SEO
10 SEO Techniques for More Traffic
Getting more traffic to your website from organic search can be done in three ways.
You can either:
- Rank higher for existing keywords
- Rank for more keywords
- Get more clicks
The SEO techniques below all help you do one or more of those things.
Competition makes life harder, but your competitors can also be a source of topic ideas.
To find your competitors’ most trafficked pages, you can use the Top pages report in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer.
For example, if we plug a competitor of ours into the tool, we see its guide to Magento SEO gets a fair amount of search traffic.
We haven’t yet covered this topic ourselves, but it looks like it could be worth doing so.
You can also use the Content Gap report in Site Explorer to find keywords your competitors rank for that you don’t.
Here’s the process:
- Enter your domain into Site Explorer
- Go to the Content Gap report
- Enter a handful of competitors
For example, SEJ, SEL, and Moz all rank in the top 10 for “seo content strategies,” but we don’t because we haven’t covered this topic. So it’s probably worth adding to our content calendar.
It’s worth prioritizing low-difficulty topics if your site is new because you’ll probably struggle to rank for competitive topics out the gate.
You can find these with a keyword research tool like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. Just search for keyword ideas then filter for those with low Keyword Difficulty (KD) scores.
Old content needs updating periodically because rankings don’t last forever, especially if you’re targeting time-sensitive topics.
For example, here’s the estimated organic traffic to our list of top Google searches over time:
Each dip occurred when the content lost its freshness. Searchers wanted an up-to-date list of the top Google searches, but ours was old. That’s why rankings tanked.
Each spike occurred when we updated the content.
You can find pages on your site that may be due for a refresh in Site Explorer. Just plug in your site, go to the Top pages report, set the comparison mode to “Previous year,” sort the report by traffic change from low to high, and look for topics where freshness may be the issue.
If you’re a WordPress user, you can find pages that no longer perform well by running a free content audit using the Ahrefs SEO plugin.
Our study found that if a page ranks #1 for a keyword, it ranks for almost 1,000 more keywords in the top 10 on average.
Many of these keywords will be different ways of searching for the same thing. But some will likely represent subtopics you’ve covered in your content.
For example, our guide to submitting your website to Google ranks in the top 10 for “submit url to google.”
That happens because we’ve covered this subtopic in the post.
However, we have plenty of posts that almost certainly miss important subtopics. If we can find these and fill the gaps, our page can likely rank for related keywords and get more traffic.
Here’s a simple way to find content gaps:
- Enter one of your page’s URLs into Site Explorer
- Go to the Content Gap report
- Paste in a few top-ranking URLs for your main keyword
- Sift through the keywords for content gaps
For example, HubSpot and Neil Patel rank in the top 10 for “what are guest posts,” but we don’t.
This happens because we didn’t cover that subtopic in our guest posting guide, whereas they did.
Not only could covering the topic in more depth help us rank for more long-tail keywords, but it could also serve the user better with information they might want.
Content hubs are interlinked collections of content about a topic.
For example, our beginner’s guide to SEO is a content hub. It has a pillar page about SEO that links to and from subpages about how search engines work, SEO basics, keyword research, etc.
The main benefit of content hubs is that link equity flows to and from all the pages in the hub via internal links. In other words, if one of your subpages gets lots of backlinks, they all get stronger and potentially rank higher.
If you already have content on your website, the easiest way to create a content hub is to reorganize related pages around a new “hub” page.
If you want to create a new content hub, one of the easiest ways to find topics is to look at your competitors’ top subfolders.
For example, let’s plug DietDoctor into Site Explorer and go to the Site structure report. We see 30 pages under the /low-carb/keto/recipes subfolder that get an estimated 143K monthly search visits in total.
If we click the number of pages, we see all the pages under that URL structure along with their estimated traffic and top keyword.
Many of these topics will make sense for a content hub.
Learn more: Content Hubs for SEO: How to Get More Traffic and Links With Topic Clusters
Backlinks are one of Google’s top ranking factors, but getting high-quality ones is easier said than done. It’s arguably one of the most challenging parts of SEO.
For that reason, before you start trying to build more backlinks to a page, it’s worth checking whether this is likely to help.
For example, if you plug our guide to SEO analytics into Site Explorer, you see it has backlinks from 57 referring domains (websites):
This page currently ranks #2 for its main target keyword:
But if you check the top-ranking pages for that keyword in Keywords Explorer, you see that the page outranking us has significantly fewer referring domains.
These numbers don’t consider backlink quality, so it could be the case that the top-ranking page outranks us because it has more high-quality backlinks. But generally speaking, it doesn’t look like a lack of backlinks is the issue.
On the other hand, if you look at the SERP for “what is seo,” you see that our page has significantly fewer backlinks than those outranking us.
Building more backlinks is probably the way to go here.
Internal links are links from one page on your website to another.
Like backlinks, they transfer “link equity” from page to page. Unlike backlinks, you have complete control over where and how you internally link on your website. That’s why a popular SEO technique is to point more internal links at pages that need a boost.
To find these pages, plug your domain into Site Explorer, go to the Organic keywords report, and filter for keyword rankings between 2–10.
You can then sift through this report for your main target keywords.
For example, we rank #7 for “off page seo.”
To find relevant and contextual internal link opportunities for this page, we can add it to the target page filter in the Link opportunities report in Ahrefs’ Site Audit.
In this example, the report suggests we internally link a contextual mention of “off-page seo” in our on-page SEO guide.
Learn more: Internal Links for SEO: An Actionable Guide
Broken backlinks are a common problem because people often delete or move pages over time. Unless you redirect these pages to their new URLs, any backlinks pointing to the old ones will effectively point to nowhere.
Here’s how to find broken pages with backlinks on your site:
- Paste your domain into Site Explorer
- Go to the Best by links report
- Add a “404 not found” filter
- Sort the report by referring domains from high to low
For example, we have backlinks from 57 referring domains pointing to the old URL for our SEO Toolbar.
Given that our “SEO toolbar” page still exists, we can reclaim those backlinks by redirecting the old URL to the new one.
Learn more: How to Find and Fix Broken Links
Ranking high on Google is only part of the battle. You also need to entice searchers to click on your result.
Here are a couple of ways to do this:
- Write a compelling title tag and meta description
- Add schema markup for rich snippet eligibility
Google often shows title tags and meta descriptions in the search results, so making them as compelling as possible without creating clickbait is important.
Here are a few tips:
- Match search intent
- Avoid truncation (use a free SERP snippet optimizer like this one to check)
- Address the searcher directly
- Include your main keyword
You can also use schema markup to make pages eligible for rich snippets. This is where Google shows additional information below the search snippet, such as review ratings and FAQs.
Given that these optimizations take time, it’s worth prioritizing pages with the most search traffic. You can find these in Google Search Console or get an estimate using the Top pages report in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer.
Featured snippets are short answers that show in some search results. Google pulls them from one of the top-ranking pages.
You can effectively shortcut your way to the top of Google by winning featured snippets. But first, you need to find the best opportunities.
Here’s how to do it:
- Enter your domain into Site Explorer
- Go to the Organic keywords report
- Filter for top 10 rankings
- Filter for SERPs with featured snippets where you don’t rank
You should now see all the keywords you rank for in the top 10, where Google shows a featured snippet from another result.
For example, we rank #2 for “google operators,” but Google pulls the featured snippet from another page.
There’s no exact science to winning featured snippets, but you’re unlikely to do so unless your page has the information Google wants to see.
For example, it’s clear that Google wants a short definition here, but our page doesn’t have one.
While adding one to our page doesn’t guarantee Google will choose us for the featured snippet, it will improve our chances.
Final thoughts
Getting more search traffic to your website is about ranking higher for existing keywords, ranking for more keywords, or getting more clicks. There are plenty of SEO techniques you can use to do that. These are just a few of them.
If you want more, read our list of SEO tips.
Got questions? Ping me on Twitter.
SEO
4 Ways To Try The New Model From Mistral AI
In a significant leap in large language model (LLM) development, Mistral AI announced the release of its newest model, Mixtral-8x7B.
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:5546272da9065eddeb6fcd7ffddeef5b75be79a7&dn=mixtral-8x7b-32kseqlen&tr=udp%3A%2F%https://t.co/uV4WVdtpwZ%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%https://t.co/g0m9cEUz0T%3A80%2Fannounce
RELEASE a6bbd9affe0c2725c1b7410d66833e24
— Mistral AI (@MistralAI) December 8, 2023
What Is Mixtral-8x7B?
Mixtral-8x7B from Mistral AI is a Mixture of Experts (MoE) model designed to enhance how machines understand and generate text.
Imagine it as a team of specialized experts, each skilled in a different area, working together to handle various types of information and tasks.
A report published in June reportedly shed light on the intricacies of OpenAI’s GPT-4, highlighting that it employs a similar approach to MoE, utilizing 16 experts, each with around 111 billion parameters, and routes two experts per forward pass to optimize costs.
This approach allows the model to manage diverse and complex data efficiently, making it helpful in creating content, engaging in conversations, or translating languages.
Mixtral-8x7B Performance Metrics
Mistral AI’s new model, Mixtral-8x7B, represents a significant step forward from its previous model, Mistral-7B-v0.1.
It’s designed to understand better and create text, a key feature for anyone looking to use AI for writing or communication tasks.
New open weights LLM from @MistralAI
params.json:
– hidden_dim / dim = 14336/4096 => 3.5X MLP expand
– n_heads / n_kv_heads = 32/8 => 4X multiquery
– “moe” => mixture of experts 8X top 2 👀Likely related code: https://t.co/yrqRtYhxKR
Oddly absent: an over-rehearsed… https://t.co/8PvqdHz1bR pic.twitter.com/xMDRj3WAVh
— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) December 8, 2023
This latest addition to the Mistral family promises to revolutionize the AI landscape with its enhanced performance metrics, as shared by OpenCompass.
What makes Mixtral-8x7B stand out is not just its improvement over Mistral AI’s previous version, but the way it measures up to models like Llama2-70B and Qwen-72B.
It’s like having an assistant who can understand complex ideas and express them clearly.
One of the key strengths of the Mixtral-8x7B is its ability to handle specialized tasks.
For example, it performed exceptionally well in specific tests designed to evaluate AI models, indicating that it’s good at general text understanding and generation and excels in more niche areas.
This makes it a valuable tool for marketing professionals and SEO experts who need AI that can adapt to different content and technical requirements.
The Mixtral-8x7B’s ability to deal with complex math and coding problems also suggests it can be a helpful ally for those working in more technical aspects of SEO, where understanding and solving algorithmic challenges are crucial.
This new model could become a versatile and intelligent partner for a wide range of digital content and strategy needs.
How To Try Mixtral-8x7B: 4 Demos
You can experiment with Mistral AI’s new model, Mixtral-8x7B, to see how it responds to queries and how it performs compared to other open-source models and OpenAI’s GPT-4.
Please note that, like all generative AI content, platforms running this new model may produce inaccurate information or otherwise unintended results.
User feedback for new models like this one will help companies like Mistral AI improve future versions and models.
1. Perplexity Labs Playground
In Perplexity Labs, you can try Mixtral-8x7B along with Meta AI’s Llama 2, Mistral-7b, and Perplexity’s new online LLMs.
In this example, I ask about the model itself and notice that new instructions are added after the initial response to extend the generated content about my query.
Screenshot from Perplexity, December 2023While the answer looks correct, it begins to repeat itself.
Screenshot from Perplexity Labs, December 2023The model did provide an over 600-word answer to the question, “What is SEO?”
Again, additional instructions appear as “headers” to seemingly ensure a comprehensive answer.
Screenshot from Perplexity Labs, December 20232. Poe
Poe hosts bots for popular LLMs, including OpenAI’s GPT-4 and DALL·E 3, Meta AI’s Llama 2 and Code Llama, Google’s PaLM 2, Anthropic’s Claude-instant and Claude 2, and StableDiffusionXL.
These bots cover a wide spectrum of capabilities, including text, image, and code generation.
The Mixtral-8x7B-Chat bot is operated by Fireworks AI.
Screenshot from Poe, December 2023It’s worth noting that the Fireworks page specifies it is an “unofficial implementation” that was fine-tuned for chat.
When asked what the best backlinks for SEO are, it provided a valid answer.
Screenshot from Poe, December 2023Compare this to the response offered by Google Bard.
Screenshot from Google Bard, December 20233. Vercel
Vercel offers a demo of Mixtral-8x7B that allows users to compare responses from popular Anthropic, Cohere, Meta AI, and OpenAI models.
Screenshot from Vercel, December 2023It offers an interesting perspective on how each model interprets and responds to user questions.
Screenshot from Vercel, December 2023Like many LLMs, it does occasionally hallucinate.
Screenshot from Vercel, December 20234. Replicate
The mixtral-8x7b-32 demo on Replicate is based on this source code. It is also noted in the README that “Inference is quite inefficient.”
Screenshot from Replicate, December 2023In the example above, Mixtral-8x7B describes itself as a game.
Conclusion
Mistral AI’s latest release sets a new benchmark in the AI field, offering enhanced performance and versatility. But like many LLMs, it can provide inaccurate and unexpected answers.
As AI continues to evolve, models like the Mixtral-8x7B could become integral in shaping advanced AI tools for marketing and business.
Featured image: T. Schneider/Shutterstock
SEO
OpenAI Investigates ‘Lazy’ GPT-4 Complaints On Google Reviews, X
OpenAI, the company that launched ChatGPT a little over a year ago, has recently taken to social media to address concerns regarding the “lazy” performance of GPT-4 on social media and Google Reviews.
This move comes after growing user feedback online, which even includes a one-star review on the company’s Google Reviews.
OpenAI Gives Insight Into Training Chat Models, Performance Evaluations, And A/B Testing
OpenAI, through its @ChatGPTapp Twitter account, detailed the complexities involved in training chat models.
Screenshot from X, December 2023The organization highlighted that the process is not a “clean industrial process” and that variations in training runs can lead to noticeable differences in the AI’s personality, creative style, and political bias.
Thorough AI model testing includes offline evaluation metrics and online A/B tests. The final decision to release a new model is based on a data-driven approach to improve the “real” user experience.
OpenAI’s Google Review Score Affected By GPT-4 Performance, Billing Issues
This explanation comes after weeks of user feedback about GPT-4 becoming worse on social media networks like X.
Idk if anyone else has noticed this, but GPT-4 Turbo performance is significantly worse than GPT-4 standard.
I know it’s in preview right now but it’s significantly worse.
— Max Weinbach (@MaxWinebach) November 8, 2023
There has been discussion if GPT-4 has become “lazy” recently. My anecdotal testing suggests it may be true.
I repeated a sequence of old analyses I did with Code Interpreter. GPT-4 still knows what to do, but keeps telling me to do the work. One step is now many & some are odd. pic.twitter.com/OhGAMtd3Zq
— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) November 28, 2023
Complaints also appeared in OpenAI’s community forums.
Screenshot from OpenAI, December 2023The experience led one user to leave a one-star rating for OpenAI via Google Reviews. Other complaints regarded accounts, billing, and the artificial nature of AI.
Screenshot from Google Reviews, December 2023A recent user on Product Hunt gave OpenAI a rating that also appears to be related to GPT-4 worsening.
Screenshot from Product Hunt, December 2023GPT-4 isn’t the only issue that local reviewers complain about. On Yelp, OpenAI has a one-star rating for ChatGPT 3.5 performance.
OpenAI is now only 3.8 stars on Google Maps and a dismal 1 star on Yelp!
GPT-4’s degradation has really hurt their rating. Hope the business survives.https://t.co/RF8uJH1WQ5 pic.twitter.com/OghAZLCiVu
— Nate Chan (@nathanwchan) December 9, 2023
The complaint:
Screenshot from Yelp, December 2023In related OpenAI news, the review with the most likes aligns with recent rumors about a volatile workplace, alleging that OpenAI is a “Cutthroat environment. Not friendly. Toxic workers.”
Screenshot from Google Reviews, December 2023The reviews voted the most helpful on Glassdoor about OpenAI suggested that employee frustration and product development issues stem from the company’s shift in focus on profits.
Screenshots from Glassdoor, December 2023This incident provides a unique outlook on how customer and employee experiences can impact any business through local reviews and business ratings platforms.
Screenshot from Google, December 2023Google SGE Highlights Positive Google Reviews
In addition to occasional complaints, Google reviewers acknowledged the revolutionary impact of OpenAI’s technology on various fields.
The most positive review mentions about the company appear in Google SGE (Search Generative Experience).
Screenshot from Google SGE, December 2023Conclusion
OpenAI’s recent insights into training chat models and response to public feedback about GPT-4 performance illustrate AI technology’s dynamic and evolving nature and its impact on those who depend on the AI platform.
Especially the people who just received an invitation to join ChatGPT Plus after being waitlisted while OpenAI paused new subscriptions and upgrades. Or those developing GPTs for the upcoming GPT Store launch.
As AI advances, professionals in these fields must remain agile, informed, and responsive to technological developments and the public’s reception of these advancements.
Featured image: Tada Images/Shutterstock
SEO
ChatGPT Plus Upgrades Paused; Waitlisted Users Receive Invites
ChatGPT Plus subscriptions and upgrades remain paused after a surge in demand for new features created outages.
Some users who signed up for the waitlist have received invites to join ChatGPT Plus.
This has resulted in a few shares of the link that is accessible for everyone. For now.
Found a hack to skip chatGPT plus wait list.
Follow the steps
– login to ChatGPT
– now if you click on upgrade
– Signup for waitlist(may not be necessary)
– now change the URL to https://t.co/4izOdNzarG
– Wallah you are in for payment #ChatGPT4 #hack #GPT4 #GPTPlus pic.twitter.com/J1GizlrOAx— Ashish Mohite is building Notionpack Capture (@_ashishmohite) December 8, 2023
RELATED: GPT Store Set To Launch In 2024 After ‘Unexpected’ Delays
In addition to the invites, signs that more people are getting access to GPTs include an introductory screen popping up on free ChatGPT accounts.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, December 2023Unfortunately, they still aren’t accessible without a Plus subscription.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, December 2023You can sign up for the waitlist by clicking on the option to upgrade in the left sidebar of ChatGPT on a desktop browser.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, December 2023OpenAI also suggests ChatGPT Enterprise for those who need more capabilities, as outlined in the pricing plans below.
Screenshot from OpenAI, December 2023Why Are ChatGPT Plus Subscriptions Paused?
According to a post on X by OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, the recent surge in usage following the DevDay developers conference has led to capacity challenges, resulting in the decision to pause ChatGPT Plus signups.
we are pausing new ChatGPT Plus sign-ups for a bit 🙁
the surge in usage post devday has exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience.
you can still sign-up to be notified within the app when subs reopen.
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 15, 2023
The decision to pause new ChatGPT signups follows a week where OpenAI services – including ChatGPT and the API – experienced a series of outages related to high-demand and DDoS attacks.
Demand for ChatGPT Plus resulted in eBay listings supposedly offering one or more months of the premium subscription.
chatgpt plus accounts selling ebay for a premium 🫡🇺🇸 https://t.co/VdN8tuexKM pic.twitter.com/W522NGHsRV
— surya (@sdand) November 15, 2023
When Will ChatGPT Plus Subscriptions Resume?
So far, we don’t have any official word on when ChatGPT Plus subscriptions will resume. We know the GPT Store is set to open early next year after recent boardroom drama led to “unexpected delays.”
Therefore, we hope that OpenAI will onboard waitlisted users in time to try out all of the GPTs created by OpenAI and community builders.
What Are GPTs?
GPTs allow users to create one or more personalized ChatGPT experiences based on a specific set of instructions, knowledge files, and actions.
Search marketers with ChatGPT Plus can try GPTs for helpful content assessment and learning SEO.
Two SEO GPTs I’ve created for assessment + learning 👀👇
1. Content Helpfulness and Quality SEO Analyzer: Assess a page content helpfulness, relevance, and quality for your targeted query based on Google’s guidelines vs your competitors and get tips: https://t.co/LsoP2UhF4N pic.twitter.com/O77MHiqwOq
— Aleyda Solis 🕊️ (@aleyda) November 12, 2023
2. The https://t.co/IFmKxxVDpW SEO Teacher: A friendly SEO expert teacher who will help you to learn SEO using reliable https://t.co/sCZ03C7fzq resources: https://t.co/UrMPUYwblH
I hope they’re helpful 🙌🤩
PS: Love how GPT opens up to SO much opportunity 🤯 pic.twitter.com/yqKozcZTDc
— Aleyda Solis 🕊️ (@aleyda) November 12, 2023
There are also GPTs for analyzing Google Search Console data.
oh wow. I think this GPT works.
Export data from GSC comparing keyword rankings before and after an update and upload it to ChatGPT and it will spit out this scatter plot for you.
It’s an easy way to see if most of your keyword declined or improved.
This site was impacted by… pic.twitter.com/wFGSnonqoZ
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) November 9, 2023
And GPTs that will let you chat with analytics data from 20 platforms, including Google Ads, GA4, and Facebook.
Google search has indexed hundreds of public GPTs. According to an alleged list of GPT statistics in a GitHub repository, DALL-E, the top GPT from OpenAI, has received 5,620,981 visits since its launch last month. Included in the top 20 GPTs is Canva, with 291,349 views.
Weighing The Benefits Of The Pause
Ideally, this means that developers working on building GPTs and using the API should encounter fewer issues (like being unable to save GPT drafts).
But it could also mean a temporary decrease in new users of GPTs since they are only available to Plus subscribers – including the ones I tested for learning about ranking factors and gaining insights on E-E-A-T from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, November 2023Featured image: Robert Way/Shutterstock
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