Nora starts the episode off strong, talking about some COVID prevention theories. The two discuss the effectiveness of glasses all the way to the effectiveness of bunkers to prevent the virus. Joshua and Nora compare their swearing habits before getting to the down and dirty topic of… you guessed it: Beanie Babies. Joshua recounts how he would sell them as a kid, and (spoiler alert!) he made $600.

The Face bag section of today’s episode begins with a bit of feedback. Tamara emailed in about some comments made in previous episodes about blogging during the pandemic. She points out that while Joshua had said that the stay-at-home orders gave bloggers a lot of time to optimize their blogs, some blogs are not very easily able to flourish during COVID. For example, travel blogs took a substantial traffic hit last year. The hosts point out that this is very true, and that not all the advice given on this podcast can apply to each and every blogger. What is important to remember though is that bloggers must find ways to bring people to their site no matter the state of the world. Joshua advises to put out content that is about COVID and traveling. For instance, you could make a post about how to fly safely during the pandemic. Overall, what to take from this section is that TOC offers advice to the blanket profession of blogging. However, some niche content varies in audiences and advertisers, so take the advice given but adapt it to your needs.

Speaking of adapting, Nora begins talking about how to adapt your site for different social media sites. This all starts when the two get into the hot topic of the Clubhouse app. They talk about how they’ve noticed it pulling people away from daily life, but they also point out the benefits it can have for podcasters. Nora suggests that if you have the time, sure, check out new social media platforms for your site. However, if you don’t have the time, you have to plan out your business goals and see if a certain platform will truly benefit your business. Don’t just follow trends to follow them, make them work for you!

Lastly, Joshua and Nora take a question about mislinked pages. Nora outlines what high-intensity link building is, and Joshua talks how he is not a big fan of it. However, how he touches on reasonable ways to link building. Some of these involve reaching out to a site owner to change a mislinked page, just like Jessica did!

Thank you for tuning into Theory of Content this week! Be on the lookout for new episodes coming soon, and in the meantime check out last week’s episode with even more Face bag questions.

==================================

Tamara of we3travel.com

Welcome back, I was glad to see Theory of Content pop up in my podcast player this week. However, I have to provide a little feedback. I know Mediavine and Theory of Content have both been very focused on food and lifestyle blogs, but the discussion about how great 2020 was for bloggers was really tone deaf for other types of publishers. As a travel blogger, I have seen my traffic demolished in Spring 2020 and then slowly claw its way back to 40-50% of what it was pre-COVID. Revenue took additional hits with most travel sponsored campaigns drying up due to lack of budget and affiliate programs being shut down even for the few tours and hotels our visitors are booking.

And while Q4 is great for ad RPMs, not everyone sees a traffic surge in Q4. Most travel bloggers I know see an uptick in traffic that begins on December 26 and steadily increases to peak in July before it then dips dramatically. In a typical year I’ll make more in July than December, even with the difference in RPM, because of the significantly higher traffic in July. 

I also don’t know how many people are really unemployed and saving money because they are making so much from their unemployment checks. People I know who have been impacted by COVID are struggling to find work and taking a serious hit to their income. 

Your audience isn’t monolithic and it would be nice to hear you acknowledge that fact in these types of discussions.

==================================

Hi TOC team!

So glad the episodes are back!

I have a request for you. My blog was mentioned on episode 59. In the show notes, the link to my blog goes through Facebook first. Is there anyway to update that to my direct blog link and change the anchor text?

So I’m requesting A Utah Lifestyle Motherhood Blog…. be changed to loveloveloveblog.com.

Thank you so much!

Jessica

The post Ep 070 – FaceBag with Special Guest Nora Schlesinger appeared first on Theory of Content.

Before they spill all their SEO wisdom, Joshua has to air out what he hates about Rebecca’s site. What does he hate so much? The fact that he is actually maddened by the outrageous millennial content that Rebecca posts just to showcase the outrageousness. Next, he talks about how Rebecca used the Gamestop stock phenomenon to boost traffic on her site. After Rebecca posted a link on the Wall Street Bets reddit to an article she wrote about the event, she noticed a surge in traffic. Joshua points out how Reddit can be used to boost traffic. However, redditors aren’t a good source of monetization, because many of them turn ad blockers on. 

Moving into the focus on this episode, the two hosts begin to make their way through Ellen’s email. The subject of Ellen’s email is about a substantial drop she experiences in her content annually. Joshua points out that this is not out of the usual for holiday-centric content. It is important to not only produce seasonal content. If you dig into your site analytics and see that your top performing posts are seasonal specific, that’s great, but you want to make sure you have content that will draw traffic all year long. 

Next, Joshua and Rebecca answer Ellen’s question about when to create mega posts. Joshua recognizes that mega posts are great and can do exceptionally well SEO wise. However, if you have a newer blog you may want to focus on the quantity of posts. If you split a mega post into a bunch of smaller posts, each individual post will be less likely to drastically bump your site around on Google rankings. Of course, this is all site specific, so analyze your pages to see whether a mega post or numerous smaller posts are best for you.

Some tools the hosts offer to help analyze your site are Semrush and Webmaster Tools. These two resources will allow you to see what you’re ranking for that you might not even have explicit content for yet. This can help you create a content plan about which topics you want to cover in your future posts. Rebecca adds that the posts she created using this content strategy are some of the best ranking pages at Let’s Eat Cake. 

==================================

Ellen from https://artsyprettyplants.com/      Start of ep 69

First in Facebook she said: This makes me very happy to hear. This podcast has been the best SEO education. I was so afraid it wasn’t coming back. I’ll be emailing a bunch of questions.

• First, i want to talk about email for this one. Let’s discuss the process of using a domain email, and how to set it up. It’s easy.
•  

Hi guys,

I’m soooo, glad you have returned. I just want you to know that I started listening to your podcasts late summer and at the same time as I started taking a highly recommended SEO course which is very good, but I have learned even more from you!

I love utilizing Search Console to help plan my future content as well as for updating old content, so thank you for all the podcasts you have done on that. Sorry for this long email- I am more than happy to come on the show if it’s easier to go through, than answering it in the Facebag.

Please help. In recent months, I worked on a robust content plan that extends from now through June. I really need to be ahead of the game, because my content is seasonal, seeing the highest traffic numbers and growth in the spring. I would really love some reassurance that I’m on the right path before I waste my opportunity during my best traffic growth period. 

I’m a DIY blogger who focuses on concrete crafts and outdoor decor/yard projects. The website is 3 years old, so there’s not tons of year over year data, plus the first 2 years I was only able to work on it part-time. 

However, the data that I do have has been consistent in that it has that dramatic increase in spring, with a noticeable drop right after Memorial day and then a continued decline, though moderated, through the rest of the year. 

This past fall, when I started digging into SEO, my organic growth grew to its highest level ever, but then on 10/27, I had a loss of more than half my organic traffic that didn’t recover. 

This month is getting better because my organic traffic is showing a slow but steady increase, but this is what I would start expecting now seasonally.

I’d like to know if this drastic drop is something I did. This has me concerned that I’m not applying what I’ve learned about SEO properly, or that I may be misinterpreting the data. 

My method for developing a content plan has been to find keywords/queries in Google Search Console that have high impressions and are a recurring theme. I then use those keywords to create cluster content with. 

For the queries Google seems to want to rank me for, I am doing one of two things. Some of those queries are for my existing, what I call mega-posts (nucleus of the cluster). So I’m either updating those posts with even more information (answering People Also Ask questions, etc.) and then creating posts that will be supporting content. 

Or if a mega-post doesn’t already exist, then I’m writing one for that keyword and create more supporting clusters and then do some mad linking between all of them. I hope I’m making sense.

For instance, my DIY concrete stepping stones post gets tons of impressions but relatively low clicks compared to impressions. It is a tutorial on making concrete stepping stones that look like natural stone, the post also has a YouTube video tutorial that goes along with it. 

I have a high discrepancy between impressions and clicks and believe the main reason is because of searcher intent. This is something I feel like I run into a lot with concrete-related posts.

So for the stepping stones, I believe the search intent is to find out how much they cost to buy and have installed, what types of stone options there are, etc. 

With this, my strategy was to write a mega post on stepping stones with all of that type of information- buying vs selling, costs, labor difficulty, types, colors, etc.

My next step is to create the rest of the cluster by writing a couple of other types of stepping stone tutorials. And then do some mad linking between them to support both my initial tutorial, as well as the mega-informational one.

By the way, since both posts are quite robust, can I make these both cornerstone posts? Right now, only the informational one is.

I’m using the same cluster method for a handful of recurring/high impression queries- ie; cinder block planters, driftwood planters, bird baths, large concrete planters, lightweight concrete planters and making silicone molds for concrete. 

Am I interpreting my keywords correctly? (Yes, I know about the Dollar Tree keywords too-which is unrelated to my niche, but I am also doing some more of those).

Am I headed in the right direction, or do I need to rework my whole content plan? Should I be worried about what happened to my traffic this fall? 

I so appreciate your help with this.

FYI- I can provide more information on the traffic drop, reports, or anything else. Just let me know what you need.

Best, 

Ellen

Thank you so much for tuning into Theory of Content this week. Be on the lookout for new episodes coming soon. In the meantime, make sure you didn’t miss last week’s episode where Joshua and Rebecca also answered listeners’ questions.

The post Ep 069 One Question, Many Answers appeared first on Theory of Content.

The pair begin the episode with a debate on who the best TOC host is/has been, and they’re really all competing for second place because we already know Amber is #1. Joshua discusses the new phenomenon that is the Clubhouse app. He explains how it might be useful for the Theory of Content community, but he just can’t see himself putting it together. Rebecca lets listeners in on her experience with the Gamestop stock world, and assures everyone that she did not get scathed too badly. 

Rebecca’s love of vintage cakes takes the hosts into a conversation about social media usage for businesses. Joshua explains how businesses don’t need to be present on every social media platform, only the ones that fit their needs. Rebecca adds on about how it is hard for lifestyle brands to establish themselves amongst more niche content on social media sites. 

Starting with the listener questions, Rebecca and Joshua answer a question about making Youtube videos for blogs. Joshua reminds listeners that he has not forgotten about the promise he made to make a whole episode on Youtube content. However, in the meantime, he gives a few tips on how to push into the Youtube sphere. First, he suggests assessing your content and seeing whether it fits a video platform (DIYs and teaching content are especially great). Next, he suggests just giving it a go if your content is not deemed potentially controversial. 

The next question gives Rebecca her time to shine. To answer the question, about core web vitals and how they can lead to poor scores, Rebecca has to explain a few things first. She defines the largest contentful paint as the amount of time it takes a user to see the largest content on the first screen load of a site. Next, she defines first input delay as the amount of time it takes a user to interact with a site. Easy ways to improve these two core web vitals are to optimize images and use her suggested programs to up site speed. However, the last core web vital is the trickiest to fix. Cumulative layout shift (CLS) is when a site moves without user interaction. This is often due to issues with ads, and many of the solutions mean removing ads and therefore removing monetization. Rebecca hopes that there will be more information coming out soon on how to fix this issue, but in the meantime, she suggests focusing on optimizing the other two web vitals. 

To finish off the episode, the hosts take a question about category pages. Joshua stresses that category pages should be unique and the same recipes should not be following into the same categories. This could make Google think you have duplicate pages when you really don’t. To prevent this issue, Rebecca suggests to not create a ton of categories right at the start of your blog. Instead, start with a few and as those become too saturated, create appropriate break off categories.

The post Ep 068 Video and Vintage Cakes appeared first on Theory of Content.

Eric starts off the episode by explaining the new importance of web stories on Google. These may not seem that important to IOS users, but that is because they are only seen on Google and Android mobile devices. These web stories allow bloggers to pop up in Google Discover, which is curated to users’ preferences, instead of leaving bloggers to solely rely on rankings in Google search. Next, Eric offers some tips on how to optimize SEO for Google web stories. He suggests that bloggers make a regular companion post for each story, but to also create a landing page with all the stories, so web crawlers can easily crawl the stories. Eric finishes off the topic of stories, by giving an overview of their cons. For instance, stories don’t monetize as well.

Joshua prompts a switch in the conversation to focus on the future of Mediavine. Eric begins by talking about Trellis. Trellis is a tool designed to optimize WordPress sites, and Joshua describes it as the most important thing going on for bloggers right now. Eric jumps to the next project that Mediavine has going on which is their change in adtech. Their new server to server program will source information to the newly built Mediavine exchange server. This switch will increase the speed of ads on Mediavine sites which will in turn increase viewability of ads.

The last topic the duo cover is the death of the 3rd party cookie. This current hot topic in the ad world has to do with the push to a privacy centered world. Web users now can consent to getting specialized ads and in turn having their information shared around. The issue with this is that as personalized ads decrease so does the monetization of ads.

Joshua closes off the episode by assuring bloggers that Mediavine has their back. It can be scary when Google changes the means of monetization without bloggers’ consent, but Mediavine is there to optimize ads and monetization through whatever Google throws at the algorithm. 

The post ep 067 Hanging out with Mediavine CEO Eric Hochberger appeared first on Theory of Content.

Joshua begins the episode with an apology and an explanation. 2020 was a wild year and life got in the way of creating new TOC content after August. Joshua walks Rebecca through his hectic year. He begins with his fast-planned wedding that was organized in September and took place in October. Next, he recounts the many times he found himself having to quarantine due to COVID exposure, and how frustrating all of that was. 

This conversation leads the hosts to talk about blogging in the age of COVID. They explain why it presents a good opportunity to focus on building traffic for the site instead of focusing on revenue gains. Ad revenue is at a low right now (COVID + Q1 payouts = no good). Bloggers should focus their attention on building traffic, so that when COVID is hopefully over by Q3 or Q4 of 2021, they can monetize their newly grown audience. This is a good practice in general, building traffic before monetization, because advertising can anger the audience and it won’t lead to substantial profit until there is a substantial audience.

Mailbag begins with a question about using the same video clips in multiple videos on Youtube. Joshua instantly recommends the tool Tube Buddy. Tube Buddy is essentially an SEO tool that specifically helps with Youtube video rankings on Google and within the app itself. The hosts also point out that if you enable closed captioning, Google will be able to crawl a Youtube video as though it were a blog post. This can help push your videos to the top of Google, if they are SEO optimized. This also allows bloggers to reuse video clips in multiple videos. As long as you change the audio and closed captioning over the clip, Google will read the video as new content. 

The last mailbag question is about what to do when an alternate dev page blocks Google from indexing cornerstone content from your site. Joshua offers a tip to help bloggers identify issues like this. If you perform a Google search query on your site, you will be able to tell every place in the domain that a certain word or phrase is used. Rebecca adds that this can be beneficial for internal linking. The fix to the initial issue lies in the robots.txt file, which can easily be accessed on WordPress sites. This file tells web crawlers which pages to crawl and which not to crawl. If the dev site is marked as “uncrawlable” in the robots.txt file, the page you wish to be crawled should take priority. Expanding on SEO optimization, Joshua makes one last closing statement. He tells listeners to not get caught up in diagnostic tools and trying to fix every page on your site. Like Rebecca says, focus on making new content.

Thank you for tuning into Theory of Content in the new year! Be on the lookout for new episodes soon, 2021 is the year to make your blogs the best they can be!

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Facebage 1: Ellen McLean – artsyprettyplants.com

I’ve become pretty addicted to this great podcast. I didn’t hear anything about the podcast being on hiatus. Does anyone know when we can expect it to come back? I think the last episode they have is late August.

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Facebag: Jessica Anderson – www.cutesycrafts.com

Hi Theory of Content!

Just finished listening episode 51, where you asked for YouTube questions.  You’ve inspired me to start putting my face in videos and not just my hands.  I think the combination of having to change up camera angles and do my hair and makeup for the day as been the drawback for me (boys have it so easy!)

Anyway… I make craft and embroidery tutorials on my blog and YouTube channel, Cutesy Crafts.  I really started having success on YouTube when I posted embroidery stitch-alongs, where I would show each step of how to do an embroidery project in a separate video and compile them into playlists.  In each video, I show the finished piece, talk about which part we’re working on, and then show how to do the stitch.  I have moved away from these, as I feel they aren’t very good for SEO.  There are only so many embroidery stitches that make up each project, and I was teaching the same stitches over and over again.  In fact, when it got to the stitching part in a couple videos, I just stated cutting in old video footage of me doing that stitch (example: https://youtu.be/wm9MXRaoQ4k).  I’ve had a few subscribers ask for more like those, but I’m wondering if it would hurt me to have several videos with similar titles and content, especially if they have old video footage cut in.  New, different kinds of content do MUCH better in search, but I want to keep my subscribers happy too. 

Also, I went to a YouTube class about a year ago, and the presenter said that YouTube looks at how many views you get immediately after uploading a video, so you should never upload a video unless you are ready to publish immediately.  Along the same lines, she said if you ever change the title or words in the description of a video, that ranking kind of resets and you lose any momentum that the video had.  This seemed kind of like superstition to me, but I wanted to see if there was any truth to it.  I’m planning on going back and adding more information and links to my video descriptions.  I won’t be changing titles or words in the first paragraphs of my successful videos, just adding more information below.  I’m guessing that it’s the same as a blog post and if it’s ranking well, I shouldn’t try to fix it.

Thank you for all of the work you do!  I’ve seen tremendous success implementing your strategies on my blog.

======================================

Facebook 2: Jim from http://destination-bbq.com/

New ToC listener. Binging now…great show. Has me looking at GSC. Noticed a page which I consider “cornerstone content” that is not indexed by Google. (https://destination-bbq.com/sc-bbq-hash). Initially, the error mentioned it wasn’t indexed because of a page redirect. I requested indexing. Today, it is not indexed not because of an error, but because of “Alternate page with proper canonical tag.” I don’t know where an alternate page would be and the page doesn’t seem to rank. Looking further, I see that 12k posts are excluded for similar reason. I assume most of them are appropriately marked? However, what do you do for those like this which should not be excluded?

He followed up a few days later with the following email:

Follow up:

So, it looks like https://destination-bbq.com/sc-bbq-hash/ is the indexed page…with the / at the end. Not without. 

Guess I didn’t realize there was a distinction. 

Also, testing in Moz, I got this message, which confirms the original “page redirect” message: 

You entered the URL https://destination-bbq.com/sc-bbq-hash which redirects to destination-bbq.com/sc-bbq-hash/. Click here to analyze destination-bbq.com/sc-bbq-hash/instead. 

So, 1) why the redirect in the first place, and 2) why is such a comprehensive piece on the subject not in — at least — the first 11 pages of Google using sc bbq hash as the search term?

TIA

The post Ep 066 We Are Back appeared first on Theory of Content.

Sherry begins the episode by telling Josh about her blog’s founding. She goes over her past as a den leader for her son’s Cub Scout troop. She explains how her blog has grown to accommodate posts that are not strictly Cub Scout related, but to also include more general outdoor activities. And despite the change, she still garners a large amount of traffic across her website. 

Next, Josh asks Sherry to share some of her wisdom with the listeners. Sherry’s top tip that she’s acquired through years of SEO research and observation is to not forget about your smaller pages. She accredits a lot of power to Facebook to change the traffic on a page. She advises bloggers to pay attention to which type of content benefits most from a Facebook post. Knowing this, if there are some old posts that have died out but were well received by social media, maybe give them a second post.

The advice continues with Sherry telling Josh about some of her blogging mistakes, and the mistakes she sees other bloggers making. Her biggest mistake was investing two much money in an endeavour that she could have realized sooner would have less payoff than she expected. The mistake she sees other blogging making is not using Google Search Console enough. What she says next may be a bit controversial in the SEO world (brace yourself!)… Sherry does not think the main thing bloggers should focus on is producing new content. She wants other bloggers to better understand what search console is telling them, and use it to their advantage. Is there old content that could perform much better if it was spruced up a bit? Or is all your old content polished and new content is the best option at the moment? Josh adds onto this by instructing bloggers to use keyword research to help guide the content of new posts.

Lastly, Josh and Sherry give some final advice to reach your desired audience. Sherry tells listeners to pay attention to the intention behind searches, because even if you can rank very well, if your page does not fulfill the desire of the user, it might be to divert your time to another page on your blog. Josh finishes off the episode by asking Sherry about the future of her blog. She explains how she plans to keep it going even though her boys are out of the program, and how eventually she hopes to sell the blog, but that won’t be for a while. 

Thank you so much for tuning into Theory of Content this week. Be on the lookout for new episodes coming soon, and in the meantime make sure you catch last week’s episode (where Amber returns) if you haven’t already.

The post Ep 065 – With Special Guest Sherry Smothermon-Short appeared first on Theory of Content.

Amber tells Joshua all about her pandemic experience, and her worries for the upcoming school year. She fills Joshua in on all her pandemic baking endeavours, and offers him some tips on how to make the best banana bread (basically lots of butter and bananas). The last few non-SEO topics the pair cover are their experiences of getting fire when they were younger, and they take a dive into the different architecture of their homes.

Moving onto some SEO news from the past few months, Amber shares about what new projects Mediavine has on the horizons. She explains how and why the company is moving into WordPress plug-ins and a few roadblocks they have experienced in the process. Amber then goes into detail about Trellis. Joshua mentioned it a bit in the last episode, but Amber shares what Trellis can be used for and what the benefits of utilizing it are. Lastly, before Facebag, Joshua and Amber examine which type of sites are performing particularly well during the pandemic. 

Next up is Facebag! Amber and Joshua start by answering a question about competing with a site that has lots of backlinks. Joshua suggests investigating the backlinks, because having too many backlinks is a tad suspicious and it might be worth looking into their validity. Amber follows up by telling listeners to reach out to the valid backlinks and request the site to link back to your, better content instead. The next question is about whether subheadings should include big keywords or smaller, less popular ones. Joshua points out that the more content on a site the better. With that in mind, if you are able to write a full thousand-word page about each popular keyword, then the big keywords should each be their own page and not a subsection within another post. However, if you can’t go into too much detail about a big keyword, it might be better to include it under a different post. Lastly, the pair take one last question about Google Search Console info not translating to the actual search results. Joshua explains how Search Console averages its results, and Amber offers ways to improve your rankings regardless of what Search Console is telling you. 

Thank you so much for tuning into Theory of Content this week! Stay tuned for future episodes with new co-hosts!

Facebag

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Hi   I’m not sure if anyone will know the answer to this but I thought it was worth asking anyway…

I’m starting a second site and my main competition will be tour agency setting themselves up to look like a blog.  They aren’t mobile first and their content is thin, but since they were the only one addressing the topic up until now, they have tens out thousands of back links. 

So, do you think I have a fighting chance?

• Elissa Moss

=======================

Keyword question (I seem to read differing things)… If post title (H1), SEO title, and the keyword in paragraph 1 are important for ranking, then I should be going after smaller keywords, correct? My blog is mainly focused on gardening, so instead of How to Grow Dill, which would contain sub headings on “how to harvest dill,” “how to prune dill,” “how to save dill seed,” etc. , I should instead make each of these individual posts? They would be interlinked. Any thoughts on this would be welcome! (My site is https://thekitchengarten.com)

–Courtnie Perkins Johnson

=======================

Has anyone optimized their category pages before? If so, can I see what it looks like? I’m just struggling to figure out what type of content or blurb to put at the top.

Also – did it help your rankings or traffic anywhere?

Example of a non-optimized one lol:

• Kalee Sorey Dillard (soreyfitness.com)

=====================

I have a question about rankings, as reported in Google search console. I have a post that GSC reports as being in position 6 for a particular KW but when I do a Google search for that KW, my post is on the third page. Can anyone explain that discrepancy?  Note: I’m using the same time period (eg. last 90 days.) Thanks!

• Dan Zher

The post Ep 064 – Amber is Back for FaceBag appeared first on Theory of Content.

Joshua and Rebecca begin by hashing out the best breakfast food. It quickly turns into a fast food debate, and the differences between the Los Angeles and Florida dining experience soon become clear. 

There’s a lot of Mailbag covered today so get ready! Rebecca and Joshua begin by taking a question about website speed. Joshua dishes about an upcoming Mediavine project named Trellis. Although not available yet, it soon will be in open beta and ready to optimize your site speed. Also, we hope to get more information on this service very soon, so stay tuned in the coming months for an episode covering even more ways to use Trellis on your blog. This topic leads to your hosts examining how important site speed is to SEO, because as Rebecca points out, there are many high ranking website with terrible speeds. 

The next question from mailbag is about keyword competition. One listener struggled with ranking due to a poorly designed website that had a backlink coming from the New York Times. This can be frustrating because it is apparent the site is not ranking well because of its content. Joshua lends advice on how to use the competitor website to your advantage, and analyze how it is doing so well. In this specific case, the listener is starting a travel blog, so Rebecca and Joshua create hypothetical travel blog posts to beat out the competitor.

Lastly, your hosts take a question about SEO traffic drops. While there are ways to improve SEO rankings after a drop, Joshua stresses the importance of paying attention to the seasonal nature of some keywords. These types of keywords have both pros and cons. While they can guarantee traffic to your site at certain times of the year, how do you maintain traffic in the off-season periods? That is what Rebecca and Joshua examine at the end of this episode. 

Thank you so much for joining us at Theory of Content this week. Be on the lookout for new episodes coming soon with even more new co-hosts, and in the meantime make sure to catch our last few episodes if you haven’t already.

Mailbag

===========================

Dear Theory of Content,

I need a little help. This isn’t for the podcast or the facebook page. I’m looking for a website troubleshooting tech referral. 

My site ain’t broke, but it’s got flat tires I don’t know how to repair.  I’m looking for someone to comb through the code to repair my mobile site speed.

I rebuilt my art site using Elementor/Astra over the Fall and Winter, and launched in February. I pulled archived posts in from 2005-2019. I did it myself, so perhaps therein lies the trouble?

I’ve reduced plugins to 16, tried using a CDN (made things worse, so I removed it), WP Rocket to cache the site, Imagify to serve images in next generation formats, Lazy Loading offscreen images, added breadcrumbs, disabled emojis, alt tagged images, and used keyword research to write better posts and titles. Traffic is improving ever so slowly. (My goal, like so many others, is to qualify for Mediavine some day.)

In google, I consistently get a red score of 12-19 out of 100 on mobile site speed.  https://www.belindadelpesco.com

The mystery to me is that the list of recommendations to increase load time from Google Site Speed Test, GTMetrix and Pingdom includes all the stuff I’ve already done.  They recommend Lazy Loading (showing images that are already lazy loading), serving images in next gen formats (examples cited are already re-formatted), deploying a cache (I’m using one, and I clear it often), etc.  I’m completely flummoxed.

Could either of you refer me to someone I can hire to help me fix the molasses mobile speed? 

I realize that emails like this take up your already overcooked time, so may I send each of you an 8×10 print on paper from my art as compensation? (Take a look at the archives for some ideas ) Just let me know what you want and where I should mail it. 

You two are the only peeps I know who are fluent website-mystery-solvers. You’ve held my hand through the entire rebuild process via the podcast and Mediavine’s youtube channel, and I felt so much more confident about what should be prioritized in the site design and new content creation.  I’m very grateful for everything I’ve learned from the podcast. It’s been a game changer. Cupcakes to each of you.

Thank you for your time –

Belinda

=========================================

Hi!

I’m new listener to your podcast but I’ve listened to half your episodes in the past two weeks. 

Needless to say I love your show!  You’ve given me a whole new way of looking at content and how to repurpose and build on older content.  I went from posting once a week to 17 posts in the last 2 weeks and 5+ more expecting to be completed and go out next week.

Until now, I was holding back because a digital SEO site checker once gave me error reports for my content being too similar (i.e. banana bread, banana nut bread, and banana chocolate chip bread) and I heard that posting more than once a week is a waste of time and will only lead to burnout.  So, thank you for giving me perspective and permission to do what made sense in the first place.

I’m sorry if you address this in an episode I haven’t heard yet but this question has been nagging at me.

I have a food blog with Mediavine and am starting a travel blog.  I live in a popular tourist destination with shockingly little written on it. The only site that has focused on the area is tour guiding company making themselves look like a blog to promote their tours. 

At first glance, the side didn’t seem like it would be hard to beat. It has short posts that aren’t that helpful, it isn’t mobile friendly, and doesn’t look like it’s been updated or add new content in years.  However, after a closer look, I’m pretty sure they’ve been linked to by the New York Times and big names.

I plan on joining Help a Reporter Out but I’m not expecting to get any great link backs for a while, if ever.  So, is there any hope for me to outrank them by writing better content with lost of supporting content?

In some of your episodes you say you like as much info as you can get so here is an example of my content strategy but please don’t share the actual locations if you choose to read this on air.

I have a post about Jerusalem, then I have posts about Old City section with the holy and ancient sites and the modern section with things to do.  These posts are/will be supported by in-depth posts about each attraction, and those may in tern be sported by posts such as shopping and dining guides where relevant.  In addition, I plan on publishing posts like best cafes in Jerusalem, best restaurants in Jerusalem, Jerusalem style guide, what to know before visiting, etc.  Of course, everything is/will be interlinked.

I’m sorry this email is so long.  Please let me know if you received this email so I know it didn’t get sucked into a blackhole in cyber space.

Thank you so much for your time and your wonderful podcast!

=====================================

Hi friends, your podcast is still the BEST!   I didn’t want to put all this in FB group, feel free to use on air if it would help others.

Where would you go with this?  I am trying to research the question you always get, “why did my SEO volume drop?”  Our SEO traffic has dropped by almost 60% since beginning of year.   As one example, look at this pic for one keyword group – ugh.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

1. Used SC to pull the same view for 2 different time periods:
   1. Keywords with Impressions and Clicks back at beginning of year when our SEO traffic was higher (Q1) – for all keywords not just the “Wings” example above.
   2. Keywords with Impressions & Clicks since we’ve tanked (Q2 so far)
2. Sorted the Jan-Mar of keywords by performance, then compared the 2 lists.  I was looking for keywords that performed well in Jan-Mar but had a dramatic drop in last 2 months. 
   1. The majority of that drop seems to be based on about 10 keywords
   2. Base on how those keywords grouped, I can attribute that to about 5 specific blog posts.
3. Next I drilled into one of those blog posts that had lost so much SEO traffic: Garlic Parm Instant Pot Wings.
   1. I focused on the ~5 keywords that have high volume of search, where we used to rank well   – you can see these keywords in the pic above.
   2. I used SEMRush and SC to see what keywords it’s ranking for now
   3. I checked out the sites that are now ranking above us for each of those keywords.  I didn’t see that they were doing anything magical.  (Don’t say this part on air:  I see that they have more inbound links than we do so I traced those back in SEMRush and at least one of them has a ton of links from junk sites – not authentic link building.  #shade).

                                                               i.      https://amindfullmom.com/instant-pot-wings/

                                                             ii.      https://sweetandsavorymeals.com/best-instant-pot-chicken-wings-from-fresh-or-frozen/

                                                           iii.      https://gooddinnermom.com/instant-pot-easy-chicken-wings-bbq-or-buffalo-style/

1. To make improvements here’s what I’ve done:
   1. Ensured all the keywords we’re targeting are actually in the post
   2. Confirmed good Alt Text on all images in the post
   3. Added more internal links from other posts, using these keywords as anchor text.
   4. Submitted the post to about 10 content syndication “food sharing” sites to try to build up external links.
   5. Didn’t yet but will switch the recipe card from WPRM to Create Card (we’re using Create for all new posts but haven’t migrated old)

The post Ep 063 – Face-Bag with Guest Host Rebecca Swanner appeared first on Theory of Content.

Joshua and Rebecca start the episode by hashing out details about their favorite video games and Rebecca’s past as a video game editor. The conversation turns into a discussion of Let’s Eat Cake’s content and how it came to be. Rebecca retells her story of how she initially got into blogging, but how her demographic shifted as her interests changed. 

Next up, Rebecca explains the logistics of her blog. More specifically, how she gets comedians to draft posts for her. She explains the challenges of letting outsiders create content for the blog, since they may not fully understand the brand or it’s target audience. Joshua and her go over how to craft the perfect style guide for hired writers to maintain a uniform brand image across the entire site. More logistics Rebecca discusses deal with making comedic content translate to Google search bots. Being a humor blog, with lots of sarcastic posts, there were many times that Google could not decipher the true meaning of a Let’s Eat Cake blog post like a human could. Rebecca explains how she uses Dtelmu Demo to check if Google can understand the subject of a post before it goes live. 

Finally, Joshua and Rebecca dive into Facebag to answer your guys’ questions. The first question they take is about optimizing monetization across two separate blog sites with different content types. Is it better to combine them? Or leave them separate? Joshua points out that there are more types of monetization than just adsense. Some blogs may be better equipped to garner affiliate links (especially if they have niche content), while others are more likely to profit greatly off ads. If two content types are not compatible with the same monetization strategy, it may not be the best to combine them. Next, they answer a slew of questions regarding when it is okay to delete old content. The conclusion they reach is to pay attention to the traffic they’re getting, if they’re still ranking, and yourself (if you really want the post gone, delete it to ease your mind). Lastly, they answer a question about taking a break from blogging (everyone congratulate Morgan!). 

Thank you so much for tuning in this week to Theory of Content. Be on the lookout for an all new episode next Thursday. In the meantime, if you didn’t catch last week’s episode with Rizwan Asad go give it a listen!

===========================

Hi Theory of Content!  I love the podcast and have learned so much from it!  I have a question regarding combing two sites due to the change in MV 2nd site. (I’m not complaining about the change, I totally understand it and how it will help my main blog!  I LOVE MV and all the support I’ve gotten over the years!!)

I started a second site in January, for something different to do and also to give my teenage kids jobs! They research and write the articles for most of the posts on intheChristmasspirit.com. 

My main goal was really just to get a little bit of ad money, enough for their payroll, and I thought I could get that site to 10K by Q4. But with a seasonal niche blog, I really don’t think I can get the sessions up to what I’ll need to apply to MV now. 

My main site that I earn a full-time salary from is a crafting/DIY site, leapoffaithcrafting.com.  My kids don’t craft and I don’t really want them writing posts for this site anyway;)

I have been working on SEO for my crafting site a lot over the past two years and now actually get 50% of my traffic from organic and 50% from Pinterest  (used to be 20/80).  Google has liked me over the last few updates so I’m a little scared to change anything.

The articles on the Christmas site we have are mostly factual based (history of everything Christmas) and some food and printable posts (only about 40 posts total).  On my crafting site (400 posts), I do have a ton of Christmas craft and DIY posts that bring me a lot of traffic in Q4, but they are all tutorials (not factual based).

So question… Would it hurt my crafting SEO to move the Christmas posts over to my main blog and keep building that line of posts over there?  Either copy and paste (and shut down the 2nd site) or redirect the posts?  Or is it worth keeping the two different sites because of SEO??  Or fire my kids, lol!!??

I would love any advice from anyone here or as a mailbag question.  I hope all this makes sense!  Thank you for all you do!

===========================

I have a few questions about different scenarios for deleting posts after hearing a lot of people recommend deleting useless/junk posts to clean up a site. Mine has been around since 2008, so quite a bit of clean up potential.

-duplicate recipe posts (somehow this happened years ago in a site redesign for a few recipes): should I delete one of the posts and redirect it to the other? How do I know which to delete, just choose the one that gets the least traffic?

-old giveaways: should I delete them? Any other action needed such as redirecting to category page? What is best here?

-I used to do a bit of freelance and would periodically do roundups of my work. These seem useless now and better in a press/about page. Should I delete them and consolidate the info on my existing pages that are better suited?

-complete and utter garbage posts? Wordless Wednesday, rambling, link ups: what do you do here?

-multiple recipe roundups in nearly or identical topics. I used to do this years ago before I knew about editing a post and republishing it. Should I do anything with this or leave as is other than optimizing by putting the info in Create lists?

Or is it not recommended to delete them at all and just no index or something else I’m unaware of?

Many thanks!

• Katie Kick

==========================

Would it kill our blog to not post for 2 months?

We post 3x a week at least and have thousands of old posts published. I’m having our second baby mid-August and we will be moving when I am about 38 weeks pregnant.

Last maternity leave I pre-wrote and took guest posts for two months of content. Now, with our move being stretched out due to covid, we are scraping for content.

Would it kill our google juice to take a six week break and post nothing? We will drive traffic to old content via our newsletter and social media. I am thinking a true break will allow us to not put out crappy fluff content and come back strong october 1. But don’t want google to stop crawling my site? Thanks! Morgan from Charleston Crafted.com

==========================

The post ep 062 Special Guest Host Rebecca Swanner appeared first on Theory of Content.

Rizwan starts off the episode with a little backstory for himself. He explains how and why he founded his blog and what the state of it was at the beginning. At the start, he didn’t pay much attention to keywords and SEO, but he discusses how his blog grew to where it is today (boasting an impressive 80,000+ hits a month). After hearing the past and present of Chocolates and Chai, Joshua takes the opportunity to examine the future of the blog. He suggests a few actions that Rizwan can take to grow his already big site into something even bigger. 

After the analysis of Rizwan’s blog your hosts move onto the facebag questions! Joshua and Rizwan answer a question about how to title recipe posts if the traditional name is not in English. They conclude that it depends on who your wanted demographic is as well as who your likely demographic is, but Joshua elaborates on how you can honor the tradition of the dish while not comprising clicks. Lastly, your hosts answer a question about how keyword position rankings translate to click throughs, and how to optimize your position rankings.

Thank you for tuning into Theory of Content this week! Be on the lookout for an all new episode next Thursday, but in the meantime make sure to listen to the last few episodes if you missed them!

Facebag

===========================

#facebag question. My mom and I have a recipe blog of Asian recipes. Some of the recipe names are Asian names translated roughly into English. The blog is entirely in English, but the recipe names are both the English translation and HOW it sounds in English. Like Carmelized Pork and Eggs are “Thom Khem” but Laos has a different written script. There are a ton of phonetic spellings and in the blog post I mention that. Is there a best practice for titles, headers, and meta descriptions for them? Do I include both or the phonetic spelling? Or just the translation? Or something else? Joshua and Amber. Thanks!!!

-Seng Nickerson

I clicked on Seng’s facebook picture and at the top of her profile are these 4 adorable children. Seng if those are your kids, you have an absolutely adorable little family there. Congratulations.

Sarah Cook said to Seng: my two cents: I would make the title the English version. And within the post I would include the Laos version and phonetic spellings.

===========================

Theory of Content  – looking for some advice/help here!

I have been binging Theory of Content over the last month and have taken the recommendation to focus on expanding some existing content I currently have on the site by looking through Search Console.

I went to Search Console and ordered the results by number of impressions. It seems that there are some queries that have tens of thousands of impressions and very few clicks, which didn’t make much sense to me.

One example of this is the screenshot attached, for the search term “Takayama”. It has 7 clicks, 31K impressions, and a 8.7 position ranking. After digging into this a bit more, it seems like in the image results I have a photo that pops up in the top 10, however in the search results, I don’t show up until page 3 (website: TripTins.com).

On Search Console I have made sure that the small filter box says “Search Type: Web”, which I would assume only looks at web results and not image results. I have seen this issue across many other search terms and cant figure out why it is happening.

Any insight here would be greatly appreciated!

• Charles Breitbart

The post Ep. 061 – FaceBag with Guest Host Rizwan Asad appeared first on Theory of Content.

Joshua and Nora then tell each other about their weekly food cravings/recipes/etc. Joshua shares how he has become a master pasta carbonara-er, and also spills about his illegal COVID dinner parties. This brings the hosts to dish out some advice on how to make the most out of your blog while at home. They explain how to tailor content to fit the current social climate and give some good information about what search terms have been trending well since the stay-at-home orders have been put in place.

Next up is Facebag! Nora and Joshua answer questions about how to maximize revenue from videos, whether Youtube is a good resource or not, and how to craft the perfect video content for your blog or channel. Then they get into the topic of internal linking. How much is too much? Is there such a thing as too little? Nora wants to make sure the listeners know that internal linking more than once is not the worst thing, but make sure the linking makes sense. Finally, the episode wraps up with a final question about syndicating multiple sites. Joshua and Nora leave listeners with the advice to take authority over a specific topic, having too many blogs might make you go crazy instead of boosting readership.

Thank you so much for tuning into this week’s episode of Theory of Content. Remember to come back next week for even more information on how to perfect your online content strategy.

Upload Direct or Just Embed?

For my videos that are between 3 – 6 minutes long and also on YouTube, is it better to upload them directly to my blog or just embed the YouTube video with HTML? I am not currently a Mediavine member but would this answer change if I was part of an advertising network? Thanks!

Is it OK to link to the same external link twice in a post?

For instance, I have an old round up of 9 recipes that I’m updating. All the links to the recipes are in paragraphs in conversation style. My thought was to make a list of those 9 recipes and add the list to the bottom of the post so that they stand out more but that means each recipe will be linked twice. I don’t really care if it will help SEO, I just don’t want it to be negative SEO affect. If that makes sense.

Curious about syndicating our own content.

I’ve read that some bloggers will republish their own content on Medium or LinkedIn with a canonical link. And that both the original and syndicated posts can rank. And from what I understand, Google only cares about duplicate content on the same domain.

We have a network of sites across that cover travel and outdoor topics. And we’re considering syndicating all of this content (with a canonical link) to a hub domain (that we own), with the goal of ranking both pieces of content. I think we’ll reach a larger audience – and help readers discover our other content on related topics.

Have you done this? I’m interested in studies and data to confirm or refute this idea. Curious about your opinion / experience.

The post Ep – 060 The One Where Nora is Back appeared first on Theory of Content.

In this episode you’ll get to know a little bit more about Nora–from her diet, her family, her role as a quarantine teacher, and her experiences with sleep consultants. She’ll help you understand why it’s not a waste of money.

Joshua joins in, and the two share all of their wacky childhood/parenthood stories, They also divulge some information about their past blogs. 

Then it’s onto Email Bag! Your hosts give advice on how to use your search console hits to generate new content ideas that will draw more activity to your site. They they cover how to create a whole new blog, and properly use an older, yet thriving, blog to promote your new baby and get it off the ground.

Nora emphasizes how important it is to take authority of one topic for your blog. Not having a niche might seem like a good idea. More themes means more content, right? Not always.

Nora sums up the situation perfectly when she says, “Your brand can’t be ‘This is your life.’ It has to be something.” Email Bag wraps up with insight on how to craft the perfect “How To” post, and why you should wait to monetize until you’ve grown a noticeable following. 

Thank you so much for tuning into this week’s episode of Theory of Content. We hope you are just as excited as we are to welcome Nora, and we will see you all next week. Until then, remember, your site ain’t broke, but your content strategy might be.

Email bag

Melissa Williams | Persnickety Plates

I’ve been listening for a long time but I’m not sure which episode I originally started on, so this week I’ve been binge listening from the beginning.

Josh – I have the Boxcar Kids Cookbook – still on my shelf.

I’m on Episode 10 now, but a few episodes ago you said to ask you the best way to dig into search console to see what you should write about next. That’s what I’m after. What’s the best way to do this?

Maybe you already cover it between episodes 10 & 52…but can you either cover it or point me to the right episode?

THANK YOU

Diane | HomemadeFoodJunkie.com

Hi Amber,

Hope your life is going well. First off let me say a huge THANK YOU. You personally have made my life so much better. After all these years on Mediavine and with your personal support our site is growing and earning a vastly better income. 

You and Josh were also a big help on the Theory of Content podcast with identifying ranking terms we should go after. We followed your advice and we are doing much better in google search and finally building a small audience. Thank you both! BUT we do not want all our eggs in one basket. My daughter and I are planning to start a niche site on LOW CARB RECIPES. 

HERE”S the Question: Can we syndicate our homemade food Junkie content to a zero SEO brand new site without a problem on Google for Homemade Food Junkie? 

I have researched this and found your answer to Megham Lamm on syndication on a FB thread on Mediavine publisher Facebook group. It sounds like we can do the syndication.

I’m just worried we will be hurt on the backlinks for Homemade Food Junkie. We have lots of content on Homemade Food Junkie we can syndicate to the new site. Some we would straight copy and paste. Some we would alter to fit the low-carb diet with a linkback to Homemade Food Junkie. Can we do this as authors on both sites? Will we hurt the big blog trying to jump start the baby?

Please let me know if you would rather answer this on the Facebook Theory of Content page. I’m not sure if this question is relevant to that podcast.

Our end goal is to get the new site on Mediavine by next year. We are also thinking about a new cocktail blog in the future. The same issues apply. Will the big blog get hurt trying to help the baby? Anyway, Thank you for reading this. We trust your expertise so much. Can you help us with this answer?

Have a great day Amber,

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Diane 

Jessica Ashcroft | loveloveloveblog.com

2 hrs

I took SEO seriously over a year ago and started taking courses and having consults. After 6 months of updating content and using best practices I finally saw a steady climb in my stats in Search Console, and then the November update hit.

My stats are now back to they were before I started working on SEO, which honestly is pretty abysmal. Google makes up less than 1% of my overall traffic and it always has and it’s so discouraging. I feel like I finally understand SEO and how to implement it on my site. I target keywords within reach, link back to other posts, use interesting titles, and try to provide the best content but I’m certain Google hates me and I’ll never see the traffic that other bloggers enjoy.

Any advice?

Jessica

The post Episode 59 Guest Host Nora Schlesinger appeared first on Theory of Content.

What About One Category Tagging?

Amber and Josh talk about advice that’s out there related to just tagging one category for each post. They talk about: Is it a good user experience? With the answer: “Not really.”

Josh says it’s “just wrong.”

There’s no certification process to say you’re an SEO expert. Amber challenges you: “Don’t be afraid to ask why. If that person can’t provide a decent and logical reason why… you should question that.”

What About Ranking & “Just Create More Content”?

Josh says, “There are a thousand reasons you might not be getting that initial boost in ranking.” You could be doing all the right things and still be ranking on Page 3 or 4. That doesn’t mean you won’t creep up to Page 1 after three or four months. It’s a balance. You have some content that will rank on Page 3 or 4 while other content is high-ranking on Page 1. “You’re in this for the long game. You’re not in it for rankings today. You’re trying to build a business.”

You’ll gain in strength and power. Amber says, “Sometimes it just takes time… Some are three years in the making. If you aren’t ranking after three or four weeks, you can’t think it’s a failure. Just keep writing.”

Josh says, “There’s not a magic bullet… and it sucks to lose ranking for stuff that you’ve poured your heart into.” What’s the solution?

• Make more content.
• Make more links.
• Build your business.

There’s other things you can do optimization-wise. Maybe your site is slow. Maybe there are issues with navigation or supporting content. Maybe you’re a new blogger. You can build traffic with Pinterest, Facebook, newsletters, etc.

What About the “Fix”?

There are lots of things you can do to improve your content, and improve the website content practice for your website, but they don’t affect your ranking. So, while improved raking might happen at the same time as the implementation of changes. It doesn’t increase your rankings.

“The stuff that comes out of your head is the unique stuff.” Nobody can write like you. When something is wrong, you can really only control the things that you have control over. And, that’s content. The majority of fundamentals is available to everyone. Your solution is to practice more, to do more of the stuff that makes you better. That’s all you can do. That’s all that will work.

Make sure your fundamentals are covered, and then create more content.

Are you interested in being a Theory of Content co-host? Fill out our form at https://forms.gle/CKqfpsExvEE9sfQy9

The post Episode 58 – Your Site Is Not Broke But ….. Your Content Might Be appeared first on Theory of Content.

Apart from Joshua’s run in with his HOA, your hosts’ past trauma with geese, and some of their weekly recipes, Amber and Joshua have got some important advice regarding the SEO for your website. 

Joshua explains how a category page can be used to showcase events without having to worry about outdated information or constantly updating the same article. He also utilizes a catchy tune, “Google’s not a person, Google can’t get confused” to dispel any worry you might be having due to COVID-19 changing your blog content.

Amber and Joshua suggest ways to use this time to diversify your posts in the case of a future event that would divert users away from your content type. As Amber says, “There’s a lot of conversation around nich-ing down to grow very quickly but this is the other side of that,” referring to unforeseeable events like the current pandemic. 

As the episode concludes, Joshua and Amber explain how to categorize content on your site to build a hierarchical model of content, however, this does not mean you are placing more importance on some posts rather than others. They also advise not worrying about competing with yourself, because in some cases it is not unusual to dominate one search term. Lastly, your hosts take questions about what it means if Pinterest is one of the top search results for a given term, and whether it is risky to alter a number one post if the change will improve user experience. 

Are you interested in being a Theory of Content co-host? Fill out our form at https://forms.gle/CKqfpsExvEE9sfQy9

Facebag:

Pam Robinson Stultz | Housewives of Frederick County

Hi everybody! Amber & Joshua, I’m loving your podcast and look forward to having chunks of time in my car to listen to you guys! You are both a wealth of information! My twin sister and I blog at www.housewivesoffrederickcounty.com. 

We are a lifestyle website but also focus a lot on hyperlocal in our awesome town of Frederick, Maryland. My question is, if I were to do a “free things to do in Frederick this weekend” blog post and update it each week, is it okay SEO-wise to update the publish date on a weekly basis? 

I used to write these posts years ago and they were really popular. At that time, I would publish a brand new post each week. But then I had a ton of outdated content. 

I ended up deleting all of the old posts. So I’m hoping that just updating the same post each week is a better option. Thanks so much and keep doing what you do!

Denise Zacharia Wright | My Life Cookbook

I’ve noticed this with a few older posts. In “Search Console,” when comparing my last 3 months to the previous year, my click-through rate went up, my position went up, but my impressions are down drastically. What does that mean? Any thoughts?

Kathryn Anne | Wandering Bird

Ok…. my entire blog is travel & road trips in Europe. I can either sit in bed and sob for a month (with wine, of course) OR I can try to pivot into things we’ve also done, like downsizing, budgeting, homeschooling, and things to do when you can’t travel.

HOWEVER… my concern is that I’ll confuse Google. Right now, I rank really well for several big terms and most of my traffic is from Google. If I try and pivot for a while, will that break it?

Any thoughts? I’m not sure what to do and don’t want to make it worse!!

Katie Price Webster | Healthy Seasonal Recipes

Hi Katie from Healthyseasonalrecipes.com here. I have a question about best practices for internal linking. 

I know it is important to link internally to related content on my site to help Google understand the hierarchy of the content. But… does that mean I am always supposed to link reciprocally between two posts? 

When I wrote this Roasted Parsnip post, I linked to this Mashed Carrots and Parsnips recipe. Should I also go back to that mashed carrots and parsnips post and add a link to the roasted parsnips? If they link to each other, how does this show a hierarchy? 

When I read about it on Yoast they say, “On your site, you might have blog posts that are quite similar. If, for example, you write a lot about SEO, you could have multiple blog posts about site structure, each covering a different aspect. Consequently, Google won’t be able to tell which of these pages is the most important, so you’ll be competing with your own content for a high ranking in Google. You should let Google know which page you think is most important. You need a good internal linking and taxonomy structure to do this, so all those pages can work for you, instead of against you.” 

Thanks so much! Looking forward to hearing about this and any more tidbits you can share regarding internal linking! 

Seng Nickerson | Sengerson.com

Often, when I’m searching for phrases to rank for, if Quora or Pinterest shows up in the top five results, I know there’s not a lot of good content around it, so it’s a key term I’ll probably target. However, more recently, I’ve noticed key phrases that I think have really good content are also showing Pinterest as 3rd or 4th. Is Google placing more Pinterest pages as search results on the first page?

Kelli Shallal | Hungry Hobby

I have a recipe that’s going crazy. Highest traffic I’ve seen in forever. It currently sits number 1 for its search term which is being hit heavy right now. It’s a bread recipe. Right now, the video in the recipe is for the original recipe I adapted it from (a sweeter version.)

I just filmed a new video specific to this recipe. The question is, if the post is number one, should I be cautious about switching out the video or will that not matter that much? This post is driving a ton of traffic so the last thing I want to do is knock it out of the number one spot. Thoughts? Leave the “similar recipe” video or switch it out to the newly filmed actual recipe.

Right now the “close alternative recipe” is placed using the MV plugin right above the recipe card. Apparently, I did not embed the code into WP Recipe Maker like I usually do. So, it would be switching the video via the plugin and adding the embed code to WP Recipe Maker. My initial thoughts are this shouldn’t jar things, but I figured I’d ask first. Since touching number one posts is usually no Bueno.

The post Episode 57 Facebag appeared first on Theory of Content.

It’s all Amber’s fault we haven’t been recording new episodes. Well, COVID-19’s really, but since everything else is COVID’s fault, I decided to take the hit for this one. 

Even before COVID, Joshua and I discussed me taking a step back because I’m getting busier and busier at Mediavine. Everyone knows that Theory of Content is a passion project for us, and I still love it, but I’ve found myself unable to juggle everything. COVID became the catalyst for us to put this plan in action, and I’m pretty excited about it.

More blogger hosts! This is where you come in. Do you want to come co-host the show with Joshua? Now’s your chance.

We’ll post a link to a Google form on the website and in the facebook group for those that want to apply. I can’t wait to listen to more bloggers helping bloggers as part of The Theory of Content. That’s what it was always about from the beginning anyway.

You’ll still hear from me, I’ve promised to come to bug Joshua and Don at least once a month. I’m excited to see how Theory of Content progresses because Joshua and Don make it great, and so will you.

Katie Price Webster | Healthy Seasonal Recipes

Hi Katie from HealthySeasonalRecipes.com. I heard Amber mention in the Mediavine Group not to write COVID-19 in our posts because Google would negatively rank our post. Add to that Ad buyers wouldn’t want to put their ads against that content. 

Makes me wonder if there are other words that we should avoid. I know you mentioned curse words. What else? 

I write about healthy food and we have a few posts that mention health benefits of certain nutrients or antioxidants and explain that they may help prevent cancer. 

Wondering is Cancer a word I should avoid? Linking below one of my posts where I did this. Are there other buzz words? Thanks! https://www.healthyseasonalrecipes.com/roasted-broccoli-an…/

Elizabeth Waterson | Confessions of a Baking Queen

Hey! Thanks for the podcast, I love it!!! Having the random fun in between/before/ after topics/ questions makes it very easy to listen to and enjoyable. 

I have started to finally try and work on my category pages. I started to make categories for holidays (paddy’s, Christmas..etc), specific ingredients (chocolate, peanut butter, caramel). 

I’ve never done round-ups but was thinking of trying to go after some KWs for like Chocolate Dessert Recipes or Lemon Dessert Recipes. 

Do you think I should just optimize the category page or should I write an actual post/ page about chocolate dessert recipes? 

And for lemon I have savory recipes for lemon as well, so would I be better to make another lemon dessert category or just do a page on its own? 

Here’s a link to my current chocolate category: https://confessionsofabakingqueen.com/category/chocolate-recipes/

Thanks for any help and guidance on this one!!

XX

Liz

Kati Farrer | Houseful of Homemade

When you want to use the same photo in multiple blog posts, is it better to add the photo to your media library again, uploading it with a new name better for the keywords of the new article? 

Or just use the photo and change the alt text (as appropriate) to better target the new keywords? Does Google see it as the same photo on multiple pages with different alt text?

The post Episode 56 – Big News, Bitter Sweet appeared first on Theory of Content.

Christi talks about how there are so many memories that are tied to recipes. It’s important to keep those alive and well… they taste like your childhood.

Christi has been focusing on SEO, but then it bottomed out in April, and she started dropping traffic. She was working hard at it, things didn’t recover. It’s been stagnant.

A lot of the traffic has come back, but Christi doesn’t feel like she’s done much to the posts. There’s an element of “luck”. Josh calls it “Yahtzee.” A lot of the traffic rank based on 15 keywords. Look at what gets you traffic. It’s the 80/20 rule. Most of your traffic will come from 20% of your posts.

Christi has been focusing on creating more content. The amount of time and effort that she put in, stressing, she didn’t see a big return-on-investment. She saw more of a return-on-investment for the content creation. It’s also about streamlining the site, and looking at how different people see the blog.

What About Content Gaps?

Josh says that they haven’t talked about content gaps, but it’s a good thing to do. It’s good to write thematic content (making sure to cover variations of content related to the same keywords). Sit down and come up with a list of stuff, then spread them across the Content Calendar. Then, you can stop thinking about Content Gaps, because you have it covered across your calendar and you’re doing it in a way that keeps you from getting bored.

There’s only so much attention that you can give to any one subject. So, you roll it out over time. If you do it in a thematic way, you can hit all the high-ranking keywords. Take from every category, prioritizing high-value keywords. Move them down the chain to lower-value keywords. The high-ranking keywords can be your anchor text, with your lower-ranking keywords supporting that.

What About Cannibalizing Keywords?

Every post has an overlap. If you’re writing about food within a particular keyword, Google is going to rank based on the intent of the searcher. Cannibalizing keyword usually refers to keyword equity, where someone is linking to an internal site that you don’t want them to link to. Josh says that he loves links. “It feels really good when people link to my site.” He says, “It’s your investment portfolio.” You’re in this for the long haul. You’re less concerned about one link on one post, and more concerned about the aggregate links. You’re just trying to provide great content.

You’ve got “nachos” covered, so look at other keywords that you want to cover. Eventually those things will rank and creep up. Then, you have a wide swathe of keywords that are contributing lots of traffic. Then, you have a couple that is “sweet sugar on top.” You’ll also spend less time defending your rankings.

What About the Blogging Mindset?

Christi says that a shift of her mindset has helped. She decided that she just wanted to write the recipe.

Josh says that you can do cooking because you love it… and blog for the fun of it. Some bloggers commit bloggercide, because they say, “I can’t grow.” What’s frustrating for them is that they’ve become trapped to the blog. It can be a thief of joy.

Christie says that her circle of friends keeps her grounded. She says she’s fortunate to do blogging for a living.

What About the Process?

Christi knows that other bloggers expand and grow their team. While she has people who help her out, she doesn’t want that. The reason she started the blog was because she’s solitary. She doesn’t want to have a corporation. She wants to continue on the path she’s on. She’d like to increase traffic, increase income, fill in the gaps, and create a great collection of recipes so that when her daughter goes out into the world, she can find whatever she wants to make on the blog. It is a way to pass it on.

The post Episode 55 – Site Audit with Christi Johnstone appeared first on Theory of Content.

“It really is about evaluating who is outranking you,” according to Amber, and then “making sure you’re offering the same or better. It’s just that simple.”

Josh says, “It’s true… Google does giveth. It’s wonderful when traffic is coming. And, Google does taketh away.” It’s almost scriptural, or at least it’s just “good blogging.” He says, “You have to have a wide swath of keywords that your site ranks for.”

Amber says, “Right, if you spread out the traffic that you’re getting from them over multiple posts, then it doesn’t necessarily matter that you lost one.” She says, “You have to back up your theories as to why your traffic has dropped with data.” We see lots of talk about losing everything from a Google update, but if you look at the data (compared with prior years), you might be pleasantly surprised.

How are we feeling about the latest update? Are you noticing it? Let’s dig into the Facebag…

Facebag:

Andrea Howe | howewelive.com/

Good morning! Question about old non-food related content. Years ago I used to be a DIY blogger, and I had some decent performing DIYs – some are still #1 on google. In an effort to move primarily to food though, I buried them in my site and haven’t touched them in 5-6 years. My goal for 2020 is Mediavine. I’m wondering if I should bother trying to update and optimize all of those old posts to get better traffic and help me all around, or should I just move on and focus on food? The problem is, I don’t even know a thing about DIY SEO, so I’d have to do some research. Here’s an example of an old post that is still #1 on google. I have lots of others like this that I could update and push out.

Comments in thread:

Dahn Boquist If you’re ranking #1 for a post then I don’t think you should update it. However, I don’t see any reason you shouldn’t have DIY and food on your site. If you’re ranking for the painted heart jeans, then maybe you could easily rank for similar keywords like “DIY painted jeans’ pocket” or “DIY painted jean jacket”. Also, look in your Google Analytics to find the keywords you are ranking on. You might see some keywords in your GA that you rank for, but you do not have a post that directly addresses the query. Don’t box yourself in. If Google wants to rank you on keywords, then do it! To find keywords in your GA, click on “acquisition” then “search console” then “queries”.

Jennifer Rue McLellan | plussizebirth.com & plusmommy.com

LOVE the show and I tell all my blogger friends about it!!! First time joining the group to ask a question.

Can you max out a niche?

Nearly nine years ago, I started blogging about plus size pregnancy at plussizebirth.com. At the time sites on this topic were all major health organizations that only talked about the risks. I talked about how to have healthy outcomes, shared stories, where to find clothing, and other resources back when it was taboo. My site took off fast, and I became certified as a childbirth educator – blogging changed my life!

Now plus size pregnancy is far more mainstream and I’m proud to be the “expert” with an endorsement from the National Institutes of Health (so I have two .gov linkbacks) and links from the media including the New York Times. I’m with Mediavine (thank you – game changer ).

BUT I’ve pretty much hit all the top keywords in my niche that are possible to rank for (many of the clothing keywords are too difficult). Now I’m writing for really small keywords. I just don’t know if that’s a good use of my time as I blog full time and am the breadwinner for my family. I need growth! I’ve optimized all old content and have done all the things.

I’ve started a second site plusmommy.com with a podcast to be more “plus size mom lifestyle” – so the possibilities are endless and I’m already with Mediavine (though this site needs a lot of TLC).

Do I turn all my time to this newer site? Plus Size Birth is my baby and I’d still love for it to be able to grow more. Is that possible? I need to pick your brilliant minds!!!

Thank you so much!

Rebecca Swanner | LetsEatCake.com

Hi Amber and Josh! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this podcast. I listen to it in the car during my hour-long commute, and it makes the time fly by. Who knew learning about content could be so much fun!

Here’s my question. I run a humorous women’s lifestyle site called Let’s Eat Cake (yes, Josh, it used to be a baking blog and we have some yummy chocolate recipes!) and I have a few posts that aren’t showing up in google for the KWs I’m going after… at all. One is for “peppermint bark recipe” and one is for “thanksgiving puns.” I have my google set to show me the first 100 search results, and they’re nowhere to be found. The peppermint bark was once on page 30, but after my last tweak it seems to have disappeared entirely. To me, these posts look optimized so I can’t figure out what’s wrong. My other pun and recipe posts rank, so this seems weird. Thanks for all your help looking into this. Can’t wait to see what you think.

The two links:

https://www.letseatcake.com/peppermint-bark-recipe/ (updates on Dec 14 + Dec 28) and

https://www.letseatcake.com/thanksgiving-puns/ (published Nov 12)

Best,

Rebecca

Kelli Shallal | www.hungryhobby.net

So, back in the day, I used to syndicate my content to Food52. Now I have a recipe that is being outranked by Food52. Should I remove it? The food52 result is on page 2 and I’m on page 3. The query is vegan protein pancakes, just in case that matters.

Jessica Scully | HolyCityCrossFit.com & PaleoScaleo.com

Once you’ve devoured all available episodes of TOC, what’s the next podcast in line that you go straight to?

The post Ep 54 Facebag !! appeared first on Theory of Content.

What is CCPA?

Josh and I thought it would be great to have Jamie come on and talk about CCPA. We’ve seen so many social postings about CCPA. As Amber says, “Because your content is online, there are certain responsibilities that come along with it because of how websites work.”

Jamie says, “CCPA is the new California Privacy law that was enacted last year. It went into effect on January 1st (2020). It does not just apply only to businesses located in and doing businesses in California.” So, it’s important to understand what it really means, and how it will affect you.

Is it the same as GDPR? How are they different? How are they the same?

CCPA is not the same as GDPR, but there are similarities. It gives consumers the ability to control how their data and personal information is being used.

• GDPR is an opt-in law, so as Jamie explains, “you have to opt-in to having your data collected.”
• CCPA is an opt-out. Jamie says, “You have to give them the opportunity to opt-out of the sale of their data.” There are also notice provisions and the opt-out mechanism.
• GDPR and CCPA also differ in what they define as businesses.

Who does CCPA impact?

Let’s define business…

• Business is a for-profit business.
• It does business in California.
• It controls the collection or processing of personal information of California residents.

The business must also have one of these:

• An annual income of more than $25 million.
• They buy, receive, sell, or share (for commercial purposes) of more than 50,000 California residents, devices, or households.
• They make $50,000 or more from selling the personal information of California residents.

What do I need to do now?

• Update your privacy policy.
• Make sure you’re complying with all the requirements of CCPA.
• You need to offer a way for California ways to contact you, etc.
• Look at your providers. Know what you’re agreeing to… terms & conditions.

What do I do if a user opts out?

• Check to see if the user is a California resident.
• You need to give them the opportunity to opt-out immediately from ads.
• You have 45 days to comply (plus you can get an extension).

The consents are annoying – why do they have to show on every page?

There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s part of the game. It’s part of doing business. You have skin in the game, so act like it…

Learn More: CCPA Podcast

Jamie’s podcast episode about CCPA and Privacy policies…… 

The post Episode 53 – Let’s Talk About CCPA with Special Guest Jamie Lieberman appeared first on Theory of Content.

Josh says, “It’s hard to become that good of a writer, but you’re practicing every day as a blogger… Write well, and keep people’s eyes moving down the page.”

Amber points to Alas Babylon by Pat Frank. It was assigned reading in high school, and it accomplished the teacher’s goal of inspiring her to love the dystopian genre. She says, “You’ve got to find that stuff for yourself. And, you’ve got to learn how to write that stuff for your audience.”

Balancing Act…

It doesn’t have to be a Pulitzer-prize winning masterpiece. That’s not what you’re after, but you should shoot for writing compelling content, like Michael Crichton. You’re a writer and you’re writing for a particular audience, but there is a “balancing act,” as Josh says. “Authors have always had this necessity of focusing on the fact that they need to make money as well as the fact that they want to write what they want to write.”

When you start blogging, you can start off with a more conventional blog. As you go, you can start taking risks and making compromises to make the content reflect what you’re passionate about. Amber says, “If you believe in your content, your readers will come.” She talks about her Black Velvet Halloween Trifle recipe, which still ranks.

Write for People

Josh says, “Write for people. Just write… If you need to add SEO, do it after the fact.” When you keyword stuff, you’re not writing for humans. You’re writing what you think Google wants. “You don’t have to write bad content in order to get ranked. You just don’t,” he says. “Google wants you to write good content, and they want people to like reading it. Google’s goal as a company is to get people stuff they want to read.”

Amber talks about the chocolate mayonnaise cake that she’s always loved, and they talk about why deleting content is not a good idea. You start out some way. If you have good content, go with it. If it’s good content, it will rise to the top. “Just because it doesn’t feel relevant right now doesn’t mean that it wasn’t relevant at one time, and it doesn’t mean that it won’t be relevant to someone else.” That’s what it’s all about. Amber says, “Theory of Content is absolutely about why we make content.”

The post Episode 52 – A Deep Dive Into The Theory Behind Good Content appeared first on Theory of Content.

This is a great article about understanding BERT…

Make sure you’re checking out the Google search blog regularly. I like this article because it really explains the intent of the changes they make to the search algorithm. When someone searches for something, they’re seeking to learn. Always. Use that in context with how you create content.

Facebag:

Christie Burnett | childhood101.com

My blog – childhood101.com – was hit big time by the November 8th Google update with a number of my top posts/keywords taking a hit. Now I am wondering if it is better for me to use my time trying to refresh, refine and add content for those keywords that were effected, or instead to work on refining and adding content for the keywords/posts Google is favoring now?

Brittany Goldwyn Merth | ByBrittanyGoldwyn.com

Excited to have found this group! I am just about completely caught up on the podcast. What a wealth of knowledge. 

I have a question about Google Search Console. I hope someone can help me with it.

I submitted my sitemap in Google Search Console last night. This morning it said “success, 5,804 discovered URLs.” However, I also got a note saying that it discovered the following error 241 times: “Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404.” I’ve attached a screenshot.

All the “soft errors” seem to be images. What exactly does this mean? The images aren’t broken and belong in posts. At first, I thought maybe it was images that had the “linked to image” instead of “link to nothing” option checked in WordPress.

However, I had someone fix all of those sometime last year. (Maybe not?) If anyone knows what’s up, I’d be very grateful for some info!

Danielle Pientka | DIYDanielle.com

Facebag Question (or just for here): how much of an impact should swearing in the form of an acronym have on SEO?

Reading this… Clean Content vs Saucy Content… And they brought up IFL Science. If they don’t swear in content, could it trigger filters because of the acronym?

From the article:

Final Thoughts

Word choice and profanity are certainly two characteristics that help define a blogger’s voice, but profanity isn’t for everyone. Instead of writing like a potty mouth, take great care in how you convey a message to your audience. As a last ditch alternative, you can skirt around saucy language with euphemisms, indirect hints, and lighthearted wordplay. Just make sure you know how the message will be received by your audience before you hit that “publish” button!

Marjory Pilley | Dinner-Mom

Facebag question! First time poster…but long-time listener because this podcast always keeps me focused on what’s important and is so helpful! So…I’ve started creating and optimizing recipe “categories” to harness specific clusters of content…like veggie muffins or make-ahead Christmas dinners. What are your thoughts on doing this versus creating a round-up post…both from an SEO and ad perspective? TIA!!!

Mary Elizabeth Woita | Olive and Artichoke

Hello all! I’m getting these crawl warnings on a couple of pages. What do they mean? And how do I fix them? I really don’t understand Google’s help docs. #clueless

Thanks!

The post Episode 51 – All About Google Search and an Awesome Tattoo appeared first on Theory of Content.

Frédéric Dubut from Bing recorded a video where he said he thought keyword research would become obsolete, and it’s all about intent research. 

John Mueller, the Googler, disagreed slightly and said there will always be a place for keyword research.

Amber: I completely agree, and it all ties in with what Josh and I’ve been saying since we started this podcast. If you’re writing for humans, you’re already doing both keyword and intent research. Bloggers that blog from a place of passion aren’t just looking to rank for Best Fudge Recipe because it’s a big keyword. They’re looking to rank for it because they truly believe they have the best fudge recipe (which is the searcher’s intent – to find the best fudge recipe), and they write their content that way.

Facebag

Kathryn Anne | Wandering Bird

I rank highly for several terms with posts which don’t make much sense and therefore don’t get clicks, although they rank well for other terms they were intended for.

I’ve written additional posts for those exact keywords, but they’re not ranking for the terms, or at least they are, but much lower. I’ve left them for a few months and the new posts are still not ranking above the older posts.

Is there anything else I can do? I’m confused on my next steps. Thanks Amber and Joshua.

Google Search Operators

Milisa Armstrong | Miss in the Kitchen

As always, appreciate y’all so much. I look forward to every podcast. Are cocktail recipes and use of alcohol in recipes a deterrent for advertisers? Y’all (I think Amber) mentioned step-by-step photos in the recipe card. I usually put these the post but not in the card. Can you explain which is better for UX and also SEO. Any examples you have of sites doing this would also be great.

Allison Corey | Keeping the Peas

Hi Amber and Josh!

I have really enjoyed listening to your podcast and have learned SO much! Thank you!

My question relates to keywords for posts. My blog Keeping the Peas is a plant-based vegan blog. When I write my posts I’ll use a title like Vegan Peanut Butter Overnight Oats. I usually stick the word vegan in my posts and title so that Google will start recognizing my site as a vegan site and hopefully start ranking me for vegan recipes. Even when a recipe is somewhat obviously vegan like the one above, is it necessary for me to always use vegan in the post and the title? When the keyword I’m going after is just “peanut butter overnight oats.” Or is that redundant and not user friendly.

Morgan McBride | Charleston Crafted

Hey y’all! Hope you had a good holiday season. I was wondering if you had any tips or advice for getting content featured on Google Discover? I had a flurry of small features over the summer but no clicks or impressions since. 

Thanks  

Morgan McBride

Belinda Del Pesco | https://www.belindadelpesco.com/

Dear Amber and Joshua,

I just listened to the January 1st podcast, and I’m all blinking, pink in the cheeks and squirmy at your very kind compliments. Thank you for saying such nice things about my art.

And you gave such BOSS answers to my question! Each branding and CTA suggestion caused an ‘of course!’ forehead slap with the frantic note taking! Aha moments abound!

Really, you guys are amazing at light-speed review and improvement-suggestions. I’m always so impressed with your breadth and depth of SEO knowledge.

Joshua, you commented that you didn’t see ads on my site… I insert google ads and affiliate links in posts, but I’m not “big enough” to be repped by an agency (yet). That’s why I’m so grateful for your podcast, because #goals. Mediavine, someday.

Amber, thank you for your purchase of the freesia and house finch watercolor print. I squealed when I saw your name in my order list.

Joshua, heartfelt congratulations on your engagement. I wish you decades of hand-holding and googley-eyed love.

You both asked how I heard about ToC: my daughter Melanie Ham is a Mediavine member, and suggested I search for your FB Page. A good chunk of our conversations revolve around YouTube, Blogging and SEO. And comparing notes on the latest episode of the ToC podcast. #truth

Thanks again for your encouragement and great ideas! I’m incorporating those changes on the in-progress re-build of my website.

Heartfelt Happy New Year –

Belinda

The post Episode 50!! The Googler, The Extract and The Bad Accent appeared first on Theory of Content.

Sorry, no Facebag this week. Let’s jump into the Mailbag.

Mailbag:

Mason Woodruff | Masonfit.com

Hi Amber and Josh,

I’m a big fan of the show and appreciate all the help you two provide the ToC listeners! I have a FaceBag question about disavowing links.

I know both of you (and Google) say disavowing links is unnecessary, but I noticed a huge spike in links from one domain to a single page on my site in Search Console reporting. Yet when I visit the linking site and any of its pages, there are no links to my site to be found. Could this be a Search Console error or some type of spam?

When I view a link profile using tools like Ahrefs or Moz, the links don’t appear there. However, my Domain Rating on Ahrefs (a pointless metric, I know) has dropped 4 points over the past few weeks without any other changes.

It’s probably not worth worrying about. I was just curious if either of you have any experience with something like this.

Thanks for any insight. I’ll get back to creating new content now.

Mason

Katie Emery | katiegoesplatinum.com

Hi, Amber & Josh:

I love your podcast!

I’ve been blogging for about 18 months.  One of my most popular affiliate posts abruptly stopped generating much revenue in the last couple months and I want to figure out why.

I’m still learning SEO, but I thought this was a pretty well optimized post and it DID bring me a lot of traffic. You can see the post here.  

Interestingly enough, the post has done WORSE since I updated it with headers, optimized keywords, etc. a few months ago.

So my question is:

How do I get to the bottom of why this post has stopped generating much revenue? I checked Google Search Console but I’m not really sure what to look for.

Thanks!

Katie

Belinda | belindadelpesco.com and belindatips.com

Dear Amber and Joshua,

I’m a watercolor painter and printmaker with a 14 year old blog focused on sharing art-making methods and creative encouragement. I have an instructional Youtube channel, and an Etsy Shop to sell my work. All sites are “branded” as my name.

When I look in analytics at the last 6 months of Acquisition/Search Console/Queries on my website, iterations of my name are the #1 and #10 query. Should I be doing something with that? I think I should, but I’m at a loss on how to do this.

How does one optimize SEO in posts to include your own name, or the name of your brand – as opposed to the name of a recipe or an alarm part – if it’s an active search query? Or should I leave it, and focus on art technique queries?

Your encouraging podcast has changed the way I create posts, increased my organic traffic and therefore my affiliate income! You’ve both made a big difference in my understanding of SEO, and strategies for content building. I’m incredibly grateful that you carve out time in your already busy schedules to record and broadcast your wisdom for all of us.

Thank you again!

Belinda

The post Episode 49 – Mailbag and Josh’s Engagement (?) appeared first on Theory of Content.

Google is using the carousel in more ways to organize stories relevant to the query. While it’s only being used for news right now, this definitely could have implications for how search results will appear in the future for other kinds of queries, like “how to cook salmon” – think baked, roasted, grilled, etc showing up in different carousels, or “how to stain a wood floor” with different stain types.

• Smarter organization of top stories in Search

Pretty interesting stuff!

I think one theme we can probably agree on for 2019 is Searcher Intent. Google has focused on it big time, from new Schema (How-To), new Rich Snippet styles, and more and more carousel-style results. Think about that as you write content. 

• Genius sues Google over allegedly stolen song lyrics

Facebag:

Adrienne Urban | wholenewmom.com

I would love to know if you all have addressed, or are willing to address, a site (mine!) that appears to have been hit hard by the YMYL update (and more since then). I know there are things that I should do, but I have done some of these and now I’m stumped on my next, and possibly biggest step(s).

I’m mostly stumped on whether to delete the healthy living posts and which ones to delete–or whether to try to update them to make them more what Google is looking for–or what to do.

It’s so terribly hard to move forward when you don’t know what you are being hit for.

Additionally, I have 2 CBD posts on my site, so that is possibly a more pressing issue. In light of the new confusion about legality, is it best for me to totally remove them or no index them? One of them is totally informational and the other is about our experience. I do have affiliate links in the latter but I’m fine removing them if need be.

I also could use some help on recipe keyword terms. I tend to write recipes that appeal to multiple special diets, but I worry that I’m shooting myself in the foot by not niching down there. Of course keto and vegan are all the rage, but I am neither. I’m kind of a keto-ish vegan-ish paleo-ish site. I guess basically I’m wondering if I’m really mucking myself up by being someone who is a “balanced clean eating blog” or if it’s fine being who I am and not worrying about it.

Thank you so much and really glad to be here!

Kimberly Vargo | berlyskitchen.com

I just recently began listening to the Theory of Content podcasts, so if the answer to my question has been answered, feel free to point me in the right direction.

I’ve been looking through our posts on Search Console to see which ones need updating and which are ok. About 20-25% either get no clicks, very few to no impressions, or a combination of the two.

Some of these are posts that we’ve already re-written, optimized, and republished. I would think maybe it’s us, and that we need to polish up our writing, link building, keywords, etc. However, other posts written the same way, do rank. I’m at a loss and unsure how to fix these posts. It’s like Google isn’t seeing them at all. Any ideas?

Additional notes from comments threads: 

Jody L Halsted | campingtipsforeveryone.com

Listening to the newest episode and can’t wait to see Joshua’s article on finding those longer tail keywords!

I am always – ALWAYS!- recommending your podcast. In this world of panic every time Google makes a change your podcast is an incredible ‘center of gravity and stability’ for bloggers.

Now that I’ve buttered you up… I do have a question.

I have an old site that dates back to 2004 and has loads of old, non-optimized content on it. Like thousands of posts.

I actually quit writing on the site for a few years as I decided to go more niche in 2011 and started a new site.

Then started another niche site 2 years ago.

I’ve decided to start writing off those niche topics again and I can’t decide if I want to revitalize the first site -FamilyRambling.com – which still has some pretty strong posts that get decent traffic, or if I want to write on my ‘author site’ which just kind of sits and holds my name URL – JodyHalsted.com

I think my main questions is this:

If I republish the articles that do well and I want to move forward with my author site, should I redirect the articles from the old site to the new, and add the canonical link from old article to new, and will that slowly transfer the domain authority from one site to the other?

The old site needs so much work and so much of it is outdated that it seems less hassle to just start migrating things over and let the old site die as slow death as I do. (Google hates it as I was doing sponsored posts back in 2007 before nofollow was a thing.So. Much. Work.)

I would love any insight you might have on this, Amber Bracegirdle & Joshua Unseth – as well as if I am actually asking the wrong question. 

The post Episode 48 – THIS IS THE LAST TOC OF THE DECADE appeared first on Theory of Content.

Amber’s favorite part of the article:

Keyword cannibalization is when a single website (e.g. ahrefs.com) unintentionally targets the same keyword across multiple posts or pages.

Many SEOs believe that this “confuses” Google.

In other words, they believe that it becomes difficult for Google to decipher which page (if any) should rank for a particular keyword. As a result, sometimes neither page will rank for the target keyword.

This is usually incorrect.

I’ll let Patrick Stox, a columnist at Search Engine Land, explain why:

I’ve heard arguments where people say having multiple pages for the same term somehow confuses search engines. This whole idea is preposterous. Search engines know what is on individual web pages. Other people think there are times when Google shows the wrong page for a search term, but that’s not right, either. What you consider your best, most relevant page for a query may not be what the search engines deem to be most relevant. Search intent is critical here. If your page doesn’t have relevant information or is surrounded by informational “how to” articles or pages from Wikipedia, there is a high likelihood your pages aren’t going to show.”

So let’s talk about turning this entire idea on its head. How do you plan your content to support ranking higher, instead of the idea of cannibalization, which supports the theory that you’d drag yourself down?

Now let’s talk about duplicate content. Rumors are making their way through the groups again that syndication will cause you to be dinged for duplicate content. 

• What is Syndication?
• How do you do it correctly?
• What if the site I syndicate to outranks me?

Jill Castle – jillcastle.com

I have a handful of recipes that are missing “aggregate rating” — I seem to remember Amber Bracegirdle saying we could rate our own recipes on a past episode. When I go to do that, Google asks for name/email/comments…it seems weird to rate my own recipe and put my own name in there…(if I’m to do this the honest way) — should I care about no ratings? Should I go ahead and rate myself (5 stars haha) and skip filling out the details?

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/review-snippet

https://schema.org/AggregateRating

Amber’s Note: The bottom line is, there don’t seem to be any guidelines that a rating has to start at 0 and move up, or start at 5 and move down, but what we do know is that Google wants you to have ratings. 

From this page, we see:

“If the recipe structured data contains a single review, the reviewer’s name must be a valid person or organization. For example, “50% off ingredients” is not a valid name for a reviewer.”

Keep in mind that Reviews and Ratings are two different things. Just like on Amazon, where you can leave a star rating without leaving an actual text review. If you decide to add a Review in addition to your Rating, I would absolutely advocate for disclosing that you are the author, and why you feel the recipe or craft is rated the way you did. 

The post Episode 47 – The One About Duplicate Content and Keyword Cannibalization appeared first on Theory of Content.

Everyone is still talking about the November 8th Update. The consensus is that this update is returning nonsensical results, typically from bigger websites with larger link profiles, but not necessarily the best content. We’re still observing and don’t have any definitive opinions yet. 

Also big, but not necessarily relevant to action items, the Google co-founders decided to step down this week, leaving Sundar Pichai as CEO of both Google and Alphabet. It will be interesting to see if there are any major changes to either company, but so far analysts doubt anything significant will change in the day-to-day.

What are we talking about this week? 

Before we jump into the FaceBag – 

I’d like for us to talk a little bit about internal and external linking, getting backlinks, how to link to others correctly.

Josh, you wrote a post for the Mediavine blog about this a while ago, and I’d love to revisit it. How do YOU go about asking for backlinks from others? Do you ask? Or do you wait for them to notice your good content?

I’m not certain who it is, but in the groups, I’m hearing there’s an analyst telling bloggers that all outbound links, especially to other bloggers, should be no-followed. Can we talk about why this is incorrect, and in fact, could be harmful?

How should someone properly link?

Kat – Wandering Bird

I have several posts I wrote when I was a blogging beginner (and had never heard of SEO!) Since then, I’ve written newer, better posts that are ranking well in Google for the same information as these old posts- making the old posts redundant.

What’s the best way to deal with these posts. Should I delete and redirect to the newer posts? If so, how do I do that safely?

Or should I do something else? None of them are ranking high in Google and get very very few clicks. Thanks for your help.

Josh Boquist – A License to Grill | Dahn Boquist 

Hi Amber and Josh,

I have a couple of questions related to my site, www.alicensetogrill.com and my mom’s site, www.savorthebest.com. 

I am using the Gutenberg block editor on WordPress and have some reusable blocks. For instance, my call to action to subscribe on social and I have another reusable block for tips and tricks in the air fryer. It allows me to easily add 500 words that I frequently use in several posts. I noticed that WordPress doesn’t recognize these reusable blocks as words in the word count. I have the option after inputting the reusable block to convert it to regular blocks, at which point WordPress shows the word count correctly. Is there any disadvantage to using these reusable blocks other than me not knowing the correct word count when composing a post? Should I convert them to regular blocks or leave them as reusable blocks?

I am using the same host and sharing my mom’s domain since we are partnering on our sites together. I am trying to get alicensetogrill.com set up with Google Analytics and search console. I have properly verified DNS for alicensetogrill search console but when I try to add it to my search console in GA I am only able to add savorthebest as the site. When I do so it seems to kind of work since I am able to see posts from alicensetogrill (as intended) but if I go back several months in the search I can see some traffic coming from posts on savorthebest. When I follow the link in GA to these posts it takes me to a 404 page error on alicensetogrill. For the posts that are actually on alicensetogrill and showing in GA it is not showing any of my traffic appropriately. We are both lost here, do you have any advice on how I can set up my GA appropriately? 

Jodie Chessor Morgan – Two Lucky Spoons

Hey y’all!

Long time listener, first time caller here. LOVE the podcast! I think I’ve listened to pretty much every episode so far.

Anyway, here’s my question:

I’m a blog dinosaur with a blog that will be turning 12 years old in 2020 (shameless plug > twoluckyspoons.com). With an ancient site such as mine, there are A LOT of old and out of date posts. I’m working my way through them (some so old they don’t even have recipe cards) and some fairly new that just need a little tweak. What s the best practice for updating publish dates? Do I merely update and leave the post publish date set to the original publish date or do I essentially “republish” the content and throw it back on the top of the heap like a brand new post? Do I treat more recent posts differently (i.e. something published in 2016 vs. 2009)?

Thanks for all of the sage advice!

Brandy Crawford

I hear you guys mention Discover as an Android thing, but if you have the Google App on iPhone it shows a Discover page as well. I see mine daily, and Amber, like yours, mine is PERFECTLY curated for articles I typically like.

It looks like you can also go in and adjust filters and settings, which I haven’t done.

Ashleigh Allman

I’m starting my second site and just wondered what you would do from the beginning to start off gaining organic traffic?

Specifically, I’m curious about on-page SEO, site speed, plugins that you would suggest.

Thanks!

Header Checker Links:

• Header Checker: https://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/header-checker/
• Server Header Checker: http://tools.seobook.com/server-header-checker/

The post Episode 46-The Real Deal with Outbound Links appeared first on Theory of Content.

Rich answers in Google mobile search more than doubled since 2018.

Image carousels also occurred 151% more often than the previous year.

The sharp increase in image carousels underscores the importance of image SEO and provides users with one more way to reach your pages.

What are we talking about this week? 

Facebag All the Way! 

Belinda Del Pesco – Belinda Del Pesco | Belinda Tips

Dear Amber and Josh,

Do you think blog themes become outdated and clunky with age?  And there comes a time when a theme-refresh is a good idea? 

I’m in the midst of a switch from a small, custom theme from years ago to a faster, more google-friendly  & site speed efficient theme using Astra. 

Could you talk a little bit on the podcast about your thoughts on Astra, blogger theme updates – and which theme layouts work best for ad-inclusion? 

I’ve traditionally had a narrow header at the top of my blog, with main content and posts in the middle right, and a sidebar on the left with ads, funnels and web forms.  

Many of the new themes feature wide format, full screen, responsive background photos with no side bars at all. I presume that means all ads will be inserted within the post content? 

What are your thoughts on attractive, responsive blog themes that compliment the content of the publishers blog, but also take ads into consideration?

ToC has made the raw, dry kale of SEO into an apple pie with ice cream. I understand it all so much better then before I started listing to you guys and your excellent guests.

Thank you!

Belinda

Jennifer Osborn – no blog url listed

Dearest Amber and Josh,

Is it okay SEO-wise if my blog post url is one thing and the title of my blog post is another? 

For example, I wrote a post about gooey butter cake and that’s what the url is Gooey Butter Cake Original St. Louis Version. 

However, in an effort to entice readers on social media and whatnot, I titled the blog post “The Cake You Won’t Stop Eating.”

Is this practice kosher? Or am I better off keeping the blog post title the same as the URL. 

I’m sorry if you guys have covered this in an earlier podcast but you’re imparting so much knowledge with every episode, it’s hard to keep track.

Also, correcting some confusion that I heard on the October 10 episode, a reference to a comment I made about Joshua’s appearance during a Mediavine Summer of Live. 

I was not commenting about Josh’s attractiveness, which of course he is. Alas, I hear Josh has a girlfriend and I actually have a husband.

I was just picturing in my head that Josh had a fairer complexion and hair–I imagined the actor David DeLuise. So, I was taken aback to see in that Facebook Live that Josh is dark and swarthy like a pirate. Aarrghh. But that’s a good thing. 

Thank you both again for starting–and maintaining–this podcast. You are making a difference.

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Everything,

Jennifer Osborn  

Jessica Scully – Holy City Crossfit | Paleo Scaleo

Ok, here’s a fun one. I’m working on upping my keyword research game. I am using Keywords Everywhere, as I currently can’t afford SEM Rush 

I’m working on a post on how to cook spaghetti squash. When I search “how to cook spaghetti squash in the oven” I get an answer of 2200/mo. When I take out the “the,” and search “how to cook spaghetti squash in oven,” I get 6600.

Let’s take the factor of whether I could rank for the 6600 one off the table for a minute. Let’s say that I could. What is Google looking at here? It looks like if I include “the” in the phrase, I would show up differently in the results than if I didn’t.

If I include the “the” in the phrase, will I still be considered for the 6600 searches that do not use “the”? How do I decide which one to use? Am I thinking about this the wrong way?

All other things being equal, it’s also challenging to write a post that reads intelligently and includes “how to cook spaghetti squash in oven.”

Lauren Vavala – Delicious Little Bites

After the big hit earlier this month, I decided to poke around Google Search Console more. What I found is that while some of my ranking may have dropped slightly, the section called “Discovery” flat-lined. I mean it went to 0 impressions and 0 click throughs. Any idea why. Any chance of it coming back. Can I do anything???

Rebecca Swanner – Let’s Eat Cake

We’ve been optimizing posts and many are falling in ranking! Is this normal? And, if so, how long does it take for those to regain their positions (and gain some)? Last one

The post Episode 045 – The Dream Team Rides Again to Answer FaceBag ! appeared first on Theory of Content.

Marie talks about the potential for linking being significant to this latest update. She specifically mentions recipe bloggers and how they link to each other. Here’s the Google Update.

What are we talking about this week? 

This week I’ve got a guest co-host. Joshua and I will be back together next week, I promise! The dream team will ride again. I’ve been traveling like a mad woman, so it’s all on me, y’all.

The good news is, my guest co-host this week is Jamie Lieberman, the complete and total badass helming the ship at the successful law firm, Hashtag Legal.

Joshua and I’ve been trying to pepper ToC with some additional resources that help with content creation. For me, protecting the assets you’ve worked to create is one of the most important things you can do as a content creator. After all, what good is all the SEO work you do if you’re not covering yourself with accurate privacy policies and GDPR compliance and sponsored work contracts that are fair and equal?

That’s why this week I’m so excited to welcome Jamie to the podcast. 

What led  you to working with content creators?

What’s your go-to order in your favorite restaurant? 

Why do you think more lawyers aren’t aware of this industry and its needs?

What was the pivotal moment for you in realizing you could turn your ability to help this industry into a business?

Why does a blogger WANT a lawyer? 

What mindset adjustments do you think need to happen so that content creators view themselves as business owners, and therefore, someone in need of legal counsel? 

What do you want content creators to know about the risks they’re taking?

How was GDPR’s roll out for you? What do you think is most misunderstood about it?

Favorite go-to movie for folding laundry or cleaning the house? Maybe make this one and the restaurant one your last questions

What’s the new California version of this? Tell us about it.

You’re known for your bright red amber hair. Have you ever considered going for a different color?

What’s a pivotal way small business owners can change their thinking to help their businesses grow? 

You’re a working mom, I’m a working mom, many of our listeners are working moms. Have you had any aha moments you’d like to share that would help these mama bosses? 

Do you use SEO for your business? If so, what are strategies you take that are similar to content creators?

Fearless Business Podcast

Amber’s episode on the Fearless Business Podcast…..

Josh and I are back next week

The post Episode 044 – Who Needs a Lawyer? Most Likely You Do. With Special Guest Jamie Lieberman appeared first on Theory of Content.

• What you’ve done with your site?
• How you’ve grown your site?
• What’s the most helpful bit of advice you’ve gleaned from this show?
• What’s your best advice?

What’s going on with Google:

• Great video on Moz discussing how BERT works.
• People are claiming you can’t optimize for BERT.
• The goal of BERT is to move toward natural language processing.
  • NLP is super stupid. It doesn’t work that well.
  • In a world of NLP, keywords are dead… sort of…
  • You might call this the contextual update.
• Context is key. The future of SEO is contextual language. It is the epitome of writing for people not Google.
• Bert was trained on Wikipedia. It used Wikipedia to learn context. Which is interesting. I would have some criticisms of that method.
  • BERT is very bad at negation since Wikipedia doesn’t have a lot of it. Moz discusses the example of “A Robin is a…” BERT predicts “bird.” But for “A robin is not a…” BERT also predicts bird.
  • I think that Wikipedia is going to biased BERT toward a certain writing style.
• This changes the answer box for Google. The goal is to have Google begin answering questions through natural language processing. You will see Google give you “Yes” and “No” answers. You will see Google giving you approximations.
• For the recipe space, Google may end up overreaching. We shall see.

The Mail Facebag

Kelli Shallal – hungryhobby.net

Facebag question here! Okay this question is kind of hard to explain but hang in there with me. How do you know what your blog is ready to rank, keyword wise? I was targeting keywords 2000-5000 in search volume. But then I listened to one TOC episode where you told the blogger she needed to shoot bigger and pick higher search terms to target. How do you know when you are ready to do that? Are you going by the size of the site (aka pageviews)? Are you going by the current ranking keywords and what their competitiveness/search volume is? If so, how high do you have to be ranking? If I’m 60th (just throwing out random numbers) for a term with a search volume of 20K, am I ready to “rank” for that level of terms? So now I can target other 20K level keywords? Or do I need to wait till I have something ranks on the first page of a certain level keyword before I target that keyword? Yes, I am curious from a content planning and growth perspective. But, I also use keyword research simple for naming a recipe I’ve already decided to do. From that perspective, picking the right search volume from a set of keywords is the idea. Thank you!

Jim Cheney – uncoveringpa.com

I’ve had an issue that’s been bugging me for a while now, and no one I’ve asked has had any idea what’s going on, so I thought I’d ask here.

Sometimes (but far from all the time), when I type a keyword into Google in incognito mode, my site returns with the title of the post exactly what I typed into Google.

It is usually a keyword I’m targeting, but it’s not specifically entered anywhere outside of the main text (like Yoast) and doesn’t appear like that in the title tag or in any other the other meta data as far as I can find.

I know Google is Google and will return whatever they want, but when I see other sites that have their titles tag being used and mine isn’t, I’m afraid that this is hurting my click-through rate. Any idea how to fix it?

Also, I should add, that sometimes I can type the same keyword in a bit later and get the full title tag being used, only to have it return to displaying this way a few days later, so it’s not always repeatable for the same article at any given time.

The post Ep 043 – What Is Wrong With Google? With Special Guest Host Carrie Forrest appeared first on Theory of Content.

The Google Webmaster Conference was held in Mountainview this week. There are some takeaways!

5 tips and trends from Google Webmaster Conference

Structured data. Over the years, Google has continued to roll out new support for additional structured data markups and continues to expand support for additional rich results in search. What was apparent from the numerous talks at the conference was that Google will expand support for structured data to inform new experiences in the search results as well as the Assistant.

This includes adding new rich result types, above the numerous options already officially supported. It also includes Google improving and updating how it shows these rich results in the Google search results. So stay on top of these changes and try implementing appropriate structured data for your site.

Emoji search. Did you know it took Google over a year to add support for emojis in search? This includes Google’s ability to crawl, index and rank emojis.
Also, did you know that Google sees over one million searches per day with emojis in the search phrase? Isn’t that.. .

Crawling and rendering tips. Google also offered numerous tips around crawling and indexing. These included:

• Do not rely on caching rules. Google doesn’t obey them.
• Google minimizes its fetches, so GoogleBot might not fetch everything.
• Google checks your robots.txt before crawling.
• 69% of the time Google gets a 200 response code when trying to access your robots.txt, 5% of the time 5XX response code, 20% of the time the robots.txt is unreachable.
• If Google cannot reach your robots.txt, Google won’t crawl the site.
• Google renders what you generally see using the Chrome browser.
• Google does 50-60 resource fetches per page, which is a 60-70% cache rate or about 20 fetches per page.

Before we move on, wanted to send a special thanks out to Julie Blanner (julieblanner.com) for mentioning the podcast in her “Blogging for Beginners” post. We’re grateful for the shout out!

What are we talking about this week? 

Jessica Scully – Paleo Scaleo

I’m posting here as well because I’m in panic mode. I started listening to ToC about 6 weeks ago. Since then I have been posting much more frequently and trying to get my blog back to where it was before my last VA tanked it (whole other story). I was doing well and had my earnings about $20 shy of where they used to be at my peak, and my traffic back where it was as well. August and September were great and made me feel like I was on the right track. I also switched my host (SiteGround to Lyrical) and switched from WPRM to Create.

My traffic for October took a nose dive, very rapidly, particularly in the last week or two. My RPM is still steady, but for the first time, they are going on separate tracks – 1 up and 1 down. I cannot find a cause. The October traffic is literally a plummet – like 15-20k less sessions for the month. For someone who is still super small and only has 40k sessions a month, that’s half my traffic. I compared it to years past, and while my traffic does usually decline from Oct-Dec and spike in Jan, this past Oct was lower than than last years Oct AND Nov- like 10k sessions lower. Has anyone been through something like this? I feel like it has to be something I did but I cannot for the life of me figure out what is causing the tank.

We decided to jump in with a non-interview audit to see what we could find out.

The MailFaceBag:

Kelli Shallal | Hungry Hobby

Good morning Josh and Amber!  First, I have to say that your podcast has been a total game-changer for me.  I know longer sit around wondering what the heck everyone is talking about when it comes to technical website questions and SEO.  I finally feel I can intelligently participate in those conversations which is pivotal for me in my business because now I feel like “I’m in it for real.”  

Anyways, I’m binging the podcast on my commute and I have a ton of questions.  The questions are literally all over the place so bear with me but thank you in advance all the shows have been seriously so helpful.  You guys are amazing!

1.  I had a “web person” remove dates from my URL a few years ago right about the time I was accepted to mediavine. If I didn’t notice significant decreases in traffic am I probably okay?  

2.  For a while, there was some kind of error happening on my site that caused multiple URLs to be created when I would update a post, early in my blogging career so I just kind of shut my eyes and eventually it stopped happening. I know, I want to kick my former self.  It would add a -2, or -3 to the URL. I have no idea how to find which posts those were so I can properly redirect them. What would be the best way to find them and redirect? 301 or rel-can I know I had a developer look into it, but I”m pretty sure they just had me disable a plugin.

3.  I previously had my nutrition counseling site and blog separate, I closed my nutrition counseling site (www.hungryhobbyrd.com) and redirected the link to my blog (www.hungryhobby.net) where I now host all my nutrition counseling packages.  I also would like to redirect my meal plan site www.whattoeatmealplans.com to my blog and close that site as I now host meal plans on my blog too.  Is there an SEO issue with redirecting other URLs to your blog? Or too many URLs to your blog? I’m getting the sense from the podcast that maybe this is bad practice because it looks spammy?  The reason I wanted to redirect is because I’ve linked to those sites in so many of my blog post pages I want to redirect the traffic internally and not out to those no longer existing pages. Maybe there is a better way to do this? 

4.  My photo shows up with the position 0 spot, but my link shows up position 1. Can I do anything about this to move myself to position 0 (I just added a youtube video I filmed) or at least have the photo show up with me and not them.  (PS I can hear Josh saying “the things that bloggers rank for blows my mind” ha ha) 

Milisa Armstrong | Miss in the Kitchen

Hi Josh & Amber,

I would love some tips on analyzing click through on the terms that I’m ranking for and if there is a good way to increase these or if I should just be happy that I’m ranking. 

So specifically – if I were to rank for cake which has huge volume and also for chocolate cake and easy chocolate cake (obviously these are not my ranking terms). I get the most traffic to my easy chocolate cake post everyday, but is there more I should or could do to increase those click throughs? 

I’m reluctant to do anything to change these posts that are ranking but want to improve if possible. 

As always – appreciate you two so much! Your podcast has been a huge asset to my understanding SEO and y’all have contributed so much to my continued growth!

Thanks,

Milisa Armstrong 

Chrissie Jones | One Hangry Mama

Loving the podcast — I’m in the process of binging it, and have listened to about half the episodes so far. I’m sure you get tons of requests for this, BUT I thought I’d try anyway. I’d love to volunteer my site for an audit for the show! I’m way, WAY smaller than the sites you guys have been doing so far, so I’m wondering if the tactics might be at all different while I’m still trying to garner traffic to begin with. 

I would bet my site (onehangrymama.com) is one of the smallest in Mediavine’s portfolio, as my traffic has been rapidly declining over the past 6 months (as evidenced in the Google Analytics screenshot attached). The majority of my traffic was coming from a viral pin, which Pinterest has now decided isn’t worthy (apparently), so that traffic has steeply dropped off. 

I just started really focusing on SEO about a month or two ago. I’ve done the search console audit (attached, in case you’d like to look), and the only things I rank for are super small searches — I think the largest one has ~600 impressions over the past three months, but most of the rest are under 100. 

Some background — I started my blog as a mom blog, originally intended to be funny, personal essays, showcasing the *reality* of motherhood vs. the perfection of momstagram (i.e., not at all SEO-friendly content). But the posts that have really “taken off” are my more niched posts (which I guess isn’t surprising): my easy / family-friendly Instant Pot recipes, and my infertility posts — two completely different niches. 

So I guess my main questions would be: 

1. What the HECK should I write about next? I’ve been updating some of my old Instant Pot recipes to make them more thorough and SEO-friendly, update imagery, etc., and am planning a few more generic Instant Pot how-to posts, spin-offs of my Crack Chicken recipe which drives the majority of my traffic — but those keywords are all extremely competitive, so I don’t know how realistic it is for my tiny little blog to compete for them at this point. 

More of Chrissie’s questions are coming next week!

The post Episode 42 – Tips and Trends appeared first on Theory of Content.

Google Just Announced a Major Search Algorithm Change That Users Will Probably Love, and Some Businesses May Absolutely Hate

What are we talking about this week? 

The Thread

From the Facebook Group:

Kristi Bernadyn West: Is it okay to have multiple links to the same thing in one post?

Patti Zacharia Estep: I’d love to hear your thoughts on monthly Blog Hops. Are they considered link schemes? If so, is there a way to properly structure/code the links so that they are not considered link schemes. Or should we not participate in them at all. Thanks!

Mary Elizabeth Woita: Well…I just came on to ask in the Mediavine group and saw this. I apologize if you’ve covered this. I’m still working my way through the episodes from last year! What’s the consensus on using a table of contents plug in…in relation to both SEO and ads. Any issues/concerns? Thanks!

Karen Troughton: Does the frequency of posting/updating really affect your site’s SEO performance? I’m always worried I have to “feed the monster,” so to speak, but so far, when I’ve lagged on adding new posts, there haven’t been any adverse effects. Knocking on wood … always knocking on wood.

Vera Sweeney: Oh Lord in heaven… where to begin???? Why can’t I get it? No, that’s not a question. I guess my struggle is when is too many keywords … too much. I can’t seem to grasp that. Is there a percentage I should be targeting? Should they be mostly in titles or sprinkled in text? How many other keywords should I aim for per post when just starting out? Should I just add my juice and brain energy on one when I don’t know what I am doing or should I still try to go after two or three at a time ?

Sara Kellner Maniez: Here goes. Back in 2015, when my blog was new and I was a newb to food blogging, a nut company convinced me to put an article and info graphic as a blog post with link to them, I want to get rid of this post, (I think I’ve since deleted the link) I think this is probably duplicate content, as they had other bloggers publish it too. What can I do with a post like this? It does not get any traffic. Should I “unpublish”? What options do I have that doesn’t ding my site I anyway? Thanks!

Oriana Romero: How do I safely delete tags and categories that are no longer needed without hurting SEO?

Danielle Pientka: I’m a DIY and craft blogger. I’ve been trying to write for SEO but I’m struggling to figure out some good keywords. Half the time, I re-optimize and I’m surprised to see NOBODY is searching for a term (like zero). Any suggestions for dealing with this?

Rebecca Swanner: I’m a lifestyle blogger. One of my recipes is ranking in spot 1 (sometimes 2) for a great term. But I know the recipe and tips could be better. Can I edit the recipe to improve it and add links to other posts? Or should I leave it alone?

Michelle Price: What about old content that doesn’t fit my niche anymore? When you have over 2000 posts and your blog is a dinosaur, do you:

• Leave them up?
• Delete them following a specific process?
• Noindex them following a specific process?
• Something else entirely?

What’s best for SEO?

Nicole Day: Since the algorithm update a few weeks back, I have multiple long tail keyword phrases that previously ranked in the top 10 but that are now not even in the top 500. It has cut my organic traffic in half (after making my goal for 2019 to grow organic traffic and doing well). What can I do now to get my posts ranking for those phrases again?

Kalee Sorey Dillard: Most of our traffic comes from Google and Pinterest. I’m curious, is there any benefit (besides sanity of course) to scheduling out content 1x a week versus just publishing as often and as soon as possible? For example, if I can write 5 posts per week – is it okay to publish them all immediately or should I stagger them out?

Mason Woodruff: What about backlink building strategies that aren’t cold email pitches or resource page hunting? More specifically, what are your thoughts on trading leverage in other places (Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) for high quality backlinks in a white hat manner.

Silke Elzner: I recently learned about a phenomenon where long pieces of content that cover too many topics at once have trouble to rank for anything at all. I certainly experience this with a handful of my articles.

Aileen Clark: Why would I stop ranking for a term? I was ranking (not very high – in the 60s) for a term and now it’s not showing up at all in google search console. Help!

The post Episode 41 – Facebag or The Thread? appeared first on Theory of Content.

Google’s update to the no-follow attribute! OMGERD! 

Google introduced no-follow in 2005. It’s 2019, and they’ve just updated it! 

We now have rel=sponsored and rel=ugc. You can even use them together! But how does this all work?

Do I have to go back and update my old content? *sob*

What are we talking about this week? 

• Content Development: Should I niche down? How do I decide what to write about? Anatomy of a good post.
• Things that matter in analytics, and things that don’t – bounce rate, traffic sources, etc

Mailbag

Campbell Kerr – Highlands2hammocks.co.uk

My name is Campbell and I run the travel website highlands2hammocks, 
along with my partner Gemma.

First of all, I would like to thank you for all of the help and  inspiration that this podcast has provided Gemma and myself for our online business. We are not currently with Mediavine but that is our target for 2019. We are currently binge listening to you for 8 hours a day as we prune olives trees in Australia, as part of our visa.

We have a couple of questions with regards to both issues on our website and some points that you have made elsewhere in your podcast.

Firstly, I know how much you hate the topic of deleting old content, so I will try to keep this short and painless. I have heard a rumour that low ranking content on your website can have an effect on your sites overall ability to rank high for other content. Is this true?

We have a load of old content from when we didn’t take the website too seriously and before we really switched on to the idea of running it as a business. None of this content is optimizable and we are not emotionally connected to it so would have no problem archiving it. Would removing our old, low ranking content make ranking new content easier to rank for? Or is this gibberish?

Next, we have a YouTube channel with loads of content and are producing more regularly. This content relates to a lot of our posts and we like to include the videos in our articles to show a more visual display of the locations we are writing about. We currently embed the videos using the YouTube coding given in the website but we are curious if uploading the videos directly to our media library would be better?

Thanks again and keep rockin!

Alina Zavatsky | Vegan Runner Eats

Hi Josh and Amber,

Glad to have Theory of Content back! I usually listen to your episodes straight on your theoryofcontent.com website, and I have a suggestion: can you please list all of the tools/websites/useful links/products you mention on the podcast (like Josh mentions Xenu link checking tool in episode 38) in the show notes for each episode?

Also, a topic suggestion for future episodes: Domain Authority. How it’s calculated, how much influence it has on rankings, how to improve it, etc.
Thank you for the podcast, and keep up the good work!

Best,
Alina

Alina also asked:

Hi Amber and Josh,

I’m resending you a question that I’ve asked you on Facebook:

Can you please talk in one of your future episodes about dofollow vs nofollow links (as in from my site to other sites): which one should be used when, etc.

Case in point: in the Mediavine Social Share Group on FB, we often ask for links from other bloggers to include in various roundups (e.g. kid-friendly recipes, Mother’s Day recipes, etc.). Should we use dofollow or nofollow links in those roundup posts?

Angela Devaney | mowgli-adventures.com

My husband Graham and I have finally got round to listening to your podcast and wishing we’d done so months ago! Better late than never so onwards and upwards from here.

Our ability to run our blog is challenged by our inconsistent access to wifi. We travel permanently in our camper van and we’re currently in Uruguay. Wifi is pretty crap and we often spend hours in fuel stations for the best wifi signals! That’s where we’re writing this from!

Anyway, our question: I’m trying to sort out our site speed. I’m using Lighthouse as an indication of problems, intending to work through each in turn. The scores look awful but also fluctuate wildly. I’ve run the audit on the same post over and over and rarely get a consistent score. Sometimes I’ve had 36 (I told you it’s crap) and other times get 12(!!) within moments of the first test. I feel this makes “fixing” things somewhat difficult as I’m not sure what’s accurate or not. Can you tell me what I’m supposed to be looking at or if I’m making a schoolboy error when I run or read the audit report? Any guidance you can provide us will help with our sanity at the very least!

The post Episode 40 – Be Thankful for the Traffic appeared first on Theory of Content.

The day-to-day operations of your website are as important as your content strategy. When do you rebrand, if ever? What about updating old content?

• Rebranding: How to do it right, and if it’s worth it. (Are you already monetizing?)
• Auditing content: What’s worth doing? Deleting content/extending content/reshooting photo

When not to touch stuff?

• Social Media: What’s working for you and what isn’t?
• Video
• Newsletter subscriptions: Which has the best CTR? i.e. MailChimp, MailerLite, ConvertKit
• Social Media: Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Facebook Groups

Reader Question:

Renee Gardner (Renee Nicole’s Kitchen – Everyday Gourmet)

Post dating content. I’m writing my holiday content now and want it to go on page one of my blog in Q4. Google seems to take a while to take off with new URLs. Is it better to date this new content for last year and then update it when it’s time for page one? Or is it better to just schedule it to go out in Q4?

The post Episode 39 – Stars & Strategies appeared first on Theory of Content.

Breadcrumb structured data reports now available in Google Search Console

The BreadcrumbList schema allows you to mark up the breadcrumbs on your site to generate breadcrumb rich snippets for your pages in the SERPs.

Let’s talk about hosting, and why it’s important for your site, and getting your content out into the world. Whether you’re just starting out, or you’ve been at this a while, we think these foundational points are super important.

• What does self hosted mean? 
• Why is hosting important to SEO?
• What should we look for in a good host?
• What are knock on effects of a host that isn’t paying attention to overloaded servers, caching and CDNs?
• Do you always need to upgrade your hosting package? What can you push back on to make sure you’re efficiently using the hosting package you have?
• Why is WordPress the best CMS? What are some specific things it does for SEO?
• Do you need to move CMS or Hosting Companies to improve performance? What about themes?

Themes and Theme Frameworks – Genesis, Thesis, Divi, Trellis. Themes: Foodie Pro, Brunch Pro, custom themes from Purr Design

Genesis has the market share, but hasn’t had any significant updates in a long time – it debuted 10 years ago. Thesis 2.0 came out in 2012. Divi is newer, but can be heavy on page builders. Trellis is coming, but as yet significantly tested, and taking longer than initially anticipated.

Reader Questions: 

Carol Borchardt (athoughtforfood.com and fromachefskitchen.com)

I’m curious as to why my traffic is so similar from day to day. 

Granted, weekends are busier, Fridays are less so, etc. etc. and I’m glad I DON’T have wild swings. I don’t have a good way to explain this but I’m curious as to whether Google puts your site into some sort of “box” and something has to please the Google gods before you are allowed out of “the box.” 

All traffic starts with someone in a city somewhere interested in some sort of recipe. I would think the swings from day-to-day would be more up and down. Instead, the numbers are so consistent almost to the difference of a hundred PVs here and there. 

Can’t all be the same people looking at the same recipes every day. I totally GET the site ranking, keyword thing, etc., etc., but it still all starts with someone doing a Google search. Seems rather “controlled” to me. 

Mary Elizabeth Woita – (oliveandartichoke.com and bootsandhooveshomestead.com)

Well…I just came on to ask in the Mediavine group and saw this. And I apologize if you’ve covered this. I’m still working my way through the episodes from last year!

What’s the consensus on using a table of contents plug in…in relation to both SEO and ads. Any issues/concerns?

Thanks!

Jill Castle | The Nourished Child with Jill Castle

Bad backlinks! I’ve had an influx of thousands of image backlinks in the last month or two, of which 7 are “toxic” according to SEMRush. What should I do? (I’ve seen traffic suppression on my site in March, May and June so the backlinks are making me nervous!)

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The post Episode 30 – Interview With Holly Of KidsActivities.com appeared first on Theory of Content.

The post Episode 29 – A Keyword Thanksgiving appeared first on Theory of Content.

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The post Episode 27 – Interview With Diane Williams Of Homemadefoodjunkie.com appeared first on Theory of Content.

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The post Episode 24 – Rand Fishkin Interview appeared first on Theory of Content.

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. Each list item should be
• . The design of a good navigation system will be handled by CSS.Most themes do a good job handling this. But you are responsible for figuring out what to put up there. Don’t make your users click more than twice to you rmost important content.
  Use breadcrumbs to help google navigate. Google will often eliminate the URL underneath your search result in serps and default to “Site name > Internal breadcrumb > Category of post/page. This looks cleaner in the SERPs and it will make Google very happy.
  HTML sitemaps are a great. Use one that shows all of your site’s top of mind content, make sure it’s categorized well. This will basically be just a giant list of links for google to follow. You can either limit this page to about 100 links or you can paginate them. Either way, this is a great practice.
  Generate an XML sitemap. Do this using Yoast plugin if you’re on wordpress.
  Submit this sitemap to Google in webmaster tools.

  The post Episode 18 – Broken Bones & Self Audits appeared first on Theory of Content.

  ]]> Determine whether your site is in Google's index.… Determine whether your site is in Google's index.<br /> site[colon][url].<br /> If you have just launched your site, then wait a little bit. Make sure that you have all your resources in order. Get Google Analytics installed on your site right away. Sign up for webmaster tools. Those resources are at analytics.google.com and webmaster.google.com. Tweeting links to your site will help get your site indexed more quickly. There are other possible problems with indexing, but this is a rare problem. If you installed wordpress, almost all these problems can be avoided. This includes problems with robots.txt, or incorrect us of rel=canonical.<br /> In every post, make sure that your titles are strong. Title them with keyword heavy titles. Make sure your titles are descriptive of the content on the site.<br /> Titles should be 50-60 characters. <br /> Make sure to write great human-readable content.<br /> I generally recommend 300 to 500 words as a minimum post. There are exceptions. But for the most part, you should have a hard time not reaching that length of post. <br /> Write at a 6th grade level. Use hemingwayapp.com. Avoid passive voice. Avoid long sentences. Use this as an opportunity to learn how to write better. <br /> Strunk & White offer a great styleguide: https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0/133-5565729-4072462?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=P722HY2MEDRKXAMHM62V<br /> Write meta descriptions that are about 300 characters. Do not skimp on meta descriptions. These do not help with rankings, but they will help with clickthrus. These are little ads that will entice users to click on your site in the rankings. Taking up space on the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) is a great way to increase the real estate your posts take. Google will highlight keywords that a user searches.<br /> It's best practice to add structured data to your posts. For food bloggers that means using schema to basically tell Google when you've written a recipe. That means telling google which portion of your site is comments and which portion of your site is rankings, etc. Google will use all this in search.<br /> If you're using a recipe card, nearly always this will be natural. Most recipe cards handle this. Good wordpress themes will already be marked up.<br /> Build a site navigation that is coherrent and easily navigable. Humans come into your website based on search. Google comes to your website, however, determines what the homepage is, and then tries to figure out what the most important pages are to you and your users. In part it does this through navigation.<br /> Make sure that your navbar at the top of the site is well constructed. In the code it should be a series of nested lists. These are delineated by the markup <ul>. Each list item should be <li>. The design of a good navigation system will be handled by CSS.Most themes do a good job handling this. But you are responsible for figuring out what to put up there. Don't make your users click more than twice to you rmost important content.<br /> Use breadcrumbs to help google navigate. Google will often eliminate the URL underneath your search result in serps and default to "Site name > Internal breadcrumb > Category of post/page. This looks cleaner in the SERPs and it will make Google very happy.<br /> HTML sitemaps are a great. Use one that shows all of your site's top of mind content, make sure it's categorized well. This will basically be just a giant list of links for google to follow. You can either limit this page to about 100 links or you can paginate them. Either way, this is a great practice.<br /> Generate an XML sitemap. Do this using Yoast plugin if you're on wordpress.<br /> Submit this sitemap to Google in webmaster tools. Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-17-categories-tags-and-romantic-meals-for-two/ Tue, 13 Feb 2018 16:20:33 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2018/02/13/episode-17-categories-tags-and-romantic-meals-for-two/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-17-categories-tags-and-romantic-meals-for-two/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-17-categories-tags-and-romantic-meals-for-two/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 17 – Categories, Tags And Romantic Meals For Two by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-17-categories-tags-and-romantic-meals-for-two/">Episode 17 – Categories, Tags And Romantic Meals For Two</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 17 – Categories, Tags And Romantic Meals For Two by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 17 - Categories, Tags And Romantic Meals … Episode 17 - Categories, Tags And Romantic Meals For Two by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-16-breadcrumbs-doilies/ Mon, 05 Feb 2018 21:06:03 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2018/02/05/episode-16-breadcrumbs-doilies/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-16-breadcrumbs-doilies/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-16-breadcrumbs-doilies/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 16 – Breadcrumbs & Doilies by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-16-breadcrumbs-doilies/">Episode 16 – Breadcrumbs & Doilies</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 16 – Breadcrumbs & Doilies by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 16 - Breadcrumbs & Doilies by Theory of C… Episode 16 - Breadcrumbs & Doilies by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-14-interview-w-julieblanner-coms-julie-blanner/ Fri, 19 Jan 2018 22:18:26 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2018/01/19/episode-14-interview-w-julieblanner-coms-julie-blanner/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-14-interview-w-julieblanner-coms-julie-blanner/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-14-interview-w-julieblanner-coms-julie-blanner/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 14 – Interview w/ julieblanner.com’s Julie Blanner by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-14-interview-w-julieblanner-coms-julie-blanner/">Episode 14 – Interview w/ julieblanner.com’s Julie Blanner</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 14 – Interview w/ julieblanner.com’s Julie Blanner by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 14 - Interview w/ julieblanner.com's Juli… Episode 14 - Interview w/ julieblanner.com's Julie Blanner by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-13-interview-w-mybakingaddiction-coms-jamie-lothridge/ Fri, 19 Jan 2018 21:58:40 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2018/01/19/episode-13-interview-w-mybakingaddiction-coms-jamie-lothridge/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-13-interview-w-mybakingaddiction-coms-jamie-lothridge/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-13-interview-w-mybakingaddiction-coms-jamie-lothridge/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 13 – Interview w/ MyBakingAddiction.com’s Jamie Lothridge by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-13-interview-w-mybakingaddiction-coms-jamie-lothridge/">Episode 13 – Interview w/ MyBakingAddiction.com’s Jamie Lothridge</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 13 – Interview w/ MyBakingAddiction.com’s Jamie Lothridge by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 13 - Interview w/ MyBakingAddiction.com's… Episode 13 - Interview w/ MyBakingAddiction.com's Jamie Lothridge by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-12-shortcake-and-sweet/ Wed, 03 Jan 2018 04:00:10 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2018/01/03/episode-12-shortcake-and-sweet/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-12-shortcake-and-sweet/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-12-shortcake-and-sweet/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 12 – Shortcake And Sweet by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-12-shortcake-and-sweet/">Episode 12 – Shortcake And Sweet</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 12 – Shortcake And Sweet by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 12 - Shortcake And Sweet by Theory of Con… Episode 12 - Shortcake And Sweet by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-11-fancy-croutons/ Wed, 06 Dec 2017 03:03:13 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/12/06/episode-11-fancy-croutons/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-11-fancy-croutons/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-11-fancy-croutons/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 11 – Fancy Croutons by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-11-fancy-croutons/">Episode 11 – Fancy Croutons</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 11 – Fancy Croutons by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 11 - Fancy Croutons by Theory of Content Episode 11 - Fancy Croutons by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-9-content-execution/ Wed, 22 Nov 2017 20:46:03 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/11/22/episode-9-content-execution/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-9-content-execution/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-9-content-execution/feed/ 0 <p>Thanksgiving is just around the corner. This is our tribute to it. We hope that you find something to be thankful for here. 🙂</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-9-content-execution/">Episode 9 – Content Execution</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Thanksgiving is just around the corner. This is our tribute to it. We hope that you find something to be thankful for here.

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  ]]> Thanksgiving is just around the corner. This is o… Thanksgiving is just around the corner. This is our tribute to it. We hope that you find something to be thankful for here. :) Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-10-discussion-w-dinnersdishesanddesserts-coms-erin-sellin/ Tue, 21 Nov 2017 15:25:31 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/11/21/episode-10-discussion-w-dinnersdishesanddesserts-coms-erin-sellin/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-10-discussion-w-dinnersdishesanddesserts-coms-erin-sellin/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-10-discussion-w-dinnersdishesanddesserts-coms-erin-sellin/feed/ 0 <p>Author of https://dinnersdishesanddesserts.com/, Erin Sellin joins us today to have a discussion about why she blogs and to have us take a deep dive into her site’s analytics.</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-10-discussion-w-dinnersdishesanddesserts-coms-erin-sellin/">Episode 10 – Discussion W/ dinnersdishesanddesserts.com’s Erin Sellin</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Author of https://dinnersdishesanddesserts.com/, Erin Sellin joins us today to have a discussion about why she blogs and to have us take a deep dive into her site’s analytics.

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  ]]> Author of https://dinnersdishesanddesserts.com/, … Author of https://dinnersdishesanddesserts.com/, Erin Sellin joins us today to have a discussion about why she blogs and to have us take a deep dive into her site's analytics. Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-8-big-words/ Tue, 21 Nov 2017 08:28:03 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/11/21/episode-8-big-words/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-8-big-words/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-8-big-words/feed/ 0 <p>This is the last week that Amber was in England. We talk all about how to write, why to write, and all the other reasons you content in general.</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-8-big-words/">Episode 8 – Big Words</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> This is the last week that Amber was in England. We talk all about how to write, why to write, and all the other reasons you content in general.

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  ]]> This is the last week that Amber was in England. … This is the last week that Amber was in England. We talk all about how to write, why to write, and all the other reasons you content in general. Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-7-creepy-crawling/ Sun, 19 Nov 2017 07:05:53 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/11/19/episode-7-creepy-crawling/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-7-creepy-crawling/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-7-creepy-crawling/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 7 – Creepy Crawling by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-7-creepy-crawling/">Episode 7 – Creepy Crawling</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 7 – Creepy Crawling by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 7 - Creepy Crawling by Theory of Content Episode 7 - Creepy Crawling by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-6-london-ho/ Mon, 09 Oct 2017 05:54:48 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/10/09/episode-6-london-ho/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-6-london-ho/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-6-london-ho/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 6 – London Ho by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-6-london-ho/">Episode 6 – London Ho</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 6 – London Ho by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 6 - London Ho by Theory of Content Episode 6 - London Ho by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-5-gluten-free-blogging/ Mon, 09 Oct 2017 05:05:27 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/10/09/episode-5-gluten-free-blogging/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-5-gluten-free-blogging/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-5-gluten-free-blogging/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 5 – Gluten Free Blogging by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-5-gluten-free-blogging/">Episode 5 – Gluten Free Blogging</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 5 – Gluten Free Blogging by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 5 - Gluten Free Blogging by Theory of Con… Episode 5 - Gluten Free Blogging by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-4-good-people/ Wed, 27 Sep 2017 07:08:35 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/09/27/episode-4-good-people/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-4-good-people/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-4-good-people/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 4 – Good People by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-4-good-people/">Episode 4 – Good People</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 4 – Good People by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 4 - Good People by Theory of Content Episode 4 - Good People by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-3-50-shades-of-oliver-twist/ Fri, 11 Aug 2017 14:14:05 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/08/11/episode-3-50-shades-of-oliver-twist/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-3-50-shades-of-oliver-twist/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-3-50-shades-of-oliver-twist/feed/ 0 <p>Episode 3 – 50 Shades of Oliver Twist by Theory of Content</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-3-50-shades-of-oliver-twist/">Episode 3 – 50 Shades of Oliver Twist</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Episode 3 – 50 Shades of Oliver Twist by Theory of Content

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  ]]> Episode 3 - 50 Shades of Oliver Twist by Theory o… Episode 3 - 50 Shades of Oliver Twist by Theory of Content Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-2-robot-readings/ Tue, 08 Aug 2017 02:48:05 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/08/08/episode-2-robot-readings/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-2-robot-readings/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-2-robot-readings/feed/ 0 <p>SEO is hard. Today we talk about figuring out the delicate balance between writing for bots and writing for people. Joshua gives a history of his marketing journey and offers up some sage advice that should calm your nerves about how you should think about writing. He also discusses making a key lime pie. https://reneenicoleskitchen.com/key-lime-pie/ …</p> <p class="read-more"> <a class="" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-2-robot-readings/"> <span class="screen-reader-text">Episode 2 – Robot Readings</span> Read More »</a></p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-2-robot-readings/">Episode 2 – Robot Readings</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> SEO is hard. Today we talk about figuring out the delicate balance between writing for bots and writing for people. Joshua gives a history of his marketing journey and offers up some sage advice that should calm your nerves about how you should think about writing. He also discusses making a key lime pie. https://reneenicoleskitchen.com/key-lime-pie/ is a great recipe for those looking to try your hand at making your own.

  Amber gives the Mediavine updates, keeps Joshua in check, and adds some killer color. Mediavine is changing the face of blogging, and Amber is leading the way!

  Some great supplemental material and tools mentioned here:
  * SEMRush: http://semrush.com
  * Google Webmaster Tools: http://webmaster.google.com
  * Does Domain Age Matter? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pnpg00FWJY
  “I wouldn’t obsess about trying to have an old domain. It’s mostly about the quality of your content and the links that you get as a result of the quality of your content that determine how you’re going to rank in the search engines.” – Matt Cutts (former head of the Google Spam team)
  * Maximizing your email newsletter blog post: https://www.mediavine.com/make-the-most-out-of-your-newsletter/.

  The post Episode 2 – Robot Readings appeared first on Theory of Content.

  ]]> SEO is hard. Today we talk about figuring out the… SEO is hard. Today we talk about figuring out the delicate balance between writing for bots and writing for people. Joshua gives a history of his marketing journey and offers up some sage advice that should calm your nerves about how you should think about writing. He also discusses making a key lime pie. https://reneenicoleskitchen.com/key-lime-pie/ is a great recipe for those looking to try your hand at making your own.<br /> <br /> Amber gives the Mediavine updates, keeps Joshua in check, and adds some killer color. Mediavine is changing the face of blogging, and Amber is leading the way!<br /> <br /> Some great supplemental material and tools mentioned here:<br /> * SEMRush: http://semrush.com<br /> * Google Webmaster Tools: http://webmaster.google.com<br /> * Does Domain Age Matter? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pnpg00FWJY<br /> "I wouldn't obsess about trying to have an old domain. It's mostly about the quality of your content and the links that you get as a result of the quality of your content that determine how you're going to rank in the search engines." - Matt Cutts (former head of the Google Spam team)<br /> * Maximizing your email newsletter blog post: https://www.mediavine.com/make-the-most-out-of-your-newsletter/. Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-1-content-love/ Wed, 26 Jul 2017 12:57:32 +0000 https://theoryofcontent.com/2017/07/26/episode-1-content-love/ https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-1-content-love/#respond https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-1-content-love/feed/ 0 <p>Today Amber and Joshua discuss Mediavine breaking sites and the response to the mistake. We talk about whether you should start your blog posts off with a photo or text. And finally we answer the question of whether or how you should think about URL exclusion. We talk about some strategies for coming up with …</p> <p class="read-more"> <a class="" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-1-content-love/"> <span class="screen-reader-text">Episode 1 – Content Love</span> Read More »</a></p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com/episode-1-content-love/">Episode 1 – Content Love</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://theoryofcontent.com">Theory of Content</a>.</p> Today Amber and Joshua discuss Mediavine breaking sites and the response to the mistake. We talk about whether you should start your blog posts off with a photo or text. And finally we answer the question of whether or how you should think about URL exclusion.

  We talk about some strategies for coming up with content. https://moz.com/blog/using-google-analytics-to-power-an-effective-qa-strategy

  Throughout we veer off topic and discuss topics like “Keyword research” and how you should think about rankings on your site. We discuss how to understand keywords on your site as more of a broad, categorical piece of your site that should hang in the background. The theme of today’s show is very simply, if you’re going to be making content, make sure that you love what you’re writing, because it’s the only way to ensure that people love what they’re reading.

  The post Episode 1 – Content Love appeared first on Theory of Content.

  ]]> Today Amber and Joshua discuss Mediavine breaking… Today Amber and Joshua discuss Mediavine breaking sites and the response to the mistake. We talk about whether you should start your blog posts off with a photo or text. And finally we answer the question of whether or how you should think about URL exclusion.<br /> <br /> We talk about some strategies for coming up with content. https://moz.com/blog/using-google-analytics-to-power-an-effective-qa-strategy<br /> <br /> Throughout we veer off topic and discuss topics like "Keyword research" and how you should think about rankings on your site. We discuss how to understand keywords on your site as more of a broad, categorical piece of your site that should hang in the background. The theme of today's show is very simply, if you're going to be making content, make sure that you love what you're writing, because it's the only way to ensure that people love what they're reading. Theory of Content clean questions@theoryofcontent.com (Joshua Unseth, Amber Bracegirdle)content,marketing,seo,theoryofcontent