The SEO Trick That Skyrocketed My Page from #50 to #1! — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00You know, it's not often that something
2. 0:01in search engine optimization surprises
3. 0:04me anymore, but this was one of those
4. 0:07things where I said, I can't believe
5. 0:09that worked. This was this was 2 hours
6. 0:11ago. I was sitting at a cafe and I was
7. 0:14looking at my rankings for one of my
8. 0:16sites and then I saw this page had
9. 0:18jumped to number one from past position
10. 0:2250. It wasn't ranking really on Google
11. 0:25at all. I don't think it it was it was
12. 0:26indexed and it wasn't ranking at all.
13. 0:28and then it had jumped to number one.
14. 0:31And if you have a page that isn't
15. 0:33ranking at all and you feel like it
16. 0:35should be ranking, then you you need to
17. 0:37try this because this page I created
18. 0:39this page I think around the beginning
19. 0:42of 2023 and it was going after a very
20. 0:45easy keyword. I made a super thorough
21. 0:48page, a great page and I'm like this
22. 0:51page should rank one for this keyword.
23. 0:53This keyword is not competitive. I'm
24. 0:55perfectly optimized for this keyword. I
25. 0:58created a great page. I'm like, I know
26. 1:00it's an easy keyword. I don't need to
27. 1:02build back links to this page. And you
28. 1:04know, it turned out something else was
29. 1:05happening. I would almost describe this
30. 1:07like a bug with Google. I I really am so
31. 1:10surprised that this worked. So again, if
32. 1:13you have a because you might create a
33. 1:14page, you might go after a keyword and
34. 1:16it's a really easy keyword. There's just
35. 1:18no one else who is optimizing for this
36. 1:21specific keyword. So you optimize for it
37. 1:23well. You create a great page for it.
38. 1:25And you should, if you're not ranking
39. 1:27one, you should at least be ranking on
40. 1:29page one for the keyword or on page two,
41. 1:32whatever, but for whatever reason, you
42. 1:34don't have your your page isn't ranking
43. 1:36at all. It's indexed. You check on
44. 1:38Google Search Console and it's indexed,
45. 1:39but it's not ranking at all. What's
46. 1:41going on here? And I think around 2
47. 1:44months ago, I made this podcast. I made
48. 1:47this episode, Underrated SEO Tactics
49. 1:50That Work. And I shared I shared a bunch
50. 1:53of comments from this post on the SEO
51. 1:56subreddit. What's the most underrated
52. 1:58SEO tactic that has worked for you? The
53. 2:01top comment in this was, and when I read
54. 2:04this on the podcast, I said, "Oh, that's
55. 2:06cool. I'm going to try this." Like,
56. 2:07that's very interesting. I don't know if
57. 2:09it'll work, but I'm going to try it. The
58. 2:11top comment was, "Refreshing content
59. 2:14works every time." And that's a
60. 2:15no-brainer. Lots of people know that if
61. 2:17you update your content, then you can
62. 2:20you can rank way better. Like especially
63. 2:22if you update the date published, Google
64. 2:24loves if if you if you say even if you
65. 2:27make minimal to no updates and you just
66. 2:29say that the page is published today,
67. 2:33Google really likes content that was
68. 2:35published recently. Fresh content works
69. 2:38best for for whatever medium it is. It
70. 2:41could be video, it could be articles, it
71. 2:43could be pages. Like Google likes fresh
72. 2:45content. Google likes recency. People
73. 2:47like recency. People like recency. And
74. 2:49that's why Google likes recency. The
75. 2:51more recent, the more upto-date your
76. 2:53page or video or whatever is, the the
77. 2:56better chance it has of ranking well. So
78. 2:58refreshing content, updating content and
79. 3:01then saying updating the date published
80. 3:03to be current as well, that works pretty
81. 3:05well. So this person said refreshing
82. 3:07content works works each time. That
83. 3:10wasn't the thing that surprised me. It
84. 3:11was the comments under this from
85. 3:14actually a moderator on the SEO
86. 3:15subreddit, Weblinker. And this is what
87. 3:18surprised me. And WebLinker, thank you
88. 3:20for this tip. I I'm really This is a
89. 3:22hack. Honestly, I'm super surprised how
90. 3:25how this worked. So, Weblinker said you
91. 3:28don't even have to edit it. You can just
92. 3:30republish it as is. Especially older
93. 3:33pages, if they're not getting organic
94. 3:35traffic, they don't get recrolled and
95. 3:37reindexed. They just languish. So just
96. 3:40republish as a new page and it gets
97. 3:43reassessed since your updated topical
98. 3:46authority. If you don't understand that,
99. 3:48don't worry. I'm going to break it down
100. 3:49in a second. Somebody else commented
101. 3:51though and said said to weblinker,
102. 3:53wouldn't that have the same effect as
103. 3:55pasting the URL in Google search console
104. 3:57and requesting to reindex it? And that
105. 3:59was my initial thought when I read what
106. 4:01he wrote. And this person, web linker,
107. 4:04said good question. I have found a and
108. 4:06it and by the way this person was right
109. 4:08requesting in Google search console for
110. 4:10it to be reindexed click like submitting
111. 4:13the page to Google search console and
112. 4:15requesting it to be reindexed that
113. 4:17should work. This is why this almost
114. 4:19seems like a bug. So weblinker said good
115. 4:21question I found a massive difference
116. 4:23between removal request and rec and rec
117. 4:26crawling or publishing as a new URL. The
118. 4:29problem is that if the URL is already in
119. 4:32an index, it won't move up
120. 4:34automatically. It's in a click-through
121. 4:36rate test phase, which could be over. A
122. 4:39new URL has a better chance of coming in
123. 4:41higher. It's the only way. Something
124. 4:43about crawl requests on existing URLs is
125. 4:47that it's not a full soup to nuts
126. 4:49process. It's like halfway. And the
127. 4:51conversation continued. So, this person
128. 4:53said, "Interesting find. Web linker
129. 4:55said, "Thanks. found this ages ago when
130. 4:57auditing new projects for content and
131. 4:59I've stuck with this for 15 years. Pages
132. 5:02without organic traffic don't get
133. 5:04crawled. They can go a year without
134. 5:07reindexing and a site can develop a
135. 5:09whole ton of topical authority. So, it
136. 5:11makes sense. So, if you didn't
137. 5:12understand that, I'm just going to break
138. 5:14it down briefly. Basically, web linker
139. 5:16is saying you you make a page, it's
140. 5:19going after maybe a keyword that's not
141. 5:21super competitive. You should be ranking
142. 5:23for it. because the keyword is not super
143. 5:25competitive. It doesn't get much traffic
144. 5:27anyway. The SER is not very volatile.
145. 5:31Pages aren't being constantly tested
146. 5:33because not many people are targeting
147. 5:35this keyword. And maybe when you when
148. 5:37you create the page, you don't have that
149. 5:39much topical authority for whatever the
150. 5:42content is on the page. Maybe your site
151. 5:45just isn't relevant enough to the
152. 5:46content of that page or post. That's
153. 5:49topical authority. or how authoritative
154. 5:51your website is to the content that you
155. 5:54are making. You get topical authority by
156. 5:56what you put on your actual actual
157. 5:58website and you get topical authority
158. 6:00with the backlinks that you get. And so
159. 6:03naturally over time as you continue
160. 6:05working on your website, you develop
161. 6:07more authority for the specific topics
162. 6:09that that you are targeting. And so this
163. 6:11theory was if a if a keyword that you
164. 6:14are targeting isn't getting a lot of
165. 6:16organic traffic, you get stuck in this
166. 6:19click-through rate test phase that then
167. 6:21that just ends because whenever you put
168. 6:24up a new page slowly that page the it
169. 6:27it's being tested to see how engaging it
170. 6:30is, how engaging the page title, how
171. 6:32engaging the above the fold before
172. 6:34people start scrolling is compared to
173. 6:36the other pages in the search engine
174. 6:38results page. But if you don't have
175. 6:40enough topical authority to begin with
176. 6:43for whatever it is that you're
177. 6:44targeting, you might not rank well. And
178. 6:47then if that click-through rate test
179. 6:48phase ends because it takes you too long
180. 6:51to develop that topical authority, the
181. 6:53this page that you should have been
182. 6:55ranking for, it's sorry, you're not
183. 6:57going to rank for it. Maybe Google will
184. 7:00reassess your page like a year later.
185. 7:02And actually, that did happen for me,
186. 7:04but it was weird. And I'll share that in
187. 7:06a second. Maybe Google will reassess the
188. 7:08page a year later, but basically you're
189. 7:11and you could try submitting
190. 7:13resubmitting the page to Google Search
191. 7:15Console, especially if it's a page that
192. 7:17you believe you should be ranking for,
193. 7:19but it's way easier to just make that
194. 7:21page as a brand new URL because and you
195. 7:23do that you do that once you have
196. 7:25developed this more topical authority
197. 7:27because now Google is going to look at
198. 7:29this page with the new URL as if it is
199. 7:32brand new content even though it is the
200. 7:34same content just copied to a new URL.
201. 7:36So, this is what I did. I had this page
202. 7:38that I made in 2000 at the beginning of
203. 7:402023. It's for a topic on SEO. I believe
204. 7:43that I should have ranked one for it
205. 7:45right away, but I didn't. And then
206. 7:47randomly, randomly in October of 2024, I
207. 7:52jumped up to number one with this page.
208. 7:54And then the next week, I fell off and I
209. 7:57just since then, I didn't I didn't rank
210. 7:59at all for this keyword. This page
211. 8:01wasn't ranking at all. So, I I basically
212. 8:03was in this like click-through rate and
213. 8:04I and I stayed one and I I don't know. I
214. 8:07think if I had to guess if I if I had to
215. 8:09guess why the page went back down to
216. 8:12plus 50 and wasn't ranking at all, I
217. 8:14would guess it was because this keyword
218. 8:16just didn't get much traffic. And
219. 8:18because it was past this like
220. 8:19click-through rate test phase, there
221. 8:20just wasn't enough people searching the
222. 8:22keyword in that week. Or it was bad
223. 8:24luck. Maybe there were enough people
224. 8:26searching the keyword in that week and
225. 8:28for whatever reason, my page didn't get
226. 8:30get enough clicks. And so I I just
227. 8:33couldn't believe this. So I read I read
228. 8:34this comment on on the podcast and then
229. 8:37and I I have a I shared this on a
230. 8:39different podcast. Every SEO should keep
231. 8:41an SEO change log. So whenever I make
232. 8:44changes to my site specifically for
233. 8:46search engine optimization, I write down
234. 8:48the date that I made the change and what
235. 8:50I did and why I did it. And so on March
236. 8:5425th, I wrote cloned this page that
237. 8:57should have been ranking. So, I cloned
238. 8:59the page with a new URL, updated meta
239. 9:02tags, some ex extra sentences, and a
240. 9:05slightly improved above the fold. It but
241. 9:08it it was so slight. Honestly, like I
242. 9:11spent 5 minutes on these updates. It was
243. 9:13so tiny. I don't even remember exactly
244. 9:15what the updates were because they were
245. 9:17so small. I didn't write down exactly
246. 9:19what the updates were. I probably should
247. 9:20have. I actually I should have and I
248. 9:22didn't expect this to work. That's
249. 9:24that's what it was. I should have wrote
250. 9:25down like the exact updates, but I I can
251. 9:27tell you that I spent 5 minutes. It was
252. 9:29very small and and I don't think it was
253. 9:31these updates. I don't think it the
254. 9:34updates to the meta tags and the extra
255. 9:35sentences was what what was what did it.
256. 9:38I think it was the fact that I that I
257. 9:41cloned it to a new URL and then I 301
258. 9:44redirected the old URL to the new URL.
259. 9:47If you ever move a page to a new
260. 9:49location, to a new URL, you always want
261. 9:51to use a 301 redirect, a permanent
262. 9:54redirect. So that was March 25th. And I
263. 9:57didn't notice I didn't notice that on
264. 10:00April 9th, I jumped back to number one.
265. 10:04And whereas I had ranked number one for
266. 10:06this previously in October 2024, I did
267. 10:08it for a week and then I just dropped
268. 10:10off completely. April 9th, ranking
269. 10:13number one for this keyword. April 16th,
270. 10:16ranking number one for this keyword.
271. 10:17April 23rd, still ranking number one for
272. 10:20this keyword. And then my most recent
273. 10:23data comes in, which is yesterday, still
274. 10:25ranking number one for this keyword. And
275. 10:27it looks like this was due to this to
276. 10:30this change that I made. I did not
277. 10:32change the content of the page except
278. 10:34for this fi these five minutes of
279. 10:36changes. But the the thing is if the
280. 10:39rankings were due to the 5 minutes of
281. 10:41updates, I would have already been
282. 10:43ranking on page one with this page and
283. 10:45then these these changes would have
284. 10:47would have improved it and made my page
285. 10:49rank better. So that's why I don't think
286. 10:51that it was due to the to the small
287. 10:53little changes I made. I think it was
288. 10:55due to me just taking the content and
289. 10:57putting it on a new URL. I cloned the
290. 10:59page and just changed the URL. 31
291. 11:02redirected the old URL to the new URL.
292. 11:04And I had developed a lot more topical
293. 11:06authority for SEO within that time. And
294. 11:09then I'm ranking one. And I'm still
295. 11:11ranking one for weeks in a row. And I'm
296. 11:13like, I will probably continue I think I
297. 11:15will probably continue ranking one for
298. 11:16this keyword. Now I'm thinking I'm
299. 11:18thinking what other pages of mine should
300. 11:20be ranking one because I'm targeting a
301. 11:22an easy keyword really well and I'm not
302. 11:25ranking one for it or I'm and and I'm
303. 11:27not ranking specifically at all for it.
304. 11:29That's where it's really problematic if
305. 11:31you're not ranking for it at all. And I
306. 11:32could probably try this with with those
307. 11:34pages too. So this is like a new this is
308. 11:37a new tool in the toolbox. I know a lot
309. 11:39of SEOs and a lot of SEOs don't know
310. 11:41about this. I'm going to try it with
311. 11:43more pages. I'm hyped that it worked.
312. 11:46And if you have a similar problem where
313. 11:48you're going after a page and you should
314. 11:50be ranking and you're not ranking for
315. 11:52it, you're not ranking at all for an
316. 11:54easy keyword and you you're optimized
317. 11:57well for the keyword and time has gone
318. 11:59by. A lot of time has gone by, just try
319. 12:01moving it to a new URL and 301
320. 12:03redirecting the old URL to the new URL.
321. 12:06If there's a main location that you are
322. 12:08linking to this page, change the
323. 12:10internal link on your website as well.
324. 12:12And that's what I did. And and then this
325. 12:14it worked. So this is pretty cool.
326. 12:17Really a pretty cool finding. And that's
327. 12:19all that I got for you on episode 6. Oh
328. 12:21my gosh. Hot. Episode 666 of the Edward
329. 12:25Show. Oh my. Oh my gosh. It's episode
330. 12:28666. 666 of the Edward Show.
331. 12:33666 days in a row doing this podcast.
332. 12:36Thank you everybody so much for
333. 12:38watching. Thank you so much for if you
334. 12:39want more SEO, check out my 13 and a
335. 12:42half hour SEO course,
336. 12:44compactkeywords.com. You're going to
337. 12:46love it. It's crazy. I'm working on a
338. 12:47new explainer video for the above
339. 12:49thefold section, the hero, before people
340. 12:52start scrolling. And the script that I
341. 12:54have is 10 minutes and it's going to go
342. 12:56super deep on what compact keywords is
343. 12:58and why it's worth doing. And it's a cra
344. 13:02it's going to be a crazy explainer video
345. 13:04and hopefully I record that later today.
346. 13:06But you can check out the it's a brand
347. 13:08new landing page compact keywords.com
348. 13:10and if you read through it you'll
349. 13:11understand the benefits of going after
350. 13:14the type doing my method of SEO which is
351. 13:16very different than other people's
352. 13:17methods but anyway okay that's episode
353. 13:20that's this episode of the show. Thank
354. 13:22you so much for watching. Thank you so
355. 13:23much for listening. I will talk to you
356. 13:25again tomorrow. Bino.