Hey Sara welcome to my blog, please share your brief intro to my audience and how did you get started with CanIrank?
Hi Jitendra, thanks for having me, I’m happy to be here! Great question!
I met Matt Bentley, the CEO and Founder of CanIRank in 2018, I was so impressed with his kind and intelligent demeanor, as well as his background! As a Stanford engineer turned SEO, Matt built CanIRank to take the guesswork out of SEO campaigns and drive results rather than aggregate data.
After diving in and looking at the shocking results that both CanIRank’s DIY users and full-service clients were seeing, I wanted to see if I could duplicate their success. After playing with the CanIRank tool myself, I was hooked. CanIRank is the best use of AI SEO I have seen on the market, in a space that is continuing to grow. CanIRank is ahead of the curve in regards to results, data, AI, and value, and I knew I wanted to be a part of the growth and helping businesses of all sizes grow their search presence with CanIRank.
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What are the best features of CanIrank software? How it can help SEO experts?
CanIRank has a different approach than other SEO tools, most SEO tools provide raw data sans strategic insights – CanIRank provides actions. This makes CanIRank great for a DIY user, small business, or small marketing team learning SEO, looking for new tactics, or looking for more purview into their campaigns.
For large marketing teams looking to hyper-drive their growth, or businesses looking to delegate certain SEO actions to an agency, CanIRank is a critical growth-driving tool and a great partner for large businesses.
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How do you discover money-making keywords?
CanIRank’s keyword analysis tool was built to drive ROI on SEO activities, and therefore finding money-making keywords is a construct of the platform. I personally like to search for keywords that are already ranking in the top 10-30 results of the SERPS that could provide an ROI with minimal time constraints.
Here’s my process in CanIRank:
#1 – Under the Improve My Rankings Tool I sort for “High Rank” keywords
#2 – Then I filter those keywords by “Optimization” percentage
#3 – What remains, is high-value, partially optimized pages that are essentially “low hanging fruit.” With a few backlinks and optimizations, increasing these 5 keyword rankings alone has a value of just shy of $5,000.
Money-making keywords can be quick wins or long-term goals, but I like to attack them in conjunction.
For example, a long-term keyword we are targeting is “SEO” and you’ll see above that we are optimized for the term at 59% so far. However, we are not currently ranking for that term. Ranking for that keyword would provide an equivalent ROI of over $500,000 dollars to our agency, and while we know won’t be ranking for “SEO” overnight due to the extreme competition, it is an active long-term keyword we consistently are targeting. Mixing up your goals into quick wins, attainable with diligence, and long term goals can help keep the momentum alive as you see different wins accumulate.
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Niche site vs Authority Site. Which is best according to you & why? What are the pros and cons of both?
Both niche & authority sites have their place in SEO and growth building strategies.
For example, An eCommerce pet supply store could see huge gains by partnering with a dog lovers website, veterinarian association, or animal training forum. Niche audiences are great for spreading awareness to an already interested audience.
Whereas authority sites may not be your exact target audience, they help increase your authority, and can also create additional opportunities, more exposure, and can have a “ripple effect” on your SEO efforts.
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SEO is changing in a big way in 2019. How you are managing SEO work on client sites?
The SEO landscape is constantly changing. Unlike most marketing agencies, we try not to get caught up in the innuendos surrounding the latest trends and updates to Google’s algorithm. Instead, we take a data-driven approach to the strategy we implement for our clients. For example, in 2018 the Google Medic update had a big impact on the search results for many companies and industries, including some of our clients. Rather than panic and feed into rumors, we conducted a research study to make sure we fully understood the implications of the core update.
We then used our findings to adjust our approach for internal tasks and processes. For example, we’ve now added query intent to part of our on-page optimization strategy. In 2019, we plan on doing more of the same: letting data guide our strategy rather than following the herd and doing what everyone else is doing.
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Is the future for link building in the dark? Because Google now is aware that people are buying links to game SERP’s?
I think Google has known about link-buying for years, and while they will continuously work to stop-spammy or malicious SEO practices, certain SEO’s will always be looking to manipulate the algorithms. SEO’s and Google need each other, and I don’t think the future is dark, but I do see it evolving as it has multiple times in the past.
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Your 2 cents on the best link building practices?
Don’t reinvent the wheel. A lot of SEO’s get bogged down in ideas, strategies, and half-implemented campaigns. Do more of what works, and less of the uncertain. Do what your competitors are doing. Steal interesting ideas you find on the internet. More copying, less shooting to see what sticks.
Check out some of Sara Davis’ Posts:
- How to Get Backlinks Like a Boss
- How to Hack HARO for Brand Feedback – Part One
- 88 Experts predict the best SaaS marketing techniques for 2019
- 12 Tried and True Brand Feedback Strategies from the Experts – Part Two
As someone remotely famous once said “Great marketers copy, and great ones steal.”
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How did you enter into the online marketing industry? Did you find it fascinating?
My brother in law worked at an SEO firm as an accountant around 2010. He thought that I might be a good fit for the creative/technical work of the SEO consultants at his firm, and knew I wasn’t entirely sure what career path I wanted to take. At the time, I was enrolled in general business courses at a local university, but within a year at my first SEO agency, I knew what I wanted to do. So, I dropped out of college full-time and pursued my career in digital marketing and the rest is history.
I’ve always loved computers, technology, writing and language, and helping people provide better lives for their families, and so marketing was all around a perfect fit for me.
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You seem to be doing great content on CanIRank how do you reach out experts for interviews on CanIRank blog?
Building relationships with other SaaS marketers, entrepreneurs, or influential marketers in the space has given me the unique advantage of having an arsenal of experts I can call on for resources at any given time. However, for individuals who have yet to build up their expert arsenal, you can find excellent resources using HARO or another similar platform for journalists looking to find super-star interviewees and experts. As you grow your relationships in this industry, doors open as well, and I highly suggest on-going relationship building for all SEO’s.
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How important is the ratio between followed and no-followed links in 2019?
Our team did extensive research on this topic last year, and I don’t think I can answer this question nearly as well as they did, so I’ll leave the study here. As far as my personal beliefs? I think having a healthy portfolio of both is ideal for most businesses.
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How does Google see backlinks from guest posts in 2019?
Guestpost backlinks still have positive ranking correlations, while they may not be as strong as they once were, guest-posted content still provides value.
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How you optimize 404-page errors on CanIRank & Your Clients?
It truly depends on the persona and brand of the business. If their brand has a reputation of being modern, fun, and out of the box – they might get a 404 page that reflects that persona. Whereas if they prefer professional, to-the-point messaging, their 404 pages would reflect that messaging as well. 404 pages are one of those things that are a great way to show off your brand’s persona, and as such should be built with that concept in mind.
Sara’s Linked In Profile Screenshot:
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How you are able to do guest posts on authority websites like Thrive Global? Do you have an outreach secret, do share?
Over time, I have built contributorships to MoneyInc, ThriveGlobal, Forbes, Deseret News, and a wide variety of other top-tier platforms. My secret sauce? Continuous writing, research, and outreach. I know that isn’t the answer anyone wants to hear, but it’s true.
What started out as me pitching content to local news sites, or small business blogs, has resulted in a much more “sellable portfolio” with the social proof that comes with writing for multiple top tier outlets.
For example, my former content basically writes the pitch itself:
Something as simple as:
“Hi, I’m Sara Davis,
You may have seen my content featured in Relevance, SearchEngineLand, StartupNation, or Forbes – and I’d love to talk to you about contributing an article that discusses the myths of HTTPS signals in SEO, or if that’s not a fit I have a few other topics I’ve got up my sleeve that I know would resonate with your audience. Do you have time in the upcoming week to chat?”
Is a lot more effective than:
“Hi, I’m Sara Davis,
As a content marketer who has written for Business2Community and has a personal blog on Medium discussing digital marketing strategies, I would love to contribute an article that engages your audience. Here are my topic ideas (insert X), is there a topic that interests you?”
So my advice to getting top tier contributorships? Keep writing, keep pitching, and always keep building your portfolio. It’s tenuous, but it’s worth it.
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