You’ve been waiting all week for this! We hope your week was productive and understand ” To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” ~ Kahlil Gibran Thank You for checking out the weekend update, your info-packed SEO newsletter to keep you informed and on the cutting edge of SEO. What Happened on the SEO Vault this Week Product Spotlight: Business Citations Featured Blog Post: The Top 5 Blog Posts SEO’s we’re Reading in the Last 30 Days SEO Mad Scientist: Too many tests running to count! Highlighted Posts from the Group To your success, Chaz and the Entire Team FROM THE VAULT Don’t forget The SEO Vault airs live on the Web 20 Ranker Facebook every Thursday at 4 pm EST. Sign up now to get notified about our special events like The SEO Vault, and The Weekend Wheel Deal: https://web20ranker.com/join-the-weekly-update/ 🔹One Million Sites Using Rel=Sponsored 🔹Bounce Rates Do Not Effect Rankings 🔹New Page Experience Scores Will Use AMP Versions 🔹GMB Pulling Social Information 🔹Google in Influencing Search with Query Modifiers 🔹 And Much More! Watch the Latest SEO Vault Episode here Missed last week’s episode? Catch up with all the previous Vault Episodes here The Top 5 Blog Posts SEO’s we’re Reading in the Last 30 Days Make sure you are staying up top date with the latest tactics and strategies. These are the 5 most trafficked posts on Web 20 Ranker in the last 30 days. Your competitors are probably reading these, looking for tricks to get their client’s top rankings and to grow their agencies throughout 2020. Stay one step ahead while gaining knowledge by reading the top 5 blog posts! https://web20ranker.com/agency-survival-guide-and-recession-proof-strategy/ https://web20ranker.com/local-seo-backlink-strategy/ https://web20ranker.com/google-my-business-ranking-guide/ https://web20ranker.com/backlink-training-and-case-study/ https://web20ranker.com/using-local-citation-services-to-rank-higher-in-maps/ We’re covering everything from backlinks to ranking GMB’s! Are you still recovering from COVID-19 or want to be more prepared if an economic disaster were to happen again? It’s in there! Looking for a well rounded GMB ranking guide that thoroughly covers the foundation of ranking a Google My Business listing in the 3 pack? Your competitors are reading that one too. Don’t think that citations still matter for your local SEO? Well…..THEY DO! When you apply some of the tactics listed in our post you will see your citation building effort begin to pay dividends once more. Make sure your ahead of the competition by always growing your knowledge base and learning the strategies and tricks we are using right now at Web 20 Ranker! Our Citations Help Establish Your Online Brand Our Essential Citations will Increase Brand Visibility and can Drive Real Traffic – Features Consistent NAP – Business Info – Authority Back Links We select the top online business directories to list your business with suitable for any website that wants to establish a strong digital brand be it a local, national or even e-commerce website. Each one of the directories can drive real traffic and click-throughs to your site making them essential citations for your brand ➡️➡️ https://web20ranker.com/essential-citations/ ⬅️⬅️ Consistent business citations help potential shoppers and clients find your business. Whether they are seeking to visit your store, call your office, or check out your website, having the correct information displayed across the top online business directories can cumulate into more customers and more sales! ✔️Choose from Country Specific Citations ✔️ Unique Content Option Available ✔️ Fully Hand Built w Complete Optimized Profiles ✔️ Safe Authority Links and Brand Mentions ✔️ Powerful Link Tiering Options We transform run-of-the-mill citations into hand-built business listings that are authority brand mentions that can help propel higher local maps rankings and increased online presence. SEO Mad Scientist It’s another week and we are back to the SEO Laboratory to go over some more tests. Recently we have been launching a massive series of micro tests alongside our bigger tests. In just the past 24 hours alone, we have already run 7 tests! We are growing our Laboratory and have already brought on some new scientists to help with the testing. If you want to become an SEO Mad Scientist, work directly with our testing team, and network with top SEO, you’ll just need to comment #JoinTheScientist on the Facebook post in the group. Link below! >>https://www.facebook.com/groups/localseocommunity/permalink/1646681395488370/ Just in case you missed any previous updates, don’t forget to catch up in our archives here>> https://web20ranker.com/category/seo-news/ Now, moving on to some new tests… With the wide range of tests we currently have running, it is difficult for us to effectively report on the test itself, the results, AND any conclusions we find from our test results. This update has ended up being over 1,000 words but we still are only able to get half the data to you. So today we are going to review a group of current tests, what we did, and why we did it. This will give everyone a better base point for when we get results we need to analyze. This week are going to discuss our contextual reference/linking tests. In this test, we are exploring the difference in authority for a contextual reference on the page, based on how the text is optimized. Let’s review the first set of micro tests. The initial question was what type of contextual reference carries the most authority? Is it a plain contextual reference, a contextual reference with an inner link, or a contextual reference with an outbound link… We had a lot of mixed data on this from observing things like: Cases where inner linking pages catabolized target pages Or the long-discussed belief that linking out to an “authority site” helps page authority. These questions along with how much power does internal linking have and how is a contextual link (inbound or outbound) best optimized, are all questions we hope to get answers too. Now let’s review the different test variations we have running: TEST VARIATION #1 Page 1 – Just Contextual Reference Page 2 – Contextual Reference Innerlinking to Page 1 Page 3 – Contextual Reference Outbound Linking to External Page. (Generic page) TEST VARIATION #2 Page 1 – Just Contextual Reference Page 2 – Contextual Reference Innerlinking to Page 3 Page 3 – Contextual Reference Outbound Linking to External Page. (Generic page) TEST VARIATION #3 Page 1 – Just Contextual Reference Page 2 – Contextual Reference Innerlinking to Page 1 (no contextual reference) Page 3 – Contextual Reference Outbound Linking to External Page. (Generic page) TEST VARIATION #4 Page 1 – Just Contextual Reference Page 2 – Contextual Reference Innerlinking to Page 3 (no contextual reference) Page 3 – Contextual Reference Outbound Linking to External Page. (Generic page) TEST VARIATION #5 Page 1 – Just Contextual Reference Page 2 – Contextual Reference Innerlinking to Page 1 Page 3 – Contextual Reference Outbound Linking to External Page. (Opt. Web 2.0) TEST VARIATION #6 Page 1 – Just Contextual Reference Page 2 – Contextual Reference Innerlinking to Page 3 Page 3 – Contextual Reference Outbound Linking to External Page. (Opt. Web 2.0) TEST VARIATION #7 Page 1 – Just Contextual Reference Page 2 – Contextual Reference Innerlinking to Page 1 (no contextual reference) Page 3 – Contextual Reference Outbound Linking to External Page. (Opt. Web 2.0) TEST VARIATION #8 Page 1 – Just Contextual Reference Page 2 – Contextual Reference Innerlinking to Page 3 (no contextual reference) Page 3 – Contextual Reference Outbound Linking to External Page. (Opt. Web 2.0) You can see we have a lot of variations of each test running with slight changes. One set of 4 is linking out to a generic page on Wikipedia while the other set of 4 is linking to a web 2.0 we made that had optimization done for our test term. As we conduct these tests we often come across more variables to test as well which can double or triple our test variables. We are also doing each one of these variables tests multiple times to confirm the data. The 8 variations above are being set up with just a number for the H1 and URL, with an image on the page and a contextual reference to our test keyword, no other content. We did this to try to eliminate variables as well as get a better idea about recreating all of these variable tests with Lorum Ipsum content, as well as running a test with generic content with similar word count AND duplicate content. This puts us at 32 different variations for this test. We will be collecting the data from these tests over the next 2 weeks to give a final report. With 32 results to review it may be a two-part… Next week we will be reviewing results from a duplicate content test we discussed a while back. We have even more interesting findings covering rankings and authority leveraging duplicate content. Until next time, happy testing! 🔹 Dragos Turlescu – View Post Here what can make a website bounce this violently in the SERPs??? Never crossed this issue before. Nothing major has been done to the web. No messages in GSC…no spammy links, no website hack…nothing out of the ordinary… I’d like some inputs on this 🔹 Charles Jenkins – View Post Here What is the best way to expand GMB rankings to surrounding towns? 🔹 Andrea Settle Knauer – View Post Here What would YOU do here: Company A is not ranking in the map pack for “service, city” because his mailing address is just outside said city. They have a dominating number of Google reviews (150) However, the three ranking map pack business with just a handful of reviews doesn’t even have their address stated. Looks like they’re positioned in the top spots as regional service providers. If you were Company A – would you remove your address and position yourself as a regional service provider instead? Maybe optimize images with geolocation? Want to earn a $50 store credit? In order to receive a $50 store credit, the only thing we need from you is a short video (at least 30 seconds) explaining: 1) Who you are and what you do 2) What you bought and why you bought it 3) How the product worked for you and the pros of it! That’s it! 3 simple topics and you could be on your way to $50 towards your next purchase! You can send your videos to: marketing@web20ranker.com Share this post Share on FacebookShare on Facebook TweetShare on Twitter Author: Mike Milas Before starting his agency in 2004, Michael primarily worked with small home service businesses helping them increase revenue and productivity through processes and systematization. Affordable Tuckpointing Pros, his last client before starting his agency, reached 1.2 million a year from 40k by the time he had left to start his own agency. Having a Passion for seo and systematization, Michael scaled his own agency to high 6 figures before selling it in 2018 and now working directly with Web 2.0 Ranker and their team. 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