Three Month Update - Why Wealthy Affiliate isn't what it seems
Ok, so the title is a bit clickbaity.
But, you will notice that there isn't any negative connotations within it. There doesn't have to be. One of the incredible things that I have learned about writing is that you provide the content and no-matter what you say, people will always bring their own context to the party. Does reading this title make you realise how you bring your own context to things? How can having that knowledge make you a better writer?
The other thing to note is that it is important to have a title that attracts attention. I have realised that in the affiliate game we are not selling products. We are just selling clicks. So you do whatever is neccessary to get that next click. You might write a post called 'How to lose 5ls in six weeks'. If you can even get near the first fifty pages, you will find that you are surrounded by a thousand million articles with the same title.
Instead, You write the keyword 'How to lose 5lbs in six weeks - without giving up anything' and suddenly you have something that sets you apart and something that makes it irresistable to click on your link.
Anyway, I have found that in my first three months, I have been ignoring social things more and more including ignoring people on WA so sorry for that whoever you are!
I have just been flat out. I have produced my first website which has powerful affiliate links and more than 60 articles averaging 1500-2500 words a pop. I have also put together a book an an auto-repsonder. Now just waiting for the gold to rain hehe. I intend to continue to drip feed 2 articles per week into this blog. What is interesting is that I decided to disable comments. I know thats a big thing here at WA but I have read quite a lot of stuff to the contrary so am happy not having to deal with them.
I am working on my second site now. I am just a single blog post deep and am writing an ebook. After paying someone on Upwork to write it and ending up with a word document, I decided to write it myself. I have found that the momentum of writing a blog makes writing books not seem so daunting.
Anyway thats about it. Just wanted to say hi to everyone and that in my busyness, I find it hard to make the most of what WA has to offer but,sometimes, I just need something and it's usually there.
Hope you are all winning
Andy
Recent Comments
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Hehe cheers, Shaunna. Glad you are busy too. I think my next blog might be...How to survive living with a cat.
I've been wondering what you were up to... thought maybe the cat ate you!
Much like you, I haven't been as active within Forum, but active on my sites... you've been busy!!
I'm just glad the cat didn't eat you!
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This is a great post and insight into perception, many people fail to think of this when they are creating their content. This leads to a great deal of captivation and people reading content through, something that is becoming more unusual with the way we are wired with shorter attentions spans.
The way we teach here is much different. We don't chase algorithmic holes in Google and other search engines, we teach you to learn what the customers/visitors want you to do which is ultimately what Google (and all search engines are after. High engaging, high quality content.
RE: comments/engagement
In all reality, engagement is good on websites. You can try something, but websites that you see are ranked make user contribution a really key component. The reason is much deeper than whether there is content or not. Google wants people to SUPPORT their content, if they aren't even allow public discussion, surely there is no way to track this.
Google also views time on page as important. It means they use your data for something independent (and through a different service) for an unrelated service, but is critical to them learning about your website. Having engagement, and not just engaging content can improve this.
So don't just take something at face value, that is a big mistakes lots of people fall into and it is people that don't understand that Google is in the business of make searchers happy, not in the business of algorithms. Those are highly unpredictable from an end users point of view and trying to assess billions of lines of code is going to send you in the wrong direction more times than not.
Thanks for the feedback Kyle. It's not that I have read that comments are useless. Just that the extra time and effort is not worth the effort. At this point I am so busy that one less thing to think about is a huge bonus. But, I am so new at this and still flapping around in the dark at this. So, if you feel they are that valuable, I will darn well switch those little bastards back on. One thing I like about your approach is putting the emphasis on the content rather than link building etc. Making searchers happy. Ah ! Google must be such a nice, clean, ethical company ;) thanks again Mate.
Think about it from the users perspective. Do you read comments? Do you feel content is more current if it has comments? Do you feel that the website owner is more engaged and trustworthy if they are actually getting back to comments?
I personally look forward comments on any post that I visit, if there isn't any the content to me feels "stale". Obviously things like duplicate comments can hurt rankings, or comments that are spam, but that is why you are there to moderate and control the messaging.
As for Google being a nice, clean and ethical company. That is up for debate!
You might just be right there Pal :)