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Grumpy SEO Guy
This is Grumpy SEO guy episode 100, massive SEO lecture. The details from the previous 99 episodes. You're listening to grumpy SEO guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the grumpy SEO Guy, and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because there are a lot of lessons in this podcast. This is Grumpy SEO Guy, episode 100. We're gonna go over all the earlier episodes in this episode, so let's do this fast. Thank you for listening for 100 episodes. Thank you for emailing me, thank you for posting on the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit, and thank you for help keeping this podcast free to my patreons. Patreon.com grumpyseoguy okay, let's get started. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on my experience. This podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. Here we go. The biggest lie in the SEO industry. It's probably the reason you're not at the top of page one. Episode one. If you've done SEO for any length of time, you've probably heard the expression, content is king. The biggest lie in SEO is content is king. During this episode, we explain why content is not king, and we talk about the concept of authority, which is a very large deal. Many of the episodes that come later are about authority and how to get it. Episode two, SEO penalties. What they are, how to recover from them, and how to avoid them. In this episode, we talk about the concept of penalties. We talk about the three most common types of penalties, which are spammy backlinks, keyword stuffing, and over optimization. We talk about how to tell if you have one of these kinds of penalties, what to do and. And we also talk about negative SEO. Negative SEO is attempting to apply a penalty to your competition. It's probably something that you should not do. Episode 3 How to Build your own portfolio of authoritative websites to rank Your clients Part 1 Domain Acquisition how to build a PBN the correct way In Grumpy SEO Guy, we talk a lot about using a PBN Private Blog Network, or as I call it, Private Blog Portfolio. When you call something a network, that implies everything is connected together. That's not the best way to build your sites, so I call it a portfolio instead. Anyway, building a PBN is a pretty detailed process. And in this episode we talk about how to choose the right domains, the authoritative domains, how to find them, what to look for, etc. Episode 4 How to Build your own portfolio of authoritative websites to rank your clients part 2 hosting how to build a PBN the correct way this episode describes how to host your sites. Once you have the authoritative domains that you're going to use to rank, how do you host them? There is a definite right and wrong way to do it. We discuss it in this episode. Episode 5 How to Build your own portfolio of authoritative websites to rank your clients part 3 website management how to build a PBN the correct way this episode shares different methods of managing your websites. How quickly do you build links? How quickly do you build posts? What kind of theme should you use? How many posts should you have on your site? These are all questions that we talk about in this episode. Episode 6 the Best and worst clients I've ever had and what I learned from them. This episode talks about how some SEO clients are wonderful and some are difficult. And I talk about the worst client I've ever had and what I learned from them. If you want to hear the whole story, you should listen to this episode. Episode 7 the Four Most Annoying Things in the SEO Industry so there's a lot of stuff that's not awesome. And so in this episode, we talk a little bit about that. Okay, here's two of them. Number one, the SEO industry has no barriers to entry. That means anybody can claim they are an SEO expert that's obnoxious. Number two, the SEO industry has a very bad reputation. And to be honest, I feel it's deserved. Honestly, if you want to know the other two, you'll have to listen to the episode. Okay. Episode 8 Everything you need to know to run a successful reputation management campaign. There's a chance you've heard of reputation management. Reputation management is when people are posting negative things about you online and you have to get rid of them. People think that you can just erase the bad stuff, but you really will find that that's difficult. In order to do reputation management, what you're doing is you are getting websites to appear in the search engine above the bad website and pushing it lower. So for example, if there's somebody saying something negative about you in position six, you will have to rank at least five websites above that one because they would push it down further, right? So that's how it works. And people just always assume that you're just going to remove the bad one, but you're not. You have to rank more sites above it so that it doesn't appear on the first page. This episode will show you how to do that. Episode 9 Six of the Most Common SEO Scams look, there's a lot of scams, okay? In this episode we talk about six of them. I'm going to tell you what two of them are right now. So one of them is guaranteeing results. You cannot guarantee SEO results. There are some people who do, but you should probably avoid those people. Here's another one. Fake case studies. Case studies are an important part of SEO, but there are agencies out there with fake case studies. So just be aware of that. Next Episode Episode 10 why One Time Payments or lifetime backlinks are always a scam. When people learn that they need backlinks, they learn that they need authority. And the only way to get authority is by getting backlinks. They go out and they try to buy backlinks. Now, there are different ways to get backlinks, but one of them is buying backlinks. People will often sell backlinks as a one time payment or a lifetime payment, right? This is almost always a bad idea. The short answer is it is not a plausible business model to sell backlinks as a one time payment. It sounds great. You only have to pay once. That sounds amazing. But in real life it's probably dishonest. Listen to this episode if you want to know why. Episode 11 SEO Stories 1 this episode is not about doing SEO. It's about some of the stuff I've heard and seen while being in an SEO business. Here's one of the stories. Short version. I had a friend. We would. We worked in the same. We worked in the same place. We were both in a co working space together. Anyway, he didn't. I would. I would explain to him how to do SEO. I would say, listen, build your own group of authoritative domains and Use those to link to your website and you will rank higher. Right? It's literally like private blog network. It's pbn. That's. That's how you do it. But he's like, oh, no, you can't do that. That's bad. I'm like, okay. I'm like, look, dude, I've been doing this for a long time. That's a way to do it. So anyway, this guy, he buys 80 copies of a popular SEO person's book. I'm not gonna name this person, but very popular SEO person, he bought 80 copies of this book to like, provide to his team or whatever. And in doing so, he got an hour long consultation call with this SEO person. And this SEO person said, get a bunch of authoritative domains and use those to link to your website. Yep, same thing I told you all along. I was like, yeah, that's. That's what I told you to do. Anyway, I thought that was funny. Maybe you didn't. Anyway, next episode episode 12 why SEO myths exist and why the search engines want you to believe them. This is a very unique topic. Look, one of the myths that we talk about on this podcast is content is king, okay? Content is not king, right? Meaning the quality of your content is not a ranking factor.
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Listener
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Grumpy SEO Guy
But everybody believes this is true. And why do they believe it's true? Think about this from a search engines perspective. What is the purpose of a search engine? The purpose of a search engine is to make money, okay? And the purpose of SEO is to manipulate the results, okay? So if a search engine provides nice results, you're going to keep using that search engine, right? And if you keep using that search engine, you might click an ad every once in a while. And if you click an ad every once in a while, they're going to make money, okay? If they don't provide you nice results, you might stop using that search engine. So the search engine's job is to give you good results, right? But if people knew that you could manipulate the result and it's not concerning how good the content is, people might stop having trust in the search engines and they might stop using them and they might stop making money. So search engines want people to believe things similar to content is King. Episode 13 Things no One tells you about running an SEO agency. There's a bunch of stuff we talk about in here, but I'm going to list two of them. Number one, you will get classified with all the spammers because people assume SEO people are spammers. Number two, you will do a lot of educating. Many people do not understand SEO, and you will spend a lot of time explaining to them how it works. Now, I think that's fun. But some people don't. Some people just want to do SEO, just FYI. Okay, episode 14 Six Reasons why link Outreach and Guest Posting are Dangerous and how Real SEO Agencies do it Instead when you want to rank, you need authority. In order to get authority, you must have backlinks. When people learn that they need backlinks, they try to find ways to get backlinks. One of those ways is by doing something called guest posting or link outreach. Link outreach is when you email somebody and say, hey, you have content on your site. Our website is describing that same topic. Can we have a link please in your article or something? And guest posting is when you say, hey, let us write content for you, and in exchange we will get a link in the article back to our website. So guest posting is beneficial for both people because the website gets an article and you get a link. By the way, you might have to pay for both of these, just FYI. But there are problems with doing this, and that's part of the reason that we use our own portfolio instead of using other people's websites. There are six reasons in this episode that it can be considered dangerous. One of them is because you don't know who else they might link to in the future. If they link to you, but then they also link to somebody in gambling or adult that might get their website labeled as spam or something. And then if they're linking to them and they're linking to you, that might also disrupt your website. So just FYI, there's more reasons in that episode. Episode 15 SEO History 101 how to Future proof your SEO the future of algorithms and AI in this episode, we talk about the history of SEO, how it worked in the past and how it works today. It's pretty interesting. If you want to know why things are the way they are today. We also talk about AI and some other stuff. Episode 16 how to Do SEO on a brand new website A lot of people have brand new websites and they want to know, you know, how do I do SEO? How quickly should I do it? Why should I do certain things? This episode explains it. Episode 17 how to Fix 100 Percent of SEO Problems look, there is only one SEO problem at all, and that is you're not ranking for your keywords, okay? There are other things that people claim are SEO problems, but they are not. The purpose of SEO is to make your website rank on the first page of the search engine results.
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Listener
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Grumpy SEO Guy
That is the purpose of SEO. So if the thing you're talking about is not directly involved with having your website be at the top of the search engines, it's not an SEO problem anyway. The solution to not being at the top of the search engine results usually involves obtaining more authority. Episode 18 how to Sell SEO and How not to People often think that if they're good at something, they will be successful. You will not be successful unless you have customers. So even if you're awesome at SEO, if you do not have clients, you're not making any money.
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Grumpy SEO Guy
So selling is going to be fairly important.
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Listener
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Grumpy SEO Guy
In this episode, I talk about things that I have learned about selling over my more than a decade of doing SEO. I am not a natural salesperson. Some people are. Okay, if you're not good at sales, you will need to either hire a salesperson or learn how to do sales. Episode 19 how to Keep an SEO Client and why most agencies can't do it previously we talked about the purpose of SEO. It's to get websites to the top.
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Listener
Okay?
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Grumpy SEO Guy
The reason most agencies can't keep a client is because they can't actually get their client better rankings. They will do lots of things like write really good content, but that's not really gonna help them, is it? So what happens is, when the contract is up, that client will leave and go on to another SEO agency. If you can get your client to the top of the search engines, they probably will keep working with you. Episode 28 SEO Questions Answered People email me a lot of questions. I made an episode specifically to answer those questions. That's what we do in this episode. Episode 21 Everything you need to know about SEO in 38 minutes. This is one of the most downloaded episodes that I've made so far. I think this is a good episode. I think you should listen to it. This episode explains why authority is a large factor and why content is not king. It really emphasizes that point and hopefully will help you understand that your ranking is unrelated to how great your content is. Episode 22 SEO Stories 2 Learn from My Crazy experience in the SEO industry. This is the second episode where I talk about some of the bizarre things I've heard and seen while working in the SEO industry. Episode 23 Answers to SEO questions from Reddit and the Internet I have a subreddit Reddit.com r grumpy seoguy every once in a while I will create a thread and I will say what questions do you want me to respond to in future episodes and people will post them. So people posted a lot of questions and I answered them in this episode. Episode 24 How SEO pricing models work and how not to get ripped off we talk about four pricing models in this episode. 1. Flat rate, 2 hourly rate, 3 recurring payment versus 1 time and 4 pay for performance. Flat rate means you get paid a certain amount of money to do a certain thing. Hourly rate means you get paid based on the number of hours it takes you. Recurring payment versus one time means are you paying, for example, monthly or are you making a one time payment? And pay for performance means you pay based on how good the company does. So if you're thinking about buying or selling SEO, you can listen to this episode to learn about some of the different pricing models. Episode 25 how to Tell if you're making bad SEO decisions the only thing you have to do is answer this question. I'm going to tell you what the question is right now. Would this ever organically happen? If the answer to that question is yes, keep going. If the answer to that question is no, probably you might want to do something different. Episode 26 the Problem with PBNS how to avoid and detect footprints Lots of people make PBNs, which are private blog networks, and a lot of people maybe don't do it precisely how they should. In this episode we talk about some of the problems that people create while making PBNs, and we talk about how to detect footprints, which is the way you know if a site is part of a PBN. Episode 27 the problem with SEO the quick answer is this. Doing SEO the way you're supposed to usually doesn't give you any results. Episode 28 the Problem with the SEO Industry There are a lot of problems. There are numerous people in the SEO industry that are dishonest. We'll leave it at that. Episode 29 what is Anchor text and why is it important? Or how to rank any website for any keyword? Okay. Anchor text is whatever the backlink says. If you have a backlink that says this website like that's the words that you can click on. Whatever you can click on is the anchor text. If you have a link that says blue widgets and blue widgets is the words that you can click on. That's your anchor text. If you have a backlink that says click here, click here is the anchor text. It's whatever you can click on. Anchor text is very important because anchor text creates relevancy. We'll talk about relevancy in a little bit. It's a very important ranking factor. Episode 30 what is the difference between topical authority, relevancy, and authority? Topical authority is a term that basically means relevancy. Relevancy means what is the topic of the website? What is the website about? What is the subject of the website? What is the content on the website describing? Okay, what is it discussing? That is what relevancy means. Authority means how much clout, how much strength, how much trustworthiness does a website have? You need both of them to rank. This website explains the difference. Here's an easy way to remember it. Authority answers the question, where will my website rank? Relevancy answers the question, will my website rank? So in other words, if your website is not relevant for a specific keyword, you will not rank because you are not relevant for that keyword. If you are relevant, authority will say, where will you rank? Are you in position two? Are you in position nine? It's a function of how much authority you have. Episode 31 how to Do SEO when you don't have access to or or cannot afford a pbn Guys. Building a PBN can be expensive, and sometimes renting or buying backlinks from a PBN can also be expensive. The best way to get backlinks if you do not have access to a PBN or if you can't afford it is what we describe in this episode, which is to use Web 2.0 sites, which are free blogs that you can create. Now, let's be specific. They are not as helpful as they were in the past, but it can still be a viable option. You also might want to consider guest posting and link outreach if you can find some places that will let you do it but aren't going to require payment. Okay, episode 32 A New Kind of negative SEO and answers to questions from listeners. So one of the ways that you know of forgetting backlinks is to do what's called link outreach or guest posting. So you find websites that will give you a link if you pay them? Maybe. Anyway, this episode describes locating the places that your competition has bought links from and paying them to take down the links. It's not specifically negative SEO, but you know, it's on the same like kind of thought. Episode 33 SEO Things you can't do anymore because spammers ruined them. Okay, there were some techniques that were pretty decent a long time ago, for example blog comment posts with backlinks in them, also known as blog comment, spam, forum profile links, et cetera. These kind of things were done largely by spammers because you could write software to automate them so the search engines reprogram the algorithms so they do not work anymore. And they might actually have the opposite effect on your website now anyway. This episode describes some of the things that people have done and why they no longer work anymore. In this episode we also talk about exact match domains, EMDs, and we also talk about.info domains and why you probably want to stay away from them. Episode 34 how to Think about SEO if you want to be in the 1% Look, I think this is one of the best episodes. It's a very short episode, but I think it's one of the best. I will tell you it in two sentences. SEO is not about what you do to your website. It is about how your website relates to every other website on the Internet. Episode 35 if you're not tracking your SERPs, you're not doing SEO. SERP is an acronym. It stands for Search Engine Result page. This just means what position are you in when you're doing SEO? You have to be tracking your SERPs with a tool called a SERP tracker. There are multiple SERP trackers. You can use whatever one you want, but you need to do it so you can tell if your SEO is helping or not. A SERP tracker will check your keyword and it will draw a chart and it will show every day where you rank for your keyword. Okay, you need to know this because if your website is increasing, that means you're doing a good job. And if it's staying the same, it means you're staying the same. And if it's going down, it means you might have SEO problems. You have to be doing this. There are SEO agencies that do not do this. This is how you determine if your SEO is working or not. Everybody should be doing this. I cannot understand why there are agencies that do not do this. Episode 36 the Secret World of SEO Catfishing and Agency Warfare A lot of SEO agencies are in competition with each other. We discuss that in this episode. Episode 37 the difference between Good Backlinks and bad Backlinks after you know that you need authority and you know that authority only comes from backlinks. A lot of people go out and try to find backlinks. There is a difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks. Good backlinks can help you. Bad backlinks can harm you. This episode explains the difference. Episode 38 link attributes nofollow and two other attributes and what they mean for SEO. When you get a backlink. It might have an attribute. It might say nofollow, it might say sponsored or it might say ugc, which means User Generated Content. These attributes have a place in SEO, but a lot of people misunderstand what they're for, and we explain it in this episode. Episode 39 the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks Part 2 this one provides an even greater level of detail than episode 37. Listen to this episode and then buy backlinks. Episode 40 A review of episodes 0 through 20 that's what we're doing right now. We don't need to cover this one. Episode 41 A review of episodes 21 through 39 so that's what we're doing now. We don't need to discuss what this episode talks about. Episode 42 the topic of SEO Certifications Many people ask me, what's a good certification to have? What's a good certification to look for in an SEO agency? There are none. There are SEO certifications, but they don't have any value. Because the only business that could certify you as understanding SEO is a search engine. And the purpose of SEO is to manipulate the results. So a search engine probably has no plans to offer SEO certifications. So there are SEO certifications, but they just come from like businesses that are trying to make money honestly by selling you SEO certifications. So this is something you should know. Episode 43 content is not an SEO Strategy A lot of people think content is king. A lot of agencies only write content and claim it will make you rank hire. It won't. This episode explains why content is not an SEO strategy. Episode 44 how to Sell Backlinks on one of the websites you own after you've had a website for a while, you will probably have people message you and offer to buy backlinks on it. This episode explains the way to do that. Episode 45 what website would rank look, there's two websites. One of them has great content, is very beautifully designed, and has wonderful user experience, but it doesn't have any authority. The other website doesn't look that great, has a terrible user experience, and the content isn't even correct. But it has lots of authority. Which website would rank higher? The second one. Episode 46 EEAT is not a ranking factor so in the last year there is a new term eeat. You might have heard this term E E A T Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. People think that there is a way that you can create content that will convey these traits. There is not. Well There might be, but it's not a ranking factor, so it doesn't matter. Do not believe anybody who says they will write content with E E A T, then you will rank higher. It does not work that way. In fact, on Google's website, they specifically write, E E A T is not a ranking factor. I explain where that comment is and how to find it in this episode. Episode 47. Why does everybody say content is king and what are they trying to sell you? You should know by now that quality of content is not a ranking factor, but a lot of people say it is and it is usually part of them trying to sell content. Remember, a lot of sellers will tell you that content is a ranking factor and that if you just write good content, you will rank higher. It does not work that way. Anybody telling you content is king has never done SEO because you can't do SEO and actually feel content is king because it's not. So anybody telling you that is probably trying to sell you something. Episode 48 Helpful Content Update HCU. A little bit ago when I made this episode, there was an update, an algorithm update, and people were calling it the Helpful Content Update hcu. So people said, oh, helpful content update. That means that good content is ranking higher. No, that's not what it means. You have to understand search engines determine quality of content by the quality of websites that link to that website. Okay, the thinking is that high quality websites get high quality backlinks because better websites will link to them. So it's possible that your content quality is determined by the quality of websites that link to you. Remember, search engines can't determine the quality of content just from reading it. They have to use these additional factors to estimate its quality. I think the HCU was just a way of calculating authority for websites and then determining how good a website is based on the quality of the websites that link to. It doesn't matter if the content is actually good. It just matters if it seems good according to the websites that link to that website. Episode 49, the Four Ways to Get backlinks. You need backlinks to get authority. Everybody wants authority. Everybody wants backlinks. There are four ways to get backlinks. One, do nothing. Let people find you and link to you. Well, how are people gonna find you if you're not ranking? Number two, buy backlinks. Make sure you understand the difference in backlink quality before you buy backlinks. Number three, guest posting and link outreach. Guest posting is, hey, I'll write an article for you. In an exchange, you give us A link link outreach is, hey, you have a post on your site and our website is about a similar topic. Please give us a backlink. They work. It's not how we do it, but they can work. Four, build your own portfolio of authoritative websites and use those. That's how you get backlinks. Episode 50 why your competitors outrank you even though you have better content? I get asked very often, we have really good content. Why is our competition outranking us? Their content is awful. They're outranking you because they have more authority than you do. You're both relevant. They have more authority. Episode 51 the four things you need to rank. There are four things you need to rank. Number one, no penalties do not have a penalty. Your top priority should be making sure you do not get penalties.
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Listener
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Grumpy SEO Guy
If you have a penalty, even if everything else is perfect, it doesn't matter. You will not rank. Number two, you need content. Content by itself is not a ranking factor. Your content can be helpful or unhelpful. It can be good or bad. It can be correct or incorrect. Those things don't matter. But you need content for numerous reasons. One, content creates relevancy. We're going to talk about that in a moment. Number two, you need content because you need stuff on your website. You can't rank a website well. It's very hard to rank a website without content just like empty pages. It might be possible. It's probably not possible now anyway. Number three, you need relevancy. Relevancy means what is your website about? Relevancy means what is the subject of your website? That's all it means. Is it about dishwashers? Is it about blue widgets? Whatever your website is about, that is what it is relevant for. Number four, you need authority. Authority only comes from backlinks. You can have all the other things in place. You can have no penalties, content and relevancy. But if you do not have authority, you are not going to rank on the first page, probably. So Those are the four things that you need. Episode 52. Is this lower authority website actually outranking this higher authority website? Somebody on the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit, which is Reddit.comr Grumpy SEO Guy asked a question. They said, hey, I searched for this term and there's one website that has a lower doctor and it's ranking higher than another website with a higher doctor. How is that possible? So let's stop for a second. Dr. Is an estimate of authority by a company called Ahrefs. Okay, quick comment. Right here. The original measure of authority by Google is private. You cannot see it anymore. You used to be able to, but you cannot presently because people were obviously leveraging it for their own SEO benefit, so they hid it. So other companies now made their own versions of authority that are guesses. Ahrefs has something called Dr. And Ur, Moz has something called Da and Pa and so on. Everybody has their own version. Dr. Is simply a guess at how much authority a website has. It does not mean anything by itself. It is a guess because remember, the true measure of authority is private. You cannot see it. Okay, so this lower doctor website was outranking a higher doctor website, which sounds confusing. You would think higher doctor means more authority. Why would it be outranked by a website with less authority? That's weird. In this episode, I tell you the keywords and I also tell you what the websites are so you can look yourself. And then I explain why I think the website with lower Dr. Is ranking higher. Episode 53 answers to questions from the Grumpy SEO Guy Subreddit Thread Every once in a while I make a thread on the subreddit and I say, what questions do you want me to respond to? And people post them. That's what I did in this episode. Episode 54 answers to the Other Questions from the Grumpy SEO Guy Subreddit Thread There were lots of questions. I had to make a second podcast episode to answer them. Episode 55 so you want to start an SEO agency? A lot of people want to start an SEO agency. I get a lot of comments from people wanting to start their own SEO agencies. So I made this episode because I want you to understand what you should do. This episode explains what you should do from a technical and SEO standpoint before you start your agency. Episode 56 why Most SEO Advice is Bad and Wrong okay, so there's a lot of advice that's wrong. And part of the reason it's wrong is because it makes people uncomfortable. If you tell somebody, oh, we can manipulate the results by providing more authority and giving backlinks. That's extending beyond their little zone of, oh, just write really good content. And so sometimes people like our would rather just believe the thing that they believe. Anyways. Episode 57 calling out the charlatans who say they can write content that ranks without backlinks. There are a lot of people who say, you don't need backlinks, you just write good content and you can rank. These people will not show evidence. All I want is to see a website in a Medium to competitive difficulty. Keyword that ranks without backlinks. People claim they can do it. I have a lot of messages from people claiming they can do it, but none of them have ever shown any proof. Because content is not a ranking factor. You need backlinks and authority. Here's proof that it is necessary. Search for anything, any website on page one, and I bet you it has backlinks. Episode 58 Many SEO consultants have no SEO experience. There's a lot of people selling SEO services that have never done SEO. Now, to me, it's clear because I can talk to somebody and I can tell if they have SEO experience. But if you're a beginner, like maybe you can't. Anyway, there are a lot of people that are trying to sell you services that have never actually done SEO. So I want you to be very cautious and I want you to study SEO to a great degree so that you will be able to tell if somebody is being truthful with you. Episode 59 Traffic is not an SEO metric and what you should use instead. So let's be serious for a second. Most people do SEO because they're trying to get more visitors to their website. When you rank higher, you will probably get more visitors. But traffic is not indicative of good SEO. Your traffic can go up while your position goes down. Your position can go up and your traffic can go down.
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Listener
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Grumpy SEO Guy
Having more traffic, by the way, you can buy traffic. Having more traffic does not mean you have effective SEO. It just means you have more traffic. It might mean you have effective SEO, but not definitely. Okay, so look, here's the very short version of this. Traffic is a function of your SERPs and number of monthly searches, okay? So you can tell if you know how many searches a keyword has. You can tell how many visitors you will get for that keyword based on what position you are in. We talk about this in that episode. Episode 60. A review of episodes 42 through 59. That's what we're talking about in this episode. So we're not gonna cover this one now. Episode 61 SEO for total beginners. If you are a total beginner, listen to this episode. It talks about what SEO is and how to do it. Episode 62 what is and how to do rank and rent and a rant on affiliate marketing and bad online business advice. Rank and rent is. Well, there's actually different definitions of it, but it's. One way to do rank and rent is to rank a website and then sell places on that website to local businesses. A lot of people talk about it. I have never heard of anybody actually being successful with it. I have heard a lot of people say they are successful with it, but I have never actually seen anybody be successful with it. I tried it in multiple different industries a long time ago and I made $0 from it. So I explained that in this episode. You can try it if you want. A lot of people try it, but that's just what it was like with me. Episode 63 Two pieces of controversial SEO advice here's one. Do not make any changes to your website if you are already ranking okay, I have seen websites that are on the first page and they make a change to their content because somebody told them that if you write better content, you will rank higher and they lost their position. Why? Because they made a change. The change wasn't necessarily good or bad, but it happened. And the search engines didn't know what to do with the website after that, so it lost its rank. In this episode, I say it as if it ain't broke. Don't fix it. Look, if you're on page one, do not make any changes to the content of your website, except if you find a mistake that you have to correct.
- [39:44]
Listener
Okay?
- [39:45]
Grumpy SEO Guy
If you say that something is, you know, a certain, like a certain value and it's wrong and you have to change it, yes, change that. But don't think that you're going to rewrite something and it's going to suddenly rank higher. Because it's not. And you might have the opposite effect. Episode 64 how to use 301 redirects for SEO, a 301 redirect is if somebody goes to your site, it will automatically redirect them to a different page. There are reasons to do this in SEO and we explain why you should do them in this episode. Episode 65 how much Doctor do you need to rank? So Doctor is an estimate of authority by Ahrefs. It's a pretty good estimate and it's a pretty good tool. I use this tool. But thinking about it in terms of how much doctor do you need to rank? Is not how you should do it.
- [40:38]
Listener
Okay?
- [40:39]
Grumpy SEO Guy
Because it is an estimate. Nobody cares what your doctor is other than link sellers. And the reason for that is because link sellers think they can charge a higher price if they have more doctor do not think, oh no, my doctor is a certain amount. I need to make it higher and then I will rank higher. Just worry about ranking higher. It doesn't matter what your doctor is. It's not. It's. It's just. It's Just an estimate. It's just an estimate. Having good SEO does not mean you're raising your doctor. It means you're raising your rank. Okay, episode 66, how many sites do you need in your PBN? When people learn about PBNs, they say, ooh, I'm going to make a PBN. And then they're like, wait a minute. How many sites do I need? In this episode, we answer that question. Episode 67, Secret Sauce is super scammy. Nonsense. Guys, there's a lot of SEO consultants out there that mention, oh, and we will rank you by using our secret sauce. Gross. Guys, secret sauce means I have secret knowledge and I'm not gonna tell you what it is. Let me ask you a question. Do you wanna work with somebody that is not being transparent about what they are doing? I don't. Anyway, the other reason people say secret sauce is cause they want you to think that they have some secret technique. There are no secret techniques. If there were, I would tell you what they are. But there aren't. There's just good SEO. Okay, well, maybe if you're talking about, like, black hat SEO, there might be some secret techniques, but you probably don't want to work with somebody who's doing black hat SEO anyway. Black hat just means doing things that the search engines don't think you're supposed to do. As opposed to white hat SEO, which is following the rules. Okay, episode 68, why you shouldn't focus on number of backlinks. When people learn about the importance of backlinks, they always think, oh, I need to get more. I need more backlinks. Wrong. Backlinks are about quality, not quantity. Do not worry about who has more backlinks. It doesn't matter as much as you think it does. Episode 69 why SEO Agencies Sometimes Lie about who their clients are. There's a good chance you visited an SEO agency's website and you've seen on their website something that says our clients include, and then they list a bunch of big companies you've heard of. There's a couple problems with this. There's no guarantee they actually had that company as a client. They're probably just trying to sound popular.
- [43:15]
Listener
Okay.
- [43:16]
Grumpy SEO Guy
There's no guarantee they ever even had that client. But if they put a company on there that you're familiar with, you might think, this company worked with them. They must be skilled. No, because they might be lying about it. And there's other problems. But here's the biggest problem of all. SEO is a secret industry. Most clients will not let you put them on your website. Every client I have ever asked if I can put them on our website has said no. And the reason is because they don't want their competition to know who's doing their SEO. So it is very confusing to me. When I see clients listed on an SEO agency's website, I immediately do not believe that they've worked with those clients. Episode 70 Think twice about buying backlinks off a menu There's a lot of people that sell backlinks, and a lot of them will show you the websites that you can get backlinks on. Let me ask you this question. If those lists are public, do you think that is a helpful thing or an unhelpful thing as far as the search engines are concerned? Do you think if the search engines find out that these websites are selling backlinks, they are going to have any authority? Episode 71 SEO contradictions, clarification and critical thinking Sometimes if you're talking to maybe an agency or a consultant or somebody who says they know a lot about SEO, you might notice they contradict themselves. Okay, they might tell you a thing and then later they tell you something that is the opposite of what they just told you. It's because they don't understand how SEO even works. So just be aware. Episode 72 how to build your own PBN Part 4 answers to questions from Reddit I got a lot of questions on how to build a pbn, so I made another episode where I answered those questions. And that is what we talk about in this one. Episode 73 My Experience Going On 6 SEO job interviews A few years ago, I went on some job interviews with SEO agencies or companies that needed SEO. And in this episode I tell you some of the questions that I was asked and I talk about how the interviews were. Overall, you might actually expect that at least 2/3 of the companies I talked to had no idea how SEO actually worked. Episode 74 Everyone is lying to you about duplicate content and even more SEO job interview questions. So I found some more questions that I was asked and I shared them in this episode. And in this episode I also talk about people that lie about duplicate content. People say duplicate content is harmful and you cannot copy another website's content. That is untrue. For example, research journals and lyric websites, they all have the same content and they're all on page one. There's no such thing as duplicate content on different websites. By the way, if you put the same content on your website, like on multiple pages on your website, that's going to hurt you. But different websites. Not a problem. Not a thing at all. Episode 75 A Glimpse Inside the Shady world of Internet Marketing and Affiliate Programs There's a lot of suspicious stuff that goes on in Internet marketing, and we talk about it in this episode. Episode 76 ranking but no backlinks. Where's the proof? Lots of people say they can rank without backlinks. Nobody shows proof. Episode 77 what are Tier 2 and Tier 3 backlinks? Are they helpful? You might have seen SEO vendors offering backlinks and claiming that you will get Tier 2 and Tier 3 backlinks. I explain what these terms mean in the episode and if it's something that you should pay attention to. And it's not really a big deal because any good website already has multiple tiers of backlinks. Episode 78 There is no such thing as cheap SEO. Okay? Look, just like anything, there is cheap SEO and there is expensive SEO. There are people that claim to do things for free. There are people that will charge you a very small amount of money for what seems like a big project. These people are scammers. Real SEO is expensive to do, so it's going to be expensive to buy.
- [47:36]
Listener
Okay?
- [47:37]
Grumpy SEO Guy
I just want you to be aware. If it is cheap, it is definitely bad. If it is expensive, it may be bad. Just because somebody charges a high price doesn't mean it's good. But if they're charging a low price, it's Definitely bad. Episode 79 Three Mistakes to Avoid here's one of the mistakes. Do not work with anybody who is rude to you. Here's another mistake. Try to not let your domains expire. I had a good domain once and I forgot to renew it and now somebody else has it. So make sure that you renew your domains. Episode 80 A review of episodes 61 through 79 that's what we're talking about in this episode, so we don't have to talk about that one. Episode 81 how to Tell whether or not something is a Ranking Factor Many people claim that a lot of things are important in SEO. Many of them are not. Here is an easy way to tell if something is a ranking factor. In order to be valuable, something has to have two traits. One, it has to be useful, and two, it has to be scarce. Okay, so something like content, for example, is not scarce because it's easy to write content. So content is not a ranking factor. Something like a backlink from an authoritative domain that is useful because backlinks provide authority. And from an authoritative domain, it is scarce because authoritative domains are challenging to get. It is not easy. You cannot write a program that will create authoritative domains for you. You have to either buy them when they're already authoritative, which is expensive, or you have to build them from scratch and have them develop their own authority, which takes a long time and can take money too. So having authoritative domains is hard. It is hard and rare to get authoritative domains, therefore it has value. So when somebody is telling you that something is an SEO ranking factor, ask yourself, is it useful? And is it scarce? Okay, if you can easily do the thing, it's probably not a ranking factor. Episode 82 are expired domains really going to lose all their Authority? When people learn that you can buy expired domains that have authority and use them to create backlinks to your client's websites, they think, well, maybe the search engines are going to take the authority away from expired domains. In this episode we talk about if that's actually going to happen. Episode 83 are Expired Domains Losing Their Authority Part 2 There was so much to say about this topic that I made a second episode about it. Here's one way to tell if this happens. If the prices go down, Expired domains that have authority are very expensive. If they drop authority, the price will come down because people will not want to spend a lot of money on them if they do not have authority. So you can watch the auctions and you can see how much they go for. If they lose authority, the prices will come down. Episode 84 are all backlinks helpful? Yes, as long as they are good quality backlinks. That's your answer. I've been asked a couple times if you can get backlinks from websites with less authority than you. If that will still help you. Like people think that it's going to take authority from you. It's not all backlinks share authority unless there is a problem with the site or it's a spammy backlink or stuff like that. You know what I mean? But even if the website has less authority than you, it's still providing you some authority. Just not very much, but it still helps. Episode 85 explaining why content is not king. It's not. And this episode explains why. Episode 86 should you build backlinks to the homepage or to inner pages? Multiple people have asked me where should I build the backlinks? To the homepage or to the inner page? Build backlinks to the page that you want to rank. There's a little more to it than that, but that's the quick answer. Episode 87 SEO is a competition, not a checklist. The most important episode yet. Everybody thinks that if they just use a checklist and it tells them what to do, they will rank. SEO is not a checklist. It is a competition. SEO is about having better SEO than the other people that are ranking for your keywords. It is not if I do this and this and this other thing, I will rank higher. No, it's not about your website. It is a competition. Episode 88 Next year in SEO and AI. In this episode, we talk about how AI might alter SEO. Episode 89 why your website's SEO position is dropping. Part 1 Sometimes people notice that their rank is decreasing. This episode explains the three reasons that that might happen. Episode 90 why your website's SEO position is dropping. Part 2 this episode tells you how to tell which of the three is the case. Episode 91 A better way to understand SEO, competition and ranking Think of SEO like a race. Somebody is winning. Somebody is behind that person. Somebody is behind that person. Your position is like where you are in a race.
- [53:08]
Listener
Okay?
- [53:09]
Grumpy SEO Guy
There are things you can do that will make you rank higher or run faster. And there are things that you can do that will make you rank lower or run slower. But it is a competition. It is not about having a certain time. It is about having a better time than your competition.
- [53:26]
Listener
Okay?
- [53:26]
Grumpy SEO Guy
SEO is not about doing certain things a certain way. It is about doing them better than your competition. It is not about doing good or bad SEO. It is about doing better or worse SEO than the other websites that are ranking for your keywords. Episode 92 SEO contracts are almost always a scam. Most SEO agencies want you to sign a contract. They want you to sign a contract that will have you paying them for a certain amount of months. There is almost no reason for this other than to try and get more money from you.
- [54:02]
Listener
Okay?
- [54:03]
Grumpy SEO Guy
You should never sign an SEO contract. There is nothing that they can do that cannot be done month to month. For example, we do SEO month to month. We do not use long term contracts. If either party is unhappy, they can quit. We would not make you stay if you are unhappy with the results. Episode 93 should you hide your PBN sites for SEO? After you build a PBN, people can use tools to find where your clients are getting their backlinks from. They might see your PBN sites in there. You can hide them from the software so that you cannot be found. This episode shares if you should do that and the way we do it. Episode 94 where do we get SEO authority from in the first place? Everybody knows you need backlinks if you want authority. But how do we even get that authority in the first place? Episode 95 should you build a low authority PBN? Lots of people talk about, oh, I want to build a pbn, but the authoritative domains are very pricey. Yes, they are. Maybe you should build a low authority PBN. The answer is probably yes. Episode 96 so you want to start an SEO agency part 2 this episode shares some stuff that might happen in your personal life if you start a business. Episode 97 Back to Basics what is SEO and how do you rank? This is a good review for beginners. Episode 98 Questions to Ask an SEO Agency A lot of people email me and say, I want to hire an SEO agency. What questions should I ask them? You should listen to this episode. Episode 99 the SEO industry this episode describes the SEO industry and some of the problems that I have with it, and I think a lot of you might think the same thing. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or you can email me@hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so@patreon.com Grumpy Seoguy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday for another episode.