In this episode, Nate and Brett discuss 6 different topics in a rapid-fire, 5 minute each, Pardon The Interruption format. They cover everything from Bing tracking issues, CTR as a ranking factor, what ad-blocking has to do with SEO, and more.

Issues Discussed

* Google & Alphabet

* Bing Tracking Issues?

* Referral Spam & The Future

* Google Webspam Team

* CTR as Ranking Factor

* The Continued Rise of Ad Blocking

 

Links Mentioned

Alphabet 

Bing Tracking Issues

Nate’s post on referral spam

CTR as Ranking Factor Study 1

CTR as Ranking Factor Study 2

AJ Kohn on CTR and Rankings

Rise of Ad Blocking

Check out this episode!

Any SEO will tell you that tools are incredible. But tools are only as good as far as you know how to use and apply them.

In this episode, Nate and Brett dive deep with Google Trends and Google Correlate; discussing not only how to use them, but also how to apply insights to marketing and SEO campaigns.

Issues Discussed

* What Google Trends & Google Correlate are

* Using Trends/Correlate for Keyword Research

* Using Trends/Correlate for Understanding Personas & Buyer Journeys

* Using Trends/Correlate for Trending Topics

* Productivty Tips for Correlate/Trends

Links Mentioned

Nate’s piece on Finding Trending Topics

Nate’s piece on Google Correlate

Google Correlate

Google Trends

Siege Media’s Guide to When to Pitch Bloggers

Check out this episode!

Listen on iTunes!

Transcription

Brett Snyder: Hello there and welcome to Episode Number 27 of your Bamboo Chalupa Digital Marketing Podcast. My name is Brett Snyder. I am the president of Knucklepuck. I am joined by my co-host Nate Shivar, the author of ShivarWeb.com.

Nate Shivar: Hello, hello.

Brett Snyder: Regular listeners of the podcast will know that we spend a lot of time talking about strategy, but we also lean on the tools that we use to enable that strategy. As any SEO will tell you, Nate and myself included, tools are amazing. Professional SEOs simply could not do our jobs without our tools. We got our well known ones. We’ve talked Screaming Frog a number of times. Search Console previously known as Webmaster Tools. We’ve got our backlink checkers of choice, your Open Site Explorer, your Majestic SEO, or your Ahrefs.

Every SEO leans on Keyword Planner for keyword research, but the good ones leverage more advanced tools like KeywordTool.io, Soovel, Keyword Shutter, even some paid tools like SEMrush. Having access to the tool only goes so far. For a tool to make a difference, you need to know not only how to use it, but also how to apply the data and insights to your particular website, your business and industry, and your campaigns.

Today, we want to talk about a tool that some of you may be familiar with, and then a close cousin of that tool under what Nate and I will call the same tool suite that most people probably have never heard of. We’re talking about Google Trends and its close cousin Google Correlate.

Nate Shivar: You’ve probably heard of Google Trends, and like Brett said, maybe Google Correlate. Google Trends, it’s a pretty well known PR tool for Google. It’s what they use to create their what the world searched for in 2014 or 2015 every year. They use it to create the Google Zeitgeist.

So much of search engine optimization (and digital marketing in general) is very abstract. The best practices & advice gets lost in “high-level” or vague advice.

In this episode, Nate & Brett discuss companies that are doing SEO right. They use real websites that you can go and look at yourself and see how they are using different aspects of SEO to improve their marketing.

Topics Discussed

Technical SEO – Moz’s consolidation of subdomains; and various companies’ path to rebranding without losing search traffic.

On-page SEO – REI’s use of different types of content to match different types of website visitors (and outrank Wikipedia and Amazon on broad keywords).

Off-page SEO – Vacations by Marriott’s high quality linkbuilding on a budget. And – MyPleasure’s National Sex Toy Day campaign.

Social Media & SEO – DollarShaveClub and BlendTec’s campaigns to make boring products very interesting.

Offline Campaign & SEO – Apple & Zappos building links with pain points. StitchFix’s approach to customization and packaging

Links Mentioned

Moz’s Subdomain Consolidation

HotPads’s Subdomain Consolidation

IWantMyName’s Subdomain Consolidation

Moz’s Domain Name & Rebranding Migration

Pre-owning a domain to decrease migration risks

Flushing old URLs en masse

REI Adventures

REI How To Choose A Mountain Bike

Vacations by Marriott Budget Linkbuilding Case Study

Backlinko’s Skyscraper Case Study

Archived version of National Sex Toy Day

DollarShaveClub

BlendTec

Apple’s unpacking story

Zappos.com

Stitch Fix 

Check out this episode!

Transcript

Brett Snyder: Hello there, and welcome to the 26th episode of the Bamboo Chalupa Digital Marketing podcast. My name is Brett Snyder. I am the president of Knucklepuck. I’m joined by my co-host, Nate Shivar, the author of ShivarWeb.com.

Nate Shivar: Howdy!

Brett Snyder: Something I believe that we’ve mentioned on the podcast before, but here at Knucklepuck, we actually have a weekly book club, where we find a great book that we’re reading or that somebody’s reading, and we come in every morning early on a Thursday, and we discuss that. Right now, we’re reading a book called Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath. One of the favorite things we like about this book is that it has a lot of case studies. It has a lot of examples.

We always, as marketers, talk about storytelling as a way to get our poin...

What does an SEO actually do in a day? How can SEOs be more effective? And what can managers, business owners, or in-house marketers learn from a typical SEO day?

In this episode, Nate and Brett discuss what an average day in SEO specifically and digital marketing in general looks like. They discuss priorities, automation, scheduling, tips and tricks to create the most effective day possible.

Issues Discussed

* What a typical day looks like from morning to night.

* What work variables come into play.

* How and when to use automation.

* How and what to prioritize.

* What clients can takeaway from a typical SEO day.

* What managers can takeaway from a typical SEO day.

* What part-time or in-house marketers can takeaway.

Links Mentioned

Eat The Frog

Made To Stick

Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts

How Nate Automates Twitter

Jess Hill on How Client Education Helps Effectiveness

Why Work Doesn’t Happen At Work

SEO Things You Can Do in An Hour

Importance of One Priority

Check out this episode!

Google+ was one of Google’s most public investments in a new consumer product. But as of July 2015, Google+, as it was known, is dead. Google+ has been “unbundled” into different products. In this episode, we discuss what the unbundling means for the future; what it means for marketers and SEOs; and what it means for businesses deciding what digital platform to invest in.

Issues Discussed

* Background on the Google+ Project

* The promise of Google+

* What is happening to Google+

* What the evolution of Google+ means for marketers and business owners

* How to make decisions about investing in social platforms

Links Mentioned

Google and the Creepy Factor

Google Product Manager Bradley Horowitz on Google+’s Future

Google+ As We Knew It Is Dead – What’s Next?

Google+ Changes

Problems with Google+

What Google+’s Death Means for Marketing

Removal of Google+ Notifications

Check out this episode!

In this second of two meet the hosts episodes, Brett Snyder talks about his career path & experiences in agency-side SEO and business plans. We talk about lessons learned in SEO, as an agency consultant, as a director of a team and now as a startup founder.

Links Mentioned

Brettasnyder.com

Brett on Twitter

Brett’s SEO Presentations

Check out this episode!

Listen to this episode in iTunes

In this first of two meet the hosts episodes, Nate Shivar talks about his non-traditional SEO career path and plans. We talk about lessons learned in SEO, business, advertising, plus the future of digital publishing, learning how to think at scale and Nate’s most miserable failure in digital marketing.

Links Mentioned

Shivarweb.com

Okdork.com

EZDentRepair.com

Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO

Check out this episode!

Listen to this episode in iTunes

Google’s Knowledge Graph is a continually growing part of Google’s search results and Google’s products. It’s different from the traditional organic algorithm. And there’s much less known about it.

In this episode, Nate & Brett explore what the Knowledge Graph is; what it means for businesses; bleeding edge research into ranking factors; and tips for how businesses can compete in a Knowledge Graph world.

Issues Discussed

* What the Knowledge Graph is

* Why the Knowledge Graph matters

* Variations of the Knowledge Graph in Search Results

* How Knowledge Graph Answers are created

* The Commercial Angle

* The Google+ Angle

* Knowledge Graph Optimization & Best Practices

* The Medical Knowledge Graph Controversy

* Making the most out of the Knowledge Graph

* The Future of Search

Links Mentioned

Google Introduces the Knowledge Graph

Google’s Guide To Customizing Your Knowledge Graph

Nate Dame on the Knowledge Graph

AJ Kohn on the Knowledge Graph

Moz on The Knowledge Graph

Google’s Medical Knowledge Graph

The Knowledge Vault

Check out this episode!

Listen to this episode in iTunes

Transcription

Brett Snyder: Hello, there. Welcome to Bamboo Chalupa, your digital marketing podcast. My name is Brett Snyder. I am the president of Knucklepuck. I am joined by my co-host, Mr. Nate Shivar, the author of ShivarWeb.com.

Nate Shivar: Howdy, howdy.

Brett Snyder: This afternoon we’re actually going to be talking about one of what Nate and I look at as the bleeding edge element of the search results pages. It’s something that Google released about two or three years ago, I think, maybe even a little bit more, that-

Nate Shivar: 2012.

Brett Snyder: -continues to fascinate consumers, but remains largely understudied, in terms of how you actually can impact visibility in the search results. What we’re referring to here is we’re referring to the Knowledge Graph.

Nate Shivar: The Knowledge Graph is Google’s system for organizing information about millions and millions of well-known entities. Entities is the specific term that they use to think of distinct people, places, organizations, concepts that exist in the real world. Google actually said that when they move to building out the Knowledge Graph that this is the critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.

Brett Snyder: I think that’s huge, there, to tie into this fact that they want to understand the world a bit more like people do, because they say this as if it’s something new and innovative here, but it’s really what Google has been trying to do. It’s what they tried to do when they released the Hummingbird update. It’s what they tried to do when they released PageRank back in 19...

The best SEO & digital marketing strategies focus on the same wants and needs of the same users. But how do we identify the wants and needs? That’s where personas come in.

In this episode, Nate and Brett discuss how to develop personas that you can use in everyday marketing; our favorite methods for mining data to develop personas; and common mistakes in developing & using user personas. 

Issues Discussed

* What & Why of Personas

* Caveats of Personas

* Using Data to Develop Personas

* The Reverse Engineer Best Customer Method

* The Facebook Open Graph Method

* Google Display Network Method

* The Mining Twitter Method

* Reverse Engineer Persona with Organic/PPC Keyword Data

* Common Mistakes When Developing Personas

Links Mentioned

Personas: Understanding the Person Behind The Visit

Your Google Display Network Persona

You Don’t Have a Customer If You Don’t Have Non-Customers

Reverse Engineer Your Best Customer on Facebook Method

Google Display Network Method

Mining Twitter Method

Reverse Engineer Keyword Data Method (and the PPC version)

Building Persona Mistakes

Beginner’s Guide to Marketing Personas

Check out this episode!

Listen to this episode in iTunes

Blackhat or “Grayhat” SEO is doing anything that explicitly violates Google’s Quality Guidelines or the law with the intent of improving organic rankings. It’s controversial and not recommended. It’s also a bit mysterious for many marketers and website owners.

That said, blackhat SEO is something every marketer and website can learn from. This episode explores the spectrum of blackhat SEO and lessons every business can takeaway from it – without adopting the actual tactics.

Issues Discussed

* The spectrum of blackhat SEO from illegal tactics to unethical to just spammy

* How to understand, monitor and react to blackhat SEO in your industry

* The broad lessons businesses can learn from blackhat SEO

* Google’s fallibility and aligning interests

* Focusing on scale and strategy

* Focusing on investment over cost

Links Mentioned

Google’s Quality Guidelines

Quotes from Google on Negative SEO

Disavow Tool

Brett’s comments on the Disavow Tool

Copyscape

MonitorBacklinks.com

Check out this episode!

Listen to this episode in iTunes

Transcript

Brett Snyder: Hello and welcome to the 19th episode of your Bamboo Chalupa digital marketing podcast. I’m Brett Snyder; I am the president of Knucklepuck, and I am joined by my co-host Nate Shivar, the author of shivarweb.com.

Nate Shivar: Hello hello!

Brett Snyder: So today we’re going to talk about an unfortunate reality in all business, whether online or offline, but one that’s especially prevalent in the world of SEO, and that’s black hat tactics. When we talk about black hat, we’re referring to any spammy, unethical, or even illegal tactics that are used to gain a competitive advantage in your space. In SEO, this typically refers to manipulating Google’s algorithm, or Bing or Yahoo, but manipulating the search engine algorithm against their quality guidelines so that you can secure enhanced visibility or to artificially improve your ranking in their search engines.

Nate Shivar: Black hat, it really has a huge spectrum, and there’s a lot of varying levels that we’ll touch on. It goes from the truly egregious, really the illegal, things like hacking websites that you don’t own in order to put links on that website that will benefit websites that you do own. Even things like doing distributive denial service attacks, which basically means sending a lot of signals to servers to basically take your competitors offline and make their website completely unavailable to their users, which of course will have a cascading impact on their long-term SEO.

Brett Snyder: Right and what we’re talking about here, when we talk about these truly egregious black hat tactics, we’re talking about an attempt to eliminate your competition by illegally compromising their website. They’re going out there and basically taking their site offline. As Nate mentioned, this has an immediate impact whereas users can’t reach the website, but it also … If you start to see these compromising signals associated with the domain, Google is less likely to view that domain and trustworthy and authoritative and your long-term...