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6/19 WWT: Select SEO Uncovered: Industry News and Trends SEO Uncovered: Industry News and Trends
Jun 19, 2024
Explore the latest SEO trends and industry news. We will cover tips for your SEO strategy, technologies to help with implementation, and actionable insights to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of search engine optimization.
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We'll get started
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All righty. So today, and if you have any questions throughout the presentation
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feel free to submit them in the Q&A, or you can submit them through the chat
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and I can get to them at the end, but submitting them through the Q&A is probably the best
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And with that, today we are going to be talking about SEO news and trends
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Now, before we really dive in, you're probably wondering who is this guy who keeps asking me questions
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Well, I'm a level four publisher success manager here at Ezoic. I assist publishers with optimizations
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I work in the San Diego office. I love reading and collecting comic books
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I'm a jazz music enthusiast. I perform and teach improv comedy on the side, and I'm married
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and I have a mini golden doodle named Honey, which you can see either screaming or laughing in that picture on this slide
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And if you make it towards the end of this presentation, you'll get to see another picture of honey
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So stay tuned. Also, where to find webinars. Just want to remind you all when where you can access the webinars, they are recorded
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But also, if you ever miss one, it's always posted in the webinar library, which you can access by going to support.esoic.com
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So you don't need to have a webinar assistant, AI assistant, show
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to the meetings because we record them all. And you can also access the library by going to levels in support in your account settings
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Or if you prefer to read rather than watch a video, webinars are also converted to blogs, which you can see at
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azoic.com slash blogs. I did a webinar on IMP Interactive Next Paint and SiteSpeed that you can check out if you haven't
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Yeah. So take a look at those if you want to expand your knowledge or catch up on anything that you may or may have missed
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And then today, our agenda, we will be going and covering tips
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for your SEO strategy, technologies to help with implementation, and actionable insights to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of search engine optimization
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I'm going to be sharing some news that was hand-picked by our SEO team
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And at the end of the presentation, if there's a link that you want to any of the articles that I shared, I can absolutely provide those in the chat
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for you. So let's get started. Making sure there's no other perfect. Okay, so May news
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Our first one is from Search Engine Land. And this article, it provides a really good example of someone
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who was ranking very well in search results and lost 91% of their search traffic
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The kicker is they weren't even serving ads and they lost all of that traffic
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And main takeaway from this article is Google doesn't owe House Fresh, which is the site that is featured in this article traffic
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The owner acknowledged that Google doesn't owe us anything. We simply don't deserve to get surf traffic because we exist or because we say we should
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And then there was a quote that really stuck out to me in this article
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not to bet the farm on one source of revenue to sustain their business
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So think about your site like a stock portfolio with its traffic
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You wouldn't want to put all of your money in one stock
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You wouldn't want to put all of your traffic sources in one source
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Google. You want to diversify your traffic sources. Next one, this one is from search engine land
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and it features John Mueller. If you don't know who John Mueller is, he's a very big person in the
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SEO and Google community. And he was talking about the Google algorithm update. And he said recovery
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from Google's algorithm updates can take months. Significant drops may require multiple update cycles to resolve
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and adapting to the evolving web and user expectations is crucial for recovery
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So one of the things that really stood out to me in this article is don't expect recovery
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to be just as it was before. John Mueller thinks this is unrealistic
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So when taking a look at sites, and I'll mention this later
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we have to see what the Google algorithm is rewarding and what it isn't rewarding
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and go from there and make changes and adapt that way to the evolving web
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Next, we have some insights on. on the March spam and core updates from Google
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And this is from Lily Ray, who is excellent in terms of SEO advice
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And you should absolutely follow Lily on social media if you haven't already because they provide great SEO insights
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And this is a very in-depth piece on the update. And the thing that stood out to me, while Google claims to ever reduce
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produced 45% of the unhelpful content in its search results. The truth is that Google appeared to have gone a bit further than just that
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While it's true that many spammy, low-quality, fully AI-generated sites were penalized as part of the March spam update
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Thousands of websites lost visibility with the March core update. So take a look at this article, which provides a great over-reactual
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review and provide specific data Next this is a news article and it covers the Google antitrust suit that happening right now It is one of the largest antitrust trials in recent memory
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The government argues that Google owes its dominance not simply to a good design
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but to a series of coercive deals that have let the search engine market stagnate
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while Google complains it's being punished for its success. So one of the things that I take away from this is Google might lose some of its dominance in the market
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leading ways for other search engines such as dot-doc-go, Bing, and my new favorite Ecosda, e-ecocia
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I don't know how to pronounce it because it's so new, but they plant trees every time you search for something on the web
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which I think is really neat. And it provides some of the privacy benefits that Duck, Duck, Go has
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Some of you may be thinking, Trevor, people are used to utilizing Google
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They're not going to stop. People said the same thing about Explorer with Microsoft, and utilizing that as your browser
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And that has changed. Users will change their habits. So I'm very curious and you absolutely should be as well in terms of what happens with this antitrust lawsuit
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The next one, search engine land, highlights the Google search document link
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So this was huge. Someone leaked all the things that go into ranking with the search algorithm and Google
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and yeah, the Google algorithm was revealed. And one of the authors writes, one of the big takeaways is brand matters
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Fishkin's big takeaway from the leak is that brand matters more than anything else
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If there is one universal piece of advice I had for marketers seeking to broadly improve their organic search rankings and traffic
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It would be build a notable, popular, well-recognized brand in your space outside of Google search
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Some other things that I found interesting from these articles is there was no mention of ads
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So ads don't play a role. The other thing, and it makes sense that it wouldn't play a role because
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Google makes a majority of their revenue off of ads. Other things that I found interesting
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Google looks at the dates in the byline, URL, and on page content. So having relevant content
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definitely matters. Page titles matter. How well does your title match to a query? So
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takeaways here is if you aren't updating your content, I would start updating your content. You
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and highlighting to your users when you updated it because Google sees all past iterations
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Last article here is from SEO Roundtable and it's talking with John Mueller again about
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recovering from core updates and John Mueller says that it might be time to move on to one user who
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reached out to him and fixing small things here and there, even ads, won't really move the needle
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So when you lose traffic and I work with a lot of publishers, a lot of them can freak out and they think, oh, I need to do these changes
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I need to reduce ads or I need to buy links. John Mueller says that won't solve your traffic loss
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It's really focusing on that content, which is really going to help
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And focusing on your authority, which we'll talk about later on in this presentation
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And that is me. I just want to check and make sure there's nothing in the chat
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Nope, you're a quiet bunch. That's okay. Next is June news. we don't have too much for June news because we're still in it
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But we definitely have some good articles for you. And this picture is a quote that I thought was really interesting from A.J. Cone
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Google is biased towards brands because people are biased towards brands. And that really opened my eyes a little bit
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And it should open your eyes when you think about your site. how to make it a brand and how to regain traffic if you've lost it by any means
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So our first article in June is search engine land and it's talking about the largest part of
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the web is already being crawled by mobile. And there's no change in crawling for these sites
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However, after July 5th, which is coming up, Google will crawl in in
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index sites only with Google bot smartphone. So, biggest takeaway from this article, make sure your site is mobile-friendly and can be loaded
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on an Android and or iPhone so that it can be crawled by Google
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Next one, another one from SEL Roundtable. And this is an interview with Google CEO Sundar Pichai
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I apologize if I mispronounce that name and was interviewed by Emily Chang at Bloomberg
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And she asked a really interesting question where some leading computer scientists have said search is getting worse, more SEO spam, etc
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Do you see their point? And Google CEO responded, anytime there's a transition, you get an explosion of new customers
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content and AI is going to do that. So for us, we view this as the challenge. And I actually think
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you know, there's people who will struggle to do that, right? So doing that well is what will define
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a high quality product. And I think it's going to be the heart of what makes search successful
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And you can see the whole interview at that link. During that interview, he mentions AI, a
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lot So get ready If you do decide to watch that interview And then our last one from June is another thing a tidbit of info from John M And John M in this article essentially says
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don't completely do away with desktop optimization. Just consider mobile more often
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And this is in response to Google bot mobile indexing sites starting on July 5th
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All in all, Mueller says, I don't think it's the case that you can completely disregard what's served on desktop in terms of SEO and related
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If you had to pick one and the only reason you're running the site is for Google SEO, I'd probably pick mobile now
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But it's an artificial decision. Sites don't live in isolation like that
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Businesses do more than just Google SEO. And to be honest, I hope you do
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A healthy mix of traffic sources is good for peace of mind
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So the guy who works at Google is even saying a healthy mix of traffic sources is good
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Also, if you want to have to make this decision go responsive
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So optimize for users, not for Google. That's one of my biggest takeaways here
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Next. So after all of those, does anyone have any questions on anything that I just
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covered and I'll gladly share those articles at the end if you want specific ones
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Any questions? Totally fine if there isn't. Okay. Next, I definitely have some tips based off of
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everything that we just went over. The first one, don't delete or remove ads. I have worked with
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publishers who think ads are the reason why. I just highlighted multiple articles showing you that
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this isn't the case. I have had publishers turn off ads and their traffic continued to drop
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If you're truly worried about ads, you can rest easy being with you Zoic because we don't have a
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static setup for your sites. You can look at your ads per page to see that we show different
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amount of ads to different users. You can also look at your ad density report and you
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and if you're below 30%, you're in the clear. So with ads, they aren't going to make a difference
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in your traffic. So remember that. Second one is see what Google is ranking ahead of you for
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keywords you were targeting and make adjustments. So look at the Google keyword that you're targeting and look at what Google is rewarding
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See what they're doing that you aren't doing. With the update on my end, I'm seeing 60% of the time of video being the top result
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which is kind of shocking. I'm also seeing AI overview, Google's AI bot answering questions when I search for things on Google
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I'm seeing Reddit and Quora rise to the top, and I'm also seeing big brands rise to the top
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But every niche is different. Look and see what's ranking for yours
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Next is diversify traffic. With traffic, there's many other sources besides Google
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You may have dipped your toes in some of these. waters, but as a friendly reminder, there's Facebook, Pinterest. I'm seeing a lot of publishers
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have really good success with Pinterest. It's a big brand. They promote pins towards the top for
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keywords you're targeting. YouTube, I mentioned 60% of the top search results are a video
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Humex, which is our video platform, which I'll I'll talk about. We're seeing humics ranked towards the top
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Instagram, TikTok, X or Twitter, Tumblr, forums, Reddit, Quora. If you aren't in those specific subreddits in Reddit or Quora
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I would recommend joining them. LinkedIn. If you have a site that's all about business
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having a LinkedIn profile makes a lot of sense, Snapchat, and of course, news. Letters
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Diversifying your traffic is definitely big, especially with all the things that I just highlighted with Google, especially if there's an antitrust lawsuit where they're going to be reducing their search engine dominance
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So start thinking about diversifying that traffic if you haven't already. Next, one of those big things that we saw from those algorithms leaks are backlinks, map
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And you might be thinking, okay, Trevor, that's easier said than done. How do I get backlinks? And
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the best advice that I've heard is you have to create the best and shareable content. Create
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content that you believe people would want to share, that you believe people would, it resonates
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with them. If you do that, you're more likely to get backlinks. Video is the future
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I just mentioned 60% of top search results are video. If you ask you
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someone and Ken and Paul they probably heard me mention this. If you ask someone, how do you want to
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learn? Do you want to watch a video or do you want to read? Most of the time they're going to say
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watch a video. If you ask a young person, how do they look for answers on the internet
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Most of the time they aren't going to say Google. They're going to say YouTube, TikTok. That's how
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they're looking for their content. So if we want our websites to survive, we have to think about
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how to cater to these audiences that aren't utilizing Google if we're super reliant on Google
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We need to be able to be discoverable to these younger generations. Build your brand. I've mentioned
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many times. Brand is something that is very important. And Google's rewarding it
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So make your site, make yourself a brand. Have a digital footprint where Google can find you in multiple spots
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You don't just live on your website. They can find your website on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, on YouTube
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Have that digital footprint. So Google sees that you're in multiple areas, which lends to
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it yourself being a brand which can help in turn rise you up and one of the ways to make yourself a brand is eat expertise experience authority and trustworthiness And the content updates really hit on these
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Does your content and your site display your expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness
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If not, update your About Us page. add in a little author blurb after posts so you can start heading in that direction
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I know Kenneth definitely worked on this, and I'm really proud of him for starting to make those moves towards growing
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Your expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness. So when people are looking for the content that you specialize in, they know to go to you
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and they'll recommend you when others need that information. And then engage your audience
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We know that Reddit and Quora are on the rise. A big reason why is it's not AI content
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Google knows it's real users interacting. So make your site someone's Reddit
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Have people comment. Have discussion threads. And that can help increase the engage time on your site
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as well as make people come back to your site, have returned visitors
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I work with a lot of discussion forums, and they're pretty immune to the Google updates
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because they have such a strong community. So those are some tips and some insights that I have on my end
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And in terms of technology, the first one is humix. It works really well with YouTube
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It helps engage your audiences. We find them when you have a video on the page
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users tend to stay longer because you give them an option. They can watch a video or they can read your content
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Articles with a video get 83% more traffic, and articles with three or more videos get 55% more backlinks
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So you were asking about how to get more backlinks. This is a great way
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The more relevant a video is to an article's, content, the more SEO will benefit the article. So it's one thing to have video and Humix allows you to
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just get video and we have a system that will match video content to your site. But if you start
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creating your own videos, it's only going to help your SEO even more. And Humix can be very
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powerful for ranking because it places videos directly on your domain, leveraging existing authority
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in a specific niche or topic. And to highlight that example, you can see in that screenshot Broadway world, they are ranking
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they are ranking for their domain specifically, which is pretty cool. And that's a Humix video
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Next, Flickify. So if you're like, okay, I don't know how to make videos
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I don't have time to create my own videos. Don't worry. We have a solution
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Flickify. It's an easy way to convert written articles into video. It takes five to ten minutes
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They're the best AI generated videos around, can produce videos in bulk. The return on investment is very good
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and you have the ability to rank in SERPs. The other thing is advertisers are paying more for video ads versus static ads
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We know the industry is moving more and more towards video. So if you haven't already, start moving towards that
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Flickapai has a lot of capabilities, and it's growing every day. Some of the current ones that we have, voice cloning, AI script generation, text to video
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audio to video, AI avatars, stock images and videos, AI images, and videos, AI images
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personal media library where you can import your own images and video templating with intros and
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outros. The voice cloning is one that I really like. That's pretty neat. That you should
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absolutely try if you haven't. If you're on premium, you get Flickify for free. You get free credits
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So utilize those free credits. If you have any questions about Flickify, you can always go to
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support.flikify.com. And then with Flickify, it helps diversify your content strategy. You can import these videos into YouTube, TikTok, Twitter. And the great thing is you can rank
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multiple times for the same video. You can rank for it on YouTube. You can also rank for it on
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Humix. And you can see that here with the hockey writers. They're ranking for their written content
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They're ranking for their Humix video. They're also ranking for their YouTube video
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it's pretty phenomenal. And look, they're dominating the top of rankings. And that's what we want you to do
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We want you to dominate by utilizing video. It helps build your brand with video
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And then another quote, articles with at least one video generate 52% more organic traffic
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than those without. And that's from Semrush. And then last but certainly not least
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emote. Emote is a lightweight easy-to-use commenting system that appears as a widget on your site
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It's available for free both through your Zoic dashboard under settings content
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Emote, or directly from emote.com. I mentioned earlier that forums like Reddit and Quora are
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rising towards the top. Let's have people comment and interact with your content on your site
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it engages those users. It can increase your return visitor rate, time on page
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And also, it helps collect data since third-party cookies are going away
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And some of you might be, oh, my goodness, I forgot about third-party cookies that are going away next month
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Well, another thing not to be worried about, because Ezoic is fully prepared for the removal of third-party cookies to ensure the success of
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publishers. We have already partnered with a company that uses a unique tracking ID, which demand
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partners are already accepting. And we assume that most, if not all, partners will begin using the
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same system over the course of the next few months. And also, we have our in-house solutions
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like Emo, where users have to log into post-comments. So that provides first-party data for
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advertiser targeting and for yourself as well to help grow your audience. You'll receive those
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emails as well so you can add them to your newsletter if you'd like. And that is our presentation
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