google

The Importance of Keyword Research for SEO

Andy Black

Today I’m going to explain the importance of keyword research when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization) and also officially ‘announce’ my latest software application that will be released real soon.

First of all, let’s talk about keywords and why they are so important.

They’re important because keywords are what people type into search engines such as Google in order to find specific content, products and services.

Keywords are used with direct intent by your hottest prospects – People who are looking for solutions ‘right there and then’.

That’s why platforms such as Google and YouTube still provide the hottest, most valuable leads compared to social media sites such as TikTok and Facebook. It’s because your prospects are actively ‘searching’ for something rather than seeing an ad pushed in front of them.

Search engine traffic is by far the hottest traffic you can get, and this is why you should be trying to rank your websites and content as highly as you possibly can.

The First Task Before Creating Website Content

The very first task before creating any kind of website or blog content is to evaluate keywords.

To find keywords and search queries that people are typing into Google, but that aren’t also been heavily targeted by your competition.

Believe me – there is an almost limitless number of keywords / search queries that are typed into Google everyday. Many of these keywords have strong competition who are also trying to rank content for those keywords – whilst many other keywords have hardly any competition.

The question is, how do you find the best keywords to target?

Keywords that have weak competition and that you could rank for on Googles 1st page.

Well, I have a very specific method for finding such keywords but it’s a long drawn out ‘manual’ process.

It works. It’s effective. And it allows me to find ‘easy’ keywords that can deliver visitors to my websites… but it’s tedious and takes time.

Well, until now at least.

A while back I decided to automate this entire ‘keyword research’ process, so I sat down at my computer and spent many hours EVERY day building a brand-new software.

This software is now complete and I will be releasing it very soon (this month!).

So, I’d like to officially announce my latest ‘SEO’ software creation – “Keyword Phoenix”.

Keyword Phoenix will allow you to quickly analyze the competition for ANY keyword.

It will give you a birds-eye view of the top ranked websites / pages that are already ranking for the keywords that you want to target.

It will identify their strengths and weaknesses, and you’ll know EXACTLY what you’ll need to do to rank YOUR content, blog post or page on page 1 of Google.

It will reveal HARD keywords, that you should avoid – as well as reveal easy keywords that you can rank for on page 1 with ease.

Remember, the more page 1 rankings you can achieve on Google, the more visitors you’ll receive to your website or blog.

More visitors also equates to more leads, sales and income.

I’m thinking of releasing Keyword Phoenix to my customers and subscribers first (you) on either 25th or 26th May. Although I will be giving you a SNEAK PEAK before that date.

If you’d like to get more page 1 Google rankings, and are interested in getting access to my new software, please drop me a comment below.

If I get enough comments and interest I will put together a GREAT deal for you!

To your success!

Andy Black

A Powerful Ranking Factor for Ranking Videos in Google

Andy Black

In todays blog post I wanted to share a powerful ranking factor that is prominent in 2022 yet is often overlooked.

This is specifically for ranking videos in Googles search results, so if you create video content – this blog post is for you.

First of all, you’ve probably noticed that videos do not always appear in the search results for some keywords.

This is because of TWO reasons:

  1. Not all keyword search queries are best suited for video content, hence why standard web results take up the first page.
  2. Google doesn’t identify any particular ‘YouTube’ video to be a suitable video that answers the searchers ‘query’.

As many of you will know, I’m BIG on YouTube video optimization and I have a very effective system for optimizing a videos title, description and tags so that it ranks the video higher in the search results. Particularly in YouTubes search results.

In fact – I developed an entire software app called TubeSerp that allows you to do that.

With that being said – to rank on the 1st page of Google, and particularly for ‘competitive keywords’ – we need to do more.

Google is starting to pay more attention to the actual video content itself, and not just video optimization and user engagement.

They’re analyzing the actual ‘spoken words’ that are used within a video. YES – the voiceover.

Google are revealing this themselves within their search results.

Here’s a few examples of what I’m referring to:

In the screenshot above you’ll see that Google has shown my video and right underneath the ‘supersized’ video thumbnail, it has displayed a snippet of my voiceover.

This has been taken from the ‘subtitles’ that they have automatically generated from my video.

As you can see, the part of the voiceover they have analyzed and displayed under my video, matches the search query very well.

This shows they are paying close attention to the actual content of the video before deciding WHO should see it.

Here’s another example:

In the example above they have timestamped 10 ‘key moments’ that they think the searcher may be interested in.

They have categorically analyzed my video and identified various sections of content.

This illustrates just how important it is to create great video content in 2022 and to delve deeply into your topic, to answer the searchers ‘query’ as precisely as possible. The more effort you put into your videos, the better results you’ll see.

So, Here’s Some Tips For You

  1. When recording your own videos or voiceovers – speak clearly. Pace yourself and ensure your speech is as clear and precise as can be. This way YouTube (Google) will be able to effectively convert your audio into subtitles – that they can understand.
  2. Whatever keyword(s) you target, be sure to comprehensively answer the searchers query. Be very precise and cover as much information as you can about that specific topic / query.
  3. Be sure to mention your main keyword ‘naturally’ in your video. Ideally early on, and once or twice more throughout.
  4. If you’re adding background music over your video or voiceover, make it subtle and non-intrusive. Lower volumes and ‘calm’ soundtracks make it easier for YouTube (Google) to extract your subtitles, and make it more enjoyable for your viewers…. and Yes, Google will know this!

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and got some value from it.

As always I’d love to hear your comments – So feel free to drop a comment below!

To your success

Andy Black

P.s. – They’ll be some news about my ‘BRAND NEW’ upcoming software real soon – So stay tuned!

What Are the Best Backlinks to Rank Your Website?

Andy Black

In todays blog post we’re going to take a look at backlinks, and how to find the BEST places to get backlinks from so that you can rank your website higher in Google.

But first of all – What websites provide us with the best backlinks?

The answer is quite simple, and makes a lot of sense. The best websites to get a backlink from are the websites that are already ranking at the top of Google for the keyword(s) that you want to rank for.

I guess it’s not rocket science, right?

Google are ranking those websites because they deem them the most valuable in terms of content and authority for “those” keywords. Therefore, we’re utilizing Googles OWN algorithm to help us find the best websites.

So, getting a backlink from those top ranked websites / pages will not only provide you with the most relevant, juiciest backlinks, but also with backlinks that can send you actual traffic – which is what backlinks are supposed to be about – sending people from one website or page to another.

How to find out which websites offer backlinks

There is one particular problem though, and that is that many of these top ranked websites won’t ‘freely’ offer backlinks.

So, what can we do about it.

We can do the next best thing by using this same ‘concept’ but narrowing the search results down to find websites that do offer backlinks.

This way we’re still using Google’s ranking algorithm to tell us which are the best, most relevant websites – but this time we’re filtering their results so that they will only show us websites that we can publish a backlink on.

Here’s how to do it

Let’s say we want to rank a website for the keyword “boiler installation”. This could even be a localized keyword such as “boiler installation newcastle”.

We can search Google to find websites that are relevant to ‘boiler installation’ but that also allows either ‘business directory listings’ or ‘guest posts’.

Although there are MANY different search phrases you can use, I’m going to reveal just a couple of examples for the sake of this post.

Here’s one.

This particular search will return many different websites that are related to ‘boiler installation’ but that also allows you to add a business listing.

Many of these listings are FREE and often provide you with a DOFOLLOW backlink, not to mention ‘citations’ – both of which can help you to rank higher in Google.

Here’s another example, but this time to find ‘guest post’ opportunities.

As you can see, these websites allow you to submit guest posts and in return, you’ll gain authority, and also a backlink (and direct traffic).

It really is that simple! You just need to be creative with your ‘search phrases’ and invest some time in obtaining these quality backlinks.

Google will reward you by ranking your website higher and sending you more visitors.

This is also a great service to offer to local businesses or clients.

I have actually developed a NEW “Local SEO Software” that will help you to find these types of backlinks (plus more).

But more on that later – Hopefully in the coming weeks! It’ll be released soon.

A Quick Heads Up….

I have ALSO been developing a brand-new SEO software that I plan to release later next month (May). I’m super excited about this!

Stay tuned as I’ll be offering my customers, subscribers and blog readers a fantastic deal (and early access to it).

To your success!

Andy Black

What is Topical Authority and Why is it Important for SEO in 2022?

Andy Black

In todays blog post we’re going to explore one of the most important SEO factors in 2022 – and that’s topical authority.

But What is Topical Authority and Why Does it Matter?

In a nutshell “topical authority” is where you can position yourself (your blog or website) as an authority on a specific topic to Google.

When you achieve that you’ll find that your website traffic explodes and that your future content and posts rank much higher and faster.

But of course, there’s more to it than that.

Not only do you have to provide answers to almost EVERY question asked on the internet about your topic, you also have to structure your content the right way, and also interlink your content so that it increases the user experience for your visitors, and allows them to dig deeper into the topic – keeping them on your website for longer.

First of all – Let me backtrack and try and explain a little further on what topical authority is.

Let’s say there are TWO different websites.

The first website is about internet marketing and on this website there is a great post about “Email Marketing” that contains lots of valuable information.

However, on this website there are also posts about video marketing, social media, affiliate marketing, and so on.

The second website is all about “Email Marketing” and it only contains information on all things closely related to email marketing. For example, let’s say there are posts on open rates, deliverability, soft / hard bounces, email segmentation, email automation rules, list cleaning, spam complaints etc.

Which of those websites would likely be seen as an authority on the topic of email marketing?

The second one, right?

That’s what topical authority is – It’s about focusing on a single topic (in a fairly broad sense) rather than multiple topics.

All of your information needs to be related to the one ‘core’ topic. In the example given above, this would of course be “email marketing”.

When Google see’s this, it will place your website higher in their search results and send more visitors to your website.

It’ll essentially rank most of your posts and pages higher for their respective keywords (and relational keywords).

Interlinking and Content Clusters

There are two important aspects of topical authority that you need to understand. These are interlinking your content and posts, and ‘content clusters’.

Let me give you an example to try and explain a little better.

Let’s say that you want to create a post on your website about ’email deliverability’ and that you want to rank that post for the keyword “email deliverability best practices”.

This is What You Would Need to Do

  1. You would need to have a website or blog that is themed around the topic of “email marketing”.
  2. You would create a high quality, well structured, informative “pillar” post tightly related to “email deliverability best practices”.
  3. You would create a number of shorter posts that provide additional information on the various factors that help people to get better deliverability for their marketing emails. Posts about “list cleaning”, “email authentication”, “hard bounces”, “spam complaints” etc.
  4. You would then link to these shorter posts from your main pillar post allowing your visitors to delve deeper and get a more in-depth answer to their question.

By doing the above you’re essentially creating a “Content Cluster” and this is what Google LOVES in 2022.

It helps to provide their searchers with a competent, substantial answer to their question – and massively increases their user experience.

At the end of the day, that’s Googles job! So they will always favour websites that can provide their users with the best answers, and best user experience.

Answer As Many Questions As Possible Within Your Content

In order to achieve topical authority with your website or blog it’s important that is answers as many questions on your topic as possible. That’s how your website WILL become an authority within Googles eyes.

There’s many sources where you can find content ideas based on what people search for. Two of which are the Google search page itself, and also a free website called answerthepublic.com.

Getting Content Ideas from Google

If you head over to Google and enter a search term that is closely related to what you want to rank for, you’ll see TWO different areas that will contain ideas.

The first one is the “People also ask” section that will present you with related searches / questions that people type into Google.

You can click on the little down-arrow icons to the right of each question, and Google will show you additional questions. Repeat this a few times to collate a good number of topical content ideas for your content cluster.

The second area of the Google search page is the “Related searches” section towards the bottom of the search page. These are also the same as the suggestions presented in the search bar (Google Suggest). *See below.

Optionally, a website called answerthepublic.com will generate some lovely ‘content maps’ for you based on any keyword.

This is a great way to plan out your content for an entire website, or even a ‘content cluster’.

It presents you with a number of different maps which can be viewed either visually or in a standard ‘data format’. *See below.

Of course, gaining topical authority for your niche requires you to create LOTS of quality, unique content. I’d highly recommend a software called Copywriterr to do this as it will automatically write content for you on any topic – and as it uses A.I. and machine learning it’s almost limitless with regards to what it can write.

It’ll certainly save you countless hours / days of writing, or save you a ton of money as you won’t need to outsource your content writing.

If you enjoyed this post and got some value from it… and would like to see more posts like this – Leave me a comment below and tell me.

To your success

Andy Black

Latent Semantic Indexing Explained – The #1 Ranking Factor

Andy Black

If you have followed me for a reasonable amount of time, or bought any of my products, you’ll be well aware that I’m an advocate of ‘Latent Semantic Indexing’ (aka L.S.I.) when it comes to SEO and ranking content.

Or, what I prefer to call it… Semantic Optimization.

The phrase ‘Content is King’ has been banded around for a long time now, and with good reason. When it comes to SEO practices – ‘content’ and ‘semantic optimization’ go together like ‘peas and carrots’.

Whether it’s an article, post title, H tags, alt tags, or even anchor text in backlinks – They can all be semantically optimized to help increase the Google ranking of the page (or post).

So, What is Semantic Optimization?

Ok, first I’m going to give you a definition that was published by SearchEngineJournal.com, and it goes like this…

Latent semantic indexing (also referred to as Latent Semantic Analysis) is a method of analyzing a set of documents in order to discover statistical co-occurrences of words that appear together which then give insights into the topics of those words and documents

However, there is an easier way to explain this using a simple ‘practical’ concept.

Want to play a little game?

So, let’s pretend for a minute that YOU’RE Google, and you’re crawling (reading) a blog post to determine what it is about.

Imagine that after crawling this blog post you have identified the following words…

  1. fluffy
  2. cute
  3. playful
  4. claws
  5. saucer
  6. milk
  7. kindle

Just by reading that short list of words, what do you think that blog post might be about? What comes to mind?

Take a guess!

I’d imagine most people would guess something like ‘Kittens’, right? Is that what you guessed?

That’s exactly what Google does every time it finds and crawls a new web page or blog post.

It crawls the content and analyzes all the wording on the page (and in the headings and tags) to try and determine what the page is about.

You can’t just include your target keyword within your content and expect Google to agree with you that your content is ABOUT YOUR KEYWORD.

You have to really delve into the topic of your keyword and dig deep, and make sure you answer the users search query and provide real value.

Let’s look at another short list of words, and see if you can guess what the topic is about.

I won’t even include the ‘obvious’ word in this list!

  1. foundation
  2. lay
  3. laid
  4. mortar
  5. feather
  6. level
  7. chisel
  8. straight
  9. gaps
  10. mixture

Can you guess what this one is? The topic is ‘brick laying’. (The obvious word I left out the list was of course ‘brick’)

Here’s something that you need to think about when you create a blog post or piece of content around a specific keyword. Every keyword has a set of semantic words (LSI words) that are highly relevant and relational to it.

With this in mind, when you include your target keyword (that you’d like to rank for) in your post title and in your ‘article’, it doesn’t mean you will rank for it in the search results.

Google analyzes ALL the words used within a webpage or blog post and then builds a semantic theme. It will then use that semantic theme to determine what keywords the page should appear for in its search results.

Google is clever!

So, What’s the Solution

The solution is to write a really good piece of content that answers the search query, and goes deep. Go into detail to answer the question.

It’s about writing for the reader. Writing for your audience.

AFTER doing that you can then go over your content and analyze the words you have used.

How I Power Up My Content to Rank Higher

If I write an article or piece of content I run it through the SEO feature of my RewriterApp software to strengthen the article up so it ranks higher in Google.

How it Works

My RewriterApp feature extracts all the top ranking webpages for your target keyword. These are the webpages that Google is already ranking at the top of their search results. It then extracts all of the LSI words from those pages and creates a ‘weighted’ data set so it knows which are the most important / relevant words in that set.

You can then paste your article / content into the software and it will then calculate an SEO Score based on that ‘data set’ and let you know how it can be improved.

You can add some more LSI words to your article, and increase the score.

Then simply publish your new ‘revised’ article for improved rankings and to get more traffic from Google.

How to Use Latent Semantic Indexing With YouTube

That’s right, you can apply this same SEO concept to your YouTube videos too. You do this by applying these same principles to the video title, description and tags.

This can have a tremendous impact on your rankings in YouTube, as it’ll allow you to rank for specific keywords in the YouTube ‘search results’.

If you’re interested in using the power of semantic optimization for your websites, content or videos then feel free to check out my TWO software apps below.

RewriterApp (Boost the Google Ranking of Your Web Pages and Blog Posts)

TubeSerp (Rank Your Videos Higher in YouTube for Specific Keywords)

I’d also love to hear your thoughts about this, so please do leave a comment below in the comments section.

Until next time

Andy Black