Darth Autocrat (Lyndon NA) Profile picture
Darth Autocrat: Internet business consultant (SEM (SEO/PPC), CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM) I Fix things for other SEOs, (or what they broke). He/Him
Nikos Kapsomenakis Profile picture Viacheslav Varenia πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡¦ Profile picture dragondelis πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡¦ Profile picture Biz Mobi Profile picture Tony Hayes πŸ† πŸ΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ ΏπŸ€ Profile picture 6 subscribed
Apr 10 β€’ 13 tweets β€’ 3 min read
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:: This is NOT what you are meant to be doing! ::

This is a shining example of the flawed logic,
and Keyword Lead approach that I keep on saying to avoid!

If you're agency does either of these,
look for better!

>>>

#SEO #Keywords #ContentCompendium

Via @jonoalderson >>>

Yes - "Keywords" are important,
as is knowing Search Volume and Competition Level/Strength.

But you should not be creating pages based around such things.
Instead - you should be basing it around Prospects/Audience, and their Needs/Wants/Expectations.

>>>
Apr 4 β€’ 23 tweets β€’ 4 min read
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🚨:: Should you be writing that? ::🚨

Okay, this one may ruffle some feathers,
but hopefully it will drive home some of the reasons that some sites get hit, or don't rank etc.

Sadly, the answer is to often - NO

>>>

#SEO #ContentCreation Image - top down depiction of a plain-paper note book, open on a wooden table top. On the left hand page, is some hand writing; large letters, 1 word per line. Reads: "Should you be writing that". On the right, is a single character - a large, heavy question mark. 2/?

It's such a simple question ...
... but so many get the answer wrong.

The result is - a huge number of people producing content, about topics/subjects that they don't really know.

And it shows!

How?

Because those people do "research" before they "write"!

>>>
Mar 31 β€’ 48 tweets β€’ 9 min read
1/?
🚨:: Google and SEO ::🚨

Something that's become readily apparent,
is that a large percentage of peoples
understanding of SEO
is somewhat skewed,
and they don't see/understand it from Googles perspective.

>>>

#SEO Image 2/?

In the most simplest view,
G see's 3 main aspects to SEO:
1) Crawling
2) Indexing
3) Ranking

And of those 3 aspects,
Google would prefer if people only focused on the first 2;
Crawling and Indexing.

G see Ranking as their job.

>>>
Mar 30 β€’ 37 tweets β€’ 7 min read
1/?
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πŸš¨πŸ‘Ά:: Sorry, but, your baby's UGLY! ::πŸ‘ΆπŸš¨

I know.
It's not nice to hear.
But ... it's the truth.

That site (or little collection of) ...
... not as pretty (good) as you thought!

No - not all of you.
But many.

>>>

#SEO #HCU #Niche Image : Product stock photo of a "cabbage patch" baby doll. Iconic/stylised large, round face (wider than tall), with large round eyes, little snub nose, chunk rose coloured cheeks etc. Dressed in blue Babygro/onesie, laid atop a soft/material "cabbage". 2/?

Okay - attention grab is over,
I'm not intending to insult you ... but it's a phrase that has the right meaning,
and applies to sooooo many right now.

You were ranking.
You were not ranking because you were the best.
You were not ranking because you were original.

>>>
Feb 10 β€’ 16 tweets β€’ 4 min read
1/?
🚨:: >90% of pages get 0 SE Traffic? ::🚨

@nathangotch gives 3 reasons why this may happen,
(figure based on an @Ahrefs study (LINT))

1) Repeat tactic fails them
2) Wrong tactic
3) Inexperience

But, I've got a Very different perspective!

>>>

#SEO #Traffic #Content 2/?

:: 1- Logic ::
There may be tons of pages out there,
but simple logic says that they can't all be ranked top and get the clicks.

Typical CTR Distribution pushes most traffic to the top N pages.

>>>

<Link to the study should be below :D>
ahrefs.com/blog/search-tr…
Jan 22 β€’ 18 tweets β€’ 4 min read
1/?
:: Is Guest Posting Dead? ::

There's 2 parts to @mattdiggityseo's tweet I want to cover.

1) The Guest Posting part
2) The Link Assessment part

>>>

#SEO #GuestPosts #LinkBuilding 2/?

:: Guest Posting ::

I've said it before, and I'll say it again;
if you're primary motivator for GPing is "SEO Links",
you're doing it for the wrong reasons,
and likely to get it wrong.

Here's a whole bunch of reasons to do Guest Posts.

>>>
Dec 5, 2023 β€’ 10 tweets β€’ 2 min read
1/?
:: Visitor Sitemaps to the rescue! ::

100% having a proper Visitor Sitemap can work wonders for discovery/crawling/indexing.

I'll see you, and raise you :D

>>>

#SEO
via @aleyda 2/?

1) Visitor Sitemap Section
Not a single page, with hundreds/thousands of links,
but a structured, organised and most importantly,
usable section.

Break content down into sections/types,
help users quickly jump about the site etc.

Consider adding a "latest" filter.

>>>
Oct 24, 2023 β€’ 6 tweets β€’ 2 min read
1/?
:: Update or Refresh? ::

Technically - these are Not the same thing.

Some people treat them as synonymous,
but there are differences!

Update:
For content/data etc.,
you add/replace parts - bringing content,
yes,
up to date!

>>>

#SEO #Content

2/?

Refresh:
Usually tweaks and changes to the existing content,
(corrections, rewording etc.) - though not always insignificant.

Example:
Let's say you have a news story about a lost kitten.
(Awww - poor kitty!)

Later on, someone spots a type and ambiguity issues.

>>>
Oct 12, 2023 β€’ 9 tweets β€’ 3 min read
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So ... I have some saved searches.

I use these searches as sources of "inspiration".

Sadly ... one of my "inspirational sources",
@RossHudgens
has blocked me!

But ... why?

Let's find out!
:D

>>>

#SEO Cropped screenshot - Shows the profile picture and banner image for @RossHudgens, along with the "You're blocked" message 2/?

Let's look at our last interaction!

Ross decides to do a "correlation 'study'",
looking at URLs.



>>>
Cropped screenshot - Initial Tweet by @RossHudgens, and a reply from myself (@darth_na).  1st tweet: Ross's - 3:39 PM Β· Sep 29, 2023 /KEYWORD/ is (most of the time) a better URL choice than /what-is-KEYWORD/ for definitional topics.  Why?  β€’ Short URLs perform better β€’ On average, short version is higher search volume β€’ Gives you future flexibility if SERP evolves (example: topic becomes more well-known)  <image : contains a bar chart (no alt-attribute!)> X-Axis : Number of characters in URL (Median : 15-35) Y-Axis : Ranking Position in Google (1-10) The results (X : Y) 1 : 17 2 : 26 3 : 27...
Oct 4, 2023 β€’ 7 tweets β€’ 2 min read
@Kevin_Indig Personally - I find there are (should be!) more overlaps than stand-outs.

Things like UX are typically large-scope/site wide,
and should be done (to a degree) for any sized site,
as one small change has impact across the board.

The big differences tend to be...

>>> @Kevin_Indig >>>

Tech debt
Frankensites
Politics/Personalities
Remits/lanes
Permission chains
Paperwork/Justification
Communication
Prioritisation
Volume/Quantity of edits
Real data analysis over simple charts

But ... usually - there are departments and teams.
Not 1 SEO doing it all

>>>
Aug 14, 2023 β€’ 10 tweets β€’ 2 min read
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:: SEO is cheaper than Paid ? ::

This irks me a little - as it is a general assumption,
and often ignores the "cost" of SEO
(but at least he didn't say "free traffic" :D)

As is often the case - it depends!

>>>

#SEO #PPC #SMM >>>

The "cost" of Paid is typically:
1) Initial outlay for media
2) Fairly consistent cost for presence
3) Initial cost of "pages"

The "cost" of SEO usually goes:
1) Initial cost for "pages"
2) Cost to optimise pages
3) Initial cost of "site" optimisation

>>>
Jul 21, 2023 β€’ 30 tweets β€’ 5 min read
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:: Presentation and Perception matters! ::

This is why I'm "anti-blog".
The crux of the issue is how content is presented and perceived,
and a large part of this is based on information-architecture and navigation systems.

If you rely on rolling/dynamic nav ...

#SEO >>>

... then you have "unstable" and "inconsistent" navigation.

The internal links to that content changes over time,
and that doesn't just influence SEO,
it alters how users see things.

>>>
Jun 18, 2023 β€’ 10 tweets β€’ 3 min read
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:: Crowded Content ::

In many cases, there are competitors for topic(s) you want to target

You have several options:
1) Find terms that aren't competed
2) Find terms that are weakly competed
3) Provide more value
4) Produce multiple inter-supporting pieces

>>>

#SEO #Content >>>

: Non-competed :
This is often harder than it sounds.
It's also complicated by semantic-clustering.
(the "exact" phrase may not be competed, but there are likely umpteen variations that are!).

Further, in the vast majority of cases,
these will be (very!) low volume

>>>
Jun 17, 2023 β€’ 6 tweets β€’ 2 min read
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:: ROI - You're doing it Wrong! ::

Not aimed at anyone specific,
but just been reminded of it...

1) You don't include costs
2) You don't factor in time (to implement/effect)
3) People push the %, but don't provide the "actuals"

>>>

#SEO #Marketing >>>

Relative figures (grown by X%, gain by N%, return of Y%)
don't mean squat unless there is a real figure provided alongside (ideally, the initial/base figure - failing that, the final, and people can do the number crunching).

Why is it important?

>>>
Jun 17, 2023 β€’ 8 tweets β€’ 3 min read
...

Pray/Hope
4️⃣ ... it's for the right audience
5️⃣ ... it's something that contributes to your business goals
6️⃣ ... it's a relevant topic that aligns with your site

Or - do it properly/better.

#Parrot #SEO >>>

Simply copying is Not a good move
(nor is it a "strategy"!).

Most sites already have a load of content that ranks for a ton of irrelevant terms that do Nothing for the business!

Which means you're wasting resources
(at the least, time and effort, maybe money)

>>>
Jun 17, 2023 β€’ 6 tweets β€’ 2 min read
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:: It's not about the AI ::

You will see the same sort of pattern whenever there is a mass ingestion of content,
and usually when it fails to get traction/acquire links,
often due to being low quality (inc. cookie-cutter/dupes)

>>>

#SEO #AIContent #LowQualityContent >>>

Typically, the sequence of events is:

1) New content is added
2) G discovers new content
3) G crawls new content
4) G indexes new content
5) G ranks the new content for X number of terms

>>>
May 11, 2023 β€’ 9 tweets β€’ 3 min read
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:: Google - using NLP and LLMs ::

So, G have invested Millions into advancing their algorithms, developing cutting edge approaches to parsing content and identifying important information.

But …

… rather than using it for "Ranking"
… they chose to steal Traffic.

#SEO >>>

And this isn't the first time Google have committed such an offence.

Every few years, they make changes to the SERPs,
to benefit "their users".

> Knowledge Panel
> Featured Snippets
> People Also Ask
> FAQs

Each such addition - reduces traffic ...

>>>
May 10, 2023 β€’ 8 tweets β€’ 4 min read
We can always try asking
(again).

Hey, anyone at @googlesearchc, or maybe @JohnMu or @searchliaison ...

Does Google actually try to verify experience or expertise,
or is it based on linguistics/phrasing?

#SEO #EEAT My money is on it being linguistics/phrasing.

G simply cannot know if Bob bought the giant pink 18" floppy dragon pillow (yeah, some of you went there!), or is simply making it up.

(Note: they may be able to guess if Bob's full of shit though, due to 34K reviews in a week ;))
May 9, 2023 β€’ 9 tweets β€’ 2 min read
1/🧡
:: SEO by looking at the Rankings ::

Yes / No / Maybe.

The problems here are:
1) Correlation
2) Shallow observation
3) Copy cats
4) Many factors are small/tiny, and don't show any visible impact at the top of the SERPs for high-volume/high-value terms

But ...
>>>

#SEO 2/?
>>>

The first 2 points go hand in hand.
Consider things like "long form content" and "word count".

Those are purely correlative - they are Not actual factors.

But, when you look, you see tons of top ranking pages about X have more than N words...

>>>
Feb 13, 2023 β€’ 13 tweets β€’ 4 min read
1/🧡
🚨:: Does Google use Bounce Back Rate? ::🚨

*sigh*
It's not even 2 years since I last covered this!

🧡>>>

#SEO #BounceRate #BounceBackRate #BounceBackToSERP Image 2/?

Here's the thread I did at the end of 2021...



But if you don't want to read through that,
I'll do a quick summary here...

>>>
Jan 31, 2023 β€’ 9 tweets β€’ 2 min read
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:: Prioritisation ::

For me, it's an indication that the SEO sector has matured.

A substantial % of people aren't focused on:
* lists
* tool scores
* number of keywords
* vanity term rankings
or even
* what moves the SERP needle

>>>

#SEO >>>

Instead, there has been a significant shift to:
* what contributes to the businesses goal(s),
* what is readily achievable with the resources available,
* how to present needs/requirements to get them implemented,
* understanding of resource allocation

>>>