Genius Network: Your SEO is Broken

Genius Network: Your SEO is Broken

In 2017, Google generated $491,179 a second,  putting it into the hundred billion dollars club that year. The figures for last year are not out yet, but they’re a lot bigger than that. Why? Because Google has become the primary search engine on the internet. If you’re searching for anything on the internet, you’ll need Google to find it for you.

The question you should consider is: Does Google know who you are and where you can be found? Your website needs to be found, and the only way that happens is based on the rating Google gives you. 

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. Based on those three letters, if you’re not doing it right and yours is broken, it’s costing you a lot more than 250,000.

By a show of hands, is there anyone in this room who does not have a website for their business? That’s pretty much no one. 

Since almost everyone is pretty much in business and certainly in this room has a website are your prospects finding it? Without an SEO audit, you’ll never really know. When they don’t, and why, according to Stephan Spencer. For over 20 years, Stephan has been a leader in the field of SEO.

The Art of SEO by Stephan Spencer, Eric Enge and Jessie Stricchiola

His best-selling book, The Art of SEO, is considered the Bible in the SEO world and is used as a college textbook. Stephan founded his SEO company over 15 years ago and back in 2010 sold it when it was doing over 6 million a year. 

Since that time, he’s been consulting and coaching one-on-one with entrepreneurs, doing podcasts, producing two podcast shows, and sharing his wealth of knowledge for those who want to optimize their presence on the internet.

Stephan’s title is, Your SEO is Broken, Let Me Prove It to You. Please help me welcome Stephan Spencer. 

Your SEO is broken, and I’m going to prove it to you.  And you might be thinking, “SEO, oh boy, I don’t want to learn SEO. That’s not my unique ability.” You can take a deep breath. Like we just learned this is on a need-to-know basis. I have a book that you’re welcome to take home with you.

I brought enough for everybody, it’s a thousand pages. If you do want to read it, please be my guest. I would start actually with chapter seven, which is on content marketing. It’s not overly technical, and it’s a lot of fun, but you don’t have to learn it. Stay in your zone of genius, your unique ability, and just hire out that expertise. 

Now, if you completely neglect SEO, you’re leaving serious money on the table, money that your competitors are going to scoop up. I would recommend that you focus your business on getting to the top of Google and just, as I said, focus where you need to focus and you need the essential tools that will help you to do that job to get to the diagnosis of what is ailing your site from an SEO perspective. 

These tools include  Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, and Deepcrawl, which is another spidering tool, Majestic, Moz, Ahrefs, and SEMrush, which are all excellent SEO tools and tool sets. SimilarWeb, which is hacking your competitor’s Google Analytics and Link Research Tools, which is my favorite link analysis toolset.

All these are great tools and if you don’t have a skilled SEO operator operating these tools, it is worthless to you. Don’t spend the money if you don’t have an amazing in-house SEO person. Instead, I want you to be an excellent person, an excellent expert at hiring the right SEO. As somebody who knows a fair bit about SEO, I took the liberty of looking at some of your websites and I found some free money actually.

About 250,000 worth each. I didn’t go through every single one of your websites, but I did go through a handful of them. And Tim, for example, Camelback Recovery, you have a toxic link problem, which is free money because we’re going to fix it.  This is a tool called Link Detox, it comes from Link Research Tools.

And you’re well into the red zone. It should be under 1,000 and it’s 2,240. So there are a lot of sites, in fact, over half of the sites that are linking to you are toxic. This means that they have malware or viruses that have infected them, and they’re linking to you, or they’re spam sites, or they’re in a bad link neighborhood. 

So we want to fix that, but you’re not the only site that has that problem. Here’s Dew Wealth: Jim Dew. 1142. Not as bad as Tim’s, but it’s definitely bad enough that you need to deal with it. This means a link cleanup initiative and then there is Capitalogix. I’m going to be speaking quite a lot about you in this talk. 

We’re just getting started and I’m getting warmed up. We’re going to find lots of interesting things. Starting with the link profile of 2800 in the toxic zone. That’s not so good, now we’re going to move on to on-page elements, we were looking at the link profile. This is stuff that is on the page itself.

Your title tags are the most fundamental, basic aspect of SEO. It’s the first thing that people will see when they click on a search listing, right? 

Is that a big title? It’s also the most important thing that people or search engines are looking for. 

Gender Intelligence by Barbara Annis

Looking at two, it gives the keyword focus for the page and most of these as you can see are very keyword-light, let’s say just one or two words each,  but you’re not the only one with that issue we have Gender Intelligence: Barbara, you’ve got title tags that include things like client list and associates.

I don’t know when the last time any of you searched for the word associates in Google but I’m probably guessing it was never so that’s not so hot then, we have Jim again with dual wealth and the same sort of problem about our process our team not very keyword rich.  Seeking Health. Ben, we’ve got the same problem with you, Fullscript, Seeking Health Supplier, et cetera. 

Now, back to Capitalogix. Have tag pages that are in full force in Google. Google doesn’t like these because they’re thin content and duplicate content. They’re made up of a lot of the same content that’s elsewhere on your website.

You have quite a lot of them many pages of them. This is exasperated by the fact that you have pagination pages, meaning that you don’t just have a tag page for, let’s say, gadgets. And you do, you have about 50 of them.

And then I went into SEMrush and had a look at what are the primary keywords driving traffic.  I don’t know if you wrote about this, but Tom Brady shirtless, you are winning.  And then we have Harry Potter and Star Wars. I don’t even know that there’s Harry Potter and Star Wars, but you are winning for that one. 

We have duplicate content here. We’ve got a lack of canonical tags. No time to explain what that is, but it’s a problem. We also have Jim, I’ll take the heat off of you for a minute, I don’t know how long it might take to read this, but I’m certainly not going to curl up next to the fireplace with my iPad to read the DWM footer logo page, because it’s empty.

But we got to get creative and cleaned up. And then we also have Jim, having a problem with your mobile page speed. In fact, your page speed for desktop as well, but specifically with mobile here, I’m looking at a tool-free from Google called Lighthouse. And you’re 26 out of 100, you’re well into the red zone.

This not only affects your Google rankings negatively, but it also really drastically impacts your conversion rate. So when people are on your site and it’s slow loading. Now we have the coup de grace. Andre Norman, who’s downstairs. You’re in for some free money.

You have this little problem here. It’s called disallow which tells Google and all the search engines I don’t want you to look at any of my stuff.  I don’t want you in here, get out and this is what ends up happening. These little error messages are on all of your pages. No information is available on this page.

Google Power Search by Stephan Spencer

Learn why. That’s not a great first experience. Now, what do we do? I probably raised all of your cortisol levels. Thankfully, there is a solution, and that is that we’re going to hire an SEO expert or at least a practitioner to do an SEO audit.

We’re going to do just basically a diagnostic, you go to the doctor, and you should be going to your SEO practitioner to get an audit. So I have a handout, it’s a seven-step process to hiring an SEO. I’m also going to be around for the rest of the day and I’m also going to make myself available for the next few weeks to do a 15-minute diagnostic,  screen share with you, and I’ll record it and I’ll send you the recording for free, for anybody in the room and downstairs who wants it.

I suggest you take me up on that’s pretty valuable.  And, by all means, take some books, because I’m not taking them home. If you are worried about going overweight with your luggage, I have a bunch of these as well. This is Google Power Search, it’s not an SEO book, it’s a book about how to find anything in Google, confidential business plans, and Forrester research reports that normally cost thousands of dollars, all that is available at your fingertips.

Thank you very much.

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Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last modified on November 8, 2024.

We at Koshkonong, LLC are strongly committed to protecting your privacy and providing a safe online experience for all of our visitors while offering a high-quality user experience here at www.stephanspencer.com (the “Website”), or/and any other websites operated by the Company, including but not limited to:

We know that you care about how the information you provide to us is used and shared. We have developed this Privacy Policy to inform you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of Information we receive from users of the Website. Koshkonong, LLC (the “Company”) operates the Website.

This Privacy Policy, along with our Term & Conditions, governs your use of this site.  By using www.stephanspencer.com (the “Website”), or by accepting the Terms of Use (via opt-in, checkbox, pop-up, or clicking an email link confirming the same), you agree to be bound by our terms and consent to this Privacy Policy.

Information We Collect

When you visit our Website, we will learn certain information about you.

In order to provide you with the most efficient and enhanced personalized service and attention, and to accommodate certain requests which you make, we request information about you in certain circumstances and collect certain information automatically.

Consistent with our previous practices, we will only collect and process your personal data when we have a lawful basis for doing so. These lawful bases include when you provide us consent, when we have a contractual obligation to collect or process the data, and when we have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data.

We may collect and/or receive the following types of information from you:

Information Provided Voluntarily

Personal Information. You may be asked to provide personal information including your name, address, email address and phone number when you sign up for any of our newsletters, respond to a survey, register for a class, or purchase a product or service. We will only request the personal information that is required in order to fulfill our obligations to you, i.e. in order to deliver what you have requested, as well as to comply with any legal obligations that may accompany such an exchange.

Order & Billing Information. If you place an order through our Website, we track certain information about the products and services you purchase. At checkout, you will also be required to provide additional information required for processing your payment. This generally includes a debit or credit card or other payment information, expiration dates, card security codes, your billing address or similar information.  This information is generally processed and captured by third-party vendors, such as payment processors and merchant account providers. To the fullest extent possible, we make an effort not to capture or retain this information ourselves (unless, for example, we are requested to process a refund, follow up on the delivery of goods or services, or work with customers or vendors on resolving any errors or other scenarios.) Third-party vendors who assist us in any of our business functions will also be doing so pursuant to their own terms and conditions, including privacy policies and terms of use.

Information Collected Automatically. In addition to the information described above, we may collect some or all of the following information:

Activity Info (Log Data). Information may be collected based on your use of the Website, which generally includes information about your computer hardware and software, such as:

Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses, operating systems, browser types, device types, URLS, access dates and times; Website pages that you visit; referring website information; universally unique identifiers (“UUID”), advertising identifier (“IDFA”), carrier and country location, hardware and processor information, network type, and other related data.

Use of Cookies.  Our website may use cookies in order to deliver a better experience for you. Cookies are files with small amounts of data that a website stores on your computer’s or mobile device’s hard drive so that certain information about your visit and web-browsing preferences will be recognized upon a return visit. Cookies serve functions such as “remembering” log-in names and passwords, or enabling or saving shopping cart contents. Like many websites, we may use both session cookies (which expire once you close your web browser) and persistent cookies (which stay on your computer until you delete them) to help us improve the experience you have with our Website. Most web browsers have a function that allows you to delete existing cookies on your device or you can set your browser options so that your device does not receive or accept cookies. Doing this may interfere with your ability to use the Website. [ ]

Third-Party Analytics. We use third-party analytics services (such as Google Analytics) to evaluate and aggregate visitor data. These services help us evaluate Visitors’ use of the Website, including time spent on certain pages, which areas of the Website receive the most traffic, how often visitors visit pages within the Website, and also provide general geographic location about visitors, the source of referred traffic (from other websites, vs search engines, etc). These third party analytic services use cookies and other technologies to help analyze and provide us the data. By providing your consent to this Privacy Policy, you consent to the collection and review of data about you by these analytics providers in the manner and for the purposes set out herein.

For more information on Google Analytics, including how to opt out from certain data collection, please visit https://www.google.com/analytics. If you opt out of any service, you may not enjoy the full functionality of the Website.

Other Third Party Tracking Tools. We may also collect or receive information from third parties, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and/or other third-party social media and similar sites.

How to Access Your Personal Information

If you have provided personal, billing or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review and make changes to it via instructions found on the Website or by emailing us at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any related email from the Company. Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases (for example, if we have a legal obligation to keep it for certain timeframes).

How We Use and Share the Information

We use the collected Information to understand customer needs, including regarding our Website services to:

  • present you with information through our Website and email services;
  • provide our services, process orders, and administer our programs;
  • maintain and improve our Website;
  • respond to your requests, and provide customer service, including in response to any problems that may arise, such as difficulties in navigating our Website or accessing certain features;
  • solicit your feedback, and to inform you about our products and services and those of our third-party marketing partners that we feel may be of interest or value to you;
  • personalize or display advertisements to you on third-party platforms;
  • improve our services or offerings; and
  • fulfill our legal or contractual obligations to you.

As with transactions elsewhere, when you purchase products, services, or programs via our Website, your credit card company will also retain certain information regarding your purchase. We will not otherwise provide any personal data to your credit card company without your permission.

We may share the Information collected with joint venture partners, affiliates, agents, current or prospective business partners, businesses under common control, third-party businesses or partners participating in administering our programs or services, or to those providing business functions such as technical support, customer service, marketing assistance, etc. These businesses will only have access to information as necessary to perform their functions and to the extent permitted by law.

In the event of the sale or transfer of our business to a third party buyer, including in the event of bankruptcy or liquidation, we may, as necessary, share your data with the buyer or transferee.

In the event that we have to collect on a debt owed to us by you, we may, as necessary, share your information with an attorney or a court of law to enforce our rights and collect what is owed.

Under certain circumstances we may be obligated or compelled to disclose the Information: when required by law, court order or government agency, or when disclosing such Information is reasonably required to protect the Company, its property, the Website, the safety of visitors or others.

Retargeting / Personalized and Behavioral Ads

We may, using the techniques described above, and in conjunction with third party marketing partners, gather information from your visit to our Website for purposes of providing relevant advertising content to you in the future. This means that through third party marketing partners or third party sites such as Google, Facebook, or Instagram, we may display advertisements to you (remarketing or retargeting), based on usage data collected during your visit to our website.

Google Analytics: As described above, we use Google Analytics on our website. We may utilize any of the following advertising features that utilize the Google advertising cookies: Remarketing with Analytics, Demographics and Interest reporting, Segments, and Double Click integration.

To opt out of seeing personalized ads via the Google platform, please visit https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en

For more information regarding how Google uses cookies in advertising and how you can control advertising cookies, visit http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/

To personalize the ads you see via the Google platform, visit http://www.google.com/settings/ads

For more information on how Google uses data when you visit its partners’ sites or apps, visit http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/

Or, via an opt-out browser add-on, you can opt out of having your site activity available to Google Analytics. For more information, or to install the opt-out browser ad-on, please visit https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en  Please note that if you opt out of any service, you may not enjoy the full functionality of the Website.

Google Ad Words: We may utilize Google Ad Words, which provides certain of the information collected on our website to the Adwords advertising network. To opt out of Google Ad Words, visit https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en

Facebook Custom Audience: We may utilize Facebook’s Custom Audience capability which allows us to display ads on Facebook to individuals on our email lists or in our database. We may provide personal information to Facebook, such as your name, email address and phone number to enable Facebook to identify whether you are a Facebook account holder. To opt-out of the Facebook Custom Audience, please email us at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with (1)“Facebook Custom Audience Opt-Out” in your Subject Line, and (2) your name and email address in the body of the email.

Other Personalized and Behavioral Advertising Services: We may participate in other retargeting services that are similar to those described above.

Managing Cookies Via Your Browser:

You may be able to change your cookie preferences via your browser settings. Please visit your browser’s help section for assistance with turning on notifications regarding cookies, or disabling cookies through your browser.

Managing Cookies on Your Mobile Device:

You may be able to change your cookie preferences on your mobile device either via your browser settings, or via the settings (preferences) on your device. For additional info, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/mobile/

Use Caution When Sharing Information Online

When you voluntarily make your Personal Information available online in an environment shared by third parties – including in webinars, classes, online conferences, via email, on message boards, chat rooms or on blogs, or via telephone calls or conferences – that information can be viewed, saved, collected, heard, and/or used by others outside of the Company. We are not responsible for any unauthorized third-party use of information provided in these contexts. Please be mindful whenever you share any information online.

Security of Your Information

The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we incorporate standard industry practices internally and with our services providers, which we believe is sufficient for the information involved, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. Because we work with third-party businesses and vendors in various aspects of our business including operating this website, database management, website security, etc., we cannot guarantee the absolute security of our databases, nor can we guarantee that the Information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to and from us over the Internet. Any information that you provide to us via email should be treated with extra caution, as we cannot control the level of security available through email providers.

Children

We are strongly committed to protecting the safety and privacy of children who visit our website. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 13 through the Website. If you are under 13, please do not give us any Personal Information. We encourage all parents to talk to their children about online safety and to monitor their children’s use of the Internet. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Information to us, please contact us, and we will make best efforts to immediately delete that information from our databases.

External Websites

While we have carefully chosen those vendors with whom we work, especially those involved in the transmission of data on behalf of our business, we do not control and are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of third-party websites, including those of affiliates, business partners, sponsors, advertisers, or other websites to which we may link from time to time. When visiting any third-party websites, you are responsible for reviewing the privacy policy and terms of use applicable to each site. They may be different than those that you see here.

California Privacy Rights

Pursuant to Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code, residents of California have the right to request from a business with whom the Californian has an established business relationship, certain information with respect to the types of personal information the business shares with third parties for direct marketing purposes by such third party and the identities of the third parties with whom the business has shared such information during the immediately preceding calendar year. To request a copy of the information disclosure provided by the Company pursuant to this provision, please contact us via email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com.

Our California Do Not Track Notice

Consistent with our policies described above, we collect information from our visitors on our website and across third party websites where applicable, to provide relevant content and advertising. We do not support Do Not Track (“DNT”) signals of web browsers.

DNT is a setting in your web browser that informs websites that you do not want to be tracked. You can enable or disable DNT through the Preferences or Settings options of your web browser.

Visitors Outside the U.S.

Our Website and the servers that make this Website available worldwide are located in the United States. The Internet laws in the United States govern all matters relating to this Website. Any information you provide in subscribing to or visiting our Website will be transferred to the United States. By visiting our Website and submitting information, you authorize this transfer, processing, and use.

EU Visitors and the GDPR

If you live in the EU, certain of your data may be subject to protection by the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”), a privacy regulation intended to help you have greater control over your personal data.

Under the GDPR, you have the following rights, which we extend to all of our website visitors:

  • to know what information is being collected, as disclosed in this Privacy Policy (“right to transparent information”);
  • to object on grounds relating to your particular situation to the collection or processing of certain kinds of information (“right to object”);
  • to withdraw consent even after it has been given, without affecting the lawfulness of the processing of your data prior to your withdrawal (“right to withdraw consent”);
  • to access, modify or update your information so that it is correct (“right to access” and “right to rectification”);
  • to have your information deleted or erased (“right to erasure” or “right to be forgotten”);
  • to have your data transferred or ported elsewhere (“right to data portability”);
  • and the right to restrict processing in certain situations (“right to restriction of processing”).

For purposes of the GDPR, to the fullest extent possible we do not directly collect or maintain personal data of our EU visitors or clients. This is done through partnerships with third-party vendors who have systems designed for the collection and storage of data on behalf of their clients (“data processors”). The data is only kept as long as is reasonably required to accomplish the purpose or purposes for which it was collected. Certain data may be expunged or utilized more quickly than others, and depending on your engagement and behaviors, including purchasing behaviors, we may be engaged in a business or contractual relationship with some longevity. (For example, if you purchase a course or program, or services that span over some time, you will continue to receive communications in regards to those offerings or services).

The categories of data processors with whom we work, and that help us in the collection of information that allows us to serve and interact with you include website analytics provider(s), website and web form plug-ins and related third-party services that allow us to maintain an up-to-date online platform and communicate with you electronically, an email service provider or providers to assist in managing email correspondence with our visitors, customers and list, as well as payment processor(s) and/or merchant account(s) to help us transact sales online and follow up with you regarding any purchases. For a list of specific data processors with whom we currently work, please visit our list here.

Those within the Company that may have access to the data include Officers, Directors, Managers, Supervisors, Salespersons, or those providing customer or technical support. Access to the data is provided for specific purposes, generally related to communicating with you, fulfilling our contractual obligations, providing customer service or technical support, collecting payment, or monitoring performance of marketing and sales efforts.

You may contact us at any time to have your information with us or any of these processors updated or corrected, deleted, or to obtain a copy for your records. Additionally, you may opt out of receiving any additional emails or marketing messages from us by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our email notifications.

Further, if you feel that we have not complied with the relevant data protection regulations, please contact us by sending us an email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with your first and last name, your country of origin, and a summary of your concern or complaint. We will endeavor to respond at our earliest possible convenience to address your concern. If contacting us does not resolve your complaint, you may have additional options.

Residents in Designated Countries may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant EU data protection authority. You may access a list of the Data Protection Authorities in the EU here.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

The Company may update this Privacy Policy from time to time as necessary to protect our users and to comply with a changing environment. Please review the Privacy Policy when you visit our Website to remain updated on our current policy. We have no intention of making any changes to our Privacy Policy and practices to make them less protective of personal information collected in the past. By accessing the Website and/or using our services after making any such changes to this Privacy Policy, you are deemed to have accepted such changes. Please be aware that, to the extent permitted by applicable law, our use of the Information is governed by the Privacy Policy in effect at the time we collect the information. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Whenever we make changes to this Privacy Policy we will update the date at the top.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us via email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with “Privacy Policy” in the subject line.

© 2015 – 2024 by The Legal Website Warrior® (www.LegalWebsiteWarrior.com). All Rights Reserved.  DO NOT DUPLICATE THIS PRIVACY POLICY (OR ANY PORTION THEREOF). THIS CONSTITUTES COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.