Unlocking Content Marketing: Expert Answers to Your Questions!

[00:01] you're doing well sincerely I do um today I want to do my best to help you out you see I recently did a YouTube live and in that live I took a bunch of questions there were questions I couldn't get to and other questions that

[00:14] people have submitted in comments on my YouTube videos and my goal is to try to respond to as many of those as possible if you have other questions for me put do my best to try to answer your questions in Future YouTube lives in

[00:27] videos like this one as well as um often times when I can I'll respond to them let's get right to it first question I have today how well can you rank a blog or website using blogger or Wix as a platform with a personalized domain so

[00:42] here's the deal when you use other platforms like blogger like Wix even wordpress.com has this Squarespace you can set it up with a domain that's like your domain. squarespace.com or something they're talking about you get

[00:57] going to be paying right you're going to pay usually you're them it's actually going to be more expensive to do it all of it this way probably than it is just to set up a WordPress blog using Wordpress software

[01:11] wordpress.org which is free and just get your domain and your own hosting but if you decide you know what I really don't want to learn WordPress I really just want to use like Wix or blogger or something like that that's okay can you

[01:24] rank well yeah totally why not really Google doesn't care what platform you're using they care about what gets shown to them and what gets shown on the web now here's the thing WordPress is pretty well optimized for written blog content

[01:40] and there are tons of really great SEO plugins that are going to help optimize sure the right information is getting passed to Google but honestly the difference that that makes compared to just the content you put out is pretty

[01:53] minimal as long as you're putting the right stuff on your website and making good content so can you rank and how well does it rank it rings fine there's no reason why it shouldn't but the reason that I recommend WordPress is

[02:06] that it is far more capable with WordPress there are plugins for everything and there's like 40 options for everything and if there just isn't something that does exactly what you want it can be custom added in and

[02:18] and how it's open source so that's why I choose WordPress but your content can rank just fine elsewhere all right let's go on to question number two what about using pictures from other blogs I would take pictures from another blog and use

[02:31] them on my own for a couple of reasons one it's illegal without giving attribution and without having permission from the owner of that blog their photo either and they licensed it from some other stock photo agency or

[02:45] internet then you're violating the copyright of somebody else you need to have permission to use whatever photos you use when you take your own photos you own them and so you have the permission and if somebody else steals

[02:58] them you have the right right to make them take them down when you borrow without permission photos from somebody else you you don't have you can't

[03:10] protect that in any way now the other thing too is that when you're using the same photos that are used on other websites it detracts a little bit from The credibility of your content Google can recognize that an image is the same

[03:24] image as is shown Elsewhere on the web the more original and unique you can make all of the content on your website including the images the better so if you're going to use stock photos which can help to fill things in a little bit

[03:38] I would try as often as you can to customize them so take the image use it maybe as kind of a thumbnail image but add text to it do some things to where you're you're taking these pieces and putting them together to create

[03:51] something new and that works really well if by the way you use your own images they're Unique Images you're more likely to have your blog post show up in Google discover um that's one of the things they care about is that you have Unique

[04:05] Images um and a good featured image that's visually appealing so it's beneficial to not steal photos from other people um it's also not illegal if you use your own photos or at least use photos that you have a paid license for

[04:18] all right moving on to the next one how do we give a human touch in AI written content few things that I would recommend use real world examples real life examples if you can and to especially like you're trying to explain

[04:32] a principle use a real life example for example if I'm writing a blog post and it's about riding a dirt bike and I'm talking about some specific aspect of riding or some specific aspect of maintenance if I can use an example like

[04:47] I'm changing the oil in this dirt bike I'm giving you the step byep of it and I can say now when you get to here uh this is the part that often gets really messy use examples use real life scenarios give advice that's really practical

[05:01] about stuff that you don't have experience in you're not going to be able to write content that's any better than AI likewise giving opinions AI doesn't really have opinions and so if you have an opinion share it as an

[05:15] opinion I think that for the most part blog posts need to have facts these are the answers to the questions that people are likely searching but also here's the Practical side and here's my experience and here's my opinion and this product

[05:28] is better than this product because I like it better for these XYZ reasons all right moving on to the next one I have a new UK blog in the future I want to duplicate a us and an Australia version of the website within itself some of it

[05:44] may be the same but there are a lot of differences in terms of terminology regulations and practices do you think this could harm the site in terms of SEO or could it help if you're going to differentiate in the sense that

[05:56] a little toggle or something to switch between which country they're in but this is the US site this is the Australia site and when you get when you switch between them it's all on the same domain but it shows totally different

[06:13] content right the main blog rle is different the homepage is different uh if you're doing it that way I think this makes a lot of sense uh you could also maybe do it using categories and subcategories on your website so you

[06:28] know for things that are just like the same it doesn't really matter where it's all really just kind of practical advice we're not talking about regulations and terminologies mostly the same I would just have those categories and then

[06:42] you're talking about regulations and stuff you could you know have a category for those regulations and then a subcategory that's like us specific Australia specific and that way you're only really duplicating the content

[06:57] where it actually makes sense to have a different one either it's going to be basically like three almost completely different website experiences or it's going to be a place where you just differentiate where it makes sense if

[07:10] we're just talking about a little bit of terminology where it's like in the UK they say this in Australia they say this and in the US they say this but really like other than a couple of words throughout the blog post all the other

[07:23] write the article and then when you get to one of those words in parentheses you Al usually referred to as this in the US and this in Australia and I think that

[07:35] know that there's a lot of SEO problems with duplicating it three times uh duplicating everything three times and then having those things that that it really adds a lot of benefit so really structure it the way that's going

[07:50] to make the most sense for you and the most sense for your users uh it can just be really cumbersome if you're literally duplicating the same piece of cont content three times and it's exactly the same in three different places what

[08:03] want to update that article now you got to remember oh yeah this article is on that I update it in all three places so just figure out what's going to make the most sense to you and uh to the people reading your blog all right on to the

[08:16] next question if I build Authority in a specific topic and I start to write about another topic that's related to my Niche but with the different aspect will topic be considered for the second one depending on how closely related they

[08:29] depending on how closely related they are yes uh and honestly I think I found some good value as well in like if I as an author have some content that's been viewed as authoritative I have some that's ranking really well then I as an

[08:41] author I'm also viewed as more trustworthy kind of across the internet I have articles in my name that I've written on so many different topics and I and I think that it actually helps now

[08:54] even more so if they're within the same Niche right so let's say we're writing subcategory we're building topical cover another subcategory but it's within the same overall topic yeah

[09:08] absolutely it's going to help and as your site and as you as an author become more authoritative over time it's all going to help future content to rank quickly and for you to be viewed as more authoritative so the more authorative

[09:21] authoritative content you create the more uh trustworthy you're going to be what are your thoughts on the platform medium it's everywhere on my searches well that's great if in your searches it's everywhere then like that tells you

[09:36] something that Medium is being viewed as a trusted source for the things you're searching for and if that's true for the niche that you're writing in as well then publishing some content on medium is good I don't think that I would rely

[09:49] on medium as my blogging platform like my sole blogging platform I want to own my website I want a place where I can send people that I own that traffic I can get them to sign up for my email list I can sell them my information

[10:03] product I always want to have my own website for any topic I'm writing about but using medium like as a place where you can publish an article and hopefully get it to rank more quickly uh than just publishing it on a brand new website I

[10:18] think is fine I just wouldn't spend a lot of your time creating that content for your own website so it's it's finding the right balance there I would make sure that that your your own website has plenty of content first

[10:33] before you really try doing a whole lot of other Outreach in your industry and honestly publishing on medium could be viewed as industry Outreach it's kind of like writing a guest post on another blog but not as good overall um simply

[10:48] medium as long as they haven't been kicked off there's my thoughts on medium not a bad place to go but not necessarily the best use of time for the majority of your content all right um we're only about half done I got a bunch

[11:01] answering your questions and I hope to get a lot more questions from you that I can answer some of this is going to be completely based on my opinion by the way it's totally fine if not everyone agrees with the answers I'm giving but

[11:14] these are based upon just the experience that I've had and in some cases about just the things I know and if you find that to be helpful then let me know by clicking like on this video and uh if you're new to this channel well I'm all

[11:26] about helping you so hopefully you'll come back back and watch more of our videos all right next question one of my menu items is a custom link how can I make it so that when clicked it opens in a new tab I've never done that before

[11:39] typically when people click on a link on my menu I don't want it to open in a new tab but especially if I'm clicking to something off of my website like even my own YouTube channel I may also want the tab with my website on it to stay open

[11:54] sense and here's how you do it all right we're going to go on the word press dashboard to appearance menus uh this is still where I for the most part build out my menus up here in the upper right is screen options I have to hover

[12:07] actually just a little bit above the arrow to get it to drop down and if you just check this box link Target now let's say I'm going to create a custom link and add it to the menu uh yeah we'll just go incom school.com we're

[12:19] that there's a check boox now to open in a new tab I save the menu let's go test it if I go to the menu and I click there it is in School site I click on that and

[12:31] look it opened in a new tab all right let's move on next one are web stories good for getting traffic sure um I don't see them a whole lot out in the wild I'll say like when I'm using Google I don't see very many web stories since

[12:45] their Inception I haven't really used them a whole lot I have thought about probably show up more often if more creators use them I would think Google would want to show them so sure go ahead and create them once again though just

[12:58] like with a lot of other social media and other things I'm probably not going to dedicate like a huge portion of my time to them but honestly I'll bet you could take a blog post and then you could use AI to turn that into like

[13:11] eight short little Snippets that you could put into that you could create a web story out of I'll bet you could really like speed up that process pretty fast and make web stories pretty quickly I think that could be cool to try and I

[13:24] that all right is starting a blog profitable in the era of AI yes um profitable is actually a pretty low bar to set because it simply means that we a lot of businesses that are not profitable because it costs a lot of

[13:38] money to start up a lot of times you need a lot of materials or you need an whatever it is right when it comes to a Blog the cost is so low you don't have to make very much money to be profitable it's very profitable now is it as

[13:53] profitable as it once was for some people uh it's harder now than it used to be in the era of AI content we're needing to adapt and we haven't 100% like totally nailed it to our every time like everybody's succeeding um but I

[14:09] it's the stuff we've been talking about here on this channel and but I mean like shared Casey Bello's case study just from this last year in the era of AI

[14:21] where he's just totally kill killing it like making loads of money from this one like making loads of money from this one blog that he started a year ago so is still profitable yes but it's not as easy as it once was so we need to adapt

[14:35] adapting so if you keep following us and stay subscribed to this channel you're going to hear exactly what we have to say as we learn new things and uh as we the way and if you want me to test let me know in the comments below okay um

[14:50] informational content or is it not good to butcher good content with affiliate links well affiliate links don't have to butcher your content I put put affiliate links in informational content all the time but I put them in when they seem

[15:04] natural so if I'm answering things that you need to buy for your camper they that has a camper needs one and so we would literally just be like you're going to need one of these white hoses it's for drinking water it's white so

[15:17] drinking water that goes through it so it's safe well then what do we do we link to a white hose on Amazon and didn't really matter that they buy that one and we were upfront about that other

[15:29] times in informational content we'll answer questions about specific products and we'll want to share a very strong recommendation for a product absolutely am I going to take an informational post and spam it with 20 affiliate links just

[15:43] because I could no I'm not going to do that so we just want to be careful and a lot of sense for the content we're writing and they we just not overdoing it all right moving on to the next one what about B2B freelancer websites of

[15:57] bloggers and copyright so you're a blogger or a copywriter you write articles for other people you have your own website so you're writing articles for other blogs your target audience are prospective clients they want blogs

[16:10] emails newsletters white papers how can B2B freelancer websites rank in Google well what kind of stuff do I need to know if I'm looking for someone to write a blog post for me what are the questions I might ask especially if you

[16:23] know I'm seeing me as the example but what if I'm kind of a beginner blogger or I have never hired a freelancer before to write for me what are the questions I'm going to ask how much do Freelancers charge to write articles how

[16:36] about the questions I'm going to have and answer those questions that's going to go a long way you can also write blog posts that are just about how to write really good blog posts how to write really good email copy you know giving

[16:48] them aren't going to want to write their own content the ones that do want to you might as well write the content that helps them write better articles it's kind of like a dentist right who wants to rank for local search they're going

[17:03] to write articles about Dentistry but it's like by teaching me how to keep my teeth clean you're going to get less dental work no you're not right everybody needs dental work so like it's still better to write about how to keep

[17:17] dental procedures there are and how much they cost and all those sorts of things you more authoritative in the subject and it's going to make you more trustworthy to Google and to other people all right this one was not a

[17:32] question this one was a a comment made on the video of the live because I made a comment about um companies that charge 10 or $20,000 to build a website for you and it's not any better than what I

[17:44] could build in an afternoon and so they said I'm sorry I couldn't disagree more this may be the case for the vast majority of web developers but my agency hands that doesn't blow anything out of the water and is stacked with everything

[17:56] you could ever imagine considered you could have phrase that a little better when you're making content especially live chances are you're going to say things that could have been phrased better that's true and if I phrase

[18:09] to you like I'm sorry that that hurt your feelings that said you made my point for me that may be the case for the vast majority of developers I never said in my YouTube

[18:22] developers I never said in my YouTube live that all content cre or all website developers do what I was describing I didn't say that and you just admitted that that may be the case for the vast majority I was specifically talking

[18:35] about um a course that I'm working on that teaches people how to build their everything they need for most people that have a business and so I'm putting courses on internet marketing for businesses and how to rank well on

[18:49] Google if you're a business how to make your own website because there are agencies that charge thousands of dollars and hundreds of dollars a month for a hosting and ongoing SEO support that aren't doing anything so I'm sorry

[19:04] again if something I said offended you because it doesn't apply to you chances are I will say things that don't apply to many of you and uh so when I'm being critical don't assume I'm talking about you and if I am talking about you then

[19:18] do better I guess anyway I'm not trying to not trying to be a jerk here just trying to clarify all right last question for today where is Project charity project charity is in the pipeline but this year um and last year

[19:33] frankly I had to cut some things for the short term because like everybody else I have to prioritize and so project charity will happen uh but in the short term it's not something I'm actively working on I'd love to get to it soon

[19:47] have um check out the other videos on this channel because we're all about helping you be a successful content creator and if you haven't yet by the way check out channel makers it's one of our other YouTube channels where we talk

[20:00] about um video content YouTube and check out Creator files we have a podcast it's super good Julia runs the podcast Nathan's on a lot of the episodes and we're interviewing really cool people and talking about lots of interesting

[20:16] out it's on YouTube but it's also on all the podcast players so look up Creator files and I hope to see you in our next video because it's going to be good thanks we'll see you there

[20:29] thanks we'll see you there a