Newbie Question(s) so dumb, you're afraid to even ask!

I don't use Instagram much but wondering how I can use Instagram to:
1. Promote (read get more traffic) my Wedding, Baby gear and Kitchen related niche sites
3. Can you promote Amazon affiliate links in Instagram, within Amazon TOS?
TIA
 
I've gone through it a little to try and get a handle on what it is and it's HUGE, but I noticed it's mainly from 2015-6.

Is any of it way out of date, and is there a better place to start on this forum eg the SEO Avalanche Technique thread I just found?

The DSCC was SO big - and being from 5 years ago- that I almost dismissed it. But then I was skimming one of @Ryuzaki 's posts in it and realized that I'd read the same post on Facebook in the last month or so. It had impressed me so much that I started following on FB and had cut & pasted the post and it was just a tiny bit of what was being shared here.
 
I always wonder about this particular question, cause it gets asked a lot. Like do you want us to do what SEOs do and change the dates to 2021?

Market Research hasn't changed.

Mental strength hasn't changed.

Paid media hasn't changed.

Traffic leaking hasn't changed.

Keyword researching hasn't changed.

Social media hasn't changed.

On-Page SEO hasn't changed.

Off-Page SEO hasn't changed.

Outsourcing and Automation hasn't changed.

Customer service hasn't changed.

Sure there are new platforms like TikTok to take advantage with social media and traffic leaking, but the attack method is exactly the same. The basics of starting a business, doing proper research, understanding the mental stress, testing out all potential avenues of traffic sources, they are all the same.

You will save THOUSANDS of hours of your time and money by simple reading Market Research and creating customer profiles, the basics of who you are targeting with your business, where they are located, and how you approach them. You can then create write-ups for writers, editors, and have basic ground level understanding for your employees so they can visualize the consumer. Just that one day alone can stop you from making a fatal error in going down the wrong niche, industry, or business.

And then there is the Monetization day - how you make the money! NONE of that has changed.

There are 6 expansion packs written in June of just last year.

But I think what you are looking for are "Tips", right? A shortcut? Anything that's not the basics is a tactic that will get exploited faster and dry up faster, especially if guru bloggers have gotten their hands on it.


You guys need to know the basics to dominate, but if you aren't looking to dominate I'm pretty sure Tai Lopez has another tip around the corner: "read 3 books a day this time for..."
 
@RD02, I'm glad you've enjoyed what you've read of it, but I have to tell you. There's been about 3 people ask this question in the past, and all 3 (including you) immediately admit to having not read it.

It's almost as if you're looking for a reason not to read it because, as you've said: "it's HUGE". It's your success on the line and zero skin off of our back if you want to take the time to study or not.

But to answer your question, no, it's not out of date. Nothing in there hinges on exploiting temporary methods or using software that's no longer available, etc. As we always say, the Crash Course isn't there to tell you WHAT to think, only to show you HOW to think.

It's a timeless set of marketing principals. Copywriting is not out of date. Understanding what a marketing funnel is will never go out of date. Doing Market Research, etc... This is like asking if a history text book ever goes out of date.

It's still getting expansions, it's still getting responses, the authors are watching what they wrote to see if anything might go out of date (it won't) and are adding posts occasionally to expand upon the opening posts. We're actively engaged with it, no matter when it was originally published.

@CCarter just beat me by about 30 seconds with the same sentiments. We could change the publish dates to yesterday and call it the 2nd Revised Edition if that'll set newcomers at ease, but why? If you don't want to read it, you don't want to read it.
 
Anyone have any experience with billboard advertising? I keep seeing this same billboard near me and it advertises something we are all familiar with. It's just a simple review site but it just got me thinking for another source of traffic and billboard advertising has always intrigued me.
 
ItsYoBuddy said:
Anyone have any experience with billboard advertising? I keep seeing this same billboard near me and it advertises something we are all familiar with. It's just a simple review site but it just got me thinking for another source of traffic and billboard advertising has always intrigued me.
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It'd be fun. I'm thinking about how you'd track the traffic, like sending them to a lander just for that billboard or through a 301 domain. I only see lawyers and stuff like "basement ninjas" and services with high margins on billboards here. Another one that excites me is TV ads for websites.
 
Which scenario would you prefer to go with for a site?

An aged brand domain that's been online and around since 2012 with a brandable name but no real strong direct KW, that hasn't done much and only gets about 30 clicks a month (all branded) with 3,000 impressions (very little content). No real DR either, but age and branded search.

OR

An EMD that has about 300 exact match searches a month with no history at all.

What approach would you take if given the choice?
 
I would never waste my time on an EMD unless it was with the explicit purpose of trying to gain a quick win by selling it to a noob above market price.
 
Thanks @Ryuzaki & @CCarter

I've finished consuming all of the DSCC, the Additional suggested reading etc. 27 Pages of notes, and then takeaways from each subsection, and takeaways from the takeaways

I guess the hesitation I had before I dove in about if it was out of date was like some of the posts in the DSCC calling out people (in 2015) for using "2012 wordpress sites" and saying that "thinking 2007 strategies are just not going to cut it".

Maybe it's not worth the time, but I wonder if you add a "Read Me" or Day 0 post explaining exactly that it won't go out of date, that updates have been made about things that might have changed because of google updates, or tech changes etc?

Big take away for me that SEO isn't the best play for me initially, it might have a place with specific intent keywords down the line, but that social is what I need to focus on after getting a branded website up and running.
 
I'm new to blogging so I apologize if this is extremely stupid lol. Can I use a table on two different blog posts with the same data? Would that cause some kind of plagiarism or something?
 
hiruma said:
I'm new to blogging so I apologize if this is extremely stupid lol. Can I use a table on two different blog posts with the same data? Would that cause some kind of plagiarism or something?
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Yes, you can. You can't plagiarize yourself. Think about it like this. Every one of your posts has the same header, sidebar, and footer. That's not a problem nor is having the same table of data.

What you'll find, especially with the new "passage indexing" is that Google will only assign one (and probably the first post to be indexed with the table) credit for the table. Meaning if you search for some of the text in the table, it'll choose one post to surface in the search results instead of both, of course unless you specifically ask for all instances of the table on your domain, which nobody else but you will do.
 
hiruma said:
I'm new to blogging so I apologize if this is extremely stupid lol. Can I use a table on two different blog posts with the same data? Would that cause some kind of plagiarism or something?
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Duplicate content isn't a problem, whether it's on your own site or on someone else's site. Google can't stop someone from copying or syndicating your content. They try to figure out the original (or best) copy and make it the canonical version. That helps but people learned how to "hack" canonicals and steal the credit for being the best or original too. I don't think that works much any more either, so Google pretty much has this duplicate content issue figured out. You won't get punished for it. I've seen sites where every single post is a copy with a link back to the original and they still get traffic. Not much. But the point is, it doesn't hurt you or the copycat / syndicator these days.
 
Thanks for the answers!

Another question. When interlinking, is it okay to link to the same page multiple times? In my case, I have a related articles section at the bottom of my article. Is it okay to have an in-text internal link to the same articles in the related articles section?
 
@hiruma, yes it’s fine. The only thing to know is that they’ll only count the anchor text if the first link. Otherwise there’s no harm and you can send more juice that way.
 
I have a question concerning link exchange. On my website I have an event calendar, where I promote interesting events in my niche.

In return, I get some nice free do-follow backlinks. I no-follow the links in the calendar, since most hosts only care about the promotion.

Is this practice still a regular link exchange? Should I deindex the event calendar, which would be bad, since it offers value?

I'm still building up my domain authority (I'm at 5 now) so I can't be too picky with the links, and I'm happy for every nice link :cool:
 
Lowrider said:
Is this practice still a regular link exchange? Should I deindex the event calendar, which would be bad, since it offers value?
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You're overthinking this. You're getting links to a valuable page and you want to deindex it because you're worried about some random SEO edge case? You're already nofollowing the links back to them, which makes it not a link exchange. Even if you didn't nofollow them, who cares. It's real links from real businesses due to real marketing. If Google doesn't understand and like that, they've failed completely.
 
Do you guys think using a pr newswire service is useful these days. I was thinking for a new website/business, it might help create a web presence/validation and some initial links from valid domains. or are these a waste of money these days?
 
This seems silly to ask but does Google see a photo of a table as a photo or a table? Or both?

I’m wondering if a table created within a Wordpress post has equal or more strength than a photo of the same table.

If I want to insert a table, I normally create it in Wordpress and take a snippet of it and then upload that to the post. I was finding that tables I created directly in Wordpress (no photo) would cause the contents of the table to display improperly on mobile.

Hope all that makes sense.
 
Titan243 said:
This seems silly to ask but does Google see a photo of a table as a photo or a table? Or both?
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Without a doubt, a photo is a photo. It is a file with no HTML markup. A table has (or is) HTML markup in a language that can be retrieved and understood and re-shown in featured snippets. An image is still just an image. I'd rather have it in table format, but I agree that <table>'s are hard to make responsive. You can set a min-width and cause a horizontal scroll bar to appear without having to get into the voodoo of responsive tables.
 
I have a site that's 100% information/entertainment , but many (probably most) of the articles have clear opportunities to link out to Amazon (a mention of a book, for example).

So, my questions is . . .

How often can an infotainment site link out to Amazon before it starts becoming a negative in the eyes of Google?

Am I overthinking this, or is this a real concern?
 
Jared said:
I have a site that's 100% information/entertainment , but many (probably most) of the articles have clear opportunities to link out to Amazon (a mention of a book, for example).

So, my questions is . . .

How often can an infotainment site link out to Amazon before it starts becoming a negative in the eyes of Google?

Am I overthinking this, or is this a real concern?
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Definitely overthinking this. It's good practice to nofollow those Amazon affiliate links, but as far as Google penalizing you over this... not going to happen. That being said don't expect to make much in the form of Amazon Associate commissions as the buying intent on informational content is low.
 
Jared said:
I have a site that's 100% information/entertainment , but many (probably most) of the articles have clear opportunities to link out to Amazon (a mention of a book, for example).

So, my questions is . . .

How often can an infotainment site link out to Amazon before it starts becoming a negative in the eyes of Google?

Am I overthinking this, or is this a real concern?
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Just label it as an Ad and remember the nofollow.

I mean, literally put in a box that says AD with large font.

Dailymail.co.uk does this thing with celebrities where they have a "Steal this look" box, where they find clothes that celebs are wearing on Amazon and the like. I couldn't find an example with a quick google though, but go take a look.
 
When should a link be “follow” and when should it be “no follow”? Assuming the link is on your website.
 
Titan243 said:
When should a link be “follow” and when should it be “no follow”? Assuming the link is on your website.
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Follow​

A link should be follow if it is editorially chosen and endorsed by the author of the article.

Other scenarios outside of the article include all of your internal links on your header, footer, sidebar, etc. Sometimes these will be external links and can be follow.

Nofollow​

A link should be nofollow if you don't endorse it but it's being used to make a reader aware (like showing them a "bad" website and you don't want to give it credit).

They should also be nofollow if they're incentivized, meaning monetized links like affiliate links, display ads, and, sponsored links.

Guest post links are supposed to be nofollow too and can get you in trouble if you make it clear it's a guest post. So the obvious move is to not say it's a guest post. Sites do get outbound link penalties for this.

Other scenarios for nofollow include user-generated links like on forums and in blog comments and user profiles.
 
Why don't more people promote their own products with an affiliate link on amazon?
Is it allowed? Anyone talk about this somewhere I missed? Always kinda amazed we don't see much of it. I feel like I'm missing something.
 
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