to be the end and you know, the final price for it. So semanticmastery.com/branding, which is put that together, boom.

How Often Should We Order Link Packages To The Drive Stacks/GSites?

Okay, Austin says how often should we order link packages to the drive stacks g sites? Well, that's up to you how as often as you need, I recommend that you alternate between embeds and link building packages. And remember when you buy embeds, you can also build by as an upsell. Link Building packages or is like a second-tier two that were linked link building to the actual embeds that's very powerful too. I like to do things in cycles or stages. So maybe I'll have a link building package done to my entity assets, my SEO shield, so to speak, one month, and then the next month, it'll be an embed gig. And then the next month, it'll be, you know, another link building package to syndication network, for example, or something like that. It's just a way to stagger it out. So I just kind of work that stuff into my monthly retainer for clients so that I know that that's going to be stuff that's ongoing, it gets done on a monthly, you know, monthly basis. It doesn't necessarily have to be the same targets every month. You can kind of just cycle through that. Okay.

Marco: Yeah, so no, don't hit the home page every month, right with a million links. That's not going to help. So if if you gave you drip them out, like during the month, which Dadea is really good at drip, feeding, everything, dripping everything out the way that you should set it looks more natural and every month as Bradley said, You choose a different target so that you're also targeting your tier one branded directly. Instead of just through the drive second Gsite, all of that, your posts your we've shared during Hump Day Hangouts, I don't know how many different URL targets that you can use for your link building campaign. And it all filters through to the same place, which is your again, and you know, you're going to get sick of me saying this, but the entity, it all filters out to what it is that you're trying to build, which is that the final piece of the puzzle, which is that entity was really really matters.

Bradley: Yeah, that's why I was getting ready to show. You know, when I talked about for GMB posts, for example, my bloggers have a list of target URLs that they just kind of cycle through that they including the button links Now, as I said, if it's a GMB post that is specifically promoting a blog post on the site, then on from the money site, then that GMB post or a button URL ends up pointing back to that specific blog post. But for most of the general posts, then it will link back to just one of the branded assets, the entity assets. Right? So that would be a tier-one asset. So which one should you link to? Well, all of them, but if you want our link to just the ones that are deemed the most powerful or the most relevant for the brand, it's very simple. Just go do a brand search if it's for a company, like a local business that has a name that is ambiguously aided right, so a name that is maybe coming up like a lot. I know a lot of local contractors, for example, will have names that are very generic, like whatever service plus city or city whatever service so it's very difficult to create a brand around that. Now it is so one of the ways that you can get and I've shown this before and maybe I'll show it with what we'll do another will do two examples real quick.

Alpha land realty has got a strong brand. Now I've been because I've been working on the entity for this for quite some time without doing a lot of SEO work. It's just been mainly entity work. And you can take a look, this is my real estate business, you can see that if I just do search for alpha land Realty, all of the entire first pages is taken up by all of my by entity assets of mine, right, or press releases that mentioned the brand. But something by the way that just popped up recently, I thought this was very, very powerful. This is really cool. This is apollo.io, which is like a kind of like a sales contacting prospecting type service. I know because I saw I just saw this pop-up yesterday in my brand search. And I went and signed up for it because I thought I could go in and edit this profile. And you can't, this was auto automatically generated by apollo.io. But it's very powerful because it popped right up on page one, like out of the blue. I've never even heard of it. And so I did sign up for it to try to see if I could edit this stuff. But what it did was it pulled in all of these entity assets.

I didn't create this page by the way like this, what I'm saying this just out of the blue popped up and it's got my website URL, it's got my name, it's got a description that it's pulled from somewhere. It's got my Facebook page, Twitter Linkedin page, and it's even got an alexa.com site info page. So somehow apollo.io is tied into Alexa, which I believe is an Amazon company. But it also pulls from Crunchbase which I think is also where got some of this information. So by the way, that's one of the ones I want to point out Crunchbase calm guys is super, super powerful. It's, it's, it's an entity database, right or a Semantic database. So you can go in and set up a Crunchbase profile and put in all kinds of like set up an organization and add a ton of information to it. And it's very, very powerful. So I would highly recommend that you set up Crunchbase but from here, I could just go through and start pulling out from the top two or three pages, all the URLs that are branded entity at sets, right so, and put those into a target URL list that you would want to cycle through from GMB posts, you can use that for deep links for other stuff, guys, you can link to them from press releases, you can link to them from blog posts, all of that kind of stuff, right? So you can just go through here and for example, like here's my Tumblr page for whatever reason is so powerful. This is from my syndication network and keeps showing up on page one and has been for four months, even though I really don't even publish to it.

If we go back to page two will see that we've got, you know, USA Today, that's a press release Twitter's popping up even though I don't really tweet. Another one is let's see Crunchbase I was just talking about this one. And this is actually tech check this out. This is the Crunchbase you can add press releases to your Crunchbase Company Profile. And so if you take a look, this is just referencing alpha land realty launches website for Virginia property owners. It's a press advantage. That's the press advantage URL right there, right so you can actually add press releases to Crunchbase, which is very, very powerful, and then that Crunchbase URL will index in rank, even though it's, it's it's pushing to, it's crazy. all it's doing is linking to a press release, but that Crunchbase URL will rank. Take a look at this Pocket. This hasn't been posted to since it was set up. It's just a Pocket profile. But it's still ranking, right? It's ranking on the top two pages is another one of my entity assets. So all of these things can just go into an actual target URL list. So it makes sense. And these are all things that could also be linked you could for the question that was just asked about how often should you order link building packages, all of these can become target URLs. Something else we've talked about is let's just do a quick search will do.

Let's do something I'm not in a city. I'm not in this a Tree Service, Richmond, VA. We use this as an example. Alright, so we'll come down here we'll look at let's see true. I want to see a good Davy Davy in Richmond, Virginia. That's a good one there. Let's take a look at that. It's also it looks like it's showing up here in maps. So we'll click through for maps. And we also kind of want to hold on lead back up for a minute. I also want to click through to Yelp. And I want to show you guys something. We've talked about this in the past, but I'll, I'll point this out again. Alright, so if we're looking at, let's actually grab the name.

Let's do this. Back up for a minute. We might have been able to do it from there. Hold on a minute. Let's try. Let's try that real quick.

We click through to here to photos, okay, yeah, we can. Okay. So remember, you can also for your link building projects, you can also grab, obviously, we're going to grab the map URL, remember not to use the share map URL, by the way, guys.

Let me back up for one more minute. And actually, we'll just go. We'll do this. I want to give you guys a couple of things real quick. So we'll go to. Alright, so a couple of things here. There is a great website. It's really simple and easy to use. Go to Google My Business. It's called GMB dot reviews maker calm. I've talked about this in the past, go to this page right here, click the code place Id go grab the long, ugly maps URL for an entity for a brand, right? That's a verified Google My Business has a verified Google My Business, excuse me, click through to the actual website that was photos. Let me back up for a minute. It's not showing the map. Here we go. Click through to the actual map URL, see if we can do that.

And it's not giving me the map URL that I wanted. But all you gotta do is grab the long map URL guys, the big ugly one for when you do a brand search and you click through from the knowledge panel on the little map icon, click through and then copy that big long, ugly URL. And you'll paste it into there and decode it and give you a maps URL that is the best URL to use. It still needs to be edited slightly. I'll show you the right way to do it. Let's see, click through we just use alpha land realty is an example. So you see I click through to the actual map and this big, long, ugly URL right here, Copy that. Go over to the GMB maps, excuse me, GMB reviews maker calm, click the code place ID paste this in here, click the decode place ID button will take a second. Then scroll down and right here where it says your maps URL you want to copy that link address will put this in a notepad file. And then what you want to do is change that URL from this where it says maps is the subdomain change that to dub dub dub so www.google.com and input maps after the first forward slash before the question mark. Right now that right there is the best URL to build links to for your maps listing. Because it's not a redirect, it's a straight URL.

Okay, so that so that's a really good URL to use. However, here are some other things that you can link build to. So we know that Davie Tree Service is one of the Richmond Tree Service, Richmond, VA, whatever that was the keyword I searched? Well, if we click through to the maps listing, like what you see here, look at all these different photos. All these photos have different URLs, guys if we click every photo is going to give you a different URL. So each one of those could also be used as additional link targets. Right? You could actually put those through one of your own shorteners, or use a shortener that's a 301 redirect, so you can print them up. And then you can create a target URL list of all the different images within the Google My Business profile. Does that make sense? Something else you could do is you could click on the actual reviews. So these reviews share, if you can click through from the actual brand. So let's go back to here for a minute. Let's just pick another one because that one's not it's got multiple locations and it's hard to pull up one specific one, we pull up, let's say ridge line Tree Service. Let's try that one.

And then I know we got to wrap it up in just a minute, guys. Okay, see how rich live Tree Service popped up. So if we click through to the map icon, this is going to take us to this specific map listing. Okay, then from here, right here, where it says reviews, the 11 reviews on this case, I could click on that. That's a unique URL, right? So you can add that to your target URL list. Also, each one of these individual reviews, take a look at it has a share URL, you can click on that and use that share URL. However, if you take a look at that URL, it's a redirect, but I don't care. I'll still build links to it. Does that make sense? So my point is, you can grab these, each one of these individuals share URLs and link to those also. So it makes sense. So each one of those photos can have its own URL. We talked about doing it with Yelp, if we were to find, see if we can find ridge line or we're just talking about baby tree expert companies, let's go into there, we click into their we've talked about this in the past guys, Yelp, grab that URL, put that in your list, click into photos, each one of these photos now has a different URL, grab all those photos, put those in. And those are all Yelp targets. Now, you can close out of that, you can also go down if they have reviews, and you can link to the reviews. See also share a review. So you can actually grab that URL and put that share, review share URL into your target list. One more thing, click rights, right-click view page source and scroll down. All of a sudden look at these guys, these are all can language canonical is essentially CL says link rel=canonical. And all of these other URLs are for the Yelp on all the different language versions of the Yelp site that all canonical eyes to this primary English version, right, which is the US version and each one of those URLs can go into a target list. So there's no shortage of links that you can add to link building campaigns, as long as they're not direct to your money site is what we suggest. You want to comment on that at all Marco.

Marco: No, that was perfect.

Bradley: Okay, cool. Alright, we've got about three minutes. I think we've just got a couple more that popped up.

What Video Should You Embed In A Press Release?

So Katie says thanks for the PR schema reply of something else I'm thinking about I'm a publishing press release about each blog post and want to incorporate video into the mix. Now that press advantage offers video embeds. Using the content of articles and press releases, I create a YouTube video of each post NPR from the videos created using my blog content I created a YouTube playlist that mirrors my blog siloed There you go, Katie, now you're getting it and embedded these into the corresponding blog posts from the videos created by the way, why not embed the playlist? Right, embed the playlist into each blog post within the same silo so the playlist is a silo and you've got a silo on your blog.

Now you can embed the actual playlist with the specific video that matches with matches up or corresponds with that particular blog post as the top video in the playlist. Does that make sense? So instead of just embedding the specific video, you can embed the whole playlist. So now you've got a playlist silo embedded in a silo. So it makes sense. It's very, very powerful to do that. So you're onto something there. Very good. She says from the video is created using my PR content, I created a second YouTube playlist that mirrors my PR stack. She's she, Katie must been following Semantic Mastery for a minute. Which videos best to embed in the press release the video from the blog post or the video about the press release itself that promotes the blog post? Or does it matter? It really shouldn't matter? In fact, it's probably a little bit of overkill to have two separate YouTube playlists. You know you could though I don't I mean, I just honestly I think that's probably a little bit more work than you need because you could probably accomplish everything within one siloed playlist that's mirroring the same keywords that you're targeting in both the blog post and the PR. That makes sense because you could reduce your workload a little bit, I think by just having one playlist that's mirroring the same keywords that are mirrored from your blog post to your PRs. If that makes sense. And then I would for the, for the press releases, I would take you, I don't think you can embed a playlist. But I know you can have the individual excuse me video URL for that specific that you know, that corresponds with that PR plus post, embed that into the plane, the press release, excuse me, but I would use the playlist embed code with the hack to where you can change the video ID to the video ID of that that corresponds with that post to be the top video in the playlist. And I would use the video and the playlist embed code in that in the blog post itself. That now you have a silo embedded in a silo if that makes sense. That's pretty powerful stuff. So

Does The Battle Plan Provide Steps On How To Optimize A New Lead Gen Site?

last question and I gotta wrap it up. I just created another brand new lead gen site. Does the battle plan give me steps to optimize the SM way? Of course, it does. Nathan. That's exactly what it was created for. Yeah, but it's no different. New did not the steps are the same. It's a couple of things that might be different.

Marco: But the steps that you need to take are practically the same. By the way, before we go. I'll be starting my charity webinar series. The first week of December probably. And I can't remember when you have your webinar. The next one for you. Do we have another one? Do we have another webinar coming up?

Bradley: Yeah, we've got on we've got Monday for the start of the branding course which will be about YouTube ads. And on December 9, Monday, December 9 is the display ads Google display ads.

Marco: So Monday the 25th or December's ok so the 25th and then

Bradley: Monday, December 9, right?

Marco: Okay, so I'll be starting mine, Monday, December 2 guys, everything about work, BERT entities, everything you want to know to rank into 2020 and well beyond. I told you in 2014 2015 what was going on and where this was going, and here we are, this is 2015 you should have been there. If you're not, then come to these webinars because I'll tell you from 2020 2025 MB on what's happening and what you need to do. And all it's going to take is a donation to the charity all the money goes to kids who need an education. So it's for a good cause. That's why I'm giving you raw business. It's what's going to happen and why.

There you go. Alright, thanks for everybody being here. We'll see you guys next week. Hey guys, semanticmastery.com/branding and forget to awesome thanks, guys.

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 263

Click on the video above to watch Episode 263 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

Adam: Cool! Everybody welcome to Hump Day hangouts today is the 20th of November 2019. And we are staring down the craziness that is Black Friday and all that that entails. We've got some our own version of Black Friday fun, but it's not going to involve buying anything but we'll get to that in a minute. Real quick. Let's say hi to everyone and then we got those announcements and some other good stuff. So start on my side here Bradley, what are you up to man?

Bradley: Good man. Happy to be here. It's a week from Thanksgiving so kind of excited about that. It's one of my favorite holidays.

Adam: Amen. Yeah, it's definitely switched. I mean, you know, as a kid, not surprised. You know, Christmas was super fun. Like, yay, now it's just like, Oh, God, I love Thanksgiving.

Bradley: So I want the food. Yeah.

Adam: Awesome. Uh, Hernan, I think you're there somewhere. How's it going, man?

Hernan: Hey, everybody. Oh, hey, guys, what's up everybody? So look at this beauty. Look at this. So this is something that Dadea brought to us on POFU Live 2019 has been awesome. So thank you, thank you for that, you know, you know what day it is. So what's everybody so really happy to be here excited for what's coming. Excited for the stuff that we have in the pipeline. So overall excited to be back in Buenos Aires.

Adam: Outstanding good stuff, Chris, how about you?

Chris: doing good as usual. It's a bit rainy here. But other than that the weather is good. Yeah, I'm not excited about Christmas either, like not sure what to say?

Adam: Well, maybe it just means like, what more snowy conditions so you can go snowboarding.

Chris: Yeah, like I'm actually planning to take like, a week off right before Christmas. And to resolve the internet and relax a bit without electronics.

Adam: So what do you do without the internet? What do you mean? Come to get like what are you supposed to do?

  Chris: There is life outside as well you don't have to constantly be plugged into the whole thing was a cable. Like a simple snowboarding skiing, I don't know to enjoy it in the spa or I don't know like chase some girls will see

Adam: it sounds good. And you know we always talk about the weather before Marco. so, Marco, This is the natural lead and man what's the weather like down in Costa Rica?

Marco: Life without the internet? Did somebody say that even? Nah man life's good been having construction that just got done. I had to redo our master bathroom. That's done. They were jackhammering all day yesterday. It was horrible. I couldn't think I couldn't go and mess with BERT yesterday. But I've been at it all morning. If you can't remember that you cannot optimize for BERT. That's what Google said. Remember those famous last words you cannot optimize? Because I got BERT by the balls, I got BERT.

Bradley: You've got BERT's balls. You go.

Adam: So you know, maybe I'm out of a loop to is there or is there going to be an ERNIE e update of some sort? Because that would really just be the best thing ever if we had for an Ernie so

Marco: doesn't there's already an Elmo Damn it.

Bradley: I can see the next Semantic Mastery training product Bert by the balls.

Marco: Well, I actually I'm already coming up with the BERT Buster, balls fit somewhere in there.

Adam: Oh man. Well, Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here. If this is your first time watching, this is the Semantic Mastery and we're here to answer your digital marketing questions and talk about some other stuff as well. So you're in the right place. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you head over to semanticmastery.cm/hdquestions. That's where you can actually ask your questions. We don't actively monitor the chat for youtube so you need to be there and you can also ask your questions at Semantic Mastery com slash HT questions ahead of time and we will answer them and they can go back if you need to and check it out on YouTube. After that, the second most asked question we get is where should I start with Semantic Mastery and we ought The answer is always sorry for Hernan's typing some funny stuff. We always tell people to go get the Battle Plan All right, I'm not gonna read it to you but go check it out battleplan.semanticmastery.com, repeatable process, stuff for age domains, new domains, YouTube channels, whatever it is, that's your place to start. And then if you've already got clients and you're wondering what's next, how do I grow? What should I be doing? How do I grow my business? Where's the network of people I can do this with then you belong in our mastermind, and head over to mastermind.semanticmastery.com and we will help you grow. And last but not least, if you want to save time and money, we recommend this not only to our members, to our subscribers, its services we use ourselves. It's mgyb.co getting stuff done for yourself whether it's syndication or getting done for yourself, getting things done. So you don't have to things like syndication networks are we as drive stacks, press releases all that sort of good stuff. We got a couple more announcements or not, I believe there was something like a Facebook post about something that you did today.

Hernan: Yeah, there was a Facebook post about something. That is correct. So the deal is that our main man Bradley, putting together a branding course. And it's going to be on YouTube and the Google Display Network. And why is important to brand yourself as not only as an agency but also as an agency owner. We talked a little bit about this in POFU Live 2019. And yes,

Bradley: and the training can be applied to setting up branding campaigns for clients. And it's also for using Google Display Network and YouTube to drive traffic into the SEO assets that we set to kind of help fire up all the SEO work by delivering ART – activity, relevance, trust, and authority.

Hernan: So there you go. So there's a lot of levels to this

Marco: and, and guess what the BERT update is about?

Bradley: exactly that.

Hernan: There you go. Alright. So as you can see, there's a lot of levels to this. You can use it to their clients, you can use it to service your clients better upsell your clients into additional services, you can use it to rank your websites. I mean, there's a lot of stuff. I mostly, you know, focus on getting more clients and get clients paying you more money. So that's what's exciting about the course is going to be recorded and it's gonna be recorded live and it's going to be for the time being over the next two to three days come to be only $97. Once that's done, it's going to be packaged and we sold for $300. So if you want to get if you want to pay like 30% of the price you want to get like a 70% discount. Do we have a link somewhere that we can push people to that we can show people?

Adam: definitely it is on the page. And you know, odds are if you're watching the replay, it might not be available at that price. But you can always come to semanticmastery.com/hdquestions in the comments and you'll find a link right there. There you go. Awesome. Good stuff. And last but not least, I wanted to mention to everyone, you know, I teased a little bit at the intro to the show. We are of course doing something for Black Friday. Keep your eyes peeled for some emails. We really did want to give you guys some good content. We're putting out some previously unreleased training. And it's just going to be you've got to answer one question. There's no opt-in. We want to make sure that you want to get it though. All you have to do is watch out for the emails, look out for the Facebook posts and leading up to actual Black Friday. We're just going to have that content there. We want to help you out you know there's a lot of all stuff going on, there's a lot of extra bs going on, you know, during the weeks leading up to Black Friday. So take a look at this stuff, learn and then act on that, right. And we're going to have a big black Friday sale going on afterward, where you can get the additional training if you want it or need it so that you can act and get results from that. So that's the big thing going on next week. Keep your eyes peeled again for emails and Facebook posts. It's going to be super, super. So with that said, you guys anything last minute before we dive into questions.

Bradley: I don't have anything.

Adam: All right, anybody else? Let's get to it.

Bradley: Alright, cool. We've got just a few questions so far. So hopefully you guys will come in and post some more else. We can wrap it up early. I've got plenty of work to do. Anyways, let me grab the screen first. I can find it. Still not 100% comfortable using zoom yet. All right, you guys should you see my screen. By the way, I've just got to point this out. This is really cool because besides it is just a goofy photo that is nondead if you take a look in the background of this photo, you can see the backside of Hernan also flicking us off. And it's kind of like a mirror and mirror because even further and there's another picture of it. So it's like one of those iframe loops that we do. It's pretty. It's pretty cool. Anyways,

How To Add Clickable CTAs To A YouTube Video?

alright, so to get to the first question, it looks like it came from Greg, Greg's First up, he says, How exactly do you add clickable CTA is to a video on YouTube. So those are call to actions. Sorry for the beginner question but other than a link in the description, I have no idea. Are there cards or annotations are clickable buttons that can be added to a video. Yeah, that's what cards are for.

Also, if you're running ads, you can obviously run it, put click clickable links within the ad itself, but you're just talking about for organic videos, you know, regularly, you know, for videos that people find on YouTube organically or in Google search, then it's going to be using cards. He says, I will be using a video to link to my Amazon store, and I hope to add a couple of links during the middle part of the video. How do I use and do? How do I use? And how do I do that? Again, it's just cards. So Greg, just goes to Google and search or, or YouTube and search for how to add YouTube cards. And you'll see plenty of tutorials out there that will show you exactly how to do it, it's easy to do. And you can place cards that very specific parts within the content within the video itself. So you can you know, put them at certain intervals or whatever. Keep in mind though, in order to be able to link to an external website, you have to have a site that you ca it's called an associated website, you have to validate that you have ownership of that site or at least some sort of like webmaster control of that, so I don't think you can link directly to Amazon. But what you could do is a link to like an Amazon product review site that you own.

Something typically the way that you would do it is you would add the site to Search Console, within the same Google account is your YouTube account. And if you do that, then you can add that let that your URL, the web page that you want to link out to as an associated website, and then you can link to it right. So you can do that by on a domain level, or even on a web page level. So but again, you have to have webmaster control, essentially, of the site, whether you're the owner or you have access to it so that you can link those two accounts. You can't just link externally from a YouTube video to like an Amazon store that I'm aware of, because you have to have access to that site as a webmaster or ownership of the site if that makes sense. Does anybody have any other is that is there anything to do to dispute what I just said?

Hernan: No, I think that's the way it is because annotations are not a thing anymore. So So yeah, cards. So you have n cards and you have annotations, but yeah, basically that's going to be the

Bradley: cards and end screens you can do within screens as well cards, or you can kind of space out at certain intervals, or, you know, just put, put them where you want them to show up. And that's where it'll kind of slide out from the top, there'll be I little icon for information. And if you click on it, the card will slide out. And you can link to other videos to playlist your channel. You can link to an external website, like I said, as long as you verify it, so. Okay, just go to Google or YouTube and search for how to add External links with cards and you'll see plenty of tutorials for that.

Adam: Yeah, freeze up. Sorry, somebody says something. Yeah, can you hear real quick, I just want to stay on that? Also, those have generally a pretty low click-through rate. So I would approach this kind of from a different point. Have you not just go into just link to Amazon from there, which might end up actually being a problem, but even if it's not, I would create the videos potentially, you know, make a bridge page in between basically, like, you know, and using some sort of a lead magnet like even if it's not an actual, like a PDF or something like that, but send people to a page to your site for a reason that they want to click through. And then from there, you know, they go to Amazon, where I would definitely do it that way instead of trying to send people directly.

Bradley: Yeah, and here's the thing, if you send people to like a product review page, for example, you know, you could entice them to opt-in for something so that you can build an email list from that traffic, but you can also cookie them right. If you've got remarketing. I mean, you could set up a remarketing list on the video too, by the way, so don't forget about that, Greg. It's really important. remarketing super powerful. We're going to be talking about that in the branding course and, you know, starting on Monday, but you can set up a remarketing list through Google ads for that specific YouTube video. So now you know that anybody watches those videos interested in that product and you can remark it to them via YouTube. But if you drive them to a product review page first where you could entice them to get onto an, you know, opt into some sort of list for some freebie or something now you can email market to them. But even if they don't do that, you can still cookie them and build a remarketing list for Google Display Network ads to which are incredibly inexpensive. And you can kind of follow them around now that you know what products are interested in, you could actually market to that remarketing list with that same product as well as similarly related products if that makes sense. Because you know that they've already expressed an interest or they wouldn't have a click through to your review page. So there's a lot of things that you can do with that, why I would recommend not just using the cards and that's it and you know, you can get better results is what I'm saying. Okay, it's a good question though.

How Do You Create A Clip To An Upcoming Live Event Video?

  Jeffrey's up he says, Hey, guys, I'm publishing a video in two weeks using live events, but I want a smaller version of the same content online right away for other traffic reasons. How can I do that?

Let's see what needs to be different about the DVD as well. If it's, if you're creating a shorter version of it, then it is going to be different, right? So like, what I'm saying is if you already have the video created, and you're just going to live stream it in two weeks, and you want to create a shorter version of it, you know, condense it down, then that's going to be unique video anyways, not only that, but the same video live-streamed twice, is still a unique video, right? Because Google doesn't detect or YouTube doesn't detect. It's when you try to upload the same file twice. Right? But if you're live streaming or pre-recorded video, you could live stream that pre-recorded video to the same channel twice now I don't recommend it because if you know manual review or at work to see it, they could consider that spammy and terminate your channel, right? So I don't you know, I don't recommend doing it. But the fact that you're live-streaming a pre-recorded video makes the file 100% unique to YouTube, right. So

So just keep that in mind. Um, but yeah, if you're going to condense the video like shorten it edited just cut out key parts make like the Reader's Digest version of it so to speak, then yeah, you can just you can live stream that or upload that however you want to do it directly to the channel and then go live stream your pre-recorded video or just, you know, push a true live stream out at the time and two weeks, whatever you want to do it. Okay. And that's all you need to do.

What MGYB Products Should I Use For A Bilingual GMB Page?

Okay, let's see. The next one is Hey guys, I have a potential client that has a GSB profile and website and bilingual language the main domain automatically directs us to the French version. Wow, if we want to read an English version, I assume he's using a subdomain for example. Okay, and Okay, well, that would be a subfolder the way that you have shown But either way, my question is I want to use you're done for you services from MDYV store for the purpose to three map pack. Okay, guess for the purpose of getting into the map pack and Local SEO For French in English. Buying keywords, can you direct me to which projects you do strongly recommend as first priority? Well, we'll do English, but we won't do French correct me if I'm wrong, Marco?

Marco: That's correct. Okay.

Bradley: He says can let's see, I already bought your battle plan version three and also check your MGYB store several times, but I'm last looking at it. I have audited his GMB and around 74% French buying keywords resulting to his map three MGRGMB three map pack and his website on page one. Okay, cool. So he's got he's doing very well where your site the site that you're managing is doing very well in, in in France, but you're also looking to do it in the US I'm assuming or an English see in zero results for English buying keywords, I believe you're done for your services also offer white label services. Well, yeah, I mean, we can do the keyword research in English unless you've already got that done.

Our deep keyword research will give you so many keywords. It's ridiculous. But if you use those keywords along with, you know several of our other packages for example, the embed service is great for GMB. So I'm assuming it's the same GMB but you've just got two versions of the site. Right. And you'd like the GMB to also rank for English search queries, right. So again, I'm just making this assumption because it's not clear to me, if you don't have an English business in the US also, you're trying to rank the same GMB, I'm assuming in France for both English keywords and French keywords. And so hopefully I'm correct and what I'm assuming here, and if that's the case, then yeah, what I would do. Go ahead

Marco: That's a she, she she's in Canada. Okay. So okay. Any French-speaking region of Canada will take the domain that was posted up as a .ca

Bradley: Ok. So for that, I would recommend you know that you would, you would also, like, for example, drive stack would work really good for that for the English buying keywords. And having the deep keyword research done would be all the keywords that would be included in the drive stack. And then from there, you could do embeds and backlinks and use the same keywords that were generated in the keyword report as part of the backlink campaign, all of that so that you can really start to push that relevancy. The other part of it would be you know, obviously, the Google site is part of the drive stack, which would all be done in English. That's going to help to push that English keyword relevancy. What else would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, I'm kind of stuck on this question, because I'm not sure what it is that she's looking to do. I said If so, if you getting 70% of French buying keywords, right, they result in the GMB three-pack and zero results for English keywords and you're looking for everything in English to push up your English rankings. And if you even just link out to the French to relevance that will carry through from the drive stack and Angie site. So you can actually do a two for one and if you take the time to them translate the DR site that we give you the French can even get more power and I'm giving you game right free game that during Hump Day hangouts.

So relevance will carry through English to French French to English, but you can increase the relevance by translating everything that we give you. And that's simple to do once everything is set up. I mean, I would just use Google Translate I know Hernan and I have done that in the past where we've gone and Google Translate and I think we managed to rank in Norway for some shit. I don't speak Norwegian but yeah, it ranked and I ranked in French and I don't speak a word of French but I did I don't know what I was saying. And I don't know if it was right but it ranked. So be I don't see why there would be any problem. Just don't order anything in France because we won't do it. Don't buy any keywords in French. We just won't do it. But you can take whatever we give you. And you're free to add a translation, which again, it adds relevance it there's some trust and authority also in there you can do some canonical wizardry with the English and the French and with alternate languages and a whole bunch of other things that we would only teach you in the mastermind. So I would suggest if you're really looking to take this to the next level, come join the mastermind

Hernan: I would say. sorry Bradley but I would say just to add to what Marco just said, which makes total sense. I was you said maybe like grab your your your main content and have that like grab your main gotten your main content should be able to, to, to rank and convert right that we did those steps back in the day with Marco we were translated some pages and we rank them, you know, was easy, then it was the fact that we had to switch the content for some that would make more sense because we want people at the end of the day we want people like buying our stuff. It was an affiliate website so we want to people you know opting in for the offers but you can do that and then when it comes to like blasting your links or blasting your stuff as a tier two or after you know everything that has to do directly related with your brand, you can go to town with the stuff that I'd seen and that it's in MGYB.co if that makes sense because it doesn't really matter if you have like the little backlinks and English pointing to a website in French at that point so

Bradley: cool.

What URL Should You Input To Get The Schema In TechnicalSEO.com If The PR Link Is Not Yet Published?

Bradley: Katie's up says thanks for helping answer my question last week about PR specific schema I'm still stuck on what URL to enter in the generator on technicalSEO.com If I select article schema, then leave the URL property field blank the schema reports a warning when tested. Yeah, you don't want to leave it blank says I'm worried about causing invigoration and the data so I so just don't want to put the wrong info here, I read that for a schema.org thing like an article, the URL property should always point to the same URL, because everything has exactly one preferred or canonical URL. This makes it sound like the URL I enter into the generator should be the URL of the PR itself, which does not yet exist, which is correct, since press advantage has not yet published it. So do we publish the PR schema that contains the warning? Or do we enter a different URL into the generator? Thanks,

I would just publish with the organization page URL, right? Because that's going to link it's going to basically be pushing back to the Index page, the newsroom the media room, essentially that has all of the articles published on press advantage on your in your organization, right because you're right, you don't have the URL yet. Now maybe that's something that we could find out from we could we could request from Jeremy the developer a press advantage is to display when you order a new PR like when you go to order a new another a new PR that it could display what the URL is going to be for that press release in the editing phase of it or whatever. Because here's the thing, remember, the URL is determined by the title, right? There's a, there's the PR number after press advantage. com slash and it's the actual press release number, I believe for that order. And then after that, it's the slug from the title that's generated from the title. So maybe, and I don't know that this is possible, but you know, it could certainly be asked that that could be like a preview or it could be dynamically inserted after the press release has been initially written. Again, I don't know that that's going to happen. In the meantime, you could just link back unless Marco says that that's wrong, would be to link back to the press advantage organization page. What do you think Marco?

Marco: That's what I would do if the URL is not it is not existent at that point that you have to point to something else or you get that error and but you could always switch that up, can you? I think that

Bradley: Well, no, because once it's published, you can add it to the schema that's added appended to that particular.

Marco: Okay, so yeah, so so we'll have to talk to Jeremy about this and see what we can do. He's really good about fixing this.

Bradley: Yes, very much. So, really good. Very much. So and so here's the news article. schema. Right. And by the way, we're, besides the plugin that I teased last week, we've got another app potentially coming out soon to that will do all the schema you could ever need. It's incredible. It's really cool. So we'll be talking about that and coming weeks as well. So this is just an interim tool. But if you see this is the URL she's talking about is right here. And by putting in the organization page URL, it's saying the main entity of page so that's the scheme of this just so let me show you what I mean. If I cut this out of here, it's the news article schema.org. But the moment that you put something in for the US field, it brings up this main entity of page type, right? So so that's why I'm saying it says at the type web page and an @ID. Well, the ID can point back to the organization page, right? Because the organization page and this will break my browser because I've got my embedded iframe loop. But what does this ID page have on it? It's got pretty much all the entity validation for that organization anyways, so that makes sense. It's got the NAP, the Google Map, embedded websites, social media, perhaps an embedded iframe, if you've got that. So my point is, I think that that should absolutely work. Right. What do you think Marco?

Marco: I totally agree.

Bradley: So there you go. That should help you. With that. She says, Brian, actually, let me finish this question and it will jump back to Brian's question. She says just add quickly, the schema markup generator is also asking for image URL. So far all the images embedded in my PR have been hosted by press advantage. So I'm not sure how the press advantage image URL would get added into the PR schema. Either since the hosted image URL does not yet exist, and schema code has been submitted to press advantage before they publish the PR IC press advantage just released a feature to allow external image URLs to be added. So is that the only way? That's a good question? I would if you have, I know with the external image.

Yeah, you could do it that way. So if you have the image hosted somewhere else, and you give them the URL for that way, then you could use that same image there. Typically the way that my blogger does all the press releases for my clients, or for my own projects is we publish a blog post first, right and then we use the press event press advantage of press releases, to promote blog posts.

That gives us the and we also usually do a GMB post, for example, so we kind of create, you know, like co-citation between a press release or press releases, blog posts, which isn't a deep link, right, and then in turn a deep internal link from the website as well as GMB post. And that's what we link to. So the URL of the image can be pulled from the blog post, right? So like the hosted URL image from the blog post, we can use that for example. So that's typically how we do it if you're trying to use you know, you could also pull an image from Google Maps listing, for example, right? So for example, if you have if you've uploaded a photo like I'm just assuming that it's if it's for local, let's just put it that way. You could upload a photo to Google Photos for the GMB right so in the GMB as a photo and then you could go pull the chair URL from that photo and use that right if it's the same image that's going to be in the press release. Anyways, one word of caution.

Don't like if you're going to provide the image to press advantage already hosted, make sure it's sized properly. So in other words, if you if you've got a big image somewhere that you've uploaded to WordPress, or to Google Photos for the gym before GMB, for example, or even just flat out Google Photos, if it's a large image, what happens is, and I know this, because I just tested this, the image will come out as large as whatever the original file size is when it gets published, as in the press release. So sometimes the image like bleeds way outside the actual content body of the press release because it's so big. So just keep in mind that you want to resize those images to I typically don't like them to be any wider than 600 pixels, maybe 650 pixels, so that it will fit nicely inside the PR it doesn't get you to know, bleed outside of that. Do you see any problems with that Marco?

Marco: Not me. This is another question that has me a little confused because it like a PR doesn't sit in a bubble. You're getting, you're going to syndicate information because as I said, you're going to produce news or information about something else. Something else that that should have images that should have CTA, that should have video just whatever like like a post right, a GMB post. It has a URL, the image will have a URL, everything has a URL. And and so if the image URL that you can use is one of those, since it belongs to your entity anyway, it's yours, Google will know that all of these little associations that you can make are, what cinch everything and it's something that I'm testing right now that's something really intricate, but it works really well once it's set up then and then you just push go. I mean, it just does a great job of pushing everything into the three-pack and the way that that's done is by creating you know, as you said, all of this co-occurrence and all of this, these co-citations. These are naked URLs and just URLs in the text without even getting LinkedIn, that'd be those account, believe it or not. And again, if it's from a post then that post image has a URL, yeah, if it's me, then that image should have a URL, or it should be uploaded to Google. So that you get the Google URL in there, or the Google Photos URL, whatever, if your Facebook, if you have an image on Facebook, you could use that because it's yours. Anything and everything that you can do to promote your brand are what you should be doing.

Bradley: Right. And that's what so so this is why I wanted to demonstrate this. So that's the image URL here. Now, if you take a look, this is the press of publish press event or excuse me, press release. That has I used the self-hosted image, right. So in other words, I provided an image URL for the press for press advantage to us. Now here it looks fine. But when it's republished on some of the other sites that you know, some of the other media sites, it's a big image that bleeds over. And it might not be this press version, this might be one of the other ones, but it bleeds way outside of the actual, you know, text area. So that's why I recommend that you resize it. But if you take a look, if I right-click on this and say copy image address, this is the image address right here. If you take a look, I know it's probably small, but that's my alpha land realty dot sales site, which is the site that I use for selling the properties that I have for sale. So this is a self-hosted image on my selling site, that I provided that URL press advantage to embed into the press release. Does that make sense? So I didn't upload this image to press an advantage. I provided them with the already hosted image URL, which then they inserted into the press release. So that right there is the same URL that I could add right here. If I was going to be promoting that particular press release, excuse me, writing the news article schema for that particular press release. That makes sense. So and again, I like doing that because if now that image URL, it once again, it's referencing another one of our entity assets. That makes sense. So that's how you resolve those.

How Many Articles A Weekly Should You Post In A GMB Page?

Brian PA it is Brian friends. Okay, awesome. What's up, Brian? He says, How many articles a week should you post to your GMB? Well, it depends. I think more equals better, but it really depends on you know what the competition's doing. It also depends on the industry. I can only say that more equals better. So, you know, for a lot of clients we posting we're posting daily. Some clients were posting twice daily, some clients were only posting two or three times per week. It just depends. You know, if nobody else in the industry and competitors are posting but or they're posting very, very rarely. So infrequently which is what you will notice unless somebody is running. A lot of times you'll see, especially in the contracting industries, you'll see that they'll post but it'll only be, you know, haphazardly. It's not a consistent schedule. So if as long as you are posting regularly, a lot of times, that's all it will take to get better results. But I think more equals better, let's say any of you.

Marco: I say you should post as many times as it takes. But if it takes once a week, then that's all you need to rank it then. I mean, that's fine. But again, as Bradley said, keep that consistency. If it takes five posts a day, then that's what it takes. And then so you'll be needing 25 posts, or it'll be 35 posts per week or 25 to 35 posts per week. It just it as Bradley said it depends on a percentage basis, what the competition is doing. And you know what Google wants to be fed.

Yeah, so his next question is, how long should it be? Well, they should only hold 1500 characters. So if the article, the GMB posts themselves, how many words should these posts be? It's not as I don't care about how many words they are, I mean, you can have up to 1500 characters and a GMB post. So that's the limit. So, typically what we do is we have what depends but if we're if we're publishing up, GMB post, it's talking about a blog post, which is what we do a lot. We'll just grab the first paragraph or a relevant paragraph from the blog post itself and use that in the GMB post but that we always include a call to action, a primary keyword that we're trying to target, a location modifier of some sort and a call to action, which allows us to squeeze name, address or phone number usually it's not the address because most of the clients I do we you know, I service or service area businesses, so it's usually the name or the phone number. And then we always link back to either a previous post, if it's a siloed, GMB posts, we link to the previous GMB post URL or an in with the button, we link to either the blog post, if that's what we're actually, you know, pointing to, or referencing, or will link to one of the entity assets. And a lot. And what I do with my VA is, is they'll have my bloggers will just have on the spreadsheet, the client spreadsheet, there will be a target URLs list, which will have all of the Top Tier or Tier One branded entity assets that we want to link to and they'll cycle through it. So in other words, you know, for example, if we've got a client that we're posting Monday through Friday, once per day, then that client might only be getting one blog posts per week. So one of those GMB posts for the week will actually link back directly to that blog post and it will have a paragraph or so pulled out of that along with the call to action and such but then the rest of the post during the week.

My VA is really good because they've just, you know, they've been doing it for so long of just finding something to write about from the website, and then just kind of rewarding it and turning it into a call to action of some sort. And then linking back to, like I said, with the button URL back to one of those branded entity assets and them just kind of cycle through them. Top Level citations, press, you know, media room type pages, drive stack, specifically the G site, really the GMB map URL, the GMB website, money site, inner pages of the money site, all of those, they just get linked to kind of a rotation so that there's constantly links going from GMB back to branded entity assets and it kind of help to just reinforce that whole footprint if that's if that makes sense. Okay.

Is It Okay To Use The Content Of A Drive Folder To Others?

Austin Don says with stacks drive folders, let's say I have one for service, Round Rock. Okay, would it be alright to copy that Drive folder and use for other cities service whatever Ville and just change the city modifier on the content or should new content be used for drive stacks, you can just change your city modifier is but also make sure you're changing the target URLs that you're linking from or linking to from within those files. Right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, there's some editing that needs to be done. You can't just change that. And then think that it's all over. Again. There are some files in there that have some heavy links that have to go in and have to be modified, correct? Yeah, so I'm saying you want to change your target URLs. So the best idea would be to have you know, a page or post on your money site that is optimized for that particular location for that service and location or services and location, and then change. When you're when you clone the file, the folders the folder and files for that, you know, for that business or that that project. Then you change all the keywords the location modifier is out to whatever new location you want to make sure that you're editing those target URLs from within the files to point to that location-specific page or post. So it makes sense. So,

What Is The Ideal Number Of Keywords For A GMB Post Be?

uh, Brian says using only one keyword per post or should you try to get two keywords in it? Well, I always have my bloggers are trying to target one primary keyword, but there are usually variations they get worked into it anyways, does that make sense? Remember, if you've got things siloed correctly, you're going to have related keywords anyways. From you know, within the silo on the website or from the GMB post because we siloed those together or both, right. So it usually there's the primary keyword that we're trying to target with each post, but there's a there's obviously going to be you know, variants clips, so closely related or LSA type keywords that also work, you know, in part of it, it's just because it's natural, and we don't write for SEO anymore, right? I mean, yes, we still try to target one keyword or so as a primary keyword. But our, my writers don't aren't trained to write for SEO really, they're just trained to, they know what like to link properly. But we don't have to write for SEO so much anymore because of structured data. And because Google's algorithm just understands natural language patterns so much more. So what would you suggest Marco?

Marco: Yeah, this is this is where siloed and the way that we do our posts comes in really handy, right, because you'll have a set of keywords that you're targeting, which are actually trying to push up the top-level category, which Jeffrey teaches in his SEO boot camp. So our ultimate goal is to push up or work from the top for that for the top-level category. And that's the main keyword. So any keywords that are relevant to that main category, and any LSA or in any other keywords that Google deems relevant, need to be worked in there, somehow?

As long as you're also thinking about the person that's trying to read that post, and you're trying to convert the person that's reading the post, because that's the ultimate goal, if you can get a person to click on it, the likelihood of them becoming a client or ending up paying either your client or you, it's really high because these are, the people are hot, the hot buyers, they're calling you for a reason. They're filling out that form for a reason. They're visiting your website for a reason. So that's hot, and you need to keep that person hot. You don't want them to go to whatever it is where you haven't clicked and cooled off. So they have to be worked in so so that you're talking to that pain, and you're solving whatever that pain is, you have to work that in so so that so they find a solution to whatever problem that it is that they had that made them go look for you or your niche in the first place.

Bradley: So because we don't have a lot of questions left, we'll wrap it up a few minutes early guys, unless you post some questions. I'll get another question in there. Okay, I was going to share some other stuff. But we

Hernan: just want to say real quick Bradley data, which is put together a short link, if you want, if you guys want to get access to the branding course of Brandon's going to put it together, it's semanticmastery.com/branding. So that is semanticmastery.com/branding. And you will be able to access that course for only 97 bucks instead of 300 bucks, which is going to be the end and you know, the final price for it. So semanticmastery.com/branding, which is put that together, boom.

How Often Should We Order Link Packages To The Drive Stacks/GSites?

Okay, Austin says how often should we order link packages to the drive stacks g sites? Well, that's up to you how as often as you need, I recommend that you alternate between embeds and link building packages. And remember when you buy embeds, you can also build by as an upsell. Link Building packages or is like a second-tier two that were linked link building to the actual embeds that's very powerful too. I like to do things in cycles or stages. So maybe I'll have a link building package done to my entity assets, my SEO shield, so to speak, one month, and then the next month, it'll be an embed gig. And then the next month, it'll be, you know, another link building package to syndication network, for example, or something like that. It's just a way to stagger it out. So I just kind of work that stuff into my monthly retainer for clients so that I know that that's going to be stuff that's ongoing, it gets done on a monthly, you know, monthly basis. It doesn't necessarily have to be the same targets every month. You can kind of just cycle through that. Okay.

Marco: Yeah, so no, don't hit the home page every month, right with a million links. That's not going to help. So if if you gave you drip them out, like during the month, which Dadea is really good at drip, feeding, everything, dripping everything out the way that you should set it looks more natural and every month as Bradley said, You choose a different target so that you're also targeting your tier one branded directly. Instead of just through the drive second Gsite, all of that, your posts your we've shared during Hump Day Hangouts, I don't know how many different URL targets that you can use for your link building campaign. And it all filters through to the same place, which is your again, and you know, you're going to get sick of me saying this, but the entity, it all filters out to what it is that you're trying to build, which is that the final piece of the puzzle, which is that entity was really really matters.

Bradley: Yeah, that's why I was getting ready to show. You know, when I talked about for GMB posts, for example, my bloggers have a list of target URLs that they just kind of cycle through that they including the button links Now, as I said, if it's a GMB post that is specifically promoting a blog post on the site, then on from the money site, then that GMB post or a button URL ends up pointing back to that specific blog post. But for most of the general posts, then it will link back to just one of the branded assets, the entity assets. Right? So that would be a tier-one asset. So which one should you link to? Well, all of them, but if you want our link to just the ones that are deemed the most powerful or the most relevant for the brand, it's very simple. Just go do a brand search if it's for a company, like a local business that has a name that is ambiguously aided right, so a name that is maybe coming up like a lot. I know a lot of local contractors, for example, will have names that are very generic, like whatever service plus city or city whatever service so it's very difficult to create a brand around that. Now it is so one of the ways that you can get and I've shown this before and maybe I'll show it with what we'll do another will do two examples real quick.

Alpha land realty has got a strong brand. Now I've been because I've been working on the entity for this for quite some time without doing a lot of SEO work. It's just been mainly entity work. And you can take a look, this is my real estate business, you can see that if I just do search for alpha land Realty, all of the entire first pages is taken up by all of my by entity assets of mine, right, or press releases that mentioned the brand. But something by the way that just popped up recently, I thought this was very, very powerful. This is really cool. This is apollo.io, which is like a kind of like a sales contacting prospecting type service. I know because I saw I just saw this pop-up yesterday in my brand search. And I went and signed up for it because I thought I could go in and edit this profile. And you can't, this was auto automatically generated by apollo.io. But it's very powerful because it popped right up on page one, like out of the blue. I've never even heard of it. And so I did sign up for it to try to see if I could edit this stuff. But what it did was it pulled in all of these entity assets.

I didn't create this page by the way like this, what I'm saying this just out of the blue popped up and it's got my website URL, it's got my name, it's got a description that it's pulled from somewhere. It's got my Facebook page, Twitter Linkedin page, and it's even got an alexa.com site info page. So somehow apollo.io is tied into Alexa, which I believe is an Amazon company. But it also pulls from Crunchbase which I think is also where got some of this information. So by the way, that's one of the ones I want to point out Crunchbase calm guys is super, super powerful. It's, it's, it's an entity database, right or a Semantic database. So you can go in and set up a Crunchbase profile and put in all kinds of like set up an organization and add a ton of information to it. And it's very, very powerful. So I would highly recommend that you set up Crunchbase but from here, I could just go through and start pulling out from the top two or three pages, all the URLs that are branded entity at sets, right so, and put those into a target URL list that you would want to cycle through from GMB posts, you can use that for deep links for other stuff, guys, you can link to them from press releases, you can link to them from blog posts, all of that kind of stuff, right? So you can just go through here and for example, like here's my Tumblr page for whatever reason is so powerful. This is from my syndication network and keeps showing up on page one and has been for four months, even though I really don't even publish to it.

If we go back to page two will see that we've got, you know, USA Today, that's a press release Twitter's popping up even though I don't really tweet. Another one is let's see Crunchbase I was just talking about this one. And this is actually tech check this out. This is the Crunchbase you can add press releases to your Crunchbase Company Profile. And so if you take a look, this is just referencing alpha land realty launches website for Virginia property owners. It's a press advantage. That's the press advantage URL right there, right so you can actually add press releases to Crunchbase, which is very, very powerful, and then that Crunchbase URL will index in rank, even though it's, it's it's pushing to, it's crazy. all it's doing is linking to a press release, but that Crunchbase URL will rank. Take a look at this Pocket. This hasn't been posted to since it was set up. It's just a Pocket profile. But it's still ranking, right? It's ranking on the top two pages is another one of my entity assets. So all of these things can just go into an actual target URL list. So it makes sense. And these are all things that could also be linked you could for the question that was just asked about how often should you order link building packages, all of these can become target URLs. Something else we've talked about is let's just do a quick search will do.

Let's do something I'm not in a city. I'm not in this a Tree Service, Richmond, VA. We use this as an example. Alright, so we'll come down here we'll look at let's see true. I want to see a good Davy Davy in Richmond, Virginia. That's a good one there. Let's take a look at that. It's also it looks like it's showing up here in maps. So we'll click through for maps. And we also kind of want to hold on lead back up for a minute. I also want to click through to Yelp. And I want to show you guys something. We've talked about this in the past, but I'll, I'll point this out again. Alright, so if we're looking at, let's actually grab the name.

Let's do this. Back up for a minute. We might have been able to do it from there. Hold on a minute. Let's try. Let's try that real quick.

We click through to here to photos, okay, yeah, we can. Okay. So remember, you can also for your link building projects, you can also grab, obviously, we're going to grab the map URL, remember not to use the share map URL, by the way, guys.

Let me back up for one more minute. And actually, we'll just go. We'll do this. I want to give you guys a couple of things real quick. So we'll go to. Alright, so a couple of things here. There is a great website. It's really simple and easy to use. Go to Google My Business. It's called GMB dot reviews maker calm. I've talked about this in the past, go to this page right here, click the code place Id go grab the long, ugly maps URL for an entity for a brand, right? That's a verified Google My Business has a verified Google My Business, excuse me, click through to the actual website that was photos. Let me back up for a minute. It's not showing the map. Here we go. Click through to the actual map URL, see if we can do that.

And it's not giving me the map URL that I wanted. But all you gotta do is grab the long map URL guys, the big ugly one for when you do a brand search and you click through from the knowledge panel on the little map icon, click through and then copy that big long, ugly URL. And you'll paste it into there and decode it and give you a maps URL that is the best URL to use. It still needs to be edited slightly. I'll show you the right way to do it. Let's see, click through we just use alpha land realty is an example. So you see I click through to the actual map and this big, long, ugly URL right here, Copy that. Go over to the GMB maps, excuse me, GMB reviews maker calm, click the code place ID paste this in here, click the decode place ID button will take a second. Then scroll down and right here where it says your maps URL you want to copy that link address will put this in a notepad file. And then what you want to do is change that URL from this where it says maps is the subdomain change that to dub dub dub so www.google.com and input maps after the first forward slash before the question mark. Right now that right there is the best URL to build links to for your maps listing. Because it's not a redirect, it's a straight URL.

Okay, so that so that's a really good URL to use. However, here are some other things that you can link build to. So we know that Davie Tree Service is one of the Richmond Tree Service, Richmond, VA, whatever that was the keyword I searched? Well, if we click through to the maps listing, like what you see here, look at all these different photos. All these photos have different URLs, guys if we click every photo is going to give you a different URL. So each one of those could also be used as additional link targets. Right? You could actually put those through one of your own shorteners, or use a shortener that's a 301 redirect, so you can print them up. And then you can create a target URL list of all the different images within the Google My Business profile. Does that make sense? Something else you could do is you could click on the actual reviews. So these reviews share, if you can click through from the actual brand. So let's go back to here for a minute. Let's just pick another one because that one's not it's got multiple locations and it's hard to pull up one specific one, we pull up, let's say ridge line Tree Service. Let's try that one.

And then I know we got to wrap it up in just a minute, guys. Okay, see how rich live Tree Service popped up. So if we click through to the map icon, this is going to take us to this specific map listing. Okay, then from here, right here, where it says reviews, the 11 reviews on this case, I could click on that. That's a unique URL, right? So you can add that to your target URL list. Also, each one of these individual reviews, take a look at it has a share URL, you can click on that and use that share URL. However, if you take a look at that URL, it's a redirect, but I don't care. I'll still build links to it. Does that make sense? So my point is, you can grab these, each one of these individuals share URLs and link to those also. So it makes sense. So each one of those photos can have its own URL. We talked about doing it with Yelp, if we were to find, see if we can find ridge line or we're just talking about baby tree expert companies, let's go into there, we click into their we've talked about this in the past guys, Yelp, grab that URL, put that in your list, click into photos, each one of these photos now has a different URL, grab all those photos, put those in. And those are all Yelp targets. Now, you can close out of that, you can also go down if they have reviews, and you can link to the reviews. See also share a review. So you can actually grab that URL and put that share, review share URL into your target list. One more thing, click rights, right-click view page source and scroll down. All of a sudden look at these guys, these are all can language canonical is essentially CL says link rel=canonical. And all of these other URLs are for the Yelp on all the different language versions of the Yelp site that all canonical eyes to this primary English version, right, which is the US version and each one of those URLs can go into a target list. So there's no shortage of links that you can add to link building campaigns, as long as they're not direct to your money site is what we suggest. You want to comment on that at all Marco.

Marco: No, that was perfect.

Bradley: Okay, cool. Alright, we've got about three minutes. I think we've just got a couple more that popped up.

What Video Should You Embed In A Press Release?

So Katie says thanks for the PR schema reply of something else I'm thinking about I'm a publishing press release about each blog post and want to incorporate video into the mix. Now that press advantage offers video embeds. Using the content of articles and press releases, I create a YouTube video of each post NPR from the videos created using my blog content I created a YouTube playlist that mirrors my blog siloed There you go, Katie, now you're getting it and embedded these into the corresponding blog posts from the videos created by the way, why not embed the playlist? Right, embed the playlist into each blog post within the same silo so the playlist is a silo and you've got a silo on your blog.

Now you can embed the actual playlist with the specific video that matches with matches up or corresponds with that particular blog post as the top video in the playlist. Does that make sense? So instead of just embedding the specific video, you can embed the whole playlist. So now you've got a playlist silo embedded in a silo. So it makes sense. It's very, very powerful to do that. So you're onto something there. Very good. She says from the video is created using my PR content, I created a second YouTube playlist that mirrors my PR stack. She's she, Katie must been following Semantic Mastery for a minute. Which videos best to embed in the press release the video from the blog post or the video about the press release itself that promotes the blog post? Or does it matter? It really shouldn't matter? In fact, it's probably a little bit of overkill to have two separate YouTube playlists. You know you could though I don't I mean, I just honestly I think that's probably a little bit more work than you need because you could probably accomplish everything within one siloed playlist that's mirroring the same keywords that you're targeting in both the blog post and the PR. That makes sense because you could reduce your workload a little bit, I think by just having one playlist that's mirroring the same keywords that are mirrored from your blog post to your PRs. If that makes sense. And then I would for the, for the press releases, I would take you, I don't think you can embed a playlist. But I know you can have the individual excuse me video URL for that specific that you know, that corresponds with that PR plus post, embed that into the plane, the press release, excuse me, but I would use the playlist embed code with the hack to where you can change the video ID to the video ID of that that corresponds with that post to be the top video in the playlist. And I would use the video and the playlist embed code in that in the blog post itself. That now you have a silo embedded in a silo if that makes sense. That's pretty powerful stuff. So

Does The Battle Plan Provide Steps On How To Optimize A New Lead Gen Site?

last question and I gotta wrap it up. I just created another brand new lead gen site. Does the battle plan give me steps to optimize the SM way? Of course, it does. Nathan. That's exactly what it was created for. Yeah, but it's no different. New did not the steps are the same. It's a couple of things that might be different.

Marco: But the steps that you need to take are practically the same. By the way, before we go. I'll be starting my charity webinar series. The first week of December probably. And I can't remember when you have your webinar. The next one for you. Do we have another one? Do we have another webinar coming up?

Bradley: Yeah, we've got on we've got Monday for the start of the branding course which will be about YouTube ads. And on December 9, Monday, December 9 is the display ads Google display ads.

Marco: So Monday the 25th or December's ok so the 25th and then

Bradley: Monday, December 9, right?

Marco: Okay, so I'll be starting mine, Monday, December 2 guys, everything about work, BERT entities, everything you want to know to rank into 2020 and well beyond. I told you in 2014 2015 what was going on and where this was going, and here we are, this is 2015 you should have been there. If you're not, then come to these webinars because I'll tell you from 2020 2025 MB on what's happening and what you need to do. And all it's going to take is a donation to the charity all the money goes to kids who need an education. So it's for a good cause. That's why I'm giving you raw business. It's what's going to happen and why.

There you go. Alright, thanks for everybody being here. We'll see you guys next week. Hey guys, semanticmastery.com/branding and forget to awesome thanks, guys.

[darkgreiga]

Wishes, Dreams, and Memories Chapter 35

Fandom: Rune Factory 4 Rating: T (to be safe) Genre(s): Adventure, Hurt/Comfort Characters: Lest, Dolce, Pico, Amber, Dylas, Leon, Frey, Arthur, Margaret, Forte Summary:  She had a wish to see him again. He had a dream of her last moments. They had their memories of having only each other. The amnesiac Earthmate never knew that by bringing his best friend back wouldn’t make his daily life go back to normal. Nor did he know she was the key to his and his ancestors’ past. Chapters: list Navigation: <<prev   |   next>> Author’s notes: Another late night update... And the end is near!

Chapter 35 – Forgotten Memories

“I’m… just like him…” Frey’s voice turned into a whisper as both of them looked at Ethelberd, “Just like Ethelberd, I’m a living rune too…”

“You never told me,” Lest responded sternly, “Why didn’t you say that you’re already dead?”

“Because I know you very well,” Frey replied in a shaky voice, “We’ve witnessed our own mother murdered right in front of us. Haven’t you considered that kind of trauma? To know that the family you’re looking for is also dead?”

Lest only gave a silent respond, knowing the truth in her words. If he knew that he already been on his own, he would have reverted to his old self when he first arrived in Selphia. He would return to being a lost child, not knowing who he was or where he had come from, but eventually ended up in a place filled with warm people. A new family he could call his own.

“But I have to admit, I was wrong about one thing,” Frey let out a smile, “You were never alone, which was proven when you can handle being a prince without me to help you all the time. Now I understand when you said you didn’t need me anymore back then.”

“I… said that?” Lest looked at Frey in confusion as she showed him her palm.

“I’ll share you some memories of our time,” Frey’s palm started glowing as hers and Lest’s body started glowing slightly, “But this time, let the runes tell you the actual stories instead. They’ll tell you that we didn’t always get along as siblings.”

“Are you sure you’ve brought everything you need? Enough money? Water? Food?” Frey asked in worry as she went over Lest’s rucksack, making sure anything necessary was inside.

“I’ve asked around about the price yesterday, so the money should be enough,” Lest replied as he watched his sister looking into his belongings, “I don’t think I’ll need that much food or water for a short hike to the bazaar today. Well, it’s not like I plan on camping out in the wild…”

“Oh right, I think you forgot something,” Frey put the mess she had made on Lest’s things on the table as she left the room, making Lest groan in frustration.

“Come on, I need to leave quickly or we won’t have enough food for the next season!” Lest protested before seeing Frey coming back into the room with several pieces of gear in her hands, “What are those?”

“If you’re going out there, then there should be monsters as well,” Frey took a rusted shield and shoved it to Lest, “Use this to block their attacks,” Frey took a pair of dual blades and put them in his hand, “If you need to counterattack a fast enemy, use dual swords to your advantage,” Frey went through the other equipments before Lest stopped her by putting the ones he was holding back on the table, “Hey, you must carry that all the time! The world out there-”

“I know about the monsters, Frey,” Lest replied in annoyance as he unsheathed a little of his own sword, “See? I already have one with me. Besides, I can fend off monsters on my own after a bit of training. I don’t need you to be worried about me all the time!”

“I am your sister!” Frey raised her voice in anger, “I have all the right to be worried about my one and only brother! You still need me to look after you!”

“No, you know that’s not true,” Lest took back his belongings and started walking away, “I think it’s more like you need me to dote on like when we’re kids, but we’re already adults! I feel like a helpless little kid who needs a stalker-like sister…” Lest looked back at her, but had already calmed down from anger, “Just… leave me alone…”

“Lest…”

Lest stood still in his place, looking at Frey with guilt all over his face. Frey responded with a smile, “Don’t be like that. I know that it wasn’t right of me to treat you too much like a kid.”

“Yeah, but…” Lest started, “I feel like there are things I should say better to you back then… I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay, I forgive you,” Frey let out a sigh, “Besides, I really think I deserved it. Especially after I envy you for being better than me in many things…”

“Really? I feel like you’re a lot better in doing most things… except for cooking…”

“H-Hey!” Frey yelled out in annoyance as she blushed in embarrassment, “You did the cooking all the time, so I didn’t have the chance to actually do it myself!” Frey looked at the surprised Lest before calming herself down with a deep breath, “Well, I was never good at anything… That’s why I’ve always envied you… I didn’t like how people compared us, so the only thing I could do the best was trying to be a good sister to you…”

“So that’s how we got into that argument…” Lest felt guilty once more after remembering the memory.

“But… I guess I do recall myself being better than you at one thing…” the twins’ body started glowing once more, “Our mother was there too…”

“Okay kids, it’s time to learn more about the Earthscript!” a woman with long green hair called out to the younger versions of Lest and Frey, with Lest came running towards her in excitement as Frey simply walked while looking completely uninterested.

“Yay! I love Earthskip! Teach us, Mommy!” Lest called out in excitement, making his mother chuckle.

“Lest, it is called Earthscript, not Earthskip,” Sara turned to her other child, “Frey, don’t make that kind of face again. Can’t I see the beautiful smile of my little angel?”

Frey shot a smile, “Look, I’m smiling!” the smile soon disappeared from her face, replaced with a frown, “Can we go out and play now? Earthscript is too easy for me! It’s boring!”

“You know that’s not true, dear,” Sara walked over to her hesitant child and took her hand, “Both of you still need to study more because it looks like you still hardly know anything about Earthscript.”

“What about magic, Mommy?” Lest tugged on his mother’s clothes, “Frey told me that her fire magic is so good she made the backyard boom-boom!”

“Stupid Lest! It was supposed to be a secret!” Frey called out in panic, until she saw the anger in her mother’s eyes, “M-Mommy?”

Sara let out an irritated sigh, “That explains why the maids carried buckets of water to the backyard yesterday…” Frey closed her eyes in fear as Sara squatted down to her level, only to be given a pat on the head, “I know you’re very good at your magic, but you cannot use it whenever you like. People could get hurt because of your magic.”

“I… I’m sorry, Mommy…!” Frey buried her face in her mother’s arms as she let her tears out from the fear and guilt, “I-I promise… I won’t do it again…”

“Now that’s one problem settled,” Sara turned to Lest as she comforted the crying girl, “I wonder if the scratches on the hallway floor from the maids’ bathroom to the backyard had something to do with this as well…”

Lest looked at his mother with teary eyes, aware that his mother had already seen through his actions, “B-But… Frey is… a-and the fire is… the yard i-is too hot…”

“Lest was…!” Frey’s voice managed to get Sara’s attention, “Lest was… trying to… save me… when I was saving… a family of birdies…”

Sara was left with two crying kids in her arms and her attempt on giving them more lessons had to be postponed. She brought the two into a hug, “You did what you could to help so that the little birdies are safe now. And you two did well looking out for each other, but…” Sara turned to Frey with a smile, “This little princess of mischief needs an extra lesson today!”

“She was a kind mother, wasn’t she?” Frey asked Lest with a sad smile, “Even after my best magic managed to set the half of the backyard on fire, she still had that warm smile of hers to comfort me…”

“Yeah… I think I’m starting to remember a little more about her…” Lest responded with a sad smile before he noticed that both Frey and Ethelberd were starting to turn invisible, “Frey, your body!”

Frey gave him a nod, “I know,” she turned around to face the gate, “The rune sphere shard’s power is slowly fading after the amount of time I spent out here and the battles I’ve fought.”

“Can’t you just stay here? The people in Selphia are willing to take you in just like they did with me,” Lest looked at his twin, who stood there and completely unresponsive at his words.

“I wish I could…” Frey responded, “But I got into this situation because of myself, so it’s my responsibility to see the end of it,” the female Earthmate turned to look at Lest with a sad smile as tears rolled on her cheek, “There are lots of memories I want to share with you… Good memories… Bad memories… But this is all I can do for you…”

Frey’s body started disappearing along with Ethelberd, making Lest even more panicked, “W-Wait! DON’T GO!!!”

As soon as the two figures disappeared from his sight, a small ball of light in the spot where Frey used to be. The light shone brightly and completely covered the whole area, bathing the place in bright white light. As the light shone, a series of images came pouring into Lest’s head, giving him back the memories he had once lost. All the adventures he had with his sister, all the troubles they had caused together, and all the family memories with or without their mother. They were all his precious memories and they had already come back. A single tear left his eye as he remembered his past and the fact that the last of his blood relative was gone.

“I wish I could still go on more adventures with you… but this is how it’s supposed to end…”

Lest opened his eyes, finding himself standing at the foot of Leon Karnak with runes slowly coming out of the ground.

“… I’m sorry, Lest… for not being a good enough sister to you…”

“You already are a good one, Frey…” Lest looked up at the sky as more tears fell from his eyes before he collapsed on the hard ground.

As his consciousness was slipping away, he could hear a faint sound of metal objects falling near him and some footsteps.

“Sir Halwell… Lest… take… airship…”

[jenmedsbookreviews]

This past weekend I have been on my travels again. After a fairly sedate week at work, where I spent most of if trying to work out what day it was thanks to the Bank Holiday, Mandie and I have headed oop north, very far up North as it happens, to Stirling in readiness for the launch of Bloody Scotland 2018, which takes place today at the Golden Lion Hotel. Excited muchly? Yes. Yes I am.

As if this wondrous happening wasn’t enough, we also booked out trains, hotels and accommodation for Bute Noir in August. this is the first time I have been off mainland Scotland and while it may not be the furthest away island I am still a touch excited and totally looking forward to it. Much of my holiday time is being spent exploring parts of the British Isles that I have either not experienced before or not visited in years. You would think with my job I’d be bored with travelling the UK by now but you’d be wrong. Have you actually stopped and taken time to look around you lately, or perhaps a little further afield. Our island, small, waterlogged and generally poo on the weather front as it may be. is actually a pretty bloody fantastic place to visit and there are so many parts I have yet to explore. Bring it on. Despite this being the fifth time in a smidge over two years that I have been to Stirling, this is the first time I’ve been to the Wallace Monument so there is always the chance to do something new, no matter how many times you go somewhere.

On the bookish front, it was all rather quiet again until mid week when I received a package from the lovely Karen at Orenda Books. Copies of Big Sister by Gunnar Staalesen, The Lion Tamer Who Lost by Louise Beech and Overkill by Vanda Symon. I also received a copy of the next Leigh Russell Geraldine Steel title, Death Rope from publishers No Exit and How Far We Fall by Jane Shemilt from Penguin. I also received a digital arc of A Steep Price by Robert Dugoni from Thomas and Mercer. Super tidy book week for me then 🙂

One Netgalley ARC this week which is one I have been looking forward to. I picked up The Thieftaker’s Trek by debut author Joan S. Sumner. I met Joan on the Crime and Publishment course in March and we had a really good talk about her writing. It turns out I have a little knowledge of the area in which Joan has set her books, if not of the era in which she has written them, but I’m really excited to read it and find out more.

So … last week I was on a bit of buying slump. Yeah … that’s over. 😀 I bought the following: The Defence, The Plea, and The Liar (also on audible) by Steve Cavanagh, The Lion Tamer Who Lost by Louise Beech, After He Died by Michael J Malone, The Girl With No Name and Her Mother’s Grave by Lisa Regan. I also took the liberty of ordering the US cover of Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh as it is very pretty (Not out until 2019 but I can wait …) and Death Rope by Leigh Russell.

Normal service has resumed. Yay. (For Amazon anyway).

Books I have Read

Ultima – LS Hilton,

The shockingly audacious conclusion to the international bestselling phenomenon that began with Maestra. If you can’t beat them – kill them

First there was Maestra. Then there was Domina. Now – there is Ultima.

Glamorous international art-dealer Elizabeth Teerlinc knows a thing or two about fakes. After all, she is one herself. Her real identity, Judith Rashleigh, is buried under a layer of lies. Not to mention the corpses of the men foolish enough to get in her way. 

But now, caught in the murderous crossfire between a Russian Mafia boss and a corrupt Italian police detective, Judith is forced to create an even more daring work of art – a fake masterpiece she must take to the world-famous auction house where she used to be a lowly assistant and sell for $150 million.

For Judith the prospect of putting one over her loathsome former employer and the world’s art establishment is almost as thrilling as the extreme sex she’s addicted to – especially when the price of failure is a bullet in the back of the head.

But exposing her new identity to the glare of the spotlight puts her at risk of an even greater danger. Like a beautiful painting stripped of its layers of varnish, something altogether different could be revealed. 

A truth about her past even Judith might find shocking.

Yes. I know. I surprised me too. But you know what? I actually enjoyed this. Slightly steamier than your average thriller, there was a great story and really strong characterisation behind this book and as this was the final part in the series, I’m actually looking forward to going back and reading the first two. You can read my review here and purchase a copy of the book here.

…

Follow Me Home – DK Hood

‘Don’t you agree Detective? That some people deserve to die? I’ve killed the first. I’ve killed the second. Now will you catch the others, or do I have to kill them too?’

The body of Amos Price lies in a pool of blood on the polished floor of an otherwise empty house. With no signs of a break in, and no clues left at the scene, Detective Jenna Alton is at a loss.

But as the team begins to unpick the life of the reclusive victim, they discover a disturbing link between Amos and the disappearance of several young girls in the county going back years. 

Days later, another brutally murdered body is found, in a remote motel on the outskirts of town. Ely Dorsey was killed in a frenzied attack and Jenna fears not only that the murders are connected to the missing girls, but that the killer hasn’t finished yet.

As Jenna tries to work out who will be next, the killer suddenly starts sending her deputy, David Kane, messages. Is she being taunted? Or does the murderer want to be caught? And will Jenna discover who’s behind these killings before more people die?

An absolutely nail-biting thriller with plenty of twists, Follow Me Home is perfect for fans of Robert Dugoni, Karin Slaughter and Rachel Abbott.

The third part in the Kane and Alton series sees them on the hunt for a vicious killer who seems to be extracting their own kind of justice for truly heinous crimes. The subject matter is tough to read but carefully handled. The murders are brutal and varied. You’ll be able to read my review as part of the tour and can order a copy of the book here.

…

First to Die – Alex Caan

A DARK AND EDGY CRIME THRILLER FOR FANS OF SARAH HILARY, KATERINA DIAMOND, ANGELA MARSONS AND ROBERT BRYNDZA.

SOMEWHERE IN THE CROWD IS A KILLER 

Bonfire Night and St James’s Park is filled with thousands of Anonymous protesters in a stand-off with the police. When a cloaked, Guido Fawkes mask-wearing body is discovered the following morning, Kate Riley and Zain Harris from the Police Crime Commissioner’s office are called in.

The corpse has been eaten away by a potentially lethal and highly contagious virus. The autopsy reveals the victim was a senior civil servant, whose work in international development involved saving lives. Why would anyone want him dead? 

THEY WILL STRIKE AGAIN 

As the research team looking into the origins of the deadly virus scramble to discover an antidote, first one, then another pharmacist goes missing. Meanwhile, a dark truth starts to emerge about the murder victim: he was an aggressive man, whose bullying behaviour resulted in the suicide attempt of one of his former staff members.

AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT . . .

With thirty lives potentially at stake, Kate and Zain have their work cut out for them. Can they find the two missing pharmacists in time, or will they too end up dead?

Gah. You have no idea how long I have wanted to read this book. I have had several false starts, plus some emergency blog tour reads which demanded my attention but have finally been able to finish what I started and boy am I a happy bunny. Uncannily topical this book had me hooked from start to finish. Oh how I have missed Zain. You’ll be able to read my review around publication day (not long now – 14th June) but can preorder a copy here.

…

Three books. Not bad considering I got distracted by Bute Noir and spent half a day driving to Stirling. I am actually half way through another audio book as well so I am still being productive if not effective. Blog wise, I have no idea but here is a recap.

Ultima by LS Hilton

Guest Review: Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski

Absolution by Paul E. Hardisty

Summer at the Little Cottage on the Hill by Emma Davies

When the Waters Recede by Graham Smith

Okay. So not so busy, Well I did say i was slowing down … This week I have blog tours today for Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh and on Friday for Big Sister by Gunnar Staalesen. If you stop by on Sunday, I may have a bit of a surprise for you all too.

Funny old week this week. I’m only actually in the office for two days (yippee) because I have a two day leadership conference to attend at Alton Towers of all places (less yippee) and of course today I am in Stirling. Then I am off work for a whole week so no office for me. Cannot wait. I may even remember to put my out of office on the email this time as well. Whoops.

Have a fabulously bookish time this week folks. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from me again very soon as I let you know all about this year’s Bloody Scotland line up. I am so excited.

If anyone wants to know why I blog and why I travel the country so much then this … this is why. I am super privileged to be in a position where I can do this kind of thing, where I am offered the chance to be part of something really special and where I am trusted enough to help to spread the word. You can keep the free ARCs, I am lucky enough to be able to afford my own books (as this weeks purchases will confirm). I appreciate being trusted with the books, I truly do, but they are not why I do this. What drives me, what I love about blogging, is being given the opportunity to support, champion and shout out about the bookish community that I love. What a gift.

Speak soon.

Jen

Rewind, recap: Weekly update w/e 03/06/18 This past weekend I have been on my travels again. After a fairly sedate week at work, where I spent most of if trying to work out what day it was thanks to the Bank Holiday, Mandie and I have headed oop north, very far up North as it happens, to Stirling in readiness for the launch of Bloody Scotland 2018, which takes place today at the Golden Lion Hotel.