Search Engine Journal Show - Whats REALLY Working In SEO with Craig Campbell - EP 285

Whats REALLY Working In SEO with Craig Campbell - EP 285

09/09/22 • 65 min

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It is possible that what works in SEO now is not what you think. Contrary to popular belief, it's not all about keywords and keyword research - though they certainly help!

Today, almost everything works differently, and we're here to find out why.

Craig Campbell, Glasgow's top SEO expert, joined me in this episode of the SEJ Show for a candid discussion about what's REALLY working in SEO at the moment, including a discussion around dropped domains, domain leasing, PBNs, link building, YouTube, TikTok and other media outlets that Google loves!

There are a lot of domain names that are not personally branded, and you could turn them into an excellent money website in some way. Whether it be affiliate or ecommerce, it really doesn't matter. A website's a website. –Craig Campbell, 29:24

I don't even see people going to the Wayback machine recreating all your videos. Many people just slap up any old URL and brand new URLs and stuff like that. What they don't do is do the basics properly. You need to reignite that. It's run out of gas, essentially, the website. You need to reignite it –Craig Campbell, 31:23

If you ever feel like you have imposter syndrome and don't know anything about SEO, go to a room where no one knows anything about SEO. They'll all ask you questions because you will be validated immediately. –Loren Baker, 12:38

[00:00] - A little about Craig & his YouTube channel.

[04:28] - What is Craig’s core focus?

[05:55] - How many sites did Craig launch before finding two profitable ones?

[13:22] - How does it feel to be the only SEO in the room?

[17:03] - What are expired domains?

[30:59] - What NOT to do when buying dropped domains.

[37:18] - The best way to approach expired domains.

[50:39] - Is Craig noticing anything in the middle of this content update?

[55:38] - How important are Domain Authority ratings and other metrics in inbound links?

[58:04] - Does Craig ever look at Majestic?

Resources mentioned:

Craig Campbell SEO - https://www.craigcampbellseo.com/

Odys Global - Premium Aged Domains & Websites for Sale - https://odys.global/

Typically, what I would do with any website that I bought is I would repurpose it. I might not keep the exact template and look of pictures, but what I would be doing is recreating, going through any URLs that had links pointing to them, I would be recreating those URLs. I would put the content back up from the Wayback machine and keep the website as close to what it was initially just to start to rank again for some of the terms it did have. Then link equity starts to kick back in. –Craig Campbell, 22:00

I'm not just looking at the domain name. I'm looking at the number of outbound links. I'm looking at the number of keywords that rank on that website. I'm looking at the referring domains. I'm looking at a bunch of other quality checks, and I think that part is what these guys are missing. –Craig Campbell, 32:38

Take the time to invest in an idea. It can be local, global, a $500 product, or even a $20 product, and just do it right and get it out there. Who knows, you might get addicted, and you might, if you're like Mr. Craig Campbell here, be able to flip it for 50x. Its monthly income is fantastic. –Loren Baker, 1:01:19

For more content like this, subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/searchenginejournal

Are you looking to keep up with current and effective digital marketing today? Check out https://www.searchenginejournal.com for everything you need to know within the digital marketing space and improve your skills as an internet marketer.

Connect with Craig Campbell:

Craig Campbell is regarded as one of Glasgow's most experienced SEO practitioners. With his expertise spanning all aspects of SEO, he has built up an unmatched wealth of digital marketing knowledge.

He is also a businessman known as "Craig Campbell SEO." The pandemic led him to start a YouTube channel that is now home to more than 100,000 subscribers.

Subscribe to Craig on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CraigcampbellseoUk

Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/craigcampbell03

Connect with Loren ...

It is possible that what works in SEO now is not what you think. Contrary to popular belief, it's not all about keywords and keyword research - though they certainly help!

Today, almost everything works differently, and we're here to find out why.

[00:00] - A little about Craig & his YouTube channel.

[04:28] - What is Craig’s core focus?

[05:55] - How many sites did Craig launch before finding two profitable ones?

[13:22] - How does it feel to be the only SEO in the room?

[17:03] - What are expired domains?

[30:59] - What NOT to do when buying dropped domains.

[37:18] - The best way to approach expired domains.

[50:39] - Is Craig noticing anything in the middle of this content update?

[55:38] - How important are Domain Authority ratings and other metrics in inbound links?

[58:04] - Does Craig ever look at Majestic?

Resources mentioned:

Craig Campbell SEO - https://www.craigcampbellseo.com/

Odys Global - Premium Aged Domains & Websites for Sale - https://odys.global/

For more content like this, subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/searchenginejournal

Connect with Craig Campbell:

Craig Campbell is regarded as one of Glasgow's most experienced SEO practitioners. With his expertise spanning all aspects of SEO, he has built up an unmatched wealth of digital marketing knowledge.

He is also a businessman known as "Craig Campbell SEO." The pandemic led him to start a YouTube channel that is now home to more than 100,000 subscribers.

Subscribe to Craig on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CraigcampbellseoUk

Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/craigcampbell03

Connect with Loren ...

Previous Episode

SEO For Ecommerce & The Future Of Google Shopping with Ethan Griffin - EP284

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Sometimes SEO and other marketing integration can be overlooked when you're doing migrations or other developmental projects, especially on the ecommerce side.

Holistically, you can't do one without the other. So the search engine and conversion pieces are equally as important as the technology pieces.

Ethan Giffin, the founder and CEO of Baltimore-based Groove Commerce, joined me on the SEJ Show to discuss overall SEO for ecommerce & DTCs, Google Merchant Center / Shopping, the importance of CRO & Upsells for SEO (and other channels), and ways to prepare for the 2022 Holiday Shopping season.

Shopify Plus can be a good fit if you have a simple business. However, you need more customization if you have a more complex interaction with more business rules and logic. Big-commerce people generally float over to the big commerce side of things. –Ethan Giffin, 12:38

Programmatically create the best framework. The best framework is thinking about how the template is laid out. What is the hierarchy of the template, what are the components, and how do the sites link together from an internal linking standpoint? So I'm just a believer that many things we did back in the day still work. –Ethan Giffin, 16:11

Suppose you're new to a company and you hear a migration. In that case, hopefully, there are archives within the company that people used before you. There are lists of the redirects that were integrated and implemented into the site. Just cleaning that history up can be incredibly impactful. But again, it gets into human behavior and the ability to make things more efficient. –Loren Baker, 20:37

[00:00] - About Ethan.

[12:14] - Most commonly overlooked issues during migration.

[24:44] - An essential factor to consider in building an ecommerce site.

[31:48] - What to do when a product is no longer sold.

[35:18] - FAQ schema recommendation.

[37:23] - What is rendering on the ecommerce side?

[41:29] - Recommendation on optimizing from an ad script perspective.

[43:01] - Optimizing schema integrations on the catalog side.

[48:55] - Ecommerce companies Ethan has worked with.

Resources mentioned:

Groove Commerce: https://www.groovecommerce.com/

Every app that you install into your store has overhead. Every kind of front office sales-related app, reviews, upsells, cross-sell, site search, out-of-stock notifications – everything has a component to it that loads into the browser, and that creates a heavier page. –Ethan Giffin, 25:15

People don't think about margin enough. So how do you promote those products and get people to buy things with the best margin versus the most popular ones? So really, it's thinking about how to optimize the catalog. –Ethan Giffin, 47:32

If you have a business and you're moving to another building, you don't just bring the storefront with you. You got to bring everything you got to bring the offices, the desks, everything. So if you're migrating a site, you don't just redirect the front page and the top like collections or categories. You must take care of everything –the blog, subdomains, subfolder structures, etc. –Loren Baker, 22:56

For more content like this, subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/searchenginejournal

Connect with Ethan Giffin:

Ethan Giffin, GrooveCommerce's CEO, has been a leading ecommerce and web analytics expert for most of his career. Conversion rates, search engine visibility, and web analytics are all things he knows inside and out. However, he is passionate about helping businesses succeed online without having to become experts.

There are only a few people like Ethan. His love for SEO, conversion rates, and ecommerce go hand in hand with his passion for traveling and DJing in between - not to mention those pocket squares!

Connect with Ethan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethangiffin/

Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/opie

Connect with Loren Baker, Founder of Search Engine Journal:

Next Episode

Seamlessly Integrating SEO For Product Launches With Aja Frost & Justin Champion - EP286

There are many things to consider when launching a new product. But there are ways of getting everything ready and popping the cork in Google once you go live.

HubSpot's Aja Frost & Justin Champion joined me on the SEJShow to discuss the role of SEO in product launches, how its seamless integration helped HubSpot's launch of CMS Free, and how your company can incorporate these learnings into your next launch, expansion, or growth initiative.

I think the best way to understand what someone is looking for is to look at the SERP and then ask yourself what the format and meaning of the content ranking are and how you match that. –Aja Frost, [17:20]

It has free web hosts and free SSL, so when you're thinking about launching a website that the cool thing is that you can have a sales arm and a marketing arm that fits right into your CMS. –Justin Champion, [04:21]

I like taking a hybrid approach from time to time because the SERPs themselves are constantly changing. So putting all of your eggs in one search intent basket may work for a shorter period but can come back to bite you in the end. –Loren Baker, [17:35]

[00:00] - How Aja & Justin got started in SEO & HubSpot.

[02:46] - What is HubSpot's CMS Free?

[05:01] - Unique SEO plays that are incorporated into this rollout.

[07:54] - How easy is it to get stakeholders' buy-in?

[15:24] - How do you handle informational vs. transactional intent queries?

[19:15] - A walkthrough on pre-launch pages.

[26:09] - Were the launch pages made indexable and included in XML?

[27:07] - The Nike strategy.

[29:26] - Ways that improved the value of pages linking to them.

[32:20] - What else can SEO professionals do to improve relationships?

[38:27] - How to incentivize for user-generated content.

[45:56] - Thoughts on ads to a landing page & organic discovery.

[53:53] - Final tips on the linking & SEO side.

Resources mentioned:

CMS Hub Free Web Hosting: https://www.hubspot.com/products/cms/web-hosting

We find much more value in investing in relationships so that when something happens where a page comes out, we can tap into resources and build inbound links quickly. –Justin Champion, [22:37]

I would urge anyone listening to this who ranks both in ads and an organic listing for one query to map the relationship between spend and click-through rate. –Aja Frost, [46:46]

I have so many conversations with SEOs that have gotten into this practice within the past five or six years and are afraid almost to do anything that's link-building oriented, like "Break The Rules," like whose rules? I don't know! –Loren Baker, [36:22]

For more content like this, subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/searchenginejournal

Connect with Aja Frost & Justin Champion:

HubSpot's Director of English Growth, Aja Frost, channels her inner rock star to ensure the company reaches the right audiences with organic search strategies. Author of Work-From-Home-Hacks and former head of content SEO, she also shares her tips on working remotely successfully.

Justin Champion is an expert in the field of link building, with years of experience that can help you grow your business. As HubSpot's Head of Link Building, an instructor for higher education, and the author of Inbound Content, he knows what it takes to find the most effective strategies.

Connect with Aja on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajafrost/

Connect with Justin on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/championjr/

Follow Aja on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajavuu

Follow Justin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justinrchampion

Connect with Loren Baker, Founder of Search Engine Journal:

Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/lorenbaker

Connect with him ...