E479: The “reply guy” formula - what I would do if I could divert attention to growing on 𝕏. Use Premium+ account. Niche down, articulate my niche clearly. 3 hour daily commitment. - 2 hours replying to accounts in my niche or spinning comments on big accounts towards my niche. - 1 hour creating daily content for my profile - creating a valuable bi…

E478: Anybody can do this right now to build crazy FOMO. Use featured.com to get into 3-4 publications each week. Use aipodcastmatcher.com to get in 2-3 podcasts each week. Every 7 days, share on LinkedIn. “Omg what is happening to this guy/girl they are blowing up!” - That’s what people will say to themselves when they see you getting all this swe…

E477: The performance of P. Diddy’s home website defies expected behavior. First, we look at how DecorMyEyes manipulated Google by delivering broken products, threatening customers, and engaging in fraud. These activities got it tons of angry reviews and blog posts, resulting in… tons of backlinks. The people behind DecorMyEyes went to jail and Goo…

E476: Something nobody tells you about SEO. The best SEOs are not SEOs. They’re public relations people. The problem is these people have no understanding of backlinks, keyword clouds, semantic relevance scores, domain authority, and technical digital marketing. So when you take these public relations people and teach them these things, they become…

E475: Learning link-building with journalists turned me into a cynic. It completely opens your eyes to the reality of journalism. I watched SEOs lie to journalists, make up accreditations, and more… all to get the highest authority backlinks they could. This is the dark reality of journalism and SEO. 00:00 Introduction 00:36 Domain Authority and Ba…

E474: The two biggest SEO epiphanies I had that quite literally changed the way I looked at the Internet. When you understand how Google works, you understand how the Internet works. These are the two SEO epiphanies that will have the greatest impact. The first is from when I was just learning SEO - literally when I was starting. It was my holy mol…

E473: How to optimize LinkedIn so that recruiters and employers reach out to you nonstop. In 2016 I used these LinkedIn hacks to go from unemployable to super in-demand in literally within a month. And a month later I had a job at one of the best marketing agencies in the world. Then I wrote an article on the hacks and optimizations I used, and man…

E472: Backlink strategies for 2024. 3 ways to build links covered in this episode: - Linkable Assets - ABC Link Exchanges - Weekly/Monthly Roundups Important: 3 way linking (ABC link exchanges) is considered a black hat link-building tactic and should be avoided by website owners. However, it’s still worth knowing about. From: https://x.com/theshan…

E471: How TogetherKeys is making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month with their faceless Instagram Reels and TikTok strategy. All videos are extremely repeatable and require little work. Find a simple faceless format that works. Wash, rinse, repeat… 3-5 times a day. Crazy. From: https://x.com/iamgdsa/status/1846551078608757029 Second post that…

E470: Lars Lofgren (https://x.com/LarsLofgren), a true digital marketing OG, comes on the pod. Lars was one of Neil Patel’s early employees back in 2011 and just went super viral for his exposé of the black hat affiliate SEO that Forbes, CNN, USA Today and other big publishers are doing. We start the conversation with an affiliate story of his own …

E469: I can’t stop thinking about how easy local marketing is. On this episode, I specifically talk about local SEO with Google Business Profile, and local newsletters. It’s some crazy stuff - marketing on easy mode. Yesterday’s episode: https://youtu.be/IyUv47A5m40 00:00 Introduction 00:23 Basics of Local SEO 00:58 Google Business Profile 02:41 Su…

E468: Nik Hulewsky (https://x.com/CoFoundersNik) shares local marketing hacks that are overlooked and profitable anywhere. Tricks that anybody can do now. - Local SEO and Google Business Profile Optimization - Local Newsletters and how to grow them Then we talk about content marketing success stories (going deep into the details of how they happene…

E467: This is seriously one of the most surefire ways to go viral. Recently, I had one of my most viral videos. I share exactly how I made it and how I’ve reused the strategy time and time again. In fact, I used it just last night, and that video is also going viral. If you need some hits and want content that performs above average, this is a sure…

E466: Google’s First Link Bias, also called the First Link Counts Rule, is both weird and notable. Google has a bias towards the first link on a page. This applies to both internal links and external links. Google has a bias. And this bias gets even stranger when image links are involved. From: https://seosherpa.com/seo-experiments/ More detail: ht…

E465: This entrepreneur had a super dumb startup idea. But he went and built it anyway. And even though it didn’t make him much money, it was so dumb it went viral! I love this - crazy ideas that are so crazy they have to go viral. When you do this, you get tons of positive SEO signals. Great thing to leverage. + Eight pieces of advice that would h…

E464: YouTube Shorts is extending to 3 minutes. It’s happened with Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, TikTok Duets, Stories, pinned comments... the list goes on. When a platform introduces a new feature, content utilizing that feature gets pushed - or at least that’s the theory. From: https://x.com/xNickOnline/status/1843879939306598855 00:00 YouTube…

E463: 4 self-employed indie hackers who are making either tens of thousands MRR or hundreds of thousands USD - and the marketing they’re doing to get their customers. If you need some inspiration from people making it with in-depth details of how they’re doing it, you’ll like this. Mentioned: Memelord Technologies: https://memelord.tech/ Stage Time…

E462: Forbes Marketplace, a third-party managed platform under the Forbes URL, has been spamming SEO - making up for over 50% of Forbes’ revenue. Forbes’ Marketplace is entirely lazy affiliate articles targeting a variety of keywords unrelated to Forbes’ typical topics. Even worse, these articles lack Forbes’ oversight and exist only to manipulate …

E461: Is Google losing search market share? The Wall Street Journal is suggesting it might be. Not only that, but many pundits are saying TikTok and AI chatbots are taking a meaningful amount of searches from Google. So here is all the data on Google's yearly performance for share of voice, searches, and ad sales. This research is from the legendar…

E460: How Josh Comeau built a small social media audience and email list in a year, then launched a course to it, doing $500,000 in a week-long pre-sale. The course was only 50% complete when the limited pre-sale launched to his audience. This is one of my best episodes yet, and I am hyped by the information in it. From: https://www.indiehackers.co…

E459: YouTube Shorts is one of the most exciting places for marketers. Not only are Shorts great for SEO, the long tail of views is insane. This episode gives many examples of how long it takes to see crazy virality on YouTube Shorts… and much more. 00:00 YouTube Shorts Crazy Virality 00:36 Glacier Video 01:15 Video Metrics 02:29 Personal Experienc…

E458: If you go after everybody with your headline, you get nobody. If a headline is bad, the rest of the page, ad, newsletter, etc could be great, but nobody will read it. Headlines are the only part that literally every viewer reads. If you have a month to work on a page or ad, spend 27 days on the headline. Here’s how to craft great headlines. S…

E457: Pure consistency will get any creator to a great spot. But how do you go from just another creator to an icon who has captured the conversation? That’s what this episode is about. 00:00 A Hit Product 00:16 iShowSpeed's Success 00:56 Kai Cenat 01:31 Evolution of Viral Stunts 04:16 My Experience Almost Getting a TV Show 06:27 Gary Vaynerchuk Pr…

E456: Bad digital marketing advice I’ve heard or hear all the time. What to stay away from. Who can you really trust out there in this wild world???? 00:00 Bad Viral SEO Tips 01:58 Top of Funnel SEO 03:14 Bottom of Funnel SEO 04:18 Misleading Content Advice 06:45 Schema Markup 09:08 PageSpeed Insights 11:44 Testing 14:38 Final Thoughts The Edward S…

E455: LinkedIn video is horrible… For everything other than search. The promise of LinkedIn video being great for page growth has been disproven - until LinkedIn fixes its recommendation algorithm, at least. But for search it is constantly recommended above text posts, even when those text posts have more engagement and are from bigger accounts. Th…

E454: One month ago, Formula Feldman (real name, Vova Feldman) didn’t know anything about Formula 1. Now, even without a driver’s license, his Formula 1 videos (he’s putting out 5-6 daily on social media) each get thousands of views. He’s exploiting the curious learner bias and starting to get top-of-mind awareness as a result. Vova’s a hustler and…

E453: Private equity people and other people in financial institutions are extremely price insensitive. On a recent My First Million podcast (https://youtu.be/qWQZpgnjlLA?si=QwGI1Qj-UdQs3N4G), Jesse, the guest, shares how PE firms and others will pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for digital marketing expertise and reports that don’t tak…

E452: Should you try to manipulate CTR in Google search? First, I explain why this is even possible - the experiments that have been done and leak data that show CTR is a valued ranking signal. Second, I give a breakdown of exactly how CTR manipulation is done: using bots, hacking, and microworkers. The breakdown is from Charles Floate on 𝕏: https:…

E451: How this guy was getting paid $10,000 for an hour-long consulting call, cold, with no referrals. This was 2017, and my clients were paying this guy. Here’s how he pulled this off. 00:00 The $10,000 Consulting Call 00:41 Introduction to This Guy’s Marketing Genius 01:25 Deep Dive 02:15 Controversial Marketing Tactics 03:04 Fabricated Stories 0…

E450: How the Rayz mobile app scaled to $80,000 MRR and 40M+ views on TikTok with this easy, faceless video strategy. This is a crazy one, so get your popcorn ready. Then, how you can use this strategy with easy-to-make single-feature apps. From the thread: https://x.com/iamgdsa/status/1836063552961945810 Use my exact social media posting strategy:…

E449: TikTok has overtaken Google as the biggest search engine among Gen Z… the opportunity is huge. It’s very easy to rank on TikTok and creators are getting lots of traffic. For example, Sabrina Ramonov who writes, “12% of all my TikTok views (around 1.3M/week) come from search and this % continues to grow.” TikTok ranks on Google. The videos can…

E448: A fast-food titan whose 50-year-old business is doing $70,000,000 in annual revenue gives advice to a struggling entrepreneur who cold-emailed him. The titan was so wealthy he owned a literal castle that him and his wife had restored. Whereas the struggling entrepreneur was, “a hungry, broke, and eager first-time franchisee.” This is a warm b…

E447: What makes a YouTube video viral. Written by MrBeast in his leaked 36-page super-dense internal company handbook. So much good stuff in here. If you’re active in doing content marketing on YouTube or trying to make more engaging videos, there’s a ton to learn from this. And this is just one small part of the book. Read the whole “How to Succe…

E446: How to go viral on YouTube Shorts. The content I’m seeing that performs really well. How to craft a good title for YouTube Shorts. YouTube and YouTube Shorts statistics. This is an information-dense episode on YouTube Shorts. Yesterday’s Newsletter as mentioned in the podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/articles/harsh-feedback-made-me-viral/ 00:…

E445: Lars Lofgren confronts a hydra of affiliate Parasite SEO posters on Reddit. One of the affiliates is even a moderator! Lars enters the hydra’s lair, confronts it, and tries to take it down. But does he succeed? Does Lars Lofgren succeed at taking out the Parasite SEO posters on Reddit? You’ll have to listen to find out. And credit again to La…

E444: Indie Hackers is being abused for Parasite SEO, even with lazy AI-generated articles being pushed to the homepage. This is what I’m seeing and this is how I would improve it. 00:00 Introduction to Parasite SEO 01:21 Parasite SEO Techniques 01:57 Indie Hackers and Parasite SEO 03:25 Detecting AI-Generated Content 05:42 The Impact of Parasite S…

E443: How this entrepreneur used organic Twitter and paid ads in 2020 to launch and scale two information products - one about AWS and another about Twitter. As well as the pricing experiments the entrepreneur ran, marketing experiments, the messaging that had the biggest immediate financial impact, and all the lessons gained throughout the person’…

E442: How to have more pictures of you or your company appear on Google Images. This video is especially applicable for people, where there can be lots of other people who have your name. Brand names are easier because they tend to be more unique. If you want to control the narrative of your brand, which people experience when looking you up on Goo…

E441: A close friend had one of his best-performing 𝕏 posts of all time. But he didn’t consider going deep into the subject. However he should have. The subject matter was highly validated. This podcast is about all the ways in which a well-performing 𝕏 post can be the gift that keeps on giving. How to turn tweets / 𝕏 posts into well-performing: - …

E440: Hope everybody stays safe out there. This episode is about dedication to consistency. 00:00 Unexpected Trip to Warsaw 00:34 Floods in Central Europe 02:29 Thoughts About Consistency 04:57 Nervous Anticipation in the City 06:48 Final Thoughts The Edward Show. Your daily digital marketing podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #consi…

E439: The GPT-based Chrome Extension in this episode ranked on Google for 213,000+ keywords on Google (2,200 rankings in positions 1-3) with a site that was well under one year old. No 301-redirects. No acquisitions. Normal SEO, heavily augmented with programmatic AI pages. Then, during the panic of Google penalizing AI sites in early 2024, this si…

E438: A press release SEO experiment ten years ago directly refutes a top Google representative’s claim that they do not work. And my experiences sending out many press releases. The last one I sent out was April 2022. All of my experiences were positive. And alternatives to press releases if sending out out is over budget. Read the press release S…

E437: This is what I learned about networking while going to NYC technology and business events every night for three years. It’s a list of the most impactful things to do to create a web of relationships that will give you a consistent stream of awareness and referrals with little further lead generation. If you want to get good at networking so t…

E436: For those saying SEO is dead… NerdWallet’s revenue is up 25% year over year, with SEO making up 76% of visitors to its site. "According to Semrush, NerdWallet's search traffic is close to as high as it's ever been." NerdWallet’s search traffic is up 38% over the last two years despite ChatGPT being released in December 2022. NerdWallet’s secr…

E435: A thread on the Entrepreneur subreddit today: 1. How a company repeatedly games Reddit by buying upvotes to product recommendation lists where their product is discreetly nestled into the list. 2. How a Redditor tries to expose them. 3. How that Redditor is then downvoted into oblivion and their comments hidden. 4. How the company buys commen…

E434: A guy in the Urban Farming niche made total $432,483.50 + an additional $130,000.00 and $21,000.00 with his business, mainly from Instagram. First, he gives an overview of who he is and what he’s doing. Then he gives a more specific breakdown of his funnel, his operational details, and his exact marketing strategy. After, he recommends to var…

E433: We look at the time Samsung bought out the train station in front of the new Apple Store Malaysia. Samsung used a legal loophole to do this and renamed the station, “The Samsung Galaxy Station.” They also bought out all the ad space in the station. People had to walk through nonstop ads of Samsung devices to get to the new Apple Store. Next, …

E432: There’s a belief in SEO that backlinks from websites, and especially from pages, that link out to thousands of other sites, are not enough to do anything. “This page gives so many algorithmic votes of confidence (aka SEO backlinks) that they stop mattering,” the theory goes. But is this true? This experiment tests this and turns back results …

E431: This is the true story of when Google forgot to renew its domain name, Google.com, and somebody purchased it and literally owned it. That somebody is Sanmay Ved, and he wrote this article on what went down: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-purchased-domain-googlecom-via-google-domains-sanmay-ved/ Then the Verge reported on the amount paid to …

E430: This is a crazy hack for increasing SEO backlinks and brand awareness. All the time Meetup organizers step down. By doing what’s described in this podcast you can get notified when this happens so you can take over the abandoned meetup that the organizer worked hard to build. It’s now your meetup. Then, with this meetup, you can increase back…