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Why and what happened? What did Google do?
| DMSuperstars, This is email 2/4 of our HubSpot Losing Traffic email series. |
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| AI content has nothing to do with it. So don’t jump to foolish conclusions. Original (read: different + supported by metrics) AI content gets ranked super well. This is a different story. — and I will tell it to you another time; WPbeginner, SEMrush, WordStream also lost traffic. |
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| You probably took a look at the first image and saw that climb. But: have a look at the downfall. And how few months caused all of that. Many companies climbed on search engine rankings by creating content for all the possible keywords that had search volumes. Because they had backlinks and authority, they got away with it for a very long time. But you need to understand: YOU can still rank for 1,000 keywords IF they are Direct 1, Direct 2, Direct 3 keywords. (and 4 and 5. read this to refresh your memory on the type of keywords from our 14 Days Journey together). However, to amass huge amounts of traffic, these big sites started writing only about indirect keywords. |
| A New Cardinal Sin: The Indirect Keyword |
| When one doesn’t have any more direct keywords that seem like they can rank for and get big search volumes, they go and work on indirect keywords. This wasn’t “bad” before, but it is now. Especially if your entire site and new publishing habits are all about indirect keywords all of a sudden. That traffic loss that you see on the 4 mentioned websites is something that happened due to indirect keywords. SO: if you don’t want to end up with a huge traffic loss, focus on direct keywords and make sure that your content revolves around the same main ideas. |
| Wait: Did I Just Give Away Everything In the Second Email? |
| – Yes, I did. You’re welcome. However, there’s a lot more to it. Pursue many indirect keywords on the same site, and you will ruin its overall authority and you will lose traffic. ^^ Read that. I did say on the same site. There are some amazing things you could be doing with a multi site strategy, and I will teach you all about it. |
| Why did HubSpot pursue a strategy that got them penalized? |
| – because it worked. Watch my video about Setting your SEO into motion, if you have the time and really want to learn how SEO works. You can keep growing and growing by scaling up the Ranked-on-Top-10-SERPs-on-Google content that you have. Estimates can be like this: you have one keyword with 1000 search volume which could bring you 70 visits every single month. – one page on one keyword, before SEO takes off like I explain in the SEO into Motion video. Get 100 of those. You get 7000 visits every month. Hmm… what if you do some indirect keywords that can bring you 70000 visits every month? 100 direct keywords, then… or 100 indirect keywords? 70000 is bigger. It obviously depends a lot on your strategy and the KPIs you measure. Which is why so many people these days look at the HubSpot story and they don’t understand a single thing. Hubspot has a lot of reasons for wanting to drive up traffic from people who aren’t targeted. – yes, they have a reason, because they are on a completely different level than you are. 1. Publicly traded company 2. They have a HUGE team of salespeople who do NOT forget to follow up with every single non-targeted lead they get 3. They nurture everyone they capture until they get to become a potential lead You are NOT HubSpot. You do not have the same needs and you don’t have the same resources and processes. Were they stupid for using that strategy? – No, because exposure helps their stocks. – No, because they actually have great CRO and actionable steps that are proven to lead to sales and resources to pay the people who do the nurturing part. |
| Why did HubSpot pursue a strategy that got them penalized? |
| There were many unrelated keywords to what HubSpot does (as an industry / or as topical authority). HubSpot has lots of products and lots of mini-tools. So they could have used hundreds of direct keywords. Yet, they went for : “business card templates” , “how to be awesome in your CV” (well, not exactly word for word, but these kinds of keywords nonetheless). If you’re using our SERP Checker from Squirrly SEO and you’ve seen the kinds of keywords you get top places for, you will notice now in February 2025 that those keywords are on related topics. They gravitate around the same kinds of ideas. Those are the things that work. On a single site. Of course, I will teach you how to still do the same thing, by using multiple sites. It’s not 2024 anymore, you know? And AISQ has just the thing you need to still tackle indirect keywords in a way that makes sense for your business. Google can do what they want, but it’s never game over. Topical authority is the name of the game. That’s what the big sites didn’t get. And what I’ll show you in the next email. With RankJumps, we always take care of the topical authority and build solid ways to get consistent rankings. |
FlorinMuresan
I am anInnovator & CEO