Live SEO Support 3/22/23 – Full Episode

Welcome to another episode of Live SEO Support!

Live SEO Support is an hour-long Weekly Livestream where our founders, Nicholas Altimore and Chris Tzitzis, take questions from the audience on anything related to SEO.

It’s 100% free, and anyone can join us weekly in our Facebook Group or on Youtube.

But in case you missed us live this week, here’s the full episode:

This Week’s Archived Livestream:

Summary:

[10:48] (site audit) In 2027-2019 we have been ranking #1-3 for all these primary keywords, spending $5k-$25k per month on SEO. Rankings have been deteriorating over the past three years. I haven’t been updating the disavow tool for months as negative SEO is normal in this niche. Since October 2022, we’ve been doing 80-high DA gp/mo, 50 niche edits/mo, 25 PBN/mo, and some diversity links every four months or so. Rankings have been up since December updates, then down after Feb. Sites ranking above us are crap: One competitor is spending $100k/mo for 10+ GP at $5-$10k. Can I beat them?

25 PBN links per month is too high. You have a 171-page site. It’s a relatively small site where you seem to be spending the majority of your budget on links rather than content. You’ve been hit by a lot of core updates. The good news is that you’re not going down anymore. Your backlink profile is a mess, and a lot of it is obvious negative SEO. There’s nothing natural about your backlink profile. But even when I go back to pages 5-6, I see the same longtail anchors with a good amount of negative SEO mixed in. Stay on the content train. Add to the site, both on-page and off-page. Tone down the PBNs. Use natural, branded, and naked anchors linking to the homepage. Your competitors are obviously bigger sites with more authority. Worse comes to worst, I would consider disavowing.

[35:14] How do you build EEAT for a PBN site? Is a fake social media profile for a PBN a good idea?

You have to consider that you’re buying and repurposing an old domain. If they were actually legit businesses, chances are they had social media accounts attached to them. Now, it’s time-consuming to actually connect those accounts, but doing so would up your PBN game. It’s up to you to decide whether it’s worthwhile or not.

[37:35] What are your thoughts on creating content through AI in March 2023?

Google seems to be giving the green light on it. They’re saying that if the content is good, they don’t care how it’s made. At the same time, we’re a little skeptical about what Google is saying because they’re not very specific about it. They might decide they don’t like it in the future and penalize everyone using AI. That said, it looks like they don’t know how to deal with it for now, so they’re letting it be as long as the content is good. Our advice is to use AI for lower-end content but to be cautious for more technical content. It comes down to how good you are at using prompts. Even then, do some human editing to make sure you have your facts right.

[43:50] Can we put ChatGPT content directly on our website or not?

Always do human editing before publishing. Feed AI content in the prompt. Don’t be lazy about it.

[47:01] What is the minimum viable amount of content/topic coverage you would want before starting to build content above pillow level?

In order to know what amount of content is going to rank, you need to look at what the competition is doing or what Google is actually favoring. That’s why we stress using a tool like Surfer SEO or PageOptimizer Pro. These will give you variables based on content, keyword density, length, etc. You’ll then have an educated guess about how long content needs to be in order to attack a specific SERP. It’s all about looking at the data through active keyword research. You can also build higher-competition articles early to make Google aware of them as early as possible. Note that you can build backlinks immediately. They don’t have to be pillow links. You can do niche edits, guest posts, etc.

[54:24] (site audit)

DR 16, 1.2k referring domains, about 200 pages indexed. Backlinks are not existent. This indicates a lot of low-quality backlinks. There are too many of the same affiliate links throughout the site. You have around 30 of that same link. It’s very spammy and unprofessional. Think about things from the user’s perspective, which is what Google cares about. Users don’t want to go to a page with a landmine of affiliate links. Look at Google’s recent algorithm and helpful content updates. Make sure that your site is in line with all of these updates. Focus on natural anchors and providing good information, which means first-hand experience.

[1:08:53] Have you noticed any connection between HARO/guest post acceptance and the size of a website?

The better quality and the bigger your site is (i.e. more authority), the easier it gets.

[1:12:45] What do you have to say about SEO content writers fretting over these ChatGPTs taking over their jobs?

If you’re a low-end writer⁠—writing content that anybody can write⁠—you should be afraid. ChatGPT can do what low-end writers can do, better and faster and cheaper. Aim for high-end, specialized content writing to have an edge.

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