In this insightful webinar hosted by Emanuel Petrescu, we dive deep into the world of SEO strategies with Kevin Carney, a renowned expert in organic growth and link building. Discover the secrets behind link earning, entity SEO, and Google’s algorithms, and gain valuable insights on how to optimize your website for increased visibility and search engine rankings. Whether you’re a small business owner or a digital marketing professional, this session is a must-watch to stay ahead of the game in the ever-evolving world of SEO.
Show Notes
Introduction
This webinar hosted by Emanuel Petrescu features guest speakers Kevin Carney and Joachim Koch discussing SEO strategies like link building and improving website authority through quality content and backlinks. Listeners can expect to learn the history behind how links became integral to Google’s search algorithm, differences between link building vs link earning, how to become an SEO “entity”, and more.
Main Discussion Points
- How links and citations between academic papers inspired early search engine development at Google (00:05:30)
- Link profiles showing you are “known by the right people” help improve search rank (00:09:48)
- Transition from focusing just on websites to establishing yourself as an SEO “entity” (00:11:18)
- Building relationships and links between entities to resemble real-world connections (00:11:35)
- Difference between transactional “link building” and earning links naturally over time (00:13:46)
- Introduction to Kevin’s platform for building a community around ethical link earning (00:21:02)
More Detailed Discussion
This is not a word for word transcript, but rather a discussion of the major ideas discussed in the video.
NOTE: At the time of the webinar, the Organic Growth SaaS platform was focused on building the authority of websites over time through Digital PR (via high-quality content and high-quality links). The shift of focus from websites and brands occurred later based on feedback from some early adopter users. Having said that the presentation Kevin gives talks about website authority.
The agenda for the presentation is:
- How did links become so integral to Google from day one?
- Link Building vs Link Earning vs Topical Authority
- Being better known through links and entities
- How us being interconnected can help us all
How did links become so integral to Google being a better search engine?
It all started when two nerds walked into a computer lab to talk about backrubs.
The Google origin story starts in the 1995 or 1996 timeframe. Before Google was a company, it was the research project of two Stanford Computer Science Phd candidates. The research project was named Backrub. The lead researcher was Larry Page. The person who helped him figure out the complex math was Sergey Brin.
The goal of the research project was to mathematically model how academic papers have values derived from citations from other papers, and how academic paper citations have values derived from the value of the paper they’re in.
When they worked out their mathematical model, they needed test data. The world wide web was a thing by then, so one of them wrote software to crawl the web and build a database of links between webpages, as this is similar in structure to academic paper citations.
While they’re verifying their model and their math, a Stanford alumnus (Andreas Bechtolsheim) who had become wealthy as one of the four initial founders of Sun Microsystem learned of this research project and came to check it out.
The story is that Andreas saw the commercial potential of what they had built. His assertion was that their little research project was a demonstrably better search engine than any search engine that existed at that time.
He wrote them a check for $100,000, Backrub became Google, and the rest as they say, is history.
This is why links are so integral to Google. At the very beginning links were THE one and only search signal.
Why do links matter today?
An SEO consultant named Steve who provides local SEO services in the greater Vancouver British Columbia metropolitan area has a pithy little statement that sums up well the importance of links.
“Links show you’re known by the right people”.
But, links can also show that you’re known by the wrong people.
Google is now moving us from strings to things
Most search queries on Google have a Knowledge Panel off to the right that contains a variety of details about the topic of the search.
For example, when you search for “Winston Churchill”, off to the right you’ll see a knowledge panel containing his date of birth, his date of death, the names of his children, the name of his wife, his educational achievements, the names of his parents, etc.
The knowledge panel is populated from data from what Google calls the knowledge graph.
The knowledge graph is a database of “entities”, and what matters here is that entities in the knowledge graph exist in relationship to each other.
Google’s implementation of the knowledge graph is part of a long term strategy on their part to push us to care about the relationship between things. Entities kind of force us to think in those terms.
Links are “supposed to” demonstrate relationships, entities simply do.
Link Building vs Link Earning vs Topical Authority
What matters most here is that independent of how any of us feel about it, when it comes to SEO, Google makes the rules.
I’ve heard people use the metaphor of “fighting Google”, but that’s not a useful way to think about SEO. It’s all about learning how to “dance with Google”.
And per Google:
- EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust) define “quality”.
- This is documented in extreme detail in Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines
- Today, authors are SEO entities
So… YOU (or your brand) becoming an entity can greatly enhances your visibility within Google search.
How do you or your brand become an entity?
By being recognized as having a relationship with an existing entity.
We have a saying of “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, but in fact neither of those have ever been true. What matters, and always has, is who knows you.
How do you become known to important influential entities such that you can be recognized as having a relationship to one or more? By gradually becoming better known to more and more people.
Being better known through high-quality links
Becoming an entity takes time, and the way you do it is to be cited (linked to) more, by the right people.
Which leads to a discussion of link profiles.
While we tend to think of link profiles as something websites have, it’s also something that “author bio” pages have.
Examples of such author bio pages are your LinkedIn profile, and literal author bio pages for you on websites that you write for.
And, what matters most here is that link profiles have detectable patterns, Google at its core is a pattern recognition engine, natural vs unnatural link patterns is a thing, and link profile diversity matters.
Community Link Earning… Growing Topical Authority
We (Organic Growth) have built a SaaS platform to help writers grow their topical authority, and yes, as with most things SEO, it does come down to high-quality content and high-quality links.
Blog posts get an SEO boost from topically relevant outbound links, and for that reason we look for sources for discovery links (attributions or citations) as we write posts.
The idea of our community is that you look for attribution link sources first within the community. If you find one, use it. When you log a link with the community, the content you’re promoting within the community becomes more visible within the community.
As the content you’re promoting within the community becomes more visible within the community, it becomes attribution link sources for others.
And by doing this, we create a rising tide that lifts all boats.
The main principles of our community is:
- Adhere to Google EEAT
- Focus on quality
- Work you way up
- Avoid closed loops
Changes to the SaaS platform since this webinar occurred
A few significant changes have been made to the SaaS platform since this webinar occurred.
The focus is now writers, rather than websites
Writers promote content they’ve written independent of what site it’s published on. If they publish on ten sites, they can promote content on ten sites. And when their content gets a visibility boost within the platform, that visibility boost is applied to every piece of content they’re promoting, independent of where that content is published.
People no longer “join” per se, they “apply”
This is to enforce content quality. After you apply, you submit/promote three webpages. They are individually assessed for their adherence to Google EEAT.
If one is rejected, you can and should submit a replacement.
When you submit three webpages that are accepted, your application is approved and you can search for attribution link sources within the community.
But if before you submit three good pages you submit five bad ones, your application is rejected.
Guest Bios
Kevin Carney is the founder of Organic Growth, an SEO company focused on link earning strategies for small businesses. He has over 10 years experience in SEO and digital marketing.
Key Quotes:
“Links show that you’re known by the right people.” (00:09:48)
“Google is moving us from strings to things.” (00:10:45)
“It’s not what you know, it’s who knows you.” (00:17:08)
Connect with Kevin
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About Emanuel P – How About Some Marketing? Founder and Host
Emanuel Petrescu is a Toronto SEO consultant passionate about helping businesses enhance their reputation and online footprint. He has substantial experience managing websites and developing and implementing SEO strategies. His area of expertise lies in SEO Audits, a subject on which he has developed a comprehensive educational course.
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