About Matt44000
Rank 840
1,046 followers Joined January 2022
Hey there WA. I'm a Catholic, husband to a wonderful wife, father to two awesome sons, ex-PhD student in philosophical theology, Masters graduate in theology

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76

Questions

42

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asked in
Getting Started

Hi there. Google search console gives me great information about my site, but it doesn't tell me the average position of any keywords or of my pages. I think it is supposed to

In GSC, click "Performance" and in the graph select CTR and Postition.
Scroll down to see the details.
:-)
Richard

Great thanks!!

See more comments

How can I see my average position on google search console?

How can I see my average position on google search console?

asked in
Getting Started

Hi there. Google search console gives me great information about my site, but it doesn't tell me the average position of any keywords or of my pages. I think it is supposed to

In GSC, click "Performance" and in the graph select CTR and Postition.
Scroll down to see the details.
:-)
Richard

Great thanks!!

See more comments

asked in
Getting Started

Hey all. I wondered if any of you had any stories about you feeling like your site isn't doing as well as it should even though you've done all you can. And then suddenly, boom

Hey Matt,

I'm not going to say it doesn't happen, but as Diane says, it rarely works this way.

Here's another way to look at it.

Let's work on the "old 80/20" rule for just about everything in life, LOL.

Let's say that 20% of your articles (37) are bringing in the bulk of the traffic.

Let's say that all other 148 articles are ranking on page 2 of Google.

Seems great, but as we know, page 2 of Google doesn't really produce any traffic at all.

What is the incentive for Google to suddenly take 148 articles from page 2 to page one?

This won't just "suddenly happen" for no reason (The only reason it may "just happen" is if your site becomes more of an authority in your niche, i.e. either lots of relevant backlinks or lots more relevant content added to the site).

The only way this can potentially happen is if you update and improve the articles, your site suddenly becomes much, much, much larger, i.e. a few hundred additional articles, which in turn makes you more of an "authority" in your niche, or all the articles ranking above you get deleted.

Basically, you won't suddenly get a spike in traffic from doing nothing.

Okay, you may find that if you target a really competitive keyword it takes 2-3 years to rank on page one, but things would've happened in the mean time (a few hundred more articles on your site, a few hundred great backlinks poitning to that article), but as I say, you won't suddenly get a spike in traffic from Google when nothing additional has happened.

I've often spoken about the "Hockey Stick Effect" of traffic, but this typically happens in the first year of a website, nost notably from months 6-12.

You can often expect your traffic to increase by 50-100% EACH month for these 6 months.

This is generally the largest "explosion" in traffic (percentage wise) that a website will go through.

One of the main reasons that traffic increases month on month is simply because your EXISTING articles get picked up for more and more keywords as they age.

BUT, this will only happen if you are actually ranking for your primary or secondary keywords initially.

So, as an example, I write an article around

How to Grow Tomatoes in September

And I rank immediately for that keyword

Then next month I also rank for

Can You Grow Tomatoes in September?
Growing Tomatoes in September
Growing Tomatoes in Fall

Then the next month

I rank for another 10 different but RELEVANT keywords.

This is a very basic example, but this is kinda how traffic increases over time to your already published articles.

BUT

If you're not ranking well initially then this is unlikely to happen.

The main reasons for poor traffic at a more mature stage of a website (or ANY stage for that matter) is simply

POOR KEYWORD RESEARCH

Either no-one is interested in the specific keywords or topics you are targeting.

The keywords targeted have too much "page one authority" to compete with (a "change" to an article can also include obtaining LEGITIMATE backlinks to that article which makes the article more of an "authority" and therefore MAY push it higher in the rankings)

OR

There are other things on page one that could impact traffic.

A prime example of this is the large carousels you see at the top of Google for certain keywords.

So, a video carousel with 4-5 videos takes up the entire top of the front page - This is Google actually telling you, "I prefer video content for this keyword".

A shopping carousel at the top of the page, typically with Amaaon shopping images, Google shopping images, etc. again it takes up the entire top of page one

An image carousel, perhaps 10 images across to the top of the front page take up the entire area.

Basic human psychology - People are lazy so they don't want to have to scroll if possible AND people see pretty pictures at the top of the page they will click on those pretty pictures - and there is NO keyword tool or AI tool that can tell you the above, which is why I have always said "check page one of Google with your own eyes before deciding whether a keyword is worth targeting"

What you can do, as Diane has mentioned, is to go back over any articles that are over one year old, and see if there is potential to "improve" these.

Firstly, you should go through Google Search Console INIDIVUALLY for each article, and see what "keywords" are getting lots of impressions, but few clicks.

I wrote this a couple of years ago, so it could probably do with an update, but you can see how to "rewrite articles using Google Search Console" I know you prefer "official" training Matt, so if you don't want to read my article, both Jay and Vitaliy have done webinars this year about using GSC to update articles.

Finally, I'm a huge propenent of actually researching your niche, and again I have many guides and blogs on how to do this.

Simply using a keyword tool to find "great keywords" (when they're unfortunately usually not) is not "niche research", it's guessing.

So, you should always immerse yourself in niche communities and spend a few days "hanging out" just to see what people are disussing or what they want to know,

Find out what people want first THEN do your keyword research around the information that you have discovered.

You can type your niche name or something relevant to your niche in the search bar at Quora or Reddit.

You can also see if there are Facebook Groups related to your niche.

You can also google search for forums

your niche name + forums

Always find out what the people want to know (don't guess)... then give it to them.

Partha

Thanks Partha that's very useful, cheers mate

Hi - sorry, but it rarely works like that.

However, as you probably know, it can take a few months for a post to reach its final ranking position.

So, perhaps you have some newer posts that haven't yet achieved their potential and could bring extra traffic.


I do have to say, though, that 200 visitors per week at this stage is not "fine for it's age."

To be honest, you should be getting a minimum of 200 per DAY with that amount of content, and the fact that it's 18 months old.


So, it may be time to revisit some of your old content.

Anything that is over a year old, and is not ranking highly or producing traffic may need to be rewritten or even deleted.

If Google hasn't ranked a post after a full year, then it is unlikely to do so.

I presume the problem is your keyword research.

Either nobody is searching for the keywords, or the competition is too high from well-established authority sites.

And, of course, your writing and research skills will have improved over time.

You might be surprised at what you thought was good a year ago, you now realise that actually it could be improved.







Thanks Diane

We are always at the whim of Google, Matt! Keep writing and doing what you do!

Jeff

Hi Matt.
The only advice I can give to you as your site is maybe a little out of date and needs refreshing up a bit. Try renewing your content and deleting the ones that may not do you any favors Look at the keywords that might help too.

When I build a site. I build out in campaigns. If it doesn't hit my mark with the minimum viable content I publish to the site, I either change what I am doing i.e. start a different campaign on the site or move onto a different niche. I don't want to get stuck publishing into a topic that isn't providing enough velocity. It sounds like your site isn't doing bad. But it could use some troubleshooting if you think it is stuck.

See more comments

Is google a waiting game?

Is google a waiting game?

asked in
Getting Started

Hey all. I wondered if any of you had any stories about you feeling like your site isn't doing as well as it should even though you've done all you can. And then suddenly, boom

Hey Matt,

I'm not going to say it doesn't happen, but as Diane says, it rarely works this way.

Here's another way to look at it.

Let's work on the "old 80/20" rule for just about everything in life, LOL.

Let's say that 20% of your articles (37) are bringing in the bulk of the traffic.

Let's say that all other 148 articles are ranking on page 2 of Google.

Seems great, but as we know, page 2 of Google doesn't really produce any traffic at all.

What is the incentive for Google to suddenly take 148 articles from page 2 to page one?

This won't just "suddenly happen" for no reason (The only reason it may "just happen" is if your site becomes more of an authority in your niche, i.e. either lots of relevant backlinks or lots more relevant content added to the site).

The only way this can potentially happen is if you update and improve the articles, your site suddenly becomes much, much, much larger, i.e. a few hundred additional articles, which in turn makes you more of an "authority" in your niche, or all the articles ranking above you get deleted.

Basically, you won't suddenly get a spike in traffic from doing nothing.

Okay, you may find that if you target a really competitive keyword it takes 2-3 years to rank on page one, but things would've happened in the mean time (a few hundred more articles on your site, a few hundred great backlinks poitning to that article), but as I say, you won't suddenly get a spike in traffic from Google when nothing additional has happened.

I've often spoken about the "Hockey Stick Effect" of traffic, but this typically happens in the first year of a website, nost notably from months 6-12.

You can often expect your traffic to increase by 50-100% EACH month for these 6 months.

This is generally the largest "explosion" in traffic (percentage wise) that a website will go through.

One of the main reasons that traffic increases month on month is simply because your EXISTING articles get picked up for more and more keywords as they age.

BUT, this will only happen if you are actually ranking for your primary or secondary keywords initially.

So, as an example, I write an article around

How to Grow Tomatoes in September

And I rank immediately for that keyword

Then next month I also rank for

Can You Grow Tomatoes in September?
Growing Tomatoes in September
Growing Tomatoes in Fall

Then the next month

I rank for another 10 different but RELEVANT keywords.

This is a very basic example, but this is kinda how traffic increases over time to your already published articles.

BUT

If you're not ranking well initially then this is unlikely to happen.

The main reasons for poor traffic at a more mature stage of a website (or ANY stage for that matter) is simply

POOR KEYWORD RESEARCH

Either no-one is interested in the specific keywords or topics you are targeting.

The keywords targeted have too much "page one authority" to compete with (a "change" to an article can also include obtaining LEGITIMATE backlinks to that article which makes the article more of an "authority" and therefore MAY push it higher in the rankings)

OR

There are other things on page one that could impact traffic.

A prime example of this is the large carousels you see at the top of Google for certain keywords.

So, a video carousel with 4-5 videos takes up the entire top of the front page - This is Google actually telling you, "I prefer video content for this keyword".

A shopping carousel at the top of the page, typically with Amaaon shopping images, Google shopping images, etc. again it takes up the entire top of page one

An image carousel, perhaps 10 images across to the top of the front page take up the entire area.

Basic human psychology - People are lazy so they don't want to have to scroll if possible AND people see pretty pictures at the top of the page they will click on those pretty pictures - and there is NO keyword tool or AI tool that can tell you the above, which is why I have always said "check page one of Google with your own eyes before deciding whether a keyword is worth targeting"

What you can do, as Diane has mentioned, is to go back over any articles that are over one year old, and see if there is potential to "improve" these.

Firstly, you should go through Google Search Console INIDIVUALLY for each article, and see what "keywords" are getting lots of impressions, but few clicks.

I wrote this a couple of years ago, so it could probably do with an update, but you can see how to "rewrite articles using Google Search Console" I know you prefer "official" training Matt, so if you don't want to read my article, both Jay and Vitaliy have done webinars this year about using GSC to update articles.

Finally, I'm a huge propenent of actually researching your niche, and again I have many guides and blogs on how to do this.

Simply using a keyword tool to find "great keywords" (when they're unfortunately usually not) is not "niche research", it's guessing.

So, you should always immerse yourself in niche communities and spend a few days "hanging out" just to see what people are disussing or what they want to know,

Find out what people want first THEN do your keyword research around the information that you have discovered.

You can type your niche name or something relevant to your niche in the search bar at Quora or Reddit.

You can also see if there are Facebook Groups related to your niche.

You can also google search for forums

your niche name + forums

Always find out what the people want to know (don't guess)... then give it to them.

Partha

Thanks Partha that's very useful, cheers mate

Hi - sorry, but it rarely works like that.

However, as you probably know, it can take a few months for a post to reach its final ranking position.

So, perhaps you have some newer posts that haven't yet achieved their potential and could bring extra traffic.


I do have to say, though, that 200 visitors per week at this stage is not "fine for it's age."

To be honest, you should be getting a minimum of 200 per DAY with that amount of content, and the fact that it's 18 months old.


So, it may be time to revisit some of your old content.

Anything that is over a year old, and is not ranking highly or producing traffic may need to be rewritten or even deleted.

If Google hasn't ranked a post after a full year, then it is unlikely to do so.

I presume the problem is your keyword research.

Either nobody is searching for the keywords, or the competition is too high from well-established authority sites.

And, of course, your writing and research skills will have improved over time.

You might be surprised at what you thought was good a year ago, you now realise that actually it could be improved.







Thanks Diane

We are always at the whim of Google, Matt! Keep writing and doing what you do!

Jeff

Hi Matt.
The only advice I can give to you as your site is maybe a little out of date and needs refreshing up a bit. Try renewing your content and deleting the ones that may not do you any favors Look at the keywords that might help too.

When I build a site. I build out in campaigns. If it doesn't hit my mark with the minimum viable content I publish to the site, I either change what I am doing i.e. start a different campaign on the site or move onto a different niche. I don't want to get stuck publishing into a topic that isn't providing enough velocity. It sounds like your site isn't doing bad. But it could use some troubleshooting if you think it is stuck.

See more comments

asked in
Getting Started

Hi all. I live in the UK

I'm wondering whether the Privacy policy is enough for an affiliate marketing site?

On some of my posts I have affiliate links and I expl

Hey Matthew,

If you are concerned about legal rights beyond the cookie and privacy policy, you are advised to seek the advice of a lawyer in your country so that you can receive the quality advice you are looking for.

Hope you find this helpful.

Yeh I've started doing that now thank you

I have a legal disclaimer on one of my sidebar. It says some brief like "This site refers visitors to vendors, as a means for this site to earn revenue." But I also have a privacy policy, which goes into a lot more detail how cookies are used. Anytime you are using a tracking code, whether it is for affiliate marketing, or Google Analytics, your privacy policy should explain those things. Other than that, you might need other legal pages depending on the type of content on your site. I have a brief medical disclaimer in the footer of my site, bit also have a formally written medical disclaimer in the top menu of my site.

Sounds like the legal stuff is covered for me by saying at the top of affiliate posts "This post contains affiliate links, so that if you click I may get commission". So that's fine it seems.

The Privacy policy is the standard one used on WA. It says a bit about cookies, certainly not explaining much in any detail nor how they relate to affiliate links. Perhaps I'll try to spell this out more clearly.

I try to deal with ppl as I want to be treated so just thinking about how I do this right.

It's a very grey area in the UK it seems

See more comments

Is the privacy policy enough in the uk?

Is the privacy policy enough in the uk?

asked in
Getting Started

Hi all. I live in the UK

I'm wondering whether the Privacy policy is enough for an affiliate marketing site?

On some of my posts I have affiliate links and I expl

Hey Matthew,

If you are concerned about legal rights beyond the cookie and privacy policy, you are advised to seek the advice of a lawyer in your country so that you can receive the quality advice you are looking for.

Hope you find this helpful.

Yeh I've started doing that now thank you

I have a legal disclaimer on one of my sidebar. It says some brief like "This site refers visitors to vendors, as a means for this site to earn revenue." But I also have a privacy policy, which goes into a lot more detail how cookies are used. Anytime you are using a tracking code, whether it is for affiliate marketing, or Google Analytics, your privacy policy should explain those things. Other than that, you might need other legal pages depending on the type of content on your site. I have a brief medical disclaimer in the footer of my site, bit also have a formally written medical disclaimer in the top menu of my site.

Sounds like the legal stuff is covered for me by saying at the top of affiliate posts "This post contains affiliate links, so that if you click I may get commission". So that's fine it seems.

The Privacy policy is the standard one used on WA. It says a bit about cookies, certainly not explaining much in any detail nor how they relate to affiliate links. Perhaps I'll try to spell this out more clearly.

I try to deal with ppl as I want to be treated so just thinking about how I do this right.

It's a very grey area in the UK it seems

See more comments

Login
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4-Steps to Success Class
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