#sometimes shoes I’ll spend $100-200

[maryellencarter]

Okay kids, buckle up. I need money again (for the last time, pray god), but at least this time I have a fucking story to go with it.

Short version: My landlord is illegally trying to evict me and I just had to drop $60 on court costs to fight it. That's $60 that was going to pay for either my meds or the electric bill, take your pick. So I really need donations to get by for the next two weeks, after which I should be settling in at a much more mentally healthy job and in good shape. My Paypal is [email protected] and my Ko-fi is here. Thank you so much for anything you can contribute!

Long version:

So the last three months I've been off work due to a mental health breakdown. July and August, I haven't been able to pay my rent. I applied for rent assistance right away in late June, and emailed my landlord's office all the paperwork for both the rent assistance and the CDC Declaration of eligibility for the Eviction Moratorium -- the thing where if you're poor enough you can't get evicted during the pandemic because you would have to go to a shelter or a crowded living situation and be at risk for the Covid.

Middle of July, I received a *backdated* notice that if I didn't provide proof of rent assistance application, I was going to be filed against for eviction. Okay, there's a new property manager, maybe the filing got mixed up, so I go down and re-email all the paperwork and make sure the property manager sees it arrive in the email.

Beginning of August, I get a notice from the rent assistance people that the CDC has extended the moratorium for places in a high surge status, which I am in one, so I fill out and forward the newest eviction protection form which should cover me till October 3, and go down to speak to the property manager about it, when again I am assured that everything is on file.

Middle of August, two months after filing my request for rent assistance, I finally hear from a caseworker who says "send me your paperwork". I jubilantly send all the paperwork, go down to give my property manager the good news, and also -- see, I don't have a lease for September yet. I was offered one back in July, but I didn't want to sign anything until I knew what my situation was going to be with regard to rent assistance and paydays. So I brought down the paper that said "yes I am signing here to officially agree to the new lease you offered, please print the new lease so I can sign it officially", and handed it to the property manager as well.

Now, I have about $700 of late fees for July and August. This is legal under the eviction moratorium and I have understood from the beginning that I would have to pay them. My first paycheck back to work comes in this Friday, and when I went to request the new lease I had planned to discuss a payment arrangement as well, figuring I could pay about $600 on Friday and the rest in two weeks, based on my projected paycheck.

("Taught myself payroll tax law in order to predict my paychecks" should definitely be on my resume somewhere. I just haven't figured out where.)

But, dear readers, when I went down to drop off the form, there was some other client or resident in the office, so I didn't get to discuss a payment arrangement. No big deal, I figured. I'd discuss it when I heard that my lease was ready to sign.

Instead, last Tuesday, I was woken up at nine sharp by a process server with an eviction summons for me. Thank fuck, I've spent the last two weeks having a technical issue at work that's kept me getting paid but off the phones, because I was in no state to talk to people that day. Eventually I pulled myself together, broke out the legalese close-reading skills, and discovered that the summons includes one particular line item which (I hope and pray) indicates They Done Fucked Up.

This summons, ladies and gentlethem, includes the line item "The Plaintiff has not received an executed copy of the Declaration form as of the date of this filing pursuant to the CDC Order dated September 1, 2020."

Well, gentle readers, I was and am *pissed off*. I keep providing documentation to these fuckers and they keep misplacing it, and now they're getting me involved with The Legal System. I *hate* being anywhere near the legal system. I have massive PTSD triggers from being raised by an evil ADA. But by god, I speak legalese as my first language, and I am not going down without a fight.

So, not being able to get in touch with anyone to provide legal aid or assistance, I spent last Thursday trundling around downtown in decaying shoes and 105° heat, getting court paperwork printed and duplicated and filed and mailed. I dropped about $60 I hadn't planned to spend on court filing fees and certified mail costs and the actual baseline printing costs of all the documentation I needed to provide.

I did get two pieces of good luck that day. One, I finally heard back from my case manager saying that the rent assistance money for my landlord only has to go through one more person who will double-check the numbers. It's supposed to get final approval sometime early this week.

Two, I got a job promotion I've been working toward for years. Well, side-motion, it doesn't come with a raise, but I already make $16+ an hour, over twice our federal minimum wage. What it does come with is, except in rare cases I never talk to callers, I just answer them in written messages. This should hopefully be a perfect job for me, and allow me to work a solid 40 hours a week and earn plenty of money.

The catch is... it's work-at-home only. If I get evicted and can't make it to training on Monday week, I'm fucked.

So. My eviction hearing is tomorrow. If and when the judge is like "okay if we let you sign a new 12-month lease and stay in your apartment, what is your repayment plan on your late fees", I plan to be like "Your Honor, I have a payday on Friday and I am prepared to provide the court a money order for the full $700 of late fees on that date which will bring me fully up to date".

I'll do it, too. The catch is, that'll leave me with something like $200 in the bank for the next two weeks, and I calculate I need about $100 for groceries, $80 for meds, $50 for electric, and $80 for the cell phone bill over that time period. These numbers don't add up. :P

Soooo, yeah. I'm having to spend about $160 I can't afford because my damn property manager is an idiot and can't fucking print and file my fucking legal declaration. I really hope the court throws the book at the corporation and nails them with those "up to $200,000 fines" for breaking the CDC moratorium, although I am dubious because courts like corporations much more than they like stout genderqueer individuals without legal representation, however white and erudite.

But mostly, I really hope I can stay in my apartment and also afford my meds for the next two weeks. My Paypal is [email protected] and my Ko-fi is here. If you can spare *anything*, even a dollar or three, it would help so much.

God, I'm so sick of having to beg for help every few weeks. I just really hope nothing else blows up in my face... :-(

#i am really struggling today (sunday) because i can't do anything but wait #begging post #help me o internets

[jebazzled]

it ain’t your muse! (shut up & write, ft. rihanna)

You nerds are always talking about your muse. My muse this, my muse that, I have no muse, my muse went the way of the dinosaurs, if my muse comes out of its burrow and sees its shadow I won’t be able to write for six weeks.

Shut up about your fucking muse!

It is true that you might go through periods where it is hard to find time and energy to write, or negative experiences in a writing community might leave you with anxiety surrounding writing. But by and large, writers block is something you can overcome! 

Please, for the love of god, let me help you. 

Writing is a muscle, and you’ve got to exercise it if you don’t want it to atrophy. 

This tutorial is a bit of tough love about y’all and y’all’s diddly-darn muses, and some advice for snapping yourself out of it!

So here’s the thing about writing, my loves. You have to actually do it. 

TERRIBLY inconvenient, I know.

I’m not here to tell you how to manage your work-life balance or how to manage your time. If you’re not writing much because you straight up don’t have time to write much, my advice is simple: pare down on your characters, focus on the plots that matter most to you, and spend some mental health juice on reminding yourself that there isn’t an RP Prom Queen, and even if there were, it’s better not to live or die by that bizarro crown. 

But if you’re having trouble writing because of Your Muse... I’m cracking my knuckles. 

We’ve all written with folks before - or been that folk before - who need a very specific set of circumstances if they’re going to write: they need time to Pinterest, need to listen to a specific playlist, need to get in the mindset, need the thread to scratch a very specific itch and need all of it to come together before the moon passes out of a waxing gibbous. As a fellow dev ho, I understand the appeal of writing to suit a mood, of vibing to a playlist, of prioritizing the stuff you’re going fucking feral for, of having the stars align while you do the thing. But if you’re like this when you’re writing for other people - 

well, you’re making things difficult for both you and your writing partners! We can’t control the external constraints on our time, e.g. work and school, and we can’t always control the nonsense our psychology spins to keep us from writing. But some things are within our control, and by god, if there is any control to be had in the year of Mother Sappho 2021, don’t you want it? 

At least some of your writers block is probably dumb as hell. So let’s beat the shit out of that part.

Anyway, if you’re yakking on and on about how your muse demands a bottle of red wine and a scented candle and fairy lights and soft socks and the blood of the servant, willfully given in order to spit out 200 words, or whatever... 

it’s not that fucking deep.

Writing is a muscle. It’s like any other muscle: you need to exercise it. 

If you’re training for a 5k, you don’t sit on your couch listening to “Eye of the Tiger” until race day. You get your ass off the cushion and pound the pavement. You probably start by alternating walks with short bursts of running. You probably don’t work your way up to actually running 5k at a time for a few weeks. And once you’ve run that first 5k, you don’t go sit on your couch to listen to “Eye of the Tiger” until the next race. You keep running to stay in shape for the next race.

Writing is like that. 

What you write does not have to be perfect. 

You can work on the post for six weeks and there will still be things you could change. You know what change your writing partner would have appreciated most? If you’d posted it for them three weeks ago. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. 

Cut yourself the same slack you cut for your writing partners. Do you yearn to keelhaul them if their reply isn’t worth a National Book Award? No, because you’re not an asshole. They’re also not an asshole. Everyone is reasonable here. Write something that responds to what they gave you and that gives them something to work with. Not every single post has to be capital-I Inspired. ✨

What you write does not have to be a vibe ready for the Goop newsletter. 

I was a creative writing major in college, and I was always having to turn stuff in for class that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to work on: a short story set in another country when I just wanted to write a play with puppets, an essay about food when I would rather write one about a weekend drive, etc. 

Sometimes, you write what you write when you write it not because it’s getting you hot and bothered but because you’ve owed a reply for A While and you feel bad about keeping someone waiting. It will still be fun, because you chose to do that thread with your character and someone else’s character for a reason, and that reason stands, even if your monkey brain is yearning to play with that slime that makes fart noises when you put it away. 

(Pro tip, here: don’t do threads you don’t actually have any interest in writing! It is less awkward to tell someone, “I am not interested in my character weed whacking your character’s lawn” than to waste their time with 10 posts of it before telling them, “I am not interested in my character weed whacking your character’s lawn.”) 

The more you write, the easier it is. 

Let’s talk about running again. A couple of years ago, I went on a bit of a kick with the running. I ran at least three times a week. I would bring my running shit with me to work so I could run in the park near my office. I would make running dates with friends. I would reward myself with a bagel from my favorite cafe if I did a run. And you know what? Once I got myself past the hurdle of pulling on my running clothes and lacing up my shoes, I enjoyed myself. When I ran 5k without slowing to a walk, I was proud of myself. When I told myself, “let’s do another loop at the park!” and stopped to take a photo of the sunset, I enjoyed myself. I would not have enjoyed myself if I hadn’t hit the goddamn pavement.

Put your ass in your fucking chair. I don’t care if you don’t have the right scented candle. Write 50 words. Right fucking now. I’ll wait.

Write another 50.

Now write another 100.

How long did that take you? Some days, it might take you 90 minutes to write 200 words. But that’s 200 more words than you would have written in 90 minutes of browsing Pinterest waiting for an angel to come down from heaven and write this post for you. 

All that bullshit you do to Feed Your Muse? It’s stalling, you idiot. 

The more you make yourself write instead of just thinking about writing, the easier it will be to actually fucking write. 

I used to sit and stare at posts for hours and hours and hours before submitting them, so worried about the post being good enough. When I moved to a neighborhood with an aboveground train line, I was able to write on my morning commute, and writing every morning - even if only the 200 words I could crank out on mobile in 30 minutes before work - got me out of my weird writers block crutches and security blankets. It didn’t take as much effort to write, anymore. I wrote over 200,000 words in 2019, and over 300,000 words in 2020, when I had barely any commute at all to use on writing. I didn’t magically have endless hours of free time. I just wasn’t wasting my free time pretending that being on Tumblr counted as writing. 

Tough love: doled out. And now:

TIPS & TRICKS FOR BEATING “””Writers Block”””

Stop acting like Writers Block is real. It’s not that it’s not real, but by telling yourself that you have Writers Block, you’re making it worse for yourself. You’re making excuses for yourself. I used Writers Block to stall writing my Topics in Creative Writing: Folktales portfolio for 3 months, and you know what happened? I still had to turn in the fucking portfolio, because the person I was writing for didn’t fucking care about my fucking Writers Block. And you know who had to sit her ass in a chair and write 30 pages of folktales in a 24 hour period? Me. It’s almost like my Writers Block was just PROCRASTINATION. 

Set a timer. If you’re looking at your list of replies owed and you’re feeling like it might be easier to “do character dev” and “build a playlist” than to write your posts, break the task into smaller pieces. If your server has a sprint bot, use it. If not, set your own timer.  Organize your list of threads with the ones you’ve owed replies on the longest at the top. Set your timer for 20 minutes and see how much you can write for the oldest post you owe. Not done? Set the timer for another 20 minutes. Keep setting that timer until that post is done and you can drop it in the tags channel. Now do the same for the second oldest.  CRANK! THEM! OUT! If you find that it’s depleting your creative energy, that’s not unusual! When I get to this point in my own posting habits, my oldest replies owed are usually for Albus Dumbledore, a character I write specifically because I hate him. It is often easier to knock out all his posts in one chunk rather than shift voice, so this ends up working out nicely. 

Don’t indulge your stupid stalling tactics. Do you typically get sidetracked by Pinterest? Put your phone away and close that tab. Do you get absorbed in lining up the perfect music for writing a post? Write in silence, asshole. Do you need to be in your favorite chair with the right lighting? Go sit on a park bench and write on mobile.  It’s nice to write in idealized environments. I rented a treehouse last summer to write 10k on a novel! I get it! But you absolutely can write in other environments, if you have to. And if you can get yourself to write on a dark skin on your iPad at an airport in the Midwest while waiting for a flight - well, shit, think of how much you’ll be able to write on a laptop when your diva ass demands are properly met!

Don’t take on shit you don’t want to write. I fully admit that these tactics feel a bit like homework/chores/a to-do list for what is of course a fun hobby. You know how they say “love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life?” If you don’t take on plots, characters, and threads that don’t have a lick of interest or excitement for you, this shit won’t feel like a hassle. 

Hope this whips all you little miscreants (myself included) into shape! Now quit your yapping and start writing. 

#rp guides #resources #writing resources #on writing #stop trying to make writers block happen. it's not going to happen.

[nickcifonie]

In 2021, Anyone Can Make $ Playing Video Games!

I grew up playing games like Risk, Monopoly, a little Chess... and still remember buying my first computer somewhere around 1986 solely to play a computer game on. It was an Apple IIc, and that first game was some type of Pirate Adventure. I wish I remembered the name. It wasn’t all that good, but still, I was hooked!

Since that first adventure, I’ve spent thousands of hours as well as dollars playing just about every type of digital game that has followed! PC games, Atari, Wii, mobile games... you name it, I play it! I’d always generalize the cost (to myself at least) thinking “some guys play golf 3 days a week at $100 a round... I play computer games”.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! However, the story has changed...

“Pay to Play” has become “Play to Earn”!

If you would be to search terms like “crypto games”, “blockchain games”, “make money playing video games”, and others, you’d find some really incredible statements. Today, quotes like the ones below are becoming more and more common!

“I made $400 last week playing a computer game” “I just sold my RPG character for $200 profit”

“I was offered $1k for a skin for my laser rifle of doom” (I made up the “laser rifle of doom” part)

“I bred my pet thingamajig yesterday and sold the baby!” (it’s digital, for those of you wincing)

In 2021, thanks to the blockchain, there’s a growing community of gamers who are making real dollars daily, mining, fighting, shooting, jumping... all while playing the same type of mobile and PC games that you had to PAY to play just a short while ago...

...but let’s start at the beginning.

You paid $172,000 for a what!?

Yes... all the way back in 2018 a CryptoKitty named “Dragon” was sold for an incredible $172,000. (300 ETH) Don’t be too surprised, it’s justified! It’s an adorable digital image, or “NFT” of a cat, after all.

It’s a lot of money, but for NFTs and blockchain gaming, flipping a Kitty today may as well be considered the stone ages. It’s still a record, but while you can still get started collecting these digital felines for as low as a couple of dollars, big-dollar trades still happen daily.

On the flip side of mortgaging your home to buy a digital picture of a CryptoKitty, Bored Ape, or CryptoPunk, you may feel better if you begin your adventure into making crypto (it’s real money, dear!) by playing a video game where you can “make money” instead of spending it.

I’m not saying owning a CryptoKitty or any of a plethora of “Avatar NFTs” we see popping up on various exchanges isn’t one way to do it... I’m saying to me at least, as a life-long gamer I’d much prefer playing a mobile, console, or PC game to collecting pictures in a digital wallet.

So what the heck is an NFT?

I could go into a long explanation... but since this article is about gaming and not cryptocurrency, I’ll tell you an NFT is a “non-fungible token”, and leave you google it if you really want to dig in deep. I do want to share more, so I’ll ‘splain it as simple as I can for you Lucy!

A CryptoKitty, as stated above, is a type of image called an NFT. (the collection is called “CryptoKitties) It’s a digital picture of a cartoon cat. There are thousands of different ones that have different shapes, colors, expressions and traits. (kind of like a real cat, but eats less)

The difference, is only one of each design is actually a legitimate “CryptoKitty”. (or a legitimate whatever type of image it happens to be) To be clearer... each NFT is a “one of a kind”, so if you’re thinking “but can’t I just make a copy?”, nope you can’t.

I mean... you “can” make a copy of it if you really dig the design and want it on your desktop, but it would only be a copy of that particular NFT, not the real McCoy! Ok... so what makes one real, and the rest fakes? The blockchain.

Now, I’m going to be true to my word and keep my promise of not making this an article about crypto or the blockchain, so just know this: the difference between an image that is an actual NFT, and a copy of one, is there is an underlying digital code that designates the real thing.

So real in fact, that artists are creating or importing their paintings and creations to the web as NFTs, numbering them as they would a lithograph, and selling their entire collections. So if you are an art fan, check with your favorite creators... you may be surprised to find all of their “works of art” on an online marketplace!

NFTs are viewed on certain marketplace websites and digital wallets where the copies cannot be displayed, so that is how we know one is real, and the others are not! Having said that, sure, there’s more to it, but just know that there’s a 100% secure way of knowing an image is a real NFT.

In addition, there can be more than one NFT with the same identical image. However, each has a unique underlying code, so even if they look exactly the same, they are not! Look at it like the playing cards or comic books of old... there may be 1,000 created (or “minted” as it’s called in NFT land) but they will each be numbered 1 to 1,000.

And guess which is more valuable.....? I knew you’d get it!

And these NFT’s make money how?

You’re getting warmer! There are a lot of different types of games coming out these days where you can make money playing. There are RPG’s, MOBA’s, Shooters, games in first person and in third, dungeon crawls... you name it!

If you’re thinking “how did I not know this!”, I was the same until recently! I have been gaming almost daily since I stepped into Ultima Online back in 1997, and I can’t even begin to tally how many hours and/or dollars I’ve invested into gaming.

Now, our hobby pays!

After 30-something years, my wife still thinks I’m bonkers... but I got a totally different look from her a few days ago when I told her I sold my game character for well over $200. Legit. I sold two more yesterday, and another this afternoon.

Some of these only cost me $10 or $15, some much more. Some are free. I sold another NFT character last week for $1,950, and it was sold on the game’s website, not on the black market.

So not only can an NFT be a picture of an Ape, Vegetable, Duck, or Stripper on a pole (we’ll leave it at that) but it can be a character in a game, a weapon, a mount, armor, or more.

One game is giving away free pet turtles with each character. For the uneducated on “pets” in computer games, it’s not the kind you keep in a bowl in your bedroom. It’s a companion that fights with you in an online game and may shoot fire from its eyes, heal you, or similar.

Soon after being handed out for free, they’re now selling for around $60 each.

So an NFT can be an image, a video, music, a meme... or even a shirt or shoes! But we’ll leave the NFT clothing explanation to another article. ;)

Remember that rare skin you paid out the nose for a year ago in Apex? Or the L33T character you built up in Fortnite or Warcraft? If you’re no longer playing that game, it’s money under the bridge. And you don’t own the bridge!

In this new breed of blockchain games, you could have LEGALLY sold that character, skin, weapon, land, house, mount, or whatever it was when you tired of the game. For a profit. Maybe for a LARGE profit.

Yes, in the past we were able to find ways to get around the system and dump our pixels from time to time. We’d sell the account on the black market, or cut a deal with someone like a drug dealer on a Chicago Street corner. Then we’d over who went first...

“You give me the account and weapon first!” “No you give me the money first”.  Sometimes the deals even went through. Others well... let’s just say half of the parties walked away happy.

I made good money when after 4 years of daily playing I sold my Ultima Online account for somewhere around $2,000, but I needed to find a trustworthy “go-between” to broker the deal. Even then, I was sweating it!

With today’s crypto games, not only do the games provide the platform to buy, sell, or trade your character and items, but it’s encouraged, and done with good old U.S dollars! I’ve made $ playing 4 or 5 different games already this week, as well as flipping (buying low and selling higher) NFT characters!

How else can I make money playing games?

The way you earn varies from game to game, but each week seems to reveal another new strategy, platform, or idea. Many are new strategies, and while some have “triple A” 3D animation and graphics, others are simpler and use basic one-dimensional graphics for the gameplay.

Some of these games are actually tied to a token on the blockchain. The game developer creates their own token, not too unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, and it can be bought or sold on the open market as well as used in the game as currency.

Could you imagine if back in League of Legends, Guild Wars or Final Fantasy, when you were ready to move to a new game, you could sell or easily convert your gold to cash? Some of today’s blockchain games encourage it!

Not only can you now buy and sell characters and weapons, the gold in the game can be traded, bought, sold, or saved like real currency, stocks, crypto, or collectables. Never have I been as excited about PC and mobile gaming as I am today!

As an example, I am doing some work for a new game that will launch soon called Pepper Attack. Pepper Attack has its own token or coin... called MYTE. It can be used in the game as currency, but also be traded like Bitcoin. A lot of today’s blockchain games offer this same benefit.

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to mine I go!

Just by owning an NFT from the game, you can login on a daily basis and click “mine” earning real-value tokens passively. Your Pepper goes to work like one of the 7 Dwarves mining MYTE, and later on you can convert it to other tokens or cold, hard cash.

There's more to do in this particular game as well. Like any good RPG or MMORPG, each pepper has a unique combination or skills like attack, defense, evade, hit points, and more. As an example of the possibilities, if you have a high attack score, other characters will be able to pay you in MYTE to “train” them, raising their score as well.

In addition, these NFTs have unique physical traits, some are common and some are very rare. This game in particular have toons that look more like anime-ish elves with weapons and a stem... I have to admit the artwork is really spicey! (see what I did there?) Other games are of course totally different.

Some people will simply collect these NFTs/characters as an investment, like playing cards or comics. Others will use them in the game, and still others will do both. Either way, they can be held, or sold for a profit!

Unlike the games of the past, when you’re ready to move on you don’t walk away and lose all the $ you have spent for characters, skins, weapons, potions, and other items. When you’re done, you’ll be able to sell your character and items... possibly for a profit... maybe a lot of profit... and move on.

These are not your father’s computer games!

As we move ahead in the genre, we are seeing AAA studios coming out with big-dollar productions, like Blankos, Mist, Illuvium, Ember Sword and others. Some of these games actually let you buy the land you build on!

Did you have your own house in Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, or Archeage? What if you could have used It as a shop and been paid in dollars for your wares, rented it to another player, or sold it for cold hard cash at a huge profit down the road?

In many of today’s games, not only is it common, but extremely hard to come by, and quite expensive. Not only are people paying thousands of dollars for a plot in some of the games that have land, but they’re paying it many months before the game is even released.

They do it, because in many cases they know that they can easily 2X, 10X, or even 50X their investment a short piece down the road. Seriously? Seriously... and the early bird catches the worm!

Other games with lesser budgets are more graphic-based, but have super earnings potential as well, and are just as fun to play. These include Splinterlands, (a card game like Magic!) Crypto Blades, Axie Infinity and more.

Regardless of if the new blockchain game of your choice is a RPG, MOBA, a card game or racing game... the fact that you can put some coin into your pocket playing adds a whole new element. It’s heckafun making money playing a game!

The early nerd catches the worm!

In many cases, if you can catch a game before it releases, the land, characters, weapons, and other items... in most cases all NFTs... can be grabbed at a tiny fraction of the future value.

Of course, always check out the game details and team first, and be confident it’s a good place to put your money. Not all games are made the same.

If you’re lucky enough to find out about and partake in an early sale, for example, like grabbing a character NFT or two in   “Pepper Attack”  before the late September launch date, you may be in for a real treat!

There are plenty of new titles coming down the pipe that look to be fun, have great communities, and offer earning opportunities. A web search will find services and websites that will keep you on your toes and alert you of upcoming blockchain game releases, marketplace opening, and more.

As we look forward, the future of gaming on the blockchain is really, really exciting! Not only are the games getting better and more fun, but they’re getting better at making the economics work more smoothly as well.

The games are not without challenges, as they need to be made to sustain themselves economically over the long haul. In addition, they need to have higher levels of security (thanks blockchain!) and of course, work without becoming “pay to win”. Thankfully, the new breed of developers have risen to the challenge!

The next time you look for a new game to add to your phone or desktop, or just want a change of pace, look to a game that pays to play! Your wallet might thank you.

Another perk, is your husband or wife will appreciate it as well! Instead of hearing “are you going to play that stupid game all night again?”, you may start to hear things like “I’ll put the kids to bed tonight sweetheart, so you can get online and play”.

One can only hope...

Author - Nick Cifonie

Nick is a lifelong gamer, who cut his teeth at the local Chicago arcade playing Tetris as a teen. Better known as Znick or Deacon Z, Nick became a Game Master in Ultima Online in 1997, ran a large multi-game guild for 15 years, and now spends his time in the “play to earn” arena. Professionally, Nick is a writer and 4-decade marketer working with the  Pepper Attack team, as well as others. Nick is also a Catholic Deacon.

#nftart #nft marketplace #nftdrop #nftgallery #nftnews #nftcrypto #cryptoart #nftcommunity #nftartist #crypto #blockchain #nonfungibletokens #nft games #nft

[skz222]

5.55 (han jisung)

contains: fluff, scenario, full length chaptered story, sfw, jisung x oc, lee know x oc, changbin x oc, jisung pov

word count: 2.8k

Previous chapter 

Chapter 1.3

July 13th, 2022

12:12 am.

I can’t sleep. 

Let me just go on Twitter or something I guess.

Scrolling, scrolling. It makes me feel better to see what Stays post about us, and it’s almost like going through a scrapbook of memories and it makes me feel better about being awake in a completely dark room right now. It almost feels like I’m ignoring something. The whole room...really is this dark huh..

I’m not going to wake up Hyunjin or Chan right now just because I’m scared of the dark.

Hah.

Maybe if I listen to some music I can sleep peacefully this time.

I don’t know why I keep having the same dream over and over, it’s almost every night at this point. I don’t even know if it’s something I don’t want to happen anymore. 

A warm and familiar hand starts rubbing my back gently.

“Why are you up so early baby?”

“I had a bad dream again...” 

Her back rubs comforted me but I felt agitated, like I wanted to go somewhere. How long have I even been up for? What time is it? I swear it’s only been 20 minutes but I can see the sky turning dark blue from black.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Not now Eunji, baby. I just want to kind of be by myself right now.”

“Is it something about me?”

“No, I just need some time alone right now.”

“Okay...I have to go to work soon so I’ll be leaving first.”

“Alright. Have a good day. I love you.”

“I love you too!”

Leaning over, she puts her hand on my face for a kiss. It’s sloppy and full of morning breath, and for once I actually feel a bit grossed out. I’ve never felt that way before, not even about any of the members or anybody before. I just don’t think I want to kiss her anymore.

I’ll just wait until she leaves to write it down in my dream journal.

I watch her carefully as she silently changes into her work clothes in the dark, grabs her bag and shoes, phone and charger, and silently heads out the door with a wave and a smile. I smile back, but I’m not sure if I even wanted to or if it was just out of habit.

One, two, three, four.... beep beep beep.

She’s fully gone now.

I grab my journal from under the mattress, between the bed and the nightstand so it never peeks out. Flipping through the pages, I guess this one is the same as the last, like what, 15 dreams I’ve had but I can’t just not record it down right?

------------

June 6th, 2022

She’s late again huh....

5:55 pm

Two slices of cheesecake on my table, one for me and one for someone else.

Eunji walks in finally, and she looks hurried, like she just came from work - a bunch of bags in her hands. 

“I’m sorry I’m late baby! The stores were being difficult with your gifts so it made me late.”

“No don’t worry, I wasn’t waiting long.”

I hand her the bag on the floor next to me, just one big bag but it’s heavy. All of her bags are designer brands and mine was just a big mauve paper bag. 

“I know you really like these colors so I made sure to get one of each style in your best colors!” 

“Thank you Eunji, that’s sweet.”

“What is this? Oh my god are these the shoes I’ve been wanting for years? Hannie baby...that’s so thoughtful.”

“I’m glad you like it. I’m sorry it’s not as much as you got me, I just am more of a one, thoughtful gift kind of person, I guess.”

“I feel....bad Jisung....I feel like I wasn’t as thoughtful with my gifts.”

“It’s okay, I understand. I know sometimes, when you’re with someone for a long time, you do things that are easier because you have an understanding or a felling that that person will stay with you forever regardless or will love you the same regardless. I think a lot of people start treating the ones around them with less care and like they’re less precious as time goes on, because a lot of people only treat things that aren’t easily obtainable or accessible as precious or valuable rather than the things right in front of them. I understand that we all have “easy versus thoughtful” moments in our day to day life. It’s hard to ask you to be thoughtful for me in moments like this when I haven’t always been. It’s not a competition, but I understand it’s just hard sometimes.”

“You only talk like this, very touching and carefully, when you’re deciding on something big. Are you deciding on something important to you?”

“I guess I was just thinking out loud I guess.”

We sat and ate in silence. Well, I ate my slice, she just played around with it for a while. Sometimes I wish she’d just admit she doesn’t actually like cheesecake as much as me or nearly at all anymore, if she ever did.

Sometimes I wish she would just eat it at least a little bit just to humor me, if she’s not going to be honest with me about it.

I guess this is how our relationship is these days. Aren’t things supposed to be better and bubbly at least a little bit longer than a few months? I feel like things haven’t been genuinely the same for a while now. It just feels like the girl I used to think about wasn’t even real, or she changed so much that she’s like a different person now. 

I feel strange saying I loved her, or that I do love her. The girl I used to love isn’t the same and not even in a normal way that people change. I was always hesitant to say I love you because it never felt natural, even though I felt that way when she wasn’t around. 

It’s like she was really good at portraying an image of herself that she knew I would love and adore and cherish, but could never keep it up long enough for me to be completely fooled.

I’m not necessarily an owner, or a possessive lover. I value loyalty in my interpersonal relationships the most, and to me that means no flirting at all or anything past that. 

Today is our 200 day anniversary. I never made it this far in any of my younger relationships, which I think were just puppy love at best. I thought this would be something to look forward to, but I feel like I was actually dreading it for the past 100 days.

On our 100 day, she was late also. I prepared a really nice picnic date at our favorite park, one close to her parents house. I waited for 2 hours, I even called a few times and she never answered. Call me a fool, a puppy, whatever you have to, but I just ignored the feeling.

I went home, decided to take a shower instead. I try my best to be understanding and was worried that there was an emergency. After I showered, I went to her place and she was busy, on a phone call, with her guy friend. 

I didn’t really ask more than that, I just entered, heard them laughing and talking, and left. She apologized later, said she was caught up with an important conversation. I think that was the moment I knew she wasn’t the one for me.

I think I’m a stubborn person. I’m stubborn about love because I don’t want to fail, with friends I love or with people I love in general.

I don’t think I give my heart away easily, but I think I’m the kind of person that loves entirely and really trusts my instinct and intuition. If I feel something is right, I go for it and don’t hold back, so I think that is why I’m stubborn because I don’t want to think I was wrong.

I know these last 100 days weren’t spent in vain though, I just spent it figuring out myself. I was too excited to be able to date. Once the dating ban was up I think I just...became too hopeful and excited, I wanted to be with someone in that way so badly.

I wanted to have a romantic love and do all of those things I had been waiting to do. It was hard because I hadn’t been able to since I was a teenager, so I just kind of disregarded most of my logic and thoughts about waiting.

It’s not that I needed to love myself, because I got to spend those years doing that instead and I’m grateful, but I didn’t understand myself well enough. I didn’t understand why I was feeling that way, like I was “behind” everyone else. In my career, I’m ahead and I’m successful and I’m grateful.

I felt behind in life, like I had been too focused on my career and myself and finally I was able to give and receive this amazing new love. I was so excited that I didn’t take the time to see if it was actually something I needed or if she was the person for me.

I think that’s one of my faults. I rush things sometimes and stick to it, but what these past 100 days have taught me is that I shouldn’t be that way anymore. I have hindsight now, and I can see that sometimes things are karmic.

Sometimes things are a result of my haste. It’s okay to make mistakes in choosing people. It’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to change once you’ve seen the situation change or have new information about a person.

You can’t know everything off of a first meeting, and sometimes people make you see what you want to see.

________________________

July 13th, 2022

5:01 am

How is it already so late? I tried to write quickly...

I should read over it I guess, it kind of bothers me to have lots of errors-

Click.

?????????

Who is up right now?

Hyunjin beat me to it.

He got off the top bunk so fast I was almost sure he’d already been awake. Just casually getting off the bed, turning on the lights and opening the door.

I see someone leaving quickly, it’s another member? Right now? It’s barely light out...

Beep beep beep.

“Where is Minho going?”

“Huh...I don’t know, I didn’t think we had any schedules until at least 8 am?”

“We don’t....”

He looked confused but just shut off the light and climbed back to the top bunk.

I’ll quickly reread my journal before we have to start getting ready.

I had the same dream again last night. I was walking to the cafe, it was mid day but there were barely any people out for some reason. I was wearing a jacket even though it was hot, a cap and a mask. I went in and got my usual drink but wanted to grab a slice of cheesecake again.

There were only 3 other people in there, all girls. They were all minding their business, but were clearly friends. I look at the clock...

12:12 pm

I’m in no rush, but I can’t stop staring at the cheesecakes and pastries. I take off my hat and leave the mask. One of the girls came up to order another drink at the counter and another slice of cheesecake, she gets the strawberry one with extra strawberries. I look at her, but I can only see her chin and below.

She’s wearing her hair down, it falls just past her shoulders and is straight and black with a hint of purple. She has on a black tank top with an unbuttoned button up shirt over it, the shirt is white and short sleeved. She’s wearing light wash blue jeans and white tennis shoes. 

She’s laughing with the cashier, she said “Another one? You’ll never get tired of these huh?” and they laugh.

I smile at her, and I ask her for her name. She tells me but I can never remember it when I wak wake up. My drink and cheesecake are ready right afterwards, and I take them in both hands. She taps me on the shoulder and I turn around, I still can’t see above her chin, the dream will never let me. 

The light coming in from the windows is hitting her in the most beautiful way.

She asks me what kind of cheesecake I got, and I tell her mulberry.

“Oh! That makes sense. My Korean isn’t fluent yet so I couldn’t tell what that one was, thank you!” 

I smile and laugh, her voice and laugh, they make me feel something.

She turns around and sits back with her friends, at the table right in front of the register. She turns away as she sits down so I still can’t see her face, but I see the faces of her friends. They start laughing and this whole part is in slow motion.

Then I wake up. 

Why do I keep having this dream?

I used to feel bad that I kept having this dream when I started meeting Eunji, but then I remembered that I’ve been having this dream long before I knew her. Since when?

Flipping, flipping. 

No way...

Since July 13th, 2020?

Exactly two years ago?

Beep beep.

지금 바쁘니? 카페 빨리 와 <3 (Are you busy right now? Come to the cafe rn <3)

지금 왜???? 새벽엔??? (Right now? It’s early as hell??)

지금 다른 일을 있어...??? (U got something better to do?)

없어 (Nah)

그럼 빨리 와<3 <3 (Alrighty then get that ass over here <3)

아라써  (Yeah fine)

Why right now? Did he have an emergency and that’s why he left so early? I guess I do need a coffee..

-----------

Do I subconsciously dress this way to the cafe hoping I’ll meet her now? These past 100 days have been really sad for me just because I have that dream almost every night, especially since July started it’s literally every time. 

I feel kind of silly to be honest, maybe she isn’t even real. 

I don’t know why I’d dream of an imaginary girl, was I just that lonely? I don’t understand. 

The sun is coming out already, it feels so good to be in the sunlight right now. I feel so cold for some reason. 

Beep beep.

자기! 저녁식사!!!!! 같이 먹을래? 누나 사줄게 <3 (Babe do you want to get dinner tonight? My treat <3)

아, 스케줄 한이써, 미안. 보상해줄겡 (I actually have a schedule today I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you though.)

괜차나, 누나가 응원할게! (It’s okay, I’ll be cheering you on!)

I don’t even want to reply honestly..

Well I’m here finally.

I can see Minho and Changbin inside already..? With some random girls as well? They’re lucky it’s even too early for Dispatch to be out because there’s literally no one else here???

“Hey guys! Good morning!”

“Jisung! Come here come sit!”

“Ah thank you, I’m gonna order first!”

“Alright alright!”

“Can I get a hot milk chocolate with vanilla syrup and a slice of mulberry cheesecake please? Yes, thank you!”

“Hi, can I get another iced milk tea with a slice of cheesecake?”

“Of course ma’am, you don’t even have to order at this point.”

They’re laughing.

I look over, just not even thinking properly. I like her outfit, a black tank top with a white over shirt, jeans and some white shoes. Very pretty.

“Your food is ready sir!”

“Thank you very much! Hey scoot over so I can put my drink!””

Minho scooches over for me.

“Hey! I’m Ahyeon! Binnie told us a lot about you! This is Hyesoo and this is Hyojin!”

...Hyojin...

“Park Hyojin?”

“Oh? Do you two know each other?”

“No, I was just...guessing...”

The clothes, the barista interaction, this whole situation is almost exactly the same the time is off, the people, are you serious?

Did I only remember her name because Ahyeon said it out loud...

She’s still at the counter, her back turned and she’s just waiting, talking with the barista. She didn’t hear...

I should go home right now, I’m stinky I haven’t showered since yesterday, I’m wearing old clothes, I’m painfully nervous right now I feel like I’m not ready for this I don’t think I’ve ever felt my heart beating this loudly before am I going to pass out?

I get up abruptly and walk outside, ignoring everyone.

I should get ready for our schedule anyways, I’ll text them on the way back-

5:55 am.

“Hey hey hey wait up! Where are you going?”

#skz #stray kids #stray kids fluff #skz fluff #skz imagines #skz scenarios #skz jisung #skz han #han jisung #jisung fluff #han fluff #skz minho #lee know #lee know fluff #changbin #skz changbin #skz hyunjin #seo changbin #bang chan #chan #changbin fluff #skz chan #kim seungmin #skz seungmin #seungmin fluff #yang jeongin #jeongin #kpop fluff #kpop #fluff

[purplesurveys]

816

Gonna do a before and after of one of the first surveys I took when I was FOURTEEN. Fucking wild that I’ve been doing this for nearly a decade. Kinda my way of celebrating the fact that I’ve just been reunited with my old blog, which Tumblr has apparently changed the URL of. Baffled by the move but still stoked, and @a-zebra-is-a-striped-horse​ is absolutely the coolest person for being able to find it haha. Let’s gooooo 1. Are you registered to vote? No. I still have 3 years to go. < That’s so precious. I’ve been a voter for four years now. I registered the second I turned 18 and I remember being very excited to make it to the presidential elections because only a handful of people from my high school batch were 18 by the time of the elections. 2. When days go by, do you cross them off on the calendar? Only when I’m counting down for something. < This still sounds like something I would do, but I don’t really get to anymore because I have digital calendars on my phone and laptop now. 3. Are you currently counting down to something? If so, what? Summer vacation! 4 days left! < Again, so cute. There’s no countdown that exists because I honestly don’t know when it will be okay enough to go out like normal again, but I am waiting for Covid to go away or at least for a vaccine to be available.

No #4? 5. Ever got injured at work? What happened? Nope. < I sprained my ankle at one of the parking lots in school, while walking to my car. Worst thing was it happened in front of an ongoing rally, and I heard their chants slightly falter when they saw me fall. I tried to play it cool, but my foot clearly felt fucked and someone had to hold my arm as I hopped to my car.

6. What color is your roof? Brown. < Stop pretending like you have a roof, Robyn. The house has always had a rooftop.

7. Do you use MySpace or Facebook more? Neither. < I was still far too young when MySpace peaked so I never did get to participate in its glory days. I definitely use Facebook a lot more, then and now. 8. Last time you sharpened a pencil? When I took a diagnostic test last Monday. < Sometime in 2019 when I was still heavily into coloring and I bought several coloring books and a pack of coloring pencils. I loved coloring and wish I kept it up, but it was just a bit of a hassle for me to sharpen every ten minutes or so. 9. List all the people in your phone under T: Zero, zilch, nada. No phone. < A high school batchmade named Dani, a college colleague named Kate, and a couple of aunts and uncles whose contacts start with Tito and Tita.  10. How old were you when you got into text messaging? I once had a super obsessive text problem when I was 11, I think? < That would be the first time I got hooked with texting, but I got my first phone when I was 7 and was already texting by then. Mostly my parents and grandpa, but still. 11. Do you pay rent to your parents? No. < No. They’ve already told me they won’t pressure me to do so either, but out of gratefulness for taking care of me for 20+ years I have absolutely no problems covering some of the bills when the time comes. 12. What do you think of Obama’s new healthcare bill? I don’t know a lot about it. < Honestly, still same. That’s another country’s politics altogether and we have enough issues in our own nation as it is. I do pay attention to US issues that are more universal like LGBT issues, police brutality against black people, Trump as a person...but not the more in-depth ones like healthcare or student debt. 13. How many icons are on your desktop? 34. < Exactly half of that. 14. Do you spit or swallow? Get outta here!!! < Still can’t relate. 15. Ever wrote something on a bathroom wall? Nope. < Eugh no, public bathrooms are so nasty. I don’t usually touch anything in them other than the faucet. I’ve written on other things though, like the desks in school. 16. What’s your definition of a slut? Uh. < Someone who often has casual sex with a lot of people, is how I understand it. 17. If you use the word “slut”, do you apply it to men who do the same thing as what you listed above? Nah. < I don’t really use the word. 18. Do you dye eggs for Easter? I did once, in a children’s party. < Yeah, just that one time at my second cousins’ place when they were in the mood to paint on eggs and invited me and my siblings. 19. What did you do on the first day of spring? Never experienced spring. < We don’t have spring. 23. Are you currently crushing on anyone? No. < Yes. 24. What color hair did the last person you kissed have? NKSB. < LOOOOOOOOOL I spent like two minutes puzzling over this like who tf is NKSB??? Eventually realized this just meant ‘Never Kissed Since Birth’ oh my god 14 year old Robyn you were SO uncool. Anyway, her hair is black. 25. Do you stand up to say the pledge in school? We don’t have a school pledge, but we do recite our country’s pledge and yes, we stand up every time we say it. < Not anymore in university. Everyone just kinda does their own thing in college and we’re never gathered as one student body for anything, except for graduation. 26. Do you like your eye color? God no. It’s so boring. < I mean yeah it is a bit boring, but we kinda have no choice. Unless you go to West Asia which is nearing Europe as it is, nearly all Asians have brown eyes and black hair. 27. What brand of orange juice did you last drink? Zesto. < That’s the only brand of orange juice I’m okay with drinking, even eight years later. 28. Pens or pencils? Pens. < Still feel the same. 29. Last skirt you wore and why? My school skirt, because I have to go to school. < Omfg again, this is so precious. The last one I wore was my denim skirt, but it’s also been a while since I wore that because one of its buttons has since popped out and I never got around to having it fixed, leaving me with no skirts. 30. Last time you wore heels, what kind were they? A prom I went to. I actually have no idea what kind of heels they are so I’m just gonna say old-women heels. < They were stilettos, you dumbass. I also wore a pair of stilettos the last time I wore heels. They’re my favorite kind, so. 31. Shoes you wear the most? My Keds. < My pair of Onitsuka Tiger sneakers. . 32. Favorite quote at the moment? “YOU DUMB BITCH! I’M NOT HOLDING A MICROPHONE! ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID?” - CM Punk < Holy crap, I do not remember this quote at all and had to look it up on YouTube and – no regrets. Watching it made so many memories come rushing back lmao that clip is hilarious; Punk is the greatest. Right now I don’t really have a favorite quote. 33. What was the last magazine article you read about? I forgot. < It’s from the website version of the magazine, but the last article I read covered a viral Facebook post wherein someone had photoshopped the faces of The Big Bang Theory boys onto the traditional graduation photos of my university out of boredom. Article is here for anyone who wants to see how well the pictures turned out lol. 34. What do you think about communism? I don’t know enough about it. < I completely support the progressive youth orgs, especially the ones in my university, that are aligned with communist, socialist, and Marxist ideals. They speak the truth more than any other orgs, so I don’t shy away from defending them or promoting their ideals, especially on social media, even if it puts me in danger. 35. Are you planning on going to college? If so, which one? Of course. I want to study in Ateneo. < CAN WE CANCEL 14 YEAR OLD ROBYN?????? What a disappointment omg. You were always meant to be in UP, you weirdo. 22 year old me takes that appalling statement back lol I can’t even begin to imagine spending my college years in Ateneo. 36. What’s your favorite flower? Ugh I hate flowers. < Peonies and roses. 37. What’s the nearest beach? I think it’s like…600 km away + a 2 hour boat ride. < No it is not. There’s a beach I come back to in Nasugbu and that’s only 100 km away. 38. Ever been to Florida? Nope. < Still nope. 39. How old is your brother’s best friend? He’s probably 9 as my brother’s 9. < I don’t know if he has one and I don’t really care anymore. 40. What type of car did you ride in last? A Kia van. < Sksksksks this was referring to the school bus I used to ride omg :( I was last in our Vitara, when I had to go to the hospital to get some tests done back when I still had a pesky fever. 42. Are you excited for summer 2013? Fuck yeah. < I honestly don’t remember how it ultimately went, but apparently I was excited for it so that answers the question. 43. What class were your parents (ex. class of ‘75)? They’re the same age so batch ‘89. < There we go. 44. Are you in debt right now? For what? No. < Kinda-ish? I promised my sister I’d pay her for helping me out with iMovie (I wanted to make Gab a video for her birthday, but had never done it before), but I haven’t had the chance to do it since I only have big bills at the moment. She’s asking for ₱200 but I only have ₱1000s in my wallet, so I can’t pay her for now. 45. If you’re old enough, do you have a credit card? If you’re not old enough, do you want one when you’re older? I definitely want one. < Yep, still want one. Though I’ll need a crash course on how to use it because my parents never really taught me how cards work. 46. What color is your phone? No phone. < Apple calls it space gray but it’s really just black. 47. Have you ever had someone read a text message they weren’t supposed to see? Yes. < Yes. That person was me, and I accidentally read a text from my dad meant for only my mom when I was 5 because I had stubborn fingers that would click on anything. 48. What’s the minimum age you think someone should have a cell phone at? 10. < Holy cow, that’s a nope for me. I’d say 12 or 13. 49. Would you ever work night crew? Sure. < Yes. I’ve seen my girlfriend’s mom do it and honestly I find it pretty badass, especially because while everyone is stuck in traffic trying to get to work by 9 AM, she’s cruising down the highway on the opposite lane with no problem, to be home by 9 hahaha. 50. How old is the last person you texted? 41. < 22.

#survey #surveys

[abrclub]

ABR Club Exclusive: Interview with Kip

If you've ever stopped by the merch table at an August Burns Red show, there's a good chance you've met their merch guy, Christopher "Kip" Hondru. Having been a fan of the band for nearly ten years, Kip and I developed a casual acquaintanceship through many merch table transactions over the years. While following ABR on The Phantom Anthem Tour in January and February, I had the chance to meet up with Kip in Milwaukee, WI where he gave me a tour of the historic Eagles Club venue and sat down afterwards to talk about tour life, photography, and how he spends his time when he's not on tour.

Photo by Ray Duker

David: How did you get the nickname Kip? Do you prefer Kip or Christopher?

Kip: It's something my sister called me when I was younger. Friends and family always call me that, and it just kind of stuck around. I'm told that Kip is a nickname of Christopher. In regards to which name I use when I'm introducing myself to somebody, it depends on who I'm with. If I'm with my friends, I'll introduce myself as Kip. If I'm some place where I'm by myself, I'll go straight to Christopher. I do like that name a little better, but I'm not picky. I was named after my grandfather, so I think that's why I like the name Christopher. I use Kip when I'm selling merch for ABR, unless I'm trying to be funny. Then I'll give them a funny name. Sometimes it's fun to mess with the kids [laughs].

David: How did you get introduced to ABR, and how did you start selling merch for them?

Kip: I grew up with a lot of the guys in the band, went to the same school (Manheim Central), and rode the school bus with JB. I've known Brent since second grade, so I've always been around and would always help out here and there with local shows. When I was in college I would go out with them during the summer or on weekends when time allowed it. In 2009 I came on full-time when our previous merch guy was looking to get out of it. I wanted to stop my 9-to-5 job and go on tour because my friends were doing some cool stuff.

David: Did you go to Manheim Central from 1st through 12th grade?

Kip: Yup, born and raised. JB and Brent went as well. Matt was homeschooled, and Jordan [Jordan Tuscan, the original bassist] was homeschooled along with Matt. Jon Hershey, the original singer, was in my grade. I knew him longer than I knew Brent, probably by about two years. JB was in the grade above us. Josh Bowman, our tour manager, was in JB's class.

David: What's it like in Manheim with August Burns Red? Does everybody know them, or know of them?

Kip: A lot of people do. When I meet someone and they're like "oh what do you do?", I tell them I work for a band. They'll ask "what band?" and I'll say August Burns Red, and they'll be like "oh I think I've heard of them!" or "oh I saw them in the newspaper the other day!" [laughs].

David: Where did you go to college, and what did you major in?

Kip: I went to The Art Institute of Philadelphia from 2003 to 2007 and majored in photography. I really excelled at digital output and large format printing. I also did a lot of traditional film photography as well and would mix the two mediums together, scan the negatives, and then print them out digitally. I used specialized cameras called large format cameras, which are unique to work with and something I enjoyed.

David: I know you have a camera collection. How many cameras do you have in your collection? Do you use them?

Kip: I'm not sure, maybe over 200. Not all of them are work. I try to use them, but other things have kept me busy recently. I always try to keep a camera around or on me. I have one on tour with me, but I've only shot two pictures so far [laughs]. A lot of what I shoot doesn't need to be rushed around, so I'm just amassing images. I have a spreadsheet of the cameras in my collection, but it's not up-to-date. I kind of stopped adding to it and recently sold a lot of cameras.

David: It's always surprised me that you're really into photography and collect cameras, yet you don't use Instagram. Why is that?

Kip: I was never much about posting and sharing a lot of things. I never really got into that. I'm trying to stay off my phone much as I can [laughs]. It becomes an annoying habit.

Editor's note: If you want to check out Kip's photography, visit www.christopherhondru.com.

David: You used to post on Twitter a lot about things that happened at shows while selling merch and you started the Shoes Got Weird photo series. What happened to that?

Kip: I just lost interest in that stuff. I do think that photo series was funny, as a quick off-the-hip kind of thing. That hashtag came out of one particular tour I was on. I was working for The Devil Wears Prada, and they would spend a lot of time at the mall on off days, so I would be walking around the mall with them killing time. We would walk into shoe stores, and I would be like "dude, shoes got weird! Look at these!", and then it just became a thing [laughs].

David: What's your favorite part of selling merch?

Kip: I can't pinpoint just one thing. It's a combination of a bunch of stuff, like traveling with my friends, seeing new sights, and continually meeting new people. Like you for example, and getting to recognize your face and getting to know your name, seeing you come back time and time again, and seeing how stoked you guys are as fans. It keeps me going just as much as it keeps the guys in the band going and excited. It'll be sad the day I stop touring, because I won't be able to see everybody who I'm acquaintances with as easily.

David: What are some of your favorite ABR merch items you've sold over the years?

Kip: I like selling guitar picks. They're fun, unique, and collectable. I've become a pick collector myself because of selling them, and I've met lots of pick collectors through that. Now I save some picks for certain people because I think they're great guys and I want to make sure they get some picks. I've got two of every pick we've sold ever since we started selling them at the merch table. Someday I'll put them all in a frame of some sort.

David: What are your favorite cities, venues, and places to eat on tour?

Kip: A lot of people ask me this question. My quick answer is I like a lot of the smaller college towns, particularly in the Midwest, like Spokane, Washington; Lawrence, Kansas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Des Moines, Iowa; Missoula, Montana. Those are cool because they're smaller towns, so if I wanted to check something out it's not far away from the venue. I usually have limited time before a show to go check something out, so if I'm close enough I can maybe ride my skateboard there in half the time I could walk there. It's usually a cool cheeseburger joint, burrito shop, or a bar/brewery that I'd like to check out, maybe a skatepark sometimes.

David: I didn't know that you skate. Do you use a longboard or a normal skateboard?

Kip: Cruiser board, and some longboarding. Not as much as I used to. I used to skate in the skatepark when I was younger. I'm not trying to do any tricks anymore [laughs]. I'm strictly cruising around. I like snowboarding a lot. I don't get to do that much, so that's where longboarding comes into play. Being on Warped Tour really got me into that because it had a lot of parking lot space, so it was an easy way to get around. We had a group of friends who liked to skate and we would find cool hills. That was always fun and something I enjoyed about going on Warped Tour.

David: So do you bomb hills a little bit then?

Kip: Yeah [laughs], I'm not trying to get max speed, but I will carve pretty fast.

David: Besides cities, what are some of your favorite venues?

Kip: One of my favorite venues right now is The Fillmore in Philadelphia. It's a newer one, beautiful, it's good on all fronts. It has good parking for us, and there's an easy load-in. It's also in a cool neighborhood. There's lot of things to do around there. I also like Philadelphia a lot. A venue a lot of us like in in Belgium. It's called AB Brussels. It's a scenic venue too and state-of-the-art. It's completely soundproof, like you'll walk outside and have no clue there's a metal show going on inside [laughs]. It's in a historic town with lots of cool architecture, which is something I enjoy about touring. I like architecture and history and being able to see something that had some kind of tie to the past and is still around. This building (the Eagles Club) is an example. I really dig that stuff. Anything that's an old theater that's still being used is cool to me, especially if I can find an old picture of what it used to be.

David: What do you do when you're not on tour?

Kip: A lot of different hobbies, odd jobs, and things to make money where I can here and there. I don't actually look for other tours, but if they fall in my lap, sometimes I'll take them. Lately I've been really involved with making cider. I've been a longtime home-brewer, so I started making hard cider and learning about apples and different apple products. Living in Lancaster County, PA, there's a lot of farm history and barns that I'm intrigued by, so I'm exploring local history back home through the history of the apple.

David: What's your favorite kind of beer?

Me: I like all kinds of beers and ciders and the whole gamut of the spectrum. I don't have an absolute favorite, but I definitely like something that's very flavorful and hopefully 100% real ingredients and no adjuncts if that makes sense. That sounds kind of nerdy [laughs]. So like a good farm-based or orchard-based cider, rather than random ciders you're gonna find at any bar.

David: If someone is visiting Lancaster, what would you recommend they check out?

Kip: Drive into the country side if you can. Go see the farms and see an Amish buggy. There's lot of cool things to see in the city as well. There's Central Market which is the oldest farmer's market in the country. There's good food and stands to get produce. There's tons of restaurants and cafes. A lot of people like Prince Street Cafe. I like a lot of bar restaurants like Pressroom, Taproom Spring House, Lancaster Dispensing Company, The Fridge, Quips Pub, Lancaster County Brewing Company, Horse Inn, and Isaac's Restaurant.

David: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Kip: Come to the 15-Year Anniversary Show! We haven't talked about it yet, but we might do some cool merch items there. This is the first time it's on the record, I haven't said this to anyone else, but there's a small chance I might bring some of my personal poster collection there. I have a flat file cabinet at home with photos and posters I've collected over the years that have been piling up.

#August Burns Red #Kip #interview #ABR Club Exclusive

[kyunsies]

hey mädch! how are you? sorry for taking so long to reply. i got a bit sick from overwork and my whole body kind of shut down? it got to the point where i couldn't eat or sleep and i ended up having panic attacks even just thinking about sleeping... like, no matter how well i was doing i just ended up feeling like i'd failed and idk i think i imploded. that big global launch i told you about reached thousands of people but it was like one of four jobs i'm also doing and with those stats idk i got myself so so pressured to keep it up (i'm really scared it'll end up failing tbh) and i think i went overboard with everything until my body decided stopping was the only way for me to stop - so i ended up having to take a week off to just kind to be healthy and alive?

thank you for being so kind as always, because i took time off i guess i ended up replying to my friends to just apologise for being so absent. i'm sure you understand how when you get overworked you can kind of end up just cutting things off and cutting everyone off and i think that happened with me a lot too? idk i think i just want to find a place that's healthier in general?

how is your job going? is it still going well? i hope you've been able to treat yourself with the money you're making as well what new albums did you buy? what shoes? i'm like you though! i get a bit obsessed with saving and i hate seeing my bank balance get too low as well.

i thought my favourite song was heaven but i'm really loving rotate more and more these days. but then i really like secrets... ah, there's no point picking haha! idk how i feel about eshy still working so much with them though. i'm so excited for their next english record cause aal was so good but... eshy? sigh.

i understand you very much - i was feeling like i deserved to be stressed all the time as well but i think that was me and that was kind of why i ended up a bit dead i think. you are so kind and aware and good and i am sure you will do amazing things. like, the fact you have doubts means that you're aware and considerate, and able to really push yourself as opposed to not thinking. one of my teachers used to say that the fact i was doubting meant that i was able to move up as opposed to just stand still so i believe it is the same for you and i am sure you will be able to do things that you want to do. i mean, you think far too well of me but you are so compassionate that i just think it's impossible for you to now succeed in your field! i had an ex who's dad was big in medicine and he used to say the best people in the field weren't like the most flashy or smart (though you are smart for sure) or academic etc but actually the best with people. so i believe in you!

omg ok that has been a whole ass essay!! ahhhhhhhh (sorry!) but <3 i hope you're super good. love you!!

- 💥

HELLO LOVE !!!!! <3 it's been a little while hasn't it ?? it's okay !!! i know u are heaps busy, i'm just happy when i'm able to finally hear from u again <3

oh god hun are u feeling better at least? u overwork urself so much ;____; you are doing so many amazing things, you will never be anything less than a fantastic person u know that right? i know i can't sit here and tell u otherwise bc i feel like we have similar tendencies, like no matter how hard we work or if we get good results we won't settle for it bc we are always looking at a flaw . but i really am proud of all that u do :( i could only dream to be as hard working at u are , i look up to ur work ethic . i hope the panic attacks have gotten a little better tho bc that's not healthy :( you are doing more than enough :( i am so happy u have decided to take a week off tho love really u deserve it after your hours and hours of hard work ;___; truly!! <3 i think everything will go well bc i know u gave it everything, with your dedication i'm sure the project will be just fine okay?

and pls i totally understand what u mean bub .... when things get a lot or even when things aren't so busy sometimes it's just hard you know? there are still ppl i need to message to make sure they know i think about them all the time but like i said last time i want to make sure that all the responses i give to ppl are genuine and not half-assed so i usually dedicate a message for them when i know i'm in a good headspace to answer ;____; but i don't think theres anything wrong with that :( as long as u eventually get back to ppl who care about u i don't think they care about how long it takes for u to get back to them as long as u do it at some point so they know u are still thinking of them :( ppl know ur busy love (hopefully) and they shouldn't look down on u or think of u badly if they understand ur situation <3

my job is going okay love they're re-organizing all of our files tho and i've just been trying to get everything all nice for them bc we're kinda getting rid of the old system and i want everything to be nice and in it's place before i leave to back to my final year of uni :') i've been making good money for me tho and yesterday i treally treated myself with some much needed nice clothes .... i might have dropped $200 hhh which isn't really much but when i buy clothes i tend to splurge on better quality stuff ,,, it's why i don't buy a lot of clothes in the first place LDKFJ bc i know it's going to be expensive whatever i buy :') i ended up only getting version 2 + 4 of the one of a kind albums !!!!!!!! i think i'll order the other ones later, i didn't think i should spend about $100 in one sitting sdlkfskd it just didn't feel right . and i did end up getting the shoes !! i got some nice white leather platform tennis shoes, i'm very happy about the purchase, i've been wearing them everyday :D we really are the same when it comes to spending money i see HHSDLFJLSKDFJ <3

also u are SO VALID about one of a kind lol in the beginning i was like omg rotate rotate rotate but like i said last time my fav is definitely heaven ;____; it is so dang comforting for me idk what it is but i have deemed it my top 3 emotional support mx songs so for me they are now amen, gravity, and heaven <3 AND OH MY GOD i agree with this so hard ...... i'm actually really excited about what mx has in store next ....... i dislike eshy with every fiber of my being but !!!!!! idk i'm always excited what mx has i really don't even care as long as they give them free range that's all i ask ;____; and i know ppl are concerned about them going overboard with working but ...... if they didn't want to do it they don't have to !!! i think they crave making music and i think the more opportunities they get the happier they are . they only get this life once u know !!! why not make the absolute most of it <3 just without eshy lol

and lastly ....... this last part got me right here ;_____; how are u so understanding ...... u know exactly what to say all the time :( i've really have been dreading this last year of uni, i don't feel like i'm ready for this . i'm scared to look for a job, i'm scared no one will want me, i'm scared that i won't be able to work int he NICU like how i want to ;____; i'm scared i'm going to screw everything up . i just want to be a good nurse, i want to finally have some confidence in what i do :( i always get so anxious about this stuff, i have so many classmates telling me just to calm down and that i worry too much so i often think something is wrong with me ..... but i worry bc i care about what i do and i want to do it correctly .. i don't know how to say this but u have given me so much comfort just reading this :( i put u in such high regard bc u work really hard and i can tell u are good at what u do for work !! it's crazy that YOU think I am something to be proud of when u are already out there in the working world, being a really damn good adult and being responsible when i'm just me being so insecure about everything i do and i'm not even graduated yet . i just blows my mind u think of me this way and that in it of itself is just ........................ u are so kind ;____; i hope u realize how good of a person u are and you are just one of those ppl i don't even hav to meet and i just naturally look up to u :( so thank u so much .... i really hope u are able to take care of yourself on this break . and remember i am here any time okay !!!!! no matter how many days pass i am always here happy to hear from u okay?? pls take care, i love u angel !!!!!!!! <3

#asks #💥 anon #us <3 the essay ppl on this site <3 #i was so happy when i say this in my inbox babe !!!! ty for coming here and stopping by #i love u so much :( u are so sweet and kind and comforting #i hope u are doing well always !! i think about how u are doing often bubbie <3

[bigyack-com]

What Do Gen Z Shoppers Want? A Cute, Cheap Outfit That Looks Great on Instagram

For every Greta Thunberg and school-skipping climate change protester, there is another member of Generation Z buying inexpensive clothes on a smartphone. Their purchasing choices — fueled by influencer culture and catered to by a new wave of ultra-fast-fashion retailers such as Fashion Nova, PrettyLittleThing and Missguided (responsible for a £1 bikini that sold out in Britain) — are as much about how an outfit will look on social media as in the real world. Three Gen Z shoppers in America, Australia and Britain invited us into their homes to talk about what they buy, and why. All of them work after school or save money to pay for their own purchases. Their interviews have been edited for style and clarity.

‘I Browse Every Single Day’

Mia Grantham is a 16-year-old British high school student studying for her A-levels. She lives with her father and her younger sister, Annie, in Wilmslow, England, a town outside of Manchester. Her bedroom is small but immaculately kept, with a bulb-lit dressing table and pillow shaped like a speech bubble reading “You’ve Got This” on her bed. Mia’s interest in buying clothes ramped up about 18 months ago, when she started getting an allowance and attracting followers on her social media accounts. She has more than 1,500 followers on Instagram, gets around 500 views per story on Snapchat and spends three hours per day on her iPhone XR (about five hours on weekends and during vacation). Her favorite going-out look is a red dress. She owns 14 of them.How often do you shop?I browse every single day — at least once — on the Pretty Little Thing phone app. It’s my favorite, and I don’t look anywhere else, except if I see something on an Instagram influencer I like. My current favorite is Molly-Mae Hague, a star from the 2019 series of “Love Island.” She recently created an exclusive clothing range for PLT, which makes me like the brand even more. Normally I look at shopping apps at the end of the day before bed for about 10 to 15 minutes. But if there is an event coming up that I want a new outfit for, then I could browse for more than an hour. I don’t really go to bricks-and-mortar stores. If I do, I go to Primark. Sometimes H&M. Maybe once a month, probably less.What kind of an event needs a new look?It could literally just be a meal. Or a house party, or a friend’s birthday. It could also be school, where we have a dress code but not a uniform.Why is Pretty Little Thing your favorite fashion brand?I pay £8.99 as part of a yearly subscription, which gives me unlimited next-day delivery on anything I buy. I know all the delivery people really well now — they always know when I have plans on a Friday or Saturday night. I don’t buy from places like Boohoo.com or Missguided as I’d have to pay for delivery, which would be a waste of money. I buy something at least once a week, and my basket value can be anywhere from £5.99 up. Once it was £230. Last week I bought 11 items and sent back three. Seventy percent of the time I send some ordered items back.How many pieces of clothing do you think you’ve bought in 2019?Eighty? One hundred? Those are pieces I’ve kept.What is your favorite piece that you’ve bought, and how many times have you worn it?The ones I probably wear the most are gray leggings that cost £2.50. For going out, I bought a silky red dress with a cutout for a house party. It cost £12.50 from the PLT Shape collection, which is for people like me who have an hourglass figure. I’ve worn it out three times, which is a lot for me. Normally I just wear a dress once.Why only once?Because I’ll normally be in photos when I’m wearing it that are then posted on social media. I wouldn’t really want someone seeing me in a dress more than once. People might think I didn’t have style if I wore the same thing over and over. Style is about changing for whatever the situation you are in and for different events.When do clothes become old for you?Well, things like leggings that you just wear in private around the house you can keep for years. Dresses, when you’ve worn them: twice.Is price important?Of course. If I’m only going to wear something once or twice, I’m going to want to buy the cheapest possible.What else do you look for?Social media is a big consideration. I’m on Snapchat and Instagram, and occasionally Facebook. I take selfies for social media every single time I go out, first in my bedroom and post them online, and then always with friends or my boyfriend, Will, when I’m at the party. More people will see an outfit online than they probably will in real life. I’m on Snapchat the most because of its messenger function, then Instagram, where I have both a public and a private account and spend an hour per day.For IRL, if I see an item I like, normally I’ll search for it on Depop before I buy it so I can see what a real person rather than a model looks like in it. People buy and sell fashion so quickly, I can usually find even the newest things on there. Most of my friends do that too.What constitutes a more special purchase for you?An Oh Polly! dress. I buy them for about £20 from Depop, though new they cost about £40 to £60. Those dresses I keep — I have three of them. Teenagers don’t mind buying secondhand clothes like some older people do: You can get good looks at a cheaper price, or directly swap one dress for another online. I tend to sell lots of the clothes I don’t want in big batches on Depop. It gives me the money to buy new things. I also sometimes take big bags to consignment stores in town, where they give you a bit of money for your clothes depending on how much you bring in.Do you ever think about where those clothes go once you’ve given or thrown them away?No.Do you ever look at where your clothes are made?Yes. I’ve noticed quite a few are made in England, which shocked me. I thought they’d all be made in countries like China, India and Bangladesh. Also, we have been learning a bit in Sociology about how our clothes are made and the working conditions for people who make them. In some countries I know they don’t get very good wages. It’s part of globalization. I wouldn’t talk about it with my friends casually, but we do talk about it in the classroom.What do you think of sustainable fashion?It came on my radar three months ago, I’d say. I am hearing more and more about it because a lot of brands are now bringing out sustainable fashion capsule collections, where clothes are made out of recycled materials, for example. A lot look the same as the normal collection but cost a few pounds more. But if I’m honest, I do think: Why would I pay more, when I can get the same for less?

‘I Don’t Like to Repeat’

Andrea Vargas, an 18-year-old freshman at Hofstra University, loves hunting for sales. She looks for them on websites like PrettyLittleThings and Boohoo, as well as physical stores like H&M and Forever 21, where she can flip through the racks and, occasionally, find gems.“I go shopping when the season sales are on,” she said one Saturday night at her family’s home in Farmingdale, N.Y. She commutes to school and spends most weekend nights out with friends: getting dinner, maybe going to a party or a concert. Her plan for this particular evening was to go to P.F. Chang’s with three girlfriends. Her room is small, with wood floors and inspirational quotes in photo frames on her pale yellow walls. A Billie Eilish poster hangs opposite her bed. A guitar she made out of an old skateboard sits in a corner.Scanning the clothes in her room, she began talking about how she got them. “The back-to-school sales, the fall sales, the summer sales,” she said. “I love sales.”Her absolute favorite piece of clothing is a red plush jacket from Forever 21. She wears it relentlessly when the weather is right. “It’s just so cute,” Ms. Vargas said. “I feel like it dresses up an outfit.”Ms. Vargas pays for her clothes herself, using money she earns by working at Target. The red jacket cost her around $40, and she said it was worth every penny. But, she said, “I feel like there’s no point in spending $40 on a T-shirt. I personally feel like if the quality of the shirt doesn’t match the price, it doesn’t make sense for me to buy it. If a jean jacket costs $60 and I can find it for $20, I’m going to buy it for $20. Especially since I’m in college, I need to buy all these books.”Ms. Vargas guessed she had purchased between 100 and 200 items this year, including shoes and jewelry, and that her wardrobe comprises 500 or 600 total pieces. “I would say the majority of it is shirts,” she said. “They have to be graphic tees. I like a little quote on my shirt here and there. I have yet to buy new jeans. I like a lot of ripped jeans. I rarely buy shoes.”She doesn’t generally check where her clothing is made, and she doesn’t feel guilty about how much of it she has. After she’s done wearing something, it can have a second life. “My mom is from El Salvador and my dad is from Nicaragua,” she said. “They’re not wealthy countries, so I like to give back to people who don’t have a lot. It’s hot there, so I can’t send long sleeves, but I try to send shorts that don’t fit me, things that are still presentable and wearable.”She thinks the right amount of money to spend on clothes is $10 to $15 on tops, and $20-$40 on bottoms. For dresses, which are usually for a special occasion, she’ll go over $40. She estimates she wears each piece 15 times before ultimately donating it or selling it on Depop — but she also doesn’t want to be seen wearing the same thing every day on Instagram.“If I have a shirt in one of my previous pictures I try not to take a picture again in it,” she said. “I don’t like to repeat.”Ms. Vargas had invited her friends over to get ready. Alana Wilson, 18, said that Instagram plays a big role in her shopping life, too. The moon-and-stars earrings that sparkled beneath her hair were purchased off an Instagram ad. Almost all of her clothes are from Fashion Nova.“If it’s cute, it’s from Fashion Nova,” Ms. Wilson said. “Any time I have money I’ll do a whole spree on Fashion Nova. I like it because a lot of IG models have it.”Another friend, Sofia Barbetta, also 18, agreed. “I feel like I find most clothes I want to buy in Instagram ads,” she said. “I don’t even follow that many fashion pages, but I see an ad and I’m like, ‘That’s really cute.’”She unlocked her phone to show some outfits she’d posted on VSCO, a photo-sharing app. “I went through a camo pants phase,” she said of one look. “This outfit, I got inspiration from Twitter.” Ms. Barbetta said she’d gotten very into Twitter lately. She started a Post Malone stan account several years ago, but lately it had become a place to post personal things.An hour after Ms. Vargas began getting ready with her friends, she zipped herself into her outfit for the night: a pair of black platform military-style boots from Target, black and white houndstooth pants, and a black off-the-shoulder top from H&M.“I got this outfit yesterday,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is the outfit I’m going to wear.’”But first, her hair. Ms. Vargas propped her iPhone up in front of her and sat cross-legged in front of her mirror. She pulled Miss Jessie’s Jelly Soft Curls styler through her waves. “I wanted to get one of those vlogging cameras,” she said, “one of the Nikon ones.” For now, she uses her iPhone.Hours later she used it to Instagram a photo of her and her friends posing outside a restaurant in 50 degree weather. They had decided not to go to P.F. Chang’s after all, and were at Taste of Asia instead. None of them were wearing coats.“Trust me we were freezing,” she declared in the caption. But they were all smiling.

‘I’m Dressing to Be Seen’

Nicole Lambert, 20, lives in Sydney, Australia, with her parents and is studying for an undergraduate degree in public relations and advertising at the University of New South Wales. She tutors students on weekdays and works a retail job on weekends. When she has time off, she and her friends like to dress up and hit the festival circuit. On a recent evening, after spending the previous day dancing to EDM, she and her friend Helena Marshall got ready in her bedroom for a more relaxing dinner.We’re not influencers — but … When I’m dressing to go out, I’m dressing to be seen, which is weird to say because we’re not influencers. It sounds shallow, but I think in the back of your head you’re like: I probably should avoid wearing the same outfit twice.At the end of the day, I prioritize the look versus the practicality. And that’s so unbelievable.Working to be cuteMy friend yesterday at this festival had a really cute Tiger Mist top with hearts all over it, but it had off-the-shoulder sleeves. I felt so bad for her the whole day, because she couldn’t put her arms up. But she got cute photos, so it was fine. I know when you put something up on Instagram and it does well, you’re like, “Well, that was a good choice on my behalf.” I love it when people message, “Where did you get that from?” You know you’ve found something people can’t easily find.Staying relatableI think about what I’m going to post for a decent amount of time. It’s a very curated version of your life. You want to look good in your photo, but have a funny caption so people know you’re down to earth and relatable.That’s why we have private Instagrams, because it gets tiring. That’s where we feel fully free to post whatever. The tragedies of your life. The real me.Keeping it privateOn my main Instagram, people wouldn’t know I’m funny. Because I just overthink what I post: Will people get it? Are people actually going to laugh at that?Sometimes I’ll get a weird feeling where I need to get off social media. I know some people delete their Instagram, like just the app. But that’s admitting to yourself that you have a problem.Leaving shops empty-handedI look for clothes at least once a week usually — either for an occasion, or just as something to do either online or in store. I shop 60 percent online, 40 percent in person. But 75 percent of the time, I’ll go to the shops, have a look around, and not find one thing because I think everything is the same.I’m not afraid to put on something weird. I’m really big into animal print at the moment. Almost to the point where I’ll wear too much of it. I love my snake pants — and flares. Flares should never go out.Princess Polly and Tiger MistFor basics, 100 percent of my wardrobe is from Kookai. They’re always rotating really nice, classic things. I get a lot of stuff off Revolve, because there are so many different brands. You’ve got things there that you’re not going to see five people wearing once you’re out. From other online brands like Princess Polly, Tiger Mist. Sometimes it’s overwhelming how much stuff there is online. I could go on for hours.Often, on Instagram, I’ll scroll through the Explore page, and people just tagging outfits. It’s so helpful because you just click onto the account, find the item. That’s how I find the little niche things.Where were these dresses made?If I feel so amazing in something, I’m probably not going to look too hard into the price. But I don’t like investing a lot of money for something you might not wear too much. I like PrettyLittleThing for crazy things for cheap, because they just do interesting little tops or little dresses, clubbing clothes. Do I look at the labels of clothes? Not really. In the back of my head, I assume that I know where the clothes are made: in China.In terms of how much I would spend: average price of a dress, probably about $180 Australian dollars. Jeans, about $150. A good going out top, $50. I do like a nice pair of heels, so I’ve spent like $200 for a pair. But then again I’ve got ones for $50. In my wardrobe now, I’d say I have roughly 200 pieces.Cycling the wardrobe overseasI do a big spring clean every year and send boxes of clothes over to my family in the Philippines. One of my cousins has a market stall. So I assumed that maybe my stuff would end up there if they didn’t want to keep it for themselves.I would say 30 percent of my wardrobe would get pulled out. Maybe 80 bits of clothes. It makes a good dent.When I pull it all out and you see a big pile of clothes on your floor, you feel a bit sick. I’m glad that I can send it somewhere and it’s helping at least my family.Supporting sustainability — or notI want to support sustainable brands. But if it doesn’t work for me and what I’m doing in my lifestyle, I’m going to go with something else instead.Timing is important. For what I wore to the Listen Out festival yesterday, I ordered on Tuesday morning, it came on Wednesday morning: literally in 24 hours. That means so much to me. I’m the least decisive person and the least patient person. When miniature bags were in, I was obsessed with this one from London. You could get your initials on it. But it said it could take 30 days and I was like, never mind. I got a cute one from Mango.You’re pushing it after seven business days. If it’s a big order I don’t mind waiting for a week. But if it’s one thing, it’s like: Why? Read the full article

#bigmoney #businessideas #businessinsider #businessletter #businessline #BusinessNews #businessplan #businessportal #businessproposal #businesstimes #businessworld #Cheap #Cute #financialnews #Gen #Great #Instagram #money #onlinebusiness #opportunity #Outfit #profitability #Shoppers #smallbusiness #smallbusinessideas #startingabusiness #startingyourownbusiness #whatisbusiness

[fagkit]

200 thru 1 :3c

bet you didn’t think I’d do it @chqwder @ephraim-o-rama​

200: My crush’s name is: killu @bpdzoldyck I LOVE THIS BOY SO MUCH!!!!!! 199: I was born in: ontario198: I am really: affectionate, loving, supportive, jealous, drained197: My cellphone company is: freedom196: My eye color is: brown195: My shoe size is: 9194: My ring size is: no idea193: My height is: 5′11′’192: I am allergic to: nothing that I know of191: My 1st car was: none, I hate driving190: My 1st job was: peer tutoring through my college189: Last book you read: I can’t remember, but probably a science fiction book for one of the classes I took in college188: My bed is: comfortable and unmade and covered in clothes187: My pet: a precious calico kitty cat named reese uwu 186: My best friend: aria @god-mutt aaaaaahhh god I love my best friend so much like holy gosh damn like I love her with all my heart she’s the best friend ever to exist!!!!! 185: My favorite shampoo is: head and shoulders is all I use184: Xbox or ps3: neither?? I’m a pc gamer… ps3 if I had to choose183: Piggy banks are: kinda helpful I guess182: In my pockets: nothing lmao181: On my calendar: my friends’ birthdays uwu180: Marriage is: I dunno, nothing special to me179: Spongebob can: quench that extreme thirst178: My mom: loves memes177: The last three songs I bought were? all on krewella’s new world album, the first time I’ve bought music in years actually176: Last YouTube video watched: sro playing camille175: How many cousins do you have? fuck there’s a lot of them but I don’t know most of them, my family tree is huge.. I’m close to like three of my cousins174: Do you have any siblings? I have a younger sister173: Are your parents divorced? nope172: Are you taller than your mom? yeah, by a little171: Do you play an instrument? not at all170: What did you do yesterday? I worked and then had a pizza and relaxed[ I Believe In ]169: Love at first sight: not a chance168: Luck: as much as I like to blame luck when things go bad, or say I got lucky when things go well, not really… shit just happens167: Fate: same as before, shit just happens, but fate can be nice to think about sometimes166: Yourself: kinda, I can be a big fuck up sometimes but I’m still alive and kicking165: Aliens: not your traditional aliens out of fiction, but I believe there is other forms of life in the universe164: Heaven: nah, not really, but it’s nice to think about163: Hell: as often as I’ll say I’m going to hell, in particular with my best friend to chill after death, it’s not really something I think is real162: God: no, I don’t really think about it either, nor do I care to think about it161: Horoscopes: they’re fun, but I don’t think they’re real or accurate or hold any value160: Soul mates: it’s a comforting thing to believe in, but it’s probably not real159: Ghosts: not really, it’s possible but I don’t really care either way158: Gay Marriage: of course!!!!! unfollow me if you don’t157: War: war is very much real lmao do I think it should it happen??? it would be nice if it didn’t… but in the world we live in I think it’s always bound to happen156: Orbs: what does this even mean????155: Magic: nope but this is the closest to magic I’ve ever seen[ This or That ]154: Hugs or Kisses: hugs153: Drunk or High: high152: Phone or Online: online151: Red heads or Black haired: black hair150: Blondes or Brunettes: brunette149: Hot or cold: hot148: Summer or winter: summer147: Autumn or Spring: autumn146: Chocolate or vanilla: vanilla145: Night or Day: night144: Oranges or Apples: oranges143: Curly or Straight hair: straight142: McDonalds or Burger King: mcdicks141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: milk chocolate140: Mac or PC: pc139: Flip flops or high heals: flip flops138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: sweet and poor137: Coke or Pepsi: coke136: Hillary or Obama: obama I guess, I’m not american so my opinion is limited135: Burried or cremated: I want to be cremated134: Singing or Dancing: singing133: Coach or Chanel: lmao I don’t care132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: who???131: Small town or Big city: small town130: Wal-Mart or Target: wal-mart, target got shit on in canada for good reasons too129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: adam sandler I guess, only because my favourite movie ever is 50 first dates128: Manicure or Pedicure: manicure probably so I can show it off127: East Coast or West Coast: I don’t know??? what does this even mean??126: Your Birthday or Christmas: my birthday125: Chocolate or Flowers: chocolate124: Disney or Six Flags: never been to either and never will123: Yankees or Red Sox: neither, I don’t care about sports[ Here’s What I Think About ]122: War: depends on what’s being fought over, human rights is one of the only reasons it should need to happen121: George Bush: I’m not american and I don’t really care120: Gay Marriage: there shouldn’t need to be laws for gay marriage to be legal and accepted119: The presidential election: a losing choice either way118: Abortion: pro-choice, your body your life your choice117: MySpace: dead and gone116: Reality TV: can be fun sometimes115: Parents: my parents are great!!!! others?? not so much… really common to hear about shitty parents114: Back stabbers: shitty people, drop them when you get the chance113: Ebay: pretty useful but I don’t really use it112: Facebook: waste of time and poorly designed and too much data mining111: Work: I’m underpaid, retail is hell, it’s basically adult babysitting110: My Neighbors: don’t talk to them but they smoke a lot of weed109: Gas Prices: inflated and bullshit but luckily I don’t drive108: Designer Clothes: not a necessity but to each their own107: College: unfairly out of reach for most people, should be free106: Sports: boring and exhausting and not fun to me105: My family: I love my family, I don’t really have any complaints104: The future: probably pretty shitty with how things in the world have been lately, gonna enjoy the present while I can[ Last time I ]103: Hugged someone: a week ago102: Last time you ate: a couple hours ago101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: a while? :3c100: Cried in front of someone: a few days ago on voice chat with my best friend99: Went to a movie theater: around a year at this point98: Took a vacation: around april was the last time I had a week off work97: Swam in a pool: over a year, last summer I think96: Changed a diaper: never95: Got my nails done: never94: Went to a wedding: not since I was a baby93: Broke a bone: never, the closest was a fractured wrist when I was around 1292: Got a peircing: never91: Broke the law: I have no idea, probably the last time I ripped a song from youtube which was almost a year ago90: Texted: less than a minute ago[ MISC ]89: Who makes you laugh the most: aria88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: aria87: The last movie I saw: something with aria I can’t remember the name of, it was a bunch of shorts on short stories (she has informed me it was called XX)86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: coming home from work and calling with aria85: The thing im not looking forward to: going back to work84: People call me: loving, supportive, a brother83: The most difficult thing to do is: accept change82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: never81: My zodiac sign is: libra80: The first person i talked to today was: grizz @chqwder79: First time you had a crush: when I was around 1078: The one person who i can’t hide things from: aria77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: probably aria76: Right now I am talking to: voice calling with aria 75: What are you going to do when you grow up: be best friends with aria74: I have/will get a job: I am a unofficially a manager at a hardware store (I do all the work of one), but only get paid as a supervisor73: Tomorrow: THIS IS SO VAGUE but I’m going to be working and then hanging out with aria72: Today: I streamed with grizz @chqwder and joshy @ephraim-o-rama and voice called with aria @god-mutt while I did this before bed71: Next Summer: I have no idea probably hanging out with aria??70: Next Weekend: hanging out with aria69: I have these pets: a cat that I mentioned earlier68: The worst sound in the world: forks scraping on a plate67: The person that makes me cry the most is: myself66: People that make you happy: aria makes me the happiest65: Last time I cried: like a week ago on call with aria64: My friends are: amazing and wonderful and I love them63: My computer is: a beast62: My School: I’m not in school anymore61: My Car: is non-existent, like my license60: I lose all respect for people who: lie and break my trust, cheat, lots of other reasons that are pretty standard and obvious for people not deserving respect59: The movie I cried at was: I can’t remember right now but I cry really easily at movies58: Your hair color is: brown57: TV shows you watch: hunter x hunter and a bunch of other anime, rupauls drag race, and mostly just youtube videos… I don’t have cable to watch tv56: Favorite web site: tumblr and youtube55: Your dream vacation: I hate travel but if I get a chance to meet aria that would be the best54: The worst pain I was ever in was: when I scalded my hand with boiling water a couple years ago53: How do you like your steak cooked: medium-rare52: My room is: kinda messy51: My favorite celebrity is: I really love adore delano50: Where would you like to be: hanging out with aria and looking at stars or watching movies and having a sleepover49: Do you want children: kinda, as long as I can skip the baby phase48: Ever been in love: yes, and then heartbroken but I’m over it now whatever romantic love sucks miss me with that shit47: Who’s your best friend: aria!!!!46: More guy friends or girl friends: guy friends45: One thing that makes you feel great is: spending time with aria44: One person that you wish you could see right now: aria43: Do you have a 5 year plan: not die??? even that’s kinda iffy???42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: meet aria41: Have you pre-named your children: nope40: Last person I got mad at: a friend I ended up blocking39: I would like to move to: nowhere, I like where I live38: I wish I was a professional: programmer[ My Favorites ]37: Candy: peanut butter m&ms36: Vehicle: I don’t really care enough to have one35: President: don’t care enough to have one34: State visited: I’ve only been to two states, buffalo (to take a plane to chicago), and illinois. between the two, definitely not buffalo33: Cellphone provider: I’m with freedom and the service is meh but it’s affordable32: Athlete: don’t care31: Actor: don’t care enough to have one30: Actress: don’t care enough29: Singer: adore delano28: Band: krewella27: Clothing store: h&m??? I don’t really clothing shop often26: Grocery store: fortinos25: TV show: excluding anime, it would be rupauls drag race24: Movie: 50 first dates23: Website: tumblr and youtube22: Animal: foxes and fennecs21: Theme park: never been to one20: Holiday: halloween19: Sport to watch: none, they’re all boring18: Sport to play: none, they’re all boring17: Magazine: I don’t read any16: Book: warrior cats ;3 I don’t read… never have the time15: Day of the week: thursday, it’s my day off14: Beach: a beach 3 hours away on lake huron13: Concert attended: three days grace12: Thing to cook: mac and cheese11: Food: pizza and mac and cheese10: Restaurant: a sushi place that closed down almost three years ago9: Radio station: I don’t really listen to the radio on my own, not sure8: Yankee candle scent: I dunno probably something with vanilla??7: Perfume: I don’t know vanilla scents I guess??6: Flower: snapdragons and bleeding hearts!!!!!!!!5: Color: true blue4: Talk show host: I don’t watch talk shows3: Comedian: I have no idea2: Dog breed: german shepherd, husky, border collie1: Did you answer all these truthfully? yep

#ice answers #long post #grizzer

[mendesstg-blog]

1 - 200 I WANNA KNOOOW 😊💕

Took all day, but she answered mine so I’ll answer her’s ❤️

200: My crush’s name is: Shawn Mendes ofc


199: I was born in: Wisconsin, USA. Date: Aug 26


198: I am really: Passionate about music, caring, and shy until I get to know you


197: My cellphone company is: Sprint


196: My eye color is: Brown (sometimes hazel or green, but usually brown)


195: My shoe size is: Depends on the shoe. I range from 6 to 8.5


194: My ring size is: 6


193: My height is: 5'1" (yeah ik I’m short but I like my height lol)


192: I am allergic to: idk, but I have seasonal allergies


191: My 1st car was: Haven’t gotten it yet


190: My 1st job was: babysit I guess (if that counts)


189: Last book you read: Sherlock Holmes


188: My bed is: a futon at my dad’s and a normal bed (? lol) at my mom’s. They’re both comfy


187: My pet(s): 1 dog, his name is Koby


186: My best friend: Is amazing and I love her so much. She’s helped me through a lot. 


185: My favorite shampoo is: Head and Shoulders


184: Xbox or ps3: Xbox
183: Piggy banks are: Cool. I still have one and I just emptied it for the Shawn Mendes concert lol


182: In my pockets: don’t have pockets on my pants rn


181: On my calendar: School events, vacations, college stuff, and weddings.


180: Marriage is: beautiful when you see two people absolutely in love with each other


179: Spongebob can: give me a crabby patty. Seriously. I’ve been waiting since I was 5
 

178: My mom: Annoys me sometimes, we don’t agree on certain things, but I still love her. 


177: The last three songs I bought were: Havana by Camila Cabello, Kiwi by Harry Styles, and It’s a Vibe by 2 Chainz


176: Last YouTube video watched: makeup videos lol


175: How many cousins do you have?: 9


174: Do you have any siblings?: 2 younger brothers


173: Are your parents divorced?: yes.


172: Are you taller than your mom?: We’re the same height by she argues that she’s taller


171: Do you play an instrument?: Clarinet, violin, piano, ukulele, and guitar 


170: What did you do yesterday?: spent all day with my school’s marching band and ended up looking like neopolitan ice cream because i got so burnt


[ I Believe In ] 

169: Love at first sight: idk


168: Luck: yes


167: Fate: yes


166: Yourself: YES OFC


165: Aliens: yes


164: Heaven: yes more or less


163: Hell: yes more or less


162: God: yes more or less


161: Horoscopes: idk, I occasionally read mine


160: Soul mates: idk


159: Ghosts: yes


158: Gay Marriage: YES 🏳️‍🌈


157: War: fuck no


156: Orbs: maybe? Idk what they are


155: Magic: idk


[ This or That ]

154: Hugs or Kisses: depends. Hugs i guess


153: Drunk or High: neither. You can have fun without alcohol or drugs


152: Phone or Online: both


151: Redheads or Black haired: both


150: Blondes or Brunettes: both. Honestly hair color doesn’t matter


149: Hot or cold: both


148: Summer or winter: summer but like winter is beautiful too (i just don’t like shoveling)


147: Autumn or Spring: both


146: Chocolate or vanilla: chocolate


145: Night or Day: both lol

 
144: Oranges or Apples: apples wellllll oranges no both (IM SORRY FOR BEING INDECISIVE)


143: Curly or Straight hair: curly


142: McDonalds or Burger King: McDonalds


141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate:both


140: Mac or PC: Mac


139: Flip flops or high heels: Flip flops for everyday wear and heels for events


138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: sweet and poor


137: Coke or Pepsi: Coke


136: Hillary or Obama: OBAMA!!!


135: Buried or cremated: idk


134: Singing or Dancing: both


133: Coach or Chanel: Coach


132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: idk


131: Small town or Big city: Both


130: Wal-Mart or Target: i like both but I shop at walmart more


129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: Adam Sandler


128: Manicure or Pedicure: Manicure


127: East Coast or West Coast: hard choice


126: Your Birthday or Christmas: hmm


125: Chocolate or Flowers: which ever


124: Disney or Six Flags: Disney only because I’ve never been to six flags


123: Yankees or Red Sox: Red sox


[ Here’s What I Think About ]

122: War: I think it is dumb. Fighting over cultural difference shouldn’t happen instead it differences should be embraced. Who knows how many different wars there will be in my future let alone my future children’s.


121: George Bush: I honestly don’t have one


120: Gay Marriage: Everyone should be able to marry whomever they love. Why does it have to be voted on whether they can get married or not? Just let them live, be loved, and be happy.


119: The presidential election: It amazes me how he was elected. I am team Hillary. I have my opinions and you have yours. I respect that, but I’d rather not share mine.


118: Abortion: It is 2017, almost 2018, and women still don’t have control of their own bodies. I’m pro-choice. Abortion should be given as a choice to women. My mom had an abortion before she had me because she was really ill.


117: MySpace: haha never used it so don’t have an opinion about it


116: Reality TV: yeah it can be fun to watch but honestly what’s the point? Everyone’s own lives are hectic too


115: Parents: Some are great, some are bad. Some are controlling, some don’t care enough.


114: Back stabbers: I’ve dealt with many of you, but it’s your fault that you lost out on a great friend. Hated you guys for a while because I thought we were good friends, but I’m thankful toxic people like you are out of my life.


113: Ebay: is the shit. I got a crap ton of barbie clothes for my dolls when I was younger from there. Haven’t gone on there for a while tho


112: Facebook: the go-to app for when parents are around. That’s the only most censored app I have that I go on when they’re around


111: Work: wish I had one because all of my friends are making money, but once I get one I’ll wish I didn’t have a job so I can have more free time. It’s not like my parents will let me get a job anyways.


110: My Neighbors: Never really talk to any of my neighbors at my dads or my moms. Pretty sure they get annoyed with how loud I play my music


109: Gas Prices: i remember when it costed $5 or $6 a gallon. Please stay at $2.35 


108: Designer Clothes: hella cool but also hella expensive. Thankful for cute cheap stores because I’m about to be a broke college student


107: College: thankful for the opportunity to get a higher education, but it’s always super expensive. If more jobs require a degree, why can’t we just make it more efficient to get a degree with less money? But that’s also too much to ask for


106: Sports: I like watching it and playing it is also fun. 


105: My family: My parents divorced had me go through shit mentally and physically. (no they didn’t abuse me, their divorce was just difficult) I hope one day you two will stop acting like children and not beat down the other parent when we spend the night at your house. But I know it won’t ever end. I’m thankful my younger brothers won’t remember your divorce and they’re what keeps me going.

104: The future: I can’t wait to see what you hold. I can’t wait to go to college. I can’t wait to go into my career choice. I can’t wait to meet that special person. I can’t wait to start a family. I’m just excited for you
[ Last time I ]

103: Hugged someone: An hour ago when I put my brothers to sleep

102: Last time you ate: idk 2-3 hours ago


101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in a while: a year ago


100: Cried in front of someone: yesterday


99: Went to a movie theater: 2 years ago


98: Took a vacation: idk if you count it, but my school trip this past spring 


97: Swam in a pool: 2 years ago


96: Changed a diaper: 4 years ago


95: Got my nails done: I think I was 7? Idk I do my nail myself now


94: Went to a wedding: 12 years ago


93: Broke a bone: never broke a bone


92: Got a piercing: I got my ears pierced before I turned 1 and I got my nose pierced on my birthday last year


91: Broke the law: idk
90: Texted: like 5 min ago


[ MISC ]

89: Who makes you laugh the most: my brothers or my best friend Kate


88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: Brothers or my doggo


87: The last movie I saw: Boss baby


86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: going to college, interning, and getting a job in my career (Ik it’s 3 things but I’m excited lol)


85: The thing i’m not looking forward to: Moving away from loved ones


84: People call me: Mia


83: The most difficult thing to do is: Forgive someone who hurt you badly. Like truly forgive them 


82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: never gotten a speeding ticket


81: My zodiac sign is: Virgo


80: The first person i talked to today was: My dad


79: First time you had a crush: 5 or 6 and it was on Zac Efron


78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: idk, maybee my best friend


77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: Yesterday 


76: Right now I am talking to: my internet besties ❤️


75: What are you going to do when you grow up: something in the music industry


74: I have/will get a job: whenever my parents let me


73: Tomorrow: I will get up early, ride on a bus for 3 hours, and march in a parade


72: Today: I cut my hair short AND I FUCKING LOVE IT


71: Next Summer: I will try to spend as much time with my bestfriend before we leave for different colleges


70: Next Weekend: I get to spend with my best friend


69: I have these pets: Beagle- Eskimo cross


68: The worst sound in the world: whining when they don’t get what they want or smacking gum


67: The person that makes me cry the most is: honestly whoever cries in front of me I will cry with them


66: People that make you happy: Family, my dog, and my friends


65: Last time I cried: yesterday


64: My friends are: honest and caring


63: My computer is: an old macbook pro but it still works and I love it


62: My School: is full of fake people and drama


61: My Car: Don’t have one


60: I lose all respect for people who: lie, cheat, and treat people like they are less than them


59: The movie I cried at was: I can’t remember but I think TFIOS


58: Your hair color is: brown


57: TV shows you watch: Shadowhunters, Raven’s Home, Jane the virgin, Riverdale, and others I can’t remember


56: Favorite web site: Tumblr or twitter


55: Your dream vacation: big city in new york with my best friend or toronto with my grand parents/aunts


54: The worst pain I was ever in was: during my parents divorce 


53: How do you like your steak cooked: medium rare


52: My room is: boring, cozy, and a little bit messy


51: My favorite celebrity is: Shawn Mendes, duh


50: Where would you like to be: Somewhere where I can say “I finally made it"


49: Do you want children: Yes!! I can’t wait to have kids


48: Ever been in love: I don’t think so


47: Who’s your best friend: Some beautiful, crazy, weird girl named Kate i guess (let’s see if she reads this later)


46: More guy friends or girl friends: I have more girl friends than I do guys, but I wish I had more guy friends


45: One thing that makes you feel great is: music


44: One person that you wish you could see right now: My grandpa


43: Do you have a 5 year plan: I guess yeah, but it’s very loosely planned


42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: no


41: Have you pre-named your children: thought of names, but not planned them lol


40: Last person I got mad at: idk


39: I would like to move to: Cali, New york, by my grand parent in canada, and where I am now


38: I wish I was a professional: something in music


[ My Favorites ]

37: Candy: Sour gummy worms or cinnamon bears


36: Vehicle: Jeep
 or Range Rover

35: President: OBAMA


34: State visited: Illinois or Florida


33: Cell Phone provider: Sprint


32: Athlete: Jose Bautista 


31: Actor: Rupert Grint


30: Actress: Zendaya, Lucy Hale, or Emma Watson

29: Singer: Shawn Mendes or Selena Gomez


28: Band: R5 or 5SOS


27: Clothing store: Ross or American Eagle 


26: Grocery store: Walmart


25: TV show: Shadowhunters 


24: Movie: HARRY POTTER SERIES


23: Website: Again, tumblr or twitter


22: Animal: doggies or dolphins


21: Theme park: no clue


20: Holiday: christmas


19: Sport to watch: Baseball


18: Sport to play: Baseball or volleyball 


17: Magazine: Vogue


16: Book: The Mortal Instruments Series


15: Day of the week: Friday


14: Beach: Clear water in FL


13: Concert attended: Illuminate tour (on Aug 6th, 2017)


12: Thing to cook: Pasta anything


11: Food: chicken alfredo or pasta anything or anything really I’m not picky
 

10: Restaurant: Chinese restaurants 
 

9: Radio station: idk
 

8: Yankee candle scent: idk lol that pumpkin one??
 

7: Perfume: Signature by Shawn Mendes or Bombshell by VS
 

6: Flower: Pink hibiscus 
 

5: Color: aqua
 

4: Talk show host: Ellen Degeneres
 

3: Comedian: Jo Koy, Kevin Hart, or Gabriel Iglesias
 

2: Dog breed: honestly any breed
 

1: Did you answer all these truthfully?: of course 💕

[tonygaskins]

I struggle with finding the balance between giving what’s needed and giving everything. I’m starting to understand more why so many men say they want to be financially stable before marriage. When I got married I wasn’t that type of man so I never understood the mindset but now I’m realizing why that mindset is normal for good men.

As the head of the household I want to provide for my wife and kids. I find myself wanting to provide their wants as equally as much as I want to provide their needs. That can get expensive fast. It really sends you into a space of evaluation where you’re trying to determine what’s really important in life.

When it comes to the kids, my wife and I may have made some mistakes, but all parents do. None of us really know what we’re doing, we just do the best we know how to do. We have two sons, a 10 year old and a 3 year old. They go to a Christian private school and for the both of them it’s about $2,100/month. We aren’t wealthy and money doesn’t grow on trees but I compare my 10 year old to some of the 10 year old’s I meet from the public schools and it makes Christian private school seem necessary. There’s a big difference for us between a Christian private school and a private school. At our son’s school they instill Christ in the kids and into the lessons. They try to emulate Christ and the love He showed the world. To hear my son learn new scriptures every week really blesses my heart. When he was little and was struggling with his allergies and eczema issues he would miss about 3 days a week. To know that he could go to school with skin completely red and not be bullied for it really meant a lot to me. He would say things like “mommy, I’ll be ok. Jesus will heal me because my friends at school are praying for me.” To hear that from the mouth of a child really blessed me. When our oldest son started going to Christian private school we were on financial aid and we couldn’t even afford that. We had to borrow some months but it meant the world to my wife that he went to a good school. She felt that it made a huge difference in her life and I couldn’t argue with that because I went to public school from K-9th grade and my mindset and behavior was totally different from my wife as she went to private school from K-9th. Her foundation was totally different from mine.

Lil Tony at his Band Concert

As much as we want to believe that everything at home makes all the difference, that’s not true. A child’s environment outside of the home is very important. We’ve always prayed for what we wanted and we went after it. We couldn’t afford it but my wife’s faith made it happen. That same type of faith helped me grow my brand and business and our son’s don’t receive any financial aid today but God has made a way. Looking around and seeing so many other kids in our neighborhood going to public school and seeming to be pretty good kids, I’m torn many days. I say to myself “man I could be saving $20,000/year. If i put that on the market or invested that into my business it would turn into millions.” But then I remember how being in public school I started having sex early even though my parents were ministers. I started stealing and even went to jail in the 9th grade. I was cursing, stealing, fighting, and all kinds of stuff because even though I had good home training, many of the kids around me didn’t and that pressure was greater than my parents influence. I turned it around thanks to the grace of God, but I could be dead or in prison today if just one thing had gone wrong. So I’m brought back to the investment that we’re making for our kids to be in a Christian private school getting their foundation set in place. I also feel some guilt because some families can’t even afford $100/month for school and have no choice other than to put their child in the public school system. I’m sure some private school parents don’t care about that but it bothers me many days. I thought about this the other day and I realize that by the time our sons are ready for college we will have already paid a minimum of $252,000 for their schooling and it’ll probably be much higher than that. It’s crazy to think about it. It hurts and it feels good at the same time. It’s sad to think that there has been a system created to protect the kids of the “rich.” I also realize that faith and the desire to have more for your kids play a part in it because not all kids at good private schools come from the same social class.

This also leads me to the understanding that sometimes we can do more for our kids but we don’t just because it doesn’t make sense to us. We will make our kids suffer just because we suffered in the same way. We limit our kids just because there were limitations placed on us. If it wasn’t for my wife having been exposed to the private school system my sons would probably be in public school. I know you may not think there is a difference, but there is. I’ve seen both sides of it and the difference is very noticeable. So even if you can only get financial aid, it’s worth at least asking the schools before just deciding to put your kids through the public school system. At my son’s school he was doing work in the second or third grade that I literally could not do. I helped him ONCE with his homework and it’s the only D he’s gotten since being in school. My wife can do all of his work of course because her education foundation was much different than mine. Because of her education my son earns straight A’s because she can teach him even what his teachers can’t teach him. Grant it, they both are also naturally smart.

I’m left to the thought that maybe this is the way to go in this day and time. Although it’s a sacrifice and paying $2k/month for school is very hard to do, I see a big difference and it would break my heart to give my sons less than the best if there is a way I can make it happen.

To throw in a little note for those of you who are upset right now and saying “yeah that all sounds good and I’m glad your sons can go to private school but that’s not the case for me because it’s just not affordable, not even with financial aid.” I will say, by having a deep desire to give my sons more than what was afford to me it pushed me to new levels in my life. I don’t have a college degree. I don’t have a mentor. I don’t have any full-time staff. I’ve started 8 companies and created over 40 streams of income, many you have no idea about, all because I wanted to be in a position to give them more. My point is that there is a way to make it happen if you really want to make it happen. Don’t sell yourself short before you’ve tapped into every possible resource and option. Sometimes just pleading with the school and asking them to give you a chance may do it!

Now, to setting my family up for success. This is a calling that many men accept and it is no easy thing. Many women have accepted the same calling out of necessity. I’m investing in my gifts and it changed our lives greatly. I would spend every free dime investing in myself so that I could yield a return. I knew that I was sowing on good ground and that a harvest would come. There was a 6 year stretch that I went from earning $20,000 a year to $500k a year. My faith, my hopes, my desires, and my love for God and my family pushed me on that journey. This fuel in me is pushing me to become a Billionaire one day. I don’t know how it will happen but I didn’t know how $100k/year would happen either. I just trust God and keep working on myself and investing in my gifts. Because I did it and I know it works it has lead me to invest in my family at any cost.

What I want you to understand is that these investments aren’t from an endless supply of money. There are many times that I spend our last dime to make an investment in my wife or our sons or myself. I don’t think scarcely. I think abundantly. My oldest son says he wants to be a professional soccer player. So I invest in club soccer each year, it’s around $2k right now and he’s 10 so I know that will grow to $5k and then $10k when you include all the flights and hotel stays that await us. Just to be on the team is $1,200. Then the uniform is $250. Then some tournaments we have to pay extra. Then some tournaments are 1-2 nights and we have to spend travel money and $200-$250/night on a hotel room. It gets expensive. Many families are swimming in credit card debt investing in their kids. This summer my son is going to an overnight camp at IMG Academy in Bradenton, FL. This camp cost $2k for ONE week! It is absolutely crazy to me, but I’m doing it because I don’t want any other child to have any advantages over him. When he is grown, even if he doesn’t play a day as a pro soccer player I want him to look back and know that we invested in him and gave him every chance to be successful. Outside of those camps he’s going to two other camps. One was about $600 total and the other will be about $400 total. I want to cry just thinking about the fact that his younger brother will have to be afforded the same opportunities. So this summer alone another $3,000 is being invested into my son’s soccer dreams. I probably won’t do this every summer unless I see that it was really worth it. So here you have it, just for my oldest son I’m looking at an investment of $15,000 a year with school and soccer. It’s insane to think about but I’m painting a picture of how our world has separated us by how much money we earn. What we spend is small for some people. These opportunities are not afforded to everyone. I do believe if you want it bad enough you can find a way but it won’t just fall in your lap unless you win the lottery or find a sponsor. I just understand that I’m no one special. I’m just another child of God who has enough to believe that I can have the best this life has to offer.

I’m growing now and learning more about “smart money.” I’m learning that all the designer shoes, clothes, and cars aren’t important. The investments in our gifts and our lives are most important. I’m spending money differently now.

Those investments for our sons will have a return so that’s why I’m calling it an investment. It’s more than what I have to do and it’s not normal. It could be seen as borderline crazy. But I’m doing it because I don’t want them to have any excuses.

Outside of the money there comes, time. As a man or head of your household, the time you invest is more important than the money. The time you spend talking, playing, and bonding with your wife and kids will make all the difference. I remember my father being in the front yard with me all the time playing sports with me and training me to the best of his knowledge. He never paid for me to go to a single camp and I’m not sure why that is, but he put me through his own camps in the front yard or in the driveway playing basketball. I went on to play football in college because of his investments and sacrifices.

Yesterday I went outside and juggled the soccer ball with my son and it was so hard. I’m lying here typing this in pain. My thighs, calves, shins, ankles, back, all that is hurting! I told him we will do an hour a day, 5 days a week. That’s the goal but if we at least get 3 days in, I’ll be happy. I know he won’t forget that just as I haven’t forgot what my Dad did with me. At the same time I watch my wife spend 15-20 hours a week with my sons helping them learn their academics. She also takes our oldest to the fields and works him out, putting him through a training regimen. She was a college athlete too. She ran the 800 in college until injuries and school work took over.

The investment of time is so important for the head of the household. The blessings or curses flow from the head. I do my best to make an effort to give my wife time as well as my sons. She is just as important as them. They have to see the way I love her so they will one day love their wives even better. They see us have date-nights every week. They see me grab her butt and rub on them thighs. I don’t intend for them to see all that but they see it. I slip up and get a little inappropriate sometimes with the public display of affection and my wife has to remind me to chill. As they grow older they will see how the head of the household has a large responsibility. I make mistakes too and those are the areas they will be better than me in. We always leave some room for our kids to grow because none of us are perfect. Sometimes I get agitated quickly and get snappy. I don’t curse or yell so it’s not that bad, but I get one of them nice-nasty attitudes that come with smart remarks, silent treatments and rude looks. It takes me about 10 minutes to snap out of it. When my oldest son gives me a look, I blame it on all the concussions I had in college playing football and tell him that’s why I don’t want him to play football, lol. My family watches my every move, the good and the bad. I’m the head and it all flows from me. I’m also writing this mini novel to hold myself accountable and remind myself of my calling as the head of the household. I’m still trying to get more time. I have to make more time actually. Being motivated and driven to earn more money to give my family more opportunities also comes with less time. So I’m constantly working on time management and creating a system that shows balance. I realize that they appreciate my time more than my money. Many men don’t believe that but it’s true. I know they say that love doesn’t pay the bills but in a very discreet way, it actually does pay the bills. My love for my family is what motivated me to become better so I could give them more. That love for them also has pushed me to another level to create streams of income that earn money while I’m spending time with them or even sleeping. Love is paying our bills.

Lastly, I want to make a point to the men about investing in our wives. She is so capable. She is so strong and so smart. She is smarter than you. She can earn more money than you too if given the tools. She has more longevity than you, in the bedroom, in the boardroom, and on Earth. These are shocking facts that I’m coming into the knowledge of. I’m writing this blog right now as my wife is at a conference. Her ticket to this conference cost us $400 that wasn’t in the budget. It actually cost more because of gas and parking so really about $500 plus. We were sitting in the bed early morning on Thursday and I saw it on my timeline. It’s a conference for women who blog, youtube, etc. It’s called “BlogHer.” When I saw it, I mentioned it to her and offered to send her. She accepted and I dropped $400 on it. Our budget is strict and tight because the more you build the more disciplined you have to be and it is a struggle. That’s why they say “mo money, more problems.” A lot comes with trying to make a better life. Nonetheless, we spent the money and she is loving it!! It’s reviving her and giving her a much needed boost to get back to her blogging and brand building.

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Anything she wants to do in her life, I’m here for it. Anything! We are talking about law school right now. I will need a great Entertainment Lawyer one day and I want that money to go to her and she likes that idea too. She has a bachelors in Bio-medical Science and her masters in Medical Sciences. Her initial goal was to be a Medical Doctor but our lives took us in a different direction and now her interests have changed. I’m willing to spend my last dime on her dreams. She’s a full-time CEO of Home and helps run all of the companies I’ve started. She’s the backbone of our family. Our sons wouldn’t be who they are without her. I would literally be dead or in prison if it wasn’t for her influence in my life. For that, I owe her the world. She’s played a major part in my life. I think as men we often forget about the grace and favor a good woman brings to our lives. I challenge you to remember that and to give back to her instead of draining her more. There’s so much more I want to do for my wife that I’m not able to yet. As of now, I’m praying for abundance so that we can pay for law school if that’s where her heart leads her. If not, then for whatever else she wants to do. My days aren’t promised so for all the focus I stole from her at one point in life, I want to return it 1,000x. As men we can’t get into the mindset that everything has to be about us and our aspirations. Her dreams matter too. So many men want a handmaid instead of a Queen. The woman in Proverbs 31 made power moves and held things together. We have to respect her heart and her hustle and get behind her movement.

Ok, I have to put our 3 year old down for his nap now so I’m going to let you go. If you’ve read this far, thank you! I may not have made a lot of sense but I’m trying to put what’s on my heart into words and sometimes that’s so hard to do without offending or alienating someone. Please know this post is only to share another example. However you raise your kids or run your home, more power to you! I’m not saying my way is the way, but it is my way and I just wanted to share it with you to add a different perspective.

God Bless,

Tony A. Gaskins Jr.

  When a man wants to give the world… I struggle with finding the balance between giving what's needed and giving everything. I'm starting to understand more why so many men say they want to be financially stable before marriage.

[inwintersolitude]

What's the best food to have at a sleepover? Tortilla chips with salsa or dip, pizza, snack mix...

How did you meet the last person you shared a bed with? We met in college, through the university's flight school.

Do you like the yellow cheetos better or the orange ones? I don't like Cheetos. And I didn't know there was a yellow kind.

Where did you buy the shoes you wore today? I bought them about 15 years ago and I don't remember the name of the place, but it was a horseback riding supply store.

Do you have any half-siblings? Nope.

How many DVD players are in the house? We have one Blu-Ray player.

Do you like the last song you heard on the radio? I don't remember what it was.

Do you know anyone who has been on TV? Yes.

When going shopping for junk food, what's the first thing you pick up? I never go shopping specifically for junk food. I'll sometimes get a junk food item while grocery shopping, and what I choose depends on what sounds good at the time.

How would you react if you found out you had a long lost sister? I'd be extremely shocked, and wondering how the hell there could even be a long-lost anyone in a family as close-knit as mine.

At sleepovers, do you usually stay up all night or actually go to sleep? I haven't had a sleepover in about 12 years, but I remember actually going to sleep at some point, after staying up pretty late.

Is there anything in the room you're in that's really dusty? I don't think so.

Do you know anybody with different colored eyes? I used to when I was a kid.

Are any of your relatives vets? No.

Who cleans the most in your house? I do.

Do you own any shirts that cost over 100$? No.

What about any shoes? Do you think that's a lor of money for clothes? Yes, my old riding boots and hiking boots were over $100. But they've lasted many years, so it was well worth it. Sometimes it's better to spend more for better quality.

What's the movie theatre in your town called? I don't remember.

How many minutes do you consider late? Not many. Only 2-3.

Is there any jam in the fridge right now? Yes, blackberry jam.

What did you get your best friend for their last birthday? My husband is my best friend... I got him a custom bookmark with a photo of us on it, and took him out to a nice dinner.

What about your mom's and dad's last birthdays? I usually just do birthday cards for their birthdays, and save the gifts for Christmas.

What kinds of food do you dunk into milk? Ginger snaps.

Do you have any current or past teachers on your facebook friends? I have a few former professors on my friends list.

Are there any baby pictures of you up? Not in my own home. But my parents have some of my baby pictures framed and displayed in their home.

Do you have any friends who have bleached blonde hair? No.

How much sugar do you like in your tea/coffee? I never add any to green tea. And I add just a pinch to most kinds of black teas.

What color is the cereal in your cupboard? Light brown.

Are you wearing any jewelry that a boyfriend/girlfriend gave you? No.

Has a boyfriend/girlfriend ever given you jewelry? Husband, not boyfriend, but yes.

Have you ever seen the last person you kissed cry? Yes.

Would you rather work at a gas station or be a maid? Ehhhh... I don't know. They both sound equally unappealing.

What's the closest store to your house called? Walgreens.

Do horror movies scare you more when they're 'based on a true story'? I never believe those “based on a true story” claims.

Do you still talk to the last person who hurt you (emotionally)? I'm not really sure who that would have been.

Is there an outdoor movie theatre where you live? Yes.

What color was the last food you ate? Mostly brown, green, and yellow... it was vegetable soup.

Have you ever seen your mom or dad drunk? Nope. I'd be a little surprised if either of them have ever been drunk.

How expensive is too expensive for a pair of jeans? I have a really difficult time finding jeans that fit me comfortably, so I'd be willing to spend probably up to $150-$200 for a pair if they were really comfortable. It'd be a rare find.

After seeing a movie, do you go to a site to enter a review about it? No.

Have you ever done that? No.

Would you consider McDonald's a restaurant? Eh, technically yes.

Do your parents vote? Yes.

Are there any creepy pictures up on the walls of your house? Nope.

What's the last thing you were excited to eat? Maybe the pierogis I had yesterday.

Do you ever hit electronics if they don't work? No. Hitting it won't help.

Whose the most romantic person you ever went out with? My husband is the only person I've ever gone out with.

Is there anything hanging from the ceiling in your room? No.

How would you react if your best friend was pregnant/got someone pregnant? My best friend is my husband, so the person who'd be pregnant would be me... but we never want children and we use multiple forms of very effective birth control, so the chances of pregnancy are extremely slim.

Do you know who Lisa Simpson is? Yes.

Have you ever had a crush on the last person you spoke to online? No.

Have you ever seen the last person you hugged dressed up fancy? Yes.

(If your parents married), Do you know where they got engaged? I don't, actually. I'm sure they told me the story when I was younger, but I've forgotten.

What color was the last cup you drank out of? It was a clear glass.

What was the last picture you printed of? I don't remember.

What restaurant has the best fries? Checkers fries are pretty good.

What does your mailbox look like? All the houses on this street have a communal mailbox up at the end of the street. It's gray, with about 20 different boxes.

Have you ever gotten something stuck on the roof? No, but this reminds me of that time when I was around 5 years old and it was Christmas Eve, and I wanted to throw a carrot up onto the roof “for Santa's reindeer” and my parents wouldn't let me throw it up there. Hahaha. Not like little 5-year-old me would have been able to throw something up onto a 2-story house, anyways. :-P

Have you ever had a surprise party thrown for you? No.

Is the room you're in organized? Mostly.

Would your mom make a good president? I think she'd be good at it since she's a natural leader and good at being diplomatic, but I don't think she'd enjoy it.

The 2nd class you had last time you went to school: ever skipped it? I haven't been a student in over 6 years, so there's no way I'd remember that.

Do your aunts and uncles have kids? Yes.

Is this survey interesting so far? Yes.

Do you say fancy or formal? Or something else? Either. Depends on the exact usage.

Does your english teacher have kids? N/A. Not a student.

Does your computer make a lot of noise? No.

Do you see movies at home or in the theatre more? At home.

What's your favorite thing to eat during a movie? Whatever sounds good at the time.

#survey #surveys #personal blog

[tuellertrails]

Sunday, June 6 2021

This is an Adventure!

It’s been several weeks since my last blog post, and a lot has happened in that time! It’s exciting to see our progress and the miles that we have walked so far. At this point we are 652 miles into our journey, only 50 miles until we enter the Sierra Nevada Mountains and leave the desert behind. We’ve slowly built up our endurance and become stronger and stronger, able to complete over 20 miles per day on average over the past two weeks, minus a few days of extreme heat where our mileage was less. But no one wants to hear about that! As hikers, our conversations seem to revolve around how many miles we plan to go, what the weather is doing, the difficulty of the terrain, where the next water source is, and what kind of food we’re eating. To regular people, this must seem quite boring! To us, it’s as normal as talking about football around the water cooler with coworkers (or in Landon’s case, talking about Columnar Basalt for 10 minutes with other hikers around the pool).

Despite hiking longer days and doing higher miles, we always seem to be stiff and sore! Especially after waking up in the morning. A few weeks ago, we met another hiker couple who actually met hiking the Appalachian Trail a few years ago and ended up dating on trail and then got married earlier this year. Having done a thru hike before, they told us that this is normal! That we will still feel aches and pains throughout the trail, but we will do so having done more miles and harder terrain as we progress. I have found this to be true! It truly is very rare to wake up and feel excellent. Generally, every day feels rather tough to get moving, and we are very tired when we finally do stop hiking. Our physical and mental fortitude continues to be tested day after day, especially in this last 100 miles of hiking.

Leaving Tehachapi, we entered a heat wave in a rather barren and exposed section of trail. I think of all my time on the PCT thus far, this past week tested me the most. Hiking in 90 plus degree heat climbing up hot, sandy slopes with the blaring sun overhead was one of the hardest physical and mental things I have ever done. We pushed ourselves to either wake up incredibly early (around 4 AM) or hike in the dark in the coolness of the descending sun (until 10 and 11 pm). In the hottest part of the day, we would try to find some shade (not easily found sometimes) and take a rest for several hours. Not even the rest came easily though, as the shade proved to be little relief from the sun, and it was too uncomfortable to sleep much. Water sources were few and far between as well, about 20 miles away from each other (and only that close together due to the kindness of trail angels who maintain water caches for the hikers). We would sit at the water caches and drink several liters of electrolytes to “camel up” before heading out again, carrying 5-6 liters apiece (and sometimes still not having enough). The water weighs your pack down quite a lot, but we have discovered that we prefer to hiker with heavy packs than run out of water. This was another reason for our midday rests, we simply did not have enough water to hike in the extreme heat (nor did it prove to be very efficient). You tend to have to ration your water to a certain extent. Landon and I would set up our tent at night, and have conversations like “if we use 500 ml to make dinner, we can drink 500 ml of electrolytes and that will leave us 1 Liter apiece for the next 7 miles to the next water source. If we wake up at 4, we should be able to make it there with that amount of water before it gets too hot.” Logistics and planning are incredibly important out here. I cannot imagine how much more difficult it would have been to hike the PCT pre internet, pre Guthooks (the amazing app we use that has our maps, shows our water sources, etc). I’m so grateful for modern resources to help us plan our days safely out here!

To those of you like my good friend Tayler, who consistently tells me that I do a poor job convincing her that anyone should ever do this, let me talk a little bit about how incredible this experience is despite the hardships. First of all, the community on the PCT is wonderful. I joke that being on trail is a lot like being back in high school with your friends. You’re all sharing very similar experiences that bond you in a way that only other hikers can completely understand! My best example of this was earlier this week, when we set up a tarp at one of the water caches with our friend Jim. Jim is a lovely person, so friendly and fun to talk to. He is also the dirtiest hiker I have ever seen. He sleeps in the same clothes he hikes in and consistently has thick dirt absolutely caked to his legs. As such, I gave him the trail name Dirtcake, which he seems to have accepted (you can accept or reject a suggested trail name). As we lay under the tarp in our makeshift shade, the temperature being clocked in at 99 degrees by Landon’s fancy watch hanging from his trekking pole, we all laughed as we talked about how miserable and absurd this moment was! The wind was blowing fine grains of sand into us, which clung to our sweaty bodies. I looked down at Jim to see clumps of dirt not only clinging to his legs, but also to his chest hair and speckled across his face as he took a feverish nap. As we drank our hot Propel Watermelon water, we all laughed because this is our life right now, and there is no way around it, only through it, but at least we’re going through it together. At least in these less than ideal circumstances, we can talk and laugh and tell stories and experience life in a way that few people ever do. We can reminisce about having awakened to a beautiful morning in a pine forest just that morning, having filtered cool, clear mountain spring water, and that stark contrast that a few miles and 1500 feet of elevation descent can make. We can tell stories about the worst jobs we ever had and laugh about so and so’s crazy manager, or that one Karen customer that threw a fit that one time 10 minutes before the end of a shift (or about how Jim used to eat leftover food from customers at his high school food service job. He was truly meant for the hiker trash life!) It’s the contrast between these experiences that make little luxuries feel so much sweeter and more appreciated than I ever would have been able to know in my rather comfortable pre trail life.

Our 3 hours of tarp hell, suffered together at least.

Here are some things that I am immensely grateful for currently

- The hospitality of friends and strangers. We stayed for free with two friends in Tehachapi, Mitzy and Kristy, both of whom opened their homes to us to rest, shower, watch movies, soak in a hot tub, enjoy a meal, etc. We’ve also had complete strangers show us great kindness! Two wonderful women gave us a ride from Walker Pass into town yesterday, offering us charging cables for our phones, air conditioning, food in the car, and lovely conversation and company. Even the women running the motel we are currently staying in have been exceptional. They allowed us to do our laundry in their motel washer and dryer, fed us snacks poolside, gave us a discount and opened up an extra room (that is normally withheld) because all the rooms in town were booked. If you are ever in Kernville, CA, please check out Piazzas Pine Cone Inn, it’s an absolute oasis! And I would be remiss to not mention the trail angels who maintain the water caches in the desert. These people spend their own time and money (though we always donate if they have a donation box) to buy and transport water jugs back and forth to these remote dirt roads in the desert, just to help out PCT hikers that they don’t know and have never met. Isn’t that the kindest and most incredible act of service?

Being on trail with these other hikers, the most interesting and dynamic people, surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, is the best cure for cynicism and and upsetting news stories and angry political internet arguments. We’re all working toward a similar goal, supporting each other’s journeys, commiserating and laughing together, learning and growing and hurting and hiking. It’s so hard but it’s so wonderful. A couple of weeks ago, my mom made a comment to me that I couldn’t help but laugh at. She said “You know that you could take all of the money that you saved up for this hike, and just go spend a month or two on the beach in Aruba instead, right?” Ha! Yes Mom, I know. We could do that, and it would be much, much easier. A section hiker named Prospector gave us a button that says “This is an adventure.” And no one remembers vacations the same way that they remember adventures!

So as I sit writing this in the soft and very appreciated bed of our small town motel room, I can’t help but feel extremely happy. I know that in a few hours, I will leave the comfort and air conditioning and replace my heavy pack on my sore shoulders. I’ll put on my extremely worn out shoes that will surely leave my feet sore and give me some new blister or two in the coming days (unfortunately my new shoes never arrived due to a shipping mishap, and I’ve had to wear these about 200 miles past their ‘best use by’ date). I’ll sweat through my clothes and collapse from exhaustion and curse the day I ever decided to hike the PCT. But this is an adventure! You can’t ever lose sight of that. And we’re already 650 miles into this adventure! 25% of the way through! I’m so proud of that. Only 50 miles from the Sierra Nevada’s! Where we will enter a while new set of beauty and challenges, embracing it full on, grateful to leave the desert behind.

Here is my Mantra for the PCT, taken from one of my favorite books (recently read in my pre trail book club) The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd


"Then I would rise, my legs snarled with cramps, my stomach panged with hunger, blisters on my heels—oh, but the world was large and mysterious and I was far from home, journeying with my beloved."

Thanks for reading, see you up the trail!

- Joscelyn

P.S. - I finally got my trail name! I am now AC/DC, which actually has nothing to do with any love of the band or 80s music (though I can get down to Highway to Hell as much as the next person). I was named by another hiker named Southern Hospitality, who gave it to me after hearing me blow up my pad with a miniature air pump that I have carried for the entire trail. As an ultralight hiker, he found it absolutely ridiculous and incredibly funny that I have chosen to carry this. It takes 45 breaths to blow up my pad! I hate it. The air pump is the best luxury and absolutely worth the 3 ounces. Landon’s trail name is Outlast, which he received several hundred miles ago actually. We were sitting in a shelter at a wind farm outside of Palm Springs, waiting out the heat of the day with some other hikers. Someone mentioned that the shelter seemed like a hut that would be built in the Reality TV show Survivor, and Landon told them that he had watched all 40 seasons of Survivor over the course of the pandemic. We spent the next 15 minutes talking about Survivor strategy, with Landon giving his expert tips as a student of the show. Our friend Tidbits told him that he needed a Survivor trail name, and so he was given the name Outlast (Survivors motto is Outwit, Outplay, Outlast). It also seems fitting because you truly have to Outlast the difficulty to be a successful thru hiker!

#pct2021 #tuellertrails #pct #hikertrash #pacificcresttrail #pctclassof2021 #thetrek #fuck the sun #womenwhohike #optoutside #thisisanadventure

[localwebmgmt]

Digital Marketing QA – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 266

Click on the video above to watch Episode 266 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Adam: Hey complaining about AWeber. If you’re using a Weber I suggest you go look at Active Campaign or something. But anyways, that said, welcome to Hump Day Hangouts number 266. We got the pre-holiday special Hump Day Hangouts going here. I almost put on like my reindeer ears. But I withheld. I’ll be back next week. And I think the guys are going to have some, maybe some outfits or we’ll see it. Hernan is giving me a vigorous yes. Yeah, I think he’s going to dress up as Santa Claus. Man. That is awesome.

Hernan: Hey man. Thank you for doing that. Hey, man. It’s like 1000 degrees right now.

Adam: That’s right. You’re in the upside-down, aren’t you?

Hernan: Yeah.

Adam: Well, Hey, everybody. Before we get into it, we’re gonna say hi to everyone real quick. And then we got a few quick announcements, some really good stuff going on, especially with the holidays. And then we will get into it. We got a lot of questions today. So, Bradley, how are you doing today, man? How’s Virginia treating you?

Bradley: Good. I was almost late because I was talking to a prospect that was looking for SEO services that found me through my SEO Virginia horrible drive stack g G Site that I built when back in 2015 so I just making a comment just kind of giggling with Marco about it because that was from way back in 2015 and I still ranked number one I still get leads from it so pretty interesting.

Adam: That’s awesome. Good day, man. Yeah, that well, you know, it doesn’t work but I guess you’re gonna have to take the lead anyways.

Bradley: I don’t think Google’s gonna shut it down any minute now.

Adam: Hernan, how you doing man down there in the other hemisphere?

Hernan: I’m good, man. All’s good. Everything’s good. Getting ready to spend some time with the family. Diving into some new ways of marketing and communication with potential prospects. So that’s going to be good. We’re going to be talking a little bit more about that in upcoming episodes. So, all good, man! I’m excited to be here.

Adam: Outstanding. Chris, how about you? Are you home in Austria?

Chris: Yeah, I’m home in Austria and I guess I prepared a little bit early because last year it was always Hernan. And this year I put up the Christmas tree as well just for the help the Hangouts. But yeah, like we’ll see what’s happening next week then.

Adam: Outstanding. And Marco, how about yourself. How you doing, man?

Marco: I am doing really good, man. Two charity webinars already in the can. The next one scheduled for next Monday and it will give a lot of great information for people who donate. So that’s the only thing you have to do is go and donate. But this year, like we have a whole bunch of awesome prizes that we’re going to give to people who have donated. For example, a couple of hours of my time, two people at each one will get an hour syndicated they’ll be drive stack, syndication networks, there’s going to be Dadea donated five embed gigs and five-link building gigs. So that’s one that’s five people who will win the embed, plus link building game, right? Which is, which is awesome. You aim that at anything that set up right? And that juices just gonna flow in and push it up. So I’m excited the charity is doing well. We’re collecting money people have been awesome donating, but we do not. We always need more. We always need more. Poor kids.

Adam: So I know a lot of people know about this, but can you tell everyone because we get new viewers all the time what the charity is or who had benefits.

Marco: So the idea is to take children who are at risk. And by at risk, it’s either they come with us or they it’s drugs, it’s abusive, it’s violence, it’s prostitution. Child prostitution is rampant. That’s how it is in the third world. You got a lot of pervs who come over and take advantage of that poverty. So what we want to do is we take these kids and we give them an option. You come with us, we’ll give you everything you need to go to school shoes, uniforms, books, we tutor them on Saturday. We take them through mentorship programs, because we also want to create community leaders so that other children have someone else to look up to. There’s another hero, right? It is that just the drug dealer with the fancy car because he right now, he’s the hero we want. We want to show them another aspect of reality, of life that there are other heroes that they can emulate rather than following the drug dealer to a slow death.

I talked about Fernando one of our biggest success story he started out with with eight or nine of his friends, right? Running around sometimes coming to a charity and sometimes it’s not. He’s the one who stuck it out, the other ones who didn’t are dead. And so that’s the choice that these children are making. They come and they get an education, tutoring tech school, and then we place them with with big companies because we train them for the right jobs, for the jobs that are in demand in Costa Rica. So it’s either that or you die. So that’s the fucking option, guys. It’s incredible. You have no idea poverty in the third world and Hernan knows, for the patchy what is the onset? Gotta say is another place to do. So that that’s my passion. I did that my magnificent obsession. My magnificent obsession is doing everything I can to help people make money.

Google so that I can make money. But my passion doesn’t feed me, right? My passion is something, it feeds my soul. But I need to make money in order to go and really work at my passion or good which is what I do. And so thank you guys I know Hernan, I’d like to thank him personally. Because he’s awesome. He donates every year. So thanks a ton and you guys will always make this up this possible. Thank you.

Adam: Yeah. How much does it cost it to take care of a kid get him in classes get them in all this for a year?

Marco: 200 bucks per child and that includes everything and includes the tutor includes the mentorship. We do these weekend getaways. We make ourselves available. The family sometimes needs food. They have a tin roof, cardboard walls and nothing and on the fucking windows. That’s the conditions that they’re living in the shack.It’s horrible. They have open sewage, you name it. It’s there and it’s worse than you imagine the worst that you can possibly imagine. And it’s worse than that.

Adam: Gotcha now well and I want to say to to everyone like I know we’ve had some large donations in years past. I’m sure you’ve already gotten some this year but it’s one of those where truly every little bit helps and Marco I know you’re not restricting you know, access to the webinars based it’s any donation amount, right?

Marco: Absolutely not. It’s your heart is going to tell you what of course you want. Your heart dictates to donate. And your wallet dictates how much you got a big wallet. Open that motherfucker man. People need it. Yeah, people need it. And I’m this year I’m matching every all the donations I will tell you that I’m matching $1 for dollar

Adam: Yep. that’s awesome. Well, we’re going to be throwing some more on top of that. We got some awesome holiday specials coming up, you guys, and anyone who donates is going to get some special stuff there. So, you know, you could donate $1 you can donate $100 and donate $1,000 again, whatever you can like, what’s your heart your wallet tells you so you can this has been a really good thing. Marco is it’s been like three or four years now.

Marco: We started doing our own little thing, and then it’s just picked up. So this is what the third or fourth year. But I’ve been helping them for like 9 or 10 years. Nice from from way back when my wife and I started helping them so it’s been a while.

Adam: Good deal. Well, you know, I mentioned some special stuff coming up with the holidays. So we’re going to have more coming out about that and then wanted to let everyone know to. Next week we’ve got a really special Hump Day Hangouts. We’re not gonna have time for questions. If you’ve got them up there, you know, maybe we can try to take them into the Facebook group. We’ll do what we can but we will wanted to sit down and say, hey, what could we do at the end of the year that would, that would help everyone going into 2020. And we’re going to cover a lot of various we’re going to keep it into short segments, and we’re bringing on some guests as well, we’re going to have Rob Feel. Of course your motive him co creator of RYS Reloaded, helping, I’m going to call him the Chief Operating Officer at MGYB, the guy who gets shit done and, you know, gave me some great advice, some insights, POFU Live.

And then as well, we’re gonna have Jeffrey Smith, the on page master SEO bootcamp, SEO ultimate plugin, he’s going to come in and be laying down some good stuff as well. So you do not want to miss that. We’re going to go a little bit longer, but we’ll start at the same time next week and we’re going to cover a lot of ground. And after that, we are going to have some holiday specials going on. But after that, there won’t be a Hump Day Hangout until 2020. It turns out that it does fall on Christmas Day. And I think we all want to be spending time with our friends and family doing that. And we realized that probably not a lot of people are going to be maybe attending. So we’re going to go ahead and push it back to I believe it’s January 2nd, because then the first Wednesday in 2020 falls on New Year’s Day. So that’s a holiday as well. So we’re just pushing it back to one day. So we’re going to go next week, be there, we’re going to have some good stuff going on some great guests, some good knowledge, as well as some awesome holiday specials. And then the next Hump Day hangout will be on January 2, 2020. As well, too, man, we’ve had a lot of stuff going on Bradley and the mastermind is getting what they’re getting a webinar a couple days before Christmas, aren’t they? You move that up? So you could squeeze one in before Christmas?

Bradley: Yeah, we’re going to do that on Monday, the 23rd as opposed to Christmas Day, or the day after Christmas is when it would have been Thursday. So yeah, we’re going to do that on Monday, the 23rd

Adam: awesome, and then you just got done. Correct me if I’m wrong about Monday with the second half of the branding training is that

Bradley: yes, that’s been all edited now and chopped up should be in the membership area soon by the end by the end of this week. And then I’ve still got to add all the notes and individual lessons. But in case anybody missed that the YouTube training was already been split up, there was I think 15 videos for the first part that were created out of that almost three hour webinar. And I think there was 14 for the GDN Ad, the Display Network portion of the training. So that was almost another I was almost three hours also. So it was like out of six hours of content. I think we ended up with almost almost 30 videos and everything’s been split up now and it’s got all the notes and everything so it’s a really good course in fact, I don’t think we I think we took down all the specials for that one if we haven’t we need to.

Adam: Yeah, but there might be something in the holidays but regardless, yeah, that is a great course. I’ll put the link in there. Really. Bradley went above and beyond on this and cranking this out before the holidays. Bradley I’ll let you add on to this but I call it kind of the massive branding course you know if you want to build a brand for yourself which you should be doing. I think Hernan can chime in on that but or for your clients and charge them for this service, right? This is you know, another one of those no brainers Just do it. But what you guys want to add on to that?

Bradley: Yeah, I did. I actually was playing around today with some ad campaigns that I’m running for some of my own projects. And I discovered or kind of figured out a way to even build out the custom intent audiences even more thoroughly. It’s a more efficient way to build out these audiences to make sure that you really getting targeted. Your ads are only being shown to people that are really targeted. So I’m going to probably record a supplemental video and add it to the training specifically about that. But yeah, I agree. I mean, I hit this over. I repeated this throughout the training. Every everything that I talked about in the branding training should be applied to you as the consultant or the agency owner should be applied to your brand first.

Before you set this up for any clients, you should do it for yourself. And you should just plan on constantly running branding campaigns so that you can start to fill that pipeline full of prospects. That’s the number one thing holding people back, we get it through all of our surveys over and over and over again. We hear people say, their number one biggest problem is getting clients. Well, what are you doing to continually keep your pipeline full of clients or prospects? If you’re not doing something, then it’s your fault that you don’t have a continuous steady stream of new clients coming in the door. It’s because if you keep doing what you’ve always done, your results aren’t going to get any different. So, the branding training was essentially for you to learn how to do that on your own, for your own agency first, your own business first. But then it’s also something that you can offer to clients and it’s a way that you can generate revenue. I showed in the YouTube training how to actually find prospects that are currently trying to use YouTube for leads that are failing miserably. So anyways, it’s a good course. I would recommend everybody check it out. By the way, if you’re in the mastermind you get that for free.

Marco: Something like that out something real quick before you go on to. There’s a question whether you should brand whether if you’ve read the patent, if you’ve read BERT, and if you read about neural matching, which is trying to do away with EMDs and spamming of titles, especially in local searches, the map results. And you think that branding is optional. You’re nuts. You’re nuts. Branding is no longer optional Semantic Web brand plus location plus keyword association is what wins the game. I just gave you the keys to the kingdom. It doesn’t doesn’t seem that way because oh, it’s just Marco talking shit. I just gave you the keys to the kingdom. Apply it, use our shit and see how you do?

Hernan: Yeah. I’m just going to add something real quick. I don’t remember who said this, is that the number one is the most dangerous number for any business. Like, if you haven’t one conversation, if you’re sending one email, if you’re talking to one prospect, if you’re doing like, if you build like one back end, you know, like it all of that stuff is like the most dangerous thing that you could do for your business. So with branding, what we basically do is we sold that completely, right? You will never have to worry about the influx of leads again, think about that the POFU that you gain by just being in that position where you know, people are just coming your way, right? How much more you can charge people. And because you’re not going you’re not going either out call and say hey, I want to work with you. People are coming to you’re saying hey, yeah, you’re the Scott. You’re that person. I saw you there, I saw you here. So I think and that that multiplying effect also applies for your client. So it’s a really good tool to have in your toolbox for yourself as a consultant as the breadwinner as the marketing head, or the the guy before behind your agency, it doesn’t matter if you have like two or three clients, if you have like, 30, right, you’re still the guy behind all of it. And not only that, but that multiplying effect will trickle down to your business to your clients, and they will see the effect as well. So that will, you know, put you in a much more powerful position, my opinion, so it’s really good for you. Good.

Adam: All right. Well, before we get into questions here, just want to wrap this up and say, Hey, if you’re watching this for the first time, thanks for watching, make sure especially to attend next week and check out the holiday special Hump Day hangout webinar. And then in the meantime, head over to battle plan dot Semantic Mastery calm grab the battle plan. It’s our step by step process for getting results with everything from new websites age domains, YouTube channels, just check it out. There’s a ton of value in there, we threw in some crazy bonuses. It’s amazing. We love it. Well actually, I’ve got to look up the numbers but I don’t know over a couple thousand people have also loved it. And if you’re wanting to grow your digital marketing business, then you’re the type of person we’d like to have in the mastermind you’ve heard us talking about a little bit here. But if you want to join the experienced community, that’s the place to be and you can find out more about that at mastermind.semanticmastery.com and to everyone whether or not you’re in the mastermind, or you’re doing things on your own. We highly advise saving time and money, head over to mgyb.co and get done for you services. We got press releases, link building, the SEO shield that is newly released. And I think it’s actually available on its own right now. Not just through the Black Friday deal. We had just tons more stuff and a lot more coming. And of course, I just put the link on there. If you guys haven’t yet. Please go subscribe to us on YouTube. I know we’re really close to 7000 and I know that makes Bradley’s day. So maybe we can hit 7000 during Hump Day Hangouts and let them know about it. So with that said, let’s get into it.

Bradley: Yeah, now you’ve got me curious. I just gotta check 6,990 or 10 away.

Hernan: Oh, wow. Yeah, go subscribe.

Bradley: 10 from 7000 I mean, that’s not like that’s just a nice round number. It’s not a milestone we got to get to 10,000 before we really have accomplished much, but these are all organic views. I mean, other than I had a subscribe campaign running with YouTube ads for some time but anyways. Alright, let me grab the screen. I kind of pre-answered one of these questions. Here we go. Okay, somebody confirms you got my screen.

Adam: Good. Got it. Yep. Okay.

What Is Semantic Web Algorithm?

Bradley: Stevens up first, Stephen I put a reply below where I talked both Marco and I in the last week or two, I think two weeks now have been interviewed by Matt Versteeg of the low on for the local SEO podcast, local SEO show podcast and great conversation. It’s always fun to be interviewed by somebody else in the industry to have a conversation about, you know, SEO or a lot of the other podcast interviews that I’ve been on, have to kind of dumb it down or water it down a bit because we’re talking to a broader audience, but it’s kind of nice to talk to somebody that understands our industry. So we can talk shop a little bit more so by the way, Marco’s. I think it just got published today. And I listened to it was a great interview with Marco. And so I had an interview with Matt about two weeks ago and I spoke about he asked a question very similar to what your question is, which is what is the Semantic Web? And so I gave him a much more thorough answer there. So I linked to that it’s in our free group guys. Here’s the if you go to our SEO and marketing by Semantic Mastery group. It’s also in the chat now on the Hump Day Hangouts page, but it’s this post from Matt Versteeg about the, you know, interview with me that he had is about 45 minutes long. But in the beginning, I talked about the Semantic Web. So just as a very quick definition, I’d like to get Marco’s input on this too. But the Semantic Web is the change the move from the algorithm knowing just determining how relevant things were through search strings, right. So queries have been stringing certain words together or phrases to create to answer a query, which is what the algorithm had been for so long to now things so from strings to things, because all of it’s not just about the internet or web pages anymore, right? It’s about everything in our world now is connected to the web. And so that devices and entity all these things have to be given an identity some that the machines the bots can understand so that they can start to understand relationships between these things, whether it’s web pages or a device, a mobile device of person, brand, it could be any number of, you know, your appliance for godsakes. Your refrigerators and light switches at home are now online. So it’s a way to create entities out of things, in a way for it to understand the relationships between them, the associations between them. And so the Semantic Web was something that we kind of fight, we saw it coming, which is why our name is Semantic Mastery. Way back 2011-12 timeframe. We saw that the cement, you know, it was coming, right. So Google had already been applying for patents that were showing that the Semantic Web was coming that they were shifting over to Semantic Web and so that’s kind of why we named our company. That was because we were going to optimize or learn how to optimize for the Semantic Web. And it took a lot longer for it to catch on, then we thought it took several years as we’re just starting to see within the last few months again, Marco will talk much more about this.

But some of the the more advanced algorithm updates for the Semantic Web, such as Bert, or the neuro mapping or neural networking algorithm, which is I think, just came out about two weeks ago. Those are specifically Semantic Web type updates, just like Hummingbird was one of them was one of the earlier versions of that. So it’s something that we’re seeing more and more like we’re moving faster into it now than we have been it’s been a kind of long, slow progress to get to this point. But, you know, I think that’s why the stuff that Marco especially has developed over the last several years because we saw it coming. We’re several years ahead. And so that’s what Marco was just talking about, with you know, branding and all that. It’s about the entity, right? You want to create a strong entity on the web. And there’s a number of ways to do that the SEO shield being our preferred method, which works incredibly well. So Marco would say you about it.

Marco: I’m always talking into a muted mic. Well, the Semantic Web, just the Semantic Web. The idea is for web pages to have structured data in the tag, and constructed in a way that a bot can more easily interact with the page. Because the bots were having so much trouble with the unstructured data meaning they these sets of words that the bot had no clue how to interpret. So again, that the idea of the Semantic Web is just simply being able that the people who are either building the website, designing it, coding it to be able to go in and structure the data. But yes, it involves entities and it involves a whole bunch of things that I’m, in fact I’m speaking on in the charity webinars, you really want to know what this is about, catch that podcast and catch my charity webinars. That’s one. And I think that the question also says, or he’s asking about the that you mentioned, Bradley, the Semantic Web algorithm.

There is no Semantic Web algorithm. The algorithms are a set or different code sets that draw different data. And it’s all put together on under one in a huge relational database. All of its code guys, it’s just simply zeros and ones and there are sequences. And you know, for example, Semantic Mastery has a word sequence. It has a bunch of set, a number sequence and it has a bunch of other number sequences related to it, which are, you know, things, it’s words that are related to it. But at the bundle, I don’t want to get too deep for you guys, because I don’t want to confuse you. This is not the forum for it. But the bot has to go in, grab the words, turn them into zeros and ones, right bits, bytes, and number sequences to be able to interpret it. And it has to gather all of this information from all over the web, everything that’s related to whatever it is that a person is looking for, if they’re looking for Semantic Mastery, to give them the best result for the query. So we have several, not that not just one algorithm at play, but it all ends up in what Google is calling a ranking score, which of course they’re not making public. Then we don’t know-how in a route world it accrues exponentially, of course, but we don’t know exactly what a cruise ranking score but we do have a great idea for example, from Bert, from the PageRank algorithm, from the ranking score algorithm, and from the distance graph algorithm, right? We’ve talked about seat sites and seat set. So there is no one Semantic Web algorithm that doesn’t exist. What does exist is a whole bunch of different algorithms, compiling information. And they can be either really positive, which is what we work on. We work on triggering all of these positive aspects of the different algorithms that are going to get us a whole bunch of Google love. And we tried to avoid all of the negative ones that can come and really hurt what you’re doing.

If you’re doing client work. You can get your client’s website de-indexed if you’re not doing everything correctly, and I hope that answers the question. If not go to the free Facebook group, and ask the question so that we can ask for maybe a little bit more. Better yet. Join our mastermind and ask the question. And we can and I can really go into it with you. And again, I would invite you to listen to the podcast and to listen to the charity webinars, not only the ones that I’ve already done, but the ones that are coming and the ones from last year where I went through all of this, and you can hear me how it’s going to be all about entities and all of a sudden, Google comes out. And I said it’s all about brands and entity, keyword associations. And Google finally comes out and admits just last month, this is what it’s all about. As Bradley said, we’re way ahead and I’m already working on next-gen, meaning I want to catch Google again in three or four years. So we’re always ahead of the curve. That’s why we’re Semantic Mastery guy. That’s why our shit works the way it does. Unmovable for years and years and years and years. That’s how we do the do we do.

Have You Tried Blasing GSA Links to GMB CID And Short URL?

Bradley: Thank you for that. So Danny’s up next. Danny’s got several calls. Questions about link building that I’m not a spam link builder. That’s why we have Dadea. So I’m going to kind of run through these very, very quickly with very short answers. But Danny, I would recommend that if you want our master link builder to actually, you know, provide some insight as to what type of links to use and that kind of stuff. I would post this question again in the Facebook group, and Dadea, our link building manager, he’ll he’s usually really helpful. He’ll come in and answer some questions for you. He’s, I’m not the spammer. I just hand it over to him and let him handle that stuff for me. But I have a basic conceptual knowledge of this. So I’ll run through these very quickly. The first question was: ever tried sending GSA blast to a GMB short URL? Well, yeah, you can. But first of all your remember your short URL is a redirect. So that’s not the best URL to send links to anyways. Because it’s a 302 redirect. In fact, it’s multiple redirects, but what you want to do is you use the GMB cid URL, right? So that’s the www.google.com/maps?=cid=. Right? So that’s that version of the URL is the best to send links to, yes, a send links that build links directly to that. Because we include that in the SEO shield. And that’s what we throw over to do all the time. It’s just all of the URLs and our SEO shield, which includes the map URL, Google Drive stack, Google Drive, folders and files, you know, all of the GMB website URL all of those, so I don’t usually just use that as one target URL because I usually send a list of target URLs that all get links thrown at them, were built to them I should say. But yes, you can. You can build links to that directly.

What Is The Ideal Number Of Links To Build To A GMB?

Number two is any ideal number of links to build for a GMB? I don’t have an answer for that. I tried to do as small as a package as needed to get results. And then you know, just repeated every couple of months or every three months or whatever it is trying to do link building in cycles. So I don’t know what the actual number is because it’s going to depend on the competition. There are too many variables there for me to give you a rule of thumb for that.

Marco: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say. It’s as many as it takes. It might take just one tear, right? contextual or two that are contextual. And you’ll see it when. Sometimes it doesn’t take any links. We talked about that. But it’s as many as it takes to get the job done. And it could take your cycling through all of your URLs hitting different aspects of that GMB, because there are a whole lot of targets that you can hit to get results. How many? As Bradley said, there are just too many variables to be able to answer that.

Do You Prefer A Direct GSA Blast To The RYS Stack?

Bradley: Yeah. For your RYS stack, would you prefer a direct GSA blast or do you build contextual tier ones and twos and then GSA blast the tier twos? Again, that’s a question to post to Dadea. But I can tell you definitive 100% for sure that contextual as your first tier is the best way to go. Web 2.0 to contextual. In fact, we know Dadea recommends that you do two tiers of contextual is that if you’re going to use GSA use that as a third tier. Any comment on that?

Marco: No, no, that’s exactly what it says. And as a matter of fact, two tiers of web 2.0 contextual, the way that things are behaving right now should be good enough. GSA has its place when you really need to power something up. But it’s sometimes, that’s used as a last resort. I don’t really like using GSA I prefer to just continue tearing the web two dot o contextual.

Bradley: Yeah. Okay, so again, if you want further clarification on any of those, go check out our packages and MGYB, our link building packages, you’ll see what’s recommended for the different types of competition levels, and so you can kind of and those words specifically developed for that reason, because we, you know, our link building manager Dadea has been doing these types of link building pack campaigns for us for years. For me, for at least I think six maybe even seven years now. So everything that he does has been developed specifically for our methods. And so you can get an idea of what works best by just taking a look at the link building packages and the different levels of competition level packages at MGYB. Okay, and you can always ask questions in the free Facebook group and he’ll jump in and answer them

Should You Create A New One Drive Page If The Existing Account Is Blocked Due To Spam?

next question is hey guys report regarding the done for you syndication network. I noticed my One Drive page was taken down and account blocked due to spam. Well, that’s unfortunate. It’s odd. That usually doesn’t happen. So my guess is it was some sort of an anomaly. He says, Is my syndication network fine without it or should I try to build another One Drive page link to it from all of the other syndication properties? Thanks for the help as always, you know that’s up to you. I can tell you right now I don’t really sweat it depends on the property but something like one drive if it goes down or the syndication stops working because IFTTT hiccups or something like that, I typically don’t go in and repair those things, or I’ll have a VA do it if I do it. But, you know, there’s a limited number of properties that we syndicate to anyways. So it is somewhat important. If, if it got to remember, sometimes these accounts can get blocked or terminated and it’s algorithmic and it’s something that, you know, really wasn’t triggered because of spam. It just got caught up in some sort of filter. So, you know, my short answer is if you only have one project or a couple of projects, then yes, I would go ahead and take the time to build another. I think you have to build a whole nother Outlook or Live account. Microsoft account in order to, you know, attach or set up another One Drive account and then attach it to IFTTT. So I would recommend that you do that if you’ve got a ton of projects, and this is just one of many, then I would just, I wouldn’t worry about it, I maybe do that when you’ve got some spare time.

Marco: Semantic Mastery always says you don’t do anything yourself, you should have a VA that goes in and takes care of these things as they pop up.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah. And so just keep that in mind. And something else is, you know, if you’re gonna, if you’re going to have a VA do that, then make sure that you’re either providing them with, you know, they’re going to have to log into the account or create an account, which means that you’re going to want to have that bound to their IP. Otherwise, if you try to switch between, like if you have a VA in the Philippines, just as an example. And you’re in the US and you try to create the account, or and then you send it over to them and they try to log in it could lock the account because of you know, the change in IP. I would recommend that you set up some sort of thing like a BrowSEO or Ghost Browser or something like that where you can log into that account from the same even if it’s your own IP, it’s fine. But you want to keep the browsing session intact for that particular profile so that it doesn’t trigger any IP locks. Okay.

What Semantic Mastery Services Should You Use To Defend Your Brand From Competitor’s Attack?

Okay, so the next one is, my competitor is hitting my brand. What service could I ordered or technique to defend or make my brand strong and from getting hit with negative SEO from a competitor? The SEO shield is about the only thing I could I could tell you to do. Marco, what do you say?

Marco: That’s exactly what I was thinking the SEO shield. There’s no way that you can stop a competitor from negative SEO. It’s unethical. I don’t do it. I don’t do it because you’re, you’re messing with a person’s livelihood, no matter how much of an asshole person might be. They have kids, they have family and that’s what I think about. I’m going to try to negative SEO them. Which I never have, by the way, in nearly 16 years that I’ve been online. I’ve never done it and I don’t plan to do it. I know exactly how and it works really well. But just use the SEO shield to turn everything negative that’s throwing at you, into positive.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah, and I agree I’ve never done negative SEO either because I think karma is a bitch and it will come back to bite you. So I just I’ve never done it. I’ve been tempted to in the past, but I’ve never done it. So I would recommend and I’m not saying you are either. I’m just saying that you know, as far as anything you can try to do is dilute it, right? You’re not gonna be able to stop it. And so how do you dilute it you the best way to dilute it that we’re going to tell you how is with using the SEO shield because then you’re creating this shield around. Somebody could still hit your direct money site with bad links. But if you’ve got all this relevancy and you really solidified your entity, you’ve created this strong presence online that you know, then the next type of that type of an attack won’t have nearly as much effect if if any at all. Okay.

Can You 301 Redirect A Relevant Domain To A GMB Listing?

All right. The next one is can I? Can I throw one a relevant domain directly to my GMB listing? Or should I point to a GMB website? I build instead of the GMB listing? If so, should I make contact details private just in case Google tries to see who the owner of the domain is? Okay, a couple of things there. Number one, Google is a red domain registrar. So even though you might have domain privacy enabled because Google is a domain registrar, they know exactly who is behind that. That’s just to keep you know the general public from knowing who owns the domain. Domain registrars can always see who the domain is registered to. So even if you have privacy enabled. I don’t recommend redirecting or doing a 301 from a domain directly to a GMB listing or a GMB website for that matter.

What I would recommend that you do is create, do a 301 redirect to like an HTML page, especially hosted on S3, Amazon S3, like our ID pages, for example, or ID pages are perfect for redirecting a three to one domain too because now you’ve got a super high authority domain Amazon, right that you’ve got just a static HTML three or HTML page on that you can create as an entity, an ID page, which was like an entity validator essentially. And you can do iframe stacking and everything else there, which means you can push whatever, inbound link equities coming from that domain that you’re redirecting to iframes which act, kind of like it’s not the same but kind of like a do-follow link. And so what I would recommend is doing something like that it redirects directly to a money site or to a GMB listing, in my opinion, is not the best way to go. You should create some sort of buffer between them where you can inject more relevancy and more entity information, which is why I think an Amazon S3 hosted HTML page is the perfect place for something like that. What do you think, Marco?

Marco: Unless he has that website that has those magical metrics, those metrics that are above, I would say above 16 in Majestic. That’s when I start looking at majestic when it hits at 60 both trust flow, citation flow. When it’s around there or higher that’s going to be a really expensive website. But when it’s around then, it’s when it’s around there. It’s so powerful that that one link can really make a difference. Now, the thing is, that’s going to be really expensive. And it’s going to take you a whole lot of time and effort to find it. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. It’s almost impossible. So what I did is I stopped doing it. I stopped trying to find expired domains. And I just work from the GMB facility from the drive stack, G Site and just expand it and isolate keyword sets and just go through that. I mean whatever it is that we do, or whatever it is that we offer you in our done for you services because we use it to use because our methods work what we make available to you guys. If it didn’t work,  I mean, we just wouldn’t make it available to you. We try to be again as ethical as possible. And in everything that we do we know that our shit works without all of these other things that you used to have to do or that you could do to help yourself along because you’re borrowing from the ultimate, trusted and authoritative entity on the web as far as Google is concerned, which is Google.

What Hosting Providers Do You Recommend To Rank Your Website Better?

Okay, I’m sorry, I was pre-reading another question. Gordon’s up next he says, Hey guys, hope you’re having a great day. And thank you very much for help. As usual. You’re welcome, Gordon, thank you for your questions. As always, I believe you have mentioned previously that popular shared web hosting providers like Hostgator impede your SEO and ranking efforts. Can you briefly recap Why? Yeah, because there’s a number of reasons. Number one is they’re super inexpensive hosts their budget hosts, which means they overload their IP blocks. They overload their servers with too many sites. Remember guys, when you go to sign up for a shared hosting plan, or you know, budget hosting plan, they tell you, unlimited sites and unlimited bandwidth and all that, but that’s not really true. And number one, but number two also, what happens is they overload those IP blocks with too many sites. And what happens is you end up with a lot of shitty cheap SEO type sites. So affiliate spammers and other SEOs and people that are just creating these stupid, ugly, sloppy sites that aren’t putting, you know, so there ends up too many sites on the IP, to begin with, but then you end up being with, it’s being kind of a guilty by association, you can get mixed into what’s called it like a bad neighborhood, right.

In other words, there are 500 other sites on the shared hosting alongside your site on that same IP. And then there’s going to be a percentage of them that are just really shitty sites that could be de-index, they could behave manual penalties, they could have a number of things that are there so that basically can guilty by association, your website can get caught up. But not just that. It’s also because when you have that many sites sharing an IP if anyone of them or any number of them are receiving a spike in traffic or a DDoS attack or something like that, it ends up killing the amount of bandwidth available for all of the other sites on that same IP. Does that make sense? So what I found is if you were using a cheap budget host, I would recommend doing something like putting an uptime robot on it or some sort of uptime monitor that will allow you to notify you via email. And you can even set them up for text messages, which I don’t recommend, except for really important sites. But it can email you or notify you when your site’s go down. And what you’ll see is if you put an uptime monitor on a shared hosting a site that’s on a shared hosting account. You will see how often the site goes down. And it’s incredible how often those sites are unreachable, right. And it’s because of other sites on that same IP, receiving too much traffic and basically monopolizing all the bandwidth available bandwidth and there’s this you’ll see and once you see that, you’ll realize how shitty shared hosts are.

So as far as can I recommend any? Yeah, on our semanticmastery.com/resources page, there’s the two that I would still recommend: Liquid Web. By the way, you guys are just seeing strike throughs because I’ve got a plugin that shows nofollow links, but Liquid Web is our go-to choice for hosting. You know, I would recommend that you get because you can, you can actually sell hosting the clients. That’s what I always recommend doing. So you know, get a good hosting provider, get a good plan, and then you can turn around and sell charge your customers, your clients. For monthly hosting, what I do is I offer them a yearly monthly hosting or a yearly rate and then a monthly rate. So what I’ll do is I’ll charge a customer a client, basically like $180 for a year or $20 a month, so it makes sense. So it’s up to them. They either paid $20 a month or $180 for the year and I just do a PayPal subscription so they get to rebuild. That way, I’m actually making money on hosting too. And I just do that through my own hosting account. On Liquid Web, I also have WPS hosting, which is Terry Kyle’s, that’s also very, very good. And that’s very fast. And the support is amazing in both of those. By the way, that’s the last part of that, that I would recommend. Another reason why not to use a budget host is that any issues you have, you’re gonna have to deal with support. Sometimes support will only be via email and not be a live chat or phone. Sometimes they’re on completely different time schedules because they could be an India for all we know. And so every time you submit a support request, it takes 12 hours before they reply back. So support requests can get drawn out. What I found is I’ve got some other hosts that I still use because I have sites that I never wanted to move, and I hate them because every time I got a problem, I’ve got to deal with that. But Liquid Web and WP x are both I mean they’re instant fast like you submit a ticket within minutes, you’ve got a reply somebody working on your issue. It’s incredibly fast. Marco, do you have any comments on that?

Marco: Yeah, man, what I found is a budget hosting. Actually, you lose money because of all the time that you have to spend with that shitty host. Sometimes the PHP version is often outdated because they’re not going to update, it’s not worth it to them. You’re paying four bucks a month. And so by doing that, you actually lose money. But with all the time that you have to spend the support, or going into your cPanel and seeing what the hell is going on. If somebody is hogging up resources on that shared hosting, then your website is going to be super slow. You’re not going to know why. And it’s because some idiot is doing something that they’re not supposed to be doing which is going to harm the reputation of the server. And as Bradley said, that’s known as a bad neighborhood. In the long run, it ends up costing you money so stop with the shitty hosting. Go get a Liquid Web VPS and you can host your domains on there. You can host your clients on it. You can put several clients on that you could charge them for it 50 bucks a month. You have five clients as 10 bucks per client and the VPS is free for you to use because your clients are paying for it and you have the most fabulous support that you can think of. They’ll migrate stuff for you if you. They will take care of it for you. When do you want us to do it? What time you don’t even want it when the website isn’t busy? Yeah. I mean to disguises. It’s just fantastic. And it’s the peace of mind of knowing that if something happens if you get an attack God forbid. If you get hacked, then Liquid Web is is right there to help you with whatever it is that you need with others. You have to sit in that fucking queue eternally sometimes. I’ve been through that. And it’s not worth it.

Bradley: Yeah, I think a good host is worth their weight in gold. And like I said, it can become a profit center in your business too. You know, pay $1,000 a year for a good host. And but you’re charging and you got 10 clients and you’re charging them, you know, $180 per year, that’s 1800 dollars, right? Or if you’re charging a monthly because some clients will just rather pay monthly then that’s, you know, $2,000, $20 per month, so $240 per year, times 10 would be 20 $400. So my point is it becomes a profit center. Okay.

Marco: Great revenue stream. Yep.

Can You Effectively Use Embeds As A Substitute For Links From Seed Sites You Can’t Obtain?

Bradley: Alright, so next one is there are six questions here. I’m going to try to roll through these quick guys. Remember, we asked you guys to just post one or two questions. Max per post because it makes it too hard to get to anybody else’s questions. So I’ll roll through a couple of these rather quickly. And then we’re going to move on and if we have any other time left, which doesn’t look like we will, we’ll come back. Okay. Thanks for the opportunity to ask these questions. Number one, can you effectively use embeds as a substitute for links from seed sites you cannot obtain? Marco, that’s a question for you.

Marco: Okay, can you effectively use embeds as a substitute for links? Yeah, I mean, yes. Don’t get your head twisted on this because it’s not exactly a link. And it’s not exactly a substitute. It’ll act a little bit different. We don’t know whether it accrues the paycheck and rankings for that we need. We just know that it pushes massive ranking power. So yes, iframing and then link building into that iframe, you have the protection of the source. I mean, that’s the whole concept behind the iframe that the source should be so powerful. It protects you. And you can just do all kinds of nasty stuff to wherever the embeds are to, to wherever the iframe is embedded to help your SEO. It should not substitute your link building, especially into the iframes. works really well. But yeah, I mean, it’s a solid way, it’s a solid strategy.

I read through the rest of these questions. m semes. whatever your name is, my question to you is why the hell with these types of questions? Are you not in our mastermind, where we could dig into this stuff for you? I mean, this is some pretty advanced questions, which means you probably know what you’re doing, which means you should be on a damn mastermind. Sorry, you know, this is these aren’t beginner type questions, which is what the hump day hangouts really is. We can’t give away the farm on for free here. That’s what behind closed doors is for.

Is There A Limit On The Number Of Embeds On A Page?

So the next one was, is there a limit on the number of embeds on a page i.e. is there are there diminishing returns? I don’t think there’s a limit to the number that you can put on-page, but you can break a browser, you can break, you can lock your computer up. If you have too many iframes on a page, how do I know? Because some of my @ID pages are ridiculous. And if I open it up in a browser window, it will lock it will eat up all the memory on my computer. So, Marco, is there an actual limit to it?

Marco: I haven’t found it because I mean, it’s just code. And so the code, you can just add. What happens is that the page as you said it breaks, it’s super slow. You’re going to have to do some coding so that it doesn’t load to take forever to render. But there’s no need for that you just find four or five really powerful, right iframes you put them on lazy load, and away you go.

Bradley: Yeah, not only that but if you stack the iframes on one property, then you reframe that on another property, you end up with that mirror and mirror type. So you don’t need a super high number. You just need a few very quality ones to achieve results, which is what we’ve kind of built out with our SEO shield.

Marco: Three iframes will create the loop. And we can loop the bot endlessly depending on how much information that is that we’re feeding it. So iframes are the shit. You guys are sleeping on iframes if you’re not using them.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree. And there are some other really good questions there. But we’re going to have to move on because we’ve only got about seven minutes left and we still got other questions to get to. However, I really liked those questions. I would love to answer them. So come join the damn mastermind, man. Come join us.

Would You Push More Juice To The City Pages To Improve The Page’s Ranking?

Anyways, the next one is Hey guys, I have a question about all of your strategies being used for the same site but different cities. So I have a client that I’m ranking on page one in 17 of the 24 cities they have in their county. I’m not able to get them in maps in as many cities, however, they only have one location and I’d like to start pushing them up in maps and more cities. Would you just push more juice to the city pages? Yeah, that’s one thing you could do. Remember the maps algorithm, the proximity filter or whatever you want to call it is even narrower now than it was two months ago. One of the more recent updates, which I think is occurred within the last few months, actually narrowed that the proximity filter for Google Maps listings.

So in order for your map listing to show up or a GMB to show up in the maps three pack now, it’s very closely tied to proximity to from where the searcher is in relationship to the actual physical location of the business when they perform the search. So it’s even harder now than it was even just six months ago to get a map GMB to rank in maps outside of its immediate area. So it’s not that it can’t be done. That’s what local GMB pro methods for which are for us to help you to learn how to expand that centroid as Marco calls it, but expand the map’s presence into, you know, further and further out to kind of overcome that proximity issue. But that said there, yes, some of the things that you can do would be to create like, geo posts on your money site. You can even create location-based silos. And if you again, if you’re in our mastermind, we talked about how to set up proper silo structure, and also how to create structure, location-based silos within topical silos. And there’s a way that you can do that using tags for example. It’s very, very powerful and when you mix those in with the SEO shield stuff, the G site, the RYS drive stack and you theme mirror everything together, which means you mirror the site, your website structure on to these other assets, the G site, the RYS drive stack and such, then you can start to really get your organic rankings to push up in those additional areas and a couple of that with local GMB pro methods. It’s very likely that you could get your maps listing to start appearing in those cities within the county, outside of your immediate area where you’re physically located. It takes effort and in order to get the maps thing, the maps listing to rank in the three-pack, it does require consistent effort. But it can be done. Marco, do you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, there has to be a relationship between the centroid and the place where you’re trying to get into the map pack. If you cannot establish that relationship, then it’s really difficult to try to get your listening to appear because there are other businesses that are closer by when that searcher is conducting that query right when the person is looking for, I don’t know how plumber, emergency plumber, they’re going to get those who are closest to them, then I get someone that’s an hour and a half away to overcome that. That’s when you have to relate that centroid and we teach that in local GMB Pro. We’ve talked about that in the mastermind extending the spokes think of it thinking of it like a wheel, right with spokes and just trying to extend the spoke. How do you do that? Well, it’s part of the secret sauce sorry.

Bradley: Yeah. And I was trying to look for that article that Brian Kato published. I posted it in here but he did a really good job was showing how to build out relationships with using local entities, you know, in content to get the local page to rank or local site to rank. So that’s something that if I could find it, I’ll post the link but we’re running out of time. So I’ll try to come back and post that it was a really good write up that he did on that, so I’ll try to share that with you. Once we’re done. We only got a few minutes left guys, we’re going to try to roll through a couple more.

Should You Be Concerned If You See Competitors On The GMB Maps Listing Page Source Code?

Fitz says, good agents. Thanks for this great forum. You’re welcome fits. He says I recently checked the page source of my GMB maps listing and saw a few of my competitor names mentioned in the code should I be concerned? No, you know, I mean there’s nothing you can do about it but for example, you know, if if I was to search I don’t know let me just look for plumber Culpepper, for example. Let’s just click on Culpepper Home Services actually do. What I’m trying to share here is you’re going to see that shit. It’s not what I wanted to do. Shake this one. Alright, so you’ll notice that. Sorry. Try this again. What you’re seeing is this person also search for. That’s what you’re seeing. Right? So there’s nothing you can do about that. So I’m pretty sure that that’s what you’re seeing when you’re looking at the code. You’re seeing these this part right here. It’s right in the knowledge panel, right. The knowledge panel even shows competitors, and I don’t think there’s any way that you can stop that. Right? It’s a good question though.

What’s The Best URL To Link Back To A Money Site?

Joseph says, Hey, guys, I just ordered a drive stack in a G site. What’s the best URL to provide your team to link back to my money site is a supporting page or the money page for that keyword? Thanks. I guess it depends on what you’re having a stack built out for. If it’s for the brand itself, just the homepage, if you’re just doing the initial brand, drive stack, which is basically to validate solidify the entity right and your product keyword whatever that may be, should be associated with the brand and that’s how we recommend building that out. But if it’s for a very specific product or page or content silo with on your site then that’s different. So Marco, what would you recommend for him on that?

Marco: The brand. What’s the homepage URL and the brand? The main stack, the very first one, drive stack G site should be brand plus keyword or brand plus location plus keyword. That’s how it is. We relate every keyword under that top-level category that you give us. Go as broad as possible. Even if you’re into renting hotel rooms in, let’s say in a province in Costa Rica. Then what you want is a hotel rental or anything related to that room, just whatever it is the broader that you can go, the better it is for us. Because we’ll get you everything under the sun, then as you broaden the drive stack, and that’s as you add depth to it, that’s when you start focusing in and honing in on your silos, and you’re supporting keywords LSI and everything else that’s related to that.

Bradley: Awesome. My apologies I didn’t know about the two question rule No, and you didn’t expect it You wouldn’t know that man. But honestly, we, it’s just respectful of other people that so but yeah, definitely consider joining the mastermind I would recommend that you do, because it sounds like you know, your ship to a degree. So it’d be those types of questions that we get really far in-depth in the mastermind. All right, I know we’re after 5pm but I just got I’m gonna I want to answer one more question really quickly, so but I can’t without answering it. Austin Don’s first he says what’s the best way to share an infographic I’m not sure what you mean by that. As far as different places to publish it or just to share. I’m not sure what you mean. So if you can clarify that maybe we can go back and answer that one.

Can You Do YouTube Branding For Syndication Networks

But the one that I wanted to answer was can we do the YouTube branding before syndication networks? I’m not sure what you’re asking about their BBB. Can we do YouTube branding for syndication networks? Remember syndication networks are part of should be part of every project right every website project every brand, every client even your own brand you should have syndication network, right? It’s like that should be step number one. So I don’t know what you mean by Can you do YouTube branding before that? What what I recommend with the Google Ads branding course it’s not just about YouTube, it’s about using display network to is that what I was trying to convey with that is how you can set up branding campaigns to create brand awareness and also to drive inexpensive, very relevant targeted traffic into your digital presence, whether that’s through videos or through the Display Network.

My point of teaching it was, I think all of us, all of you guys listening now that are marketing consultants, or agency owners, you should all have branding campaigns set up for your own agency. I am 100%, guilty of running my own marketing agency for almost 10 years now, and not making my own brand a priority. I’ve always worked on other clients, businesses, building their brands, but I didn’t work so hard on building my own if that makes sense. So my point is, you should be building your own brand so that people start to seek you out and you don’t have to do outbound prospecting all the time. Each time you want another client, you’re going to have people coming to you seeking you out because they see you everywhere. You can also sell this as a service to your clients, right. If you understand how to set up these types of campaigns, then you can set up branding campaigns and create another stream of revenue from that service, very inexpensive or very easy to manage.

And so like I said, it’s a great profit center, another source of revenue. If you’ve already got existing clients, you can go what I call to shake the bushes and that’s going to contact your existing clients and tell them that you want to set up some branding campaigns for them. So my point is, would you want to do before syndication networks? No, not that I mean, I’m not sure where your timeline is. But for me, syndication networks are like step one for every project that I do. And then the branding traffic using Google Ads is something that you would do to start pushing traffic into the brand creating brand awareness, brand recognition, and inbound traffic from relevant sources. That makes sense and that will actually help to kind of activate or trigger all of the SEO work that we’re doing because that’s exactly what ART as Marco always says, ART – activity, relevance, trust, and authority that kind of triggers all three of those as sending traffic in from a known relevant audience that you’re buying from Google, into your SEO as your assets, your digital assets kind of helps to trigger or it kind of ignite all of the SEO efforts. Okay.

All right. We’re several minutes. Yeah, in a comment on that?

Bradley: Yeah, just one second. If you do it backward, it’ll, it’ll be more difficult if you don’t get your entity in place if you don’t set it up if you don’t create it. And if you don’t verify, and start validating, if you skip those steps, then it’s going to be that much harder to come back and try to work on the entity. So why not set up the entity that we teach it the right way, so that when you do start out with those posts and the length of the press releases, and everything else that you’re going to do, it’s going to have maximum effect. Why would you do anything that’s not going to have maximum effect? Drag the strategy for branding is a great strategy. But if the brand isn’t in place, if the entity isn’t in place, then it’s not going to have the effect that it has to have or that it needs to have. And right now, right now, and guys go just go please watch the charity webinars, it’s what it’s what’s a whole lot more than anything that you can possibly give the information that I’m giving away. Just go watch it so that you know why there’s a reason why you need to do this. It’s called Bert and it’s called neural matching.

Amen. Alright, thanks, everybody for being here. We’ll see mastermind members tomorrow. Otherwise, we’ll see you guys next week. Whoo. See everyone.

Good one later.

  Digital Marketing QA – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 266 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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Digital Marketing QA – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 266

Click on the video above to watch Episode 266 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Adam: Hey complaining about AWeber. If you’re using a Weber I suggest you go look at Active Campaign or something. But anyways, that said, welcome to Hump Day Hangouts number 266. We got the pre-holiday special Hump Day Hangouts going here. I almost put on like my reindeer ears. But I withheld. I’ll be back next week. And I think the guys are going to have some, maybe some outfits or we’ll see it. Hernan is giving me a vigorous yes. Yeah, I think he’s going to dress up as Santa Claus. Man. That is awesome.

Hernan: Hey man. Thank you for doing that. Hey, man. It’s like 1000 degrees right now.

Adam: That’s right. You’re in the upside-down, aren’t you?

Hernan: Yeah.

Adam: Well, Hey, everybody. Before we get into it, we’re gonna say hi to everyone real quick. And then we got a few quick announcements, some really good stuff going on, especially with the holidays. And then we will get into it. We got a lot of questions today. So, Bradley, how are you doing today, man? How’s Virginia treating you?

Bradley: Good. I was almost late because I was talking to a prospect that was looking for SEO services that found me through my SEO Virginia horrible drive stack g G Site that I built when back in 2015 so I just making a comment just kind of giggling with Marco about it because that was from way back in 2015 and I still ranked number one I still get leads from it so pretty interesting.

Adam: That’s awesome. Good day, man. Yeah, that well, you know, it doesn’t work but I guess you’re gonna have to take the lead anyways.

Bradley: I don’t think Google’s gonna shut it down any minute now.

Adam: Hernan, how you doing man down there in the other hemisphere?

Hernan: I’m good, man. All’s good. Everything’s good. Getting ready to spend some time with the family. Diving into some new ways of marketing and communication with potential prospects. So that’s going to be good. We’re going to be talking a little bit more about that in upcoming episodes. So, all good, man! I’m excited to be here.

Adam: Outstanding. Chris, how about you? Are you home in Austria?

Chris: Yeah, I’m home in Austria and I guess I prepared a little bit early because last year it was always Hernan. And this year I put up the Christmas tree as well just for the help the Hangouts. But yeah, like we’ll see what’s happening next week then.

Adam: Outstanding. And Marco, how about yourself. How you doing, man?

Marco: I am doing really good, man. Two charity webinars already in the can. The next one scheduled for next Monday and it will give a lot of great information for people who donate. So that’s the only thing you have to do is go and donate. But this year, like we have a whole bunch of awesome prizes that we’re going to give to people who have donated. For example, a couple of hours of my time, two people at each one will get an hour syndicated they’ll be drive stack, syndication networks, there’s going to be Dadea donated five embed gigs and five-link building gigs. So that’s one that’s five people who will win the embed, plus link building game, right? Which is, which is awesome. You aim that at anything that set up right? And that juices just gonna flow in and push it up. So I’m excited the charity is doing well. We’re collecting money people have been awesome donating, but we do not. We always need more. We always need more. Poor kids.

Adam: So I know a lot of people know about this, but can you tell everyone because we get new viewers all the time what the charity is or who had benefits.

Marco: So the idea is to take children who are at risk. And by at risk, it’s either they come with us or they it’s drugs, it’s abusive, it’s violence, it’s prostitution. Child prostitution is rampant. That’s how it is in the third world. You got a lot of pervs who come over and take advantage of that poverty. So what we want to do is we take these kids and we give them an option. You come with us, we’ll give you everything you need to go to school shoes, uniforms, books, we tutor them on Saturday. We take them through mentorship programs, because we also want to create community leaders so that other children have someone else to look up to. There’s another hero, right? It is that just the drug dealer with the fancy car because he right now, he’s the hero we want. We want to show them another aspect of reality, of life that there are other heroes that they can emulate rather than following the drug dealer to a slow death.

I talked about Fernando one of our biggest success story he started out with with eight or nine of his friends, right? Running around sometimes coming to a charity and sometimes it’s not. He’s the one who stuck it out, the other ones who didn’t are dead. And so that’s the choice that these children are making. They come and they get an education, tutoring tech school, and then we place them with with big companies because we train them for the right jobs, for the jobs that are in demand in Costa Rica. So it’s either that or you die. So that’s the fucking option, guys. It’s incredible. You have no idea poverty in the third world and Hernan knows, for the patchy what is the onset? Gotta say is another place to do. So that that’s my passion. I did that my magnificent obsession. My magnificent obsession is doing everything I can to help people make money.

Google so that I can make money. But my passion doesn’t feed me, right? My passion is something, it feeds my soul. But I need to make money in order to go and really work at my passion or good which is what I do. And so thank you guys I know Hernan, I’d like to thank him personally. Because he’s awesome. He donates every year. So thanks a ton and you guys will always make this up this possible. Thank you.

Adam: Yeah. How much does it cost it to take care of a kid get him in classes get them in all this for a year?

Marco: 200 bucks per child and that includes everything and includes the tutor includes the mentorship. We do these weekend getaways. We make ourselves available. The family sometimes needs food. They have a tin roof, cardboard walls and nothing and on the fucking windows. That’s the conditions that they’re living in the shack.It’s horrible. They have open sewage, you name it. It’s there and it’s worse than you imagine the worst that you can possibly imagine. And it’s worse than that.

Adam: Gotcha now well and I want to say to to everyone like I know we’ve had some large donations in years past. I’m sure you’ve already gotten some this year but it’s one of those where truly every little bit helps and Marco I know you’re not restricting you know, access to the webinars based it’s any donation amount, right?

Marco: Absolutely not. It’s your heart is going to tell you what of course you want. Your heart dictates to donate. And your wallet dictates how much you got a big wallet. Open that motherfucker man. People need it. Yeah, people need it. And I’m this year I’m matching every all the donations I will tell you that I’m matching $1 for dollar

Adam: Yep. that’s awesome. Well, we’re going to be throwing some more on top of that. We got some awesome holiday specials coming up, you guys, and anyone who donates is going to get some special stuff there. So, you know, you could donate $1 you can donate $100 and donate $1,000 again, whatever you can like, what’s your heart your wallet tells you so you can this has been a really good thing. Marco is it’s been like three or four years now.

Marco: We started doing our own little thing, and then it’s just picked up. So this is what the third or fourth year. But I’ve been helping them for like 9 or 10 years. Nice from from way back when my wife and I started helping them so it’s been a while.

Adam: Good deal. Well, you know, I mentioned some special stuff coming up with the holidays. So we’re going to have more coming out about that and then wanted to let everyone know to. Next week we’ve got a really special Hump Day Hangouts. We’re not gonna have time for questions. If you’ve got them up there, you know, maybe we can try to take them into the Facebook group. We’ll do what we can but we will wanted to sit down and say, hey, what could we do at the end of the year that would, that would help everyone going into 2020. And we’re going to cover a lot of various we’re going to keep it into short segments, and we’re bringing on some guests as well, we’re going to have Rob Feel. Of course your motive him co creator of RYS Reloaded, helping, I’m going to call him the Chief Operating Officer at MGYB, the guy who gets shit done and, you know, gave me some great advice, some insights, POFU Live.

And then as well, we’re gonna have Jeffrey Smith, the on page master SEO bootcamp, SEO ultimate plugin, he’s going to come in and be laying down some good stuff as well. So you do not want to miss that. We’re going to go a little bit longer, but we’ll start at the same time next week and we’re going to cover a lot of ground. And after that, we are going to have some holiday specials going on. But after that, there won’t be a Hump Day Hangout until 2020. It turns out that it does fall on Christmas Day. And I think we all want to be spending time with our friends and family doing that. And we realized that probably not a lot of people are going to be maybe attending. So we’re going to go ahead and push it back to I believe it’s January 2nd, because then the first Wednesday in 2020 falls on New Year’s Day. So that’s a holiday as well. So we’re just pushing it back to one day. So we’re going to go next week, be there, we’re going to have some good stuff going on some great guests, some good knowledge, as well as some awesome holiday specials. And then the next Hump Day hangout will be on January 2, 2020. As well, too, man, we’ve had a lot of stuff going on Bradley and the mastermind is getting what they’re getting a webinar a couple days before Christmas, aren’t they? You move that up? So you could squeeze one in before Christmas?

Bradley: Yeah, we’re going to do that on Monday, the 23rd as opposed to Christmas Day, or the day after Christmas is when it would have been Thursday. So yeah, we’re going to do that on Monday, the 23rd

Adam: awesome, and then you just got done. Correct me if I’m wrong about Monday with the second half of the branding training is that

Bradley: yes, that’s been all edited now and chopped up should be in the membership area soon by the end by the end of this week. And then I’ve still got to add all the notes and individual lessons. But in case anybody missed that the YouTube training was already been split up, there was I think 15 videos for the first part that were created out of that almost three hour webinar. And I think there was 14 for the GDN Ad, the Display Network portion of the training. So that was almost another I was almost three hours also. So it was like out of six hours of content. I think we ended up with almost almost 30 videos and everything’s been split up now and it’s got all the notes and everything so it’s a really good course in fact, I don’t think we I think we took down all the specials for that one if we haven’t we need to.

Adam: Yeah, but there might be something in the holidays but regardless, yeah, that is a great course. I’ll put the link in there. Really. Bradley went above and beyond on this and cranking this out before the holidays. Bradley I’ll let you add on to this but I call it kind of the massive branding course you know if you want to build a brand for yourself which you should be doing. I think Hernan can chime in on that but or for your clients and charge them for this service, right? This is you know, another one of those no brainers Just do it. But what you guys want to add on to that?

Bradley: Yeah, I did. I actually was playing around today with some ad campaigns that I’m running for some of my own projects. And I discovered or kind of figured out a way to even build out the custom intent audiences even more thoroughly. It’s a more efficient way to build out these audiences to make sure that you really getting targeted. Your ads are only being shown to people that are really targeted. So I’m going to probably record a supplemental video and add it to the training specifically about that. But yeah, I agree. I mean, I hit this over. I repeated this throughout the training. Every everything that I talked about in the branding training should be applied to you as the consultant or the agency owner should be applied to your brand first.

Before you set this up for any clients, you should do it for yourself. And you should just plan on constantly running branding campaigns so that you can start to fill that pipeline full of prospects. That’s the number one thing holding people back, we get it through all of our surveys over and over and over again. We hear people say, their number one biggest problem is getting clients. Well, what are you doing to continually keep your pipeline full of clients or prospects? If you’re not doing something, then it’s your fault that you don’t have a continuous steady stream of new clients coming in the door. It’s because if you keep doing what you’ve always done, your results aren’t going to get any different. So, the branding training was essentially for you to learn how to do that on your own, for your own agency first, your own business first. But then it’s also something that you can offer to clients and it’s a way that you can generate revenue. I showed in the YouTube training how to actually find prospects that are currently trying to use YouTube for leads that are failing miserably. So anyways, it’s a good course. I would recommend everybody check it out. By the way, if you’re in the mastermind you get that for free.

Marco: Something like that out something real quick before you go on to. There’s a question whether you should brand whether if you’ve read the patent, if you’ve read BERT, and if you read about neural matching, which is trying to do away with EMDs and spamming of titles, especially in local searches, the map results. And you think that branding is optional. You’re nuts. You’re nuts. Branding is no longer optional Semantic Web brand plus location plus keyword association is what wins the game. I just gave you the keys to the kingdom. It doesn’t doesn’t seem that way because oh, it’s just Marco talking shit. I just gave you the keys to the kingdom. Apply it, use our shit and see how you do?

Hernan: Yeah. I’m just going to add something real quick. I don’t remember who said this, is that the number one is the most dangerous number for any business. Like, if you haven’t one conversation, if you’re sending one email, if you’re talking to one prospect, if you’re doing like, if you build like one back end, you know, like it all of that stuff is like the most dangerous thing that you could do for your business. So with branding, what we basically do is we sold that completely, right? You will never have to worry about the influx of leads again, think about that the POFU that you gain by just being in that position where you know, people are just coming your way, right? How much more you can charge people. And because you’re not going you’re not going either out call and say hey, I want to work with you. People are coming to you’re saying hey, yeah, you’re the Scott. You’re that person. I saw you there, I saw you here. So I think and that that multiplying effect also applies for your client. So it’s a really good tool to have in your toolbox for yourself as a consultant as the breadwinner as the marketing head, or the the guy before behind your agency, it doesn’t matter if you have like two or three clients, if you have like, 30, right, you’re still the guy behind all of it. And not only that, but that multiplying effect will trickle down to your business to your clients, and they will see the effect as well. So that will, you know, put you in a much more powerful position, my opinion, so it’s really good for you. Good.

Adam: All right. Well, before we get into questions here, just want to wrap this up and say, Hey, if you’re watching this for the first time, thanks for watching, make sure especially to attend next week and check out the holiday special Hump Day hangout webinar. And then in the meantime, head over to battle plan dot Semantic Mastery calm grab the battle plan. It’s our step by step process for getting results with everything from new websites age domains, YouTube channels, just check it out. There’s a ton of value in there, we threw in some crazy bonuses. It’s amazing. We love it. Well actually, I’ve got to look up the numbers but I don’t know over a couple thousand people have also loved it. And if you’re wanting to grow your digital marketing business, then you’re the type of person we’d like to have in the mastermind you’ve heard us talking about a little bit here. But if you want to join the experienced community, that’s the place to be and you can find out more about that at mastermind.semanticmastery.com and to everyone whether or not you’re in the mastermind, or you’re doing things on your own. We highly advise saving time and money, head over to mgyb.co and get done for you services. We got press releases, link building, the SEO shield that is newly released. And I think it’s actually available on its own right now. Not just through the Black Friday deal. We had just tons more stuff and a lot more coming. And of course, I just put the link on there. If you guys haven’t yet. Please go subscribe to us on YouTube. I know we’re really close to 7000 and I know that makes Bradley’s day. So maybe we can hit 7000 during Hump Day Hangouts and let them know about it. So with that said, let’s get into it.

Bradley: Yeah, now you’ve got me curious. I just gotta check 6,990 or 10 away.

Hernan: Oh, wow. Yeah, go subscribe.

Bradley: 10 from 7000 I mean, that’s not like that’s just a nice round number. It’s not a milestone we got to get to 10,000 before we really have accomplished much, but these are all organic views. I mean, other than I had a subscribe campaign running with YouTube ads for some time but anyways. Alright, let me grab the screen. I kind of pre-answered one of these questions. Here we go. Okay, somebody confirms you got my screen.

Adam: Good. Got it. Yep. Okay.

What Is Semantic Web Algorithm?

Bradley: Stevens up first, Stephen I put a reply below where I talked both Marco and I in the last week or two, I think two weeks now have been interviewed by Matt Versteeg of the low on for the local SEO podcast, local SEO show podcast and great conversation. It’s always fun to be interviewed by somebody else in the industry to have a conversation about, you know, SEO or a lot of the other podcast interviews that I’ve been on, have to kind of dumb it down or water it down a bit because we’re talking to a broader audience, but it’s kind of nice to talk to somebody that understands our industry. So we can talk shop a little bit more so by the way, Marco’s. I think it just got published today. And I listened to it was a great interview with Marco. And so I had an interview with Matt about two weeks ago and I spoke about he asked a question very similar to what your question is, which is what is the Semantic Web? And so I gave him a much more thorough answer there. So I linked to that it’s in our free group guys. Here’s the if you go to our SEO and marketing by Semantic Mastery group. It’s also in the chat now on the Hump Day Hangouts page, but it’s this post from Matt Versteeg about the, you know, interview with me that he had is about 45 minutes long. But in the beginning, I talked about the Semantic Web. So just as a very quick definition, I’d like to get Marco’s input on this too. But the Semantic Web is the change the move from the algorithm knowing just determining how relevant things were through search strings, right. So queries have been stringing certain words together or phrases to create to answer a query, which is what the algorithm had been for so long to now things so from strings to things, because all of it’s not just about the internet or web pages anymore, right? It’s about everything in our world now is connected to the web. And so that devices and entity all these things have to be given an identity some that the machines the bots can understand so that they can start to understand relationships between these things, whether it’s web pages or a device, a mobile device of person, brand, it could be any number of, you know, your appliance for godsakes. Your refrigerators and light switches at home are now online. So it’s a way to create entities out of things, in a way for it to understand the relationships between them, the associations between them. And so the Semantic Web was something that we kind of fight, we saw it coming, which is why our name is Semantic Mastery. Way back 2011-12 timeframe. We saw that the cement, you know, it was coming, right. So Google had already been applying for patents that were showing that the Semantic Web was coming that they were shifting over to Semantic Web and so that’s kind of why we named our company. That was because we were going to optimize or learn how to optimize for the Semantic Web. And it took a lot longer for it to catch on, then we thought it took several years as we’re just starting to see within the last few months again, Marco will talk much more about this.

But some of the the more advanced algorithm updates for the Semantic Web, such as Bert, or the neuro mapping or neural networking algorithm, which is I think, just came out about two weeks ago. Those are specifically Semantic Web type updates, just like Hummingbird was one of them was one of the earlier versions of that. So it’s something that we’re seeing more and more like we’re moving faster into it now than we have been it’s been a kind of long, slow progress to get to this point. But, you know, I think that’s why the stuff that Marco especially has developed over the last several years because we saw it coming. We’re several years ahead. And so that’s what Marco was just talking about, with you know, branding and all that. It’s about the entity, right? You want to create a strong entity on the web. And there’s a number of ways to do that the SEO shield being our preferred method, which works incredibly well. So Marco would say you about it.

Marco: I’m always talking into a muted mic. Well, the Semantic Web, just the Semantic Web. The idea is for web pages to have structured data in the tag, and constructed in a way that a bot can more easily interact with the page. Because the bots were having so much trouble with the unstructured data meaning they these sets of words that the bot had no clue how to interpret. So again, that the idea of the Semantic Web is just simply being able that the people who are either building the website, designing it, coding it to be able to go in and structure the data. But yes, it involves entities and it involves a whole bunch of things that I’m, in fact I’m speaking on in the charity webinars, you really want to know what this is about, catch that podcast and catch my charity webinars. That’s one. And I think that the question also says, or he’s asking about the that you mentioned, Bradley, the Semantic Web algorithm.

There is no Semantic Web algorithm. The algorithms are a set or different code sets that draw different data. And it’s all put together on under one in a huge relational database. All of its code guys, it’s just simply zeros and ones and there are sequences. And you know, for example, Semantic Mastery has a word sequence. It has a bunch of set, a number sequence and it has a bunch of other number sequences related to it, which are, you know, things, it’s words that are related to it. But at the bundle, I don’t want to get too deep for you guys, because I don’t want to confuse you. This is not the forum for it. But the bot has to go in, grab the words, turn them into zeros and ones, right bits, bytes, and number sequences to be able to interpret it. And it has to gather all of this information from all over the web, everything that’s related to whatever it is that a person is looking for, if they’re looking for Semantic Mastery, to give them the best result for the query. So we have several, not that not just one algorithm at play, but it all ends up in what Google is calling a ranking score, which of course they’re not making public. Then we don’t know-how in a route world it accrues exponentially, of course, but we don’t know exactly what a cruise ranking score but we do have a great idea for example, from Bert, from the PageRank algorithm, from the ranking score algorithm, and from the distance graph algorithm, right? We’ve talked about seat sites and seat set. So there is no one Semantic Web algorithm that doesn’t exist. What does exist is a whole bunch of different algorithms, compiling information. And they can be either really positive, which is what we work on. We work on triggering all of these positive aspects of the different algorithms that are going to get us a whole bunch of Google love. And we tried to avoid all of the negative ones that can come and really hurt what you’re doing.

If you’re doing client work. You can get your client’s website de-indexed if you’re not doing everything correctly, and I hope that answers the question. If not go to the free Facebook group, and ask the question so that we can ask for maybe a little bit more. Better yet. Join our mastermind and ask the question. And we can and I can really go into it with you. And again, I would invite you to listen to the podcast and to listen to the charity webinars, not only the ones that I’ve already done, but the ones that are coming and the ones from last year where I went through all of this, and you can hear me how it’s going to be all about entities and all of a sudden, Google comes out. And I said it’s all about brands and entity, keyword associations. And Google finally comes out and admits just last month, this is what it’s all about. As Bradley said, we’re way ahead and I’m already working on next-gen, meaning I want to catch Google again in three or four years. So we’re always ahead of the curve. That’s why we’re Semantic Mastery guy. That’s why our shit works the way it does. Unmovable for years and years and years and years. That’s how we do the do we do.

Have You Tried Blasing GSA Links to GMB CID And Short URL?

Bradley: Thank you for that. So Danny’s up next. Danny’s got several calls. Questions about link building that I’m not a spam link builder. That’s why we have Dadea. So I’m going to kind of run through these very, very quickly with very short answers. But Danny, I would recommend that if you want our master link builder to actually, you know, provide some insight as to what type of links to use and that kind of stuff. I would post this question again in the Facebook group, and Dadea, our link building manager, he’ll he’s usually really helpful. He’ll come in and answer some questions for you. He’s, I’m not the spammer. I just hand it over to him and let him handle that stuff for me. But I have a basic conceptual knowledge of this. So I’ll run through these very quickly. The first question was: ever tried sending GSA blast to a GMB short URL? Well, yeah, you can. But first of all your remember your short URL is a redirect. So that’s not the best URL to send links to anyways. Because it’s a 302 redirect. In fact, it’s multiple redirects, but what you want to do is you use the GMB cid URL, right? So that’s the www.google.com/maps?=cid=. Right? So that’s that version of the URL is the best to send links to, yes, a send links that build links directly to that. Because we include that in the SEO shield. And that’s what we throw over to do all the time. It’s just all of the URLs and our SEO shield, which includes the map URL, Google Drive stack, Google Drive, folders and files, you know, all of the GMB website URL all of those, so I don’t usually just use that as one target URL because I usually send a list of target URLs that all get links thrown at them, were built to them I should say. But yes, you can. You can build links to that directly.

What Is The Ideal Number Of Links To Build To A GMB?

Number two is any ideal number of links to build for a GMB? I don’t have an answer for that. I tried to do as small as a package as needed to get results. And then you know, just repeated every couple of months or every three months or whatever it is trying to do link building in cycles. So I don’t know what the actual number is because it’s going to depend on the competition. There are too many variables there for me to give you a rule of thumb for that.

Marco: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say. It’s as many as it takes. It might take just one tear, right? contextual or two that are contextual. And you’ll see it when. Sometimes it doesn’t take any links. We talked about that. But it’s as many as it takes to get the job done. And it could take your cycling through all of your URLs hitting different aspects of that GMB, because there are a whole lot of targets that you can hit to get results. How many? As Bradley said, there are just too many variables to be able to answer that.

Do You Prefer A Direct GSA Blast To The RYS Stack?

Bradley: Yeah. For your RYS stack, would you prefer a direct GSA blast or do you build contextual tier ones and twos and then GSA blast the tier twos? Again, that’s a question to post to Dadea. But I can tell you definitive 100% for sure that contextual as your first tier is the best way to go. Web 2.0 to contextual. In fact, we know Dadea recommends that you do two tiers of contextual is that if you’re going to use GSA use that as a third tier. Any comment on that?

Marco: No, no, that’s exactly what it says. And as a matter of fact, two tiers of web 2.0 contextual, the way that things are behaving right now should be good enough. GSA has its place when you really need to power something up. But it’s sometimes, that’s used as a last resort. I don’t really like using GSA I prefer to just continue tearing the web two dot o contextual.

Bradley: Yeah. Okay, so again, if you want further clarification on any of those, go check out our packages and MGYB, our link building packages, you’ll see what’s recommended for the different types of competition levels, and so you can kind of and those words specifically developed for that reason, because we, you know, our link building manager Dadea has been doing these types of link building pack campaigns for us for years. For me, for at least I think six maybe even seven years now. So everything that he does has been developed specifically for our methods. And so you can get an idea of what works best by just taking a look at the link building packages and the different levels of competition level packages at MGYB. Okay, and you can always ask questions in the free Facebook group and he’ll jump in and answer them

Should You Create A New One Drive Page If The Existing Account Is Blocked Due To Spam?

next question is hey guys report regarding the done for you syndication network. I noticed my One Drive page was taken down and account blocked due to spam. Well, that’s unfortunate. It’s odd. That usually doesn’t happen. So my guess is it was some sort of an anomaly. He says, Is my syndication network fine without it or should I try to build another One Drive page link to it from all of the other syndication properties? Thanks for the help as always, you know that’s up to you. I can tell you right now I don’t really sweat it depends on the property but something like one drive if it goes down or the syndication stops working because IFTTT hiccups or something like that, I typically don’t go in and repair those things, or I’ll have a VA do it if I do it. But, you know, there’s a limited number of properties that we syndicate to anyways. So it is somewhat important. If, if it got to remember, sometimes these accounts can get blocked or terminated and it’s algorithmic and it’s something that, you know, really wasn’t triggered because of spam. It just got caught up in some sort of filter. So, you know, my short answer is if you only have one project or a couple of projects, then yes, I would go ahead and take the time to build another. I think you have to build a whole nother Outlook or Live account. Microsoft account in order to, you know, attach or set up another One Drive account and then attach it to IFTTT. So I would recommend that you do that if you’ve got a ton of projects, and this is just one of many, then I would just, I wouldn’t worry about it, I maybe do that when you’ve got some spare time.

Marco: Semantic Mastery always says you don’t do anything yourself, you should have a VA that goes in and takes care of these things as they pop up.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah. And so just keep that in mind. And something else is, you know, if you’re gonna, if you’re going to have a VA do that, then make sure that you’re either providing them with, you know, they’re going to have to log into the account or create an account, which means that you’re going to want to have that bound to their IP. Otherwise, if you try to switch between, like if you have a VA in the Philippines, just as an example. And you’re in the US and you try to create the account, or and then you send it over to them and they try to log in it could lock the account because of you know, the change in IP. I would recommend that you set up some sort of thing like a BrowSEO or Ghost Browser or something like that where you can log into that account from the same even if it’s your own IP, it’s fine. But you want to keep the browsing session intact for that particular profile so that it doesn’t trigger any IP locks. Okay.

What Semantic Mastery Services Should You Use To Defend Your Brand From Competitor’s Attack?

Okay, so the next one is, my competitor is hitting my brand. What service could I ordered or technique to defend or make my brand strong and from getting hit with negative SEO from a competitor? The SEO shield is about the only thing I could I could tell you to do. Marco, what do you say?

Marco: That’s exactly what I was thinking the SEO shield. There’s no way that you can stop a competitor from negative SEO. It’s unethical. I don’t do it. I don’t do it because you’re, you’re messing with a person’s livelihood, no matter how much of an asshole person might be. They have kids, they have family and that’s what I think about. I’m going to try to negative SEO them. Which I never have, by the way, in nearly 16 years that I’ve been online. I’ve never done it and I don’t plan to do it. I know exactly how and it works really well. But just use the SEO shield to turn everything negative that’s throwing at you, into positive.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah, and I agree I’ve never done negative SEO either because I think karma is a bitch and it will come back to bite you. So I just I’ve never done it. I’ve been tempted to in the past, but I’ve never done it. So I would recommend and I’m not saying you are either. I’m just saying that you know, as far as anything you can try to do is dilute it, right? You’re not gonna be able to stop it. And so how do you dilute it you the best way to dilute it that we’re going to tell you how is with using the SEO shield because then you’re creating this shield around. Somebody could still hit your direct money site with bad links. But if you’ve got all this relevancy and you really solidified your entity, you’ve created this strong presence online that you know, then the next type of that type of an attack won’t have nearly as much effect if if any at all. Okay.

Can You 301 Redirect A Relevant Domain To A GMB Listing?

All right. The next one is can I? Can I throw one a relevant domain directly to my GMB listing? Or should I point to a GMB website? I build instead of the GMB listing? If so, should I make contact details private just in case Google tries to see who the owner of the domain is? Okay, a couple of things there. Number one, Google is a red domain registrar. So even though you might have domain privacy enabled because Google is a domain registrar, they know exactly who is behind that. That’s just to keep you know the general public from knowing who owns the domain. Domain registrars can always see who the domain is registered to. So even if you have privacy enabled. I don’t recommend redirecting or doing a 301 from a domain directly to a GMB listing or a GMB website for that matter.

What I would recommend that you do is create, do a 301 redirect to like an HTML page, especially hosted on S3, Amazon S3, like our ID pages, for example, or ID pages are perfect for redirecting a three to one domain too because now you’ve got a super high authority domain Amazon, right that you’ve got just a static HTML three or HTML page on that you can create as an entity, an ID page, which was like an entity validator essentially. And you can do iframe stacking and everything else there, which means you can push whatever, inbound link equities coming from that domain that you’re redirecting to iframes which act, kind of like it’s not the same but kind of like a do-follow link. And so what I would recommend is doing something like that it redirects directly to a money site or to a GMB listing, in my opinion, is not the best way to go. You should create some sort of buffer between them where you can inject more relevancy and more entity information, which is why I think an Amazon S3 hosted HTML page is the perfect place for something like that. What do you think, Marco?

Marco: Unless he has that website that has those magical metrics, those metrics that are above, I would say above 16 in Majestic. That’s when I start looking at majestic when it hits at 60 both trust flow, citation flow. When it’s around there or higher that’s going to be a really expensive website. But when it’s around then, it’s when it’s around there. It’s so powerful that that one link can really make a difference. Now, the thing is, that’s going to be really expensive. And it’s going to take you a whole lot of time and effort to find it. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. It’s almost impossible. So what I did is I stopped doing it. I stopped trying to find expired domains. And I just work from the GMB facility from the drive stack, G Site and just expand it and isolate keyword sets and just go through that. I mean whatever it is that we do, or whatever it is that we offer you in our done for you services because we use it to use because our methods work what we make available to you guys. If it didn’t work,  I mean, we just wouldn’t make it available to you. We try to be again as ethical as possible. And in everything that we do we know that our shit works without all of these other things that you used to have to do or that you could do to help yourself along because you’re borrowing from the ultimate, trusted and authoritative entity on the web as far as Google is concerned, which is Google.

What Hosting Providers Do You Recommend To Rank Your Website Better?

Okay, I’m sorry, I was pre-reading another question. Gordon’s up next he says, Hey guys, hope you’re having a great day. And thank you very much for help. As usual. You’re welcome, Gordon, thank you for your questions. As always, I believe you have mentioned previously that popular shared web hosting providers like Hostgator impede your SEO and ranking efforts. Can you briefly recap Why? Yeah, because there’s a number of reasons. Number one is they’re super inexpensive hosts their budget hosts, which means they overload their IP blocks. They overload their servers with too many sites. Remember guys, when you go to sign up for a shared hosting plan, or you know, budget hosting plan, they tell you, unlimited sites and unlimited bandwidth and all that, but that’s not really true. And number one, but number two also, what happens is they overload those IP blocks with too many sites. And what happens is you end up with a lot of shitty cheap SEO type sites. So affiliate spammers and other SEOs and people that are just creating these stupid, ugly, sloppy sites that aren’t putting, you know, so there ends up too many sites on the IP, to begin with, but then you end up being with, it’s being kind of a guilty by association, you can get mixed into what’s called it like a bad neighborhood, right.

In other words, there are 500 other sites on the shared hosting alongside your site on that same IP. And then there’s going to be a percentage of them that are just really shitty sites that could be de-index, they could behave manual penalties, they could have a number of things that are there so that basically can guilty by association, your website can get caught up. But not just that. It’s also because when you have that many sites sharing an IP if anyone of them or any number of them are receiving a spike in traffic or a DDoS attack or something like that, it ends up killing the amount of bandwidth available for all of the other sites on that same IP. Does that make sense? So what I found is if you were using a cheap budget host, I would recommend doing something like putting an uptime robot on it or some sort of uptime monitor that will allow you to notify you via email. And you can even set them up for text messages, which I don’t recommend, except for really important sites. But it can email you or notify you when your site’s go down. And what you’ll see is if you put an uptime monitor on a shared hosting a site that’s on a shared hosting account. You will see how often the site goes down. And it’s incredible how often those sites are unreachable, right. And it’s because of other sites on that same IP, receiving too much traffic and basically monopolizing all the bandwidth available bandwidth and there’s this you’ll see and once you see that, you’ll realize how shitty shared hosts are.

So as far as can I recommend any? Yeah, on our semanticmastery.com/resources page, there’s the two that I would still recommend: Liquid Web. By the way, you guys are just seeing strike throughs because I’ve got a plugin that shows nofollow links, but Liquid Web is our go-to choice for hosting. You know, I would recommend that you get because you can, you can actually sell hosting the clients. That’s what I always recommend doing. So you know, get a good hosting provider, get a good plan, and then you can turn around and sell charge your customers, your clients. For monthly hosting, what I do is I offer them a yearly monthly hosting or a yearly rate and then a monthly rate. So what I’ll do is I’ll charge a customer a client, basically like $180 for a year or $20 a month, so it makes sense. So it’s up to them. They either paid $20 a month or $180 for the year and I just do a PayPal subscription so they get to rebuild. That way, I’m actually making money on hosting too. And I just do that through my own hosting account. On Liquid Web, I also have WPS hosting, which is Terry Kyle’s, that’s also very, very good. And that’s very fast. And the support is amazing in both of those. By the way, that’s the last part of that, that I would recommend. Another reason why not to use a budget host is that any issues you have, you’re gonna have to deal with support. Sometimes support will only be via email and not be a live chat or phone. Sometimes they’re on completely different time schedules because they could be an India for all we know. And so every time you submit a support request, it takes 12 hours before they reply back. So support requests can get drawn out. What I found is I’ve got some other hosts that I still use because I have sites that I never wanted to move, and I hate them because every time I got a problem, I’ve got to deal with that. But Liquid Web and WP x are both I mean they’re instant fast like you submit a ticket within minutes, you’ve got a reply somebody working on your issue. It’s incredibly fast. Marco, do you have any comments on that?

Marco: Yeah, man, what I found is a budget hosting. Actually, you lose money because of all the time that you have to spend with that shitty host. Sometimes the PHP version is often outdated because they’re not going to update, it’s not worth it to them. You’re paying four bucks a month. And so by doing that, you actually lose money. But with all the time that you have to spend the support, or going into your cPanel and seeing what the hell is going on. If somebody is hogging up resources on that shared hosting, then your website is going to be super slow. You’re not going to know why. And it’s because some idiot is doing something that they’re not supposed to be doing which is going to harm the reputation of the server. And as Bradley said, that’s known as a bad neighborhood. In the long run, it ends up costing you money so stop with the shitty hosting. Go get a Liquid Web VPS and you can host your domains on there. You can host your clients on it. You can put several clients on that you could charge them for it 50 bucks a month. You have five clients as 10 bucks per client and the VPS is free for you to use because your clients are paying for it and you have the most fabulous support that you can think of. They’ll migrate stuff for you if you. They will take care of it for you. When do you want us to do it? What time you don’t even want it when the website isn’t busy? Yeah. I mean to disguises. It’s just fantastic. And it’s the peace of mind of knowing that if something happens if you get an attack God forbid. If you get hacked, then Liquid Web is is right there to help you with whatever it is that you need with others. You have to sit in that fucking queue eternally sometimes. I’ve been through that. And it’s not worth it.

Bradley: Yeah, I think a good host is worth their weight in gold. And like I said, it can become a profit center in your business too. You know, pay $1,000 a year for a good host. And but you’re charging and you got 10 clients and you’re charging them, you know, $180 per year, that’s 1800 dollars, right? Or if you’re charging a monthly because some clients will just rather pay monthly then that’s, you know, $2,000, $20 per month, so $240 per year, times 10 would be 20 $400. So my point is it becomes a profit center. Okay.

Marco: Great revenue stream. Yep.

Can You Effectively Use Embeds As A Substitute For Links From Seed Sites You Can’t Obtain?

Bradley: Alright, so next one is there are six questions here. I’m going to try to roll through these quick guys. Remember, we asked you guys to just post one or two questions. Max per post because it makes it too hard to get to anybody else’s questions. So I’ll roll through a couple of these rather quickly. And then we’re going to move on and if we have any other time left, which doesn’t look like we will, we’ll come back. Okay. Thanks for the opportunity to ask these questions. Number one, can you effectively use embeds as a substitute for links from seed sites you cannot obtain? Marco, that’s a question for you.

Marco: Okay, can you effectively use embeds as a substitute for links? Yeah, I mean, yes. Don’t get your head twisted on this because it’s not exactly a link. And it’s not exactly a substitute. It’ll act a little bit different. We don’t know whether it accrues the paycheck and rankings for that we need. We just know that it pushes massive ranking power. So yes, iframing and then link building into that iframe, you have the protection of the source. I mean, that’s the whole concept behind the iframe that the source should be so powerful. It protects you. And you can just do all kinds of nasty stuff to wherever the embeds are to, to wherever the iframe is embedded to help your SEO. It should not substitute your link building, especially into the iframes. works really well. But yeah, I mean, it’s a solid way, it’s a solid strategy.

I read through the rest of these questions. m semes. whatever your name is, my question to you is why the hell with these types of questions? Are you not in our mastermind, where we could dig into this stuff for you? I mean, this is some pretty advanced questions, which means you probably know what you’re doing, which means you should be on a damn mastermind. Sorry, you know, this is these aren’t beginner type questions, which is what the hump day hangouts really is. We can’t give away the farm on for free here. That’s what behind closed doors is for.

Is There A Limit On The Number Of Embeds On A Page?

So the next one was, is there a limit on the number of embeds on a page i.e. is there are there diminishing returns? I don’t think there’s a limit to the number that you can put on-page, but you can break a browser, you can break, you can lock your computer up. If you have too many iframes on a page, how do I know? Because some of my @ID pages are ridiculous. And if I open it up in a browser window, it will lock it will eat up all the memory on my computer. So, Marco, is there an actual limit to it?

Marco: I haven’t found it because I mean, it’s just code. And so the code, you can just add. What happens is that the page as you said it breaks, it’s super slow. You’re going to have to do some coding so that it doesn’t load to take forever to render. But there’s no need for that you just find four or five really powerful, right iframes you put them on lazy load, and away you go.

Bradley: Yeah, not only that but if you stack the iframes on one property, then you reframe that on another property, you end up with that mirror and mirror type. So you don’t need a super high number. You just need a few very quality ones to achieve results, which is what we’ve kind of built out with our SEO shield.

Marco: Three iframes will create the loop. And we can loop the bot endlessly depending on how much information that is that we’re feeding it. So iframes are the shit. You guys are sleeping on iframes if you’re not using them.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree. And there are some other really good questions there. But we’re going to have to move on because we’ve only got about seven minutes left and we still got other questions to get to. However, I really liked those questions. I would love to answer them. So come join the damn mastermind, man. Come join us.

Would You Push More Juice To The City Pages To Improve The Page’s Ranking?

Anyways, the next one is Hey guys, I have a question about all of your strategies being used for the same site but different cities. So I have a client that I’m ranking on page one in 17 of the 24 cities they have in their county. I’m not able to get them in maps in as many cities, however, they only have one location and I’d like to start pushing them up in maps and more cities. Would you just push more juice to the city pages? Yeah, that’s one thing you could do. Remember the maps algorithm, the proximity filter or whatever you want to call it is even narrower now than it was two months ago. One of the more recent updates, which I think is occurred within the last few months, actually narrowed that the proximity filter for Google Maps listings.

So in order for your map listing to show up or a GMB to show up in the maps three pack now, it’s very closely tied to proximity to from where the searcher is in relationship to the actual physical location of the business when they perform the search. So it’s even harder now than it was even just six months ago to get a map GMB to rank in maps outside of its immediate area. So it’s not that it can’t be done. That’s what local GMB pro methods for which are for us to help you to learn how to expand that centroid as Marco calls it, but expand the map’s presence into, you know, further and further out to kind of overcome that proximity issue. But that said there, yes, some of the things that you can do would be to create like, geo posts on your money site. You can even create location-based silos. And if you again, if you’re in our mastermind, we talked about how to set up proper silo structure, and also how to create structure, location-based silos within topical silos. And there’s a way that you can do that using tags for example. It’s very, very powerful and when you mix those in with the SEO shield stuff, the G site, the RYS drive stack and you theme mirror everything together, which means you mirror the site, your website structure on to these other assets, the G site, the RYS drive stack and such, then you can start to really get your organic rankings to push up in those additional areas and a couple of that with local GMB pro methods. It’s very likely that you could get your maps listing to start appearing in those cities within the county, outside of your immediate area where you’re physically located. It takes effort and in order to get the maps thing, the maps listing to rank in the three-pack, it does require consistent effort. But it can be done. Marco, do you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, there has to be a relationship between the centroid and the place where you’re trying to get into the map pack. If you cannot establish that relationship, then it’s really difficult to try to get your listening to appear because there are other businesses that are closer by when that searcher is conducting that query right when the person is looking for, I don’t know how plumber, emergency plumber, they’re going to get those who are closest to them, then I get someone that’s an hour and a half away to overcome that. That’s when you have to relate that centroid and we teach that in local GMB Pro. We’ve talked about that in the mastermind extending the spokes think of it thinking of it like a wheel, right with spokes and just trying to extend the spoke. How do you do that? Well, it’s part of the secret sauce sorry.

Bradley: Yeah. And I was trying to look for that article that Brian Kato published. I posted it in here but he did a really good job was showing how to build out relationships with using local entities, you know, in content to get the local page to rank or local site to rank. So that’s something that if I could find it, I’ll post the link but we’re running out of time. So I’ll try to come back and post that it was a really good write up that he did on that, so I’ll try to share that with you. Once we’re done. We only got a few minutes left guys, we’re going to try to roll through a couple more.

Should You Be Concerned If You See Competitors On The GMB Maps Listing Page Source Code?

Fitz says, good agents. Thanks for this great forum. You’re welcome fits. He says I recently checked the page source of my GMB maps listing and saw a few of my competitor names mentioned in the code should I be concerned? No, you know, I mean there’s nothing you can do about it but for example, you know, if if I was to search I don’t know let me just look for plumber Culpepper, for example. Let’s just click on Culpepper Home Services actually do. What I’m trying to share here is you’re going to see that shit. It’s not what I wanted to do. Shake this one. Alright, so you’ll notice that. Sorry. Try this again. What you’re seeing is this person also search for. That’s what you’re seeing. Right? So there’s nothing you can do about that. So I’m pretty sure that that’s what you’re seeing when you’re looking at the code. You’re seeing these this part right here. It’s right in the knowledge panel, right. The knowledge panel even shows competitors, and I don’t think there’s any way that you can stop that. Right? It’s a good question though.

What’s The Best URL To Link Back To A Money Site?

Joseph says, Hey, guys, I just ordered a drive stack in a G site. What’s the best URL to provide your team to link back to my money site is a supporting page or the money page for that keyword? Thanks. I guess it depends on what you’re having a stack built out for. If it’s for the brand itself, just the homepage, if you’re just doing the initial brand, drive stack, which is basically to validate solidify the entity right and your product keyword whatever that may be, should be associated with the brand and that’s how we recommend building that out. But if it’s for a very specific product or page or content silo with on your site then that’s different. So Marco, what would you recommend for him on that?

Marco: The brand. What’s the homepage URL and the brand? The main stack, the very first one, drive stack G site should be brand plus keyword or brand plus location plus keyword. That’s how it is. We relate every keyword under that top-level category that you give us. Go as broad as possible. Even if you’re into renting hotel rooms in, let’s say in a province in Costa Rica. Then what you want is a hotel rental or anything related to that room, just whatever it is the broader that you can go, the better it is for us. Because we’ll get you everything under the sun, then as you broaden the drive stack, and that’s as you add depth to it, that’s when you start focusing in and honing in on your silos, and you’re supporting keywords LSI and everything else that’s related to that.

Bradley: Awesome. My apologies I didn’t know about the two question rule No, and you didn’t expect it You wouldn’t know that man. But honestly, we, it’s just respectful of other people that so but yeah, definitely consider joining the mastermind I would recommend that you do, because it sounds like you know, your ship to a degree. So it’d be those types of questions that we get really far in-depth in the mastermind. All right, I know we’re after 5pm but I just got I’m gonna I want to answer one more question really quickly, so but I can’t without answering it. Austin Don’s first he says what’s the best way to share an infographic I’m not sure what you mean by that. As far as different places to publish it or just to share. I’m not sure what you mean. So if you can clarify that maybe we can go back and answer that one.

Can You Do YouTube Branding For Syndication Networks

But the one that I wanted to answer was can we do the YouTube branding before syndication networks? I’m not sure what you’re asking about their BBB. Can we do YouTube branding for syndication networks? Remember syndication networks are part of should be part of every project right every website project every brand, every client even your own brand you should have syndication network, right? It’s like that should be step number one. So I don’t know what you mean by Can you do YouTube branding before that? What what I recommend with the Google Ads branding course it’s not just about YouTube, it’s about using display network to is that what I was trying to convey with that is how you can set up branding campaigns to create brand awareness and also to drive inexpensive, very relevant targeted traffic into your digital presence, whether that’s through videos or through the Display Network.

My point of teaching it was, I think all of us, all of you guys listening now that are marketing consultants, or agency owners, you should all have branding campaigns set up for your own agency. I am 100%, guilty of running my own marketing agency for almost 10 years now, and not making my own brand a priority. I’ve always worked on other clients, businesses, building their brands, but I didn’t work so hard on building my own if that makes sense. So my point is, you should be building your own brand so that people start to seek you out and you don’t have to do outbound prospecting all the time. Each time you want another client, you’re going to have people coming to you seeking you out because they see you everywhere. You can also sell this as a service to your clients, right. If you understand how to set up these types of campaigns, then you can set up branding campaigns and create another stream of revenue from that service, very inexpensive or very easy to manage.

And so like I said, it’s a great profit center, another source of revenue. If you’ve already got existing clients, you can go what I call to shake the bushes and that’s going to contact your existing clients and tell them that you want to set up some branding campaigns for them. So my point is, would you want to do before syndication networks? No, not that I mean, I’m not sure where your timeline is. But for me, syndication networks are like step one for every project that I do. And then the branding traffic using Google Ads is something that you would do to start pushing traffic into the brand creating brand awareness, brand recognition, and inbound traffic from relevant sources. That makes sense and that will actually help to kind of activate or trigger all of the SEO work that we’re doing because that’s exactly what ART as Marco always says, ART – activity, relevance, trust, and authority that kind of triggers all three of those as sending traffic in from a known relevant audience that you’re buying from Google, into your SEO as your assets, your digital assets kind of helps to trigger or it kind of ignite all of the SEO efforts. Okay.

All right. We’re several minutes. Yeah, in a comment on that?

Bradley: Yeah, just one second. If you do it backward, it’ll, it’ll be more difficult if you don’t get your entity in place if you don’t set it up if you don’t create it. And if you don’t verify, and start validating, if you skip those steps, then it’s going to be that much harder to come back and try to work on the entity. So why not set up the entity that we teach it the right way, so that when you do start out with those posts and the length of the press releases, and everything else that you’re going to do, it’s going to have maximum effect. Why would you do anything that’s not going to have maximum effect? Drag the strategy for branding is a great strategy. But if the brand isn’t in place, if the entity isn’t in place, then it’s not going to have the effect that it has to have or that it needs to have. And right now, right now, and guys go just go please watch the charity webinars, it’s what it’s what’s a whole lot more than anything that you can possibly give the information that I’m giving away. Just go watch it so that you know why there’s a reason why you need to do this. It’s called Bert and it’s called neural matching.

Amen. Alright, thanks, everybody for being here. We’ll see mastermind members tomorrow. Otherwise, we’ll see you guys next week. Whoo. See everyone.

Good one later.

  Digital Marketing QA – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 266 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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Digital Marketing QA – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 266

Click on the video above to watch Episode 266 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Adam: Hey complaining about AWeber. If you’re using a Weber I suggest you go look at Active Campaign or something. But anyways, that said, welcome to Hump Day Hangouts number 266. We got the pre-holiday special Hump Day Hangouts going here. I almost put on like my reindeer ears. But I withheld. I’ll be back next week. And I think the guys are going to have some, maybe some outfits or we’ll see it. Hernan is giving me a vigorous yes. Yeah, I think he’s going to dress up as Santa Claus. Man. That is awesome.

Hernan: Hey man. Thank you for doing that. Hey, man. It’s like 1000 degrees right now.

Adam: That’s right. You’re in the upside-down, aren’t you?

Hernan: Yeah.

Adam: Well, Hey, everybody. Before we get into it, we’re gonna say hi to everyone real quick. And then we got a few quick announcements, some really good stuff going on, especially with the holidays. And then we will get into it. We got a lot of questions today. So, Bradley, how are you doing today, man? How’s Virginia treating you?

Bradley: Good. I was almost late because I was talking to a prospect that was looking for SEO services that found me through my SEO Virginia horrible drive stack g G Site that I built when back in 2015 so I just making a comment just kind of giggling with Marco about it because that was from way back in 2015 and I still ranked number one I still get leads from it so pretty interesting.

Adam: That’s awesome. Good day, man. Yeah, that well, you know, it doesn’t work but I guess you’re gonna have to take the lead anyways.

Bradley: I don’t think Google’s gonna shut it down any minute now.

Adam: Hernan, how you doing man down there in the other hemisphere?

Hernan: I’m good, man. All’s good. Everything’s good. Getting ready to spend some time with the family. Diving into some new ways of marketing and communication with potential prospects. So that’s going to be good. We’re going to be talking a little bit more about that in upcoming episodes. So, all good, man! I’m excited to be here.

Adam: Outstanding. Chris, how about you? Are you home in Austria?

Chris: Yeah, I’m home in Austria and I guess I prepared a little bit early because last year it was always Hernan. And this year I put up the Christmas tree as well just for the help the Hangouts. But yeah, like we’ll see what’s happening next week then.

Adam: Outstanding. And Marco, how about yourself. How you doing, man?

Marco: I am doing really good, man. Two charity webinars already in the can. The next one scheduled for next Monday and it will give a lot of great information for people who donate. So that’s the only thing you have to do is go and donate. But this year, like we have a whole bunch of awesome prizes that we’re going to give to people who have donated. For example, a couple of hours of my time, two people at each one will get an hour syndicated they’ll be drive stack, syndication networks, there’s going to be Dadea donated five embed gigs and five-link building gigs. So that’s one that’s five people who will win the embed, plus link building game, right? Which is, which is awesome. You aim that at anything that set up right? And that juices just gonna flow in and push it up. So I’m excited the charity is doing well. We’re collecting money people have been awesome donating, but we do not. We always need more. We always need more. Poor kids.

Adam: So I know a lot of people know about this, but can you tell everyone because we get new viewers all the time what the charity is or who had benefits.

Marco: So the idea is to take children who are at risk. And by at risk, it’s either they come with us or they it’s drugs, it’s abusive, it’s violence, it’s prostitution. Child prostitution is rampant. That’s how it is in the third world. You got a lot of pervs who come over and take advantage of that poverty. So what we want to do is we take these kids and we give them an option. You come with us, we’ll give you everything you need to go to school shoes, uniforms, books, we tutor them on Saturday. We take them through mentorship programs, because we also want to create community leaders so that other children have someone else to look up to. There’s another hero, right? It is that just the drug dealer with the fancy car because he right now, he’s the hero we want. We want to show them another aspect of reality, of life that there are other heroes that they can emulate rather than following the drug dealer to a slow death.

I talked about Fernando one of our biggest success story he started out with with eight or nine of his friends, right? Running around sometimes coming to a charity and sometimes it’s not. He’s the one who stuck it out, the other ones who didn’t are dead. And so that’s the choice that these children are making. They come and they get an education, tutoring tech school, and then we place them with with big companies because we train them for the right jobs, for the jobs that are in demand in Costa Rica. So it’s either that or you die. So that’s the fucking option, guys. It’s incredible. You have no idea poverty in the third world and Hernan knows, for the patchy what is the onset? Gotta say is another place to do. So that that’s my passion. I did that my magnificent obsession. My magnificent obsession is doing everything I can to help people make money.

Google so that I can make money. But my passion doesn’t feed me, right? My passion is something, it feeds my soul. But I need to make money in order to go and really work at my passion or good which is what I do. And so thank you guys I know Hernan, I’d like to thank him personally. Because he’s awesome. He donates every year. So thanks a ton and you guys will always make this up this possible. Thank you.

Adam: Yeah. How much does it cost it to take care of a kid get him in classes get them in all this for a year?

Marco: 200 bucks per child and that includes everything and includes the tutor includes the mentorship. We do these weekend getaways. We make ourselves available. The family sometimes needs food. They have a tin roof, cardboard walls and nothing and on the fucking windows. That’s the conditions that they’re living in the shack.It’s horrible. They have open sewage, you name it. It’s there and it’s worse than you imagine the worst that you can possibly imagine. And it’s worse than that.

Adam: Gotcha now well and I want to say to to everyone like I know we’ve had some large donations in years past. I’m sure you’ve already gotten some this year but it’s one of those where truly every little bit helps and Marco I know you’re not restricting you know, access to the webinars based it’s any donation amount, right?

Marco: Absolutely not. It’s your heart is going to tell you what of course you want. Your heart dictates to donate. And your wallet dictates how much you got a big wallet. Open that motherfucker man. People need it. Yeah, people need it. And I’m this year I’m matching every all the donations I will tell you that I’m matching $1 for dollar

Adam: Yep. that’s awesome. Well, we’re going to be throwing some more on top of that. We got some awesome holiday specials coming up, you guys, and anyone who donates is going to get some special stuff there. So, you know, you could donate $1 you can donate $100 and donate $1,000 again, whatever you can like, what’s your heart your wallet tells you so you can this has been a really good thing. Marco is it’s been like three or four years now.

Marco: We started doing our own little thing, and then it’s just picked up. So this is what the third or fourth year. But I’ve been helping them for like 9 or 10 years. Nice from from way back when my wife and I started helping them so it’s been a while.

Adam: Good deal. Well, you know, I mentioned some special stuff coming up with the holidays. So we’re going to have more coming out about that and then wanted to let everyone know to. Next week we’ve got a really special Hump Day Hangouts. We’re not gonna have time for questions. If you’ve got them up there, you know, maybe we can try to take them into the Facebook group. We’ll do what we can but we will wanted to sit down and say, hey, what could we do at the end of the year that would, that would help everyone going into 2020. And we’re going to cover a lot of various we’re going to keep it into short segments, and we’re bringing on some guests as well, we’re going to have Rob Feel. Of course your motive him co creator of RYS Reloaded, helping, I’m going to call him the Chief Operating Officer at MGYB, the guy who gets shit done and, you know, gave me some great advice, some insights, POFU Live.

And then as well, we’re gonna have Jeffrey Smith, the on page master SEO bootcamp, SEO ultimate plugin, he’s going to come in and be laying down some good stuff as well. So you do not want to miss that. We’re going to go a little bit longer, but we’ll start at the same time next week and we’re going to cover a lot of ground. And after that, we are going to have some holiday specials going on. But after that, there won’t be a Hump Day Hangout until 2020. It turns out that it does fall on Christmas Day. And I think we all want to be spending time with our friends and family doing that. And we realized that probably not a lot of people are going to be maybe attending. So we’re going to go ahead and push it back to I believe it’s January 2nd, because then the first Wednesday in 2020 falls on New Year’s Day. So that’s a holiday as well. So we’re just pushing it back to one day. So we’re going to go next week, be there, we’re going to have some good stuff going on some great guests, some good knowledge, as well as some awesome holiday specials. And then the next Hump Day hangout will be on January 2, 2020. As well, too, man, we’ve had a lot of stuff going on Bradley and the mastermind is getting what they’re getting a webinar a couple days before Christmas, aren’t they? You move that up? So you could squeeze one in before Christmas?

Bradley: Yeah, we’re going to do that on Monday, the 23rd as opposed to Christmas Day, or the day after Christmas is when it would have been Thursday. So yeah, we’re going to do that on Monday, the 23rd

Adam: awesome, and then you just got done. Correct me if I’m wrong about Monday with the second half of the branding training is that

Bradley: yes, that’s been all edited now and chopped up should be in the membership area soon by the end by the end of this week. And then I’ve still got to add all the notes and individual lessons. But in case anybody missed that the YouTube training was already been split up, there was I think 15 videos for the first part that were created out of that almost three hour webinar. And I think there was 14 for the GDN Ad, the Display Network portion of the training. So that was almost another I was almost three hours also. So it was like out of six hours of content. I think we ended up with almost almost 30 videos and everything’s been split up now and it’s got all the notes and everything so it’s a really good course in fact, I don’t think we I think we took down all the specials for that one if we haven’t we need to.

Adam: Yeah, but there might be something in the holidays but regardless, yeah, that is a great course. I’ll put the link in there. Really. Bradley went above and beyond on this and cranking this out before the holidays. Bradley I’ll let you add on to this but I call it kind of the massive branding course you know if you want to build a brand for yourself which you should be doing. I think Hernan can chime in on that but or for your clients and charge them for this service, right? This is you know, another one of those no brainers Just do it. But what you guys want to add on to that?

Bradley: Yeah, I did. I actually was playing around today with some ad campaigns that I’m running for some of my own projects. And I discovered or kind of figured out a way to even build out the custom intent audiences even more thoroughly. It’s a more efficient way to build out these audiences to make sure that you really getting targeted. Your ads are only being shown to people that are really targeted. So I’m going to probably record a supplemental video and add it to the training specifically about that. But yeah, I agree. I mean, I hit this over. I repeated this throughout the training. Every everything that I talked about in the branding training should be applied to you as the consultant or the agency owner should be applied to your brand first.

Before you set this up for any clients, you should do it for yourself. And you should just plan on constantly running branding campaigns so that you can start to fill that pipeline full of prospects. That’s the number one thing holding people back, we get it through all of our surveys over and over and over again. We hear people say, their number one biggest problem is getting clients. Well, what are you doing to continually keep your pipeline full of clients or prospects? If you’re not doing something, then it’s your fault that you don’t have a continuous steady stream of new clients coming in the door. It’s because if you keep doing what you’ve always done, your results aren’t going to get any different. So, the branding training was essentially for you to learn how to do that on your own, for your own agency first, your own business first. But then it’s also something that you can offer to clients and it’s a way that you can generate revenue. I showed in the YouTube training how to actually find prospects that are currently trying to use YouTube for leads that are failing miserably. So anyways, it’s a good course. I would recommend everybody check it out. By the way, if you’re in the mastermind you get that for free.

Marco: Something like that out something real quick before you go on to. There’s a question whether you should brand whether if you’ve read the patent, if you’ve read BERT, and if you read about neural matching, which is trying to do away with EMDs and spamming of titles, especially in local searches, the map results. And you think that branding is optional. You’re nuts. You’re nuts. Branding is no longer optional Semantic Web brand plus location plus keyword association is what wins the game. I just gave you the keys to the kingdom. It doesn’t doesn’t seem that way because oh, it’s just Marco talking shit. I just gave you the keys to the kingdom. Apply it, use our shit and see how you do?

Hernan: Yeah. I’m just going to add something real quick. I don’t remember who said this, is that the number one is the most dangerous number for any business. Like, if you haven’t one conversation, if you’re sending one email, if you’re talking to one prospect, if you’re doing like, if you build like one back end, you know, like it all of that stuff is like the most dangerous thing that you could do for your business. So with branding, what we basically do is we sold that completely, right? You will never have to worry about the influx of leads again, think about that the POFU that you gain by just being in that position where you know, people are just coming your way, right? How much more you can charge people. And because you’re not going you’re not going either out call and say hey, I want to work with you. People are coming to you’re saying hey, yeah, you’re the Scott. You’re that person. I saw you there, I saw you here. So I think and that that multiplying effect also applies for your client. So it’s a really good tool to have in your toolbox for yourself as a consultant as the breadwinner as the marketing head, or the the guy before behind your agency, it doesn’t matter if you have like two or three clients, if you have like, 30, right, you’re still the guy behind all of it. And not only that, but that multiplying effect will trickle down to your business to your clients, and they will see the effect as well. So that will, you know, put you in a much more powerful position, my opinion, so it’s really good for you. Good.

Adam: All right. Well, before we get into questions here, just want to wrap this up and say, Hey, if you’re watching this for the first time, thanks for watching, make sure especially to attend next week and check out the holiday special Hump Day hangout webinar. And then in the meantime, head over to battle plan dot Semantic Mastery calm grab the battle plan. It’s our step by step process for getting results with everything from new websites age domains, YouTube channels, just check it out. There’s a ton of value in there, we threw in some crazy bonuses. It’s amazing. We love it. Well actually, I’ve got to look up the numbers but I don’t know over a couple thousand people have also loved it. And if you’re wanting to grow your digital marketing business, then you’re the type of person we’d like to have in the mastermind you’ve heard us talking about a little bit here. But if you want to join the experienced community, that’s the place to be and you can find out more about that at mastermind.semanticmastery.com and to everyone whether or not you’re in the mastermind, or you’re doing things on your own. We highly advise saving time and money, head over to mgyb.co and get done for you services. We got press releases, link building, the SEO shield that is newly released. And I think it’s actually available on its own right now. Not just through the Black Friday deal. We had just tons more stuff and a lot more coming. And of course, I just put the link on there. If you guys haven’t yet. Please go subscribe to us on YouTube. I know we’re really close to 7000 and I know that makes Bradley’s day. So maybe we can hit 7000 during Hump Day Hangouts and let them know about it. So with that said, let’s get into it.

Bradley: Yeah, now you’ve got me curious. I just gotta check 6,990 or 10 away.

Hernan: Oh, wow. Yeah, go subscribe.

Bradley: 10 from 7000 I mean, that’s not like that’s just a nice round number. It’s not a milestone we got to get to 10,000 before we really have accomplished much, but these are all organic views. I mean, other than I had a subscribe campaign running with YouTube ads for some time but anyways. Alright, let me grab the screen. I kind of pre-answered one of these questions. Here we go. Okay, somebody confirms you got my screen.

Adam: Good. Got it. Yep. Okay.

What Is Semantic Web Algorithm?

Bradley: Stevens up first, Stephen I put a reply below where I talked both Marco and I in the last week or two, I think two weeks now have been interviewed by Matt Versteeg of the low on for the local SEO podcast, local SEO show podcast and great conversation. It’s always fun to be interviewed by somebody else in the industry to have a conversation about, you know, SEO or a lot of the other podcast interviews that I’ve been on, have to kind of dumb it down or water it down a bit because we’re talking to a broader audience, but it’s kind of nice to talk to somebody that understands our industry. So we can talk shop a little bit more so by the way, Marco’s. I think it just got published today. And I listened to it was a great interview with Marco. And so I had an interview with Matt about two weeks ago and I spoke about he asked a question very similar to what your question is, which is what is the Semantic Web? And so I gave him a much more thorough answer there. So I linked to that it’s in our free group guys. Here’s the if you go to our SEO and marketing by Semantic Mastery group. It’s also in the chat now on the Hump Day Hangouts page, but it’s this post from Matt Versteeg about the, you know, interview with me that he had is about 45 minutes long. But in the beginning, I talked about the Semantic Web. So just as a very quick definition, I’d like to get Marco’s input on this too. But the Semantic Web is the change the move from the algorithm knowing just determining how relevant things were through search strings, right. So queries have been stringing certain words together or phrases to create to answer a query, which is what the algorithm had been for so long to now things so from strings to things, because all of it’s not just about the internet or web pages anymore, right? It’s about everything in our world now is connected to the web. And so that devices and entity all these things have to be given an identity some that the machines the bots can understand so that they can start to understand relationships between these things, whether it’s web pages or a device, a mobile device of person, brand, it could be any number of, you know, your appliance for godsakes. Your refrigerators and light switches at home are now online. So it’s a way to create entities out of things, in a way for it to understand the relationships between them, the associations between them. And so the Semantic Web was something that we kind of fight, we saw it coming, which is why our name is Semantic Mastery. Way back 2011-12 timeframe. We saw that the cement, you know, it was coming, right. So Google had already been applying for patents that were showing that the Semantic Web was coming that they were shifting over to Semantic Web and so that’s kind of why we named our company. That was because we were going to optimize or learn how to optimize for the Semantic Web. And it took a lot longer for it to catch on, then we thought it took several years as we’re just starting to see within the last few months again, Marco will talk much more about this.

But some of the the more advanced algorithm updates for the Semantic Web, such as Bert, or the neuro mapping or neural networking algorithm, which is I think, just came out about two weeks ago. Those are specifically Semantic Web type updates, just like Hummingbird was one of them was one of the earlier versions of that. So it’s something that we’re seeing more and more like we’re moving faster into it now than we have been it’s been a kind of long, slow progress to get to this point. But, you know, I think that’s why the stuff that Marco especially has developed over the last several years because we saw it coming. We’re several years ahead. And so that’s what Marco was just talking about, with you know, branding and all that. It’s about the entity, right? You want to create a strong entity on the web. And there’s a number of ways to do that the SEO shield being our preferred method, which works incredibly well. So Marco would say you about it.

Marco: I’m always talking into a muted mic. Well, the Semantic Web, just the Semantic Web. The idea is for web pages to have structured data in the tag, and constructed in a way that a bot can more easily interact with the page. Because the bots were having so much trouble with the unstructured data meaning they these sets of words that the bot had no clue how to interpret. So again, that the idea of the Semantic Web is just simply being able that the people who are either building the website, designing it, coding it to be able to go in and structure the data. But yes, it involves entities and it involves a whole bunch of things that I’m, in fact I’m speaking on in the charity webinars, you really want to know what this is about, catch that podcast and catch my charity webinars. That’s one. And I think that the question also says, or he’s asking about the that you mentioned, Bradley, the Semantic Web algorithm.

There is no Semantic Web algorithm. The algorithms are a set or different code sets that draw different data. And it’s all put together on under one in a huge relational database. All of its code guys, it’s just simply zeros and ones and there are sequences. And you know, for example, Semantic Mastery has a word sequence. It has a bunch of set, a number sequence and it has a bunch of other number sequences related to it, which are, you know, things, it’s words that are related to it. But at the bundle, I don’t want to get too deep for you guys, because I don’t want to confuse you. This is not the forum for it. But the bot has to go in, grab the words, turn them into zeros and ones, right bits, bytes, and number sequences to be able to interpret it. And it has to gather all of this information from all over the web, everything that’s related to whatever it is that a person is looking for, if they’re looking for Semantic Mastery, to give them the best result for the query. So we have several, not that not just one algorithm at play, but it all ends up in what Google is calling a ranking score, which of course they’re not making public. Then we don’t know-how in a route world it accrues exponentially, of course, but we don’t know exactly what a cruise ranking score but we do have a great idea for example, from Bert, from the PageRank algorithm, from the ranking score algorithm, and from the distance graph algorithm, right? We’ve talked about seat sites and seat set. So there is no one Semantic Web algorithm that doesn’t exist. What does exist is a whole bunch of different algorithms, compiling information. And they can be either really positive, which is what we work on. We work on triggering all of these positive aspects of the different algorithms that are going to get us a whole bunch of Google love. And we tried to avoid all of the negative ones that can come and really hurt what you’re doing.

If you’re doing client work. You can get your client’s website de-indexed if you’re not doing everything correctly, and I hope that answers the question. If not go to the free Facebook group, and ask the question so that we can ask for maybe a little bit more. Better yet. Join our mastermind and ask the question. And we can and I can really go into it with you. And again, I would invite you to listen to the podcast and to listen to the charity webinars, not only the ones that I’ve already done, but the ones that are coming and the ones from last year where I went through all of this, and you can hear me how it’s going to be all about entities and all of a sudden, Google comes out. And I said it’s all about brands and entity, keyword associations. And Google finally comes out and admits just last month, this is what it’s all about. As Bradley said, we’re way ahead and I’m already working on next-gen, meaning I want to catch Google again in three or four years. So we’re always ahead of the curve. That’s why we’re Semantic Mastery guy. That’s why our shit works the way it does. Unmovable for years and years and years and years. That’s how we do the do we do.

Have You Tried Blasing GSA Links to GMB CID And Short URL?

Bradley: Thank you for that. So Danny’s up next. Danny’s got several calls. Questions about link building that I’m not a spam link builder. That’s why we have Dadea. So I’m going to kind of run through these very, very quickly with very short answers. But Danny, I would recommend that if you want our master link builder to actually, you know, provide some insight as to what type of links to use and that kind of stuff. I would post this question again in the Facebook group, and Dadea, our link building manager, he’ll he’s usually really helpful. He’ll come in and answer some questions for you. He’s, I’m not the spammer. I just hand it over to him and let him handle that stuff for me. But I have a basic conceptual knowledge of this. So I’ll run through these very quickly. The first question was: ever tried sending GSA blast to a GMB short URL? Well, yeah, you can. But first of all your remember your short URL is a redirect. So that’s not the best URL to send links to anyways. Because it’s a 302 redirect. In fact, it’s multiple redirects, but what you want to do is you use the GMB cid URL, right? So that’s the www.google.com/maps?=cid=. Right? So that’s that version of the URL is the best to send links to, yes, a send links that build links directly to that. Because we include that in the SEO shield. And that’s what we throw over to do all the time. It’s just all of the URLs and our SEO shield, which includes the map URL, Google Drive stack, Google Drive, folders and files, you know, all of the GMB website URL all of those, so I don’t usually just use that as one target URL because I usually send a list of target URLs that all get links thrown at them, were built to them I should say. But yes, you can. You can build links to that directly.

What Is The Ideal Number Of Links To Build To A GMB?

Number two is any ideal number of links to build for a GMB? I don’t have an answer for that. I tried to do as small as a package as needed to get results. And then you know, just repeated every couple of months or every three months or whatever it is trying to do link building in cycles. So I don’t know what the actual number is because it’s going to depend on the competition. There are too many variables there for me to give you a rule of thumb for that.

Marco: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say. It’s as many as it takes. It might take just one tear, right? contextual or two that are contextual. And you’ll see it when. Sometimes it doesn’t take any links. We talked about that. But it’s as many as it takes to get the job done. And it could take your cycling through all of your URLs hitting different aspects of that GMB, because there are a whole lot of targets that you can hit to get results. How many? As Bradley said, there are just too many variables to be able to answer that.

Do You Prefer A Direct GSA Blast To The RYS Stack?

Bradley: Yeah. For your RYS stack, would you prefer a direct GSA blast or do you build contextual tier ones and twos and then GSA blast the tier twos? Again, that’s a question to post to Dadea. But I can tell you definitive 100% for sure that contextual as your first tier is the best way to go. Web 2.0 to contextual. In fact, we know Dadea recommends that you do two tiers of contextual is that if you’re going to use GSA use that as a third tier. Any comment on that?

Marco: No, no, that’s exactly what it says. And as a matter of fact, two tiers of web 2.0 contextual, the way that things are behaving right now should be good enough. GSA has its place when you really need to power something up. But it’s sometimes, that’s used as a last resort. I don’t really like using GSA I prefer to just continue tearing the web two dot o contextual.

Bradley: Yeah. Okay, so again, if you want further clarification on any of those, go check out our packages and MGYB, our link building packages, you’ll see what’s recommended for the different types of competition levels, and so you can kind of and those words specifically developed for that reason, because we, you know, our link building manager Dadea has been doing these types of link building pack campaigns for us for years. For me, for at least I think six maybe even seven years now. So everything that he does has been developed specifically for our methods. And so you can get an idea of what works best by just taking a look at the link building packages and the different levels of competition level packages at MGYB. Okay, and you can always ask questions in the free Facebook group and he’ll jump in and answer them

Should You Create A New One Drive Page If The Existing Account Is Blocked Due To Spam?

next question is hey guys report regarding the done for you syndication network. I noticed my One Drive page was taken down and account blocked due to spam. Well, that’s unfortunate. It’s odd. That usually doesn’t happen. So my guess is it was some sort of an anomaly. He says, Is my syndication network fine without it or should I try to build another One Drive page link to it from all of the other syndication properties? Thanks for the help as always, you know that’s up to you. I can tell you right now I don’t really sweat it depends on the property but something like one drive if it goes down or the syndication stops working because IFTTT hiccups or something like that, I typically don’t go in and repair those things, or I’ll have a VA do it if I do it. But, you know, there’s a limited number of properties that we syndicate to anyways. So it is somewhat important. If, if it got to remember, sometimes these accounts can get blocked or terminated and it’s algorithmic and it’s something that, you know, really wasn’t triggered because of spam. It just got caught up in some sort of filter. So, you know, my short answer is if you only have one project or a couple of projects, then yes, I would go ahead and take the time to build another. I think you have to build a whole nother Outlook or Live account. Microsoft account in order to, you know, attach or set up another One Drive account and then attach it to IFTTT. So I would recommend that you do that if you’ve got a ton of projects, and this is just one of many, then I would just, I wouldn’t worry about it, I maybe do that when you’ve got some spare time.

Marco: Semantic Mastery always says you don’t do anything yourself, you should have a VA that goes in and takes care of these things as they pop up.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah. And so just keep that in mind. And something else is, you know, if you’re gonna, if you’re going to have a VA do that, then make sure that you’re either providing them with, you know, they’re going to have to log into the account or create an account, which means that you’re going to want to have that bound to their IP. Otherwise, if you try to switch between, like if you have a VA in the Philippines, just as an example. And you’re in the US and you try to create the account, or and then you send it over to them and they try to log in it could lock the account because of you know, the change in IP. I would recommend that you set up some sort of thing like a BrowSEO or Ghost Browser or something like that where you can log into that account from the same even if it’s your own IP, it’s fine. But you want to keep the browsing session intact for that particular profile so that it doesn’t trigger any IP locks. Okay.

What Semantic Mastery Services Should You Use To Defend Your Brand From Competitor’s Attack?

Okay, so the next one is, my competitor is hitting my brand. What service could I ordered or technique to defend or make my brand strong and from getting hit with negative SEO from a competitor? The SEO shield is about the only thing I could I could tell you to do. Marco, what do you say?

Marco: That’s exactly what I was thinking the SEO shield. There’s no way that you can stop a competitor from negative SEO. It’s unethical. I don’t do it. I don’t do it because you’re, you’re messing with a person’s livelihood, no matter how much of an asshole person might be. They have kids, they have family and that’s what I think about. I’m going to try to negative SEO them. Which I never have, by the way, in nearly 16 years that I’ve been online. I’ve never done it and I don’t plan to do it. I know exactly how and it works really well. But just use the SEO shield to turn everything negative that’s throwing at you, into positive.

Bradley: Yeah, yeah, and I agree I’ve never done negative SEO either because I think karma is a bitch and it will come back to bite you. So I just I’ve never done it. I’ve been tempted to in the past, but I’ve never done it. So I would recommend and I’m not saying you are either. I’m just saying that you know, as far as anything you can try to do is dilute it, right? You’re not gonna be able to stop it. And so how do you dilute it you the best way to dilute it that we’re going to tell you how is with using the SEO shield because then you’re creating this shield around. Somebody could still hit your direct money site with bad links. But if you’ve got all this relevancy and you really solidified your entity, you’ve created this strong presence online that you know, then the next type of that type of an attack won’t have nearly as much effect if if any at all. Okay.

Can You 301 Redirect A Relevant Domain To A GMB Listing?

All right. The next one is can I? Can I throw one a relevant domain directly to my GMB listing? Or should I point to a GMB website? I build instead of the GMB listing? If so, should I make contact details private just in case Google tries to see who the owner of the domain is? Okay, a couple of things there. Number one, Google is a red domain registrar. So even though you might have domain privacy enabled because Google is a domain registrar, they know exactly who is behind that. That’s just to keep you know the general public from knowing who owns the domain. Domain registrars can always see who the domain is registered to. So even if you have privacy enabled. I don’t recommend redirecting or doing a 301 from a domain directly to a GMB listing or a GMB website for that matter.

What I would recommend that you do is create, do a 301 redirect to like an HTML page, especially hosted on S3, Amazon S3, like our ID pages, for example, or ID pages are perfect for redirecting a three to one domain too because now you’ve got a super high authority domain Amazon, right that you’ve got just a static HTML three or HTML page on that you can create as an entity, an ID page, which was like an entity validator essentially. And you can do iframe stacking and everything else there, which means you can push whatever, inbound link equities coming from that domain that you’re redirecting to iframes which act, kind of like it’s not the same but kind of like a do-follow link. And so what I would recommend is doing something like that it redirects directly to a money site or to a GMB listing, in my opinion, is not the best way to go. You should create some sort of buffer between them where you can inject more relevancy and more entity information, which is why I think an Amazon S3 hosted HTML page is the perfect place for something like that. What do you think, Marco?

Marco: Unless he has that website that has those magical metrics, those metrics that are above, I would say above 16 in Majestic. That’s when I start looking at majestic when it hits at 60 both trust flow, citation flow. When it’s around there or higher that’s going to be a really expensive website. But when it’s around then, it’s when it’s around there. It’s so powerful that that one link can really make a difference. Now, the thing is, that’s going to be really expensive. And it’s going to take you a whole lot of time and effort to find it. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. It’s almost impossible. So what I did is I stopped doing it. I stopped trying to find expired domains. And I just work from the GMB facility from the drive stack, G Site and just expand it and isolate keyword sets and just go through that. I mean whatever it is that we do, or whatever it is that we offer you in our done for you services because we use it to use because our methods work what we make available to you guys. If it didn’t work,  I mean, we just wouldn’t make it available to you. We try to be again as ethical as possible. And in everything that we do we know that our shit works without all of these other things that you used to have to do or that you could do to help yourself along because you’re borrowing from the ultimate, trusted and authoritative entity on the web as far as Google is concerned, which is Google.

What Hosting Providers Do You Recommend To Rank Your Website Better?

Okay, I’m sorry, I was pre-reading another question. Gordon’s up next he says, Hey guys, hope you’re having a great day. And thank you very much for help. As usual. You’re welcome, Gordon, thank you for your questions. As always, I believe you have mentioned previously that popular shared web hosting providers like Hostgator impede your SEO and ranking efforts. Can you briefly recap Why? Yeah, because there’s a number of reasons. Number one is they’re super inexpensive hosts their budget hosts, which means they overload their IP blocks. They overload their servers with too many sites. Remember guys, when you go to sign up for a shared hosting plan, or you know, budget hosting plan, they tell you, unlimited sites and unlimited bandwidth and all that, but that’s not really true. And number one, but number two also, what happens is they overload those IP blocks with too many sites. And what happens is you end up with a lot of shitty cheap SEO type sites. So affiliate spammers and other SEOs and people that are just creating these stupid, ugly, sloppy sites that aren’t putting, you know, so there ends up too many sites on the IP, to begin with, but then you end up being with, it’s being kind of a guilty by association, you can get mixed into what’s called it like a bad neighborhood, right.

In other words, there are 500 other sites on the shared hosting alongside your site on that same IP. And then there’s going to be a percentage of them that are just really shitty sites that could be de-index, they could behave manual penalties, they could have a number of things that are there so that basically can guilty by association, your website can get caught up. But not just that. It’s also because when you have that many sites sharing an IP if anyone of them or any number of them are receiving a spike in traffic or a DDoS attack or something like that, it ends up killing the amount of bandwidth available for all of the other sites on that same IP. Does that make sense? So what I found is if you were using a cheap budget host, I would recommend doing something like putting an uptime robot on it or some sort of uptime monitor that will allow you to notify you via email. And you can even set them up for text messages, which I don’t recommend, except for really important sites. But it can email you or notify you when your site’s go down. And what you’ll see is if you put an uptime monitor on a shared hosting a site that’s on a shared hosting account. You will see how often the site goes down. And it’s incredible how often those sites are unreachable, right. And it’s because of other sites on that same IP, receiving too much traffic and basically monopolizing all the bandwidth available bandwidth and there’s this you’ll see and once you see that, you’ll realize how shitty shared hosts are.

So as far as can I recommend any? Yeah, on our semanticmastery.com/resources page, there’s the two that I would still recommend: Liquid Web. By the way, you guys are just seeing strike throughs because I’ve got a plugin that shows nofollow links, but Liquid Web is our go-to choice for hosting. You know, I would recommend that you get because you can, you can actually sell hosting the clients. That’s what I always recommend doing. So you know, get a good hosting provider, get a good plan, and then you can turn around and sell charge your customers, your clients. For monthly hosting, what I do is I offer them a yearly monthly hosting or a yearly rate and then a monthly rate. So what I’ll do is I’ll charge a customer a client, basically like $180 for a year or $20 a month, so it makes sense. So it’s up to them. They either paid $20 a month or $180 for the year and I just do a PayPal subscription so they get to rebuild. That way, I’m actually making money on hosting too. And I just do that through my own hosting account. On Liquid Web, I also have WPS hosting, which is Terry Kyle’s, that’s also very, very good. And that’s very fast. And the support is amazing in both of those. By the way, that’s the last part of that, that I would recommend. Another reason why not to use a budget host is that any issues you have, you’re gonna have to deal with support. Sometimes support will only be via email and not be a live chat or phone. Sometimes they’re on completely different time schedules because they could be an India for all we know. And so every time you submit a support request, it takes 12 hours before they reply back. So support requests can get drawn out. What I found is I’ve got some other hosts that I still use because I have sites that I never wanted to move, and I hate them because every time I got a problem, I’ve got to deal with that. But Liquid Web and WP x are both I mean they’re instant fast like you submit a ticket within minutes, you’ve got a reply somebody working on your issue. It’s incredibly fast. Marco, do you have any comments on that?

Marco: Yeah, man, what I found is a budget hosting. Actually, you lose money because of all the time that you have to spend with that shitty host. Sometimes the PHP version is often outdated because they’re not going to update, it’s not worth it to them. You’re paying four bucks a month. And so by doing that, you actually lose money. But with all the time that you have to spend the support, or going into your cPanel and seeing what the hell is going on. If somebody is hogging up resources on that shared hosting, then your website is going to be super slow. You’re not going to know why. And it’s because some idiot is doing something that they’re not supposed to be doing which is going to harm the reputation of the server. And as Bradley said, that’s known as a bad neighborhood. In the long run, it ends up costing you money so stop with the shitty hosting. Go get a Liquid Web VPS and you can host your domains on there. You can host your clients on it. You can put several clients on that you could charge them for it 50 bucks a month. You have five clients as 10 bucks per client and the VPS is free for you to use because your clients are paying for it and you have the most fabulous support that you can think of. They’ll migrate stuff for you if you. They will take care of it for you. When do you want us to do it? What time you don’t even want it when the website isn’t busy? Yeah. I mean to disguises. It’s just fantastic. And it’s the peace of mind of knowing that if something happens if you get an attack God forbid. If you get hacked, then Liquid Web is is right there to help you with whatever it is that you need with others. You have to sit in that fucking queue eternally sometimes. I’ve been through that. And it’s not worth it.

Bradley: Yeah, I think a good host is worth their weight in gold. And like I said, it can become a profit center in your business too. You know, pay $1,000 a year for a good host. And but you’re charging and you got 10 clients and you’re charging them, you know, $180 per year, that’s 1800 dollars, right? Or if you’re charging a monthly because some clients will just rather pay monthly then that’s, you know, $2,000, $20 per month, so $240 per year, times 10 would be 20 $400. So my point is it becomes a profit center. Okay.

Marco: Great revenue stream. Yep.

Can You Effectively Use Embeds As A Substitute For Links From Seed Sites You Can’t Obtain?

Bradley: Alright, so next one is there are six questions here. I’m going to try to roll through these quick guys. Remember, we asked you guys to just post one or two questions. Max per post because it makes it too hard to get to anybody else’s questions. So I’ll roll through a couple of these rather quickly. And then we’re going to move on and if we have any other time left, which doesn’t look like we will, we’ll come back. Okay. Thanks for the opportunity to ask these questions. Number one, can you effectively use embeds as a substitute for links from seed sites you cannot obtain? Marco, that’s a question for you.

Marco: Okay, can you effectively use embeds as a substitute for links? Yeah, I mean, yes. Don’t get your head twisted on this because it’s not exactly a link. And it’s not exactly a substitute. It’ll act a little bit different. We don’t know whether it accrues the paycheck and rankings for that we need. We just know that it pushes massive ranking power. So yes, iframing and then link building into that iframe, you have the protection of the source. I mean, that’s the whole concept behind the iframe that the source should be so powerful. It protects you. And you can just do all kinds of nasty stuff to wherever the embeds are to, to wherever the iframe is embedded to help your SEO. It should not substitute your link building, especially into the iframes. works really well. But yeah, I mean, it’s a solid way, it’s a solid strategy.

I read through the rest of these questions. m semes. whatever your name is, my question to you is why the hell with these types of questions? Are you not in our mastermind, where we could dig into this stuff for you? I mean, this is some pretty advanced questions, which means you probably know what you’re doing, which means you should be on a damn mastermind. Sorry, you know, this is these aren’t beginner type questions, which is what the hump day hangouts really is. We can’t give away the farm on for free here. That’s what behind closed doors is for.

Is There A Limit On The Number Of Embeds On A Page?

So the next one was, is there a limit on the number of embeds on a page i.e. is there are there diminishing returns? I don’t think there’s a limit to the number that you can put on-page, but you can break a browser, you can break, you can lock your computer up. If you have too many iframes on a page, how do I know? Because some of my @ID pages are ridiculous. And if I open it up in a browser window, it will lock it will eat up all the memory on my computer. So, Marco, is there an actual limit to it?

Marco: I haven’t found it because I mean, it’s just code. And so the code, you can just add. What happens is that the page as you said it breaks, it’s super slow. You’re going to have to do some coding so that it doesn’t load to take forever to render. But there’s no need for that you just find four or five really powerful, right iframes you put them on lazy load, and away you go.

Bradley: Yeah, not only that but if you stack the iframes on one property, then you reframe that on another property, you end up with that mirror and mirror type. So you don’t need a super high number. You just need a few very quality ones to achieve results, which is what we’ve kind of built out with our SEO shield.

Marco: Three iframes will create the loop. And we can loop the bot endlessly depending on how much information that is that we’re feeding it. So iframes are the shit. You guys are sleeping on iframes if you’re not using them.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree. And there are some other really good questions there. But we’re going to have to move on because we’ve only got about seven minutes left and we still got other questions to get to. However, I really liked those questions. I would love to answer them. So come join the damn mastermind, man. Come join us.

Would You Push More Juice To The City Pages To Improve The Page’s Ranking?

Anyways, the next one is Hey guys, I have a question about all of your strategies being used for the same site but different cities. So I have a client that I’m ranking on page one in 17 of the 24 cities they have in their county. I’m not able to get them in maps in as many cities, however, they only have one location and I’d like to start pushing them up in maps and more cities. Would you just push more juice to the city pages? Yeah, that’s one thing you could do. Remember the maps algorithm, the proximity filter or whatever you want to call it is even narrower now than it was two months ago. One of the more recent updates, which I think is occurred within the last few months, actually narrowed that the proximity filter for Google Maps listings.

So in order for your map listing to show up or a GMB to show up in the maps three pack now, it’s very closely tied to proximity to from where the searcher is in relationship to the actual physical location of the business when they perform the search. So it’s even harder now than it was even just six months ago to get a map GMB to rank in maps outside of its immediate area. So it’s not that it can’t be done. That’s what local GMB pro methods for which are for us to help you to learn how to expand that centroid as Marco calls it, but expand the map’s presence into, you know, further and further out to kind of overcome that proximity issue. But that said there, yes, some of the things that you can do would be to create like, geo posts on your money site. You can even create location-based silos. And if you again, if you’re in our mastermind, we talked about how to set up proper silo structure, and also how to create structure, location-based silos within topical silos. And there’s a way that you can do that using tags for example. It’s very, very powerful and when you mix those in with the SEO shield stuff, the G site, the RYS drive stack and you theme mirror everything together, which means you mirror the site, your website structure on to these other assets, the G site, the RYS drive stack and such, then you can start to really get your organic rankings to push up in those additional areas and a couple of that with local GMB pro methods. It’s very likely that you could get your maps listing to start appearing in those cities within the county, outside of your immediate area where you’re physically located. It takes effort and in order to get the maps thing, the maps listing to rank in the three-pack, it does require consistent effort. But it can be done. Marco, do you want to comment on that?

Marco: Yeah, there has to be a relationship between the centroid and the place where you’re trying to get into the map pack. If you cannot establish that relationship, then it’s really difficult to try to get your listening to appear because there are other businesses that are closer by when that searcher is conducting that query right when the person is looking for, I don’t know how plumber, emergency plumber, they’re going to get those who are closest to them, then I get someone that’s an hour and a half away to overcome that. That’s when you have to relate that centroid and we teach that in local GMB Pro. We’ve talked about that in the mastermind extending the spokes think of it thinking of it like a wheel, right with spokes and just trying to extend the spoke. How do you do that? Well, it’s part of the secret sauce sorry.

Bradley: Yeah. And I was trying to look for that article that Brian Kato published. I posted it in here but he did a really good job was showing how to build out relationships with using local entities, you know, in content to get the local page to rank or local site to rank. So that’s something that if I could find it, I’ll post the link but we’re running out of time. So I’ll try to come back and post that it was a really good write up that he did on that, so I’ll try to share that with you. Once we’re done. We only got a few minutes left guys, we’re going to try to roll through a couple more.

Should You Be Concerned If You See Competitors On The GMB Maps Listing Page Source Code?

Fitz says, good agents. Thanks for this great forum. You’re welcome fits. He says I recently checked the page source of my GMB maps listing and saw a few of my competitor names mentioned in the code should I be concerned? No, you know, I mean there’s nothing you can do about it but for example, you know, if if I was to search I don’t know let me just look for plumber Culpepper, for example. Let’s just click on Culpepper Home Services actually do. What I’m trying to share here is you’re going to see that shit. It’s not what I wanted to do. Shake this one. Alright, so you’ll notice that. Sorry. Try this again. What you’re seeing is this person also search for. That’s what you’re seeing. Right? So there’s nothing you can do about that. So I’m pretty sure that that’s what you’re seeing when you’re looking at the code. You’re seeing these this part right here. It’s right in the knowledge panel, right. The knowledge panel even shows competitors, and I don’t think there’s any way that you can stop that. Right? It’s a good question though.

What’s The Best URL To Link Back To A Money Site?

Joseph says, Hey, guys, I just ordered a drive stack in a G site. What’s the best URL to provide your team to link back to my money site is a supporting page or the money page for that keyword? Thanks. I guess it depends on what you’re having a stack built out for. If it’s for the brand itself, just the homepage, if you’re just doing the initial brand, drive stack, which is basically to validate solidify the entity right and your product keyword whatever that may be, should be associated with the brand and that’s how we recommend building that out. But if it’s for a very specific product or page or content silo with on your site then that’s different. So Marco, what would you recommend for him on that?

Marco: The brand. What’s the homepage URL and the brand? The main stack, the very first one, drive stack G site should be brand plus keyword or brand plus location plus keyword. That’s how it is. We relate every keyword under that top-level category that you give us. Go as broad as possible. Even if you’re into renting hotel rooms in, let’s say in a province in Costa Rica. Then what you want is a hotel rental or anything related to that room, just whatever it is the broader that you can go, the better it is for us. Because we’ll get you everything under the sun, then as you broaden the drive stack, and that’s as you add depth to it, that’s when you start focusing in and honing in on your silos, and you’re supporting keywords LSI and everything else that’s related to that.

Bradley: Awesome. My apologies I didn’t know about the two question rule No, and you didn’t expect it You wouldn’t know that man. But honestly, we, it’s just respectful of other people that so but yeah, definitely consider joining the mastermind I would recommend that you do, because it sounds like you know, your ship to a degree. So it’d be those types of questions that we get really far in-depth in the mastermind. All right, I know we’re after 5pm but I just got I’m gonna I want to answer one more question really quickly, so but I can’t without answering it. Austin Don’s first he says what’s the best way to share an infographic I’m not sure what you mean by that. As far as different places to publish it or just to share. I’m not sure what you mean. So if you can clarify that maybe we can go back and answer that one.

Can You Do YouTube Branding For Syndication Networks

But the one that I wanted to answer was can we do the YouTube branding before syndication networks? I’m not sure what you’re asking about their BBB. Can we do YouTube branding for syndication networks? Remember syndication networks are part of should be part of every project right every website project every brand, every client even your own brand you should have syndication network, right? It’s like that should be step number one. So I don’t know what you mean by Can you do YouTube branding before that? What what I recommend with the Google Ads branding course it’s not just about YouTube, it’s about using display network to is that what I was trying to convey with that is how you can set up branding campaigns to create brand awareness and also to drive inexpensive, very relevant targeted traffic into your digital presence, whether that’s through videos or through the Display Network.

My point of teaching it was, I think all of us, all of you guys listening now that are marketing consultants, or agency owners, you should all have branding campaigns set up for your own agency. I am 100%, guilty of running my own marketing agency for almost 10 years now, and not making my own brand a priority. I’ve always worked on other clients, businesses, building their brands, but I didn’t work so hard on building my own if that makes sense. So my point is, you should be building your own brand so that people start to seek you out and you don’t have to do outbound prospecting all the time. Each time you want another client, you’re going to have people coming to you seeking you out because they see you everywhere. You can also sell this as a service to your clients, right. If you understand how to set up these types of campaigns, then you can set up branding campaigns and create another stream of revenue from that service, very inexpensive or very easy to manage.

And so like I said, it’s a great profit center, another source of revenue. If you’ve already got existing clients, you can go what I call to shake the bushes and that’s going to contact your existing clients and tell them that you want to set up some branding campaigns for them. So my point is, would you want to do before syndication networks? No, not that I mean, I’m not sure where your timeline is. But for me, syndication networks are like step one for every project that I do. And then the branding traffic using Google Ads is something that you would do to start pushing traffic into the brand creating brand awareness, brand recognition, and inbound traffic from relevant sources. That makes sense and that will actually help to kind of activate or trigger all of the SEO work that we’re doing because that’s exactly what ART as Marco always says, ART – activity, relevance, trust, and authority that kind of triggers all three of those as sending traffic in from a known relevant audience that you’re buying from Google, into your SEO as your assets, your digital assets kind of helps to trigger or it kind of ignite all of the SEO efforts. Okay.

All right. We’re several minutes. Yeah, in a comment on that?

Bradley: Yeah, just one second. If you do it backward, it’ll, it’ll be more difficult if you don’t get your entity in place if you don’t set it up if you don’t create it. And if you don’t verify, and start validating, if you skip those steps, then it’s going to be that much harder to come back and try to work on the entity. So why not set up the entity that we teach it the right way, so that when you do start out with those posts and the length of the press releases, and everything else that you’re going to do, it’s going to have maximum effect. Why would you do anything that’s not going to have maximum effect? Drag the strategy for branding is a great strategy. But if the brand isn’t in place, if the entity isn’t in place, then it’s not going to have the effect that it has to have or that it needs to have. And right now, right now, and guys go just go please watch the charity webinars, it’s what it’s what’s a whole lot more than anything that you can possibly give the information that I’m giving away. Just go watch it so that you know why there’s a reason why you need to do this. It’s called Bert and it’s called neural matching.

Amen. Alright, thanks, everybody for being here. We’ll see mastermind members tomorrow. Otherwise, we’ll see you guys next week. Whoo. See everyone.

Good one later.

  Digital Marketing QA – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 266 published first on your-t1-blog-url