WordsAtScale #22: Why ‘more pages’ can be an SEO disaster 🛑

Author

Vlad Ivanov
November 14, 2024

Welcome to the WordsAtScale Newsletter #22!

Hey Guys! 👋 Vlad here.

In this week's update, we’re diving into Google's November Core Update, niche SEO insights, and a case study on what happens when a promising website faces challenges!

🔄 Google's Core Update Insights: Google’s November Core Update aims to align AI search results with traditional ones. Shopping queries, however, are treated differently, seeing distinct AI and regular result rankings. Online stores are impacted the most (-22.1%) while healthcare and tech sites remain stable.

📊 Niche of the Week - Puns: The pun niche is thriving, with content ideas ranging from seasonal and industry-specific puns to branded merchandise like T-shirts and mugs. This niche fits well with humor-focused email marketing and has potential for engaging products like daily pun emails and visual pun calendars.

🚀 Case Study - "Find a Business UK": This site initially performed well but quickly declined due to technical issues like server reliability and overwhelming content volume. Lessons include starting with fewer categories and focusing on manageable, high-quality content.

Creating smart, reader-centered content is the key to navigating SEO changes—happy optimizing! 🌟

SEO News of the Week [Google November Core Update ]

Key Changes in Google's Update 🔄

The search giant is making some big moves, and BrightEdge (a company that watches Google like a hawk) has spotted some interesting patterns. Here's what's new:

AI and Regular Search Results Google is making its AI Overviews (AIO) match more closely with regular search results, especially in the top 10 rankings. Think of it like Google making sure its AI brain and regular search are speaking the same language!

Shopping Searches Are Different Interestingly, when you search for products, the AI results and regular results are going their separate ways. It's like Google is trying different approaches for shopping!

Industry Impact 📊

Different types of websites are seeing different effects:

Big Changes:

  • Online stores are seeing the biggest shake-up (-22.1%)

  • Education websites are seeing moderate changes (-7.3%)

Small Changes:

  • Healthcare websites stayed pretty stable (-1.5%)

  • Tech business sites barely changed (-0.4%)

What This Means For You 💡

The update isn't finished yet - it'll take about two weeks to complete. But here's what we're seeing:

  • Educational content is staying strong

  • Product pages are bouncing around more

  • Research websites are holding steady

  • Expert content seems to be getting more attention

Some website owners aren't happy about these changes, especially with Google's AI summarizing their content. But instead of worrying, why not focus on creating really helpful content that your readers will love?

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Niche of the Week [Puns]

Niche Insights

Puns are a beloved form of wordplay that entertain, challenge wit, and bring humor to language. In the niche of puns, content can range from joke collections and playful social media posts to merchandise with clever wordplay.

Keyword List

Get you list of low competition keywords here

Topics to Explore

Seasonal puns (holiday-themed), industry-specific puns (tech, marketing, etc.), famous pun collections, creating puns for branding, puns in literature, visual puns in art, the psychology of wordplay.

Email Marketing

Email marketing for the "puns" niche can target audiences interested in humor, daily inspiration, and creative wordplay. Regular newsletters with themed puns can drive high engagement, and partnering with brands that use humor in marketing can add value. Limited-time merchandise promotions, like T-shirts or mugs with seasonal puns, also fit well in email campaigns..

Promotable Products

Pun-themed books, joke collections, branded merchandise (T-shirts, mugs, notebooks with puns), calendars with daily puns, and social media growth services focused on humorous content. Price range can vary from $5 for small items to $20+ for books or premium branded merchandise.

Digital Products

Digital pun collections, subscription-based daily pun emails, printable calendars or wallpapers with visual puns, and templates for creating personalized puns for social media. Examples include "A Year of Puns" calendar or "Social Media Pun Generator." These can appeal to content creators and businesses looking to add humor to their branding.

SEO Case Study of the Week [Best AI Site Got Smacked!]

What Happened

A website called "Find a Business UK" started strong but then crashed in performance. The site went from getting 12,000 impressions to just 362 impressions in a few days. Yikes! Think of it like a rocket that took off but quickly ran out of fuel. 🚀

How It Happened

Several technical issues caused the crash:

  • The server had connection problems, making it hard for Google to reach the website

  • The website was too big, trying to handle millions of pages

  • The hosting platform (Vercel) didn't work as well as expected compared to Netlify

  • Adding an advertising platform (Azoic) might have made things worse[1]

The Results & Lessons Learned

Here's what we can learn from this experience:

What Didn't Work:

  • Creating too many pages (millions!) was overwhelming

  • The server setup wasn't reliable enough

  • The project would have cost about $350,000 to fully generate - way too expensive!

What Could Work Better:

  • Starting smaller with about 500 categories

  • Using Netlify instead of Vercel for hosting

  • Being more selective with content and focusing on quality over quantity

Want to know the cool part? 💡 The creator is being totally honest about what went wrong and plans to try again with these improvements. Sometimes our best lessons come from things that don't go as planned, right?

Relevant Video of the Week

🚨 MY FREE TOOLS:

Free Keyword Research Tool: freekeywordgeneratorforseo.com

All the best,

Vlad

P.S. I ❤️ you, I 🙏 you, and I’ll 👀 you soon