Pak Hou Cheung

Folks are calling it a "Must read"😭 TBH the response to my ✨SEO for LLM Visibility✨ brightonSEO talks and Wix Studio article has been incredible 😊 With at least 3 billion visits per month to LLMs, SEOs need to be managing this channel strategically. My deck and the write up get into - how they work because it impacts how you optimize - what their training data sources are because it effects what they output - why entities are key to how LLMs understand your brand Thanks to SEOFOMO's Aleyda Solís, Ahrefs's Louise Linehan , Lumar (formerly Deepcrawl)'s Sharon M., WordLift's Andrea Volpini, and Google Search Central's John Mueller for sharing it with their audiences. Read it for yourself AND download the deck at: https://lnkd.in/egYiV33j

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Why and How I Filter SEO Noise (and why you should too). Firstly, if you've never ran your own business, invested your own money and had to make payroll. You should bookmark this post. But I'll explain how I filter through SEO content to ensure I only get the gold. Here goes. Filter 1. Did the needle get moved? And by the needle moving, I'm talking about ranking on page 1 for a clients money keywords. This is one of the reasons SEO gets a bad reputation. So much of today's SEO advice is seeking dev perfection. Not rankings. So, in content I'm always looking for a line in a post that links back to evidence this leads to revenue somehow. Filter 2. Opportunity cost. The reason paid search gets more money is that it doesn't need any of the noise of SEO. No talk about canonicals, cannibalisation, schema, page speed, internal links etc. It's a money in and money out thing. If your SEO budget is £60k a year, the clients think "what else could I spend that on". So, when I read anything about SEO, I'm always thinking "what did it cost, what impact on revenue or money word rankings did it make?" If there is nothing in the content about that, I take it as noise and ignore it. Filter 3. Too good to be true. If I read anything that says "steal my" and provides a template or strategy of any kind that then says "made xyz amount of money" I know 2 things. 1. That the poster is full of BS. 2. That it never happened. If someone can actually make a business millions with their knowledge, do you really think they are giving it away for free? Of course not. So, once I see anything like that, I'll never take anything they say seriously. 90% of the time it's designed to grow a following, build a list to then sell you a course. Ok, so why does all this matter, especially if you've never ran a business? Because clients care about revenue and avoiding waste. And you absolutely should too. Except if you've never had your own business, loads of 'get rich or get results quick' content can be seductive. But that's the game... 'look at how amazing I am, follow me, because I'm amazing'. Ok, so what happens when you filter all this mentally, you can focus on finding the stuff that is good and can help you to grow and improve. And there's some amazing content out there. It does just take some digging to find it. As I'm getting ready to relaunch my own content process (after a long break) I'll be sharing the best content that I'm reading. Until then, try and filter out the dross.

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SEO's Unrealistic Expectations: Why You (and Clients) Can't Have It All I was scrolling a few freelancer's posts the other day, and I spat my drink out at 2 in particular. The SEOs listed everything they were doing for their clients, and short of solving global poverty, they were fulfilling the role of an entire marketing department. Scope creep is one thing...delivering everything from CRO, PR to web development is another. Of course, there is the element that they could be talking nonsense... There's a lot of that going around with people saying they generate 'Millions' in revenue for clients. (Once they hit publish on their posts, I'm certain they adopt a Dr Evil hand gesture). But for those working their backsides off, here lies a problem that I also ran into many years ago (when I had my own agency). If you do everything at a low cost, you can't grow. When I first launched my own SEO services in 2015, I charged between £270 and £470. Those clients got the earth- SEO, social posts, web dev, blog articles, and newsletters. All I cared about was that I wasn't in the police anymore and that I was earning a living. I learned the hard way that if you offer everything, then you cease to be a specialist. Instead, you become a 'jack of all trades'. Which is fine. You can earn a fantastic living doing just that. It's just that 2 things happen. 1) Your marketing position becomes a race to the bottom. 2) You can't maintain that level of output for long. Today, I'm aware that large agencies are doing the same. Price things low, offer the farm, stack clients high, make money through volume. This leads to the inevitable churn of staff and clients, along with mistakes. While you're trying to be a digital PR...you aren't optimising enough pages. While you're offering CRO advice...you aren't building internal links. While you're...you get the idea. Everything you do that is not in the SEO remit comes at the opportunity cost of your SEO performance. Don't get me wrong, every now and again, you have to go above and beyond. But you can't make this a long-term thing. It's this that leads to agency and freelancer 'feast and famine'. My advice: be an SEO, be a PR, be a web dev, be a CRO specialist, be a tech SEO, be a writer. But above all else...choose. Trying to be and do everything doesn't make you a superhero. In my experience, it rarely leads to a happy life, business model, or client success.

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This site is an extremely interesting case. Brand in the finance sector. Destroyed by the HCU update 2023. Backlinks from digital PR (and paid links), albeit some of the digital PR ones are totally off-topic, and some look like paid DPR placements. The site increased its content by 1000 pages in a year, so I suggest that it might have used AI content to scale. The site is well-designed, with lots of E-E-A-T elements. My gut says this site was hit by multiple factors: a bit of waffly content, some link devaluation, and AI content. It looks like they've deleted over 1000 pages a matter of weeks after being hit, so perhaps they took a chance. An interesting case, might reach out to the owners of this one.

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🌐 Google’s August 2024 Core Update: A Win for Small and Independent Publishers! The latest core update from Google, rolling out this August, comes with a refreshing shift in focus: promoting useful content from small and independent sites. 🎉 This update is designed to surface genuinely helpful content and reward creators who focus on delivering value to users rather than just optimizing for search engines. Google has been listening to feedback since previous updates (like the September 2023 one) and is addressing concerns to better support independent publishers. 💡 What’s important: If you’ve been hit by previous updates, now is a great time to focus on helpful, people-first content. Don’t stress about quick fixes. Quality content wins in the long term. Expect gradual improvements, but big changes may come with future updates. For small creators out there, this is an opportunity to shine! 🌟 Keep creating original, helpful content and let Google do the rest. #SEO #GoogleUpdate #ContentCreation #DigitalMarketing #IndependentCreators #SmallBusiness #ContentMarketing #SearchEngineOptimization #GoogleCoreUpdate #HelpfulContent #OrganicGrowth #DigitalStrategy #MarketingTips

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I've noticed that many agencies tend to focus heavily on client rankings and visibility, often overlooking their clients' core business goals. 🎯However, to truly drive impactful results, SEO strategies should be centred around directly supporting these overarching business objectives. One key to achieving this is ensuring that recommendations are actually implemented. After all, an SEO strategy is only as effective as its execution. 🛠️To improve implementation rates, SEO agencies should work closely with their clients and their development teams in several ways. 🤝🏼 Here are a few things brands should ask their marketing agency to provide in order to increase the likelihood of successful implementation: 🔀 Understanding Client Workflows SEO agencies should have a deep understanding of the client's SEO/IT/Content workflows and how they operate. This allows for seamless integration and efficient implementation of recommendations. 💰 Building Compelling Business Cases The SEO team should be able to build strong business cases that demonstrate how addressing each issue will benefit the company, using metrics that are important to the client, such as revenue impact rather than just visibility. 📊 Quantifying the Impact Once recommendations are implemented, the agency should be able to provide hard numbers on the impact, allowing them to prove the value of their work and secure further investment in SEO implementation. At Builtvisible, we do this with our proprietary SEO Causal testing tool - https://shorturl.at/R0KH5 📈 Reporting on Implementation Progress Regular reporting on implementation progress and the performance driven by SEO recommendations is crucial for keeping stakeholders informed and engaged. 🤝🏼 Streamlining Collaboration The agency’s SEO Consultants should have direct access to the client's ticketing system, enabling them to add tickets, QA changes, and respond to developer questions efficiently. 🗂️ Prioritising and Optimising SEO agencies should provide guidance on prioritising recommendations based on impact versus difficulty, as well as offer alternative solutions when certain fixes are not possible or quicker options are available. 🗣️ Communicating Across Stakeholders SEO professionals should be able to communicate the strategy and its implications to stakeholders beyond just their direct client contacts, ensuring alignment and buy-in across the organisation. These are just a few of the key elements that can help brands and their agencies achieve higher implementation rates and, ultimately, drive greater business success. 📈 If you are struggling with SEO implementation, I'd be happy to discuss how we can help. Feel free to reach out! 📩

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I've probably developed more as an SEO in the last 12 months than in the previous 9 years. How and why? There are 2 things I've focused on. 1. Figuring out how SEO actually drives revenue within marketing (hint, it's not traffic). 2. Analysing the SERPS and seeing what is really working (and figuring out why). It is definitely not business as usual in the SERPS. I have countless examples where sites are being rewarded, but by any normal SEO tool or metric, they shouldn't. And don't think these are just rare occurrences. In some of the SERPS I've studied/ worked in, rankings have lasted for over a year and held strong despite numerous updates. The game of SEO hasn't changed. It's just that today, our tactics need to change. Here's what you should throw out of your toolbox today: 1) Longform content as a standard. Content should be as long as it needs to be. Yes, sometimes this means the page will be long. But this will very much depend on the sector and the subject. And every line must earn its place and have a high information gain rate. Waffle impacts page performance. I've seen examples where the page's content waters down the intent. 2) SEO Content Tools. I use them, and I've used them for years. But generally, they are assessing existing web pages and looking for co-occurrences. "This page mentions this word x times". Most of the content tools for SEO are analysing what is already there and making assumptions that what is there = is good. Websites rank for a wide variety of reasons, and just because 5 sites are doing something does not mean that's why they are ranking. I've got a long list of examples of websites absolutely smashing it in highly competitive sectors with barely any content on their pages. So, what should you do? USE YOUR BRAIN: SEO tools are great, but in the past year, I've relied more on how I did SEO and content 'before' these tools came out. ANALYSE the SERPS. Every SERP is unique in what it rewards; many are changing more often than the stairs at Hogwarts. And look at what Google is rewarding. It's tempting to look and say, 'This isn't fair,' and yes, in some cases, it isn't fair. You've dropped a world-beating piece of content or web page and it's better in every way, shape and form...and yet you're being outranked by weak or thin content. But in reality, under the harsh glare of inspection, perhaps that 'thin' page actually gets to the point and gives the user and search engine exactly what they need. GO EASY ON YOURSELVES: SEO is a tough industry, but it grows business revenue. Which is why it's so competitive. I genuinely care about client rankings and am gutted if any drop. But there will always be ups and downs. Drops in rankings and rises. What matters is the overall direction you are travelling in. That's how winning in SEO is done. #seo

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A big thanks to the team at Editorial.Link for featuring a few of my thoughts on why sticking to ethical practices in SEO is crucial for long-term success. Ethical link-building not only keeps your site safe from penalties but also builds a strong foundation for sustainable growth. You can check out the full article here [https://lnkd.in/e-V5rzS6] to learn more about: * The evolution of link-building and Google's updates * Why ethical link-building is the reliable path to steady ranking growth * Practical strategies for acquiring high-quality backlinks * Tips to avoid black hat tactics that can harm your site's reputation

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If you use GA4, Floodlight Tags, Facebook Pixels, Google ads tags or any other website tracking you need to read on 👇 As you are (probably) aware - it is illegal for you to track any (yes, any) visitors from the EU, California or UK unless they give permission through a 'cookie consent' popup. In 2024 the Australian Privacy Act is due for an overhaul - and soon Australian Websites will need to roll cookie Consent out for Australian users too. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as ticking a box and installing the popup. My guide will help you understand how Cookie Consent Platforms (CMP's) work, and how to integrate them with your Google Tag manager. CookieYes - https://fas.st/t/gHhPooDF More info at bangdigital.com.au - https://lnkd.in/gmEAsEzy #cookieconsent #privacyawarenessweek #PAW #googleTagManger #cookies #ga4 #bangdigital

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🎯 Mission: SEO alignment...your team’s SEO success hangs in the balance so how best can you help them rise to the challenge? 👥 Operation: Get Your SEO Agents in Sync 👥 In the world of large organisations, managing a highly effective team of agents with different skills, missions, and covert operations can make SEO optimisation feel like a top secret assignment. 🕵️‍♂️🎯 But if you want to dominate the digital landscape—visibility, traffic, and revenue in your sights—you’ll need precision, teamwork, and focus. 🔥🎯 Here’s how to get your agents aligned and working strategically so it's mission success! Step 1: Clear Communication and Role Definition 🗣️ Before anyone jumps out of helicopters or hacks into the enemy’s mainframe, every agent needs their assignment. 🪂 From your Digital Marketing Operative to your Copywriting Specialist, each must know the objective and exactly how their mission contributes to the greater goal. 🎯 Regular briefings in HQ (otherwise known as meetings) will ensure the mission stays on track.🕵️‍♂️ Step 2: Strategic Prioritisation 🔍 When faced with a web of content, you can’t optimise every page in one go—time is ticking. ⏳ Prioritise your high importance targets: the homepage, category pages, and product pages. 🏠 📄 🛒 These are your mission critical assets, driving traffic and revenue like a well-oiled Aston Martin. 🏎️ Let the team know that while blog pages are useful for visibility, they’re not the main event when conversions are on the line. 💰 Step 3: Efficient Resource Management 💼 Even MI6 has a budget. 💸 Ensure your team’s resources are used wisely—delegate specialised tasks like keyword research to your most talented agents, and assign metadata updates to your finest wordsmiths. ✍️ 🧠 If you’re working with a smaller team, focus on the high stakes operations first: optimising your high converting pages and closing those keyword gaps before the enemy (your competition) catches on. 🔝 Step 4: Continuous Learning and Adaptation 📚 SEO is a game of high stakes, the rules changing faster than Bond can order a martini.🍸 Ensure your SEO agents stay sharp by engaging in regular training, knowledge sharing briefings and staying ahead of the latest trends in SEO technology. 🧑‍🏫🗂️ The algorithm is always evolving—make sure your strategy does too. 🔄 By aligning your team on a shared strategy, you’ll not only survive in the world of SEO... you’ll thrive. 🕶️💥 Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to optimise, prioritise, and stay one step ahead of the competition. 🎯 Ready to deploy your SEO task force for success? 🚀 💬 Cracking the code already? Whats the secret sauce for your team of 'agents'? Let me know in the comments. 🕶️ #SEO #TeamStrategy #DigitalStrategy Image Credit: @Anton_lammert via Unsplash

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Join me and Simon P MARSHALL on Monday (11:30 BST) to learn all about UTM parameters. This is something I get asked about at least once per week 🫣 If you've got loads of unassigned traffic in GA4, this one is for you 😉 We'll cover: ↪️ What are UTMs? ↪️ A free Google Sheet to create and log your UTMs in 🤓 ↪️ How do you use UTMs at scale? ↪️ Finding and analysing UTMs in GA4 ↪️ Different use cases for UTMs and more! 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲! 𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘂𝗽 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: https://lnkd.in/erY3F5ER

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CRO practitioners rant regularly about avoiding channel-based thoughts. It’s not just about stakeholder expectations and a longer process that takes time to fully establish. It’s that the impact you see at the surface level on website performance does not tell the full story. Testing will increase conversion rates and revenue, and it’s easy to measure. That’s not all though. Because your website converts users better, it means the ROAS for your ads will be higher. Think about it for a second, it’s a pretty big deal. Users click an ad and do not magically buy. They need to browse a landing page, consider their buying decision and complete a purchase. Same goes for filling a demo request! If if ROAS increases, then it either means that you can acquire more users for the same budget, or that your ad spend becomes more efficient and you can reallocate. Many orgs can eventually pay off their entire testing program costs by this nature. So is website testing a channel? Not really, it’s just part of the customer journey. When we start thinking holistically, then this function of the business will have positive rewards for every channel. Yes, it’s a cost to approach web development and website strategy methodically. Thinking about it with a channel mindset is opting into a limited view of what it can do for the org. Revenue and ROI are great, but when you can make every other online initiative win as well, then even though not easy to measure, surely that must accelerate business growth.

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I'm often asked if a .com domain is preferable to a .uk domain. Well, here's something to consider. Google's Gary Illyes recently confirmed that country code domain names (like .uk) actually get a ranking boost in local search results. Here's what you need to know: 👉🏼 Local Preference: Google promotes content local to the user. So, a .uk domain may have an edge for UK-based searches. 👉🏼 Slight Advantage: While .com domains can still perform well, country-specific domains have a "little more benefit" according to Illyes. 👉🏼 Language Matters More: The language of your site matching the user's query language likely has more impact than the domain itself. 👉🏼 User Trust: Country-specific domains can inspire more trust from local users, potentially increasing click-through rates. 👉🏼 Global vs Local: Consider your target audience. If you're focusing on a specific country, a local domain could be beneficial. For a global audience, .com might still be your best bet. Remember, there's no one-size-fits-all answer. Your domain choice should align with your overall SEO strategy and business goals. At KickstartSEO, we help clients navigate these decisions to maximise their search visibility. What's been your experience with different domain extensions? I'm Michael Nagles. I talk about SEO, golf, and British weather. If you'd like to know more about KickstartSEO Limited's DIY and Done for you SEO support - including domain strategy - let's have a chat. #SEO | #DomainStrategy | #LocalSEO

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I know a lot of publishers are going out of business and it sucks, it really does. A lot of good people losing jobs, mental health issues and lots of anger. BUT... When are they seriously going to start looking at their websites objectively and ask the question "Is this best for my readers or my bank balance?" Another post on Medium discusses the shut down of GGRecon. From just two minutes on that site, I have already lost interest despite being a gaming fan. Every article has an advert shoe-horned in after every other paragraph, not to mention the adverts in the sidebar and the scrolling advert at the bottom of the page. The homepage widget at the bottom doesn't work for some categories and there is nearly 20K URLs indexed. How much of that 20K is probably now useless, under performing but is still on the site because it drives a few pennies of ad revenue! Yes, big publishers get away with a LOT, but that just means the smaller publishers have to be better and smarter. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Google, but please, if the Septemeber 2023 HCU has trashed your website, and you're not willing to make huge, wholesale changes to your strategy, then I'm sorry, but a big part of the blame also lies with you. https://lnkd.in/ggHZhA_H

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All you need to know about SEO and AI! Full video in the comments

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Why understanding how to optimise for Amazon has changed forever - it's no longer Amazon SEO ❌ it's.... AIO (AI Optimisation)... 🤖 I have been analysing the COSMO system that drives AI on Amazon and I'd like to share a 5 point plan for AIO: ✅ 1—The boring is still important. It's not about A+ Premium or your video; it's about context, so metadata is key. Ensuring the boring stuff is complete and the product attributes are set up will allow AI to find relevant products faster. ✅ 2 - Context in images is key - Cosmo allows Rufus to analyse images based on context so having relevant lifestyle images that tell a story are perhaps more vital than 'infographics' - Test. ✅ 3 - Intent-based search is key to understanding 'buying missions' and the varied ways a consumer will find, love and buy a product. Brainstorm and analyse data to really understand buyers' behaviour ✅ 4 - Use AI to analyse reviews and surface barriers to buying or new use cases for a product that you were perhaps unaware of, optimise for these and test or address any negatives in the content. ✅ 5 - Clear hero images that are legable on mobile and can be easily interpreted will not only be great for the consumer journey but will allow AI to understand your products faster. What do you think about Amazon AIO? #Amazon #SEO #AIO #SEO #ecommerce #Amazonseller

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Many years ago, I consulted for Sony to help them fix up the technical SEO on their website. ~15 years later, with many advances in CMS’ like shopify, technical SEO is still very much a thing. ‘But shopify is technically optimised out of the box?’ Shopify is great, but technical SEO is a lot more than a CMS can do out of the box: - Site speed - Title tag format - Externally linked 404 pages - Robots.txt issues - Internal linking Just to name a few. All of these things are good out of the box, but can degrade over time. Or they can just be optimized further. Shopify doesn’t know the searcher behavior in every niche for example, so it can’t give you title tag formats that are 100% ideal. Any customization done to the base can introduce problems. Internal link architecture (passing strength about the site) if you put that in the technical box, also can’t possibly come ‘done for you’. It’s dangerous to assume your site is optimized because you’re on a modern, popular CMS. You’re probably in better shape than many, but you could have a big problem holding you back and not know it. #Shopify #Technical #SEO

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Take strong sedatives before you start this script:-)

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