Thursday, June 1, 2023

Google Bard now can use your device’s precise location for more relevant local results

Google Bard can now use your device’s precise location to provide better local results to your questions. When you go to Google Bard, a popup dialog may show up that reads “To get more relevant responses, you can also choose to let Bard use your device’s precise location.”

The notice. Here is what you might see when you access bard.google.com:

You may also see another prompt asking you to confirm that you want to share your location with Google.

Better local results. Google said you should see “more relevant responses about restaurants near you and many other things about your area.” I tried it and it does not seem to work for me, just yet, but it may still be rolling out.

Why we care. Local search is a huge driver of business for many small and local businesses. If people use Google Bard to find places to get pizza, get a haircut, find a dentist and so on, this may drive additional traffic to those businesses.

You’d obviously think you need to be on Google Business Profiles for that to work, so make sure your clients are set up in Business Profiles and do some searches, see how it differs from Google Search.

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Gold Worth Rs 20 Crore Seized In Joint Operation Near Tamil Nadu Coast

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A customer data roadmap for staying ahead of the competition by Cynthia Ramsaran

In today’s competitive landscape, the key to winning over customers lies in personalized and extraordinary experiences. First-party data is a vital ingredient in this journey.

By delving deep into customers’ engagement patterns, behaviors and transactional preferences, brands can gain invaluable insights. These insights, when effectively utilized, have the potential to transform the customer experience landscape.

In an era where every brand strives to capture customer attention and foster loyalty, this webinar will unveil the path to delivering a truly remarkable CX.

Learn more by registering for and attending “Your Customer Data Roadmap to Staying Ahead of the Competition,” presented by Redpoint Global.


Click here to view more Search Engine Land webinars.

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Google now treats .ai domains as generic top-level domains

Google has updated its help documentation to specify that Google Search now considers .ai domain names as a generic top-level domain, such as a .com, .org and others. Google posted the update over here, by adding .ai to the list of ccTLDs that Google treats as gTLDs.

What it means. This just means that if you are using a .ai domain for your website, Google will no longer consider that domain to be geo-related to Anguilla. Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory in the Eastern Caribbean, comprises a small main island and several offshore islets.

Gary Illyes from the Google search relations team posted on LinkedIn saying, “we won’t infer the target country from the ccTLD so targeting Anguilla became a little harder, but then again there are barely any .ai domains that try to do that anyway.”

Why we care. If you were avoiding using a .ai domain name because you were concerned Google might target it to Anguilla, then you no longer need to worry about that. Go ahead, build your next business under a .ai domain.

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3 ways to use AI for sitewide entity optimization

Ready to discover three incredibly simple (yet powerful) strategies that will help you optimize quicker and more effectively?

Here’s what you’ll learn in this article:

  • How to use AI to provide a data source for on-page optimization. 
  • Using AI to quickly create multiple schema types for every blog article on your website. 
  • A free internal link solution that makes internal linking a breeze.

Key terminology

Before we begin, it’s important to connect these concepts to entities.

Entities

In machine learning, particularly in natural language processing, an entity is a significant thing or concept in a specific context. 

For instance, “Apple” could be an entity that represents the technology company or an entity that represents a type of fruit, depending on the context.

Internal links are hyperlinks that direct to another page on the same website. They help to establish an information hierarchy for the given website and guide visitors to high-priority sites. 

From an SEO perspective, these links aid search engines in discovering, indexing, and understanding all the pages on your site. 

Internal links can also help search engines understand the context and relationship between different pages and their content. This can assist the search engine in identifying relevant entities on your site.

Schema

Schema (or Schema.org) is a collaborative, community-driven project with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet. 

In other words, it’s a way to tag and categorize information on your webpage so that search engines can better understand what your page is about. This could be anything from a product review to an event announcement. 

By using schema markup, you’re helping search engines identify and understand the entities present on your webpage.

EAV (Entity-Attribute-Value)

EAV is a data model used to describe entities where the number of attributes (properties, parameters) that can be used to describe them is potentially vast. 

This is particularly useful in SEO because it helps represent information about entities flexibly, which can be beneficial in situations where the attributes used to describe an entity can vary widely.

Search engines seek to understand the searcher’s intent and the contextual meaning of terms as they appear in the searchable dataspace. 

The concept of entities, backed by the use of schema, EAV, and internal links, enables the search engine to comprehend a website’s content more effectively and present the most relevant results to users. 


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Overall, the following three tactics enhance the “semantic understanding” of your website. Along with other SEO practices, they can help improve your site’s visibility in the SERPs.

1. The hexa grammarian prompt sequence

This prompt is specifically designed around entities. As we’ve covered in the definitive guide to entities, entity understanding is largely tied to grammar. 

The nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and EAV are all integrally tied to entities. 

While it sounds confusing, it’s simpler than you might think. Here’s what ChatGPT says about its importance.

EAV according to ChatGPT

Here are the six prompts:

  • “Provide a comprehensive list of the most common verbs associated with the topic. Cluster the list and nest associated verbs.”
  • “Provide a comprehensive list of the most common nouns associated with the topic. Cluster the list and nest associated nouns.”
  • “Provide a comprehensive list of the most common adjectives associated with the topic. Cluster the list and nest associated adjectives.”
  • “Provide a comprehensive list of the most common adverbs associated with the topic. Cluster the list and nest associated verbs.”
  • “Provide a comprehensive list of the most common predicates associated with the topic.”
  • “Provide a comprehensive list of attributes associated with the topic.”

When you get your answers, you can save them however you like. I prefer a Google sheet.

I suggest using this list in a couple of different ways.

You can use the hexa-list to inform your content briefs. You could use the hexa-list to optimize existing content. You could even use this list to help you craft clever prompts for OpenAI. 

I can’t give away all of the in-house secrets, but suffice it to say that this list can be used to help you with programmatic AI content deployment.

2. Schema and AI

Creating schema for hundreds of web pages is an absolute slog. Over the past few years, agencies have productized schema because it's one of those tasks that no one wants to do.

Since schema is hard to understand and the benefits aren’t always understood, many people use an out-of-the-box solution (e.g., SEOpress, RankMath, Yoast).

This article’s co-author, Andrew Ansley, developed a straightforward system for schema generation. You don’t need to understand anything about schema to make this work.

All you need is an OpenAI playground and access to GPT-4.

For this example, we are going to use webpage schema so we can create a clear and structured declaration of the entities that are found in the blog article.

Setting up

Step 1: Grab the URL for your blog article.

Step 2: Provide the author, website URL, organization name, publisher name, and web page URL in the system text.

Step 3: Copy and paste your blog article text into the system text.

Plaground

As you can see from the image, the system text is on the left. The actual prompting is in the middle of the page, functioning exactly like ChatGPT – with a major upgrade. 

In playground, you can adjust settings and the system text functions as memory/context.

Inside the playground, you can use around 8,000 tokens (.75 words per token = 6,000 words). 

The schema prompt

The prompt is straightforward. All you need to enter into the user box is: 

  • “Create WebPage JSON-LD schema. Use about and mentions. The about and the mentions should use entities and the associated Wikipedia page.” 

After you’re done, you’ll get some pro schema to add to your article. We typically use a plugin to inject header code into a blog article, but that is just one of many options.

If you don’t trust the AI, you can go to https://validator.schema.org/ and provide the code to see if it has any errors.

Schema validation

As you can see from the image, my pro schema code designed for entity optimization is free from flaws. Huzzah!

Another schema type that you can easily add to a blog is FAQPage schema.

FAQPage Schema

This schema type is simpler than the previous example. For this schema, you can delete your article text from the system and you can replace it with whatever you like.

The prompt is: 

  • “Create FAQ schema.”

If you have the text inside of the system, it will generate something like the following example.

FAQPage schema

For those who prefer ChatGPT, you can just use the web browsing plugin (which is even simpler to use).

The only prompt you need is: 

  • “Create FAQ schema for the URL [insert link here].” 

If you want to do multiple URLs, you can add additional URLs and ask ChatGPT to create FAQ Schema for each URL.

I can’t help but nerd out over how easy it is to accomplish SEO tasks with AI. While I am showing a non-programmatic example here, you can literally explain what you want to build, and the AI will provide the code.

You don’t even need to ask the AI for code to accomplish a more programmatic approach to schema. You can use this simple prompt sequence:

FAQ schema
  • “Create FAQ schema in JSON-LD format. Process one URL and when you are done with that task, initiate another prompt that continues the task until you process the final URL in the list.”

The answer looks like this:

ChatGPT output

When you use this method, the generation of results will end around the 6th URL. 

If you give a list of URLs that exceed the output length, you can type the word “continue,” and then the AI will continue down the list of URLs.

Internal links are incredibly important for passing authority between pages, improving crawlability for Google Bot, and communicating topic relationships for entity optimization. 

Here’s a script that Ansley created that only needs three things. 

  • A Google Doc.
  • A Google Sheet.
  • App Scripts.

The doc is the article you're writing that will link out to your other articles.

The Google Sheet contains all of your keywords and URLs. I use a sitemap. 

The next step is to ask ChatGPT to identify the keyword from the URL slug.

Here is the script.

function addLinksFromSheet() {
// Your Google Sheets ID
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById('1AOvyOL0PCVVjY86aEEx77RqUWthV1m5Vzs2SyXE2f7g').getActiveSheet();
// Get all the rows of data in the Sheet, excluding the headers
var data = sheet.getRange("A2:B" + sheet.getLastRow()).getValues();
// Iterate over all the rows
for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
// The first column in the row contains the text to be hyperlinked
var searchPhrase = data[i][0];
// The second column contains the URL
var hyperlink = data[i][1];
// Use your addLinks function to add the hyperlink to the doc
addLinks(searchPhrase, hyperlink);
}
}
function addLinks(searchPhrase, hyperlink) {
if (!searchPhrase) {
return;
}
// Your Google Doc ID
const document = DocumentApp.openById('1_T5BRHiNi3iPnEL6xtys2qEV9WNzPZAwsQdIqtgiFtI');
const body = document.getBody();
let search = null;
let count = 0;
while (count < 1) {
search = body.findText(searchPhrase, search ? search : null);
if (!search) {
break;
}
const searchElement = search.getElement();
const startIndex = search.getStartOffset();
const endIndex = search.getEndOffsetInclusive();
searchElement.asText().setLinkUrl(startIndex, endIndex, hyperlink);
count++;
}
document.saveAndClose();
}

I emphasized the part of the script that requires your own unique document slug. 

The inspiration for this script came from Hamish’s YoTtube channel, Income Surfers. Hamish is a new YouTuber, but his content is solid if you’re wanting AI + SEO.

The GIF below demonstrates what to do with Google App Scripts.

GIF
  • Save project.
  • Click Run and accept permissions.

The results look like the screenshot below.

Results

The perk of this setup is you can essentially equip any of your writers with an easy way to internally link. 

One of the most difficult aspects of internal linking is the fact that most outsourced writers don’t know what to link to. 

Set up a database and maintain that list so your writers can apply all the internal links you want them to use.

If you’d like to include additional keywords, you can go to ChatGPT and paste your data. I used five keywords and five URLs for illustration purposes.

Prompt

  • “I want to expand this table further. Repeat each URL 5 times and provide 4 additional keywords associated to each URL. The new keywords should have high semantic relevance to the original keyword in the list.”

Output:

As you can see, I now have five keywords to choose from. To avoid linking to the same URL, you’ll need to modify the script. Here is the new version:

function addLinksFromSheet() {
  // Your Google Sheets ID
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById('1jTwgsEgz5X4BbiNDjQeHJrRVtYdGi3LEKEBvPgIYtg8').getActiveSheet();
  // Get all the rows of data in the Sheet, excluding the headers
  var data = sheet.getRange("A2:B" + sheet.getLastRow()).getValues();
  // Keep track of the used URLs
  var usedUrls = [];
  // Iterate over all the rows
  for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
    // The first column in the row contains the text to be hyperlinked
    var searchPhrase = data[i][0];
    // The second column contains the URL
    var hyperlink = data[i][1];
    // Check if this URL has been used already
    if (usedUrls.indexOf(hyperlink) === -1) {
      // It hasn't, so add the hyperlink to the doc
      addLinks(searchPhrase, hyperlink);
      // And mark this URL as used
      usedUrls.push(hyperlink);
    }
  }
}

function addLinks(searchPhrase, hyperlink) {
  if (!searchPhrase) {
    return;
  }
  // Your Google Doc ID
  const document = DocumentApp.openById('1rLL9J6Lag6McZ6F22R3ptyb7XFqg9Bc1qmEgobrTa3w');
  const body = document.getBody();
  let search = null;
  let count = 0;
  while (count < 1) {
    search = body.findText(searchPhrase, search ? search : null);
    if (!search) {
      break;
    }
    const searchElement = search.getElement();
    const startIndex = search.getStartOffset();
    const endIndex = search.getEndOffsetInclusive();
    searchElement.asText().setLinkUrl(startIndex, endIndex, hyperlink);
    count++;
  }
  document.saveAndClose();
}

Using AI for entity SEO

The three specific examples above show how AI can be used to dramatically reduce the time involved in optimizing for entities. 

We always recommend utilizing AI for any repetitive or highly technical task and spending more of your time on the strategy or creative functions of SEO.  Entity SEO is no different.

However, it is important to know that there are many other uses for AI when optimizing for entities, and this is by no means an exhaustive list.  

Make sure to attend my session at SMX Advanced, taking place June 13-14, to learn more about Entity SEO and AI and why we believe Entity SEO will be crucial to top SERP positions in the future.

This article was co-authored by Andrew Ansley.

This is the third article in the entity SEO series. If you would like to start by reading the first two articles, they are linked here:

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10 link-building services to scale your SEO efforts by RankZ

Link building is essential. While Google has made numerous advancements in machine learning and content comprehension, links remain a critical element of how Google ranks websites.

We know that Google doesn’t want you to proactively build links. They want you to create high-quality content and hope for the best (i.e., build it and links will come).

Whether you’re a well-known brand or a local SMB, you need to be findable in the SERPs when people are searching for your product, service or expertise. Getting that initial push to get the front page creates a virtuous cycle where the better you rank, the more links you get because of how well you rank.

While link building is essential, it’s also tedious. It’s time-consuming. And, honestly, it can seem quite boring. (Though we’d politely disagree!)

Luckily, there are companies that can do this tedious and time-consuming work for you!

Link building, done right, can be a win-win – for your website and the site linking to you. The key is reaching out to your own personal network of publishers and bloggers within a niche to offer a piece of content that they can either write about themselves or link to when relevant. 

If you haven’t built the types of relationships that can turn into links – this is where link-building services providers become incredibly valuable. 

In this article, we will introduce to you to 10 popular options when considering link-building service providers. Choose wisely – there are always risks and rewards when choosing a link-building service to scale your SEO efforts. 

We’ll start shamelessly with our own and if you understand the risks and rewards of proactive link building this way, try them.

The following are in no particular order. We are not claiming anyone is better than any other. This is simply a list of link-building service providers you can choose from.

1. OutreachZ

Here’s what makes us a bit different. We are a team with vast experience in the link-building space and have identified and tried to address the following pain points.

Transparency: Unlike most services, you can pick the right publishers upfront from our marketplace. Metrics like the primary niche they operate in, organic traffic, and DA (by Moz) are filters you can apply to find the right blogs, so there are no surprises after reviewing the report.

Pricing: Unlike most service providers, we will not charge you hefty fees based on the domain metrics. Instead, we take a fixed success fee and pass on the benefit of a low cost of link acquisition irrespective of how big or small that publisher is.

Flexibility: Even with the marketplace model, you are working with us to get the job done and not waiting for the publisher to react despite operating on a dynamic pricing model like other marketplaces that only serve as a platform provider. You also have managed posts and custom link-building campaigns and the option to upload your content, so the number of ways you can get this done is highly flexible.

Now let’s move on to some other notable link-building providers.

2. Page One Power

Page One Power focuses on giving you a personalized experience. They will sit down with you to discuss your individual needs, analyze your existing website and give you a customized link-building plan. They are willing to do the research and heavy lifting for you, giving you the extra breathing room to focus on other aspects of your business.

3. Fat Joe

To help you get started as quickly as possible, Fat Joe features an intuitive order intake form and a dashboard to monitor active orders and manage them. They seem to be the go-to service provider for agencies that need a lot of links for multiple clients with tight deadlines and provide content services that seem reasonably priced.

4. The Hoth 

If you considered link-building services, there is a high probability you have come across The Hoth already. They are one of the oldest link-building service companies with diverse offerings across various off-page SEO services. Their dashboard is intuitive, and one can navigate through their diverse offerings quite easily; however, given their large-scale link-building services, you might have to be careful in picking the right product for you as some could do more harm than good if you do not understand the product and its risks, so talk to them about your goals before you go ahead.

5. No BS Marketplace

No BS could have kick-started the transparent approach to link building, where you get to pick publishers upfront that they would suggest based on your requirements. So if you appreciate transparency and would like tighter control on the links you want to acquire, they are another great alternative to look into.

6. uSERP

If you’re looking for a tried and true SEO and link-building agency that works with high-profile industry names like Robinhood, Monday, Freshworks, Hotjar, and others, uSERP fits the bill. Working with small businesses and large enterprises alike, they craft and initiate content-based link-building campaigns. 

7. Siege Media

Siege Media is another agency that offers content-driven link building, where they prospect and reach out to authority publishers in your industry with amazing content. Although the specific link-building services they provide won’t give you an exact number of links they can expect to build, they will provide you with a ballpark figure instead.

8. Posirank

The folks at Posirank have been at it for a while as well. The team offers both custom campaigns and some large publishers’ lists from which they could secure a backlink for you. In addition, they have an easy dashboard where you can quickly sign up and start your first link acquisition campaign immediately.

9. The Upper Ranks

Beginning its operations in 2011, this link-building company is a trusted business partner of some of the largest brands, including established names from the Fortune 500 list. The philosophy of their approach is to build relevant backlinks that could stand the test of time.

10. Hire a Freelancer: For many, hiring an experienced blogger outreach and link-building expert from Upwork could work out best, especially if you want to control the process at every level and keep the costs in check at the same time. There seem to be plenty of skilled freelancers for hire with great feedback.

Choosing a link-building service isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s about finding a partner that suits your business goals, target audience, budget, and timelines. Here are a few key points to consider:

  1. Industry experience: Does the service provider have experience in your industry? Industry expertise can be beneficial for understanding niche-specific opportunities and challenges.
  2. Customizable packages: Every business is unique. Look for service providers who offer flexible and customizable packages that cater to your specific needs.
  3. Reporting and communication: How will the service provider report on their progress? Regular, transparent reporting should be non-negotiable.
  4. Client testimonials and case studies: These can provide an honest insight into the service quality and results that the agency provides.
  5. Service provider’s link philosophy: White hat practices are a must, but also understand their philosophy about link types, anchor text diversity, follow vs. no-follow and more.

There’s a varied landscape of link-building services, each with merits.

  1. Guest posting services: These providers work with blog and website owners to place articles with embedded links back to your site. It’s content marketing and link building rolled into one.
  2. Niche edits: These services negotiate with site owners to insert your link into existing content, providing contextual relevance without needing new content.
  3. Local citations: Ideal for local businesses, these services ensure you’re listed in important directories and local resources to generate backlinks.
  4. High-authority links: Some services specialize in securing links from high-authority domains, which can significantly boost your site’s authority.
  5. Link removal services: If you’ve been hit with a penalty or are cleaning up a messy backlink profile, these services can help you disavow and remove damaging links.

Let’s be candid about it. There are both advantages and downsides to employing link-building services.

Pros

  1. Time-saving: Building high-quality backlinks is time-consuming. These services save you time, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business.
  2. Expertise: Link building is a complex discipline. The right service provider brings expertise and strategic insights.
  3. Scalability: As your business grows, so does your need for more and higher quality links. A link-building service can scale with your needs.

Cons

  1. Quality concerns: Not all link-building services prioritize quality. Be wary of those offering high volumes of low-quality links.
  2. Black Hat techniques: Some providers might use shady tactics to build links, which could get your site penalized.
  3. Cost: Depending on your budget, the cost of these services may be prohibitive.

Conclusion

Google is no fan of “link building,” – but who can blame them? For years, links were a commodity that was abused by SEOs.

But proactive link building is incredibly hard. As it should be. 

That’s why you should partner with an experienced agency with clear goals and quality control. For that, we highly suggest OutreachZ – but admittedly, we’re biased!

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