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4
Questions
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Is it OK to put affiliate ads in sidebars and footers? Does google count that as having an ad on every page/post or is it OK because they're in widgets? Thanks :)
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Affiliate ads in sidebars and footers?
Is it OK to put affiliate ads in sidebars and footers? Does google count that as having an ad on every page/post or is it OK because they're in widgets? Thanks :)
No. Google does not consider the sidebar and footer because they are 'FREE' space on your website.
Google is only concerned with the amount of affiliate links within your content. However you should always keep the amount of affiliate ads to a tasteful maximum.
Ah OK, I thought that was the case but wanted to make sure. I definitely won't be putting lots. I had one in the sidebar but removed it earlier after the previous comment. Maybe I'll put it back again now! Thanks for replying :)
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Hi everyone, I added my first affiliate links to my site yesterday. Yay! Kyle's training video didn't mention anything about adding an affiliate disclosure to posts that cont
Thanks. That was quite an exciting moment in the journey. Not as exciting as it will be if they ever send any money my way! Lol. I was a bit disappointed, when I ticked the box to say I'd added three affiliate links, that some fireworks or party poppers didn't appear on the screen! :)
Hi, Nikki. It is covered in the Bootcamp training. The Bootcamp training is all about affiliate marketing. That is why it is covered there. You will find a template for that in SiteContent.
Hennie
Ah, OK, thanks. I'm just going through the general training at the moment. I've added disclaimers to my posts that contain affiliate links anyway, but just felt like it should have been mentioned in the course section when you add your first links.
Thanks. I've read up on it and it and realise it's a legal requirement to make it clear to readers that you have affiliate links. I just read the post you shared and it suggests putting a disclosure in your side bar, but I've read other people say this isn't good because it won't show up on mobiles. What I'm really wondering is why this wasn't mentioned in the training video showing people how to add affiliate links. Maybe it's covered later on and I haven't got to it yet in the training. It seems like this is a pretty important thing not to tell people at the stage where we first start adding affiliate links.
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Do we need to include an affiliate disclosure?
Hi everyone, I added my first affiliate links to my site yesterday. Yay! Kyle's training video didn't mention anything about adding an affiliate disclosure to posts that cont
Thanks. That was quite an exciting moment in the journey. Not as exciting as it will be if they ever send any money my way! Lol. I was a bit disappointed, when I ticked the box to say I'd added three affiliate links, that some fireworks or party poppers didn't appear on the screen! :)
Hi, Nikki. It is covered in the Bootcamp training. The Bootcamp training is all about affiliate marketing. That is why it is covered there. You will find a template for that in SiteContent.
Hennie
Ah, OK, thanks. I'm just going through the general training at the moment. I've added disclaimers to my posts that contain affiliate links anyway, but just felt like it should have been mentioned in the course section when you add your first links.
Thanks. I've read up on it and it and realise it's a legal requirement to make it clear to readers that you have affiliate links. I just read the post you shared and it suggests putting a disclosure in your side bar, but I've read other people say this isn't good because it won't show up on mobiles. What I'm really wondering is why this wasn't mentioned in the training video showing people how to add affiliate links. Maybe it's covered later on and I haven't got to it yet in the training. It seems like this is a pretty important thing not to tell people at the stage where we first start adding affiliate links.
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Hi, I want to write a few shorter blog posts (under 1,000 words) because I think people are more likely to read them and so I'll get my message across more effectively. My blo
It is perfectly fine to shorten your blog post to less than 1000 words per post, as long as;
1. You are publishing more than once a week
2. Using the right keyword phrases to select the "low-hanging fruit"
3. Getting engagement from your readers (likes, shares, comments, etc)
Good question, I hope this helps.
Ken
Looks like you've received tons of feedback, but I'll put my two sense in.
As long as your doing keyword research and targeting the correct keywords shorter blog posts are fine.
I won't publish anything on my site that's under 600 words and usually try to stay over 800. In your case I would not go below 600 words if possible.
Hi Nikki, my niche is more visible and I usually have 400-600 words and a couple are 700...1 was around 900.
I keep in mind that people don't want to read an eBook they will get tired and leave, or take one look and not bother.
Also, most are doing searches and online shopping on cell phones, and Google has already made announcements months ago about favoring cell phones over computers.
The only articles I can see that need at times up to 3000 words are in the health field, or something else where people know there is a lot of information that needs to be read.
Cover all that you can about the article, have pictures and best of all a video.
It's not being lazy writing short articles at all. I know I'm not lazy that's for sure :)
Make sure your content is helpful, quality is there with a couple of keywords and it's all good.
You are welcome.
For the videos, I didn't think of them for my niche but now have several! Google loves them, it keeps the visitors on your website longer and shows interest. Mine are DIY and other shorter ones.
If you see that you can add videos, let me know and I will send you 2 blog posts I wrote on them. How to set them to auto restart is one.
I've got some videos in my posts already but it would be great to read your posts. Thanks.
At first I didn't know about restarting the videos, and only had 2 at the time so I had to adjust them.
It's hard to believe this one was posted back in July 2017. Setting A Video To Auto Restart On Your Post YouTube changed it up a bit since, but it's easy to find.
The other post is just about how important videos are to have on our websites.
The length of articles is actually niche dependent. Look at your competition and see what the average word count across the top 3-5... This will give you an idea of what the market and google is looking for..
The one rule fits all is a flawed approach :)
A related post here you may want to read: 3000 words are the new standard That's for today. Who know's, sooner or later, it will up to 5,000 or 10,000 words?
We know Google's thirst for thick content. It's never-ending.
That's a great post. Thanks for sharing. So, there's no being lazy and only writing short articles then!
In my opinion the length of a post should be like a mini-skirt. Short enough to be interesting and long enough to cover the important bits.
That's beautiful thinking Marion. I hope you are right, and the 3000 word requirement is wrong, as I prefer to write concise, pointed posts that are extended with really strong comments.
If the idea that rank is tied to long visitor dwell time is accurate, the concise and engaging approach is unlikely to rank - unless it has long videos or ways to get visitors reading comments or linking internally...
Google makes my life difficult at times...
Short videos (under 5 minutes) and internal linking can keep your visitors onsite longer.
If you include a short video in your post, and host it on YouTube or Vimeo does the user viewing it still count as dwell time on the post, or are they considered to be off at YouTube or Vimeo?
If the video is embedded on the post/page then they are still on your website. It's important to not show the related videos at the end because that can be where you lose your audience. Embed YouTube Video in WordPress
Thanks tons for that Marion! This is exactly what I need, and what many of us do.
So glad you are here and willing to help...
Hope I can repay a bit of it someday.
Keyword and competition is the main things you need to worry about. If your content is better than someone else's, SEO should kick in, but if it is not, just having it on your website builds authority. You can use other pages/posts to promote your shorter posts and/or PPC the more you learn about it.
Not every post needs to be SEO, but free traffic from SEO is never bad! :)
Awesome,
Kenny
Great, thanks that's good to know, and a lot easier to write shorter posts! I'm using my pages as well to promote some posts and get the message across. Thanks for replying :)
Absolutely! It's less about length and more about quality. I remember someone came across a site and one of the posts got ranked with just an image....no 1,000 + word blog, just an image!
Do you mean it's OK to write some shorter articles, that it won't have a negative impact on SEO?
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Will writing some short articles affect seo?
Hi, I want to write a few shorter blog posts (under 1,000 words) because I think people are more likely to read them and so I'll get my message across more effectively. My blo
It is perfectly fine to shorten your blog post to less than 1000 words per post, as long as;
1. You are publishing more than once a week
2. Using the right keyword phrases to select the "low-hanging fruit"
3. Getting engagement from your readers (likes, shares, comments, etc)
Good question, I hope this helps.
Ken
Looks like you've received tons of feedback, but I'll put my two sense in.
As long as your doing keyword research and targeting the correct keywords shorter blog posts are fine.
I won't publish anything on my site that's under 600 words and usually try to stay over 800. In your case I would not go below 600 words if possible.
Hi Nikki, my niche is more visible and I usually have 400-600 words and a couple are 700...1 was around 900.
I keep in mind that people don't want to read an eBook they will get tired and leave, or take one look and not bother.
Also, most are doing searches and online shopping on cell phones, and Google has already made announcements months ago about favoring cell phones over computers.
The only articles I can see that need at times up to 3000 words are in the health field, or something else where people know there is a lot of information that needs to be read.
Cover all that you can about the article, have pictures and best of all a video.
It's not being lazy writing short articles at all. I know I'm not lazy that's for sure :)
Make sure your content is helpful, quality is there with a couple of keywords and it's all good.
You are welcome.
For the videos, I didn't think of them for my niche but now have several! Google loves them, it keeps the visitors on your website longer and shows interest. Mine are DIY and other shorter ones.
If you see that you can add videos, let me know and I will send you 2 blog posts I wrote on them. How to set them to auto restart is one.
I've got some videos in my posts already but it would be great to read your posts. Thanks.
At first I didn't know about restarting the videos, and only had 2 at the time so I had to adjust them.
It's hard to believe this one was posted back in July 2017. Setting A Video To Auto Restart On Your Post YouTube changed it up a bit since, but it's easy to find.
The other post is just about how important videos are to have on our websites.
The length of articles is actually niche dependent. Look at your competition and see what the average word count across the top 3-5... This will give you an idea of what the market and google is looking for..
The one rule fits all is a flawed approach :)
A related post here you may want to read: 3000 words are the new standard That's for today. Who know's, sooner or later, it will up to 5,000 or 10,000 words?
We know Google's thirst for thick content. It's never-ending.
That's a great post. Thanks for sharing. So, there's no being lazy and only writing short articles then!
In my opinion the length of a post should be like a mini-skirt. Short enough to be interesting and long enough to cover the important bits.
That's beautiful thinking Marion. I hope you are right, and the 3000 word requirement is wrong, as I prefer to write concise, pointed posts that are extended with really strong comments.
If the idea that rank is tied to long visitor dwell time is accurate, the concise and engaging approach is unlikely to rank - unless it has long videos or ways to get visitors reading comments or linking internally...
Google makes my life difficult at times...
Short videos (under 5 minutes) and internal linking can keep your visitors onsite longer.
If you include a short video in your post, and host it on YouTube or Vimeo does the user viewing it still count as dwell time on the post, or are they considered to be off at YouTube or Vimeo?
If the video is embedded on the post/page then they are still on your website. It's important to not show the related videos at the end because that can be where you lose your audience. Embed YouTube Video in WordPress
Thanks tons for that Marion! This is exactly what I need, and what many of us do.
So glad you are here and willing to help...
Hope I can repay a bit of it someday.
Keyword and competition is the main things you need to worry about. If your content is better than someone else's, SEO should kick in, but if it is not, just having it on your website builds authority. You can use other pages/posts to promote your shorter posts and/or PPC the more you learn about it.
Not every post needs to be SEO, but free traffic from SEO is never bad! :)
Awesome,
Kenny
Great, thanks that's good to know, and a lot easier to write shorter posts! I'm using my pages as well to promote some posts and get the message across. Thanks for replying :)
Absolutely! It's less about length and more about quality. I remember someone came across a site and one of the posts got ranked with just an image....no 1,000 + word blog, just an image!
Do you mean it's OK to write some shorter articles, that it won't have a negative impact on SEO?
See more comments
No. Google does not consider the sidebar and footer because they are 'FREE' space on your website.
Google is only concerned with the amount of affiliate links within your content. However you should always keep the amount of affiliate ads to a tasteful maximum.
Ah OK, I thought that was the case but wanted to make sure. I definitely won't be putting lots. I had one in the sidebar but removed it earlier after the previous comment. Maybe I'll put it back again now! Thanks for replying :)
You are welcome. I have 3 in my side bar, used to have 4.