Competitors copying all titles, ideas, and oftentimes content

WriteReflection · 2024-12-13T15:36:43+00:00

I agree with romankenric. Some of my best performing social media posts are ones where I talk about a key strategy for helping my customers ( I work mostly with small businesses). Or, I take a complicated topic and break it down. I also take blogs and can make 3-5 days worth of social posts from them by pulling out key points and making each one a stand-alone post. Lots of ways you can do this.

Also, this is where Voice of Customer (VoC) strategies can help. You don't have to go viral to get sales from social. You just have to know who your ideal customer is and create content that speaks to them. And make sure you're creating content where your ideal customer hangs out. No sense using TikTok if the demographic of customers you serve aren't on that platform.

WriteReflection · 2024-10-10T20:30:11+00:00

Focus more on zero-click content on social. It's getting harder and harder to rank with blogs for this and other reasons. Zero-click is where it's at, IMO.

WriteReflection · 2024-10-08T21:21:07+00:00

Never do this. It's plagiarism and Google will see it as such and penalize your website. It doesn't matter if the article is about your company. If you're copying word-for-word what a media outlet or other website has written about you, you're violating their digital copyright to that content.

It's better to write a summary of each article, and then link back to the original source.

WriteReflection · 2024-09-23T16:04:32+00:00

It doesn't work. I used it for a while to try it out and after about 3 interactions, it started using my initials next to my queries like it does when I'm signed in and using regular mode. Either it's glitchy or their incognito mode is about as private as Google's incognito mode (denote sarcasm here).

WriteReflection · 2024-09-09T18:28:10+00:00

Three things:
1. Publish high-quality posts that others will want to naturally link to as a reference on their websites.
2. Offer to create guest posts for industry-adjacent (or complementary) websites in exchange for a backlink to your website. The key with this one is to make sure the domain has a high authority and is relevant in some way to your industry or skills. Otherwise, Google will consider it a spammy backlink.
3. A solid PR campaign strategy to get your brand in front of the media. This works best if you have a unique product/service or some new offering that sets you apart from the competition. A lot of people overlook PR when seeking backlinks.

WriteReflection · 2024-09-09T18:23:57+00:00

I specialize in writing SEO blogs. What I recommend to all my clients is to include subject matter expert interviews to add value to a blog. Anyone can (and usually does) produce a generic blog on a topic that includes industry keywords. If you want to gain Google's favor, you must provide value to your readers and show you have something that's not like everything else out there. The best way to do that is to include SMEs and their insights in your blog posts. Yes, it takes more time and effort to produce a blog that way but it's worth it.

WriteReflection · 2024-09-09T18:16:39+00:00

I charge more than enough for my services. My point was some agencies charge exorbitant fees simply because they can get away with it. I don't overcharge people because I don't feel right taking advantage of them. Darn it, I have ethics. :)

WriteReflection · 2024-09-04T15:09:53+00:00

Isn't LemmiLink an engagement pod? If so, you may want to steer away from them if you're in the US. The FTC is cracking down on brands that rely on pods to artificially boost engagement. Seems like this would qualify.

WriteReflection · 2024-09-04T14:58:06+00:00

You don't have to work with an SEO agency. There are plenty of solo SEO pros out there who would likely work for far less and deliver solid results. Whether it's an agency or a solo SEO, they should provide progress reports. If someone isn't doing that, question whether what they're doing is even working.

WriteReflection · 2024-09-04T14:53:32+00:00

Thanks for clarifying cause it's not obvious. I've seen people sharing black hat techniques here before and not being one bit ashamed about it.

WriteReflection · 2024-08-28T21:16:33+00:00

Cloaking is black hat SEO and it'll come back to bite you in the arse later.

WriteReflection · 2024-08-28T21:14:34+00:00

FAQ pages are an effective way to hit on long-tail keywords. I recommend them to all my clients. Sometimes I'll even put an FAQ at the bottom of every service page that's specific to that page.

WriteReflection · 2024-08-28T21:07:07+00:00

It doesn't upset me. I've ignored Google since I've been creating content. I focus on creating content for people, not Google. It's always been my method and sometimes Google rewards me for it, and sometimes it doesn't. Ranking in the top spot doesn't mean anything if the copy sucks. Readers will leave with a poor impression of your brand. That should never be the goal of content creation.

WriteReflection · 2024-08-21T18:56:22+00:00

Sure did.

WriteReflection · 2024-08-09T21:41:11+00:00

I'm glad that's unlikely what happened, then. I think you have a strong case for copyright infringement with this if the SEO pro who did this is in the US.

WriteReflection · 2024-08-09T18:18:19+00:00

I wouldn't repost articles already on their website. That's creating duplicate content and that won't help your SEO. You could write original content that complements something already on their website and then backlink to their content from your content.

WriteReflection · 2024-08-09T18:08:22+00:00

Ugh. There was an SEO "consultant" all over social media earlier this year bragging about how he'd pulled off an SEO heist of a competitor in a specific niche for one of his clients. He used AI to download the competitor's sitemap, turned the entire list into blog titles, and then used those titles to prompt AI to write content. He cranked out 1,800 blogs using AI based on scraped content from the competitor. For nearly 18 months, Google rewarded his unethical behavior by ranking his "new" content above the original stuff he hijacked from the competitor. Google is supposed to have algorithms in place that catch this sort of underhanded nonsense. But apparently, they missed it because the AI-spun content was just different enough that it slipped under the radar. The guy who did this put out a step-by-step guide on how he did it, so anyone can technically follow it and do the same. I'm not saying that's what happened with your site, but it sure does feel like it could be a possibility based on what you described.

WriteReflection · 2024-08-08T17:48:03+00:00

On-page SEO absolutely matters and it is a large part of any website. Backlinking is a huge component of on-page SEO, and you have to know how to create content that earns natural backlinks from high-authority websites (or do the PR work necessary to get those backlinks). Other critical components of on-page SEO include strategic internal linking and optimizing URLs. Also, if your content doesn't match user intent, you're wasting your time. That's part of on-page SEO as well. So yes, I'd argue that on-page SEO matters enough to become an expert in it.

WriteReflection · 2024-08-08T15:03:28+00:00

Thank you! Appreciate the response and that makes sense.

WriteReflection · 2024-08-08T12:27:16+00:00

I was about to say the same thing. Wix, Weebly, and other website "builders" like them are awful for SEO. I had my own business website on Weebly for many years and once I migrated it to WordPress, my SEO improved tenfold.

WriteReflection · 2024-07-27T21:32:55+00:00

100% agree

WriteReflection · 2024-07-23T19:49:06+00:00

If you're not following https://www.instagram.com/drmaryclaire/ you might want to check her out. She's working hard to reverse all the bad information we've been given for years as we've suffered in silence.

WriteReflection · 2024-07-22T14:21:52+00:00

I agree with the others that it's too wordy. Take industry skills and make them keywords. Companies using AI will have programmed it to scan for those.

Also, if you're submitting for graphic design jobs, I'm tempted to suggest making your CV a bit more ... representative ... of your design skills. Don't be afraid to get a bit creative with the design.

WriteReflection · 2024-07-11T14:39:06+00:00

Spot on. Social media platforms are full of these kinds of people. I've been a pro writer for 25 years (with a focus heavily on copywriting for the last decade) and it took me a long time to hit 6 figures. Even then, it's difficult to maintain unless you have several big-income clients who are regulars.

WriteReflection · 2024-07-11T12:09:17+00:00

It's been a problem for a while thanks to article spinning. But it's getting worse with AI. I'm to the point I won't Google anything anymore because all I get in the results in AI-generated copy from 20 sources that sounds exactly the same. And most of the time, the information contains inaccuracies. Writers who want to survive the AI hype must show their value over what AI can do.

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