#it took 178 episodes but it’s finally here

[thevalleyisjolly]

What the Taste Buds Had Left: A Crown of Candy PVP Scenario

[THIS POST IS ALL SPOILERS FOR A CROWN OF CANDY’S SEASON FINALE]

Like many fans, I was relieved that the last episode of A Crown of Candy did not end in PVP.  Like many fans, I was also a little excited to see how a PVP would have played out.  Now, obviously we can’t reliably predict any outcomes.  There’s always roleplay and player agency, to say nothing of dice rolls, so even the most likely outcome is never guaranteed.  However, we can look at the circumstances of each character going into a theoretical PVP, and potentially how that might affect their performance.  

First, a huge thanks to Kyber Bonsai, Tillie the Paladin, and gluegunshots, who put together the transcripts for Episodes 16 and 17 on the D20 wiki!  The transcripts were my main resource in gathering data, and saved me a lot more time and effort than if I had to go through the episodes, pausing every five seconds.  Thank you for your invaluable work in making D20 more accessible!  Thank you also to the D20 wiki editors!  Most of the stats and information about magical items came from the character pages on the wiki, so thank you for your hard work!  Thank you to Samir Barrett (@sketchmasterskillz), whose amazing official art for ACOC is included below.  And a quick shoutout to the folks at CritRoleStats, whose pre-combat “What Do The Mighty Nein Have Left” posts inspired my own efforts here.

Data Collection

The data reflects the current HP and remaining abilities of each character at the point when Saccharina and Ruby make their decisions.  Data collection began with the first spell slot used in Episode 16 (a 2nd level Pass Without a Trace from Liam before the battle started), and ended with Calroy’s death.  I focused on HP and limited-use abilities such as spell slots and magical items.  

For the sake of brevity, I have chosen not to include in this post every single class feature that each character has, and have instead highlighted limited-use abilities.  Unless otherwise stated, assume the character has access to their regular class and sub-class features.  Most of the class features that I’ve omitted can be found in the standard 5th edition Player’s Handbook, and the D&D 5e wiki contains the information for additional subclasses.  I’ve also assumed that apart from magical items and Lou’s Great Weapon Master feat, no homebrew edits have been made.

For magical items, I’ve elected not to describe every single magical ability, except those with particular homebrew features (e.g. Payment Day, Swirlwarden).  All magical weapons are +1 weapons (except Payment Day, which is +2).

While I was able to determine max HP for most of the characters going into the final battle, I was not able to determine Saccharina’s, as she did not take any damage in the fight, nor in the episode after she levelled up.  At Level 9, her HP max was 58.  She has an unknown Constitution modifier.  If Emily followed the Player’s Handbook when building Saccharina, Constitution would be her second highest score as a sorcerer.  Whether or not Constitution is her second highest ability score, I think it’s safe to assume that Saccharina would not have a negative modifier, giving us a range from +0 to +4 (I’m assuming she does not have a Constitution of 20).

Given those factors, we can estimate her Level 10 HP to be between 59 and 68.  She already had her two levels of cleric when we met her, so every level up since then has been sorcerer levels.  Sorcerers have a d6 hit die, so the lowest increase she could potentially have is +1 (1 + 0 CON mod) and the highest increase is +10 (6 + 4 CON mod).  Since she has healing spells, her exact HP doesn’t matter too much unless it comes to very high damage from a single attack (à la Lapin and Keradin), which it could, but that’s impossible to predict.  Suffice to say that for the purposes of this scenario, Saccharina has full health.

And now, on to the fun stuff!

Saccharina - Storm Sorcerer 8, Tempest Cleric 2

[ID: The official art for Saccharina Frostwhip by Samir Barrett @sketchmasterskillz. Saccharina has green skin and a neapolitan mohawk.   She wears a silver tiara, a blue-green outfit dotted with dark spots and a light brown front panel, a white cloak, chocolate pauldrons with cherries on the shoulders, and waffle shinguards.  She holds a spoon-shaped staff in one hand which crackles with lightning energy, and her other hand outstretched to the side also crackles with lightning energy. She stands with a confident posture, and is looking to the side with hooded eyes and a smile.]

HP: Full (between 59-68 HP) AC: 20 Remaining Spell Slots: 1st level (4), 2nd level (2), 3rd level (1), 4th level (3) Sorcery Points: 5/8 Luck Points: 2/3

Feats: War Caster, Lucky

Magical Items Winterscoop Staff: 0 remaining charges; resistance to cold damage Freezerburn: Magical sword

Cinnamon HP: 65/178 Breath Weapon: Unknown

Cinnamon was one of Saccharina’s greatest assets in the battle.  Thanks to the enemy soldiers targeting Cinnamon with their attacks, Saccharina ends the battle with full health and most of her resources.  While both her 5th level spells are gone and the Winterscoop Staff is out of charges, she still has a good number of higher level spells, as well as access to healing spells.  There is the caveat that depending on how long it took between the end of the battle and the start of the PVP, the Haste spell she cast on Cinnamon in Round 4 of the battle may wear off (the battle ended during Round 11).  If it wears off before PVP starts, Cinnamon can still attack on her turn.  If it wears off during a round of PVP, he is stunned for a round, which could prove decisive.

In a PVP, Cinnamon could once again be her greatest asset, provided he is not stunned.  While it isn’t clear whether or not his breath weapon recharged after its last use in the battle, he’s still a large enough threat with his HP and melee attacks that an attacker would most likely focus on downing him first.  Lou revealed in the Adventuring Party’s for Episodes 16 and 17 that he’d been tracking Cinnamon’s HP and that in the case of PVP, he’d eliminate Cinnamon first to try and deescalate the situation.  Given that Amethar is one of the characters who could drop Saccharina to 0 in one turn (depending on her HP), this may give Saccharina the round advantage she needs to bring down Amethar first.

Lou was absolutely correct in identifying Saccharina as his biggest immediate threat (other than Cinnamon, of course).  With a 4th level Lightning Bolt and a Channel Divinity to deal maximum damage, Saccharina could easily drop Amethar at his current HP to 0 with one attack if he fails his save.  In fact, despite having the lowest max HP of the party, Saccharina is easily one of the most dangerous PCs, thanks to Emily’s excellent build.  With a 20 AC, a spell save DC of 17, and her levels in cleric, it would take a massive single attack to pose an immediate serious threat to her.  However…

Ruby - Arcane Trickster Rogue 9, Shadow Magic Sorcerer 1

[ID: The official art for Ruby Rocks by Samir Barrett @sketchmasterskillz.  Ruby has pink skin and red locks of hair tied back into a high tail.  She wears a jewelled red tiara, an all-red outfit with puffed sleeves, and curved toe black shoes.  She is standing partially crouched, with her hands before her in fists, and looking to the side with a focused expression.]

HP: 55/78 AC: 17 Remaining Spell Slots: 1st level (4), 2nd level (3)

Feats: Squat Nimbleness, Magic Initiate

Magical Items Sour Scratch: Grasping Arrow (once/long rest), Acid Arrow (once/long rest) Flickerish: Shield (once/day), 1d6 Superiority Die (Disarming Attack) Locket of the Sweetest Heart: Advantage on death saving throws if other locket is within 5’ Water-steel Dagger: Imposes three conditions requiring saving throws - extra damage, poisoned condition, prevents target from speaking

Ruby has been very strategic throughout the battle, saving her spells and limited abilities for a potential PVP at the end.  The battle has taken out a chunk of her health, only about a third, but enough to put her in danger if she takes an attack from Cinnamon or Saccharina.  As a rogue, she does have Evasion and Uncanny Dodge, which could allow her to mitigate some of the damage from such an attack, although she would still be brought down low and could potentially go down at the next attack.

Of the six PCs, Ruby is one of the best placed when it comes to her resources and abilities.  She has all her spell slots, and full access to all her class abilities.  In particular, as a first level Shadow Magic sorcerer, Ruby has the feature Strength of the Grave.  If damage from a non-critical and non-radiant hit reduces her to 0, she can make a Charisma saving throw (DC = 5 + damage taken) to instead drop to 1 HP.  Paired with the Locket of the Sweetest Heart (if Liam is nearby and on her side), this provides her with a little more wiggle room if she drops to 0.

Rogues in general are very versatile.  Most of their class features are not limited use, and can be used in a variety of situations.  For a partial caster, she doesn’t have very many damage-dealing spells, but her hefty weapon arsenal compensates for that, with Sour Scratch, Flickerish, and the Water-steel Dagger all having considerable abilities and also meeting the requirements for a Sneak Attack weapon.  As we saw with Ciabatta, 5d6 Sneak Attack paired with the Water Steel Dagger is a deadly combination.  Ruby also has Yak, who can grant her advantage on an attack or check.  She may not be as openly formidable as Amethar, but she is just as dangerous in many ways.

Amethar - Storm Herald Barbarian 5, Battle Master 5

[ID: The official art for Amethar Rocks by Samir Barrett @sketchmasterskillz.  Amethar has pink skin and a green beard.  He wears a jewelled crown of purple and gold, an elaborate outfit of striped red and purple, a purple suit of armour and boots, a furred purple cloak, gold vambraces, and various jewels decorate the ensemble.  He holds Payment Day, a gold-coloured sword with an enormous blade, in his hand, and has a strong stance with a serious expression on his face.]

HP: 48/116 AC: 17 Rages: 2 Superiority Dice: 2

Feats: Great Weapon Master (modified - roll +2d6 damage instead of flat +10)

Magical Items Payment Day: Extra damage die against creature who hit you in the previous round; if you roll a Natural 20 against a creature who has killed a member of your family, they must make a constitution saving throw (DC 16) or be killed

Amethar has been in the thick of battle, getting the kills on Grissini and Calroy, which is reflected in his HP (under half of his total).  However, he has not used his Second Wind yet, which could give him the boost he needs to withstand a round of attacks from Saccharina and Cinnamon.  While he’s already used up his Action Surge, he still has two attacks per round, and if anyone kills Ruby, Payment Day’s special ability could come through once again.

By design, high level barbarians are really difficult to kill, and Amethar’s levels in fighter make him even more scarily efficient in dealing damage.  Rage halves any bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage, which effectively makes Saccharina and Cinnamon the only ones who can consistently deal full damage to him, since Liam has used up almost all his magical attacks.  Unless Saccharina or Cinnamon deal significant damage in the early rounds of combat, Amethar is unlikely to go down until the end.

Having said that, Amethar is such an obvious threat that from a purely mechanical perspective, it makes sense for all the other characters to focus on him (à la Critical Role’s Battle Royales where nearly all the players focused on Grog).  Ruby can be very deadly in her own right, but she’s not going to present the same immediate danger as someone who doesn’t take full damage from an attack.  If Amethar tanks and absorbs attacks from other PCs, this could give Ruby leeway to either get her own attacks in or to make an escape.

Theo - Eldritch Knight Fighter 10

[ID: The official art for Sir Theobald Gumbar by Samir Barrett @sketchmasterskillz.  Theo is a red gummy bear with big white moustache.  He wears an entire suit of golden plate armour and a golden helmet, with a purple sash and a red cloak.  He holds a purple lollipop shield in one hand, and a sword shaped like an orange popsicle in the other.  He stands at attention, with a focused expression on his face.]

HP: 116/140 AC: 21 Remaining Spell Slots: 1st level (2), 2nd level (2)

Feats: Heavy Armor Master, Tough, Alert

Magical Items Battlepop: Compelled Duel (once/day) Swirlwarden: Use reaction to move up to 30’ and take attack meant for ally

Yeah, you read right.  Theo’s HP max is 140, with an AC of 21 (I had to calculate this three times because I couldn’t believe it).  His current HP is equal to Amethar’s total max HP.  Theo may not be a barbarian, but he’s not going down any time soon.  He’s also been fairly conservative with his abilities, leaving him with the majority of his spell slots, as well as his Action Surge.  He also has a good list of cantrips, notably Blade Ward (resistance against bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage until the end of his next turn) and Green Flame Blade (1d8 + spellcasting ability modifier fire damage to target w/in 5 feet).  And of course, he has Princess to give him Help on attacks and checks (Find Familiar is so, so useful).

As Murph remarked in the finale, Theo doesn’t do what the other characters do, which is deal lots of damage.  As Brennan subsequently remarked, Theo doesn’t do that because what Theo does do is not get hit by attacks.  One of Theo’s potential roles in this hypothetical PVP scenario is to tank in the action economy.  Like Amethar, he’s a big threat because he’s difficult to down.  Thanks to the feature War Magic, he can cast cantrips as an action and make a weapon attack as a bonus action, so if he casts Blade Ward on himself each turn, he essentially becomes a foil to Amethar.  If Amethar and Ruby focused their attacks on trying to down Theo, this could allow his allies the breathing space they need to heal or make their own attacks.

In Lou’s strategy that he discussed in the final Adventuring Party, he placed Theo as the last on Amethar’s kill order.  While his order of kills is heartbreaking from a roleplaying perspective, it’s a very astute calculation.  Given his build, Theo is likely to be one of the last characters left standing, if not the last.  Even if he consistently uses Swirlwarden to tank damage for his allies, his considerable HP makes him unlikely to drop anytime soon, short of some really impressive damage rolls.  Amethar could try and team up on Theo with Ruby to bring him down to more manageable health, but that would leave them open to other attacks.  Murph really went a 110% in making Theo a bodyguard, and honestly, good for him, it’s what he deserves.

Liam - Gloomstalker Ranger 6, Assassin Rogue 4

[ID: The official art for Liam Wilhelmina by Samir Barrett @sketchmasterskillz.  Liam has pink skin, a red nose, rosy cheeks, and short dark red hair.  He wears pink overalls, a red and white striped shirt, red boots and gloves, and a red and white hat.  He carries a large pack containing a bed roll and a lantern, and has a quiver of arrows and a book attached to his belt.  He is mid stride, looking down at his feet with a neutral expression.  A small pig with peppermint stripe markings trots beside him, wearing a purple collar with the letter “P” and looking up at Liam with a happy expression.]

HP: 77/90 AC: 16 Remaining Spell Slots: None

Feats: Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter

Magical Items Crossbow: Bursting Arrow (once/day - used), Ice Knife (once/day) Locket of the Sweetest Heart: Advantage on death saving throws if other locket is within 5’ Seed of Change: ???

First, props to Ally for their roleplaying!  Most of the characters going into the battle anticipated a possible PVP at the end and saved their resources, but in-game, no one told Liam the full —or even half— story.  This means Liam did not have any reason to hold back during the final battle, which is exactly how Ally played him.  Liam used up all of his spell slots during the battle, as well as the Bursting Arrow feature on his crossbow, leaving him with his crossbow’s Ice Knife feature as his sole magical attack.

However, Liam is still a force to be reckoned with.  He still has two attacks each turn, and he’s absolutely deadly in the first turn of combat, where Dread Ambusher gives him a bonus to initiative roles, and Assassinate gives him advantage against any creatures who haven’t taken a turn in combat yet, with any hit on a surprised creature being a critical hit.  Dread Ambusher also gives him a bonus 10 feet of movement in his first round, and an extra attack with a bonus 1d8 damage if it lands.  He also has 2d6 Sneak Attack, which paired with his other features, means that Peppermint Batman’s still got a few tricks up his sleeve.

From a roleplay perspective, Liam is the biggest unknown here.  While he told Theo that he would protect Saccharina, that was without knowing the full story, and without being in the circumstances of an actual PVP battle.  Ally’s WiFi cut out during the Adventuring Party when the cast discussed what they would have done in a PVP, which means we don’t know for certain who Liam would have sided with.  If he defends Saccharina, that increases her numbers advantage.  If he sticks with Ruby and Amethar, this potentially tilts the combat in their favour with another big damage dealer.  He’s in a good place with his HP, which means he’s unlikely to go down soon, but he’s also got the lowest AC in the party.  Who knows what might happen?

(Let’s be honest, Ally rolls a narrative nat 20 that results in something unbelievable, unpredictable, and world-altering happening.  They are too powerful, and cannot and should not be stopped)

Cumulous - Long Death Monk 10

[ID: The official art for Cumulous Rocks by Samir Barrett @sketchmasterskillz.  Cumulous has blue skin and poofy light pink hair.  He wears a pink outfit similar to a sleeveless gi with pants, a purple belt, and purple arm and leg wraps.  He holds a white staff in his hand.  Swirls of pink cloud come off of him.  He is mid action pose, with his legs in a mid-dash position and one of his hands brought forwards in a fist.  He looks to the side with a focused, stern expression on his face.]

HP: 85/85 + 6 temp HP AC: 18 Remaining Ki Points: 4/10

Feats: Mage Slayer

Magical Items Fluffwind: Whirlwind Stance; triples long jump; Gaseous Form (once/day)

While not the absolute juggernaut that Theo is, Cumulous is best placed of all the characters in regards to HP, with full health and 6 temp HP remaining from killing a Meatlander.  Although monks in general are not going to see the same staggering amounts of damage as other classes, and are more of a support martial class, Long Death monks excel in the kind of combat we saw in the finale - lots of lower-level enemies that are fairly easy to kill and gain temp HP from.  With a good AC, Cumulous can take a few attacks before being in trouble.

Unlike other martial classes, monks don’t often get the dramatic killing blow.  While they have a lot of attacks, each attack doesn’t deal that much damage by itself.  Monks consistently erode away at an opponent’s health, or stun them so that their allies can get their hits in.  Cumulous burned through a fair number of ki points during the battle, leaving him with a little under half his total, so he’ll have to be strategic about how and when he uses his ki.  Most of the other characters have a good Constitution and decent ACs, so it may be in his best interest to save his ki for mobility.

Cumulous has two big assets in a PVP battle, which are his mobility and the many hogwild (and unlimited) features that monks have.  With Unarmored Movement and Step of the Wind, he can move up to 150 feet in a turn, which includes across liquids and on vertical surfaces.  He has Slow Fall, allowing him to negate up to 50 points of falling damage, and he’s immune to poison and disease (which may come in useful against the Water-steel Dagger).  Thanks to being on Team Saccharina, he doesn’t have to worry about area of effect spells targeted at him.  If all else fails, he can book the fuck out of there to a safe distance and use Gaseous Form to escape from there.  

Conclusions

As I said at the beginning, there is no real way to predict the outcome of a PVP.  Besides raw mechanics, there’s roleplay, player agency, and of course, the dice.  Even looking at how each character is placed doesn’t necessarily translate to performance.  Mechanically, Ruby has the most resources left available, but that doesn’t mean she’d be able to overcome a worse case scenario of four PC attackers and a dragon.  Cumulous and Theo are doing the best in terms of HP, but would have difficulty downing another PC by themselves.  Amethar and Saccharina both have the potential to deal massive damage, but sorcerers are called “glass cannons” for a reason, and even with Rage, Amethar is sitting at a low HP.  Liam is an unknown quantity who could tip the scales in favour of one side or the other, but he has used up most of his devastating “war guy” abilities.

With the multitude of different factors (e.g. initiative order, possible crits, sheer buckwild shenanigans), it could realistically be either side left standing.  Team Saccharina has the advantage of numbers and several very hard to kill PCs, Team Ruby has the advantage of big damage dealers (not to mention rogues and barbarians are A Challenge to deal with on their own, never mind together).  As part of a team, each character has a better chance of survival and “winning,” with other characters being able to balance out their teammates’ weaker areas.  #teamworkmakesthedreamwork  All this, of course, without including the possibility of NPCs being convinced to join the fight.

But if there’s one thing we’ve seen in A Crown of Candy, it’s that there doesn’t have to be just two choices, either or.  There’s a third possibility, not between the two but something more, of change.  The fact that this is just a thought exercise bears that out.  Many thanks to the Dimension 20 cast and crew for an amazing season!

#dimension 20 #a crown of candy #long post #acoc spoilers #disclaimer: i am not a professional dm and master combat analyst

[drunkenraccoons]

Top 248 Songs

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9. Providence - Ani DiFranco

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11. It’s Good to Be King [Live Anthology] - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

12. Tangled Up in Blue - Bob Dylan

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14. We R Who We R - Kesha

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16. Ribs - Lorde

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19. The She - The Breeders

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21. Cortez the Killer - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

22. Since I’ve Been Loving You - Led Zeppelin

23. Like a Hurricane [Weld] - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

24. Angie - The Rolling Stones

25. Darkness Darkness - Robert Plant

26. Nuthin but a ‘G’ Thang - Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg

27. Wake Up Time - Tom Petty

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34. Ghost of the Gang - Indigo Girls

35. New Ways to Fly - Garth Brooks

36. Bleed the Freak - Alice In Chains

37. Walls (No. 3) - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

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43. My Journey to the Stars - Burzum

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48. Simple Twist of Fate - Bob Dylan

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61. Tik Tok (Untold Remix) - Kesha

62. Forever & Always (Piano Version) - Taylor Swift

63. You Don’t Know How it Feels [Mojo 2010] - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

64. Dilate - Ani DiFranco

65. Rockin’ in the Free World - Neil Young

66. Breakdown [Live Anthology] - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

67. Two Suns in the Sunset - Pink Floyd

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70. Almost Cut my Hair - CSNY

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74. Benighted - Opeth

75. Cliff - Lapsley

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79. Lost on You - LP

80. If it Makes You Happy - Sheryl Crow

81. Hollaback Girl - Gwen Stefani

82. Cause of Death - Immortal Technique

83. Two-Headed Boy pt 2 - Neutral Milk Hotel

84. No Quarter [Song Remains the Same] - Led Zeppelin

85. Rockets - Cat Power

86. Out of Range- Ani DiFranco

87. Dumb - Nirvana

88. Sins of My Youth - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

89. All Weekend Long - Jack & Jack

90. Break My Body - Pixies

91. Thrasher - Neil Young

92. Closer (R3hab Remix) - The Chainsmokers

93. In the Kingdom Where Everything Dies, The Sky is Mort - Cryptopsy

94. Dead Flowers - Rolling Stones

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103. Fearless - Hypocrisy

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107. The Outside - Taylor Swift

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110. We Die Young - Alice In Chains

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112. Masters of War - Bob Dylan

113. War - Burzum

114. The Nile Song - Pink Floyd

115. A Woman in Love [Live Anthology] - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

116. Misfits - Neil Young

117. Down By the River - Low & Dirty Three

118. High Hopes - Pink Floyd

119. Paper Planes - MIA

120. Night Moves - Bob Seger

121. I Took a Pill in Ibiza (Seeb Remix) - Mike Posner

122. No Sleep - Wiz Khalifa

123. Still Don’t Give a Fuck - Eminem

124. Long, Long Time Ago - Javier Navarrete

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126. Radio Friendly Unit Shifter - Nirvana

127. I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here - David Crosby

128. Party and Bullshit - Notorious B.I.G.

129. Bandit - Neil Young

130. Beast of Burden - Rolling Stones

131. Painter - Lapsley

132. Redemption Song - Bob Marley

133. Shine On You Crazy Diamond part one - Pink Floyd

134. Gotta Serve Somebody - Bob Dylan

135. In the Light [Demo version] - Led Zeppelin

136. Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix Experience

137. When I Die - GG Allin

138. Pints of Guinness Make You Strong - Against Me!

139. Interstellar Overdrive - Pink Floyd

140. The Old Laughing Lady [Canterburry House] - Neil Young

141. Strength Beyond Strength - Pantera

142. You Know You’re Right - Nirvana

143. Five Years - David Bowie

144. Because the Night - Patti Smith Group

145. Crawling Back to You - Tom Petty

146. Northern Star - Hole

147. Long Live - Taylor Swift

148. Trying to find a Balance - Atmosphere

149. Southern Man - Neil Young

150. Party By Myself - Cooper Phillip

151. Christmas in the Sand - Colbie Callait

152. Cool for the Summer - Demi Lovato

153. Sentimental Tune - Tegan & Sara

154. Jump in the Fire - Metallica

155. Chains - Torres

156. Willing to Fight [Living in Clip] - Ani DiFranco

157. Tuff Ghost - The Unicorns

158. Of a Lifetime - Journey

159. Heaven on Their Minds - Jesus Christ Superstar

160. Obnoxious - Immortal Technique

161. Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen

162. Witching Hour - xxyyxx

163. Wolves - Garth Brooks

164. Carry On/Questions - CSNY

165. Levitate Me - Pixies

166. Rotten Apple - Alice In Chains

167. Summer in the City - Regina Spektor

168. It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleedin’) - Bob Dylan

169. King’s Highway [Mojo 2010] - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

170. Heartbreaker [How the West Was Won] - Led Zeppelin

171. Meet Rhonda - Douglas Pipes

172. Out on the Weekend - Neil Young

173. Near Dark - Burial

174. Aud Layne Sayne - Jimi Hendrix

175. Back of My Hand - Rolling Stones

176. Blank Space - Taylor Swift

177. Cymbaline - Pink Floyd

178. Animal (Billboard Remix) - Kesha

179. 4:41 AM (Sexual Revolution) - Roger Waters

180. Wild Horses [Stripped] - Rolling Stones

181. Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan

182. Have a Cigar - Pink Floyd

183. Cradle and All - Ani DiFranco

184. I Should Have Known It - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

185. King of Carrot Flowers pt 1 - Neutral Milk Hotel

186. Hard Sun - Eddie Vedder

187. Fuckin’ Up [Weld] - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

188. The River - Bruce Springsteen

189. Maria Maria - Santana

190. Wake Up - Wiz Khalifa

191. Meander - Pedestrian Deposit

192. 4+20 - Stephen Stills

193. Buzzcut Season - Lorde

194. Going to California - Led Zeppelin

195. Rock Music - Pixies

196. Atlantic City - Bruce Springsteen

197. Legalize It - MaZe

198. Warrior - Kesha

199. Never Been - Logic

200. Weakness - Opeth

201. Glass House (Turkey Tamale Remix) - Ani DiFranco

202. Joining You - Alanis Morissette

203. Black Queen [CSNY 1974] - CSNY

204. Falling Short - Lapsley

205. A Better Son/Daughter - Rilo Kiley

206. Mr. Rager - Kid Cudi

207. Drive By - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

208. Holla at Me - Tupac

209. Fossil Record - White Suns

210. Overlap - Ani DiFranco

211. We Multiply - AIDS Wolf

212. Soak up the Sun - Sheryl Crow

213. Heart of the Sunrise - Yes

214. Cowgirl in the Sand [Massey Hall] - Neil Young

215. Wake Up - Mad Season

216. Mr. Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan

217. The Con - Tegan & Sara

218. Teardrops on My Guitar (Pop Mix) - Taylor Swift

219. On the Radio - Regina Spektor

220. Nude as the News - Cat Power

221. The Gunner’s Dream - Pink Floyd

222. Fate to Fatal - Breeders

223. Red Strokes - Garth Brooks

224. Point of no Return - Immortal Technique

225. Break on Through - The Doors

226. I’m Alive - Helloween

227. Blackened - Metallica

228. Immigrant Song [How the West Was Won] - Led Zeppelin

229. Luna - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

230. Anyday - Ani DiFranco

231. Sweet Virginia - Rolling Stones

232. I Know Places - Ryan Adams

233. Carrionshine - Cryptopsy

234. Money Becomes King - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

235. Laugh, I Nearly Died - Rolling Stones

236. Keilohesten - Burzum

237. Down by the River - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

238. Revolution is My Name - Pantera

239. D-7 - Nirvana

240. Dead - Pixies

241. Misery Business - Paramore

242. Burden - Opeth

243. Enter Sandman - Metallica

244. Clash With Reality - Pantera

245. Die Young - Kesha

246. Frogs - Alice In Chains

247. The Ghost Song - The Doors

248. Visions of Johanna - Bob Dylan

[dcrewatch]

Detective Conan Rewatch: Openings 46-50

Openings 46-50 Appreciation Post

Oh snap, time for another round of 5 openings!

Opening 46: "Everything OK!!"

Favorite screencap:

Shin’ichi: “Duck season!”

Ran: “Rabbit season!”

Comments:

Aw, cute.

Shin’ichi: “What do you mean, ‘Sherlock Holmes is stupid’, unicorn!?”

Ran: “For the last time, Shin'ichi, I AM NOT A UNICORN!”

Shin’ichi: “That thing has gotta be a unicorn horn. It’s got to be...”

Ran: “Maybe I was too harsh. It’s just...Maurice Leblanc’s characters I feel are better. ...Not that I’m partial ‘cause of my name or anything...”

Ah yes. Waffle and...crape. My favorite. =w=;;

Conan: “Yeah! Of course I’m in this opening too!”

Conan: “YOLO!”

Aww.

For those wondering what Ran’s message is: “Let’s go see the sea!” (”海を見に行こう”/”Umi o mi ni ikou”)

Man this song was catchy, and the animation was pretty cute!

Opening 47: "Countdown"

Favorite screencap:

Conan: “I mean...I knew I was a walking god of death, but come on? Explosions? Isn’t that a bit much?”

Comments:

Aw jeez. Animation staff putting me through "name that case” hell. (And this is why this post took forever.) I was able to identify 87 out of 91 pictures. Here goes:

Episode 772-773: Shin’ichi Kudo’s Aquarium Case

Episode 2: The Company President’s Daughter Kidnapping Case

Episode 763-764: Conan and Heiji, Code of Love

Episode 406-408: Conan and Heiji’s Reasoning Magic

Episode 279-280: The Hooligan’s Labyrinth

Episode 772-773: Shin’ichi Kudo’s Aquarium Case

Episode 1: The Roller Coaster Murder Case

Episode 770-771: The Tense Tea Party

Episode 425: Black Impact! The Moment the Black Organization Reaches Out

Episode 323-324: Heiji Hattori’s Desperate Situation!

Episode 11: The Moonlight Sonata Murder Case

Episode 343-344: The Convenience Store Trap

Episode 425: Black Impact! The Moment the Black Organization Reaches Out

Episode 497: The Clash of Red and Black

Episode 176-178: Reunion with the Black Organization

Episode 279-280: The Hooligan’s Labyrinth

Episode 490: Heiji Hattori vs. Shin’ichi Kudo: Deduction Battle on the Ski Slope

Episode 779: The Scarlet Prologue

Episode 48-49: The Diplomat Murder Case

Episode 2: The Company President’s Daughter Kidnapping Case

Episode 490: Heiji Hattori vs. Shin’ichi Kudo: Deduction Battle on the Ski Slope

Episode 43: Conan Edogawa Kidnapping Case

Episode 76: Conan vs. Kaitou Kid

Episode 763-764: Conan and Heiji, Code of Love

Episode 523: What She Truly Wants to Ask

Episode 2: The Company President’s Daughter Kidnapping Case

Episode 345: Confrontation with the Black Organization: Two Mysteries on a Night with a Full Moon

Episode 425: Black Impact! The Moment the Black Organization Reaches Out

Episode 836-837: The Unfriendly Girls Band

Episode 1: The Roller Coaster Murder Case

Episode 772-773: Shin’ichi Kudo’s Aquarium Case

Episode 836-837: The Unfriendly Girls Band

Episode 1: The Roller Coaster Murder Case

Episode 11: The Moonlight Sonata Murder Case

Episode 406-408: Conan and Heiji’s Reasoning Magic

Episode 830-832: The Cottage Surrounded By Zombies

Episode 652-655: The Design of Poison and Mirage

Episode 1: The Roller Coaster Murder Case

Episode 770-771: The Tense Tea Party

Episode 646-647: Deduction Showdown at the Haunted Hotel

Episode 1: The Roller Coaster Murder Case

Episode 345: Confrontation with the Black Organization: Two Mysteries on a Night with a Full Moon

Episode 307-308: On the Trail of a Silent Witness

Episode 646-647: Deduction Showdown at the Haunted Hotel

Episode 1: The Roller Coaster Murder Case

Episode 763-764: Conan and Heiji, Code of Love

Episode 11: The Moonlight Sonata Murder Case

Episode 836-837: The Unfriendly Girls Band

Episode 836-837: The Unfriendly Girls Band

Episode 1: The Roller Coaster Murder Case

Episode 76: Conan vs. Kaitou Kid

Episode 457-458: Sonoko’s Red Handkerchief

Episode 827-828: Ramen So Good, It’s to Die For 2

Episode 780: The Scarlet Pursuit

Episode 575-576: The Alibi of the Black Dress

Episode 425: Black Impact! The Moment the Black Organization Reaches Out

Episode 646-647: Deduction Showdown at the Haunted Hotel

Episode 345: Confrontation with the Black Organization: Two Mysteries on a Night with a Full Moon

Episode 219: The Gathering of the Detectives! Shin’ichi Kudo vs Kaitou Kid

Episode 810-812: The Darkness of the Prefectural Police

Episode 345: Confrontation with the Black Organization: Two Mysteries on a Night with a Full Moon

Episode 345: Confrontation with the Black Organization: Two Mysteries on a Night with a Full Moon

Episode ??? (too lazy to continue trying to identify...)

Episode 191: The Desperate Revival ~The Black Knight~

Episode 457-458: Sonoko’s Red Handkerchief

Episode 48-49: The Diplomat Murder Case

Episode 780: The Scarlet Pursuit

Episode 2: The Company President’s Daughter Kidnapping Case

Episode 191: The Desperate Revival ~The Black Knight~

Episode 808-809: The Kamaitachi Inn

Episode 406-408: Conan and Heiji’s Reasoning Magic

Episode 222-224: And Then There Were No Mermaids

Episode 425: Black Impact! The Moment the Black Organization Reaches Out

Episode 1: The Roller Coaster Murder Case

Episode 48-49: The Diplomat Murder Case

Episode 77-78: The Distinguished Family’s Consecutive Accidental Death Case

Episode 830-832: The Cottage Surrounded By Zombies

Episode 1: The Roller Coaster Murder Case

Episode 345: Confrontation with the Black Organization: Two Mysteries on a Night with a Full Moon

Episode 222-224: And Then There Were No Mermaids

Episode 827-828: Ramen So Good, It’s to Die For 2

Episode 772-773: Shin’ichi Kudo’s Aquarium Case

Episode 286-288: Shin’ichi Kudo’s New York Case

Episode 425: Black Impact! The Moment the Black Organization Reaches Out

Episode 810-812: The Darkness of the Prefectural Police

Episode ??? (too lazy to continue trying to identify...)

Episode ??? (too lazy to continue trying to identify...)

Episode 581: The Red Shaking Target

Episode ??? (too lazy to continue trying to identify...)

Episode 1: The Roller Coaster Murder Case

Episode 651: Conan vs. Heiji, Deduction Battle Between the Detectives of the East and West

Well I see the animation staff is having fun with imagining how a final showdown might go.

Conan: “You can tell I mean business by how serious my face is!”

Agasa: “Don’t mind me! Just uh...not stealing books to sell on eBay...nope, no siree.”

Mitsuhiko: “I told you the forecast said rain!”

Genta: “I like to live dangerously!”

Haibara: “Sure hope my friends remembered their umbrellas...”

Kazuha: ‘I could get used to this...’

Shiratori: “You ever think we should stop standing around looking cool and go do stuff?”

Kaitou Kid: “Man I’m cool.”

Organization Member: “Whoa, that was sick!”

Ran: “Shin’ichi, help!”

Shin’ichi: “USE YOUR KARATE DAMNIT!”

Potential Rum suspects.

Conan: “Ran! Use your legs!”

Conan: “LIKE THIS!”

Ran: “Oh, right!”

Pretty interesting “what if” scenario.

Opening 48: "Timeline"

Favorite screencap:

*-Oingo Boingo’s “Weird Science” intensifies-*

Comments:

Shin’ichi: “DON’T DO DRUGS KIIIIIIIIIIIDSSS---!”

Hooray, more case identification. This time figuring out the odd translations of titles of the cases on the books in the background. Books listed are from left to right, top to bottom. Obviously too small to see in my screencaps, but if you watch the opening for yourself, you’ll see what I mean. :D;

763-764: Conan and Heiji's Code of Love

701-704: The Jet-Black Mystery Train

491-504: Clash of Red and Black

457-458: Sonoko's Red Handkerchief

425: Black Impact! The Moment the Black Organization Reaches Out

394-396: Big Adventure in the Eccentric Mansion

385-387: The Dissonance of the Stradivarius

238-239: The 3 "K"s of Osaka Case

50: The Library Murder Case

18: A June Bride Murder Case

174: The Twenty Year Old Murderous Intent: The Symphony Serial Murder Case

166-168: Tottori Spider Mansion Demon

153-154: Sonoko's Dangerous Summer Story

385-387: The Dissonance of the Stradivarius (yes, again in the same shot)

129: The Girl from the Black Organization and the University Professor Murder Case

76: Conan vs. Kaitou Kid

68-70: The Night Baron Murder Case

50: The Library Murder Case (yup, again)

London flashbacks...

Ran’s message she sent to Shin’ichi is basically asking about the upcoming school trip.

Here’s another round...

400: Ran's Suspicions

472-473: Shin'ichi Kudo's Childhood Adventure

490: Heiji Hattori vs. Shin'ichi Kudo: Deduction Battle on the Ski Slope

507-508: The Blind Spot in the Karaoke Box

511: Deduction Showdown! Shin'ichi vs. Subaru Okiya

781: The Scarlet Intersection

780: The Scarlet Pursuit

129: The Girl from the Black Organization and the University Professor Murder Case

162: The Locked Room in the Sky: Shin'ichi Kudo's First Case

266-268: The Truth Behind Valentine's

284-285: Chinatown Deja Vu in the Rain

219: The Gathering of the Detectives! Shin'ichi Kudo vs. Kaitou Kid

345: Head-to-Head Match with the Black Organization: A Dual Mystery on a Full Moon Night

286-288: Shin'ichi Kudo's New York Case

Ran: “...Nope. Holding my phone determinedly does nothing to improve the reception. Stupid cell phone company...”

Looks like more messages asking relating to the upcoming school trip.

Here’s more...

230-231: The Mysterious Passenger

238-239: The 3 "K"s of Osaka Case

304: The Trembling Police Headquarters: 12 Million Hostages

385-387: The Dissonance of the Stradivarius

394-396: Big Adventure in the Eccentric Mansion

400: Ran's Suspicions

425: Black Impact! The Moment the Black Organization Reaches Out

457-458: Sonoko's Red Handkerchief

491-504: Clash of Red and Black

18: A June Bride Murder Case

153-154: Sonoko's Dangerous Summer Story

166-168: Tottori Spider Mansion Demon

174: The Twenty Year Old Murderous Intent: The Symphony Serial Murder Case

Back to the London flashback...

I’m not bothering identifying more. =w=; Books on Conan’s left are segments of the Scarlet Arc, and the others are too much in shadow to read completely.

Okay, one more identification because it’s the story that enables Shin’ichi to join up on the school trip: 925-926: The Heartfelt Strap.

Conan: “Conan...SMASH!!!”

*-Doctor Who theme intensifies-*

Ran: “Did...”

Ran: “Did you just stick a a 10 point landing?”

I see what you did there animators. Clever.

Yup, this too, showing the three sides to Amuro. Cleveerrrr...

Yeah, don’t worry Haibara. My brain’s fried too.

Overall, decent!

Opening 49: "Barairo no Jinsei"

Favorite screencap:

*-“Halleluiah” chorus intensifies-*

Comments:

Nothing really to say new about this one! This one’s just flashy despite not really having any new character animation to speak of; just bits from the school trip arc.

Opening 50: "ANSWER"

Favorite screencap:

When your anime has gone on forever and the person making this blog post wants to reference a now old meme.

Comments:

Gin: “For our next trick we shall now give a performance of Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’!”

Conan: “I knew it. They’re wizards.”

Oh hey, it’s that Itakura guy from Episode 307-308.

Haibara with Mary...who may or may not be related?

Lots of Rum arc relevant things...

Carasuma now showing in the background...ominous.

Next Episode: Episode 946

Previous Episode: Episode 945

#detective conan #detective conan rewatch #openings #名探偵コナン

[venus-says]

Aikatsu! Episodes 174-178

The end of an Era.

We're finally here! After almost 3 weeks, 22 posts, 133 episodes, I've finally made it, I've finished ogkatsu. Wow. What a journey.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, I have still more 5 episodes to talk about before I can get all sad and nostalgic, so let's get right to it.

Episodes 174 to 177 cover the Starlight Queen Cup, so instead of going in deep on each episode, I'll make a general comment of the events.

I think there's a serious problem with structure here because the performances of each character we follow are right back to back this doesn't let enough time in between performances for some more deep issues to be developed and for us to absorb more what was happening on screen. I also don't like the scoring system and how the results were being presented because I feel like it took away a little bit of the surprise element of "who's gonna win?". But I think these are probably the only problem of the cup itself.

Going on the final arcs for each character in order of performance.

Juri is one of the weakest arc, we barely see her in these episodes, she gets a new PR out of nowhere, and even "without" effort she scores so well that she remains on the top for two days. It's clearly the less interesting one.

My baby Risa has probably my favorite development out of the 8, she takes another step into being herself and not just the NoRi NoRi entity which I like, she brought something new performance-wise, and by the end of it she's the one who seems to have grown more in this short amount of time around the SQC. I have a problem with them pulling the "Mizuki is my idol" card here without having any mention of his before, but in the end, they use this in a good way because it gives more pressure on Risa and this gets her on her path to be herself. I also love the rhyme of the last sexy type idol introduced singing the first sexy type song of the show/game.

Nono was great as well, she was adorable as ever in being concerned for Risa and deciding that she would work even harder to avenge her friend. The problem I have is that we didn't get to see a lot of her here, in 174 she was there to support Risa, in 175 she barely got screen time, and she was almost completely forgotten in episodes 176 and 177. I think they could've done more with her.

And more with Rin and Madoka as well that also didn't get that much time to shine, like aside from background scenes I can only remember of them in that scene where they're playing a game in the night because Rin was anxious and during their performances and evaluation. I think they only appear in these instances and when they go support their unit member, and that wasn't even that long. I also don't get why Rin used her first PR here instead of her second, in my head that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Hinaki comes next and I feel like she got the Nono treatment out of the Luminas girls, we barely saw her, she didn't have a major conflict and aside from dethroning Juri, she didn't do a lot in these episodes. But I do appreciate Mikuru giving her support, shows that they're still developing their relationship so that's a plus.

Sumire was also like Hinaki for some time, but she got a major focus on episode 176. And I think she is the one who suffers the most out of the structural problem I've mentioned at the beginning because she failed, and the vibe surrounding that failure was very sad, and I think if we had more time to actually feel this sorrow, to understand Sumire's feelings and what was going through her mind, this would've turned from just a shocking moment into a very memorable moment not just because Sumire failed the appeal. I don't know if I'm explaining myself well here but I had a feeling they wanted to make this moment be something bigger, something better developed, but they messed up with the timing and we got what we got.

Surprisingly enough, Akari didn't get a lot from these episodes. Yes, she becomes the queen, but aside from that, we don't see her having a conflict. This gives me mixed feelings her win feels emotional but not for something she has done in the present but for her trajectory since she started, and while this is magnificent I wish she had some emotional development of her own, to make this win feel even more special.

The last thing I have to say about the cup is that the ending was quite underwhelming and anti-climatic, and I blame this on the structure. Had they spaced the performances out, Akari's performance would be in the second half and the end of the cup wouldn't feel as rushed as it was. I think this would've been beneficial also for the episode 178 because they could come up a better plot for the final episode that way, to make the final episode be more emotional, because I gotta be honest this last episode didn't gave me the feel of "Oh this is ending" that you would expect from such an important episode. Yes, the side characters interacting on the sideways of the race was kinda cute, but overall the episode was pretty bland.

And, for the last time, that was Aikatsu. This was a wild ride, and even though my sleep schedule has been a mess since I began this, I'm still happy that I've done it because this show is amazing, I may complain a lot about things, but the complaints come from a place of love because I really do love Aikatsu, and making this marathon gave me a new respect for the series and the franchise as a whole. Final balance: very positive. My only regret is that sadly I couldn't use a picture of Nono and Risa in the cover of all four posts of season 4 and I feel like I've failed my girls. Tomorrow I'm finally in Stars territory and I'm pumped for it. See you guys. Bye-bi~

#Aikatsu! #aikatsu

[akitokihojo]

Fault

Y’ALL WANT SOME PAIN?

I hope so because this is the end of my fic spam and I’ve got nothing else for you for a while...

Note: This fic takes place between episodes 177 (Flowers Drenched in Sadness) and 178 ep 10 and 11 of Final Act. There’s some trauma discussed in that episode and my girl, Kagome, has her own feelings sort of left up to interpretation at the end, and since I’m over emotional and may have cried, this is my rendition of what should have happened.

-------------------------

Inuyasha sat with his back against the wall of Kaede’s hut, legs crossed in front of him and ears giving little twitches as the quiet of the night set in, the only noises around being the deep breaths of air leaving the lungs of the sleeping members around him and the flickering flames of the dying fire in the center of the room. It was no surprise that he couldn’t sleep. His mind was riddled with questions that had been burning at his tongue just begging to be asked, and even with Kagome on her side of the well, he felt close to bursting.

Over the past week, he’d watched Kagome sit up in her sleeping bag, look around to check that everyone was sleeping, tuck Shippo into the padding of the bag so he was warm enough not to notice her absence, and saunter off into the darkness of the forest. Out of respect, he never followed, thinking she’d only ever venture off like that if she was using the restroom. But when she’d return, her cheeks would hold a hint of pink illuminated by the fire in the middle of their camp. Her eyes would be puffy, the embers creating harsh shadows beneath the swelling of her lower lids. And she would smell of salt.

The scent wasn’t overwhelming. In fact, if Inuyasha wasn’t paying attention he would have missed the bitter whiff of salt altogether. This happened every night. Kagome would get out of her sleeping bag, never once noticing Inuyasha watching from his place not too far from her, and come back with a dull, sad gaze. She’d crawl back into her bag, clutch the young fox kit who wouldn’t wake but would snuggle closer to her chest, and would shut her eyes until sleep eventually took her.

On night number three of this routine, he planned on asking her what was going on. His instincts were, at this point, screaming that something was wrong. How long had this been going on for? He had just barely become aware of the fact that Kagome was tremendously affected by something, and while he had the general idea, his gut told him there was more to it. Since he was coping with his own heartbreak for a while, he hardly noticed what the others did around him, only tuning in during bits and pieces of conversations and when asked a question. The realization that this could have been happening while he was always only a few feet away from Kagome, but never actually present, bruised him.

When she returned from her walk, Inuyasha sat up straighter, not missing the small sniffle from her nose or the way she tucked her head when she noticed him looking at her. He opened his mouth to ask, only able to get out her name before Kagome cut him off by mentioning how awful her allergies had been lately before sending a barely-believable grin his way.

She didn’t want to talk about it, that much was clear. As much as he wanted to hound her and ask what was going on over and over until she gave in and told him, he could tell this was a situation that needed to be handled delicately.

Inuyasha’s specialty.

He’d never seen Kagome like this before. Pissed, yeah. Jealous, sure. Sad, not often but it’s still happened. So distraught that she had to swallow it around her companions and sneak off alone in the middle of the night to let it out, not once.

This all started, or at least was brought to his attention, when they encountered the flower prince, Kao. The bastard got off on peoples’ sadness, making Inuyasha a prime target while he mourned Kikyo’s passing. Little did he know, Kagome was even worse off than he was. He never got clarification for it, though. Kao was elated to announce how Kagome’s sadness triumphed Inuyasha’s, making her all the more appealing to the demon, but stopped abruptly before preaching the cause behind it. Inuyasha didn’t realize it in the moment, but he didn’t want Kao to stop talking. He wanted -no, needed- to know what was tearing her apart inside. She’d mentioned that Kikyo’s death was hard on everyone, but that didn’t tell him anything. The others didn’t sneak off in the dead of night to cry. Kagome did.

The worry was spreading through him at an agonizing pace, causing his knee to bob up and down. It aggravated him that there was seemingly nothing he could do. She’d firmly stated to the invasive bastard that her emotions weren’t for anyone other than herself, so who was he to ask about them? Inuyasha felt that if she were going to open up about what she felt, she would have done so immediately following the incident while the door was open. But she didn’t. Instead, she took care of him and made sure he was okay. Something he should have been doing for her.

Now here he was a week and a half later, sitting up in the middle of the night while the group recouped at Kaede’s place. Kagome had decided to head home to gather more supplies and study for a test she’d fabricated on the spot. Inuyasha had become so attuned to her lately, paying attention to her every quirk and move, how she put in so much effort to appear fine in front of Miroku, Sango, and Shippo, noticing how her cheeks were paling more and more every day, and how her dark brown eyes looked exhausted and puffy. He could tell which smiles were fake now, when she wasn’t asleep, when she would lie about being “just tired” to explain her swollen lower eyelids and lack luster features, and he could tell when she lied to his face about her reason for going back to her time.

He told himself at first that it was best to give her space. Let her have a day, maybe two, at home and she’d come back refreshed and better than ever. She’d take a bath and return smelling of that wonderful, warm, sugary scent Inuyasha had grown to favor about her, and everything would be okay again. He wouldn’t have to worry about her. She’d sleep at night and wouldn’t cry anymore, and Inuyasha would be comforted just knowing that Kagome was happy once again.

That would be too easy, though, wouldn’t it? Something pushed and pulled painfully at him, screaming that Kagome needed him and, yet again, he wasn’t there for her.

Inuyasha curled his fingers into tight fists, his sharp claws biting into the flesh of his palms, the entirety of what was left of his resolve dissipating. As quietly as possible, he stood from his spot, stepped around the curled up, sleeping fox demon, and pushed his way through the hanging door mat and out into the cool night air. Quickly, he hastened his pace, sprinting towards the ancient bone eaters well and jumping straight through.

 The cool air greeted Inuyasha as he slowly slid the shrine door open, looking around to assess his surroundings. Kagome’s time was much safer than his own, but he still preferred awareness over surprises. Even though it was the middle of the night, the quarter moon high in the night sky, the distant roads still sounded busy. Kagome had told him that sort of thing was common in her village -or city, he remembered her calling it. Her family’s shrine on the other hand, further away from most of the commotion, was quiet and peaceful. He soundlessly slid the door to the well shut behind him, looking at each window of Kagome’s home and noticing none of the lights on. As he approached the building, he took in the quiet of the house. He could usually hear her grandpa snoring or her younger brother watching shows on the television in the living room, but it was stone-still inside. Aside from Kagome’s room.

Small, weak whimpers emitted from the open, glass window caused his pointed ears to lay flat along his head as a heavy feeling settled into the cavity of Inuyasha’s chest. The half demon launched himself from the hard earth beneath his feet to the base of her window, balancing on the edge of the wood and analyzing the dark room.

The door across the way was open, the halls pitch black and hard for even him to see into. The floor around was a mess; books were scattered around and opened with their pages folded damagingly against the ground, the small lamp that usually sat on Kagome’s desk was broken on the opposite side of the room, clothes were strewn about, and even the chair was tipped over in the middle of the walking space. Inuyasha silently stepped in, peering at the girl sitting hunched over on her bed staring blankly at the comforter beneath her folded legs and holding her towel against her bare chest. Her black hair was wet, still dripping along the skin of her back, small goosebumps evident from the moonlight shining in through the window pane.

The half demon stood frozen in place from the scene in front of him. His initial thought was Kagome had to have been attacked, baring his claws before he realized he couldn’t smell anything or anyone foreign in her home. Only the usual scents lingered, along with the fresh and sweet aroma of the shampoo Kagome must have just used, still strong from her sodden locks. He didn’t sense any sort of immediate danger, so what the hell could have happened? The girl in front of him hardly moved, only trembling slightly as she continued to stare at the blanket along the length of her bed and brought the towel she held loosely in her fingers up to her mouth to cover the bottom lip she chewed on. The only bit of clothing she donned was black underwear, and while this wasn’t his first time seeing her undressed, it still created a tender feeling to swell and tighten in his abdomen at seeing her in such a raw and vulnerable state. He thought to cover her up somehow to protect her from feeling any further and unnecessary defenselessness, but he couldn’t find the will to move.

She took in a shaky breath, sniffling as a salty tear ran down the length of her nose and dripped onto her knee. Slowly, Kagome blinked and turned her head to face Inuyasha, a look of realization emerging on her pale cheeks, her shoulders broadening as she finally processed his presence. She whipped her torso away to face the back wall, clutching the white cloth to her chest with one hand and wiping her tear-stained face with the other.

“Kagome-“

“What are you doing here?” Kagome asked, her hoarse voice appearing harsh and direct. She continued to hide her face, and he could tell she was trying to compose herself by taking deep breaths and shaking her head as if to push the problem to the back of her mind.

“I came to check on you. What the hell happened, Kagome?!” Inuyasha fired, taking a step forward but stopping as her brown eyes darted back in his direction and pierced through him.

“Nothing.” Kagome answered resolutely.

“Don’t give me that! This doesn’t look like nothing to me!”

“Leave it alone, Inuyasha.” She demanded through gritted teeth, a red blemishing her face as she pushed herself further onto her bed and back against the white wall. He paused for a moment, taking in the shaking sight of her. She wasn’t afraid, he knew her better than that. She didn’t fear him, so he knew full and well that that wasn’t why she was backing away. This had everything to do with the pain Kao boasted about a week and a half ago. The pain she’d been dealing with for too long now. She’d had to swallow and contain it for over a week, maybe even longer considering Inuyasha wasn’t aware until recently, only letting bits and pieces of it out while she thought everyone slept. This was her inevitable mental breakdown from holding it back for as long as she did. The scattered and broken items on the floor were Kagome releasing the dark depths of it all.

Inuyasha took another small step forward, untying the knot at the front of his fire rat as he watched Kagome quickly wipe the tears that relentlessly continued to flow.

“Here, let me-“

“Go home!” Kagome snapped, forcing herself to appear as small against the wall as she could.

“No, I-“

“Leave me alone, Inuyasha!” She screamed, crumbling forward as she brought the dampened towel up to hide her face and squeezed her legs into her chest, her muffled sobs causing a lump to form in the half demon’s throat. Inuyasha stood there, mouth slightly agape as he tried to figure out what to do. He’d never seen her like this before. He’d never seen anyone like this before. Was he supposed to leave her to handle this alone? He figured that was a trash idea considering she was already left alone for a small fragment of time and this was what he showed up to, but then what? He wasn’t necessarily any good at handling crying people, let alone Kagome crying. It was no secret that Inuyasha wasn’t good with emotions, period. And this… This was a whole new level. Kagome’s front was disintegrating as she bawled and quivered in the ball she’d rolled herself into, begging him to leave between each heart-shattering cry.

The thought of leaving her alone like this, trembling and broken, made Inuyasha feel physically sick. He couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave her. As much as he didn’t know what to do, he was fully aware that being away from Kagome right now was the worst possible solution.

He swallowed the hardened lump, feeling the thick, heavy ball travel down his esophagus and land in the pit of his already-aching stomach. He removed the suikan from his shoulders and made his way through the mess on the floor, avoiding the school books and the writing utensils littering the place, and stopped just before the edge of her mattress. He leaned over, wrapping the thick robe over her naked shoulders, respecting the space she needed at the moment and finding it might be more comfortable for the both of them if he averted his eyes for the time being.

“I won’t leave.” Inuyasha started, crossing his arms tightly over his chest and staring at the broken glass from the lamp at the edge of the room. He heard Kagome still slightly, small gasps continuing to escape her mouth, but the shaking muscles ceasing under the warmth of his fire rat. “I can wait with you.”

“N-no.” Kagome’s voice was weak and muffled, his sensitive ears hardly picking it up.

“I won’t leave.” He repeated firmly, briefly glancing back at her with his amber eyes but looking away again towards the closet doors.

“I n-never wa-wanted you t-to s-see me like th-this.” She sobbed, clutching her legs even tighter, burying her face further into her knees.

“Why, Kagome?!” He pushed, finding it impossible to look away from her any longer. “It’s just me!”

“Because it’s you!” Kagome finally looked up at him, the salt from her fresh, hot tears so pungent that he could taste it. Her hair was just beginning to dry, messy waves forming around her face and casting harsh shadows with the moonlight under her swollen eyes. The apples of her cheeks were stained pink and irritated from the constant wiping she did in an attempt to stop the scorching liquid that relentlessly leaked down.

Inuyasha took a small step back, the heel of his foot connecting with some of the spilled contents from her yellow backpack, his knuckles white from the fists he tightly clenched. His golden eyes were wide with shock at her statement, the anxiety already building within him causing his lungs to clench and ache. He didn’t understand what was going on. Over the time they’d spent with each other, through the battles and arguments, all the shit they’d been through at each other’s sides she still felt the need to hide her pain and it fucking killed him.

“You… don’t trust me.” He said more than asked, their gazes locking as she shook her head fervently.

“No! No, Inuyasha, it’s not that!” Kagome defended, dropping the towel to the side and crawling closer to the edge of her mattress, clutching the inside of the suikan closed with one hand while bracing herself with the other. “You’ve had to deal with so much already. I-I never wanted my own troubles to burden you.”

“Burden?” Inuyasha asked, trying to swallow the anger that suddenly built up. “Kagome, did you think I didn’t notice this shit earlier? Did you think I never noticed you leaving in the middle of the night to cry?!”

“There was only that one-“

“No, I saw you leave every-fucking-night!” He barked, throwing his arms out in front of him in emphasis. “You lying to me, sneaking off, pretending you’re fine, and hiding whatever you’re feeling is what’s burdening me! So why don’t you just spit it out?! I don’t care what I’ve had to “deal with!” I don’t care if the world is crumbling around me and I’m holding the weight of it up with my shoulders! I can handle anything you throw at me, Kagome, so stop bottling it up like an idiot and tell me what the hell is going through your head!”

Kagome’s bottom lip quivered, pouting outward as she shut her eyes and folded into herself, causing a horrible chill to painfully course through every vein in Inuyasha’s body, sending shocks to each nerve ending that nearly had him crumbling on the spot. He bent to his knees, crawling the short distance to reach the side of the bed and peered at her face through her untidy bangs, wondering if it was safe to touch her yet because it was getting harder and harder to keep his hands at his sides. Her sobs racked her whole body, the whimpers escaping her throat seeming small yet so raw it made him wish this were his human night so that his hearing wasn’t so keen.

“I didn’t know you saw me,” She whispered, shaking her head yet again. “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Inuyasha hushed, gently pressing his forehead to hers, his nails threading into her damp hair and holding her to him by the crook if her jaw. “Just tell me, Kagome. Please.”

She continued her quiet apologies, each one filling Inuyasha’s chest with a hollow ache. Seeing her like this, feeling her body’s small quakes and hiccups from the unceasing crying made him feel so helpless. So useless. He wanted to take everything she was feeling and make it his own. He wanted to absorb her sorrow and take every ounce of it away from her. Inuyasha didn’t care how much pain he’d be in afterwards. He’d do whatever it took to see the woman whose smile provided him with hope and comfort okay again.

“It’s my fault.” Kagome finally admitted, leaning back from him, a cold breeze brushing against the spot her hot forehead once leaned against. “It’s all my fault, Inuyasha. You trusted me, and I let you down.”

“What do you mean?“

“Kikyo.” She choked, clutching the robe around her shoulders even tighter, bringing it up towards her face to hide behind. “Only I could save her, and I messed up!”

Inuyasha took a moment, his hands falling to the bed spread, processing all the information she’d given him in just that one, short declaration. He could hear it in the hook her voice gave, expressing just how guilty and responsible she felt for the priestess’s death. There was no way in hell he imagined she had this hanging over her shoulders.

“This isn’t your fault.” The half demon acknowledged incredulously, shaking his head slowly as he tried to make sense of her guilt. “This isn’t even close to your fault!”

“Don’t you get it, Inuyasha?”

“Don’t you get it? I was the one that should have protected her!”

“You can’t be in two places at once!” Kagome argued. “I was there! I had to purify her with the bow from Mount Azusa; that was the one thing I was told to do!”

“You did that, Kagome!”

“No, you don’t understand! I hesitated when I faced the spirit of the mountain! I was unsure and if I didn’t have to take that moment to sort everything out, we could have gotten back to Kikyo sooner!”

“Stop!”

“If I were stronger, maybe I could have purified her soul with that arrow like I was supposed to!”

“She redirected it with the sacred jewel! That wasn’t-“

“If I were stronger, she would have lived!” Kagome cried, letting go of the fire rat altogether and slamming her hands against the firm mattress. “If I were stronger, you wouldn’t have lost Kikyo!”

The hanyou’s heart was pounding erratically against his ribcage, his fingers trembling from the sheer amount of unbridled emotion in their argument. As much as he felt to blame for Kikyo’s passing… As much as he felt it was his fault because he didn’t get to her side fast enough, deep in his gut he knew there was no stopping it. It was always easier to blame himself than to accept the fact that Kikyo had planned to sacrifice herself in order to defeat Naraku.

Kikyo was never meant to be at that battle in the first place. She was a specter, unwillingly walking this Earth once again, living off only a fragment of her own soul along with the continuously delivered souls of dead women, with the pure intention to defeat Naraku. What was her goal after the fight was over? What was she intending to do once Naraku was killed? Live a happy life alongside Inuyasha? No, that was never the plan for either of them.

Inuyasha swallowed thickly, climbing onto the bed next to Kagome, his legs curving around the sides of her body. He adjusted the loosely splayed, red garment around her bare shoulders, gently grabbing her arms to weave them through the sleeves and pulling her to look at him with the front of the open robes. Her brown eyes, clouded with sorrow and remorse, met his own gaze and caused every muscle in his abdomen to clench.

“Kagome, I want you to listen to me.” He insisted, his grip on the hem of his robe tightening.

“Inu-“

“Listen to me.” Kagome shut her mouth, the pink skin of her lips sealing as her eyebrows twitched together in response to his tone, then relaxed. “In no way do I blame you, do you understand? You fought with everything you had, and you did everything you could. Kikyo came up with a plan of her own, and I don’t know if it was something she’d come up with long beforehand or on the spot, but she sacrificed herself in an attempt to purify Naraku and no one can be held responsible for her decisions. I’d lost her years ago, Kagome, so this wasn’t entirely about me losing her. It was more about feeling like I’d let her down again. I didn’t save her and that’s why I blamed myself, but with all that you did and all that you overcame just to fight for Kikyo’s soul, I could never find fault in you. Ever.”

“You didn’t let her down, though!” Kagome whimpered, scooting her knees inward to fully face the half demon, her bottom lip pouting out again.

“I know that. And I also know how hard it is to convince yourself otherwise when you feel responsible for something. So, I want you to take your time with this. If I have to remind you every day of how strong I think you are, I’ll do it. If you need a reminder that you aren’t to blame for Kikyo’s death, I’ll give that to you. I’m here, Kagome. You don’t have to deal with this alone anymore.” Inuyasha threaded his fingers of one hand through her raven hair once more, being mindful of his claws while gently gripping the thick strands at the nape of her neck.

Kagome took a moment and Inuyasha could feel the tremors from her body just inches from his finally calm. Her thick, wet lashes blinked away a couple more tears that had lined the rim of her eyelids, the thumb of Inuyasha’s other hand leaving the hem of the fire rat and softly wiping the searing liquid away, cupping her cheek within his palm. She exhaled, and he could feel her muscles tense as she tried to quickly put up another façade, but it crumbled immediately, and she launched herself into the heat of his chest, wrapping her arms around him and sobbing into his kosode.

“I’m so sorry, Inuyasha! I’m so sorry!” Kagome repeated over and over, the apologies muffled by his thick shirt. His arms instinctively wrapped firmly around her while he supported her weight, feeling her hot breath on his skin, burning through his clothing and seeping through to his heart.

Inuyasha continued to hold her, her small frame nestled tightly against his torso, snug in between his legs while his fingers combed through her hair as it continued to dry completely, and he rested his chin on top of her head. He shushed her when necessary, but otherwise allowed her to cry until she couldn’t cry anymore. Her choppy breathing eventually calmed and then eventually deepened, the grip her fingers held along the back of his shirt loosening, and Inuyasha slowly leaned back against the comforter of the bed until his head sunk into Kagome’s pillow. She adjusted herself slightly but stayed pressed to his chest, her thin fingers playing with the extra cloth along the hanyou’s waist.

“You should get some rest, Kagome.” Inuyasha whispered, his palm stilling at the crown of her head as their lungs synchronized. “There’s nothing to worry about anymore. Not while I’m with you.”

He felt her nod, her eyelashes tickling the flesh at the base of his throat as they closed, her spent body growing heavier on top of him. His own eyes began drifting shut, and after weeks of fighting the exhaustion, he finally felt like he didn’t have to anymore. His own mind began to calm considerably, and with Kagome pressed up against him, her pure heart beating alongside his rib cage, it brought a deepening comfort he could hardly describe. A warmth began spreading throughout his veins, starting at where their skin touched and expanding to fill him with a sensation he’d grown familiar to feeling only with her. He hoped he could provide in return even a fraction of what Kagome unknowingly provided for him; the safety and serenity just her presence offered, let alone what the physical pressure of her body did. It was the feeling he bathed in whenever he was with Kagome that helped him get through the trials he’d faced since waking from his fifty-year sleep, and he could only hope to bring her the same sort of peace. If he was able to do that, he’d consider himself more than content. Kagome muttered a soft thank you to him, and he flexed his arms around her chest, refusing to let go of her even while he gave into sleep.

#Inuyasha #kagome #Kagome Higurashi #inukag #inuyasha fanfiction #inuyasha fanfic #inuyasha fic #inukag fanfiction #inukag fanfic #inukag fic #angst #my writing #kagomeinthepast

[awkward-whiteboy]

1-200

200 Questions to Ask Me!

200: My crush’s name is:  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 199: I was born in: Michigan198: I am really: Depressed, bored, hungry, lonely197: My cellphone company is: Verizon196: My eye color is: Brown/ugly195: My shoe size is: 11194: My ring size is:8.5193: My height is: 6″3192: I am allergic to: Medicine, tree dust191: My 1st car was: The piece of shitmobile190: My 1st job was: Illegal  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 189: Last book you read: How to Think About Weird Things Critical Thinking for a New Age. (Yes it’s a college textbook, but if you love debating with people on the internet [ though this is pointless] this book is a must read).188: My bed is: a college loft that I fear is going to fall any second. 187: My pet: Pet no, mascot my HARAMBE FLAG! 186: My best friend: @rinkatai @aesthetichalestorm @bookerdewiit 185: My favorite shampoo is: Whatever I have in the shower when I’m showering184: Xbox or ps3: either, but Mario Kart trumps them all183: Piggy banks are: cool if they aren’t the break ones182: In my pockets: wallet, room keys, a “Thanks asshole” note someone graciously wrote me 181: On my calendar: Peoples birthdays, and predictions for stupids shit. (5 for 6 on them being right)180: Marriage is: dumb, combining debt together over a stupid ceremony. Why not just say fuck it and save the money for a sweet house and lots of animals179: Spongebob can: keep coming out. I love that show. If given the time, I could probably quote almost all the episodes178: My mom: is my mom177: The last three songs I bought were? People buy songs? I can name albums: Reaching into infinity, Begining of the End, One More Light176: Last YouTube video watched: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsx0d3p4SMQ

175: How many cousins do you have? That I talk to, 3,4. total like 22+

174: Do you have any siblings? Youngest of 5

173: Are your parents divorced? No

172: Are you taller than your mom? Yes

171: Do you play an instrument? Guitar and Trombone

170: What did you do yesterday? Stayed up til 5 am playing Garrys Mod

[ I Believe In ]

169: Love at first sight: Sort of, doesnt work out though

168: Luck: Luck is an undeclared claim.

167: Fate: Nope

166: Yourself: Never. I always fail

165: Aliens: Hard to say, 

164: Heaven: No

163: Hell: I am a living hell

162: God: not a god, but a something

161: Horoscopes: Nope

160: Soul mates: Yes

159: Ghosts: No

158: Gay Marriage: Marriage is Marriage, IMO calling it Gay marriage is trying to make it different than regular marriage.

157: War: Yes

156: Orbs: YEs

155: Magic: No

[ This or That ]

154: Hugs or Kisses: Hugs

153: Drunk or High: Both.  ( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)

152: Phone or Online: Phone

151: Red heads or Black haired: Red Heads, but thats just from my experience

150: Blondes or Brunettes: Brunettes

149: Hot or cold: Mild

148: Summer or winter: Winter

147: Autumn or Spring: Spring

146: Chocolate or vanilla: Vanilla

145: Night or Day: Night

144: Oranges or Apples: Apple

143: Curly or Straight hair: Curly

142: McDonalds or Burger King: BK

141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: White Chocolate

140: Mac or PC: PC

139: Flip flops or high heals: Flippers

138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: Sweet and Poor

137: Coke or Pepsi: Don’t care, just gots to be diet

136: Hillary or Obama: Norm is my OTP  ( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)

135: Burried or cremated: Cremated, that way I’ll still be around people when im dead because no one would come willing if I was buried

134: Singing or Dancing: My singing is 1 of a kind

133: Coach or Chanel: Chanel because meme

132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: Kat McPhee, only because I don’t know any of them and Hick is a bad name with my life.

131: Small town or Big city: Both

130: Wal-Mart or Target: Target

129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: Ben Stiller

128: Manicure or Pedicure: Pedi

127: East Coast or West Coast: Weast Coast  ( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)

126: Your Birthday or Christmas: Birthday, people notice me :)

125: Chocolate or Flowers: Flowers

124: Disney or Six Flags: Datknee… Disney

123: Yankees or Red Sox: Neither

[ Here’s What I Think About ]

122: War: Pointless, but happens, Realistically, will never end.

121: George Bush: All politics have goods and bads, we’ve had better, but we also had far worse.

120: Gay Marriage: Always said

119: The presidential election: Popular vote and the current way are both fraud by the way America is. A completely new system is needed.

118: Abortion: Not a women so my opinion is not valid or needed. Honestly I hate kids. so Pro

117: MySpace: Last i checked (like a year ago,) its pretty much a Soundcloud.

116: Reality TV: Stupid

115: Parents: Do what they do. Different generation so their ways of parenting are theirs.

114: Back stabbers: Too many in my life… DAMN… MAYBE THIS IS WHY I AM FUCKED UP.

113: Ebay: I spend too much money on it

112: Facebook: Fuck the Zuck

111: Work: Never had a legal job

110: My Neighbors: Can go shove a knife up their asses 

109: Gas Prices: Better than the past

108: Designer Clothes: I’m making a separate post about this.. I might be in a bit of trouble with my college over this.

107: College: I don’t fit in anywhere. only friends I have I went to High school with. 

106: Sports: Really wish I played football in High school. I know I wouldn’t play at my school, but a smaller one I would.

105: My family: Family is family

104: The future: WIll not be brighter. 

[ Last time I ]

103: Hugged someone: Too long ago

102: Last time you ate: yesterday (2:00pm 12/13/2017)

101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: Emotional abuser has a drug dealer that lives in my colleges town. Saw her :/ cried for hours.

100: Cried in front of someone: Summer 2017

99: Went to a movie theater: whenever IT came out. Got in trouble with my colelge cause of roommates

98: Took a vacation: too long ago

97: Swam in a pool: summer 2017

96: Changed a diaper: never

95: Got my nails done: never

94: Went to a wedding: Spring 2017

93: Broke a bone: with a doctor knowing never, but like 6 years ago

92: Got a piercing: None

91: Broke the law:  ( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)

90: Texted: I stubbed my nose on the elevator

[ MISC ]

89: Who makes you laugh the most: Doc

88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: Nothing

87: The last movie I saw: Cure For Wellness

86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: Going home so I wont be alone with my depressing thoughts and questionable music

85: The thing im not looking forward to: going to the meeting

84: People call me: Davie Crocket Davy Divad Garbage, fucker loser, pretty much every name in the book

83: The most difficult thing to do is: pretend to be normal

82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: Talked the cop out of it with my mindfucking bullshittery

81: My zodiac sign is: Scorpio

80: The first person i talked to today was:

@rinkatai

79: First time you had a crush: 9th Grade

78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: Rink

77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: Last week

76: Right now I am talking to: Myself 

75: What are you going to do when you grow up: Good question  ( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)  

74: I have/will get a job: No, I cant do interviews I alwasy fuck them up or never get called back

73: Tomorrow: hopefully do something better

72: Today: Watched 9 hours of netflixs

71: Next Summer: Too far to determain

70: Next Weekend: Too far to determain

69: I have these pets: None

68: The worst sound in the world: College kids screaming because finals when they are just being cliche

67: The person that makes me cry the most is: myself

66: People that make you happy: Happy? whats that

65: Last time I cried: Today

64: My friends are: Rin Doc 

63: My computer is: Fucked up because everything I own always gets fucked up

62: My School: College sucks, High School : IN A LOT OF HOT WATER

61: My Car: is a piece of shit

60: I lose all respect for people who: treat me bad… damn thats like 95% of the people I see

59: The movie I cried at was: The Producer

58: Your hair color is: Ugly Brown

57: TV shows you watch: The OFfice

56: Favorite web site: Higher or Lower Youtube

55: Your dream vacation: Somewhere with the right person

54: The worst pain I was ever in was: The emotion and things I live with everyday.

53: How do you like your steak cooked: However it is cooked

52: My room is: MY STUFF IS CLEAN roommate 1 is not

51: My favorite celebrity is: Too many to name

50: Where would you like to be: A better state of mind

49: Do you want children: NO

48: Ever been in love: Sadly

47: Who’s your best friend: Rin Doc

46: More guy friends or girl friends: Girl Friends

45: One thing that makes you feel great is: Dark humor

44: One person that you wish you could see right now: :’(

43: Do you have a 5 year plan: I only plan 5 minutes in advance

42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: No, honestly asking 10th grade me, i only planned up till graduation

41: Have you pre-named your children: NO KIDS

40: Last person I got mad at:  ( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)

39: I would like to move to: Sanity land

38: I wish I was a professional: Musician

[ My Favorites ]

37: Candy: Sour Skittles or Mega Sours

36: Vehicle: Piece of Shit Mobile

35: President: Suliman with the Onion hat

34: State visited: Iowa. 

33: Cellphone provider: Verizon

32: Athlete: Cardale Jones

31: Actor: Bill Mother Fucking Murry

30: Actress: Emma Watson

29: Singer: Davey Jones, Davey Havok, Chester, and many more

28: Band: Too many, but I will say I’ve personally met one of them

27: Clothing store: cheap ones

26: Grocery store: cheap ones

25: TV show: Office, Simpsons South Park TWD

24: Movie: Cure For Wellness Clockwork Orange, Cant remember the name, but the original hunger games… the japanese one

23: Website: youtube

22: Animal: panda pugs

21: Theme park: cedar point

20: Holiday: leif erikson day

19: Sport to watch: hockey

18: Sport to play: football

17: Magazine:  ( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)

16: Book: Too many

15: Day of the week: Monday. Because I play a game of what sucks more… I win a lot

14: Beach: na

13: Concert attended: Alice Cooper 3x, Deep Purple, Stone Sour, Skillet, Motley Crue 2x, FFDP, Wayland, Valraven, Alterbridge, Iron Maiden, going to see Judas Priest with someone in April

12: Thing to cook: Pasta and muffins

11: Food: ^

10: Restaurant: places with spicy chicken nuggets rice pudding and chicken noodle soup

9: Radio station: 101 WRIF Q106

8: Yankee candle scent: N/A

7: Perfume: N/A

6: Flower: Idk Roses or Marigolds

5: Color: Black orange green

4: Talk show host:  ( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)

3: Comedian: A lot

2: Dog breed: PUG

1: did you answer all these truthfully? Like 4 are not :/

[toraonice]

Yuri on Ice BD booklet translation (with Eiji Abiko & Junpei Tatenaka interview) - Volume 3

Had a busy weekend, but finally here is the full translation of the BD/DVD vol.3 booklet. The format is the same as usual. I wonder if Yuuri was ever able to enjoy a banquet (and remember it), lol.

EDIT: I changed the translation of the street food eaten by Guang-Hong in episode 6 after being notified that it’s actually the Chinese “jianbing”, which is a kind of crepe, and not “rice cracker” which is what “senbei” means in Japanese. Thank you very much @dragonaeve  for the input!! In Japanese it’s written 煎餅, with the same exact kanji of "senbei” (rice cracker), and though in the anime it totally didn’t look like a senbei to me I failed to notice that it was a false friend... (And to think I even researched all the other Chinese food listed in the topics section to be sure..)

The booklet has 3 parts: 1) Character introduction for Minami-kun, Georgi and Leo.  2) “Topics”, in other words random curiosities. It includes an explanation of how Japanese qualification matches work. 3) Interview with the figure skating animators Eiji Abiko and Junpei Tatenaka. Some of the things they say might be a little difficult to understand if you don’t know a lot about how animation works, but if you google “inbetween animations” you will find more detailed information. The parts in round brackets are exactly like they are in the original text, it’s not something I added.

Translations of the audio commentary and choreography parts coming in the next few days… (As usual I still haven’t even been able to put the BD in the player despite having it since the 23rd, sigh)

***If you wish to share this translation please do it by reblogging or posting a link to it*** 
***Re-translating into other languages is ok but please mention that this post is the source***

The future protagonist of Japan’s figure skating world!

Kenjirou Minami voiced by Ayumu Murase

Profile Date of birth: August 18th, 17 years old Height: 155 cm Blood type: O From Hakata, Fukuoka prefecture

Introduction Last season, all eyes were on him when in the Japan National Championships, in which he participated from the junior section, he became the center of attention and obtained the bronze medal at the young age of 16. This season, which marks his senior debut, he first succeeded in a quadruple jump at the Chu-Shikoku-Kyushu Regional Tournament. Despite his small build, he brightens the hearts of the audience with his energetic skating and exhuberant dancing. The success rate of his quadruple jump and triple axel is still low, but he is the most promising young athlete that might become the future Japanese ace. He admires Yuuri Katsuki, who is from Kyushu like him, and for this reason he chose “Lohengrin” as his short program in the current season. His parents are doctors and his older brother is also a medical student. The late-blooming veteran becomes a witch.

Georgi Popovich voiced by Wataru Hatano

Profile Date of birth: December 26th, 27 years old Height: 178 cm Blood type: private Russian

He is a veteran who can perform high jumps worthy of one of Yakov’s students, but always tended to be overshadowed by fellow student Nikiforov. In this season where Nikiforov is absent he chose 2 programs based on the theme of “heartbreak” to fight to become Russia’s top athlete. With his peculiar artistic sense, in the short program he plays an evil witch that puts a curse on the princess, and in the free the prince that will save her. As also stated by Yakov, he practices hard and strictly follows his coach’s advices. He always entertains fans with his feminine costumes and in Japan is popularly called “pigeon”. Because music was always with me.

Leo de la Iglesia voiced by Shunichi Toki

Profile Date of birth: August 2nd, 19 years old Height: 167 cm Blood type: O American

Introduction A skater that knows how to show his charm and always performs programs brimming with originality, choreographed by himself. He doesn’t jump quadruples, but his Program Components are highly praised because of his performances that give importance to the music. This season he tried his hand at hip-hop in the short program and won the American tournament of the Grand Prix series, held in his country. He is riding on the wave. In his everyday life he is a cheerful American of Mexican origin and is very sociable. He has many friends among fellow figure skaters and his fans are always looking forward to the private shots he uploads on the SNS. He respects Nikiforov, who also choreographs his own programs. YURI!!!’s TOPIC

TOPIC 1: Greed to SNS** (Thirst for the SNS) There are many skaters who share information with fans all over the world via the internet. Now that SNS are popular, skaters will upload a variety of contents, from their practice footage to their daily meals and private pictures of their holidays, some even being as open as to post romantic shots with their lovers. Fans can’t take their eyes off the social networks. In this regard, one of the hottest accounts is Thailand’s Phichit Chulanont’s. From pictures of his fainted teacher to candid shots of other skaters, he uploads any “juicy moment” he witnesses, in a way being the terror of the ones close to him. However, fans absolutely don’t want him to change his habits. [**translator’s note: “Greed to SNS” is what is actually written in English in the booklet, the part in round brackets is a more exact translation of what the Japanese says. All titles of the topics are in both Japanese & English and I’m usually leaving the original English as it is unless it’s weird.]

*Yuuri’s “Hanarezu ni Soba ni Ite” was also spread to the world *The results of matches and other news are always at hand *Maybe Anya’s gaze was already turned to someone else here…? (Phichit’s collection) *Regular updates about his state *He will never miss the chance to get a good shot *Sometimes it’s important to have the courage to upload!

TOPIC 2: Personal Best Score In figure skating, which is a technical sport, an athlete’s highest score up to the present is called “personal best” and the highest score of the season “season best”. Not only his ranking, but whether he managed to surpass his personal best is very important for a skater’s motivation. The season best is also important, because some big tournaments like the World Championships have a required minimum score to participate. ISU (International Skating Union) openly displays all skaters’ personal bests, but only the results obtained in competitions officially recognized by ISU are a target, therefore even if a skater achieves good results in the Japan National Championships or the Chu-Shikoku-Kyushu Regional Tournament, unfortunately they will not be recognized.

*The score display for regional tournaments is simple *The electric scoreboard of the GP’s China tournament (showing the PB mark too) *The TV live broadcast shows the PB mark too

TOPIC 3: National Competitions For Japanese skaters to be able to represent the nation in the World Championships or the Olympics, they need to first win the regional block tournaments and then rank high in the Japan National Championships in December. There are 6 block tournaments, including the “Chu-Shikoku-Kyushu Regional Tournament” in which Yuuri participated, and if you rank high in these you qualify for the Eastern Japan or Western Japan Championships. And if you rank high in those you can proceed to the National Championships (the ones who ranked among the highest the previous year and the ones who have to attend overseas tournaments close to the date of the national competition will be exempted from the qualifiers). By the way, regarding the Grand Prix Series, participants are chosen based on the results obtained in international tournaments the previous year and other elements.

*4 senior athletes are participating in the Chu-Shikoku-Kyushu Regional Tournament *The skating order is chosen by drawing lots the day before *Official practice takes place 2 times, in the morning of the day of the SP and FS *It’s not rare for tournaments to be held in rinks without viewer stands *The skating order and raking are printed on paper *The award ceremony is often done outside of the rink and not on the ice

TOPIC 4: Chinese Gourmet This year’s China tournament of the Grand Prix was held in Beijing. While other athletes are preparing for the match, Victor and Yuuri went to enjoy the traditional Chinese “hotpot”. Various kinds of food, like mutton, are dipped in a pot that has two compartments, one with mild hot water soup and the other with spicy Mala soup. “Duck blood” is also a classic dish that goes with hotpot. The Chinese representant Guang-Hong Ji, who isn’t a fan of hotpot, likes the jianbing (crepes) sold at food stalls. Before the matches Yuuri was paying attention to what he ate not to compromise his physical condition, but at the banquet he had to look after a drunken Victor and it doesn’t seem that he could really have a taste of the Chinese delicacies.

*Winter is the season of Chinese mitten crab. The same as the skating season! *”Drunken shrimp” consists of live shrimps soaked in alcohol *”Duck blood” has a high nutritional value *People dip their favorite ingredients in the hotpot *Rice crackers are affordable snacks that can be purchased from food stalls Figure skating animation Eiji Abiko & Junpei Tatenaka interview

Tatenaka-san’s Victor is so elegant. (Abiko) Abiko-san’s spins are amazing! (Tatenaka)

Abiko: I also took part in the production of director Yamamoto’s previous work “ENDLESS NIGHT”, but I’ve always liked drawing looking at real life pictures, therefore when I was offered this job I thought that I had the necessary technical skills to do it. In the previous work there were some points I believed could have been done a different way, and I felt that in this new project we could try it out. Tatenaka: Before starting the job, I was suggested to try figure skating myself since the work was going to be about it, so I went to a skating class. Though it was just 4 days. The last time I skated was in elementary school, but (when I actually tried this time) I realized that I was going to draw something I knew nothing about. I could understand on which part of the blade you shift your weight when skating forward or backward, and that was really helpful later on. (When I watched the real life footage) after knowing that, I noticed that skaters really land on those points after a jump. They can land on the exact point even after spinning around at that speed! When I see videos where you can see them stress the landing to adjust the position so that they don’t miss the point I have goosebumps.

-Ideas to make performances look beautiful.-

T: What I realized when we started working is that scenes were very long, in the beginning. A: The director wanted to recreate a figure skating program and was determined to show the full sequence without shortening it. This means that all movements need to be connected, which takes a lot of work. T: Especially in the first part of the show, there were many sequences over 10 seconds long. You draw and draw and it never ends (LOL). A: To make skating performances look beautiful, I guess it was important to add a fair amount of inbetween animations (pictures added between key animations to supplement them). We gradually understood that using many key animations during slow movements wouldn’t make them look better unless they are very accurate. T: I had the idea to show the poses on screen for a longer time. (I was among the ones who went to Miyamoto-sensei’s choreography sessions, and) even poses that were really impressive when I saw them live only lasted an instant in the recorded footage, and it shifted to the next pose right away. If we recreated that in the anime, poses that were supposed to look impressive wouldn’t last, therefore I decided to use 2 extra key animations for some parts, so that the beautiful silhouette would stay in the viewers’ eyes. I like to draw “impressions”, and I always work thinking about what I want to show and communicate to the viewers. With figure skating I felt this all the more important. A: There are many things I found amazing about the scenes created by Tatenaka-san. Like Victor’s elegance in episode 1, isn’t that wonderful? When I watched it I was like “jeez, I need to get better too”, and he also has lots of ideas. Like JJ’s spin. I was determined to absolutely learn something from all that. T: Thank you. I like how Abiko-san draws all the characters properly. Yuuri always has an expression that fits his personality and the situation. And the spins are amazing! I couldn’t draw them satisfactorily and had to redraw them many times… I admit I was envious of Abiko-san’s soft touch that makes movements connect so smoothly. A: My favorite character is Otabek. I like how he is tough and cool. T: I like Giacometti. And JJ and Minami-kun. I think they are the ones I could figure out the best when drawing them. A: When the anime actually aired we had a huge response. Fans would write to me on Twitter, and every time I uploaded a picture I would get a lot of reactions. T: It was the first time that I had such a response, I was really surprised. I’m a fan of the baseball team Carp, and when I went to drink with my friends everyone knew “Yuri on Ice”. One person told me “a girl in my company watches it, she was praising it a lot”. It never happened to me so far!

-The biggest miracle is that all this staff could come together.-

A: Tatenaka-san also took part in the production of “ENDLESS NIGHT”, but this is the first time that we worked in the same space. I was really glad that he was there working in the same position as me. I can grumble about work (LOL), and he can understand me. T: It’s really like that. Watching Abiko-san I realized that Yuuri must be difficult to animate because he changes a lot, and when I was working on long sequences he would leave me alone. And he would talk to me when I finished. Things like that. A: I didn’t really do all that on purpose (LOL). But you really feel relieved (when there is someone else in your same position). There were also many other people around 40 years old, like the chief animation director Shishido-san, so we had things in common to talk about. T: It’s really a miracle that all this staff could come together. I think it was a difficult job for everyone, from the colors to the backgrounds to all the rest, not just us. But they were all people who would do whatever they could. Everyone would always find something to do. A: It would have been a problem if even one of them were missing. In difficult workplaces it happens that some people will get sick or leave, but this time it didn’t happen. T: The production staff, who probably had the hardest time, was outstanding and did their best. They were all young, but when they brought you things to fix saying “I want to make this better” you couldn’t refuse. A: Everyone got along well and even when they complained it was always jokingly. It was a really nice group.

#YOI #Yuri on ice #interview #translation #comment #Booklet #BD #Junpei Tatenaka #Eiji Abiko #minami kenjiro #georgi popovich #leo de la iglesia

[drink-n-watch]

  Genre : Sports!, Comedy, School

Episodes: 52

Studio: Madhouse,

  Baseball! No really that’s what happens. That’s all that happens! Ok, ok, so after a disappointing performance at the summer tournament in Koshien last summer, the Seido team is getting ready for revenge but now that the third years are gone and a slew of new first year recruits have joined, the roster has been shaken up. Will this finally be the year for Seido and will Sawamura finally be able to prove he has what it takes to be Ace!

The first season of Ace of Diamond is one of the very first reviews I did on this blog. It’s pretty sad if I’m to be honest. Still, it’s my humble little beginnings so I like it. I reread it before writing this review. I had forgotten that the first season was 126 episode. It makes this 52 episode season really modest in comparison. It also means I’ve now watched 178 episodes of this show. And they were almost all the same. No really, I could have copy pasted the first review and it would have been accurate.

I just really like this screencap

The thing about Ace of Diamond is that it always looked really good and continues to do so. There are a few visual tricks that are super repetitive like withe out backgrounds with little particles floating around, split screens and dramatic stills. And I will admit that if you take away all the reused scenes either from flashbacks or just the “previously on…” that episode count would probably drop considerably.

But you know, the production of this show has been fine honed. It knows what it works and what doesn’t. The short cuts are thought out and the emphasis is given on what is most important. The same can be said for the voice acting. It’s occasionally theatrical and there are a lot of characters that seem to be monologuing exposition but the chemistry is there between the characters that to have emotional connections to each other and voices are kept soft and smooth to make sure all that dialogue doesn’t get grating.

What I’m saying is that this is exactly the type of show you would get after nearly 200 episodes from a seasoned studio with a decent budget. Nothing is particularly unexpected or striking but it just works well.

and that’s pretty good

In the first season, I hadn’t yet started to take my own screen caps. For a bit of context, I take screencaps automatically. When I watch on my computer a little program runs in the backgrounds and snaps a shot every few seconds. After which I go through the screencaps and keep on;y the ones I like. It’s not very long. This said, with 52 episodes I ended up with thousands of images. And I went over all of them to decide what to keep.

I’m telling you this because over the thousands of screencaps taken there were maybe 10 that weren’t the characters playing in a game, practising baseball,  talking to each other in the dorms about the upcoming game or talking with the coach .. about the upcoming game. There is nothing in this show that isn’t directly linked to the games taking place. So no lonely walks home, no existential crisis, no origin stories. I actually couldn’t tell you if any of the characters have any friends or family unless their also on a baseball team.

My mom used to play baseball…

As I said in my season 1 review, Ace of Diamond is the quintessential Sports! anime, and if anything it just got sportier in season 2. And that could sound like a bad thing. It would sound like a bad thing to me. After all, it’s a very long series that is very repetitive and of all the commercial sports out there, I think baseball may be my least favourite. That may be because I am absolute and udder rubbish at it. I think it’s impossible. I suspect every baseball game on TV is a huge elaborate hoax like the moon landing!

On paper, Ace of Diamond wouldn’t necessarily strike me as a show for me. But I liked it. I liked it a lot. The repetitiveness itself becomes a comforting and familiar element and as it is handled by an experienced team, it’s done well. Basically , for me Ace of Diamond is the grilled cheese of Sports! anime. It’s not very fancy and the ingredients are pretty mundane, there’s nothing special or unexpected about it, but sometimes, you just really want a grilled cheese (unless you’re lactose intolerant, in which case I’m sorry). And Ace of Diamond Act II is a really yummy grilled cheese!

great…now I’m hungry

Favorite character: Miyuki, Just like this anime – my tastes never change

What this anime taught me about myself: Still amazed that there IS a way to make me sit through a baseball game.

“Drinking after work is fine, but if you really want to enjoy working then drink before work.”

Suggested drink: Home run shots

Every time anyone says the speed of a pitch – quick, make your shot

Every time the background is white out – breath in , it happens all the time

Every time Eijun narrates – take a sip

Every time Sawamura can’t contain his emotions – what else is new?

if he’s calm – take a sip

Every time Seido loses a game – cry!

Every time the sports journalists are used for exposition – pay attention

Every time a player gets an aura – get ready

Every time the Red Oni-Blue Oni trope comes up – take a sip

Every time Miyuki finds something interesting – be scared

Every time the outfilders come in – take a sip

Every time someone steals a base – whoa!

Every time there’s a split screen – actually this happens like 10 times an episode, you probably shouldn’t do anything that frequently

Every time someone hits a homerun – Cheer!!!

Every time someone mentions “momentum” – take a sip

with 52 episodes, I took a lot of screenshots…

Ace of Diamond Act II – Here We Go Again Genre : Sports!, Comedy, School Episodes: 52 Studio: Madhouse, Baseball! No really that's what happens. That's all that happens!

#Ace of Diamond #anime #comedy #Sports!

[100wordanime]

Summer has indeed had its ups and downs and to be honest, it is probably the weakest of the seasons 2018 has offered us so far. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a whole lot of fun to follow, review, and discuss. However, I did find if a lot harder than normal to narrow down my choices for best of the season given there was a lot that was kind of okay but nothing that really demanded I pay attention to it. (Banana Fish and Attack on Titan Season 3 are missing from my own awards as they are both going to continue on to the next season).

As always, thanks to people who voted in the poll for best of the season. After I get through my picks, I’ll announce the winners of the reader’s poll.

To my awards…

Best Story – Steins;Gate 0

While there’s some questionable execution and pacing issues with this story, in terms of the story I was most interested in following, Steins;Gate 0 wins hands down. Angolmois is too straight forward, How Not To Summon a Demon Lord was entertaining but not exactly a riveting narrative. There just hasn’t been much that I’ve watched this season with an overly interesting plot so Steins;Gate 0 remained my favourite story of the season even if I did criticise it, a lot.

Best Visuals – My Hero Academia Season 3

Bones continues to deliver some quality visuals and animation in My Hero Academia this season. While I felt the characters and the plot were a fair bit weaker than season 2, the visuals did not drop the ball and whatever scene we were watching was delivered with impressive or interesting visuals. The fight between Midoriya and Bakugou is probably the stand out from the second half, but realistically the action in My Hero Academia is always exciting to watch. It would be nice to see the kids get into a wider variety of settings from time to time, but this is still my visual pick for the season.

Best Opening – Cells at Work

Am I coming up with excuses to include platelets? Definitely. But because I took Attack on Titan out of the running, I had to choose the opening to Cells at Work as my favourite. It is good fun with a lot of energy and I loved that for one episode we even had different characters singing the opening. It was a surprise and a bit of fun. This one really suits the show and just gets you excited for the adorableness to follow.

Best Character – Diablo (How Not To Summon a Demon Lord)

Right, so it is kind of rare for an isekai protagonist to make it into my favourite character list, but I really like Diablo. He’s great fun to spend time with and a lot of the draw for the show is his character. I would love to see more of him in a follow up season and just see if he learns to balance out his inner insecurities with his external demon lord persona. One thing I know for sure is that it will be fun.

And of course, cutest character goes to the the Platelets

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And now…

Best Anime of the Summer 2018 Season – Cells at Work

Having taken out Attack on Titan and Banana Fish from the running, I was pretty much left with Cells at Work, How Not to Summon a Demon Lord or Phantom in the Twilight as shows I genuinely enjoyed this season. Phantom in the Twilight fell short with its ending. How Not To Summon a Demon Lord is fun and all, but it isn’t without its issues. So the anime that was most consistently entertaining this season was Cells at Work.

I’m actually fairly surprised that this is my best of the season, but it kind of speaks of how hit and miss the season has been. That said, this one is a fairly solid piece of entertainment. It isn’t going to change the world, but it is a great way to spend a Sunday morning and it certainly kept me entertained this season. I even learned a couple of things from it.

Finally, Reader’s Choice

Voting was incredibly close and also pretty scattered this season. By the final days the top two were deadlocked and remained that way until the final hours of the vote. With 178 votes this is the most participated in vote to date so hopefully we can continue to grow this number and make the data more reflective of the community as a whole. Still, here are the results.

And the winner is… Banana Fish.

Totally not surprised, though I am amazed at how close the vote was between Cells at Work and Banana Fish with Attack on Titan dropping off early on. Still, all three of these will go on to the best of the year poll joining the best from the last two seasons and whatever wins the Autumn poll. I’m also throwing My Hero Academia into the best of the year poll because amazingly I totally left it out of this vote (whoops).

Anyway, Banana Fish has kind of taken over my twitter timeline most weeks after the episode airs so I’ve really enjoyed it and there are some really excellent blog posts being written about the series so I can tell there are some really big fans out there. Hopefully the second half is as entertaining as the first was.

Thanks everyone who participated in the vote. We say farewell to another season of anime but enter a new one with all new possibilities laid out before us. Check back later for my worst of the season poll.

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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Drum Roll For The Best of Summer 2018 Anime Announcement - My pick and the reader's poll Summer has indeed had its ups and downs and to be honest, it is probably the weakest of the seasons 2018 has offered us so far.

#anime #Awards #best of #Cells at Work #How Not To Summon A Demon Lord #My Hero Academia #poll #season #Steins;Gate #summer #Summer 2018

[lawrenceseitz22]

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179

Click on the video above to watch Episode 179 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at https://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Bradley: I’m going to steal Adam’s line. Hello. Hey, everybody. This is Bradley Benner with the Semantic Mastery and this is Hump Day Hangouts Episode, I believe, 178. Hard to believe. Anyways, hi. It’s sunny and warm in Virginia, finally. Well, it’s getting there and I’m glad for that. We’ve got Hernan and Marco on. We’re not going to ask Marco about the weather because I’m tired of hearing about it, but how are you doing, Hernan?

Hernan: Good, man. It’s good to be here, excited for what’s coming. It’s kind of a … I think there’s going to be a big storm here in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, Estrella. So, it’s good. It’s good to be here.

Bradley: Awesome. Marco, how are you doing, man?

Marco: Investigating how to ranking Google more better.

Bradley: More better. It’s awesome. Yeah, guys, we’ve got a few things we’re going to tease you with this morning because you know how we like to do that. So we’re going to do … or today, excuse me, we’re going to tease you with a couple things. I guess, I’ll hand it over to you first, Hernan, because you wanted to talk about the updated Battleplan V2.

Hernan: Yep. Yeah, that’s right. In fact, one of the usual announcements that we do is that we tell you, guys, to go get the Battleplan because that’s like step number one if you’re new to Semantic Mastery. But for the first time in a couple of months, I would say, probably a year, I would say to hold off, to not do that because we’re actually revamping it. We’re rewriting and there’s a lot of it in it that still works like a charm so you could totally get it now, and apply today, and you will get a lot of good stuff, good results. But we have tweaked some stuff and treat some orders of different things to reflect better, what are the changes that we have been finding out and whatnot. So, we’re still reviewing it. There’s going to be probably another two weeks before we launch it or something like that. And so, yeah, I’m really excited about that. It’s going to be, as usual, a launch price that’s a no-brainer. So, stay in touch. Stay tuned because it’s got to be really, really good.

Bradley: Okay. Yeah, I agree with that. We’re looking forward to launching that because, obviously, within a year and stuff has changed, we’ve added some new things to our standard operating procedure like press releases, for example. So, all that kind of stuff is in the new Battleplan, guys. Also, next month in May, we’re going to be actually launching another product called Local GMB Pro which is going to be fabulous because Marco and Rob are back at it again. They’ve been in the lab testing basically getting results for clients or their own assets, whatever, entirely 100% within the GMB dashboard. I don’t know if you, guys, are paying attention to what’s going on inside of the GMB dashboard, but a lot of changes have occurred in just the recent months and weeks.

For example, like services tabs are now starting the show up to where you can add products, and services, and pricing, and description of them, and all that kind of stuff. There’s the messaging tab. There’s … I mean there’s all these things that you can do now and they’re like the GMB websites which I was playing with today which is freaking fabulous GMB post, like all the stuff that Google is giving us, that are free tools to use inside the GMB dashboard. What Rob and Marco have been finding out is by using those tools and doing everything that Google gives to us, taking advantage of everything that Google gives to us inside that dashboard, they’re able to generate some incredible results that has absolutely nothing to do with ranking or traditional SEO. It’s like all that shit that we’ve filled our heads with over the last many years, guys, forget about all of it because it can be done 100% inside of GMB without needing to know all that stuff.

It’s amazing because Marco and Robert started telling me about the process that … and they started developing a process doc and all that, and they shared it with me, and I had landed a client just a few weeks ago as a referral for a company that is really outside of my industry target usually but I took them on anyways. I said, “Okay, this is a perfect opportunity to apply this new GMB training that … or method that Marco and Robert putting together or developing for this project. And so, I just started working on that and developing that … and I’m recording the entire build, and that’s part of the … like that’s my contribution to the Local GMB Pro course is recording a case study. I’m learning this for the first time, too. Like I’m literally learning what Rob and Marco are teaching me and in going and applying it for the first time in this case study.

So you, guys, are seeing me make mistakes like … or you, guys, will be, those of you that purchased, of course, will be seeing me make mistakes and kind of fumbled my way through stuff which I think is a hell of a lot more genuine and more useful. Personally, as a student of many internet marketing products myself, usually, when you see the polished finished product, it’s usually just all the stuff that worked well, right? And so, but a lot of times, if you run into an issue like a challenge, or a roadblock, or something that’s not covered in the training then it can literally stop your progress dead in its tracks. I know, that’s happened to me many times because I’ve run into something that wasn’t addressed in the training because the training only shows everything that works. So, I like this style of training and that I’m learning it as I’m recording the case study videos that you, guys, can see like mistakes and how I get … how I correct them and how I find workaround stuff.

Anyways, that all said, what’s amazing is I got a call from the customer, the client, yesterday or might have been two days ago now and he was like … he’s funny, but the way he talks, he’s like, “Yo, bro, I got so many calls over the weekend from the map’s listing like I don’t even see it ranked and I don’t know how I’m getting the calls but they’re coming through.” And so, I went and looked at the GMB insights data which is like analytics inside the GMB dashboard, and you can absolutely see how much traffic. His new, brand new GMB listing has already received. You can see phone calls, the clicks to driving directions, all that kind of stuff. It’s amazing because he’s not ranked at all like anywhere.

It’s brand new listing, guys, yet just because I’m in there optimizing the way that Marco and Rob are teaching me and utilizing all the products that GMB gives us, he’s already generating leads from this listing that under normal SEO standards, I wouldn’t be generating leads with this listing for at least a month, right, long enough to get everything built out, submit a press release, syndication network, drive stack, all the stuff that we typically do, not doing any of that. This is all 100% done inside that GMB dashboard so far. And so, I let Marco talk on that for just minute. I’m going to grab the screen and just show you guys a quick … like I said, I was going to tease you, but a quick peek inside the site.

This is the back end for … of our membership sites where I’ve got lessons that I’ve been uploading. You can see, look at this, guys, I’ve got already 16 lessons added to this new training that we’re launching next month and this is just for this one case study. I haven’t even scratched the surface, man. I’m just getting started. So this is going to be one hell of a training course, guys, that will literally save you a ton of money and a ton of time because you can get results like almost overnight for clients just inside a GMB. Guys, you don’t even need a website for this which is insane. So, Marco, go ahead and chat about that for a little bit.

Marco: Well, what I want to do to tell them also is when was the map finally verified?

Bradley: Well, it was verified about two weeks ago or more, about three weeks ago, but there was a strange trouble with it, there was a duplicate listing that was [inaudible 00:07:31].

Marco: Yeah, but, I mean, when did everything get corrected and when-

Bradley: Thursday.

Marco: Last Thursday.

Bradley: Thursday last week. So less than a week ago.

Marco: And then in during that time, you can already see results.

Bradley: Yeah, over the weekend, this past weekend, he said he received, I think, six or eight calls or something like that. If you go look, it shows a calls. It only shows four from the weekend and four calls prior to that weekend. So I’m not sure how those other four calls got there. But he said he got six or eight calls, something like that, over the weekend and the insights are showing it.

Marco: So, here’s the deal. Those will only register the click-to-call from their cellphone when they click the phone and call the company directly. They won’t register like when they see the listing …

Bradley: And call from there.

Marco: And call.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah.

Marco: Right? But, I mean, the results are there and they’re undeniable, number one, from insights and just from the client being so excited or sometimes so overwhelmed that they’ll say, “I have so many calls. What the hell do I do? What am I supposed to do?” I wasn’t the … the experience that I’ve had and, now, we’re going on the third month and I’m going to raise my rates again for the third or fourth month is … I just got … do 600% of traffic. Traffic went up 600% from the insights that we got … this is month to month. So from last month to this month and it’s incredible that the number one, it shows visits, organic visits and it shows what happens with the GMB. So everything is right there and you know. Like my thing for years and years has always been I never guarantee rankings because I know that Google is a fickle mistress, right?

I know that Google will do whatever it wants to do. But I’ve always said … I will either get your results or you leave. I put it that … that’s my pitch. If we boil it all down, my pitch is, “Dude, I’m going to get you. I’m going to make you money. If I don’t, then you don’t have to pay me anymore. You could just walk away. No contracts, no nothing.” This is a way to make sure that you’ll be able to come through with that guarantee that you’re giving your client of making your client money. So, I think this is just … I don’t know, just another way that we found like exploiting Google’s love for itself.

Bradley: Yeah. What’s great about it, guys, is like I said, this … the training is going to be entirely about how to use just GMB assets and that’s it. Obviously, you can incorporate other stuff, other traditional SEO, and local SEO stuff that we also know works, right? So, for example, syndication networks help validate the entity drive stats, press releases, all that stuff, but the goal with the GMB Pro course is to teach you how to get results strictly in the GMB environment. If you want to add the other stuff, it’s only going to make you … help you to get results faster and maintain them for longer, you know what, even … and so far I don’t have a history of knowing like if I got to continue that activity or what for this because this is new to me, too. But my point is even in really competitive stuff, you’ll be able to get results because you’ll be doing stuff that’s generating activity, that has … it’s completely independent of rankings. That’s my point.

Like it’s amazing because … and, again, I was telling Marco I’m curious as to how … what I think is going on is that people that are in a particular area, remember, this is all local stuff, right? So people that are in an area that Google knows your history, if you’re … if you’ve got a Google account and it’s … you’re tied to your phone, Google knows where you are at all times. They know what stores you like, what kind of searches you do. They know everything about you. And so, even though the rank trackers might not show the listings as ranking in maps because there’s some random IP … it might even be a localized IP, but it has no search history, that kind of stuff. It’s no profile attached to it whereas somebody that’s in that area does have a profile, that’s got an accrued search history. They might have … they might be an in-market, they might be in market for a particular service. And so Google knows all of this.

And so Google is displaying these localized results to those people that are most … that it’s most relevant to them, if that makes sense, whereas a rank tracker, it’s not going to see that that kind of … that’s not going to see that kind of a search result. I’m thinking that that’s what it is because Google for years has been talking about localizing and personalizing search results as much as possible. The technology is there now that they can do it. So, you and I or those of us that are looking at it remotely aren’t going to see the same data that somebody is actually searching from locally especially there from a mobile device which is where like more than two-thirds of all search traffic goes through mobile devices now, right? So think about that, guys. Just really super powerful. I’m excited about it and I’m actually really excited about it. I’m looking forward to getting relaunching or launching this course next month. All right, guys, I think we got enough pitching.

Hernan: Yeah, yeah.

Bradley: Questions now, what do you think?

Hernan: Yeah.

Marco: Sam’s up. Sam Bailey.

Bradley: All right, let’s do it. Let me grab the screen.

Hernan: Sam the man.

Is There An SEO Benefit To Using The Parent Page Feature In WordPress For Subcategories?

Bradley: Okay, Sam, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Question about the site structure. I’m using virtual silo structure. If I have a page that links to one or more subcategory pages, is there an SEO benefit to using the parent page feature in WordPress for this?” Well, okay, remember, if you’re using a complex silo structure, that’s how you create subcategory pages, right? So think about that, Sam. If you’re using a complex silo structure where you have top-level category which is also a page, which is a parent page, then you have subcategories which are also pages but those are child pages which means you have to select the parent page and the right-hand sidebar of the page, WYSIWYG editor-type thing. You select the parent page and then posts are obviously post. Those go into either categories or subcategories, right? And so, that’s the hierarchy of how you use a complex silo structure.

So, if you’re doing complex silo structures, yes, you would have … you would assign a parent page. Whether you’re using physical silos or virtual silos, and all that means, guys, in case anybody’s confused about that is whether you’re showing the silo structure in the URL. That is determined by your permalink settings in WordPress. If you’re using permalink … the post name settings then that’s a virtual silo because it’s not … the hierarchy is not displayed in the URL. It’s only showing the post or page slug. So it’s rootdomain.com/post or page slug, right? So that’s the post name permalink structure. If you’re using category post-name permalink structure, that will show physical silo structure, right? So that’ll show the hierarchy in the actual URL.

I’ve always preferred it that way. To me, it’s more logical. That way, however, it makes no difference as far as SEO. I’ve tested it both ways in the virtual silo. In fact, I would even probably suggest or recommend going with the virtual silo method because you can run into some funny slug or URL things that happen when trying to do the complex silo structure and using the category post-name, permalink. That makes sense. So, Sam, just because I don’t want you to be confused here. If you’re doing a complex silo then you have to use the parent page or sign a parent page from subcategories which will be pages, okay, if you’re using a simple silo structure than now because typically you wouldn’t … usually you’re just going to have categories and impost so there wouldn’t be a need for a subcategory, okay? If you have subcategories, it’s typically because you’re using a complex silo structure. So hopefully that answers the question. If it doesn’t, Sam, try to repost it with a little bit more detail, okay?

Hernan: I’ve also added links to our videos for a complex silo and simple silo structures.

When Will You Release The New Course Local GMB Pro?

Bradley: Perfect. Those videos are old and they still apply. There’s nothing to change about that. John, what’s up, John? He says, “Hi, I listen to your Hump Day Hangouts every week.” Thanks, man. I appreciate that. He says, “Plus one for you, guys. I would like to know when you plan to release your new course Local GMB Pro. Thanks.” Awesome, John. Yeah, that’s next month. We’re definitely going to be launching that in May. There’s no question. That’s coming out in May. I mean, I should be done with my part of it within the next week or so other than coming in and updating to show like the incredible results that I’m expecting to get now. Other than that, like mostly … like, again, it’s just a process. Once you learn it like … we’re talking about even providing a done for your GMB Pro service. It’s something we’re seriously considering building out a team for that, so. Nobody out there will have that except us at least initially then we’ll have a bunch of people come copy us as usual.

Is There A Way To Separate Multiple Tumblr Accounts So They Don’t Immediately Get Banned?

All right, Adrian Harper says, “Hey, guys, I have a question regarding Web 2s. I recently bought 50 Tumblr accounts from a gig on Fiverr but they didn’t come as separate accounts.” Ooh. “There’s the main account and several accounts under that which isn’t really good and I don’t think about linking to a money site to boost rankings zeros away. Is there a way to separate these accounts so you don’t immediately get banned? Also somewhere I read that you were able to log in the numerous Tumblr accounts to add content and personas using Browseo and didn’t need any proxies, is this correct? Thanks, guys, and keep up the good work, Adrian.” Okay, Adrian, I’m not 100% sure about the process for transferring an account in Tumblr like a blog from one Tumblr account to another. It’s probably possible.

I would just contact Tumblr support to ask them like just pitch it. When you ask them, ask them as if you were transferring a blog to somebody else and just say like, “What’s the process for doing that? Is that possible?” Find out if that’s possibly because, yeah, I agree with you. If you buy 50 expired Tumblrs and they’re all under one account, that’s, to me, is useless. Like you might be able to get some out of it, but the problem is if one of your sites gets terminated or banned, it could likely pass to that entire account and you lose everything. I don’t know that for sure, guys, because I don’t typically set up my accounts that way, but I would assume that that one profile could get banned which would kill all of the blogs under that profile. I don’t know if they keep it separate or not, if Tumblr does, okay?

Hernan: Yeah. Yeah, I would assume that you’re right. Like if you think like … when in doubt, just don’t do it, you know what I’m saying? Like we haven’t gone that far as to create several sub accounts within the same Tumblr account, but just … if in doubt, just in case, do it.

Bradley: Yeah. I mean, I’ve created three or four blogs under one profile, but I’ve never … like it’s typically that’s only because they’re in different industries-type stuff, so I’m using them for different purposes. But, yeah, if you’re basically like trying to use several Tumblr accounts like basically a web to PBN or something to link to your money sites, I would not have them all coming from the same account number one, okay? As far as Tumblr accounts and browser, yeah, guys, the thing about using proxies for Browseo like for creating account, like for creating accounts and stuff like that, guys, that is no longer such an issue. It used to be few years ago where you didn’t want to create a bunch of accounts from the same … [inaudible 00:19:16] the case because of public WiFi has just basically … it’s blanketed everywhere, you know what I mean?

So, there are always dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people on the same IP. Think about it. And so, all logged in to the same type of accounts and it doesn’t flag everybody’s account because it’s the same IP. So it’s no longer an IP issue. It’s not like it used to be anyways. Why it’s important? Why you can do that with Browseo? Here’s the thing, if you were to go clear Firefox through the normal clear cache and cookies process, and run CCleaner, and do all that stuff, and then log in to an account with a fresh browser like virgin white, fresh browser, that looks unnatural. So if you do that and then you log back out, clean your cache and cookies, and then log back in through the same IP to another account with a fresh browser and you do that a couple of times, you can absolutely flag your IP for that kind of activity, for spammy activity which could cause accounts to be terminated or to be … requiring verification, all that kind of stuff because you’re sending a lot of unnatural signals to that platform that you keep logging in to with the fresh browser under new accounts.

Does that make sense? However, if you’ve got Browseo or any tool that does that, I think another one is called Ghost Browser or something like that, whatever tool you have or app that will do that for you, you can still log in underneath the same IP but each browsing session keeps its history. So there’s cookies that are accrued and there’s history as to what sites have been visited and what searches have been done, and that what links have been clicked on, and that kind of stuff. And so, those kind of histories and those cookies that accrue start to build up a profile even if it’s under the same IP, it doesn’t matter because each IP or each profile is going to have a slightly different history. That looks natural because people do that but people don’t … typically, people don’t clear your browser every time they log in and think about a public WiFi not 15 people in any public WiFi spot are going to clear all their cache and cookies and then log in to their account from that same IP. Does that makes sense?

But there could be 15 people logged in to Tumblr from the same IP because they’re all … but they’re all different accounts. So my point is, is just acting more natural is the way to do it even if it’s from the same IP. That’s why I use Browseo all the time but I even … I have some select accounts that are assigned to dedicated proxies that I still use today because they’ve been set up and they’ve accrued browsing history over the last two years now, really. But all my new accounts that I set up in Browseo, they’re all just run right through my IP guys. I don’t care about the IP problem anymore because I’m building up profiles that have their own history, in their own search habits, in their own likes and themes and all of that stuff, and it’s all done through my same IP which is okay in my opinion. I’ve never had any problems with it. Does anybody have anything to say differently about that?

Marco: No, not about that but I do as far as the original question. You should be able to transfer the different accounts and the different blogs. You have to go into Tumblr and create the new account that you’re going to transfer to, and then you send an email from the blog that you’re looking to transfer to that new account to join right to that email to join your blog and then you can make that person an admin, and then you can eliminate yourself from … I’m pretty sure Google it because I’m sure that somewhere in YouTube or somewhere in Google, it will be explained exactly how’s that. But the gist of it, if I remember it correctly, that’s how it’s done. I did it before with some stuff that I got crossed up. I added about five different blogs and that’s how I did it. I just added … started a new one and figured out how to transfer the ownership, but you don’t really transfer ownership. You make someone an admin and then you eliminate yourself from that. By doing that, it makes that new blog or that new Tumblr account the administrator.

Bradley: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I … I mean, just go to YouTube and search and guarantee you’ll find it, or go to Google and search the videos tab because that has a much better search functionality than YouTube does, so.

How Do You Explain A One-Off Onboarding Or Setup Fee To A New Client?

Okay, Pete, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Hey, guys, when you were talking to a potential new client, do you put in the proposal a one-off onboarding or setup fee? If so, how do you explain what the fee is for and why do you charge the fee? Thanks in advance.” It depends on what I’m doing, Pete. But, yeah, there’s usually setup fees involved. It depends on … again, it depends on each one of the services. So, for example, like for Google My Business or maps SEO, I always charge a maps optimization or maps set up an optimization fee, right?

I charge $697, I believe, for that which includes the GMB set up an optimization. If it’s not already set up, then I set it up. Typically, it’s set up and I’ve just got to optimize it. Bing and in Yahoo!, in fact, I really even kind of took Yahoo! out of it to where I’m really just now doing Bing in GMB for the same price, right, $697. That’s what I charge. But then my local monthly SEO charges for any at … the lowest I would charge for local maps is 500 bucks a month for maintaining. So like I’ll charge $697 set up and $500 a month. If I got somebody with two locations, a lot of the times I’ll charge them $400 per location per month. So it’s 800 bucks for two. That’s just kind of how I do stuff like I … I don’t charge as much as a lot of the other people do for my services, but when it comes to setup fees, it just depends on what it is.

Like, for example, I also do reputational marketing stuff now because it’s just so stupid easy to fulfill, right? The app does all the work. All you got to do is sell it. And so like I’ll charge somebody like 99 bucks as a setup fee because it takes me or a VA about 20 minutes to input data into the system and that’s it. And so I make $100 on a setup fee and then I’ll charge maybe $200 a month or something like that on just the reputation stuff but I typically try to roll all of that into a larger SEO package, anyways, okay? But, yeah, I mean, guys, I’m always transparent about my charges to my clients. Like I tell them exactly what everything is for. Like I don’t ever try to inflate prices here and there to kind of hide stuff. I just flat out tell them what it is and I explain why that I’m charging for that and why it’s necessary.

Again, like I said, the way that I present my services to my clients, it’s in a very transparent way so that I honestly feel like I earned their trust by just explaining everything in such detail if that makes sense. So, anyways, that’s my two cents. You, guys, have any additional input on that?

Hernan: Yeah, real quick, I do the same that you do, Bradley, in terms of I tell them, “Hey, this is what it’s going to charge like and what I’m going to charge, and then these are the tools that I’m going to use, and this is the final … like the tally, if you want,” But, yeah, I definitely break that down for the clients and I’m completely 100% transparent as you were saying as well.

Bradley: Marco?

Marco: No, I totally agree. You have to be transparent. But then, again, if you position yourself correctly, you should also raise your prices accordingly. I mean, you know your market, you know your local market, Bradley, and you know what it is. I would never charge the same thing to someone, let’s say, in an area like where you are like, let’s say, in Georgetown, for example, where I know, I mean, that the money is just way different. A Beverly Hills Dennis, I’m going to hit him over the head as opposed to just a local Dennis that’s just trying to get people in the door, right, so that he can then sell them on whatever services it is that he has. So you have to know. If you know your market and you position yourself accordingly then you could usually could charge a little bit more but, definitely, transparent as far as the tools, as far as using … you have to pay your staff. You have expenses also.

Bradley: Yep.

Marco: If you’re transparent with all of that then you should be okay. I mean, markup … you have to charge what you feel you’re worth. That’s how I think. You have to charge for your services and if you’re that good then you should charge for that. You should charge a premium. Most other businesses and most other experts do.

What Are Possible Reasons Why A Gmail Account Used In GSites And Drive Stacks Got Suspended?

Bradley: I agree. Okay. D is, “Hey, guys, a few days ago, my Gmail account got suspended. It was my persona account for one of my affiliate sites and the account was around nine months old. I had a branded IFTTT network and drive stack attached to this account. I need the words of wisdom from you, guys, on this issue. Before that, I want to tell you a few things. I had content in the drive files without attribution and all of these documents were created a few months back.” Okay, so if it was like straight up copied content from somewhere without attribution, well, that typically hasn’t created a problem, but Marco can comment on that.

Marco: No, that’s never been a problem.

Bradley: Yeah, it’s never been a problem.

Marco: No, we’re still doing it the same way, not a problem.

Bradley: He says, “A few days ago, I created a new G-site for link building and I framed a few of my Google Docs and spreadsheets, and I went to Fiverr, and ordered two contextual backlinks packages with one 5,000 links and with one 2,000 links to my new G-site.” Again, although, I never recommend buying backlinks packages from Fiverr because those templates are used over, and over, and over again, so it’s definitely a footprint thing. Well, I’m sure there’s some providers there that are decent, but I just don’t recommend it. But I don’t think that’s the problem either, the backlinks to your G-site. Marco, do you they feel differently?

Marco: I’ve never seen this kind of behavior before and we’ve thrown the kitchen sink at drive stacks. It may have been that he linked directly to the G-site, but we’ve done that also. Like this isn’t in the right context for me to be able to see. Did we do the drive stack? If so, then I can reach out and see what was done. I mean, but if it’s someone else’s drive stack, I can’t say because I don’t know what type of garbage they did. If you did it yourself, did you follow our training or who’s training did you follow? I mean, there’s so many things that are possible here that I could go on, and on, and on, and we’d never get to an answer.

Bradley: Yeah and one question I would have was … and I’m not doubting that it truly is suspended but I’m just throwing this out there for everybody’s benefit. There’s been times where I’ve had blogger accounts, for example, specifically from syndication networks where like a blog blogger account says it’s been suspended for violations of terms of service or whatever. All it was, was … it was showing the blogger blog is being suspended, but all it was, was the Gmail account associated with that blogger blog had to be re-verified through a phone verification. After re-verifying the account which sometimes is difficult, then blogger blog, all of a sudden, the suspension is lifted and it’s back live again on the web as soon as you verify the account. So all I’m saying, the reason why I bring that up is because is it indeed a suspension which I’m pretty sure that you’ve already confirmed that or is it just that you have to re-verify the account.

You might want to look into that first if you haven’t already is my point, okay? But, yeah, I don’t know because I haven’t run into that problem like … I haven’t had too many Google account suspended. I have from spamming like Google+ with automated like in an automated way or like with social sharing, like there’s some of those apps where you can share other people’s content and they share content for you. I’ve done that in the past and I’ve had some just stuff that absolutely violates terms of service posted like pharma stuff, Viagra pill stuff, things like that that have had my accounts suspended. But as far as like just creating a G-site and doing like drive stack stuff, embedding files, even spamming it to death, I’ve never had any issues with that, not even one, not one site has ever been suspended for that. So I can’t really speak as to what the problem is if I’ve never seen it personally, unfortunately, sorry.

Marco: The only thing I’ve ever seen go wrong and get us a suspension is when we ran the script and it was pulling in too many files which is just too many Google resources that you’re using up for free and then that will get your G-site terminated. It’ll get the G-site suspended and you won’t … it’s really hard to recover it, but the drive stack was still intact. So it’s just a matter of slowing down the script and the way that it runs and then just redoing a G-site and just doing it all over again, not the Gmail account. This is what’s surprising that the Gmail account getting suspended not from a drive stack, I don’t know. It may have triggered a re-verification like you said.

Bradley: That’s what I would think it would be is that more and more … I mean, because, honestly, that’s typically the only thing that happens is that an account gets locked for re-verification and all of the sub-accounts or tools, the apps that Google allows you to have with an account, they all get basically temporarily suspended until you can re-verify. Sometimes it’s impossible re-verifying. I’ve lost stuff because of it, but other times, I’ve been able to re-verify and everything comes back. So that’s what I’m assuming it may be without more detail. All right. Nigel’s up. Nigel just recently joined the mastermind after coming here for months and asking many questions and taking action. He got himself to a position where he joined a mastermind, it’s freaking fabulous.

Nigel, you and Mohammed back to back, look at that, that’s awesome because both of you have taken very similar paths in that. You’ve come here and asked a bunch of questions every single week and you’ve applied taken action on what you’ve learned and it’s propelled you to the point that you could come join the mastermind which will help you to grow your businesses even faster. So both of you, I’m proud of both of you, seriously. I’ve said that to you, Mohammed, but not so much to you, Nigel. We certainly appreciate you joining the mastermind. We will be there to help you in any way we can, okay? [Newly Minted MM 00:34:18] status, “It feels great. Thank you for the warm welcome, truly been awesome so far and looking forward to posting results soon.” We’re looking forward to you posting them.

That video email, nice, I got my money’s worth for this month already. So you must have picked Video Lead-Gen System as the bonus or whatever. That’s awesome. Just keep in mind, guys, that as part of the prospecting module, we’re going to flash that out a hell of a lot more and we’re going to end up updating that product and in launching that with a proper launch. So, I think, Hernan, you might want to get this ready, but I think we still have the pre-sale for Video Lead-Gen System available. If it’s still available, people can still get in now when we go to launch it, once it’s relaunched with all the new training that’s going to be added. It’s going to be at least 500 bucks.

Hernan: Yeah I’ve been actually start for [inaudible 00:35:08] let me confirm that with you, Bradley.

Bradley: I think it’s vlgs.semanticmastery.com, I think. But, anyways …

Hernan: Yeah, I want to make sure that it’s still open in the back if that makes sense.

Bradley: Okay, I got it. Anyways, that way …

Marco: Can I just add for a second? We’re giving you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. We always give you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. Please don’t come back in a month, two months, or three months, or however long and say, “You raise the price. Now, I can’t buy it at the launch price.” The launch price is what it is. The pre-launch price is what it is, and then it goes up to the price where we established. Why do we do that? Because we want you, people who follow us, people who are members, we want you to have a first crack at it at a price where it’s comfortable but it’s worth so much more than what we charge that we just can’t give it away for free, sorry. It takes too much time too much effort. It takes too much work to put all the stuff together and we can’t give it away. It’s worth what it’s worth. It’s going up to where it’s going.

You’re warned that it’s happening. I mean, emails are sent out. We do it on Hump Day Hangouts. We do it everywhere. We give people ample notice. Please don’t come back and complain that the price has been raised when you already know that the price is going to be raised.

Hernan: Yep. I just posted on the event page. So you better like you better … yeah, you said, I said while it lasts because, I don’t know, somebody could find out and we might close it.

Marco: Yeah.

Where Can I Find A Document On Basic Metadata And Tag Configuration?

Bradley: That’s true. Like I said, we’re going to be launching that in April, May, June … June, I believe. Yeah, I believe we talked about that this week, guys, didn’t we? I think we’re going to relaunch that in June, so. All right. Anyways, where can I … back to Nigel’s question. “Where can I find the document on basic metadata and tag configuration without going too far down the rabbit hole? Basically, I want to clear an easy way to provide, I want a clear and easy way to provide some value to prospects that I audit. I had a prospects report come back with metadata and tag issues, and I would have loved to offer some generic DIY info for free like put this kind of information in here without going all Jeffrey Smith SEO Bootcamp on them. Any direction you can provide a solid guide template would be invaluable.”

All right. So, my only concern with that, Nigel, is remember who your audience is, right? So when you’re talking to a prospect in a video audit and you are explaining to them something that they could do that could have a positive impact on their digital presence, you want something that’s incredibly easy for them to do that doesn’t require a ton of explanation. So I know that’s basically what you’re asking, how could I have provided some information about metadata and tags that wouldn’t confuse them. That’s kind of difficult to do especially in a video audit. Now, you could try it with like … if I were to try to create an example for that, I’m sure I could figure out a way to dumb it down quite a bit, but I might do something like talk about how tags are supposed to be kind of descriptive terms about the topic of the post and right, and then there’s like a hierarchy and stuff but remember, you don’t want to overwhelm them with technical stuff because their eyes will glaze over and though it’s like you’re speaking a foreign language to them, right?

And so, again, you don’t want to get too technical. A lot of the times that the kind of advice or suggestion that I will give in an audit will be something very simple like, “Hey, you don’t have your name, address, and phone number listed on your website. That’s something that is incredibly powerful for helping you to rank in maps. So, I would recommend that you put a widget in your site or have your webmaster put a widget in the footer or in the sidebar that lists your name, address, and phone number,” stuff like that, something that’s very simple that doesn’t take a lot of explanation but they could easily do that’s going to literally help give them an improvement, right? Like it’s going to improve their presence slightly even if not much.

You could give them a tip on optimizing Yelp or some … all I’m saying is like you could give them a tip on optimizing their GMB listing say, “Hey, I’m looking at your Google My Business listing and it looks like you only have your logo and nothing else. You might want to add some optimized images and here’s a trick. Name the file names of the images after products and services that you provide. Include local modifiers, your city name, the areas that you service, things like that.” Very, very easy stuff that they can do as far as tags and metadata that’s a bit too technical in my opinion to try to explain that to a layman or civilian so to speak. You, guys, have any other suggestions on that?

Marco: No, I totally agree with you. If you start talking about title tags and metadata, you’re going to have to show SERPs to show the purpose that they serve, and then that might get the talking into, “Well, am I going to get those kinds of results? Am I going to get those rankings? Am I going to rank for these keywords? And what keywords am I going to …” You don’t want the conversation going that way. Then the conversation is going all wrong because you want the conversation to be all about the leads or the results that you’re going to get for the person. I mean, you could do it in the video of the person is technical enough, but that’s not a conversation that you want to have with someone that you’re just taking on as a client. I mean, if you want to do that, let’s say, later on as an add-on or whatever, we’re going to improve your ad copy, for example, you could say that.

You could compare it to classifieds where you want to stand out from the bunch and and how you can make it stand out. You never want to put the client in a position where they have to kind of try to figure out how they’re going to do it because then it’s all over. Their eyes would like Bradley said, that they’ll roll into the back of their head and they’ll start singing … show tunes and you can forget it.

Can You Share Your Citation Building Methodology In Serp Space?

Bradley: That’s it. Number two, he says, “I saw a subspace as levels of citations, foundation, hometown, a multimedia in terms of marketing to clients. Is that like month one, two, three strategy? And does dripping citation building actually matter or just better to spread things out?” Well, what I do is like part of my monthly SEO services include citation building but that doesn’t mean that I’m building citations every month. I mean, most of the time I do or a lot of the times for my clients now because it’s just so much easier is … I’m not going to lie, for most of my clients, I’d used Loganix services, the monthly citation building. I don’t even … like and that’s only because that service is great and it’s 100% managed. I don’t have to do anything. All I have to do is input data once and they build citations every month. They do a a mix of structured citations and unstructured citations.

What’s the difference? A structured citation is a classical business directory listing, name, address, phone number, sometimes a link back to the site, but it’s a business directory listing. An unstructured citation is a mention of NAP, right? Name, address, phone number but on non-traditional business sites, like non-traditional directory sites. In other words, social medias, blogs, press releases, all of those video sites, documents sharing sites, audio sites, image sharing sites, all of those types of sites become none … or what they call unstructured citations. And so, the Loganix monthly citation service is 150 bucks, semanticmastery.com/loganix, I believe, will take you over there. It’s a good service. I like it because it’s 100% outsourced.

But for some of my clients that are grandfathered into a much lower monthly price, I’m not going to cough up $150 to pays Loganix to do it. So what I’ll do is, obviously, I’ll do like a package from SerpSpace. I’ll do like the foundations which are the … like basically like all the big directories and then I’ll get the local citations on top of that, then I’ll do the multimedia or the social type citations like another month. It doesn’t have to be month one, month two, month three. If it’s a newer site that you’re trying to get them results then that might be a good strategy. If it’s a site that’s already doing well like as far as ranking in maps then I don’t always do that, like I might build a batch of citations and then wait three months before I build another batch of citations. Because here’s the thing, guys, also like I don’t know what reporting software or app you’re using for that but I use BrightLocal.

BrightLocal is a fabulous service. Again, semanticmastery.com/brightlocal, I think, will take you over there. I’ve been using it since 2012 when I opened my agency and I use … that’s what I use for all my reporting. What I like about BrightLocal is it will do citation tracking. So it’ll show you how many citations and it will keep a history of all that so you can see the graph over time going up as far as the number of citations accrued. And so, what I found is doing a batch of citations, let’s say, I order 50 new citations to be built. It doesn’t matter what type of citation structured, unstructured, foundation, social, it doesn’t really matter, hyperlocal, any of those doesn’t matter because what happens is I’ll get the report back and I’ll submit all those URLs for indexing which apparently most indexers aren’t working now anyways, and it takes three months for all of them to end up … not all of them end up, get out of 50. I might only have 35 of them that end up getting indexed over the course of three months.

So my point is you don’t have to build every single month because you can build today and three months from now, Google would just start finding some of those citations if that makes sense. One of the things I highly recommend is that you do local data aggregator submissions like the big data aggregator submissions which is Factual, Acxiom, InfoUSA or Express Update, I think it’s called, which is part of InfoUSA, and in Neustar/Localeze. There’s a couple services that will do that. One of the things I like about BrightLocal is BrightLocal has that for $55 and you have to up … you have to redo it every year, but it’s 55 bucks and they’ll submit to all four data aggregators. What’s great about that is within three to six months like you’ll start seeing a bunch of new citations pop up just because your data is listed in the aggregators, right?

And so, again, I like to use BrightLocal for that because it’s 55 bucks and they submit all to all for submission … data aggregators for me, okay? So, again, my citation building method really just varies for all new clients that I’ve signed up within the last probably a year and a half, maybe two years now because my pricing is higher than it was for some of my grandfather clients. They all just get put on the Loganix service because, again, it’s something that it’s out of sight out of mind. I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s done. I know every single month. They’re getting a mix of structured and unstructured citations and then backlinks are being built to those citations, so it’s just done for me. It’s something I don’t have to manage anymore. Does that make sense? Okay

How Do You Get Back In Touch With The Ones That At Least Watched The Video Emails?

All right. Mohammed’s up. He says, “Hey, guys.” What’s up, Muhammad? “When I first started video emails, I bungled a lot of leads by not calling them and getting a conversation going. How would I get back in touch with the ones that at least watched my video? I was going to call them but given them my emails were months ago, they may be lost. Do I send them the same email again?” No, here’s what I would do, Mohammed, and I’ve done this before. Create a generic video that is talking to all of them. So create … so that way, you’re still getting that personalized effect but you don’t have to record, you don’t have to send them the same video that they’ve already seen, and you don’t have to send a personalized video for each and every person that you’re recontacting, right?

So just record a video with you looking into the camera, or whatever, or if you’re doing a screencast plus picture and picture or whatever, any … however you want to do it. Just record a short video. “Hey, I sent you an email, a video email a few months ago,” right? So don’t say their names, don’t say their business, you’re in the same … in a specific vertical. So, “Hey, I sent you a video about your real estate business or whatever a couple months ago and I’m just reaching back out to try to start this conversation and go start a dialogue with you again, see if you’d be interested in having a conversation about what I sent you. If you’re curious about … if you didn’t see the video before, you’d like to see it again, just hit reply to this and I’ll send you the link again.” Does that make sense?

So that way you’ve got one generic video that, now, you can literally mass email out to everybody that engaged with your first video and in those people that re-engage with your new email, they might hit reply back and ask you to send them, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Can you send it to me again?” Anyways, it just gets the conversation started. So that’s what I would do because we save you a ton of time. Just do one generic video and then blast it out to everybody that you … that engaged you the first time but you didn’t follow up with correctly and just try to get some engagement out that like sent … recontacting them again, okay?

What Email Marketing Program Do You Recommend?

Okay, Quit This House, he says, “Hey, guys, thanks for all you do to help us.” You’re welcome. “Everyone talks about building a list. What email marketing program do you recommend?” Well, I’m using drip.com which is an autoresponder from Leadpages. I’ve never been a fan of Leadpages, but they’re their autoresponder is freaking fabulous. Drip is great at least it is for me. I’m building out my entire prospecting funnel and all the automations, well, about 80% of the automations are handled inside of Drip right now and it’s … it inboxes into the primary tab in Gmail which is insane because most of the other autoresponders go to the promotions tab in Gmail. That was the primary reason I started using Drip, was just because it goes to the primary inbox on Gmail. Since then, I’ve started to learn how to use Drip because I’ve never been an email marketing guy, but I’m using it now and all the automation that they’re called workflows inside of drip, and it’s fabulous.

The amount of stuff that you can automate is just insane. That’s what we’ve working on, is an automated prospecting funnel and we’re going to be building out an automated onboarding and fulfillment funnel too.

Hernan: Yeah. If I can add to that, we use ActiveCampaign for Semantic Mastery. I use the ActiveCampaign a lot, but it was a wash between Drip and ActiveCampaign, because the main point is that you can automate a lot of stuff.

Bradley: Yeah.

Hernan: That’s the main point, and they’re way more powerful than any other kind of responder. In fact, like you get all of that functionality only by going through Infusionsoft, which is like 500 bucks a month or something like that. We use either Drip or ActiveCampaign. Those are the goto solutions.

Bradley: Totally agree. I’m super impressed with it. In fact, I was talking on the Mastermind Webinar last week about the prospecting funnel. I’ve actually like chick and it scratched it and started over three times from scratch now, because it’s just a really complex build. Part of the reason it was over complicated the first couple times is because I was trying to patch together a whole bunch of different apps and services to handle all of the automations. Again, I’m not an email marketing guy. It’s not something I’ve typically done in my career. I was unaware of how much could actually be done within the Drip platform. After wasting literally weeks and dozens and dozens of hours on building out this funnel and it not working or even being too complex for even me to be able to maintain it, that’s when I said, “Okay, look, I’m just going to spend a couple days researching Drip and trying to figure out how to use this.”

I made more progress in about three days that way than I had in three weeks prior to just by starting to put everything that I could in the Drip. Again, I’m super impressed with it, I’m really happy with it, and I’m still learning. Inside the Mastermind, we’re covering all of that stuff to you, guys. I don’t know if you’re not in there yet, come join us because all of that’s going to be … Like, I’m literally going to be giving all of our Mastermind members the blueprint and step-by-step process instructions for how to build their own prospecting automation funnel. I’ve even impressed myself with it. Just so you know, it’s like that.

How Do You Build Your YouTube Channels?

All right, next, he says, “When you buy your YouTube channels, how much do you build them out, cover pic, link, G+ short description, or both on both G+ profile and YouTube?” It depends on what I’m using them for. We buy a ton of YouTube accounts just straight up for YouTube spam, I honestly don’t build those out at all. If it’s for a money channel, then yes absolutely because it’s about branding, right? If you’re building a money channel, then, yeah, you absolutely want to complete the G+ profile, you want to fill out the YouTube channel, the About section, add the links, the interlinking, all that kind of stuff. It depends on what your intent is with that YouTube channel. If it’s for spam purposes, no, don’t do anything else. Just buy the damn account, that’s it. Make sure it’s phone verified and that’s it, but if you’re doing it for a money project, an affiliate project, a client project to legion, for any one of those, then, absolutely, try to complete as many of the Google properties as possible and interlink all of them, okay? That includes blogger too, guys, right?

What Do You Think Of Using Rel=Alternate For SEO Purposes?

Steve, what’s up? He says, “Hi, I heard him passing reference last week to linking with rel=”alternate” for SEO purposes. Can you recommend on this? Does it work? What are the best practices and are there any dangers? Is this equivalent the same as markup? Thanks.” To be honest, I’ve never used it. I’m going to defer to Marco. What can you tell us about it, Marco?

Marco: The only time that I’ve used the rel=”alternate” tag is when defining language. I’ve never used it for SEO. I’ve always used rel=”canonical”. I mean it’s something that I would have to try because I’ve never used it that. I don’t think that Google even recommends for you to use and to use rel that way alternate. I think it would have to be canonical. I haven’t read anything on it. I know that Mars had something on it. I know that the Google Blog middle of last year had something on it but we use canonical because that’s where we see the greatest SEO effect.

Bradley: Yeah. Again, I can’t speak on it because I haven’t used it at all. We could probably do some research on it.

Hernan: Yeah, sorry, you could use it for language, you could use it for mobile.

Marco: That type of thing?

Hernan: rel=”alternate”? I’ve never … I mean, I don’t see a way where you use it for SEO and it would be real easy to pick out if you started using that for SEO.

Bradley: Yeah, this is a good blog, guys. The Stone Temple blog, these guys have some really good SEO stuff on here too and this one was published in 2016, so about two years ago, May 2016, by Eric Engine. He knows what he’s talking about. This might be something you could research, I don’t know. Again, I haven’t even read this. I just clicked on it just now, but my point is I know the Stone Temple guys typically do a good job of explaining stuff so you might be able to use this here. All I did, guys, was search rel=”alternate” and just start looking through. Look at the dates though, right? You don’t want to look at something from 2012. It’s probably not relevant now. I mean it may be. You could still look at it, but just judge it based on its freshness factor too, okay?

Is There A Way To Use Google Sites For An Ecommerce Site Where The products Are Set Up To Create A Feed For Google Shopping Ads?

All right, we’re going to answer just up to Jordan Fowler’s question guys, and we’re going to wrap it up because we’re almost out of time. I love how Armand says what up with you, yo, booty butt cheeks. I don’t know what that means, but it’s funny so I’ll plus-one it. You guys are the shit. Was wondering if there was a way to use Google Sites for an e-commerce site where the products are set up to create a feed that I could use on Google Shopping ads?” That’s a good question. I don’t know because I don’t do any e-com stuff, but that does sound like it would be pretty powerful. Do you have any experience with that, Marco?

Marco: Yeah, you’d have to use announcement pages to create a feed out of G-sites. I don’t know about the new ones. I haven’t tried the new ones out. I’m not sure how to get a feed out of that because they don’t have announcement pages in the new G-sites, as far as I know, we can’t even run the script on the new G-site, so we’re talking about the old one, I’ve seen it done I’ve seen some really wicked stuff being done with G-sites and e-commerce. Rob and I were talking about that a couple of weeks ago. But yeah, you could totally set it up use announcement pages and create the fee.

Bradley: Yeah. He says the company I work for is in an industry where Google shopping ads supposedly won’t allow our products on but we see our competitors all the time in there, so I thought this may be a workaround. Unfortunately, I don’t do any e-commerce at all, Armand. I never have. Because of that, I really can’t provide any advice and I apologize for that. But, again you could probably do some searching on it and find some information about it. Obviously, if we come across anything, we’ll certainly mention it. I love the fact that, again, you want to hear me say it again, booty butt cheeks? That’s awesome, man. I appreciate that. It made me giggle.

How Do You Block Google From Indexing A General Archive Of A Blog?

All right, cool, Greg and Scott, what’s up, guys. Jordan, he says, “Okay, my blog page general archive continues to index despite my blocking it in an SEO ultimate plus and putting meta name equals robot’s content no index in that page header. I know this is bleeding my otherwise fastidiously created silos. How bad is it hurting my SEO? Any suggestions on getting it to not index?” Okay, just put a nofollow tag in the header that’s all you have to do, because that’ll stop the bleeding. Even if it’s indexed, it doesn’t matter. If you have nofollow on it, you’re basically telling you will not to follow any of the links, like to pass any PageRank, if that’s still a thing. I think it is internally in Google, but it doesn’t pass any PageRank through any of the links on that page, if you add a nofollow, it should be to the header. That’s correct, Marco, right? I didn’t tell them wrong, did I?

Marco: No, you’re correct. And yes, PageRank is alive and well inside the algorithm.

Bradley: Right, thought so. Jordan, yeah, that’s the easy thing. Whether indexes or not, you can ask Google to honor their no Index but it’s up to them. I’ve seen stuff index that’s supposed to be no indexed all the time, but if you put nofollow in that same tag, that same HTML tag, then I think it’s just rel=”nofollow”. I’m not sure. You’d have to double check. The entire page, any links on that page will be no followed. It just knows to not pass PageRank to them. Google will still crawl the links, but it just won’t pass PageRank, so it won’t bleed your silos or your theme, okay? Okay, cool. It looks like we got to most of the questions, guys. We appreciate everybody being here. We don’t have any Mastermind this week because I’m hard at work trying to finish the prospecting funnel but …

Hernan: It’s going to be good.

Bradley: See you, guys, next week.

Hernan: Sounds good.

Bradley: Thanks, guys.

Hernan: See you, guys.

Bradley: Bye.

Marco: Bye, everyone.

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179

Click on the video above to watch Episode 179 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

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The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at https://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Bradley: I’m going to steal Adam’s line. Hello. Hey, everybody. This is Bradley Benner with the Semantic Mastery and this is Hump Day Hangouts Episode, I believe, 178. Hard to believe. Anyways, hi. It’s sunny and warm in Virginia, finally. Well, it’s getting there and I’m glad for that. We’ve got Hernan and Marco on. We’re not going to ask Marco about the weather because I’m tired of hearing about it, but how are you doing, Hernan?

Hernan: Good, man. It’s good to be here, excited for what’s coming. It’s kind of a … I think there’s going to be a big storm here in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, Estrella. So, it’s good. It’s good to be here.

Bradley: Awesome. Marco, how are you doing, man?

Marco: Investigating how to ranking Google more better.

Bradley: More better. It’s awesome. Yeah, guys, we’ve got a few things we’re going to tease you with this morning because you know how we like to do that. So we’re going to do … or today, excuse me, we’re going to tease you with a couple things. I guess, I’ll hand it over to you first, Hernan, because you wanted to talk about the updated Battleplan V2.

Hernan: Yep. Yeah, that’s right. In fact, one of the usual announcements that we do is that we tell you, guys, to go get the Battleplan because that’s like step number one if you’re new to Semantic Mastery. But for the first time in a couple of months, I would say, probably a year, I would say to hold off, to not do that because we’re actually revamping it. We’re rewriting and there’s a lot of it in it that still works like a charm so you could totally get it now, and apply today, and you will get a lot of good stuff, good results. But we have tweaked some stuff and treat some orders of different things to reflect better, what are the changes that we have been finding out and whatnot. So, we’re still reviewing it. There’s going to be probably another two weeks before we launch it or something like that. And so, yeah, I’m really excited about that. It’s going to be, as usual, a launch price that’s a no-brainer. So, stay in touch. Stay tuned because it’s got to be really, really good.

Bradley: Okay. Yeah, I agree with that. We’re looking forward to launching that because, obviously, within a year and stuff has changed, we’ve added some new things to our standard operating procedure like press releases, for example. So, all that kind of stuff is in the new Battleplan, guys. Also, next month in May, we’re going to be actually launching another product called Local GMB Pro which is going to be fabulous because Marco and Rob are back at it again. They’ve been in the lab testing basically getting results for clients or their own assets, whatever, entirely 100% within the GMB dashboard. I don’t know if you, guys, are paying attention to what’s going on inside of the GMB dashboard, but a lot of changes have occurred in just the recent months and weeks.

For example, like services tabs are now starting the show up to where you can add products, and services, and pricing, and description of them, and all that kind of stuff. There’s the messaging tab. There’s … I mean there’s all these things that you can do now and they’re like the GMB websites which I was playing with today which is freaking fabulous GMB post, like all the stuff that Google is giving us, that are free tools to use inside the GMB dashboard. What Rob and Marco have been finding out is by using those tools and doing everything that Google gives to us, taking advantage of everything that Google gives to us inside that dashboard, they’re able to generate some incredible results that has absolutely nothing to do with ranking or traditional SEO. It’s like all that shit that we’ve filled our heads with over the last many years, guys, forget about all of it because it can be done 100% inside of GMB without needing to know all that stuff.

It’s amazing because Marco and Robert started telling me about the process that … and they started developing a process doc and all that, and they shared it with me, and I had landed a client just a few weeks ago as a referral for a company that is really outside of my industry target usually but I took them on anyways. I said, “Okay, this is a perfect opportunity to apply this new GMB training that … or method that Marco and Robert putting together or developing for this project. And so, I just started working on that and developing that … and I’m recording the entire build, and that’s part of the … like that’s my contribution to the Local GMB Pro course is recording a case study. I’m learning this for the first time, too. Like I’m literally learning what Rob and Marco are teaching me and in going and applying it for the first time in this case study.

So you, guys, are seeing me make mistakes like … or you, guys, will be, those of you that purchased, of course, will be seeing me make mistakes and kind of fumbled my way through stuff which I think is a hell of a lot more genuine and more useful. Personally, as a student of many internet marketing products myself, usually, when you see the polished finished product, it’s usually just all the stuff that worked well, right? And so, but a lot of times, if you run into an issue like a challenge, or a roadblock, or something that’s not covered in the training then it can literally stop your progress dead in its tracks. I know, that’s happened to me many times because I’ve run into something that wasn’t addressed in the training because the training only shows everything that works. So, I like this style of training and that I’m learning it as I’m recording the case study videos that you, guys, can see like mistakes and how I get … how I correct them and how I find workaround stuff.

Anyways, that all said, what’s amazing is I got a call from the customer, the client, yesterday or might have been two days ago now and he was like … he’s funny, but the way he talks, he’s like, “Yo, bro, I got so many calls over the weekend from the map’s listing like I don’t even see it ranked and I don’t know how I’m getting the calls but they’re coming through.” And so, I went and looked at the GMB insights data which is like analytics inside the GMB dashboard, and you can absolutely see how much traffic. His new, brand new GMB listing has already received. You can see phone calls, the clicks to driving directions, all that kind of stuff. It’s amazing because he’s not ranked at all like anywhere.

It’s brand new listing, guys, yet just because I’m in there optimizing the way that Marco and Rob are teaching me and utilizing all the products that GMB gives us, he’s already generating leads from this listing that under normal SEO standards, I wouldn’t be generating leads with this listing for at least a month, right, long enough to get everything built out, submit a press release, syndication network, drive stack, all the stuff that we typically do, not doing any of that. This is all 100% done inside that GMB dashboard so far. And so, I let Marco talk on that for just minute. I’m going to grab the screen and just show you guys a quick … like I said, I was going to tease you, but a quick peek inside the site.

This is the back end for … of our membership sites where I’ve got lessons that I’ve been uploading. You can see, look at this, guys, I’ve got already 16 lessons added to this new training that we’re launching next month and this is just for this one case study. I haven’t even scratched the surface, man. I’m just getting started. So this is going to be one hell of a training course, guys, that will literally save you a ton of money and a ton of time because you can get results like almost overnight for clients just inside a GMB. Guys, you don’t even need a website for this which is insane. So, Marco, go ahead and chat about that for a little bit.

Marco: Well, what I want to do to tell them also is when was the map finally verified?

Bradley: Well, it was verified about two weeks ago or more, about three weeks ago, but there was a strange trouble with it, there was a duplicate listing that was [inaudible 00:07:31].

Marco: Yeah, but, I mean, when did everything get corrected and when-

Bradley: Thursday.

Marco: Last Thursday.

Bradley: Thursday last week. So less than a week ago.

Marco: And then in during that time, you can already see results.

Bradley: Yeah, over the weekend, this past weekend, he said he received, I think, six or eight calls or something like that. If you go look, it shows a calls. It only shows four from the weekend and four calls prior to that weekend. So I’m not sure how those other four calls got there. But he said he got six or eight calls, something like that, over the weekend and the insights are showing it.

Marco: So, here’s the deal. Those will only register the click-to-call from their cellphone when they click the phone and call the company directly. They won’t register like when they see the listing …

Bradley: And call from there.

Marco: And call.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah.

Marco: Right? But, I mean, the results are there and they’re undeniable, number one, from insights and just from the client being so excited or sometimes so overwhelmed that they’ll say, “I have so many calls. What the hell do I do? What am I supposed to do?” I wasn’t the … the experience that I’ve had and, now, we’re going on the third month and I’m going to raise my rates again for the third or fourth month is … I just got … do 600% of traffic. Traffic went up 600% from the insights that we got … this is month to month. So from last month to this month and it’s incredible that the number one, it shows visits, organic visits and it shows what happens with the GMB. So everything is right there and you know. Like my thing for years and years has always been I never guarantee rankings because I know that Google is a fickle mistress, right?

I know that Google will do whatever it wants to do. But I’ve always said … I will either get your results or you leave. I put it that … that’s my pitch. If we boil it all down, my pitch is, “Dude, I’m going to get you. I’m going to make you money. If I don’t, then you don’t have to pay me anymore. You could just walk away. No contracts, no nothing.” This is a way to make sure that you’ll be able to come through with that guarantee that you’re giving your client of making your client money. So, I think this is just … I don’t know, just another way that we found like exploiting Google’s love for itself.

Bradley: Yeah. What’s great about it, guys, is like I said, this … the training is going to be entirely about how to use just GMB assets and that’s it. Obviously, you can incorporate other stuff, other traditional SEO, and local SEO stuff that we also know works, right? So, for example, syndication networks help validate the entity drive stats, press releases, all that stuff, but the goal with the GMB Pro course is to teach you how to get results strictly in the GMB environment. If you want to add the other stuff, it’s only going to make you … help you to get results faster and maintain them for longer, you know what, even … and so far I don’t have a history of knowing like if I got to continue that activity or what for this because this is new to me, too. But my point is even in really competitive stuff, you’ll be able to get results because you’ll be doing stuff that’s generating activity, that has … it’s completely independent of rankings. That’s my point.

Like it’s amazing because … and, again, I was telling Marco I’m curious as to how … what I think is going on is that people that are in a particular area, remember, this is all local stuff, right? So people that are in an area that Google knows your history, if you’re … if you’ve got a Google account and it’s … you’re tied to your phone, Google knows where you are at all times. They know what stores you like, what kind of searches you do. They know everything about you. And so, even though the rank trackers might not show the listings as ranking in maps because there’s some random IP … it might even be a localized IP, but it has no search history, that kind of stuff. It’s no profile attached to it whereas somebody that’s in that area does have a profile, that’s got an accrued search history. They might have … they might be an in-market, they might be in market for a particular service. And so Google knows all of this.

And so Google is displaying these localized results to those people that are most … that it’s most relevant to them, if that makes sense, whereas a rank tracker, it’s not going to see that that kind of … that’s not going to see that kind of a search result. I’m thinking that that’s what it is because Google for years has been talking about localizing and personalizing search results as much as possible. The technology is there now that they can do it. So, you and I or those of us that are looking at it remotely aren’t going to see the same data that somebody is actually searching from locally especially there from a mobile device which is where like more than two-thirds of all search traffic goes through mobile devices now, right? So think about that, guys. Just really super powerful. I’m excited about it and I’m actually really excited about it. I’m looking forward to getting relaunching or launching this course next month. All right, guys, I think we got enough pitching.

Hernan: Yeah, yeah.

Bradley: Questions now, what do you think?

Hernan: Yeah.

Marco: Sam’s up. Sam Bailey.

Bradley: All right, let’s do it. Let me grab the screen.

Hernan: Sam the man.

Is There An SEO Benefit To Using The Parent Page Feature In WordPress For Subcategories?

Bradley: Okay, Sam, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Question about the site structure. I’m using virtual silo structure. If I have a page that links to one or more subcategory pages, is there an SEO benefit to using the parent page feature in WordPress for this?” Well, okay, remember, if you’re using a complex silo structure, that’s how you create subcategory pages, right? So think about that, Sam. If you’re using a complex silo structure where you have top-level category which is also a page, which is a parent page, then you have subcategories which are also pages but those are child pages which means you have to select the parent page and the right-hand sidebar of the page, WYSIWYG editor-type thing. You select the parent page and then posts are obviously post. Those go into either categories or subcategories, right? And so, that’s the hierarchy of how you use a complex silo structure.

So, if you’re doing complex silo structures, yes, you would have … you would assign a parent page. Whether you’re using physical silos or virtual silos, and all that means, guys, in case anybody’s confused about that is whether you’re showing the silo structure in the URL. That is determined by your permalink settings in WordPress. If you’re using permalink … the post name settings then that’s a virtual silo because it’s not … the hierarchy is not displayed in the URL. It’s only showing the post or page slug. So it’s rootdomain.com/post or page slug, right? So that’s the post name permalink structure. If you’re using category post-name permalink structure, that will show physical silo structure, right? So that’ll show the hierarchy in the actual URL.

I’ve always preferred it that way. To me, it’s more logical. That way, however, it makes no difference as far as SEO. I’ve tested it both ways in the virtual silo. In fact, I would even probably suggest or recommend going with the virtual silo method because you can run into some funny slug or URL things that happen when trying to do the complex silo structure and using the category post-name, permalink. That makes sense. So, Sam, just because I don’t want you to be confused here. If you’re doing a complex silo then you have to use the parent page or sign a parent page from subcategories which will be pages, okay, if you’re using a simple silo structure than now because typically you wouldn’t … usually you’re just going to have categories and impost so there wouldn’t be a need for a subcategory, okay? If you have subcategories, it’s typically because you’re using a complex silo structure. So hopefully that answers the question. If it doesn’t, Sam, try to repost it with a little bit more detail, okay?

Hernan: I’ve also added links to our videos for a complex silo and simple silo structures.

When Will You Release The New Course Local GMB Pro?

Bradley: Perfect. Those videos are old and they still apply. There’s nothing to change about that. John, what’s up, John? He says, “Hi, I listen to your Hump Day Hangouts every week.” Thanks, man. I appreciate that. He says, “Plus one for you, guys. I would like to know when you plan to release your new course Local GMB Pro. Thanks.” Awesome, John. Yeah, that’s next month. We’re definitely going to be launching that in May. There’s no question. That’s coming out in May. I mean, I should be done with my part of it within the next week or so other than coming in and updating to show like the incredible results that I’m expecting to get now. Other than that, like mostly … like, again, it’s just a process. Once you learn it like … we’re talking about even providing a done for your GMB Pro service. It’s something we’re seriously considering building out a team for that, so. Nobody out there will have that except us at least initially then we’ll have a bunch of people come copy us as usual.

Is There A Way To Separate Multiple Tumblr Accounts So They Don’t Immediately Get Banned?

All right, Adrian Harper says, “Hey, guys, I have a question regarding Web 2s. I recently bought 50 Tumblr accounts from a gig on Fiverr but they didn’t come as separate accounts.” Ooh. “There’s the main account and several accounts under that which isn’t really good and I don’t think about linking to a money site to boost rankings zeros away. Is there a way to separate these accounts so you don’t immediately get banned? Also somewhere I read that you were able to log in the numerous Tumblr accounts to add content and personas using Browseo and didn’t need any proxies, is this correct? Thanks, guys, and keep up the good work, Adrian.” Okay, Adrian, I’m not 100% sure about the process for transferring an account in Tumblr like a blog from one Tumblr account to another. It’s probably possible.

I would just contact Tumblr support to ask them like just pitch it. When you ask them, ask them as if you were transferring a blog to somebody else and just say like, “What’s the process for doing that? Is that possible?” Find out if that’s possibly because, yeah, I agree with you. If you buy 50 expired Tumblrs and they’re all under one account, that’s, to me, is useless. Like you might be able to get some out of it, but the problem is if one of your sites gets terminated or banned, it could likely pass to that entire account and you lose everything. I don’t know that for sure, guys, because I don’t typically set up my accounts that way, but I would assume that that one profile could get banned which would kill all of the blogs under that profile. I don’t know if they keep it separate or not, if Tumblr does, okay?

Hernan: Yeah. Yeah, I would assume that you’re right. Like if you think like … when in doubt, just don’t do it, you know what I’m saying? Like we haven’t gone that far as to create several sub accounts within the same Tumblr account, but just … if in doubt, just in case, do it.

Bradley: Yeah. I mean, I’ve created three or four blogs under one profile, but I’ve never … like it’s typically that’s only because they’re in different industries-type stuff, so I’m using them for different purposes. But, yeah, if you’re basically like trying to use several Tumblr accounts like basically a web to PBN or something to link to your money sites, I would not have them all coming from the same account number one, okay? As far as Tumblr accounts and browser, yeah, guys, the thing about using proxies for Browseo like for creating account, like for creating accounts and stuff like that, guys, that is no longer such an issue. It used to be few years ago where you didn’t want to create a bunch of accounts from the same … [inaudible 00:19:16] the case because of public WiFi has just basically … it’s blanketed everywhere, you know what I mean?

So, there are always dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people on the same IP. Think about it. And so, all logged in to the same type of accounts and it doesn’t flag everybody’s account because it’s the same IP. So it’s no longer an IP issue. It’s not like it used to be anyways. Why it’s important? Why you can do that with Browseo? Here’s the thing, if you were to go clear Firefox through the normal clear cache and cookies process, and run CCleaner, and do all that stuff, and then log in to an account with a fresh browser like virgin white, fresh browser, that looks unnatural. So if you do that and then you log back out, clean your cache and cookies, and then log back in through the same IP to another account with a fresh browser and you do that a couple of times, you can absolutely flag your IP for that kind of activity, for spammy activity which could cause accounts to be terminated or to be … requiring verification, all that kind of stuff because you’re sending a lot of unnatural signals to that platform that you keep logging in to with the fresh browser under new accounts.

Does that make sense? However, if you’ve got Browseo or any tool that does that, I think another one is called Ghost Browser or something like that, whatever tool you have or app that will do that for you, you can still log in underneath the same IP but each browsing session keeps its history. So there’s cookies that are accrued and there’s history as to what sites have been visited and what searches have been done, and that what links have been clicked on, and that kind of stuff. And so, those kind of histories and those cookies that accrue start to build up a profile even if it’s under the same IP, it doesn’t matter because each IP or each profile is going to have a slightly different history. That looks natural because people do that but people don’t … typically, people don’t clear your browser every time they log in and think about a public WiFi not 15 people in any public WiFi spot are going to clear all their cache and cookies and then log in to their account from that same IP. Does that makes sense?

But there could be 15 people logged in to Tumblr from the same IP because they’re all … but they’re all different accounts. So my point is, is just acting more natural is the way to do it even if it’s from the same IP. That’s why I use Browseo all the time but I even … I have some select accounts that are assigned to dedicated proxies that I still use today because they’ve been set up and they’ve accrued browsing history over the last two years now, really. But all my new accounts that I set up in Browseo, they’re all just run right through my IP guys. I don’t care about the IP problem anymore because I’m building up profiles that have their own history, in their own search habits, in their own likes and themes and all of that stuff, and it’s all done through my same IP which is okay in my opinion. I’ve never had any problems with it. Does anybody have anything to say differently about that?

Marco: No, not about that but I do as far as the original question. You should be able to transfer the different accounts and the different blogs. You have to go into Tumblr and create the new account that you’re going to transfer to, and then you send an email from the blog that you’re looking to transfer to that new account to join right to that email to join your blog and then you can make that person an admin, and then you can eliminate yourself from … I’m pretty sure Google it because I’m sure that somewhere in YouTube or somewhere in Google, it will be explained exactly how’s that. But the gist of it, if I remember it correctly, that’s how it’s done. I did it before with some stuff that I got crossed up. I added about five different blogs and that’s how I did it. I just added … started a new one and figured out how to transfer the ownership, but you don’t really transfer ownership. You make someone an admin and then you eliminate yourself from that. By doing that, it makes that new blog or that new Tumblr account the administrator.

Bradley: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I … I mean, just go to YouTube and search and guarantee you’ll find it, or go to Google and search the videos tab because that has a much better search functionality than YouTube does, so.

How Do You Explain A One-Off Onboarding Or Setup Fee To A New Client?

Okay, Pete, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Hey, guys, when you were talking to a potential new client, do you put in the proposal a one-off onboarding or setup fee? If so, how do you explain what the fee is for and why do you charge the fee? Thanks in advance.” It depends on what I’m doing, Pete. But, yeah, there’s usually setup fees involved. It depends on … again, it depends on each one of the services. So, for example, like for Google My Business or maps SEO, I always charge a maps optimization or maps set up an optimization fee, right?

I charge $697, I believe, for that which includes the GMB set up an optimization. If it’s not already set up, then I set it up. Typically, it’s set up and I’ve just got to optimize it. Bing and in Yahoo!, in fact, I really even kind of took Yahoo! out of it to where I’m really just now doing Bing in GMB for the same price, right, $697. That’s what I charge. But then my local monthly SEO charges for any at … the lowest I would charge for local maps is 500 bucks a month for maintaining. So like I’ll charge $697 set up and $500 a month. If I got somebody with two locations, a lot of the times I’ll charge them $400 per location per month. So it’s 800 bucks for two. That’s just kind of how I do stuff like I … I don’t charge as much as a lot of the other people do for my services, but when it comes to setup fees, it just depends on what it is.

Like, for example, I also do reputational marketing stuff now because it’s just so stupid easy to fulfill, right? The app does all the work. All you got to do is sell it. And so like I’ll charge somebody like 99 bucks as a setup fee because it takes me or a VA about 20 minutes to input data into the system and that’s it. And so I make $100 on a setup fee and then I’ll charge maybe $200 a month or something like that on just the reputation stuff but I typically try to roll all of that into a larger SEO package, anyways, okay? But, yeah, I mean, guys, I’m always transparent about my charges to my clients. Like I tell them exactly what everything is for. Like I don’t ever try to inflate prices here and there to kind of hide stuff. I just flat out tell them what it is and I explain why that I’m charging for that and why it’s necessary.

Again, like I said, the way that I present my services to my clients, it’s in a very transparent way so that I honestly feel like I earned their trust by just explaining everything in such detail if that makes sense. So, anyways, that’s my two cents. You, guys, have any additional input on that?

Hernan: Yeah, real quick, I do the same that you do, Bradley, in terms of I tell them, “Hey, this is what it’s going to charge like and what I’m going to charge, and then these are the tools that I’m going to use, and this is the final … like the tally, if you want,” But, yeah, I definitely break that down for the clients and I’m completely 100% transparent as you were saying as well.

Bradley: Marco?

Marco: No, I totally agree. You have to be transparent. But then, again, if you position yourself correctly, you should also raise your prices accordingly. I mean, you know your market, you know your local market, Bradley, and you know what it is. I would never charge the same thing to someone, let’s say, in an area like where you are like, let’s say, in Georgetown, for example, where I know, I mean, that the money is just way different. A Beverly Hills Dennis, I’m going to hit him over the head as opposed to just a local Dennis that’s just trying to get people in the door, right, so that he can then sell them on whatever services it is that he has. So you have to know. If you know your market and you position yourself accordingly then you could usually could charge a little bit more but, definitely, transparent as far as the tools, as far as using … you have to pay your staff. You have expenses also.

Bradley: Yep.

Marco: If you’re transparent with all of that then you should be okay. I mean, markup … you have to charge what you feel you’re worth. That’s how I think. You have to charge for your services and if you’re that good then you should charge for that. You should charge a premium. Most other businesses and most other experts do.

What Are Possible Reasons Why A Gmail Account Used In GSites And Drive Stacks Got Suspended?

Bradley: I agree. Okay. D is, “Hey, guys, a few days ago, my Gmail account got suspended. It was my persona account for one of my affiliate sites and the account was around nine months old. I had a branded IFTTT network and drive stack attached to this account. I need the words of wisdom from you, guys, on this issue. Before that, I want to tell you a few things. I had content in the drive files without attribution and all of these documents were created a few months back.” Okay, so if it was like straight up copied content from somewhere without attribution, well, that typically hasn’t created a problem, but Marco can comment on that.

Marco: No, that’s never been a problem.

Bradley: Yeah, it’s never been a problem.

Marco: No, we’re still doing it the same way, not a problem.

Bradley: He says, “A few days ago, I created a new G-site for link building and I framed a few of my Google Docs and spreadsheets, and I went to Fiverr, and ordered two contextual backlinks packages with one 5,000 links and with one 2,000 links to my new G-site.” Again, although, I never recommend buying backlinks packages from Fiverr because those templates are used over, and over, and over again, so it’s definitely a footprint thing. Well, I’m sure there’s some providers there that are decent, but I just don’t recommend it. But I don’t think that’s the problem either, the backlinks to your G-site. Marco, do you they feel differently?

Marco: I’ve never seen this kind of behavior before and we’ve thrown the kitchen sink at drive stacks. It may have been that he linked directly to the G-site, but we’ve done that also. Like this isn’t in the right context for me to be able to see. Did we do the drive stack? If so, then I can reach out and see what was done. I mean, but if it’s someone else’s drive stack, I can’t say because I don’t know what type of garbage they did. If you did it yourself, did you follow our training or who’s training did you follow? I mean, there’s so many things that are possible here that I could go on, and on, and on, and we’d never get to an answer.

Bradley: Yeah and one question I would have was … and I’m not doubting that it truly is suspended but I’m just throwing this out there for everybody’s benefit. There’s been times where I’ve had blogger accounts, for example, specifically from syndication networks where like a blog blogger account says it’s been suspended for violations of terms of service or whatever. All it was, was … it was showing the blogger blog is being suspended, but all it was, was the Gmail account associated with that blogger blog had to be re-verified through a phone verification. After re-verifying the account which sometimes is difficult, then blogger blog, all of a sudden, the suspension is lifted and it’s back live again on the web as soon as you verify the account. So all I’m saying, the reason why I bring that up is because is it indeed a suspension which I’m pretty sure that you’ve already confirmed that or is it just that you have to re-verify the account.

You might want to look into that first if you haven’t already is my point, okay? But, yeah, I don’t know because I haven’t run into that problem like … I haven’t had too many Google account suspended. I have from spamming like Google+ with automated like in an automated way or like with social sharing, like there’s some of those apps where you can share other people’s content and they share content for you. I’ve done that in the past and I’ve had some just stuff that absolutely violates terms of service posted like pharma stuff, Viagra pill stuff, things like that that have had my accounts suspended. But as far as like just creating a G-site and doing like drive stack stuff, embedding files, even spamming it to death, I’ve never had any issues with that, not even one, not one site has ever been suspended for that. So I can’t really speak as to what the problem is if I’ve never seen it personally, unfortunately, sorry.

Marco: The only thing I’ve ever seen go wrong and get us a suspension is when we ran the script and it was pulling in too many files which is just too many Google resources that you’re using up for free and then that will get your G-site terminated. It’ll get the G-site suspended and you won’t … it’s really hard to recover it, but the drive stack was still intact. So it’s just a matter of slowing down the script and the way that it runs and then just redoing a G-site and just doing it all over again, not the Gmail account. This is what’s surprising that the Gmail account getting suspended not from a drive stack, I don’t know. It may have triggered a re-verification like you said.

Bradley: That’s what I would think it would be is that more and more … I mean, because, honestly, that’s typically the only thing that happens is that an account gets locked for re-verification and all of the sub-accounts or tools, the apps that Google allows you to have with an account, they all get basically temporarily suspended until you can re-verify. Sometimes it’s impossible re-verifying. I’ve lost stuff because of it, but other times, I’ve been able to re-verify and everything comes back. So that’s what I’m assuming it may be without more detail. All right. Nigel’s up. Nigel just recently joined the mastermind after coming here for months and asking many questions and taking action. He got himself to a position where he joined a mastermind, it’s freaking fabulous.

Nigel, you and Mohammed back to back, look at that, that’s awesome because both of you have taken very similar paths in that. You’ve come here and asked a bunch of questions every single week and you’ve applied taken action on what you’ve learned and it’s propelled you to the point that you could come join the mastermind which will help you to grow your businesses even faster. So both of you, I’m proud of both of you, seriously. I’ve said that to you, Mohammed, but not so much to you, Nigel. We certainly appreciate you joining the mastermind. We will be there to help you in any way we can, okay? [Newly Minted MM 00:34:18] status, “It feels great. Thank you for the warm welcome, truly been awesome so far and looking forward to posting results soon.” We’re looking forward to you posting them.

That video email, nice, I got my money’s worth for this month already. So you must have picked Video Lead-Gen System as the bonus or whatever. That’s awesome. Just keep in mind, guys, that as part of the prospecting module, we’re going to flash that out a hell of a lot more and we’re going to end up updating that product and in launching that with a proper launch. So, I think, Hernan, you might want to get this ready, but I think we still have the pre-sale for Video Lead-Gen System available. If it’s still available, people can still get in now when we go to launch it, once it’s relaunched with all the new training that’s going to be added. It’s going to be at least 500 bucks.

Hernan: Yeah I’ve been actually start for [inaudible 00:35:08] let me confirm that with you, Bradley.

Bradley: I think it’s vlgs.semanticmastery.com, I think. But, anyways …

Hernan: Yeah, I want to make sure that it’s still open in the back if that makes sense.

Bradley: Okay, I got it. Anyways, that way …

Marco: Can I just add for a second? We’re giving you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. We always give you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. Please don’t come back in a month, two months, or three months, or however long and say, “You raise the price. Now, I can’t buy it at the launch price.” The launch price is what it is. The pre-launch price is what it is, and then it goes up to the price where we established. Why do we do that? Because we want you, people who follow us, people who are members, we want you to have a first crack at it at a price where it’s comfortable but it’s worth so much more than what we charge that we just can’t give it away for free, sorry. It takes too much time too much effort. It takes too much work to put all the stuff together and we can’t give it away. It’s worth what it’s worth. It’s going up to where it’s going.

You’re warned that it’s happening. I mean, emails are sent out. We do it on Hump Day Hangouts. We do it everywhere. We give people ample notice. Please don’t come back and complain that the price has been raised when you already know that the price is going to be raised.

Hernan: Yep. I just posted on the event page. So you better like you better … yeah, you said, I said while it lasts because, I don’t know, somebody could find out and we might close it.

Marco: Yeah.

Where Can I Find A Document On Basic Metadata And Tag Configuration?

Bradley: That’s true. Like I said, we’re going to be launching that in April, May, June … June, I believe. Yeah, I believe we talked about that this week, guys, didn’t we? I think we’re going to relaunch that in June, so. All right. Anyways, where can I … back to Nigel’s question. “Where can I find the document on basic metadata and tag configuration without going too far down the rabbit hole? Basically, I want to clear an easy way to provide, I want a clear and easy way to provide some value to prospects that I audit. I had a prospects report come back with metadata and tag issues, and I would have loved to offer some generic DIY info for free like put this kind of information in here without going all Jeffrey Smith SEO Bootcamp on them. Any direction you can provide a solid guide template would be invaluable.”

All right. So, my only concern with that, Nigel, is remember who your audience is, right? So when you’re talking to a prospect in a video audit and you are explaining to them something that they could do that could have a positive impact on their digital presence, you want something that’s incredibly easy for them to do that doesn’t require a ton of explanation. So I know that’s basically what you’re asking, how could I have provided some information about metadata and tags that wouldn’t confuse them. That’s kind of difficult to do especially in a video audit. Now, you could try it with like … if I were to try to create an example for that, I’m sure I could figure out a way to dumb it down quite a bit, but I might do something like talk about how tags are supposed to be kind of descriptive terms about the topic of the post and right, and then there’s like a hierarchy and stuff but remember, you don’t want to overwhelm them with technical stuff because their eyes will glaze over and though it’s like you’re speaking a foreign language to them, right?

And so, again, you don’t want to get too technical. A lot of the times that the kind of advice or suggestion that I will give in an audit will be something very simple like, “Hey, you don’t have your name, address, and phone number listed on your website. That’s something that is incredibly powerful for helping you to rank in maps. So, I would recommend that you put a widget in your site or have your webmaster put a widget in the footer or in the sidebar that lists your name, address, and phone number,” stuff like that, something that’s very simple that doesn’t take a lot of explanation but they could easily do that’s going to literally help give them an improvement, right? Like it’s going to improve their presence slightly even if not much.

You could give them a tip on optimizing Yelp or some … all I’m saying is like you could give them a tip on optimizing their GMB listing say, “Hey, I’m looking at your Google My Business listing and it looks like you only have your logo and nothing else. You might want to add some optimized images and here’s a trick. Name the file names of the images after products and services that you provide. Include local modifiers, your city name, the areas that you service, things like that.” Very, very easy stuff that they can do as far as tags and metadata that’s a bit too technical in my opinion to try to explain that to a layman or civilian so to speak. You, guys, have any other suggestions on that?

Marco: No, I totally agree with you. If you start talking about title tags and metadata, you’re going to have to show SERPs to show the purpose that they serve, and then that might get the talking into, “Well, am I going to get those kinds of results? Am I going to get those rankings? Am I going to rank for these keywords? And what keywords am I going to …” You don’t want the conversation going that way. Then the conversation is going all wrong because you want the conversation to be all about the leads or the results that you’re going to get for the person. I mean, you could do it in the video of the person is technical enough, but that’s not a conversation that you want to have with someone that you’re just taking on as a client. I mean, if you want to do that, let’s say, later on as an add-on or whatever, we’re going to improve your ad copy, for example, you could say that.

You could compare it to classifieds where you want to stand out from the bunch and and how you can make it stand out. You never want to put the client in a position where they have to kind of try to figure out how they’re going to do it because then it’s all over. Their eyes would like Bradley said, that they’ll roll into the back of their head and they’ll start singing … show tunes and you can forget it.

Can You Share Your Citation Building Methodology In Serp Space?

Bradley: That’s it. Number two, he says, “I saw a subspace as levels of citations, foundation, hometown, a multimedia in terms of marketing to clients. Is that like month one, two, three strategy? And does dripping citation building actually matter or just better to spread things out?” Well, what I do is like part of my monthly SEO services include citation building but that doesn’t mean that I’m building citations every month. I mean, most of the time I do or a lot of the times for my clients now because it’s just so much easier is … I’m not going to lie, for most of my clients, I’d used Loganix services, the monthly citation building. I don’t even … like and that’s only because that service is great and it’s 100% managed. I don’t have to do anything. All I have to do is input data once and they build citations every month. They do a a mix of structured citations and unstructured citations.

What’s the difference? A structured citation is a classical business directory listing, name, address, phone number, sometimes a link back to the site, but it’s a business directory listing. An unstructured citation is a mention of NAP, right? Name, address, phone number but on non-traditional business sites, like non-traditional directory sites. In other words, social medias, blogs, press releases, all of those video sites, documents sharing sites, audio sites, image sharing sites, all of those types of sites become none … or what they call unstructured citations. And so, the Loganix monthly citation service is 150 bucks, semanticmastery.com/loganix, I believe, will take you over there. It’s a good service. I like it because it’s 100% outsourced.

But for some of my clients that are grandfathered into a much lower monthly price, I’m not going to cough up $150 to pays Loganix to do it. So what I’ll do is, obviously, I’ll do like a package from SerpSpace. I’ll do like the foundations which are the … like basically like all the big directories and then I’ll get the local citations on top of that, then I’ll do the multimedia or the social type citations like another month. It doesn’t have to be month one, month two, month three. If it’s a newer site that you’re trying to get them results then that might be a good strategy. If it’s a site that’s already doing well like as far as ranking in maps then I don’t always do that, like I might build a batch of citations and then wait three months before I build another batch of citations. Because here’s the thing, guys, also like I don’t know what reporting software or app you’re using for that but I use BrightLocal.

BrightLocal is a fabulous service. Again, semanticmastery.com/brightlocal, I think, will take you over there. I’ve been using it since 2012 when I opened my agency and I use … that’s what I use for all my reporting. What I like about BrightLocal is it will do citation tracking. So it’ll show you how many citations and it will keep a history of all that so you can see the graph over time going up as far as the number of citations accrued. And so, what I found is doing a batch of citations, let’s say, I order 50 new citations to be built. It doesn’t matter what type of citation structured, unstructured, foundation, social, it doesn’t really matter, hyperlocal, any of those doesn’t matter because what happens is I’ll get the report back and I’ll submit all those URLs for indexing which apparently most indexers aren’t working now anyways, and it takes three months for all of them to end up … not all of them end up, get out of 50. I might only have 35 of them that end up getting indexed over the course of three months.

So my point is you don’t have to build every single month because you can build today and three months from now, Google would just start finding some of those citations if that makes sense. One of the things I highly recommend is that you do local data aggregator submissions like the big data aggregator submissions which is Factual, Acxiom, InfoUSA or Express Update, I think it’s called, which is part of InfoUSA, and in Neustar/Localeze. There’s a couple services that will do that. One of the things I like about BrightLocal is BrightLocal has that for $55 and you have to up … you have to redo it every year, but it’s 55 bucks and they’ll submit to all four data aggregators. What’s great about that is within three to six months like you’ll start seeing a bunch of new citations pop up just because your data is listed in the aggregators, right?

And so, again, I like to use BrightLocal for that because it’s 55 bucks and they submit all to all for submission … data aggregators for me, okay? So, again, my citation building method really just varies for all new clients that I’ve signed up within the last probably a year and a half, maybe two years now because my pricing is higher than it was for some of my grandfather clients. They all just get put on the Loganix service because, again, it’s something that it’s out of sight out of mind. I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s done. I know every single month. They’re getting a mix of structured and unstructured citations and then backlinks are being built to those citations, so it’s just done for me. It’s something I don’t have to manage anymore. Does that make sense? Okay

How Do You Get Back In Touch With The Ones That At Least Watched The Video Emails?

All right. Mohammed’s up. He says, “Hey, guys.” What’s up, Muhammad? “When I first started video emails, I bungled a lot of leads by not calling them and getting a conversation going. How would I get back in touch with the ones that at least watched my video? I was going to call them but given them my emails were months ago, they may be lost. Do I send them the same email again?” No, here’s what I would do, Mohammed, and I’ve done this before. Create a generic video that is talking to all of them. So create … so that way, you’re still getting that personalized effect but you don’t have to record, you don’t have to send them the same video that they’ve already seen, and you don’t have to send a personalized video for each and every person that you’re recontacting, right?

So just record a video with you looking into the camera, or whatever, or if you’re doing a screencast plus picture and picture or whatever, any … however you want to do it. Just record a short video. “Hey, I sent you an email, a video email a few months ago,” right? So don’t say their names, don’t say their business, you’re in the same … in a specific vertical. So, “Hey, I sent you a video about your real estate business or whatever a couple months ago and I’m just reaching back out to try to start this conversation and go start a dialogue with you again, see if you’d be interested in having a conversation about what I sent you. If you’re curious about … if you didn’t see the video before, you’d like to see it again, just hit reply to this and I’ll send you the link again.” Does that make sense?

So that way you’ve got one generic video that, now, you can literally mass email out to everybody that engaged with your first video and in those people that re-engage with your new email, they might hit reply back and ask you to send them, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Can you send it to me again?” Anyways, it just gets the conversation started. So that’s what I would do because we save you a ton of time. Just do one generic video and then blast it out to everybody that you … that engaged you the first time but you didn’t follow up with correctly and just try to get some engagement out that like sent … recontacting them again, okay?

What Email Marketing Program Do You Recommend?

Okay, Quit This House, he says, “Hey, guys, thanks for all you do to help us.” You’re welcome. “Everyone talks about building a list. What email marketing program do you recommend?” Well, I’m using drip.com which is an autoresponder from Leadpages. I’ve never been a fan of Leadpages, but they’re their autoresponder is freaking fabulous. Drip is great at least it is for me. I’m building out my entire prospecting funnel and all the automations, well, about 80% of the automations are handled inside of Drip right now and it’s … it inboxes into the primary tab in Gmail which is insane because most of the other autoresponders go to the promotions tab in Gmail. That was the primary reason I started using Drip, was just because it goes to the primary inbox on Gmail. Since then, I’ve started to learn how to use Drip because I’ve never been an email marketing guy, but I’m using it now and all the automation that they’re called workflows inside of drip, and it’s fabulous.

The amount of stuff that you can automate is just insane. That’s what we’ve working on, is an automated prospecting funnel and we’re going to be building out an automated onboarding and fulfillment funnel too.

Hernan: Yeah. If I can add to that, we use ActiveCampaign for Semantic Mastery. I use the ActiveCampaign a lot, but it was a wash between Drip and ActiveCampaign, because the main point is that you can automate a lot of stuff.

Bradley: Yeah.

Hernan: That’s the main point, and they’re way more powerful than any other kind of responder. In fact, like you get all of that functionality only by going through Infusionsoft, which is like 500 bucks a month or something like that. We use either Drip or ActiveCampaign. Those are the goto solutions.

Bradley: Totally agree. I’m super impressed with it. In fact, I was talking on the Mastermind Webinar last week about the prospecting funnel. I’ve actually like chick and it scratched it and started over three times from scratch now, because it’s just a really complex build. Part of the reason it was over complicated the first couple times is because I was trying to patch together a whole bunch of different apps and services to handle all of the automations. Again, I’m not an email marketing guy. It’s not something I’ve typically done in my career. I was unaware of how much could actually be done within the Drip platform. After wasting literally weeks and dozens and dozens of hours on building out this funnel and it not working or even being too complex for even me to be able to maintain it, that’s when I said, “Okay, look, I’m just going to spend a couple days researching Drip and trying to figure out how to use this.”

I made more progress in about three days that way than I had in three weeks prior to just by starting to put everything that I could in the Drip. Again, I’m super impressed with it, I’m really happy with it, and I’m still learning. Inside the Mastermind, we’re covering all of that stuff to you, guys. I don’t know if you’re not in there yet, come join us because all of that’s going to be … Like, I’m literally going to be giving all of our Mastermind members the blueprint and step-by-step process instructions for how to build their own prospecting automation funnel. I’ve even impressed myself with it. Just so you know, it’s like that.

How Do You Build Your YouTube Channels?

All right, next, he says, “When you buy your YouTube channels, how much do you build them out, cover pic, link, G+ short description, or both on both G+ profile and YouTube?” It depends on what I’m using them for. We buy a ton of YouTube accounts just straight up for YouTube spam, I honestly don’t build those out at all. If it’s for a money channel, then yes absolutely because it’s about branding, right? If you’re building a money channel, then, yeah, you absolutely want to complete the G+ profile, you want to fill out the YouTube channel, the About section, add the links, the interlinking, all that kind of stuff. It depends on what your intent is with that YouTube channel. If it’s for spam purposes, no, don’t do anything else. Just buy the damn account, that’s it. Make sure it’s phone verified and that’s it, but if you’re doing it for a money project, an affiliate project, a client project to legion, for any one of those, then, absolutely, try to complete as many of the Google properties as possible and interlink all of them, okay? That includes blogger too, guys, right?

What Do You Think Of Using Rel=Alternate For SEO Purposes?

Steve, what’s up? He says, “Hi, I heard him passing reference last week to linking with rel=”alternate” for SEO purposes. Can you recommend on this? Does it work? What are the best practices and are there any dangers? Is this equivalent the same as markup? Thanks.” To be honest, I’ve never used it. I’m going to defer to Marco. What can you tell us about it, Marco?

Marco: The only time that I’ve used the rel=”alternate” tag is when defining language. I’ve never used it for SEO. I’ve always used rel=”canonical”. I mean it’s something that I would have to try because I’ve never used it that. I don’t think that Google even recommends for you to use and to use rel that way alternate. I think it would have to be canonical. I haven’t read anything on it. I know that Mars had something on it. I know that the Google Blog middle of last year had something on it but we use canonical because that’s where we see the greatest SEO effect.

Bradley: Yeah. Again, I can’t speak on it because I haven’t used it at all. We could probably do some research on it.

Hernan: Yeah, sorry, you could use it for language, you could use it for mobile.

Marco: That type of thing?

Hernan: rel=”alternate”? I’ve never … I mean, I don’t see a way where you use it for SEO and it would be real easy to pick out if you started using that for SEO.

Bradley: Yeah, this is a good blog, guys. The Stone Temple blog, these guys have some really good SEO stuff on here too and this one was published in 2016, so about two years ago, May 2016, by Eric Engine. He knows what he’s talking about. This might be something you could research, I don’t know. Again, I haven’t even read this. I just clicked on it just now, but my point is I know the Stone Temple guys typically do a good job of explaining stuff so you might be able to use this here. All I did, guys, was search rel=”alternate” and just start looking through. Look at the dates though, right? You don’t want to look at something from 2012. It’s probably not relevant now. I mean it may be. You could still look at it, but just judge it based on its freshness factor too, okay?

Is There A Way To Use Google Sites For An Ecommerce Site Where The products Are Set Up To Create A Feed For Google Shopping Ads?

All right, we’re going to answer just up to Jordan Fowler’s question guys, and we’re going to wrap it up because we’re almost out of time. I love how Armand says what up with you, yo, booty butt cheeks. I don’t know what that means, but it’s funny so I’ll plus-one it. You guys are the shit. Was wondering if there was a way to use Google Sites for an e-commerce site where the products are set up to create a feed that I could use on Google Shopping ads?” That’s a good question. I don’t know because I don’t do any e-com stuff, but that does sound like it would be pretty powerful. Do you have any experience with that, Marco?

Marco: Yeah, you’d have to use announcement pages to create a feed out of G-sites. I don’t know about the new ones. I haven’t tried the new ones out. I’m not sure how to get a feed out of that because they don’t have announcement pages in the new G-sites, as far as I know, we can’t even run the script on the new G-site, so we’re talking about the old one, I’ve seen it done I’ve seen some really wicked stuff being done with G-sites and e-commerce. Rob and I were talking about that a couple of weeks ago. But yeah, you could totally set it up use announcement pages and create the fee.

Bradley: Yeah. He says the company I work for is in an industry where Google shopping ads supposedly won’t allow our products on but we see our competitors all the time in there, so I thought this may be a workaround. Unfortunately, I don’t do any e-commerce at all, Armand. I never have. Because of that, I really can’t provide any advice and I apologize for that. But, again you could probably do some searching on it and find some information about it. Obviously, if we come across anything, we’ll certainly mention it. I love the fact that, again, you want to hear me say it again, booty butt cheeks? That’s awesome, man. I appreciate that. It made me giggle.

How Do You Block Google From Indexing A General Archive Of A Blog?

All right, cool, Greg and Scott, what’s up, guys. Jordan, he says, “Okay, my blog page general archive continues to index despite my blocking it in an SEO ultimate plus and putting meta name equals robot’s content no index in that page header. I know this is bleeding my otherwise fastidiously created silos. How bad is it hurting my SEO? Any suggestions on getting it to not index?” Okay, just put a nofollow tag in the header that’s all you have to do, because that’ll stop the bleeding. Even if it’s indexed, it doesn’t matter. If you have nofollow on it, you’re basically telling you will not to follow any of the links, like to pass any PageRank, if that’s still a thing. I think it is internally in Google, but it doesn’t pass any PageRank through any of the links on that page, if you add a nofollow, it should be to the header. That’s correct, Marco, right? I didn’t tell them wrong, did I?

Marco: No, you’re correct. And yes, PageRank is alive and well inside the algorithm.

Bradley: Right, thought so. Jordan, yeah, that’s the easy thing. Whether indexes or not, you can ask Google to honor their no Index but it’s up to them. I’ve seen stuff index that’s supposed to be no indexed all the time, but if you put nofollow in that same tag, that same HTML tag, then I think it’s just rel=”nofollow”. I’m not sure. You’d have to double check. The entire page, any links on that page will be no followed. It just knows to not pass PageRank to them. Google will still crawl the links, but it just won’t pass PageRank, so it won’t bleed your silos or your theme, okay? Okay, cool. It looks like we got to most of the questions, guys. We appreciate everybody being here. We don’t have any Mastermind this week because I’m hard at work trying to finish the prospecting funnel but …

Hernan: It’s going to be good.

Bradley: See you, guys, next week.

Hernan: Sounds good.

Bradley: Thanks, guys.

Hernan: See you, guys.

Bradley: Bye.

Marco: Bye, everyone.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179 posted first on http://beyondvapepage.blogspot.com

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179

Click on the video above to watch Episode 179 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at https://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Bradley: I’m going to steal Adam’s line. Hello. Hey, everybody. This is Bradley Benner with the Semantic Mastery and this is Hump Day Hangouts Episode, I believe, 178. Hard to believe. Anyways, hi. It’s sunny and warm in Virginia, finally. Well, it’s getting there and I’m glad for that. We’ve got Hernan and Marco on. We’re not going to ask Marco about the weather because I’m tired of hearing about it, but how are you doing, Hernan?

Hernan: Good, man. It’s good to be here, excited for what’s coming. It’s kind of a … I think there’s going to be a big storm here in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, Estrella. So, it’s good. It’s good to be here.

Bradley: Awesome. Marco, how are you doing, man?

Marco: Investigating how to ranking Google more better.

Bradley: More better. It’s awesome. Yeah, guys, we’ve got a few things we’re going to tease you with this morning because you know how we like to do that. So we’re going to do … or today, excuse me, we’re going to tease you with a couple things. I guess, I’ll hand it over to you first, Hernan, because you wanted to talk about the updated Battleplan V2.

Hernan: Yep. Yeah, that’s right. In fact, one of the usual announcements that we do is that we tell you, guys, to go get the Battleplan because that’s like step number one if you’re new to Semantic Mastery. But for the first time in a couple of months, I would say, probably a year, I would say to hold off, to not do that because we’re actually revamping it. We’re rewriting and there’s a lot of it in it that still works like a charm so you could totally get it now, and apply today, and you will get a lot of good stuff, good results. But we have tweaked some stuff and treat some orders of different things to reflect better, what are the changes that we have been finding out and whatnot. So, we’re still reviewing it. There’s going to be probably another two weeks before we launch it or something like that. And so, yeah, I’m really excited about that. It’s going to be, as usual, a launch price that’s a no-brainer. So, stay in touch. Stay tuned because it’s got to be really, really good.

Bradley: Okay. Yeah, I agree with that. We’re looking forward to launching that because, obviously, within a year and stuff has changed, we’ve added some new things to our standard operating procedure like press releases, for example. So, all that kind of stuff is in the new Battleplan, guys. Also, next month in May, we’re going to be actually launching another product called Local GMB Pro which is going to be fabulous because Marco and Rob are back at it again. They’ve been in the lab testing basically getting results for clients or their own assets, whatever, entirely 100% within the GMB dashboard. I don’t know if you, guys, are paying attention to what’s going on inside of the GMB dashboard, but a lot of changes have occurred in just the recent months and weeks.

For example, like services tabs are now starting the show up to where you can add products, and services, and pricing, and description of them, and all that kind of stuff. There’s the messaging tab. There’s … I mean there’s all these things that you can do now and they’re like the GMB websites which I was playing with today which is freaking fabulous GMB post, like all the stuff that Google is giving us, that are free tools to use inside the GMB dashboard. What Rob and Marco have been finding out is by using those tools and doing everything that Google gives to us, taking advantage of everything that Google gives to us inside that dashboard, they’re able to generate some incredible results that has absolutely nothing to do with ranking or traditional SEO. It’s like all that shit that we’ve filled our heads with over the last many years, guys, forget about all of it because it can be done 100% inside of GMB without needing to know all that stuff.

It’s amazing because Marco and Robert started telling me about the process that … and they started developing a process doc and all that, and they shared it with me, and I had landed a client just a few weeks ago as a referral for a company that is really outside of my industry target usually but I took them on anyways. I said, “Okay, this is a perfect opportunity to apply this new GMB training that … or method that Marco and Robert putting together or developing for this project. And so, I just started working on that and developing that … and I’m recording the entire build, and that’s part of the … like that’s my contribution to the Local GMB Pro course is recording a case study. I’m learning this for the first time, too. Like I’m literally learning what Rob and Marco are teaching me and in going and applying it for the first time in this case study.

So you, guys, are seeing me make mistakes like … or you, guys, will be, those of you that purchased, of course, will be seeing me make mistakes and kind of fumbled my way through stuff which I think is a hell of a lot more genuine and more useful. Personally, as a student of many internet marketing products myself, usually, when you see the polished finished product, it’s usually just all the stuff that worked well, right? And so, but a lot of times, if you run into an issue like a challenge, or a roadblock, or something that’s not covered in the training then it can literally stop your progress dead in its tracks. I know, that’s happened to me many times because I’ve run into something that wasn’t addressed in the training because the training only shows everything that works. So, I like this style of training and that I’m learning it as I’m recording the case study videos that you, guys, can see like mistakes and how I get … how I correct them and how I find workaround stuff.

Anyways, that all said, what’s amazing is I got a call from the customer, the client, yesterday or might have been two days ago now and he was like … he’s funny, but the way he talks, he’s like, “Yo, bro, I got so many calls over the weekend from the map’s listing like I don’t even see it ranked and I don’t know how I’m getting the calls but they’re coming through.” And so, I went and looked at the GMB insights data which is like analytics inside the GMB dashboard, and you can absolutely see how much traffic. His new, brand new GMB listing has already received. You can see phone calls, the clicks to driving directions, all that kind of stuff. It’s amazing because he’s not ranked at all like anywhere.

It’s brand new listing, guys, yet just because I’m in there optimizing the way that Marco and Rob are teaching me and utilizing all the products that GMB gives us, he’s already generating leads from this listing that under normal SEO standards, I wouldn’t be generating leads with this listing for at least a month, right, long enough to get everything built out, submit a press release, syndication network, drive stack, all the stuff that we typically do, not doing any of that. This is all 100% done inside that GMB dashboard so far. And so, I let Marco talk on that for just minute. I’m going to grab the screen and just show you guys a quick … like I said, I was going to tease you, but a quick peek inside the site.

This is the back end for … of our membership sites where I’ve got lessons that I’ve been uploading. You can see, look at this, guys, I’ve got already 16 lessons added to this new training that we’re launching next month and this is just for this one case study. I haven’t even scratched the surface, man. I’m just getting started. So this is going to be one hell of a training course, guys, that will literally save you a ton of money and a ton of time because you can get results like almost overnight for clients just inside a GMB. Guys, you don’t even need a website for this which is insane. So, Marco, go ahead and chat about that for a little bit.

Marco: Well, what I want to do to tell them also is when was the map finally verified?

Bradley: Well, it was verified about two weeks ago or more, about three weeks ago, but there was a strange trouble with it, there was a duplicate listing that was [inaudible 00:07:31].

Marco: Yeah, but, I mean, when did everything get corrected and when-

Bradley: Thursday.

Marco: Last Thursday.

Bradley: Thursday last week. So less than a week ago.

Marco: And then in during that time, you can already see results.

Bradley: Yeah, over the weekend, this past weekend, he said he received, I think, six or eight calls or something like that. If you go look, it shows a calls. It only shows four from the weekend and four calls prior to that weekend. So I’m not sure how those other four calls got there. But he said he got six or eight calls, something like that, over the weekend and the insights are showing it.

Marco: So, here’s the deal. Those will only register the click-to-call from their cellphone when they click the phone and call the company directly. They won’t register like when they see the listing …

Bradley: And call from there.

Marco: And call.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah.

Marco: Right? But, I mean, the results are there and they’re undeniable, number one, from insights and just from the client being so excited or sometimes so overwhelmed that they’ll say, “I have so many calls. What the hell do I do? What am I supposed to do?” I wasn’t the … the experience that I’ve had and, now, we’re going on the third month and I’m going to raise my rates again for the third or fourth month is … I just got … do 600% of traffic. Traffic went up 600% from the insights that we got … this is month to month. So from last month to this month and it’s incredible that the number one, it shows visits, organic visits and it shows what happens with the GMB. So everything is right there and you know. Like my thing for years and years has always been I never guarantee rankings because I know that Google is a fickle mistress, right?

I know that Google will do whatever it wants to do. But I’ve always said … I will either get your results or you leave. I put it that … that’s my pitch. If we boil it all down, my pitch is, “Dude, I’m going to get you. I’m going to make you money. If I don’t, then you don’t have to pay me anymore. You could just walk away. No contracts, no nothing.” This is a way to make sure that you’ll be able to come through with that guarantee that you’re giving your client of making your client money. So, I think this is just … I don’t know, just another way that we found like exploiting Google’s love for itself.

Bradley: Yeah. What’s great about it, guys, is like I said, this … the training is going to be entirely about how to use just GMB assets and that’s it. Obviously, you can incorporate other stuff, other traditional SEO, and local SEO stuff that we also know works, right? So, for example, syndication networks help validate the entity drive stats, press releases, all that stuff, but the goal with the GMB Pro course is to teach you how to get results strictly in the GMB environment. If you want to add the other stuff, it’s only going to make you … help you to get results faster and maintain them for longer, you know what, even … and so far I don’t have a history of knowing like if I got to continue that activity or what for this because this is new to me, too. But my point is even in really competitive stuff, you’ll be able to get results because you’ll be doing stuff that’s generating activity, that has … it’s completely independent of rankings. That’s my point.

Like it’s amazing because … and, again, I was telling Marco I’m curious as to how … what I think is going on is that people that are in a particular area, remember, this is all local stuff, right? So people that are in an area that Google knows your history, if you’re … if you’ve got a Google account and it’s … you’re tied to your phone, Google knows where you are at all times. They know what stores you like, what kind of searches you do. They know everything about you. And so, even though the rank trackers might not show the listings as ranking in maps because there’s some random IP … it might even be a localized IP, but it has no search history, that kind of stuff. It’s no profile attached to it whereas somebody that’s in that area does have a profile, that’s got an accrued search history. They might have … they might be an in-market, they might be in market for a particular service. And so Google knows all of this.

And so Google is displaying these localized results to those people that are most … that it’s most relevant to them, if that makes sense, whereas a rank tracker, it’s not going to see that that kind of … that’s not going to see that kind of a search result. I’m thinking that that’s what it is because Google for years has been talking about localizing and personalizing search results as much as possible. The technology is there now that they can do it. So, you and I or those of us that are looking at it remotely aren’t going to see the same data that somebody is actually searching from locally especially there from a mobile device which is where like more than two-thirds of all search traffic goes through mobile devices now, right? So think about that, guys. Just really super powerful. I’m excited about it and I’m actually really excited about it. I’m looking forward to getting relaunching or launching this course next month. All right, guys, I think we got enough pitching.

Hernan: Yeah, yeah.

Bradley: Questions now, what do you think?

Hernan: Yeah.

Marco: Sam’s up. Sam Bailey.

Bradley: All right, let’s do it. Let me grab the screen.

Hernan: Sam the man.

Is There An SEO Benefit To Using The Parent Page Feature In WordPress For Subcategories?

Bradley: Okay, Sam, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Question about the site structure. I’m using virtual silo structure. If I have a page that links to one or more subcategory pages, is there an SEO benefit to using the parent page feature in WordPress for this?” Well, okay, remember, if you’re using a complex silo structure, that’s how you create subcategory pages, right? So think about that, Sam. If you’re using a complex silo structure where you have top-level category which is also a page, which is a parent page, then you have subcategories which are also pages but those are child pages which means you have to select the parent page and the right-hand sidebar of the page, WYSIWYG editor-type thing. You select the parent page and then posts are obviously post. Those go into either categories or subcategories, right? And so, that’s the hierarchy of how you use a complex silo structure.

So, if you’re doing complex silo structures, yes, you would have … you would assign a parent page. Whether you’re using physical silos or virtual silos, and all that means, guys, in case anybody’s confused about that is whether you’re showing the silo structure in the URL. That is determined by your permalink settings in WordPress. If you’re using permalink … the post name settings then that’s a virtual silo because it’s not … the hierarchy is not displayed in the URL. It’s only showing the post or page slug. So it’s rootdomain.com/post or page slug, right? So that’s the post name permalink structure. If you’re using category post-name permalink structure, that will show physical silo structure, right? So that’ll show the hierarchy in the actual URL.

I’ve always preferred it that way. To me, it’s more logical. That way, however, it makes no difference as far as SEO. I’ve tested it both ways in the virtual silo. In fact, I would even probably suggest or recommend going with the virtual silo method because you can run into some funny slug or URL things that happen when trying to do the complex silo structure and using the category post-name, permalink. That makes sense. So, Sam, just because I don’t want you to be confused here. If you’re doing a complex silo then you have to use the parent page or sign a parent page from subcategories which will be pages, okay, if you’re using a simple silo structure than now because typically you wouldn’t … usually you’re just going to have categories and impost so there wouldn’t be a need for a subcategory, okay? If you have subcategories, it’s typically because you’re using a complex silo structure. So hopefully that answers the question. If it doesn’t, Sam, try to repost it with a little bit more detail, okay?

Hernan: I’ve also added links to our videos for a complex silo and simple silo structures.

When Will You Release The New Course Local GMB Pro?

Bradley: Perfect. Those videos are old and they still apply. There’s nothing to change about that. John, what’s up, John? He says, “Hi, I listen to your Hump Day Hangouts every week.” Thanks, man. I appreciate that. He says, “Plus one for you, guys. I would like to know when you plan to release your new course Local GMB Pro. Thanks.” Awesome, John. Yeah, that’s next month. We’re definitely going to be launching that in May. There’s no question. That’s coming out in May. I mean, I should be done with my part of it within the next week or so other than coming in and updating to show like the incredible results that I’m expecting to get now. Other than that, like mostly … like, again, it’s just a process. Once you learn it like … we’re talking about even providing a done for your GMB Pro service. It’s something we’re seriously considering building out a team for that, so. Nobody out there will have that except us at least initially then we’ll have a bunch of people come copy us as usual.

Is There A Way To Separate Multiple Tumblr Accounts So They Don’t Immediately Get Banned?

All right, Adrian Harper says, “Hey, guys, I have a question regarding Web 2s. I recently bought 50 Tumblr accounts from a gig on Fiverr but they didn’t come as separate accounts.” Ooh. “There’s the main account and several accounts under that which isn’t really good and I don’t think about linking to a money site to boost rankings zeros away. Is there a way to separate these accounts so you don’t immediately get banned? Also somewhere I read that you were able to log in the numerous Tumblr accounts to add content and personas using Browseo and didn’t need any proxies, is this correct? Thanks, guys, and keep up the good work, Adrian.” Okay, Adrian, I’m not 100% sure about the process for transferring an account in Tumblr like a blog from one Tumblr account to another. It’s probably possible.

I would just contact Tumblr support to ask them like just pitch it. When you ask them, ask them as if you were transferring a blog to somebody else and just say like, “What’s the process for doing that? Is that possible?” Find out if that’s possibly because, yeah, I agree with you. If you buy 50 expired Tumblrs and they’re all under one account, that’s, to me, is useless. Like you might be able to get some out of it, but the problem is if one of your sites gets terminated or banned, it could likely pass to that entire account and you lose everything. I don’t know that for sure, guys, because I don’t typically set up my accounts that way, but I would assume that that one profile could get banned which would kill all of the blogs under that profile. I don’t know if they keep it separate or not, if Tumblr does, okay?

Hernan: Yeah. Yeah, I would assume that you’re right. Like if you think like … when in doubt, just don’t do it, you know what I’m saying? Like we haven’t gone that far as to create several sub accounts within the same Tumblr account, but just … if in doubt, just in case, do it.

Bradley: Yeah. I mean, I’ve created three or four blogs under one profile, but I’ve never … like it’s typically that’s only because they’re in different industries-type stuff, so I’m using them for different purposes. But, yeah, if you’re basically like trying to use several Tumblr accounts like basically a web to PBN or something to link to your money sites, I would not have them all coming from the same account number one, okay? As far as Tumblr accounts and browser, yeah, guys, the thing about using proxies for Browseo like for creating account, like for creating accounts and stuff like that, guys, that is no longer such an issue. It used to be few years ago where you didn’t want to create a bunch of accounts from the same … [inaudible 00:19:16] the case because of public WiFi has just basically … it’s blanketed everywhere, you know what I mean?

So, there are always dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people on the same IP. Think about it. And so, all logged in to the same type of accounts and it doesn’t flag everybody’s account because it’s the same IP. So it’s no longer an IP issue. It’s not like it used to be anyways. Why it’s important? Why you can do that with Browseo? Here’s the thing, if you were to go clear Firefox through the normal clear cache and cookies process, and run CCleaner, and do all that stuff, and then log in to an account with a fresh browser like virgin white, fresh browser, that looks unnatural. So if you do that and then you log back out, clean your cache and cookies, and then log back in through the same IP to another account with a fresh browser and you do that a couple of times, you can absolutely flag your IP for that kind of activity, for spammy activity which could cause accounts to be terminated or to be … requiring verification, all that kind of stuff because you’re sending a lot of unnatural signals to that platform that you keep logging in to with the fresh browser under new accounts.

Does that make sense? However, if you’ve got Browseo or any tool that does that, I think another one is called Ghost Browser or something like that, whatever tool you have or app that will do that for you, you can still log in underneath the same IP but each browsing session keeps its history. So there’s cookies that are accrued and there’s history as to what sites have been visited and what searches have been done, and that what links have been clicked on, and that kind of stuff. And so, those kind of histories and those cookies that accrue start to build up a profile even if it’s under the same IP, it doesn’t matter because each IP or each profile is going to have a slightly different history. That looks natural because people do that but people don’t … typically, people don’t clear your browser every time they log in and think about a public WiFi not 15 people in any public WiFi spot are going to clear all their cache and cookies and then log in to their account from that same IP. Does that makes sense?

But there could be 15 people logged in to Tumblr from the same IP because they’re all … but they’re all different accounts. So my point is, is just acting more natural is the way to do it even if it’s from the same IP. That’s why I use Browseo all the time but I even … I have some select accounts that are assigned to dedicated proxies that I still use today because they’ve been set up and they’ve accrued browsing history over the last two years now, really. But all my new accounts that I set up in Browseo, they’re all just run right through my IP guys. I don’t care about the IP problem anymore because I’m building up profiles that have their own history, in their own search habits, in their own likes and themes and all of that stuff, and it’s all done through my same IP which is okay in my opinion. I’ve never had any problems with it. Does anybody have anything to say differently about that?

Marco: No, not about that but I do as far as the original question. You should be able to transfer the different accounts and the different blogs. You have to go into Tumblr and create the new account that you’re going to transfer to, and then you send an email from the blog that you’re looking to transfer to that new account to join right to that email to join your blog and then you can make that person an admin, and then you can eliminate yourself from … I’m pretty sure Google it because I’m sure that somewhere in YouTube or somewhere in Google, it will be explained exactly how’s that. But the gist of it, if I remember it correctly, that’s how it’s done. I did it before with some stuff that I got crossed up. I added about five different blogs and that’s how I did it. I just added … started a new one and figured out how to transfer the ownership, but you don’t really transfer ownership. You make someone an admin and then you eliminate yourself from that. By doing that, it makes that new blog or that new Tumblr account the administrator.

Bradley: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I … I mean, just go to YouTube and search and guarantee you’ll find it, or go to Google and search the videos tab because that has a much better search functionality than YouTube does, so.

How Do You Explain A One-Off Onboarding Or Setup Fee To A New Client?

Okay, Pete, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Hey, guys, when you were talking to a potential new client, do you put in the proposal a one-off onboarding or setup fee? If so, how do you explain what the fee is for and why do you charge the fee? Thanks in advance.” It depends on what I’m doing, Pete. But, yeah, there’s usually setup fees involved. It depends on … again, it depends on each one of the services. So, for example, like for Google My Business or maps SEO, I always charge a maps optimization or maps set up an optimization fee, right?

I charge $697, I believe, for that which includes the GMB set up an optimization. If it’s not already set up, then I set it up. Typically, it’s set up and I’ve just got to optimize it. Bing and in Yahoo!, in fact, I really even kind of took Yahoo! out of it to where I’m really just now doing Bing in GMB for the same price, right, $697. That’s what I charge. But then my local monthly SEO charges for any at … the lowest I would charge for local maps is 500 bucks a month for maintaining. So like I’ll charge $697 set up and $500 a month. If I got somebody with two locations, a lot of the times I’ll charge them $400 per location per month. So it’s 800 bucks for two. That’s just kind of how I do stuff like I … I don’t charge as much as a lot of the other people do for my services, but when it comes to setup fees, it just depends on what it is.

Like, for example, I also do reputational marketing stuff now because it’s just so stupid easy to fulfill, right? The app does all the work. All you got to do is sell it. And so like I’ll charge somebody like 99 bucks as a setup fee because it takes me or a VA about 20 minutes to input data into the system and that’s it. And so I make $100 on a setup fee and then I’ll charge maybe $200 a month or something like that on just the reputation stuff but I typically try to roll all of that into a larger SEO package, anyways, okay? But, yeah, I mean, guys, I’m always transparent about my charges to my clients. Like I tell them exactly what everything is for. Like I don’t ever try to inflate prices here and there to kind of hide stuff. I just flat out tell them what it is and I explain why that I’m charging for that and why it’s necessary.

Again, like I said, the way that I present my services to my clients, it’s in a very transparent way so that I honestly feel like I earned their trust by just explaining everything in such detail if that makes sense. So, anyways, that’s my two cents. You, guys, have any additional input on that?

Hernan: Yeah, real quick, I do the same that you do, Bradley, in terms of I tell them, “Hey, this is what it’s going to charge like and what I’m going to charge, and then these are the tools that I’m going to use, and this is the final … like the tally, if you want,” But, yeah, I definitely break that down for the clients and I’m completely 100% transparent as you were saying as well.

Bradley: Marco?

Marco: No, I totally agree. You have to be transparent. But then, again, if you position yourself correctly, you should also raise your prices accordingly. I mean, you know your market, you know your local market, Bradley, and you know what it is. I would never charge the same thing to someone, let’s say, in an area like where you are like, let’s say, in Georgetown, for example, where I know, I mean, that the money is just way different. A Beverly Hills Dennis, I’m going to hit him over the head as opposed to just a local Dennis that’s just trying to get people in the door, right, so that he can then sell them on whatever services it is that he has. So you have to know. If you know your market and you position yourself accordingly then you could usually could charge a little bit more but, definitely, transparent as far as the tools, as far as using … you have to pay your staff. You have expenses also.

Bradley: Yep.

Marco: If you’re transparent with all of that then you should be okay. I mean, markup … you have to charge what you feel you’re worth. That’s how I think. You have to charge for your services and if you’re that good then you should charge for that. You should charge a premium. Most other businesses and most other experts do.

What Are Possible Reasons Why A Gmail Account Used In GSites And Drive Stacks Got Suspended?

Bradley: I agree. Okay. D is, “Hey, guys, a few days ago, my Gmail account got suspended. It was my persona account for one of my affiliate sites and the account was around nine months old. I had a branded IFTTT network and drive stack attached to this account. I need the words of wisdom from you, guys, on this issue. Before that, I want to tell you a few things. I had content in the drive files without attribution and all of these documents were created a few months back.” Okay, so if it was like straight up copied content from somewhere without attribution, well, that typically hasn’t created a problem, but Marco can comment on that.

Marco: No, that’s never been a problem.

Bradley: Yeah, it’s never been a problem.

Marco: No, we’re still doing it the same way, not a problem.

Bradley: He says, “A few days ago, I created a new G-site for link building and I framed a few of my Google Docs and spreadsheets, and I went to Fiverr, and ordered two contextual backlinks packages with one 5,000 links and with one 2,000 links to my new G-site.” Again, although, I never recommend buying backlinks packages from Fiverr because those templates are used over, and over, and over again, so it’s definitely a footprint thing. Well, I’m sure there’s some providers there that are decent, but I just don’t recommend it. But I don’t think that’s the problem either, the backlinks to your G-site. Marco, do you they feel differently?

Marco: I’ve never seen this kind of behavior before and we’ve thrown the kitchen sink at drive stacks. It may have been that he linked directly to the G-site, but we’ve done that also. Like this isn’t in the right context for me to be able to see. Did we do the drive stack? If so, then I can reach out and see what was done. I mean, but if it’s someone else’s drive stack, I can’t say because I don’t know what type of garbage they did. If you did it yourself, did you follow our training or who’s training did you follow? I mean, there’s so many things that are possible here that I could go on, and on, and on, and we’d never get to an answer.

Bradley: Yeah and one question I would have was … and I’m not doubting that it truly is suspended but I’m just throwing this out there for everybody’s benefit. There’s been times where I’ve had blogger accounts, for example, specifically from syndication networks where like a blog blogger account says it’s been suspended for violations of terms of service or whatever. All it was, was … it was showing the blogger blog is being suspended, but all it was, was the Gmail account associated with that blogger blog had to be re-verified through a phone verification. After re-verifying the account which sometimes is difficult, then blogger blog, all of a sudden, the suspension is lifted and it’s back live again on the web as soon as you verify the account. So all I’m saying, the reason why I bring that up is because is it indeed a suspension which I’m pretty sure that you’ve already confirmed that or is it just that you have to re-verify the account.

You might want to look into that first if you haven’t already is my point, okay? But, yeah, I don’t know because I haven’t run into that problem like … I haven’t had too many Google account suspended. I have from spamming like Google+ with automated like in an automated way or like with social sharing, like there’s some of those apps where you can share other people’s content and they share content for you. I’ve done that in the past and I’ve had some just stuff that absolutely violates terms of service posted like pharma stuff, Viagra pill stuff, things like that that have had my accounts suspended. But as far as like just creating a G-site and doing like drive stack stuff, embedding files, even spamming it to death, I’ve never had any issues with that, not even one, not one site has ever been suspended for that. So I can’t really speak as to what the problem is if I’ve never seen it personally, unfortunately, sorry.

Marco: The only thing I’ve ever seen go wrong and get us a suspension is when we ran the script and it was pulling in too many files which is just too many Google resources that you’re using up for free and then that will get your G-site terminated. It’ll get the G-site suspended and you won’t … it’s really hard to recover it, but the drive stack was still intact. So it’s just a matter of slowing down the script and the way that it runs and then just redoing a G-site and just doing it all over again, not the Gmail account. This is what’s surprising that the Gmail account getting suspended not from a drive stack, I don’t know. It may have triggered a re-verification like you said.

Bradley: That’s what I would think it would be is that more and more … I mean, because, honestly, that’s typically the only thing that happens is that an account gets locked for re-verification and all of the sub-accounts or tools, the apps that Google allows you to have with an account, they all get basically temporarily suspended until you can re-verify. Sometimes it’s impossible re-verifying. I’ve lost stuff because of it, but other times, I’ve been able to re-verify and everything comes back. So that’s what I’m assuming it may be without more detail. All right. Nigel’s up. Nigel just recently joined the mastermind after coming here for months and asking many questions and taking action. He got himself to a position where he joined a mastermind, it’s freaking fabulous.

Nigel, you and Mohammed back to back, look at that, that’s awesome because both of you have taken very similar paths in that. You’ve come here and asked a bunch of questions every single week and you’ve applied taken action on what you’ve learned and it’s propelled you to the point that you could come join the mastermind which will help you to grow your businesses even faster. So both of you, I’m proud of both of you, seriously. I’ve said that to you, Mohammed, but not so much to you, Nigel. We certainly appreciate you joining the mastermind. We will be there to help you in any way we can, okay? [Newly Minted MM 00:34:18] status, “It feels great. Thank you for the warm welcome, truly been awesome so far and looking forward to posting results soon.” We’re looking forward to you posting them.

That video email, nice, I got my money’s worth for this month already. So you must have picked Video Lead-Gen System as the bonus or whatever. That’s awesome. Just keep in mind, guys, that as part of the prospecting module, we’re going to flash that out a hell of a lot more and we’re going to end up updating that product and in launching that with a proper launch. So, I think, Hernan, you might want to get this ready, but I think we still have the pre-sale for Video Lead-Gen System available. If it’s still available, people can still get in now when we go to launch it, once it’s relaunched with all the new training that’s going to be added. It’s going to be at least 500 bucks.

Hernan: Yeah I’ve been actually start for [inaudible 00:35:08] let me confirm that with you, Bradley.

Bradley: I think it’s vlgs.semanticmastery.com, I think. But, anyways …

Hernan: Yeah, I want to make sure that it’s still open in the back if that makes sense.

Bradley: Okay, I got it. Anyways, that way …

Marco: Can I just add for a second? We’re giving you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. We always give you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. Please don’t come back in a month, two months, or three months, or however long and say, “You raise the price. Now, I can’t buy it at the launch price.” The launch price is what it is. The pre-launch price is what it is, and then it goes up to the price where we established. Why do we do that? Because we want you, people who follow us, people who are members, we want you to have a first crack at it at a price where it’s comfortable but it’s worth so much more than what we charge that we just can’t give it away for free, sorry. It takes too much time too much effort. It takes too much work to put all the stuff together and we can’t give it away. It’s worth what it’s worth. It’s going up to where it’s going.

You’re warned that it’s happening. I mean, emails are sent out. We do it on Hump Day Hangouts. We do it everywhere. We give people ample notice. Please don’t come back and complain that the price has been raised when you already know that the price is going to be raised.

Hernan: Yep. I just posted on the event page. So you better like you better … yeah, you said, I said while it lasts because, I don’t know, somebody could find out and we might close it.

Marco: Yeah.

Where Can I Find A Document On Basic Metadata And Tag Configuration?

Bradley: That’s true. Like I said, we’re going to be launching that in April, May, June … June, I believe. Yeah, I believe we talked about that this week, guys, didn’t we? I think we’re going to relaunch that in June, so. All right. Anyways, where can I … back to Nigel’s question. “Where can I find the document on basic metadata and tag configuration without going too far down the rabbit hole? Basically, I want to clear an easy way to provide, I want a clear and easy way to provide some value to prospects that I audit. I had a prospects report come back with metadata and tag issues, and I would have loved to offer some generic DIY info for free like put this kind of information in here without going all Jeffrey Smith SEO Bootcamp on them. Any direction you can provide a solid guide template would be invaluable.”

All right. So, my only concern with that, Nigel, is remember who your audience is, right? So when you’re talking to a prospect in a video audit and you are explaining to them something that they could do that could have a positive impact on their digital presence, you want something that’s incredibly easy for them to do that doesn’t require a ton of explanation. So I know that’s basically what you’re asking, how could I have provided some information about metadata and tags that wouldn’t confuse them. That’s kind of difficult to do especially in a video audit. Now, you could try it with like … if I were to try to create an example for that, I’m sure I could figure out a way to dumb it down quite a bit, but I might do something like talk about how tags are supposed to be kind of descriptive terms about the topic of the post and right, and then there’s like a hierarchy and stuff but remember, you don’t want to overwhelm them with technical stuff because their eyes will glaze over and though it’s like you’re speaking a foreign language to them, right?

And so, again, you don’t want to get too technical. A lot of the times that the kind of advice or suggestion that I will give in an audit will be something very simple like, “Hey, you don’t have your name, address, and phone number listed on your website. That’s something that is incredibly powerful for helping you to rank in maps. So, I would recommend that you put a widget in your site or have your webmaster put a widget in the footer or in the sidebar that lists your name, address, and phone number,” stuff like that, something that’s very simple that doesn’t take a lot of explanation but they could easily do that’s going to literally help give them an improvement, right? Like it’s going to improve their presence slightly even if not much.

You could give them a tip on optimizing Yelp or some … all I’m saying is like you could give them a tip on optimizing their GMB listing say, “Hey, I’m looking at your Google My Business listing and it looks like you only have your logo and nothing else. You might want to add some optimized images and here’s a trick. Name the file names of the images after products and services that you provide. Include local modifiers, your city name, the areas that you service, things like that.” Very, very easy stuff that they can do as far as tags and metadata that’s a bit too technical in my opinion to try to explain that to a layman or civilian so to speak. You, guys, have any other suggestions on that?

Marco: No, I totally agree with you. If you start talking about title tags and metadata, you’re going to have to show SERPs to show the purpose that they serve, and then that might get the talking into, “Well, am I going to get those kinds of results? Am I going to get those rankings? Am I going to rank for these keywords? And what keywords am I going to …” You don’t want the conversation going that way. Then the conversation is going all wrong because you want the conversation to be all about the leads or the results that you’re going to get for the person. I mean, you could do it in the video of the person is technical enough, but that’s not a conversation that you want to have with someone that you’re just taking on as a client. I mean, if you want to do that, let’s say, later on as an add-on or whatever, we’re going to improve your ad copy, for example, you could say that.

You could compare it to classifieds where you want to stand out from the bunch and and how you can make it stand out. You never want to put the client in a position where they have to kind of try to figure out how they’re going to do it because then it’s all over. Their eyes would like Bradley said, that they’ll roll into the back of their head and they’ll start singing … show tunes and you can forget it.

Can You Share Your Citation Building Methodology In Serp Space?

Bradley: That’s it. Number two, he says, “I saw a subspace as levels of citations, foundation, hometown, a multimedia in terms of marketing to clients. Is that like month one, two, three strategy? And does dripping citation building actually matter or just better to spread things out?” Well, what I do is like part of my monthly SEO services include citation building but that doesn’t mean that I’m building citations every month. I mean, most of the time I do or a lot of the times for my clients now because it’s just so much easier is … I’m not going to lie, for most of my clients, I’d used Loganix services, the monthly citation building. I don’t even … like and that’s only because that service is great and it’s 100% managed. I don’t have to do anything. All I have to do is input data once and they build citations every month. They do a a mix of structured citations and unstructured citations.

What’s the difference? A structured citation is a classical business directory listing, name, address, phone number, sometimes a link back to the site, but it’s a business directory listing. An unstructured citation is a mention of NAP, right? Name, address, phone number but on non-traditional business sites, like non-traditional directory sites. In other words, social medias, blogs, press releases, all of those video sites, documents sharing sites, audio sites, image sharing sites, all of those types of sites become none … or what they call unstructured citations. And so, the Loganix monthly citation service is 150 bucks, semanticmastery.com/loganix, I believe, will take you over there. It’s a good service. I like it because it’s 100% outsourced.

But for some of my clients that are grandfathered into a much lower monthly price, I’m not going to cough up $150 to pays Loganix to do it. So what I’ll do is, obviously, I’ll do like a package from SerpSpace. I’ll do like the foundations which are the … like basically like all the big directories and then I’ll get the local citations on top of that, then I’ll do the multimedia or the social type citations like another month. It doesn’t have to be month one, month two, month three. If it’s a newer site that you’re trying to get them results then that might be a good strategy. If it’s a site that’s already doing well like as far as ranking in maps then I don’t always do that, like I might build a batch of citations and then wait three months before I build another batch of citations. Because here’s the thing, guys, also like I don’t know what reporting software or app you’re using for that but I use BrightLocal.

BrightLocal is a fabulous service. Again, semanticmastery.com/brightlocal, I think, will take you over there. I’ve been using it since 2012 when I opened my agency and I use … that’s what I use for all my reporting. What I like about BrightLocal is it will do citation tracking. So it’ll show you how many citations and it will keep a history of all that so you can see the graph over time going up as far as the number of citations accrued. And so, what I found is doing a batch of citations, let’s say, I order 50 new citations to be built. It doesn’t matter what type of citation structured, unstructured, foundation, social, it doesn’t really matter, hyperlocal, any of those doesn’t matter because what happens is I’ll get the report back and I’ll submit all those URLs for indexing which apparently most indexers aren’t working now anyways, and it takes three months for all of them to end up … not all of them end up, get out of 50. I might only have 35 of them that end up getting indexed over the course of three months.

So my point is you don’t have to build every single month because you can build today and three months from now, Google would just start finding some of those citations if that makes sense. One of the things I highly recommend is that you do local data aggregator submissions like the big data aggregator submissions which is Factual, Acxiom, InfoUSA or Express Update, I think it’s called, which is part of InfoUSA, and in Neustar/Localeze. There’s a couple services that will do that. One of the things I like about BrightLocal is BrightLocal has that for $55 and you have to up … you have to redo it every year, but it’s 55 bucks and they’ll submit to all four data aggregators. What’s great about that is within three to six months like you’ll start seeing a bunch of new citations pop up just because your data is listed in the aggregators, right?

And so, again, I like to use BrightLocal for that because it’s 55 bucks and they submit all to all for submission … data aggregators for me, okay? So, again, my citation building method really just varies for all new clients that I’ve signed up within the last probably a year and a half, maybe two years now because my pricing is higher than it was for some of my grandfather clients. They all just get put on the Loganix service because, again, it’s something that it’s out of sight out of mind. I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s done. I know every single month. They’re getting a mix of structured and unstructured citations and then backlinks are being built to those citations, so it’s just done for me. It’s something I don’t have to manage anymore. Does that make sense? Okay

How Do You Get Back In Touch With The Ones That At Least Watched The Video Emails?

All right. Mohammed’s up. He says, “Hey, guys.” What’s up, Muhammad? “When I first started video emails, I bungled a lot of leads by not calling them and getting a conversation going. How would I get back in touch with the ones that at least watched my video? I was going to call them but given them my emails were months ago, they may be lost. Do I send them the same email again?” No, here’s what I would do, Mohammed, and I’ve done this before. Create a generic video that is talking to all of them. So create … so that way, you’re still getting that personalized effect but you don’t have to record, you don’t have to send them the same video that they’ve already seen, and you don’t have to send a personalized video for each and every person that you’re recontacting, right?

So just record a video with you looking into the camera, or whatever, or if you’re doing a screencast plus picture and picture or whatever, any … however you want to do it. Just record a short video. “Hey, I sent you an email, a video email a few months ago,” right? So don’t say their names, don’t say their business, you’re in the same … in a specific vertical. So, “Hey, I sent you a video about your real estate business or whatever a couple months ago and I’m just reaching back out to try to start this conversation and go start a dialogue with you again, see if you’d be interested in having a conversation about what I sent you. If you’re curious about … if you didn’t see the video before, you’d like to see it again, just hit reply to this and I’ll send you the link again.” Does that make sense?

So that way you’ve got one generic video that, now, you can literally mass email out to everybody that engaged with your first video and in those people that re-engage with your new email, they might hit reply back and ask you to send them, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Can you send it to me again?” Anyways, it just gets the conversation started. So that’s what I would do because we save you a ton of time. Just do one generic video and then blast it out to everybody that you … that engaged you the first time but you didn’t follow up with correctly and just try to get some engagement out that like sent … recontacting them again, okay?

What Email Marketing Program Do You Recommend?

Okay, Quit This House, he says, “Hey, guys, thanks for all you do to help us.” You’re welcome. “Everyone talks about building a list. What email marketing program do you recommend?” Well, I’m using drip.com which is an autoresponder from Leadpages. I’ve never been a fan of Leadpages, but they’re their autoresponder is freaking fabulous. Drip is great at least it is for me. I’m building out my entire prospecting funnel and all the automations, well, about 80% of the automations are handled inside of Drip right now and it’s … it inboxes into the primary tab in Gmail which is insane because most of the other autoresponders go to the promotions tab in Gmail. That was the primary reason I started using Drip, was just because it goes to the primary inbox on Gmail. Since then, I’ve started to learn how to use Drip because I’ve never been an email marketing guy, but I’m using it now and all the automation that they’re called workflows inside of drip, and it’s fabulous.

The amount of stuff that you can automate is just insane. That’s what we’ve working on, is an automated prospecting funnel and we’re going to be building out an automated onboarding and fulfillment funnel too.

Hernan: Yeah. If I can add to that, we use ActiveCampaign for Semantic Mastery. I use the ActiveCampaign a lot, but it was a wash between Drip and ActiveCampaign, because the main point is that you can automate a lot of stuff.

Bradley: Yeah.

Hernan: That’s the main point, and they’re way more powerful than any other kind of responder. In fact, like you get all of that functionality only by going through Infusionsoft, which is like 500 bucks a month or something like that. We use either Drip or ActiveCampaign. Those are the goto solutions.

Bradley: Totally agree. I’m super impressed with it. In fact, I was talking on the Mastermind Webinar last week about the prospecting funnel. I’ve actually like chick and it scratched it and started over three times from scratch now, because it’s just a really complex build. Part of the reason it was over complicated the first couple times is because I was trying to patch together a whole bunch of different apps and services to handle all of the automations. Again, I’m not an email marketing guy. It’s not something I’ve typically done in my career. I was unaware of how much could actually be done within the Drip platform. After wasting literally weeks and dozens and dozens of hours on building out this funnel and it not working or even being too complex for even me to be able to maintain it, that’s when I said, “Okay, look, I’m just going to spend a couple days researching Drip and trying to figure out how to use this.”

I made more progress in about three days that way than I had in three weeks prior to just by starting to put everything that I could in the Drip. Again, I’m super impressed with it, I’m really happy with it, and I’m still learning. Inside the Mastermind, we’re covering all of that stuff to you, guys. I don’t know if you’re not in there yet, come join us because all of that’s going to be … Like, I’m literally going to be giving all of our Mastermind members the blueprint and step-by-step process instructions for how to build their own prospecting automation funnel. I’ve even impressed myself with it. Just so you know, it’s like that.

How Do You Build Your YouTube Channels?

All right, next, he says, “When you buy your YouTube channels, how much do you build them out, cover pic, link, G+ short description, or both on both G+ profile and YouTube?” It depends on what I’m using them for. We buy a ton of YouTube accounts just straight up for YouTube spam, I honestly don’t build those out at all. If it’s for a money channel, then yes absolutely because it’s about branding, right? If you’re building a money channel, then, yeah, you absolutely want to complete the G+ profile, you want to fill out the YouTube channel, the About section, add the links, the interlinking, all that kind of stuff. It depends on what your intent is with that YouTube channel. If it’s for spam purposes, no, don’t do anything else. Just buy the damn account, that’s it. Make sure it’s phone verified and that’s it, but if you’re doing it for a money project, an affiliate project, a client project to legion, for any one of those, then, absolutely, try to complete as many of the Google properties as possible and interlink all of them, okay? That includes blogger too, guys, right?

What Do You Think Of Using Rel=Alternate For SEO Purposes?

Steve, what’s up? He says, “Hi, I heard him passing reference last week to linking with rel=”alternate” for SEO purposes. Can you recommend on this? Does it work? What are the best practices and are there any dangers? Is this equivalent the same as markup? Thanks.” To be honest, I’ve never used it. I’m going to defer to Marco. What can you tell us about it, Marco?

Marco: The only time that I’ve used the rel=”alternate” tag is when defining language. I’ve never used it for SEO. I’ve always used rel=”canonical”. I mean it’s something that I would have to try because I’ve never used it that. I don’t think that Google even recommends for you to use and to use rel that way alternate. I think it would have to be canonical. I haven’t read anything on it. I know that Mars had something on it. I know that the Google Blog middle of last year had something on it but we use canonical because that’s where we see the greatest SEO effect.

Bradley: Yeah. Again, I can’t speak on it because I haven’t used it at all. We could probably do some research on it.

Hernan: Yeah, sorry, you could use it for language, you could use it for mobile.

Marco: That type of thing?

Hernan: rel=”alternate”? I’ve never … I mean, I don’t see a way where you use it for SEO and it would be real easy to pick out if you started using that for SEO.

Bradley: Yeah, this is a good blog, guys. The Stone Temple blog, these guys have some really good SEO stuff on here too and this one was published in 2016, so about two years ago, May 2016, by Eric Engine. He knows what he’s talking about. This might be something you could research, I don’t know. Again, I haven’t even read this. I just clicked on it just now, but my point is I know the Stone Temple guys typically do a good job of explaining stuff so you might be able to use this here. All I did, guys, was search rel=”alternate” and just start looking through. Look at the dates though, right? You don’t want to look at something from 2012. It’s probably not relevant now. I mean it may be. You could still look at it, but just judge it based on its freshness factor too, okay?

Is There A Way To Use Google Sites For An Ecommerce Site Where The products Are Set Up To Create A Feed For Google Shopping Ads?

All right, we’re going to answer just up to Jordan Fowler’s question guys, and we’re going to wrap it up because we’re almost out of time. I love how Armand says what up with you, yo, booty butt cheeks. I don’t know what that means, but it’s funny so I’ll plus-one it. You guys are the shit. Was wondering if there was a way to use Google Sites for an e-commerce site where the products are set up to create a feed that I could use on Google Shopping ads?” That’s a good question. I don’t know because I don’t do any e-com stuff, but that does sound like it would be pretty powerful. Do you have any experience with that, Marco?

Marco: Yeah, you’d have to use announcement pages to create a feed out of G-sites. I don’t know about the new ones. I haven’t tried the new ones out. I’m not sure how to get a feed out of that because they don’t have announcement pages in the new G-sites, as far as I know, we can’t even run the script on the new G-site, so we’re talking about the old one, I’ve seen it done I’ve seen some really wicked stuff being done with G-sites and e-commerce. Rob and I were talking about that a couple of weeks ago. But yeah, you could totally set it up use announcement pages and create the fee.

Bradley: Yeah. He says the company I work for is in an industry where Google shopping ads supposedly won’t allow our products on but we see our competitors all the time in there, so I thought this may be a workaround. Unfortunately, I don’t do any e-commerce at all, Armand. I never have. Because of that, I really can’t provide any advice and I apologize for that. But, again you could probably do some searching on it and find some information about it. Obviously, if we come across anything, we’ll certainly mention it. I love the fact that, again, you want to hear me say it again, booty butt cheeks? That’s awesome, man. I appreciate that. It made me giggle.

How Do You Block Google From Indexing A General Archive Of A Blog?

All right, cool, Greg and Scott, what’s up, guys. Jordan, he says, “Okay, my blog page general archive continues to index despite my blocking it in an SEO ultimate plus and putting meta name equals robot’s content no index in that page header. I know this is bleeding my otherwise fastidiously created silos. How bad is it hurting my SEO? Any suggestions on getting it to not index?” Okay, just put a nofollow tag in the header that’s all you have to do, because that’ll stop the bleeding. Even if it’s indexed, it doesn’t matter. If you have nofollow on it, you’re basically telling you will not to follow any of the links, like to pass any PageRank, if that’s still a thing. I think it is internally in Google, but it doesn’t pass any PageRank through any of the links on that page, if you add a nofollow, it should be to the header. That’s correct, Marco, right? I didn’t tell them wrong, did I?

Marco: No, you’re correct. And yes, PageRank is alive and well inside the algorithm.

Bradley: Right, thought so. Jordan, yeah, that’s the easy thing. Whether indexes or not, you can ask Google to honor their no Index but it’s up to them. I’ve seen stuff index that’s supposed to be no indexed all the time, but if you put nofollow in that same tag, that same HTML tag, then I think it’s just rel=”nofollow”. I’m not sure. You’d have to double check. The entire page, any links on that page will be no followed. It just knows to not pass PageRank to them. Google will still crawl the links, but it just won’t pass PageRank, so it won’t bleed your silos or your theme, okay? Okay, cool. It looks like we got to most of the questions, guys. We appreciate everybody being here. We don’t have any Mastermind this week because I’m hard at work trying to finish the prospecting funnel but …

Hernan: It’s going to be good.

Bradley: See you, guys, next week.

Hernan: Sounds good.

Bradley: Thanks, guys.

Hernan: See you, guys.

Bradley: Bye.

Marco: Bye, everyone.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179

Click on the video above to watch Episode 179 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at https://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Bradley: I’m going to steal Adam’s line. Hello. Hey, everybody. This is Bradley Benner with the Semantic Mastery and this is Hump Day Hangouts Episode, I believe, 178. Hard to believe. Anyways, hi. It’s sunny and warm in Virginia, finally. Well, it’s getting there and I’m glad for that. We’ve got Hernan and Marco on. We’re not going to ask Marco about the weather because I’m tired of hearing about it, but how are you doing, Hernan?

Hernan: Good, man. It’s good to be here, excited for what’s coming. It’s kind of a … I think there’s going to be a big storm here in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, Estrella. So, it’s good. It’s good to be here.

Bradley: Awesome. Marco, how are you doing, man?

Marco: Investigating how to ranking Google more better.

Bradley: More better. It’s awesome. Yeah, guys, we’ve got a few things we’re going to tease you with this morning because you know how we like to do that. So we’re going to do … or today, excuse me, we’re going to tease you with a couple things. I guess, I’ll hand it over to you first, Hernan, because you wanted to talk about the updated Battleplan V2.

Hernan: Yep. Yeah, that’s right. In fact, one of the usual announcements that we do is that we tell you, guys, to go get the Battleplan because that’s like step number one if you’re new to Semantic Mastery. But for the first time in a couple of months, I would say, probably a year, I would say to hold off, to not do that because we’re actually revamping it. We’re rewriting and there’s a lot of it in it that still works like a charm so you could totally get it now, and apply today, and you will get a lot of good stuff, good results. But we have tweaked some stuff and treat some orders of different things to reflect better, what are the changes that we have been finding out and whatnot. So, we’re still reviewing it. There’s going to be probably another two weeks before we launch it or something like that. And so, yeah, I’m really excited about that. It’s going to be, as usual, a launch price that’s a no-brainer. So, stay in touch. Stay tuned because it’s got to be really, really good.

Bradley: Okay. Yeah, I agree with that. We’re looking forward to launching that because, obviously, within a year and stuff has changed, we’ve added some new things to our standard operating procedure like press releases, for example. So, all that kind of stuff is in the new Battleplan, guys. Also, next month in May, we’re going to be actually launching another product called Local GMB Pro which is going to be fabulous because Marco and Rob are back at it again. They’ve been in the lab testing basically getting results for clients or their own assets, whatever, entirely 100% within the GMB dashboard. I don’t know if you, guys, are paying attention to what’s going on inside of the GMB dashboard, but a lot of changes have occurred in just the recent months and weeks.

For example, like services tabs are now starting the show up to where you can add products, and services, and pricing, and description of them, and all that kind of stuff. There’s the messaging tab. There’s … I mean there’s all these things that you can do now and they’re like the GMB websites which I was playing with today which is freaking fabulous GMB post, like all the stuff that Google is giving us, that are free tools to use inside the GMB dashboard. What Rob and Marco have been finding out is by using those tools and doing everything that Google gives to us, taking advantage of everything that Google gives to us inside that dashboard, they’re able to generate some incredible results that has absolutely nothing to do with ranking or traditional SEO. It’s like all that shit that we’ve filled our heads with over the last many years, guys, forget about all of it because it can be done 100% inside of GMB without needing to know all that stuff.

It’s amazing because Marco and Robert started telling me about the process that … and they started developing a process doc and all that, and they shared it with me, and I had landed a client just a few weeks ago as a referral for a company that is really outside of my industry target usually but I took them on anyways. I said, “Okay, this is a perfect opportunity to apply this new GMB training that … or method that Marco and Robert putting together or developing for this project. And so, I just started working on that and developing that … and I’m recording the entire build, and that’s part of the … like that’s my contribution to the Local GMB Pro course is recording a case study. I’m learning this for the first time, too. Like I’m literally learning what Rob and Marco are teaching me and in going and applying it for the first time in this case study.

So you, guys, are seeing me make mistakes like … or you, guys, will be, those of you that purchased, of course, will be seeing me make mistakes and kind of fumbled my way through stuff which I think is a hell of a lot more genuine and more useful. Personally, as a student of many internet marketing products myself, usually, when you see the polished finished product, it’s usually just all the stuff that worked well, right? And so, but a lot of times, if you run into an issue like a challenge, or a roadblock, or something that’s not covered in the training then it can literally stop your progress dead in its tracks. I know, that’s happened to me many times because I’ve run into something that wasn’t addressed in the training because the training only shows everything that works. So, I like this style of training and that I’m learning it as I’m recording the case study videos that you, guys, can see like mistakes and how I get … how I correct them and how I find workaround stuff.

Anyways, that all said, what’s amazing is I got a call from the customer, the client, yesterday or might have been two days ago now and he was like … he’s funny, but the way he talks, he’s like, “Yo, bro, I got so many calls over the weekend from the map’s listing like I don’t even see it ranked and I don’t know how I’m getting the calls but they’re coming through.” And so, I went and looked at the GMB insights data which is like analytics inside the GMB dashboard, and you can absolutely see how much traffic. His new, brand new GMB listing has already received. You can see phone calls, the clicks to driving directions, all that kind of stuff. It’s amazing because he’s not ranked at all like anywhere.

It’s brand new listing, guys, yet just because I’m in there optimizing the way that Marco and Rob are teaching me and utilizing all the products that GMB gives us, he’s already generating leads from this listing that under normal SEO standards, I wouldn’t be generating leads with this listing for at least a month, right, long enough to get everything built out, submit a press release, syndication network, drive stack, all the stuff that we typically do, not doing any of that. This is all 100% done inside that GMB dashboard so far. And so, I let Marco talk on that for just minute. I’m going to grab the screen and just show you guys a quick … like I said, I was going to tease you, but a quick peek inside the site.

This is the back end for … of our membership sites where I’ve got lessons that I’ve been uploading. You can see, look at this, guys, I’ve got already 16 lessons added to this new training that we’re launching next month and this is just for this one case study. I haven’t even scratched the surface, man. I’m just getting started. So this is going to be one hell of a training course, guys, that will literally save you a ton of money and a ton of time because you can get results like almost overnight for clients just inside a GMB. Guys, you don’t even need a website for this which is insane. So, Marco, go ahead and chat about that for a little bit.

Marco: Well, what I want to do to tell them also is when was the map finally verified?

Bradley: Well, it was verified about two weeks ago or more, about three weeks ago, but there was a strange trouble with it, there was a duplicate listing that was [inaudible 00:07:31].

Marco: Yeah, but, I mean, when did everything get corrected and when-

Bradley: Thursday.

Marco: Last Thursday.

Bradley: Thursday last week. So less than a week ago.

Marco: And then in during that time, you can already see results.

Bradley: Yeah, over the weekend, this past weekend, he said he received, I think, six or eight calls or something like that. If you go look, it shows a calls. It only shows four from the weekend and four calls prior to that weekend. So I’m not sure how those other four calls got there. But he said he got six or eight calls, something like that, over the weekend and the insights are showing it.

Marco: So, here’s the deal. Those will only register the click-to-call from their cellphone when they click the phone and call the company directly. They won’t register like when they see the listing …

Bradley: And call from there.

Marco: And call.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah.

Marco: Right? But, I mean, the results are there and they’re undeniable, number one, from insights and just from the client being so excited or sometimes so overwhelmed that they’ll say, “I have so many calls. What the hell do I do? What am I supposed to do?” I wasn’t the … the experience that I’ve had and, now, we’re going on the third month and I’m going to raise my rates again for the third or fourth month is … I just got … do 600% of traffic. Traffic went up 600% from the insights that we got … this is month to month. So from last month to this month and it’s incredible that the number one, it shows visits, organic visits and it shows what happens with the GMB. So everything is right there and you know. Like my thing for years and years has always been I never guarantee rankings because I know that Google is a fickle mistress, right?

I know that Google will do whatever it wants to do. But I’ve always said … I will either get your results or you leave. I put it that … that’s my pitch. If we boil it all down, my pitch is, “Dude, I’m going to get you. I’m going to make you money. If I don’t, then you don’t have to pay me anymore. You could just walk away. No contracts, no nothing.” This is a way to make sure that you’ll be able to come through with that guarantee that you’re giving your client of making your client money. So, I think this is just … I don’t know, just another way that we found like exploiting Google’s love for itself.

Bradley: Yeah. What’s great about it, guys, is like I said, this … the training is going to be entirely about how to use just GMB assets and that’s it. Obviously, you can incorporate other stuff, other traditional SEO, and local SEO stuff that we also know works, right? So, for example, syndication networks help validate the entity drive stats, press releases, all that stuff, but the goal with the GMB Pro course is to teach you how to get results strictly in the GMB environment. If you want to add the other stuff, it’s only going to make you … help you to get results faster and maintain them for longer, you know what, even … and so far I don’t have a history of knowing like if I got to continue that activity or what for this because this is new to me, too. But my point is even in really competitive stuff, you’ll be able to get results because you’ll be doing stuff that’s generating activity, that has … it’s completely independent of rankings. That’s my point.

Like it’s amazing because … and, again, I was telling Marco I’m curious as to how … what I think is going on is that people that are in a particular area, remember, this is all local stuff, right? So people that are in an area that Google knows your history, if you’re … if you’ve got a Google account and it’s … you’re tied to your phone, Google knows where you are at all times. They know what stores you like, what kind of searches you do. They know everything about you. And so, even though the rank trackers might not show the listings as ranking in maps because there’s some random IP … it might even be a localized IP, but it has no search history, that kind of stuff. It’s no profile attached to it whereas somebody that’s in that area does have a profile, that’s got an accrued search history. They might have … they might be an in-market, they might be in market for a particular service. And so Google knows all of this.

And so Google is displaying these localized results to those people that are most … that it’s most relevant to them, if that makes sense, whereas a rank tracker, it’s not going to see that that kind of … that’s not going to see that kind of a search result. I’m thinking that that’s what it is because Google for years has been talking about localizing and personalizing search results as much as possible. The technology is there now that they can do it. So, you and I or those of us that are looking at it remotely aren’t going to see the same data that somebody is actually searching from locally especially there from a mobile device which is where like more than two-thirds of all search traffic goes through mobile devices now, right? So think about that, guys. Just really super powerful. I’m excited about it and I’m actually really excited about it. I’m looking forward to getting relaunching or launching this course next month. All right, guys, I think we got enough pitching.

Hernan: Yeah, yeah.

Bradley: Questions now, what do you think?

Hernan: Yeah.

Marco: Sam’s up. Sam Bailey.

Bradley: All right, let’s do it. Let me grab the screen.

Hernan: Sam the man.

Is There An SEO Benefit To Using The Parent Page Feature In WordPress For Subcategories?

Bradley: Okay, Sam, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Question about the site structure. I’m using virtual silo structure. If I have a page that links to one or more subcategory pages, is there an SEO benefit to using the parent page feature in WordPress for this?” Well, okay, remember, if you’re using a complex silo structure, that’s how you create subcategory pages, right? So think about that, Sam. If you’re using a complex silo structure where you have top-level category which is also a page, which is a parent page, then you have subcategories which are also pages but those are child pages which means you have to select the parent page and the right-hand sidebar of the page, WYSIWYG editor-type thing. You select the parent page and then posts are obviously post. Those go into either categories or subcategories, right? And so, that’s the hierarchy of how you use a complex silo structure.

So, if you’re doing complex silo structures, yes, you would have … you would assign a parent page. Whether you’re using physical silos or virtual silos, and all that means, guys, in case anybody’s confused about that is whether you’re showing the silo structure in the URL. That is determined by your permalink settings in WordPress. If you’re using permalink … the post name settings then that’s a virtual silo because it’s not … the hierarchy is not displayed in the URL. It’s only showing the post or page slug. So it’s rootdomain.com/post or page slug, right? So that’s the post name permalink structure. If you’re using category post-name permalink structure, that will show physical silo structure, right? So that’ll show the hierarchy in the actual URL.

I’ve always preferred it that way. To me, it’s more logical. That way, however, it makes no difference as far as SEO. I’ve tested it both ways in the virtual silo. In fact, I would even probably suggest or recommend going with the virtual silo method because you can run into some funny slug or URL things that happen when trying to do the complex silo structure and using the category post-name, permalink. That makes sense. So, Sam, just because I don’t want you to be confused here. If you’re doing a complex silo then you have to use the parent page or sign a parent page from subcategories which will be pages, okay, if you’re using a simple silo structure than now because typically you wouldn’t … usually you’re just going to have categories and impost so there wouldn’t be a need for a subcategory, okay? If you have subcategories, it’s typically because you’re using a complex silo structure. So hopefully that answers the question. If it doesn’t, Sam, try to repost it with a little bit more detail, okay?

Hernan: I’ve also added links to our videos for a complex silo and simple silo structures.

When Will You Release The New Course Local GMB Pro?

Bradley: Perfect. Those videos are old and they still apply. There’s nothing to change about that. John, what’s up, John? He says, “Hi, I listen to your Hump Day Hangouts every week.” Thanks, man. I appreciate that. He says, “Plus one for you, guys. I would like to know when you plan to release your new course Local GMB Pro. Thanks.” Awesome, John. Yeah, that’s next month. We’re definitely going to be launching that in May. There’s no question. That’s coming out in May. I mean, I should be done with my part of it within the next week or so other than coming in and updating to show like the incredible results that I’m expecting to get now. Other than that, like mostly … like, again, it’s just a process. Once you learn it like … we’re talking about even providing a done for your GMB Pro service. It’s something we’re seriously considering building out a team for that, so. Nobody out there will have that except us at least initially then we’ll have a bunch of people come copy us as usual.

Is There A Way To Separate Multiple Tumblr Accounts So They Don’t Immediately Get Banned?

All right, Adrian Harper says, “Hey, guys, I have a question regarding Web 2s. I recently bought 50 Tumblr accounts from a gig on Fiverr but they didn’t come as separate accounts.” Ooh. “There’s the main account and several accounts under that which isn’t really good and I don’t think about linking to a money site to boost rankings zeros away. Is there a way to separate these accounts so you don’t immediately get banned? Also somewhere I read that you were able to log in the numerous Tumblr accounts to add content and personas using Browseo and didn’t need any proxies, is this correct? Thanks, guys, and keep up the good work, Adrian.” Okay, Adrian, I’m not 100% sure about the process for transferring an account in Tumblr like a blog from one Tumblr account to another. It’s probably possible.

I would just contact Tumblr support to ask them like just pitch it. When you ask them, ask them as if you were transferring a blog to somebody else and just say like, “What’s the process for doing that? Is that possible?” Find out if that’s possibly because, yeah, I agree with you. If you buy 50 expired Tumblrs and they’re all under one account, that’s, to me, is useless. Like you might be able to get some out of it, but the problem is if one of your sites gets terminated or banned, it could likely pass to that entire account and you lose everything. I don’t know that for sure, guys, because I don’t typically set up my accounts that way, but I would assume that that one profile could get banned which would kill all of the blogs under that profile. I don’t know if they keep it separate or not, if Tumblr does, okay?

Hernan: Yeah. Yeah, I would assume that you’re right. Like if you think like … when in doubt, just don’t do it, you know what I’m saying? Like we haven’t gone that far as to create several sub accounts within the same Tumblr account, but just … if in doubt, just in case, do it.

Bradley: Yeah. I mean, I’ve created three or four blogs under one profile, but I’ve never … like it’s typically that’s only because they’re in different industries-type stuff, so I’m using them for different purposes. But, yeah, if you’re basically like trying to use several Tumblr accounts like basically a web to PBN or something to link to your money sites, I would not have them all coming from the same account number one, okay? As far as Tumblr accounts and browser, yeah, guys, the thing about using proxies for Browseo like for creating account, like for creating accounts and stuff like that, guys, that is no longer such an issue. It used to be few years ago where you didn’t want to create a bunch of accounts from the same … [inaudible 00:19:16] the case because of public WiFi has just basically … it’s blanketed everywhere, you know what I mean?

So, there are always dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people on the same IP. Think about it. And so, all logged in to the same type of accounts and it doesn’t flag everybody’s account because it’s the same IP. So it’s no longer an IP issue. It’s not like it used to be anyways. Why it’s important? Why you can do that with Browseo? Here’s the thing, if you were to go clear Firefox through the normal clear cache and cookies process, and run CCleaner, and do all that stuff, and then log in to an account with a fresh browser like virgin white, fresh browser, that looks unnatural. So if you do that and then you log back out, clean your cache and cookies, and then log back in through the same IP to another account with a fresh browser and you do that a couple of times, you can absolutely flag your IP for that kind of activity, for spammy activity which could cause accounts to be terminated or to be … requiring verification, all that kind of stuff because you’re sending a lot of unnatural signals to that platform that you keep logging in to with the fresh browser under new accounts.

Does that make sense? However, if you’ve got Browseo or any tool that does that, I think another one is called Ghost Browser or something like that, whatever tool you have or app that will do that for you, you can still log in underneath the same IP but each browsing session keeps its history. So there’s cookies that are accrued and there’s history as to what sites have been visited and what searches have been done, and that what links have been clicked on, and that kind of stuff. And so, those kind of histories and those cookies that accrue start to build up a profile even if it’s under the same IP, it doesn’t matter because each IP or each profile is going to have a slightly different history. That looks natural because people do that but people don’t … typically, people don’t clear your browser every time they log in and think about a public WiFi not 15 people in any public WiFi spot are going to clear all their cache and cookies and then log in to their account from that same IP. Does that makes sense?

But there could be 15 people logged in to Tumblr from the same IP because they’re all … but they’re all different accounts. So my point is, is just acting more natural is the way to do it even if it’s from the same IP. That’s why I use Browseo all the time but I even … I have some select accounts that are assigned to dedicated proxies that I still use today because they’ve been set up and they’ve accrued browsing history over the last two years now, really. But all my new accounts that I set up in Browseo, they’re all just run right through my IP guys. I don’t care about the IP problem anymore because I’m building up profiles that have their own history, in their own search habits, in their own likes and themes and all of that stuff, and it’s all done through my same IP which is okay in my opinion. I’ve never had any problems with it. Does anybody have anything to say differently about that?

Marco: No, not about that but I do as far as the original question. You should be able to transfer the different accounts and the different blogs. You have to go into Tumblr and create the new account that you’re going to transfer to, and then you send an email from the blog that you’re looking to transfer to that new account to join right to that email to join your blog and then you can make that person an admin, and then you can eliminate yourself from … I’m pretty sure Google it because I’m sure that somewhere in YouTube or somewhere in Google, it will be explained exactly how’s that. But the gist of it, if I remember it correctly, that’s how it’s done. I did it before with some stuff that I got crossed up. I added about five different blogs and that’s how I did it. I just added … started a new one and figured out how to transfer the ownership, but you don’t really transfer ownership. You make someone an admin and then you eliminate yourself from that. By doing that, it makes that new blog or that new Tumblr account the administrator.

Bradley: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I … I mean, just go to YouTube and search and guarantee you’ll find it, or go to Google and search the videos tab because that has a much better search functionality than YouTube does, so.

How Do You Explain A One-Off Onboarding Or Setup Fee To A New Client?

Okay, Pete, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Hey, guys, when you were talking to a potential new client, do you put in the proposal a one-off onboarding or setup fee? If so, how do you explain what the fee is for and why do you charge the fee? Thanks in advance.” It depends on what I’m doing, Pete. But, yeah, there’s usually setup fees involved. It depends on … again, it depends on each one of the services. So, for example, like for Google My Business or maps SEO, I always charge a maps optimization or maps set up an optimization fee, right?

I charge $697, I believe, for that which includes the GMB set up an optimization. If it’s not already set up, then I set it up. Typically, it’s set up and I’ve just got to optimize it. Bing and in Yahoo!, in fact, I really even kind of took Yahoo! out of it to where I’m really just now doing Bing in GMB for the same price, right, $697. That’s what I charge. But then my local monthly SEO charges for any at … the lowest I would charge for local maps is 500 bucks a month for maintaining. So like I’ll charge $697 set up and $500 a month. If I got somebody with two locations, a lot of the times I’ll charge them $400 per location per month. So it’s 800 bucks for two. That’s just kind of how I do stuff like I … I don’t charge as much as a lot of the other people do for my services, but when it comes to setup fees, it just depends on what it is.

Like, for example, I also do reputational marketing stuff now because it’s just so stupid easy to fulfill, right? The app does all the work. All you got to do is sell it. And so like I’ll charge somebody like 99 bucks as a setup fee because it takes me or a VA about 20 minutes to input data into the system and that’s it. And so I make $100 on a setup fee and then I’ll charge maybe $200 a month or something like that on just the reputation stuff but I typically try to roll all of that into a larger SEO package, anyways, okay? But, yeah, I mean, guys, I’m always transparent about my charges to my clients. Like I tell them exactly what everything is for. Like I don’t ever try to inflate prices here and there to kind of hide stuff. I just flat out tell them what it is and I explain why that I’m charging for that and why it’s necessary.

Again, like I said, the way that I present my services to my clients, it’s in a very transparent way so that I honestly feel like I earned their trust by just explaining everything in such detail if that makes sense. So, anyways, that’s my two cents. You, guys, have any additional input on that?

Hernan: Yeah, real quick, I do the same that you do, Bradley, in terms of I tell them, “Hey, this is what it’s going to charge like and what I’m going to charge, and then these are the tools that I’m going to use, and this is the final … like the tally, if you want,” But, yeah, I definitely break that down for the clients and I’m completely 100% transparent as you were saying as well.

Bradley: Marco?

Marco: No, I totally agree. You have to be transparent. But then, again, if you position yourself correctly, you should also raise your prices accordingly. I mean, you know your market, you know your local market, Bradley, and you know what it is. I would never charge the same thing to someone, let’s say, in an area like where you are like, let’s say, in Georgetown, for example, where I know, I mean, that the money is just way different. A Beverly Hills Dennis, I’m going to hit him over the head as opposed to just a local Dennis that’s just trying to get people in the door, right, so that he can then sell them on whatever services it is that he has. So you have to know. If you know your market and you position yourself accordingly then you could usually could charge a little bit more but, definitely, transparent as far as the tools, as far as using … you have to pay your staff. You have expenses also.

Bradley: Yep.

Marco: If you’re transparent with all of that then you should be okay. I mean, markup … you have to charge what you feel you’re worth. That’s how I think. You have to charge for your services and if you’re that good then you should charge for that. You should charge a premium. Most other businesses and most other experts do.

What Are Possible Reasons Why A Gmail Account Used In GSites And Drive Stacks Got Suspended?

Bradley: I agree. Okay. D is, “Hey, guys, a few days ago, my Gmail account got suspended. It was my persona account for one of my affiliate sites and the account was around nine months old. I had a branded IFTTT network and drive stack attached to this account. I need the words of wisdom from you, guys, on this issue. Before that, I want to tell you a few things. I had content in the drive files without attribution and all of these documents were created a few months back.” Okay, so if it was like straight up copied content from somewhere without attribution, well, that typically hasn’t created a problem, but Marco can comment on that.

Marco: No, that’s never been a problem.

Bradley: Yeah, it’s never been a problem.

Marco: No, we’re still doing it the same way, not a problem.

Bradley: He says, “A few days ago, I created a new G-site for link building and I framed a few of my Google Docs and spreadsheets, and I went to Fiverr, and ordered two contextual backlinks packages with one 5,000 links and with one 2,000 links to my new G-site.” Again, although, I never recommend buying backlinks packages from Fiverr because those templates are used over, and over, and over again, so it’s definitely a footprint thing. Well, I’m sure there’s some providers there that are decent, but I just don’t recommend it. But I don’t think that’s the problem either, the backlinks to your G-site. Marco, do you they feel differently?

Marco: I’ve never seen this kind of behavior before and we’ve thrown the kitchen sink at drive stacks. It may have been that he linked directly to the G-site, but we’ve done that also. Like this isn’t in the right context for me to be able to see. Did we do the drive stack? If so, then I can reach out and see what was done. I mean, but if it’s someone else’s drive stack, I can’t say because I don’t know what type of garbage they did. If you did it yourself, did you follow our training or who’s training did you follow? I mean, there’s so many things that are possible here that I could go on, and on, and on, and we’d never get to an answer.

Bradley: Yeah and one question I would have was … and I’m not doubting that it truly is suspended but I’m just throwing this out there for everybody’s benefit. There’s been times where I’ve had blogger accounts, for example, specifically from syndication networks where like a blog blogger account says it’s been suspended for violations of terms of service or whatever. All it was, was … it was showing the blogger blog is being suspended, but all it was, was the Gmail account associated with that blogger blog had to be re-verified through a phone verification. After re-verifying the account which sometimes is difficult, then blogger blog, all of a sudden, the suspension is lifted and it’s back live again on the web as soon as you verify the account. So all I’m saying, the reason why I bring that up is because is it indeed a suspension which I’m pretty sure that you’ve already confirmed that or is it just that you have to re-verify the account.

You might want to look into that first if you haven’t already is my point, okay? But, yeah, I don’t know because I haven’t run into that problem like … I haven’t had too many Google account suspended. I have from spamming like Google+ with automated like in an automated way or like with social sharing, like there’s some of those apps where you can share other people’s content and they share content for you. I’ve done that in the past and I’ve had some just stuff that absolutely violates terms of service posted like pharma stuff, Viagra pill stuff, things like that that have had my accounts suspended. But as far as like just creating a G-site and doing like drive stack stuff, embedding files, even spamming it to death, I’ve never had any issues with that, not even one, not one site has ever been suspended for that. So I can’t really speak as to what the problem is if I’ve never seen it personally, unfortunately, sorry.

Marco: The only thing I’ve ever seen go wrong and get us a suspension is when we ran the script and it was pulling in too many files which is just too many Google resources that you’re using up for free and then that will get your G-site terminated. It’ll get the G-site suspended and you won’t … it’s really hard to recover it, but the drive stack was still intact. So it’s just a matter of slowing down the script and the way that it runs and then just redoing a G-site and just doing it all over again, not the Gmail account. This is what’s surprising that the Gmail account getting suspended not from a drive stack, I don’t know. It may have triggered a re-verification like you said.

Bradley: That’s what I would think it would be is that more and more … I mean, because, honestly, that’s typically the only thing that happens is that an account gets locked for re-verification and all of the sub-accounts or tools, the apps that Google allows you to have with an account, they all get basically temporarily suspended until you can re-verify. Sometimes it’s impossible re-verifying. I’ve lost stuff because of it, but other times, I’ve been able to re-verify and everything comes back. So that’s what I’m assuming it may be without more detail. All right. Nigel’s up. Nigel just recently joined the mastermind after coming here for months and asking many questions and taking action. He got himself to a position where he joined a mastermind, it’s freaking fabulous.

Nigel, you and Mohammed back to back, look at that, that’s awesome because both of you have taken very similar paths in that. You’ve come here and asked a bunch of questions every single week and you’ve applied taken action on what you’ve learned and it’s propelled you to the point that you could come join the mastermind which will help you to grow your businesses even faster. So both of you, I’m proud of both of you, seriously. I’ve said that to you, Mohammed, but not so much to you, Nigel. We certainly appreciate you joining the mastermind. We will be there to help you in any way we can, okay? [Newly Minted MM 00:34:18] status, “It feels great. Thank you for the warm welcome, truly been awesome so far and looking forward to posting results soon.” We’re looking forward to you posting them.

That video email, nice, I got my money’s worth for this month already. So you must have picked Video Lead-Gen System as the bonus or whatever. That’s awesome. Just keep in mind, guys, that as part of the prospecting module, we’re going to flash that out a hell of a lot more and we’re going to end up updating that product and in launching that with a proper launch. So, I think, Hernan, you might want to get this ready, but I think we still have the pre-sale for Video Lead-Gen System available. If it’s still available, people can still get in now when we go to launch it, once it’s relaunched with all the new training that’s going to be added. It’s going to be at least 500 bucks.

Hernan: Yeah I’ve been actually start for [inaudible 00:35:08] let me confirm that with you, Bradley.

Bradley: I think it’s vlgs.semanticmastery.com, I think. But, anyways …

Hernan: Yeah, I want to make sure that it’s still open in the back if that makes sense.

Bradley: Okay, I got it. Anyways, that way …

Marco: Can I just add for a second? We’re giving you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. We always give you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. Please don’t come back in a month, two months, or three months, or however long and say, “You raise the price. Now, I can’t buy it at the launch price.” The launch price is what it is. The pre-launch price is what it is, and then it goes up to the price where we established. Why do we do that? Because we want you, people who follow us, people who are members, we want you to have a first crack at it at a price where it’s comfortable but it’s worth so much more than what we charge that we just can’t give it away for free, sorry. It takes too much time too much effort. It takes too much work to put all the stuff together and we can’t give it away. It’s worth what it’s worth. It’s going up to where it’s going.

You’re warned that it’s happening. I mean, emails are sent out. We do it on Hump Day Hangouts. We do it everywhere. We give people ample notice. Please don’t come back and complain that the price has been raised when you already know that the price is going to be raised.

Hernan: Yep. I just posted on the event page. So you better like you better … yeah, you said, I said while it lasts because, I don’t know, somebody could find out and we might close it.

Marco: Yeah.

Where Can I Find A Document On Basic Metadata And Tag Configuration?

Bradley: That’s true. Like I said, we’re going to be launching that in April, May, June … June, I believe. Yeah, I believe we talked about that this week, guys, didn’t we? I think we’re going to relaunch that in June, so. All right. Anyways, where can I … back to Nigel’s question. “Where can I find the document on basic metadata and tag configuration without going too far down the rabbit hole? Basically, I want to clear an easy way to provide, I want a clear and easy way to provide some value to prospects that I audit. I had a prospects report come back with metadata and tag issues, and I would have loved to offer some generic DIY info for free like put this kind of information in here without going all Jeffrey Smith SEO Bootcamp on them. Any direction you can provide a solid guide template would be invaluable.”

All right. So, my only concern with that, Nigel, is remember who your audience is, right? So when you’re talking to a prospect in a video audit and you are explaining to them something that they could do that could have a positive impact on their digital presence, you want something that’s incredibly easy for them to do that doesn’t require a ton of explanation. So I know that’s basically what you’re asking, how could I have provided some information about metadata and tags that wouldn’t confuse them. That’s kind of difficult to do especially in a video audit. Now, you could try it with like … if I were to try to create an example for that, I’m sure I could figure out a way to dumb it down quite a bit, but I might do something like talk about how tags are supposed to be kind of descriptive terms about the topic of the post and right, and then there’s like a hierarchy and stuff but remember, you don’t want to overwhelm them with technical stuff because their eyes will glaze over and though it’s like you’re speaking a foreign language to them, right?

And so, again, you don’t want to get too technical. A lot of the times that the kind of advice or suggestion that I will give in an audit will be something very simple like, “Hey, you don’t have your name, address, and phone number listed on your website. That’s something that is incredibly powerful for helping you to rank in maps. So, I would recommend that you put a widget in your site or have your webmaster put a widget in the footer or in the sidebar that lists your name, address, and phone number,” stuff like that, something that’s very simple that doesn’t take a lot of explanation but they could easily do that’s going to literally help give them an improvement, right? Like it’s going to improve their presence slightly even if not much.

You could give them a tip on optimizing Yelp or some … all I’m saying is like you could give them a tip on optimizing their GMB listing say, “Hey, I’m looking at your Google My Business listing and it looks like you only have your logo and nothing else. You might want to add some optimized images and here’s a trick. Name the file names of the images after products and services that you provide. Include local modifiers, your city name, the areas that you service, things like that.” Very, very easy stuff that they can do as far as tags and metadata that’s a bit too technical in my opinion to try to explain that to a layman or civilian so to speak. You, guys, have any other suggestions on that?

Marco: No, I totally agree with you. If you start talking about title tags and metadata, you’re going to have to show SERPs to show the purpose that they serve, and then that might get the talking into, “Well, am I going to get those kinds of results? Am I going to get those rankings? Am I going to rank for these keywords? And what keywords am I going to …” You don’t want the conversation going that way. Then the conversation is going all wrong because you want the conversation to be all about the leads or the results that you’re going to get for the person. I mean, you could do it in the video of the person is technical enough, but that’s not a conversation that you want to have with someone that you’re just taking on as a client. I mean, if you want to do that, let’s say, later on as an add-on or whatever, we’re going to improve your ad copy, for example, you could say that.

You could compare it to classifieds where you want to stand out from the bunch and and how you can make it stand out. You never want to put the client in a position where they have to kind of try to figure out how they’re going to do it because then it’s all over. Their eyes would like Bradley said, that they’ll roll into the back of their head and they’ll start singing … show tunes and you can forget it.

Can You Share Your Citation Building Methodology In Serp Space?

Bradley: That’s it. Number two, he says, “I saw a subspace as levels of citations, foundation, hometown, a multimedia in terms of marketing to clients. Is that like month one, two, three strategy? And does dripping citation building actually matter or just better to spread things out?” Well, what I do is like part of my monthly SEO services include citation building but that doesn’t mean that I’m building citations every month. I mean, most of the time I do or a lot of the times for my clients now because it’s just so much easier is … I’m not going to lie, for most of my clients, I’d used Loganix services, the monthly citation building. I don’t even … like and that’s only because that service is great and it’s 100% managed. I don’t have to do anything. All I have to do is input data once and they build citations every month. They do a a mix of structured citations and unstructured citations.

What’s the difference? A structured citation is a classical business directory listing, name, address, phone number, sometimes a link back to the site, but it’s a business directory listing. An unstructured citation is a mention of NAP, right? Name, address, phone number but on non-traditional business sites, like non-traditional directory sites. In other words, social medias, blogs, press releases, all of those video sites, documents sharing sites, audio sites, image sharing sites, all of those types of sites become none … or what they call unstructured citations. And so, the Loganix monthly citation service is 150 bucks, semanticmastery.com/loganix, I believe, will take you over there. It’s a good service. I like it because it’s 100% outsourced.

But for some of my clients that are grandfathered into a much lower monthly price, I’m not going to cough up $150 to pays Loganix to do it. So what I’ll do is, obviously, I’ll do like a package from SerpSpace. I’ll do like the foundations which are the … like basically like all the big directories and then I’ll get the local citations on top of that, then I’ll do the multimedia or the social type citations like another month. It doesn’t have to be month one, month two, month three. If it’s a newer site that you’re trying to get them results then that might be a good strategy. If it’s a site that’s already doing well like as far as ranking in maps then I don’t always do that, like I might build a batch of citations and then wait three months before I build another batch of citations. Because here’s the thing, guys, also like I don’t know what reporting software or app you’re using for that but I use BrightLocal.

BrightLocal is a fabulous service. Again, semanticmastery.com/brightlocal, I think, will take you over there. I’ve been using it since 2012 when I opened my agency and I use … that’s what I use for all my reporting. What I like about BrightLocal is it will do citation tracking. So it’ll show you how many citations and it will keep a history of all that so you can see the graph over time going up as far as the number of citations accrued. And so, what I found is doing a batch of citations, let’s say, I order 50 new citations to be built. It doesn’t matter what type of citation structured, unstructured, foundation, social, it doesn’t really matter, hyperlocal, any of those doesn’t matter because what happens is I’ll get the report back and I’ll submit all those URLs for indexing which apparently most indexers aren’t working now anyways, and it takes three months for all of them to end up … not all of them end up, get out of 50. I might only have 35 of them that end up getting indexed over the course of three months.

So my point is you don’t have to build every single month because you can build today and three months from now, Google would just start finding some of those citations if that makes sense. One of the things I highly recommend is that you do local data aggregator submissions like the big data aggregator submissions which is Factual, Acxiom, InfoUSA or Express Update, I think it’s called, which is part of InfoUSA, and in Neustar/Localeze. There’s a couple services that will do that. One of the things I like about BrightLocal is BrightLocal has that for $55 and you have to up … you have to redo it every year, but it’s 55 bucks and they’ll submit to all four data aggregators. What’s great about that is within three to six months like you’ll start seeing a bunch of new citations pop up just because your data is listed in the aggregators, right?

And so, again, I like to use BrightLocal for that because it’s 55 bucks and they submit all to all for submission … data aggregators for me, okay? So, again, my citation building method really just varies for all new clients that I’ve signed up within the last probably a year and a half, maybe two years now because my pricing is higher than it was for some of my grandfather clients. They all just get put on the Loganix service because, again, it’s something that it’s out of sight out of mind. I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s done. I know every single month. They’re getting a mix of structured and unstructured citations and then backlinks are being built to those citations, so it’s just done for me. It’s something I don’t have to manage anymore. Does that make sense? Okay

How Do You Get Back In Touch With The Ones That At Least Watched The Video Emails?

All right. Mohammed’s up. He says, “Hey, guys.” What’s up, Muhammad? “When I first started video emails, I bungled a lot of leads by not calling them and getting a conversation going. How would I get back in touch with the ones that at least watched my video? I was going to call them but given them my emails were months ago, they may be lost. Do I send them the same email again?” No, here’s what I would do, Mohammed, and I’ve done this before. Create a generic video that is talking to all of them. So create … so that way, you’re still getting that personalized effect but you don’t have to record, you don’t have to send them the same video that they’ve already seen, and you don’t have to send a personalized video for each and every person that you’re recontacting, right?

So just record a video with you looking into the camera, or whatever, or if you’re doing a screencast plus picture and picture or whatever, any … however you want to do it. Just record a short video. “Hey, I sent you an email, a video email a few months ago,” right? So don’t say their names, don’t say their business, you’re in the same … in a specific vertical. So, “Hey, I sent you a video about your real estate business or whatever a couple months ago and I’m just reaching back out to try to start this conversation and go start a dialogue with you again, see if you’d be interested in having a conversation about what I sent you. If you’re curious about … if you didn’t see the video before, you’d like to see it again, just hit reply to this and I’ll send you the link again.” Does that make sense?

So that way you’ve got one generic video that, now, you can literally mass email out to everybody that engaged with your first video and in those people that re-engage with your new email, they might hit reply back and ask you to send them, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Can you send it to me again?” Anyways, it just gets the conversation started. So that’s what I would do because we save you a ton of time. Just do one generic video and then blast it out to everybody that you … that engaged you the first time but you didn’t follow up with correctly and just try to get some engagement out that like sent … recontacting them again, okay?

What Email Marketing Program Do You Recommend?

Okay, Quit This House, he says, “Hey, guys, thanks for all you do to help us.” You’re welcome. “Everyone talks about building a list. What email marketing program do you recommend?” Well, I’m using drip.com which is an autoresponder from Leadpages. I’ve never been a fan of Leadpages, but they’re their autoresponder is freaking fabulous. Drip is great at least it is for me. I’m building out my entire prospecting funnel and all the automations, well, about 80% of the automations are handled inside of Drip right now and it’s … it inboxes into the primary tab in Gmail which is insane because most of the other autoresponders go to the promotions tab in Gmail. That was the primary reason I started using Drip, was just because it goes to the primary inbox on Gmail. Since then, I’ve started to learn how to use Drip because I’ve never been an email marketing guy, but I’m using it now and all the automation that they’re called workflows inside of drip, and it’s fabulous.

The amount of stuff that you can automate is just insane. That’s what we’ve working on, is an automated prospecting funnel and we’re going to be building out an automated onboarding and fulfillment funnel too.

Hernan: Yeah. If I can add to that, we use ActiveCampaign for Semantic Mastery. I use the ActiveCampaign a lot, but it was a wash between Drip and ActiveCampaign, because the main point is that you can automate a lot of stuff.

Bradley: Yeah.

Hernan: That’s the main point, and they’re way more powerful than any other kind of responder. In fact, like you get all of that functionality only by going through Infusionsoft, which is like 500 bucks a month or something like that. We use either Drip or ActiveCampaign. Those are the goto solutions.

Bradley: Totally agree. I’m super impressed with it. In fact, I was talking on the Mastermind Webinar last week about the prospecting funnel. I’ve actually like chick and it scratched it and started over three times from scratch now, because it’s just a really complex build. Part of the reason it was over complicated the first couple times is because I was trying to patch together a whole bunch of different apps and services to handle all of the automations. Again, I’m not an email marketing guy. It’s not something I’ve typically done in my career. I was unaware of how much could actually be done within the Drip platform. After wasting literally weeks and dozens and dozens of hours on building out this funnel and it not working or even being too complex for even me to be able to maintain it, that’s when I said, “Okay, look, I’m just going to spend a couple days researching Drip and trying to figure out how to use this.”

I made more progress in about three days that way than I had in three weeks prior to just by starting to put everything that I could in the Drip. Again, I’m super impressed with it, I’m really happy with it, and I’m still learning. Inside the Mastermind, we’re covering all of that stuff to you, guys. I don’t know if you’re not in there yet, come join us because all of that’s going to be … Like, I’m literally going to be giving all of our Mastermind members the blueprint and step-by-step process instructions for how to build their own prospecting automation funnel. I’ve even impressed myself with it. Just so you know, it’s like that.

How Do You Build Your YouTube Channels?

All right, next, he says, “When you buy your YouTube channels, how much do you build them out, cover pic, link, G+ short description, or both on both G+ profile and YouTube?” It depends on what I’m using them for. We buy a ton of YouTube accounts just straight up for YouTube spam, I honestly don’t build those out at all. If it’s for a money channel, then yes absolutely because it’s about branding, right? If you’re building a money channel, then, yeah, you absolutely want to complete the G+ profile, you want to fill out the YouTube channel, the About section, add the links, the interlinking, all that kind of stuff. It depends on what your intent is with that YouTube channel. If it’s for spam purposes, no, don’t do anything else. Just buy the damn account, that’s it. Make sure it’s phone verified and that’s it, but if you’re doing it for a money project, an affiliate project, a client project to legion, for any one of those, then, absolutely, try to complete as many of the Google properties as possible and interlink all of them, okay? That includes blogger too, guys, right?

What Do You Think Of Using Rel=Alternate For SEO Purposes?

Steve, what’s up? He says, “Hi, I heard him passing reference last week to linking with rel=”alternate” for SEO purposes. Can you recommend on this? Does it work? What are the best practices and are there any dangers? Is this equivalent the same as markup? Thanks.” To be honest, I’ve never used it. I’m going to defer to Marco. What can you tell us about it, Marco?

Marco: The only time that I’ve used the rel=”alternate” tag is when defining language. I’ve never used it for SEO. I’ve always used rel=”canonical”. I mean it’s something that I would have to try because I’ve never used it that. I don’t think that Google even recommends for you to use and to use rel that way alternate. I think it would have to be canonical. I haven’t read anything on it. I know that Mars had something on it. I know that the Google Blog middle of last year had something on it but we use canonical because that’s where we see the greatest SEO effect.

Bradley: Yeah. Again, I can’t speak on it because I haven’t used it at all. We could probably do some research on it.

Hernan: Yeah, sorry, you could use it for language, you could use it for mobile.

Marco: That type of thing?

Hernan: rel=”alternate”? I’ve never … I mean, I don’t see a way where you use it for SEO and it would be real easy to pick out if you started using that for SEO.

Bradley: Yeah, this is a good blog, guys. The Stone Temple blog, these guys have some really good SEO stuff on here too and this one was published in 2016, so about two years ago, May 2016, by Eric Engine. He knows what he’s talking about. This might be something you could research, I don’t know. Again, I haven’t even read this. I just clicked on it just now, but my point is I know the Stone Temple guys typically do a good job of explaining stuff so you might be able to use this here. All I did, guys, was search rel=”alternate” and just start looking through. Look at the dates though, right? You don’t want to look at something from 2012. It’s probably not relevant now. I mean it may be. You could still look at it, but just judge it based on its freshness factor too, okay?

Is There A Way To Use Google Sites For An Ecommerce Site Where The products Are Set Up To Create A Feed For Google Shopping Ads?

All right, we’re going to answer just up to Jordan Fowler’s question guys, and we’re going to wrap it up because we’re almost out of time. I love how Armand says what up with you, yo, booty butt cheeks. I don’t know what that means, but it’s funny so I’ll plus-one it. You guys are the shit. Was wondering if there was a way to use Google Sites for an e-commerce site where the products are set up to create a feed that I could use on Google Shopping ads?” That’s a good question. I don’t know because I don’t do any e-com stuff, but that does sound like it would be pretty powerful. Do you have any experience with that, Marco?

Marco: Yeah, you’d have to use announcement pages to create a feed out of G-sites. I don’t know about the new ones. I haven’t tried the new ones out. I’m not sure how to get a feed out of that because they don’t have announcement pages in the new G-sites, as far as I know, we can’t even run the script on the new G-site, so we’re talking about the old one, I’ve seen it done I’ve seen some really wicked stuff being done with G-sites and e-commerce. Rob and I were talking about that a couple of weeks ago. But yeah, you could totally set it up use announcement pages and create the fee.

Bradley: Yeah. He says the company I work for is in an industry where Google shopping ads supposedly won’t allow our products on but we see our competitors all the time in there, so I thought this may be a workaround. Unfortunately, I don’t do any e-commerce at all, Armand. I never have. Because of that, I really can’t provide any advice and I apologize for that. But, again you could probably do some searching on it and find some information about it. Obviously, if we come across anything, we’ll certainly mention it. I love the fact that, again, you want to hear me say it again, booty butt cheeks? That’s awesome, man. I appreciate that. It made me giggle.

How Do You Block Google From Indexing A General Archive Of A Blog?

All right, cool, Greg and Scott, what’s up, guys. Jordan, he says, “Okay, my blog page general archive continues to index despite my blocking it in an SEO ultimate plus and putting meta name equals robot’s content no index in that page header. I know this is bleeding my otherwise fastidiously created silos. How bad is it hurting my SEO? Any suggestions on getting it to not index?” Okay, just put a nofollow tag in the header that’s all you have to do, because that’ll stop the bleeding. Even if it’s indexed, it doesn’t matter. If you have nofollow on it, you’re basically telling you will not to follow any of the links, like to pass any PageRank, if that’s still a thing. I think it is internally in Google, but it doesn’t pass any PageRank through any of the links on that page, if you add a nofollow, it should be to the header. That’s correct, Marco, right? I didn’t tell them wrong, did I?

Marco: No, you’re correct. And yes, PageRank is alive and well inside the algorithm.

Bradley: Right, thought so. Jordan, yeah, that’s the easy thing. Whether indexes or not, you can ask Google to honor their no Index but it’s up to them. I’ve seen stuff index that’s supposed to be no indexed all the time, but if you put nofollow in that same tag, that same HTML tag, then I think it’s just rel=”nofollow”. I’m not sure. You’d have to double check. The entire page, any links on that page will be no followed. It just knows to not pass PageRank to them. Google will still crawl the links, but it just won’t pass PageRank, so it won’t bleed your silos or your theme, okay? Okay, cool. It looks like we got to most of the questions, guys. We appreciate everybody being here. We don’t have any Mastermind this week because I’m hard at work trying to finish the prospecting funnel but …

Hernan: It’s going to be good.

Bradley: See you, guys, next week.

Hernan: Sounds good.

Bradley: Thanks, guys.

Hernan: See you, guys.

Bradley: Bye.

Marco: Bye, everyone.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179

Click on the video above to watch Episode 179 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at https://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Bradley: I’m going to steal Adam’s line. Hello. Hey, everybody. This is Bradley Benner with the Semantic Mastery and this is Hump Day Hangouts Episode, I believe, 178. Hard to believe. Anyways, hi. It’s sunny and warm in Virginia, finally. Well, it’s getting there and I’m glad for that. We’ve got Hernan and Marco on. We’re not going to ask Marco about the weather because I’m tired of hearing about it, but how are you doing, Hernan?

Hernan: Good, man. It’s good to be here, excited for what’s coming. It’s kind of a … I think there’s going to be a big storm here in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, Estrella. So, it’s good. It’s good to be here.

Bradley: Awesome. Marco, how are you doing, man?

Marco: Investigating how to ranking Google more better.

Bradley: More better. It’s awesome. Yeah, guys, we’ve got a few things we’re going to tease you with this morning because you know how we like to do that. So we’re going to do … or today, excuse me, we’re going to tease you with a couple things. I guess, I’ll hand it over to you first, Hernan, because you wanted to talk about the updated Battleplan V2.

Hernan: Yep. Yeah, that’s right. In fact, one of the usual announcements that we do is that we tell you, guys, to go get the Battleplan because that’s like step number one if you’re new to Semantic Mastery. But for the first time in a couple of months, I would say, probably a year, I would say to hold off, to not do that because we’re actually revamping it. We’re rewriting and there’s a lot of it in it that still works like a charm so you could totally get it now, and apply today, and you will get a lot of good stuff, good results. But we have tweaked some stuff and treat some orders of different things to reflect better, what are the changes that we have been finding out and whatnot. So, we’re still reviewing it. There’s going to be probably another two weeks before we launch it or something like that. And so, yeah, I’m really excited about that. It’s going to be, as usual, a launch price that’s a no-brainer. So, stay in touch. Stay tuned because it’s got to be really, really good.

Bradley: Okay. Yeah, I agree with that. We’re looking forward to launching that because, obviously, within a year and stuff has changed, we’ve added some new things to our standard operating procedure like press releases, for example. So, all that kind of stuff is in the new Battleplan, guys. Also, next month in May, we’re going to be actually launching another product called Local GMB Pro which is going to be fabulous because Marco and Rob are back at it again. They’ve been in the lab testing basically getting results for clients or their own assets, whatever, entirely 100% within the GMB dashboard. I don’t know if you, guys, are paying attention to what’s going on inside of the GMB dashboard, but a lot of changes have occurred in just the recent months and weeks.

For example, like services tabs are now starting the show up to where you can add products, and services, and pricing, and description of them, and all that kind of stuff. There’s the messaging tab. There’s … I mean there’s all these things that you can do now and they’re like the GMB websites which I was playing with today which is freaking fabulous GMB post, like all the stuff that Google is giving us, that are free tools to use inside the GMB dashboard. What Rob and Marco have been finding out is by using those tools and doing everything that Google gives to us, taking advantage of everything that Google gives to us inside that dashboard, they’re able to generate some incredible results that has absolutely nothing to do with ranking or traditional SEO. It’s like all that shit that we’ve filled our heads with over the last many years, guys, forget about all of it because it can be done 100% inside of GMB without needing to know all that stuff.

It’s amazing because Marco and Robert started telling me about the process that … and they started developing a process doc and all that, and they shared it with me, and I had landed a client just a few weeks ago as a referral for a company that is really outside of my industry target usually but I took them on anyways. I said, “Okay, this is a perfect opportunity to apply this new GMB training that … or method that Marco and Robert putting together or developing for this project. And so, I just started working on that and developing that … and I’m recording the entire build, and that’s part of the … like that’s my contribution to the Local GMB Pro course is recording a case study. I’m learning this for the first time, too. Like I’m literally learning what Rob and Marco are teaching me and in going and applying it for the first time in this case study.

So you, guys, are seeing me make mistakes like … or you, guys, will be, those of you that purchased, of course, will be seeing me make mistakes and kind of fumbled my way through stuff which I think is a hell of a lot more genuine and more useful. Personally, as a student of many internet marketing products myself, usually, when you see the polished finished product, it’s usually just all the stuff that worked well, right? And so, but a lot of times, if you run into an issue like a challenge, or a roadblock, or something that’s not covered in the training then it can literally stop your progress dead in its tracks. I know, that’s happened to me many times because I’ve run into something that wasn’t addressed in the training because the training only shows everything that works. So, I like this style of training and that I’m learning it as I’m recording the case study videos that you, guys, can see like mistakes and how I get … how I correct them and how I find workaround stuff.

Anyways, that all said, what’s amazing is I got a call from the customer, the client, yesterday or might have been two days ago now and he was like … he’s funny, but the way he talks, he’s like, “Yo, bro, I got so many calls over the weekend from the map’s listing like I don’t even see it ranked and I don’t know how I’m getting the calls but they’re coming through.” And so, I went and looked at the GMB insights data which is like analytics inside the GMB dashboard, and you can absolutely see how much traffic. His new, brand new GMB listing has already received. You can see phone calls, the clicks to driving directions, all that kind of stuff. It’s amazing because he’s not ranked at all like anywhere.

It’s brand new listing, guys, yet just because I’m in there optimizing the way that Marco and Rob are teaching me and utilizing all the products that GMB gives us, he’s already generating leads from this listing that under normal SEO standards, I wouldn’t be generating leads with this listing for at least a month, right, long enough to get everything built out, submit a press release, syndication network, drive stack, all the stuff that we typically do, not doing any of that. This is all 100% done inside that GMB dashboard so far. And so, I let Marco talk on that for just minute. I’m going to grab the screen and just show you guys a quick … like I said, I was going to tease you, but a quick peek inside the site.

This is the back end for … of our membership sites where I’ve got lessons that I’ve been uploading. You can see, look at this, guys, I’ve got already 16 lessons added to this new training that we’re launching next month and this is just for this one case study. I haven’t even scratched the surface, man. I’m just getting started. So this is going to be one hell of a training course, guys, that will literally save you a ton of money and a ton of time because you can get results like almost overnight for clients just inside a GMB. Guys, you don’t even need a website for this which is insane. So, Marco, go ahead and chat about that for a little bit.

Marco: Well, what I want to do to tell them also is when was the map finally verified?

Bradley: Well, it was verified about two weeks ago or more, about three weeks ago, but there was a strange trouble with it, there was a duplicate listing that was [inaudible 00:07:31].

Marco: Yeah, but, I mean, when did everything get corrected and when-

Bradley: Thursday.

Marco: Last Thursday.

Bradley: Thursday last week. So less than a week ago.

Marco: And then in during that time, you can already see results.

Bradley: Yeah, over the weekend, this past weekend, he said he received, I think, six or eight calls or something like that. If you go look, it shows a calls. It only shows four from the weekend and four calls prior to that weekend. So I’m not sure how those other four calls got there. But he said he got six or eight calls, something like that, over the weekend and the insights are showing it.

Marco: So, here’s the deal. Those will only register the click-to-call from their cellphone when they click the phone and call the company directly. They won’t register like when they see the listing …

Bradley: And call from there.

Marco: And call.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah.

Marco: Right? But, I mean, the results are there and they’re undeniable, number one, from insights and just from the client being so excited or sometimes so overwhelmed that they’ll say, “I have so many calls. What the hell do I do? What am I supposed to do?” I wasn’t the … the experience that I’ve had and, now, we’re going on the third month and I’m going to raise my rates again for the third or fourth month is … I just got … do 600% of traffic. Traffic went up 600% from the insights that we got … this is month to month. So from last month to this month and it’s incredible that the number one, it shows visits, organic visits and it shows what happens with the GMB. So everything is right there and you know. Like my thing for years and years has always been I never guarantee rankings because I know that Google is a fickle mistress, right?

I know that Google will do whatever it wants to do. But I’ve always said … I will either get your results or you leave. I put it that … that’s my pitch. If we boil it all down, my pitch is, “Dude, I’m going to get you. I’m going to make you money. If I don’t, then you don’t have to pay me anymore. You could just walk away. No contracts, no nothing.” This is a way to make sure that you’ll be able to come through with that guarantee that you’re giving your client of making your client money. So, I think this is just … I don’t know, just another way that we found like exploiting Google’s love for itself.

Bradley: Yeah. What’s great about it, guys, is like I said, this … the training is going to be entirely about how to use just GMB assets and that’s it. Obviously, you can incorporate other stuff, other traditional SEO, and local SEO stuff that we also know works, right? So, for example, syndication networks help validate the entity drive stats, press releases, all that stuff, but the goal with the GMB Pro course is to teach you how to get results strictly in the GMB environment. If you want to add the other stuff, it’s only going to make you … help you to get results faster and maintain them for longer, you know what, even … and so far I don’t have a history of knowing like if I got to continue that activity or what for this because this is new to me, too. But my point is even in really competitive stuff, you’ll be able to get results because you’ll be doing stuff that’s generating activity, that has … it’s completely independent of rankings. That’s my point.

Like it’s amazing because … and, again, I was telling Marco I’m curious as to how … what I think is going on is that people that are in a particular area, remember, this is all local stuff, right? So people that are in an area that Google knows your history, if you’re … if you’ve got a Google account and it’s … you’re tied to your phone, Google knows where you are at all times. They know what stores you like, what kind of searches you do. They know everything about you. And so, even though the rank trackers might not show the listings as ranking in maps because there’s some random IP … it might even be a localized IP, but it has no search history, that kind of stuff. It’s no profile attached to it whereas somebody that’s in that area does have a profile, that’s got an accrued search history. They might have … they might be an in-market, they might be in market for a particular service. And so Google knows all of this.

And so Google is displaying these localized results to those people that are most … that it’s most relevant to them, if that makes sense, whereas a rank tracker, it’s not going to see that that kind of … that’s not going to see that kind of a search result. I’m thinking that that’s what it is because Google for years has been talking about localizing and personalizing search results as much as possible. The technology is there now that they can do it. So, you and I or those of us that are looking at it remotely aren’t going to see the same data that somebody is actually searching from locally especially there from a mobile device which is where like more than two-thirds of all search traffic goes through mobile devices now, right? So think about that, guys. Just really super powerful. I’m excited about it and I’m actually really excited about it. I’m looking forward to getting relaunching or launching this course next month. All right, guys, I think we got enough pitching.

Hernan: Yeah, yeah.

Bradley: Questions now, what do you think?

Hernan: Yeah.

Marco: Sam’s up. Sam Bailey.

Bradley: All right, let’s do it. Let me grab the screen.

Hernan: Sam the man.

Is There An SEO Benefit To Using The Parent Page Feature In WordPress For Subcategories?

Bradley: Okay, Sam, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Question about the site structure. I’m using virtual silo structure. If I have a page that links to one or more subcategory pages, is there an SEO benefit to using the parent page feature in WordPress for this?” Well, okay, remember, if you’re using a complex silo structure, that’s how you create subcategory pages, right? So think about that, Sam. If you’re using a complex silo structure where you have top-level category which is also a page, which is a parent page, then you have subcategories which are also pages but those are child pages which means you have to select the parent page and the right-hand sidebar of the page, WYSIWYG editor-type thing. You select the parent page and then posts are obviously post. Those go into either categories or subcategories, right? And so, that’s the hierarchy of how you use a complex silo structure.

So, if you’re doing complex silo structures, yes, you would have … you would assign a parent page. Whether you’re using physical silos or virtual silos, and all that means, guys, in case anybody’s confused about that is whether you’re showing the silo structure in the URL. That is determined by your permalink settings in WordPress. If you’re using permalink … the post name settings then that’s a virtual silo because it’s not … the hierarchy is not displayed in the URL. It’s only showing the post or page slug. So it’s rootdomain.com/post or page slug, right? So that’s the post name permalink structure. If you’re using category post-name permalink structure, that will show physical silo structure, right? So that’ll show the hierarchy in the actual URL.

I’ve always preferred it that way. To me, it’s more logical. That way, however, it makes no difference as far as SEO. I’ve tested it both ways in the virtual silo. In fact, I would even probably suggest or recommend going with the virtual silo method because you can run into some funny slug or URL things that happen when trying to do the complex silo structure and using the category post-name, permalink. That makes sense. So, Sam, just because I don’t want you to be confused here. If you’re doing a complex silo then you have to use the parent page or sign a parent page from subcategories which will be pages, okay, if you’re using a simple silo structure than now because typically you wouldn’t … usually you’re just going to have categories and impost so there wouldn’t be a need for a subcategory, okay? If you have subcategories, it’s typically because you’re using a complex silo structure. So hopefully that answers the question. If it doesn’t, Sam, try to repost it with a little bit more detail, okay?

Hernan: I’ve also added links to our videos for a complex silo and simple silo structures.

When Will You Release The New Course Local GMB Pro?

Bradley: Perfect. Those videos are old and they still apply. There’s nothing to change about that. John, what’s up, John? He says, “Hi, I listen to your Hump Day Hangouts every week.” Thanks, man. I appreciate that. He says, “Plus one for you, guys. I would like to know when you plan to release your new course Local GMB Pro. Thanks.” Awesome, John. Yeah, that’s next month. We’re definitely going to be launching that in May. There’s no question. That’s coming out in May. I mean, I should be done with my part of it within the next week or so other than coming in and updating to show like the incredible results that I’m expecting to get now. Other than that, like mostly … like, again, it’s just a process. Once you learn it like … we’re talking about even providing a done for your GMB Pro service. It’s something we’re seriously considering building out a team for that, so. Nobody out there will have that except us at least initially then we’ll have a bunch of people come copy us as usual.

Is There A Way To Separate Multiple Tumblr Accounts So They Don’t Immediately Get Banned?

All right, Adrian Harper says, “Hey, guys, I have a question regarding Web 2s. I recently bought 50 Tumblr accounts from a gig on Fiverr but they didn’t come as separate accounts.” Ooh. “There’s the main account and several accounts under that which isn’t really good and I don’t think about linking to a money site to boost rankings zeros away. Is there a way to separate these accounts so you don’t immediately get banned? Also somewhere I read that you were able to log in the numerous Tumblr accounts to add content and personas using Browseo and didn’t need any proxies, is this correct? Thanks, guys, and keep up the good work, Adrian.” Okay, Adrian, I’m not 100% sure about the process for transferring an account in Tumblr like a blog from one Tumblr account to another. It’s probably possible.

I would just contact Tumblr support to ask them like just pitch it. When you ask them, ask them as if you were transferring a blog to somebody else and just say like, “What’s the process for doing that? Is that possible?” Find out if that’s possibly because, yeah, I agree with you. If you buy 50 expired Tumblrs and they’re all under one account, that’s, to me, is useless. Like you might be able to get some out of it, but the problem is if one of your sites gets terminated or banned, it could likely pass to that entire account and you lose everything. I don’t know that for sure, guys, because I don’t typically set up my accounts that way, but I would assume that that one profile could get banned which would kill all of the blogs under that profile. I don’t know if they keep it separate or not, if Tumblr does, okay?

Hernan: Yeah. Yeah, I would assume that you’re right. Like if you think like … when in doubt, just don’t do it, you know what I’m saying? Like we haven’t gone that far as to create several sub accounts within the same Tumblr account, but just … if in doubt, just in case, do it.

Bradley: Yeah. I mean, I’ve created three or four blogs under one profile, but I’ve never … like it’s typically that’s only because they’re in different industries-type stuff, so I’m using them for different purposes. But, yeah, if you’re basically like trying to use several Tumblr accounts like basically a web to PBN or something to link to your money sites, I would not have them all coming from the same account number one, okay? As far as Tumblr accounts and browser, yeah, guys, the thing about using proxies for Browseo like for creating account, like for creating accounts and stuff like that, guys, that is no longer such an issue. It used to be few years ago where you didn’t want to create a bunch of accounts from the same … [inaudible 00:19:16] the case because of public WiFi has just basically … it’s blanketed everywhere, you know what I mean?

So, there are always dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people on the same IP. Think about it. And so, all logged in to the same type of accounts and it doesn’t flag everybody’s account because it’s the same IP. So it’s no longer an IP issue. It’s not like it used to be anyways. Why it’s important? Why you can do that with Browseo? Here’s the thing, if you were to go clear Firefox through the normal clear cache and cookies process, and run CCleaner, and do all that stuff, and then log in to an account with a fresh browser like virgin white, fresh browser, that looks unnatural. So if you do that and then you log back out, clean your cache and cookies, and then log back in through the same IP to another account with a fresh browser and you do that a couple of times, you can absolutely flag your IP for that kind of activity, for spammy activity which could cause accounts to be terminated or to be … requiring verification, all that kind of stuff because you’re sending a lot of unnatural signals to that platform that you keep logging in to with the fresh browser under new accounts.

Does that make sense? However, if you’ve got Browseo or any tool that does that, I think another one is called Ghost Browser or something like that, whatever tool you have or app that will do that for you, you can still log in underneath the same IP but each browsing session keeps its history. So there’s cookies that are accrued and there’s history as to what sites have been visited and what searches have been done, and that what links have been clicked on, and that kind of stuff. And so, those kind of histories and those cookies that accrue start to build up a profile even if it’s under the same IP, it doesn’t matter because each IP or each profile is going to have a slightly different history. That looks natural because people do that but people don’t … typically, people don’t clear your browser every time they log in and think about a public WiFi not 15 people in any public WiFi spot are going to clear all their cache and cookies and then log in to their account from that same IP. Does that makes sense?

But there could be 15 people logged in to Tumblr from the same IP because they’re all … but they’re all different accounts. So my point is, is just acting more natural is the way to do it even if it’s from the same IP. That’s why I use Browseo all the time but I even … I have some select accounts that are assigned to dedicated proxies that I still use today because they’ve been set up and they’ve accrued browsing history over the last two years now, really. But all my new accounts that I set up in Browseo, they’re all just run right through my IP guys. I don’t care about the IP problem anymore because I’m building up profiles that have their own history, in their own search habits, in their own likes and themes and all of that stuff, and it’s all done through my same IP which is okay in my opinion. I’ve never had any problems with it. Does anybody have anything to say differently about that?

Marco: No, not about that but I do as far as the original question. You should be able to transfer the different accounts and the different blogs. You have to go into Tumblr and create the new account that you’re going to transfer to, and then you send an email from the blog that you’re looking to transfer to that new account to join right to that email to join your blog and then you can make that person an admin, and then you can eliminate yourself from … I’m pretty sure Google it because I’m sure that somewhere in YouTube or somewhere in Google, it will be explained exactly how’s that. But the gist of it, if I remember it correctly, that’s how it’s done. I did it before with some stuff that I got crossed up. I added about five different blogs and that’s how I did it. I just added … started a new one and figured out how to transfer the ownership, but you don’t really transfer ownership. You make someone an admin and then you eliminate yourself from that. By doing that, it makes that new blog or that new Tumblr account the administrator.

Bradley: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I … I mean, just go to YouTube and search and guarantee you’ll find it, or go to Google and search the videos tab because that has a much better search functionality than YouTube does, so.

How Do You Explain A One-Off Onboarding Or Setup Fee To A New Client?

Okay, Pete, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Hey, guys, when you were talking to a potential new client, do you put in the proposal a one-off onboarding or setup fee? If so, how do you explain what the fee is for and why do you charge the fee? Thanks in advance.” It depends on what I’m doing, Pete. But, yeah, there’s usually setup fees involved. It depends on … again, it depends on each one of the services. So, for example, like for Google My Business or maps SEO, I always charge a maps optimization or maps set up an optimization fee, right?

I charge $697, I believe, for that which includes the GMB set up an optimization. If it’s not already set up, then I set it up. Typically, it’s set up and I’ve just got to optimize it. Bing and in Yahoo!, in fact, I really even kind of took Yahoo! out of it to where I’m really just now doing Bing in GMB for the same price, right, $697. That’s what I charge. But then my local monthly SEO charges for any at … the lowest I would charge for local maps is 500 bucks a month for maintaining. So like I’ll charge $697 set up and $500 a month. If I got somebody with two locations, a lot of the times I’ll charge them $400 per location per month. So it’s 800 bucks for two. That’s just kind of how I do stuff like I … I don’t charge as much as a lot of the other people do for my services, but when it comes to setup fees, it just depends on what it is.

Like, for example, I also do reputational marketing stuff now because it’s just so stupid easy to fulfill, right? The app does all the work. All you got to do is sell it. And so like I’ll charge somebody like 99 bucks as a setup fee because it takes me or a VA about 20 minutes to input data into the system and that’s it. And so I make $100 on a setup fee and then I’ll charge maybe $200 a month or something like that on just the reputation stuff but I typically try to roll all of that into a larger SEO package, anyways, okay? But, yeah, I mean, guys, I’m always transparent about my charges to my clients. Like I tell them exactly what everything is for. Like I don’t ever try to inflate prices here and there to kind of hide stuff. I just flat out tell them what it is and I explain why that I’m charging for that and why it’s necessary.

Again, like I said, the way that I present my services to my clients, it’s in a very transparent way so that I honestly feel like I earned their trust by just explaining everything in such detail if that makes sense. So, anyways, that’s my two cents. You, guys, have any additional input on that?

Hernan: Yeah, real quick, I do the same that you do, Bradley, in terms of I tell them, “Hey, this is what it’s going to charge like and what I’m going to charge, and then these are the tools that I’m going to use, and this is the final … like the tally, if you want,” But, yeah, I definitely break that down for the clients and I’m completely 100% transparent as you were saying as well.

Bradley: Marco?

Marco: No, I totally agree. You have to be transparent. But then, again, if you position yourself correctly, you should also raise your prices accordingly. I mean, you know your market, you know your local market, Bradley, and you know what it is. I would never charge the same thing to someone, let’s say, in an area like where you are like, let’s say, in Georgetown, for example, where I know, I mean, that the money is just way different. A Beverly Hills Dennis, I’m going to hit him over the head as opposed to just a local Dennis that’s just trying to get people in the door, right, so that he can then sell them on whatever services it is that he has. So you have to know. If you know your market and you position yourself accordingly then you could usually could charge a little bit more but, definitely, transparent as far as the tools, as far as using … you have to pay your staff. You have expenses also.

Bradley: Yep.

Marco: If you’re transparent with all of that then you should be okay. I mean, markup … you have to charge what you feel you’re worth. That’s how I think. You have to charge for your services and if you’re that good then you should charge for that. You should charge a premium. Most other businesses and most other experts do.

What Are Possible Reasons Why A Gmail Account Used In GSites And Drive Stacks Got Suspended?

Bradley: I agree. Okay. D is, “Hey, guys, a few days ago, my Gmail account got suspended. It was my persona account for one of my affiliate sites and the account was around nine months old. I had a branded IFTTT network and drive stack attached to this account. I need the words of wisdom from you, guys, on this issue. Before that, I want to tell you a few things. I had content in the drive files without attribution and all of these documents were created a few months back.” Okay, so if it was like straight up copied content from somewhere without attribution, well, that typically hasn’t created a problem, but Marco can comment on that.

Marco: No, that’s never been a problem.

Bradley: Yeah, it’s never been a problem.

Marco: No, we’re still doing it the same way, not a problem.

Bradley: He says, “A few days ago, I created a new G-site for link building and I framed a few of my Google Docs and spreadsheets, and I went to Fiverr, and ordered two contextual backlinks packages with one 5,000 links and with one 2,000 links to my new G-site.” Again, although, I never recommend buying backlinks packages from Fiverr because those templates are used over, and over, and over again, so it’s definitely a footprint thing. Well, I’m sure there’s some providers there that are decent, but I just don’t recommend it. But I don’t think that’s the problem either, the backlinks to your G-site. Marco, do you they feel differently?

Marco: I’ve never seen this kind of behavior before and we’ve thrown the kitchen sink at drive stacks. It may have been that he linked directly to the G-site, but we’ve done that also. Like this isn’t in the right context for me to be able to see. Did we do the drive stack? If so, then I can reach out and see what was done. I mean, but if it’s someone else’s drive stack, I can’t say because I don’t know what type of garbage they did. If you did it yourself, did you follow our training or who’s training did you follow? I mean, there’s so many things that are possible here that I could go on, and on, and on, and we’d never get to an answer.

Bradley: Yeah and one question I would have was … and I’m not doubting that it truly is suspended but I’m just throwing this out there for everybody’s benefit. There’s been times where I’ve had blogger accounts, for example, specifically from syndication networks where like a blog blogger account says it’s been suspended for violations of terms of service or whatever. All it was, was … it was showing the blogger blog is being suspended, but all it was, was the Gmail account associated with that blogger blog had to be re-verified through a phone verification. After re-verifying the account which sometimes is difficult, then blogger blog, all of a sudden, the suspension is lifted and it’s back live again on the web as soon as you verify the account. So all I’m saying, the reason why I bring that up is because is it indeed a suspension which I’m pretty sure that you’ve already confirmed that or is it just that you have to re-verify the account.

You might want to look into that first if you haven’t already is my point, okay? But, yeah, I don’t know because I haven’t run into that problem like … I haven’t had too many Google account suspended. I have from spamming like Google+ with automated like in an automated way or like with social sharing, like there’s some of those apps where you can share other people’s content and they share content for you. I’ve done that in the past and I’ve had some just stuff that absolutely violates terms of service posted like pharma stuff, Viagra pill stuff, things like that that have had my accounts suspended. But as far as like just creating a G-site and doing like drive stack stuff, embedding files, even spamming it to death, I’ve never had any issues with that, not even one, not one site has ever been suspended for that. So I can’t really speak as to what the problem is if I’ve never seen it personally, unfortunately, sorry.

Marco: The only thing I’ve ever seen go wrong and get us a suspension is when we ran the script and it was pulling in too many files which is just too many Google resources that you’re using up for free and then that will get your G-site terminated. It’ll get the G-site suspended and you won’t … it’s really hard to recover it, but the drive stack was still intact. So it’s just a matter of slowing down the script and the way that it runs and then just redoing a G-site and just doing it all over again, not the Gmail account. This is what’s surprising that the Gmail account getting suspended not from a drive stack, I don’t know. It may have triggered a re-verification like you said.

Bradley: That’s what I would think it would be is that more and more … I mean, because, honestly, that’s typically the only thing that happens is that an account gets locked for re-verification and all of the sub-accounts or tools, the apps that Google allows you to have with an account, they all get basically temporarily suspended until you can re-verify. Sometimes it’s impossible re-verifying. I’ve lost stuff because of it, but other times, I’ve been able to re-verify and everything comes back. So that’s what I’m assuming it may be without more detail. All right. Nigel’s up. Nigel just recently joined the mastermind after coming here for months and asking many questions and taking action. He got himself to a position where he joined a mastermind, it’s freaking fabulous.

Nigel, you and Mohammed back to back, look at that, that’s awesome because both of you have taken very similar paths in that. You’ve come here and asked a bunch of questions every single week and you’ve applied taken action on what you’ve learned and it’s propelled you to the point that you could come join the mastermind which will help you to grow your businesses even faster. So both of you, I’m proud of both of you, seriously. I’ve said that to you, Mohammed, but not so much to you, Nigel. We certainly appreciate you joining the mastermind. We will be there to help you in any way we can, okay? [Newly Minted MM 00:34:18] status, “It feels great. Thank you for the warm welcome, truly been awesome so far and looking forward to posting results soon.” We’re looking forward to you posting them.

That video email, nice, I got my money’s worth for this month already. So you must have picked Video Lead-Gen System as the bonus or whatever. That’s awesome. Just keep in mind, guys, that as part of the prospecting module, we’re going to flash that out a hell of a lot more and we’re going to end up updating that product and in launching that with a proper launch. So, I think, Hernan, you might want to get this ready, but I think we still have the pre-sale for Video Lead-Gen System available. If it’s still available, people can still get in now when we go to launch it, once it’s relaunched with all the new training that’s going to be added. It’s going to be at least 500 bucks.

Hernan: Yeah I’ve been actually start for [inaudible 00:35:08] let me confirm that with you, Bradley.

Bradley: I think it’s vlgs.semanticmastery.com, I think. But, anyways …

Hernan: Yeah, I want to make sure that it’s still open in the back if that makes sense.

Bradley: Okay, I got it. Anyways, that way …

Marco: Can I just add for a second? We’re giving you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. We always give you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. Please don’t come back in a month, two months, or three months, or however long and say, “You raise the price. Now, I can’t buy it at the launch price.” The launch price is what it is. The pre-launch price is what it is, and then it goes up to the price where we established. Why do we do that? Because we want you, people who follow us, people who are members, we want you to have a first crack at it at a price where it’s comfortable but it’s worth so much more than what we charge that we just can’t give it away for free, sorry. It takes too much time too much effort. It takes too much work to put all the stuff together and we can’t give it away. It’s worth what it’s worth. It’s going up to where it’s going.

You’re warned that it’s happening. I mean, emails are sent out. We do it on Hump Day Hangouts. We do it everywhere. We give people ample notice. Please don’t come back and complain that the price has been raised when you already know that the price is going to be raised.

Hernan: Yep. I just posted on the event page. So you better like you better … yeah, you said, I said while it lasts because, I don’t know, somebody could find out and we might close it.

Marco: Yeah.

Where Can I Find A Document On Basic Metadata And Tag Configuration?

Bradley: That’s true. Like I said, we’re going to be launching that in April, May, June … June, I believe. Yeah, I believe we talked about that this week, guys, didn’t we? I think we’re going to relaunch that in June, so. All right. Anyways, where can I … back to Nigel’s question. “Where can I find the document on basic metadata and tag configuration without going too far down the rabbit hole? Basically, I want to clear an easy way to provide, I want a clear and easy way to provide some value to prospects that I audit. I had a prospects report come back with metadata and tag issues, and I would have loved to offer some generic DIY info for free like put this kind of information in here without going all Jeffrey Smith SEO Bootcamp on them. Any direction you can provide a solid guide template would be invaluable.”

All right. So, my only concern with that, Nigel, is remember who your audience is, right? So when you’re talking to a prospect in a video audit and you are explaining to them something that they could do that could have a positive impact on their digital presence, you want something that’s incredibly easy for them to do that doesn’t require a ton of explanation. So I know that’s basically what you’re asking, how could I have provided some information about metadata and tags that wouldn’t confuse them. That’s kind of difficult to do especially in a video audit. Now, you could try it with like … if I were to try to create an example for that, I’m sure I could figure out a way to dumb it down quite a bit, but I might do something like talk about how tags are supposed to be kind of descriptive terms about the topic of the post and right, and then there’s like a hierarchy and stuff but remember, you don’t want to overwhelm them with technical stuff because their eyes will glaze over and though it’s like you’re speaking a foreign language to them, right?

And so, again, you don’t want to get too technical. A lot of the times that the kind of advice or suggestion that I will give in an audit will be something very simple like, “Hey, you don’t have your name, address, and phone number listed on your website. That’s something that is incredibly powerful for helping you to rank in maps. So, I would recommend that you put a widget in your site or have your webmaster put a widget in the footer or in the sidebar that lists your name, address, and phone number,” stuff like that, something that’s very simple that doesn’t take a lot of explanation but they could easily do that’s going to literally help give them an improvement, right? Like it’s going to improve their presence slightly even if not much.

You could give them a tip on optimizing Yelp or some … all I’m saying is like you could give them a tip on optimizing their GMB listing say, “Hey, I’m looking at your Google My Business listing and it looks like you only have your logo and nothing else. You might want to add some optimized images and here’s a trick. Name the file names of the images after products and services that you provide. Include local modifiers, your city name, the areas that you service, things like that.” Very, very easy stuff that they can do as far as tags and metadata that’s a bit too technical in my opinion to try to explain that to a layman or civilian so to speak. You, guys, have any other suggestions on that?

Marco: No, I totally agree with you. If you start talking about title tags and metadata, you’re going to have to show SERPs to show the purpose that they serve, and then that might get the talking into, “Well, am I going to get those kinds of results? Am I going to get those rankings? Am I going to rank for these keywords? And what keywords am I going to …” You don’t want the conversation going that way. Then the conversation is going all wrong because you want the conversation to be all about the leads or the results that you’re going to get for the person. I mean, you could do it in the video of the person is technical enough, but that’s not a conversation that you want to have with someone that you’re just taking on as a client. I mean, if you want to do that, let’s say, later on as an add-on or whatever, we’re going to improve your ad copy, for example, you could say that.

You could compare it to classifieds where you want to stand out from the bunch and and how you can make it stand out. You never want to put the client in a position where they have to kind of try to figure out how they’re going to do it because then it’s all over. Their eyes would like Bradley said, that they’ll roll into the back of their head and they’ll start singing … show tunes and you can forget it.

Can You Share Your Citation Building Methodology In Serp Space?

Bradley: That’s it. Number two, he says, “I saw a subspace as levels of citations, foundation, hometown, a multimedia in terms of marketing to clients. Is that like month one, two, three strategy? And does dripping citation building actually matter or just better to spread things out?” Well, what I do is like part of my monthly SEO services include citation building but that doesn’t mean that I’m building citations every month. I mean, most of the time I do or a lot of the times for my clients now because it’s just so much easier is … I’m not going to lie, for most of my clients, I’d used Loganix services, the monthly citation building. I don’t even … like and that’s only because that service is great and it’s 100% managed. I don’t have to do anything. All I have to do is input data once and they build citations every month. They do a a mix of structured citations and unstructured citations.

What’s the difference? A structured citation is a classical business directory listing, name, address, phone number, sometimes a link back to the site, but it’s a business directory listing. An unstructured citation is a mention of NAP, right? Name, address, phone number but on non-traditional business sites, like non-traditional directory sites. In other words, social medias, blogs, press releases, all of those video sites, documents sharing sites, audio sites, image sharing sites, all of those types of sites become none … or what they call unstructured citations. And so, the Loganix monthly citation service is 150 bucks, semanticmastery.com/loganix, I believe, will take you over there. It’s a good service. I like it because it’s 100% outsourced.

But for some of my clients that are grandfathered into a much lower monthly price, I’m not going to cough up $150 to pays Loganix to do it. So what I’ll do is, obviously, I’ll do like a package from SerpSpace. I’ll do like the foundations which are the … like basically like all the big directories and then I’ll get the local citations on top of that, then I’ll do the multimedia or the social type citations like another month. It doesn’t have to be month one, month two, month three. If it’s a newer site that you’re trying to get them results then that might be a good strategy. If it’s a site that’s already doing well like as far as ranking in maps then I don’t always do that, like I might build a batch of citations and then wait three months before I build another batch of citations. Because here’s the thing, guys, also like I don’t know what reporting software or app you’re using for that but I use BrightLocal.

BrightLocal is a fabulous service. Again, semanticmastery.com/brightlocal, I think, will take you over there. I’ve been using it since 2012 when I opened my agency and I use … that’s what I use for all my reporting. What I like about BrightLocal is it will do citation tracking. So it’ll show you how many citations and it will keep a history of all that so you can see the graph over time going up as far as the number of citations accrued. And so, what I found is doing a batch of citations, let’s say, I order 50 new citations to be built. It doesn’t matter what type of citation structured, unstructured, foundation, social, it doesn’t really matter, hyperlocal, any of those doesn’t matter because what happens is I’ll get the report back and I’ll submit all those URLs for indexing which apparently most indexers aren’t working now anyways, and it takes three months for all of them to end up … not all of them end up, get out of 50. I might only have 35 of them that end up getting indexed over the course of three months.

So my point is you don’t have to build every single month because you can build today and three months from now, Google would just start finding some of those citations if that makes sense. One of the things I highly recommend is that you do local data aggregator submissions like the big data aggregator submissions which is Factual, Acxiom, InfoUSA or Express Update, I think it’s called, which is part of InfoUSA, and in Neustar/Localeze. There’s a couple services that will do that. One of the things I like about BrightLocal is BrightLocal has that for $55 and you have to up … you have to redo it every year, but it’s 55 bucks and they’ll submit to all four data aggregators. What’s great about that is within three to six months like you’ll start seeing a bunch of new citations pop up just because your data is listed in the aggregators, right?

And so, again, I like to use BrightLocal for that because it’s 55 bucks and they submit all to all for submission … data aggregators for me, okay? So, again, my citation building method really just varies for all new clients that I’ve signed up within the last probably a year and a half, maybe two years now because my pricing is higher than it was for some of my grandfather clients. They all just get put on the Loganix service because, again, it’s something that it’s out of sight out of mind. I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s done. I know every single month. They’re getting a mix of structured and unstructured citations and then backlinks are being built to those citations, so it’s just done for me. It’s something I don’t have to manage anymore. Does that make sense? Okay

How Do You Get Back In Touch With The Ones That At Least Watched The Video Emails?

All right. Mohammed’s up. He says, “Hey, guys.” What’s up, Muhammad? “When I first started video emails, I bungled a lot of leads by not calling them and getting a conversation going. How would I get back in touch with the ones that at least watched my video? I was going to call them but given them my emails were months ago, they may be lost. Do I send them the same email again?” No, here’s what I would do, Mohammed, and I’ve done this before. Create a generic video that is talking to all of them. So create … so that way, you’re still getting that personalized effect but you don’t have to record, you don’t have to send them the same video that they’ve already seen, and you don’t have to send a personalized video for each and every person that you’re recontacting, right?

So just record a video with you looking into the camera, or whatever, or if you’re doing a screencast plus picture and picture or whatever, any … however you want to do it. Just record a short video. “Hey, I sent you an email, a video email a few months ago,” right? So don’t say their names, don’t say their business, you’re in the same … in a specific vertical. So, “Hey, I sent you a video about your real estate business or whatever a couple months ago and I’m just reaching back out to try to start this conversation and go start a dialogue with you again, see if you’d be interested in having a conversation about what I sent you. If you’re curious about … if you didn’t see the video before, you’d like to see it again, just hit reply to this and I’ll send you the link again.” Does that make sense?

So that way you’ve got one generic video that, now, you can literally mass email out to everybody that engaged with your first video and in those people that re-engage with your new email, they might hit reply back and ask you to send them, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Can you send it to me again?” Anyways, it just gets the conversation started. So that’s what I would do because we save you a ton of time. Just do one generic video and then blast it out to everybody that you … that engaged you the first time but you didn’t follow up with correctly and just try to get some engagement out that like sent … recontacting them again, okay?

What Email Marketing Program Do You Recommend?

Okay, Quit This House, he says, “Hey, guys, thanks for all you do to help us.” You’re welcome. “Everyone talks about building a list. What email marketing program do you recommend?” Well, I’m using drip.com which is an autoresponder from Leadpages. I’ve never been a fan of Leadpages, but they’re their autoresponder is freaking fabulous. Drip is great at least it is for me. I’m building out my entire prospecting funnel and all the automations, well, about 80% of the automations are handled inside of Drip right now and it’s … it inboxes into the primary tab in Gmail which is insane because most of the other autoresponders go to the promotions tab in Gmail. That was the primary reason I started using Drip, was just because it goes to the primary inbox on Gmail. Since then, I’ve started to learn how to use Drip because I’ve never been an email marketing guy, but I’m using it now and all the automation that they’re called workflows inside of drip, and it’s fabulous.

The amount of stuff that you can automate is just insane. That’s what we’ve working on, is an automated prospecting funnel and we’re going to be building out an automated onboarding and fulfillment funnel too.

Hernan: Yeah. If I can add to that, we use ActiveCampaign for Semantic Mastery. I use the ActiveCampaign a lot, but it was a wash between Drip and ActiveCampaign, because the main point is that you can automate a lot of stuff.

Bradley: Yeah.

Hernan: That’s the main point, and they’re way more powerful than any other kind of responder. In fact, like you get all of that functionality only by going through Infusionsoft, which is like 500 bucks a month or something like that. We use either Drip or ActiveCampaign. Those are the goto solutions.

Bradley: Totally agree. I’m super impressed with it. In fact, I was talking on the Mastermind Webinar last week about the prospecting funnel. I’ve actually like chick and it scratched it and started over three times from scratch now, because it’s just a really complex build. Part of the reason it was over complicated the first couple times is because I was trying to patch together a whole bunch of different apps and services to handle all of the automations. Again, I’m not an email marketing guy. It’s not something I’ve typically done in my career. I was unaware of how much could actually be done within the Drip platform. After wasting literally weeks and dozens and dozens of hours on building out this funnel and it not working or even being too complex for even me to be able to maintain it, that’s when I said, “Okay, look, I’m just going to spend a couple days researching Drip and trying to figure out how to use this.”

I made more progress in about three days that way than I had in three weeks prior to just by starting to put everything that I could in the Drip. Again, I’m super impressed with it, I’m really happy with it, and I’m still learning. Inside the Mastermind, we’re covering all of that stuff to you, guys. I don’t know if you’re not in there yet, come join us because all of that’s going to be … Like, I’m literally going to be giving all of our Mastermind members the blueprint and step-by-step process instructions for how to build their own prospecting automation funnel. I’ve even impressed myself with it. Just so you know, it’s like that.

How Do You Build Your YouTube Channels?

All right, next, he says, “When you buy your YouTube channels, how much do you build them out, cover pic, link, G+ short description, or both on both G+ profile and YouTube?” It depends on what I’m using them for. We buy a ton of YouTube accounts just straight up for YouTube spam, I honestly don’t build those out at all. If it’s for a money channel, then yes absolutely because it’s about branding, right? If you’re building a money channel, then, yeah, you absolutely want to complete the G+ profile, you want to fill out the YouTube channel, the About section, add the links, the interlinking, all that kind of stuff. It depends on what your intent is with that YouTube channel. If it’s for spam purposes, no, don’t do anything else. Just buy the damn account, that’s it. Make sure it’s phone verified and that’s it, but if you’re doing it for a money project, an affiliate project, a client project to legion, for any one of those, then, absolutely, try to complete as many of the Google properties as possible and interlink all of them, okay? That includes blogger too, guys, right?

What Do You Think Of Using Rel=Alternate For SEO Purposes?

Steve, what’s up? He says, “Hi, I heard him passing reference last week to linking with rel=”alternate” for SEO purposes. Can you recommend on this? Does it work? What are the best practices and are there any dangers? Is this equivalent the same as markup? Thanks.” To be honest, I’ve never used it. I’m going to defer to Marco. What can you tell us about it, Marco?

Marco: The only time that I’ve used the rel=”alternate” tag is when defining language. I’ve never used it for SEO. I’ve always used rel=”canonical”. I mean it’s something that I would have to try because I’ve never used it that. I don’t think that Google even recommends for you to use and to use rel that way alternate. I think it would have to be canonical. I haven’t read anything on it. I know that Mars had something on it. I know that the Google Blog middle of last year had something on it but we use canonical because that’s where we see the greatest SEO effect.

Bradley: Yeah. Again, I can’t speak on it because I haven’t used it at all. We could probably do some research on it.

Hernan: Yeah, sorry, you could use it for language, you could use it for mobile.

Marco: That type of thing?

Hernan: rel=”alternate”? I’ve never … I mean, I don’t see a way where you use it for SEO and it would be real easy to pick out if you started using that for SEO.

Bradley: Yeah, this is a good blog, guys. The Stone Temple blog, these guys have some really good SEO stuff on here too and this one was published in 2016, so about two years ago, May 2016, by Eric Engine. He knows what he’s talking about. This might be something you could research, I don’t know. Again, I haven’t even read this. I just clicked on it just now, but my point is I know the Stone Temple guys typically do a good job of explaining stuff so you might be able to use this here. All I did, guys, was search rel=”alternate” and just start looking through. Look at the dates though, right? You don’t want to look at something from 2012. It’s probably not relevant now. I mean it may be. You could still look at it, but just judge it based on its freshness factor too, okay?

Is There A Way To Use Google Sites For An Ecommerce Site Where The products Are Set Up To Create A Feed For Google Shopping Ads?

All right, we’re going to answer just up to Jordan Fowler’s question guys, and we’re going to wrap it up because we’re almost out of time. I love how Armand says what up with you, yo, booty butt cheeks. I don’t know what that means, but it’s funny so I’ll plus-one it. You guys are the shit. Was wondering if there was a way to use Google Sites for an e-commerce site where the products are set up to create a feed that I could use on Google Shopping ads?” That’s a good question. I don’t know because I don’t do any e-com stuff, but that does sound like it would be pretty powerful. Do you have any experience with that, Marco?

Marco: Yeah, you’d have to use announcement pages to create a feed out of G-sites. I don’t know about the new ones. I haven’t tried the new ones out. I’m not sure how to get a feed out of that because they don’t have announcement pages in the new G-sites, as far as I know, we can’t even run the script on the new G-site, so we’re talking about the old one, I’ve seen it done I’ve seen some really wicked stuff being done with G-sites and e-commerce. Rob and I were talking about that a couple of weeks ago. But yeah, you could totally set it up use announcement pages and create the fee.

Bradley: Yeah. He says the company I work for is in an industry where Google shopping ads supposedly won’t allow our products on but we see our competitors all the time in there, so I thought this may be a workaround. Unfortunately, I don’t do any e-commerce at all, Armand. I never have. Because of that, I really can’t provide any advice and I apologize for that. But, again you could probably do some searching on it and find some information about it. Obviously, if we come across anything, we’ll certainly mention it. I love the fact that, again, you want to hear me say it again, booty butt cheeks? That’s awesome, man. I appreciate that. It made me giggle.

How Do You Block Google From Indexing A General Archive Of A Blog?

All right, cool, Greg and Scott, what’s up, guys. Jordan, he says, “Okay, my blog page general archive continues to index despite my blocking it in an SEO ultimate plus and putting meta name equals robot’s content no index in that page header. I know this is bleeding my otherwise fastidiously created silos. How bad is it hurting my SEO? Any suggestions on getting it to not index?” Okay, just put a nofollow tag in the header that’s all you have to do, because that’ll stop the bleeding. Even if it’s indexed, it doesn’t matter. If you have nofollow on it, you’re basically telling you will not to follow any of the links, like to pass any PageRank, if that’s still a thing. I think it is internally in Google, but it doesn’t pass any PageRank through any of the links on that page, if you add a nofollow, it should be to the header. That’s correct, Marco, right? I didn’t tell them wrong, did I?

Marco: No, you’re correct. And yes, PageRank is alive and well inside the algorithm.

Bradley: Right, thought so. Jordan, yeah, that’s the easy thing. Whether indexes or not, you can ask Google to honor their no Index but it’s up to them. I’ve seen stuff index that’s supposed to be no indexed all the time, but if you put nofollow in that same tag, that same HTML tag, then I think it’s just rel=”nofollow”. I’m not sure. You’d have to double check. The entire page, any links on that page will be no followed. It just knows to not pass PageRank to them. Google will still crawl the links, but it just won’t pass PageRank, so it won’t bleed your silos or your theme, okay? Okay, cool. It looks like we got to most of the questions, guys. We appreciate everybody being here. We don’t have any Mastermind this week because I’m hard at work trying to finish the prospecting funnel but …

Hernan: It’s going to be good.

Bradley: See you, guys, next week.

Hernan: Sounds good.

Bradley: Thanks, guys.

Hernan: See you, guys.

Bradley: Bye.

Marco: Bye, everyone.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179

Click on the video above to watch Episode 179 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at https://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Bradley: I’m going to steal Adam’s line. Hello. Hey, everybody. This is Bradley Benner with the Semantic Mastery and this is Hump Day Hangouts Episode, I believe, 178. Hard to believe. Anyways, hi. It’s sunny and warm in Virginia, finally. Well, it’s getting there and I’m glad for that. We’ve got Hernan and Marco on. We’re not going to ask Marco about the weather because I’m tired of hearing about it, but how are you doing, Hernan?

Hernan: Good, man. It’s good to be here, excited for what’s coming. It’s kind of a … I think there’s going to be a big storm here in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, Estrella. So, it’s good. It’s good to be here.

Bradley: Awesome. Marco, how are you doing, man?

Marco: Investigating how to ranking Google more better.

Bradley: More better. It’s awesome. Yeah, guys, we’ve got a few things we’re going to tease you with this morning because you know how we like to do that. So we’re going to do … or today, excuse me, we’re going to tease you with a couple things. I guess, I’ll hand it over to you first, Hernan, because you wanted to talk about the updated Battleplan V2.

Hernan: Yep. Yeah, that’s right. In fact, one of the usual announcements that we do is that we tell you, guys, to go get the Battleplan because that’s like step number one if you’re new to Semantic Mastery. But for the first time in a couple of months, I would say, probably a year, I would say to hold off, to not do that because we’re actually revamping it. We’re rewriting and there’s a lot of it in it that still works like a charm so you could totally get it now, and apply today, and you will get a lot of good stuff, good results. But we have tweaked some stuff and treat some orders of different things to reflect better, what are the changes that we have been finding out and whatnot. So, we’re still reviewing it. There’s going to be probably another two weeks before we launch it or something like that. And so, yeah, I’m really excited about that. It’s going to be, as usual, a launch price that’s a no-brainer. So, stay in touch. Stay tuned because it’s got to be really, really good.

Bradley: Okay. Yeah, I agree with that. We’re looking forward to launching that because, obviously, within a year and stuff has changed, we’ve added some new things to our standard operating procedure like press releases, for example. So, all that kind of stuff is in the new Battleplan, guys. Also, next month in May, we’re going to be actually launching another product called Local GMB Pro which is going to be fabulous because Marco and Rob are back at it again. They’ve been in the lab testing basically getting results for clients or their own assets, whatever, entirely 100% within the GMB dashboard. I don’t know if you, guys, are paying attention to what’s going on inside of the GMB dashboard, but a lot of changes have occurred in just the recent months and weeks.

For example, like services tabs are now starting the show up to where you can add products, and services, and pricing, and description of them, and all that kind of stuff. There’s the messaging tab. There’s … I mean there’s all these things that you can do now and they’re like the GMB websites which I was playing with today which is freaking fabulous GMB post, like all the stuff that Google is giving us, that are free tools to use inside the GMB dashboard. What Rob and Marco have been finding out is by using those tools and doing everything that Google gives to us, taking advantage of everything that Google gives to us inside that dashboard, they’re able to generate some incredible results that has absolutely nothing to do with ranking or traditional SEO. It’s like all that shit that we’ve filled our heads with over the last many years, guys, forget about all of it because it can be done 100% inside of GMB without needing to know all that stuff.

It’s amazing because Marco and Robert started telling me about the process that … and they started developing a process doc and all that, and they shared it with me, and I had landed a client just a few weeks ago as a referral for a company that is really outside of my industry target usually but I took them on anyways. I said, “Okay, this is a perfect opportunity to apply this new GMB training that … or method that Marco and Robert putting together or developing for this project. And so, I just started working on that and developing that … and I’m recording the entire build, and that’s part of the … like that’s my contribution to the Local GMB Pro course is recording a case study. I’m learning this for the first time, too. Like I’m literally learning what Rob and Marco are teaching me and in going and applying it for the first time in this case study.

So you, guys, are seeing me make mistakes like … or you, guys, will be, those of you that purchased, of course, will be seeing me make mistakes and kind of fumbled my way through stuff which I think is a hell of a lot more genuine and more useful. Personally, as a student of many internet marketing products myself, usually, when you see the polished finished product, it’s usually just all the stuff that worked well, right? And so, but a lot of times, if you run into an issue like a challenge, or a roadblock, or something that’s not covered in the training then it can literally stop your progress dead in its tracks. I know, that’s happened to me many times because I’ve run into something that wasn’t addressed in the training because the training only shows everything that works. So, I like this style of training and that I’m learning it as I’m recording the case study videos that you, guys, can see like mistakes and how I get … how I correct them and how I find workaround stuff.

Anyways, that all said, what’s amazing is I got a call from the customer, the client, yesterday or might have been two days ago now and he was like … he’s funny, but the way he talks, he’s like, “Yo, bro, I got so many calls over the weekend from the map’s listing like I don’t even see it ranked and I don’t know how I’m getting the calls but they’re coming through.” And so, I went and looked at the GMB insights data which is like analytics inside the GMB dashboard, and you can absolutely see how much traffic. His new, brand new GMB listing has already received. You can see phone calls, the clicks to driving directions, all that kind of stuff. It’s amazing because he’s not ranked at all like anywhere.

It’s brand new listing, guys, yet just because I’m in there optimizing the way that Marco and Rob are teaching me and utilizing all the products that GMB gives us, he’s already generating leads from this listing that under normal SEO standards, I wouldn’t be generating leads with this listing for at least a month, right, long enough to get everything built out, submit a press release, syndication network, drive stack, all the stuff that we typically do, not doing any of that. This is all 100% done inside that GMB dashboard so far. And so, I let Marco talk on that for just minute. I’m going to grab the screen and just show you guys a quick … like I said, I was going to tease you, but a quick peek inside the site.

This is the back end for … of our membership sites where I’ve got lessons that I’ve been uploading. You can see, look at this, guys, I’ve got already 16 lessons added to this new training that we’re launching next month and this is just for this one case study. I haven’t even scratched the surface, man. I’m just getting started. So this is going to be one hell of a training course, guys, that will literally save you a ton of money and a ton of time because you can get results like almost overnight for clients just inside a GMB. Guys, you don’t even need a website for this which is insane. So, Marco, go ahead and chat about that for a little bit.

Marco: Well, what I want to do to tell them also is when was the map finally verified?

Bradley: Well, it was verified about two weeks ago or more, about three weeks ago, but there was a strange trouble with it, there was a duplicate listing that was [inaudible 00:07:31].

Marco: Yeah, but, I mean, when did everything get corrected and when-

Bradley: Thursday.

Marco: Last Thursday.

Bradley: Thursday last week. So less than a week ago.

Marco: And then in during that time, you can already see results.

Bradley: Yeah, over the weekend, this past weekend, he said he received, I think, six or eight calls or something like that. If you go look, it shows a calls. It only shows four from the weekend and four calls prior to that weekend. So I’m not sure how those other four calls got there. But he said he got six or eight calls, something like that, over the weekend and the insights are showing it.

Marco: So, here’s the deal. Those will only register the click-to-call from their cellphone when they click the phone and call the company directly. They won’t register like when they see the listing …

Bradley: And call from there.

Marco: And call.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah.

Marco: Right? But, I mean, the results are there and they’re undeniable, number one, from insights and just from the client being so excited or sometimes so overwhelmed that they’ll say, “I have so many calls. What the hell do I do? What am I supposed to do?” I wasn’t the … the experience that I’ve had and, now, we’re going on the third month and I’m going to raise my rates again for the third or fourth month is … I just got … do 600% of traffic. Traffic went up 600% from the insights that we got … this is month to month. So from last month to this month and it’s incredible that the number one, it shows visits, organic visits and it shows what happens with the GMB. So everything is right there and you know. Like my thing for years and years has always been I never guarantee rankings because I know that Google is a fickle mistress, right?

I know that Google will do whatever it wants to do. But I’ve always said … I will either get your results or you leave. I put it that … that’s my pitch. If we boil it all down, my pitch is, “Dude, I’m going to get you. I’m going to make you money. If I don’t, then you don’t have to pay me anymore. You could just walk away. No contracts, no nothing.” This is a way to make sure that you’ll be able to come through with that guarantee that you’re giving your client of making your client money. So, I think this is just … I don’t know, just another way that we found like exploiting Google’s love for itself.

Bradley: Yeah. What’s great about it, guys, is like I said, this … the training is going to be entirely about how to use just GMB assets and that’s it. Obviously, you can incorporate other stuff, other traditional SEO, and local SEO stuff that we also know works, right? So, for example, syndication networks help validate the entity drive stats, press releases, all that stuff, but the goal with the GMB Pro course is to teach you how to get results strictly in the GMB environment. If you want to add the other stuff, it’s only going to make you … help you to get results faster and maintain them for longer, you know what, even … and so far I don’t have a history of knowing like if I got to continue that activity or what for this because this is new to me, too. But my point is even in really competitive stuff, you’ll be able to get results because you’ll be doing stuff that’s generating activity, that has … it’s completely independent of rankings. That’s my point.

Like it’s amazing because … and, again, I was telling Marco I’m curious as to how … what I think is going on is that people that are in a particular area, remember, this is all local stuff, right? So people that are in an area that Google knows your history, if you’re … if you’ve got a Google account and it’s … you’re tied to your phone, Google knows where you are at all times. They know what stores you like, what kind of searches you do. They know everything about you. And so, even though the rank trackers might not show the listings as ranking in maps because there’s some random IP … it might even be a localized IP, but it has no search history, that kind of stuff. It’s no profile attached to it whereas somebody that’s in that area does have a profile, that’s got an accrued search history. They might have … they might be an in-market, they might be in market for a particular service. And so Google knows all of this.

And so Google is displaying these localized results to those people that are most … that it’s most relevant to them, if that makes sense, whereas a rank tracker, it’s not going to see that that kind of … that’s not going to see that kind of a search result. I’m thinking that that’s what it is because Google for years has been talking about localizing and personalizing search results as much as possible. The technology is there now that they can do it. So, you and I or those of us that are looking at it remotely aren’t going to see the same data that somebody is actually searching from locally especially there from a mobile device which is where like more than two-thirds of all search traffic goes through mobile devices now, right? So think about that, guys. Just really super powerful. I’m excited about it and I’m actually really excited about it. I’m looking forward to getting relaunching or launching this course next month. All right, guys, I think we got enough pitching.

Hernan: Yeah, yeah.

Bradley: Questions now, what do you think?

Hernan: Yeah.

Marco: Sam’s up. Sam Bailey.

Bradley: All right, let’s do it. Let me grab the screen.

Hernan: Sam the man.

Is There An SEO Benefit To Using The Parent Page Feature In WordPress For Subcategories?

Bradley: Okay, Sam, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Question about the site structure. I’m using virtual silo structure. If I have a page that links to one or more subcategory pages, is there an SEO benefit to using the parent page feature in WordPress for this?” Well, okay, remember, if you’re using a complex silo structure, that’s how you create subcategory pages, right? So think about that, Sam. If you’re using a complex silo structure where you have top-level category which is also a page, which is a parent page, then you have subcategories which are also pages but those are child pages which means you have to select the parent page and the right-hand sidebar of the page, WYSIWYG editor-type thing. You select the parent page and then posts are obviously post. Those go into either categories or subcategories, right? And so, that’s the hierarchy of how you use a complex silo structure.

So, if you’re doing complex silo structures, yes, you would have … you would assign a parent page. Whether you’re using physical silos or virtual silos, and all that means, guys, in case anybody’s confused about that is whether you’re showing the silo structure in the URL. That is determined by your permalink settings in WordPress. If you’re using permalink … the post name settings then that’s a virtual silo because it’s not … the hierarchy is not displayed in the URL. It’s only showing the post or page slug. So it’s rootdomain.com/post or page slug, right? So that’s the post name permalink structure. If you’re using category post-name permalink structure, that will show physical silo structure, right? So that’ll show the hierarchy in the actual URL.

I’ve always preferred it that way. To me, it’s more logical. That way, however, it makes no difference as far as SEO. I’ve tested it both ways in the virtual silo. In fact, I would even probably suggest or recommend going with the virtual silo method because you can run into some funny slug or URL things that happen when trying to do the complex silo structure and using the category post-name, permalink. That makes sense. So, Sam, just because I don’t want you to be confused here. If you’re doing a complex silo then you have to use the parent page or sign a parent page from subcategories which will be pages, okay, if you’re using a simple silo structure than now because typically you wouldn’t … usually you’re just going to have categories and impost so there wouldn’t be a need for a subcategory, okay? If you have subcategories, it’s typically because you’re using a complex silo structure. So hopefully that answers the question. If it doesn’t, Sam, try to repost it with a little bit more detail, okay?

Hernan: I’ve also added links to our videos for a complex silo and simple silo structures.

When Will You Release The New Course Local GMB Pro?

Bradley: Perfect. Those videos are old and they still apply. There’s nothing to change about that. John, what’s up, John? He says, “Hi, I listen to your Hump Day Hangouts every week.” Thanks, man. I appreciate that. He says, “Plus one for you, guys. I would like to know when you plan to release your new course Local GMB Pro. Thanks.” Awesome, John. Yeah, that’s next month. We’re definitely going to be launching that in May. There’s no question. That’s coming out in May. I mean, I should be done with my part of it within the next week or so other than coming in and updating to show like the incredible results that I’m expecting to get now. Other than that, like mostly … like, again, it’s just a process. Once you learn it like … we’re talking about even providing a done for your GMB Pro service. It’s something we’re seriously considering building out a team for that, so. Nobody out there will have that except us at least initially then we’ll have a bunch of people come copy us as usual.

Is There A Way To Separate Multiple Tumblr Accounts So They Don’t Immediately Get Banned?

All right, Adrian Harper says, “Hey, guys, I have a question regarding Web 2s. I recently bought 50 Tumblr accounts from a gig on Fiverr but they didn’t come as separate accounts.” Ooh. “There’s the main account and several accounts under that which isn’t really good and I don’t think about linking to a money site to boost rankings zeros away. Is there a way to separate these accounts so you don’t immediately get banned? Also somewhere I read that you were able to log in the numerous Tumblr accounts to add content and personas using Browseo and didn’t need any proxies, is this correct? Thanks, guys, and keep up the good work, Adrian.” Okay, Adrian, I’m not 100% sure about the process for transferring an account in Tumblr like a blog from one Tumblr account to another. It’s probably possible.

I would just contact Tumblr support to ask them like just pitch it. When you ask them, ask them as if you were transferring a blog to somebody else and just say like, “What’s the process for doing that? Is that possible?” Find out if that’s possibly because, yeah, I agree with you. If you buy 50 expired Tumblrs and they’re all under one account, that’s, to me, is useless. Like you might be able to get some out of it, but the problem is if one of your sites gets terminated or banned, it could likely pass to that entire account and you lose everything. I don’t know that for sure, guys, because I don’t typically set up my accounts that way, but I would assume that that one profile could get banned which would kill all of the blogs under that profile. I don’t know if they keep it separate or not, if Tumblr does, okay?

Hernan: Yeah. Yeah, I would assume that you’re right. Like if you think like … when in doubt, just don’t do it, you know what I’m saying? Like we haven’t gone that far as to create several sub accounts within the same Tumblr account, but just … if in doubt, just in case, do it.

Bradley: Yeah. I mean, I’ve created three or four blogs under one profile, but I’ve never … like it’s typically that’s only because they’re in different industries-type stuff, so I’m using them for different purposes. But, yeah, if you’re basically like trying to use several Tumblr accounts like basically a web to PBN or something to link to your money sites, I would not have them all coming from the same account number one, okay? As far as Tumblr accounts and browser, yeah, guys, the thing about using proxies for Browseo like for creating account, like for creating accounts and stuff like that, guys, that is no longer such an issue. It used to be few years ago where you didn’t want to create a bunch of accounts from the same … [inaudible 00:19:16] the case because of public WiFi has just basically … it’s blanketed everywhere, you know what I mean?

So, there are always dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people on the same IP. Think about it. And so, all logged in to the same type of accounts and it doesn’t flag everybody’s account because it’s the same IP. So it’s no longer an IP issue. It’s not like it used to be anyways. Why it’s important? Why you can do that with Browseo? Here’s the thing, if you were to go clear Firefox through the normal clear cache and cookies process, and run CCleaner, and do all that stuff, and then log in to an account with a fresh browser like virgin white, fresh browser, that looks unnatural. So if you do that and then you log back out, clean your cache and cookies, and then log back in through the same IP to another account with a fresh browser and you do that a couple of times, you can absolutely flag your IP for that kind of activity, for spammy activity which could cause accounts to be terminated or to be … requiring verification, all that kind of stuff because you’re sending a lot of unnatural signals to that platform that you keep logging in to with the fresh browser under new accounts.

Does that make sense? However, if you’ve got Browseo or any tool that does that, I think another one is called Ghost Browser or something like that, whatever tool you have or app that will do that for you, you can still log in underneath the same IP but each browsing session keeps its history. So there’s cookies that are accrued and there’s history as to what sites have been visited and what searches have been done, and that what links have been clicked on, and that kind of stuff. And so, those kind of histories and those cookies that accrue start to build up a profile even if it’s under the same IP, it doesn’t matter because each IP or each profile is going to have a slightly different history. That looks natural because people do that but people don’t … typically, people don’t clear your browser every time they log in and think about a public WiFi not 15 people in any public WiFi spot are going to clear all their cache and cookies and then log in to their account from that same IP. Does that makes sense?

But there could be 15 people logged in to Tumblr from the same IP because they’re all … but they’re all different accounts. So my point is, is just acting more natural is the way to do it even if it’s from the same IP. That’s why I use Browseo all the time but I even … I have some select accounts that are assigned to dedicated proxies that I still use today because they’ve been set up and they’ve accrued browsing history over the last two years now, really. But all my new accounts that I set up in Browseo, they’re all just run right through my IP guys. I don’t care about the IP problem anymore because I’m building up profiles that have their own history, in their own search habits, in their own likes and themes and all of that stuff, and it’s all done through my same IP which is okay in my opinion. I’ve never had any problems with it. Does anybody have anything to say differently about that?

Marco: No, not about that but I do as far as the original question. You should be able to transfer the different accounts and the different blogs. You have to go into Tumblr and create the new account that you’re going to transfer to, and then you send an email from the blog that you’re looking to transfer to that new account to join right to that email to join your blog and then you can make that person an admin, and then you can eliminate yourself from … I’m pretty sure Google it because I’m sure that somewhere in YouTube or somewhere in Google, it will be explained exactly how’s that. But the gist of it, if I remember it correctly, that’s how it’s done. I did it before with some stuff that I got crossed up. I added about five different blogs and that’s how I did it. I just added … started a new one and figured out how to transfer the ownership, but you don’t really transfer ownership. You make someone an admin and then you eliminate yourself from that. By doing that, it makes that new blog or that new Tumblr account the administrator.

Bradley: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I … I mean, just go to YouTube and search and guarantee you’ll find it, or go to Google and search the videos tab because that has a much better search functionality than YouTube does, so.

How Do You Explain A One-Off Onboarding Or Setup Fee To A New Client?

Okay, Pete, what’s up, buddy? He says, “Hey, guys, when you were talking to a potential new client, do you put in the proposal a one-off onboarding or setup fee? If so, how do you explain what the fee is for and why do you charge the fee? Thanks in advance.” It depends on what I’m doing, Pete. But, yeah, there’s usually setup fees involved. It depends on … again, it depends on each one of the services. So, for example, like for Google My Business or maps SEO, I always charge a maps optimization or maps set up an optimization fee, right?

I charge $697, I believe, for that which includes the GMB set up an optimization. If it’s not already set up, then I set it up. Typically, it’s set up and I’ve just got to optimize it. Bing and in Yahoo!, in fact, I really even kind of took Yahoo! out of it to where I’m really just now doing Bing in GMB for the same price, right, $697. That’s what I charge. But then my local monthly SEO charges for any at … the lowest I would charge for local maps is 500 bucks a month for maintaining. So like I’ll charge $697 set up and $500 a month. If I got somebody with two locations, a lot of the times I’ll charge them $400 per location per month. So it’s 800 bucks for two. That’s just kind of how I do stuff like I … I don’t charge as much as a lot of the other people do for my services, but when it comes to setup fees, it just depends on what it is.

Like, for example, I also do reputational marketing stuff now because it’s just so stupid easy to fulfill, right? The app does all the work. All you got to do is sell it. And so like I’ll charge somebody like 99 bucks as a setup fee because it takes me or a VA about 20 minutes to input data into the system and that’s it. And so I make $100 on a setup fee and then I’ll charge maybe $200 a month or something like that on just the reputation stuff but I typically try to roll all of that into a larger SEO package, anyways, okay? But, yeah, I mean, guys, I’m always transparent about my charges to my clients. Like I tell them exactly what everything is for. Like I don’t ever try to inflate prices here and there to kind of hide stuff. I just flat out tell them what it is and I explain why that I’m charging for that and why it’s necessary.

Again, like I said, the way that I present my services to my clients, it’s in a very transparent way so that I honestly feel like I earned their trust by just explaining everything in such detail if that makes sense. So, anyways, that’s my two cents. You, guys, have any additional input on that?

Hernan: Yeah, real quick, I do the same that you do, Bradley, in terms of I tell them, “Hey, this is what it’s going to charge like and what I’m going to charge, and then these are the tools that I’m going to use, and this is the final … like the tally, if you want,” But, yeah, I definitely break that down for the clients and I’m completely 100% transparent as you were saying as well.

Bradley: Marco?

Marco: No, I totally agree. You have to be transparent. But then, again, if you position yourself correctly, you should also raise your prices accordingly. I mean, you know your market, you know your local market, Bradley, and you know what it is. I would never charge the same thing to someone, let’s say, in an area like where you are like, let’s say, in Georgetown, for example, where I know, I mean, that the money is just way different. A Beverly Hills Dennis, I’m going to hit him over the head as opposed to just a local Dennis that’s just trying to get people in the door, right, so that he can then sell them on whatever services it is that he has. So you have to know. If you know your market and you position yourself accordingly then you could usually could charge a little bit more but, definitely, transparent as far as the tools, as far as using … you have to pay your staff. You have expenses also.

Bradley: Yep.

Marco: If you’re transparent with all of that then you should be okay. I mean, markup … you have to charge what you feel you’re worth. That’s how I think. You have to charge for your services and if you’re that good then you should charge for that. You should charge a premium. Most other businesses and most other experts do.

What Are Possible Reasons Why A Gmail Account Used In GSites And Drive Stacks Got Suspended?

Bradley: I agree. Okay. D is, “Hey, guys, a few days ago, my Gmail account got suspended. It was my persona account for one of my affiliate sites and the account was around nine months old. I had a branded IFTTT network and drive stack attached to this account. I need the words of wisdom from you, guys, on this issue. Before that, I want to tell you a few things. I had content in the drive files without attribution and all of these documents were created a few months back.” Okay, so if it was like straight up copied content from somewhere without attribution, well, that typically hasn’t created a problem, but Marco can comment on that.

Marco: No, that’s never been a problem.

Bradley: Yeah, it’s never been a problem.

Marco: No, we’re still doing it the same way, not a problem.

Bradley: He says, “A few days ago, I created a new G-site for link building and I framed a few of my Google Docs and spreadsheets, and I went to Fiverr, and ordered two contextual backlinks packages with one 5,000 links and with one 2,000 links to my new G-site.” Again, although, I never recommend buying backlinks packages from Fiverr because those templates are used over, and over, and over again, so it’s definitely a footprint thing. Well, I’m sure there’s some providers there that are decent, but I just don’t recommend it. But I don’t think that’s the problem either, the backlinks to your G-site. Marco, do you they feel differently?

Marco: I’ve never seen this kind of behavior before and we’ve thrown the kitchen sink at drive stacks. It may have been that he linked directly to the G-site, but we’ve done that also. Like this isn’t in the right context for me to be able to see. Did we do the drive stack? If so, then I can reach out and see what was done. I mean, but if it’s someone else’s drive stack, I can’t say because I don’t know what type of garbage they did. If you did it yourself, did you follow our training or who’s training did you follow? I mean, there’s so many things that are possible here that I could go on, and on, and on, and we’d never get to an answer.

Bradley: Yeah and one question I would have was … and I’m not doubting that it truly is suspended but I’m just throwing this out there for everybody’s benefit. There’s been times where I’ve had blogger accounts, for example, specifically from syndication networks where like a blog blogger account says it’s been suspended for violations of terms of service or whatever. All it was, was … it was showing the blogger blog is being suspended, but all it was, was the Gmail account associated with that blogger blog had to be re-verified through a phone verification. After re-verifying the account which sometimes is difficult, then blogger blog, all of a sudden, the suspension is lifted and it’s back live again on the web as soon as you verify the account. So all I’m saying, the reason why I bring that up is because is it indeed a suspension which I’m pretty sure that you’ve already confirmed that or is it just that you have to re-verify the account.

You might want to look into that first if you haven’t already is my point, okay? But, yeah, I don’t know because I haven’t run into that problem like … I haven’t had too many Google account suspended. I have from spamming like Google+ with automated like in an automated way or like with social sharing, like there’s some of those apps where you can share other people’s content and they share content for you. I’ve done that in the past and I’ve had some just stuff that absolutely violates terms of service posted like pharma stuff, Viagra pill stuff, things like that that have had my accounts suspended. But as far as like just creating a G-site and doing like drive stack stuff, embedding files, even spamming it to death, I’ve never had any issues with that, not even one, not one site has ever been suspended for that. So I can’t really speak as to what the problem is if I’ve never seen it personally, unfortunately, sorry.

Marco: The only thing I’ve ever seen go wrong and get us a suspension is when we ran the script and it was pulling in too many files which is just too many Google resources that you’re using up for free and then that will get your G-site terminated. It’ll get the G-site suspended and you won’t … it’s really hard to recover it, but the drive stack was still intact. So it’s just a matter of slowing down the script and the way that it runs and then just redoing a G-site and just doing it all over again, not the Gmail account. This is what’s surprising that the Gmail account getting suspended not from a drive stack, I don’t know. It may have triggered a re-verification like you said.

Bradley: That’s what I would think it would be is that more and more … I mean, because, honestly, that’s typically the only thing that happens is that an account gets locked for re-verification and all of the sub-accounts or tools, the apps that Google allows you to have with an account, they all get basically temporarily suspended until you can re-verify. Sometimes it’s impossible re-verifying. I’ve lost stuff because of it, but other times, I’ve been able to re-verify and everything comes back. So that’s what I’m assuming it may be without more detail. All right. Nigel’s up. Nigel just recently joined the mastermind after coming here for months and asking many questions and taking action. He got himself to a position where he joined a mastermind, it’s freaking fabulous.

Nigel, you and Mohammed back to back, look at that, that’s awesome because both of you have taken very similar paths in that. You’ve come here and asked a bunch of questions every single week and you’ve applied taken action on what you’ve learned and it’s propelled you to the point that you could come join the mastermind which will help you to grow your businesses even faster. So both of you, I’m proud of both of you, seriously. I’ve said that to you, Mohammed, but not so much to you, Nigel. We certainly appreciate you joining the mastermind. We will be there to help you in any way we can, okay? [Newly Minted MM 00:34:18] status, “It feels great. Thank you for the warm welcome, truly been awesome so far and looking forward to posting results soon.” We’re looking forward to you posting them.

That video email, nice, I got my money’s worth for this month already. So you must have picked Video Lead-Gen System as the bonus or whatever. That’s awesome. Just keep in mind, guys, that as part of the prospecting module, we’re going to flash that out a hell of a lot more and we’re going to end up updating that product and in launching that with a proper launch. So, I think, Hernan, you might want to get this ready, but I think we still have the pre-sale for Video Lead-Gen System available. If it’s still available, people can still get in now when we go to launch it, once it’s relaunched with all the new training that’s going to be added. It’s going to be at least 500 bucks.

Hernan: Yeah I’ve been actually start for [inaudible 00:35:08] let me confirm that with you, Bradley.

Bradley: I think it’s vlgs.semanticmastery.com, I think. But, anyways …

Hernan: Yeah, I want to make sure that it’s still open in the back if that makes sense.

Bradley: Okay, I got it. Anyways, that way …

Marco: Can I just add for a second? We’re giving you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. We always give you tons of notice that we’re going to raise the price. Please don’t come back in a month, two months, or three months, or however long and say, “You raise the price. Now, I can’t buy it at the launch price.” The launch price is what it is. The pre-launch price is what it is, and then it goes up to the price where we established. Why do we do that? Because we want you, people who follow us, people who are members, we want you to have a first crack at it at a price where it’s comfortable but it’s worth so much more than what we charge that we just can’t give it away for free, sorry. It takes too much time too much effort. It takes too much work to put all the stuff together and we can’t give it away. It’s worth what it’s worth. It’s going up to where it’s going.

You’re warned that it’s happening. I mean, emails are sent out. We do it on Hump Day Hangouts. We do it everywhere. We give people ample notice. Please don’t come back and complain that the price has been raised when you already know that the price is going to be raised.

Hernan: Yep. I just posted on the event page. So you better like you better … yeah, you said, I said while it lasts because, I don’t know, somebody could find out and we might close it.

Marco: Yeah.

Where Can I Find A Document On Basic Metadata And Tag Configuration?

Bradley: That’s true. Like I said, we’re going to be launching that in April, May, June … June, I believe. Yeah, I believe we talked about that this week, guys, didn’t we? I think we’re going to relaunch that in June, so. All right. Anyways, where can I … back to Nigel’s question. “Where can I find the document on basic metadata and tag configuration without going too far down the rabbit hole? Basically, I want to clear an easy way to provide, I want a clear and easy way to provide some value to prospects that I audit. I had a prospects report come back with metadata and tag issues, and I would have loved to offer some generic DIY info for free like put this kind of information in here without going all Jeffrey Smith SEO Bootcamp on them. Any direction you can provide a solid guide template would be invaluable.”

All right. So, my only concern with that, Nigel, is remember who your audience is, right? So when you’re talking to a prospect in a video audit and you are explaining to them something that they could do that could have a positive impact on their digital presence, you want something that’s incredibly easy for them to do that doesn’t require a ton of explanation. So I know that’s basically what you’re asking, how could I have provided some information about metadata and tags that wouldn’t confuse them. That’s kind of difficult to do especially in a video audit. Now, you could try it with like … if I were to try to create an example for that, I’m sure I could figure out a way to dumb it down quite a bit, but I might do something like talk about how tags are supposed to be kind of descriptive terms about the topic of the post and right, and then there’s like a hierarchy and stuff but remember, you don’t want to overwhelm them with technical stuff because their eyes will glaze over and though it’s like you’re speaking a foreign language to them, right?

And so, again, you don’t want to get too technical. A lot of the times that the kind of advice or suggestion that I will give in an audit will be something very simple like, “Hey, you don’t have your name, address, and phone number listed on your website. That’s something that is incredibly powerful for helping you to rank in maps. So, I would recommend that you put a widget in your site or have your webmaster put a widget in the footer or in the sidebar that lists your name, address, and phone number,” stuff like that, something that’s very simple that doesn’t take a lot of explanation but they could easily do that’s going to literally help give them an improvement, right? Like it’s going to improve their presence slightly even if not much.

You could give them a tip on optimizing Yelp or some … all I’m saying is like you could give them a tip on optimizing their GMB listing say, “Hey, I’m looking at your Google My Business listing and it looks like you only have your logo and nothing else. You might want to add some optimized images and here’s a trick. Name the file names of the images after products and services that you provide. Include local modifiers, your city name, the areas that you service, things like that.” Very, very easy stuff that they can do as far as tags and metadata that’s a bit too technical in my opinion to try to explain that to a layman or civilian so to speak. You, guys, have any other suggestions on that?

Marco: No, I totally agree with you. If you start talking about title tags and metadata, you’re going to have to show SERPs to show the purpose that they serve, and then that might get the talking into, “Well, am I going to get those kinds of results? Am I going to get those rankings? Am I going to rank for these keywords? And what keywords am I going to …” You don’t want the conversation going that way. Then the conversation is going all wrong because you want the conversation to be all about the leads or the results that you’re going to get for the person. I mean, you could do it in the video of the person is technical enough, but that’s not a conversation that you want to have with someone that you’re just taking on as a client. I mean, if you want to do that, let’s say, later on as an add-on or whatever, we’re going to improve your ad copy, for example, you could say that.

You could compare it to classifieds where you want to stand out from the bunch and and how you can make it stand out. You never want to put the client in a position where they have to kind of try to figure out how they’re going to do it because then it’s all over. Their eyes would like Bradley said, that they’ll roll into the back of their head and they’ll start singing … show tunes and you can forget it.

Can You Share Your Citation Building Methodology In Serp Space?

Bradley: That’s it. Number two, he says, “I saw a subspace as levels of citations, foundation, hometown, a multimedia in terms of marketing to clients. Is that like month one, two, three strategy? And does dripping citation building actually matter or just better to spread things out?” Well, what I do is like part of my monthly SEO services include citation building but that doesn’t mean that I’m building citations every month. I mean, most of the time I do or a lot of the times for my clients now because it’s just so much easier is … I’m not going to lie, for most of my clients, I’d used Loganix services, the monthly citation building. I don’t even … like and that’s only because that service is great and it’s 100% managed. I don’t have to do anything. All I have to do is input data once and they build citations every month. They do a a mix of structured citations and unstructured citations.

What’s the difference? A structured citation is a classical business directory listing, name, address, phone number, sometimes a link back to the site, but it’s a business directory listing. An unstructured citation is a mention of NAP, right? Name, address, phone number but on non-traditional business sites, like non-traditional directory sites. In other words, social medias, blogs, press releases, all of those video sites, documents sharing sites, audio sites, image sharing sites, all of those types of sites become none … or what they call unstructured citations. And so, the Loganix monthly citation service is 150 bucks, semanticmastery.com/loganix, I believe, will take you over there. It’s a good service. I like it because it’s 100% outsourced.

But for some of my clients that are grandfathered into a much lower monthly price, I’m not going to cough up $150 to pays Loganix to do it. So what I’ll do is, obviously, I’ll do like a package from SerpSpace. I’ll do like the foundations which are the … like basically like all the big directories and then I’ll get the local citations on top of that, then I’ll do the multimedia or the social type citations like another month. It doesn’t have to be month one, month two, month three. If it’s a newer site that you’re trying to get them results then that might be a good strategy. If it’s a site that’s already doing well like as far as ranking in maps then I don’t always do that, like I might build a batch of citations and then wait three months before I build another batch of citations. Because here’s the thing, guys, also like I don’t know what reporting software or app you’re using for that but I use BrightLocal.

BrightLocal is a fabulous service. Again, semanticmastery.com/brightlocal, I think, will take you over there. I’ve been using it since 2012 when I opened my agency and I use … that’s what I use for all my reporting. What I like about BrightLocal is it will do citation tracking. So it’ll show you how many citations and it will keep a history of all that so you can see the graph over time going up as far as the number of citations accrued. And so, what I found is doing a batch of citations, let’s say, I order 50 new citations to be built. It doesn’t matter what type of citation structured, unstructured, foundation, social, it doesn’t really matter, hyperlocal, any of those doesn’t matter because what happens is I’ll get the report back and I’ll submit all those URLs for indexing which apparently most indexers aren’t working now anyways, and it takes three months for all of them to end up … not all of them end up, get out of 50. I might only have 35 of them that end up getting indexed over the course of three months.

So my point is you don’t have to build every single month because you can build today and three months from now, Google would just start finding some of those citations if that makes sense. One of the things I highly recommend is that you do local data aggregator submissions like the big data aggregator submissions which is Factual, Acxiom, InfoUSA or Express Update, I think it’s called, which is part of InfoUSA, and in Neustar/Localeze. There’s a couple services that will do that. One of the things I like about BrightLocal is BrightLocal has that for $55 and you have to up … you have to redo it every year, but it’s 55 bucks and they’ll submit to all four data aggregators. What’s great about that is within three to six months like you’ll start seeing a bunch of new citations pop up just because your data is listed in the aggregators, right?

And so, again, I like to use BrightLocal for that because it’s 55 bucks and they submit all to all for submission … data aggregators for me, okay? So, again, my citation building method really just varies for all new clients that I’ve signed up within the last probably a year and a half, maybe two years now because my pricing is higher than it was for some of my grandfather clients. They all just get put on the Loganix service because, again, it’s something that it’s out of sight out of mind. I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s done. I know every single month. They’re getting a mix of structured and unstructured citations and then backlinks are being built to those citations, so it’s just done for me. It’s something I don’t have to manage anymore. Does that make sense? Okay

How Do You Get Back In Touch With The Ones That At Least Watched The Video Emails?

All right. Mohammed’s up. He says, “Hey, guys.” What’s up, Muhammad? “When I first started video emails, I bungled a lot of leads by not calling them and getting a conversation going. How would I get back in touch with the ones that at least watched my video? I was going to call them but given them my emails were months ago, they may be lost. Do I send them the same email again?” No, here’s what I would do, Mohammed, and I’ve done this before. Create a generic video that is talking to all of them. So create … so that way, you’re still getting that personalized effect but you don’t have to record, you don’t have to send them the same video that they’ve already seen, and you don’t have to send a personalized video for each and every person that you’re recontacting, right?

So just record a video with you looking into the camera, or whatever, or if you’re doing a screencast plus picture and picture or whatever, any … however you want to do it. Just record a short video. “Hey, I sent you an email, a video email a few months ago,” right? So don’t say their names, don’t say their business, you’re in the same … in a specific vertical. So, “Hey, I sent you a video about your real estate business or whatever a couple months ago and I’m just reaching back out to try to start this conversation and go start a dialogue with you again, see if you’d be interested in having a conversation about what I sent you. If you’re curious about … if you didn’t see the video before, you’d like to see it again, just hit reply to this and I’ll send you the link again.” Does that make sense?

So that way you’ve got one generic video that, now, you can literally mass email out to everybody that engaged with your first video and in those people that re-engage with your new email, they might hit reply back and ask you to send them, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Can you send it to me again?” Anyways, it just gets the conversation started. So that’s what I would do because we save you a ton of time. Just do one generic video and then blast it out to everybody that you … that engaged you the first time but you didn’t follow up with correctly and just try to get some engagement out that like sent … recontacting them again, okay?

What Email Marketing Program Do You Recommend?

Okay, Quit This House, he says, “Hey, guys, thanks for all you do to help us.” You’re welcome. “Everyone talks about building a list. What email marketing program do you recommend?” Well, I’m using drip.com which is an autoresponder from Leadpages. I’ve never been a fan of Leadpages, but they’re their autoresponder is freaking fabulous. Drip is great at least it is for me. I’m building out my entire prospecting funnel and all the automations, well, about 80% of the automations are handled inside of Drip right now and it’s … it inboxes into the primary tab in Gmail which is insane because most of the other autoresponders go to the promotions tab in Gmail. That was the primary reason I started using Drip, was just because it goes to the primary inbox on Gmail. Since then, I’ve started to learn how to use Drip because I’ve never been an email marketing guy, but I’m using it now and all the automation that they’re called workflows inside of drip, and it’s fabulous.

The amount of stuff that you can automate is just insane. That’s what we’ve working on, is an automated prospecting funnel and we’re going to be building out an automated onboarding and fulfillment funnel too.

Hernan: Yeah. If I can add to that, we use ActiveCampaign for Semantic Mastery. I use the ActiveCampaign a lot, but it was a wash between Drip and ActiveCampaign, because the main point is that you can automate a lot of stuff.

Bradley: Yeah.

Hernan: That’s the main point, and they’re way more powerful than any other kind of responder. In fact, like you get all of that functionality only by going through Infusionsoft, which is like 500 bucks a month or something like that. We use either Drip or ActiveCampaign. Those are the goto solutions.

Bradley: Totally agree. I’m super impressed with it. In fact, I was talking on the Mastermind Webinar last week about the prospecting funnel. I’ve actually like chick and it scratched it and started over three times from scratch now, because it’s just a really complex build. Part of the reason it was over complicated the first couple times is because I was trying to patch together a whole bunch of different apps and services to handle all of the automations. Again, I’m not an email marketing guy. It’s not something I’ve typically done in my career. I was unaware of how much could actually be done within the Drip platform. After wasting literally weeks and dozens and dozens of hours on building out this funnel and it not working or even being too complex for even me to be able to maintain it, that’s when I said, “Okay, look, I’m just going to spend a couple days researching Drip and trying to figure out how to use this.”

I made more progress in about three days that way than I had in three weeks prior to just by starting to put everything that I could in the Drip. Again, I’m super impressed with it, I’m really happy with it, and I’m still learning. Inside the Mastermind, we’re covering all of that stuff to you, guys. I don’t know if you’re not in there yet, come join us because all of that’s going to be … Like, I’m literally going to be giving all of our Mastermind members the blueprint and step-by-step process instructions for how to build their own prospecting automation funnel. I’ve even impressed myself with it. Just so you know, it’s like that.

How Do You Build Your YouTube Channels?

All right, next, he says, “When you buy your YouTube channels, how much do you build them out, cover pic, link, G+ short description, or both on both G+ profile and YouTube?” It depends on what I’m using them for. We buy a ton of YouTube accounts just straight up for YouTube spam, I honestly don’t build those out at all. If it’s for a money channel, then yes absolutely because it’s about branding, right? If you’re building a money channel, then, yeah, you absolutely want to complete the G+ profile, you want to fill out the YouTube channel, the About section, add the links, the interlinking, all that kind of stuff. It depends on what your intent is with that YouTube channel. If it’s for spam purposes, no, don’t do anything else. Just buy the damn account, that’s it. Make sure it’s phone verified and that’s it, but if you’re doing it for a money project, an affiliate project, a client project to legion, for any one of those, then, absolutely, try to complete as many of the Google properties as possible and interlink all of them, okay? That includes blogger too, guys, right?

What Do You Think Of Using Rel=Alternate For SEO Purposes?

Steve, what’s up? He says, “Hi, I heard him passing reference last week to linking with rel=”alternate” for SEO purposes. Can you recommend on this? Does it work? What are the best practices and are there any dangers? Is this equivalent the same as markup? Thanks.” To be honest, I’ve never used it. I’m going to defer to Marco. What can you tell us about it, Marco?

Marco: The only time that I’ve used the rel=”alternate” tag is when defining language. I’ve never used it for SEO. I’ve always used rel=”canonical”. I mean it’s something that I would have to try because I’ve never used it that. I don’t think that Google even recommends for you to use and to use rel that way alternate. I think it would have to be canonical. I haven’t read anything on it. I know that Mars had something on it. I know that the Google Blog middle of last year had something on it but we use canonical because that’s where we see the greatest SEO effect.

Bradley: Yeah. Again, I can’t speak on it because I haven’t used it at all. We could probably do some research on it.

Hernan: Yeah, sorry, you could use it for language, you could use it for mobile.

Marco: That type of thing?

Hernan: rel=”alternate”? I’ve never … I mean, I don’t see a way where you use it for SEO and it would be real easy to pick out if you started using that for SEO.

Bradley: Yeah, this is a good blog, guys. The Stone Temple blog, these guys have some really good SEO stuff on here too and this one was published in 2016, so about two years ago, May 2016, by Eric Engine. He knows what he’s talking about. This might be something you could research, I don’t know. Again, I haven’t even read this. I just clicked on it just now, but my point is I know the Stone Temple guys typically do a good job of explaining stuff so you might be able to use this here. All I did, guys, was search rel=”alternate” and just start looking through. Look at the dates though, right? You don’t want to look at something from 2012. It’s probably not relevant now. I mean it may be. You could still look at it, but just judge it based on its freshness factor too, okay?

Is There A Way To Use Google Sites For An Ecommerce Site Where The products Are Set Up To Create A Feed For Google Shopping Ads?

All right, we’re going to answer just up to Jordan Fowler’s question guys, and we’re going to wrap it up because we’re almost out of time. I love how Armand says what up with you, yo, booty butt cheeks. I don’t know what that means, but it’s funny so I’ll plus-one it. You guys are the shit. Was wondering if there was a way to use Google Sites for an e-commerce site where the products are set up to create a feed that I could use on Google Shopping ads?” That’s a good question. I don’t know because I don’t do any e-com stuff, but that does sound like it would be pretty powerful. Do you have any experience with that, Marco?

Marco: Yeah, you’d have to use announcement pages to create a feed out of G-sites. I don’t know about the new ones. I haven’t tried the new ones out. I’m not sure how to get a feed out of that because they don’t have announcement pages in the new G-sites, as far as I know, we can’t even run the script on the new G-site, so we’re talking about the old one, I’ve seen it done I’ve seen some really wicked stuff being done with G-sites and e-commerce. Rob and I were talking about that a couple of weeks ago. But yeah, you could totally set it up use announcement pages and create the fee.

Bradley: Yeah. He says the company I work for is in an industry where Google shopping ads supposedly won’t allow our products on but we see our competitors all the time in there, so I thought this may be a workaround. Unfortunately, I don’t do any e-commerce at all, Armand. I never have. Because of that, I really can’t provide any advice and I apologize for that. But, again you could probably do some searching on it and find some information about it. Obviously, if we come across anything, we’ll certainly mention it. I love the fact that, again, you want to hear me say it again, booty butt cheeks? That’s awesome, man. I appreciate that. It made me giggle.

How Do You Block Google From Indexing A General Archive Of A Blog?

All right, cool, Greg and Scott, what’s up, guys. Jordan, he says, “Okay, my blog page general archive continues to index despite my blocking it in an SEO ultimate plus and putting meta name equals robot’s content no index in that page header. I know this is bleeding my otherwise fastidiously created silos. How bad is it hurting my SEO? Any suggestions on getting it to not index?” Okay, just put a nofollow tag in the header that’s all you have to do, because that’ll stop the bleeding. Even if it’s indexed, it doesn’t matter. If you have nofollow on it, you’re basically telling you will not to follow any of the links, like to pass any PageRank, if that’s still a thing. I think it is internally in Google, but it doesn’t pass any PageRank through any of the links on that page, if you add a nofollow, it should be to the header. That’s correct, Marco, right? I didn’t tell them wrong, did I?

Marco: No, you’re correct. And yes, PageRank is alive and well inside the algorithm.

Bradley: Right, thought so. Jordan, yeah, that’s the easy thing. Whether indexes or not, you can ask Google to honor their no Index but it’s up to them. I’ve seen stuff index that’s supposed to be no indexed all the time, but if you put nofollow in that same tag, that same HTML tag, then I think it’s just rel=”nofollow”. I’m not sure. You’d have to double check. The entire page, any links on that page will be no followed. It just knows to not pass PageRank to them. Google will still crawl the links, but it just won’t pass PageRank, so it won’t bleed your silos or your theme, okay? Okay, cool. It looks like we got to most of the questions, guys. We appreciate everybody being here. We don’t have any Mastermind this week because I’m hard at work trying to finish the prospecting funnel but …

Hernan: It’s going to be good.

Bradley: See you, guys, next week.

Hernan: Sounds good.

Bradley: Thanks, guys.

Hernan: See you, guys.

Bradley: Bye.

Marco: Bye, everyone.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 179 published first on your-t1-blog-url