So he did it. Elon Musk has bought Twitter for about $44 billion. He's using excuse of free speech for buying it. There is now a mass exodus to the fediverse and to services like Mastodon of former Twitter users. These digital-refugees fear what a Musk Twitter will bring about.

I not totally off the "birdsite', as people on Mastodon call it, but I am spending much more time in Mastodon and I'm really enjoying it.

It's refreshing. No ads, just different instances/servers of users all interoperating and mostly getting along. There is of course some bad actors, but they can be squashed if the instance/server admin deems it necessary.

The best part of Mastodon and the fediverse in general, is that it can't be bought by an insane multi-billionare who has too much money for his own good (my personal opinion).

What does this exodus means for marketers? Quite a bit. If marketers are looking for genuine conversations and interactions, Mastodon might be great, if they are just looking to sell, then they should stay away.

I've seen people join Mastodon and wonder where everyone is. There's lots of engagement going on, you just have to cultivate your stream. You're not force fed people by an algorithm like you are on Twitter. You have to start following interesting people and then the home feed really starts rocking.

There is a conversation for everyone on Mastodon, from marketing and SEO to astronomy and astrophysics. It's really wild and fun.

Best of all, you own your data.

If you want to try it out and you're not sure where to start, give my instance a try: https://s3th.io/masto. The only thing I request is that you setup your profile add an avatar and make an #introduction post so everyone can get to know you and follow you.

See you in the fediverse!

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Web Finds Of The Week

Twitter buyout puts Mastodon into spotlight
The news of Elon Musk buying Twitter has put Mastodon into the public spotlight as an alternative social network, rapidly exploding our growth with over 30,000 new users in just a single day. This is because at Mastodon, we present a vision of social media that cannot be bought and owned by any bill…
Official Mastodon Blog•Eugen Rochko
  • With the Muskifcation (not a word that I know of) of Twitter, Mastodon the open source, federated, distributed, has been seeing lots of growth.
10 Free Add-Ons for the Elementor WordPress Page Builder
If you’re looking to expand the capabilities of the Elementor WordPress Page Builder, we have ten free add-ons that are worth checking out.
Speckyboy Design Magazine•Eric Karkovack
  • This is less marketing and more WordPress, this article by Eric Karkovak shows how powerful the Elementor page builder is in the WordPress ecosystem. At my agency, we use Elementor exclusively. It works great and makes the development process take a lot less time. Eric highlights some great add-ons to Elementor that make it work even better.
5 ways to use the Wayback Machine for SEO
Use the tool to recover lost information and glean insights into the direction of competitor strategies.
Search Engine Land•Chris Long
  • The Wayback Machine over at Archive.org has been a lifesaver for me. When sites go sideways or you need to check to see the history of a domain name, this tool is crucial.
LinkedIn is rolling out a new website link feature
LinkedIn will let you add a website link that will appear in the introduction section of your profile. And you can customize the link text.
Search Engine Land•Danny Goodwin
  • LinkedIn keeps getting more and more useful. This is only the latest feature update they've made to the site.
Is Getting Your Google Business Profile “Google Guaranteed” Worth It?
Is it worth the time it takes to get your Google Business Profile “Google Guaranteed” or “Google Screened”? Let’s look at all the factors.
Search Engine Journal•Chelsea Alves
  • Google is always up to something. With it owning more than 90% of the search market in the United States, staying on top of all the features the search giant makes is crucial to business survival. The latest is whether or not you should get "Google Guaranteed." What the heck is that? Well this article spells it out really well.
TikTok deepens AR investment with Camera IQ tools
Estée Lauder’s Smashbox and Cartoon Network piloted the new tech, the latter of which notched 4 million views from an AR effect without paid promotion.
Marketing Dive•Robert Williams
  • TikTok keeps innovating and with this innovation is coming more AR tools to make the app and social network that much more sticky and addictive to both users and brands alike.
How Will Twitter Make Money Under Elon Musk? A Look at the Currently Proposed Options
Increased subscription uptake, charging for tweet embeds and more are all options currently on the table.
Social Media Today•Andrew Hutchinson
  • An Elon Musk Twitter still seems to me like it's going to become a dumpster fire, but I'm watching like many do reality shows to watch the chaos ensue. One question is how is Musk going to monetize the network. This should get interesting.
Facebook’s Removing Support for Podcasts, Just 10 Months After Launching New Podcast Features
Social audio had a moment, and now it seems that Facebook believes the moment has passed.
Social Media Today•Andrew Hutchinson
  • Wow that was quick. In turns out Facebook isn't getting into the podcasting game after all.
Local Search Industry Survey: Local SEO Pay, Pricing & Performance
Local marketers share their thoughts on the current landscape of local search. Discover this year’s data and statistics in our 2022 survey.
BrightLocal•See all of Patrick’s articles (3)
  • A bit of a read (around 20 mins), but well worth it if you're interested in Local Search.

Guest Insights

Content Decay

Kerry Campion's latest. Kerry is a content writer specializing in content that ranks for both the search engines and converts visitors.

Can you tick 2/5 of these boxes?

  • You're getting traffic, but it's not really converting. People just plod around and leave your site without taking the action you'd like them to take
  • You're 404 log gets a lot of hits
  • You've been creating content for at least 2 years
  • You've seen that your rankings are dropping in recent months
  • Your business model and your offering have changed since you first launched your site

How'd you do?

If you managed to tick just 2 of those boxes, there's a good chance that your content is suffering from content decay.

A client recently came to me saying that she has a lot of traffic (around 22k visitors per month which is very respectable for a solo blogger who hasn't really taken SEO seriously) but her visitors didn't convert at all.
Her conversions were low and people weren't spending a lot of time on her site. She also mentioned that she's been blogging since 2012.

I smelled content decay.

Content decay means that old posts (even ones from just a year ago) are now outdated and it's starting to affect both your rankings and your conversions and simply updating old content can see your posts soar in the search engine results page and increase your conversions.

You can identify which posts are suffering from content decay with a content audit.

Here's what you should be looking out for during a content audit:

  • How old are the posts?

Any post that's older than 2 years (or 1 year but references the past year) should be reviewed and updated.

  • Are all the links working?

Broken links will happen as you move content around or link to pages that no longer exist. But this means more users end up on 404 pages and you could have sent them to a better alternative. Update those links!

  • Is the content "thin"?

Thin content is content with a very low word count. My client had many blog posts that only had about 400 words and the information was mostly contained in images or embedded in videos that no longer worked. Refresh the content by creating a solid piece of longer-form content.

  • Are the calls-to-action still relevant?

Don't send people to old freebies or resources that no longer add to your bottom line. Make sure each CTA is relevant to your current funnel and that those CTAs are clear to see (not just linked to in text).
To sum up, old content has a lot of ranking potential because it's already on the search engine results page and already brings in traffic from queries. Reoptimizing for these queries and creating better content has a far higher ROI than publishing new content.

I could go on for days about the benefits of updating old content, but if you want more sign-up for my keyword research course and we can chat there.

A Bit More About Kerry:

Kerry Campion is an SEO content marketing strategist, copywriter and founder of God Save the SERP. She helps online education businesses fill their pipeline with free leads by curating a content marketing strategy designed to educate, delight and convert.

Uncover her step-by-step approach to finding the best keyword for your content without spending $100 a month on fancy SEO tools.

Podcast Of Note

Too Legitimate To Quit Podcast Album Art

The Too Legitimate To Quit podcast brings the queen of non-sleezy sales together with some of the biggest names and sales and business development. Every Monday, Annie P. Ruggles talks to thought leaders in the sales space to help the listener become a better salesperson and not be sleazy doing it. Check out her show and let me know what you think?

The Latest From Entrepreneur's Enigma

Paul Nguyen album art

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